"Overcome Evil with Good" RESCUE RADIO with Marjorie Cole

0:00 I have an emergency, what is your location? Rescue radio, cause there's a war for your soul. Yes, Father God, thank you, Jesus, that the war has already been won and you are victorious. And we are not victims, but we are victorious as well. And we declare, O God, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth and in through us as it's being done and declared in heaven.

0:45 And you are the one, Lord Jesus, who laid down your life in exchange for ours. You bought us back from the devil and paid the price in full. And you rescued us and gave us salvation, gave us power and authority over the kingdoms. Lord, because you gave us back the keys. And so I thank you, Lord, for your people realizing who they are, are made in the image of God and that we belong to you and you are good. And this is awesome. And we don't need to be walking around with our heads hanging down and our backs bowed down. We need to walk in the fullness of the joy of the Lord, the praise to our God. And I thank you, Jesus, for raising and lifting our spirits today. Give us eyes to see, give us ears to hear, give us a heart to be strong and courageous.

1:27 Let the spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge and encouragement come upon those who are listening today. And may that spirit, the Holy Spirit, remain strong in them, encourage them. Let's get done with being overwhelmed. Let's get done with being anxious and let's walk in the fullness of who we are in you. And we thank you, Jesus, for the divine promise that no weapon, no witchcraft, no leviathan, no nothing that's been projected against us, your people will stand for. We are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ. And the promise is that no weapon formed against us will prosper. So, God, protect all of us and all that pertains to us, especially our loved ones and those who are following you, Jesus, the church, the remnant.

2:07 Protect your church and cause her to wake up, rise up, and get going. To stand and having done all to stand and praise you, Father God, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, today we're going to be talking about what it looks like to follow Jesus. I mean, you know, there's a lot of things in the Bible that talk to us about do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that. But here's some simple just guidelines in Romans that Paul has given us. And so, Jerry, go ahead and read. This is where you're going to read. Yeah, this is Romans chapter 12, verses 9 through 21. So, just listen carefully. It says, let love be without hypocrisy. Habor, that which is evil, that means hate what's evil.

2:49 Cling to what's good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor, giving preference to one another. Not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer. Distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble.

3:33 Do not be wise in your own opinion. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in doing so, you will heap coals of fire on his head. And then finally, verse 21 here.

4:13 This is a big one. They're all big, right? Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Yes, this just parallels and comes off of the Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes that Jesus talked about in Matthew chapter 5. We're saying the blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who need comforting, the meek, the hungry, hungry for righteousness, the merciful. He's talking about, you know, obviously the people who are at this point in the world being pretty much downtrodden. They're kicked to the side. They don't exert their rights and demand their rights.

4:55 They shall see God. They're the peacemakers, the sons of God. Blessed are you when they revile you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my name's sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecute the prophets who are before you. So Jesus is laying the foundation and the groundwork for what Paul is talking here about in Romans. So if we go, let's start with verse 9. Let love be without hypocrisy. What does that look like? What does that really seriously look like? It says a couple, one, two, three, four, five words. Let love, permit love, allow love to be without hypocrisy. What does that mean?

5:35 Well, hypocrisy is a word that means hypocrite, means an actor or someone who is pretending there's something they're really not. So actors back in those days were called hypocrites because they were playing a role of someone that they really, who they really not. Yeah, they're taking on another character. So love, you know. So hypocrisy. So people can pretend to love, right? Yeah, or you just say, well, I love you, I love you, I love you. But love is an action. It's in First John, it says, don't love in word only, but in deed and in truth.

6:17 So love is, is active. It's action. It's not just words. Yes, words, you know, are important, very, very important. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. But it's actions basically where you are acting to show that you care for that, those, that person, those people. And you want the best for them. You want the highest good for them. Well, it's, it's out of our, that their love is coming out of a genuine source of putting others, believing for them, loving them, wanting the best for them, even to the point where Jesus said of laying down your life.

7:00 So it's not like, you know, so many times we, this, this love, this idea, this word of love is so misused. And Satan has taken this word too, and use it as a club to beat us up, said, well, you don't love me if you don't go along with everything I want to do. God loves us and he doesn't go along with everything we want to do. And so it love, there's truth and love that have to work together. But so when we're, when we're loving out of a, out of a pure heart and really putting that other person first, caring about their eternal salvation and their best. If we would love one another in this earth, we wouldn't have wars and we wouldn't have any of the problems really that we're having. But the love that we see, even in the church, I believe, and among us is conditional.

