Let me invite you to take your Bible this morning and turn to 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2. We recently completed chapter 1 and now we are embarking on chapter 2 of this wonderful epistle. There are five chapters in this epistle written by the apostle Peter. And this morning we're going to be looking at chapter 2 verses 1 through 3. Listen as I read these three verses. Therefore putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. Now we read those three verses and they appear to us as three sentences, but they're actually one sentence in the Greek text. They all center around the one imperative verb that you find in verse 2, which is translated long or crave. We are to crave the Word of God like a newborn baby craves his mother's milk. This is how we are to grow in respect to salvation. But there are things in verse 1 that hinder that craving. Some call it junk food. Bible calls it specifically sin. It lists five sins in verse 1. that we are to put aside in order to crave the Word. And as we look at this and look at these five vices that lead up to verse 2 in this craving of the Word, we need to keep in mind something that J.C. Ryle says, which is this, sin will not come to you saying, I am sin. It would do little harm if it did. Sin always seems good. and pleasant, and desirable, and if I could add another word, deceptive. So before he launches into this list in verse 1, he begins with the conjunction that we have found in many other passages that we have studied, and it's the word therefore. And as we've said on so many occasions, when you come to the word, therefore, you need to understand what it's there for. And that conjunction actually takes you back. It takes you back to something that was previously said, and it ties it in with the present. So something that He had already said to them, He is going to pull that in to what He's about to say. And it takes us all the way back into chapter 1, beginning at verse 23 through verse 25. And there Peter was talking about being born again through the living and enduring Word. And this Word which was preached to them was the truth that they obeyed and brought about the purification of their souls. So Peter is actually saying here that since we have been begotten by means of the eternal Word, we should long for the milk of the Word as a true and proper nourishment. You and I should be craving the Word every single day. You could never be in the word too much, but you can be in it too little. Not enough at all. And the only way to cleanse the mind is through the scripture. As Psalm 119 verse 11 says, your word I've treasured in my heart that I might not sin against you. The more and more you treasure the word of God or hide the word of God in your heart, the less you're gonna sin. Because you're gonna have the word there as that deterrent against sin. And reminding you about the consequences of sin. Now, there is a second word that he uses in this text, not only the word therefore, but it's translated two words in your Bible, and mine, it's the words putting aside. That is apothythemy, one word in Greek. And it's in the Aorist tense. It's actually an Aorist middle participle which tells us that it's referring to a once-for-all action of putting aside sin. You and I owe nothing to the flesh. We owe nothing to sin. We need to put it aside once and for all. And though this is not an imperative or a command, it does have imperative force. And it referred to any kind of rejection. Sometimes it referred especially to stripping off soiled garments, which is the analogy that Paul had in mind when he admonished the Colossians to put aside things like anger, wrath, and malice, and slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices. So he had that in mind. In fact, it's very interesting that in the ancient Christian baptism ceremonies, those who were baptized customarily took off and discarded the clothes that they wore to the ceremony. And following their baptisms, they were put on with new robes that they had received from the church. And so exchanging clothes actually symbolized the salvation reality of laying aside the old life and taking up the new. We know baptism doesn't save you, but that's what we say when we do baptisms, off with the old and on with the new, right? And that picture of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and since you and I are identified in His death, burial, and resurrection, we also identify with Him in His new life. Romans chapter 6. So Peter here gives us five vices or five sins that we are to put off before we can crave the Word. Plato calls the love of sin magnus daemon. Magnus daemon means a great devil. This great devil has to be killed any time it shows its ugly head. This is a constant activity in the believer's life. We are to be killing sin or it will be killing us. That is a truth. So Peter gives the first vice or the first sin in verse one and he tells his readers to put aside all malice. All malice. Now the word malice It's the Greek word kakia, and it refers to any kind of wickedness. Any kind of wickedness. It's an all-inclusive term. A vice of any kind. Peter also uses the adjective passa. Passa is translated all, and he says they're all malice, and that means every form of malice. every form of wickedness. This word occurs 11 times in the New Testament. It indicates the wickedness from which comes from within a person. That's where it all comes from. You and I still have this flesh. Even though that we are redeemed and we're ready for heaven, the only thing that's yet to change is to be given a glorified body. But until then, we have this unglorified body. This body of flesh. This body where Paul said in Romans chapter 7 the things he wants to do he doesn't do and the things he wants to do he doesn't do, right? It brings him down. This is what brings you and I down. So this word here, again it identifies what comes from within. We find it translated evil in Matthew 6, 