so so so so Amen. Do you remember the day that Jesus touched you and you got touched by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit convicted you of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment? And you got saved, you got born again into the family of God. And what a blessed day that was. I remember as a five-year-old boy, I called out to the Lord to save my soul, and he saved me. And I sure am thankful for that day. And I trust you saved today. But just because you saved doesn't mean that you won't be tempted to sin. And John wrote to us in 1 John chapter 2, if you'd like to find your place there, and he warned us of Satan's threefold cord. And with the help of God, I'd like to preach on that subject. Satan's threefold cord. In 1 John chapter 2 and verse 1, it says, My little children, these things write unto you that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. but whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. You wouldn't think that John the Beloved would have to write to Christians and tell them not to sin. You know, I mean, you'd think that wouldn't be an issue. Once you get saved, I mean, you got saved and you sought out the Lord to be born again, regenerated from on high, made new, you did that because of your sin problem. And you'd think that a born again Christian wouldn't want to sin. But boy, we know that's not the truth because we all have a sin problem. You'd think that John would have to write to born again believers that they should keep God's commandments. I mean, that ought to be a given, but yet how often do we struggle keeping God's commandments? The truth of the matter is we're just like the hymn writer Robert Robinson in 1758 who said it well, oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be, let thy grace now like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wonder, Lord I feel it, prone to lead the God I love. Here's my heart, oh take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. John is writing to believers. He's writing to you and I, and he was writing to Robert Robinson in the 1700s, and he's writing to each person that knows the Lord as their Savior. First of all, I thank God for our advocate. I'm glad that I have someone interceding on my behalf. Thank God for Jesus. Thank God that we can be right with God and live a righteous life. We can be holy and God requires us to be holy. He would never ask us to do something that we could not accomplish. Thank God that when we do stumble, we can get right by confessing our sin and repenting of our sin. Thank God for forgiveness with the Lord. Thank God for restoration. And John is gonna warn us here in this passage of Satan's threefold cord. In the first five verses, he's already established the fact that if you're saved, then God expects you to keep his commandments. Look at verse six. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked. Jesus Christ is our perfect pattern. We are to follow his steps. Any failure on our part to keep God's commandments is a sin to us. Let's go down to 1 John chapter 2 and verse 15. Here's another commandment. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. John has given us a command and a warning to not love the world. Why? Because you can't love the world and love God at the same time. That's like saying, I love Jesus, but I also love Satan. The world that's mentioned here, we're not talking about the mountains, the trees, the ocean, the animals, hamburgers, french fries, and Kentucky fried chicken. The world referred to here is anything that goes against God's word. Anything that goes against what God would want us to be. It's anything that God calls sin. It's anything that is anti-Christ. It's anything that would gain preeminence over God and his will for our life. It's anything that would glorify Satan or self. and John is going to define to us what's in the world. In 1 John 2 and verse 16 it says, for all that is in the world. That's everything. For all that's in the world, and we're talking about this threefold cord, all that's 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. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. John sums up the whole world. The part that we are not to love in three different categories here. And we call it Satan's threefold cord. The lust of the flesh. The lust of the flesh is the sinful desires that are physical or material. We know as covetousness. The lust of the eyes, that's the sinful, the desires that are mental. It speaks of our inward passions. And then he mentions the pride of life, the sinful desires that elevate us. It's about our status or goals in life. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4 that a threefold cord is not quickly broken. With God's help, I'd like to preach on Satan's threefold cord, and to beware of that, because he's looking to devour whomever he can, and he'll do it using this threefold cord. In John 17, we've got one of Jesus's prayers that is recorded, a prayer that he's praying for you, he's praying for me, he's praying for the disciples. In John 17 and verse 14, it says, I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them. into the world. Before you got saved, you were of the world. We were not part of the family of God, but thank God for the day that you got saved. Hey, you changed families. You switched sides. Hey, we passed from life unto death. We became light instead of darkness. We passed from being under the condemnation and the wrath of God to being under his grace, his mercy, and his love. But we know that God has an entire different set of standards than the world does. The day that you got saved, you were enrolled in the army of God. We became his ambassadors. We became his representatives. Now we're involved in a spiritual warfare. It's evil versus good. In John 17, Jesus is praying for us and for our mission here on this world and the fact that we're no longer of the world, but we're sent to the world. In Matthew 28, 18, it says, And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end. of the world. Amen. At Friendship Baptist Church, we are an independent, fundamental, premillennial, King James Missionary Baptist Church located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Now, just because we're in Myrtle Beach does not mean that we are of the beach. One may say, well, what do you mean by the beach? Well, just in the town right below us in Surfside, there's a place that will host satanic worship and satanic music and invite demonic drag to perform in that place. I'm not part of that. I have nothing to do with that. I reprove those evil deeds. Hey, down the road, just right down the road from us, there's a sodomite nightclub. Right up the street, there's a pornography place. Just a little further up on the right, there's a mystical occultic shop. There's bars, there's nightclubs, there's strip joints, there's tattoo parlors, there's drugs galore and prostitution and