"Finish the Race" RESCUE RADIO with Marjorie Cole

0:00 Music. Rescue Radio, because there's a war for your soul. Yes, Father God, we are in the war, and the war has already been won. What a paradox. Lord God, encourage our hearts today, draw the people in to hear, give them eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to receive the revelation of your love and your encouragement to walk in the truth and not to be ashamed, to walk in the power of the truth and the power of your love, because you are faithful to complete the work that you have begun in us.

0:52 And so I thank you, Father, that your will be done, O God, on earth, in and through us this day. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. And that you will give us gratitude, attitudes of gratitude for what you are doing in the midst of us, in the midst of our fiery trials, in the midst of all the confusion and all the ways that Satan has set up to look like you are the enemy and the bad guy. Lord Jesus, how can you be the bad guy when you laid down your life for us and bought and paid for our salvation with your precious blood. And not only that, but you gave us power and authority over all the power of the enemy. And you've asked us to help you to bring in the harvest, preach the gospel, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead.

1:33 What else is there to do that's of any value other than what you've asked us to do? Because thy kingdom come and everything is, there's high stakes in this war. So Lord, I pray that you give us today your encouragement. As we look at the race and how to follow you, and we bind the powers of darkness, the generational spirits, the familiar spirits, the tormenting spirits, those that have taken such liberty to attack us relentlessly in however ways they deem their desire, that they will be exposed, bound, and resisted, that you give the people eyes and mouths to shut the mouths of the devil, the enemy, and command him to leave. And I thank you, Lord, for the promise that no weapon formed against us will prosper, that no word said, deed, done, or action taken will be able to be used by the enemy to bring forth any shame, trouble, or reproach, that, Lord God, you are God, and ultimately and forever and always, your will be done. In Jesus' name, amen.

2:30 Amen. Well, the Bible says that this Christian life, is a race. It's like a race. And so we're in the race, you know, a race, a regular race has a starting line, and then there's the race itself, and then there's the finishing line. A lot of pain and exhaustion in the midst of all that. Oh, yeah, a lot of training, you know, for runners. But you know what? The race is really about the simple thing that Jesus said, follow me. So the race is the race to follow Jesus, and we're not racing against competing with anyone else. We're just following Jesus in the course that he has set for our lives.

3:14 And that's the thing to remember is that each of us have an individual course, an individual race. Sometimes we look at other people and say, well, what's this guy going to do? Yeah, we don't. And we compare ourselves with ourselves. Paul says if we compare ourselves with ourselves. We're not wise. We're not wise. But he does, yeah. It's foolish to do that. So, basically, we have a course to follow. And Jesus said— And it's in the context of everybody else running their race, too. Right. Bumping into each other. We have—we're—I can use that word. I use the word responsible. Okay, good. We are responsible to follow the course, the individual course, that individual race that he has for us. Yes, and in that individuality, there's also some general ideas and principles.

4:02 For example, in Galatians 6, 9, he says, Do not grow weary, for let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not faint or lose heart. Therefore, having an opportunity, let us do good, especially to those who are of the household of faith. So he's saying, don't grow weary in well-doing, for in due season you will reap. Now, this is the race, as you said, has parts. The beginning, the middle. The middle is the hard part because that's where it can be endless and lots of waiting, lots of confusion, lots of I don't know why this is happening. We can grow weary very easily. And those people who grow weary, and that's kind of like the soil, the parable of the soil to the people that are the word that's sown in the thorny ground and the rocky ground.

4:44 They don't have endurance. There isn't that commitment to endurance. But he says, in Proverbs he says, without a revelation, the people cast off restraint, without a prophetic vision, without the vision for your life, without knowing, you can't just run a race because there's a race. You got to have a reason for running the race, and without that revelation of God and the people cast off restraint. What is our, you know, to hold steady, to hold the line, to not give up, to not get distracted, to not give up and go away and get discouraged what. What do we need to know? Because actually this race is hard. It is not easy. Jesus didn't say, it's going to be an easy walk, a cakewalk. He said, follow me.

