Victory Over Lust

There's one principle in scripture, which God says if we will do it He will guarantee us success in everything that we do not just the thought life I'm just going to illustrate it in the area of the thought life tonight But God talks about this in every area of our life And he says this in Joshua 1 8 this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth But thou shalt meditate therein day and night for therein thou That thou mayest to observe to do according to all that is written therein and then Thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success That's a pretty unbelievable promise of God He says if we do one thing then we'll have success and will prosper David in Psalm 1 said the same thing How happy is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly You know what? That means that means when you're in trouble, you don't go to some ungodly person for your advice Back to Proverbs his confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth or a foot out of joint And I'm going to somebody that's got as much trouble as me and guess what we just kind of pull our ignorance We don't help each other Do you think that a guy who is a thief is able to help another guy who's a thief The guy comes to me. I got a bad problem with stealing But what about a guy like me who used to be a thief and I went back to the guys I stole from and I paid him back and Asked him to forgive me I Scared to death. I was sure they're gonna lock me up. I go back to my boss and tell him I stole from him and Here's the money that'll cover more than what I stole and I come back to ask would you forgive me and you know what he said I Sure do forgive you. You're a real Christian You know, we are the best of friends even to this day. I scared to death a Prior to that time I was I was still a youth director when I finally discovered how to deal with some of these hang-ups in My life and when guys that come in and a fellow came in and says man, I got four gorgeous hubcaps You cannot believe him got him up this caddy Now this guy walks right in my office says this in front of all the other guys in my office Now, I didn't know what you do about stealing. I it was still bothering me because I was still a thief You know my counsel of that guy was Gary you are crazy. I mean man, you are gonna get yourself in trouble. You gotta stop that stuff. Wasn't that a big help? I Don't know how to help him After I solved that problem in my life this same guy comes into my office one day and he says hey If you really want to have a relationship with God, you got to clear your conscience, don't you? She's what I talked about last night. I Said now what you do He said well, I swiped this pipe at a pharmacy And I said well how much they're worth he says five bucks I said you got the five bucks yeah, but it's home I said well, I got five bucks. I'll loan it to you And come on. I'll drive you down there He said yeah, but you see my dad's a CPA and this is one of his accounts and I don't want my dad to lose his business I Said you want the freedom or don't you he says I really do She got my car Take him down to the pharmacy. He takes the pipe and the five bucks and goes in and Man, he's in there a long time. I mean we're talking five minutes ten minutes. I'm getting nervous He comes out of the pharmacy great big smile on his face Jumps in the car. He says you won't believe that's what you've been in there so long because I've been talking to the owner He said I told him that I stole from him and here's the pipe and here's the five bucks And I've come to ask him to forgive me and he says hey, would you like a job? He said it is really hard to get any honest work it would be great having an honest guy work for me for a change He went in there thinking the world was going to fall apart and God gave him a job So you see when we have Solved the things that are hang-ups in our lives Then we're able to help somebody else and so David says how happy is the man? That walks not in the council doesn't get his advice from somebody who doesn't have his act together Nor stands in the way of sinners in other words his way of life Isn't set up to try to imitate all the everybody that's doing everything wrong Nor sits in the seat of the scornful That means he doesn't hang around all the time with people with negative attitudes Never been around a bunch of people with negative attitudes. You never come out of there feeling good or positive By the time you're done. You're negative, too Now David says how happy is the guy or gal who doesn't do those three things But listen what he says next but his delight is In the law of the Lord and in his law doth he what? meditate day and night and He shall be like a tree Planted by rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever. He doeth shall what? Prosper, but the ungodly are not so Now here God says that if you and I meditate on his word will prosper Now, let me ask you a question, what is the word meditate me There's probably a good chance That what God meant in his mind when he said meditate isn't what came to your mind It certainly wasn't what came to my mind And I was in Dallas, Texas at the time And I heard that word and I said, you know what that's the one thing I've never done And I thought meditation meant to go off alone someplace and think about God Well, I had just finished a test on the attributes of God so I thought man if ever I know God I know him the best right now and I still have all these thought problems and God says that I'd really would be successful and prosper if I meditated so I drive out to a park find an isolated place have a word of prayer look up into the heavens and I start stating all of the attributes of God God your omnipotent means you have all power You're omniscient, you know everything You're omnipresent. That means you're everywhere at the same time Your truth, you're righteous and