7:44 So much of the love is conditional. It depends on how well you treat me or what I can get out of this relationship, if I'm willing, how much I'm willing to invest. But it's always, there's always what's in it for me, kind of at the end of that little discussion. And so hypocrisy is, is it's the name of the game and it's the word of the day. Because people are all, all lying, pretty much pretending to tell you something, convince you of something, sell you something that they probably don't believe in themselves, but they have some money invested in it or something. So they're willing to sell out their genuine identity to play the hypocrite, if you will.

8:24 And you can't really love unless you realize you're loved and you're a believer in Jesus Christ, really, because love in Galatians 5 is a fruit of the spirit. It's the spirit of God that comes through you. That's the only real love there is. And basically it's the love of God that is put in us. It's shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, like it says in Romans chapter five. So it's the love of God in us, working through us, desiring the highest and the best for those around us.

9:06 And a lot of times people, Paul said, the more I love, the less I be loved, because, you know, you have to speak the truth in love. And then you're not loved for doing that. A lot of times people don't appreciate the truth, no matter how you present it. But we're called to present it regardless. In love, yes, and in concern for these people. And so Paul is saying, let love be without hypocrisy. In other words, love can be with hypocrisy. Many do it, covering up the truth of their own motives or their insecurities. Some people love or, you know, appear to submit or perform or give or whatever out of fear instead of love.

9:51 Jesus does not want us to serve him out of fear, but out of devotion, not duty, but devotion and following him and being encouraged. I mean, look at the people who just, for example, the lady who poured out the oil on Jesus, expensive oil on his feet. And, you know, she that was I mean, there was no she could have. Why would why did she do that? Well, there was really no reason for her to do that extravagant, you know, very awkward, extravagant thing in front of everybody and get all that criticism. The only reason she did it was because she loved Jesus and she didn't know how else how she could express that to him.

10:33 I believe our ways of loving Jesus is to love his people and to love the unlovely, the broken. And, you know, sometimes it's actually easier to love the broken because you can actually feel more of a sorrow or a grief for what they've been through. Especially if you think of it this way, that all of those people that are so despised and and cast out and rejected, they all started out as innocent, precious, beautiful little babies. And this is what happened to them and the things of life, things of the enemy had just broken relationships, sickness, diseases, injustice, all this stuff, lots of injustice and just behaviors that have gotten them into a lot of trouble with no one to love them.

11:19 I believe if a lot of these people would have been raised with love, true love, or even with with a reasonable amount of safety and routine and justice in their childhoods, even if their parents maybe didn't know God, that the kids would have been grown up with more mental. Yeah, would have turned out different differently. But yet God in his love and grace and mercy and his plan, and even though that people have been raised horribly. Yeah. You know, when the grace of God can meet them. And even though they've had a horrible upbringing, had horrible experiences in their lives, the Lord can just turn that all around and use that for his glory.

12:04 So abhor that which is evil. What is evil? Well, what is evil? You know, be doers of that which is good. But what is evil? Well, defined what's defined is the fruit. What is the fruit of something that's evil? It's going to be coming from hell. It's going to be coming. It's negative. It's hopeless. It's destructive. It's death. It's futility. It's cast off. It's depression. It's all these things. Hate. What is evil? What is it? What's you can't hate it until you can define it. And evil is defined as that which comes from hell. And that which comes from hell that brings hurt and confusion and despair and death and all that, you know, hate what is evil.

12:49 Now, what's going on in our world today is that evil is seen as good. Yeah. Evil is promoted as something good and good is promoted as evil. It's called divination, twisting, flipping, flipping things going on. And the whole idea now is to get people all around the world to accept that which is evil and live in that which is evil. Except I'm thinking it's good. It's very, very twisted. It's very, very cunning. The enemy is very cunning. For example, there's two things the devil does. He's it's always the same thing to divide and conquer. But he's setting he sets us up with a lot of confusion to divide and conquer.

13:30 Using, again, words of love and justice and all of these kinds of things to actually deceive us, con us, twist the truth into believing, following lies. So if you're trying to figure out the truth by finding out who's telling the truth out there, just don't waste your time anymore. There's there's all kinds of slants and and misinterpretations and and and photoshopping and all kinds of things. You and I don't really know what's going on out there. What we need to go back to is the words of God, the words of God in the word of God and read those. And that the Holy Spirit reveal it to you as as is pertinent to you.

14:10 So to hate what is evil, that means. And he says cling to what is good. Well, what does that mean? That means there's a real battle between good and evil. And that how do you how do you hate what is evil? If you see a person being evil, doing evil, doing unjust things, you know, really vile things, even. How do you how do you hate that and not hate the person abhor that was evil? What is evil cling to what's good? How do you separate the person from what they're doing? And you must actually do that in order to forgive them and love them. Otherwise, you're going to, you know, mix together, put together, see as one, the person and their behavior.

