"Why Do the Wicked Prosper?" RESCUE RADIO with Marjorie Cole

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I have an emergency. What is your location?

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'Cause there's a war for your soul. Yes, indeed,

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Father God, we know this. We know this war, but Lord,

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you know it also. And so I pray that you'd give us your wisdom,

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your counsel, your strength, your endurance, and that your kingdom come,

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your will be done, oh God, on earth, in and through us, in and through

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your people, through your church, your redeemed ones, even as it's been

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done and declared in heaven, that your people will wake up,

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awake, rise, and do what you've called and commit

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and taught us to do, Father. Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross.

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Thank you for being obedient to the Father. Father, thank you for giving us victory,

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not only salvation, but also assignments. You said,

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whatever you bind is bound, whatever you loose is loose. Let us begin to use

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our words to bring forth the kingdom of God in this forsaken

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place. It's not forsaken by you, Lord God, but the truth has been

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hidden and fled. So Lord, bring back the truth. You said, you shall know the

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truth and the truth will set you free. So thank you for the joy and

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the peace that comes from knowing and resting in that truth.

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I thank you, Lord God, also for the promise that no weapon formed against us

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will prosper, that no word said, deed done, or action taken will be able

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to be used by the enemy to bring forth any shame, trouble, or reproach.

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So cover and keep us, Lord God, in our words and conversations.

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Shield us, Lord God, and deliver us from evil, even as

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you prayed in your own prayer, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from

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the evil one. So Father, guide us, give us open eyes and ears to hear

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now today what you have to say to us. Amen.

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Amen. I have a question for you. Yes. Why do

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the wicked seem to prosper? Well, that's the question we're going to be answering.

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Well, that's the question Jeremiah asked back in chapter 12.

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Chapter 12 of Jeremiah, beginning with verse 1.

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Righteous are you, O Lord, when I plead with you. Let me talk

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with you about your judgments. Why does

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the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those

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happy who deal so treacherously? You have planted them.

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Yes, they have taken root. They grow. Yes, they bear fruit. You are

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near in their mouth, but far from their mind.

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But you, O Lord, know me and have seen me, and you have tested my

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heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter

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and prepare them for the day of slaughter. How long will the land mourn

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and the herbs of every field wither? The beasts and

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birds are consumed. Why? For the wickedness of those

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who dwell there. Because they said, he will not

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see our final end. So they think God isn't seeing them.

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In Psalm 73, we have the same kind of a question,

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mourning in steps.

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It's verse 3, 73:3. He says, for I was envious

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of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked,

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for there is no pangs in their death. Their strength is firm. They don't have

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trouble. They're not plagued like other men.

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Serves them as a necklace. They're wearing their arrogance and their ignorance

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around their neck. Their eyes bulge with abundance, more than the heart

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could wish. They scoff and speak wickedly concerning oppression.

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They speak loftily, these people, their attitudes. Their mouth is

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against the heavens, their tongues walk through the earth. These people have

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no idea how in such dangerous places

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they're in. So that's Psalm 73. So we have real people, good people,

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godly people who are asking these questions. Why are the wicked

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prospering? Why are they never getting caught in any of their troubles, but we're getting

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caught all the time? Yeah, we're not getting by with anything,

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and it seems in Psalm 73:14,

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the psalmist is saying, well, for all day long I've been plagued

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and chastened every morning. And it says, you know, in verse 12,

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behold, these are the ungodly who are always at ease. They increase

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in riches. Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed

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my hands in innocence. So what point is there of serving God? Because it doesn't

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look like there's any real benefit to it. They get all the goodies,

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it seems. Yeah. And I just get kind

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of beat up and frustrated and

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everything. Well, we get beat up. You're right. We get tempted.

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We get attacked is a good word. We get attacked

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because of our stand against the devil. So we're at war with

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the devil. So when you're taking the side that you're his opponent,

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what do you think? He's going to not attack you? And what is he going

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to do with the others? He's going to let those sleeping dogs lie.

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But in Psalm 37, we have another

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man. This is David now doing the same thing. Uh, he's talking about

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resting in the Lord, but he's also talking about fretting. In Psalm

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37:1, he says, do not fret because of evildoers.

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Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. Can I just jump in here on

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that? You know, how many believers, how many of us have

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been fretting because of the wicked of the wickedness,

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the injustices, the wicked wickedness of the wicked?

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I mean, and they're getting by with it. And I think that double standard,

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that's the thing is too, is like we get exposure. There's exposure

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of wickedness, but nobody gets punished. Nobody gets righteously judged

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for it. So, and because we are made in God's image, made by God to

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love justice and hate injustice, hate iniquity.

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So the prevalence of the iniquity is very provocative.