I went down through all those 27 attributes of God only took me about 30 seconds And I ran out of things to say I Mean in 30 seconds. I mean you can't improve on that. I said everything there was to say about God and That was such a deflated experience That as I drove away I thought you know Maybe if I had started thinking about the little things that God made first and go all the way up to the complicated Things he created maybe I could have lasted longer But you see that wasn't what God meant at all You see I'm convinced that the reason we don't understand the practical way God wants us to understand his word is that we don't visualize what God means When he uses those words We read the words in English or Spanish and then we can convert them to like a summary Anybody here have ever heard of the 23rd Psalm? And you hear the 23rd Psalm What's that about See did you hear how you all Told me what that whole thing meant by saying the Lord is my shepherd. That's only one phrase out of it Now there's an interesting thing here because God tells us in his word That our thoughts aren't his thoughts Neither are our ways his ways Now when I heard the word meditation I thought about going off alone somewhere and thinking about God which wasn't what God had in mind at all I went off and did that and it did nothing How many here have ever studied a second language, huh Ever taken some of you say hey, we know two languages already Well when I was in high school, I've taken four languages or they've taken me But in high school I took Spanish I'd never heard Spanish before in my life. The teacher walks in the first day and she says And I just guess this must be this language i'm taking And so then she says now if somebody says that to you you should say So that whole first class we practice those two phrases I am so excited. I run home. I tell my mother I know how to speak spanish Do you want to hear me? Now my mother wasn't a class but I didn't know what else to call her Now over the course of two years I practiced these spanish phrases And I got to where someone could say something in spanish And I'd hear what they said in spanish and then I would think of the english equivalent So I could understand it And if I wanted to say something back to them I would think in english what I wanted to say then I would think of the spanish equivalent and then I would repeat it back And I honestly believed I understood spanish Until I went to honduras Fortunately, I had I you know, I'd memorized some of the phrases but the two that I used the most The first was Mas despacio por favor Now speak slower, please The other one that I used almost as much as don del baño You know, where's the bathroom Now you see I actually thought That I knew spanish, but do you know what I don't know? the language until I stopped that translation in between You don't honestly know the language until you actually think the spanish thoughts you don't go translating it into english or translating it from english to spanish And missionaries have told me over the years how excited they are when they finally begin To think in spanish or portuguese or chinese or whatever thoughts It usually comes in a dream they're dreaming and all of a sudden they wake up and they realize they didn't do any of that translation stuff in between And they're so excited because now they're actually thinking In those thoughts now when god says your thoughts aren't my thoughts Neither are your ways my ways Say it the lord Do you know what i've done for many years in my christian life, I would read a passage of god's word And then I would summarize it and put it into my english and my understanding and i'd explain that's what it means Well, i'm trying to figure out what this meditation stuff is and as i'm searching a little further I've discovered something else. I discover that god says in his word There's four times during the day that he would like us to turn our minds back to him When you lie down when you rise up when you sit in your house when you walk in the way When's that? All the time bless you Because that's what I thought It's all the time See, he made four statements And then we just said well that means all the time All the time So I thought no wonder I have such terrible thoughts in my thought life Because I have never spent one whole day of my life just thinking about god I mean with no breaks no distraction everything on god And I thought well i've never done it so that's probably why I have these problems in my thought life. Okay lord tomorrow I don't care what the crisis is what the circumstances are I am going to turn my mind over to you from the minute I wake up And I am going to keep my mind on you all day long I was in college at the time And I played college football And I decided i'm just going to keep my mind on god all day long Well, I made it through my classes fine didn't hear a word. My professor said just kept my mind on god Some of you aren't even meditating in your class and you don't hear a word she says right We're sleeping or something else I get to football practice. I'm still thinking about god And by the way, this is one of the reasons I just didn't have too much time for christianity all these answers were always theoretical This sounded like another one I mean, can you see me running around all my life mind on god mind on god? Mind on god So I get to football practice I make it through calisthenics, you know, one two three I love you lord and whatever I was saying at the time So we start scrimmaging And I was an offensive guard and We did a lot of pulling which means for those of you that don't know much about football That uh, I was you know alignment the linemen are the ones that you never hear about the linemen Are the ones that go out there and knock other people over to make the back stars Right, how many backs we got here glory boys, okay All right, but uh, so we're