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I have appreciated the comments in the last few weeks regarding the series on the invisible

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war.

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I'm glad that God is using these remarks to help us understand what true reality is all

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about.

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We live in a world that is based upon lies.

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Our cultural worldview is one that is based upon things that are unbiblical.

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Currently with man being in the center of the universe, that's just not the way it

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is.

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God is at the center of His universe.

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And God in His Word tells us what true reality is all about.

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We've looked at something of the makeup of the spirit realm the last couple of weeks.

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I think today we need to back up a bit and remind ourselves that the warfare that we're

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in is not just with spirits.

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That's part of it.

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But there's a context in which they work.

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The warfare that we have is a warfare on three fronts.

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I invite you to open your Bible with me to 1 John chapter 2.

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I'm going to begin reading in verse 12 of the second chapter of 1 John.

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I am writing to you little children because your sins are forgiven you for His name's

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sake.

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I am writing to you fathers because you know Him who has been from the beginning.

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I am writing to you young men because you have overcome the evil one.

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I have written to you children because you know the Father.

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I have written to you fathers because you know Him who has been from the beginning.

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I have written to you young men because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you

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and you have overcome the evil one.

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Do not love the world nor the things in the world.

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If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

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For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the

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boastful pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world.

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And the world is passing away and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God

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abides forever.

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Just why John uses these three terms to describe his readers we do not know.

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Little children, fathers, young men.

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He may be referring to chronological age or perhaps to maturity level in the things of

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God.

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But perhaps the best explanation is simply this, that he is using these names applying

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each term to all of us.

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For in some sense all of us are little children.

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In some sense all of us are like mature adults, fathers.

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And in some sense all of us are like young men in the strength of their lives.

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Your sins are forgiven for his namesake.

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You know the Father as the little children of God.

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You know him who has been from the beginning as those who are mature adults.

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You have overcome the evil one.

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You are strong and the word of God abides in you as energetic, strong people in the

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prime of their lives.

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Young men.

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The apostle tells us in this brief text that our warfare is on three fronts.

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There are three enemies that we must fight.

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There is the evil one, the external, the infernal enemy.

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There is the world, the external enemy.

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And there is the flesh, the internal enemy.

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Let's begin with the infernal enemy, the evil one, Satan, who is mentioned several

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times in this book.

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Chapter 2 verse 14 we have seen him mentioned.

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And called the evil one.

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And in chapter 3 verse 12 he mentions Cain who was of the evil one.

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In chapter 5 verse 18 he says, we know that no one who is born of God sins, but he who

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was born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him.

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Verse 19, we know that we are of God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil

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one.

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We don't have to guess as to the identity of this evil one.

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Of course Satan.

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In chapter 3 verse 8 he is called the devil.

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John says the one who practices sin is of the devil.

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The devil has sinned from the beginning.

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And again in verse 10, by this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious.

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John tells us that the devil has sinned from the beginning.

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This idea of the beginning is an important idea to John.

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You see it in the Gospel of John.

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In the beginning was the word.

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And now again in this first epistle John several times mentions the beginning.

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He is talking about that epoch, that period before the seven days of creation recorded

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for us in the book of Genesis.

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But after God had begun his creative work, there is some period that is there.

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We do not know the time involved in that period.

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But it is in that period that God created the mass out of which he formed the world.

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It is in that period that God created the spirit beings that we have talked about the

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last two weeks.

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And it seems to be in that period from what John says that the devil fell from his exalted

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place guarding the throne of God and he sinned.

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He sinned.

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And we know from the account of the book of Genesis that the devil then entered into the

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world after God had created it in Adam and Eve.

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And he brought sin into this perfect world that God had made.

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And throughout the history of humanity he has worked to reproduce sin in the lives of

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those who are the descendants of Adam and Eve and those who follow him.

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And he says in chapter 3 and verse 12 that Cain is an example of that, the son of Adam

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and Eve.

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He says that we should not be as Cain who was of the evil one and slew his brother.

