Alright, this morning as we had gone over last week, here in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12, Ephesians 6, 12 says, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. As we understand here, the spiritual in our minds are many times It's not a physical battle, it's a spiritual battle. The fight is against, I'm just doing a little bit of review, it's against principalities, angels or demons, understanding this, that Satan tempts people to doing wicked things. He'll put a thought, he'll do something. And the fight is against, there is wickedness in government, there's a wickedness in high places, the heavenlies, as the scriptures here just speak about. And Satan here in Job chapter one and two would bring accusations against Job. And God would say, have you considered my servant Job, who is so faithful? And Satan would say, well, if you take all of his money away, then he will no longer be faithful. He takes all of his money, he loses all of his wealth, he loses all of his livestock, all of his children are killed, his five children are killed, and yet Job still does not curse God. His wife even comes to him and says, why don't you curse God and die? And he basically says, you're speaking as a foolish woman. Job retained his integrity. You know also that in Revelation chapter 12 verse 10 that Satan regularly accuses us as believers and Satan's forces would fight and withstand Daniel in Daniel chapter 10 verse 13. Now as I had come and I spoke about last week there was a lady to whom Dr. Souter, who's the author of this book and the material that I'm using. He was speaking to a lady and as he began to read through scripture and got to the cross of Christ talking to her about salvation, she got to the point and she basically glazed over and the page was blank to her. She could no longer see anything. He rebuked the demon by the blood of Jesus Christ and the cross and that demon went away and thereby then she could read with no issues. You see, in Ephesians 6.13, as we look at the next section, wherefore taken to you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand the evil day, and having done all, to stand. You see, God wants us to stand firm for him. Now, our relationships will take us out of the battle for the Lord. Now, as I discussed last week, I'm just doing a little bit of review before we move forward. Working back there for the live stream? Oh, all right. Proverbs 23.7 says, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. You know what? Your thought processes will affect how you act. If a person thinks this idea that I can't do anything, I'm a loser, or I'm a failure, or I'm a whatever, and you begin to have such negative thoughts in your life, you're going to act in such a way. And so that's why Proverbs 4.23 says, keep thy heart That keep is a protection as though it is so valuable. Protect your heart. It says keep that heart with all diligence. You know what? You need to protect your heart. And that's why in relationships and getting to know other people and there's a protecting of your heart. Now I'm not saying that you protect your soul heart. You protect your heart so much that you never let anyone in. I had, when I got to know my wife, there was a, there was a barrier at first and there would only be so many things as we were getting to know one another. And she realized until she realized that it was God's will for us to be married and go forward from there. And she also, as I would go forward and I'd talk with her parents about, you know, my interest in her and the, the, the, the ability to begin to talk to her and, and, uh, enter into relationship, begin to date her. And, uh, they would talk with her and try to protect her heart. Because they didn't know who I was, maybe some crazy guy, and that is probably true, but it says, keep that heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. And when someone's heart is hurt in a great way, they begin to function in some odd ways. And I was just speaking with an individual this past week, And I began to go over some of this material from last week about a young lady that had been abused by her uncle. And she said that was the exact thing that had happened to her. And she began to weep and weep and weep. And there's been a mess. And there was this struggle of, I can't trust people. You know why? Because that heart has been hurt. Feel the heart before you can help the person. And the mind is just, the mind is information, but your heart is where that pain comes. Have you ever had something so excruciatingly painful in your life? And it's not necessarily that it's a physical pain, but there is an emotional pain that comes and it breaks you to your very core of who you are. And you just begin to sob and weep. And I've had that in my life. And if I was to ask someone, and one of the first characteristics of the whole of no hope, and we're going to talk about that this morning. But when you sit down and one of the things in regards to beginning to get this process of healing is if I was to ask someone on a scale of one to 10, where would you grade the incident of your greatest pain? Could it be, sometimes someone might say, well, it's a four or five in pain. Well, then it's not excruciating. There's times that, as I was talking with Dr. Souter, as he was going through and done counseling with people, he said, you know what, I've