kind of you know We're the guys that get down there in the trenches and you take one step and kind of grunt, you know You don't hit the other guy Well, so they call a play and i'm the right guard And this play they call this play and i'm supposed to pull out and go down the line and hit the defensive end coming across And the left guard's supposed to follow me and go off tackle and hit the outside linebacker So I come out of the huddle and I got my mind on god, I mean only god I get down in my stance and I forget to play I You can't you know just stand up whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute I forgot to play I mean that's big trouble with the coach So you gotta I knew I had to pull so I had a 50 50 chance of being right you got two guesses, huh And I knew I had to pull and at the last minute because you only have about one two seconds, you know The quarterback is down says down said hook one hooked you I decided it was left So I go left The left guard goes right We have a meeting over the quarterback's body When they unscramble this mess and the coach comes running up, all right, what was the play what was the play what happened Who was the jerk And when he locates me And I stand up and he starts tearing into me And by the way, I didn't hear a word he said I was keeping my mind on god I'm looking him in the eye, but I am so ticked off with god. I'm saying see this whole thing is so theoretical The only way this would work for me is if I became a monk But i'm not the monk type i've always liked girls And I go away and I say, you know, this whole thing is so theoretical it won't work. But now let's back up a minute When you lie down when's that You go to bed at night when you rise up You get up in the morning when you sit in your house Mealtimes When you walk in the way When you're going from place to place, is that all the time? That's not all the time, but we all just summarize it's all the time See we did we took god's thoughts and we reduced them down to our thoughts So we missed his whole point Do you know that this is not all the time? Do you know when this is? This is your spare thought time It's the times during the day when you don't necessarily have anything important to think about So I wanted to prove whether this was right or not And I got 10 sophomore guys together 20 I mean it was 20 of us And I went in a blackboard and I drew a circle on the blackboard and I made a mark On the circle. This is when you go to bed at night And I came around about a third of the circle and put another mark This is when you get up in the morning Now I want you guys to put an x on the circle when you have your biggest struggles with thought with lust and sex You know when the guys mark When they go to bed at night When they wake up in the morning When they're sitting in school day dreaming Looking over the girls we used to call bird dogging. I mean, I know you have more sophisticated advanced computerized terms for this now We just called a bird dog and looking the girls over And When they were alone in their room at home either before supper or after supper, those are their biggest times of struggle In their thought life And we're getting warmer Because god is saying These are the times I want you to turn your mind over to me. By the way, I want to tell you something Do you know the only times that you have trouble in your thought life? Now, by the way, this applies to girls and guys I guess I like to talk to guys better And that I understand that side of it from a guy's point of view You know what the only time you have trouble with lust and in your thought life Is in your spare thought time How many of you guys are playing basketball up here yesterday any of you guys here playing basketball Yesterday they had a little tournament up here i'll guarantee you when the score was nine to eight and you're trying, you know to win Sex was not on your mind When you've got your mind involved in something important Or you're busy doing something You don't have problems with that Now There are some times that I am so busy, I mean I am so busy That when I get home at night, I am so dead tired. I don't even have time to pray I mean when my head hits the pillow I whip off this one little prayer to the lord out of psalm 4 my voice shalt thou hear in the morning. Oh lord I'm gone That's all I get out I'm gone Now there are other days that I might be busy with my hands maybe i'm working on my car Maybe i'm out mowing a lawn now some of you here in new york don't know what mowing the lawn is That's you know, I think I saw what three trees in manhattan something like that I know there's a few more But But where I lived in florida for nine years I had two and a half acres So i'd get on that tractor and it'd take about four hours to mow the lawn Now i'm busy But what's going on in my brain nothing My mind's free Free guess what starts popping into my mind lots of things that god wouldn't approve of Now one of the reasons this is such a tough thing to deal with is because temptation or lust Involves our mind and our feelings Now there's a whole group of problems that involve our mind and our feelings fear Anger Discouragement depression You get depressed and you know, you shouldn't feel this way, but you do in other words, you know in your head you shouldn't But you feel differently Worry All of those types of problems involve the mind and the emotion and so does temptation and lust It involves what i'm thinking it also involves my feelings And so If I try to read my bible to solve this problem, why doesn't reading my bible work Which of those two faculties is involved my mind or my emotions just my mind my feelings are running wild That's why if you're discouraged or depressed it is very very hard to go read your bible to pick you up or perk you up So It's even worse if you don't know where to read Or if you try to pray and I start praying about