In this sermon, the speaker focuses on Romans 12:1-3, where Paul urges believers to present their bodies as living sacrifices to God and not conform to the ways of the world. The key to transformation lies in renewing the mind, which involves changing the old sinful nature and aligning it with God's will. The speaker emphasizes the importance of meditating on Scripture, as it brings understanding, joy, and success in the Christian life. By feeding the new heart given by God and living according to His Word, believers can overcome the sinful nature and experience victory in life.

John said he must increase and I must decrease. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to Exodus chapter 7. We're continuing on our desert survival series with Moses, the servant of God. I've titled this message, The Heart of Man. I was visiting with a local pastor a couple weeks ago, who claims to be liberal, makes no bones about being a liberal. And he said he thought Pharaoh was up there with Jesus. And I certainly hope Pharaoh is up there with Jesus. But I have nothing in the Bible to direct me to believe that he is up there with Jesus. I would hope he is up there. I wouldn't want anyone to go to hell, and God doesn't want anyone to go to hell either. But the Bible doesn't seem to direct our thoughts to believe that. Our lesson today is on the children of Israel and when they were being delivered. And Moses was approaching Pharaoh and saying, God says let my people go. And chapter 7 picks up with the beginning of the ten plagues that hit Pharaoh because he said no. I struggled all week on this message. As a matter of fact, I didn't get it until Friday. I even spent most of the day Wednesday trying to discern what the Lord wanted us to do. And I never did have any peace with the traditional path that you go through and you look at all the plagues. God finally revealed to me that he wanted us to study the heart of man. And old Pharaoh has a pretty interesting heart to study. And so we're not going to go through and look at the ten plagues. One of the things about the plagues, though, was that they were all brought on because of the hardness of Pharaoh's heart. And we can bring plagues into our life because of our own hardness also. And each of the plagues that came was directed at one of their gods or goddesses that they had. And at each time, I've got a sheet here, each time it says that Pharaoh's heart was hardened. Or either his heart was hardened or either God hardened his heart or he hardened his heart or something. And his heart just got harder and harder and harder. Now the thing before we pray that I want to draw us in to is that in life, and that's why we're doing this series, is how to survive in life. It's like, I think, the POWs, the prisoners of war. Some of them are still over there in the communist lands. And I believe many of them are still over there alive. And there's a big issue going on right now about getting those POWs out if you watch the news some. I think we should do everything we can. But there's three things about if you've gone through the military and if you have been exposed to secret information and gone through the training of what to do if you're captured. You need to know your enemy. You need to know your enemy and what he will try to do to get that information out of you. And then also you need to know yourself. You need to know your own heart. And I thought, well, that's really good to take that military type of information and apply it to our Christian life. We need to know our enemy, but we need to know our own heart. We need to know the heart of man. We need to know our own heart. But there's something else. We need to know God. There's where the real survival comes in, to know God. So I thought we'd just do two things today. We'd look at the heart of man, which would be characterized by Pharaoh's heart. And then also that we would see how to change that heart, how to have a new heart. And I hope we have enough time. If we don't, we'll pick up right here where we are next week. I've got some things that I'm going to be sharing with you, some new things on meditation. And we'll probably be going through some of this stuff next Wednesday night if I don't get it out today. But some things on meditation that I've learned new from Bill Godfrey. He's learned some new things. And just to introduce you to those things. So let's bow and pray. Father, any time that you allow me to struggle with a message, that where I spend all week on it, that I believe that you have something there in all of the distractions this week to keep me from it. I believe that you have something here for us this morning. And maybe some of us have gone through some trials this week, or maybe even today, to where we really had to battle to get here, or we had to battle to make it through the week. I pray that you would show us some things today that we need to know about the heart of man. Maybe about our own heart that we don't even realize. And as we look at old Pharaoh, as he resisted you, that maybe we'll see that inside of each of our hearts is a little bit of that Pharaoh-type heart also. For we understand from your word that when we're saved, the old fleshly heart is not removed, but we're given a new heart that goes along too, in us, and we're to crucify the old heart, the old man. Thank you now for this time, Holy Spirit, that you use me. I ask you to speak through me. Give me the thoughts that you want. Tell me not to say that which is not necessary. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. What is in the heart of man? Old Pharaoh. You know what? Old Pharaoh. I believe he was one of those type of kids, when it came time to go to some school, he found other things to do. Go down to the frog pond and gig frogs. He'd go up and climb a pyramid or something. And he was just a rebellious type guy, I believe, from a kid. Probably a spoiled brat. Probably tore through the palace and tore it apart. All the servants were afraid of him. Afraid they'd get in trouble if they tried to do something with him. Maybe mom and dad Pharaoh couldn't handle the little brat or whatever. But anyway, he was a real rascal. And the Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Pharaoh's heart was a wicked, deceived heart. He thought that he could defeat God. He thought that he could win out against God, just as Satan does. In my own mind, I can't understand how Satan could think he's going to beat God. But he does believe that. Now, what is in the heart of man? Deceitfulness? Rebellion? And all of that stuff? You know, that's in my heart. I wrestle with it. And this is why these cross truths that we've been learning, these cross truths are so liberating. To get a hold of these things that will deliver us from the deceitful heart. This old heart. Now, Pharaoh's heart, we had a clue to it back in Exodus 5. And I noticed this, that when Moses and Aaron first showed up on the scene, and they come in there and they said, You know, the Lord God of Israel said, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. What did Pharaoh say? Oh, that's nice, fellas. Will you give your regards to the Lord? And I'll think about it. No, he comes out and his first words are, Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. And then if you slip on down to verse 9, it says, Let more work be laid upon the men that they may labor therein, and let them not regard vain words. The word of God was vanity, is what he said. The words of the Lord were vanity. In other words, in the Hebrew that means, It's a sheikah, it's a lie. The words of God are a lie. That's what that actual word vain means in Hebrew, the sheikah. Malachi 3.14, there's another cross reference you can do on your own on that. But Pharaoh's hard old heart was hard before Moses and Aaron ever showed up. There's been some theologians that have really blamed God for making his heart hard, but his old heart was hard before they showed up. And the more God come in and confronted him, his old heart just got harder and harder. The term for hardening is just like with something that you would harden up. If you're going to make hard biscuits or hard concrete, you do certain things to harden them up. And that's what happened. The more God dealt with him, his heart just got harder. And many times with Christians, because they harden their heart against God, that's why they are suddenly destroyed. Their lives are destroyed. Paul said that many of the Corinthian Christians were dead because they would not repent of their immorality and things. They hardened their heart against God. And the proof that he was just such a hard fellow is that after ten plagues, he was no better off. He was worse off after ten plagues. And the ten plagues are interesting things themselves, and we could spend ten weeks a week on each plague here and learn a fantastic amount of information about these plagues. My favorite one is the frog plague. You know that, don't you? I love that part. I heard a preacher in Omaha when I was in Bible college tell him about that one. I'll give you a little bit on it because I really like that one. You know, God says, let my people go or I'm going to plague your land with frogs. And this was an attack against the frog god that they had. Everything he did, he attacked their gods. When he was done, he destroyed all their gods. When God was done. But God says, I'm going to fill your land with frogs. And the Scripture says there are frogs everywhere. They woke up in the morning, frogs in their bath, frogs in their bed. The woman goes in to open up the oven, there's frogs in the oven. Old Pharaoh wakes up, there's a frog on his chin, look at him in the eyeball. There's frogs everywhere. And he comes out for breakfast and guess what he had? Frog legs. Oh, I like the frog plague. But they couldn't stand it. They hated frogs. And he comes out, get rid of the frogs. And when Moses says, you say the word, I'll get rid of the frogs. And old Pharaoh, you know what he said? Tomorrow. One more day with my frogs. One more day with my problems. Many times we're like that. The Spirit of God deals with us and we say, tomorrow I'll get victory. Tomorrow I'll get rid of it. And God says, do it today. But old Pharaoh, just so typical of the hard hearted heart. I'll just stick it out one more day with these stinking frogs, you know. And he turns and walks off and slips on a frog. Just one more day. Why wouldn't he do it today? You know, the Bible says today is the day to repent. Anyway, we're not going to study the plague as much as I would like to. Maybe that's why the Lord took all week to get me away from the plagues. To get us to something else. To get us to the heart of man. Now, I believe that the disasters that we encounter in the deserts of life, all these disasters that we go through, will reveal the heart. Isn't that true? You're racing along trying to get to church because you left too late and all of a sudden, BANG! What was that? Somebody shoot at me? You know. And you have a flat tire. And your response to that situation reveals your heart. Instead of praise the Lord, we've got a flat, we're going to be late. You know. We'll just get out and fix it. Man, you look over at your wife and try to think of some reason to blame her for it. Then you yell back at the kids because she's looking back at you the same way. Blaming you. So you look back at the kid and you say, Be quiet back there! You know, you get upset. That all reveals the heart. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And it's usually not good. So this is why we're doing it. You know something about old Job? Old Job was going through his plagues, you know, his trials. All his kids were killed and everything. At one point as he's going along in Job 23.10, it says, When he has tried me, and when I come forth, I'm going to come forth as gold. And we say that, we claim it. You know what old Job said a few chapters later in 40? Behold, I am vile. You see, God drew something out of old Job that was in his heart. And there's some pride there. Job wasn't quite as humble as he thought he was. And he was a righteous man. He was a holy man. But after he went through all those plagues, when he came down to the end of it, He says, I am vile. And when he came to that point, then God moved in. He had a revival and he turned him around. When Job really realized what was in the heart, He says, I am vile. Very interesting. How I respond to what I learn is most important. If God allows something to happen to me and I flunk my test, Then I'm going to have to go through it again. How many of you like tests when you're going through school? I didn't like them. You know why I didn't like them? Because I flunked them a lot. You know why I flunked them a lot? Because I hated to study. And I hated school. And I'm glad my kids are not like me. We've been teaching them and they've learned that learning is fun, And learning is good, and school is good. But I don't know, I'm not going to blame anybody. But I grew up hating school. And you know what I ended up doing? Going to school almost all my life. I didn't get out of school until I was, what, 28. But the first thing I did, I'd get out of high school, And, man, I'm free! And everybody looks at me. You're going to school. I don't want to go to school. You're going to college. I don't want to go to college. You're going to college. Okay, I'll go to college. I went to college and had a good time, man. I played around and I studied psychology. The only problem was I didn't have psychology as a course my first semester. And I didn't study anything else. I was in the library. I was rebellious. I was going to major in psychology. I was a psychology major. What do you mean I can't take any psychology my first semester? I was also rebellious. I'll take psychology. I'll do it on my own. So I didn't study my Spanish. I didn't study my English. I didn't study my math and my biology and all that other stuff. I did pretty good in PE, though, because that was swimming. I made straight A's in that. But all the other stuff, man, I just limped along because in my heart was rebellion. The old Pharaoh heart laid in there. The rebellious heart. And so they called me in at the end of the term and said, guess what, we're going to give you a break. Oh? How come? Well, since you only made about 50% score, in other words, I flunked half my courses, we're going to give you a break. And okay, fine. So I flunked out because I didn't study. But I'd learned a lot of psychology, though. Man, I'd read everything I could on it. But I wasn't supposed to be doing that. The old Pharaoh heart was rebelling. So I stayed out and I went to work. I worked there with Dad there for a while. And guess what? After working a couple, three weeks, I said, hey, this is pretty tough. Man, he had me back in the stockroom moving these cases. You ever move the case of generators? They weigh about 300 pounds. You move those things all day and batteries and all these heavy auto parts. Hey, Dad, I think I want to go to trade school. So okay, I went to trade school. I quit and I went to trade school. I did okay in that. I took electronics. I made straight A's in that. But I made a mistake then. Came back time for school again. I went back to school. And Dad says, you're on your own now. No more. I'm not paying any more of your school bills. And so I went back to school. And while I was at school, God began to deal with me about my heart. This feral heart. And while God was dealing with me, Uncle Sam was chasing. Because this was in 1966 now. The Vietnam War was going on. And along comes Uncle Sam and he grabs me and says, gotcha. They caught up with me. I was out of school for one semester. And he says, we're going to draft you. And I said, no you're not. And I ran down to my airport recruiter and we worked up this whale of a deal where he would let me finish up my semester and all I'd have to do is pay for it with four years of my life. And guess what they did to me? The first thing when I got into the Air Force, they gave you all these scores. I said, hey, your scores aren't too bad. You made the same score on all of them. That was no joke. I made the same score on every area. All four areas. And they said, so what we're going to do, we're going to pick your area for you. So they picked my area for me. They didn't even let me do that. And they plopped me in there and went through my basic training. And the next thing I did, guess what? Back to school. Guess what? You're going to go into petroleum engineering. March off to school. And I didn't have any say to it. Now, you couldn't flunk out of that. They wouldn't let you flunk. And so 240 hours I spent in the classroom learning petroleum engineering. Everything. All because I was rebellious. The old feral heart. The old feral heart. But then God began to discipline me. And God began to chase me. And he got me back there in that summer. That's when I gave my life to him and all of that. But the key lesson for feral and us in all of our trials is to learn to know God. And through all of that, I learned to know God. The problem is there's