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Fear comes from the devil.

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The taking of innocent human life comes from Satan.

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It is of the devil.

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He is interested in doing anything that he can to perpetuate evil in God's world.

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Satan is a determined foe of God.

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He is steadfast in his hatred of all human beings.

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Even those who serve him he hates.

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He abuses them and ultimately he destroys them.

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Even though he deceives many of them into thinking that somehow he is their friend.

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He hates them.

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He hates all humans.

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But especially is his hatred focused upon those who profess faith in God and in the

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Lord Jesus Christ.

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You and I have an infernal enemy.

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His name is Satan.

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He is the evil one.

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And in this series on spiritual warfare we are especially going to be focusing on him.

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And so I am not going to say a great deal about him this morning.

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But let's go on to set in context this warfare against the enemy on the front of the infernal.

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Because we have another front that we need to be alert to and that is our external front.

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Our enemy here is the world.

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The world.

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John says to us, do not love the world.

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The world he says is passing away.

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Don't love it.

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The word world here is the word cosmos.

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Cosmos.

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That's a rather familiar word to us.

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Literally the word cosmos means an order or an arrangement of something.

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When this word is used of the world in this context as in 1 John it means that present

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order of unbelieving humanity which stands in opposition to God and which is dominated

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by satanic principles of greed, force, selfishness, ambition and pleasure.

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I want to repeat that definition.

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The world, the cosmos is that present arrangement or order of unbelieving humanity which stands

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in opposition to God and is dominated by satanic principles of greed, force, selfishness, ambition

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and pleasure.

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Regarding the world the editors of the Schofield Study Bible have a helpful comment.

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I quote, the world system is imposing and powerful with military might, is often outwardly

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religious, scientific, cultured and elegant.

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But seething with national and commercial rivalries and ambitions is upheld in any real

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crisis only by armed force.

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What they're saying is that on the exterior the world may appear very alluring and attractive.

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It may be refined and cultured and even religious.

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But beneath that exterior there is a seething selfish force that is based upon satanic principles.

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All aspects of human culture and society are affected by evil.

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That is not to say that culture itself is inherently evil.

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That is not the case.

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Human beings have culture.

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Culture is not inherently evil but evil affects it, you see.

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Every culture is to some degree or extent influenced and twisted by evil.

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Now I would say that a culture to the extent that it adheres to the principles of God's

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Word is less twisted by evil.

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To the extent that it is given to idolatry and thus the worship of demons and Satan,

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it is nearly thoroughly affected by evil.

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Why is it that the Western culture and especially our American culture is changing so rapidly?

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It is because the Christian biblical principles that have held it in place have been eroded

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and are being removed rapidly resulting in a twisting of our culture by the evil one.

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So our entertainment industry is today fomenting evil.

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We sometimes hear the executives of that industry defend themselves by saying, well, we're just

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reflecting what's happening in society.

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And in fact they very well may be, but they are also exacerbating what's happening in

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society.

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The entertainment industry in our culture is very guilty of the destruction of our culture.

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But it doesn't stop there.

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We could talk about commerce.

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We could talk about those principles that control the big corporations of our nation

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as well as the small businesses.

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We could talk about the greed and the selfishness, the ambition that is a part of that.

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That is thorough worldliness.

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And it does not come from the Father.

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We could talk about politics.

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Probably shouldn't.

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And I say that simply because we all know it so well.

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The politics, our current political system is rife with corruption.

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It does not serve the interests of the people of this nation or of this state.

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It serves the interests of those who are in power and who want to stay in power at any

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cost.

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Even the enslavement of those who have put them in those positions, worldliness, evil.

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And it is in religion, even in religion that is under the name of Christianity.

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There are tears among the wheat.

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There is that in Christianity today which is false.

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And whole denominations are being led down paths of evil because of the influence of

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Satan within them.

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So that denominations that a hundred years ago or more were preaching the gospel of Jesus

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Christ and founded institutions, educational institutions to benefit humanity.

