How to Have Great Peace

Good morning Church on the Move. Good to see you today. It's always a joy to be here. I really enjoy speaking in this church. It's very special. I get a chance to travel a lot nowadays and I get to go to churches all over the country, but there's no place like home. Good to be here. Okay, I am selling some books. I have two. In all these years of ministry, I have managed to write two books. I'm really just setting it on fire. One of them is called The Coming Resurrections and it's a study of every resurrection that has happened, every one that is going to happen. There are eight biggies. Eight. Two sets of four. Only one of them has taken place. There are seven more to come. So that book is all about those resurrections. We're a resurrection people. And then I've got another book which it saved my life and it's what really built Church on the Move. It's what built the ministry before there was a church on the move. It's called The Windows of Heaven. God had to teach me how to be a businessman so that I could do the things I was supposed to do in kids ministry. There was no support. People did not give to my kids ministry. They were favorable toward it, but nobody really gave to it. And so I had to learn how to make money and that was the secret of how we made it. In each of these, and it's called The Windows of Heaven, by the way, each of these books has a page like this where there's a QR code. If you scan it, you're going to see a video lesson that goes right along with each one of the printed chapters. Thirteen chapters in each book is designed to last a quarter and the money book is $30. The resurrection book is $25. If you buy them both, they're $50. And then, for those of you who like free stuff, tomorrow morning I will start a podcast series on what I'm preaching about today, Psalm 119, 165. Today, I'll only be able to give you two hours and 15 minutes worth of material. On the podcast, it'll be a full three hours, so be sure to download it. By the way, you go to myfaithroots.com. Tomorrow morning, you'll be able to listen to that podcast for free every week in the month of August. Alright, that is our text. Psalm 119, 165. Great peace have they which love thy law. Nothing shall offend them. Longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119. The fact that there is a 165 is just incredible that there's that many verses. Actually, this chapter has a section of eight verses for every one of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet. They only have 22 letters in their alphabet. So, eight times 22 is 176 verses total. The shortest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 117. Longest is Psalm 119. The middle chapter of the Bible is Psalm 118. There are 594 chapters before Psalm 118, 594 chapters after Psalm 118. Add those two numbers together, and you get 1188. It just so happens that the middle verse of the Bible, of all the verses in the Bible, is Psalm 118, verse 8. Take the colon out, and it's 1188. It's a little bit of the design, not only on the fact that God gave the prophets the inspiration to write the Word, but God even gave guidance to the guys who put the canon together. It was even years after the books were put together that things were divided up into verses. I promise you, nobody realized that this stuff was going on. It was the hand of God that brought people to that. That's the way it happens. You look back on your life, and you realize God was there. God was there. God was there. God was there. I want to share with you something very important about peace. As we read this verse, Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. When we look at this verse, it can easily be divided into three sections. I'm learning from Whit after all these years. He always comes up and tells you, we're going to do three things with the message today. Well, all right, we're going to do that, three things. First thing we're going to focus on is great peace. Then we're going to go to have they which love thy law, and then lastly, we'll deal with, and nothing shall offend them. Great peace does not come to you automatically. If you are expecting to become a follower of Christ,

and immediately find great peace, you're going to be mistaken. I will never forget when I gave my heart to Christ on February the 19th, 1970, and went into a prayer room. That week, almost 1,000 young people came to faith in Christ. There were at least 100 that night in the prayer room. Probably three-quarters of them were girls, high school girls, which means this, lots of crying going on in that prayer room. I was not crying and I couldn't feel a thing and I thought God was not taking me. So I repented of everything and when you're in my position at 17 and a half years old, you could repent for a long, long time and still not cover all the list. And so I'm repenting thinking if I hit on the magic number here before long, God's bound to forgive me. I never felt a thing. I did what they told me to do. I prayed the prayer. I agreed that Jesus was raised from the dead. I agreed that he died for my sins. I did confess him as Lord but I felt absolutely nothing and the next day, I wasn't sure if it took or not. So I went back two nights later and I walked the aisle again just to see if it would take differently the second time. Prayed again, didn't feel a thing, no feelings whatsoever and so I am completely bum-fuzzled at why I don't feel peace. Because I'm hearing people all over say, it's like 1,000 pounds lifted off my shoulder. I couldn't say that. I've never been more confused in all my life. I thought this was gonna be all joy and peace and fun

