In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of keeping our minds focused on God and our responsibilities. He warns against allowing our thoughts to wander and be influenced by worldly distractions. The speaker mentions the three avenues that Satan uses to tempt us: the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. He encourages listeners to analyze their thoughts and be disciplined in their thinking, pointing to the need for God to sanctify our minds and hearts. The sermon references the book of Philippians and highlights the need to change our thinking patterns and align them with God's will.

In the form of this chapter. So we read about verse fifteen, verses three, possibly more. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. But of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, when your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be of God, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant for the eye, and that trees should be desired in every one's life, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband the fruit, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they both hid these together, and made themselves naked. And there heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the field of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field. Upon thy bedding shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the things of thy life. And I will put in the seed between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and it shall drink thy head, and wash the beast with fear. I believe we can leave on this topic, because I think the word of God would fit it more plainly, and perhaps more in a condensed form than I could narrate it. Verse 16, unto the woman he said, I will drink to mortify thy sorrow, and thy contempt, and sorrow shalt thou bring forth for them. And thy desire shall be for thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And on that island, he said, because thou hast parted unto the voice of thy wife, thou hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy faith, and sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. For it is awful and pitiful that it brings forth disease, and thou shalt keep this herb of the field. And the snot of thy face shalt thou eat red, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it thou wilt taken, for thus far and as the dust of thy face. And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And to Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make host of sins, and closed them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, in all good and evil, and now let him take all he can, and take also the tree of life and eat, and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent forth, and forth, in the garden of Eden, to fill the ground in which he had taken the birds all night and night. And he placed at ease in the garden of Eden's garden, and according to the Lord, he turned every way, each way, into the tree of life. This portion is certainly so familiar, so dated, and so elementary, that it's probably a question in their minds what to do about the same, and about the third chapter again. The language in this chapter is deceptively simple. There is enough here to capture the imagination of a child. I remember when I was just a very, very small boy, possibly four, possibly five, an agent came along and he told my mother, he's not a religious person, he told my mother a book, a storybook for children, and it became a book. And then along with this book, there was a corresponding book of paintings, pictures, books of paintings in the square, and a copy of the story. And he would read to us children, to us children, the story, and then we would collect the appropriate picture to paint in the square. I remember the first chapter of Genesis in those days, and I've never forgotten it. Now, there was enough that my mind was completely captivated as a child. The language was so simple. But God can help so much in simple language. Words are the vehicles of thought. And the smallest words, I think, are the biggest words after all. You look in the dictionary for the little word, in, and tell them to do this. Look for the little word, I, in. See what the dictionary has to say about it. Probably takes a third of the column. And then, you look at some big word, ubiquitous, some big word, and it'll have a transcendent to describe the meaning of the word. Words are the vehicles of thought. I think we're wise to use the simplest words that we can to express ourselves. But this language, I'm warning you, is destructively simple. This is one of the most profound portions of the Word of God. We learn so much from the third chapter of Genesis. We learn of the influence of evil into the world among men. We learn of their downfall, their alienation from God. Oh, there is so much to learn from the first chapter of Genesis. We see Satan at work. He either energizes the serpent, or was speaking to the serpent. And even in the top chapter of Revelation, he calls that old serpent the devil. And he can do it. He can use these meanings. He used the mouth of the maniac of Gebera to express the thoughts and sentiments of the six thousand demons that end robbing the name of Eden. Our name of Eden, I say. Our name. And yet that man spoke of his own words. Now, I'm not going to go on all this. But I want you to know, I want you to know how Satan was here trying to drive a wedge between God and man. In the first chapter of Genesis, we see that man was created to have dominion over this world. Satan fell when he leaped upward and wanted to take control of the powers of God, he fell downward. In contrast to that, our Lord Jesus Christ leaped downward, and God brought him to the