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It can, it can get our minds all torn and

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tangled up with judging other people, wanting to see their

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downfall, um, even maybe taking measures and ways to

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bring justice in a, in an unjust way.

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Uh, but we don't trust that the Lord is going to do it.

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Why do we think the Lord is going to let all this this wickedness just

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go on and on because we haven't seen it immediately.

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And so therefore we think God just doesn't care, isn't there, doesn't do anything.

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But in Psalm 37, again, fret not, do not fret

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because of evildoers nor be envious of the workers of iniquity.

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He says, for they shall all, they shall soon be cut down like

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the grass and withered like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do

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good. Dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness. So we have to dwell

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in the land. Feed on the faithfulness of God, knowing he's good, even though the

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land is overtaken with a lot of wickedness and injustice.

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He says, delight yourself also in the Lord and he will give you the desires

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of your heart. Now this is a promise and a command. Delight yourself

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in the Lord. Are we delighting in the Lord? And even in the midst of

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these injustices and iniquities and atrocities,

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uh, it's really hard to delight yourself

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in the Lord when you look at all these things around you. But he says,

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continues, says, compete, commit, your way to

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the Lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. Verse 7,

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rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of,

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uh, of him who prospers in the way, because the man who brings—

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because of the man who brings forth wicked schemes.

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Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret, it only causes harm.

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Then he says, for the evildoers shall be cut off, but those

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who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. Let's,

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let's talk a little bit about the wicked. What is,

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what is wicked or wickedness? It simply means morally

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wrong, morally wrong or bad or

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ungodly, you know, and nothing is legally right,

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which is morally wrong. Correct. Even though you pass a law to make it okay,

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it's not still morally just in the eyes

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of God. So one of the— here's— and we make a lot of laws like

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that, don't we? Let's look at Exactly, exactly, exactly.

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Uh, now let's look a little bit in Psalm 37 as what the

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wicked are doing, right? Yeah. Verse 12, the wicked plots

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against the just and gnashes at him with his teeth,

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and he laughs at him. Yeah, the wicked,

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the wicked have drawn the sword and bent the bow, but the Lord laughs at

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the wicked because he knows their day is coming to cast down the poor and

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needy to slay those who are of upright

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conduct. So there is an opposition against things that are right

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and decent, people that are living pure godly lives. There's just

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a constant upheaval and railing from these wicked people

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against that. And it says, verse 17, well,

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you know, it says to contrast verse

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16, A little that a righteous man has is better than the

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riches of many wicked. Yeah. And he says, for the arms of the

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wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.

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Uh, the, uh, the Lord upholds the days, knows the days

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of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. So we know that the Lord

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God is undergirding us, uh, even though it's

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very difficult to live in this snake pit in the midst

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of the devil's rules and his, uh, worldview,

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uh, which most people are being enamored with and seduced by.

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Yeah, it's— it says in verse 20,

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the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord, like the splendor

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of the meadows, shall vanish. You know, another characteristic of the wicked— the wicked

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borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows

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mercy and gives. So there, God is doing a comparison-contrast

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between the wicked and the righteous. He says,

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for those who are blessed by him, the Lord,

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shall inherit the earth, but those who are cursed by him shall

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be cut off. I don't think people understand the power of

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their now, their walking now, their life now, their decisions now,

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the life that we're having and walking through right now,

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because this life is The duration is limited,

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you know, 40 years, 60 years, 80 years, 20 minutes, whatever it is.

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But that duration is determining your

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eternal destiny. And so people, you know, they're trading their

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souls for a bowl of soup, so to speak. Jesus said

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it in 16 of Matthew. He says, verse 26, he says,

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for what will a man give? What is a man profited

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if he gains the whole world? He's talking about what they're talking about in Psalm

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37. They gain the whole world and lose their

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own soul. What will a man give in exchange for his soul? How much is

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your soul worth to you? Can you be bought and paid for by the devil?

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Is there a price on your soul? A lot of people sell out cheap.

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They sell their soul for, you know, like, what was it?

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Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup.

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Lentil soup. A little bean soup, right?

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So. But maybe the moment, the urgency of the moment, the desperation

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of the moment made him diminish the value of

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his birthright because in the moment he thought, if I don't eat right now,

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I'm gonna die. How many people have sold their souls? In the moment,

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for the momentary pleasure. For money,

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for wealth. And a lot of people have, you know what, they've mistakenly

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been tricked into making these decisions to sell

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their soul or go with the evil or do whatever. But you

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can still get out of that if you still have breath. You can still repent,

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change your mind. But the attitude for the most part is that God doesn't see

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We read that in Psalm 37:73.

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We read it in Ecclesiastes as well. Well,

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there's really no God. God doesn't see, doesn't care.

