Please take your Bibles and turn with me to Mark chapter 5. Mark 5. I'm echoing a passage we meditated on last week. The demonized man at the Gerasenes, beginning at verse 1. And they came to the other side of the sea in the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had come out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. And he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. And constantly night and day among the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out and gashing himself with stones. And seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before him. The account goes on to tell how a whole legion of demons was cast out of this man into a herd of swine who ran headlong into the sea and drowned. And the epilogue is found in verse 15. And they came to Jesus and observed the man. who had been demon possessed, sitting down, clothed in his right mind, the very man who had the legion, and they became frightened. Let's pray together. Yes, Lord, we pray that you would speak. We pray that the Spirit would give us that discernment that we need from 1 Corinthians 2. We pray that we would be built up that you would be glorified, and could it be that even sinners would be saved? We know this is potent stuff that we're handling here, and we pray that it might do all its good work. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Last week I did preach a sermon entitled, Satan's War Against Teen Girls. It was a sermon preceding the baptism of two very delightful teenage girls among us, and I drew parallels between the demonized men of the Gerasenes on the one hand, and our pair of baptismal candidates on the other hand. You see, both, in both cases, they'd been set free, the demonized man and the sinful teen girls. And strangely, this pathetic man's self-mutilating, psychopathic, unstable behavior bears a striking resemblance with the struggles that teen girls are encountering in our modern era. souls in varying degrees under, yes, the spell of Satan, about whom it says in John 8, 44, he was a liar and he was a murderer from the beginning. A man named Dr. Leonard Sachs has written a book entitled, listen now, Girls on the Edge, subtitle, Factors Driving the New Crisis for Girls. The back cover blurb reads, girls are cutting themselves with razors. Girls are convinced they're fat. Girls starve themselves to prove it. Other girls are so anxious about grades they can't sleep at night, even at 11 years of age. Sacks asks, what's going on here? Well, in the book Girls on the Edge, Sachs provides the answers. He shares stories of girls who look confident and strong on the outside, but are fragile within. And he shows why a goring proportion of teen and tween girls are confused. Then elsewhere, Leonard Sachs describes the insanity of cutting in particular, and its relationship with believing the lies. He identifies ironically that some of the world's arguably most successful and most beautiful women are cutting themselves. Angelina Jolie? Is she ugly? Or Lindsay Lohan, does she have appearance problems? Or even Princess Di, Spencer, the late Princess Di, was she a troll? But you see, all these girls cut themselves because they felt they didn't measure up to the standards of a beauty-seeking society. You know, it's true, Satan is a liar. And he's a murderer from the beginning. But I know some of you may be uneasy with my aligning this demoniac man in Mark 5 with the teen girls. You may say, you know, it's clear, Pastor Chansky, that in Mark 5 there was the presence of demons there. In fact, a whole legion of them. You may take me aside and say, you don't mean to suggest, Mark, do you, that our girls are actually dealing with something so dangerous as demons? Do you? Oh, I most certainly do. I most certainly do believe that our girls are dealing with something as dangerous as demons. Ephesians 6, 12 says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood. against rulers and powers and world forces of darkness and spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. Now understand, I'm not calling for exorcisms to take place among our teen girls. But I am telling you that we are really naive if we think that we're just dealing with things like environmental pressures and hormonal fluctuations and chemical imbalances and nutritional deficiencies. But we are dealing with, listen to me, spiritual warfare. That's true with every man's battle. We talk about it at men's breakfast. It's also true with every teen girl's battle. It's spiritual warfare. Back in 1942, old C.S. Lewis wrote in his book Screwtape Letters. We find that Screwtape wrote to his protege Wormwood, the demon who dwelled inside of a man. And listen to what? The fictional demon wrote, our policy, Wormwood, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves. Of course, this has not always been so. Direct terrorism used to bring such pleasant results. But now, in the modern era, we want to make them materialists and skeptics who don't believe that we, demons, exist. Psychoanalysis may prove very useful here. I do not think that you will have much difficulty in keeping your patient in the dark. The fact that devils