talked to people and they said on a scale of one to 10, it was like a 15. He said, there's a problem there. There's a struggle, there's a hurt in that heart. You need to bring that back up and let the Lord Jesus Christ heal and as you begin to go through it and one of the things as I had discussed last week is the hope deferred make it the heart sick. You know, we can wait for something and wait for something. Maybe I can have some healing. Maybe something can happen. You know what, there's also great hurts. Sometimes they're perceived and sometimes they're actual hurts. Here's a perceived hurt. I'm praying, and I'm praying, and I'm fasting, and I'm praying, and I'm asking God, Lord, would you resurrect? Would you bring back, for instance, if my dad was dying, and my dad's still very much alive, but if I was saying, Dad, I want my dad to come back, and maybe the doctors would only give him just a couple days left to live because if there was cancer or something like that, and I was praying, and then all of a sudden, he was to die. And I would have that injury of saying, God, why did you let my dad die? I prayed. I did all that you wanted me to do, and yet my dad died. Hope deferred, make the heart sick. And that can allow us to get into several states of, we can get in depression, we can get into anger. Here's the ways with which this deferred heart makes us sick. Depression, anger, worry, loneliness, worthlessness, hopelessness, bitterness, misunderstood, and then you ask the question, why? You see, all of us have two basic emotional needs. Security is the ability to feel safe. Am I safe and is someone there for me? Is someone going to be there for me? Are my parents there for me? And that was a struggle I know growing up as I would, my parents split up several times and the security of knowing whether one of my parents would be there. And they brought that into the, in our marriage when we first married, that idea of, will she leave me? And I really struggled with that. And then the other issue is significance, the ability to feel important. Does someone need me? Does someone love me and am I important to someone? You realize if we have no security and no significance, we're in a bad, bad state. And we need that. You see, God and God alone can give us true security and significance. And as I have drawn closer to the Lord and God has worked through these issues in my life, there were some deep, deep hurts that I had allowed to get in there. And I made some foolish decisions because there was things in my life and in my heart that I had never dealt with. And when they began to come up, it was very trying, it was very struggle, it was a great struggle. You see in Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse eight, and the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee, he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee, fear not, neither be dismayed. The truth is, God says, I'm gonna be with you. And you could come to that truth, well God, where were you when my loved one passed away? God, where were you when so-and-so did such a action against me? And Rebecca, in our story, had developed the characteristics of those living in the hole of no hope. Her mind was in emotional clutter. She couldn't think. She was in medical school. Her grades were failing. She had the past. She had a hard time trusting. And she even got to the point of considering suicide. And you realize that that's not what God wants. And even if a person is a believer, we can still get to that state. Can I tell you from the very truth that's happened in my life, got to that place of, it's just not worth it. The first characteristic is that inward questioning of why, and we're going to discuss that today. Why, why did this happen to me? Why, why did this, why did you allow this God? And sometimes we can question the events of life in and of itself, and it's not wrong or damaging, but the confusion grows. when the answers are slow in coming. And you know what, when those answers are slow in coming, many times people say, oh, all things work together for good. You're like, it's good for you, but I just lost my loved one. How does that help me any? How can I deal with this? The ability to trust others and even God. Why did you let this happen to me, God? You know, when Christians might come up, all things work together for good or something else. And you're thinking, yeah, right. Would you please be quiet? Can I put some duct tape over it? It's not helping me. It's not helping my heart. I'm hurting. And the truth is, maybe God isn't strong enough to stop bad things from happening. That's a thought that can come. And Rebecca did not realize, but there was a mastermind who was secretly operating the elevator in her heart and her mind down into the hole of no hope. He tempted her with thoughts like, if God really loved you, why did he let this happen? Why did he allow your uncle to abuse you? Maybe God isn't strong enough to stop bad things from happening. You know what? He's a big man upstairs, but he can't stop it. Maybe God doesn't love me like I thought he did. I thought God really loved the humanity, and it talks about God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That's great! But you don't know the pain that I've been through. You don't know what I have endured. Maybe God doesn't love me. Or maybe, what have I done