So church were in part two of our message titled The Cure For Unbelief.
And we’re picking it up where we left off here in a moment.
But we’ll read together Hebrews chapter four beginning at verse 11.
And uh if you’ll pick it up in verse 12, just three verses tonight, but we’ll still won’t even get through all of these.
These are amazing, powerful, not only uh doctrinal verses, but even the words themselves, overwhelmingly powerful individual words Verse 11, let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him, to whom we must give account, Lord bless again.
We pray and all God’s people said, amen. You may be seated church, the Cure for unbelief.
We are in this Powers that is found in verse 11 as we approach it again tonight.
And we’re talking about fleeing from all things that murder faith.
And last week, we looked at some of those things and if you look carefully at verse 11, let us the author, I believe it’s Paul, but that’s neither here nor there.
Let us therefore be diligent. Apply every bit of effort. Roll up your sleeves. Dive in.
Paul will write to Timothy and in another place he will say, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
You said, wait a minute, Pastor Jack. I thought salvation was a gift. It is a gift.
I thought it was free. It’s free. When Paul said to Timothy, work out your own salvation.
It doesn’t mean that you are to work in such a way that you save yourself.
It means because you’re saved. Make sure that you live every ounce of what God has planned for your life.
Go for it, full board for the Lord.
Don’t we go full bore for crazy things of this world. Absolutely.
How much more for God be diligent to enter that rest?
He’s speaking about the rest that the Children of Israel never did.
They never read that 40 years of wilderness wandering with miracle after miracle deliverance after deliverance.
And yet they still never trusted God. Lest anyone fall according to the same, same example of disobedience. What happened?

The murder of unbelief. Their faith was murdered because of unbelief.
And the Bible tells us in the book of Exodus that those who came out of Egypt never made it into the promised land because of unbelief, what faith they had at the beginning they didn’t maintain And they wound up dying in the wilderness and we looked at this very briefly.
We looked at verse 11 that we need to be careful to flee murder by allure mints.
We talked about the temptations of life and the things that are out there. We talked about six things.
If you remember we saw that these six things were very, very active at going about seeking to murder faith in our lives.
And remember, and I think it’s good that we repeat them.
Having a heart of ingratitude or unthinkable heart murders faith.
You want to make sure that you nurture your heart to be thankful for everything that you have in your life.
I promise you this. If you think your life stinks, it doesn’t listen. Your life doesn’t stink.
You may be looking at all the things that are in your life that stink, but your life doesn’t stink.
You need to stop looking at those things and thank God for the stuff that is nice.
The stuff that is sweet, the stuff that hasn’t broken yet or the part that hasn’t fallen off yet or the part that hasn’t hear what I’m saying.
Thank them for the good stuff. If you don’t do that, you’re gonna wind up having your faith murdered.
It’s gonna affect your heart. No two, we saw that what murders. Faith is telling lies.
We saw that and we hit that pretty hard line.
The next thing # three was a sense of entitlement, murders faith. Why do I need to pray.
Give it to me. Why do I need to read the Bible?
You, listen, we have to be careful with the sense of entitlement.
Kind of sounds like this in a Christian circle. I don’t need to pray.
Doesn’t God know everything, doesn’t he know before I even ask.
So, what do I need to pray about that for?
Listen, be careful with that attitude because number one, the Bible tells us we should ask God to reveal to us his will or his plan.
Is it this job or that job?
We should always be asking God for guidance in leading the Bible says you don’t have because you don’t ask, right?
So we want to be careful about that.
Don’t nurture a sense of entitlement and that’s a, that’s a good policy, by the way, just flat out living, period.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m an old guy but it works.
You start handing out stuff to kids early on without them sweating for it.
And you’re, you’re gonna raise a little brat and then they’re gonna, they’re gonna think the police department knows them.
The judge owes them, the companies owe them, everybody owes them and you, you raise up this dysfunctional thing that just walks around with their hand out all the time.
See, you know, why am I being so blunt about this?
Because God, if that’s you, God made you to be somebody other than that, God made you to be somebody that would rock this world for Jesus.
We’re the ones that offer up all the excuses. Jeremiah just read Jeremiah a little bit tonight.
My granddaughter is going through her homework and Jeremiah chapter one is her homework in school.
And, uh, she, she asked me these questions and Jeremiah had God, you can’t use me.
I’m just a young guy. Jeremiah wright. He had excuses.
God says, don’t, don’t tell me you’re young. I know how old you are.
