get their assistance. We'd like to turn our Bibles this evening to 1 Timothy chapter 6. 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 10 is our text. We're not going to get to the actual applying of that particular text until a little bit later in the message, but we're continuing the series on the Savior's sureties and Satan's strategies, notice first of all it says, for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. You know, in solving a crime and establishing or finding the motive for a perceived or alleged criminal is very helpful in identifying who exactly committed the crime. In our text, we have a motivating factor that's involved to pounce and to devour whoever he has his sights set on. is the prince and power of the air, as we mentioned last time in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 2. And being a spirit, he can go through walls, into our most private, personal moments in the hidden darkness of our minds even, invading and infiltrating our minds and knows us better than we realize that he knows us. He sees the things that tempt us in our areas of greatest weaknesses and pushes those buttons to set us up for the kill or the devastation. And as we mentioned last time, a lot of times death by a thousand cuts. Also, finding the means of the crime committed will also help us identify the perpetrator and be aware. Things like the weapons used in the crime or tools or whatever to get into a bank or whatever the case might be. But from this perspective is what we want to look at, the mean to any well-informed Christian that the world is becoming more and more wicked as it unknowingly fulfills prophetic passages in scripture that foretell of such times that we live in. In Luke chapter 17, for instance, Jesus says in verse 26, And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man, speaking of his return. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given a marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. And he uses another case in point. In verse 28, likewise also, as it was in the days of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. What is the point in those particular examples? They were just going about their daily business totally oblivious to what was about to happen. And that is what Satan does. He comes in unawares. And how does he do that? He does it subtly. He does it in such a way that people don't notice. He may be able to pull the wool over people's eyes more quickly in one case. Overall, we see that he does it gradually. And we see that people are continuing through their lives in this day that we live in. They are unaware They're going about their daily business. They've been lulled to sleep. And they don't even realize that they're about to enter into eternity and all the consequences of that when they're without Christ in the world and yet in their sins. Now, as we think about this, it is exciting for us as believers to live in these days, to see things being fulfilled before our eyes, and to know that Christ's return is even more near than it ever was before, and that it is more imminent, but we need to be ready with wisdom, with even joy in my field, in computers. And we would, you know, do the research, use various materials and so forth. And the book that came to my attention, now, you know, I taught computers. I was fascinated with it. I was just like, what all the things you can do to get me to thinking. And in God's providence, I eventually left that and went to the regular classroom. And I didn't quite understand what was happening at the time, but it began to make me think a little differently about technology and so on. And so I, again, in some ways I was somewhat blinded by the fascination with the computers and what they could do to where it didn't really hit me as hard as it should have hit me. And, but it was the beginning of seeing the light, I guess you could say, in many ways. But it ended up leaving that field and, and again, nothing wrong with computers or technology, but it is, it is being used and shall be used in Satan's new world order. greatly he's using it today. And you'll see what I mean by that. Doesn't mean again, it's all bad, don't ever use technology. I'm not saying that, okay? So understand that. I'm just saying beware. Because it is a tool of Satan in so many ways today. and sometimes without us even realizing it. So we need to be open to realize that can happen when we think about, you know, our own frailty in and of ourselves. It is pride that would automatically say, I don't even want to hear any of this kind of stuff. That is a dangerous position to be in. So the first thing we want to look at is, with that in mind, is the means of the heart that we see the enemy uses. We will literally fall for about anything if we don't know our weakness and our vulnerability that is all wrapped up in our total depravity. Our nature, the very core of our being, our heart, Jeremiah 17.9, we mentioned it many times, our culture has no clue about it, but that the heart is deceitful above all, a desperately wicked who can know it. We can deceive ourselves. And when we don't recognize the depravity of our nature, or we don't like to think about it, we don't want anybody to remind us or anything like that, we're already vulnerable to the enemy's attack. So we have to realize that. It doesn't mean we have to go be paranoid. It doesn't mean we have to live a miserable life. No, that's not the intention. The intention is to be ready. You know, don't tell me about hurricanes when you're living in Florida. I don't want to hear it. Oh, it makes me depressed. It makes me nervous. OK. And the hurricane comes and whammo. Because the people didn't want to hear it. It's a reality. If you live in Florida, you're going to have some hurricanes. And you live in this world, you're going to deal with the spiritual wickedness in high places and our own hearts. So, we not only have that nature, but we partake of sin as if we desperately need to have it. Job chapter 15 tells us that, and it says, Job 15, 16, good one, easy one to remember. How much more abominable and filthy is man? which drinketh iniquity like water. Like I need it, I gotta have it to survive. That's the attitude. That's the state of our being as people, the natural man. And then it