wrong? There were questions in my life when I would see my parents going through fighting, back and forth, and sometimes even separated. You know, you think the question, what have I done wrong? What have I done? And as you go through those questions, Satan's throwing those thoughts. Or maybe the thought, maybe there really isn't a God. Maybe God just is a figment of mankind's imagination. But as you think about this character on this story here, who is the real enemy? And I was meeting with an individual not long ago, and there was a great tragedy in their life, a loss of a loved one. Who's the real enemy? Is it your husband? Well, if he didn't talk to me like this, I wouldn't behave like this. Maybe it's my wife. If she didn't look at me like that, if she didn't continue to nag me, then I wouldn't be like this. Well, if I had better parents growing up, if I had parents who were there for me, if I had parents who would have taught me, if I had parents who, and you can fill in the blank of how your parents did not fulfill their obligations towards you. My children, they drive me crazy. I just, I can't go on anymore. Can I tell you even this morning, our daughter, she was struggling a little bit as we were getting her ready and she was struggling. And she was just one of those days she needed to be in bed a little bit longer. It's my children. They are the ones, the reason why I am the way I am. Maybe it's my girlfriend or boyfriend. How about my boss? If you had to deal with my boss, you would behave the same way too. So the real question is who is truly the enemy? It is Satan. Who do you think was tempting Rebecca's uncle to violate her, to violate his own niece? It was Satan. When we begin to get to that core, it wasn't God. It wasn't God who did it. It wasn't God who made him do it. No, God hates it. God even talks quite specifically against that. Anyone who's causing a young person to stumble, God said, you know, it's better to a noose around their neck and then basically drowned in the sea to cause a child to stumble. It wasn't, it was Satan that put that thought and then he, by his own lust, lived according to the way he wanted to live and it brought him to violate his niece. Here's Satan's goal, it's to disqualify man from ruling by hurting mankind and causing us to stay in the hole of no hope. If I go back to the book of Genesis, he and his helpers, Satan and his helpers have one job, to tempt you and me to sin. Which came first, sin or Satan? Satan came first, and Satan lifted up in pride, thought he could be like God, thought that he could be just as God. He was cast out of heaven, and his motivation from the entire time of being cast out of heaven has been to hurt, defile, and maim, and destroy humanity. The question is, how long could Adam and Eve have been in the Garden of Eden without sinning, had it not been for Satan? You see, there's something special about you and me. We're made in the very image of God, and Satan's goal is to derail God's eternal plan for man by hurting mankind. We are made in the image of God, and when we praise and worship and love and serve God, it makes Satan absolutely infuriated. All of mankind's spiritual problems can be traced back to a hurt, usually an emotional hurt. Whether that hurt is real or imaginary, there's a hurt in our life. In my life, there was a particular instance, there was several things that came up that I allowed, several hurts, and I began to just breed them in my life, and I held on to them so tight, and Satan would push on those little buttons. He would know when I would begin to make progress for the Lord and those hurts would come up and that emotional, all those feelings would rise back up and I would begin to have that emotional rollercoaster. But all of these hurts are based on our wrong thinking and wrong interpretations of the adverse or painful events in our life. Satan wants to disqualify us. As I had said, Proverbs 23 7, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. So how we interpret the events of our life really is critical to our welfare and survival. How do you deal with the particular instances of life, the particular events of your life? And there might be something there that you're struggling with so greatly that you said, I don't know how to deal with it. I don't know how to move forward. You can have the thought of, I'm worthless. And you know what? When someone gets to that position, Satan's got a foothold in their life. I'm not loved. No one loves me. Life is hopeless. I don't know if you've ever met people like that. I have, and I'm sure each and every one of you have met people like that. My parents, yeah, they're there, but they don't really care for me. But if we do not look at life from God's higher perspective, we're going to wrongly interpret the painful events of life. If I begin to, a lot of secular psychology likes to take the pains of the past and say, well, that's because you didn't have good enough parents or you didn't have this or you didn't have that. And maybe you were impoverished or whatever the case may be. I know beginning off or starting off for my family, my parents were very, very poor. They said we would go to the We would go to the convenience store, buy a popsicle, one of those popsicles that you can cut in half, you know, the double stick popsicles. They'd break it in half and for a dollar, they'd split