24. It's translated maliciousness in Romans 1, 29. It's translated naughtiness in James 1, 1. The word is even used in Acts 8 22 when Peter confronts Simon who tried to buy the Holy Spirit and he said there, therefore repent of this wickedness of yours and pray the Lord that if possible the intentions of your heart may be forgiven you. And the wickedness was he saw the miracle take place and he wanted to have that same power. And so he wanted to buy the Holy Spirit as if he could be bought. And Peter called for him to repent. Paul also uses this word in Romans 129 to describe those whom God gave over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, and here's the word wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness. Romans chapter one actually describes what's going on in our culture right now. and how that God has given up over to those who have this debased mind to do these things that are not fitting. But for you and I, this was part of our old life. This is not part of our present life. It never should be part of our life now. This is what we were. Look at Titus 3.3. For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another." See, he says, we were once like this, indicating past tense, indicating we're not this now. And so we shouldn't be giving ourselves over to this aspect of the flesh. And it's certainly something that we're never to grow up in. Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 14, 20, Brethren, do not be children in your thinking, yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature. Christians' new life can't grow unless sin is renounced. And as I said, the putting aside is a once and for all action. We do not owe anything to the flesh. Just because you're tempted to do something evil, you owe nothing there to give into it. If anything, you owe everything to the Savior who died for that sin. You owe everything to forsake it. So we can't grow unless things like this are renounced in our life, and when that purging takes place, then the Word will do its work in our life. So not only are they to put aside all malice, notice also he says to put aside all deceit. All deceit. This is the word dolos, it's translated guile in some other translations and it comes from a verb that means to catch with bait. You go fishing, you use bait, you're trying to catch fish with the bait. This is the same idea. You're deceiving the fish. They think that little bait there is food for them, but they don't realize that there's something there sharp inside of that, that once they bite down on it, it's gonna allow them to be caught. So it's deceptive, and it has this idea of any cunning contrivance for deceiving. Anything you gotta do in a cunning way to deceive in order to catch. Freyberg calls it fraud. Treachery. It means to deceive by using trickery and falsehood. Warren Wiersbe says that this is a word that uses devious words and actions to get what you want. We would use another word and call it manipulation. Manipulation by words. See, Charles Finney, and I've shared this with you on many occasions as to why I don't like to do, quote-unquote, an invitation to come walk an aisle, is because Charles Finney, he was the one that popularized this. This was called The Anxious Bench. And what his idea was is that he could manipulate someone through their emotions. That's why you have songs like Just As I Am that has five or six verses to it sung 12 times. Because the idea is the longer we sing it and the more that the minister pleads with your emotions, you'll come. And how many people have walked an aisle into a false conversion? thinking that in order to get saved, all I gotta do is walk forward. You know, this was very popular in the Billy Graham Crusades, and he would always invite people to come forward at the Crusades. Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying a person can't get saved by going forward and talking to the pastor or talking to a counselor about salvation, because you can. But don't think that this is the whole process. I didn't get saved in a church, I got saved at a house that my friend came over and shared the gospel with me on many occasions. I wasn't at a church when that happened, but that doesn't mean it can't happen at the church. The gospel of Jesus Christ should be preached constantly, and constantly the sinner given an opportunity to repent and come to Christ. And that opportunity is always there. And all throughout the service and all throughout the message, that invitation is always there and will always be there. But just to equate it with walking an aisle, signing a card, joining a church, getting baptized, assigning external things to it as the means of salvation is not right. In fact, it's deceptive. And as I said, Charles Finney was very good at deceiving people in this way. If only he could manipulate their emotions, he could get them to come and get them saved. And he had a lot of false conversions. And if you'll notice again, that Peter encompasses that same adjective, passa, which is translated all, every form of deceit, just like every form of malice or wickedness, Now you've got every form of deceit. Now, this could refer to the tongue because our tongues do deceive us, don't they? We can use our tongues in a deceptive way. Peter used this term to describe those who desire life and love and to see good days over in chapter 3 and verse 10. He says, the one who desires life to love and see good days must keep his tongue from what? From evil. and his lips from speaking deceit. Our tongues are to speak what is good, not what is corrupt. And every time I hear someone who claims to be a Christian using curse words, I just cringe and I go, don't you know this verse? Don't you understand Ephesians 429? To let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. I mean, when I'm around other believers and they start talking like this, I'm grieved by it. Are you grieved by it? Do you say anything to them? I mean, if this stuff