In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of shaping one's life according to the word of God. They highlight the need to avoid filling one's mind with worldly influences that can distort our understanding of God and His ways. The first two chapters of Genesis are described as a world of truth, blessing, and God's provision for humanity. However, a major change occurs in chapter three when Satan introduces a new way that is contrary to God's plan. The speaker encourages listeners to seek a true understanding of God and His ways through the scripture.

...seek the Lord and His face. He is our teacher, His word is light, it is truth, it sets us free, and we want to acknowledge Him in all our ways, acknowledge our dependence upon Him, and seek His face during this time together. Holy Father, we come into your presence with joy, with thanksgiving, with grateful hearts. We love you, we bless you. Thank you for your truth that sets us free. Thank you for your word that quickens us, and enlightens our eyes, and gives hope, and faith, and direction, and peace. And Lord, I want to thank you for making me a woman. Thank you for your divine, wise plan for making male and female. In your image, we are created, and we acknowledge that there are differences. We bless you for those differences, we embrace them, and Lord, we want in this session to learn how those of us as women can be more completely conformed to your image. And I know there are men here, too, and I pray that you'll give to them an understanding and wise heart about how to dwell with their wives according to knowledge, and how to provide the kind of covering, and protection, and leadership in their homes, and in our churches that will nurture and care for our lives as women. So we bless you, you are our teacher, and we look to you with open and expectant hearts, in Jesus' name, amen. I'm having the joy this year of celebrating, and I am celebrating, 20 years in vocational Christian service. There's no master like Jesus, and I love serving Him. I love being in the ministry. I don't love everything about being in the ministry. There are days that are discouraging and difficult. I don't love traveling, but I do a lot of it, and I tell people I wouldn't do it for anybody other than Jesus. But He is an incredible master, and lover, and friend, and I'm so thrilled that as a little girl, He chose me, and called me, and set me apart for His service. I knew from the time I was very, very young that God's hand was on my life, that I was consecrated, set apart for His service. And I'm so, I just can't thank Him enough for the privilege of serving Him, walking with Him for more than those years, but serving Him these 20 years in a vocational sense. Most of those years have been primarily involved in ministry to women, and just in the past couple of weeks, I've been involved in leading two women's revival conferences ministering to about 1,700 women in a more extended fashion. Just in the past couple of weeks, I've had the privilege over these years of meeting thousands and thousands of women, listening to their heart cries, listening to their heartbeat, hearing their stories, weeping with them, rejoicing with them, growing and learning together with them. In one of the conferences just a week or so ago, we had a really neat blessing, and that was that there was a handful of men from a local church there who came to the conference to serve, to help with parking, and security, and serving in different ways. But then during the actual sessions of the conference, through Friday evening and all day Saturday, those men stayed in another room in the facility just to pray throughout the whole conference. And what a blessing that was to me and to the women and men. What an incredible role you have as the priest of your home to provide that prayer covering and protection to your wives and daughters as well. During the, early on in the conference, the men said we would love to pray for these women more specifically. If they'd like to fill out prayer cards, we'll take those prayer cards and pray for them. Don't have them put their names on them, but just have them pray, indicate there any specific burdens for their own life or family that they'd like us to cover in prayer. 500 women in that conference filled out these prayer cards. We turned them in to the men, and one of the men afterwards told me what an incredible blessing it was to the men to pray for these requests. And then I was interested by the statement. The man said, I think every husband needs to read these cards so he can better understand what is on the hearts of women and what are some of the issues and the battles that they deal with. Now, I generally speak primarily to women, and I know there's some men here, and you're free to listen in today, but I'm really going to share my heart with the women and anything that you men want to pick up as far as your ministry to the women in your life, you're free to take home. But I know that as men, perhaps there may be something that's shared today that will help you better understand the needs in your wife's life, in your daughter's lives, and better help you perhaps fulfill your responsibility as God's man and God's leader in your home and in your church. As I've talked to, as I said, literally thousands, many thousands of women over these years and sat alongside of them and heard them pour out their heart. And just thinking about the women I've met in the last couple of weeks of these conferences, I sat down the other day and made a list of some of the words that come to mind to describe a lot of the women I'm meeting today. I'm speaking of Christian women primarily, women in our churches. And here's some of the words. Don't try to write all these down, but these are just some words, and I say these words don't describe all women, thank the Lord. But these are the overwhelming impression I have as I'm meeting and talking with Christian women today. And there's no woman who's described by all of these words, thank heaven for that too. But here are some of the impressions I've received. So many of them are frazzled, exhausted, burnout, overwhelmed, confused, wounded, angry, a lot of angry women today in the church, not just that in the world. Frustrated, discouraged, defeated, depressed, despairing, suicidal. Increasingly, just in recent months, I'm coming across this with more women in a particular setting of women than I would have ever imagined possible who are acknowledging recent thoughts of taking their life. Perhaps some in this room, I would not be surprised. Other words, guilty, ashamed, up and down, unstable, hiding, protecting, pretending, uptight, insecure, lonely, fearful, afraid. And there's so many, many women in bondage, in bondage to their emotions, in bondage to food. I hear this over and over and over again. And their weight is not necessarily at all an indicator of whether or not that's an area of bondage. In bondage to the opinions of others, to the fear of man. And then this other sense that so many, many women I'm meeting today are controlled by their emotions. And the problem is that their emotions are out of control. So many controlled by their emotions, but emotions out of control. Now, there are some women, and I thank the Lord for the ones that I meet, who could be described as free, gentle, loving, confident in the Lord, secure. But I have to say that they seem to be in the minority. Why is that? And I'm finding that this long list of words, I don't know if I'm just waking up to the reality of where women are, or if it indeed is more compounded today than it was when I started out in women's ministry 20 years ago. I have the feeling that there is heightened sense of these issues and problems in women's lives. As we're now counseling third and fourth and fifth generations of divorce, of absentee fathers, of domineering mothers, and so on, I believe the consequences and complexities of these issues are being compounded, and that we're seeing these words described more and more women even in our churches today. Now, it's politically correct in our culture, in our generation, to say that others have made women this way. Their parents, their husbands, men. And there is a common sense among women today, even among Christian women, that men, some men, or men in general, have made me this way. That I'm reacting to the hurts or the wounds that have been inflicted on me by my parents or by men. But as we go back to the Genesis account, the beginning of how God created all things, we find that it was not parents who got Eve into trouble. And it was not a man, it was not her husband who got Eve into trouble. In fact, Eve didn't even have in-law problems. I mean, talk about an environment that should have been an easy one in which to succeed. It was not someone else who got Eve into the trouble, the mother of us all. We are the daughters of Eve. But it was not a man, it was not parents, it was not someone else, but actually it was a woman's own personal choice that placed her in bondage. It had nothing to do with what anyone else did to her. Now, I think that it is helpful in this whole matter of lies women believe and the truth that sets them free to go back to the beginning. And I found myself in recent months going back to the first three chapters of Genesis. We could spend the whole session just here, but we won't. Just by way of very broad-brush overview, I want us to examine, if you have your Bible with you, you want to open there to Genesis, the first chapter. And I was reading again yesterday and today in these three chapters, and I want to give you some broad strokes of the difference between the first two chapters and the third chapter. The contrast is stark when you just read this passage straight through. There's some overwhelming, broad, general impressions that you get in the first two chapters of Genesis, and then there's just like this jarring, dramatic, radical, traumatic change that takes place beginning with the first verse of chapter 3. And we need to see the difference. So I'm going to move down the left-hand column first, and just to see how God made it, how God designed things in the beginning, as we look at Genesis 1 and 2. And again, these are just some broad observations, not detailed in any sense, of these chapters. First of all, we see that this plan, the