are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that, he therefore cannot believe in you. So when we think of these problems that teens, as well as men, deal with, we must not disbelieve in the intense spiritual warfare we're handling here. As it says in 2 Corinthians 2.11, we must not be ignorant of his schemes. And so I want to bring this second sermon on Satan's war against teen girls. And I want to make sure that in our spiritual battle, our girls have a spiritual awareness and spiritual strategy and spiritual weaponry. to fight a good fight. And much of the feminine insight that will come through this sermon finds its source in Nancy Lee DeMoss and Dana Gresh. They put together a book called Lies Young Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free. They display in the book how truth is the key that unlocks the prison cell of lies that many girls find them miserably imprisoned inside of. Truth is the sword that can break the chains that Satan forges for girls. So with our time let's look at five significant battle fronts in Satan's war against teen girls. And the first is, you have on the back of your bulletins there, the first is the beauty front. The beauty front. Here Satan is like a puppeteer and he ties strings to teen girls. I've seen a video where there was a dog sitting at a table and someone had tied strings to the paws of the dog and they made the dog look like he was conducting a symphony orchestra. It really looked bizarre. really looked weird. There was someone else controlling and pulling the strings in that dog as there were these strange habits and behaviors. Well, the reality is that some teen girls act in downright bizarre ways, just like sometimes 53-year-old men do the same thing, and it can be because there's someone pulling The strings. I mentioned last week in a count. I want to link up last week's sermon to this week's sermon. Dana Gresh quotes from a teen girl who says this. I know that what is most important is who I am in Christ. But if I get emotional and quit thinking with my head and start to feel like outer beauty is more important than inner beauty, even though I know that's wrong, I abandon reason in favor of emotion and she begins to act strangely and she confesses this. This year I even missed a lot of school because I was so depressed about how I looked. I can get so worked up about my face or my hair or my body in the morning that it ruins my whole day. My mom has to drag me to school, and then when I get there, I run to the bathroom to check myself out once more in the mirror before I head to class. And if I can't handle what I see, then I call her and make up something about having cramps or whatever. I just hate when I get like this. Ever find yourself, ladies, acting like that? and feeling like that. And Anseli DeMoss herself confesses that when she was young, she tells she had braces, she said, I was clueless about what to do with my hair, I had zero fashion sense, I was 5'1", weighed 130 pounds, and I was detesting those awful gym uniforms that we had to wear at the gymnasium. There I was short, I was chunky, and there were those tall, thin girls there who could seemingly eat anything they wanted to eat and still look tremendous. See, Nancy felt like that. And you see, Satan preys on female weakness. The weakness of being enamored with, go back to Genesis 3, what is delightful to the eyes. The fruit was so delightful to the eyes. You see, that can be an Achilles heel of womanhood. The weak spot, and the enemy can fire his darts at and take her down. That's what he did in the beginning. He figures that he can make women think that what is delightful to the eyes is more important than listening to God, trusting in God, and obeying God. He can get women to obsess on what's visually beautiful, to fixate on it. Let me just pause here and tell you this. I'm not going to give you a lie to counteract Satan's lie. I'm not going to tell you that physical beauty is irrelevant. No, I'm not going to tell you that at all, because I don't think that's true. Often, frankly, physical beauty is simply an expression of discipline. It is. Beauty is relevant. It's noted in the scriptures. Sarah was beautiful. Rachel was beautiful. Abigail was intelligent and beautiful. Esther was beautiful. Read the Song of Solomon. Beauty is relevant. Physical Pleasant appearance is a dimension of womanhood that is worthy of a woman's attention. It is. But it is not worthy of her obsession. It is not worthy of her fixation. It's like honey. It says in Proverbs 25, 16, Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, let you have it in excess, and vomit it. And that's the very thing that some girls are doing regarding beauty. They are vomiting bulimia. They're vomiting it out because of their obsession with beauty. In fact, I think Nancy DeMoss was kind of naive when she was a teen in the gym class, seeing those thin girls who could eat anything that they wanted, stuffing their face and still look great. Often there is some vomiting that goes on when such a thing is combined together. You see, have you considered beauty, girls? Well, address it in moderation, but not in obsession. Like