highest heaven. Now, Satan knew that man was usurping, in his language, usurping his place. And he was determined to alienate God from man. And it comes in that he, he's a strategist, he rules his ground well. And he searches you and me out, and it's amazing how he knows about us. Now, I don't want to take too much time with Satanic magic together. But I do want to speak of some of his ways of operating. Now, he comes to ease, because he knew that he would be more easily deceived than Adam. And indeed, he was. And indeed, he is still easily deceived. I say that, ladies. I'm not a male chauvinist. But you are easily deceived. If you weren't, why would you marry some of the men that you did? I mean, that's true, isn't it? I don't know why some women throw themselves away at some of the men that they marry. I just can't understand it. Well, he knew that he could deceive you. He knew his ground. He knows you and me like a book. He knows our weakest point. And he's still operating as he ever did. Now, he comes to her, and he asks a question. He raises the question. Hearing that God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Read it off. Did God say that? You know, Satan is still raising questions. And he raised questions, I know, when I was in school. The person who taught my song was there. And he made some statements as a young man. One statement I remember particularly. My hypothesis is like the hypothesis of Napoleon, a great French economist. He says, I have no need of a job in my life. Matter is, motion is, time is. And that's all I knew. That had an impact on me. He said, I believe it. Now, Satan came in with his attack, and he would raise questions that I couldn't answer. And do you know how? I was so conceited that I thought because I didn't have an answer to the question, there wasn't an answer. Now, that was the pride that he had engendered in my heart. You apply the same method with you. You raise questions, questions that you can't answer. And then he's right. I thank God for the one that brought the answer. Our God. Now, he raised the question, did he really say, he shall not eat of every tree of the garden? The woman said unto the serpent, ye may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Now, God didn't say anything about touching it at all. He added a little bit there. He was trying to make a card, I think, for himself to do it. And then the serpent told a lie. The serpent did. The serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not stir his eye. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be abroad, knowing good and evil. Now, he lied to her, and he's still telling lies. He's still following the same M.O. that he followed 6,000 years ago. Somebody has raised the question, why doesn't Satan change his M.O.? He's been eating it for 6,000 years, and he's ugly. He doesn't have to. It still works. It still works. He tempts the woman. The serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not stir his eye. And then in verse 6, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and it paid to be desired to make one wise, he took up the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband that her, and she did eat. Now, I'm not sure that Satan was present when Adam ate the fruit. I can't suggest to you there. I'm not going to try to solve that problem. But I do know this, that he saw first. The pen came in with a look. He saw the tree was good for food. That's the lust of the flesh. Oh, wait just a moment. He saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye. It was pleasant to the eye, because that speaks of the lust of the eye. The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and then lastly, the pride of life, and the tree to be desired to make one wise. Now, if you were to turn, and I'm not going to turn to it, to the second chapter of 1 John, you would find out that all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. All the sins, all the sins of the flesh can be categorized, and go through categories. Now, that's a very simple thing. Simple? Wait just a minute. We're talking very simple language, aren't we? Not so simple. The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are all the sin is in us. Sin is in us. It takes those three forms. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Now, she took to that truth, and she gave to Adam. Now, here, I'm going to prove to you ladies that I'm not a male chauvinist. He was deceived. As the word of God tells us in the fifth chapter of Romans, Adam was disobedient. And to be disobedient is worse than being deceived. His was the greatest sin. He was disobedient. He was deceived. Now, she took of it, and she gave it to her husband, and he ate of it. Why? Be careful how you influence your husband. You do have an influence upon your husband. Be careful. You try to influence him towards good. She influenced him towards disobedience of the Lord. Now, this is Satan's old ploy. It's his old trick. Use the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. As a matter of fact, we're not going to do it. But if you were to go into the concentration of the Lord in the fourth chapter of Matthew, you would see exactly the same thing. Satan uses the same thing on our Lord Jesus Christ. The lust of the flesh, and the bread that was made, that he suggested to be made, for the sons that he suggested to be made bread. The lust of the eye, and the glory of the kingdom of the world, and the pride of life, and casting himself off the temple to prove how determined he was upon God. Four thousand years, he uses exactly the same M.O. that he does on me. Now, to be Paul Warren, author of Satan, is to be four arms. To be Paul Warren, is to be four arms. That's the only way he gets you. There's just