Latest / Bible stories / How The Devil Knows Your Thoughts - Ephesians 6_17 Explained

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How The Devil Knows Your Thoughts - Ephesians 6_17 Explained · Bible stories

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Bible Stories. You may notice there
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Speaker 1: QR code to donate directly. Thank you for helping us
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Speaker 1: keep these Bible Stories going. The devil does not know
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Speaker 1: your thoughts. He never has. There is not one verse
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Speaker 1: in the whole Bible that says the devil can look
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Speaker 1: inside a human mind and read what is written there,
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Speaker 1: and there are several that say the searching of the
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Speaker 1: human heart belongs to God and to no one else.
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Speaker 1: The enemy of your soul is a created being. He
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Speaker 1: is powerful, he is patient, he is far older than
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Speaker 1: you are, and he is limited in a way that
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Speaker 1: most Christians have never been told. He cannot see your thoughts.
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Speaker 1: He can only see you. And that changes the whole fight.
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Speaker 1: Because if you have been carrying a private shame, replaying
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Speaker 1: a thought you would never say out loud, wondering whether
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Speaker 1: some dark presence is standing over your shoulder, reading every
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Speaker 1: word that crosses your mind, then you have been fighting
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Speaker 1: a battle that is not real while missing the one
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Speaker 1: that is. Paul knew exactly where the real one takes place.
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Speaker 1: He named six pieces of armour in a letter written
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Speaker 1: from a prison cell, and one of them guards the head.
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Speaker 1: Take the helmet of salvation. What that helmet is protecting
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Speaker 1: and why the enemy has to work so hard from
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Speaker 1: the outside to get at it is what the rest
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Speaker 1: of this is about. Start where the Bible starts, which
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Speaker 1: is with God. Solomon has finished building the temple. It
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Speaker 1: is the highest moment of his life, and he stands
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Speaker 1: in front of the whole nation and prays. In the
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Speaker 1: middle of that long prayer, he says something about God
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Speaker 1: that he says about no one and nothing else. He
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Speaker 1: asks God to hear from heaven and to deal with
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Speaker 1: each person according to what they have done. And then
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Speaker 1: he gives the reason God is able to do that.
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Speaker 1: Since you know their hearts, for you alone know every
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Speaker 1: human heart. 1 Kings 8, verse 39 says, You alone.
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Speaker 1: Not you and the angels. Not you and the powers
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Speaker 1: of the air. God alone. Solomon puts that in the
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Speaker 1: middle of a prayer about judgment because judgment requires it.
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Speaker 1: Only someone who can see the inside of a person
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Speaker 1: is fit to weigh a person. Centuries later, Jeremiah is
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Speaker 1: sent to a nation that has learned how to look
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Speaker 1: faithful while being something else underneath. He tells them the
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Speaker 1: truth about the human heart, that it is twisted past
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Speaker 1: anyone's ability to trace, and then God answers his own
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Speaker 1: question about who can understand it. I, the Lord, search
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Speaker 1: the heart and examine the mind to reward each person
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Speaker 1: according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.
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Speaker 1: Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 10 Search and examine. Those are
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Speaker 1: working words. God does not glance at a heart. He
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Speaker 1: goes through it the way a man goes through a
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Speaker 1: room he owns. And then David, who spent years hiding
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Speaker 1: in caves with his own thoughts for company, writes it
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Speaker 1: as worship. You know when I sit and when I rise,
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Speaker 1: you perceive my thoughts from afar. Psalm 139 verse 2
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Speaker 1: From afar. Distance is nothing to him. David goes further
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Speaker 1: and says that before a word is even on his tongue,
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Speaker 1: God already knows it completely. There is no delay between
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Speaker 1: David thinking and God knowing. There is not even a gap.
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Speaker 1: Put those three together, and you have a settled truth
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Speaker 1: that runs from the temple to the prophets to the songs.