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Those same denominations today have so conformed to the world that they are leading their adherence

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to eternal destruction.

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Art, education, the media.

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You pick out anything you want to pick out in the world and you find there underneath

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a surface that seems to glitter.

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A heart that is evil.

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What does John say about the world in our text?

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He says that all that is in the world is not of the Father.

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Now he is not talking about the created things.

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You understand that.

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I mean our Father created everything that is in this world.

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All of the good in this world is from Him.

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But all of this insidious evil that is in the world is of the world.

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It comes out of the world's values and its principles.

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So however enticing those things may appear, they do not come from God.

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Its entertainment, its rewards, its goals, its ideas, all of these things are intended

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to lead away from the knowledge of God and from His values.

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The world utilizes the drives and the appetites of human beings to entice, to blind, and to

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enslave us to those things that it wants us to focus on.

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And what are they?

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The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life.

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Just to boil those down to three simple words, the world wants us to focus on pleasure, possessions,

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grace, and power.

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Now you tell me if the Western culture isn't thoroughly worldly.

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Are those not the three highest values in America today?

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Pleasure?

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Entertainment is the God of America.

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Americans worship at the shrine of entertainment.

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Entertainers and movie stars are the gods and goddesses of America.

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They are as ignorant as most other people on most subjects.

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But if there is an issue, they come to town and they speak and everyone listens to what

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the movie star says.

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Isn't that right?

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Am I wrong?

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They are the gods and goddesses of this pleasure-worshipping society we live in.

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Possessions?

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The whole advertising and marketing business of our culture is geared to make us buy things

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we don't need with money we don't have.

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So we can have them.

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Possessions and then position.

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Being important.

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Being somebody who's got prestige and power.

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America worships power.

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Our culture is thoroughly worldly and dear people, I have to say this to my own shame

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and to that of our church and most churches in America, if not all of them, we are worldly

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too.

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We have conformed to this world because we so easily make pleasure, possessions and power

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the driving forces in our lives as well.

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There is need for all of us to repent of worldliness.

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Thirty years ago when I was growing up, worldliness was very easily defined.

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Drinking, smoking, dancing, going to movies, some of you are smiling, you remember those

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days.

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As long as you didn't do those things, you weren't worldly, you were a good Christian.

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Now we bought that and the result of it is that we have been deceived into thinking still

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today that worldliness is exterior things.

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No, worldliness is the attitude of the heart.

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Worldliness is what drives us.

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Worldliness is the values that we hold that cause us to do the things that we do on the

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exterior.

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Worldliness is a heart attitude.

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That's why John says, to us, love not the world.

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Do not love the world.

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If you profess faith in Jesus Christ, there is another reason not to love the world.

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Verse 13 of chapter 3 says, do not marvel, brethren, if the world hates you.

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You see the world system hates God.

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Its whole organization is to lead people away from God.

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And so those of us who profess faith in Jesus Christ are the objects of the world's hatred.

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It's hatred.

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The world is no friend to the child of God.

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This front of the external enemy of the world is one where we have lost the battle.

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And we have a lot of work to do to reclaim that ground because I believe that I and many

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of us are so worldly in our ideas that we don't even realize it.

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We're so deceived by it.

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And thus when people come from other cultures to America, the great land of opportunity,

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and they have any Christian values at all, they are shocked at the state of the church.

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And missionaries who are gone three or four or five years at a time and return home go

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through a worse culture adjustment coming back to the church of America than they faced

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when they went to the foreign land.

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Because we are so much on the skids, not only in culture in the world, but in the church.

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We need to get to the internal enemy, the third front.

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What is it?

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Well, it's the flesh.

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John mentions the lust of the flesh and notice that he incorporates the flesh in with the

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world here.

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There's a reason for that that we'll get to in a few minutes.

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What is the flesh?

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The New Testament uses this word several ways, but here it is referring to that part of our

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fallen humanness that is unredeemed.

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Ray Stedman says, quote, it is the urge to self-centeredness within us, the distortion

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of human nature which makes us want to be our own God, that proud ego, that uncrucified

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self which is the seat of willful defiance and rebellion against authority, close quote.