goes even further. We not only partake of it, but we actively commit sin. It says there in Titus 1.16, they profess and reject it. I'm talking about, number one, an unsaved person. Number two, a saved person that is out of fellowship with God. Notice, but the natural man receiveth not the things For they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." And so if our, even a saved person, when we are out of fellowship with God, we can be affected in some way to where we don't receive the things of the Spirit of God. It's called grieving the Spirit, or quenching the Spirit. Satan knows how very well to add fuel to our depraved passions, to accelerate them to our own demise. So we have the means of the heart that he uses in his strategies. And then we have the means of the world. Now we know that Satan is the The prince of this world, that's why I think we mentioned last time Matthew 4 when Jesus was offered the kingdoms of this world. because Satan deserts the kingdom, if you will, from Adam and Eve. And so he's got that right now. We know that Christ will come and retake the title deed as we see there in Revelation. But at this point in time, that is his means through the world, his kingdom, if you will. In 1 John 2, verse 16, it says, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. In many ways, called into check by God's sovereignty, the world does Satan's bidding. with an army of demons, armies of demons, multitudes of people. With his wiles, he pulls the wool over people's eyes, pulls the strings of his puppets to accomplish his ends. One of the major means of the world to advance the one world antichrist kingdom is through the technology The internet, I believe it's safe to say, is here to stay. There are some obvious sins of online gambling, the gossiping, and the grumbling, and complaining, and the pornography, and all those things that you see. Those are obvious evils that we see on the internet. But it can be used for good. But if the truth be told, by and large, it is often the culprit when it comes to the erosion of the true spiritual understanding perception of God's people to lull us to sleep, and definitely the world to sleep. It's a danger like an iceberg. You know, the iceberg, you see the iceberg, you know, big ol' iceberg, but the biggest part of the iceberg and the biggest danger of the iceberg is beneath the surface. You can't see it! That's how ships like the Titanic sunk. And that's the way Satan operates. You know, if he the open and held a gun to your head and they'll, wow, yeah, you do something to try to avoid it or combat it or whatever, but he can get a whole lot more people if he can use deceptive devices to get people to go the way they ordinarily wouldn't go. They said this is, if he said this is the road to hell, and be pointing, well, then there's going to be a lot of people trying to avoid it. He doesn't do that. He's going to say this is the way to happiness and heaven and joy and peace and everything else. That's what he does. And so we see that he uses these things that are not on the surface, that are beneath the surface, out of sight and that is what sinks the ship of people who had once been strong spiritually. It's a passive erosion of the human spirit and mind. Now, let's look at our text, The Love of Money. of all evil. Our technology runs on the love of money. The more clicks on the mouse they get, the more revenue is typically generated. The more clicks, the more advertisers will pay to advertise with them. And so the money starts rolling in. They do not care about Your spirituality, whether it harms your family, you, or the church, or the community, or the country, floats their boat. Whatever they have to do to get your attention, the pride of life, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, is what he uses. It's what the world uses, what Satan uses. It's gradually, you know, you remember television. Things used to be, you know, pretty decent and moral. You know, back with Annie Griffith and little shows like that, it was not nothing that we would be concerned about so much. But then little by little, the shows got more immoral. And the commercials. And what are they doing? They're conditioning you. You're loving this. Oh, there's a little thing I don't agree with. That wasn't good. And then over time, we keep on watching the show. And there's little things that come up to where eventually our conscience gets seared. And we become numbed to it. And we're hooked on the technology. The things that once alarmed us and disgusted us don't anymore. It happens. It's happening in America. Now, the Old Testament is a good case in point where God made it abundantly clear what he's expected Israel to do, to obey his word, to keep his commandments. And if they didn't, if they went and followed after other gods, then they would be kicked out of the land, that land of promise. And so it was very, very clear. In the case of Israel and Judah, they were warned over and over and over again. The prophets warned them and they were by and large ignored by the people. But notice that it did not, the justice and the judgment didn't come in a matter of weeks, nor did the extent of sinfulness of Israel and Judah happen overnight. overnight period of generations that it happened and then we see the same in fact we see that it was a 490 years of desecrating the Sabbaths before God stepped into judgment and they would spend 70 years in captivity before they could go back to the promised land it wasn't even near the glory of the time of the kings of David and Josiah and so forth. Satan has been busy in this world over the centuries, using devices, gradually changing things, just like over time, little by little, in the case of Israel, in the case of Judah, Satan has used things that are good and turned them into evil things. You know how people say, you spoil the good thing, that's what Satan's a master at. Something good. And he likes to use things that are not necessarily evil of themselves because that makes it look like, well, that's no problem, there's nothing evil about this. But that's what he typically does so that he can again reach more and more people over time. The first major device of the devil that has been used to promote his agenda as we look down through time And using this