5:25 And most of the people, if not all of them who follow Jesus, had great difficulties, suffering. Many died, you know, some, you know, at the hands of their enemies, martyred, whatnot. And so the race is not an easy race. So we need to have a for sure absolute anchoring in why we're doing this. Many have died for their faith. Many are dying for their faith right now. And what you hear from the people that are in great, severe persecution all around the world, they say, well, don't pray that we'll get out of this. Pray that we'll be faithful to the Lord through this. Well, they then obviously have some real strong ideas of why they're in this race.

6:06 But the thing is, why do we join the race? What is your motive or reason for joining the race? because, you know, the Bible is, this is difficult. Now, so is it, are we doing this because it's the good thing and because we want to make God happy? Or is it because of a relationship with God? Are we doing it out of works and religion or out of relationship? And that really changes the whole perspective of why we're doing something. If you can, if you're a parent and it gets hard and the child is sick and there's difficulties in finance, And the reason you get up at night, the reason you, you know, do all the things you do for them is because of your love for them, because of the relationship.

6:48 So this race is only to those who really want to know or have known or has seen the revelation of God's love for them. Yeah, and that's it. The revelation of God's love, John writes in 1 John, we love him because he first loved us. Well, and, you know, there's the call, too. You know, he says, for those he called, he predestined, he called. So the race is an answer to the call, the invitation. It's an individual, custom-made purpose for us. And Ephesians chapter 2, beginning of verses 8 through 10, it talks about, by grace are we saved through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is a gift of God.

7:31 Not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which he has before ordained that we should walk in them. Let's keep that in mind. There is a plan. It's just like, it's like an architect, right? They do the drawing for a building. First. First it is. And here's the plan. And everything we're going to do from excavation to the foundation to the construction. Everything that's done is going to be in fulfillment to make that plan a tangible reality. Well, you know, what does...

8:14 Success in running this race? What does it require? It really requires submission and obedience, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who also ran a race, a very powerful race, a very difficult race, absolutely. And then it also requires emptying out yourself. It's not about you. Yeah, the race is hard. There are super, super complicated demonic resistances to the race, to your life. And these are obstacles. And we don't understand the chastening of the Lord. Why doesn't God help us? We don't understand the nature of the spiritual battle or the war. And, you know, we say, where was God, you know, when I was building the church, when I was the missionary in China, when I was trying to do God's will and raising my children, where was God when all these bad things happened?

9:00 But you know what? I've been reading in the book of the Old Testament, the story of David. David was the king that God anointed, even when he was young, 17, 18, very young. And he had spent his time in the sheep pastures, protecting the sheep, learning how to take care of the sheep. And that's kind of what this is all about for a lot of us. But he had to fight the bear. He had to fight the lion. He worshiped God. He practiced his guitar a lot and he was really good at singing. And then he came, he was, you know, God looked upon all that and says, I'm going to call you. So God called him to a very difficult race because in the race that David was called to win or walk and run, there were giants, there were lions.

9:46 There were bears, and there was Saul. And Saul was insane. He would, the demon would come upon him and he'd throw spears at David. He chased him around. David for many years, even after he was anointed king, ran like a fugitive in the wilderness, troubled, attacked, hunted, haunted, betrayed. People in the cities would tell Saul where he was, and then they'd send, go after him. And just for many, this was ongoing. And here he's the king. He is the king, but he's not being able to be permitted to be the king. And so, you know, that's his life. He's called to be a king. We're called to be kings and priests unto God, but it might look like right now that you're being haunted and tracked and harassed and, you know, the devil's trying to kill us, which he was trying.

10:32 But David kept writing the Psalms. And if you want encouragement in your race, the best place to go for encouragement in that particular arena is the Psalms, because David is talking about being chased and tracked and trapped and hidden, and then God's faithful, God's good. Yeah, all around him. Enemies that were friends so he didn't give up enemies well he betrayed yeah so he he was you know really walking day by day moment by moment with God and so a part of the race is to be perfected you know. You know, chastened, if you will, and people don't understand that easily. But, you know, people who join the Navy SEALs, for example, there's a purposeful hardness to their course.

11:16 There is a purposeful, the difficulties are, you know, on purpose, you know, to train them up, to strengthen them, to pull out their gift, to give them confidence that they can do this, that they've done this. They've, you know, they defeated the temptations to cave and they've They've won their race by proving, seeing that they were able, by the grace and strength of God, to do what they were called to do. You know, they're trained in expertise in various areas of warfare and persistence. Persistence and endurance is a key kind of thing. And some people that, you know, life is hard in so many ways.