three avenues that he gets you. And it's nice to analyze him. It's nice to analyze Satan's feelings with you. And if you haven't had any feelings with him lately, wait. You shall. Because he would like to trip everyone up. Now, the first thing that happened after that he took of the fruit, after they took of the fruit, indeed in verse 7, the eyes of them both were opened when they knew that they were naked. Now, that seems to be simple language, doesn't it? But let me tell you what it suggests, what it brings to forth. They became self-conscious. They became self-conscious. And I think one of the greatest slogans of sin is self-computation and self-consciousness. Now, remember, Satan wants to drive a wedge between their souls and God. And he now has their isolation gods upon themselves. They are self-conscious. And then they act in self-will. They put pigments together and made themselves atheists. That was an act in self-will. God had to set that aside. We'll get to that a little bit later. And then they have self-alienation through fear. These are all results of sin. They're the symptoms of the disease that we have, if you can recognize any of them in your life. These were afraid of God, and they inundated themselves in the presence of God. They ran and hid among the trees of the garden, and the Lord God came down falling for them. In the last of these four things, that enslave them, we talk about our four freedoms, these are the four things that enslave us. There's self-vindication. When the Lord said, Hath thou eaten the tree whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldest not eat? The man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, he gave me of the tree, and I did eat. This is self-vindication. Now, Adam blames Eve for all the trouble. Man has been blaming his wife for most of his trouble ever since that day. Self-vindication. Then Eve blames the serpent. Eve goes into a bit of self-vindication. She says, The serpent has dialed me, and I did eat. And so the Lord cursed the serpent because of this. Now, I'd like to talk about these symptoms of this dread disease that we all have. Self-occupation. Oh, how effective he was to turn their minds away from God and his goodness. To their own miserable selves. You know that most of the mental trouble in the world today is caused by looking inward and out of perspective. Most of the mental trouble of today is caused by interception. God wants to get us outside of ourselves. And this is the first terrible effect of sin. They became self-conscious. The eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were missing. That's a miserable occupation. Self-occupation. Thinking of yourself all the time. Men and women are not really selfish. They really are. They think of themselves. I'm tempted here, and I think all of you are tempted, too. I think you are tempted to do all right. Satan, today, is making his greatest inroads into Christianity of all the years of the church. And I'm talking about the Charismatic Movement. I want to tell you something about that movement. I've had some pretty close contact with it. The Charismatic Movement will occupy you with your own experience instead of this law. There are a lot of people that are forgetting that Satan is an angel of light. There are so many people in the world today that I'd like to think that if all the time is a roaring lion, I'll turn to you exactly as an angel of light. And I'm still warning you, because you're going to come up against it sooner or later. The Charismatic Movement is making great headlines. You'll get great coverage on the TV. That movement will occupy you with your own experience, and it will give you some, And Satan has lost his heart to this man. Now, I'm in a digression now. I suppose you recognize that. I hope you recognize that I'm digressing now. But I just have to say these things. Be careful of the Charismatic Movement. Don't get it entrenched in your own life, because it will occupy you, yourself, with your experiences. Now, I've read the experiences of these people. I know some of them personally. And I know, and I say without fear of contradiction, and I hope not uncharitably, I think it is of treason, and I'm not fully conscious. Now, I know that there are some convincing stories and some lovely people have been caught up in it. But it's time that somebody was forewarned, in the face of God, about this movement, and the emeralds that it is making in Christianity. Another thing that makes me identify with the Charismatic Movement with Satan, it divides the Church of God. And Satan's method has followed, then, divide and conquer. That's his method. And the Charismatic Movement will divide the Church of God. It is dividing the Church of God. It has made havoc out of local congregations where it is coming in. I didn't intend to say all this. I hope that I'm not being uncharitable in what I'm saying. But I think we need to be warned. And I think that it's time for us to take a good, close look at this. Now, this matter of self-observation, Satan would like to get our minds off of Christianity. You know, it's amazing to me, if you'll pardon me for confessing a little bit, it's amazing to me when I've got some spiritual responsibilities of all the things that I think I should do around the world. I suddenly remember all I should be concerned with. And, you know, I say, well now, if I go ahead and do that, maybe I can just give my mind completely to my thoughts and my responsibilities while I go there. And, you know, pretty soon I think of something else. I don't know if you're having trouble with me or not. And I think of something else. Oh, I forgot that. Oh, I've got to do that. I'll go take care of that. You know, the first thing I know, all the time