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Speaker 1: The inside of a human being is God's territory. He
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Speaker 1: made it. He reads it. He is the only one
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Speaker 1: who does. So when a thought arrives in your head
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Speaker 1: that you did not invite, you can stop asking whether
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Speaker 1: something is reading your mind. Nothing is reading your mind.
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Speaker 1: Something may be talking to you. Those are two very
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Speaker 1: different problems, and only one of them is happening. There
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Speaker 1: is a moment in Matthew that most people read straight past,
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Speaker 1: and it settles the question in a way nothing else does.
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Speaker 1: Four men carry a paralyzed friend to Jesus. Jesus looks
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Speaker 1: at the man on the mat and tells him his
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Speaker 1: sins are forgiven. The religious teachers standing there do not
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Speaker 1: say a word. They do not mutter to each other.
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Speaker 1: Matthew is careful about this. They said it to themselves, inside, privately.
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Speaker 1: This fellow is blaspheming. And then this happens. Knowing their thoughts,
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Speaker 1: Jesus said, Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?
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Speaker 1: Matthew chapter 9 verse 4. He answered a conversation that
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Speaker 1: had never been spoken. Notice why Matthew includes it. He
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Speaker 1: is proving a claim. Jesus had just done the one
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Speaker 1: thing only God can do, which is forgive sins, and
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Speaker 1: the men in the room objected silently. So Jesus did
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Speaker 1: a second thing only God can do. He read the objection.
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Speaker 1: The forgiving and the mind-reading say the same sentence about
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Speaker 1: who he is. That is the pattern all through Scripture.
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Speaker 1: When someone reads a human mind, it is a mark
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Speaker 1: of deity, and the writer treats it as evidence. It
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Speaker 1: is never a demonic ability. The devil appears on many
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Speaker 1: pages of the Bible, doing many things, and reading a
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Speaker 1: private thought is never one of them. If the enemy
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Speaker 1: could read minds, half of the Gospels would fall apart.
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Speaker 1: He would have known who Jesus was from the beginning.
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Speaker 1: He would not have needed to test him with the words,
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Speaker 1: if you are the Son of God. He would not
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Speaker 1: have driven the cross forward, which turned out to be
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Speaker 1: the one act that destroyed him. He guessed. He watched.
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Speaker 1: He got it badly wrong. So how does he seem
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Speaker 1: to know so much? The first answer is in the
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Speaker 1: opening chapter of Job, and it is easy to miss
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Speaker 1: because we read it for the suffering and skip the geography.
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Speaker 1: The angels come to present themselves before God, and Satan
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Speaker 1: comes with them. God asks him a question, and the
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Speaker 1: question itself is worth stopping on. Where have you come from?
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Speaker 1: God is not asking because he does not know. He
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Speaker 1: is asking so we can hear the answer. from roaming
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Speaker 1: throughout the earth, going back and forth on it. Job
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Speaker 1: chapter 1 verse 7 roaming, going back and forth. That
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Speaker 1: is the language of a creature with legs, in one
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Speaker 1: place at a time, covering ground. He has to travel,
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Speaker 1: he has to arrive, he has to leave one place
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Speaker 1: in order to be in another. Whatever else this being is,
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Speaker 1: he is not everywhere, and he is not inside anyone.
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Speaker 1: He is walking around outside, looking. Then listen to what
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Speaker 1: he says about Job. He builds a case entirely out
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Speaker 1: of things he could see from the road. The hedge
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Speaker 1: around the house, the blessing on the work of his hands,
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Speaker 1: the flocks and herds spread through the land. He counted
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Speaker 1: Job's animals. He noticed that nothing bad had ever happened
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Speaker 1: to him. From that, he made an accusation about Job's motives.'
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Speaker 1: Does Job fear God for nothing?' Satan replied. Job chapter
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Speaker 1: 1 verse 9. That is a guess. It is a shrewd, cruel,
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Speaker 1: well-informed guess made by someone who has watched a great
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Speaker 1: many people, and it is still a guess. And the
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Speaker 1: entire book of Job exists to prove that the guess
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Speaker 1: was wrong. He predicted Job would curse God to his face.
