Mike Bickle emphasizes the necessity of actively engaging in the spiritual battle against lust and sin, highlighting that while God provides grace and supernatural help, believers must take responsibility for their actions by denying themselves and making quality decisions. He stresses the importance of prayer, fasting, and speaking God's Word as essential tools in resisting temptation and overcoming internal struggles. Bickle encourages believers to recognize the dynamic role they play in their spiritual lives, asserting that blessings and victories come through partnership with God. He also warns against the dangers of complacency and the gradual progression of sin, urging a proactive approach to spiritual warfare.

We ask you for the release of the spirit of wisdom and revelation upon the speaking and the hearing of your word. Holy Spirit, we consciously ask you for your presence to come and touch hearts and to draw hearts to the Lord Jesus. We ask you to do that which you do best and which you love most. You would take the things that belong to Him and you would give them to us. You would magnify Him in our hearts. We thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, I'm going to continue on from a session that I did a couple of weeks ago called Hungering for Righteousness and Our War Against Lust. Romans number one, I'm going to give a review for those that are with us for the first time here tonight and missed that first session. Paragraph A, the Christian life is a cooperation with the grace of God. I say this all the time, but I think it bears repeating that we all understand this as fundamental. God will not do our part. He will not do our part. We cannot do His part. If we don't do our part, God withholds blessing that He was going to give us. This is a fact. Our part includes making a quality decision to deny ourself. In other words, to say no to sin and pride and lust, etc. That is our part. We must do that. God will not do that part for us. Some people pray, Lord, deliver me from sin, but they won't deny sinful lusts. The Lord says, I won't do that part for you. You do that part and I'll release supernatural help. We need to make quality decisions. Next thing that's our part, and this is not comprehensive, these are just a just a general idea, we have to feed our spirit on the Word. We have to ask God for help and intervention. We have to do the godly activities the Word of God talks about. We have to be involved in relationships in the way the Word of God describes. Now God will do His part. We can't do His part. He won't do ours and we can't do His. And His part is to release supernatural influence and power on our body, on our heart, our circumstances, our relationships. He will release the supernatural dimension if we do our part. B, God has chosen to give us a dynamic role. Our role is dynamic in determining some of the measure of the quality of life that we experience, both in the natural and in the spirit. The end of paragraph B, there are blessings that God has chosen to give us, but He will only give them if we rise up in partnership, called prayer and meekness and those kinds of things, or He will withhold them if we don't and they are in His heart to give them to us, but He will not give them to us. The passage we refer to often, you do not have, the Lord says, because you do not ask. Beloved, I can't imagine the amount of things God might give us, spiritually touching our heart or even opportunities in the natural, if we asked Him in a persevering way. Paragraph C, the kingdom principle. Well, there's many kingdom principles. This is one of them. This principle puts pressure on us and it's supposed to put pressure on us. That's the purpose of this principle. If we do more, then God gives us more. We would like to think that regardless what we do, God's going to give us the same. That simply is not the truth. If we do more, I'm talking about the things that are described in the Word, He will give us more. If we do less, we receive less. Now, we don't earn God's blessing by doing more, and I'm talking about the more that we do have to be the things that are in the Word, of course, and in the spirit of which the Word requires that we offer that service or give ourselves to Him. Now, when you talk about this, people automatically, and it's natural, I understand it, they say, well, you mean we're earning it? I go, no, we're positioning ourselves to receive the supernatural activity of the Holy Spirit. Praying and fasting doesn't earn the power of God. The power of God is far bigger than our prayer and fasting. It just puts us in the way of it, and it puts us in a position to relate to God because God wants to give us these things as we relate to Him. It's not like we're praying and fasting over there on the side, and then we come over and then ask God to bless us. Praying and fasting is interacting with Him. He wants interaction with us in the way that He describes as the basis for giving us more. And some of the things He gives us are for our heart, they're internal, and some of the things He gives us are in our circumstances, they're external. Paragraph D. This is still review from the first session. We are in a spiritual conflict which has different battlefronts. We're all aware of that. There's a war on the inside of us, obviously. There's a war on the outside of us, and I have some of the issues written there. We looked at it last time. Now, while many acknowledge that there is a war going on the inside, it's a strange thing. Most of our prayers are related to the war on the outside. We pray for revival. We pray for God to change the laws for abortion. We pray for God to heal people's bodies. We pray for economics. We pray for anointed ministry. We pray for all kinds of things that we are supposed to pray for. And so, you know, especially being an IHOP, I know just a lot of people who have a prayer life, and their prayer life is serious. I mean, most of the people at IHOP are pretty serious about the prayer life, if not all of them. But my guess is, is that the majority of the prayers of people with a prayer life are on the battle on the outside, and they don't take serious praying for the battle that's going on on the inside of their heart. And it's biblical. It's necessary that we pray for the war that's happening on the inside. Peter said that in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 12. Let's read that together. He said that, I beg you pilgrims, he called us pilgrims, abstain or deny a fleshly lust. To abstain from, to say no to fleshly lusts. And these things are warring. They wage war. There's a war on the inside of us that we have to be involved in. Paragraph E. The book of, the Prophet Joel told us, told us that we're to rend our hearts, or the, some translations say we are to tear our hearts, as we in, as we wage in the internal war against lust. There is a place where we must say no, and there's a ouch. There is a, there's a dimension we don't like when we say no to lust. But it's absolutely necessary that we do that part. We have to say no, and when we ask the Lord to release power on the inside of us. And though I think many people say no, they don't go the next step and ask for supernatural help. And I think it might surprise us how much God would help us, but we have not, simply because we don't ask him for it. And it's biblical to ask him for it. This war, paragraph E, staying with it, second sentence, involves the need to make quality decisions, obviously. To abstain or to deny from various types of lust. Now, look at the different types of lust that the Word of God describes. There's many different expressions. The most prominent form of lust is pride. Anger is a very prominent form of lust. Those are probably the two main ones. And then right on its, on