Eve, who had an idolatrous fixation upon what was delightful to the eyes, and she resolved that she would defy God to get it. Let me just give ways as we're looking at this theme of the beauty front. Ways on that battle front to break the hypnotic spell of the enemy with truth. To cut the puppeteer's strings with truth. Memorize and let's sink in these truths. How about this sword? Proverbs 31.30, charm is deceptive. and beauty is fleeting. But a woman who fears the Lord, she is to be praised. Any Christian man who has been married for a couple of months realizes by then how crucial that principle is. Charm is deceptive. Beauty is fleeting. There have been men who have married these delightfully pretty girls. who on the outside seem like princesses, but on the inside, they're devils. DeMoss says this, and besides, every older woman, by the way, I realize that you old women are eavesdropping in, could it be regarding these teens? You're listening and that's okay. DeMoss says, every older woman, you know you can attest to the fact that external beauty is fleeting and that our culture's obsession with staying young looking is an exercise in futility. So keep that text in mind. Oh, another text. Proverbs 11, 22. As a ring of gold in a swine's snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion. You see that pig with the gold ring? It sparkles in the sunshine so that you can't see beyond the ring because of the sparkling light, but there's a filthy pig behind it. It's repulsive when a woman is stuck on herself, or if I can turn the tables, you ever seen a weightlifter? Girls? And he's so stuck on himself. The way that, I'm not saying everybody who lifts weights is stuck on them, but there are some, so stuck on themselves, just the exact way that they look. You remember that song, You're So Vain? Because you walked into the party with one eye on the mirror. Isn't that repulsive, girls? You see an individual so stuck on themselves. People detect those things. 20-ish year old young lady recently and she was telling me that she was with a group of really fine, solid, Christian young men. They were sitting there around a table and they were talking about this issue of girls and what's the ideal girl. And the consensus was this, it's not the girl who's so fixated on the hair and how the hair is and everything being neatly in order, but it's that confident girl. She can wear a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, that's okay. But she's that girl who has a confidence about herself. And you sense that when she walks into the room, she's not always got one eye on the mirror. She's interested in other people in the room, an eye for other people. and not just an eye for herself. She radiates a certain heart beauty instead of the pig with the gold ring. Use that one in fighting against the enemy. Reprogram the mind. Take the sword to snap the chains that he forges for you. Or how about this? 1 Peter 3, 3 and following. Listen. Let your adornment be not merely external, braiding of hair, wearing of gold jewelry, or putting on dresses, but let it be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable qualities of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God." Now notice that term, merely. Let not your adornment be merely external. highlights the theme in the verse that it does not frown on a woman's giving moderate attention to her external appearance. There should be a moderate attention to the hair, a moderate attention to what you wear. Like Michael Bentley, the commentator on this text says, there is no ban here on makeup or of beautiful clothing, not merely those things, But this verse highlights the priority focus, which is to be, listen, the hidden person of the heart. You focus on the hidden person of the heart. What do you look at? How much time do you spend looking at the mirror, mirror on the wall, that focuses in on your external appearance? Just dial back in the last week. How much time in front of the mirror on the wall versus James 1, The Mirror and the Word, which shows what the heart looks like. Last week, time-wise, which mirror did you spend more time looking at, fixating upon, what you look like externally or what you look like internally? Have you looked at the mirror of the Word and seen certain blemishes that need the vanishing cream? There needs to be a vanishing cream that ladies would put on externally, but there's a certain vanishing cream of repentance that needs to be put on regarding the internal or another sword to use in this beauty front battle. Psalm 139.14, I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Thy works. Just think, Lord, you are the potter, and I am the clay. 5'1, and chunky, and not 5'8, and lean, I'm different. Or Romans 9.20, who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Or who are you, O woman, to answer back to God? Shall the molded say to the molder, why did you make me like this? Don't listen to the lie that says that the tall and the lean and the ultra-thin is the only thing that's beautiful. That is absolutely not true! Look at the beauty in God's world all around you, whether it be the sunrise or the sunset or the mountains