I can’t talk. God says, I’m gonna put my word in your mouth. Moses said the same thing.
I can’t talk. I’m slow of speech. I stutter. God says, I’m gonna do this, Moses.
He really dug in, man. He really, he really resisted. God. God says, all right. All right. All right.
I’ll use your brother. Remember that you’re, it’s, you’re gonna show up but your brother is gonna be your spokesperson because you wimped out on me.
Moses. Pretty amazing. Murders of faith is that of unbelief.
Of course, we saw also, number five is a mental routine. Can murder faith.
We want to be careful about that. You get in a mental grind, my mental, the mindset of your life.
If you’re on a, if you’re on a routine that is so predictable.
Um You need to shake that up because your mind will go to sleep in the physical sense.
We have things called Alzheimer’s and things like that that happened to a mind, a brain mind.
But I’m talking about spiritual type of Alzheimer’s where you’re not, your life is not invested in anything of the kingdom.
Are you with me? Um You’re no one’s dependent upon you as a believer that should cause us to say, oh my goodness, what do you mean by that is if, if you can breathe in and out of this church or any church and nobody knows if you’re even here or not.
That’s not a good thing. Friend. See, what do you want me to do?
I want you to seek the Lord, but I want you to obey Him when he talks to you.
Is there somebody in this ministry or in your home life?
Because look, there’s a lot of difficulty at home. That’s your ministry first.
Look, you’re gonna write me a letter about this. I don’t really care. Here’s the deal.
I don’t like people saying God’s number one, God should be number one. God’s number one.
I don’t believe in God being number one. I don’t like that.
If you put God at number one, that means he’s on a list.
God should never be on a list.
Family’s number one there’s God and then there’s a list And # one on the list is family.
Okay. God obviously. So number one family, if you don’t take care of your family, then your faith is worthless.
I didn’t make that up. That’s in the Bible.
And if you don’t maintain your family you can’t have ministry. Family. First.
God overriding all prominent. 2nd, 3rd is public ministry. Maybe something. I don’t know where that is.
Like, what I’m doing. You see, I don’t know if I like that.
I thought I was taught different in bible college that I didn’t hear it this way.
Well, let me put it to you this way. If, if I mess up with my family. Right.
It’s gonna hit the front page of the news and I’m ousted and so I should be ousted.
Are you with me? That’s how important family is. It’s not ministry. Well, you know what?
No, no, no, don’t flip it around. People get that confused.
And then we ended last time with a physical idle life, murderous faith, just physically idle.
Philippians chapter four verse eight says, finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of a good report, a good reputation, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy here comes meditate on these things.
That’s an awesome verse everybody that is the cure for many of our ailments today.
And it is certainly a great bit of weapon tree against the allure mints of this world.
If something knocks on your heart’s door and it is not fitting the qualifications of Philippians 48, it’s probably not a good idea to open up that Pandora’s box.
If you know what I mean.
Watch out if you see people making decisions in your life, one bad decision after another, take their example and put it up against this verse Philippians 48, by the way, that will really help you in picking your friends in life, which in this day and age could cost you your life.
So number two, we dive into this section. Okay.
This is the new part and it’s still verse 11 at the latter end. But it’s this.
It says lest anyone fall, you gotta circle the word fall here. Because what are we talking about?
Are we talking about somebody that falls in the sense of tripping?
Is it a fall that means they fall away from God.
Is it somebody who is saved and loses their salvation?
Or is it somebody that is religious and never had salvation in the first place?
What are we talking about here?
Well, it’s very important because what we’re looking at the, the word implies time over time and that is we want to flee murder by impatience that we begin to be impatient about God, not moving fast enough or about this thing not coming to pass.
And so the word fall here means in the negative sense, the application would mean to fall down or to fall away from or to fall away from God and into sin.
So it certainly means that in the positive sense, the word means by application uh to fall away from the world and to fall into or in front of God in surrendered worship.
The word means both. It’s the application in the context that determines what are we talking about?
Paul is issuing a, excuse me, the author of Hebrews is issuing a strong warning, be diligent because if you’re not diligent, what’s going to happen to you.
If you don’t enter into this rest with you and God, then you run the risk of falling.
And what does this mean? Over time?
Inevitably, you cannot keep up that burden and that relationship that you are in alone with God’s not in it.
You may be talking to God, but for whatever reasons, he’s not listening.
And by the way, whatever reasons, meaning God will always listen when sin is dealt with, right?
Think about that, that this is true for believer and unbeliever alike. Nonbelievers.