the heels of that is covetousness. That's one of the most primary, prevailing forms of lust that's operating in the church today. Thefts. I'm just taking this list from the words of Jesus and the words of Paul. I just put the list together. Thefts is a, Jesus talked about that as a form of lust. And the thefts are the many types of ways that we're dishonest in the realm of finance, in our dealings. You know, it's our nature, it's our sinful nature to whenever we're calculating what we owe or what they owe, we always do it in our favor. And we move, we move the data around. And we try to be as honest as we can, but we always biased ourself in our own position. And sometimes there's dimensions of theft in that. And that's a form of lust that we have to deny. The other ones, we're familiar with immorality and pornography. Everybody knows that's lust. But beloved, that's one of many types of lust that are warring against our spirit. Bitterness, hatred, slander, jealousies, drunkenness, overindulgence in food or overindulgence in entertainment is a form of lust. Addictions, both legal and illegal. Some people think because the doctor prescribes it, that the Holy Spirit approves it. Now the Holy Spirit might approve some of the things doctors prescribe, but the fact that it's legal doesn't mean it's honoring to the Holy Spirit. Some legal things are, and some of them aren't. My point is, we want to ask the Holy Spirit, we want to say, show us, oh God, what it is that you're at war with in our members, and we want to agree with you. Jesus said in Matthew 7 verse 14, just giving you, I'm still from the first session and a review, and my main part of the first session was the responsibility and the difficulty of denying lust, because that's a message that's really being drawn back on by the church. We can't shy back on that message. There is a real place we say no, and that's uncomfortable in the Western culture. That's a pleasure-oriented culture, but we must do this. It is biblical. We must preach this. We must tell this to one another. There's a place we deny it, and as Joel said, that we rend our heart, we tear our heart when we come to the Lord with all of our heart. Jesus said in Matthew 7 verse 14 that the road, that the gate is narrow. It's a small gate to get through, to get onto the inside of the power realm of this, and the joy realm. It's a narrow gate. To get through a narrow gate, you got to take a lot of things off to fit through the gate. You can't have all the baggage to get through a gate. You have to let go of the baggage, or you can't get through the gate, and we want to get through the gate to get in the realm of God's power, in the realm of God's favor, and we want to move in the realm of joy and liberty on the inside, but there's baggage we have to let go of, because the gate's narrow, and you can't get through it with all the baggage on you, or on me. Jesus said the gate, the way is difficult. Beloved, we've signed up for a difficult way. There is a dimension of it that's difficult. It's not all difficult, but there is a dimension that is difficult, and that's part of the gospel, and when we call people to Jesus, we need to call them to a difficult way. Again, it's not entirely difficult, because it's true to say, too, my yoke is easy, but the difficulty is in denying lust. That's where the war is, is right there. That's part of the difficulty, and then in the dimensions of persecution, and there's other ways as well, and Jesus goes on to say there's only a few, only a small percent of the people find their way into this. I'll just use the analogy of a room or a house where the glory of God's in it. Only a few people. Now, it's millions, but the percentage is small compared to the whole human race. Well, it's hundreds of millions, but there's billions that don't find their way into this narrow road, but we have to know on the front end, it is difficult, so we go, oh, this is hard. Somebody could say, yeah, thus says the Lord. We told you that on the front end. Oh, it's biblical that it's hard. It's biblical that there's a difficult dimension to it, but the pay is really good. In this age, on the inside, and a little bit on the outside, and in the age to come, in the inside and on the outside, in a full way. Paragraph F. Denying our lusts, our sinful desires, is the theater which God has chosen for us to express our love to him. One of the primary ways we express our love to him is by saying no in this realm. It's a stage of which God has provided for us before him to express love to him. It's a very important paragraph here, here in F. Each of us has a different struggle because we each have a different personality, and even the same person with the same personality, the struggle will be very different five and ten years later, different seasons, different such situations in their body, and their economics, and their relationships, and their opportunities. The situation changes constantly, but each person is different. Now, we all have the same basic struggles in the basic categories of how Satan attacks us, but the exact way it's configured in the struggle in your life and in the one next to you is very different. It's very unique. Each of us have a different struggle, and this struggle is a different assignment. It's God's assignment to you to offer the gift of love to him out of that assignment. Like one person is struggling more with physical problems on the outside, others are struggling more with physical lusts on the inside, and everybody's got a little bit of all of this, and some it's money and relationships and rejection, and some it's acceptance, too much acceptance, and too much chaos is happening in their life, and the Lord says the whole struggle, that's the theater, that's the assignment that I have given you, the context to show love to me uniquely from you to me. Now, give your love to me in this context, and when the Lord sees us war against all these dimensions, the bitterness, the slander, the anger, the thefts, the covetousness, the immorality, all of these dimensions, the overindulgence, our soul is pulling and pushing and tug of war, and we give ourselves to him, and God, and we seek to obey, and God calls that love. He goes, this is love you are offering me. One of the really powerful verses that I want to recommend to you here at the bottom of the PowerPoint there is John 14 21. This is a verse you can use in warfare. I love to speak this verse to God and to the devil. I love to speak this verse in my private prayer life. He who has my commandments, Jesus is speaking. He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he that loves me. When the, when the enemy's coming, and he's stirring you up, speak it. It is written, he that has God's commandments and keeps them, this is the one that loves God, and we speak it against the schemes of the enemy against us. We can speak it to God. Here we are, we have these various lusts that are waging war in our members. Again, it might be bitterness, it might be anger, covetousness, theft, hatred, jealousies, immorality, drunkenness, overindulgence. These lusts are waging war, and when we're, when we're fighting them, we speak the word of God to God the Father or God the Son. We say, he that has your commandments, I have them, and I am keeping. I am one who loves you, and we can declare this to him. And beloved, this verse is powerful. This verse will, will move you because it's the speaking of the word of God and the conflict that strengthens your spirit, because the Holy Spirit moves wherever the word is declared. I want to say that again. I mean, it's a very simple principle, but I want you to get it clear. Remember back in Genesis 1, where the Holy Spirit was hovering over the earth, waiting, hovering. He was brooding, one