or the clouds or the flowers, all these different kinds of beauty. Beauty is not just all of one kind. My mother-in-law, Helga, in Iowa, has a saying regarding women and men and the matching of women and men. She says, there's a pot or there's a lid for every pot, she says. In other words, different kinds, different connections that take place between different people. The tall of it, the short of it, the lean of it, the chunky of it, you see. But the lie of the enemy says that only Angelina Jolie is beautiful. That's the only kind of beauty that's valid. Well, let me tell you what. Maybe it's the kind of beauty that captures a Brad Pitt, but let me tell you what, young ladies, you don't want a Brad Pitt! There are dozens of men in this congregation who stand head and shoulders above Brad Pitt. And you will be so much better off marrying giants like that, comparatively, than a dwarf like that. But you know what? None of their wives look as good as Angelina Jolie. Well, maybe one or two. That's not necessarily an essential. You want a good man. Don't believe in a lie that you've got to look like that. It's not true. And even if it is that, you end up like Nancy Lee DeMoss. Maybe you don't get married. So what? The woman's got a wasted life? Good for nothing and useless? False! False! Usefulness is not necessarily synonymous with marriage. You marry your soul to the Lord Jesus Christ and there you find the best of friends. By the way, talk about lies. My own daughter showed me this video. about a woman who was on this billboard. She was gorgeous. It showed her this long neck and the beautiful blonde hair. But she showed her, they photoshopped her. And now the way that she looked at first, the real person. And the way they looked at the end when they elongated her neck and they changed her eyes. Wow, is it even the same person? You see the lies that we believe? Or I've seen pictures of celebrities without makeup. Whoa! Truth, beloved, truth! The lies were fearfully, were wonderfully made on the beauty front. Let's move to another front. We could call it the mind front. The mind front. See, a huge part for the battle for spiritual and emotional stability is fought in the mind. Now I realize, for some, this seems too simple and too uninteresting. Can't you just give me an emotional breakthrough counseling session? That's what I want. I want one emotional breakthrough counseling session that will win the battle for me. Or can't you give me a pill? That'll win it for me. It's a battle for the mind. The scriptures indicate that the Bible is our headquarters for conducting spiritual warfare. The Bible, and it's being used in our minds. For instance, Romans 12, 2. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Or 1 Corinthians, or 2 Corinthians 10, 3 and following. Listen. Though we walk in the flesh, We do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations. These speculations are these ideas. It's a battle for ideas. And every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. When a false idea comes into the man-soul of your mind, you need to take it captive and throw it in the dungeon of your thinking. And don't put it on the throne of your man-soul. A young woman's spiritual battle with sin often times is just a reenactment of the Lord Jesus' wilderness battle against the enemy. You see Jesus out there in Matthew chapter 4? Satan sends this fiery dart missile at the Lord Jesus Christ and we see that he deflects it with the shield of faith and he thrusts back with the sword of truth by saying, It is written. See, the battle is in the mind with volleys of truth. Dana Gresh speaks about how she was writing that book, Lies Young Women Believe, and she took a whole week off to be alone in a hotel where she could be held up and focus on the theme of fighting against the enemy. And there she had a delightful time. She says she took water and fruits and veggies and granola to snack on. And she sensed a real mountain peak experience, really being able to commune with the Lord, sense the Lord's help. Then she was done with the week and she drove about 100 miles back home. And she says, I drove back to my hometown. I was assaulted with thoughts and feelings that I hadn't experienced in years. I think Dana is in her early 40s. And here's what she got shot into her mind. You're fat. You're ugly. You have nothing to contribute. You think only teen girls deal with this? Other women, older women deal with it too. You've got nothing to contribute. You're not the real deal. And Dana wrote, each thought pierced the core of my being. This was just a couple of hours after Mountain Peak experience of being in that hotel room communing with the Lord. Sort of like Elijah coming down from Carmel now under a broom tree. She was plunged into a depression pit of bad emotions and insecurities. Can any of you ladies relate to this or is she just out to lunch? It's a very common experience. And she says she ran right for her Bible. She got on the floor before God and she pleaded for truths to counteract the lies. She said she dug into the scripture. She began to meditate and pray aloud. And she sought to wash her mind. Having been