my rotten thoughts Do you know that all of the rotten thoughts all come back to my mind? And i'm saying that's no way That was worse So doing the two spiritual things people told me to do read your bible and pray when you have a problem it didn't work So What's the answer I'm riding in a train one day and i'm reading in ephesians the fifth chapter And it's one of those verses where I could not believe it when I read it I'm reading in ephesians the fifth chapter a verse that I had read many many times and it says this Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess Which simply means don't let something control you don't let some external influence control you But be filled or controlled by the holy spirit A lot of people stop right there and then they try to explain what that means. I just wish they'd read the next verse Because he says be not drunk with wine wherein is excess but be filled with the holy spirit Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the lord What's god talking about there music Do you know that god's solution is music God's solution is music. Why would god's solution be music? Music Here's what I did I took my three favorite hymns at the time And when lust or temptation would start into my mind and by the way when that starts into your mind, is that sin? No, it's a temptation. Was jesus tempted? Sure, he was tempted. It wasn't sin When a temptation comes into your mind It's god tapping you on the shoulder and saying hey larry your mind has just begun to dwell on garbage If you don't have anything else to think about You know turn your mind back to me if you have anything good to think about turn your mind back to me now if you can Turn it back to You know that algebra that you love or that history You know or the mets or the yankees, you know You can get it off of things that aren't bad and shift on over you can just shift on over fine Just get your mind off the garbage Don't give it another 30 seconds or 30 minutes to fill your mind or my mind with more and more garbage So when that temptation came into my mind I would start to sing how great thou art Then sings my soul my savior god to thee how great thou art You know, you can't sing how great thou art to god think about some impure thought about another person You have to either stop singing and then go on and think about it or by the time That you have sung through that What does music involve your mind or your emotions? both It involves both And what happens is that god takes your mind? And he gets you to focus it on god. Now. It isn't any kind of music He says singing and making melody in your hearts to the lord It's music directed To god not any kind of music And when we will turn our minds over to god through music oh how why would this be god's solution You know that when satan fell from heaven, you know what his primary job was Satan's primary job in heaven is he was the chief musician of heaven before he fell When it describes lucifer in ezekiel 28 13 It says the tablets and the timbrels were in thee In the day thou was created music flowed through him for thou was the anointed cherub Satan was the chief musician of heaven The psychologist at bradley university stood up one day and said to meet larry we've known for years in psychology That the part of the brain That receives music is a separate circuit from the part of the brain that thinks So whatever a person takes into their life through music will control their philosophy of life Why Are we so defenseless, you know, I could talk about Drugs and alcohol and everything and you know what? I don't really get too much argument Everybody says hey, we've seen lives wiped out But you know if somebody starts talking about music and what you're listening to we got a big fight in our hands, don't we? Huh, isn't that the one area you're going to defend? Well ask yourself through what vehicle do a lot of my wrong thoughts come from What vehicle does it come from? It's the one avenue that it comes in that i'm defenseless Satan is trying to turn this world apart through music. And what does god say is the key to getting your mind? Turned back around the right way. What does god say it is? music But music to him it says for he has put a new song in my heart. I still have the old ones I still remember the old rock and roll songs. I used to sing But god's put a new song in my heart and when the bad emotions and the bad thoughts Come into my life I know how to turn my mind and my emotions back to god and clear that junk out now the reason that Music is god's solution Is because the spirit of god is in our spirit And the spirit of god When he wants us to be filled with his spirit, he wants us to turn our hearts back to god through music Now there's three parts to music and you'll see that right here on page 31 and there's uh three parts to our life to music there is Melody harmony and rhythm. We have a spirit and a soul and a body that's pretty easy to figure out that Rhythm is linked to the physical Harmony is linked to the soul our mind. It's the balance of that Music that I like the way it sounds good to me the melody Is the message of the song? And when young people say well, I don't listen to the you know to the music I just listen to the words uh that's just the opposite of what happens I even did a little deal one time when my kids were feeding me that line and I went and got 10 of the top songs without the lyrics and put them all on a tape And i'll tell you I didn't realize how naive I was as a youth director with all these wonderful spiritual kids I started playing through those songs and they were some of the bad ones And I think there were all but two kids in the group that were sitting there mouthing the words And I said you just listen to the melody, huh, and then they caught themselves Now you see god's approach to music Is that he has put a new song in our heart now i'm not saying the