and that God loves me. We're gonna sing Kumbaya in any moment here and I didn't have any of that, none of it. So that was in a Baptist church so I thought, well, I'm in the wrong church. I need to go to my grandma's church. They're a feeler church and they feel everything and the whole church is all about feeling and there's a lot of shouting and crying and running and jumping and all that kind of stuff. So sure enough, I went to grandma's church on a Wednesday night and they had a prayer time at the altar at the end of the service and so I went down to the altar and I am begging God, please let me feel you. And that night, my emotions clicked and I felt God and I cried like a baby and was certain that he had received me. The pastor that I had known had heard him preach when I was just a kid, since maybe my three-year-old, four-year-old self, I heard him preach and I loved this guy and he was a wonderful pastor and he cried on top of me and wept and I felt tears hitting the back of my neck when he's laying hands on me praying. So okay, I'm good, feel God. So I'm good for about, I don't know, a day and a half and I go back to school and God's not there anymore and I don't know if he's scared of the teenagers in my high school, I don't know what it is

but I don't feel him anymore and I'm wondering, what in the world happened? Did I commit some kind of a sin to lose him? Is he that hard to please? I don't know, I am so confused. I got nobody to talk to, can't talk to my dad. My dad is gonna tell me in about three weeks time that I can't go back to church anymore so he's not gonna be of much help and so I have nobody to talk to and so my mind is just whoring and I have all kinds of questions and instead of having peace, I am in complete confusion. Now, I had an aunt who showed up about that time and I told her what I was going through and she said, let me give you a verse. Isaiah 26 three, you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on you because he trusts in you. She said, Willie, you have to keep your mind on Jesus. I said, okay, thank you for telling me that. Now, I walk away from that and what if I were to tell you, keep your mind on Jesus. How do you do that? What exactly do you do? Now, I didn't know much about Jesus, didn't know a whole lot about what he said. The only Jesus I really remember was the one that was in elementary school on the flannel graph board. You know the pictures of Jesus on felt

and they would always put him up there and he had this, I don't know why, but the artist who drew Jesus always drew a real effeminate Jesus. He could never have been a football player, I know that. And he always had this weird look on his face and his hand was always like this. This was the official Jesus hand gesture and he's got this blank look on his face and so I'm imagining Jesus with his hand out like that. I feel absolutely nothing. I'm more confused than ever before. I have no idea what it means to think about Jesus. I have no idea. What am I thinking? How do I think about him? What do I do? And so I begin a journey that some of you are going through. And by the way, I realize that not everybody's like me because I'm a thinker. Thinkers have to figure out everything before they accept it. They can't accept anything just because somebody told them. They are skeptical. And because of my upbringing, because of things I experienced, because of mistrust I had of both of my parents, but especially my mother, I had all of these feeling issues

that the average person. did not have, but some of you can relate to that. Now last night, we were driving home, my wife says, I don't relate to any of that stuff you said. And I said, I know you don't. You took things at face value. You had a totally different set of parents than I did. But I grew up differently, so I'm a thinker, and I know not everybody in the body of Christ is like me, but there are a bunch of people that are that have trouble with their thoughts. You know what I did when I was gospel building, I was teaching kids how to get control of their feelings and how to think the right thoughts. I got a big, big, maybe a six by six, four by four, something, a big block of wood, and I wrote on it, thoughts. And I connected a piece of rope from that to another board of the same size, and I wrote on it, feelings. And I said to kids, as I'm sitting on the edge of my gospel build desk, where your thoughts go is where your feelings will follow. And I took that board that said thoughts and just kind of eased it over the side of the desk, and it goes off the side, but guess who goes with it? The feelings follow right after. Your thoughts and your feelings are tied together. They're inseparable. If you have cruddy feelings,

it's because you've had cruddy thoughts. Your thoughts are pulling your feelings down. And until you learn that thinking is your responsibility, not God's, thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you. That means, then, that it's my responsibility to keep my mind on the Lord, not his responsibility. Now, he did his part. When I came to faith in Christ, he changed me. He put his spirit inside me and completely regenerated or rebirthed my spirit. I was born again, but it didn't affect my head. Doesn't affect my mind. My mind has to be brought into harmony with that new spirit. Now, the reason I was able to continue in my walk with God is because what was going on in my spirit was stronger even than my confused mind. So, I started the journey and I said, I'm gonna learn what I gotta do to whoop this. My uncle came to visit me during those days and he was a pastor. He heard I gave my heart to Christ and he wanted to encourage me and thank God God sent him to me at just the right time because my grandma's church was not a thinker's church. It was a feeler's church. Everything about the services, everything was all about feeling God.