translation says, over the earth. Hovering is what the New King James says, and he was waiting for the word to be spoken, and when Jesus spoke the word, the Holy Spirit created, released power. The Holy Spirit's hovering, so to speak, over the church and over the nations and even in context of your life, and when you speak the word, he releases power, and that's why Jesus spoke the word against the devil, and that's why we speak the word. When we're in this contest, in this conflict, we speak, and the spirit moves wherever the word is spoken. It was not a simple thing. Well, it is simple, but it was not simplistic that when Jesus was tempted, he spoke the word back to the devil. I want to really urge you to find five or ten verses. You don't need a thousand. You just need five or ten. The ones you use all the time, and when your lust is stirred up, you speak it. This is just one. I love this one. I could speak it back to the Lord, and I have several of them. You don't, again, need a lot of them, but you can use the ones. Just as you're reading your Bible, one will jump out to you. I tell you, one that I use is, we'll refer to it later, is this Romans 6 23. The wages of sin is death. To participate in that lust is death. You can declare, thus says the Lord, the wages of sin is death. You can declare that in the presence of God, to declare that to the enemy. No, I'm not doing it. The price for sin is always death. Every time there's an operation of death that works in my spirit, if I yielded that, I'm not going to do that. So, speaking of the word, and the spirit, the spirit is present, and wherever the word is spoken, he releases power. But my burden is, I believe there's many believers, they never pray for help on these areas of lust. They pray for revival to break out, which is good, and they don't speak the word. I mean, they don't pray on the front end before they get in trouble, and then when they're in the trouble, they don't speak the word as their way out of the trouble. They grit their teeth, hang in there, yield, and then cry later. When the Lord would have that we prayed up before we got in trouble, and then we spoke the word in the midst of the trouble, and then we will have victory many, many more times, and that's the way that Jesus taught us to do it. Let's go to Roman numeral, Roman numeral two, the necessity of prayer and fasting in our war against sin. We have to be involved, use prayer and fasting. I'm not saying that as a condemnation. I'm saying that as good news, that meaning there really is an answer. I'm not saying this is the whole answer. I'm not reducing our cooperation in the grace of God only to prayer and fasting, but this is the most neglected parts of the spiritual battle. It's as simple as can be, praying and fasting and speaking the word, confessing the word when we're in the conflict is very, very simple, but it's neglected constantly by the people of God. Paragraph eight, we must use spiritual weapons because our lusts are energized by spiritual powers. Now our lusts, there's a natural dimension to our sinful lusts. We have a sinful, a principle of sin operating in our members. Roman seven, 21 to 25 tells us there's a principle of sin that's operating in our members. So there's a natural dimension of our lust, our bitterness, our anger, our covetousness, our propensity for dishonesty, for all of the things that the darkened heart of man does. But there's not only a natural dimension. There is a spiritual dimension to our lust as well. It's not only that we were born with a problem of sin. There are, there are spiritual hosts. There are spirit, there's a spiritual army of demons. A host is an army and we have the passage there. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. We're wrestling against demonic principalities. There are demon beings that are involved in this war and we're, we're wrestling against spiritual hosts. These are, this is an army of demons that we're wrestling with. Now what happens is we get, we focus on the natural dimension of the lust and in the natural dimension what we do is we deny it. But beloved, we can't win the battle by only using natural means, the, the quality decision to say, no, we have to do that. We can't go to a prayer line and have somebody cast it out of us, the responsibility to use the quality decision on a regular basis to say, no, that's something we have to do because it's a theater of which God, it's a context of which God gives us to show love to him. It's a, it's a fantastic gift actually. I mean, I mean, it's a painful struggle, but it gives us a place to prove our love to God and he likes that and he will reward us forever. So that context is as ugly as it is. The context of struggling with sin, it does have a real upside because when we, when we wage war against it, God remembers it. He esteems it and remembers it forever, the war in our soul against it. And he likes it and he honors us for it. So I like that. I like the upside of this battle, but it's not enough to only make the quality decision to say, no, that's only addressing the natural dimension. We have to be involved in a spiritual dimension as well, because the enemy, the war is part natural, but it's part spiritual and we can't just make decisions and drive off demons. We have to pray, speak the word fast, along with making decisions. It's natural and spiritual. Our battle is paragraph B. We must resist the supernatural dimension. These flaming arrows, these fiery darts of loss that we in the passage before that I didn't mention, but we're able to quench. It says in Ephesians six, we can quench these flaming arrows. B we must resist. There is a resistance. Now this resistance is to demonic powers. The resistance isn't to the, just the lust on the inside. Yes, we do resist the lust in the inside that's saying no to it, but there's another type of resistance. We're resisting demonic beings who are involved in our struggle with lust. So we're resisting the natural part of our lust by saying no. And we're resisting the spiritual dimension of the war by addressing the demons in the name of Jesus and telling them to leave. As simple as that is. I believe most people don't actually do it and they have not because they ask not the demons stay. The demons really will retreat if we take a stand and tell them to. They'll come right back, but we'll speak again. They'll retreat and eventually they'll back away. But then most demons, my assumption is, believe that most believers won't stay with it. So they get lust raging in their being. They go, I'm not going to yield to this. The thing is still operating in their being. And they go, oh, oh, and the demons going, these guys are just, I don't know what the demons are saying, but they're, they're understanding that we're not driving them away. They're thinking these guys are easy to work with. And we go and oh, we go in the prayer room and pray for revival in Kansas city. And demons going, hey, it works for me. I want to, I want to, I want to bring torment on your soul right now. Go ahead and pray for revival. Of course, the way God is so good, whatever we pray for out there actually ricochets back on us in some degree or another, but that's another point. But what I'm trying to say is we need, here's these two verses in Peter and James, the devil must be resisted in a definitive, clear way in our war against lust and our overindulgence in food, our overindulgence in entertainment, our overindulgence in our pride. There's demonic energy in this. It's not just, well, you know, kind of having a bad month, bad month. You've been doing this for years. Well, it's a bad year. We've been doing it for a few years. Okay. It's a bad life. I'm having a bad life. People don't connect. They've been doing the same thing for years and years and