God is waiting to hear one prayer from you.
You said, wait a minute, I’ve been praying to God all my life and I’m not a believer because every time I get in trouble, I cry out to God.
He’s not listening. The Bible says, he’s not listening. Isaiah 59 says he’s not listening.
He’s waiting for one prayer to come from the non believer.
And that one prayer is Lord Jesus, forgive me of my sins.
I believe you died on the cross for me and rose again from the dead. Lord, forgive me.
He’s waiting to hear that from you.
The nonbeliever tonight, the believer, he won’t listen to us when sin plugs up our communication line.
In first John chapter one verse nine, it says that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all and righteousness.
And that’s when the flow of information is back open to the believer. The dangerous thing.
Are you guys listening? The dangerous thing is for you and I to get stuck in a lull in a doldrum type setting where uh nobody is dependent upon us at church.
Doesn’t matter if we show up or not. The things I talked about earlier.
You’re kind of just getting a little lazy, not reading the Bible for yourself.
I’ll get some Bible on Sunday and maybe even more on Wednesday. No, no, no, no, that’s not it.
Sundays and Wednesdays are spices that’s being put on the meat of your day to day consumption of, of food.
Think about it. What if you made a deal, by the way, we, I think we had a deal last Wednesday.
Did you not have a challenge? I remind you of that. Good.
Thank you to get on our knees for 30 days before doing anything on anything else that we’re gonna set our alarms 30 minutes earlier in the morning and get on their knees and we’re gonna lift our hands and ask God God just take my life, man.
What do you want to do today? Let’s do it.
And remember what the, what the big, the big ask was this God, if there’s something in my life that’s keeping me from entering into the rest, will you speak to me?
Oh, let me tell you, he will speak.
The thing is that I don’t like about God is that he speaks so soft most of the time.
Second, huh? What?
He speaks so soft until you do something that’s not good.
And then he’ll definitely turn up the volume. Christians will always say I never heard God speak.
That’s not true. Yes, you have. If you’ve ever done something wrong, you heard him speak.
He said things like stop it. He said things like get away from that.
He said things like don’t touch that so he’s speaking, but we want to be very careful, don’t grow impatient.
We don’t want to fall away. See Jack. But does that mean losing salvation? Here’s the deal.
We know this. We need to make all diligence to stay as close to Him as possible.
And we don’t even want to think about falling away, but it’s there, it’s there because for those who do fall away, it’s written there to announce to them that they have.
It’s there for us as an exhortation or a form of admonishment where God says to us, look, make all diligence to rest in the work that I’ve done for you.
If you get away from that rest, you’re gonna get messed up, you’re gonna fall away. Now.
Some people will say, oh my goodness. That means if that’s, then, then I don’t want to fall away.
Then don’t, are you hearing me now? Yeah. But it’s there. So what if it’s there?
Don’t do it, don’t worry about it.
I’m a firm believer that if you are truly born again, you cannot be unborn again.
But my challenges are you sure you’re born again? That’s how I put it.
Well, you know, I had salvation and I lost it. If you lost it, you never had it.
Well, that doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, it does. It means this. You never had it.
Think about that.
I do believe in the eternal security of the board again. Regenerate. Believer. That’s clear in scripture.
The Holy Spirit moves in and seals you into the day of redemption. Yeah.
But what about those who say they can lose it? They stay up all night and they bite their fingernails.
I don’t, they worry about it. I don’t, my God is able to save, he’s able to save.
And Paul said I am, I am absolutely confident that I, what I’ve committed to is trust.
He’s able to keep. Yeah. But what about abiding? The Bible says we shouldn’t abide.
If we don’t abide, we’re gonna be cut off and thrown into the fire. So abide.
Is there any, is that too simple? I think it’s crystal clear.
That answers perfectly to what we’re looking at.
Don’t grow impatient, just stay close to the Lord.
And so things that murder feelings.
Remember we talked about emotions before we always talked about how emotional is.
Um today is almost like a deity in our world. Just watch out feelings can murder.
Our faith feelings are very powerful and they, they often tell us what we want to hear, even if it’s negative.
It’s almost like we have this bizarre spiritual bent toward spiritual suicide.
Like God never loved me and he’ll never forgive me or he doesn’t love and he doesn’t care because of me.
What you need to grab those feelings and throw them in the trash. Can you need to get?
Listen, the Bible says and, and Corinthians Paul writes to the Church of Corinth and he says, you need to bring those thoughts under the control of Christ.