it, because that's about all the money they had. Mom and dad were poor. And I remember we had to go get cheese, get government cheese. And you get a big old five pound block or whatever of cheese, and we cut it up. And mom did daycare and just trying to make anything to make ends meet. Well, maybe that's why I am the way I am, no? It ultimately is a, we have believed lies for Rebecca and her life. God, you weren't there for me. My parents weren't there for me, but her parents never knew about the incident. And when we begin to believe these lies and Satan begins to get further and further. Tentacles into our life where he can destroy us. And you become like a little marionette, a little puppet. That he can just move around as he pulls the different strings in your life, and your thought processes begin to go awry, and you're saying, I don't have stability here. Here's some ways of unbelief. You just don't trust God. The result of accepting the truth, the thought that Satan has substituted for God's truth, we believe a lie. And believing a lie is accepting a thought that Satan has substituted for God's truth. For instance, Here is the truth. Rebecca believed God didn't protect her. Her parents didn't protect her. The truth is her parents didn't know about it. The truth is God gives us a free will to live out and we have the ability to help others or hurt others. God doesn't make us a robot. But why doesn't God protect us? There's wickedness out there. We see it all around us. Why does God not stop all the starvation? Why does God not? But there's wickedness out there. God's given us a free choice. And love is a free choice. And we, many times, we believe the lie that I'm worthless or I'm not loved. No one loves me. I don't matter. And we fall into that hope. And Rebecca, she had all that mental clutter in the story here that I've been telling. Believe these lies. It begins like a ball, like a cancer in your mind, in your heart. You see, unbelief and believing a lie are the satanic inspired root of all of man's spiritual problems. Unbelief. And there have been so many times in my life I don't step forward for God and do what I'm supposed to do because of unbelief. Or maybe I believed a lie. I believed a lie that maybe when my parents divorced it was my fault. Maybe I believe the lie that there was something else that I had done wrong. I believe lies. And you realize some of the other actions that I would have in my life would center because I had never dealt with those lies. I want you to turn with me to Romans 8.28. Romans 8.28. Romans 8.28 says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. If we through unbelief will turn from the truth, unbelief, in unbelief we turn from the truth. We have to understand all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. So all things work together for good. Was it, you know, maybe if my dad had cancer and he passed away? God's going to use that incident. I ought not to believe the lie that God has abandoned me. God doesn't know if I believe, my dad is a believer. And if God, if my dad were to die from cancer, Then if the truth is that God's you know, what God's healed him perfectly because he's going to heaven many times We say Lord, please heal my loved one and when they pass on from this life to the next we say Lord Please heal him. He said I perfectly heal them for eternity. They're healed and When we this idea of unbelief Satan gives us a handle and it turns us away from God and And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables. We begin to believe fables or lies or fictitious, unrealistic truths. But I like in 2 Timothy 2.26 that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. They're snares of the devil. And I had fallen into those snares and others I know have fallen into the snares. And many of the, even in society as you find some of these problems in society, it doesn't matter what it is, whether it's an addiction or immorality, pornography, you name it, whatever the case may be, there's snares in people's lives and they need help out of it. That they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. The truth is Satan can't entrap us in our minds. Here's Matthew 13, 58. He did not many mighty works there talking about Jesus Christ. Why? Because of their unbelief. They just don't believe God. And there's so many times of things that I have neglected because I just don't trust God. I don't believe God can protect me. I need to take things into my own hands. You see, if God is God, as the Bible says, then I ought to trust him. If God is God and Jesus is God, and he went to the cross and died and rose again to save me for eternity, I'm trusting, I'm putting my faith in eternity when I pass from this life to the next, and the very truth that I'm safe. There's an element, it's total truth and it's total belief and faith. And Rebecca would believe the lie of Satan that if God loved me, why did he let this happen? She had unbelief in God. She also felt like she couldn't trust God. I tried to trust you, God, and you failed me. Of course, she blamed the wrong person. The person she should have blamed was Satan. A lie is the opposite of truth. As we know, God's word is truth. Satan's lies are always built around two things that we have in our life. The fear of loss. I just couldn't step forward. I just couldn't be faithful to God. I just couldn't