11:57 You know, it's harder and it's disastrous without Jesus, right? What happened in John chapter 6, Jesus is talking about him being the bread of life and so forth. And he's talking about, he said one place in John 6, 65 and 66, starting there, he says, Therefore I have said to you that no one could come to me unless it has been granted to him by my Father. From that time, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. And Jesus said to the 12, do you also want to go away? But Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have come to believe Jesus.

12:41 That you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the verse referenced on that is John 6, 6, 6. Yeah, yeah, verse, yeah. Chapter 6. Right, that from that time many of the disciples went back and walked no more with him. So basically they're just thinking, well, I mean, this is too hard. Maybe I'm not really called to this. Or maybe I've done something wrong. A lot of times I think we're seeing our trials as a correction, as a punishment from God, rather than as a strengthening course. And some have really started out real well, real strong, and have faded out at the end. Some start out real weak and come through strong at the end.

13:22 Solomon started out real strong. His heart was, he asked for wisdom. He had a heart after God so much, so tremendously. And God said, okay, I'm going to give you all this wealth. You're going to be the wealthiest person that ever lived. And then what happens at the end, And in the end, it says he loved many foreign women. He got involved. Seduced. He got seduced by these pagan women, 700 wives and 300 concubines, and they had all had their foreign gods. And he starts building temples to these foreign gods. Yeah, he built a temple to God, and then he built a temple to the foreign gods.

14:03 Many different high places. So people have that problem. They're trying to serve both gods. His heart departed from the Lord. So some people like that they start the race and their hearts depart from the Lord and they don't finish well. The important thing is that we finish well. Keep going and finish well. Well, Abraham also started the race. Now, this is important to look at what Abraham did in Romans 4. God came to Abraham. God called him up out of early Chaldees. Abraham was not a God follower. There was no such thing going on in those days, really. And in Romans 4, verse 13... And God made him a promise that he would be the heir of the world. It was not to Abraham to see it through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

14:46 So God made a promise to Abraham, and Abraham believed God. He believed the promise. He grabbed a hold of the promise. And that grabbing hold, that faith, believing God was going to fulfill his promise, was actually accounted to Abraham for righteousness. It wasn't that he was good enough and kept the law because, by the way, they didn't even have the Ten Commandments at that point in time yet because Moses hadn't even showed up yet. So Abraham's righteousness was coming through his commitment to follow God and to believe God. And this is really where your race is too. What is the promise that God has made to us? He's faithful to complete the work he's begun in us. But for Abraham, it was specific things. He'd be the heir of the world. He'd have descendants. He'd have all this land.

15:32 But really what God needed was one man who was faithful to follow him. He says in verse 19, for not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead. So he was in this race. He'd been in a long time, 25 years, waiting for a child. And since he was 100 years old and the deadness of Sarah's womb, he did not waver, good word, at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, being fully convinced, not by what he was seeing, but what God had said, being fully convinced that what he had promised, God had promised, he was also able to perform. And this really is the bottom line of the race. Are you believing that God is good, that God will keep his word?

16:15 And that, it says, therefore, that was accounted to him for righteousness. Now, the thing is, you have men of everybody, anybody, look at them, Abraham, Moses, David, Joseph, Prince of Egypt, Paul, all of them, they have all been sifted as wheat. So is Peter. As a matter of fact, Jesus kind of exposed the secret behind a lot of this chasing and sifting. When he talked to Peter, he says, Satan has... Desire to have you. So Satan came up into the court of heaven, again, like he did with Job, and he did with Abram. So now he's coming up with, you know, Peter, desiring to sift you as weak. Satan is always the one challenging God's ability to keep us, challenging God's appointments, God's anointing, God's anointed.

16:59 Satan is always wanting to sift us as wheat. And Jesus said to Peter, now Peter was at that point of being pretty confident in his walk right there. They'd been casting out demons and healing the sick and seeing the miracles. He was right there, Jesus' right hand. He was right there in that hot position. And then Jesus comes to him and says, this is right before the crucifixion. He says, Satan has showed up in heaven as he's asked for you. He's desired to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you. And when you are converted, strengthen your brethren. When you have been transformed. When you have passed from doing this in your own strength to doing this in the strength of the Spirit of God.