that I have reserved to meet my spiritual responsibilities are gone. All the time is gone. He will try to keep us away from the Lord. And you have many, many ploys, many, many methods in Christianity to do that. This is a complex thing in which we're living. If there's anything that I feel spiritually, it's time to stand alone in the presence of God. Time to spend with Him. I can think of everything I'm going to spend, to do, but wait upon God in prayer and study His Word. And let me tell you something. You didn't turn to Jesus. He wants to distract us. He wants to drive a wedge between our souls and God. And He's trying desperately to do it, to do it in good. Self-consciousness is a miserable thing. It's either to be occupied with a good self or a bad self. If you were occupied with a bad self, you'd be occupied with a good self, of course. Of course. But we have trouble, don't we? You ever have trouble along that line? Commenting to yourself, standing off and gazing at the mirror and saying, You know, I did a good job, didn't I? Well, I have trouble that way. Commenting and praising yourself, occupying with your good self. Let me tell you something. It's just as destructive, I think, to be occupied with a bad self. God has given us, for each one of these four that I've mentioned here self-consciousness, self-will, self-alienation, and self-demonstration, God has given us a revelation of Himself. God has indicated a need. And for this need of self-consciousness that has been generated by sin, I think as far as I'm concerned, you may not have the same trouble I do. This is one of my greatest troubles. Confession is good for the soul. I didn't mean to bear my soul quite like this this afternoon, but maybe I can wake you up when we can do this with your own introspective light, your own thought light. Sounds like a tackle on the lecture, doesn't it? Let me tell you something. You spend most of your Christian life in your thoughts. Do you realize that? Most of your time is spent in your thoughts. You can do with a little discipline in that area. You can spend a little time in the fourth chapter of Philippians and find out what you should be thinking about. We're so undisciplined in our thinking. Now, God wants to occupy our minds and our hearts. Satan doesn't want him to. Now, this is crazy, isn't it? This is rather elementary, isn't it? Yes, it is, but we need to change it. What do we think about? Where are our minds? All the working hours of our days. Are our minds on trying? Now, I know we've got to be thinking about our jobs. We've got to be thinking about our responsibilities, and God has given us some down here below. We have to think about those things. If you're in the machine shop, you better keep your mind on your job. If you're driving a car, you better keep your mind on your job. But what do we do when our minds come to rest? Where do our thoughts go? If you go home and the paper is lying on the table, and the Bible is lying on the desk, which one do you pick up? Don't you pick up the paper? Well, I'll pick up the paper and read it just a little while, and then I'll read my Bible. The first thing you know, all your available time is gone. You know it. You know this is true. Now, God wants to fill our hearts. He wants us to be occupied with Him. Now, just as when our minds come to rest and we don't have anything to think about, I'll tell you a good plan to occupy your time. Pray. Pray. And after that, you'll pray for me, will you? Some deep times when you don't have anything else to do, and you lie awake in the middle of the night. Pray. And you'll be asleep before you know it. But think of me. These things are so basic. Our thoughts are thoughtless. The biggest part of our lives. What about it? Is the Lord occupied with all of our hearts? Do we think about Him? Or are we occupied with our miserable lives? May God help us to recognize the symptoms of this disease and do something about it. Enter self-will. They pulled kidneys together and made them salvation. Now, this was absolutely self-will. They didn't ask God about this. They were in a jam. They knew it. So they take corrective measures. And they sewed these fragile fig leaves together and they made themselves heathens. They didn't ask God about it. They got themselves into this jam. They're tribes of now. We'll get ourselves out of it. But God had to set this aside. Now, I don't know whether their fig leaf heathens satisfied themselves. I doubt that they did. Now, in the Scripture, garments are spoken of as depicting righteous men. Ordinarily, the first thing you see about a person is his, or his coat. His coat. That's the first thing you see about a person. If you go up and see one of our friends dressed up in his old work clothes, you know he has come to visit him at an inopportune time. He's got trouble in his hands. And so those clothes tell us an awful lot. Whereas, if we go to visit him some evening and he's dressed in his jet-blue trousers, we know that, again, we have rather some unpresumptuous man on the scene where he's planning to go someplace. He wouldn't dress up this much for that. And his clothes tell us a real story. Now, clothes do tell us a lot. Now, in the Scripture, and I can't follow this. Here's a direction I shouldn't be following at all, but I'm going to figure it out now. In the Scripture, righteousness is spoken of as garments. Now, here they were trying to effect their own self-righteousness. They tried to make themselves presentable to each other. But wait! When God comes down in the garden in the cool of the day, do their garments satisfy them then? No, they run. And they hide themselves among the trees of the garden. But, no matter what their garments, they aren't satisfied with their own efforts. Let me tell