goes on and on and on, you've got to say something. It's like in that movie, The Princess Bride, this guy kept saying, that's inconceivable. And he kept saying it over and over. No matter what happened, he'd always say, that's inconceivable. And finally, one guy says, I don't think that word means what you think it means. And a lot of times we use just words so flippantly. We adopt the culture. We adopt what the culture says, how the culture responds to situations. And we're not to respond the way the culture responds. We're not to respond the way other people respond. We're not to respond as unbelievers respond to trials or tragedies or anything in their life that would bring about that kind of language. We tend to use that language when we get in difficult situations. We get frustrated. and that language comes out. You know where God decided to clean my mouth up at? It was on a loading dock, loading trucks with other filthy mouth men that talk that way. And I'll tell you what, when I went from talking that way to not talking that way over a period of time, because it took some time to get this mouth to quit talking like that, and I remember somebody saying something to me one day about that. He says, you know, you're different. You don't sound like everybody else. I used to. I don't now. It gave me an opportunity to share Christ with Him. Don't let any unwholesome. That's just an interesting word because the word means putrid. Any putrid words. And sometimes I've even heard Christians say, well, who is the one that defines what is an unwholesome word? Well, do those kind of words give grace? Do those kind of words minister to anybody? I mean, there's new words being used today that weren't used when I was younger, but they're used just as much, and we should not want that in our language. Our speech is to always be with grace, Colossians 4, 6, let your speech always be with grace as though seasoned with salt so that you will know how you should respond to each person. You want your speech to be edifying, you want your speech to be purifying, you want your speech to be encouraging. And in those moments when you have to speak something that's stronger, where you have to exhort, again, you want to be to the point. You don't want to use foul language in doing that. You want to use biblical language. Speak the Bible, you can't go wrong, right? So our speech is to always be with grace, and the word grace there, charis, it's referring to that which is spiritual, that which is wholesome, that which is fitting, that which is kind, that which is sensitive, purposeful, complimentary, gentle, truthful, loving, thoughtful. All of those meanings go with that word. But this can also refer to our deeds. Not only our tongues that will speak deceit, but our deeds where we act out deception. And if you remember over in John 147, when Jesus saw Nathanael, what did he say? Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. This is the real man right here. This is a genuine follower of God. And just as Nathanael had no deceit, that should be true of us. People should be able to look at our life, and as Jesus looked at Nathanael's, and say the same thing. People ever said that to you before? You're different. There's something different about you. I don't know what it is, but there's something different. And after a while, they keep observing you, and they keep seeing that difference. They come to you and say, well, you know, whatever this is that you have, I want. See, your life could be that attractive to others. We witness by our words and by our life. And both have to match. They have to match. But we need to also understand that just like malice comes from within, so does deceit. And here's a passage in Mark 7 where Jesus talks about this. Mark 7, 21. He says, for from within, Out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within. and defile the man. So the next time you have an evil thought, just realize it came from within. It came from your heart. And that should be alerting you about what you're putting in your heart. You need to make sure you're putting in things that are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and commendable, and praiseworthy. That's Philippians 4.8. You need to make sure that you're setting your mind on things above, not on the things that are on the earth. That's Colossians 3.1. You need to make sure that you're walking by the Spirit of God, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. That's Galatians 5.16. This is something that we have to do over and over and over and over, and the only way I know how to do this is saturate my mind with Scripture. saturate your mind with Scripture, listen to the Word all the time, read the Word all the time, memorize the Word all the time. There's no greater joy than to have the right kind of thinking. I mean, it's as if to say that we need to be reprogrammed because our programming leading up to our conversion was we were molded by the world. We thought like the world. We acted like the world. We followed the God of this world who is Satan. We gave in to the lust of the flesh. We loved the world and the things of the world. But now in Christ, we love Christ. No longer in love with the world. In fact, if you're still in love with the world, 1 John 2.15 gives you this warning. Do not love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. If you still love the things of this world, you're not a Christian. And you see how detrimental walking an aisle can be? Because someone can say, but I walked an aisle. I prayed a prayer. I gotta be saved. But you know James chapter 2 tell us that even the demons believe in tremble. And the demons can't be saved, they can't be redeemed. But they at least tremble at the truth. They can't deny it. On those several scenes when Jesus came in the presence of a person who was possessed by a demon, that demon would say, we know who you are. Do not torment us before the time. See, hell was created