17:41 Then go and preach to the gospel and heal and strengthen your brethren. So part of this race is a transformation, a conversion. It's like from the caterpillar to the butterfly. You have to go into the chrysalis. You have to die to live. And so Peter wasn't knowing what he was getting into, but God did. And you and I are the same thing. We're no different. You say, well, that was Peter. Well, that was David. No, you are David. You are Peter. You are God's called. God is no respecter of persons. It's just that we got to read their stories. And, you know, our stories are still yet being written, so they weren't enclosed and included in the word of Scripture. But it is, you know, then we have to understand that God is for us.

18:26 We're answering the call. Here he says in In Romans, you know, Abraham answered the call. In Romans 9, it says, 29, for whom he, God, foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. So that's the goal for God. That's God's goal for us. Yeah. Yeah, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. To be like Jesus. You're among the brethren that belong to the family of God, the kingdom of God, the assets of heaven, the sons and daughters of God. And it says, moreover, who he predestined, these he also called. So this is you and I answering the invitation to run the race, to follow Jesus. We're not coerced, we're not forced, but we're invited, and the Holy Spirit draws us into that place of saying yes.

19:12 And our deal is to get through the... The distractions, the attacks, the things. Well, we just look at things, and it seemed like it was just very, very terrible. You know, here's the deal. Margie, you mentioned about the Psalms. David was always talking about, okay, my enemies are after me. They're hunting me. They're betraying me. And I'm just, I'm really down because of this. But then what he does, he catches himself. He ends up praising the Lord. Yeah, writing songs, worshiping. You are faithful. You're going to deliver me from my enemies. My enemies are going to be brought down. You're going to get me through this. Listen to the power of the words of his mouth. He's not murmuring, complaining, kicking himself. He starts out complaining a little bit about how hard things are.

19:56 Well, rehearsing, I think. He's rehearsing it before God. And I think that's okay. But then the thing is he caught himself and he used his words not against himself with murmuring, complaining, and finding fault with God. But he turned himself into a praiser and a worshiper of God. Because the bottom line is God's ultimate goal for you and I in this race following Jesus is to be conformed to the image of Jesus, to make us one with him, partners with him, more like him. But a lot of times, you know, we'll say, but why me, God, and what's going on. And I think we need to understand, going back to this idea of the Navy SEALs and the chastening of the Lord, which is in chapter 12 of Hebrews, where Jesus endured suffering, learning obedience, actually.

20:39 Jesus actually learned obedience through the things he suffered, which really, he wasn't disobedient, but he was proving his obedience by staying true to the Lord God. And I think that's in Hebrews chapter 5, verse 8. He himself was perfected through the things that he suffered. So there's a perfection, and that perfection is really more of a proving. It's more of a, you've had the opportunities now, you've passed the test, you've run the race, God has been faithful to keep you faithful. That's basically what's going on. But we also have a free will. So you and I can cave, we can crash, we can give up, we can get mad at God, we can turn from. And the problem is, Jerry, a lot of people don't understand spiritual warfare, and they don't understand the conniving of Satan to undermine our relationship with God and get us to turn against God and to twist this around to be like God is the one who's punishing us because he's mad at us, he's teaching us a lesson, we sinned.

21:32 And so Satan is always trying to twist this around to get us to judge God. We say we want to be like Jesus, so then, okay, then we need to go through things similar to what Jesus went through. You know, I mean, you want to be like, oh, Jesus was betrayed, he was attacked, he was lied about, He was resisted by the religious leaders. He was betrayed by his own people. And so, but he kept going. He kept going. Well, he kept talking. He was in deep relationship with the Father. Deep relationship with the Father. He said in John 17, when he was praying there, just before he was going to the cross, he says, Lord, Father, I have finished the work you've called me to do. Kept the faith. He finished the work.

22:15 And that was before he'd gone to the cross. But it was already done because the cross was completed actually before the foundation of the world. And he said on the cross, it is finished. It is completed. He ran the race. He ran it perfectly, and he finished perfectly. Well, in Hebrews 12, it talks about that kind of endurance. He says in verse 1, Therefore we also, we also, like Jesus, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us. I think the sin that so easily ensnares us is that temptation to doubt and to murmur and complain and give up.