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The flesh that all of us battle is centered in our unredeemed bodies and it relates to

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our mind, our emotion, and our wills.

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The flesh is that imprint upon our person that is still intact even after the death

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of the old self, the old man that we were before we came to Jesus Christ.

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The flesh is that leftover programming within us, that programming that was put in place

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by the old man that we were before coming to Christ, that old man that was crucified

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with Christ.

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The flesh is the responses, the values, the ideals, the goals which were programmed into

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us by the old man.

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Neil Anderson says, your flesh is that part of you which was trained to live independent

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of God before you became a Christian.

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Even though you have come to Jesus Christ, if that be the case, there still is within

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you, within me, this flesh out of which come all kinds of lusts and drives and appetites

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that are opposed to God.

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How do these enemies to our spiritual development and success relate to one another in this

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spiritual war?

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Just want to make five statements before I close.

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Number one, here's how they relate.

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Number one, the devil created, cultivates, and maintains the world system.

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We read in chapter five and verse 19, the whole world, the cosmos, lies in the power

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of the wicked one, the evil one.

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The world system is his baby.

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The picture there is of an adult holding a baby, rocking the baby in his arms.

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The world system is the devil's baby.

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It's his thing.

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God created the physical world.

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The devil created this arrangement or order of things that is opposed to God, that controls

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unredeemed humanity.

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So you see that there's a relation between these two fronts of the devil and the world.

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It is the devil who created the world.

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It is the devil who cultivates the world.

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It is the devil who maintains it.

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Number two, the flesh, the third front we've talked about, is stimulated by both the devil

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and the world.

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You see these are not three independent enemies that we face.

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They work together.

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My flesh has appetites and drives that are ungodly.

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I don't need the world or the devil to create sin for me to struggle with.

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But the fact is that both the devil and the world utilize my flesh as a base of operations.

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My flesh provides them an inner ally.

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I have an internal responder to external temptation from the devil and from the world.

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Satan knows our vulnerable points.

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He knows what our flesh is like.

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And so he seeks to exploit our weaknesses, those areas of struggle with sin that we naturally

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have because of just who we are.

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He seeks to aggravate and to exploit our weaknesses.

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And then he looks for vulnerable times in our lives, like periods of depression or crisis,

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which he may also exploit.

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And the reason is that he might put pressure on us in our place of weakness or our time

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of vulnerability to displease God.

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That's what temptation is.

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It's pressure.

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And so he uses our flesh.

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And the world system, which is his baby out here, knows how to entice our flesh.

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Number three, all three of these enemies have been dealt defeat by the cross of the Lord

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Jesus Christ.

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Let me give you some scriptures to look up on your own.

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Defeating the devil, 1 John 3, 8.

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For this reason, the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.

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Judgment came on the devil at the cross, John 12, 31, John 16, 11.

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What about the world?

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Galatians 6, 14, Paul says, I boast only in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, by whom

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the world is what?

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Crucified to me and I to the world.

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Jesus said to us, I have overcome the world, John 16, 33.

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What about the flesh?

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The apostle Paul says, I, as the old man, have been crucified with Christ.

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Nevertheless, I, as a new man, live.

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And the life which I now live in the flesh, he's talking there about his body, I live

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by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

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The old man was crucified and put to death, and thus its programming, the flesh that's

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still in me, was dealt with at the cross.

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You and I face an enemy on three fronts, the devil, the world, and the flesh.

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But listen, each of those enemies has been dealt with by the cross of the Lord Jesus

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Christ.

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He came into the world, became one of us, he went to the cross and died, and then was

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raised from the dead, is exalted at the right hand of God today so that you and I can walk

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in victory over the devil, the world, and the flesh.

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Number four, our enemy, excuse me, our victory over each enemy comes through our position

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in Christ.

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It is because of who we are in Jesus Christ that we can experience victory.

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Christ gave the death blow to them.