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Speaker 1: Job did no such thing. The oldest book in the
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Speaker 1: Bible opens with the devil making a confident claim about
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Speaker 1: what is inside a man and being humiliated by it.
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Speaker 1: The second answer is timing, and there is no clearer
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Speaker 1: example than the wilderness. Jesus is led into the desert.
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Speaker 1: Matthew tells us he fasted 40 days and 40 nights
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Speaker 1: and then adds four words that most readers pass over
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Speaker 1: because they seem so ordinary. After fasting forty days and
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Speaker 1: forty nights, he was hungry. Matthew chapter 4 verse 2.
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Speaker 1: He was hungry, and that is exactly when the visitor
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Speaker 1: shows up. The tempter came to him and said, If
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Speaker 1: you are the Son of God, tell these stones to
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Speaker 1: become bread. Matthew chapter 4 verse 3. Bread. Not power,
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Speaker 1: not comfort, not fear. Bread offered to a starving man
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Speaker 1: on the day his body finally gave out. Did the
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Speaker 1: devil read his mind to learn he was hungry? He
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Speaker 1: counted the days. Anyone standing at a distance for six weeks,
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Speaker 1: watching a man eat nothing, would know what that man wants.
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Speaker 1: The temptation was not aimed at a secret. It was
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Speaker 1: aimed at a condition that was visible from a hundred
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Speaker 1: yards away. This is his whole method, and once you
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Speaker 1: see it, you will see it everywhere in your own life.
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Speaker 1: He does not need access to your thoughts. He needs
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Speaker 1: access to your patterns. He knows what a person who
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Speaker 1: has not slept says yes to. He knows what a
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Speaker 1: woman does at three in the morning when the house
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Speaker 1: is silent and the diagnosis is new. He knows what
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Speaker 1: a man reaches for on the fourth day of feeling useless.
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Speaker 1: He does not know your thoughts. He knows your Tuesdays.
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Speaker 1: That is why temptation so often arrives with impeccable timing
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Speaker 1: and why the timing feels supernatural. The timing is not
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Speaker 1: evidence that he can see inside you. It is evidence
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Speaker 1: that he has been paying attention and that we are
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Speaker 1: more predictable than we would like to believe. There is
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Speaker 1: one more detail in that wilderness account. He quotes scripture
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Speaker 1: at Jesus accurately and applies it wrongly. He has read
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Speaker 1: the book and memorized it. He simply bends it and
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Speaker 1: he will come at you with a verse in his
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Speaker 1: hand and a lie in his mouth. And when it
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Speaker 1: was over, Matthew writes that the devil left him. He
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Speaker 1: had to leave because he was never inside. There is
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Speaker 1: one more limit on him, and it is the one
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Speaker 1: that explains why so much of this feels bigger than
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Speaker 1: a single enemy. When Paul names the enemy for the Ephesians,
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Speaker 1: he describes something much larger than one individual. For our
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Speaker 1: struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
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Speaker 1: against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world,
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Speaker 1: and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
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Speaker 1: Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 Rulers, authorities, powers, forces. Those
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Speaker 1: are plural words describing an organized structure with ranks in it.
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Speaker 1: Paul has an army in view. In all likelihood, you
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Speaker 1: have never had the personal attention of Satan himself, any
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Speaker 1: more than a soldier in a trench has ever been
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Speaker 1: visited by the enemy king. What reaches most of us
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Speaker 1: is the system he built, running the method he has
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Speaker 1: always used. Suggestion from outside. Accusation about God's goodness. Perfect timing.
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Speaker 1: That is why Paul calls the whole thing the devil's
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Speaker 1: schemes when he tells them to put the armor on.