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Everything's cool. I'm going to get by with it. But what— there's

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a lot of people, I'll tell you what, in this world that are

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getting by, as it seems. That's, that's the,

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that's the issue. Well, this is what gets in the craw of the psalmist

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here, is that the people that are so wicked are getting

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by with it and nobody— there seems like there's no judgment

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coming to them at the present time. But you know what the thing is?

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The point is that Jesus says it as

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he goes on with his question, for what will a man profit if

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he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what will a man

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give in exchange for his soul? Then he goes on to say, for the Son

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of Man will come in the glory of his Father with

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his angels, and then he will reward each one according to

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his works. Um, yeah, so there's,

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there's this day of reckoning, the day of judgment, the day of rewards. The day—

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there is that day is coming. We just— because it's far,

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or we think it's far away, or it's put off, or it's not clear,

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don't think it's not coming. It is coming because the Lord God already said

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it's coming. It says, um, when the wicked

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are cut off in Psalm 37:34, when the wicked are cut

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off, you shall see it. A lot of people say, well,

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wicked are being exposed, but there's— they're not—

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we're not seeing them cut off, right? He will bring judgment. His reward is with

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him. And no matter how much power they have, the future of

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the wicked shall be cut off in Psalm 37:38.

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So the thing is, there— listen,

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there's no future. Nobody's getting by with nothing.

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There's no future in being— there's no future in wickedness. No matter

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how much power you have, how much wealth you have, how much influence

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you have, how— so don't be naive. No matter how much you

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have the legal system protecting you in

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your evil, you're going to stand before Almighty God

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one day and give account of your whole life. We all

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are. And this is, this is true for the wicked and the just. And so

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Ecclesiastes, as we know, Solomon is writing in chapter

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8. He says in verse 5,

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he who keeps his commandments will experience nothing harmful. He's talking about,

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actually talking about, you know, the commands

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of the king. But he says, a wise man's heart discerns both the

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time and judgment,

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because for every matter there is a time and a judgment.

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So this is what the Word of God says. There is a time

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and there is a judgment. So judgment is coming.

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And so ultimately, um, he says,

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he, you know, though the misery of a man increases greatly,

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for he does not know what will happen. So who can tell

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him what will occur? No one has the power over the spirit

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to retain the spirit. No one has the power in the day

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of death. So in the day of death, when our time is over and God's

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allotted time for us is, is, Time to give an account, a reckoning

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that we have no power to stop that day from coming. And as you

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and I know, we see more and more of our friends and associates and people

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that we're familiar with dying, dying, dying.

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It's almost like the most populous thing in the world to do right now is

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to die. And so those people are at that point

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where they're going to have to give some sort of an account of their choices

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and decisions. And you know, that doesn't have to be a a terrible day.

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That doesn't have to be a day of destruction. It could be a day of

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reckoning and reward and rejoicing. Ecclesiastes 8:10-12,

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it says, then I saw the wicked buried who had come and gone

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from the place of holiness. Now, interesting, the wicked

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were at one time in a place of holiness, but they,

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they got wicked, right? They got really wicked, and they were

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forgotten in the city where they had so done. This is also vanity.

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And then here's verses 11 and 12.

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Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed

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speedily, therefore the heart of the sons

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of man is fully set in them to do evil. In other words,

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I got by with it and God didn't kill me. I mean,

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you know, Adam sinned and Eve sinned

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and they didn't die. Well, let me ask this. They didn't drop

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dead physically. Okay, well, let's pause for a minute, ask the question, why doesn't

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God judge us immediately? Well, here's the, here's the process that

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God has got us in. He has got us in this process

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of exercising our choices and free will

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to follow him. And so if God immediately,

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you know, say you made a wrong decision and, you know,

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you're, you've decided that that's what you want to do.

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And what it does is the reward and the experience, the fruit of that is,

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you know, destruction and wickedness and pain

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and injustice and all kinds of other things that go on. And it seems like

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God just lets that happen. What God is really doing

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is he is actually not stepping back, but he is allowing

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us the freedom to exercise our free will,

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even to do the wrong things. God could step in immediately

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every time we did something wrong or dangerous and

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stop us, slap our hands or, uh,

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let's see what would be the word. He would try

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to, um, uh, control us.

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That's the word. Try to control us to do the right thing. That's not

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love. That's called control. And so he has to step back a little

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bit and let us exercise our free will and learn through our mistakes,

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learn through the consequences, learn through his, his, his long

17:51.243 --> 17:54.594
suffering, and then bring us back around to say, do you still want

17:55.094 --> 17:57.800
to keep that choice? Do you still want to walk in that way? And so

17:58.300 --> 18:01.778
at that point, there's an opportunity to repent. But so God isn't just immediately

18:01.955 --> 18:05.293
judging everything all the time, because then there would be no free will. There would

18:05.341 --> 18:08.599
be— there would be, uh, uh, what would it be? Tyranny.