principle in Scripture that we see, that we see in the Old Testament, over time, doesn't happen immediately. And so therefore, when the judgment's not executed speedily, the book of Ecclesiastes says, the men's heart are set to do evil. The first major device, though it was a good thing, As far as the invention is concerned, it could be used for good. Really, the printing press in 1440 that was invented by Johannes Gutenberg was something that was nothing good or bad in and of itself. It was used for some good things, such as the printing of the Bible and many other good books. It was also used for evil, wicked things. It was an invention, a device, if you will, that would change the course of history. Books could be printed in greater production speed than ever before, so much faster and better and more legible than writing by hand. It was also something that kick-started the Age of Enlightenment, so-called, and the Age of Reason and all these other things, Renaissance, where we have a lot of humanistic ideas that we have today in our country. There was a lot of more good books in the beginning. Less evil books. And so it's just like, this was the beginning, just like when these television programs, little things here and there sprinkled in, and then what does that say? Well, it's just a little thing. Well, a little spider, a tick, can cause a lot of harm. But, you know, if you don't take precautions, they can be harmful. Even a microscopic germ can be even deadly if ignored or treated lightly. Case in point, you look in the Bible, that same principle. In Ecclesiastes 10 verse 1, dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor. So doth a little folly, him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor. It can destroy a person's testimony and reputation. A little folly, that's how it all starts. And then again, we see in Ecclesiastes 9, 18, wisdom, weapons of war, but one simple Like the Bible says, a little leaven, just a little. It's okay, it's just a little. Just a little leaven, leaven it the whole lump. We get the idea, oh, I can handle that. It's just a little thing. And then we find in Daniel 8, 9, speaking of the Antichrist, how does he start out? And out of one of them, Daniel 8, 9, came forth a little horn, this is speaking of the Antichrist, which waxed exceeding grace toward the south and toward the east and toward the pleasant land, that is speaking of Israel. Started out just a little horn, no threat, but he grew worse and worse and worse and bigger and greater. So just because something's small doesn't mean that we can be puffed up with pride and thinking we can handle it. We can't handle it. I don't care how small it is. We need God to call out to. But the second great device that Satan used was the newspaper. patiently hear me out here on this gradual process and progression that has taken place down through the centuries, a little at a time. You see, the newspapers are unique in that, of course, it was printed with great speed. And one newspaper, you know, because it was as big as a book, and expensive, you could produce a whole lot more. And so it was also paid for by ads. You put an ad in there, there's a love of money again. It was a shorter read, requiring less time to read. In other words, there wasn't as much depth in it. So a shallower thinking individual could deal with it. In other words, it was a process that was used in many ways, though maybe not knowingly, to dumb down the American culture. You could pick and choose whatever you wanted to read, whatever article you wanted to read, whether it was the comics or whatever the case might be. You could catch up on the local news, and even internationally, though it took a little time, but less time than before. People are wondering, I want to know, I want to hear some new thing. What happened across the ocean? You know, like the Athenians, they want to hear some new thing. A lot of stuff we hear on the news is just trivial stuff, things that really don't matter. It may not even be true for that matter. But, you know, trivial things like what some famous person had for breakfast yesterday. You know, well, who cares? It's just wasting my time. Or things that we can't even do. To have an attention. Some of these people, I mean, you know, look at Nehemiah. Hours. There in Ezra's time, just hours standing in rain. You know, it was amazing. But then the third device of the enemy that he has used, again, always remember, there are some good things you can use with it, was a telegraph. The telegraph could send information almost instantaneously, unlike the newspaper. It could be sent faster and farther than the newspaper in time. Soon, you know, it was not only good, good things, but there was the bad and the ugly as well, could be sent very rapidly. And they could very rapidly hear things that they really didn't need to hear. The irrelevant became relevant. That was the relevant it began to be, you know, the trivial things. But then fourthly came the radio. radio. You don't have to learn to read. Just listen to the radio. There was more stations that could switch to different stations that, of course, the love of money. You know, we're not going to say anything that this advertiser doesn't like because they're giving us a lot of money. And so it was paid for by these particular people, these businesses and so forth, increase their wealth exponentially. And then fifthly came the television and movies to mesmerize us even more. There was audio you could hear. There was video you could see. And with that combination came the emotional attachment to it. So we have, you can see, you can hear, you can feel the emotion. And so we are more likely to be enticed And it made a greater, deeper, longer-lasting impression on the human psyche. Again, no need to read. A dumbing down of the masses. People don't want to read books, especially. They don't want to read anything, hardly. Just show me a video. And that's what our culture's about. I mean, you go around and talk to people. That's the way it is. Nothing wrong with the video, but again, don't get me wrong. I'm not against technology. I'm simply saying, be careful. Be aware. We have information. We have entertainment. And again, we see that it was wholesome at first, and it's gotten worse and worse. And against