Bring every thought under the control of Christ. Urgency, murders faith. Urgency, not important. Important is good. Urgency.
Robs us of the important Isaiah 40 verse 31 says, but those who wait on the Lord, they shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary. Are you weary?
Memorize Isaiah 40 31, they shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint, be careful for all of us because fatigue can murder faith.
When I talk about fatigue, I’m talking about being stretched at both ends, so to speak, right to the limit.
We need to battle that. We have to, we have to resist that.
So I don’t know if you’re gonna like this or not.
But obviously, Jesus’s ministry reported and recorded in the gospels is our pattern as is Paul’s as, as is Peter’s.
But how do I say this as, as, as Christians, we should never be pimped or prostituted in the ministry for the ministry.
Does that make sense?
Um The worst thing in the world is for your kids or your wife or your husband to say, you know what?
I can’t stand your life ever since you started going to that church, all you do now, every moment you’re either on the phone with people from that church or you’re with them.
And if you have a non believing husband and husband and, or wife in this situation, that’s not, that’s not good.
Here’s the beautiful thing about how God builds his church is, he never destroys people to build his work.
How many people have been destroyed in the trail of ministry life?
And you know, they died in the cause of what absolute fatigue and they wore out their themselves and their family.
God doesn’t destroy people to build his church. Jesus builds his church.
And if you’ve been sold a bill of goods or you went to some seminary that said, you know that uh it’s all this way and you go to, to the point of exhaustion.
Listen, there’s a time when you are to be exhausted in ministry, the, the word is agonize. Oh, and gymnast’s.
Oh, those names, those words in the Greek language are fantastic for a season.
But the Bible is very clear. You better pull away and get some rest.
Didn’t Jesus even say boys, come on, we’re taking a break. Come with me.
We’re gonna go away for a while. You need to do.
That was the last time you did that where you just absolutely re focus on just you and God and the simplicity of knowing Him.
It’s precious. The world is fatigued right now.
I’m not joking right now.
When I say this, people have been absolutely emotionally beaten to death over the COVID thing and then they got beat to death by finances, they got beat to death by broken relationships and then no one’s talking about this.
But in the last several years since COVID, no one, no one will dare talk about this.
But the massive probably under reported amount of teen suicides in our nation. People are fatigued.
People are broken, they lost their husbands or their wives, they lost their kids or they lost their parents.
And I’m not saying just the COVID families broke up, fell apart. Still today it’s happening.
Talk to somebody this week again. Still. This is ridiculous.
You can’t, you can’t come to our house unless you’re vaccinated.
Are you not hearing the same CNN news that you listen to before.
Now they’re saying the director for the CDC announced we had it all wrong.
I posted it on my Facebook. We had it all wrong. Think of it.
And now the monkey pox thing, how many people are falling for this one?
Seriously monkey pox is real. You know what? You need to find out how you get it.
Okay? Dead serious. You want to say goodbye to youtube right now, right?
You wanna, you wanna get, you wanna get cut off from Facebook right now. COVID?
They told us to keep our mask on monkey pox. You keep your pants on.
It’s a real disease. Its origins are completely known.
It’s a scientific fact and where there’s an outbreak, they can trace it to the, the geographical uh pinpoint drop from a cell phone.
And then those now that you’re hearing on the news that they’re pushing the narrative really hard.
A young person has it now.
Yeah, you got to find out more about that young person and who they live with and what happened to them.
No one’s asking that you gotta, you gotta dig around what’s going on here.
We’re fatigued and we knew in the Bible from the beginning the Bible says, Paul wrote to Timothy and said in the last days, perilous times will come and the Greek word for perilous is remember, you know, this, you’ve been hearing this for years is to wear you down like a carpenter uses a planner on a, on a log, you know, the little plane with the blade and it curls up.
That isn’t, does that? Now, listen, five years ago, that wasn’t very graphic. Now, it’s extremely graphic.
You know exactly how that feels. Now, Satan is doing this to the world right now wearing people down.
We do not have to be worn down.
God has got it all in his hands and he knows exactly what’s going on and what’s going to happen.
And you say, yeah, but I don’t know what and I don’t know, it doesn’t matter.
Listen, it’s like most things in life, it doesn’t matter what, you know, how did you get your job?
It’s who, you know, that’s how I, that’s how I got my job.
I know God, there’s always somebody smarter, think of that. Right.
There’s already somebody smarter that should have your job. So what do you have your job?
Because I knew the manager and when the job came open, he said you had to apply for the job.