for the devil and his angels. It wasn't created for man. But for all those who reject Christ, they will spend eternity in the same place where the devil and his angels will be. And I'll tell you what, the devil doesn't rule hell. He will be suffering just like unbelievers would be suffering. He's not the leader of hell. There with his horns and pitchfork and pointed tail. You see, the devil was an angel in the beginning. He was one of the cherubim, according to Ezekiel 28. But he had evil in his heart. We don't know where that evil came from. But Isaiah 14 gives the five I wills, and one of those I wills was that he would exalt himself above the Shekinah glory, the Shekinah glory of God, and God cast him down to the earth. And he has a death sentence on him. He has only so much time. And he will be destroyed forever. And every believer longs for that. So he says here, because you've been born again by the Word of God, you need to crave the Word of God, but first you have to lay aside all malice, all deceit, and also hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. You know, these kind of work hand in hand. And when you think about all of these, you have to keep in mind that God treats holiness as a very important matter. We already heard that in chapter 1 verse 15, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. And now we're seeing in chapter 2 as He brings this out even further, That we have to, in the process of being holy, we have to lay aside sin. You have to put it aside. A. W. Tozer said, you cannot study the Bible diligently and earnestly without being struck by an obvious fact. The whole matter of personal holiness is highly important to God. Highly important to God. All His people are to be holy. Warren Wiersbe says, if we are guilty of malice, we will try to hide it. And this produces what? Hypocrisy. Produces hypocrisy. The word hypocrisy, hupokrisis, it was generally used for flattery and deception. The word itself means pretense, or here's a term we used when we were kids, to pretend. Remember that? Remember when you would play with your neighbors and you would pretend that you were a character of some sort? Maybe you pretended you were a firefighter, you pretend that you were Batman, or you pretended You know where I'm going with this. Kids do that. They play and they pretend to be something that they're not. Well, that's what this word means. It's pointing to insincerity. It's pointing to an outward show. It's pointing to what actors on the Greek stage would do. Pretend. It only occurs seven times in the New Testament. But it is something that characterized people in Jesus' day, and it characterizes people in our day, and it's something that we have to deal with in our life, just like they had to deal with in their life. Jesus said of the scribes and Pharisee in Matthew 23, 28 and following, so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous." John MacArthur says the Pharisees, their focus on external issues lay at the heart of their error. Who would want to drink from a cup that had been washed on the outside but was still filthy inside? Yet the Pharisees lived their lives as if external appearance were more important than internal reality. That was the very essence of their hypocrisy and Jesus rebuked them for it repeatedly. And Jesus even told His disciples to be aware of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Luke 12, 1. He said, under these circumstances, after so many thousands of people had gathered together, that they were stepping on one another, and he began saying to his disciples, first of all, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. And leaven, you put it in bread and it permeates the bread, right? Causes it to rise. Leaven used in this way is talking about permeation. It's talking about influence. And he's telling them to beware of the influence of the Pharisees, because their influence is hypocrisy. Even Peter and Barnabas played the hypocrite at one time with the Gentiles, and Paul had to confront him. In Galatians 2.11, he said, But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy." See, they were afraid of the faces of the circumcision of the Jewish people. as they were there eating with the Gentiles and seeing that they had received the same Lord Jesus Christ, the same Holy Spirit that they had received. But when you had the Jewish people come where Peter was, he began to back away. And Barnabas backed away. And the other Jews that were with them backed away. as if to separate themselves from the Gentiles. And Paul saw that. He said, that's hypocrisy. And he pointed it out to him and he said it to his face. We don't do these things today. We should. We're told in 1 Timothy 4 that hypocrisy will be prevalent in the last days. Paul says, but the Spirit explicitly says that in latter times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of hypocrisy, of liars seared in their own conscience, as with the branding iron men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. There are going to be people falling away from the faith in the last days. That's 2 Thessalonians 2 as well. Before the Antichrist is revealed, there is a worldwide falling away. That's one of the signs that will let you know what is taking place in the end. But he says here they're going to pay attention to deceitful spirits and the doctrine of demons. And you think that the doctrine of demons would be something extremely profound, but what it is, it's men forbidding marriage. and advocating abstaining from foods. I remember one time I was at a youth function in our church, and a youth pastor had invited someone to come and just kind of share testimony, and the person was sharing the testimony, and the testimony was, you can't eat meat. That was the testimony. You have to be a vegan. I went over to him and I said, are you going to shut this down or am I going to shut this down? Because this isn't biblical at all. I said, you can't come at that view