be faithful in church or other things. The fear of loss. I just couldn't. I'm fearful. The other thing, a desire for gain. Satan uses the fear of loss as a lie. And Rebecca thought, if I trust God, what more can I lose? And then there's also a desire for gain. And the fear of loss, some of the things that we have here is afraid of losing maybe your security. If I open up my heart again, I'll get hurt. I won't have someone there for me. I won't have someone. You know what, all people, and it could be like someone in her case. You know what, all men are filthy, right? You can believe that. I'm not going to trust. I'm not going to open up my heart again. A loss of significance. I'll never feel important again. I'm defiled. I'm ruined. There was a part in that idea there and the loss of significance. I've thought about this and as I was going through training for the ministry, I've thought of all these people who've had some very bad things happen in their life and I'm like, oh man, they're never going to be pure. You know, that's a lie of Satan. Because before God, they're still made in his image. They're still greatly loved. They're still absolutely important. You know what, God can use you. So these lies, and I thought, oh man, wow, life is just ruined if a bad tragedy or something happens to me. You know what, tragedies happen to every one of us, some more than others. The fear of loss and the byproduct of that really ultimately is jealousy. You have a fear of losing something. For instance, In my life, there was a time where I would, like in high school and even in university, I had dated several women. And one of the things is, and because of my parents and the fear of loss, there would be jealousy if that individual would begin to, the lady or the young lady whom I was pursuing, would begin to talk to other men. There was that jealousy would come in. I didn't want to lose it again. A job promotion, someone wants to take a job, they want a title or a greater pay, something I want, and I don't want to lose it. I get jealous. Maybe there's a dream job and so-and-so doesn't deserve it. And I begin to gossip and go behind the scenes. Or maybe my parents would have given a car to one of my siblings, but not me. I'm the oldest, but my parents, I did drive my parents' vehicle. I had a 1986 Ford Tempo and a five speed and a, wow, it was a race car. Anyways, a gifted car from our parents. We have an inheritance. Maybe your parents gave something, you know, and all the siblings are all fighting or grandkids are all fighting for the inheritance from someone else. And I don't want to lose this inheritance. I need this. I deserve it. I did such and such for so-and-so. Or how about in Rebecca's case, she was losing her degree because of failing grades, fear of loss. In Job 3.25, for the thing which I greatly feared has come upon me and that which I was afraid of is coming to me. You know, many times that which we most fear sometimes does come upon us. I thought that they would leave me and it happened. I thought that this would happen and there they left me and now I'm heartbroken. You know what, that's why it says, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. You know what, if I'm doing what God's will is and I'm honoring God, I want to honor Christ. I want to do his will. And I know with respect to relationships and marriage and that kind of stuff, God has someone for us, each and every person who's not married. If you're married, your spouse is God's will. Your spouse is God's will. You say, well, I shouldn't have. Your spouse is God's will. That's what God says. Desire for gain, the second lie that these lies of Satan are built around is a desire for gain. To increase our security, the only reason why we'd gain something would be to increase our security. So to increase my desire for gain, if I'm going to increase my security, what I'm going to do is, you know what, I'm going to cheat. I'm not for this, but if I was to cheat on a test and I can get an A and then people will like me and then I can get into university I want to. And if I just cheat just a little. Then I'll increase my security. People will really be there for me. People really think I'm something. Increase our significance. People will love me. My esteem before others, people will think, wow. So I need to desire for gain. I need to do what I want to do. Desire for gain, the byproduct of that is envy. How do they have that? They don't deserve that. You begin to envy others and envy really does have Proverbs 27.4. I know you see it there on your slide, but I'm going to turn there to Proverbs 27.4. It says, wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy? Rebecca experienced the fear of loss when her uncle robbed her of her security and significance by violating her when she was 13. Her desire for gain or graduation from medical school was also being stolen because of the emotional clutter that she had in her life. She believed the lies that were attached to this awful, awful incident, this hurt. And who tempted Rebecca to believe these clutters of lies? Who believed the lies that resulted from her violation? Who fed her these lies that God's not there and all of this? Who was it? Ephesians 6, 12, it was Satan in the spiritual realm affecting her. The search for the liar. Satan is the father of lies. Scripture's very, very clear. And if he can deceive