Word of God, the way of God, was initiated by God. In the beginning, God. God plus no one. God plus nothing. God was independent. He is autonomous. He needs no one. He is self-sufficient. In the beginning, God. This plan was started, it was initiated by God. And we're going to see the characteristics of God's plan, God's way, as He designed it to be. And then there's another word that jumps out at me through the pages of these first two chapters. It's the word, blessing. God's way is a way of blessing. God intended that His creation should be blessed, that man should be blessed. And so we read in chapter 1, verse 22, after God had created even the animal kingdom, it says in verse 22, God blessed them. Now, the world would not have us to believe that God wants to bless us. That the way to blessing, the world would say, is to live your life without God. But we see in these early chapters that blessing is inextricably bound up into the heart of God. That if we want to experience blessing, we must be aligned with God. In verse 28, after God creates man, male and female, created He them, and God blessed them. And then we see in chapter 2, verse 3, and God blessed the seventh day. So we see a God who wants to bless His creation and His created man and woman. And then we see that God's way is based on the truth. There's a sense of absoluteness, of rightness, of purity, of wholeness, of truth. There's no shadow of turning with God. He is absolute noonday. There's no discrepancy with Him. There's no shading. There's no fudging. And we see God's ways are clear, and they're right, and they're true. And that's why when you see a man or woman who has really embraced the truth, that their eyes are clear. The light of the body is the eyes. And there's a clarity, and a sweetness, and a purity there, because God's way is based on the truth. And then as we read these chapters, there's a sense we get of the certainty of God's Word. God said, let there be light, and there was light. God said, everything God said came to be. It was true. It was established forever, O Lord. Thy word is established in the heaven. Every word of God is pure. It is true. There's a certainty about God's Word. And even when God commands the man, you can eat of all these trees, but this one tree you should not eat of. There's a certainty about it. There's no question mark about it. There's an exclamation point where God speaks. It's certain, and it's true. And then we see in these chapters that God's way is the way of life. It's the way of life in the first chapters. Here in the first chapter of the Bible, we have the introduction of the word life. God made man to live forever. To live forever. And that was the whole point of the tree of life. That when man partook of the tree of life, he would have, that he was created to have eternal life. God's way is the way of life. And then I notice in chapter 2 verse 16 that God spoke first to the man. God spoke first to the man, verse 16, and the Lord God commanded the man. Now it's interesting that after the fall, when we come to chapter 3, that God also spoke first to the man after the fall. It was the woman who sinned first, but when God came for reckoning day, for accountability, he came first to the man. Chapter 3 verse 9, and the Lord God called unto Adam, where are you? God spoke first to the man. This is God's way. And then the outcome of God's way, we read it throughout these two chapters, but it's summarized in chapter 1 verse 31, and God saw what he had made, this is after the creation of man, and behold it was very good. It was very good. What God made was very good. Now if you move to the next page, continuing on God's way, and then we'll come back to see what happened in chapter 3. God's way was a way of communion and fellowship. That's the sense you get as you move through the first two chapters of Genesis. Communion and fellowship. Communion between God and man. God created man for intimacy with himself, and there's a oneness, there's a fellowship, there's a communion, there's an openness, there's a transparency, there's a freedom in their relationship. And then God created communion, union, and fellowship between man and the woman. They were one flesh. That's the sense you get as you read these first two chapters, is that God designed that there should be union, communion, fellowship, oneness. And then we see in verse 29 in the first chapter that God in this world as he created it, provided all that man needed. Verse 29, God said, behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, and tells man how his needs are to be met. God says, I have given to you your provision. God provided for every need of man's to be met. And then we see in verse 25 of chapter 2 that the condition of man and woman before God and before each other is that they were not ashamed. It was a world free from shame, because there was no guilt, because there was no sin, because there was no disobedience or rebellion. And in that obedient, unfallen state, they were not ashamed. What a way to live! This is what God created us for. This is the world as God intended it to be. And then as you overview these first two chapters, you see a world that is God-centered. A planet that God loves. A planet that God has made for himself, for his enjoyment, for his pleasure. And we see a world that is centered on God. Man and woman centered on God. He is their focus. He is their life. And then we come, and let me say by the way, as you overview those first two chapters, you get a whole different view of God than what our world gives us today. Our world has a distorted, and even I'm afraid in our churches, so many times we have a distorted, perverted view of what God is really like, of what his ways are like. That's why we need to counsel our hearts according to the way of God, of the Word, and get our view of God and his ways from the Scripture. I find it very helpful not to fill my mind with books and magazines and television programs of this world, because that way of thinking will ultimately shape what I believe and who I am. I want to shape my life by the Word of God. As Spurgeon said, we should be so filled with the Scripture that when someone pricks us, the blood that comes out is biblion. And that's the kind of person I want to be. So if your thinking is biblion, and you live in these first two chapters, you see that what God created is so good. It's a world of truth, a world of blessing, a world of goodness, a world of God's provision for man. Then we come to verse 1 of chapter 3, and we see a major, major change. A new way is introduced, a way that is contrary to God's way. And it is initiated this time not by God, but by Satan himself, by Satan. And the first verse of chapter 1 tells us the serpent was subtle. He was crafty, depending on which translation you have there. It was a way that was initiated by Satan. The operative word here is not blessing, but curse. Now notice as you get into chapter 3 that it was not man who was cursed by God, but God cursed the serpent and his seed, and God cursed the ground, which man would have to till now to earn a living. But now instead of blessing, the curse has entered into the world. And instead of being based on truth, this way is based on deception. And we'll examine that deception in some greater detail here, based on deception. And instead of our lives being rooted in the certainty of God's Word, now Satan calls God's Word into question. Has God said? Now notice Satan did not doubt the existence of God, and he did not tempt Eve to doubt the existence of God. He acknowledged the existence of God, but he cast doubt on what God had said. He cast doubt on the Word of God. He put a question mark where God had put an exclamation point. So now there's a questioning of God's Word. Instead of the way of life, we have the way of death. There's a way that seems right unto a man, Proverbs 14, verse 12 tells us, but the ends thereof are the ways of death. Satan came, Jesus told us, to kill and to destroy. And so in verse 19 of chapter 3, God says to Adam, Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return. This is the way of death. It's it's the fruit, it's the consequences of man believing the deception and the lie and acting on it, rather than acting on the truth. And the outcome, the outcome of God's creation was that it was very good. Then you come to chapter 3, and you see, and in Scripture it's very important to look for first mention of words. Where does the word first appear? It gives light into, sometimes into its meaning. And in chapter 3, we have the first mention of words such as afraid. Afraid. Curse. Enmity. Sorrow. Thorns. Sweat. Angry. Chapter 4, verse 6. Murder. Not the word, but the description of it in chapter 4. And we have, by the way, in chapter 3, not the words mentioned, but I believe the entrance into the world of blame and of bitterness. Of blame and of bitterness. You say, where do you get that? In chapter 3, verse 12, the man said to God, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. We have the entrance here of these, these problems that have gotten us into so much trouble today. Blame and bitterness against the woman you gave to be with me, or against now women blaming and being bitter against the husband God that you gave to be with me. And now instead of communion and fellowship between God and man, and between man and woman, we have conflict and barriers. Conflict and barriers. Broken relationships. Fragmented relationships. Broken homes. This was not God's intent. This was not God's plan. This was not God's way. It is the fruit of man and woman choosing their own way instead of God's way. And now instead of man just being given by God all that he needs to meet his needs, man has to sweat to get his needs met. And all the men said, yes, it's true. By the sweat of your face, God said, you will have to till the earth and it will be with sorrow that the earth will yield its fruit up to you. And now instead of the man and woman being in an unashamed condition before God, what do we find in chapter 3? They hid themselves. Hiding comes into chapter 3. And just as I was reviewing this passage this morning, I looked again at verse 10, and to me one of the most tragic verses in all of the Old Testament. And Adam said to God, when God said, where are you? Adam said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, and