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Speaker 1: Put on the full armor of God so that you
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Speaker 1: can take your stand against the devil's schemes. Ephesians chapter
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Speaker 1: 6 verse 11. Schemes. Plans worked out in advance by
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Speaker 1: someone studying the terrain. You do not need a plan
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Speaker 1: against a man whose mind you can read. You need
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Speaker 1: one when you are working from the outside and have
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Speaker 1: to guess your way in. And there is comfort buried
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Speaker 1: in that word. A scheme has a shape, and anything
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Speaker 1: with a shape can be recognized the second or third
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Speaker 1: time it comes around. There is a particular lie that
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Speaker 1: shows up in your house, at a particular hour, wearing
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Speaker 1: a particular tone of voice. Once you can name it,
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Speaker 1: half its power is gone, because it only ever worked
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Speaker 1: while it was pretending to be your own conclusion. The
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Speaker 1: third answer takes us all the way back to the
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Speaker 1: first conversation, and it shows the actual mechanism. The serpent
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Speaker 1: comes to the woman in the garden. He does not
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Speaker 1: implant a desire. He does not reach into her mind
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Speaker 1: and rearrange it. He opens his mouth and asks a question.
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Speaker 1: Did God really say you must not eat from any
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Speaker 1: tree in the garden? Genesis chapter 3 verse 1. Look
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Speaker 1: at what that question does. It arrives from outside her,
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Speaker 1: through her ears, in ordinary words. It is slightly wrong
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Speaker 1: on purpose because God had said no such thing about
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Speaker 1: any tree, and it invites her to do the rest
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Speaker 1: of the work herself. In turning it over, she moves
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Speaker 1: from remembering what God said to debating what God said.
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Speaker 1: Then he adds the accusation about God's motives. God knows
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Speaker 1: what will happen when you eat. God is holding out
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Speaker 1: on you. God is not as good as he sounds.
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Speaker 1: Every attack since then has been a version of that sentence.
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Speaker 1: It arrives from outside, sounding reasonable, and it always suggests
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Speaker 1: that the God who has been good to you is
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Speaker 1: withholding something or disappointed in you or gone. Now, here
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Speaker 1: is what makes it so confusing for believers. A suggestion
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Speaker 1: that enters your mind does not come in a stranger's voice.
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Speaker 1: Nobody hears an evil narrator. It comes as a thought
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Speaker 1: in your own inner voice, with your own vocabulary, using
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Speaker 1: your own memories as its examples. That is precisely why
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Speaker 1: it feels like it came from inside. It sounds like you,
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Speaker 1: because you are the one thinking it, even when you
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Speaker 1: are not the one who started it. John gives us
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Speaker 1: one of the only glimpses in Scripture of that moment
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Speaker 1: happening in a real man. The evening meal was in progress,
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Speaker 1: and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of
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Speaker 1: Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. John chapter 13 verse 2. Prompted,
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Speaker 1: that is the word, not controlled, not read. Prompted, the
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Speaker 1: way one person leans over and suggests something to another.
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Speaker 1: Judas had been nursing something for a long time. He
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Speaker 1: kept the money bag he had already been taking from it.
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Speaker 1: The suggestion did not create the man. It found the
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Speaker 1: crack that was already there and pressed on it. And
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Speaker 1: the enemy could see that crack from the outside because
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Speaker 1: Judas kept showing it to him. Which brings us to
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Speaker 1: the part that will set some people free tonight. Not
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Speaker 1: every dark thought you have is the devil. James writes
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Speaker 1: to ordinary struggling believers who wanted to blame their failures
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Speaker 1: on someone else, and he refuses to let them. But
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Speaker 1: each person is tempted when they are dragged away by
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Speaker 1: their own evil desire and enticed. James 1.14 Their Own
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Speaker 1: Desire James does not even mention a demon in that sentence.
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Speaker 1: He puts the desire inside the person and traces the
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Speaker 1: whole chain from there. Desire pulls. Desire conceives. Sin is born.