an easy way and there's a hard way. Whatever you're going to do, you're going to know God. You're going to understand that God says in Exodus 7, 17, Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord. This is what God told feral. He says, Listen, in these plagues, in this first plague, you're going to know that I am the Lord. The first plague came, and the scripture says that feral's heart was harkened. So it comes along with another plague. And it says that his heart was harkened, and another plague. And finally, after the tenth plague, feral knew the Lord. For his firstborn son was taken, his empire was destroyed, all their wealth was gone. Their army was drowned in the Red Sea. And feral knew that the Lord was Lord after he was a broken and destroyed man. All he had to do at the beginning was say, Fine, you can go. The Lord is Lord, whatever he wants. If the Lord has said it, you can go. But no, he's like we are. Don't we have a little feral heart in us? You see, that's why the heart is so deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can know it? Well, after ten plagues, old feral was no better off, but he knew that the Lord was Lord. You know, if you take a criminal, and you put him in jail, you stick him there, and he's there for twenty years, and he comes back out, when he comes out, most of the time, guess what he is? A criminal. Isn't he? Only he's worse, because he's learned. He's got twenty years, he's got several doctor degrees in criminology. No kidding. He couldn't learn any better than right there. And so he comes out, and he's still a criminal. He's just hardened even more. And we turn him loose on the world. And he goes again, and he gets caught again. And we go through this cycle. Instead of doing what God says to do, we go through our system. The problem is, he has the same heart. And that's the problem with man. Unless we have a new heart, we're still the criminal. And so many people don't understand. Even they go to church. Maybe you're here today. You come to church. You come to church here. You attend church. Maybe you put your dime in the offering. Or whatever. You come to church. You try to be good. You try not to bother anybody. You try not to kill anybody. I hear all these things all the time. Well, I'm pretty good. I give to this donation and that and that. But it's still the same. Your heart is still unconverted heart. And this is why you still don't have a desire to read the Bible. And this is why you still don't have a real desire to pray. This is why you still don't have a real desire to be in church. If you could, you'd get out and you'd go. And this is why you don't have a testimony. Why you wouldn't be willing this morning to get up here with this mic and say, I love Jesus. I gave my heart to Jesus back on a certain day. And I know that I'm saved. The blood of Christ was given for my sins. I know that Jesus is mine and I love him. But you don't have a testimony. It'd scare you to death to tell somebody about Jesus. Because you haven't been given a new heart. And no matter how many times you come to church, it doesn't make you a Christian. You still got that old feral heart. And when you get down to the bottom of this, the whole thing is, unless you have a new heart, you'll have that feral heart. You have to have the new heart to defeat the old heart. Now, would you like to have a good look at the heart of man? Let me take you through a little interesting study. In Galatians 5, if you want to get there, before I take off, I'm going to go through a few verses. And I'm going to read Galatians 5, 16 through 26. And read you about the heart. You see, when we get saved, the Holy Spirit comes within us. And he's our new heart, our new mind. But we still got the old one, the old fleshly mind that we inherited from our great, great, great, great, great, great Grandpa Adam and Grandma Eve. And that doesn't come out. It stays there. But when the body dies, then it dies. And then the spirit and the soul go to be with God. But the scripture says, Galatians 5, 16, This I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, that old fleshly heart of yours. So you'll walk in the spirit. That's where victory is. That's the only place where it's at. I'll give it to you right now. It's to live a spirit-filled life. Listen, he says, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. This is why there's a battle in your heart, in your life. There's a battle going on every day if you're a Christian. There's a battle. There's in mine. I go through this battle every day. He says, for the spirit lusteth against the, the flesh lusteth against the spirit, verse 17, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary the one to the other. So that you cannot do the things that you would. The old fleshly heart would try to keep you from doing what the spiritual heart wants to do. But he says, but if you be led of the spirit, you're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest. Here's the works of the fleshly heart, which are these. I think I'll go through this stuff with you sometime in detail, this passage, but not today. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, grants, immolations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such and like, of which I tell you before, as I have told you also in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is what? Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such there is no law. And then verse 24 is the key verse. I'd like to take the rest of the time on that, but I'm not going to do it. I'm going to spend a little time, and maybe Wednesday night I might, if I have some time, prepare for it, get into this. And it says, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh, the old feral heart. With the affections and lust, and if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. The key to the victory life is every day, moment by moment, to crucify the old feral heart. As soon as he comes up, and he begins to say something in your ear that has a rebellious nature against faith and in trusting in God, you just die to it. I'm not going to listen to you. He comes up and whispers all kinds of things to you. The worst enemy that I face every morning when I get up, when I go in there, and every morning I usually do this since I don't have to shave anymore, I look in the mirror at the worst enemy I've got. It's me. It's the heart, the feral heart, that still dwells within me. And it'll be there until I die. That old part of me that I've inherited from Adam. That's the worst enemy. You know, I used to work down in the slums of Omaha with the teens, and I get the same answer I get from other people up in this area too. I used to work with those guys, and man, they'd shake their fists and say, man, society owes us a living. If it wasn't for society, I wouldn't be here in this slum. If it wasn't for old so-and-so being president, and this and that, they never do take the blame for themselves. The problem isn't society. By the way, this is what I learned in psychology too. Pass the buck. Basic psychology says pass the buck. Blame your husband for your problem. Blame your medic. Blame your grandfather, your mother, whatever. Never does it tell you to look within and see that it's sin inside your heart. And these kids, man, they would get mad at us if we wouldn't feed them and take care of them as we worked down there with them. We blame TV too. You know, as Christians, we'll say, boy, I could have victory in my life. It's not the TV. We say pornographic literature is getting so bad. The world is getting so bad. The problem in our own life, if we're not having victory, is the feral heart that still lives within. Now, don't get in despair. I've got to keep moving because I want to get you to the end of this sermon. If I don't, we're going to leave under a dark cloud because there is freedom. There is life. There is liberty. There is a victory in the Christian life that we can have over this old type of feral heart. You know what? The Bible says, this is my proposition, it's Jeremiah 17, 9, that says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Do you know who knows the heart? Jesus knows the heart. Listen to this little interesting thing. One day Jesus was going along pretty early in his ministry and the scripture says that he had a big crowd following him and they wanted to be his disciples and they wanted to follow him and go along with him. And the scripture says that Jesus would not commit himself to them. Do you know why he wouldn't commit himself to them? The scripture says, and I'm reading in John 2, 24, that Jesus did not commit himself unto them. It says that they believed in him but he would not believe in them. That's the word commit. It means believe. By the way, if you want to know what the basic word believe means, it means commit. But he would not commit himself to them because, verse 25, for he knew what was in man. He knew that they were following him for the free bread that they had got. They just wanted the handouts. They wanted the miracles. They just wanted them. He knew what was in man. Listen to this, what Solomon said. You can write this down. 1 Kings 18, 38. Remember when Solomon was praying? He had his prayer. He was chosen to build the temple and he was so overwhelmed and he prayed along and he talked about the rebellion, how they had been so rebellious, and he comes out with this one little thing in his prayer. In 1 Kings 8, 38, in Solomon's prayer, he said that everyone would know the plague of his own heart. You see, Pharaoh had plagues because he had a plague in his heart. And Solomon prayed that everyone would know the plague of his own heart. As soon as you think you're somebody, you had it. As soon as you think you can make it in your Christian life on your own, you had it. And I've had it. Paul says our sufficiency is not of ourselves, but it's of the Lord. And he comes to the Lord and he says, Lord, would you remove this problem from me? I can't do it. And God comes back and says, My grace is sufficient for thee. And he says, Okay, then most gladly will I rather glorify in my infirmities. I'll praise the Lord because of my weaknesses. For when I am weak, then I am strong. But he had something there that was defeating him and he learned that God said, My grace is sufficient. My grace will overcome your problem. It's through your weakness, through the weakness of the flesh, that you will be compelled to live so close to me and depend on me for everything. And that's when you will be strong. But the moment you think you can do it on your own, you had it. That's why I say, and that's why every preacher in this country that's fundamental, that believes the Bible, that is Bible preaching, Bible talking preacher, says the most important time of the week is Wednesday night, or whatever night they meet to pray. This is not the heart of the church. This is when most people come out. But Wednesday night is when the heart of the church carries on. And the church will, you look around the town, how many churches don't have a prayer meeting? Those same churches are not preaching the word and people are not getting saved. Once your prayer meeting goes, you've had it. You're just a society of people meeting together. But, once we quit praying, then we're saying that we can make it on our own as a church. Do you know that around this country, and this is why God's raised up some