Leonard Ravenhill addresses the pervasive influence of Satan in the world, emphasizing the need for believers to recognize their adversary and the spiritual warfare they face. He highlights the importance of strength in adversity, referencing Peter's warning about the devil as a roaring lion, and encourages Christians to put on the full armor of God to withstand the enemy's attacks. Ravenhill also discusses the deceptive nature of Satan, who misrepresents God and tempts believers with power and shortcuts, urging the congregation to remain vigilant and grounded in their faith. He concludes by reminding them of the power they have through Christ to resist the devil and the necessity of daily choosing to serve God.

In the last few weeks we have been thinking about what we call the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest man that ever lived, the Sermon on the Mount. And I had thought that we'd continue this week, and then suddenly I got a kind of different wavelength, if you like, or a different admonition from the Lord, for quite a number of reasons that I don't need to explain. But it seemed that in making contact with people in the past week, and part of our own situation too, that we were faced with the challenge again of the power of Satan. And I thought of that word in Peter, where Peter says, Give your adversary the devil as a roaring lion, go forth about seeking him when they devour. That word adversary, people in the world would not admit that the power comes from Satan. They use the word adversity. We all have adversities, whether we're saints or sinners, there are adversities. And in that book of Proverbs we keep talking about, in the 24th chapter there, in verse 10, it says that if thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. It's in these periods of adversity where we prove just what stability and strength we have in the spiritual life. There are lots of people, of course, who sneer when you talk about a personal devil. And yet there's never been such a revival. The only revival I know of in the world, in one sense right now, is a revival of the occult, revival of demon worship. Particularly on the west coast, that man Levy has a church there, where they mock at the cross, they spit on the cross, they ridicule everything that has to do with righteousness and purity, and they swear their allegiance continually to the devil. You may, I suppose most of us anyhow, would say we do believe there is a personality, there is a supreme being in the underworld, if you want to put it that way, there is his majesty or his excellency the devil. And the thing is, what respect or regard do we have to have for him as a person? Maybe you don't think there's a Satan, maybe you're like little boy, children were talking about the devil, and little boy says, that's silly, there isn't one, it's like Santa Claus, it's your father. Well, you may not agree with that, you may think that's facetious too. But, in thinking about this, I think that one great thing that art has done, art can be helpful and I think very injurious, one thing that art has done is made a mockery, it's made a balesque of the devil, it's put horns on him, and it's put a hoose on him, and it's given him a folk tale, which is absolutely, of course, merely a mere adventure in thought, it has no basis in scripture. We try to make it clear in this. Now, the scripture gives a very opposite picture of that, if you read, not now, but read afterwards, Ezekiel 28, you'll discover there it says that he was beautiful, he was the most created, beautiful being created, his body was covered with precious stones, it gives you a list of nine stones that covered his body, and there are nine of the twelve stones that were in the breastplate of the high priest. Every precious stone was his covering, he was perfect in wisdom, he was perfect in every way, until iniquity was found in him, and then you've got a list of things there, iniquity, corruption, and sin, and all the other things that were all found in him. We don't have to take the devil lightly, on the other hand, we don't have to be scared to death about him either. The, uh, an amazing thing to me in reading this reit was to discover that he isn't discovered, he isn't mentioned in the first two chapters of the Bible, and he isn't mentioned in the last two chapters of the Bible. Another very interesting thing, to me at least, is this, that only three times in the whole of scripture do we hear the voice of the devil. I get a bit troubled at times, folks say to me, you know, you know what the devil said to me? And if you say to those same people, when did the Lord last speak to you? Oh, I, I, the Lord never spoke to me. Oh, so what? So the devil speaks to us every day, every hour on the hour. The devil said this, the devil said that, the devil said something else. Hmm? When did the Lord last say something to us? Uh, I, I think a lot of it, for instance, is imagination. I don't, I don't think that, uh, I, I don't say he can't speak, but I am saying this on the basis of scripture, that only three times in the word of God is the voice of Satan heard. In the first place, he spoke to man about God, hath God said. So he slanders God before man. On the second occasion, it was a case of Job, and he slandered man before God. Now, he lied, he lied to man about God, but he cannot lie to God about men. It doesn't matter how you're represented, misrepresented, it doesn't matter how you're lied about, you, you will never influence God with your bias. For instance, if you hated me, and you spread gossip about me, and you, you could cause me to lose every friend I have in the world, that wouldn't worry me anyhow. Do you know why? Because you can't change God's opinion about me. The only person who can change God's opinion about me is me, by my obedience or my disobedience. That gossip and slander and ridicule and that, that won't make a hell of a big difference. God won't take any notice of you. There's no, there's nothing in the Word of God that says he will. The third time that his voice is heard is when he meets the garden man there in the, in the place of wrestling. Then he had that 40 days of temptation. And maybe you've thought of this before, I haven't, but you know, it doesn't even mention the voice of Satan in the, in the, in the Garden of Gethsemane, does it? You see, in the beginning, Satan came and tempted him. What was the first temptation? It was on the physical level. Well, there's an area where he gets in on all of us. He can tempt us on the physical level, on the mental level, and again on the spiritual level. We're human beings, and therefore we're subject to impression, and we're subject to oppression, and if oppression goes on, it can become depression. And yet the apostle says that we're, we're not to be, we're not to be scared of all the wiles of the devil, as he calls them. In the, in the third chapter of Genesis, and let, let's keep this very clear in our minds, verse one, the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Now, I don't know whether you noticed that, but God never said that anyhow. God never said that. Listen to what Satan said again. Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Alright, go back to verse sixteen of the previous chapter. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest eat freely. Now, Satan misquotes that, and he says, Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Alright, come a bit, down a bit further in that third chapter, verse three. Of the fruit of the tree which was in the midst of the garden, Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of it? Neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Now, God never said they couldn't touch it. Is it Satan will use a half-truth to discourage us to misrepresent God if he can? God never said they couldn't touch the fruit. God never said you can't touch all the trees in the garden. He said, Of all of them thou mayest eat. They could have eaten of every of them. Isn't it amazing that man stopped at the tree of knowledge, and he's stuck there ever since? He's gone no further. He's not concerned about life. Knowledge is his quest. What was the offer that Satan made to him? It's the thing that grabs at nearly every man somewhere in his life, whether he's a sinner or a saint, and that is power. Now, look here. In the first place, he infers God isn't good. In the second place, he says, Listen. You're not going to suggest that God, who's made a world like this, is going to send you to hell. If you just eat that fruit, and there's no evidence again it was an apple, you mean if you eat of it, you'll die? Can you imagine Satan said immediately after he'd eaten it, So are you dead? You're alive. See, I told you. See, you thought you'd fall down dead if you ate it. A little later he discovered he died. He did not die physically. Potentially he did, but he did not die at that moment physically. He died spiritually. He died in his relationship to God. From that moment, he was cut off from God. Satan's a liar. Satan is a cheat. Satan is a deceiver. That's why Paul says if we're enlightened, if the eyes of our understanding of being enlightened, you should be a jump ahead of the devil. I don't say every time, he's smart, he's cunning, he's crafty. After all, you can't take him on by yourself. When he talks about resisting the power of the enemy, he's talking exactly to believers, because there's no one on earth who's capable of taking on Satan by himself. He's talking to believers. All right. So he misquotes, and he says, neither should ye touch it lest ye die. He used the same method on Jesus, in one sense. He came to him first on the temptation of something to eat. Now eating is very good. Gluttony is very wrong. We rage against drunkenness. Gluttony is as bad as drunkenness. Only there's, I don't know, there's alcoholics. Anonymous for a folk overweight, is there? Weight watchers, and a few folk like that. Weight watchers, and how to diet, and how to do this, and how to do that, and how to do the other. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. But you see, these are avenues on which Satan can come into the lives of each of us, and if you like, he can come into the lives of all of us if he gets the chance. So the first time he speaks, he misrepresents God to man. God isn't as severe as that. You'll still find people saying that. You'll find the liberals saying that. You mean to say God, or holy God, or just God, is going to cast people into hell? Well, that's what he says, and I don't quarrel with God. Again, the offer is, immediately you eat of that tree, you're going to be like God. You see? You don't need to go this way, you can take a shortcut to it. Satan's very good at giving you shortcuts. The only thing is, you'll end up in disaster. The kingdoms of the world would offer to Jesus, why? Hmm? I'll give you all this, because Satan wanted what? He offered Jesus power. I'll give you power. Satan, God didn't say this, Jesus didn't say it's not yours to give. The cost of man. Here, he, I don't understand why a man like Rockefeller, he couldn't even live on his, use his interests, never mind his money. What did he want to be governor of New York for? He messed it up anyhow. The taxes were five times heavier when he finished than when he started, because he didn't know the value of money anyhow. And he'd like to be president of the United States, the Lord will forbid it, I hope. But why does he want it? He lives in a gorgeous mansion. We used to pass it up on the, on the, what, west side of the Hudson River. He gave, he gave New York that beautiful drive, it is magnificent up the side of the river. It has immense rocks in red and blue of all colors, natural colors. Because he loved the city? No, because it was the highway to his house. And if he didn't give it, it might develop industrially, and he might get some smoke in his eyes or something. But he lives in this super mansion, it's loaded with antiques, he's got millions of dollars worth of stuff. He can't spend what he's got. Why does he want to be boss? Because men love power. Why did Hitler struggle? Because he wanted power. What is the quest of man? He wants power. And so Satan says, if you do this, then you'll get power and you'll be as God, which was not true anyhow. So again, he's a liar and he's the father of lies, and we need to keep that in our minds, because he's so deceptive in his practices. The wilds of the devil are so many. The third voice, the time we hear the voice again, is the voice when he comes to Jesus. And it was a very real, real confrontation that Jesus and Satan had. You see, I believe, you think that it may be otherwise, but I believe the devil gave up in despair after Jesus came out of those 40 days in the wilderness, and remember it was right after he was filled with the Holy Ghost. And if you say I've come into a new experience with God and everything's gone wrong, I think you've got the genuine thing. If everything was going smooth, I doubt you've got what was right. You see, God, Satan will try to get back everything you've yielded in your life, but by the same token, God will test it to see whether it was verbal, and emotional, and everything, what you're meaning. I get scared sometimes about preaching certain things. Most things, because after I've preached it, oh, when I'm making it up, I think, boy, I guess folks will like this, or it might stir somebody, or this. But you know, maybe a week after, God puts it on the plate and says, here, eat it yourself. If I don't, I'm a philosopher. If I don't, I'm standing in the public, directing the traffic, and say, Kay, you go this way. Sammy, go this way. Herb, take that road to the right. You, take this way, Joe. See? Doesn't take any courage to do that, does it? But the good old book says, you've got to fight the good fight of faith, and the conflict it really is. And I think that when Jesus came out, remember again, he didn't come out, and I get a kick out of this, you may not, may pass right over your head, but I'm going to enjoy it anyhow. I get a thrill out of this, that when Jesus came out of the 40 days of temptation, 40 is a period of probation. The book of Matthew is the 40th book in the Bible. Why? The Jews were under probation. All right. Jesus was 40 days in the wilderness. All right. Moses was 40 days in the desert. Wasn't he? Then Brother Sammy, the theologian, reminded me the other day, he had a second 40. Because in 40 days of temptation, then he's 40 years in the wilderness again with Israel. So, Bo, you better watch where you sway your allegiance. You see, here is a man who's living in a tent, and the Lord says, do as your daddy says. Daddy says, go take your brothers some bread and butter and cheese and yogurt and a few other things, and you go down to your brothers there in Dothan. He goes to Dothan, and his brothers get him, and they put him down in a pit. They get him out of the pit, they take him to Egypt, get him in Egypt, goes down in prison, gets him in prison, falls to the bottom. He pays for the fellows who get delivered. He's in jail another 13 years. What's God working there? That drunkard got out. That other sinner got out. Man of God, 13 more years. I mean, God forgot what he's doing. And then the Lord says, all right, now I'm going to start working. And he takes a little fellow, Joseph, who went to prison, I guess, when he was 17, and came out when he was 30. I remind you again, Jesus was 30 when he ministered. John Baptist was 30 when he ministered. Joshua was over 30. Apostle Paul was 30. A man could not be a priest in the Old Testament until he was 30. He could not be a high priest until he was 35. So God doesn't break his own laws. All right, he takes a little fellow out of jail. He'd been going down, down, down, down. He got to the bottom, the bottom fell out, and he fell to the bottom, and then God starts taking him up, up, up, up, up, until he sits on a bench with a king. And the Lord says, Joseph, it's the only way I could work. You're no good to me living in a shepherd's tent. The only way you can get the keys of the kingdom when this old boy goes on a journey, he's going to give you the keys of the kingdom, put a gold chain around your neck, and a ring on your finger. You're going to pass all the laws. You're going to get the keys so you can feed all my people that are shut away there. I'm looking after you. But you know, when God looks after you, do you know what? He's always looking after himself more than you. Don't fool yourself. He's not there to make you and I, Lord, a big image. He's got something, if I can use the phrase, up his sleeve when he starts blessing. He only blesses you, but he may somehow get the profit out of that blessing. Okay. So here's a little fellow sitting on a throne. He came from a shepherd's tent, he went down to prison, he comes out, he gets up there, and then he blesses all the children of God with opening the granary. Now here's a man living on a throne. He never knew anything else. He wears the finest suits and alligator shoes and, um, I don't know what he needs, alligator sandals, is it so many alligators any out there? And, uh, he drinks the best of wine, he has the best of food, everybody bows down to him, he has sentries guarding him right from his infant days. You know, Moses is a wonderful type of Jesus because, uh, Moses was born in slavery and Jesus was born in slavery. Uh, Moses had to be hidden away, Jesus had to go back into, into, uh, into Egypt. Uh, you can work that parallel out, anyhow. But, but here he is, he's living on a throne, he's a king. Everybody