polluted by lies, she sought to wash it out. There's that story of Hercules and the way there was a king who had stables wherein there were 2,000 cattle and it hadn't been cleaned for 30 years. There's a lot of build-up there. And so Hercules took two rivers and re-channeled them to run through the king's stables, and they just rushed right through, and they were rinsed out, and they were made fresh and clean. And do you realize that the Word of God is able to do that? It really can, no matter how bogged down with stinking thinking that's present. The Word of God is able to, as it says in Ephesians 5, wash clean. Ephesians 5, 26. Have your wives cleansed by the washing of the water with the Word. That's what Dana did. She took the Scriptures of the Old Testament, River Number 1, the New Testament, Rivers Number 2, and she dealt with the lies. How about the lie, you're not the real deal. I was at a college Bible study on Hope College campus. There was one girl there. She brought up this scripture, Zechariah chapter 3, 2, when Joshua the high priest stood in filthy rags and Satan stood and said, that you are accused before God. You're not the real deal. And this college girl quoted the text where It said, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. Is this not a burning stick snatched from the fire? So you take that one. Yeah, I left to myself. I am filthy rags, doomed with the fire. But in Christ, I have little righteousness. And I've been snatched by His grace and His mercy. Oh yeah, well you have nothing to contribute, Dana. Well, 1 Corinthians 2 says, God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, the weak things to shame the strong, the base and despised things, the nullified, the lofty, and that's what I am. I'm weak, I'm base, I'm despised. You got my number, Satan, but you know what? That makes me perfect to be an ideal instrument in the Lord's hand. or the charge you're ugly. I'm ugly? I may be ugly in the eyes of men, but in the eyes of God, in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 5, I am bride of Christ. Revelation 21, I'm made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. Revelation 19, I wear linen that is bright and clean. Take that and that and that. thrust it at the enemy. Maybe even quote a little hymn in there like McShane says, when I stand before the throne dressed in beauty not my own. I am ugly in myself but in Christ Jesus I'm adorable. You're a liar. Dana says this, by the time that I went to bed that night I no longer felt the heaviness that had come on me so quickly. I felt set free. There's the battle on the beauty front, on the mind front. Now, thirdly, how about on the eating front? On the eating front. Closely connected with themes of beauty and appearance are sins of anorexia and bulimia. You can go to WebMD and read this. These are sins of self-starvation. There's that French model, Isabelle Caro, who in 2010 died. as she went skeletal and wasted away. And then there's gluttonous engorging combined with induced vomiting. WebMD says these are sins that take an enormous toll on the body. Anywhere from 5% to 25% of the people die from complications from anorexia and bulimia. And even those who survive are badly crippled. Listen to me, I'm telling you the truth. Often they're crippled for the rest of their life. Anorexia and bulimia erode the bones of the skeletal system, bringing on early osteoporosis. They wreak havoc on the heart. Remember some of us? Karen Carpenter, remember her? She died. The stress on her heart because of her thinness. It creates immune system disorders, fertility roadblocks. Bulimia generates digestive tract diseases and esophagus complications. This is all the handiwork of the liar who is a murderer from the beginning. Laurie Glass writes this about the eating front. She says, in battling anorexia, knowing the truth is a powerful weapon. When you learn to listen intently to your thoughts, you'll recognize the lies you believe about yourself. She's talking about this process, okay? How do I engage in this battle? I have all these creepy thoughts coming. Well, sit down, pay attention. What are you thinking? What darts are coming at you? You may think you don't deserve to get better. You may think you are fat. You must replace these falsehoods with the truth. Then you'll progress in your recovery. You may even want to write down the specific negative thoughts you have along with corresponding truths. Replacing lies with the truth is a vital part of the recovery process. Just practically speaking, let's talk about a girl who battles with anorexia. Let's say she's 5'6 and weighs 82 pounds, and she looks into the mirror and she hears voices telling her that she's fat. This isn't something strange that you just find in the first century on the beach of the Gerasenes. No, girls actually go through these kinds of things. What are you supposed to do in a situation like that? Is it just a breakthrough counseling session that's going to win the day? Is it a pill that's going to win the day? I'll tell you what's going to win the day. It's truth. Truth will win the day. How about this? My mother and my father, who love me, tell me that I am way too and I am dangerously skinny. 