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Speaker 1: Sin grows up and produces death. That is a description
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Speaker 1: of a human being unaided. There is real mercy in
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Speaker 1: this for anyone who has spent years terrified of their
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Speaker 1: own mind. Some of what you have been calling demonic
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Speaker 1: attack is grief, or exhaustion, or a body that is
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Speaker 1: not well, or a habit of thinking you learned in
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Speaker 1: a house where nobody was kind to you. Knowing the
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Speaker 1: difference matters, because you cannot rebuke a wound into healing.
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Speaker 1: Some thoughts need to be resisted, some need to be confessed,
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Speaker 1: some need to be treated, some need to be carried
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Speaker 1: to a friend who will sit with you. The enemy
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Speaker 1: is content either way. If he can convince you that
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Speaker 1: every dark thought is a demon, you will live in fear.
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Speaker 1: If he can convince you that nothing is ever spiritual,
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Speaker 1: you will fight blind. So how do you tell the difference?
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Speaker 1: Scripture gives him a title that functions almost like a fingerprint.
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Speaker 1: He is called the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
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Speaker 1: the one who accuses them before God day and night.
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Speaker 1: That is his job description, and it holds true whether
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Speaker 1: he is speaking about you in heaven or speaking to
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Speaker 1: you in your kitchen. Accusation and conviction feel similar for
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Speaker 1: about three seconds, and then they part ways completely. Conviction
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Speaker 1: from God is specific. It names one thing, it has
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Speaker 1: a road out of it, and the road always leads
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Speaker 1: towards Him. A believer under conviction ends up on their
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Speaker 1: knees and then on their feet, lighter. Accusation is vague
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Speaker 1: and total. It does not say you were harsh with
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Speaker 1: your daughter on Thursday. It says you are the reason
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Speaker 1: your family is like this. It offers no way forward
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Speaker 1: because it does not want your repentance. It wants you
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Speaker 1: to stop praying, stop calling, stop coming, and sit alone
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Speaker 1: with a verdict God never handed down. There is a
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Speaker 1: second mark, and it is even more useful. Accusation always
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Speaker 1: attacks your standing. A man who has walked with God
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Speaker 1: for 40 years hears it after one bad week. You
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Speaker 1: never really were his. A woman who has served in
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Speaker 1: the same small church since she was 19 hears it
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Speaker 1: in a hospital bed. If he loved you, you would
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Speaker 1: not be here. Conviction never questions whether you belong to him.
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Speaker 1: It assumes you do and calls you home. And now
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Speaker 1: we are standing exactly where Paul is standing when he
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Speaker 1: reaches for the helmet. Paul is in Roman custody when
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Speaker 1: he writes it. He is chained and he is watching
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Speaker 1: soldiers all day long, and he takes their equipment and
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Speaker 1: hands it to the church one piece at a time. Belt, breastplate, shoes, shield,
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Speaker 1: then this. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword
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Speaker 1: of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Ephesians
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Speaker 1: chapter 6 verse 17. The helmet of salvation, not the
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Speaker 1: helmet of willpower, not the helmet of positive thinking. The
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Speaker 1: protection over your head is your salvation itself, the finished
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Speaker 1: work of God on your behalf, worn where the accusations land.
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Speaker 1: Think about what that means in a war against an
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Speaker 1: enemy who cannot see inside you. He cannot read your thoughts,
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Speaker 1: so he cannot know for certain what you believe. But
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Speaker 1: he can hear what you say. He can see what
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Speaker 1: you do. He can watch which way you turn when
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Speaker 1: the news is bad. And more than anything, he can
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Speaker 1: put a sentence in front of you and study your face.
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Speaker 1: So the strategy is not to break into the mind.
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Speaker 1: The strategy is to get you to hand over the
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Speaker 1: one thing he cannot take. If he can get you
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Speaker 1: to doubt that you are saved, then everything else in
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Speaker 1: your life becomes usable against you. A man who is
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Speaker 1: not sure he belongs to God prays like a man
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Speaker 1: asking a stranger for a favor. He reads the Bible
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Speaker 1: looking for evidence against himself. He hears every sermon as
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Speaker 1: a complaint about him. He stops going to the people
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Speaker 1: who would encourage him because he cannot bear to be
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Speaker 1: found out. He is still saved the whole time. He
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Speaker 1: just fights the rest of his life with his head uncovered.