bows down, everybody's thinking, oh, he's the son of Pharaoh's god, he's going to be the next Ramesses, Ramesses III or something. They're going to carve images and put them all down the Nile Valley like they've done Ramesses I and II, he's, he's, he's a great man. And God says, I want to tell you something, son, you've lived up in luxury and refinement and ease for 40 years and you're not that much good to me till you go to a slave camp. Now he takes one man out of the gutter and makes him a king. And he rules. He takes the other man off the king's throne and says, go join the slaves. And go down the road with a million people and spit dust all your days. There's no blacktop roads, it must have been marvellous marching with a million people, don't you think? And trying to get a drink of water every day and all the other things they had to enjoy, which, which you forget all about. You just read he was a babe, he was a king, he was this, he was that, forget it all. This is God's working. This is how God makes men. And there are no two samples exactly alike. Again, if you read Hebrews 11, you'll find there's a vast difference in the characters in that book and there are no duplicates at all. But each of them has to endure affliction. There is no maturity without affliction. He doesn't make the furnace seven times hotter for everybody, no he doesn't. But he lets, he lets a man like Moses weather it out for 40 years on the backside of desert. Does he think ever God had it? A stomachache or any other ache? Heartache? Don't you wonder he sometimes said, my God, what are you doing about it? 10,000 people died in slave camps today, that happens every day. When are you going to do something about it? I would have said it, maybe I'm too impetuous. I wonder why God doesn't blow the lights out right now and shut the world up. It's going to hell faster than it's ever gone. There are more people, as I said, this afternoon in hell, this afternoon than the world last week when we gathered. Why doesn't God end the whole stupid, mad, rotten program? Wipe it out and start all over again? Well, the simple reason, he's God and I'm not. He doesn't have to explain a thing to me. And he doesn't have to explain a thing to you, whatever he's doing in your life that he isn't doing anybody, he doesn't have to work it out. You know the old song, we will talk it all together, by and by, it's the only hope you've got, Frank. You're looking for a blueprint down here, you better forget it, there isn't one. I'm sure it will surprise you, but I don't know all the answers and I may as well start off by being humble. And Sue said amen, she knows that. But anyhow, that's true. But you see, there's no, I can't give you a blueprint, there is no blueprint. All I know is that you're, if you're courageous enough to say, Lord, take my life and let it be, take my silver and my gold, that's a marvellous hymn. I like that hymn, take my life and let it be concentrated written by an English lady, of course. But anyhow, apart from that, it's when you get to the last verse, you get up to the rub. It's easier to take silver than gold, it's easier to take other things. But when you get down to the last verse, take my will and make it thine. She's more sentimental, that at the beginning, because it, that's too big a shock, it'll knock you out. Take my life and, well that sounds nice, take my life, I don't want to end up in jail, I don't want to be a harlot, I don't want to be this, take my life Lord, just make it nice, put a few cosmetics on me spiritually. And then he comes down, take my silver, oh now Lord, now that, now you're meddling, I mean, if you don't come down so tight. And then a bit further he goes down, a bit further. Then finally, take my will and make it thine. As that other hymn says, until with thee I will one will, two streams coming down the side of the hill, they become one, you can't tell one from the other, that's the way to live, with God. Take my will and make it thine, it shall be no longer mine. Alright. But remember this, that however deep the consecration, whatever you may think in that area, this, that God has every right to make his demands on us. He's every right to come and test out what we profess to yield it to him. Satan had to do it, but he did not return on the edge of a nervous breakdown, that's what the thrill is, to me. He was tempted on all points, he was tempted mentally, he was tempted sexually, because he was a man. He was tempted physically. He was tempted on every level, and yet when he came out of the temptation, we're told he returned in the power of the spirit. If you want it in the language of Romans 8, he, we were more than conquered, we were supposed to be more than conquered, and he's the fire leader, he's the example of that, and he came out more than conquered. Alright. So, we're in a warfare. I, I think we, really need to revise our method of dealing with people when we lead them to Christ, particularly young people. You see, we say, you say, the sins are all forgiven. Well, that's great. I dealt with kids at Teen Challenge in New York, in the subculture there, prostitutes, guns, murderers, everything. It's a great thing to say to a person, look, if you really repent of sin, everything you've ever done, your sin may be this length, it may be in the court register, it may be anywhere, but immediately, if you really repent of your sin, God takes that record and he forgets every bit of it. It's cast behind his back, never to be remembered against you forever. Now, that's one part of the deal. It's a negative side. The positive side is this, yes, you say, well, you're saved, you've got eternal life and a mansion in the sky and everything, okay. Do you mind putting a little bit more on that and saying this, that immediately you came out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. Immediately, you became the property of God. Jesus is a savior, yes, he is. He's a shepherd, yes, he is. He's a counselor, yes, he is. You'll hear all those quotes, in particular this time of the year, he's wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace, he's savior, he's Lord. You hardly ever hear anybody say he's the captain of our salvation. You hardly ever hear anybody say, if you're saved, you're a soldier and immediately you sign on the dotted line and say, Lord, I want to get rid of all my rotten sins and become a member of your kingdom. Immediately, you've lost all the rights to yourself. He has the right to draft you anywhere he wants in the whole wide world. A soldier of Jesus Christ, what are soldiers for? I remember my cousin there, I'm getting old, nearly, I can remember, before World War I, my cousin came to our house, he was about six foot three, came in a red jacket, beautiful trousers, shoes, you could see your face in them. He had a peaked calf and he was as straight as a ruler. I remember he knocked at the door and went, oh, come in, John. And, of course, Mother took him into the best room, you know, where we take all the nice people and I remember she had some very polished furniture and he had big brass buttons on the back of his coat and unfortunately he kept moving like this and when he'd gone he'd scratch Mother's furniture. She never forgave him. But, I remember how he came in and I remember as he went down the street we lived on the side of the hill when he got to the bottom he stood to attention and he saluted like that. Mother threw him a kiss and I looked at him you know, this fella, as far as I was concerned he was 19 feet high, 6 feet, that, oh boy, I'm going to get a jacket like that, big buttons on and he looked fantastic. Seen him going down the street I went, Grenadier Guards, crack regiment in Britain. I happened to see him when he came home from the war. He'd been shot up and left in mud and blood and he'd been flandered. Had no attention for hours. When he came back he was crippled. Instead of being 6 foot 2 he looked about 5 feet 8 or something like that. Instead of being as straight as a ramrod he was bent over. Instead of being the healthy athlete he was in sad shape all the rest of his life and died not too long afterwards. That's conflict though. That's the job of a soldier. Now again, do we get scary about this? I think again, I almost think we're conceited sometimes when we say the devil said this to me. I don't think he bothers with any of this. I won't ask him what he has to get scared of you about. Why does the devil have to have a headache about me if he gets up tomorrow morning and say, boy, I'd better watch out, Ray Mill's in Seguin. It isn't mine being in Baton Rouge but in Seguin. Now, does he have any fear to be, a reason to fear me, be scared of me? You remember there was a case when some men decided to cast out demons and in this rather way, I never thought