Well, listen, we know God, we don’t have to have all the answers. We just know this.
If we pour out all diligence to stay close to him, we don’t have to worry about what’s coming. Lord.
Just hang on to me, just hang on to me and you know what, God and I have a deal when I squirm, I’ve asked him if I start squirming.
Just ignore me. If I say put me down, don’t listen to me.
Thirdly, we need in verse 11, we need to flee murder by opinions.
According to the same example of disobedience, the Children of Israel did not enter in because everybody had their own view as to how things ought to go.
And then later on in Israel’s existence, you know, it’s written throughout scripture with the judges and the kings.
It says that every man did when there was no leader in Israel, every man did.
What was right in his own eyes? Do you know what that’s called at minimum?
That’s called pandemonium, call it mayhem, call it anarchy when there’s no authority over your life.
Now, granted the number one authority, we don’t do well, we have to have authority.
We’re humans, we have to have authorities. I don’t like it. You are a problem to yourself.
You need to understand something. Authority is not to be liked.
Authority is to be yielded to why?
Because it’s an authority that you know, loves you and has your best interest in mind.
How many times in our own lives do we have to stop and say, God, I really don’t like what’s going on right now.
But your Bible does say that you love me and that all things work together for good to those who love God.
I love you. Lord. And I know that I’m called according to your purposes.
So Lord I just give me strength right now and give me the grace to deal with this right now because I’m really not liking this moment.
It’s kind of freaking me out. I don’t see anywhere.
I kind of feel like I’m being crushed, but you’re on your throne and I’ve got to focus on that truth guide because people will come along and they’re gonna tell you how to live your life and you need to be careful that you don’t fall to intimidation.
You’re a Christian ladies and gentlemen, the Holy Spirit is in you.
You have the Bible and God has written your name down in his lamb’s book of Life and you can talk to God 24 7.
Okay. So when somebody comes along and says something, this something that intimidating you, you need to remember.
Jesus said, now this is being applied in a broader sense, but Jesus said that you, you, you basically mess with my people and you’re messing with the apple of my eye.
So apple, apple in the eye with apple, it means the the cornea.
You’re poking, you’re poking the part of God’s eye, imagine that you’re messing around my people.
And God says, you’re, you’re poking my, you’re poking me in the eye.
Saul of Tarsus was doing that to the church and the book of X and God has this awesome way of getting our attention.
By the way, the more stubborn we are, the harder God hits I just want you to know that right now.
Our God has no. Wimp God says, why are you?
Why are you being like a donkey? No, no.
He says, he says, why are you being like a donkey when I have to pull on you with bridle and bit to try to get you to go down the path, when all I wanna do is lead you with my right hand.
So Jesus says to Saul Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
Acts chapter nine, Paul, Saul, the moment Saul becomes Paul on the road to Damascus to go hunt Christian.
Why are you persecuting me? And he says, who are you? Lord? I’m Jesus.
He said, whom you’re persecuting. Now, technically, Paul never took a swing at Jesus.
Technically, Paul never poked Jesus in the eye, but technically, Paul poked the church in the eye.
And Jesus said to Paul.
Saul, Saul Paul, you know, it’s hard for you to kick against the goads.
If you knew, if you saw a goad the way they used them, you’d cringe on the back near the ankles of an ox or a donkey.
There would be a board that is rigged up in such a way that it’s just inches behind the back tender part of the heel and it’s razor sharp needles and the moment the horse or donkey or ox rebels, it backs up.
I’m not listening to you. Think about us.
God says do this, I’m not listening to you and we back up and we got, we garage ourselves because the goads go right into the skin.
And Jesus said to Saul, why are you doing that to yourself? You’re attacking the church.
But in doing so you’re attacking me and you’re the one that’s getting bloody.
How does that work out for you?
Paul people live like this every day.
There’s antagonists against the church, but they’re really angry at God but they only bloody themselves.
You think God’s affected? The church only gets stronger. Well, we’re going to persecute you guys. Go ahead.
History shows the church gets stronger when we were persecuted. Well, we’re gonna lock all of you up.
Then everybody in prison is gonna get saved. Well, then we’re not gonna do that.
We’re gonna, we’re gonna throw you in the fiery furnace. Yeah, we read that before somewhere.
Well, then we’re gonna, what? To live as Christ to die is gain.
I mean, it’s pretty amazing.
These are tough times but our God is, I’m gonna say tougher, but then it sounds like I’m putting him on the scale.