22:57 So, so easily ensnares us. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Endurance. Just like you said, it's a matter of just trusting God. A lot of times we freak out because we're looking way down the road, trying to cross a bridge we're not at. We never maybe will get there, but we're worried that the bridge is still in place. And so we're worried about the future. We're worried about, oh, no, what if, and how am I going to... But God gives us grace for today, to run the race today, to do great today, to do well today. He gives us the grace, as your days, so shall your strength be. So Jesus was enduring, using the grace that God had given him for that day. Looking unto Jesus, it said, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.

23:44 In other words, he didn't give himself over to the molly grubbing and grumbling and murmuring that, oh, I did something wrong. It's my fault. God's mad at me. He didn't give place to that because he knew that the shame and the guilt and the condemnation was only the attack of the enemy who was trying to get him to give up and go away and do something different. That was the temptations that Satan gave him. If you will worship me, I'll give you all this stuff, you know. So he was tempted by the enemy as best as the devil could do to try to turn him away, Jesus, away from his race. And the enemy is constantly trying to distract us and get us out of the race, knock us out of the race, get us just to give up. And he fights not to even get us in the race, keep people from beginning to follow Jesus. And once we follow Jesus, then, you know, basically all hell breaks loose.

24:36 It's not just hunky-dory and flowers and everything like that. It's a war, but it's a good fight. It's a hand-to-hand combat sometimes. It's a good, Paul told Timothy, fight the good fight of faith. It's a good fight. Lay hold of eternal life. And he says, Paul, at the end of his life, he started out terrible. I mean, he was basically a religious snob who became a murderer, for killing Christians, he was a terrorist. He was just a flat-out terrorist, and then, but it gets to the point where it comes to the end of his life. God knocked some sense into him.

25:17 Yeah, well, and he says in verse 7 of chapter 4 of 2 Timothy, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, finally there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. Yeah, praise God. That day is coming, by the way. That day is a promised day, just like the other days. All the days God has promised will happen. You know, the sun is going to be dark and the moon is not going to give its light and all the shaking of it.

25:59 It's all going to happen. But now we're in the middle of this race and going back to this idea in Hebrews. The idea of chastening, a lot of times, you know, that's where we get tripped up because we don't really know two things. We don't really know that God is good all the time because it doesn't look like God's good all the time. You know, sometimes he's, in the Old Testament, he's having them, you know, wipe people out and, you know, the deluge and all these kinds of things. And he's, you know, so we say, well, what kind of a God is this? He is a good God all the time. But, you know, just like you may have a very good earthly father, there are times when he has to take some action. You know, call the shots, do some disciplining, whatever, to be a good father.

26:43 And so, again, but whenever that happens, Satan is always there to make it look like God is mad at us. And we don't understand that in Hebrews, it talks about here, it says, Jesus enduring such hostility from sinners as against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls or in your own race. For you have not resisted unto blood, you know, we haven't, some have actually, but we maybe haven't yet. Do not despise, he says, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him or disciplined by him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. Then he goes on to say, if you endure chasing, God is dealing with you as with his son.

27:28 But what son is there whom a father does not correct or discipline? But if you are without chastening, if God doesn't pay any attention, if you just get by with everything of which you have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. So the people who are not being corrected and trained up and chastened are. Are illegitimate. They're not necessarily God's sons. And God's correction is for our instruction, not for our destruction. Right. So keep that in mind. Well, he says no chasing seems to be joyful at the moment, but grievous. Nevertheless, after, but here's why it's grievous, because the enemy is in your mind, in your heart, in your soul, trying to put a twist to the chasing.

28:13 The good news is that God is disciplining, training you, qualifying you. You know, he wants you to do better, so he's sending you some more opportunities to build your spiritual muscles in him and follow him and submit and cry out and declare and cast out demons and all the things he wants us to do. But it doesn't seem to be fun at the present, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruits of righteousness and those who are trained by it. But in a race, you don't run the whole race at once. You can't run, you can't start at the beginning, the gun goes off, you're running, and now you're done. You've got to do each mile, each inch, each, you know, whatever. One step at a time.