of this before till today or yesterday when I was meditating. You know, Jesus cast out demons and never killed them. You ever think of that? He cast them out. He never killed them. I just killed them because he had power. Jesus didn't. Because I'd have killed the devil too as far as that goes. But Jesus didn't. He just wrestled with him and he beat him. But he didn't, he didn't, he didn't destroy the demons. He cast them out. But the demons said, oh, I think this is fulfilling. The demons lost the battle. And he said to the guys that were trying to kill him, listen, Paul, I know and Jesus, I know. Isn't that great? I wonder what grade Satan has, you know, I mean, I wonder what, if he has a list, he says, well, look, there's Paul and Jesus together. Now, those two are just about equal because everything Jesus did, Paul did. Didn't he? Jesus raised the dead, Paul raised the dead. Jesus cast out demons, Paul cast out demons. What did Jesus do that Paul didn't do? Except Paul didn't rise from the dead after himself. But he seemed to inherit all of that. There are grades, there are grades, there are grades. What grade are you in? What grade am I in? Does Satan have to fear me? Have I learned? Let's put it in very common language. Does the devil suffer because I'm around, or do I suffer because he's around? Supposing I live next week as I lived last week, and at the end of each day, I keep a list on my spiritual life as far as I know it, and I wonder how many days I'll say I ended up in victory today or how many days I ended up in defeat. Now, I don't think for a minute that Christian life is an escalator, that it's all either pie in the sky when you die or pie going there. Immediately, we're born again of the Spirit of God, we're in an emergency area. It's open season any time for the devil to shoot others. Right now, I think it's hunting season. It lasts so many days, then you quit and start something. But you know, as far as that goes, it's open season any time for us. We're in enemy territory. Remember, there is a scripture that says the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ. And obviously, they're not the kingdoms of our God and his Christ. In fact, the Bible recognizes the fact that Satan is the God of this world. The only thing is, I wish we did our tithing as much to him as they do to the devil. I don't know anybody that tithes to the devil, do you? I know men that spend everything they have and steal all they can get and borrow a lot of money to go to hell. I know people don't say, well, I have to go to bed till it's half past ten. Many of them are just waking up. They're just going to some joint for the night. They come out at three or four o'clock in the morning and they don't say, well, darling, I'm sleepy. He's great. You don't feel asleep? Oh, well, let's go all night and stay six more hours. This is great. They don't know it's death, but it looks like life. What people do for Satan. Third night, a guy wants to obtain an earthly crown. The apostle Paul says, he strives, he strains. I take again this fellow Mark Spitz that came back from Mexico at the Olympic Games there that just disheartened him. He was going to do a lot of things and he didn't win a medal. When he came back they said, so-and-so beat you with the breaststroke, so-and-so beat you on the backstroke, so-and-so beat you. No, they didn't. Yes, they did. No, they didn't. Well, who beat you? He said Mark Spitz. But he said there were four more years. The next four years when he went to Munich, every day, every day of his life for those four years he was in the water. Apart from the other time getting his muscles up, he was in the water eight hours a day. That was his testament. Eight hours a day, every day, week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, year out and he said, you'll just see what I'll do when I get there. You can say he psyched himself up. That isn't enough if you don't have what it takes to go. He won a medal, two, three, four, five, six, seven, so much so they changed all the rules. They said, we can't have this again. For an earthly crown, as Paul says, for a corruptible crown, what should we do for an incorruptible crown? We were in that place, Lima, up in the city where we were ministering a couple of weeks ago where they make these lovely little, I think they're very lovely, steel engraving signs and talking with the fellow there and was asking about some things to put on and I said, well often you see a sign only one life till soon be past only what's done for God will last. Good, but it's not what the poet wrote. The poet wrote it's only one life till soon be past only what's done for God will last and when I am dying how glad I shall be if the lamp of my life has been burned out for thee. You see, the only thing I know about we're all born equal is that we're all born with equal, in this sense that no man has a second innings with only one innings. There's only one life. It'll soon be past. There's no faith on earth will change your age, may change your physical condition. There's nobody can lay hands on you and change you from if they could change me from being over 50 to 25 I think I'd go in for it tomorrow. I'd have somebody lay hands on me and say well I at least know more than I knew when I was 25 now Lord give me another chance and I'd like to use what wisdom I have at 25 and run the race again but I can't do it. Nobody can. Now, what's the line up in this thing and this is what really matters I guess. What, what, how are we fighting? What, what, what, what's the line up of the devil? Well here it is. Against us is this the devil with all his power. OK, you've got the devil, the world and the flesh. A third part of the heavenly host that he brought down with him when he fell. So the world, the flesh, the devil, the third part of the heavenly host and whatever weakness there may be in us that's against us. Now, now what is before us? Well, before, let me see, the world, the flesh, the devil and whatever weakness there is in us. OK, that's four things. What, what is before us? Father, Son, Holy Ghost, two thirds of the heavenly host, the word of God, the fellowship of the saints and my own experience in God. So the odds are about seven to four anyhow. And again, the promises of God that greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. Well, I acknowledge that Satan has a lot of power but I, I don't think for a minute he should get the respect he gets. Well, you hear people say this, listen, this is the order, there is God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. There you have a triune God, that's all power. The second greatest power is the power of Satan. Next to that is the power of the church. Forget it, that's not true. It may be true as the church exists today but I believe in God's economy. This was what he, he designed. We should have the Father, Son and Holy Ghost as the first great supreme power. The second great power should be the church in the anointing of the Spirit of God. That's God's design. Not that the world should push the church around, the church should push the world around. And then thirdly, the world, whatever, whatever you like to figure it out, the combination of its material splendor, its banking wealth, its scientific greatness, its political power, its military power, put it all in a basket if you like. And then our skills struck in the name of God and say the greatest power, after the power of the Deity, is the power of the church of Jesus Christ when she has the anointing of the Holy Spirit of God. That's what God designed, nothing less. This coward isn't worth anything less. The God who gets so many mad judgment isn't worth anything less. These people almost succumb to this, oh my, it's a terrible world we live in and Satan's so strong and politics is so strong, so they are, so they are. But again, when the church is in the anointing of the Spirit of God, he's told us no weapon that is formed against us so far, for now I don't believe it's as easy as standing up and saying Satan, get out of it. I don't believe that at all. Again, the scripture we read says that we have an adversary, an adversary, the devil. Paul, in writing to the Ephesians, and you remember this very well, oh let me go back a minute here and quote another scripture here. There's one in James. What is it that James says? Submit yourself to God. Resist the devil and he shall flee. Now there are two of the strongest words you can find in the whole of Scripture. Submit, resist. You see, some people submit but they don't resist. They just settle down. They submit to God. Alright, I need to be saved. I need to obey the law. I need to say my prayers every day and read my Bible. They submit. They do not get into warfare and resist. There are some people who try to