18:08.871 --> 18:12.001
All of us would have been dead. Well, and God would have had

18:12.501 --> 18:16.253
nothing but dead people, right? In verse 12 of Ecclesiastes 8,

18:16.478 --> 18:19.928
though a sinner does evil 100 times and

18:20.008 --> 18:23.539
his days are prolonged, yet I surely know that it will be

18:23.555 --> 18:27.118
well with those who fear God, who fear before him, but it

18:27.230 --> 18:30.382
will not be well with the wicked. Nor will he

18:30.882 --> 18:33.269
prolong his days, which are as a shadow,

18:33.850 --> 18:37.741
because he does not fear before God. Right.

18:37.806 --> 18:40.929
So when Ecclesiastes chapter 10, it says again,

18:41.430 --> 18:44.455
verse 6, folly is set in great dignity.

18:45.990 --> 18:49.509
So what does this mean? This means that we appreciate,

18:49.525 --> 18:52.608
we go after the folly, the stupidity,

18:52.818 --> 18:56.336
the wokeism. Think of, think of how much stupid stuff,

18:56.385 --> 19:00.810
stupid entertainment is elevated. Things that

19:01.310 --> 19:05.359
are elevated as wonderful, as examples. And people spend millions and

19:05.859 --> 19:09.028
millions of dollars worldwide for folly,

19:09.365 --> 19:12.729
stupid. So it's the foolishness. It's the foolishness

19:13.229 --> 19:16.494
of the wicked, the folly, the fables, the fantasies, the enchantments,

19:16.654 --> 19:20.419
you know, and we must look carefully at who we

19:20.563 --> 19:23.639
are following. Jesus said, by their fruits you shall know them.

19:23.703 --> 19:26.506
So if you don't know what's, who is what is what,

19:26.891 --> 19:29.598
look at the fruit of their life. Look at the fruit that it's bringing into

19:29.630 --> 19:32.823
your life as you're, following that spirit of folly and

19:33.323 --> 19:37.175
foolishness. Yeah, and the last part of verse 3 of

19:37.675 --> 19:41.654
Ecclesiastes chapter 9 says, truly the hearts of

19:42.154 --> 19:45.974
the sons of men are full of evil. Madness is

19:46.166 --> 19:49.345
in their hearts. They're, they're like flipping crazy,

19:49.923 --> 19:53.408
right? While they live, and after that they go

19:53.908 --> 19:57.486
to the dead. So people are living in madness,

19:57.807 --> 20:01.340
in craziness, uh, full of evil.

20:01.645 --> 20:05.322
Well, you said the heart is deceitful. Yeah, Jeremiah 17,

20:05.579 --> 20:09.175
it says the heart is deceitful above all things

20:09.513 --> 20:12.820
and desperately wicked. Who can know it? So we're

20:12.884 --> 20:16.449
using our hearts, we're using our emotions, we're using

20:16.949 --> 20:20.158
our minds and our hearts to try to figure out and discern evil from evil.

20:20.206 --> 20:22.663
But if our heart is already polluted, corrupted,

20:23.738 --> 20:27.270
programmed with lies and errors and evil, how will we be able to use our

20:27.770 --> 20:30.689
heart to discern what is good and what is not? And so what happens is

20:30.721 --> 20:34.767
the people, the heart is desperately wicked. So how can

20:35.056 --> 20:38.347
the wicked, corrupt, infected heart that we

20:38.427 --> 20:43.050
all carry before we're regenerated clearly discern

20:43.146 --> 20:46.518
or judge anything another is wicked? So we have no

20:46.534 --> 20:49.952
way of, we make ourselves the judge,

20:50.690 --> 20:54.443
and we use folly as the term, you know, the determination

20:54.459 --> 20:58.373
of what's good and what's not. Um, and so we're

20:58.405 --> 21:02.062
making ourselves the judge. We're forming our own opinions

21:02.719 --> 21:05.558
and we don't realize that someday that we will be judged.

21:06.264 --> 21:09.680
Uh, you know, our opinions, you know, that we're forming every

21:09.776 --> 21:13.465
day. What do you think about this? What do you think about that? Your political

21:13.965 --> 21:17.507
positions, uh, pulling us this way, that way into, into a wrong fight.