5 foot 5 and 82 pounds? The doctors have told them so. I have seen the doctors. This is how the girl should be talking back to these voices, because these voices are actually heard. The doctors say I am way too thin, dangerously low in weight. I've seen the weight charts. The scale does not lie. You are the liar! And so I take the truth of the word of God and those who love me and those who care for me and I shout down these lying voices in my life. Beloved, listen. I have known a number of girls, personally, who have fought the battle this way and have won. I'm not saying they don't, years through on, occasionally hear the voices again, but they know how to fight the fight. Not looking off to some kind of instant success, but realize they need to take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. These battles can be won. In fact, there was a man named John Nash. There was a movie made about John Nash called A Beautiful Mind. If you've read anything about John Nash, you know he was the Nobel laureate in economics and Nash battled symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. In particular, he saw hallucinations of people and he heard voices. And he discovered eventually that they were, he tried pills and he tried counseling sessions, but he realized that fundamentally these were lying phantoms. And he learned to trust, in particular, his wife. His wife, he would even turn to his wife and say, is there anyone there? Are there any voices here? His wife would say, no, there's nothing there. There are no voices. And he says, I learned to live by the principle of enforced rationality. enforced rationality. It's not true, not living by senses of sight, senses of what is heard, but on the basis of truth. John 8.32, the truth will set you free. So these are ways the battle can be fought. We've seen the beauty front, the mind front, the eating front, come with me forthly to the information front, the information front. Romans 16, 19, Paul says, I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent or simple in what is evil. Wise in what is good, simple or innocent in what is evil. This is calling saints to have a sophisticated knowledge of good things, but a simpleton's unfamiliarity about evil things. But you know, oftentimes when it comes to even Christian girls in our culture, the balance is the other way around. A very vast knowledge of evil things. and a very shallow knowledge of good things. In fact, you read that book, Lies Young Women Believe, Dana and Nancy Lee scold the young girls. They're so kind to the girls as they read through, but they scold the young girls of this generation as they say, frankly, we found that most of you girls just don't know your Bibles. You're sadly unfamiliar with God's Word. But you girls, when it comes to the world, Some of you have stacks of 17 magazines tucked away in your closets. Some of you, you're constantly trolling Facebook all day and fashion websites. You watch the latest movies in the evenings and you go to bed with earbuds in your ears at nighttime. You have such a vast knowledge of that which is worldly and evil. You're deluged by the flood of worldly propaganda, and is it a wonder that you're drowning in the world's lies? We're talking about this informational battlefront. Do you realize that those fashion images are mighty brainwashers? They really are. And those movie plots, they are powerful persuaders, and they are righteousness wrecking balls. Do you realize the effect of a movie plot and the way it erodes? Do you realize that those songs that you listen to erode convictions drip, drip, drip? I know you say it, but I don't listen to the words. Oh, the drip, drip erosion. Nancy DeMoss writes, we've noticed that people who spend most of their waking hours plugged into the media, Facebook, Pandora, television, have a hard time getting still enough and quiet enough to let God speak to them through His Word. Nancy DeMoss tells that the fruit flies had gotten into her house and someone told her to make a trap, a big deep glass, put an aging banana in the bottom of the glass, a piece of it, and make this cone, set it in the glass, and the fruit flies will come in. to the little hole and they'll get caught, they get trapped. And she watched on her desk as this trapping of hundreds of fruit flies took place right before her eyes while she was writing this book. And she said, I couldn't help but think of James 1.14. But each one is tempted when he is carried away enticed, lured by his own lust. And when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, flying into the trap, it brings forth death. This is just how girls are lured into sin, listening to a lie in the ear, through the eye gate, getting close to it, dwelling on the lie, focusing on it, pondering the benefits, believing the lie, and then sinning. Dana Gresh tells how while watching TV one evening with her daughter Lexi, she stumbled on a certain show. It was called My Super Sweet 16. I've never seen this, so I'm going to quote her. My Super Sweet 16, it was a reality show. It described a 15-year-old and how 15-year-olds would plan their sweet 