resist without submitting. You get into worse trouble. But if we submit ourselves to God, and I don't believe that that merely means that you submit, I believe, as I said the other day, one of the great texts that we misuse in many ways, if you say, what does it mean when you say, choose you this day whom you will serve? Oh, in the case of Joshua, no, it doesn't mean that. It means every morning as your feet touch the floor, you have to choose that day who you'll serve. Choose God. Choose to serve self. Choose, which I'm sure you wouldn't do to serve the devil. But you've got to choose every day how you'll use that day. It isn't going to come back. We have to submit ourselves to God in every way. Submit ourselves to the Word of God. Submit ourselves to the Spirit of God. Obviously, submit ourselves to the Kingdom of God sometimes. There are times when the only way out of a situation is to get together and find counsel amongst God's people. Because it should be in the body, in the true body, that there are some with wisdom and discernment and knowledge and so forth. There's nobody infallible, be sure of that. God said he would share his love. The love of God shed abroad in the heart. He says, I give you a power of. But he never said he'd give us infallibility. There is no man infallible. There is no man ever will be infallible. By the same token, at least, I think we should take, we should be able to learn from some of our mistakes too. But you see, there isn't a situation into which you'll come but what Satan's trying to get his slice of the pie, if you like, out of it. I don't care what the circumstance is. Satan's always after getting his share of spoil out of that particular battle that you and I may be in. And as I said there a few minutes ago, we're in enemy territory. From the moment Adam fell, this world became Satan's territory and you and I are passing through strained territory where Satan's going to be snacking at it in every conceivable way that he can. All right? What areas does he work in? Well, I'll tell you one area he's attacking now I think tremendously and that's the area of the mind. I don't think he's ever attacked the minds of men more than he's attacking the mind I don't think ever perverted them more. Oh, we spend, what, 50 million dollars searching, trying to research cancer. How many, not millions, billions do you think we're inventing, spending on inventing ways to destroy people? When you think of the devil, the first war in history, the boy hit his brother on the nose, they had a bit of a fight and he killed his brother. Now we've got to replace it, drop a tail on the city and burn the whole city up. And it is science, it is education, it is knowledge. You've been around here 200 years ago before they thought of a bicentenary. You might have been going down the road after your deer. Somebody might have shot you instead of the deer and said, there's a white man, get out of it. Get an arrow in your back. You say, well, those were uncivilized Indians. Oh, were they? They were uncivilized. Were civilized enough to drop a bomb on a city. The man that dropped the first bomb on Hilo, Hiroshima, at 16 minutes away, on the 6th of August 1945. The man that dropped that bomb has been in and out of insane institutions and now he's disappeared. He's been in about five. All he can think of, I pressed the button. Yeah, you can say the government, I pressed the button. I saw the city roasted. I know a hundred thousand people perished. There are still people in Hiroshima, Hiroshima, with mouths so small you couldn't get your finger in. They put a tube in each day and feed them. Their bodies have withered. You know, every year in this country we produce a list of the dying and the dead from Hiroshima. How many died this past year? And that was 1945. And that's science. And science can be great, it can be helpful, but it can be a devilish thing too. And Satan is interested in death and destruction and disease and everything that betrayals and everything that destroys. And yet Jesus stands in the ruins of it all and says, I'm come that you might have life. And we ignore him. You can use the name of God in the United Nations, you can't use the name of Jesus by the charter in it. You say God, the Mohammedan says, yeah, he means my God, my God. You say God, no, the man says he means Buddha. There's no offence in using the name God. The name of Jesus is an offence. It always has been, it still is, it always will be. Because Jesus stands for somebody entirely different, that he is a part of the Supreme Godhead plus the fact he is different in all his teachings. Now again, I say, this is a great day for the assault on the mind. The Greeks used to have a saying, didn't they, keep thyself pure. Paul puts it better in writings of the Philippians. He says, finally my brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and that doesn't mean somebody sweet, it actually means strength of character, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on those things. Those things, he says, which you have both learned and received. Now if you're going to think, you use your mind. If you're going to learn, you use your mind. And Paul here says, the things that are true and honest. I saw a slogan recently, I've never seen it before, maybe you have, and it said this, and it says this, a mind is an awful thing to waste. A mind is an awful thing to waste. Now one of the most corrosive things, and I'm saying this lovingly again to you folk that are children, is that TV business. Don't you start praying some years up the road about problems that you've sown the seeds for. I deplore it. You may not. I deplore the fact that lots of children in Christian homes, they watch TV from eight and nine o'clock Saturday morning till midday. It keeps them quiet. But listen, you're destroying a mind. I'm saying that as a lance of the God one day. It destroys their thinking. I would give them an hour at the most. I, if I were raising a family, I think our kids did more than this. The children with any intelligence, I don't care, till they're eighteen or nineteen, you should give them a book to read every week. And by the end of the week Saturday, if they haven't read that book and know what it is, they don't go out to pray till they do. Now I've got some very strict ideas and you say, well I think that's bondage. Well I think it's discipline. And you can't get anywhere, as an athlete, you can't get anywhere in your thinking, you can't get anywhere spiritually on any level unless you're disciplined. A mind is an awful thing to waste. I read this the other day, Campbell Morgan said, the want of occupation is not rest. Isn't that something? Just to sit down and say, I'm going to do, that's not rest, that's vacancy. That, about submitting my mind is a vacuum, Satan can come in and throw what, what he likes into it. The want of occupation is not rest. A mind is a mind distress. I read the other day that when, in one of the great sermons that Dr. G. Campbell Morgan preached in Westminster during World War II, the Panzer Division, do you remember, rolled over Europe and one of the great questions of Hitler was, is Paris burning? And when he discovered that Paris was burning and his great juggernauts were going and, and scrounging people in the street, and people made road blocks, he went over and squashed the children into, into men's meat. Campbell Morgan said, I've always felt the devil was loose in the world, but he has never been let loose like he is in this hour. That was 1940. It's 1975 now, huh? 35 years ahead. What, what would he have said if he knew all the hundreds of kids we have in jail? And I wrote to him the other day and said, well, you afraid that it's all right being excited about revival. We want to get men in politics and we want to do this and do that and do the other. Brother, I heard that 50 years ago. The British Labour Party, in its origin, had nothing to do with socialism or the socialism of the day. Do you know where the Labour Party of England socialism was born? It was born in Methodist prayer meetings in concern about the sweatshops and the hardships that poor people had to endure. Kurt Hardy was a founder of it. And he left preaching to give his time to lifting the oppressed, which is right and it should be. But, by the time he got to be an old man and was still in Parliament and he still lived on a small income by a desperate intention, do you know that by the time he got to be an old man he said this, if God would give me my time over again I wouldn't give that much time to politics, I'd spend it all on preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Socialism did not work. In the middle of Africa there's a country there called Rhodesia, it's named after Cecil Rhodes, the great emancipator. One day