criminal activity all around. And in between all these places, there is worldly carnal churches all around. We're not a beach church. We're not part of all that. We've been called out from those things. Matter of fact, we are to represent our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank God for the change that salvation brings. Paul told the church in Corinth, he said, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And verse 11 says, And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. I'd like just to stop for a minute and thank God for salvation. Thank God for the precious blood of Jesus. Thank God for redemption. Thank God for the gift of God. Hey, I'm glad Jesus didn't leave me where he found me, but he does send us back to where he found us as an ambassador with a message of reconciliation. John writes to us and gives us a very strict command and warning to not love the world, and warns us of Satan's threefold cord. Satan has been using this threefold cord, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life since the Garden of Eden, and it's still just as effective as it was back then. All sin is rooted in pride. When a child disobeys their parent, that comes from pride. When a person rebels, it's rooted in pride. Pride is the elevation of oneself above God and God's commandments. God wants us to be humble. He wants us to walk in humility, not pride. Satan's downfall was pride. Man's downfall was pride. Proverbs 6.16 says, These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him. And the number one thing on that list is a proud look. A threefold cord may not be quickly broken. But thank God it can be broken. We can live a victorious Christian life. But let's look at this threefold cord. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, it all has to do with You covetousness, you lust, you covet, you desire what God said is not good for you. You think about Adam and Eve as Eve stood before that tree and she looked upon the fruit and saw that it was good. I tell you what, she immediately saw something which appealed to the lust of her eyes. And then she partook of it to accomplish the lust of the flesh. the pride of life, thinking that she'd be elevated as a little G God in this world. She could run her own life. But boy, we know how that turned out. She got hung by Satan's threefold cord. Number one, let's look at the lust of the eyes. You see, the lust of the eyes is mental. Before sin ever makes its way to the flesh, it starts through the eye gate and the ear gate. Why do you think restaurants will put pictures of their food online or put pictures of their food on their menus? It's not for people that cannot read. It's because what you see will affect your decision making. How many times have you looked at a picture there online and you went to look at a review or something there or just some descriptions that people maybe have put online about that restaurant and they took a picture of the food and said, man, that looks good. You haven't tasted it yet. It hasn't done anything for you. But based on what you see, you immediately is going to affect your decision making. What we see will fuel our appetites. The lust of the eyes will cause a person to mentally satisfy their inner desires for what they do not have or for what they should not have. In the story of David and Bathsheba, the Bible says that David saw Bathsheba. Before he ever fell to the lust of the flesh, he fell to the lust of the eyes. He saw Bathsheba. Had he never looked, had he never saw her, that situation would have never happened. But his lust of the eyes fueled his lust of the flesh. The Bible tells us over in the book of Judges chapter 14 that Samson saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines. What he saw led him to pursue her in the lust of the flesh. Samson won't stop there. Samson went to Gaza and saw there and harlot and went in unto her. In Judges chapter 16 in verse four, it says that Samson loved a woman in Sorek whose name was Delilah. At some point, she had caught his eye but what caught his eye wound up costing him his eyes. You remember Achan? Over in Joshua chapter 7, when he confessed to having disobeyed God and taken what God commanded to leave behind, he said, when I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonian garment and 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels weight, he said, then, after I saw, then I coveted them took them, and behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it." Over the years, Satan's threefold cord has hung many a Christian. Ladies and men alike whether you're at church or whether you're in the world, you should dress in a way that would never cause someone else to fall to Satan's threefold cord. Our ladies that sing in our choir understand that if they want to sing for the Lord, then they're gonna have to wear skirts or dresses at least to the knee, preferably below the knee. Their chest has to be covered. Our men, they wear suits and sports coats and ties when they usher and when they sing in the choir or when special singing. Why? Because we're not here to manifest our flesh. No, we're here to worship the Lord. We want to present ourselves in such a way that does not promote our flesh, but only points our songs in worship to Christ. There's been many a Christian hang themselves from Satan's threefold cord, even in a church setting. Now we're not of the world. We're not to follow the world's fashions. Jesus has sent us to the world with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Matter of fact, We're to come out from among them. We're to be a light in a dark world. We are to honor our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And can I just say that anyone, any Christian who has a problem with dressing modestly and submitting to godly standards has a heart problem. It's an issue of the heart called pride. They don't even realize it. But Satan has his three-fold cord wrapped around their neck and is just tugging on the other side. Now look, the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, that's not just a man problem. That's a woman problem. That's a young person's problem as well. More and more women, this document, more and more women are watching things online that they shouldn't. Even worldly magazines, we're talking about fashion magazines and worldly magazines, they flaunt women and men with less and less clothes on. Why is that? Many commercials on TV appeal to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Why? To get people to buy into it. Look, we're in a spiritual warfare, and that warfare's personal. But thank God that we can overcome that threefold cord. Thank God that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 4, it says, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations in every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Thank God for 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.