with the Bible. Now, if all you had is the Old Testament and you were pre-fall, okay, yeah, Adam and Eve, they were vegans. After the fall, they were not. What do you think they did with the rest of the animal that God had killed for them and used the skins for clothing? I'd have to say they ate it. Now, tealing the ground was going to be difficult because the ground wasn't going to yield what it needed to yield for them. It was going to yield briars all these other kinds of things that would choke out the good stuff. They were going to have to work from the sweat of their brow just to eat. They didn't have everything now that they had prior to the fall, where they could just walk up to a tree and take its fruit and eat of it. the doctrine of demons, and you've got people out there forbidding marriage. You've got people out there redefining marriage. You've got people out there redefining gender. I was filling out something on the internet just two days ago, and it said, male, female, or custom? Custom. What's your gender? Well, let's check custom, whatever I want it to be today. When my first three kids were born, You couldn't do what you do today with all the sonograms and find out the sex of the child. You just had to wait till the child was born. And the only time that they would do a sonogram back then was if there was some kind of health reason to do it. But insurance wasn't paying for that. And if you wanted it, you could pay for it. So when our son was born, we didn't know if it was gonna be a boy or a girl, so we had a boy name and a girl name. When our second child was born, we had a boy name and a girl name. Our third child, a boy and a girl name. And when our son was born, he came out and we saw the features of a boy and we knew it was a boy. Wow. What do you do when you check animals? You look for those features, don't you? A custom gender? And this is the people that want to tell you what to do with your life when they can't even figure out their life? That's a doctrine of demons. This one person said this, I love this quote. He says, a bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint. How many people have you met that pretend to be Christians? You see, just like the others, we have to examine ourselves for this deadly disease and forsake it. And we have to do it in the various areas of our life. For example, our love. Romans 12, 9, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. We've got to get rid of the Judas kiss in our life. Because that was hypocrisy, wasn't it? When Judas reached over and kissed Jesus, and he did that only for the purpose of identifying who Jesus was. It's the one whom I shall kiss. And what did Jesus say to him? You betray me with a kiss? Jesus was on to him, right? We have to examine our love. We've got to make sure our love is not hypocritical. We also have to examine our motives, James 3.17, but the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, and what? Without hypocrisy. That's the wisdom that comes from above. But when you're hypocritical, you don't have the wisdom from above, you have the wisdom from below. Calvin Miller said, it's easier to wear a mask. An ugly face is sometimes better than a real one. Thus are we afraid to show each other who we really are. You know, that's the tendency too in the church. We put everybody on different levels and then some we put on higher levels than others and then when they fall, we fall with them because we put them on such a high plateau. I don't want to shock you, but I'm a sinner too, okay? I'm a sinner just like you. And I have to deal with my sin just like you. I have to confess and forsake it just like you. I have to fight it just like you. The things you deal with to get in the Word, I do too. The only thing that helps me more than you is that I have to preach on Sunday. There's my accountability. I ask myself sometimes, what would it be like if I wasn't a pastor? If I didn't have any kind of teaching responsibility each week, would I be in the Word like I am now? I would hope that I would be. I know I wouldn't have the crunch like I have, that every day, every three days, Sunday comes. Swindoll said that. I agree with that so much. There was a day when I preached three different messages a week. Preached on Wednesday night one message, on Sunday morning a different message, on Sunday night a third different message. There was one time when we were doing a church plant and we were starting a Bible college and we needed to finish a current series that we were in, so that particular week I preached Ephesians Wednesday, Sunday morning, and Sunday night. I loved it. But I mean, if you think about this, if you're spending 30 hours or so just for one message, where's the rest of the time for the others? It's hard. But see, I don't want to stand up here as a hypocrite. I want to understand what the text means, and I want to live that text as well. And when I stand up here, I don't want to stand up here saying, well, you know, I spent all week in sin, And I didn't deal with it in my life. I just freely gave into it. Oh, and by the way, I didn't even spend any time in the Word this week. And the message I'm giving you is one from ten years ago that I preached. I found the notes. You know, when you've been doing it as long as I have, it is tempting to go back and pick up old notes. I'll tell you something that happened to me Friday, Christmas Eve. I was finishing up this message. And I was trying to work with the document, and I had the document open. It wasn't my sermon, it was the document. And I reached over there, I was trying to delete something out of the document. When I hit delete button, it deleted my entire message. And so I called the people who made the program. And I said, before I panic, can you help me get this back? And so they took me in the program, which I didn't know where to go at this point. And I thought it was there. My title was there. And I had two of them, which was weird. So I pulled it up and opened it up, and there was nothing in the first one. Nothing in it. I pulled up the second one, and I had about not even a page. And I went, oh my goodness. And they were like, we show that your program didn't sync with our servers, blah, blah, blah. We're sorry. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if I should cry or spit bullets. You know? And before I panicked, I called back again thinking maybe I would talk to somebody else, and I just got the guy next to the previous person I got, and we went through the whole scenario, and the whole same thing happened. And so I went on the little bulletin board. Can anybody help me? Because other pastors are using this same program. Not a word from anybody. Of course, it was Christmas. And I'm like, Lord, what in the world am I going to do? I've only had that happen one other time in my life, 37 years ago. Made sure that never happened again. And I was about to resolve the fact I was going to start over. It's Christmas Eve. And then all of a sudden, I happened to just kind of look at my browser. I had opened that message in my browser. You don't know what a browser is, we'll tell you later, but I opened it up in there and the whole message was there. Boy, you talk about rejoicing. I was jumping up and down about hitting my head on the ceiling. I mean, it was a point of rejoicing because I wasn't going to have to do this again. I just had to get it off of that browser and get it back into program, reformat, blah, blah, blah. And that took me a good hour, hour and a half or so to do, but I got it back. And I was so happy for that. Because see, as I said, The greatest passion of my heart is that you understand the scripture, which means I've got to understand it. And part of that passion. was in the very beginning when I came to Christ. And I went to this big megachurch. We didn't call them megachurches back then, but it was a big church, 3,000 people. And I remember I went to Sunday school, and I went to the service, and there was never any class offered on how to study the Bible. I'm brand new in Christ, and I'm like, this is really overwhelming and intimidating at that. And I went to the pastor of education who was over at the Sunday school, and I said, do you offer anything? No, no, we don't offer anything. I went and met with the senior pastor. No, no, we don't have anything. And I was just sitting there in tears. I'm like, why? I mean, why? I mean, if I'm supposed to be in this Word until I die or until Jesus comes, I need to know how to do this. I don't know how to do this. I mean, there are various ways to read. And you know what? I had a mark against me. I hated reading. I could read, but I hated it. And that's from my drug days. My drug days, even to this day, interfere with that that I have to overcome when I study. I have to overcome that and to saturate my mind with Scripture. And that's why I'll tell you right now, you can use some good things with these devices right here. Get you a good Bible program that will read to you. My wife asked me, what you want for Christmas? I want a Bluetooth speaker that I can put in the shower so I can play scripture while I'm getting ready. That's all I wanted. And she got me that. I was like, yeah. And I got up this morning. I turned it on. I turned on the book of Ephesians. And while I was taking a shower, I listened to about four chapters. That's what I want. I want saturation. But you've got to go further than that. You've got to apply what you're hearing. And things you don't understand, you need to go and study them. And I'm going, I don't know how to do this. It took me a while to figure it out, but I figured it out. And this is why I believe in expository preaching. This is why I believe in explaining the text. Because until you get to the meaning of Scripture, you don't have Scripture. And there's so many people misapplying Scripture, misinterpreting Scripture. I mean, look, we've got movements out there based upon misinterpretation. So I don't want to be the hypocrite, and I don't want to play the hypocrite. I want to be the real guy, and that's what I have focused on for 37 years of my life. Have I ever played the hypocrite? Absolutely. Have you? Yes. Have you ever given yourself to wickedness? Yes. Have you ever given yourself to deceit? Yes. Did you want to do that? Not really. My flesh wanted that, but I didn't want that. The new man doesn't want that. I love what Billy Sunday says. Hypocrites in the church? Yes! And in the lodge and at home? Don't hunt through the church for a hypocrite. Go home and look in the glass. Hypocrites? Yes! See that you make the number one less. Amen. So malice, deceit, hypocrisy, you gotta put it aside once and for all. He gives a fourth one, envy. Put aside envy. And what is envy? Envy is that feeling of displeasure that's produced when you witness or hear of the advantage or the prosperity of somebody else. And we may end up not getting any further than this, and that's okay. But let me have you to turn to Psalm 73. Psalm 73. And I want you to see this. I read a book by D. Martin Lloyd-Jones on an exposition of Psalm 73. I can't remember the title of the book, but I would encourage you to get it. If you want to get it, I'll hunt the title. I have the copy of it either in my office in there or at my house. But it was on Psalm 73 about Asaph. Asaph had a problem. He was envying the wicked. He was looking at their life and comparing their life to his, and he says, I'm struggling all the time, but when I look at evil, wicked people, they don't seem to struggle. But before he could say anything, he had to focus in on the fact and the nature of the goodness of God. He says, surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart, But look at this, but as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, my steps had almost slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant, as I saw the prosperity of the wicked, for there are