21:18.036 --> 21:21.786
They're actually— these divisions and divinations

21:21.802 --> 21:24.847
and deceptions of the devil are pulling people

21:24.863 --> 21:28.516
into trying to pick a side, make a— form an opinion,

21:29.029 --> 21:32.170
but they're actually seducing us into entering into an

21:32.670 --> 21:36.096
arena of futility because you can have an opinion all day long about

21:36.596 --> 21:40.070
a person, a place, a thing, an ideology. You can

21:40.570 --> 21:44.223
have an opinion every day, but if your opinion is based on the futility

21:44.335 --> 21:48.093
of your heart, the wickedness of your heart, and not on the strength and stability

21:48.109 --> 21:51.306
of the word of God, then it's just a waste of your time. And you're

21:51.806 --> 21:55.723
going to get beat up for holding or standing for an opinion that is stupid

21:56.223 --> 21:59.449
and pointless in the end. It's futile. So what is the real issue?

22:00.075 --> 22:03.512
What is the real issues are the eternal issues that are at stake

22:03.834 --> 22:08.154
that are being covered over, buried in this momentary

22:08.668 --> 22:12.235
madness. Insanity. People are losing their

22:12.267 --> 22:15.867
minds, or maybe they never even had their mind to begin with. And they're

22:15.883 --> 22:18.550
still operating as if they have one. You know, um,

22:19.338 --> 22:23.724
Isaiah 55:7 says, let the wicked forsake his way and

22:23.997 --> 22:27.356
the, and the righteous man and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

22:27.950 --> 22:31.775
So we have to forsake something. We have

22:31.807 --> 22:35.117
to give up. We have to stop following. We have to cut off.

22:35.486 --> 22:38.842
Forsake what? Even our own thoughts. If those

22:38.954 --> 22:41.732
thoughts are not leading us to truth and repentance,

22:42.230 --> 22:46.468
you know, here's the problem. We have been bred and

22:46.501 --> 22:49.310
born and programmed into believing,

22:49.391 --> 22:52.730
entrenched in a certain way, in a certain mindset.

22:53.083 --> 22:56.856
We, and out of that way and mindsets and generational curses and we

22:57.356 --> 23:01.207
form habits, we form opinions. These are the generational,

23:01.576 --> 23:05.519
ruts that we were walking in, ruts of religion or behavior

23:06.019 --> 23:09.975
or expectation or programming or works or condemnation

23:10.072 --> 23:13.839
or undeserving. So we have been, we have been controlled by

23:14.339 --> 23:17.445
these things and we cling to them even as they control

23:17.945 --> 23:21.517
us. So forsaking means letting go of the lies,

23:21.613 --> 23:25.267
letting go of the things, your sacred opinion. People ask me my opinion.

23:25.780 --> 23:28.537
Even recently people ask me, what do you, what's your opinion? I said,

23:28.906 --> 23:33.303
My opinion is nothing. It doesn't matter. Their opinion is nothing

23:33.720 --> 23:37.235
either. My opinion has nothing to do— if my opinion is

23:37.267 --> 23:40.925
not based in the truth of God's word, then my opinion is as

23:41.038 --> 23:44.295
worthless as anyone else's. It's good for nothing. God isn't going

23:44.359 --> 23:47.424
to ask me someday, well, what was your— what's your opinion? What should I do

23:47.440 --> 23:50.794
with you? What's your opinion of what you did? No, he will

23:50.906 --> 23:54.517
know what I did. I will know what I did. So when we're entrenched

23:55.017 --> 23:57.630
in these ways, we don't want to give up. Why don't we want to give

23:58.130 --> 24:01.270
up the comfort, the familiarity of doing what I do?

24:01.770 --> 24:03.450
I've always done it this way. I was born of this and I'm going to

24:03.950 --> 24:07.230
die of this, whatever that is, fill in the blank. And so we don't want

24:07.730 --> 24:11.170
to change. We don't want to be, uh, be, we don't want to be confronted

24:11.670 --> 24:14.270
with the fact that we've been lied to, that we have listened to lies,

24:14.770 --> 24:17.930
that we've walked in lies, that we've believed errors. We don't want to admit we're

24:18.430 --> 24:21.570
wrong. That's the real problem. Because if I admit that I'm wrong, I did something

24:22.070 --> 24:23.870
wrong, then I'm guilty. And if I'm guilty, then I'm bad. And then I get

24:24.370 --> 24:27.622
to be judged by the devil. So, but if you repent, that's admitting you're

24:27.702 --> 24:31.295
wrong, but you're repenting to God instead of feeling bad about what you

24:31.327 --> 24:34.455
did to yourself. You say, God, I forsake my way

24:34.955 --> 24:39.218
because I was wrong. God is the only one who's able and willing to forgive

24:39.267 --> 24:42.940
you and release you from a judgment. Satan would put the judgment on you.

24:43.260 --> 24:46.693
God will take the judgment off you if you forsake that way.

24:47.270 --> 24:50.029
And so what that means is we've got to walk in a new way.