there he met William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, they were introduced. Cecil Rhodes was a colossal intellectual, some of your men still go to England to Oxford for a Rhodes scholarship, one of the greatest scholarships in the world, named after Cecil Rhodes. Cecil Rhodes said to William Booth, I am trying to build a new country, you're building new men, you've got the greater job. He said, we'll always tell you this way is the shortcut to building God's kingdom on earth, not nothing of the kind. Now again, going back to this, what rather things are pure? Well, how much purity do you get in TV or in the magazines and things of this day? When you set things before children, you show seeds in their mind. I can remember slight incidents in my life when I was a little boy, and you know, after when I got to a teenager, I read the results of some of those things I'd seen and heard. There's no knowing what a seed will do. But whatsoever things are lovely and whatsoever things are of goodness, good report, think on these things. Now, the next verse says, those things which he has both learned and received and heard and seen me do. You know what, I thought today, I never thought of this, I wish I had before, that would be a great slogan to put up in the house. That would be something to say to your children every day, wouldn't it? Or to your children at the end of it. Look, anything you see in daddy, anything you see in mummy, anything we do, anything you hear, it's okay for you to do it. Now, I know there are certain areas in which that doesn't apply, but I mean on the level of our actions or our speaking or our interests, whatsoever, things are lovely. And whatever you see in daddy and mummy's life, you know, it's really something for Paul to say this to a church, isn't it? I'm so close to God, as far as I know, I'm a hundred percent yielded. As far as I know, there's no doubt about it. territory. I have no longings, I have no hankerings. If you could see me before God, as far as I know, I'm absolutely pure, he says, and whatever you see in me, well you do it and the God of peace be with you. All right. Let's look a minute or two here. We've still got time, I guess. If you need to go, you're free to go. Uh, and Ephesians 4. It sounds a lot. It sounds, let's backtrack a minute. It sounds an awful lot to say that we can have power. This is what Jesus said. You remember to the disciples? He kind of gave them a progressive authority. He says I give you power over sickness and he says I give you power over devils. Then he says in Luke 10, 19, I give you power over all. He puts that huge word, I give you power over all the power of the enemy. Well, if the church had used that, it would be a very different world. It would be the world we're living in now. I, I don't know, maybe I'm not rational, I'm not thinking, but you know, every day I wonder, I don't know why God wants me to pray. He knows what he's going to do, but he asked me to pray. He asked me to carry his burden. I wonder at the end of the day how many people were defeated because I didn't bear them up before God. I wonder how many people were lost because I didn't make intercession for them. Now, I don't know the mystery. I can't unlock the thing to you. There's a mysterious combination. If you've become dead to sin, as the word of God says, and I lie them to God, then we're in the greatest relationship it's possible to have again this side of eternity. All right, look at this, Ephesians 6, from verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand the wild of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Now, this is addressed to who? Well, in this 10th verse, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord. Now, I hope we're strong in the word of God. As I said last week, the Bible says that I might not sin against thee, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way, by taking heed according to thy word. God says he'll write his law, not on stone, like he did up on the mountain, but on the fleshy tables of our hearts. It's good to be strong in scripture. It's good to be strong in theology. It's good to have good, strong convictions. But the greatest strength of all must be this, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Now, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand. Okay? Jump up to a little further down maybe on your Bible, verse 14. Pardon me, verse 30. Take unto you the whole armor of God. He stresses that again. He said it in verse 11. He says again, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand. And having been all to stand, stand therefore. You know, that's a lot of territory there. That, to me, is sticking the tongue out at the devil and saying, I'm not budging anyhow. As well, he says, well, what do you think God's doing in this? I don't know, but go back where you came from because I'm not taking any notice of what you say. I put on the whole armor, I'm standing and I'm withstanding. But I'm not understanding. You see, if he said understanding, no, no, no, no. I don't understand what he's doing. But I stand and I withstand on what? On my convictions, no, sir. I stand and withstand on what? On the whole armor of God. What is the armor of God? Well, it's explained here for you. It says having your loins girt about with truth. Well, boy, in a day like this, you need it. I'm always coming up to, by some of you who say, you know, I don't know what to think. I don't know what to think. I listen to so-and-so yesterday. Then I listen to Armstrong. And then I listen to somebody. Then I listen, for what? If you want confusing, just set the dial on your, on your radio and even if you ring Corpus Christi and at the end of the day you'll be doing somersaults. What you have to do is to find out what God says. What God says to you, he may not say to another person. But what he's saying to you. And there are times when you can't do anything but stand defiantly. There's a, there's a hymn, and I remember Dr. Tozer asking me about it one day. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name. My mother, smart, wonderful mother that I had. And she, I'd say something one day and she'd say, Len, you'll be in a different frame of mind tomorrow. See, and Tozer said to me one day, what, what does it mean, I dare not trust the sweetest frame? I said, well my mother told me that when I was that height. What does it mean? Well, a frame of mind. You're in this set of mind. But tomorrow, if you're not careful, you'll be in that frame of mind. Unless you go to bat with truth. As I said last week, we're either thermometers or we're thermostats. In our other house, we used to have a thermometer outside. I go look at it. Poor thing. I always felt sorry for it. Because as soon as it began to freeze, the thermometer went down, down, down. As soon as it got hot, it went up like that. The weather kicked it around. I got a thermostat on the wall. I said it. If I open the door and the frost comes in, it never shifts it. It fights back and says, you're not going to beat me. I'm going to beat you. I'm going to get this place hot. I don't care what it, I'm not going to move. Now, now, what are we? Are we thermostats or are we, are we thermometers? You see, some people suggest, you know, what I think we should all live together. That would be moving. But I don't say we couldn't live in a community. That would be great. I'd love that. I, I'd try to live in a place where we live together for seven years. I don't, I don't vote for it at all. I, I would vote for living in a community where you, you live on so many acres and every family raised in his own home. God gave you the family to raise them. We could meet for meals. We could meet for fellowship. We could meet for prayer and singing and praising every day. That's what they did in the early days. I'd go for that. But you see, there's no place where everybody, every pattern will fit everybody else. If you saw me going down the street tomorrow in Herb's trousers, you'd laugh. They'd be about a foot longer. I'd, I'd fall over them. I couldn't get anywhere in them. If you saw him wearing mine, he'd look worse maybe. But we'd like, we, we'd almost like to say, well, you know, I wish I'd your circumstances. I, I, I, oh, I could manage yours fine. You know, like the lady looks out the window, you know, it's those ones, my kids, you know what I'd do with them. Those kids next door. And she didn't know, the lady next door just looked out at hers and said, you know, it's those ones, my kids, you know what I'd do with them. And how do you solve the problem? That's easy, swap kids. You can manage her, she can manage yours. What was the problem? You see, we can always do, always the grass is greener. The circumstances are easier for somebody else. How do you