16 parties with price tags anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000. And that night there was an account, a display of a girl who wanted her party to be all pink. She wanted pink poodles, pink food, pink cake. She got a pink car. And during the commercial, Dana said to her daughter, Lexi, so what do you think about that, Lexi? And Lexi said, it's stupid. And so Dana said to her, is it okay for us to keep watching this? And Lexi said this, well, it's obvious they're so spoiled, and I'd never want to be like that. But I'd be afraid that if I watched it a lot, I would start to be like that. And that's what happens. Proverbs 13, 20. He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm, a fruit fly trap. Ladies, beware. What are you doing? What are you doing on this information front? Beth Moore, another woman who writes and speaks about these kinds of issues, she talks about her daughter, Melissa. who began to focus in on fashion magazines. She saw them. She started to cut out pictures and put the pictures on the wall of beautiful model after beautiful celebrity. And she papered her walls with these photos of these petite runway individuals. And soon she developed a conviction that she was fat. Oh, what a surprise. And then she felt she was worthless and shameful. And she plunged into anorexic behavior. And she got deathly skinny and emotionally very miserable. And finally Mom Beth realized what was happening. Her daughter had been caught in a fruit fly trap. And so she cut off with Melissa the offending right eye. What do you think she did with all those images on her wall? She tore them all down. She threw away the mags, and through much counsel and prayer and discipline, Melissa climbed out of her self-starvation pit. It says in Romans 16.9, Be wise in what is good, innocent in what is evil. You see, it's not only a matter of being unfamiliar with the evil. Get rid of those things, some of those things in your life. But how about being wise in what is good? Not just avoiding the bad, but taking in the goods. Let me ask you, young ladies, how's your Bible reading during the morning? How's your quiet time with the Lord? You see, with such a media storm, you need solid anchoring to hold you in place. Mom and Dad, let me ask you, what are you doing to offset the floodwaters of error that are deluging her life? What about the family devotions? She's hearing the enemy and all the propaganda out there. What do you bring in, in the home to her? It says in Psalm 144, 12, let our sons in their youth be as grown up plants and our daughters as corner pillars fashioned as for a palace. What kind of concrete are you pouring into them so that they're pillars who stand firm? Are you equipping your daughters with it is written arrows to put on their quivers so they have something to fire back at? Do they have anything? Any ammunition? Are you helping them? Are you giving it to them? This is very practically speaking. Are you giving to your daughters the full dose of biblical training in Christ's Church? You know there's so many hours out there that the world gets. Is it unreasonable? Sunday school, a focus of attention. AM worship, a focus of attention. You want counseling sessions? There you got it. PM worship. I mean, is it really overkill to say two and a half-ish hours of truth being poured into the soul of your daughter? Is that really overkill? Is that really something that was only useful 10 or 15 or 20 years ago? Because the spiritual battle was way more intense back then than it is now. So now it's really not that big a deal to have the Word of God preached and taught. I'm pouring concrete, right now, I am pouring concrete into the foundation of your daughter so she can stand firm like a pillar against the worldly winds out there. Don't cut her short by suggesting that the truth of the Word of God is irrelevant. This is the canon of the kingdom, the preaching of the Word of God. Oh, may the Lord make us shrewd and wise as we shepherd our sons and our daughters. And just lastly, lastly, the friendship front. The friendship front. A common female crisis that some of us guys can't relate to. Let me just quote from the book by DeMoss and Gresh. They write, who hasn't thrown themselves onto their bed, curled up in a ball, and cried after a really bad friend day? I haven't. the girls can no doubt relate. Quote, last week I came home one night and cried for like an hour and a half because I just don't feel like I have a friend at school. I feel like everyone else is in pairs and that I just kind of float from pair to pair as a third wheel. I just don't see how I fit in. That's a battle for girls. Girls are very, very, yes, girls are very, very relational. Susie Wiebel in her book, Secret Diary Unlocked, talks about the secret life of a 7th and 8th grader. She reads from her own diary that hauntingly unveils the emotional experience of many junior high, early high school girls. December 22, Beth got me A really cool flip-out mirror with You're Gorgeous on it, since I'm always putting myself down. January 14, I don't think Beth's You're Gorgeous mirror is helping my complex any. It keeps shattering when I go