14:55 And a lot of people do that. They they really judge a person by their behavior. That's the whole world set up. You judge people by what they do and how well they do it. And that's how you make your decisions or your judgments about those people. So we have to look past the behavior to see the person. And I mean, this is where Jesus operated, too. I mean, you see the other evil in their behavior. But that person behind there and you can do that. Otherwise, you know, like you say, Margie, otherwise we just say, OK, we say you're you're just evil. You're just an evil, vile person. We write you off. We just write you off and reject you.

15:36 So, but for example, Jesus with Zacchaeus. As a little criminal crime climbing up in that tree and they despised him because he was a tax collector. Jesus did not see him that way at all. Jesus actually got to his heart by knowing his heart, by knowing that he really did want to see Jesus. And for that very act, he was willing to climb up in the tree. So and Jesus saw Mary Magdalene. He didn't see her as a woman full of demons. He saw Mary Magdalene who was being. So when you're seeing the behavior and you're mixing and putting those things together, calling that the person, I am not what I do. I do things that I don't want to do, like Paul says.

16:16 But at the same time, if no one can find the real person in there and know you as the created son or daughter, the most like God and go into redeem. It's like this. It's like we're like little diamonds. And all of us, you know, when we enter this earth, we were thrown into the slot bucket, the slot pail. And, you know, who these precious diamonds are in the midst of all this filth and rot and potato peelings and dung and all kinds in this in this pit. And only Jesus saw our worth and value enough to roll up his sleeves and reach his hand down into that pit, into that that bucket, that slot bucket and pull out the diamonds because he said we're worth saving.

16:56 So you and I, when we when we hate what is evil, you have to also hate what that evil is doing to that person and come against that evil as an entity. Don't just say don't just you know, it's not rhetoric. It's actually action. So you and we have the sword of the word of God. So in this spiritual warfare, if you've got loved ones who are acting terribly and an evil and being deceived by evil and it's hard to love them, you got to go back and say, OK, Lord, I'm going to take the sword of your word, which is able to separate this even to the divining bone and marrow, thought, intention, soul and spirit to separate my loved one off from this demonic grip of the of the demon, the entity, the thing that's controlling them.

17:40 And people say, well, it's their behavior. You can't you know, just you know, you can't just blame everything on the devil. And I said, well, why not? He is the one who got it all messed up. He's the one who started. He's the one who hates God. He's the one who hates us. He's the one who's continuing all this madness and he will be dealt with. And God, you see, God deals with him from Genesis all the way to Revelations. God has not forgotten what the devil has done and God is keeping track of every bit of it. So but you and I to love that person, you have to forgive. So the issue is, OK, I see their behavior. I see that they're abusing me. They're betraying me. They're not listening to me. They're lying.

18:20 They're actually hurting themselves. And so I have to the key to resolving this mystery is to forgive them, which means actually you're releasing that person from your judgment because your judgment was judging their behavior, judging their behavior as, you know, vile or deadly or destructive or whatever bad. And so you're the sword. You're going to separate the person from the behavior and you're going to forgive the person, release them from your judgment and then let God judge the behavior. Because if you're judging the behavior, God can't. So you forgive them and release that judgment together.

19:00 Let him judge the behavior, because the behavior, for the most part, is coming out of a demonic activity, manifestation, whether it's lying or stealing or perversions or drugs or whatever it is, or hatred or rage or violence or narcissism or control or which. These are all behaviors that are manifesting through the person because the person is being controlled by an entity. And so there are some people, though, you need to avoid because of their. Jesus is drawn to the broken ones. He's drawn to the oppressed. He's drawn to the bound and so forth. But, you know, evil companions corrupt good manners, it says in the King James.

19:43 So there's times where there are certain people that it's it's well to avoid them because of their influence, especially if you're a new believer, if you're a brand new believer and you used to run with a pretty rough crowd, you maybe need to don't abandon them. But the thing is, you can't run with them. Peter says, don't run with them to the same kind of in the same kind of behavior. So there's a time where Paul says in Corinthians, First Corinthians, come out from among them, be separate, touch not the unclean thing. So there is a time to just say, OK, I care about you, but I'm not going to be able to just run with you because you're what you're up to and what you're doing.