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Speaker 1: That is why Paul puts salvation on the head. When
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Speaker 1: Paul mentions the same helmet in his letter to the Thessalonians,
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Speaker 1: he adds one word that fills the picture out. But
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Speaker 1: since we belong to the day, let us be sober,
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Speaker 1: putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the
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Speaker 1: hope of salvation as a helmet. 1 Thessalonians 5.8 The
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Speaker 1: Hope of Salvation Hope in the Bible means a settled
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Speaker 1: expectation about something that has not arrived yet. Your salvation
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Speaker 1: has a past, a present, and a future. You were rescued.
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Speaker 1: You are being changed. You will be brought all the
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Speaker 1: way home. The helmet covers all three, and the third
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Speaker 1: is the one the enemy attacks the hardest, because if
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Speaker 1: he can take your expectation of the future, he does
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Speaker 1: not need to touch anything else. A believer with no
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Speaker 1: expectation of tomorrow will surrender today without a fight. And
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Speaker 1: Paul finishes the thought in the very next line, which
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Speaker 1: tells you what the hope is anchored to. For God
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Speaker 1: did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive
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Speaker 1: salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5
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Speaker 1: verse 9 That is the helmet. It is not a
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Speaker 1: mood you generate. It is a fact about what God
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Speaker 1: has decided to do with you, placed over the part
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Speaker 1: of you where the fighting happens. And notice what Paul
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Speaker 1: packs into the same verse. The helmet and the sword
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Speaker 1: arrive together, and the sword is named for us, so
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Speaker 1: there is no confusion about what it is. The word
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Speaker 1: of God. The helmet is what you wear when the
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Speaker 1: lie comes. The sword is what you say back. His
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Speaker 1: whole method is speech, so the answer has to be speech,
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Speaker 1: and it had better not be yours alone. Your opinion
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Speaker 1: of yourself changes with your blood sugar. The Word of
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Speaker 1: God does not move. Wearing it is not passive, and
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Speaker 1: Paul says so plainly in his second letter to Corinth.
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Speaker 1: We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up
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Speaker 1: against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every
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Speaker 1: thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10.5
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Speaker 1: Take captive... That is a soldier's word. You do not
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Speaker 1: take something captive by ignoring it, and you do not
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Speaker 1: take it captive by panicking about it. You stop it,
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Speaker 1: you hold it, and you find out what it is.
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Speaker 1: Here is what that actually looks like on a Tuesday afternoon,
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Speaker 1: because our audience does not need theory. It looks like
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Speaker 1: catching a sentence as it goes by and asking it
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Speaker 1: three questions. The first question is simple, is this true? Not,
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Speaker 1: does it feel true? Feelings are honest reporters of how
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Speaker 1: you are doing and terrible witnesses about who God is.
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Speaker 1: Ask whether the sentence agrees with something God has actually said.
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Speaker 1: The second question is where does this lead? Follow the
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Speaker 1: thought a few steps down. Do you end up praying
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Speaker 1: or hiding? Every thought has a direction, and the direction
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Speaker 1: becomes obvious fast. The third question exposes the accuser almost
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Speaker 1: every time. Does this thought speak my name the way
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Speaker 1: God speaks it? God has said hard things to his people.
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Speaker 1: He has never said, go away. And notice that Paul
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Speaker 1: calls these things arguments and pretensions. They come dressed as
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Speaker 1: reasoning with evidence attached, and the evidence is usually your
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Speaker 1: own history. That is what makes them so hard to
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Speaker 1: dismiss and so possible to answer, because a lie built
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Speaker 1: out of your past can be met with a truth
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Speaker 1: built out of the cross. You are not fighting a
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Speaker 1: mind reader. You are fighting a prosecutor with a file.