know? We drive often and we go past a place and, you know, I used to say, Martha, what a lovely home. And I suddenly realized that's, that's nonsense. That's nonsense. It's a lovely house. Outside it looks like a palace. It could be hell inside for anything I know. They may have two kids on drugs. They may have a girl that's left home. They may have this problem. They have that. I don't know. All I see is a shell of a house and, oh, look, they keep the garden nice. Look at those lovely flowers and he must like trimming hedges. Everything's beautiful. That's the same with us. You look at me, you don't know if I have any problems inside. I don't know what your problem is. Yours is one thing. Yours is something else. And it's a kind of a blanket endorsement of the whole thing. Yes, it is. Only on the basis of this word. Be strong in the Lord. I may be weak. Everybody else thinks I am. I'm sure. I'm sure they think I'm weak in the head. That's all right. And I'm not too strong in body. Have I a strong will? Have I a strong determination to do the will of God? Am I really strong in the Lord? Or I just happen to be a bit loose in the tongue. I can talk quickly. I can do this and think quickly. Is that all there is to it? You know, it's a good thing, as a good book says, that God doesn't judge. A hymn writer says, we should not judge the Lord by feeble sense. And I'm glad God doesn't judge us that way either. One thing that keeps me on an even keel in a world that's so wretched and rotten and it looks as though the devil and hell are ruling it, where's God in the legislation? I don't see God in the legislation. I believe he's over all, but at the same time I believe right now the kingdoms of this world are being run by wicked men in the main. This man took objection to an article I'd written because I said, politics is a dirty game in a dirty world run by dirty men. And he said, it's nothing of the kind. It's not dirty. Well, Hitler, I don't mean Hitler, Nixon used to say that nearly every time he came to TV. Don't call politics dirty. Well, if it wasn't when he was in, I hope it never gets dirty, that's all I can say. I think it's as dirty as any time. It's a dirty world. It's a sinful world. And I'm to stand in the middle like a lily growing on a pile of filth. What did I say the other day? When I caught a fish and we took it home and in the Bahamas there and the maid, the cook in the house, not the maid, she did the other job of the cook. We live with folks that have servants and she made a great job of it. And I brought it all dressed up on the table, poor thing, but then they cut it and said, let the preacher have the first slice because he caught it. They gave it to me and I didn't really like it. No, no. Put any salt on it? Salt? The thing's been living in the ocean 20 years, what does it need salt on it for? Its skin isn't any thicker than the skin of that paper, but the salt can't get through that piece of that skin into the fish. God can keep a fish in the ocean, in the saltiest ocean in the world. All the salt you get comes out of the Bahamas, Mortons and others. They get it out of the sea in the Bahamas. If you jump in the sea and come up like that, I knew that salt so strong. And that fish lives in that water 20 years in salt and the salt doesn't get through its skin? Huh? I went down the coal mine once, the thing that amazed me there, the men's faces were covered with grime but their eyes were bright and shiny. No, no dirt gets in their eyes. There's something about God that keeps their eyes so clean and lovely. So God hangs the world on nothing. No pillars under it. So he can hold the world on nothing, he can keep a fish in the sea for 20, 30, 40, 100 years. And no salt gets in it. He can't keep me in a lousy, filthy, sinful world like this, in an office, in business, without sin getting and percolating into me. Now what was the complaint? Let's hurry here. What was the complaint of, when Satan argued with God about Job? Have you ever noticed that it wasn't Satan who challenged God, it was God that challenged Satan? Have you noticed that Satan went to give him a report? Do you think he does that every day Joe? I don't know. That's what he said. He went up to God with the sons and God said, well now what's your deal Satan? He says, well, I'm getting on good. Yeah, I'm doing pretty good. Business is prospering down on earth. I've got one man gives me a headache. Who's he? There's a fella called Job. Can't do a thing with him. Tried everywhere. Can't move him. Then Satan says to God, why don't you hit him? Stretch your hand out. The Lord, it seems, says I'm too busy. I'm holding the world up with my hand. You go hit him. What? You mean that God would employ Satan? Sure, why not? I don't know all the vows Satan, Job had made. You see, nobody knows who Job was. I don't think he was a Hebrew. I don't know what country he lived in. I don't, I don't know where he lived geographically. I don't know anything. Nobody else does as far as that goes in case you're in the dark and feel you're ignorant. We don't know where, it's the oldest book in the Bible. It's the oldest story in the Bible in that sense. Apart from creation. We don't know where Job came from. But this we do know that God testified. And again, this is a great thing to me. If you have the witness of the Spirit in your heart, I'm not going to say you won't shed tears sometimes or you won't feel under the weather. Do you know Jesus went in the garden of Gethsemane and he was crushed, he was heavy. It says that. Do you know what Peter says? That you can be in the sense of God's will and be in heaviness through temptation nor through manifold temptation. Not one temptation but when temptations come like the waves of the sea falling over each other and you feel Lord I'm the only one getting all this. Why don't you share the ocean of temptation with somebody else. It's all coming on me. You can be in heaviness through manifold temptation right in the dead sense of the will of God. Oh right, God says. Well Satan says well look Lord I've got to remind you of this. This is, this is, this is God. And but you put a hedge around him in that grave. I think you ought to have shouted hallelujah but some of you are sleepy so I'll excuse you. That's what the Word says. And not only the Word said it, the devil said it. In essence he says I can't get near Job. There's a hedge. You put a hedge around him. Well bless your heart. If Job had a hedge around him you'd have a bigger hedge around him. He didn't have a Bible. He hadn't a thing, a revelation of God. He hadn't a single word to God. You've got all the revelation of God plus two thousand years of Christian history. And this is why I say your children should read a book every week. Don't make numbskulls out of them. I wouldn't be a bit interested if my boy could hit more home runs than any man that ever lived up. No forget it. I raised my children with something better than that. If you keep them forever seizing sports magazines, sports on TV, sports, they live for sports. If you get it into their minds that you're a child of God and under God they're going to go God's way and leave all the literature you can around the house. Godly literature. Christian magazine. Good life stories. One of the things that changed their life to a degree in our Paul's life, the first book that Norman Grubb wrote, I don't think it's published now, was A Life of Fenton Hall. Six feet four in his stocking seat. Champion sportsman. Champion cricketer. The Babe Ruth of English cricket. Champion of the Royal Air Force heavyweight boxing. Champion in every realm. And then God got hold of him. And when he was discharged out of the army in the first world war, they gave him a five-figure check in sterling which was maybe, I don't know, say for 150 or a hundred thousand dollars. He signed it over, gave it to missions and he went to the mission field, went up the Amazon, was there three weeks, died. Why? Well, except the torm of weeks. Do you know when we get to eternity we'll discover that that young man's three weeks at the Amazon challenge scored if not hundreds of men to the mission field. And our little Paul got all of that and read it and read it and read it and said Daddy, I'd like to go. He didn't go there. He's been down to Tierra del Fuego, one of the harvest spots. He's in Paraguay right now, not too far from Headhunters. A place where at January this year you could buy a thing for a dollar and it's five dollars this month and it's getting worse. Money's gone to that degree. But a book made all the difference in his life. Books made all the difference in my life. When I was about eighteen years of age, I read the life of David Brainerd. Do you know what I did? I cried. Do you know what I did? I tried to copy him. I suddenly said Lord, I