I hid myself. That's not the way God intended it to be. God intended that, yes, we should hear his voice in the garden. I come to the garden alone while the dew is still in the roses, and he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me that I am his own. That's what God intended, that there should be that open, sweet communication that when we hear his voice as the Shulamite bride says in the Song of Solomon, cause me to hear thy voice in the garden. I come to the garden to meet with my beloved. God intended that when we hear his voice, we should be drawn to him, we should be wooed to him, we should run into his arms, we should have an intimate love relationship with him. But instead, now messed up by sin, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, and I hid myself. And so we run from the very voice that is our life, that is our hope. They found themselves hiding from God, and now instead of a God-centered universe, we have a man-centered world. Now let me say this, God is still the center of all things, but we have a man and woman who now look upon themselves as a center of all things. Well, I want to develop just a little bit the whole matter of deception and then truth, and then we'll look at what are some of the lies that we as women are tempted to believe, and what is the truth that sets us free. But just briefly, let's look at this matter of deception. First, we can be deceived in a number of different ways. We can be deceived by Satan himself, and we read in chapter 3 of Genesis that the serpent, Eve says, deceived me. He beguiled me, again depending on your translation, and I did eat. The serpent himself deceived. In John 8, verse 44, Jesus says that Satan is a liar, and he's the father of it. There is no truth in him, and never has been from the beginning. There's no truth in him, even as there is no deception in God, not a hint, not a shadow of turning. He is guileless, and yet in Satan, exactly the opposite is true. There is no truth in him. He is a deceiver. He is a liar, and we can be deceived directly by Satan, and Satan himself, in fact, is the fountainhead of all lies from whatever source. Now, the Scripture also teaches that we can be deceived by others. Ephesians 5, verse 6 is one of a number of references that tell us that we can be deceived by others, and it's interesting to me as I jot down another reference there, Ezekiel chapter 13, verse 22, Ezekiel 13, verse 22, that we can even be deceived by religious leaders, by spiritual leaders. And a sad, sad verse here. God says to the spiritual leaders of Israel, with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad, and you have strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way by promising him life. That's what even spiritual leaders can do. That's why we need to get our foundation, our girding up from the Word of God. God says to these spiritual leaders, I want to give joy to the righteous, but you have made the righteous sad, and you have strengthened the hands of the wicked by promising them life, by saying peace and life, when they should have no hope for peace and life, and as a result he will not turn from his wicked way. Now, we could spend a great deal of time on this matter of deception. One more here, number three. We can be deceived by not only others, but by ourselves, and Scripture has much to say about being self-deceived, being self-deceived, and that is one of the greatest dangers that you and I face. That's why we must be constantly taking our hearts and our minds and putting them through the grid of the truth of God's Word, and letting God's Word be a light unto our feet, a lamp unto our path, and as I open God's Word, I'm asking him, Lord, show me your truth, show me your ways, shine the light on any deception that has crept into my heart, any ways that I am self-deceived, any ways that I think I have no sin, I'm deceiving myself, first John says, show me where I have sin. I want to walk in the light so that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, can cleanse me from all sin. Now deception in our culture, and we could spend a great deal of time on this, we won't, but the Scripture has much to say, particularly in the books of Romans and 2 Thessalonians and the book of Revelation, about how entire cultures can become deceived, and Romans 1 talks about those who change the truth of God into a lie, and as a result, God gives them up to depravity, to vile affections, and then this sobering verse in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 speaks of those who would not receive, who refuse to receive the love of the truth so that they might be saved, and for this cause, and this verse is mystery to me, but Scripture says it, so I believe it is true, that in some sense God actually sends them delusion, God turns them over to deception so that they should believe a lie, because they refuse to love the truth, they refuse to receive the truth, therefore God gives them over to believe a lie, and what a description this is of what has happened in our culture, when you see what's going on even in the highest levels of our government today, and you see the response of the American people, they are deluded, they are deceived, they have been given over to a strong delusion to believe a lie, and you see the slogans of deception all throughout our culture, I hope you don't watch a lot of television, but if you do, begin to examine what you're hearing to listen carefully and pick up the lies that are embedded deeply in our culture and in the minds of our people, you can never be too rich or too thin, a woman's body belongs to herself, it takes a village to raise a child, he who has the most toys wins, character doesn't matter, tolerance, every viewpoint is equally valid, and not only do you have to let me have my viewpoint, you have to agree that my viewpoint, as perverted and twisted as it may be in your eyes, is equally valid with your viewpoint, it's a lie, but it is that pluralistic, tolerant thinking that has pervaded our culture, no difference between men and women, except for the obvious physiological ones, and really this whole lie to me is such an exercise in futility, I mean you think about the obvious differences between men and women just in the way that we relate to each other, in the way that we communicate, and your husband talks to his mother for 20 minutes and he gets off the phone and you say how is she and he says fine, and that's his summary of the 20-minute conversation, you talk to your mother and you get off the phone and your husband says how is she and it takes you 40 minutes to tell him the 20-minute conversation, don't tell me we aren't different, and everywhere you look in our culture you see the signs of deception, now there's a particular sense and I'm not going to go into any depth on this and something I'm still really seeking to understand the heart of God in relation to myself, but a particular sense I believe in which deception affects women, women and deception, I know that first Timothy 2 verse 14 tells us that Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression, now we could spend an entire session having someone more gifted and skilled than I exegete that passage, but there is a sense in which Eve was deceived, now there are those who believe and I tend to agree that there is a sense in which women are more vulnerable to deception than men, and it's interesting to me that a huge part of the deception I believe as you go back to the original account is that we have here in this exchange between Adam and Eve and the serpent, the first role reversal, and that is at the heart I believe of much of the deception that puts women in bondage, here we have the first instance of a passive man and an assertive woman, now for years I believed and taught that the woman was alone when the serpent found her, but in more recent years I discovered by looking at the passage it's very clear that, and I don't know why I didn't see it years earlier, that's why I don't take my word for anything I say today, take God's word because I'm still growing and learning, but the scripture says in chapter 3 verse 6 of Genesis, the woman took the fruit, she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate, then the eyes of both of them were opened, so we have both the man and woman sitting here not just by eating the forbidden fruit, but sitting in another fundamental way that we as the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve continue to sin to this day, here we have the serpent coming initiating contact with the woman, the conversation he initiates with the woman, though her husband apparently is standing right there with her, God had initiated the conversation given the command to the man and apparently before the woman was even created, so I believe the man was responsible as the covering, the head, the protection over that wife to communicate God's will and God's word to his wife, but Satan comes and he addresses the woman, he doesn't even, he ignores the man, he speaks to the woman and the woman instead of looking to her husband, their partners, heirs together of the grace of life, and instead of looking for receiving his covering and his protection as her head in that moment, she takes matters into her own hands, she decides to answer herself, with no regard for the man, she takes matters into her own hands, so we have here an assertive woman, and what does the man do, what is his sin in this instance, even before he eats, he does nothing, he stands there, now we'll go till Jesus comes probably deciding whether men are passive because women are assertive, or women are assertive because men are passive, the fact is we're both wrong, and we as women have a tremendous contribution we can make by taking our God-given place under the covering and the protection of God-ordained authority, we create a climate in which men are free to be men, and I am so weary of us as women blaming passive men for the problems in our homes and in our culture, yes it is a problem, but we as women are not responsible for the behavior of men, we are responsible for our own choices, and I believe we as women have made it incredibly difficult for men to be men, and that if we were willing to be clothed in that spirit of meekness and quietness, to trust in God, to come under