only kind of music you should listen to is spiritual music But any music that does not generate legitimate christian emotions Will have a deteriorating effect on my spiritual vitality For example, you can play seuss's marches Because we're soldiers of christ that uh patriotic I can see vicki isn't going to play seuss's marches right there uh, because um Uh, I got one. She will play though here in just a minute But uh, but we're to be uh soldiers of christ and to be patriotic is a legitimate emotion Or you can play that famous wedding recessional The fight is on right Or you can play, uh, there's a lot of fun songs that you know generate joy and happiness in our lives and You sing those with your kids and your children and there's some fun songs out there And but you and I have to be the guardian over our hearts And I don't go around saying you can't listen to this music and you can listen to this music I just throw it out to a person like this. You're the one that knows what music messes up your mind or your thoughts And if you're serious about god you be the guardian over your affections in your heart and get rid of it Whatever that might be The first person that ever did that once was a 19 year old boy And he came to me and told me that the night before he had just dumped 19 albums And once again to show you how naive I was I thought I bet he just dumped all nothing but rock and roll and I said listen Would you do me a favor because i'm just really curious Would you mind bringing those get those albums out of the garbage and bring them to me and he brought me these 19 albums Only four of them were rock albums This is back in the 60s the one that threw me for a loop I put this thing on and the music is gorgeous But it was a song it was a patriotic song that started talking about how our forefathers came over from England to defend those inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and And it builds I mean some incredible emotions and patriotism and love and then this thing hit the song historically Took you up to the civil war And Then it just turned your emotion into rebellion and then came the bigot bigotry and it starts down through all of this and then came the the Authorities that became corrupt and this thing any of you remember that song Huh? Remember that? Once in a while somebody said I remember but this is dateness, right? and And so and but anyway the conclusion of the song is that the only way to change To get back to those virtues is anarchy And by the way this boy that made that decision He came to Christ after he was arrested at demonstrating at the Washington Monument I'll tell you that story tomorrow when we talk about anger and worry and so forth And so he was heavy and this was this was the type of thing that was just destroying his mind And I'll tell you young people who are serious about God do a far better job of Evaluating their own hearts and what's good for them and what isn't than we are because we usually get Locked into the things that would bother us And so But Satan has You know reverses everything From God's order, you know see God says the message of the song singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord Should be the focal point of your worship and the harmony complements that and the rhythm complements that Used to have hear of these lectures on how sinful the rock beat was How many of you have ever sung the song or heard the song and because he lives and because It's an eight beat and But I mean I get Saints old folks raising their hand telling me how they love that song and then they're shocked Don't know that was supposed to be sinful it isn't the beat You Take those things as you take the rhythm and the harmony and those things complement one another to turn that heart to God It's amazing then what can happen but Satan reverses it. He likes to to make the you know, the rhythm dominant The harmony dissonant you can't hear the words Now we're swinging back, aren't we? The rhythms not so heavy unless you're getting over into the heavy metal stuff the rhythms not so heavy some Pretty nice harmony now but the words are anti anti Christian and Satan is still controlling our minds and dominating and controlling that individual's life through the music and I'll tell you what We adults are the ones that need to have the courage to start dealing with this in our own life a missionary friend of mine in Columbia He had a sophomore boy boy his boy didn't have very many friends and dad's Solution was because the boy wanted to listen to certain music that was absolutely wrong and dad thought well look He doesn't have very many friends doesn't have much of a social life And so, you know as long as he listens to some good stuff also You Ever heard of the good stuff out influencing the bad stuff while you're digging into the bad stuff It won't happen. Our human nature is just the opposite And when I suggested he start that we as parents Have got to decide what is going to take place in our home Where are our kids gonna get an environment Where they can be free from these things I Don't I have no intention of keeping my kids from ever hearing any rock music if we go to Pizza Hut we hear it But do you know if We as dads and moms don't say look I'm responsible before God as to what we're gonna do in our home and This missionary friend said Larry. Do you know what kind of problem that's gonna cause I said, I'll tell you what if you don't have the guts To stop it and you're telling me you're having these terrible problems with your boy The problems aren't going to get better and he went and sat down with his boy and said son Look, I have been wrong as a dad For what? I've allowed to take place in this home. I Don't expect you to agree with me But I do expect you to cooperate and there isn't gonna be any more of that in our home Now I'll tell you what if you just take An evil spirit out of an individual