He’s not tougher than us. We’re humans and He’s God, we are finite. He’s infinite.
So when somebody has an opinion, we need to be careful that we judge ourselves according to the scriptures.
When it says, watch out for the same example that word same as in the Greek word autos.
It means to do or to be the same to do the exact same thing.
It means to be following the course of or to be on the path with those who have previously gone before.
You, you think about that for a moment. There are those who have gone before us and watch everyone.
We either are following their path or we’ve learned from them to not follow their path.
So listen, the influence of a parent upon a child without any stretch.
It is absolutely native and incumbent to every single one of us who were raised by somebody.
Let’s, let’s say it that way. Even the stuff we didn’t like about them.
Remember when your mom or your dad or maybe your grandma raised you or your grandpa raised you and they said something and you told you said to yourself, I hate when they say that I will never say that when I’m older or I will never do that.
If, when I’m older, I’ll never do that. Why are you laughing? So many of you are laughing?
Exactly. It’s the exact same thing you do.
And then you go like this, you say it and then you go, I’ve become my dad.
Learned response behavior is part of human development, learned response behavior.
Listen, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. I am not endorsing intoxication.
It’s wrong. Listen, there are people who live in fear, they’ve never touched a drop of alcohol, but they live in fear because their parents were alcoholics and they say that they are.
What’s the word? Uh, there’s a, there’s a term, no, sorry that there’s a term.
It’s a term where, oh, if, if that one drop or two touch on my tongue, I’m going to be an alcoholic.
Okay. No, just forget it. None of you have. It just don’t even try.
Where does that word?
I can’t remember come from, it comes from what is known as learned response behavior.
You say man, I don’t want to, I don’t want to be like that.
What happens is this? Why is it that girls who were raised by a bad dad wind up dating a guy just like their dad?
That is insane. And yet they do it. Why, why is that?
Why is it that when somebody grows up and their life comes under stress and they, it’s, it’s for them, it’s time to freak.
They wind up reaching for Jim Beam or Jack Daniels. How come?
Because when they were little, they watched their parents deal with problems by going to Jim Beam and Jack Daniels.
Are you hearing me? So it’s in my D N A?
It’s not in your D N A. Hitler knew this very well. It’s learned response behavior.
You see it, you might even disapprove of it but you see it and that, that’s stamped inside of you.
That’s how a person is supposed to act when they’re under stress they are to reach for a bottle or they are to beat the wall or throw stuff or whatever it is.
That cycle, the Bible says, God will visit the sins of the parents to the Children, to the fourth or fifth generation.
Why does it say that? Are they doomed?
No, God will see the sins of the Children do exactly what the parents did.
It’s gonna continue generational sin until the chain is broken. That’s what God is saying.
Oh my, my dad was a bank robber. Does that mean I’m gonna be a bank robber?
Because God visits that. No, you’re not doomed.
The chain is broken by Jesus Christ. He breaks that chain.
You are not your parents think of it.
And you know how we got, oh we got on that topic because of the word same an example to leave behind a copy or a figure.
The word means a pattern to follow. This is of course, in the negative meaning not to follow their example.
Don’t be like them. Proverbs chapter one verse 10. Let’s write these down.
Let’s go through these for a moment.
Here’s some bad examples or to watch out, I should say for bad examples With the time we have left.
Let’s do this. You guys ready to write down here we go. Proverbs one verse 10, my child.
If sinners entice you okay.
So the school season just started your kids in school now watch out pray for your kids, right?
Get into their life. Ask them questions. How was your day?
Listen, if sinners entice you turn your back on them young people today.
Listen, if somebody is enticing you to do the wrong thing, turn your back on them.
There’s a young man. Well, he used to be young.
There’s a young man that used to attend this church. He was at a party.
His parents told him don’t go to the party.
He went to a party, drinking broke out in the party, drugs broke out in the party.
In fact, there’s a situation where even the the coke, not cocaine, Coca Cola and Sprite and all that stuff had been drugged.
So thank God, he saw this quick enough and realized I gotta go, I gotta go.
And so he’s looking for a ride home. This is a real story happened with a kid from this church.
He finds a ride. Some guys are leaving the party and he says he asked them, can you take me and where are you going?
We’re going into Brea wherever it was. Fullerton, can you drop me? That’s on my way?
Can you drop me in Carbon Canyon?
Yeah, we’ll take, you gets in the car and the driver is stoned.
The driver collides with another vehicle and kills the individuals in that car, the innocent and the whole bunch of them, including this young man went to prison.