no pains in their death, and their body is fat. Now see, that's what envy does, it deceives you as well, because they do have pain. And they do have pain in death. But he says in verse 5, they're not in trouble as other men, nor are they plagued like mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace. The garment of violence covers them. Their eye bulges from fatness. The imaginations of their heart run riot. They mock and wickedly speak of oppression. They speak for him on high. They have set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue parades through the earth. Therefore His people return to this place, and waters of abundance are drunk by them." They say, how does God know? And is their knowledge with the Most High? Behold, these are the wicked and always at ease. They have increased in wealth. Surely in vain I've kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence. For I have been stricken all day long and chastened every morning." See what he's doing? He's looking at the prosperity of their life and he's comparing it to his life. And he says, when I compare it to my life, I am stricken, they're at ease. I'm focused on purity in my heart. They're focused on wickedness. They even have an increase in their wealth. And here I am struggling just to make ends meet. We can identify with that, can't we? Absolutely. And that's why it says in verse 13, surely in vain I've kept my heart pure, I've washed my hands in my innocence. But look at verse 15. All that that I just read to you was what was in his heart. He never let it come out of his mouth. Praise God. You know, you can't let everything out of your mouth. Listen, when someone asks you, how are you doing? Please do not respond back to them with everything out of your heart that you've been going through for the whole week. That's not the question. Most people today that ask the question, how are you doing, are not looking for a reply. It's just a greeting. I told you about a lady that lived across the street from my house when I was growing up and her husband, I don't remember where he worked, but they set up a little candy stand in their front room and they would sell this to the neighborhood. They had no kids, but I tell you what, that lady was the most sad, disgruntled woman that I have ever met in all my life. And you learned even as a little kid not to ask the question, how are you doing? Because she sure would tell you how she's doing, and it was horrible. You walked out of there, you thought you got some sweet candy, but you got that sweet candy through the mouth of a sour woman. It was horrible. It was sad. But look what he says in verse 15. If I had said, I will speak thus, behold, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. If I would have spoken this, and other believers would have heard this, this would have destroyed them. When I pondered to understand this, it was troublesome in my sight, until I came into the sanctuary of God, and then I perceived their end. See, they may have everything desirable in this life, but their end is not desirable. Because what's in their end? What's the end of the wicked? Hell. Right? Verse 18, Surely you set them in slippery places, you cast them down to destruction, how they are destroyed in a moment. They are utterly swept away by sudden terrors like a dream when one awakes. O Lord, when aroused, you will despise their form. When my heart was embittered and I was pierced within, Then I was senseless and ignorant. I was like a beast before you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. And you've taken hold of my right hand, and with your counsel you will guide me and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? and beside you I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you will perish. You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to you, but as for me, the nearness of God is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all your works." See, that's the perspective you've got to have. You can't look around at evil and wicked people. You can't envy them, envy what they have. Their new car, their new house, their new boat, their new camper, their new everything. It's not gonna be good for you if you do. You can't do that. You can't have that displeasure. You should be excited for that other person when things come around that help. You know, before I, I was gonna say before I came here, but no, actually, up to about two or three years ago, I'm fixing to be here seven years. I worked three jobs. This church is a full-time job, even though there are things about it that are not full-time, but it's full-time to study. It's full-time to talk to people. It's full-time to visit people. I know that we have dynamics that change because of this COVID thing. But I also worked a full-time day job. You remember? The school? That wasn't an easy job. And then I worked another job where I was an adjunct professor for a college. That wasn't easy either. What am I saying? In those hard times, difficult times, there were some times I never made enough money to pay all the bills. There was always more month left than money coming in. It's always like that. But I will say this, God provided. God provided. When we were doing church planning, I almost lost everything. My house, everything. And I learned a very important principle. Can I say it to you? Do not ever co-sign a loan. Even if it's for your kids. Do not ever co-sign along. I was one of five signers on our church building. Four deserted me. Who was left? I got sued by ViStar Credit Union who said, we will never sue a church. And when we went before the judge, I was so thankful for this judge. Because we already had a buyer, and we were already into our contract. We were closing that week. Bystar hired three attorneys to go after me. Three attorneys. How many do you need? Just one. One can do a lot of damage, but that's all you need. And he turned, and he looked at me, and he looked at them. He