28:55 Yeah, and so you can't run the whole race in one minute or one day. This is a race of endurance, is where you have to pace yourself. It's more of a marathon than a sprint. Yeah, well, it is. And it can also be a walk. You can follow Jesus. It doesn't have to be, you know, a full-on huffing and puffing and all that. It's really more recognizing what's really spiritually going on and what's really spiritually at stake. Yeah, keep walking. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Here's the deal. We're talking about correction. Well, how does God correct us? Let's look at his preferred method of correction for us, okay? 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

29:37 All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. That's right, teaching. for reproof right, Say, okay, you missed it here. For correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So correction. Let the word of God correct you. Why does there need to be all this correction and all of this correction, instruction? Why is God doing that? Because he loves us, he cares about us, and he's got a purpose for us to be fulfilled. Well, and the other side of that coin is because the enemy is trying to take you off course.

30:19 He's trying to discourage you. He's trying to screw up your doctrine. He's trying to get the reproof and chastening of God to be twisted around that God's mad at me and I did something wrong and now the devil's going to be my friend and give me everything I want. So God is just keeping us through this chasing, through the correction, through the Word of God. He's keeping us on course. Now, if you run a race and they've laid out the race. The course. The course, yes. And if you go off the course and you do your own thing. You're disqualified. You're disqualified. So your race does not count. So we have to run the race that is set before us. And a lot of us do often. It's set before us. It's set before us.

31:03 It's prepared before us. Yeah. Good works that we should walk in. All kinds of things. Your life is kind of laid out. And the question is, are you going to walk there? Are you going to do that? Are you going to believe God? Follow God? Here's the deal, too. And Paul writes toward the end of his life in Acts 20, verse 22. And see, now I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there. We don't know a lot of things that are coming up in our lives. Except the Holy Spirit testifies in every city saying that chains and tribulations await me. I'm going to go to jail. I'm going to have trouble. It's like prophets are saying, okay, you've got trouble coming.

31:44 And he doesn't say, oh, no, I mean, I don't know if I can do this. But he says in verse 24, but none of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself so that I may finish my race with joy. And the ministry which I have received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. You know, many people have... Testify to the tragedies in their lives, the dark days, the terrifying encounters with death and grief and loss. And, you know, even watching other people run their race can be terrifying because we're just, you know, grieving for them, our children, our husbands, wives.

32:29 And so, you know, it's not just your race. You're running your race in a way by supporting and praying and watching other people. We're here to help other people on their race. We want everybody to finish well, not to finish tragically. But we really got to know two things. You got to know God is good all the time, because otherwise you're going to be fooled by the devil who says, see, God's mad at you. See, you did it wrong. See? Because what the enemy is trying to do is pull us back into a religious. Ritualistic, religious walk with God rather than a loving relationship. And so the accuser comes and he accuses God's elect night and day, it says in Revelations, who accused them before the Father.

33:10 The accuser, the spirit of the accuser, the condemner, the one who finds fault with you, the spirit, he has working with him, he has guilt and shame and condemnation, working with the accuser to bring us to the, submit to the lies and the story, the rendition of the story, the way he presents it, and which would present us as guilty and God is not faithful. And so the accuser pours out these lies and discourages and condemnations in our soul. And the spirit of religion takes what guilt and condemnation have told you and push it down to make it fit the counterfeit gospel. So people get in trouble, they sin, they feel bad, and then they're pulled back off the race of goodness and love and forgiveness and confession and repentance back into the works gospel of try harder, you know, be good.

33:59 And so the enemy has a counterfeit gospel, and that's his course. He wants to bring us into that artificial, destructive world. Course where we think being good gets us saved. Being good gets us to heaven. And being a good church member gets us brownie points with God or something. It does not. And so what it really does is being trusting God. Here he says in Hebrews 12, 11, Now no chasing seems to be joyful for the present but grievous. Nevertheless, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruits of righteousness in those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen then the hands are to hang down. The hands, when you're depressed, when you're down, you're exhausted, you're overwhelmed, burnt out, your hands hang down. You don't feel like doing anything.