He’s still there. That’s been I think 20 something years.
No one stupid decision in a moment, gets in the car with strangers and his life ended my child.
If sinners entice you turn your back on them, they may say come and join us, let’s hide and kill someone just for fun.
Sounds like Chicago. Sounds like L A. Sounds like D C. Let’s ambush the innocent.
That’s all over the internet. Now you can watch that.
Let’s swallow them up alive or swallow them alive like the grave. Let’s swallow them whole.
Like those who go down to the pit of death.
Think of the great things will get, we’ll fill our houses with all the stuff we take.
Smash and grab. Isn’t this amazing?
I’m reading a 3000 year old paragraph just for that alone.
If you’re not a Christian tonight that should do it. Turn on the TV.
Look at this verse become a Christian.
God knew all this stuff was coming.
Verse 14, come throw in your lot with us.
We’ll all share the loot, right? Bad guys robbing from people are going to share with one another.
That’s cute. My child don’t go along with them. Stay far away from their paths.
Verse 16, they rush to commit evil deeds, they hurry to commit murder. First Corinthians.
15, do not be deceived. Evil company, corrupts good habits.
It takes a parent of years to school inside someone, their child, how to do it, how to do it right?
How to live, right? And it takes seconds for some rogue kid to lead your child away.
So what’s the, what’s the fix, fortify your child against these people?
Have your kids read these verses, write them down tonight. Take pictures of them, show them on the way home.
Seriously. Make it their screensaver on their device.
First, Corinthians 1533 is small enough to tattoo across their forehead.
Actually in such a way that when they look in the mirror, it reads correctly to them.
They can. Proverbs 13: verse 20.
Proverbs 13 20 says he who walks with the wise will be wise, boy. Isn’t that true?
You walk around with, with wise people, you know what your wise people wind up making you wiser think of that.
That’s so true. You hang around with idiots and you’re gonna become an idiot.
It’s just a fact.
The old same birds of a feather flock together, man, I’m gonna, I’m gonna get way off here.
Birds of a feather flock together. That’s the point.
Don’t, don’t hang out with the crazies, hang out with the wise.
So a couple of years ago, two or three years ago, our backyard is basically a nature preserve.
It’s like a zoo. We should sell tickets.
And so we noticed that there were no birds in our backyard and it was silent.
Exactly. I’m thinking, oh, here come the hawks are back.
No hawks because every time a dove or a sparrow or a finch woodland out of this out of, one of our olive trees would plummet this thing.
It kind of freaked us out.
It just went straight down and just rammed the bird with its beak.
And we’re watching this and then we took a picture of it.
We started looking and I can’t, I’m sorry, but I can’t remember the name.
Um, but maybe you’ve seen them, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re here illegally. It’s a bird. It was brought here.
No, no, not this, their, their native to North Africa, they were brought here illegally and they were released.
It’s a little tiny finch. It’s black and white with a red beak, but it has a tail that’s 18-20″ long and it’s jet black and when it flies up, it is stalled in the air and it flap its wings which are beautifully colored.
Uh, and then it fans out its tail and the whole size of the finches.
This big, the whole size of it from circumference.
It’s amazing but violent, very, very violent bird and it attacks anything that goes out there.
And so you look at this thing where it has completely corrupted our backyard because of its attitude and its demeanor.
I looked it up and here’s what we found out.
It’s from both North Africa, portions of North Africa and southern Saudi Arabia.
And it is, I want to say Haiti, but I don’t think that’s the right word.
But if you look up California finch with a long tail.
You’ll see this incredibly beautiful black and white thing. It’s not from here.
It’s very angry and it ruins, it ruins everything. And I’m telling you birds of a feather flock together.
This bird. He’s got, he’s got his four, there’s four females with him all the time and there’s him and he beats up everybody else and that’s his world.
He knows four people. I mean, he knows four.
He’s got four girls that hang out with him and that’s it. And he thinks that’s great.
What’s the deal? Everybody else gets along. All of the other finches are fine.
The doves are fine. Everybody’s fine. Not them, not him. He refuses it to happen.
People can be like that mark people that you know, watch out.
Don’t link up if you sense that warning on the inside.
God’s given you discernment, something’s wrong here, something’s wrong. Don’t move any further.
Call somebody do something else but don’t do what the warning is. Warning you about.
Don’t do it something just it’s just off, you know, I mean, it’s just like this, this is just off.
Be careful. God speaking. He wants to guide you. Proverbs 30 verse 20.