years. Oh, I just never put all that together. There's a real devil. There's a, there's a spiritual part and a natural part to the war. And we have to fight on both fronts in our soul. It's not just the wars out there inside of us. There's a natural and there's a spiritual part to the war on the inside of us. We have to operate responsibly. In the natural, we say no to it. In the spiritual dimension of the war, we rebuke Satan and we speak the word. And fasting just accelerates the whole process in our favor. See, the war against sin in our heart requires prayer and fasting. The verse that I, somehow I, I got a, I lost it here. Matthew 17 21. We all know it is that this type does not go out except for by prayer and fasting. Matthew 17 21 prayer and fasting is a spiritual weapon. As simple as it is. You know what prayer is? You say what God says, you know, fasting is you do nothing. So the two most powerful weapons, we say what God says and what anybody can do that. You just repeat it back and you do nothing. You just don't eat. I mean, fat fasting is you just don't do nothing. There's nothing to fasting. That's what's so profoundly simple about it. And that has a spiritual dimension to it that is necessary to drive back demonic powers. Paragraph, I mean, Roman numeral three, pray that you do not enter into temptation. Now Jesus told them, he said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation. Now entering into temptation is a very specific thing. I'll talk about in a moment. I'm going to read this other verse. It says here in John 17 15, Jesus actually praised this at the last supper. He praised that God would keep them from the evil one. Now they won't pray for, they won't pray to be kept for the evil one. They're going to face a realm of temptation in a moment because you're at the last supper. They're going to go to the garden of Gethsemane and just, just in a very short amount of time. And Jesus is praying for them right in front of them. I mean, they heard it and recorded it. And that's how John, you know, he, he wrote the thing down and got into his gospel. Jesus prayed father, keep them from the evil one. And they're looking around. They had this great meal and, and they were, you know, John had his head on the Lord's breast because Jesus, you know, this is so intense. Keep us from the evil ones, just us. We're having a great time. He goes, father, keep them from the evil one. And then a couple hours later, they're in the garden and the, and the verse there in Luke 22, he tells them in the garden, hey, I want you to pray. Like I prayed at the dinner a few minutes ago or an hour to go. I want you to pray. You won't enter into temptation. They're in the garden. I go, it's a beautiful night. We had a great meal. What's, what's all this, you know, all this excitement about Jesus said, you need to pray for yourself. What I prayed for you a few minutes ago at the, or, you know, just a little time earlier that evening at the, at the last supper paragraph eight. Now to enter into temptation is a, is a concept that some don't understand. Clearly entering into temptation speaks of something far more intense than the general temptations that we face in a sinful culture. I mean, there's just temptation everywhere in a, in the general sense. This is not what entering into temptation means. Entering into temptations is something that was not happening to them. When Jesus was talking to them, it wasn't just the natural propensity to sin, entering into temptation is a specific storm attacking our soul and the battle goes to a whole higher level. When we go into, when we enter into temptation, it's a specific period of time where the war, it goes to a whole nother level. They were not in temptation when he was telling them that they had all their sinfulness there. But he says, now something is about to hit you in a few hours that you're going to need to be ready for. There's three components that come together here in paragraph eight, the very, at the middle of it and then towards the end, three components that come together when we enter into temptation. Number one, our, our lusts are aroused, fears, bitterness, our sinful lusts are aroused, immorality, all different types of lusts are aroused, but don't limit this to immorality. Secondly, demonic activity, demons are present and heightens it. It makes it more intense because there's demonic power. I, uh, picture it as, you know, the, the, uh, dragon in revelation 12, Satanist pictures of dragon. I just pictured breathing his fire right from his mouth upon our spirit, a demon like breathe that that's just the word picture I have. It's not, I'm sure it's not just like that, but our spirit gets inflamed and then heightened in the lust that in our own sinfulness, we, we bring that to the table and then a demon heightens the intensity of it by, by demonic energy. But there's a third thing that comes when the temptation, when we entered a temptation for the storm, the circumstances just happened to be just right. The serpent circumstances are optimum. You know, the guy he's tired, he's depressed, he's lonely, his lusts are being stirred up. He gets in and one of those moods, you know, his friend asked him later, Hey, I was really in a funk, you know, no, you were not in a funk. It was a demon spirit breathing on you. It wasn't a funk. I get that way. Well, demons will always do that. If we live in the way that, I mean, they're going to come anyway, but when we live in a certain way, they come more often. Well, I just got a propensity towards it. No demons have a propensity to visit because demons come to come to the human spirit. Like sharks are drawn to blood. Oh, I was in a funk that night. An amazing thing. One of my buddies called me, one of my friends, a kingdom friend and say, Hey, let's go out to the bar. Well, not do nothing. I'm feeling a little depressed and I'm not going to do nothing to the bar. I don't want to do nothing. It's the setting is perfect. The circumstance, all they needed was the phone call. They are fully in temptation right now. The storm is on their soul. They're kind of numb. They're a little bit wobbly in their soul. They're a little unstable. They're in the car and they're saying, I'm not going to do that bad because the last 10 times I did, but I learned my lesson. This is going to be different this time, you know, 10 for 10, I did bad, but this is going to be different. That's the definition of insanity, doing the same thing and expecting a different result. That is doing the exact same thing, but expecting it to turn out different. That is insanity. Sanity has more definitions than that, but that's one of them. And so the guy gets there and I mean, he is in a full storm of darkness. His, his lust is Ray is, was raging and his depression and loneliness feeling low rejected. I'm talking about we're here and I hop didn't go good on the team and, and then, you know, someone to kind of give him a mean look and I feel depressed and the money is not there and my body's tired and the fast day I ate and then I got sick when I ate and I just feel horrible. And then a demon's breathing on him. The good old brother, so-and-so gives him a call and says, let's go out. And you know, we're not under law anyway, we're under grace and all this deception and it gets them there. And the guy is in a full scale temptation and he blows it like he did the 10 times before. Now, let me tell you something about, uh, about going to the bars there. There's another loss that is roll right on the heels of drunkenness. It's called immorality. Wherever there is drunkenness, immorality is waiting in the wings. It doesn't mean always full scale expressions of it. Immorality and speech, immorality and eyes, the whole atmosphere. There's tons of immorality where the