34:43 You don't feel like lifting your hands up. You don't feel like entering into your life with joy. And he says, and the feeble knees. So you don't want to walk anymore. You don't want to run anymore. You're tripped up, tired. Relationships are troublesome. What's the use? What's the hope? Give up. Poor me. And he says, don't do that. He says, but make straight paths for your feet. You know, make the relationships you have between yourself and others, yourself and yourself and yourself and God. Make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame or, you know, broken may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. So many of us are limping through our race where we've got, we've got broken, you know, we've got a broken leg, we've got a broken heart, we've got a broken head. We've been absolutely slammed and slain by the enemy. And we don't realize that it is the enemy that's doing this. We think it's God.

35:30 And we then get confused as God bipolar? Can I trust him? Half the time he's, you know, scolding me and he's, you know, punishing me and chasing me and correcting me. And so we lose the focus on the thing is to make us more like Jesus. To make us like Jesus, we have to go through that heat and pressure. You know, there's the process of refining silver and making it into silver coins or gold. They have to do two things to that liquid silver. They have to heat it very hot and to pull off all the poisons and dust. And then they have to stamp, they pour it into a mold or made into the image of Jesus.

36:11 They pour us into that mold and stamp the image of Jesus onto us. So it's heat and pressure that cause us to become more like Jesus or carry his image. And so when we're discouraged, when we're falling into the lies. He says, looking diligently, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God. God is giving you grace moment by moment, inch by inch, breath by breath, to win, to walk in the fullness of that victory, that obedience, lest any root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble by this many become devout. This is where chasing turns sour. We get bitter. We get mad at God. Why me, God? You know, I've done all this stuff for you, God. Where are you? Where have you been? Where were you when I was a missionary in China? Where were you when I was giving my, you know, my body to be burned?

36:55 Where were you when I was doing all these good things? And now this, and so what we have there is we have bitterness against God, which is a temptation, of course, and... Undoes everything. To wrap this up for today, I just want to read this from Hebrews 12, verses 1 through 3. This is from the Amplified Bible. Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses who have borne testimony of the truth, let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance, every unnecessary weight, and that sin which so readily, deftly, and cleverly clings to and entangles us. And let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us, looking away from all that will distract to Jesus, who is the leader and source of our faith, giving the first incentive for our belief and is also its finisher, bringing it to maturity and perfection.

37:58 He, for the joy of obtaining the prize that was set before him, And that prize is us, really, right? Jesus is the prize, too. He endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Just think of him who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against himself. Reckon up and consider it all in comparison with your trials, so that you may not grow weary or exhausted. Losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds. And then Paul, he wraps up his life with, I have fought the good fight.

38:42 I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. In other words, I've kept believing and knowing that God is faithful to do the work in me. Finally, there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness. This is true. This is a real deal. This is a real event that's going to happen, that laying out the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day. There is that day coming, and not to me only, but also to those who have loved His appearing. So, Father, we can endure only because You are faithful to complete the work You have begun in us. We can prevail. We can win the race because it's already been won. It's been won through Jesus Christ, and we are in Him, and He invites us to follow Him.

39:24 So, cause us today to lay aside every weight, every murmuring, every complaint, every fear. Every lie that so easily besets us, anxiety, fear, terror, trauma, hopelessness, despair, sickness, disease, let us lay aside every weight and go back to knowing that you, Lord God, are for us. You are with us. We are your sons and daughters, and you love us. So encourage each one. I pray right now that you'd pour a spirit of revelation and encouragement into each one's life, that they will walk in a new place of being lifted up and strengthened and refreshed in your Word and in your truth, that you give them a hunger for your Word, and that they would be able to eat it up, read it, and consume it, and be strengthened by it, Father, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen.

40:13 So, go to liferecovery.com. There's a whole bunch of resources there. Yeah. Books. By the way, we just set up, we just posted on YouTube a brand new video. I don't even know the name. It's something about deliverance. And we're calling it our Safari series. But it's a really powerful summary and discussion about deliverance, the deliverance about deliverance and warfare. And for those of you who haven't checked that out, just go to YouTube, Marjorie Cole. You can go to my website, liferecovery.com, and find it there. Also, check out the books, doing deliverance, spiritual warfare, and how deliverance can change your life.

40:56 We have had a lot of people who are coming now for help because they are tormented by demons, and so we need to know how to help them. And so we bless you, and thank you for joining us today, and have a wonderful, powerful week filled with the joy of the Lord. Music.