us into believing a lie, that he can control us. And that's the thing in our life. If we believe the lie, for instance, I'm worthless. I can't do it. I just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Any negative, these negative thoughts that are coming and I'm believing these lies. And maybe even other people, friends, or not friends, but other people are telling us these. And we begin to believe them. Not always is it in our mind. Other people can be absolutely cruel. And I know they have this bullying and they can be bullying online and all sorts of things, cyber bullying. And I mean, it can just be vicious. And those attacks that are coming can cause us such a mental and emotional turmoil. But if I believe what others are saying, I'm believing the thoughts in my mind that are in contradiction to scripture, I'm going to be a mess. In John chapter eight, verse 44. John 8, 44. It says, ye are of your father the devil. Now Jesus is speaking to some religious rulers. And the lust of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. Satan is the father of lies. You are precious. God made you. God wants a relationship with you. And I believe even tonight in the slides I'm going to go through, as I go through these slides and through the material, The truth is we are made in the image of God. Satan hates that. The greatest power Satan has over a person is the lies that he gets us to believe, that he convinces us. A lie always has a motive of reaching a self-centered goal through deception. That lie, the motivation is to deceive us. It is to get us to a place to move us away from peace and joy. Satan doesn't have peace and joy anymore. He is absolutely miserable. He had it, but he in pride, he went away from it. And we as believers, when we begin to believe these lies of Satan in our minds, now there's times in our actions, we resist God, we resist him, but we're believing the lie that I can do it my way and my way will be the best way. And Satan is a worldwide deceiver. And he wants to destroy man, he wants to control planet Earth. And we're seeing that even now. In Revelation chapter 12, verse 9, and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan was to save the whole world. Why are there so many religions in the world? Why? Satan says there's many ways. God says there's one way. Satan is the opposite. of what God, Satan is the opposite of these truths. God says man and woman for marriage. The world says anything goes. Lies. And Satan would tempt Rebecca to believe the lie that her security and significance must come from her view of her events of life instead of looking at her life from God's perspective, God's view of the events. You know what? If you were to think and talk to Rebecca, say, Rebecca, You believe the lie that God wasn't there. You know what? Satan put those thoughts in your uncle's mind. Satan is the one ought to be hated, not God. Satan is the one that if you run to him, you find healing. Excuse me, God is the one. Did I just say Satan? Satan, let's try that again, God is the one that if we run to, we find the healing. Catch me on that one. The strategy of the liar. And as we look at this, what one perceives to be true is true to them, even if in reality it is a lie. And I have encountered this over and over and over again. You try to tell someone about how a certain incident went in their life. No, no, no, that's not how it was. And you're like, yes, it was. and that individual, and you try to tell them, this is what is going on in your life. Oh, no, no, I'm not like that. And there is a perception, and you're like, listen. There was a perception I had. I used to work at Chick-fil-A. I was down in the States, and I was training for the ministry. And as I was down there, I was a manager. And I thought, wow, I'm one of the best managers here. And I was a military officer. I thought, wow, and organize, and get in the store moving, and all of this. And they did a survey. It came back. I was believing a lie. They were frustrated with me. My, my employees were frustrated with me. You know what? That, that hit me hard. But the truth was I needed to see the reality. And after through that, God did a work. I apologized to my employees and we became a very good working crew. But sometimes superstitions in our lives are just a belief system or a religion built on lies. What one perceives. Your perception of reality is not necessarily what reality is. And we have to have sometimes that openness to say my perception could be wrong. In Revelation chapter 17, verses one through seven, we find a truth here about Mystery Babylon, the great harlot, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. And in this, there's a perception of three forces that we find. There's a political, economic, and there's religious power. We find that here. And in Revelation chapter 17, you'll see that, but many times history has proven that religion is the strongest of these forces on the earth. And religion has, shaped governments. It's shaped policies within the government. It has shaped countries and the boundaries. I mean, religion really is a very powerful thing. And here's three basic goals of Satan today. And Satanism has actually grown tremendously over the last 10 years. Now, this study that I'm going to give you is down in the States. The 10-year study reveals that Protestants still make up 52% of religious