you what this speaks of. It speaks to people in the religious world today that are trying to clothe themselves in their own self-righteousness. They've tried to make themselves presentable to God. Let me follow on that there should be a person here in the sense that he's got to get to heaven by being good and doing good. But, let me tell you something. When you get into the holy presence of God, you will hide because your garments will not even meet your own standards. They sewed piglets together to make themselves aprons. But when the priestess came, they ran and hid. This was self-will on their part. They didn't ask God. They said, this is our problem, and you'll take care of it. Now, think of it, if you will, of God meeting our need in this respect. God met their need in a very remarkable way. We read over there in the last part of the chapter, unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of shins and clothes. God set aside their self-will. They thought that they had handled the situation, perhaps quite well at first, until the priestess came. Now, Adam and Eve were not properly clothed until blood was shed. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of shins and clothes. Now, this should be a lesson, and it's a lesson that if we read the Bible, we come on it very, very soon. God wants us to know that he, and he alone, can clothe us with a robe of righteousness. He can cover us with a garment of salvation. He can't do it ourselves. The righteousness that we stand in is a righteousness that he ensuits to us. Sorry, I can't follow that train of thought, or thread of thought at all. Now, God slew animals. Death took place. And the first time that death came unto the Garden of Eden, it was to make coats of shins for Adam and Eve. God made them. And you know what, as far as I'm concerned, I can't think of anything that is still any more luxurious than a leather coat. Can you? Just go try to buy one at the store. You'll find out how comfortable they are. They're so comfortable they'll want you to part with $115 and $125 for that leather coat. But God made coats of shins. He gave them the very best. And an animal had to give up his life before Adam and Eve were properly clothed in his presence. Blood had to be shed. And you know, God ensuits righteousness to you and me. The moment of the first page, fourth chapter of Romans, God ensuits the righteousness to me. This chapter of 2 Corinthians also has something to say about that, too. And the righteousness that I stand before God in is the righteousness that Christ ensuits to me. Now, the righteousness of Christ can never be transferred. It appears and uniquely appears alone. But, thank God, it can be ensuited. And I stand in the good name of another. Now, I stand...that's the righteousness that God ensuits to me. There are two ensuitations in connection with our salvation. God ensuited my sins to Christ to be hung on the cross. He reckoned those sins to be his. He did, too. He reckoned Christ to be guilty, and he punished him instead of punishing you. Your sins were reckoned and ensuited to Christ on the cross. Now, that's only half of it. The moment that I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is my own personal faith. His righteousness is ensuited to me, and that is the righteousness that makes me set for heaven. It's not my righteousness at all. It's the righteousness of Christ ensuited to me. How did I get it? When blood had to be shed, His presence came. And as the Lord God makes host of sins, those animals had to give up their lives. And before I am properly clothed in the presence of God, the Lord Jesus Christ had to give up his life. And don't you pull your fig leaves together and try to think that you have solved your problem. You haven't. God alone can solve your problems, and his cause is his salvation. And his dear Son gave his life for you to die on that cross and take away your sins. Thank God God meets our self-will with his own precious blood. He meets our self-consciousness with his own precious person. How could you be occupied with ourselves at all? Well, you can be occupied with yourself. If you're occupied with yourself, you're in bad trouble. Get outside of yourself and become occupied with the Lord. Because you occupy yourself with yourself long enough, and you are going to be in trouble. And I'm not a psychiatrist either, although I'd like to be. Now, they had self-illumination yet. Next, I mean. They heard the voice of the Lord in the cool of the day. I think I know when that was. I think it's in the evening. I don't know how you feel about it, but I like to be alone at sunset. I like to be alone at sunset. I like to watch the sunset. I like the feeling of the day. Now, I don't know what this means or not, but if I want to think that way, just let me go ahead and think it. If you know better, don't tell me that. Don't disbelieve me. He came down in the cool of the day to talk with them, and they ran, and they hid themselves. Now, the illumination was on their part. We are illuminated in our minds by wicked works. They had a guilty conscience. You know, if your children have done something that you have told them not to do, they're not very anxious to be around you. Have you ever noticed that? They have a guilty conscience. You're just not anxious to be around the person you've been with. Now, in this case, heaven and me were not anxious to be around God. They had a guilty conscience. And they went, and they hid themselves. Self-illumination. It's a terrible thing. But we've done it. We've allowed our sins to alienate us from God. And God has never had to be reconciled to man. These pieces of scripture specifically about being reconciled to God There's no place in the Bible that it ever says man.