guy gets all in a certain funk. So he says, and then he starts watching things or he does things or he talks a certain way and immorality is enraged in his being when he mixes it with alcohol. The devil knows this. He's got a foot, you know, a track record that's so proven. This is how it works. That's called a temptation. All of these come together. Paragraph B, there are opportune times when demonically energized temptations hit us like a storm and opportune time. And I'm taking that from Luke chapter four says that the devil had ended every temptation to Jesus in the, in the wilderness, the great temptation, the wilderness and the devil departed. Look at this until an opportune time, because temptation is more than just the general flow of life in a sinful culture. A temptation is a specific storm that breaks in upon a person's mind and heart. And one person goes to the bar, the other person, their temptation brings in the storm breaks in on them another way. And they run, they throw themselves into fantasy and food and angry slander. And they get someone on the phone and they let it go. And the demons are moving in them. I'm talking about demons are breathing on their spirit and they're born again, believers on staff at IHOP. And they're, and they're, and they just give in to, they just throw their life into some kind of overindulgence just to somehow get comfort. And they are fully in a temptation. It's an opportune moment has come against them. An opportune for Satan I'm talking about and for his spiritual host, or as we said in Ephesians 6, which is a spiritual army. See, Jesus exhorted us to pray two things in the Lord's prayer. Two things. He said this, he go, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil. Those are two different, two different things. First, he said, pray this, do not lead us into temptation. This is what the prayer, this is how you can say this is what it boils down to. That God was, God would lead us away from circumstances that bring added temptation. In other words, that God would be actively involved. He would direct our steps. It's what it says I have there in Psalm 37, 23. God orders the steps of a righteous man. The Lord orders our steps. So here's the same guy. He's been praying beforehand, Lord, I don't want to enter into temptation. Lead me away from it. He's been praying this. Here he is in that bad mood again. He's lonely. He's feeling bad. The demon even comes and breathes on his spirit. But he's asked the Lord, beloved, if you ask, windows of blessing open. He's been praying the last couple of weeks now. God, lead me not into temptation. Take me away from circumstances. I don't feel it right now, but I'm asking you for when that moment comes. And so now the phone rings, but it's not the other IHOP guy who wants to go to the bar in the spirit of grace. And you know, I can be under law anyway. It's the other guy. It's David Brimer. Hi, how are you phone? Hey, I want to delight in the fear of the Lord. No, I mean, for real, David Brimer has a grace of God. He's for real. He delights in the fear of the Lord. So one of these delight in the fear of the Lord guys call. Or maybe taps him on his shoulder at IHOP because the other guy tapped him on the shoulder and says, you know, we got to chill out a little bit. That's kind of the lingo for let's go sin for a while. Let's go hang out and chill out and see what happens. Let's just take our, let's just take, you know, the best. Let's just hope it goes good. Let's throw ourselves in the realm of darkness and hope we land on our feet. We never have before, but let's hope this time it works right. That is deception. So now then, because we've been praying, the guy who delights in the fear of the Lord makes the phone go, hey, how you doing? What are you doing? Oh man, I feel rotten. Hey, you know, okay, let's get together or whatever. I don't know. But the circumstances go exactly the opposite. You know why that happened? Because God will move. If we ask him to, he will deliver us from evil. Now, most people that pray this verse, I'm assuming out of the billion people, the earth, and I only know like a couple thousand of them. So I still with the full authority say, most people pray this way. How do I know? I don't know what most people pray, but I assume it just by how I observe the human race, my very limited view of it. I believe that most people pray the Lord's prayer as one big unit. You know, our father, art in heaven. They get, they, they pray the prayer. That's it. Every single line in the Lord's prayer is like an arrow of fire and power in your Holy spirit arsenal. One, take a one little arrow out, lead us not to temptation. My guess is the majority of the people in this room have almost never prayed that prayer in a consistent way in their life. Maybe they've prayed it in, in the, in the whole prayer together, but I'm talking about taking this arrow out one at a time and saying, Lord, I'm asking you right now, I'm, I feel good. They're at, you know, they're at the, uh, before the temptation. I mean, the thing about praying that God won't lead you to temptation, you're praying it when you're not in it, you're feeling okay. You're, you're not in the storm when you're praying it. And the second prayer is the God would deliver us from the evil one, from demons, energizing our spirit with wickedness. Beloved, if you pray these two prayers, circums the other guy will call you on the phone. Instead of the guy that wants to go chill, you won't end up in a bar. You'll end up in godly fellowship. And instead of the demon breathing down you on your spirit, that demon will be driven away. And the Lord says, I will do it. If you ask me, if you do not ask me, I will not do it. It's just that simple. I am not going to do your part. You can't do my part. I can drive the demons away. You have to ask, well, Lord, here I am. I'm your child. Isn't that enough? No, it's not enough. I want to train you in righteousness. I want to train you in relationship with me. I want you to know that what you do matters and what you don't do matters. Oh, well, I just thought I'd kind of like float along and you just take care of everything. We have this really perverse view of the grace of God. We have a view of the grace of God. We say intimacy, but our view of the grace of God is God does everything. And we're not really actively involved in it. And God doesn't buy it. He says, what you do really counts and what you don't do really counts. Beloved, this, this is a powerful prayer, Matthew 16, 13. So tomorrow tonight, tonight, watch your, you're in a good mood. You're, you know, it's two o'clock in the morning. I feel pretty good. Pray this prayer for this week, for your life. Say, Lord, don't lead me. Don't lead me into temptation. In other words, lead me away from it. Direct circumstances cause the things I will never figure out that you even did it, make it go the other way. And the Lord's looking at you go, this is good. And, and on top of that, you know, that dragon that breathes on me with fire gets me more depressed and gets my lust more stirred up. I mean, I got enough lust just in my humanity. Now demon breathing on me doubles and triples its power. By the way, take care of the circumstance Lord and get rid of that demon that's breathing on me. Lord says, if you want me to, I actually will. If you really want me to, I actually will get rid of it for you. Really? Yes. I want you to pray. And when you get in the midst of it, I want you to speak the word against it. Don't just bear it. Speak the word against it. Get your five or 10 verses that really touch your heart. Like the one I just said a minute ago, he, that keeps Scott, he who has God's commandments, he keeps him. It is he who loves who it's he who loves God. I love that one. That one