And so, when I would talk to anybody at that church, it was all about what you felt, not about what was true. And so, my uncle came and he was of a totally different strike. He grew up in the same church. He was in that church when he was young, but he had learned some things about growing with God that they didn't know. And so, he said, you're saved. I said, I don't feel it. He said, doesn't matter what you feel. The scripture says, Jesus said, or the book of Romans chapter 10 says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, did you do that? Did you say Jesus is my Lord? I said, yes. And believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Did you do that? I said, yes, I did. You shall be saved. He said, if you're not saved, then the Bible's a lie. What? You would dare say the Bible's a lie? It's a lie if you're not saved. But it's not a lie. Let me tell you who's lying. Your feelings are lying to you right now. And you gotta quit listening to your feelings. Nobody ever talked to me like that.

I go to my grandma's church and they would talk about feelings as though that was somehow the leading of the Holy Spirit. You would feel the Spirit of God. Listen to me. I was never more confused in all my life. I had to learn how not to live by my feelings. You know what feelings are like? Every one of us went to high school where there was one little gal in the high school, maybe two or three, that were really, really extra beautiful. They were everybody's girlfriend. They didn't want just one guy. They wanted all the guys to chase them, right? And so she would show you just a little bit of attention and you go ga-ga after her. And next thing you know, she won't even talk to you. Just makes you feel like you're nothing or nobody. That's a perfect look at feelings. Feelings are just like that. When you chase them, they will treat you like you're a dog. You have to say to your feelings, you know what, gal? You're not the only fish in the sea. I'll go find some other feelings. So that's what you've gotta do. You've gotta learn how to find you some new feelings and quit chasing that old stuck up feeling that you've got.

All right, now, feelings can be changed by the Word of God. So the Bible says you have to repulse and replace those thoughts that are coming at you. Now, you know why a lot of people get stuck in their feelings and thoughts is because they think they have to understand things in order to accept them. If I don't understand it, I cannot accept it. That's the way so many people think. But listen to what Philippians chapter four and verse seven says, and the peace of God, isn't that what you're after? It surpasses all understanding. And what that means is the peace of God is superior to understanding, meaning that you can have the peace of God before you understand what it is you're going through. You can be at peace, even when you don't understand all the ramifications of what you're facing. That's exactly what that verse means. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Because you're not just a heart, not just a spirit, you have a mind. And your mind can make you miserable if you do not know how to regulate it. You know, if you have had issues and trouble thinking, one of the things you know is true is that thoughts come in strings. You'll have a bad thought, and then you'll start thinking about it and shut it down. And then another thought follows it that's just a little different.

But what about this? And that's the way the devil works. But what about this? And you'll say, no, no, no, no. And what about this? And these thoughts keep coming in strings. And the next thing you know, you've rejected five of those thoughts, and then you're back to thought number six again. And that's the way the devil loves to work. He loves to take you in a circle, and you'll stay up all night long trying to think the answer. You know what I've learned? You never think the answer. When I get into a place of confusion and I'm looking for an answer, I have never thought of the answer. Never. Not while I'm in confusion. Can I put it to you like this? If you have a workplace, and there is a parking spot with your name on it, and you pull up there, and somebody's in your parking spot, you are never going to get into that parking spot as long as that car is in that parking spot. The only way you're ever going to get into your parking spot is to move the car that's in your spot. You with me? You have to move out or repulse that bad feeling and refuse to think it before you can have the right feeling and the right thoughts. You have to learn to think differently. And so, that's what this battle is all about. It is about repulsing and replacing bad thoughts.