thought I was going to be one of the greatest soccer players in the world. Not just L.E. J. From here I'm going to live for eternity. And my other boys played ball. I went into Sherwood Forest where old Robin Hood used to go. I got under the wild bracken, wild fern and I cried to God for revival. Nobody to teach me. I had no books on revival. All I knew the world was going to hell and my church was just about as dry as an old sepulcher. I got up early in the morning, Sunday mornings when the house was still and took my mother's pedigree dog and put it on a leash, tied it to the stump of an old oak tree, walked across the gulf coast to get to the Sherwood Forest and I prayed, I prayed, I prayed. I went out in the dark of night and stood on the hill with my hands up over the city of Leeds with the light sprinkling in the valley and I said Lord, if you could weep over Jerusalem, I can weep over this city. No, I'm not the greatest man that shook the world, but I'll tell you what, I thank God for a daddy and mummy that left a lot of Christian literature around the house. I was taught to pray when I was the age of these children from Miss Roskilly, Miss Butler and Miss Whiteman. I didn't know whether they were tennis players or who they were, but I prayed for them. I prayed for C.G. Sturd, I prayed for Padgett Wilkes, the founder of one of the missions in China, I forgot which one now. I was taught to pray for them. And you didn't get by going to school in the morning and you didn't get by at night. Let me say to you, look, before those children go out in the morning, cover them with the blood, cover them with the words. And when they come home at night, you take all the dishes off the table. Don't start a meal for every child in there because you're lessening its discipline. And don't let them go away except for the bathroom. It's no good trying to discipline them when they're 15, 16, 17, 18, forget it. You start training them when they're small. And take all the dishes off the table and say you all come back till Daddy's prayed and read the word. I'm giving you advice because I felt I should today. Because again, you know, when I was raising my family, my darling wife, one mother said to me this week, one lady called me. And she said, as far as I can see it, I may as well take my three children and put them in a cesspool every morning I open the door and send them to school. Talked with a lawyer in this town this week, he said, I've got to defend the boys 13 on drugs. When I asked him, he said, you can get anything you want in schools and you can get anything you want in schools and you can get anything you want in schools and anything you want in you can get anything you want in schools and you can get schools and you can get anything you want in schools and you can get anything you want in you can get everything you want in schools and anything you want in the world and you can get anything you want! That's what become pretzels or what? Dance, everything is corrupted. So what do we have to do? Put on the whole armour of Christ. Defend your child's mind. Let him know that he's a soldier of Jesus. If they profess to be, if they don't, well you can't do much. If they profess to be Christians, you should get them on one side I think and say look you're a soldier of Jesus Christ. Have you got the whole armour? Because if you've got on the helmet of salvation that's going to defend your head. If your loins are good about with proof, you're not going to be pricked by error. Your feet are shod with the preparation. Well if your feet are shod, you won't walk in unclean ways, will they? And above all, taking the shield of faith. And again he says the helmet of salvation. And the sword of the spirit. Praying with all prayer and supplication. That covers a lot, doesn't it? Helmet for your head, breast brace, shield of faith, shoes for the ground. There's nothing uncovered. The whole personality is covered. And when we're in that armour, as I say, here's the man and this is Job and the hedge is run and the Lord says, yeah I've got a hedge. He says well do you mind just taking it away and let me get at him? Because I'll tell you this, if you haven't understood this Lord, I want to tell you something. Do you know why he's pious? The only reason he's pious is he's prosperous. And if you take his prosperity, he loses piety. You'll see if he'll pray and love you and adore you the same as he does when he's weak. And the Lord says go ahead. You can, you can destroy everything around the hedge. Nothing in sight around the hedge. OK, one blow, it's bankrupt. How do you get on? Didn't save him at all. Take the hedge away. Lord said no I won't take it away. I'll pull it in a bit nearer, destroy everything around the hedge. The first destruction was what? Bankruptcy. The second one was what? Bereavement. Would you like to bury all your children in one day? What did he do? Did he curse? No, no. I'm still not winning. He's still holding up there. He's got his loins girt. He's still got on the whole armour. What's he going to do? Well he's just standing. That's all he's doing. He's defying me. The walls have gone down but he's still there. His integrity. He retained, the word says he retained his integrity. OK. What are you going to do now? Well there's a third shot. You take the wall away and let me get to his body and when I touch his body then he'll curse you. He didn't. He's triumphant in every, in every area. He's an embarrassment to Satan. Now, you've got to keep that mind, you've got to help your children to keep that mind pure. Let's sum it up this way. There's an old saying, if you saw a thought, you'll reap an act. If you saw an act, you'll reap a habit. If you saw a habit, you'll reap a character. If you saw a character, you'll reap a destiny. Very simple, isn't it? Saw a thought, reap an act. Saw an act, reap a habit. Saw a habit, reap a character. Saw a character, reap a destiny. There are habits in the Christian life like they are, you don't get a habit in a day. You get on the way to it. You don't get habits spiritually in a day. You've got to make habits, a habit of prayer, a habit of reading the word of God, a habit of testament. You've got to form habits. The other thing is it says that we're not to give place to the devil. Don't give him any territory. In your thinking, in your reasoning, in your reading, don't give him any territory. Don't, don't, don't break the law and then expect to get out of it with an answer to prayer. It's hunting season. Well, don't say I'm a Christian, I don't need a hunting license. I'll go hunt. If I want, if I, if I see three doves there instead of one, I'll shoot the three. I don't care about law. I'm not under law, I'm under grace. You'll still be under law when you get to the jailhouse. Don't, don't give place to the devil it says. Don't break laws. You're as much under law as I am. Anybody has, you can't break laws and get away with it. If it's a 55 mile, go up 55 miles an hour. If you don't, you'll get tagged like anybody else. God has set law. Don't give place to the devil. Don't give place to the devil in criticism. Some criticism is healthy, other criticism is very unhealthy. Don't give place to the devil in doubt. If he can get doubt in my, he'll start a thought, a habit, an act before long, you're in trouble. In other words, I have to be in partnership with God in this business. I'm in, I'm in enemy territory, the devil's crafty. He's more than a match for me outside the grace of God. But, if Job had a hedge round about, I have a hedge. I have a hedge of the precious blood. I have a hedge of the word of God. I have the, the hedge of prayer. I have the hedge of the fellowship of the saints of God. It doesn't make me invincible. It doesn't mean that I'm impenetrable, but it does, it should mean this. And if I'm smart enough to obey God, and put on this whole armour, and walk in all the light he gives, but Satan's going to have a far less area to have victory in, and he's going to get far less victory in my life, if I stay in that place of subjection and obedience. Jesus said it, I didn't. He said, I give you power over all the power of the enemy. And that may mean one thing in your life, and that may mean something in somebody else's life. We don't We thank you Father again for your word. It is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path and we pray that we may have wisdom and discernment and understanding. We pray that we may so live that our precious children will not fall in the holes we've fallen into, not have the doubts and fears we've had, but that they have seen us, that we have come to a place of stability and faith and love and endurance, and that we're able to do the will of God. Keep us all, Lord, in thy love and in thy fear. We ask for your glory. Amen.