to the roller dome. I know I'm not ugly, but there's something about me that people don't like. January 31, all of a sudden everyone's best friend is Kim. Suddenly she's the in thing. I guess I'm really jealous. I know I am. March 7, I don't think Kim likes me. She sure doesn't act like it. She likes Ginny, though after all, I did for Kim an art yesterday. She's back at her, oh Sue, you're such a dummy attitude. You see, you can relate to this, can't you? For girls, these kinds of things are very important. Friends, very important. Quote, friends seem to be a girl's number one rival for our God spot. Ah, that's what they're saying, that there's a place for the Lord to fill our lives, but there can be idolatrous attachments to friends? This isn't only a problem for teen girls, is it? It's for older women as well. There's a massive vacuum in the soul for an intimate relationship. But you know what? It's like you're standing on the beach of the Pacific Ocean, which has been drained out, and then you've got this trough from San Francisco to Tokyo, and you're trying to fill it with a thimble of a girlfriend? or even your husband. Your husband is a thimble. He can't fill that deep vacuum you have for the Lord to fill. There's the relationship you ought to be after. Think of Adam. Adam had a best friend. He walked with him in the cool of the day. Abraham was called the friend of God. Jesus said, you are my friends if you keep my commandment. You see, that's a friendship worth having, the one with the Lord Jesus Christ. That will fill the oceanic void. He knows the hairs that are on your head. He knows a word before it is even on your tongue. Hebrews 13.5 says he'll never leave you, he'll never forsake you. He says in Romans 8 that nothing can separate you from my love, not even some girl who tells me I'm stupid. Here is the friend that you really need, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the relationship that you should ultimately seek to cultivate. You realize these crises, these storms that you would be going through with your appearance, with depression, with panic attacks, with your family crisis. Do you realize that this storm is designed chiefly for the purpose of drawing you near to the best friend in all the world? Drawing you near to the Lord Jesus Christ. God brings storms providentially into people's life. He brought it into Job's life, a whirlwind came, and he was brought face to face with God. In Jacob's life, his whole family collapsed. He runs away, and at Bethel, with his head in a rock, he has a vision of God. At Jacob's life, Moses brings us to the Lord. Moses has his Egyptian lifestyle shattering his face. He's out in the wilderness, and there he meets in the wilderness God at a burning bush. We see that David, he's the golden boy of Israel, but he's made a fugitive, running away. And there he meets in the wilderness with God, who becomes, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? And then there's this demonized man. In Mark chapter 5, you talk about a storm. And that storm in his life drove him somewhere. to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there he found the friend that he needed. So I'm telling you regarding your weight, or your beauty, or your family crisis, or your panic attack, don't waste your storm. Don't waste your life. But don't waste your storm because ultimately it's to draw you to the Lord Jesus Christ, the best of friends. And whether it be for the first time for salvation or the 10,000th and first time for further sanctification, go to Him. You say, but I'm so messed up. I'm so ugly. I've made such a mistake of myself. Well, look at the demonized man. He came to the Lord Jesus, fell at his feet, and there he found the best of friends who received him. So I'll just tell you, come on, you're here for a reason. Go to the Lord Jesus Christ. Go to Him now. He'll be your friend. He'll draw close to you. It says in Psalm 34, 18, He's near to the brokenhearted. He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 40, David says, He pulled me up out of the miry pit. He set my feet on a rock and made my footsteps firm. See, nobody who ever ventures upon Him is disappointed. You want to find a wonderful counselor, a mighty God, an everlasting Father, a Prince of Peace? You find it in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll confess to you, I have had certain emotional counseling breakthrough sessions in my life that have amazingly pushed me forward. And you know what they've been? They've been counseling sessions with my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, maybe in a prayer closet, or on a dirt gravel road by my house, and coming away, I found myself to be kind of like this demonized man. I was acting and thinking and emoting in the most bizarre ways, and I've come away from such counseling sessions with my best friend, fully clothed and back in my right mind. So come on, be a friend of the Lord Jesus Christ. Draw near to Him. He'll draw near to you. Just do it right now. And while we're singing, let's sing Psalm 505. 505 talks about this friend who's with us, whether we're teen girls or we're adult old men. Hymn 505.