It's not just about repulsing them. Repulsion by itself doesn't work. I'm not going to think about elephants for the next 15 minutes. I'm not going to think about their big long trunks that touch the ground. I'm not going to think about their big way because, as you see, repulsion doesn't work. It's repulse and replace. You've got to learn to replace those thoughts. Repulse the bad ones. Replace it with good. Now, somebody says, man, this stuff is tough because I get into these thought battles and I feel like I'm losing my mind. I want to tell you something. You're in a great place. You're in an awesome place. You're in stage one of victory. I am? Yes, you are. But I'm going through the roughest battle I've ever been through. That's stage one of victory. When you stop and think about it, every great Bible victory starts with someone in a terrible place. That's why James could write in James 1 too, my brothers counted all joy when you fall into various trials. You like the story of David and Goliath? Isn't it cool that a teenage boy goes out and hits a giant with a stone, sinks it into his forehead, and then runs up to him and cuts his head off? Isn't the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den a great story where Daniel gets put into a lion's den, spins on out there, and is not touched by a single lion? Or how about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?

They get thrown into the burning, fiery furnace, and the whole nation sees that they are delivered by God. Can I tell you something? There were some moments when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego weren't so hot on this experience they were having. In fact, there are lots of times when God's deliverance goes a little bit past the wire. I'm sure they were probably thinking, okay, Lord, we'd like to be delivered from this before we get to the door of that furnace. But they weren't, and they go all the way to the door of the furnace, and the king says, heat it up seven times hotter than normal. They heat it up seven times. And, you know, he got mad when he said that, and it was really stupid because it didn't hurt them anymore. Heating the furnace up seven times hotter is only going to burn them quicker. And it killed all of his good guys. All of his strongest men got killed when they heated the furnace up. But that's what happens when you lose your cool. You always make a bad decision. So Nebuchadnezzar made a bad decision. The furnace is heated up super hot. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego get thrown in, and they're probably wondering, okay, God, deliverance time was a few minutes ago. And then they realize, you know what? We're not touched. We're still in the middle of all of this junk, but it has no effect on us. And they didn't even have the smell of smoke on them. So if you are in a serious thought crisis right now, you are in phase one of the greatest victory of your life, because that's how all the great deliverance Bible stories happen. They always start with a big problem.

And sometimes that big problem has gone on and on and on and on. Before David went out to fight Goliath, there had been confusion for 40 days, twice a day. Goliath railed on the men of Israel, intimidated them, put fear in them, and not one single man in all of Israel was able to stand up to his words. Only David, when he got to the battlefield. So I want you to see that when you are in that place of terrible confusion, you're ripe for a great work of God. I had to learn to think that way. It was not easy, because I'm asking this question, if I am right, if this is right, if God's word is true, why don't I feel good? And one day I woke up and said, you know what? I could care less how I feel. I'm going to do what the Bible says do. I'm going to trust what the Bible says trust. I'm going to believe what the Bible tells me is true. I'm going to put my faith in God's word and not in my feeling. Until you learn to live that way, you're headed for trouble. Now, count it all joy when you enter into various trials. Do you know that even Jesus had to go through trials like this? And I'm going to read you a story about a trial that Jesus went through that you would probably think, man, this went on way too long. The Bible says in Matthew 4, 1, then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Now, I'm going to stop right here. He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness for the express purpose of being tempted. Why? Why would the Holy Spirit lead him into the wilderness like that? It's because Jesus was a perfect human being. You're not. You're not.

I'm not. Every one of us is tempted because we have lust in our flesh. There are certain things in my flesh that are not good, and evil things of certain kinds appeal to them. Now, my temptations are different than yours. I've never been tempted to rob a bank. Maybe some of you have. When I go to the bank, I never have to quote the scripture, thou shalt not steal. I never had to think like that. But I have my temptations. Make no mistake about it. There are things that I do with that might not be a temptation to you, but they're a temptation to me. So we're all tempted in different areas. We all have different areas of lust. Or what is lust? It's an out-of-control, unregulated desire. And it may be based upon something you grew up with or what you're around. I know for me, temper, losing control, getting angry. I grew up with that. I grew up in a house full of fighting, and both my mom and my dad. And so it was easy for me to fall into that. And I mean, it was such a stronghold with me in the first grade, the first two weeks of school. I'm being held by two teachers. And they've got me facing another boy that I'm mad at. And they've pulled us apart. We'd been fighting. And I'm there with a teacher with her hand on my shoulder, lecturing me, telling me not to fight.