said, I allow one, not three. I allow you one attorney. He looked at me. He said, you got a contract on the building? I said, absolutely. He said, when are you closing? End of the week. He said, I'll give you two weeks to close. Boom, hit the little gavel on his desk. We were in his chambers, and it was over. That week, we closed. Everything was over. But it didn't come without consequences. A lot of consequences. And when I studied Psalm 73, I could identify with that so much. Because we do know people and we look at people that have, we tend to think a lot more than they deserve. Frankly, folks, none of us deserve what we have, whether you're an unbeliever or a believer. Right? And I have seen God provide so many times, through it all. So, we've got to put aside envy. You gotta quit looking at what other people have and wanting what they have. That's coveting. Or looking at what they have and just feeling really bad for yourself and your own little pitiful party. Or feeling bad for others. We should be happy for them. Because we don't know what they're going through either, do we? Let me give you this definition and we'll close. Envy is the hatred of others on account of some excellency which they have or something which they possess which we do not. John Gill said this is envy at each other's happiness and prosperity, riches, honors, gifts, temporal or spiritual. And envy is a sin that carries its own reward. It guarantees its own frustration and disappointment. By definition, the envious person cannot be satisfied with what he has and will always crave for more. His evil desires and pleasures are insatiable, and he cannot abide by any other person's having something that he himself does not have, or having more of something that he himself has. Another author said, don't envy the man who has everything. He probably has an ulcer too. And I would say amen. You know, with everything that we have comes great responsibility. So whether you have much or less, it comes with responsibility. Keep that in mind. My dad used to always want to win the lottery, and there are a lot of people out there want to win the lottery. And I'm like, Dad, that's not where your heart should be. Shouldn't be on that. People spend so much money on things like that, looking to win something, to end their trouble, to end their problems. And all it is is a form of envy and coveting. It's not good. It will destroy you. Even though we didn't get to finish today, the truth is still there. We need to crave the word. And in order to do that, you've got to get rid of these things in your life. And I guess we'll save the best one for last, slander. Father, we thank you for your word today. We thank you for the privilege that's been ours to study it together. Help us, Lord, to fight this with all of our might, to fight against the flesh, to put to death the deeds of our body, to put sin to death or it's gonna be killing us. So help us with putting aside wickedness and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander, all these things that drain us from any desire for Your Word. And help us this week, Lord God, as many will be making New Year's resolutions, some way of having a better New Year. Lord, help them just to realize that so much can happen if we would put to death the sin in our life, and that we would crave the Word. If anything, Lord, give us these things, we pray. And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. I really did want to finish this today, but that's okay. Because you know what? The Lord will grant us another Sunday, and we can jump right back into it. And I trust and hope and pray that your week leading up to a new year will be a week filled with the Word. Every day, make the priority to spend time with God. See, if you spend little time in the Word, it's because you didn't make it a priority. Make it a priority. If you're a gadget guy like me that has some of these devices, use them for an opportunity to help you in these ways. I love listening to the Bible. You heard my testimony of that a minute ago, but I don't listen to it just in the shower, I listen to it in the truck. I listen to it sitting in the chair. I subscribe to some Bible plans so it will alert me every morning at 8.15. It's time to listen to this plan. And there's so many out there. Listen, if you want to read the Bible and say you just want to read the Bible and complete something like that, you know, you could read the entire Bible in 90 days. Sure can. You can read probably less than that. But see, I don't want to just read it to read it. I want to read it to know it. And that's the question you answer every time you read the Bible. You're answering the question, what does the Bible say? When you begin to interpret it, you're answering another question, what does the Bible mean by what it says? And then when you get to the application, you're answering the question, how does this apply to my life? But you've got to do the first two. Some people just read and jump straight to application, they bypass interpretation. And you've got to keep this in mind, one interpretation, one interpretation, not many, just one. Just find the right one. That's going to take some study to do that. And so, again, I trust that that's your heart and that's your passion and that that's what you'll do this week as you spend time with Him. Let's go ahead and pray once again, and we will conclude our time together and until we meet together next week. Father, thank you again for everything that you have done today and everything that you have provided. We love you and we praise you. And we pray now, Father, as we head our separate ways back to our homes, back to where their families are, back to our routines, that we will make the time to spend it with you and to acknowledge you in all of our ways. It's what you tell us in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. May we live that today and every day. And we pray all that in Jesus' name, amen.