God-ordained authority, that we would find men rising up really to be men, and that's the message I have of encouragement for women today, now let's move to this whole area of truth or consequences, truth or consequences, and we either believe and act on the truth, or we do experience consequences in our lives, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he, as he thinks in his heart, so is he, invariably behavior is based on beliefs, our behavior is based on beliefs, have you ever believed something that wasn't true, of course we all have, but I think of even childhood beliefs, for example, as a little girl, I remember hearing that when you come to a red light, you can't go, and I thought that meant, you can't go, your car won't move, when you get to the red light, and you know, within the last year or two, I discovered that that wasn't true, now I discovered it longer ago than that, but I felt kind of silly when I discovered, it's not that your car can't go, it's that you're not allowed to go, when you come to the red light, well for some period of time, my, if I had been driving at that age, think that's why they don't let six-year-olds drive, I would have come to the red light and thought my car wouldn't move, couldn't move, and in so many cases, our behavior, in each case, our behavior is determined by beliefs, you know, for years, people believed that the earth was flat, and so many decisions, and fears, and thoughts, and books were based on that belief, which proved to be fallacious, proved to be false, and as we look at bondage and freedom, let me just, in an overview way, suggest that there are steps to bondage, which are exactly the counterpart to the steps to freedom, when we, if we're going to end up in bondage, it begins first, invariably, with listening to a lie, listening to a lie, and that's why it's so important, and I challenge women and young people, to control the input that you allow into your life, to control the input you allow into your mind, I thank the Lord, and could I just say a word to you parents, I'm not a parent, but I'm the oldest of seven children, and I thank the Lord for the grace of God, though my parents were first-generation believers, and they didn't have all these seminars and conferences and books, but God gave them the wisdom to bring us children up in a greenhouse environment, a hothouse, we had no television in our home, my parents could afford one, but people used to feel sorry for us on occasion, and give us a television, my dad would give it back, and I thank the Lord that as long as we were growing up in that home, there was no television, that was not a legalistic thing, we didn't take a newspaper, and to this day, I can't stand touching the newsprint, and it's not because there was anything considered inherently sinful about these things, it was that my parents felt it was so important to control the input that was going into our minds and into our hearts, the reading material, the things that we were exposed to, I don't think I ever heard a word of profanity until after I was out of high school, probably, and in today's world, that's very hard to imagine, but I'm not that old, there was a sense of protecting and so exposing our hearts to the ways and the Word and the truth of God, till we would come to love the Word and the ways of God, to have our hearts quickened by it, to be passionate for it, and so that we could quickly identify what was deceptive and false and untrue when we got out of the hothouse environment, but important to control the sources of input into our lives, we receive lies in so many ways, through television, through magazines, through friends, through malls, through catalogs, and man, you don't think malls are that, you can't understand what the pull is on your wife, and I'll tell you there is a pull into the heart, in the hearts of us women, and you can walk through a mall and just in so many ways have your mind exposed to the lie, exposed to the lies of what is valuable, what is beautiful, what is meaningful, what is important in life, we need to remember that the source of every lie is Satan himself, now listening to the lie doesn't put us into bondage, it just starts a pathway that ultimately leads to bondage, that's why it's important not to listen to the lie, Eve's first mistake was not eating the fruit, her first mistake was listening to the serpent, her next mistake was answering him, but then we listen to the lie, after we listen to the lie, then we dwell on it, and if I could liken it to gardening or farming, first the seed is sown, that's listening to the lie, and then dwelling on the lie, that's watering it, fertilizing it, listening to it again, having it repeated till it begins to wear a path in your heart, and then comes the point where we believe the lie, and that's the point in the gardening illustration in which the seed takes root, it begins to grow up believing the lie, and then once we believe the lie, we are going to act on the lie, to act on it, every act of sin begins with a lie, every act of sin begins with a lie that I listened to, I dwelled on it, I believed it, and when I act on it, that's the fruit, it produces fruit, the seed is sown, it's watered, it's fertilized, then it takes root, and then it produces fruit, and ultimately that will lead, acting on the lie, over and over again will lead me to bondage, every area of bondage in my life is rooted in a lie, in a lie, bondage comes with, with bondage comes destruction, fear, anger, and death, that verse in Jonah chapter 2 verse 8 is very uninstructive to me, it says they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, God has mercy for us to live in a fallen, sick, corrupt world, he has grace to help us in our time of need, but those who observe, those who listen to, and dwell on, and believe, and act on lies, emptiness, lying vanities, they forsake their own mercy, there's no grace, there's no mercy that will get them through those situations if they insist on observing those lying vanities, and that's where we read again in 2nd Thessalonians 2, refuse to believe the truth, that God gives us over to deception, now if we want to come to freedom, we must go the opposite pathway, first we must listen to the truth, listen to the truth, feeding our minds with the truth, filling our minds with the Word of God, and then not only reading it, but meditating on it, and that's where scripture memory is so important, and Dr. Bubeck has been such a challenge, and a conviction to my own heart during these days, if I see a man who's filled with the Word of God, dwelling, meditating on the scripture, and then believing the scripture, applying faith, Hebrews says that the Word of God had no effect in the lives of the Jews, because though they knew it, they didn't believe it, they didn't exercise faith, and then once we believe it, we will act on it, and this is where the fruits of righteousness and obedience begin to come forth in our lives, and that ultimately leads to freedom, peace, joy, and freedom, it's through the renewing of our minds with the Word of God that our lives are transformed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, now just three suggestions here, then we're going to take a brief break, just a stand-up break, and then come back to the specific lies and truth, first we have to identify what are the areas of bondage or sinful behavior in my life, what are the areas of bondage or sinful behavior, then identify the lie that is, or the lies that are at the root of that sinful behavior or bondage, what have I been believing that's not true, and then we need to replace or counter the lies with the corresponding truth, replace or counter the lies with the corresponding truth, jot down this reference if you would right there, Psalm 120 verses 1 through 4, Psalm 120 verses 1 through 4, I call on the Lord in my distress and He answers me, save me O Lord from lying lips and from deceitful tongues, what will He do to you, what will God do to you, and what more besides O deceitful tongue, He will punish you, God will punish you, deceitful tongue, how does God deal with lies and deception, what is His counter-attack, with a warrior's sharp arrows, with burning coals of the broom tree, we counter the lies, the deceitful tongue and lies with the warrior's sharp arrows, what is the warrior's sharp arrow, it's the Word of God, and Augustine had this to say about that passage, he said the Word of God must come like a piercing arrow bearing a flaming coal, so that this forest of worldly thoughts will be set on fire, become cleared ground where God may build His temple, when the Word of God comes with burning fire to clear away the worldly deceptive thoughts in our lives, then there's a clear place where God can build a temple of truth and righteousness in our lives, so identify the areas of sinful bondage or behavior, identify the lies at the root, and then we must learn to replace or counter the lies with a corresponding truth, look more specifically, and here's where it gets interesting, at some of the lies women believe, now let me say first several things about this list, first of all this is not an exhaustive list, second of all it's not lies that just women believe, I just can't feel free to speak for men, so these are lies that I know that many women believe, and then realize it's not everyone believes all of these lies, probably not anyone believes all of these lies, and we have our variations on these lies, but these are some that I have found are particularly common to many of us as Christian women, and here again these are lies that we as women may not consciously believe, most of these are things that Christian women would not say they believe, but we live as if we do believe these things, and I would suggest this, what you believe is not determined by what you say you believe, it's not revealed by what you say you believe, it's revealed by how you live, and so I counsel with women who are living as if they believe these lies, but then they say they don't believe these things, I say you really do believe these lies if you're living that way, what we live, the way we live reveals what we really believe, now some of these lies are particularly deceptive because they are half-truths, and that's what makes them so deceptive, but half-truths are lies, and they lead to bondage