resonates in my spirit. I love that one. You may have another one. Does it matter? You only, you only need five or 10 of them. The ones that are tailor-made just for your personality right now. I love the one, the wages of sin or death just to declare that, Oh, it just kind of scares you the wages of sin or death. There's another one I use. I got a several of them second Corinthians chapter five, verse 10, for we know that we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. No, for real. I love to say that one. And God will give to me according to my deeds, both good and evil. I love to say that in the midst of a, of a, of a, uh, a struggle in my mind, whether it's pride or any kind of lust. I like to say, I will appear, I will appear before him and I will answer for all of my deeds. And I don't emphasize just the bad deeds, but the good ones, because by saying here's why, because by saying no, that's a good deed. He remembers. And then Paul says in the next verse, in second Corinthians chapter five, verse 10, he says, we'll all appear in verse 11. He says, for we are well known by God. I love to add that little phrase for I am well known by you. In other words, God, I know you're paying attention this very second. I love to say that phrase for, I am well known to you, which means you are paying attention to me right now. And I know that when I see you face to face, we're going to talk about this afternoon in, in some years down the road. Anyway, find your 10 verses and run with them. Now don't have to get them all tonight, but just in the next week or two to say, Lord could let a couple of them rest, grab ahold of me. Paragraph D after, after, uh, praying after we yield to sin after we fall already express this humility. It really does because we're depending on God's forgiveness. We acknowledge our failure. We blow it and we go, Oh God, forgive me. There's humility because the religious spirit won't accept God's forgiveness. The religious spirit stays condemned for a month and they try to pay their own debt. It takes humility to receive forgiveness. So we pray after we yield and there's humility. We're depending on his forgiveness. But beloved, there's another thing praying before the storm hits, not after it hits before it expresses humility. We're depending on his strength because we acknowledge our weakness. It's tonight going to the, to the fire in the night again, it's 2am whatever you're saying, I feel okay, but you know what? I know my propensity somewhere this week, I'm going to get stirred up. I'm going to get mad, glad, and sad about all the wrong things. And a demons going to be there heightening the whole thing and, and uh, causing it to be more intense. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm, I ask you to deliver me from temptation. Lord, do not let me enter the temptation and deliver me from the evil one for these demonic spirits. And you're feeling good. You're not in the throes of the battle you feel. And that is humility. That is humility beloved when you do that, because you are trusting God's strength and you, you believe what God says about you and your own track record that without help, you will fall by not praying this way. We're assuming we're okay without praying for help. That is called pride. Let's go to the top of page three, Roman numeral four, David's prayer for deliverance. This is one of the great prayers. You want this one on your personal prayer list and every one of you, I urge you to have your personal prayer list. I mean, we have the apostolic prayers and some of the prophetic promises for revival and other things, but have your own personal prayer list. This needs to be on everyone's. This is King David. You can't, you don't get any higher in King David in terms of a prayer warrior in the old Testament and his personal life. He first, he starts off in verse 12, Psalm 19. He goes, who can understand his errors. In other words, who can really understand the subtle processes that lead to you falling. David says, who can really understand the path of how I get ensnared. I don't even know how it works. Not fully. I mean, after a while you get wiser, but David says, he goes, but here's what I'm going to ask you to do, Lord. I don't really understand all. I don't get tipped off every time when the devil's about to get me. I don't really understand how it all works fully. We understand more in the new Testament. I'm going to, uh, going to go right in a minute to a verse in and James chapter one, and James lays it out from verse 13 to 16. We'll get there in a minute. He tells us the process in a most graphic, clear way. But even then, even with James's view, we don't fully understand what a great sentence. I don't understand it all Lord, but cleanse me from my secret false. Now his secret faults are not the faults he's doing over in the corner that he hopes nobody sees. That's not what he means. Not my, this one's I'm getting away with cleanse me. He's saying, cleanse me from the faults. I don't even know they're unperceived. They're, they're, I don't, I don't see them cleanse me from them. And he's actually praying, deliver me from temptation. That's really what he's praying. Deliver me from the evil one. Lord, I don't even know. I don't even know what's lurking below the surface, but deliver me, keep me clean. What this beloved, this is profound humility here. Well, David, if he was here, he might go through. I wasn't that humble. It's just, I just know my track record. That's all. Yeah. But a lot of other people have the same track record, but they don't look at their future. They don't wait. They wait till they get in a real bad mood before they pray for their own heart. All their good mood prayers are praying for revival or their friends or something. All their bad mood prayers. Oh God, I'm in the mirey deliver me quick. Oh, too late. Verse 13, he says, keep me back. That's the same thing as deliver me from temptation later on in verse 13, let them not my sins. Don't let them have dominion over me. That's the same thing. Deliver me from temptation. Let the words of my mouth be acceptable. I'll say this. I don't want to develop this because I want to get to the James thing in just a moment here, but I'll just tip this, give you a tip off. This might be a new idea to you and I'll develop it on another time. The words of our mouth, the words of our speech and our eye are the two main gates to our soul opening gates to our soul for, for blessing and for unrighteousness. It's for blessing too. We speak the word or we speak something else. And I will say this to you, this might surprise some of you, but I know it to be true. The mouth, the speech is the number one gate to increasing sin in our lives. It's not even our eyes. It's our speech. Our speech opens the floodgates of hell. We give, we take the key because we're over our own speech and our spirit. We open the door to the enemy. It's proud speech. It's many versions of proud speech. It's immoral speech, low level to high level. It's angry speech. It's bitter speech. It's complaining speech. Our spirit gets so weighed down and we open the door so wide. And if I had a, some night we'll take it and I'll give you a actually the number one door that opens up increased lust in our experience. And most people never connected to their speech. And I realized that you might think, huh, speech, you're kidding. I can see the eyes, but the speech, the speech is actually more profoundly dangerous to us. If we, if we're, if we use our speech the wrong way, our speech is the very thing that drives Satan away. When we declare the word though, that's why David said right here, his number one thing was, we'll let the words of my mouth. That was first. This wasn't just, I want to say nice words about people we're talking about. That's