guys like John Muster and Jules is sort of doing what John Muster is doing. All around this country, probably 50 to 75 percent of the preachers are discouraged. And they're ready to quit all around the country. In the last year, I've worked, I've figured out it must be somewhere between three dozen and four dozen pastors I've worked with directly myself. And most of them are discouraged. And in almost every situation where they're discouraged, they have a small prayer meeting in their church. Just a small group of people. And those that have a large proportion of people in prayer meeting are not discouraged. They're encouraged because they're being upheld. The feral heart sounds, you don't need to pray. They can get along without you. But we can't. And the tragedy is somewhere today in America there will probably be two or three dozen men that after the sermon is done tonight they will walk away. Or if they haven't already done it because this is the first of June. And the first of June a lot of them will quit. Because there's nobody praying. And they get discouraged. They can't make it together. We pray together and we stay together. Okay, well, this whole feral heart. Isaiah said, the whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. Isaiah 1. Number one illness in the world is heart disease called feral syndrome. How about that? I just thought about that. I should write it down before I forget about it. You know what Paul said? He said, I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. You know why God could use him so much? Because he never forgot it. He says, I know that in me in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. I know that within me is the capacity to turn and go my own way. When we forget it then we have trouble. The difference between the pharaoh and the Paul was one repented and got a new heart and one didn't. Psalms 51, David said, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. That was after his sin with Bathsheba. He came and he cried, O God, create in me a clean heart. I have a dirty heart. That's why I did the sin. The adultery wasn't the problem. The heart was the problem. The adultery was just the result of what was in the heart. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Well, how to have that right spirit? First of all, you've got to be saved. You've got to trust Jesus. And then second of all, you've got to do what Romans 12, 1 through 3 says. And this is where I want to end up with you today. I want to give you something. Romans 12 says this. And without it, if you're a Christian, you'll always have an up and down life, Christian life, mostly down, you know. You always just feel like there's something I could do more. My Christian life is just lacking. There's not much here. Well, Romans 12, 1, 2, 3 will answer that for you. Here's what it is. Paul said, he came to the Romans, he said, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And here's the key. And be not conformed or fashioned to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. The renewing of your mind is where the victory will be found. Be transformed. In other words, be changed. You know what a transform, trans means to change, form into a different form, transmission. You will change this old feral heart. You will squeeze it out. You will let it have less control on the computer system of your mind by doing what? By the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And here's what we do. These two things. We memorize Scripture and we meditate upon Scripture. If you're not memorizing Scripture, right now, you're not living a victorious Christian life. And if you're not meditating on that Scripture that you're memorizing, you're not going as deep as God wants you to go. Memorizing is good, but meditating is the very best thing. This is one of the new things that Bill Gothard shared with us that he's learned on memorizing Scripture. He said for years, he's memorized and then he's gone back and reviewed. When he's found out suddenly that the thing that needs to be done is not just to go back and review, but to meditate upon that which he has memorized, and then he will find that it stays there. The meditation. Let me give you six rewards of meditation. And I'll be sharing more of these things probably Wednesday night. Six rewards of meditation. This is in a little book called Success. Here's the first one. You will enjoy success. Joshua 1.8 If you will begin memorizing and meditating on Scripture, which by the way, right now I am discipling all of the deacons and their wives in the church. Taking them through a program so that they in turn can train you. Starting with what I've got, my deacons. And this is the basic thing in this program is memorizing Scripture. And we're going to go into some new things on meditation with them. And they are going to be able to teach you. But you will enjoy success. Listen to what Joshua said. This book of the law, this word of God shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. And then he says this. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success. The world says let's have some money and you'll be prosperous. You'll be successful. God says no. Let's get this in your mind. Then you'll be prosperous and successful. And then number two. Whatever you do will prosper. Psalms 1, 2, and 3. But it is delight. Remember, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of an ungodly man. And all of that. In verse 2 it says his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law that he meditate day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. And what does he do? He brings forth his fruit in his season. He brings forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. So prosperity. Success and prosperity. And third thing. You'll be wiser than all your enemies. Wouldn't you like to be wiser than your enemies? Well, here's the scripture. Psalms 119, 97, 98. O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day. Through thy commandments has made me wiser than my enemies. Thou through thy commandments has made me wiser than my enemies for they are ever with me. My enemies are always with me. How are you going to overcome your enemies? To be wiser than them. How do you do that? Meditate on scripture. Memorize scripture. Then listen to this. You will be wiser than all your teachers. I don't say this out of pride but I believe that I am wiser than many of my teachers in the past. Because I now know the word of God and I didn't in the past and they didn't know the word of God. And so because of that Psalms 119, 99 and 100 says I have more understanding than all my teachers for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy precepts. See the world says knowledge is the key. A lot of knowledge. Well through knowledge they're not helping the world one bit. The world is still spinning out of control faster and faster every day. But David says I have more understanding because of his meditation. Then a fifth thing you'll be filled with joy. You'll be filled with joy. Psalms 63, 5 through 6 says my soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips when I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches. I'm practicing what Bill Gothard taught on going to sleep meditating on the scripture. And I've been going through the same scripture every night so I can learn it. And you know I go to sleep just like that every time I start on that scripture. Matter of fact it just seems like about two seconds as soon as I get into that scripture I'm asleep. Meditating on it as you go to sleep. Meditate on it. Get something and meditate on it. You've already memorized it then meditate on it. And then this last one we're going to close up. Your success will be obvious to all. 2 Timothy 4, 15 says meditate upon these things give thyself wholly to them that thy procting may appear to all. 2 Timothy 4, 15 or 1 Timothy, excuse me, 4, 15 Meditation. Meditation. Will help you to overcome the feral heart. That's where it is. You see we're born with it. We'd like to have God the Holy Spirit come in and cut out that old feral heart that's still within us. You know. But he says no. I'm not going to do it that way. I'm going to give you a new heart. And you need to feed that new heart. Jesus said man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. There is where victory lies. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes. Maybe God's been dealing with you this morning. Maybe you see why I had such a hard time. Maybe why you had such a hard time this week. If God's dealing with you then do something about it. Whatever he's telling you to do, do it. Like the old Jonas song. It doesn't pay to disobey. That's all there is to it. Father, thank you for this message. Lord, I needed it so much. And I know it's so true. We go through the plagues of life. We're just like old feral. Sometimes we kick and grit our teeth and fight against you. When if we just do like the song says trust and obey. Let the Lord have his way with thee. As the other song says. Lord, the old feral heart will continue to dominate our thinking and run and ruin our lives unless we meditate upon thy word. Unless we transform, we change our mind with your word. Unless we are saturating our mind with your word, meditating upon it, memorizing it, we're mostly just drifting through our Christian mind. Getting very little joy, having very little success and prosperity, not being wiser than our enemies or our teachers, and filled with very little joy with no obvious success to others. The Lord used this passage today, this message, to challenge us to memorize scripture. Maybe to get a verse and start today and memorize one verse a week. And then go to meditating on that verse. Help me as I teach Wednesday nights now some of these new things along with prayer and meditation to the people that you have given to me to feed and to encourage. I thank you for them. I pray for them. I pray for your best for them. You know, Vicki and I love each one of them. And my concern has been that I have served them so little, maybe in a way that would help them to memorize and meditate on scripture the way they should. Help me to do better, to help make them more successful in their Christian lives. Deal with each one now, Father. If there is someone struggling with something, give them victory. Meet them where they are at. Continue to encourage them that you love them. Lord, I thank you for what Paul said when he said, Be in confidence of this very thing that he which had begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. We may feel like giving up sometimes, but I thank you that you have said that you will never give up on us. And Lord, if there is one here that hasn't trusted you as Savior yet, maybe they just need to be born again. They need to have a new heart given to them. All they've got is a feral heart right where they sit. They can build an altar right where they sit. And they can lay themselves on that altar mentally and say, Lord, here I am. You just take me. Do what you want to with me. I'm yours. I accept you as my Savior. I repent of my sin. I believe Jesus died and rose for me, and I just give myself to him the best I know how. You said, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I believe I praise you, Father, that it's so simple. All we've got to do is call. Thank you now, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.