as surely as outright lies, now some of these statements are going to, will be controversial, I'll just tell you that before we get into them, and I'm gonna move very quickly through them, I'm not going to take time to defend any of these viewpoints, or many of them at all, but don't get hung up on one or two or three that particularly raise a question mark in your mind, and I'm still growing, I'm still learning, as I understand the ways of God at this point, I see these statements to be false, maybe when I teach this a year from now, I will see some of these differently, but don't get hung up on one or two that particularly, you say now, I don't really think that's a lie, look at the big picture here, look at the whole picture, and I think you will agree that on the whole, here is a body of falsehood that many of us as women have come to embrace, and I believe that in the first session, all those words that we used to describe how so many women are living today in bondage and confusion and despair and hurt and anger, I believe that these lies account for those results in women's lives, and that if we want to really help women today, we have to help them identify what are the lies that they've been believing and get them back to the truth. Many of the lies we believe are lies about God, and that's an important place to start, because if our view of God is wrong, then everything else we believe will be wrong, and we could add many to this list, and by the way, as I go through this, as you think of others, feel free to jot them down and pass them to me when we're done, and I'd like to add some of the thoughts and insights God gives you when I teach this the next time, but I think one of the basic lies that many of us believe about God is that God is not really good. God is not really good, and again, remember, very few people would say this, but that's what we really believe in the deepest part of our being. If God were good, this would be different. This would not have happened to me, and then related to that, God doesn't love me. Now, women will say, I know God loves me, but deep in their heart, they don't believe in so many cases that God does love them, and then this one, God is just like my father. God is just like my father, and if there was a wounded relationship there with a father, or a distant father, or a passive father, or an overbearing father, or a cruel father, then that view of that father is so many times projected onto God, and let me say this, I had a godly father for which I thank the Lord, but God is not just like my father. God is infinitely more wonderful, and pure, and right than even my godly father. Now, it helps a lot to have a godly father in shaping a woman's view of God. I trust God, and have since I was a little girl, and part of what has helped that is that I had a father I could trust. Most women today are not coming from that background, but then the enemy deceives them into believing that God is just like my father. He can't be trusted. He is a distant God, or he is a cruel, overbearing God. God is not really enough. Another lie. God is not really enough. God's Word is not really sufficient to deal with all my problems. Now, we say it's sufficient, but we don't live as if it were. I need God's Word, plus I need these 52 books from the Christian bookstore. I need God's Word, plus I have to go to all these conferences. I need God's Word, plus everything that my friend or a counselor can tell me. I need God's Word, plus to deal with the issues in my life, we don't really believe that God's Word is sufficient. And then this, that many of us believe there is someone or something else that can make me happier than God can. I need something or someone more than God. It may be food, and for many women, food, eating is not because of hunger. It's because of seeking to fill an emotional vacuum, drinking from wells that Jeremiah called broken cisterns, a fountain of living waters who wants to fill our lives to overflowing, and we have instead gone and hewn out for ourselves broken cisterns, and for many of us as women, food is one of those broken cisterns. Shopping, television, friends, activity, geographical location, the size or type of the nest in which we live. I need something else, someone else, to make me happy. God is not sufficient. He's not really enough. And then this lie, God's ways are too restrictive. God's ways are too restrictive, and that's what Satan told Eve. Has God said to you? Now, back up to what God did say. Of all the trees in the garden, you may freely eat, except for that one over there. Don't eat that one. God put the emphasis on the liberty. Satan came and said, has God said to you, you can't eat from all the trees in the garden? What does he do? He tempts the woman to believe that God is putting restrictions on her happiness. The emphasis is on what you can't do. And you as parents know that you put loving parameters around your children. And what does the enemy tell your children? That you're trying to warp them, or cripple them, or keep them in a cage, or not let them have any freedom. You want them to experience true freedom. That's why you put loving restrictions around them. But the enemy emphasizes the restriction and suggests that it is a bondage. This lie that God should fix my problems. It's a lie. And we'll see what the truth is about many of these in just a few moments. But the lie that God should fix my problems. And if I have problems that haven't been fixed, then God has not come through. God is faithful, yes, if the sun is shining, if I've got money in the bank, if my husband loves me, if my children rise up and call me blessed, if I'm strong and healthy, yes, we can sing great is thy faithfulness. But when the clouds are there, when the money isn't there, when there's rejection at home, when they're away where children, is God still faithful? God hasn't fixed my problems. And there's this deep sense in the heart of many women that God has not come through for me. Now, there are many lies that women believe about themselves, such as, I'm not worth anything. And in many women's cases, someone told them as a little girl, or as an older girl, you're just like your mother. And she didn't like her mother. She didn't like what she saw in her mother. And she now believes that for the rest of her life, she's doomed to be just like her mother, not in the positive ways, but in the negative ways. Or, you're dumb. Or, you'll never amount to anything. And we have believed these words that we have heard from others in so many cases and determined, I'm not worth anything. One of the problems here is that most of us as women have developed our sense of worth based on what others think about us. Now, the opposite of that we find in 1st Peter chapter 2, which says that Jesus was rejected of men. But that didn't determine his worth. He was chosen of God. Therefore, he is precious. His worth is precious. And his worth is not determined by what men thought of him. They rejected him. It was determined by what God thought of him. And God chose it. That's what determined his worth. But so many, many women today have come to establish their sense of worth based on what someone else has told them. I can't help the way that I am. It's another lie about ourselves. It's my temperament. It's my personality. It's my spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts get blamed on more fleshly responses. And it's my past. It's my upbringing. It's my parents. And this whole sense of someone or something else is responsible for the way that I am. And I can't help the way that I am. I have my rights. And this is a major foundational deception in our whole culture. A culture that has been built on rights. When we promote rights, we ultimately foster rebellion. When we promote responsibility and submission to God-ordained authority, we create the, uh, we till up the soil that ultimately will produce the fruit of revival. I have my rights. And there isn't a woman in this room today who has not been influenced in at least some subtle ways by the whole feminist agenda and lie that I have my rights. You know, you go out here in the, um, where are we? Sioux City, Iowa. I've been on the road a long time. And, um, even the traffic signs recognize that you don't have smooth flow of traffic by saying, you never see a sign that says right-of-way. You have right-of-way. What does the sign say? Yield the right-of-way. But the feminist movement for our whole gen- my whole generation has promoted and, uh, and infiltrated into our society a lie that most of us, even in our evangelical churches, have adopted in some fashion. That is this thinking that I have my rights. And I've got to stand up for my rights. If I don't, no one else will. And we see this philosophy even coming through in much Christian literature and teaching today, unfortunately. Then the whole area of beauty. Beauty is external and physical. That's a lie. But it's a lie that most women believe. You know why? They've been reading too many magazines, watching too many commercials, and they've been developing their thinking not based on the Word of God, but based on what the world has taught them. Beauty is external and physical. And this, that physical beauty matters more than inner character. Physical beauty matters more than inner character. It's a lie. And then this lie that I find is very common to women. I should not have to live with unfulfilled longings. I think there's many women in here who understand or perhaps have felt this. I should not have to live with unfulfilled longings. We have this society and mindset of instant gratification, instant fulfillment. If you're hungry, eat. If you're lonely, engage in illicit sex. Whatever you have to do to get that longing fulfilled, now do it. Now it's not that the longing in itself is necessarily illegitimate or sinful. The danger is that we're tempted to fulfill it in illegitimate ways or timing. God created the sexual drive and intended that it be fulfilled in marriage. It's not wrong to fulfill it, it's just wrong to fulfill it outside of marriage. So it's a legitimate longing that God and desire that God has created fulfilled in an illegitimate way. We think, I have to have it now. I talk with many single women, and one of the things I say to them is that it's not wrong to have unfulfilled longings. Learn