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Speaker 1: And the file is real, and the case has already
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Speaker 1: been thrown out. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for
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Speaker 1: those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8.1 There is
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Speaker 1: one night in the Gospels where all of this becomes
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Speaker 1: visible at once, and it involves a man who failed badly.
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Speaker 1: It is the last meal. Jesus turns to Peter and
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Speaker 1: says something that must have gone through the room, like
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Speaker 1: cold water. Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all
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Speaker 1: of you as wheat, but I have prayed for you, Simon,
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Speaker 1: that your faith may not fail, and when you have
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Speaker 1: turned back, strengthen your brothers. Luke chapter 22, verses 31
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Speaker 1: and 32. Look at the order of that. Satan has
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Speaker 1: to ask. He is not free to do as he
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Speaker 1: pleases with a child of God. He has to come
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Speaker 1: to the throne and request. It was the same in Job,
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Speaker 1: where every limit was set by God and not by him.
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Speaker 1: The enemy in Scripture is always operating on a leash
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Speaker 1: whose length he did not choose. Then Jesus says, I
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Speaker 1: have prayed for you. Before Peter knew he was in danger,
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Speaker 1: before the denial, before the fire in the courtyard, and
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Speaker 1: the girl's question and the rooster, Jesus had already been
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Speaker 1: praying for him. Peter's protection was arranged in advance by
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Speaker 1: someone who saw the whole night before it happened, and
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Speaker 1: then the line that carries the whole thing, when you
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Speaker 1: have turned back, not if. Jesus tells Peter he is
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Speaker 1: going to fail and come home in the same breath.
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Speaker 1: He knows the failure is coming, and he is already
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Speaker 1: talking about what Peter will do afterward. Here is the
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Speaker 1: part that connects to everything we have said. Jesus knew
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Speaker 1: Peter's mind. He knew what Peter would think, say, and
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Speaker 1: do before Peter did. The devil, on the other hand,
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Speaker 1: thought sifting Peter would finish him. He was wrong about
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Speaker 1: that man the same way he was wrong about Job,
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Speaker 1: and for the same reason. He was reading the outside
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Speaker 1: of a life and drawing confident conclusions about the inside.
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Speaker 1: The one who could actually see inside Peter looked at
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Speaker 1: him and saw a man who would be feeding sheep
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Speaker 1: by the end of the story. Everything the devil does
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Speaker 1: in the Bible depends on speaking. He questions, he suggests,
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Speaker 1: he prompts, he accuses, take away his access to the
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Speaker 1: ears of the world, and he has nothing left. And
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Speaker 1: that is exactly what John sees happen. Then I heard
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Speaker 1: a loud voice in heaven say, Now have come the
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Speaker 1: salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God
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Speaker 1: and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of
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Speaker 1: our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God
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Speaker 1: day and night, has been hurled down. Revelation chapter 12
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Speaker 1: verse 10 Day and Night That is how relentless the
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Speaker 1: accusation has been, and it is over. Then John tells
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Speaker 1: us how the believers on the ground actually won. They
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Speaker 1: triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and
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Speaker 1: by the word of their testimony. Revelation chapter 12 verse 11.
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Speaker 1: The blood of the Lamb. Their victory rested on something
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Speaker 1: outside themselves, on what Jesus had already done, held up
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Speaker 1: as an answer every time an accusation was raised, and
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Speaker 1: the word of their testimony, which simply means they said
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Speaker 1: out loud what God had done for them. They answered
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Speaker 1: the accuser with a fact. That is the helmet in motion.
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Speaker 1: When the sentence comes that says you do not belong
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Speaker 1: to him, the answer is not a feeling and not
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Speaker 1: an argument about your own goodness. The answer is Christ
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Speaker 1: crucified for you and your own plain testimony that he
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Speaker 1: took you in. And this is why the enemy fears
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Speaker 1: the cross more than he fears your discipline. Your discipline
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Speaker 1: can be worn down by a hard week. The blood
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Speaker 1: cannot be. It does not weaken when you are tired.