24:50.574 --> 24:54.023
Yeah. Let the unrighteous forsake his way. Right?

24:54.328 --> 24:57.120
Yeah. Wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

24:57.698 --> 25:00.907
And it says— what is the rest of that verse? Do you have it?

25:01.068 --> 25:04.791
Isaiah 55:7. Yeah. And, and let

25:05.291 --> 25:08.193
him return to the Lord and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon.

25:08.306 --> 25:12.061
I'll find it here. Yeah, you can. Yeah, I got it here. It says— well,

25:12.318 --> 25:14.404
it says Isaiah 55:6,

25:15.367 --> 25:18.833
seek the Lord while he may be found, while you have the opportunity right

25:19.333 --> 25:23.501
now, while your heart— Jesus. Is, is open and tender toward him. Call upon

25:23.613 --> 25:27.333
him while he's near. You can't necessarily give

25:27.381 --> 25:31.086
your life to God anytime you want to, because there might

25:31.586 --> 25:34.389
be a time where you just— your heart gets so hardened that you won't want

25:34.437 --> 25:37.805
to anymore. Yeah, that's scary. You don't want to.

25:37.901 --> 25:41.397
Let the wicked— verse 7 of Isaiah 55— let the wicked

25:41.429 --> 25:44.957
forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts,

25:45.582 --> 25:49.512
and let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him,

25:49.593 --> 25:53.765
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

25:53.845 --> 25:57.135
So there's hope for the wicked if they wake up,

25:57.215 --> 26:00.168
if, if they awake. It's a way— it's all about awakening.

26:00.280 --> 26:04.148
It's about right now what God is saying to the world:

26:04.918 --> 26:08.384
wake up, awake, awake. The woke

26:08.884 --> 26:12.813
need to wake up or they're going to go, yeah, into all the wickedness

26:13.313 --> 26:17.818
of the world needs to be So what is in Romans chapter 13:11?

26:18.571 --> 26:22.452
God says, and knowing this, that now it is high time to

26:22.564 --> 26:25.788
awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer

26:26.288 --> 26:28.723
than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.

26:29.236 --> 26:32.587
Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and let us

26:33.087 --> 26:35.875
put on the armor of light. So what is, what are the works of darkness?

26:36.516 --> 26:40.141
Everything that the world promotes is the work of darkness because it's,

26:40.285 --> 26:43.913
it's beginning, middle, and end is authored by Satan,

26:43.977 --> 26:47.895
who is the god of this world. So if you're walking in the world's ways,

26:48.473 --> 26:50.624
eating the world's food, believing the world's lies,

26:50.993 --> 26:54.237
supping and sipping on their lies,

26:54.670 --> 26:57.496
you will be deceived and contaminated.

26:57.945 --> 27:01.397
He says, wake up. But you know what? What the— one of

27:01.897 --> 27:04.191
the things that happens when you feast on the world's lies,

27:04.849 --> 27:08.683
there's a sedative in those lies. That keeps you sleeping and

27:08.699 --> 27:12.080
sleeping and craving more, craving more

27:12.580 --> 27:15.830
of the wrong thing. So forsaking is, if you forsake,

27:15.846 --> 27:19.612
you stop, you surrender. You say, wait a minute, stop in your tracks right

27:20.112 --> 27:23.233
now. Let yourself just receive the revelation of God's truth.

27:23.698 --> 27:27.352
Do I need to forsake something in my world, my life, my plan, my habit

27:27.704 --> 27:30.749
that is leading me to hell? Is there something I need

27:31.249 --> 27:33.971
to repent of? And you know what? You repent, but God is the one who

27:34.035 --> 27:37.435
gives you the strength to change. He's the one who changes you. It's not about

27:37.483 --> 27:40.851
you having willpower to change something. You know, we're on a

27:41.351 --> 27:43.096
course and only God can pick you off that course. And the only way that

27:43.596 --> 27:47.522
we get off that, that horrible highway of destruction is to

27:48.022 --> 27:51.034
surrender to God and say, God, have mercy upon me, and mean it. If you

27:51.534 --> 27:54.946
fall down on your knees or wherever you are, look up to heaven, raise your

27:55.446 --> 27:58.779
hands and say, God, help me forsake this thing that's killing

27:58.811 --> 28:02.115
me. God will do it. Romans 12:1-2,

28:02.260 --> 28:05.708
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your

28:05.789 --> 28:08.804
bodies a living sacrifice, holy,

28:09.173 --> 28:12.333
acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

28:12.766 --> 28:16.343
And do not be conformed to this world. Don't let this world