to live with unfulfilled longings. And by the way, it's not just single women who are lonely. I've talked to enough married women who have many children who are still lonely to know that it's not a function of how many people live with you. It's a matter of deep inner longings that no created human being can satisfy. There is not a man on the face of this earth that can satisfy the deepest longings of a woman's spirit. And all the men know it's true. And the women know it's true. So why do we keep looking to men to fulfill our longings? You see, God created us for himself. And he created us with some longings that will never be fulfilled this side of heaven. So we need to learn to embrace unfulfilled longings and to see them, as Elizabeth Elliot has said, as material for sacrifice. They give us something to offer up to God. Learn to live with unfulfilled longings. Another lie, it's okay to do whatever I need to do to get my, quote, needs met. And boy, if we come to redefine needs. God's Word says with food, with clothing, with shelter, let your heart be content. Be free from the craving for more covetousness, just a desire for more. Be content. But the world tells us it's okay to do whatever I need to do to get my needs, my desires, my longing met. And then this lie about ourselves, this body, this group, this church, this doesn't really need me. I'm not needed in the body. And of course the scripture teaches just the opposite. Lies we believe about sin. God can't forgive what I have done. God can forgive everything else, everyone else, but God can't forgive what I have done. There are women who live with unresolved guilt in their hearts, not because they've been unwilling to confess and repent, but because they're unwilling to believe that God can and will forgive. The lie that God can't or won't forgive what I have done. This lie, on the other side of the coin, my sins aren't really that bad. I haven't done all those things that people think God can't forgive. And this is a lie where some of us who are more self-righteous firstborns find ourselves that my sins aren't really all that bad. It's a lie. This lie, I can sin and get away with it. I can sin and get away with it. That's what the serpent said to the woman, thou shalt not die. God said, in the day that you eat, you will surely die. And the serpent said, it's a lie. The serpent called God a liar and said, you will not reap the consequences of your choice. Psalm 10, verse 6, Psalm 10, verse 6, says, why does the wicked condemn God? Because he has said in his heart, thou will not require it. You won't call me to account for this. The wicked says, there's no judgment coming. There are no consequences. I can sin and get away with it. Variations on that. I won't reap what I sow. I won't reap what I sow. The choices I make today will not have consequences. The choices I make today will not have consequences. I can play with fire and not get burnt. And so many, many women today out in the marketplace, out from under the covering and protection of their husbands, who are involved in emotional relationships that are fire. They are playing with, and I'm talking about Christian women. I'm talking about respected Christian women in their circles, in their churches, in their communities, who are involved in emotional relationships where they're getting emotional needs fed and fueled by a man who is not their husband. They are playing with fire and kidding themselves, deceiving themselves into thinking that they will not get burned. That they will not reap what they sow. Now, their own marriage may or may not fall apart as a result. They may not see the consequences in their own lives, though many times they will. But they will surely see the consequences in their children, in their grandchildren. Those seeds are being sown. And the thing is, we want to sow seeds of choices that we make and then pray for a crop failure. Hope that it won't come to harvest. And it just can't be. It's a law of God. Excuse me. That I will reap what I sow. Excuse me. This lie. I am not responsible for my sinful choices and reactions. I am not responsible for my sinful choices and reactions. And then this one that so many, many women believe. I cannot walk in consistent victory over sin. It's a lie. Eating habits, spending habits, anger, critical spirit, personal moral habits. I can't walk in consistent victory over this sin. I'm just going to have to be defeated by this for the rest of my life. It's a lie. And if you believe it, you will never experience consistent victory over sin. You will live in bondage if you believe that you have to live in bondage. Then lies we believe about our priorities. This is a lie. I can make it without consistent time in the Word and in prayer. I can make it in my life without nurturing my spirit. Without time with the Lord. And this lie, a career outside the home, is more valuable and fulfilling than being a wife and a mother. And the society we live in, our culture, has perpetrated that lie intentionally, deceitfully. And many, many women have come to believe today that there is something inherently more fulfilling about a career outside the home than about being a wife and a mother. The career, the calling to be a wife and a mother has been demeaned. And many women, especially my age and younger today, have bought into that lie, have come to believe that that is true. And in this lie, and I hardly know a woman who doesn't in some way believe this, I don't have time to do everything I'm supposed to do. It is a lie. That is a lie. Jesus, who came to earth and only had three years to fulfill the entire plan of redemption, said at the end of his life, I have finished the work that you gave me to do. You know what the problem is, ladies? We're doing things not that God gave us to do, but that everyone else in the world has given us to do. And so there's a lie that I don't have time to do everything I'm supposed to do. Lies about marriage. I have to have a husband to be happy. Now the people who believe that aren't married. Thank God for marriage. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for marriage. And I am the biggest promoter and defender and proponent of marriage and family. A lot of my friends, thank you so much, have a lot of children. And I just encourage all those married people to keep having children. And they love hearing singles tell them that. But a husband's not going to make a woman happy. And if a woman gets into marriage because she wants to be happy, she's getting in for the wrong reason. And she's setting herself up for certain disappointment. Because the purpose in a marriage is not to make a woman happy. It's to be a completer, to make God happy, and to serve and bless that man. And if a woman gets into marriage hoping to be happy, she's really setting herself up for disappointment. This lie about marriage, it's my responsibility to change my mate. It's my responsibility to change my mate. Or this one, marriage should be a democracy. Equal say, equal rule. I grew up in a democracy. Let me tell you about it. There are seven children in our family. We each got to vote on anything we wanted to vote on. We each got a vote. My mother got a vote. And my dad got nine. And that's how the democracy worked at the DeMoss house. But the enemy has convinced women today that marriage should be a democracy. My husband is supposed to serve me and make me happy. Now that's a half-truth. That's a lie. And it'll put women in bondage if they go into marriage with the expectation that my husband is supposed to serve me. Who did God make to be the helper? The wife. I'm just reading again today in 1 Corinthians 11, God made the woman for the man. And women, if we see that if our belief in marriage is that he's supposed to serve me and make me happy, we're gonna end up in bondage. Both mates are responsible to provide for the family. Both mates are responsible to provide for the family. Now both mates have responsibilities, but God gave to the husband the primary responsibility to be the breadwinner for the family. And all of these we could go back into God's Word and find stated truth there in relation to these principles. And then this sub-point there, a lie women believe, if I don't work outside the home, our needs won't be met. Or we can't make it on my husband's income. We can't make it on my husband's income. And there again is where we enter into some half-truths. But so many women not, and husbands too, not trusting God because of believing that it's both their responsibilities to be the provider for the family. This lie that many women believe, if I submit to my husband, I'll be miserable. And a lot of women believe that. If I come under his authority, I will be miserable. If my husband is passive, this is a lie, then I've got to take the bull by the horns and do something. If I don't take the initiative, nothing will get done. And I've had so many women say to me, if I didn't handle the finances in our home, we'd go broke. And I say to those women, now let me just give you a bottom line. I wouldn't say it quite this fast or quite this way. I'd get there by a route. But at the bottom line, I say, or women who've said, my husband won't work. And I say, if you don't work, he will. Once he gets hungry, he will work. He may have, he may not care about providing for you, but he does have a self-preserving instinct. And he's not going to let himself starve to death. There is that sense in which we as women take over so much of the responsibility that men have very little motivation to take it over by themselves. And so women, so many believe, if I don't step in there, nothing will get done. And we so often fail to see God act, fail to see the power of God in turning the hearts of these men because we have stepped in there, in our homes, in our churches, in our ministries, to say, if somebody doesn't do something, this thing's going to fall apart. You know, sometimes it needs to fall apart. And I say to women, you need to give your husband the freedom to fail. You need to be willing to let things fall apart in order for God to be able to get his attention. The very thing you've been praying to happen in his life, you may be keeping from happening in his life if you're taking matters over yourself. Next one, my marriage is hopeless. It can never change. And so many women caught in