And I'm looking across at that kid, first grade, first stinking grade. And I'm looking at him. And the more I look at him, the madder I get. And with the teacher's hand on my shoulder, I reach up, double up my fist, and pop him right in the chin. It only makes things worse. I had to realize, this doesn't pay. This is behavior that does not pay. And I had to sit down the rest of the recess. I'm lucky I didn't get my britches busted. But the point that I want to make is this, is that that was an issue with me because of what I grew up in. I had a particular bend toward losing control. Some of you don't have that. Some of you are not wired that way. I did. That was something that I had an issue with. So we're all tempted in different ways. And so you have to learn how to, ahead of time, prepare yourself for those temptations because he's not going to come at you with something exotic. In fact, the scripture says in 1 Corinthians 10, there is no temptation taking you but such as is common to man. Now, you know what the devil loves to tell you? He loves to tell you that what you're going through is different than anybody else has ever seen. You're the first one to ever have to go through this. Nobody's ever gone through this quite like you. And he will isolate you and make you think There's nobody you can talk to that has known what you're going through right now.

He'll make you think that. He'll isolate you, and it's not true. Now, we'll say this. There may not be 1,000 people around you who've gone through exactly what you're going through, but there's somebody who has faced what you're facing. We've all gone through it in some way or another, and so you've got to learn how not to give in to that idea that what you're going through is unique. He wants to make you think it's unique. It's not. It's as common as it can be. Now, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Why? So that he could be our high priest and know what it's like to be tempted and resist it to show us how we get out of temptation. Now, the Bible says, when he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, afterward, he was hungry. I have a friend who has fasted for 40 days, two or three times. I can't tell you what it's like to fast for 40 days. I can tell you what it's like to fast for three, and I'm not real sure I want to fast again for three days, but here's the point. The point is that when you fast for 40 days, you go through a place where you're not hungry anymore. You go through it the first few days

and you're really hungry, and then you reach a point where you're not hungry, but then at the end of 40 days, you really get ravenously hungry. Now, your body is beginning to feed on itself. It's eating up the fat reserves. Now, it's coming from muscle and other things like that that you need, and so Jesus is extremely hungry, and the tempter came to him. He's in a special place of temptation because he's under great duress physically, and the tempter said, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become bread. Now, I would imagine that Jesus was probably in one of those places in Israel where the rocks do look like bread, big loaves of bread, and I've seen those places where it does. It looks like just a big old bun, and the devil's saying, if you're the son of God, why don't you turn those into bread? You can imagine how that might have some appeal, but let me tell you what's going on here. Let's get to the nuts and bolts of this temptation. First of all, it is a temptation to get Jesus to doubt his sonship if you are the son of God.

How could that be? How would that happen? If we go back and read the last two verses of the chapter just before this temptation, you can see why Satan said that. Let's go back and read those verses in Matthew chapter three. When Jesus had been baptized, he came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him, and suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. We may think that that kind of stuff happened with Jesus every day. It's the first time it ever happened in his life. There were lots of miracles when Jesus was born. The angels came, shouted. They appeared to the shepherds. The wise men came. They gave Jesus as a toddler gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Elizabeth prophesied to Mary before Jesus was born that she was gonna give birth to the Messiah. So there's all these big supernatural things that happened 30 years before. Now guess what? He didn't remember a one of them. For the first time in all of his existence on earth, he hears God's voice say, you are my beloved son.

So what does Satan do? Well, what did he do to me? I got saved. What did he come to talk me out of? He came to talk me out of my salvation. He will always try to take from you something that you just got. When I got filled with the Holy Spirit, he did the same thing. He tried to tell me I wasn't really filled with the Holy Spirit. That's the way it works. He's always trying to steal what God gave you. You can't keep it. You've got it now, but you can't keep it. Oh, don't get used to this. You're gonna lose it. He'll try to make you think you're gonna lose everything good that ever comes to you. You can't live like that. Now listen to me. Jesus had an answer for him. Jesus had an answer for him. And by the way, let me tell you another thing he was doing. He was saying to Jesus, who led you out here in the wilderness without food? You show up in a wilderness out here without anything to eat? Who led you to do that?