the gate that opens up the floodgates of hell in our soul. Our speech does look at the next passage underneath it. David, Psalm 141, David said, set a guard, keep watch over the door of my lips. Cause that's where iniquity comes in. Let's go down to verse two, James three, James jumps in on this and says, if you don't stumble in your words, you will be perfect. You will bridle every passion. If you bridle your speech, because all of our lusts are linked to our speech. Beloved is, is, is maybe strange. This is the power of God in our experience is linked to our speech. So what we do is we speak in the other 10 categories and we open up lust. And then when we get under the lust, we don't speak the word of God and the lust just stays there. Our speech is powerful. That's for another day. Let's go to, this is a good one. Roman numeral five. I'll give it to you short. Roman numeral five. Paul is in first first Corinthians 10. He has just listed four different sins of, he calls them lusts. First Corinthians 10, four different ones. And it tells him verse 12, he goes, if you think you stand against those four lusts, you can read the whole chapter later. Take heat. If you think you stand because you don't need this preemptive strike, so to speak, you don't need this praying ahead of time. He says, you think you're just going to, you're going to just put your chest out and weather them all. When they hit you, he goes, take heed lest you fall. God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted above what you're able. We all know this passage and with the temptation, he'll make a way of escape. You'll be able to bear, but beloved, we quote this out of, we quote this out of context because this is only true to the people who take heed. This isn't just a promise. If you're a born again believer, no matter what you're going to, you're going to, you're promised to be able to escape. Then why are the vast majority not escaping? Is God not faithful? Well, he made a way of escape. We didn't take it. Well, I guess that's, that's one view of it, but God is faithful and makes a way of escape when we are taking heed and this praying not the inner temptation is a significant part of taking heed. This is a promise that has got a condition on it that is related to this fasting and praying delivers from temptation delivers from evil. It's this preemptive strike. And God says, I will make a way of escape for you. If you do this, the reason most people aren't escaping as much as they want, because they're not taking heed. They are, they're falling into the very thing that Paul said. They think they stand. They don't need to pray these prayers when they feel good. Paul says, you think you stand and you really believe that the storm is not going to hit you again. I don't know. I just seem to feel pretty good today. He goes, take heed. But if you do take heed, there is a way of deliverance. God will break in and make a way for you. Jesus says the same thing. The language is almost identical. I mean the language, the taking heed, the standing, the way of escape. It's the language. These are parallel passages. Jesus is talking about the end times. Look at this verse 34 of Luke chapter 21. This is a terrifying, glorious passage. Oh my goodness. Take heed. Lest your hearts be weighed down. Now he's talking the same thing as Paul is. And he's, and he says the word, he describes the lust. Paul talked about lust earlier in the chapter there in first Corinthians 10. Jesus describes it. Take heed. And he's talking about the heart weighed down with lust. Because the day of the Lord is going to come upon the earth unexpected. Verse 35. And they will come like a snare upon all those that dwell upon the face of the whole earth. And if we watch and pray, we will be counted worthy to escape the snare. Now the snare people think the escaping means the rapture. No, the snare is the escalating sins. They're going to cover the globe. The globe is going to be under the weight of iniquity and lust. It's going to become the whole atmosphere of the, of the globe. Besides the, where the believers are, it's going to have exceeding sin and it will be a snare to the peoples of the earth and even to the people of God. And Paul said, I mean, Jesus said, you pray that you could be prepared. You could be found prepared and worthy to escape being swept away. It's the escape that Paul talked about in first Corinthians 10, that you would escape the temptation. The snare is the escalating temptations that are going to, it's going to fill the earth and the only people in the body of Christ, many people in the body of Christ will fall away. And that's what Jesus is talking about. He's talking about escaping so you can stand. He's not saying that you could be raptured. Some have quoted it that way. So you can stand before the Lord. He's saying, no, you will escape the apostasy when the great escalating temptations, the snare that hits the earth. And because you've prayed ahead of time and watch, you will be bold in your righteousness on the day. The Lord comes beloved. These, this is about praying ahead of time to escape temptation. Again, it's such a simple thing, but people just simply do not grasp this. I think I don't really need to do it. Well, you're not taking heed then let's skip Roman numeral six. Let's go right onto Roman numeral seven. I'm going to leave most of this for you to read and we'll look at it more in another time, but I just want you at least aware that it's there and you can read it on your own because we're out of time. James lays out six ways that sin progresses in our being, how lust grows. And then the seventh step is how we war against it. Look at this. This is a very powerful passage. This really answers what King David said in Psalm 19 verse 12. He goes, I don't know my errors. I don't know how they happened. Well, James says, well, I do. He says, let no one say what he's tempted. I'm being tempted by God for God can't be tempted for evil. God's not the author of this, of this storm of temptation, but each one is tempted. Now he's going to lay out six things here. And then out of seventh one from verse 21, he says, here's what happens. Number one, you're drawn away by your, your desires or your lusts. You're drawn away. That's step one. Step two, after you're drawn away, you're enticed. Step three, verse 15, after you've been enticed, then lust is conceived. It gives birth to something. I mean, I mean, something becomes alive in a negative sense. Something is conceived. And then the next step is it's birthed into sinful actions. And I've got all this written on the notes. And then what happens is those sinful actions, they become full grown. The actions become worse as the years unfold until they're full grown. That's his full addictions. And then it's going to bring for death. And in many cases, it's eternal death. And other cases for believers, it's death of a lot of their destiny and a lot of the reward, their life is wasted. And then James says in verse 16, don't be deceived by this process. It's a very subtle, but very, very sure process. Let's look at this just real brief stage one. And again, I'll leave you to read it more on your own. We're being drawn away by lustful desire. That's the early stage before we've quote, entered into temptation. We're drawn away. That's where the eye gate and the speech gate helps us to get drawn away. Now just imagine, I mean, we all know what it means, but what does it mean to be drawn away? Our imagination is stirred up. We begin to consider the possibility of walking out our lustful actions. That's what it means to be drawn away. We begin to consider the possibility of walking it out. And I give a areas of lust again, then go on down. Satan wants our fleeting thoughts of lust to become sustained