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And now because you and I who have trusted him are in Christ, we may have victory over

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these enemies.

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It is because of who we are in Christ.

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Paul said, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ who lives in me.

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It is the indwelling Christ.

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It is the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

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It is because of our ability to come to God directly and pray that you and I can experience

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victory over the flesh, the world, and the devil.

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Our victory comes through Jesus Christ and our position in him.

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The last statement I want to make is that the spiritual war must be fought on all three

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fronts simultaneously.

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We don't have the luxury of fighting for a little while against the flesh and laying

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that aside and then going to the devil and defeating him and saying, well he's finished,

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now go to the world.

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It doesn't work that way.

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It's a multi-dimensional war.

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And the only way that you and I can fight that war is in the strength of the Lord.

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Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, says Paul.

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The temptations that come to us are multi-dimensional.

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You say, well how do I know if it's the flesh or the devil or the world?

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You know really it doesn't make any difference.

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The answer is the same whichever it comes.

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And besides that all three of them are working together all the time.

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The answer to facing temptation is to say no to it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

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The battle begins in our mind and then it becomes our attitudes and then our actions

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and finally our character.

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And so we need to fight the battle in our minds, to win the battle in our minds with

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the truth.

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Every person listening to me today who names Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is either

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a victor or a victim of this multi-dimensional enemy that we've talked about.

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You say, well I'm not really a victor right now but I don't see myself as a victim either.

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You're on your way one direction or the other.

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It's sort of like a light switch.

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It's either on or it's off.

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Either you and I are walking in victory or we are walking in defeat and we are victims.

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We just don't know it yet.

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That's why it's so important that you and I press for victory.

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That we not just flow with the stream.

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That we not just give up apathetically and just rest.

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We need to keep pressing for victory.

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And claim who we are in Jesus Christ and walk by faith and the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

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There are some people who respond to this by saying, hey I'm just not interested in

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that kind of stuff.

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I don't want to learn about spiritual warfare because if I learn about it I may get attacked.

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There's a real failure in that logic.

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You are under attack.

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You cannot avoid being attacked.

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What you can do is get armed and begin walking in victory in Jesus Christ.

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And that's what I want all of us to experience as we press ahead in this series on spiritual

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warfare.

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I want us to learn who we are in Jesus Christ and how to utilize the authority that we have

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in Him to experience consistent victory in our lives.

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Is that where you are today?

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I know some of you are.

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And I rejoice with you.

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But if you today are living in defeat, if you're a victim of your own lusts, of the

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world, of the devil, then today determine in your heart that by the grace of God you're

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not going to be victimized anymore.

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You're going to learn what it means to walk in victory in Christ.

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God will show you, He will teach you, and you will experience the fullness of all that

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He has in Christ for you.

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Let's bow together.

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I know I'm talking to some who are very discouraged today in your Christian walk.

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I don't know what the battle may have been this last week or what the time is that you're

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passing through, but God does.

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God does.

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And friend, if you're defeated, don't be discouraged.

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Don't be discouraged.

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Respond to defeat by looking to the Lord Jesus Christ and acknowledging first of all your

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defeat and the sin that's involved in that, and then asking Him to fill you afresh, to

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do a new work in your heart, to truly be the Lord of your life and show you, to teach you,

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how to fight the good fight and to be a victor in Christ.

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I hope that will be your response this day, even right now as we pray.

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Father God, thank you for the Lord Jesus.

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Thank you that He came that we might be forgiven of our sins and have the abundance of life

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in Him.

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And I pray for myself and for all of my brothers and sisters here that we may experience what

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Jesus came to give us and that experiencing it we may walk in the victory that is Christ's.

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And I pray especially for those who are low today that they will respond positively, not

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wallow in defeat and discouragement, but repent and walk in the right direction.

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And begin seeking after you first, making you truly the Lord and King of their lives.

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I long for that and I know Lord that you desire it for all of us and so we rejoice today in

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who you are and the privilege we have even now to come to you and pray.

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Amen.