God led you to do that? Spirit led you to do that? And now here you are, weak from fasting for 40 days. How are you going to get out of here? How are you going to walk out of here? You don't have enough strength to get out of these mountains. You're going to have to do some climbing. You know what it took to get here. And so you're so weak right now, how are you going to get out? What kind of predicament did your God put you in? You're the Son of God and this is where you are? Do you see now what Satan was doing, saying, turn the rocks into bread? That is so completely unnatural. God has never made food from rocks or anything that's dead. All of our food has always come from a living source, either a living plant or a living animal. Nothing ever from rock. And so Jesus resisted the devil and the devil left him. Jesus resisted him three times and the devil left him. And then the Bible says the angels came and they ministered to him. That's Matthew 4, 11. You know what the word minister means most of the time, over 30 different times? It's translated way more than 30 times. But 30 of those times, the word minister means to serve food to. You know what I think? I think the angels came and gave something to Jesus to eat that would get him out of the wilderness.

And he couldn't eat solid food because it would kill him if he fasted for 40 days. So he either had broth or juice or whatever, but God had something even better. Because the context of the verse that he used to resist Satan, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, that context is when God gave manna to the children of Israel. It is my opinion, you can be wrong if you want to, but I believe, I believe that the angels came and brought Jesus manna. And it wouldn't have been the first time that happened. And that's how he got out of the wilderness. In other words, God led him in to this place. God can also lead him out. Listen to me. I don't care what kind of temptation you find yourself in, there is always a way out the door. You don't have to be ruined by this temptation. Satan would like for you to think that, but just because you got put here does not mean, and you know what, you get put in battles you had no intention of getting into. That doesn't mean they're over. That's a big lie. You might as well throw in the towel, he says, because if it was God, you wouldn't have gotten to this place. It would all be over.

This would never have happened. You wouldn't be in this trouble. The money would have showed up a long time ago if this was God. That's how the devil lies. You can't listen to everything he says to you. Now, let's keep going. The believer who steadfastly learns the word, learns the word, and that's how you show you love God's word. How do I love God's word? I learn it. That's how I show that I love God's word. I learn God's word. Learn what it says. The believer who learns God's word and applies God's word during a time of temptation is the person who is not going to stumble. Great peace have they which love God's law. How do I love God's law? I learn it. Jesus learned that verse in Deuteronomy, and therefore he had something to use on the devil when the devil came after him. So when you learn those verses, that's how you first show that you love God's law. But learning it is not enough. You have to apply it. And so when Jesus spoke it out loud, he's applying that word.

You can read your Bible, and I'm a big believer in reading through the Bible. I think it's a great thing. But I'm gonna tell you that you need to have some additional study time where you're reading one or two verses at a time and learning them and letting them sink into you. Somebody says, which verses are they? I can't tell you. They'll pop off the page at you when you read them. You'll recognize them when they're there. And I can't tell you what they are. But down through the years, I've learned different verses, and I thought, well, I gotta remember that. And I'll write that down, commit that to memory, say it 100 times, and then it's mine. And it may be years before I ever have to use it, but I've got it. That's how you learn the word. And then when the time comes, you have something to speak. All right, now let's keep going. There is a four-step process that the enemy uses to take us down. And I'm gonna reverse it, because you're already taken down when this happens. said in 2 Corinthians 10, 3, 4, and 5, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not natural, but they're mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

When the enemy has a stronghold in your life, it's because you have a regular behavior. You have a place that you've given to the enemy. You may know it as a weakness. It's not a weakness because a weakness is acceptable. Everybody's got a weakness. It's like somebody having a pet skunk. Everybody's got a weakness. I've got a weakness. We've all got weaknesses. Weaknesses are acceptable. How about we talk about it the way the scriptures do? We have a stronghold. Satan has a stronghold in my mind. He knows that there are buttons that he can push in me, and that temper comes out. He knows that there are buttons he can push with you, and the fear of not having enough money comes to mind, and it grips your soul. He knows that there are certain buttons that he can push, and you're overwhelmed with sexual temptation. He knows that there are certain buttons that he can push, and maybe you may not be the kind of person that outwardly loses his cool. You're a passive-aggressive type. You go into manipulation mode instead of anger mode. Everybody's got some kind of stronghold that they deal with, and a stronghold is there because you've given into this thing over and over and over again, and it's super easy for you to fall into,