that lie today. My marriage is hopeless. It can never change. This one, I'm better off getting a divorce than staying in an unhappy marriage. And there's so many even secular studies today showing that second marriages often, more often than not, have a greater failure rate even than first marriages. If my husband doesn't love and respect me, I have the right to leave him. It's a lie. So many women are being taught that today and believing it. If my husband isn't faithful to me, I am free from my vows. I know this is one of those controversial ones, but let me just state it this way. God, our God, is a covenant-keeping God. He is faithful to his vow to his people even when they are not faithful. And if we want to reveal to our world what God is like, then we have got to come back to being covenant keepers and keeping our covenant not based on whether the other person is faithful, but based on the faithfulness of God. This one, I shouldn't have to put up with suffering in my marriage. And no one else should have to put up with suffering in their marriage. And so many of us as women, you know, most counseling does not happen in counseling rooms or a therapist's office. Most of it happens woman to woman. And so many of us as Christian women are giving ungodly counsel. Counsel not according to the Word and the ways of God. And one of the things, particularly those of you who are mercy showers, you want to put your arm around that woman and saying, honey, I know I don't believe in divorce, but I just think no woman should have to put up with what you are going through. And can I say, man, in recent years, I've been grieved even by the number of pastors and Christian leaders who have begun to counsel this way, who say, I didn't believe in divorce until, until it hit their own family, until it hit people close to them. And now they say, and I've heard these stories and it grieves my heart, say, well, it's not ideal, but no one should have to put up with suffering. What is the cross about if it's not a cause, a call to suffering? Read 1 Peter 2. If my husband were unfaithful to me, I could never forgive him. That is a lie. But it's what the world teaches us. I would be happier if I left my husband and married another man. I would be happier if I left my husband and married another man. First of all, it's not true. Statistics bear out that it's not true, that putting another pair of shoes under the bed does not solve the problems. But second of all, the purpose of life is not to be happy. It's to be holy. Lies women believe about children. We need to move on quickly with these. We're going to get through them. About children, we should, here's a lie, we should determine the size of our family based on how many children we want, how many we think we can handle, and how many we think we can provide for. That's a lie. Children are a burden. That's what our society told us. Now, there are some aspects of having children that are burdensome. But children are a blessing, not a burden. All children, a lot of people believe this one, all children will go through a rebellious stage. If you believe that, then you're setting yourself up to have to have your children go through a rebellious stage. Now, all of us are born rebels, and Christ has to conquer our self, our heart, our flesh. But it is a lie to believe that all teenagers have to be rebellious or have to go through a rebellious stage. If I weren't, many women believe this, if I weren't tied down with children, I could do more to serve the Lord. And I've heard this from women who envy what I'm able to do as a single woman in ministry, and I say to women, what you are doing there maintaining your home front, teaching those children the ways of God, loving and reverencing and serving your husband, and bringing up those children in the ways of God is far more significant than anything I could do in traveling around the country speaking to people and telling them about the ways of God. Now, it all has to do with what's the will of God for you and what's the will of God for me. But, oh, do not underestimate, mothers, your role and the value and the significance of what you are doing in shaping a whole generation that can counter the ways of deception in our world. This lie, we are not responsible for how our children have turned out. Now, that's a two-edged thing, because there's no question that as your children get older, they're responsible for their own choices. But Scripture teaches that parents do bear responsibility for the ways that they teach and train their children, and therefore, for the results in their children's lives, both have to accept responsibility. It's not one or the other. This lie, children need to get exposed to the real world, put that in quotes, so that they can learn to function in it. We shouldn't shelter them from the real world, says the lie. Ladies and gentlemen, the real world is not the world of sin and corruption and vice out there. That is transitory, it's fleeting, it's fading away. The real world is God's way. It's God's world. This is my father's world. He rules, he reigns. The real world is the eternal world where Christ reigns, and you want to prepare your children to live in God's real world, and then to be able to go out and not function in the outside world, but change the outside world. You're not bringing up children who can just function in the world outside. You want children who can really make a difference in that world. Lies we believe about others. I just can't forgive so-and-so. I just can't love so-and-so. I can't help so-and-so. She needs a professional counselor. Now thank God for godly counselors, for biblical counselors, but there's this mindset today that we cannot help people. Paul said to the Romans, I'm persuaded that you are able to admonish one another. We as women need to take responsibility for our own lives and for the lives of people around us and learn how to get into the Word of God and help hurting people with the Word, with the sword of God, with the balm of Gilead. Learn how to apply the names and the way in the heart of God to the people of the problems of God. Lies about emotions. Boy, and this gets so many of us as women. I can't help the way I feel. I can't control my emotions. Again, there's a half-truth there, but a lot of lie in it, and we'll come back to that in just a few moments. My emotions are a reflection of the truth that more often than not is a lie. If I feel unloved, therefore I believe I am unloved. If I feel alone, therefore I believe I am alone. I say to women, more often than not, emotions, your emotions, my emotions, have nothing to do with reality. And we need to learn that and let our emotions follow obedience rather than our choices following our emotions. And this one, husbands, this will explain a lot. We believe as women many times that it's understandable to act like a shrew at certain times. That's spelled S-H-R-E-W, shrew. And so many of us as women use our monthly cycle, our season of life, the change of life as an excuse for ungodly behavior, weariness, exhaustion. I remember one godly male friend saying to me once when I was just exhausted from ministry and speaking and I was acting like a shrew, and he said, don't let tiredness be an excuse for carnality. Now he's not a mercy shower, but we ladies need to hear those kinds of words from time to time. That doesn't mean don't have understanding, but it's not understandable, ladies, for us to act like a shrew ever for any reason. When God has called us to live peaceably, to be filled with his spirit, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, and peace, and that can be true in any circumstance, in any situation, any time of our lives. Another lie, my depression is probably caused by chemical imbalance. We are so quick to assume today that our depression is caused by a physiological source when more often than not, and I know I'm just broad brushing here, it is our responses of the spirit and our choices that have created in our bodies many of the physical and physiological ailments. This lie, I can't do what's right when my emotions are out of whack. I can't do what's right when my emotions are out of whack. I can always choose to obey God. Lies about our circumstances, if my circumstances were different, I would be different. In other words, we're saying circumstances make me what I am. And this lie, I am a victim, a victim of past offenses, of my upbringing, of my circumstances. And here's a lie that leaves a lot of women in despair and hopelessness. My circumstances will never change. This will go on forever. And I say to women, this may go on for a long time. It may go on for all of your life here on this earth, but it will not go on forever. It will not go on forever. God's word promises that one day the desert will bloom, that the dry and desert places will become well-watered places. And this lie, I just can't take anymore. And so many women feel that. And it's a lie. And when we believe that, then we just give up in hopelessness. I just can't take anymore. Listen, ladies, when I listen to and heed Satan's lies, I fulfill his purposes. And I actually become his instrument. Now, thankfully, every lie has a corresponding truth. And we won't take time to look at all the corresponding truths, but just a suggestion of some here. And I want us to just notice quickly first the power of the truth. God's word says that the truth will set us free. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the truth will set others free that you're trying to help? The truth is so powerful. I think today, as men and women in the evangelical church, we underestimate the power of God's truth. We don't really believe that this word is sharp and powerful. It has power to heal, power to help, power to transform lives, power of the truth to set people free. And then Psalm 91 teaches that the word, that the truth protects us, protects us. He will cover you with his feathers under his wings. You will find trust. His truth shall be thy shield and thy buckler. God's truth is my protection against the flaming darts of the evil one. And then Jesus said, God's word sanctifies us. God's truth sanctifies us. Sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is truth. Now, here is just a sampling of truth that sets us free. And let me say, Jesus is the truth. You cannot disconnect truths from truth. He is the truth that sets us free. If you want to get people to freedom, you've got to get them to Jesus. And his truth, he is truth. He will set people free. And then he shines light of his written word, his truth into our hearts. And here's a sampling of truth that sets us free. Number one, God is good. God is good. Psalm 119 tells us God is good and everything he does is good. You know, on September the 1st, 1979, was the weekend of my 21st birthday. I had been home to celebrate it with my family. My parents took me to the airport, put me on a plane back to Virginia where I was serving in a ministry at that time. When I arrived in Virginia, I received a phone call saying that my dad had been out since I had left, had gone out to play tennis, had had a heart attack, dropped dead instantly, was in the presence of the Lord, 53 years of age, no warning, no sign of any type. I was very close to my dad, first born daughter here. And of course, over the next days and months and years, there were many, many tears, enormous sense of loss and sadness at times. But before any of those emotions could kick in, by God's grace, the first conscious thought that came into my mind was that verse that I had read in Psalm 119 just a week or so earlier, God is good and everything he does is good. And that truth became a foundation for my soul in the days that followed. Now that didn't mean it didn't hurt. It didn't spare me from hurt, but it gave a balm for the hurt. My dad had spent the first 21 years of my life teaching me that God is good. You know, when it counted most, it worked because my life had been embedded in the truth and the truth had been embedded in me. God is good. Number two, God loves me. Whether I feel loved or not, whether I think God loves me or not, if I feel God has forsaken me, the truth is God loves me. And we need to teach ourselves and teach one another to counsel our hearts according to the word of God. That's not just positive speak. That's speaking truth to our hearts that will set us free. And when women listen to the, um, the books and the magazines and the TV programs of the world, they're going to think like the world, but when they feel their minds and their hearts and meditating upon the scripture, they're going to start to think scripturally. God does love me whether I feel it or not. Number three, I'm accepted in Christ. I may have been rejected by every other human being on the earth, but I am accepted in Christ. If I'm a child of God, number four, God is enough. God is enough. God can be trusted. God can be trusted. I tell that to women over and over and over and over again. God can be trusted. Lean on him. Lean on your beloved. He can be trusted. God's grace is sufficient for me. Some weeks ago, I was speaking to a group of 150 or 200 women who had, as any group of women that number would have, just a whole long list of problems that they were dealing with. And I had the women, uh, write down what is it that they need God's grace for at this moment in their lives. And then I had them one at a time, not all of them, but many of them, we spent probably an hour, an hour and a half doing this, come to the microphone and say to us, um, here's the issue in my life, just in one sentence, and God's grace is sufficient for me. And I just had the women identify, here's the, here's the issue. And then just speak the truth. God's grace is sufficient for me. And then I had all the women in the room say to that woman out loud together, God's grace is sufficient for you. That's what we need to keep telling each other. God's grace is sufficient for me. If I'm worn out from traveling, can't remember what day it is, what city I'm in, what my name is. God's grace is sufficient for me. Wayward children, aching bones, husband doesn't love you. Uh, no money in the bank. God's grace is sufficient for me. You believe that? It's true. Number seven, the blood of Christ is sufficient to cover all my sin. The blood of Christ is sufficient to cover all my sin. And then the cross of Christ is sufficient to conquer my flesh. The cross of Christ is sufficient to conquer my flesh. And here's that, what that tells me, what an incredible liberating truth this is, that I don't have to sin. I don't have to sin. That doesn't mean I won't. But it means I don't have to. And if I sin, it's because I chose to sin. Because I wanted to sin. But I don't have to sin. I don't have to be in bondage to sin anymore. If I'm a child of God, I've been set free from the have to sin, from the dominion of sin, a liberating truth. God's word is sufficient to lead me, to teach me, and to heal me. The sufficiency of scripture. Number ten, God will enable me to do anything that he commands me to do. God will enable me to do anything that he commands me to do. Therefore, there is no one that I cannot forgive. If I don't forgive, it's not because I cannot forgive, it's because I won't forgive. There is no one that I cannot love. Love is not a feeling, love is a choice. I can give thanks in all things. Because God enables me to do anything he commands me to do. Forgiveness is a choice. I can forgive. Number twelve, contentment is a choice. I can be content. I've been developing in recent months a whole new message on the whole subject of contentment. I believe this is a major area of bondage for many women. It's a whole area of discontentment. I can choose the pathway of contentment. Number thirteen, it's more important that I be holy than that I be happy. And it is impossible, next, to be holy without suffering. We want to be holy, but we don't want to go through the pathway to get there. But suffering is the number one tool in the hand of God to conform me to the image of Christ. If the Son of God learned obedience by the things which he suffered, how do you and I think that we can learn obedience any other way? The pathway to true joy is to relinquish control. We women are controllers, and that is part of the consequence of the fall. Your drive will be to rule over your husband. That's the consequence of the fall. You want to control your husband. And as women, we're driven to control. But the pathway to true joy, this is the truth, is to relinquish control. Control of my life, control of my husband, control of my children, and control of my circumstances. Let go! Relinquish control. Give them over to God. Release them to God. Number sixteen, my past does not have to plague me. That's the truth. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all unrighteousness. My past does not have to plague me. My past failures can become stepping stones to greater victory and fruitfulness. These are truths that I hate to be saying so quickly. You need to meditate on these women and get other women to meditate on these. If I will let him, God will cause everything that has happened to me to work together for my good and his glory. Number seventeen, God doesn't make any mistakes. Everything that comes into my life has been filtered through his fingers of love. Number eighteen, you believe that lasts? I saw each of these, so believe it, it'll set you free. It just makes all the difference. My heart is just experiencing freedom as I'm stating the truth here. I love the truth. The greatest freedom I can experience is found through submission to God-ordained authority. And God has given authority to us as women as a covering. First Corinthians 11 says that as women we need a covering over our head, and the covering is God-ordained authority. That's where we find protection. The husband, this is a truth, is the head of the wife, and this is not something that's just the consequence of the fall as the, quote, evangelical feminists would have us believe. I believe as you study the scripture and the New Testament and Old Testament accounts together, that before the fall, God ordained that the husband should be the head of the wife. Read about it in First Corinthians chapter 11, for example. And then the wife is to reverence and submit to her husband. And I'm trying to teach women to be, this is not PC here, but to be cheerleaders for the men in their lives, for their husbands, for their pastors, to lift up their hands, to reverence them and then watch God make them into men of God. The heart of the king is in the Lord's hand. That's the truth. Therefore, I can trust, maybe not in the king, but I can trust in God. Sarah trusted God. Therefore, she could obey Abraham. And then number 19, in the will of God, there is no higher, holier calling than to be a wife and a mother. We need to get that truth back into the hearts of our evangelical women. Number 20, I will reap whatever I sow. If I'm going to eat whatever I want to eat, I'm going to reap the consequences. If I'm going to sow nasty, unkind, harsh words into my children, I'm going to reap the consequences. I will reap whatever I sow. If I'm going to spend hours watching television instead of reading the word of God, I'm going to reap whatever I sow. Then number 21, I am responsible before God for my behavior, my responses and my choices. Last week in Colorado Springs, a lady stood up to give one of the most powerful testimonies I've heard in a long time. An older woman stood up in front of a microphone and weeping said these words. She said, for 22 years, I've been a therapist. She had been out of the field now for two years, but she said until two years ago, for 22 years, I was a therapist. And this therapist said, I want to repent before you, my sisters, and before you, my God, for leading you astray and for telling you lies. For telling you that for not saying to you, I am solely and personally responsible for my own behavior, no matter what anyone else does to me. And I say, amen, may her tribe increase. People who speak the truth. And number 22, God is more concerned about changing me, conforming me to the image of Christ, than he is about solving my problems. See, we've got to get God's priorities and be concerned about what God's concerned about. So what do we need to do? We need to learn to counsel our hearts according to the word of God. Psalm 119, verse 29, here's the prayer, keep me from deceitful ways. Psalm 119, verse 29. And then Ephesians 4, verse 15, speaking the truth in love, grow up. That's what we need to do, by speaking the truth, grow up into him. Ephesians 4, verse 25, put away the deceitful ways.