20:27 Your spirit is very defiling. I'll care about you, but I'm not going to run with you anymore. Well, it's like loving them from a distance, you know, and God doesn't expect you to stay with your abusers and, you know, be continue to be their their victim, their punching bag. But still at the same. But you can love them. The only way, however, you can love them is when you forgive them and turn all the crimes and injustices and bad behavior and wickedness over to the Lord God. And then you let God be the judge of it. And let Jesus be your witness, because Jesus saw how, you know, they abused you, whatever that looks like. So we can continue to hate what is evil and cling to what is good.

21:08 And that's it's it's you can only do that. As Jesus showed us, you know, look at how he had to work his way through humanity. He's walking through the dirty streets, the roads, the crowds. Some love him. Some are trying to touch the hem of his garment. Some are, you know, secretly loving him because they don't dare come out and confess it because they'll be kicked out of the synagogue. And many are just wanting to kill him. Yeah. And they're religious. They're right in his face. I mean, they don't even hide their intentions towards the end. I mean, they try to push him over the cliff, even in his town of Nazareth. They try to push him over the cliff because he just read a scroll and he said, I am the one in this passage.

21:54 I've come to heal the broken hearted in his hometown. Yeah. And so so the thing is, how do you work your way through your relationships and the people you have in your world, in the humanity that you're set in the midst of, you know, Jesus, if you look at Jesus, and that's why it's good to read the Gospels a lot, because you study how Jesus handled people. What did he say? He wasn't always, you know, he didn't pick fights and look for arguments. But when they when they presented them, he had the right answer. He knew how to handle him. He knew when to speak, when to not speak. And he didn't always speak either. And sometimes when he said out of his mouth, didn't even look like it was on the subject.

22:35 But he was so far advanced that they wouldn't even sometimes know where it was that coming from. So, again, that's part of our challenge here as Christians is to know how to move in the midst of humanity that is full of hypocrisy. That's full of evil. That's clinging to evil and not good. And how we have to not get pulled in to all of that madness. Because you know what? Yesterday's madness, today's madness, tomorrow. Well, how is that going to help you walk and stand and fight and teach and declare the goodness of God? Thy kingdom come. So God's kingdom is coming even now in the midst of all of this crazy, insane darkness.

23:18 And there's a lot of confusion out there. A lot of people are saying a lot of different things. And I think they don't they haven't thought it all the way through. And so the only way you can stand is go back to the word of God and stand there and get your truth. Get your get your. The Holy Spirit will help us navigate through this humanity. And Romans 12, 10, be kindly and affectionate, be kindly, affection, affectionate. Yeah, can be kindly, affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor, giving preference to one another. So there is an affection we should have. He's talking, I think, pretty much brotherly love, you know, brotherly.

23:59 This this is between believers, fellow believers, brotherly love. There are brothers and sisters in Christ that we have that are quite easy to love. Others are more challenging to love because of their attitude. There's maybe things about us, about them that just bug us. Well, in Hebrews chapter 13, verse one, the very it's a very short verse. Let brotherly love continue. So one of the things I believe Satan is trying to do is cut off brotherly love. Jesus said in the last days, one of the signs of the last days is they will know you are my disciples by the love that you have for one another.

24:39 In the beginning, remember the book of Acts, they kind of hung together, they lived together, they had, they ate their food together. They kind of bunched together to kind of, I think, protect themselves from the onslaught of the world. And maybe it'll come to that again. But brotherly love can continue in your heart. If you love, then you're not, there's no judgment against you. You're praying for them, you're believing for them, you're treating them kindly. And when evil thoughts come into your mind about someone, which they often do, Satan sows discord among brethren by starting out those thoughts in your own mind with a negative, creepy thought. Like, you know, they never do this, they should do that. And, you know, stirring up in your mind and in your heart, negative, bitter words and thoughts against a person.

25:26 And we're not usually aware of that. We just say, oh yeah, let me just kind of meditate on those thoughts and let them, water them and let them grow. Instead of saying, wait a minute, who's causing me to feel bitter right now? Who is stirring up this animosity? Who is, you know, trying to set me up in opposition? Not everybody out there is our brother. But everybody out there is going to be responsible, answer to God someday. So God is the ultimate going to figure this whole thing out, judge. And so I just want to be in love with Jesus and do what Jesus would do in every situation. Jesus said in Matthew 24, in the last days, because iniquity will abound.

26:12 In other words, there's going to be a lot of it. The love of many will grow cold. Some translations say the love of most will grow cold. And the word love there is the agape love. It's the love of God between people. So he's not just talking about, you know, out and out pagans that are just abusing one another. He's talking about people in the church that because of iniquity, the spirit, the atmosphere of iniquity in the world. And we may say in the church, it brings.