thoughts. He wants them to become fantasies. See, when we're drawn away, we're not, we haven't entered into temptation. We're beginning to speak it and look at it. We're considering we might really yield to this bitterness, to this slander, to this covetousness, this immorality, this drunkenness, this overindulgence. We're thinking about doing it. We're only being drawn away at this stage. It's only a fleeting thought, but we're staring at it. And James goes, don't do that because a fleeting thought becomes a sustained one in a short amount of time. There's a big difference between a momentary wrong thought and being captured by that thought. Some of you have heard this analogy over the years. I've heard it from different preachers. The difference has been likened to a bird can fly over your head. That's different than a bird making a nest in your head, on the top of your head. A fleeting thought is one thing. You're not in trouble yet. That's just part of our sinful humanity. A lustful thought of pride, or covetousness, or bitter, or anger, or jealousy, or hatred, or immorality, or overindulgence, fleeting thoughts. And he says you're being drawn now and we open up our speech and our eye gate begins to go that direction. It's not good. Let's skip one, two, three, four under that. Let's go to B. The next stage is now we're enticed. Drawn away escalates. Now we're enticed. We are enticed when we become set. We're entrenched in our lustful thinking. Now it's not a fleeting thought where we're drawn and we can rebuke it. That's the earliest and best stage to rebuke it. That's the time to cut it off. It's like a cancer. When it first touches your body, get the thing, take it out. Now we're enticed. It's we're mesmerized by it. We're entrenched in our thinking. Our mind is set. We're captured by it. Go to paragraph C. The next thing that happens is that lust is going to be conceived. Lustful desire. It's settled. It's established. It becomes alive in us. This act we're going to do becomes like a living entity inside of us. It's like a conception in the mother's womb. It's really alive. It's really a real person. There's a real living evil plan that's being conceived. It's alive. It's moving and living in us. In other words, the sin has gone to a new level. This is where we are decided we're going to do it. We're going to slander the person. We're going to be dishonest with the money. We're going to vent our jealousies. We're going to walk out in our drunkenness. We're going to yield to our immorality. Beloved, lust has been conceived. It's still in a small form, but we've decided we're going to act on it now. Stage four. It gives birth to sin. That's the actual action. But before we ever do the action, before the thing is ever seen openly like the birthing, the child is now seen openly, there's a decision inwardly that's made when that sin is conceived. That lustful desire becomes like a living, negative living entity in us. Now we walk it out. Stage five. This is terrifying. This is the stages of addiction. Sin becomes full grown. What a terrifying statement. Lust becomes full grown. Oh, what a horrible thought. Beloved, one thing I want to tell the 20 somethings here is that the things that you're struggling with in your 20s, if you don't face them head on, they will be far more fierce in your 40s and 50s. This idea, well, I'm in the church. They'll go away. No, no. They become full grown. The immorality, the drunkenness, the bitterness, the way you casually yield to now that you get a propensity for that. It will become full grown in your 30s and 40s. Well, it will all go away. No, it doesn't go away that way. That's the deception of sin. It takes root and grows until you go back to square one and you deny it and you rebuke the power of it and you go back to step one. Again, there is, you have to go back and do all the steps. You have to deny the sin and pray not to enter into the temptation. And a lot of the folks, believers in their 20s, it's like I was in my 20s. I just thought somehow by being in the kingdom, it would just all go away. And I'm shocked that now that I'm 50, so many of the fiery ones in their 20s, many of them are just living in blatant sin and they still keep their confession of the Lord. But it's like they're just living. It's unbelievable to my mind to see where a lot of my peers were when they were in their 20s and 30s today, angry, bitter Bible tucked away. If you saw I'm born again, no vibrancy, immorality, drunkenness, bitterness, anger. It's so prevalent in 50 year olds that were walking with the Lord when they're in their 20s because they were yielding. They didn't know about this thing of it becoming full grown. It's really real. I want to terrify you with that in a righteous way. Stage six, when it's full grown, it brings death. It brings death to your spirit. It injures your family, your ministry, your money, your relationships. Beloved sin always brings death. Now I have here in this paragraph that we've got two ways to look at sin always brings death always. But when the sin hits us on the front end, we can voluntarily yield to death. We can die to ourself and rebuke it and say no to it. We have to die though. There is a death that we really don't like, or we can yield to it and die on the other end, wherever sin is presence. There has to be death. And Jesus told him on the front end, deny yourself, die to yourself. And that is by far the cheapest way out of the pain of death. Guy goes, nah, I'm going to go on the ride for a while. I guarantee you the price of death increases every single time you go on a little joy ride and your bitterness or covetousness or anger, immorality, whatever the wages of sin or death stage seven, James, a couple of verses later, he says in verse 21, he goes, therefore lay aside all the filthiness. He says, go back to stage one and die to it. Deny it. There you are. Lay aside. It means die to it. All of it. Catch it at the early stages. Don't wait till this thing takes root. Say, lay aside all the overflow of wickedness. That's those are addictions. Well, this is graphic language. James is intense, isn't he? And here's how you're going to lay it aside. After you say no, that's that's dealing with the natural part. You said no to the desire. That's how you laid aside. Then this now you have the supernatural part, the spiritual part you're going to receive with meekness, the word of God implanted and the word of God implanted. That's filling your mind again with the word and with prayer. That's going to save your soul. And the word for safe, put the word deliver is talking to believers here. It's not about being born again. Get the word in you. It will deliver your soul from that lust that's growing in you. Beloved, there is no other way. There's in the church, there's all kinds of different healing ministries, healing the heart ministries all over the land, and not very many of them drive the people to this, bring them anchor them to this reality. It's only when in meekness we receive the word living in us. That's the way lust gets delivered from the heart. That's not the whole picture, but that's the missing ingredient in most healing situations today. Well, let's end with that and you can read more about if you want. We'll come back and visit this subject more. You can be sure because I want us to be alive. I want our spirits delighting in the fear of the Lord. I want our spirits in life. I want to I want to recognize the death, but I want to say no. I want to die to my lust and say no to it and pay the small price of death on this end instead of the big price of death on the other end. And I don't mean just eternity. I'm just talking about pain in this life. There's death. Our emotions are wrenched. That's death. We're in anguish. That's death. Let's stand.