and can I tell you, there is another stage before the stronghold phase that you can recognize and know you're headed for the stronghold, and here it is, casting down imaginations. Before you fall into that wrong behavior, you will always imagine doing it. I've never punched anybody without imagining punching them first. I've never popped off and said something in anger that I didn't first imagine. You know the best thing that ever happened to me? I married a woman who's quicker than I am, and she doesn't get smart. She just, I've learned how, there's nothing I can say. I can never out-argue her. I'd learned to give up a long time ago. That's one of the best things that ever happened to me. I lose every fight verbally I ever get into with her, and I respect her so much I've never hit her, but the point I wanna make is, I've learned, it's just, you're making a mistake, so here's the point. I've learned that you cast down imaginations. Don't give in to that imagination, but before the imagination, there's always a but thought. Now, we're not talking about this part right here. We're talking about the, I know the Bible says this, but. I know the Bible says this, but. But, I know the Bible says it is a high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

You'd be amazed how many people are engaged in behavior that's destructive, and they know what the scriptures have to say about it, but they listened to a but thought. But, you don't know what it's like to be in my shoes. You don't know what it's like to live with her. You don't know what it's like to live with him. You don't know what it's like to work for so and so. You don't know what it's like to be in the family I grew up with. You don't know what it's like, but. And we disqualify promises of God because we exalt an idea that's wrong above the knowledge of God. That's exactly what Satan did to Eve in the garden. He said, God knows that you will not surely die. You eat the fruit, you will not surely die. It's a total contradiction, it's a but thought. God knows that if you eat that fruit, you'll be as wise as he is. That's the but thought. And then he turned on imagination. She began to see the fruit, and, oh, this is gonna make me wise, and it looked like it would taste good. It looked like it would feel wonderful. And she has all of this stuff going with imagination. Then they eat, and it becomes the stronghold. But that's not how he started. He started with a question.

Has God said you'll not eat? the fruit of every tree that grows in the garden, just a simple question, and right there is where someone should have answered. It really wasn't Eve's responsibility, it was Adam's. So the Bible says we bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. In other words, the time to stop temptation is at the first thought, not the imagination, not the stronghold, not even the butt thought, at the first thought. And how do I do it? I replace it with the word. And Jesus didn't think for 30 minutes before he said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, he said it instantly. You know what the devil has sold us? He sold us a lie that resisting temptation is going to be a long and arduous battle, that it's going to be almost impossible to do. Years ago, we had a wonderful guest here at the church named Dr. Robbie Sonderreger, trained psychologist out of Australia, practiced also in the United States as well, and he dealt with all kinds of addictions. We'll talk about sexual addiction here. He said, you know what a lot of people don't realize? And sexual addiction is one of the strongest addictions that anybody could have. He said, what a lot of people don't realize, if you can resist attempting thought for five minutes, we have proven clinically that it goes away. If you resist it for five minutes, it will go away. It doesn't mean it won't try to come back eventually, but it will go away. And he said, most people think that if they try to resist, it's just going to keep coming, and keep coming, and keep coming, and we quit resisting. But if you keep pouring the heat to the attack by speaking the word of God, and you show no let up, that temptation will have to go. It's not as enduring as you might think. And the reason why is because you have now begun to use a weapon that Satan is deathly afraid of. And the scriptures tell us that when you speak the word of God, it becomes a sword against him. And the Bible says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Meaning he runs as in terror, because he can't stand up against what you've got. Ladies and gentlemen, you take control of your thought life. You have all kinds of tools at your disposal to get that done. You are a victory waiting to happen. And those of you who are in a big place of turmoil and desperate thought right now, remember what I said, you are in stage one of the greatest story of your life. Father, in the name of Jesus, help people to take this to heart, to remember these words, to remember these

scriptures, to remember these principles. And I thank you, Lord, in advance for all the victories that come as a result. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much for watching this message from Church on the Move Tulsa. We really hope it encouraged you to take a step toward Jesus. Church on the Move is a family of churches in Northeast Oklahoma, each with its own in-person pastor. We love our Bibles, learning a community and taking steps toward Jesus. If you live in the area, we would love for you to join us in person. For more information, check out our website at churchonthemove.com or we've got a few videos we think you might like. Check them out here. Church on the Move www.churchonthemove.com Church on the Move