He who walks with the wise will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.
Wow. Are you guys? Okay? We’re almost done. Second Peter two verse two and many will follow their destructive ways.
He’s talking about the last days because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed if you have friends that just think Christianity is a big joke and God is a loser and uh blah, blah, blah.
What are you hanging out with them for? You’re gonna wind up getting your faith murdered.
And Matthew 24 verse four, and Jesus answered and said to them, take heed that no one deceives you nobody.
And then Proverbs 29 verse 25. This is an incredible verse.
Proverbs 29, the fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.
That’s a good verse. The word snare here means a noose to set for the catching of an animal.
A hook to the knows that a weird word, a hook to the nose.
You mean a punch to the nose? No, it’s a hook in the nose. We don’t relate to that.
But listen, in ancient times, Persian Empire, Babylonian Empire.
Even the Romans did it when they captured in 70 A D when General Titus Vespasian In 70 AD came to put down the uprising in Jerusalem.
He took the Jews captive and brought them back to Italy, brought them back to Rome and they had people hooked in the, they hooked Jews right here and the lip with a hook.
You can see those hooks, by the way in Rome, they haven’t been museums.
Uh and you hook them to the neck.
They had neck irons, right you’ve seen that before. Right.
And then this chain is connected to a hook and that goes into this guy’s lip and you have thousands of people hooked together.
Listen, there’s no trouble. You move, they’ll move. Nobody acts up. It’s brilliant. Right.
The other way was a way that you might even be familiar with, you know, the skin between your nose, like, think of a bull where you put a ring and a bull’s nose.
Okay. We don’t see, you know, bulls every day. There’s maybe a few in the hills.
I don’t know, but they’re massive and they’re pretty scary.
But if you notice a bull that has the ring in the nose right there.
A little kid could walk up and grab that ring and that bull is like this.
You could, you could lead that bull around like this because it hurts so bad having that hook.
That’s the word that’s here.
The fear of man hooks you, the fear of people’s opinions about you puts a hook in your nose and their opinion.
They could be on the other side of the globe.
You don’t even know who they are and then you can comment on your social media which you should probably shouldn’t have anyway because you can’t handle it.
Look, if you’re sensitive, you should not have social media, I guess unless you sell flowers, I guess.
But then somebody could say your flowers stink and now there goes your world.
So not everybody should have social media. Okay.
But some stranger could say from Milwaukee, you know what you’re this and that and your, you literally get depressed.
I was possible. How is that humanly possible? Why are you so sad?
Somebody, they left this comment on my, what they say?
They said that I was a listen to that are, you know, well, then what are you crying for?
Because that’s a really mean thing to say. Who cares? Do you know them?
No, but they’re my friend.
No, we have allowed ourselves to be snared by people instead of fearing God.
We’re more fearful of what someone might say and that my friend will murder faith.
Opinions can kill in this day and age.
How many kids are being bullied online who wind up taking their life?
This is, you want to talk about a pandemic? That’s a pandemic.
And then this word, I have 30 seconds, the words safe.
Those who trust in the Lord shall be saved. The word means to be listened.
In fact, put on the screen.
Look at this to be in, in an accessibly high place, to be greatly exalted, to be set securely on high and in an unassailable place.
I see for me, I see this. In fact, church let’s stand together. I see this. I see God.
God’s got me in his hands and it’s true. It is true.
People, people can attack us, they could shoot us, they could behead us, they could skin us.
They, that’s been going, it’s happening to Christians for thousands of years. That is true. But that’s just your body.
God has got us in his hand. Think about it like this.
He’s got us like this and every demon in hell and Satan himself just can’t get that high.
God’s got you in his hands.
Remember that you wanna walk free, walk before the Lord and be very, very diligent to get his heart regarding your life on a daily basis.
And no man, no woman, no, no, nothing will be able to stop you because you can’t put a prison around your spirit.
You can’t put you, you can’t, you can’t be stopped in Christ.
We only go to heaven, we only go to heaven. Father God.
We praise you tonight. And Lord I ask in jesus’ name, Lord that you would baptize us a fresh and the power of your holy spirit.
Father God that you would galvanize us against this world.
And Lord that you send us out into the underbelly of this culture.
This culture is hurting and broken, send us to the wounded, to the hurting Lord.
If it’s with hands, if it’s with feet, if it’s with the message, if it’s with money, if it’s with a bottle of water, Lord send us here.
We are, send us Lord.
May we do all of the things that are vital to nurturing a healthy living faith.