28:16.840 --> 28:20.658
conform you into its mold, right? Pour you into

28:20.706 --> 28:24.075
its mold, but be transformed, not conformed. Too many

28:24.575 --> 28:27.732
of us are conformed to this present evil world. But he says,

28:27.989 --> 28:31.745
out of that become transformed, be transformed

28:32.162 --> 28:36.126
by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what

28:36.626 --> 28:39.721
is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. In other words, that you

28:40.221 --> 28:44.343
may accept what's good and not shun it. How is

28:44.439 --> 28:48.146
it that our minds, the demons in our minds, cause us

28:48.646 --> 28:51.966
to reason, rationalize, take responsibility,

28:52.014 --> 28:55.659
make it our fault, Uh, look at reality. Do all our

28:55.675 --> 28:59.497
minds are twisted and perverted and manipulated by

28:59.690 --> 29:02.821
reasoning and responsibility and reality and

29:03.321 --> 29:06.885
relationships, uh, to get us to make an opinion

29:07.318 --> 29:10.707
when the word of God says in your spirit,

29:10.867 --> 29:14.609
do this, follow me, surrender. And Romans

29:14.786 --> 29:17.886
13:11 says, knowing the time, like we already read,

29:18.415 --> 29:21.949
that is high time to wake out of sleep. And Ephesians chapter 5 says the

29:22.449 --> 29:23.623
same thing. He says,

29:25.407 --> 29:28.750
for all things are exposed, but all

29:29.521 --> 29:33.274
things that are exposed are made manifest by the light. So what's being exposed these

29:33.371 --> 29:36.426
days? Every bad, nasty, horrible thing.

29:37.169 --> 29:39.675
Is that going to wake you up or are you going to just say,

29:39.756 --> 29:42.568
oh, well, that just is what it is, or that is what it was,

29:43.069 --> 29:46.995
or it's no big deal, or it doesn't pertain to me, or it's not anything

29:47.043 --> 29:50.829
I have to worry about. For whatever makes manifest is light. So God's

29:50.845 --> 29:54.131
light is making manifest now. You see it.

29:54.355 --> 29:57.976
I see it. God is causing people to wake up, look at what's going on

29:58.476 --> 30:02.255
around them, and be shocked. Be shocked and say, and repent.

30:02.784 --> 30:06.469
Because you know what? If you just continue to accept it, endorse it,

30:06.870 --> 30:10.363
approve of it, continue to indulge in whatever that thing is,

30:11.020 --> 30:14.257
it will kill you. If it's not the truth,

30:14.290 --> 30:17.650
If it's a lie dressed up to look like the truth or look like everybody

30:18.150 --> 30:21.710
else is doing it, well, it's okay. It's all, you know, it's been approved

30:22.210 --> 30:25.410
by this and verified by that. And the government says it's okay,

30:25.910 --> 30:30.170
whatever. If God doesn't say it's okay, it's not okay. So in Ephesians,

30:30.670 --> 30:33.850
he says, arise. Therefore, he says,

30:34.350 --> 30:37.370
awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead and Christ

30:37.870 --> 30:41.013
will give you light. See then that you walk carefully or

30:41.513 --> 30:44.910
circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming,

30:45.247 --> 30:48.230
buying back the time. Stop wasting your time,

30:48.631 --> 30:51.501
throwing it away and, you know, do it some other day,

30:51.517 --> 30:55.318
procrastinate, but the day, because the days are evil. So start buying

30:55.510 --> 30:58.926
back your breath, your words. You still have

30:59.038 --> 31:02.342
time to redeem, be redeemed and redeem the rest of

31:02.842 --> 31:06.030
your life for the glory of God. And there's hope for even the most wicked

31:06.530 --> 31:09.365
of the wicked. If there is repentance, if there is revelation.

31:09.541 --> 31:12.843
For Romans 5:6, for when we were still without

31:13.343 --> 31:17.268
strength, in due time Christ died for who? The ungodly.

31:17.396 --> 31:21.500
That's the wicked. God died for the wicked. For scarcely for

31:22.000 --> 31:25.556
a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even

31:25.588 --> 31:29.243
dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love

31:29.275 --> 31:32.289
toward us, that while we were still sinners,

31:33.027 --> 31:36.239
Christ died for us, right? So Lord,

31:36.255 --> 31:39.835
we just thank you for that. Even the most wicked,

31:40.510 --> 31:44.235
if they would come to know you— some forsake, some are

31:44.283 --> 31:47.992
going to be wicked until their death, and some are going to be wicked

31:48.361 --> 31:51.846
until they meet you. But Lord, you died for the wicked.

31:51.910 --> 31:55.667
You gave your life for us, Lord, all of us, Lord. In our

31:56.167 --> 31:59.359
hearts, we're— we've been wicked. We've been turned

31:59.859 --> 32:03.836
away from you, Lord. Our hearts are deceitful and desperately

32:03.932 --> 32:07.382
wicked, Jeremiah said. So you, you transform us.