26:54 Well, here's the love of any becomes cold offenses, bitterness. And this, again, it's the work of the spirit of Antichrist and division. But you see, this is a sign of the end times. And you know what? If you've lived more than 50 years, you see how it's changed. It was not like this in 1950, 1960 and 69, 70 starting to start to shift. But here we are today where people, you know, we're so at odds with one another that we can't tolerate. And our behavior and everything was so we are so absolutely enchanted and lost for the most part. But Paul says in Philippians chapter two, he says, fill up my joy by being like my.

27:36 Here's the love. Here's what being like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind that each esteem others is better than themselves. How well would the church run if we actually did? Verse three, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind that each esteem others is better than themselves. You know, our spirit, our churches, our society, our Christian communities are pretty much. I'm not judging the whole thing, but there's a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress, a lot of striving, a lot of competition, a lot of, you know, fear that is taking perfect love.

28:20 Cast out fear. So where love is not perfect, there is fear. There's fear of being exposed, fear of failure, fear of being not fear of being rejected, fear of being judged. But he says, if I am dead, Paul says crucified with Christ, if I'm dead to all this, you know, I crucified with Christ, I'm dead. I don't I'm not triggered by how you treat me. I'm not triggered by the rejection because I am dead. A dead man doesn't look at pornography. A dead man isn't offended. If I know who I am, I'm dead because I'm resurrected with Christ. I am a new creature. I'm in Christ now. And I'm I'm with the body of Christ. I'm doing what Jesus Christ the head is doing.

29:01 And so this then I can then I can do this. I can I can not operate out of selfish ambition or conceit or fear. But in lowliness of mind that each esteem others better than himself. This is really lowliness of mind. You know, I think sometimes we think of ourselves more better, better than we ought to. And sometimes opposite. We think we think of ourselves as less than who we are. So God wants to know the truth of who we are. And the last half of their verse 10 and Romans 12 in honor, giving preference to one another. So honoring one another, respecting we honor one another no matter who they are. Do we listen to them? Do we listen to them? Do we support them?

29:44 Do we care for them no matter where they've been, no matter what their attitude seems to be? Do we love them? Honor to them and prefer preferring preferring preferring preferring them. And in other words, we we put them ahead of ourselves. Yeah, we care for them. What's what's your needs? Do you need food? Do you need clothing? Remember the golden rule? Do to others what you would have others do unto you. So we look at how can we love them specifically? What what are we to do to show love to them today? How how can we do that?

30:24 And I think we're always looking at that. And it's kind words. It's encouragement. It's knowing their hearts. And sometimes it's just being sensitive. You might be getting in their face with the truth, but you still have to do that in love. So, yes. So, so, Father God, we thank you for the revelation of your truth, which is is real. And the action truth in action is love. Love and truth together cause us to grow up and be called sons and daughters of the most high God. So today, as people are wanting to follow Jesus, we follow you, Jesus, by doing what your word says.

31:07 And it's not because we have to. It's not because it's a duty. It's because of our devotion to you and that we we we love because you love you first loved us. And so that the love of God, the kindness of God, the sensitivities to your kindness and to other people, hearing them, listening to them, listening to their hearts. Father God, not judging them, not holding up expectations and hoops and loops. They have to jump through before that they can be loved by his father. Forgive us for that and forgive us. And I pray for the people who have children who have been alienated and angry. Whether the parents are angry, the children are angry.

31:47 The alienation of breaking the brokenness of the family's father that you said in the last day, restore the hearts of the fathers to the children of the children of the fathers. Let this reconciliation continue and go on in great measure to restore what Satan has tried to break and bring us back to the place of being kindly, affectionate to one another in brotherly love. Amen. So, Marjorie, tell us about your book called Doing Relationships God's Way that really pertains to what we've been talking about here today. Yeah. There's a lot of relationships we have with people, places, things. But the first relationship and the one that determines our relationship with everything else is the one we have with ourself. And that determines our relationship with God.

32:32 So, if I don't like myself, if I'm trying to perfect myself, if I'm feeling like I'm a victim or whatever it all looks like, this is out of that pool of experience. You're going to pull your responses to other people. So, in that book, talking about relationships, it's our relationship with God, ourselves, with sin, with our spouses, our mates, with difficult people. And so I would encourage you to get it. You can get it on Amazon.com. And it's Doing Relationships God's Way. So, the Lord bless you and may you be very wonderfully delighted in your relationships with people today and see them through the eyes of Jesus. I think that's the key.

33:14 Look at them through the eyes of Jesus and be blessed. And you all be blessed in Jesus' name. Amen. Rescue Radio. Cause there's a war for your soul.