denominations, but down 60% from 10 years ago. Almost 25% responded they were Catholics, down 2% in 10 years. In contrast, non-Christian religions all reported a huge increase. Muslims are up 110%, Hindus 237%, and Wicca, or Satanism, is up 1500% over the last 10 years. There's an absence of God from our schools, from our news, our media, from our homes, even in our churches, there's an absence of God. Going through religiosity, going through mechanical Christianity. You sit in, you know, you stand up, sit down, recite a few things, say a couple of prayers, listen to the preacher for a few minutes or 10 minutes or whatever, and then you go out and do your thing. That's what, right? Satan says, that's what church ought to be. Or you come in and you You prostrate and you get down and you go through your beads or whatever the case may be. And Satan wants to use the media, wants to use the educational system and the philosophies of man as an umbilical cord in our lives to feed his lies to the human race. And we are seeing that now in an unbelievable way. And if Satan gets us to believe these lies, guess what he does? He controls us. And people, many people today are believing lies and are bound in fear. And if Satan can get us to do that, he can carry out his strategy by using two basic goals. Number one, he keeps humans from being coming Christians. You know what? If you don't need Christianity because the God of Christianity is powerless, he doesn't do anything. He might've been good for a time. And yeah, the Christianity, yeah, we know it's a historical thing, but it's just a powerless belief. There's nothing into Christianity. It won't help you. 2 Corinthians 4, 4, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, unless the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. You know what God's desire is? God wants a relationship with you. Satan doesn't want you to know God. And he wants to blind you. Why do you think he allows so many religions? Why are there so many religions out there? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. I don't even know if there's thousands. Maybe there are thousands. I don't know. But there's a whole lot. And people are like, well, any old way is good. What's good for you is good for you. But there are some objective truths in our life here. And Christianity revolves around the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He came again from the dead. If that is true, and it is, it's proved both in the scriptures, but also secularly, Jesus was seen after the resurrection, after he died. On the cross, in the tomb, he was put in there by guards, Roman guards, highly trained soldiers, and he came out of there and was seen by over 500 people after the resurrection. 500 people. And Satan just wants you to make you believe one of the lies, well, he was just, maybe he was in a coma, or maybe, you know, and he came out of it. I have a hard time believing that highly trained Roman soldiers paid, and if they let a person go, or if they let the disciples come in and steal the body, they would lose their life. They would be killed. I have a hard time believing that. Christianity is around the truth of Jesus Christ, John 14, 6. And if Satan can keep us from that, just believing any old way matters. Christianity, Jesus says, John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. If he can't keep a person from becoming a Christian, ha ha, I'll keep him from being effective for God. And that's what he did in my life for many years. From being effective for God, I would make progress, and as soon as I made progress, those strings that Satan had in my life would bring me back down, would bring me back to that place of emotional hurt, and I couldn't make progress. And I was ineffective for God. 1 Thessalonians 2.18, Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us. There are times that even here it's like, I think our technology here at times is possessed. It's not, but it just seems like at times, I mean, the technology, I have everything. A couple of weeks ago on a Sunday night, I went to go do our curriculum that we've been going through and no sooner, 30 seconds before I would teach on it and also the lessons that I'm teaching specifically on Satan and his lies and undoing them, I've had a lot of technological issues. Satan wants to keep Christians from being effective. He also wants to keep Christians from receiving rewards. Rewards. You said rewards? What are you talking about, Pastor? You see, as a Christian who's faithful for God, no matter what trial or what thing may come in their life, they're faithful, they're going, they're serving God, they're telling others about Christ, they're honoring Him, they're faithful in church, they're They're faithful in their tithes, they're faithful in the things that God expects, and Satan hates that. He hates it. He doesn't want people to move forward. He doesn't want you to find victory, and he doesn't want you to receive rewards because he's jealous and he's envious. And he will do what he can to destroy you. Realize this, though. You thought, wow, Satan really is mean and awful. Yes, but here's a wonderful truth. Greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. Jesus overcomes Satan. And Satan, if you go back to Job chapter one and verse chapter two, Satan had to request some permission from God. God allowed Job to go