32:07.478 --> 32:11.409
You came, you come to deliver us from our own opinions, Lord, set us

32:11.909 --> 32:14.891
free, and then we can be born again into a new life and a whole

32:15.100 --> 32:18.598
new way of thinking and operating and living.

32:18.870 --> 32:22.689
And it's called repentance, changing our mind, changing our direction,

32:23.122 --> 32:27.214
and following, and following you, and you will transform We

32:27.714 --> 32:31.594
need our mind— Lord, transform us by the renewing

32:31.770 --> 32:35.219
of our minds. Get a hold of our minds. Get a

32:35.719 --> 32:39.262
hold of our hearts. Get a hold of every part of our bodies, our soul,

32:39.406 --> 32:42.872
our spirit. Get a hold of us and wake us up

32:43.337 --> 32:46.594
and transform us for your glory. Yes, and forgive us, Lord God,

32:46.626 --> 32:49.883
for rejecting your love and your truth.

32:50.155 --> 32:53.477
Lord God, how is that even okay? To reject

32:53.525 --> 32:57.026
your love, your truth, your mercy, your salvation, your goodness,

32:57.620 --> 33:01.265
your invitation to come and be with you forever. How? And that's

33:01.377 --> 33:04.460
the truth. How is that? We have replaced that with the lie.

33:05.086 --> 33:08.747
Forgive us, Lord God, and deliver us from evil as Jesus prayed

33:09.261 --> 33:13.034
and lead us not into temptation. And Father, we thank you for that wisdom and

33:13.534 --> 33:16.695
that counsel and recognizing that it's not our opinions

33:16.727 --> 33:19.903
that matter. It's your truth. That matters. In Jesus' name,

33:20.560 --> 33:23.091
amen. Amen. Marjorie, you have a manual.

33:23.941 --> 33:27.579
What's that manual that has the diagram in it? Oh yeah,

33:28.348 --> 33:32.033
that's what it is. It's the

33:32.594 --> 33:36.761
diagram for the spiritual warfare, understanding how that

33:36.841 --> 33:40.415
our bodies— Setting Captives Free. Well, there's that one too.

33:40.511 --> 33:42.898
There's Setting Captives Free. That's a good one.

33:43.908 --> 33:47.196
And they're all good. They're all great. Yeah, they're,

33:47.244 --> 33:51.237
they're exactly what people need to see, uh, with pictures

33:51.269 --> 33:54.749
and stories and diagrams. And, um,

33:55.102 --> 33:58.630
the manual for the Combat Manual— Combat Manual,

33:58.646 --> 34:01.854
that's the deal. That's the one. It's, it's actually a— if

34:02.354 --> 34:05.542
you pick that one up, you're going to see it drawn out the whole— you

34:06.042 --> 34:08.878
can actually see that. You'll see your whole life. I remember years ago, Margie,

34:08.910 --> 34:12.217
there was a guy that saw that diagram and he

34:12.717 --> 34:16.311
said, I saw, he commented afterwards, he'd never seen that before.

34:16.841 --> 34:20.438
He said, there's my whole life, my uncles, my whole family.

34:20.550 --> 34:23.649
I see everything is right there in that diagram. Powerful.

34:24.067 --> 34:27.423
Yeah, and it's very simple, but it's very powerful. And so

34:27.615 --> 34:31.356
it uncomplicates the truth if you think the truth is complicated.

34:32.256 --> 34:36.093
And so— How can they get that manual? Those manuals,

34:36.206 --> 34:40.123
Setting Captives Free and The Combat Manual. They can get them at

34:40.623 --> 34:43.945
liferecovery.com, or I don't think those manuals are

34:43.977 --> 34:47.718
on Amazon. So you have to go to liferecovery.com, The Combat

34:47.847 --> 34:51.636
Manual. They're very helpful. There's other manuals there too.

34:52.326 --> 34:56.212
Please do yourself a great favor and

34:56.437 --> 34:59.552
take some action in your life. And if you're a little confused about what to

35:00.052 --> 35:03.310
do and where to start, Check out some of these things at our store on

35:03.407 --> 35:07.342
liferecovery.com, because there's

35:07.842 --> 35:11.632
many things out there that explain really well what's

35:11.760 --> 35:14.587
really going on. And you don't have to be ignorant and you don't have to

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be unaware anymore. And so God help us to

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be informed. Lord, teach us how to receive the instructions

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to forsake evil and live in your love,

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your truth, and your hope, in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Amen. I have an emergency. What is your location?

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Rescue Radio, 'cause there's a war for your