the revenue, oh, the ads. I mean, to get an ad on the Super Bowl for just a little while, Tons of money. And I'm not gonna get into these, I just don't have time, but for this message anyway, there was a computer, there was the internet, and then there was a smartphone. And those are gonna use in the future, but before we leave this, we want to, of course, look at the positive. Look at the strategies, the sureties of the Savior. First, we have to understand that Jesus had prayed there in John 17, that he wasn't gonna take us out of the world, but he would keep us in this world. We're to be a testimony. We are to be the salt of the earth in Matthew chapter five, in the Beatitudes. We're to be the lights in the world. We're not to go seclude ourselves and hide or exclude ourselves from society because that is simply living in cowardice and fear, not wisdom, like some people try to excuse themselves. No, that's not wisdom. To be foolish about it, yes, but again, to just basically not be a witness to testimony is not wisdom at all. Now, how can we tell? if technology has gotten a hold of us, whether there's an element of dependence or addiction. One good way to find out is to do without. Well, I'm not going to go online, or I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. What does that do to you? This tells us where our heart is. What does that do to you if you would do that? Does it make you restless? Because you're so used to doing it, does it make you restless? Does it make you cranky? Or are you looking, you're thinking about it and you're trying to think of some way to justify doing whatever it is that you do. Because if that's what we're doing, that is a sign that we're in denial of the obvious. So what should we do? Sometimes we spend time in those things, and again, I might once more not say, do away with all of it. I'm just saying, think about this. The Bible says in Romans chapter 16 and verse 19, for your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf, but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil. What does that mean? Or to be wise on what is good. Instead of just casually looking at her smartphone, like so many people do, just because they're bored or just because they're impatient. So to help their impatience, they look at their smartphone. Instead of doing that, why not think about the scriptures? Why not read the Bible? I could do that on my smartphone, I guess, but you know. Or think about something that I've memorized. Why not Use, why not redeem the time because the days are evil by meditating on the scriptures or studying the scriptures or communing with God instead of being inside so much. Go out into God's creation, go outside. and enjoy the declaration of the glory of God in his creation and praise God for it and commune with God and thank God and find contentment and gratitude in him. It will bolster and strengthen our spirituality, not bolster and strengthen our natural desire for triviality that we might see on a smartphone. There are many things that we do in this world, again, that may not be overtly evil. And that means that we are to be simple concerning evil. That means when you be aware of the trappings of Satan, be discerning of good and evil, redeeming the time because the days are evil, there are, again, those things that just take up our time needlessly. Things that will insidiously and subtly eat away at our spirituality. There are the gratifying things and sweet communion in our Creator. Being a blessing to others. Having compassion in our hearts for the lost and for the saved. Looking for opportunities to witness. You know, it's helpful to remember that Satan is a serpent. That old serpent, the devil. What do serpents do? Does it bother you that they slither around? Well, not necessarily too much. What really bothers me about a serpent is they bite. And biting hurts. And it really hurts. Witness. Now, the amazing thing is about a snake bite, especially one with fangs, is you know, two little dots in your skin. That's it. It's not like a grizzly bear came and scratched you on the arm. Or your arm is just dangling from a thin piece of flesh and that's it. Just two little marks right there where the fangs went in. That hurt, yeah. Doesn't look too bad. No problem. The problem is, though, is that The longer we wait, the worse it gets. Because the venom that is injected into us is something we don't see injected into us. Again, Satan working that way. He is like a snake with the venom. and that venom goes beneath the surface, unseen to us. And the longer that venom is in our system, the worse off we are. Our bodies become weaker. We get sicker. And that's what happens to us spiritually. that when he injects his venom and uses those things that don't look like it's a big problem, and if we don't deal with it, if we pass it off as, oh, that's no big deal, then little by little, our spirituality will be damaged greatly. even maybe a sin unto death. The subtle, passive divisiveness of the devil that deal with the inner man is where the battle begins to make headway into our lives. And he's becoming more and more subtle as time goes on. Well, I don't want to leave you in the negativity, although warnings can be positive. First Corinthians chapter 15. Let us remember. Maybe it's the daunting thing, maybe the thought of, oh man, the preacher's giving us something else to worry about or something else to, you know, whatever. Remember, we have the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ. No matter what that Satan may try to do to us, First Corinthians 1551, behold I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be chained. One day we will have these sinful bodies. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the last trump of the trump shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, does he say, oh, well, you can just do whatever you want to, because you got the victory? No. What does he say? Therefore, looking back to that, Therefore, my beloved brethren, that's who we are to God, his beloved, and to one another, brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Whether it's talking about defensive spiritual warfare or offensive spiritual warfare, is never in vain in the Lord. May God add his blessing to his word. Thank you for your attention.