through some hard times. And God proved to Job, you know what, I've got a man here who'll just be faithful to me no matter what. And that's the truth in our lives that Satan tries and God, yes, with trials and hardships that come into our lives, God allows them. because God knows we can handle them. We think, I can't handle it, it's more than I can handle. Understand this, God never gives us more than we can handle. Now, things are more than we can handle if we're in sin. In Revelation chapter two, verse 10, fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. God expects us to be faithful. Persecution comes. Government restrictions come. God expects us to be faithful. God wants us to continue to honor and serve him and not to cower going forward. He can do all this using one simple lesson, one simple weapon. Satan uses a lie. A lie. Very simple. The threefold strategy I'm putting into application, a religion of lies that we begin to believe. In the threefold strategy, John chapter 10, verse 10. Here's the three ways he does it in our lives. The thief cometh not, speaking about Satan, but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. And Jesus says, well, Jesus is speaking here, I am come that they might have life and they might have it more abundantly. As I in my personal life have honored the Lord and gone forward and served him, I have found God to give a joy and a peace, even in times. And even with respect to what's going on now, there's times where anxiety and other things are coming and I can get fearful. And I have to say, no, that's not of God. Because if I begin to get stuck in the fear, and as things going down, the politics in the states, and it creates some, at times, some anxiety, I said, no, I got to push away from that, I just need to get back to the truth, God is still in control. God allows governments to come up, and he sets and breaks them up, brings them up and brings them down, and we find it all through history. The first thing that Satan wants to do is to steal. He wants to steal your joy, steal your peace. You see, truth is the anchor of man's emotions in the turbulent waves of the adverse storms of life. The truth is, God allows storms and stays with us during the storms. And during those storms, we find out who God is. Some of the hardest times of my life, God used it to bring people to help draw me closer to God. And Satan wants to steal this from me. The most important, he wants to steal the truth from me. If I have the truth that God doesn't love me, I'm worthless, then I'm going to believe it and I'm not going to serve God. If I have the truth that I'm all washed up, I'm no good, I can't do anything right anymore, then I'm going to not do anything right. What is most important for Satan to steal? He needs to steal the truth. He wants to steal it. So there's some seed and I'm gonna have to end here shortly, but I'm not done. I'll have to, I guess, bring it into next week's. Anywho! With this being said, the truth of the matter is, the analogy in this, what's going on is a farmer, he's throwing seed out and some of it falls on rocky soil. Some of it falls on thorns and that kind of stuff. Some of it falls on the wayside, the birds pick it up and some falls on good soil. Well, that which falls on the rocks can easily be picked up and torn away. I mean, the birds come and they pick on the rocks and they take the seeds and they go their way. And Satan wants you to have a hard heart because of the bitterness or hurt and pain of the past, so that when truth comes, it doesn't penetrate and he can take that away and keep you in his clutches. Again, John 8.44 talks about Satan being the father of lies. When Satan can keep a man from truth, he can keep a man from God. You can begin to believe the lie that God is not there for me. You can become an atheist. You can become a person who live any way you want without morals. You can become a person who can treat others in a harsh way. Well, I've always been treated bad in life and others deserve it too. You know, if we can keep us from, Satan can keep us from truth and he can keep a man from God. And I want to tell you many times over, the person who puts their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, you have an almighty loving God who wants a relationship with you. God is jealous for a relationship with you. And I trust today that you would put your faith and trust in him if you have not. I'm going to have to conclude here. I'm not going to be able to finish it. If you have questions or if any individual would like to do one-on-one counseling, let me know. We can go forward from there. I trust that this is challenging in your heart to realize some of the things that we believe are many times lies. If we begin to evaluate them in light of Scripture, we say, you know what? That thought, I was thinking, it's not true. And I'm believing the lie of Satan. And you can begin to find freedom as you unravel these lies that you have begun to believe. Let's go, Lord, and ask for his blessing. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I do thank you for today. Lord, I just thank you for your grace and mercy. And Father, I pray that you just help us to stay steadfast before you. Lord, you're a marvelous, wonderful Savior. Lord, help us in all that we say and do to glorify your name. I love you. In Jesus' precious name, I pray. Amen.