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Speaker 1: It does not expire when you fail. It is the
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Speaker 1: one thing in the universe that cannot be argued with,
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Speaker 1: and it was applied to you on a day when
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Speaker 1: you had nothing to offer. Maybe you are older than
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Speaker 1: you used to be, and the house is quieter than
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Speaker 1: it once was. Maybe you cannot drive any more, or
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Speaker 1: the friends who used to call are gone, and the
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Speaker 1: evenings are long. The thoughts come loudest then, that you
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Speaker 1: wasted years, that God has moved on to people who
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Speaker 1: can still be useful, that your prayers are being received
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Speaker 1: by nobody. Hear this carefully. Nothing is inside your head
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Speaker 1: reading you. The only one who sees your thoughts is
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Speaker 1: the one who loves you, and he has known every
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Speaker 1: one of them since before you could speak, and he
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Speaker 1: has not left. What is happening is simpler and more answerable.
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Speaker 1: Something outside you is making suggestions at the exact hours
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Speaker 1: when you are least able to argue using material it
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Speaker 1: collected by watching your life. And you are allowed to
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Speaker 1: refuse them. Refusing takes the helmet, and the helmet was
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Speaker 1: handed to you rather than earned by you. Salvation is
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Speaker 1: not something you must keep proving, it is something you wear.
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Speaker 1: So when the accusation comes, say out loud what is true.
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Speaker 1: Not because the devil must obey your voice, but because
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Speaker 1: you need to hear it, and because saying it is
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Speaker 1: exactly what those believers did when they overcame him. I
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Speaker 1: belong to Jesus Christ. He died for me. He has
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Speaker 1: never once told me to go away. My worst day
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Speaker 1: did not surprise him, and it did not change his mind.
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Speaker 1: And say it with the scripture in your mouth, the
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Speaker 1: way Jesus did in the wilderness with an empty stomach
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Speaker 1: and forty days of nothing behind him. He did not debate.
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Speaker 1: He answered with what was written, and when it was finished,
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Speaker 1: the devil left him. He will leave. He always has to.
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Speaker 1: He is a creature on a leash, in one place
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Speaker 1: at a time, walking the earth and looking for someone
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Speaker 1: whose head is uncovered. Let it not be yours. Peter,
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Speaker 1: who knew more about being sifted than almost anyone, wrote
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Speaker 1: about all of this years later, and before he warned
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Speaker 1: anyone about the lion, he said this, Cast all your
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Speaker 1: anxiety on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5,
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Speaker 1: verse 7. Then the warning, and then the promise that
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Speaker 1: ends it. And the God of all grace, who called
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Speaker 1: you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have
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Speaker 1: suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make
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Speaker 1: you strong, firm, and steadfast. 1 Peter 5, verse 10. Himself.
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Speaker 1: He does the restoring. after you have suffered a little while,
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Speaker 1: which is an honest admission that the suffering is real,
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Speaker 1: and a promise that it has an end. Your thoughts
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Speaker 1: have never been readable by the enemy of your soul.
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Speaker 1: They have always been fully known by the God who
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Speaker 1: went to a cross for you. You are far less
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Speaker 1: exposed than you have feared, and far more loved than
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Speaker 1: you have dared to believe. Take the helmet, put it
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Speaker 1: on your head, and keep going. If this video helped
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Speaker 1: you grow deeper in God's Word, I want to personally
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Speaker 1: invite you to be part of what we are building here.
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Speaker 1: Every video on this channel takes many hours of study
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Speaker 1: and careful research to make sure we bring you content
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Speaker 1: that is faithful to Scripture and worthy of your time.
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Speaker 1: If you would like to support this mission and help
33:53
Speaker 1: us keep making these videos, you can find a link
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Speaker 1: is subscribe, share this video with someone who needs to
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Speaker 1: hear it, and keep studying God's Word with us. Thank
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Speaker 1: you for being here, and may God bless you richly.
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Speaker 1: Thank you.