and you don't want Replace it He's susceptible to seven worst problems. You can say praise God I got that cleaned up and you don't replace it and you know that dad changed his whole schedule around I said look he's been spending hours. How are you gonna fill up those hours? He doesn't have very many friends You just can't run around down there in Bogota If his life is that important to you you better start changing your schedule and you better become his best friend and Dad became the best friend of that kid and a year later He told me because I was visiting when they're on furlough in Los Angeles and that boy came up to me and he said you Know I was so mad when my dad made me stop all that But I am so glad he stuck to his guns and had the courage because there was no way I could get myself out of it See the world wants you and me to adopt the idea Well to really be broad-minded you need to know the good and the bad I mean, you can't go live in a sheltered life is the matter of a sheltered life. I Don't need to go eat garbage to find out that it's bad Over the course of our lifetime. We've just had enough experience and enough exposure to know what's good and bad God's design is that the more you expose yourself to what is right the more sensitive you are to darkness What did God tell Eve not to do don't need to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil But my oldest daughter was nine years old. She came to me and she wanted a transistor radio for her birthday That was the big thing we lived in Chicago the only thing on those Chicago stations was rock music and That's the only thing she wanted for a birthday and that's when I I mean I There were so many of those things like that that I thought you know I had I still have a couple more years for I have to deal with those things. I Mean the first time my oldest daughter saw her first Playboy magazine was when she was six years old That one blew me away. By the way, dad right. There's where you buy Playboy magazine. We're coming home from church one Sunday morning You know and I'm frozen Mike. She's in the backseat and I look at Carol and I thought I at least had ten more years And I'm saying Sharon What did you see Playboy magazine she says yes, so where did you see it? Barbara's brother showed me Which was her girlfriend's 16 year old brother You know now I'm kind of trembling here and I'm well, what did you think? Well, I didn't like it He wanted me to look again, but I wouldn't So that changed everything around that changed our whole family philosophy around Our yard is gonna be the playground for the neighborhood I am gonna bring those kids into my yard because I want to know what's influencing them and We bought a swing set we made our yard the playground My next-door neighbor was an alcoholic his boy came over and I purposed to become a friend to every single one of those kids You know who I had the biggest trouble with my kids They felt that it was their swing set they ought to get more pushes than the rest of them And now you're into teaching them fairness. No. No, you got ten pushes Bobby got ten pushes Bobby starts cussing. Hey Bobby, don't talk that way and you know what? He wouldn't it stop it and so Those types of things will change what you're going to do if you have that one principle in your mind That I am the guardian of my home as to what I'm going to allow it to come into my home or influence my home and So in sharing one of the transistor radio, that's when I made the decision. We didn't own a record player at the time. I said we are going to start exposing our children to Christian music and Lord, my goal is to expose them to Christian musicians whose lives really back up their song Which is hard to do sometimes and we went up to a camp in northern Michigan that summer and up there at that camp was a folk singer then Suzanne Johnson, so you may know Suzanne she sung in the Billy Graham crusade and so forth and and Here's this little nine-year-old sitting in the front row just like this and she's watching this gal former, Miss, Illinois Standing up there sharing her testimony playing her guitar and this little nine-year-old comes running back to me and says dad can we buy her record and She had two records. I said honey, I'll buy you both of them So, you know what my daughter did She went home. She went down Shut the family room door put those two records on and would listen to them by the hour In a matter of weeks that little girl was skipping through the house singing those songs to Jesus I Explained to my son before he reached puberty how God wanted us to keep our hearts and our thoughts clean All of my kids had their own cassette player to put themselves to bed with the music that they liked toward the Lord When they were little it was the Gaither children's album and they're singing these songs I'm something special I'm the only one of my kind God gave me a body and a bright healthy mind and he had a special purpose that he wanted me to find That's why I'm something special. I'm the only one of my kind They were singing those songs and putting themselves to bed And you know, I've had four kids and I just I thank the Lord for him, but you know the issue of Rock music and what-have-you has never ever been an issue or a discussion in my home ever ever When the TV came on it's hey you guys Anything on that TV that's offensive can walk over and turn the television off And I was mad most the time You know why because girls are personally insulted by the kind of junk that men bring into the home and sit there and watch And I couldn't believe how sensitive they were to some of those things and I'm just ready in the middle of a good deal here Or a commercial which I'm sort of half paying attention to and all of a sudden the TV goes off or switches Hey, what are you doing dad? You don't need to be watching that You know and I had to admit that what they were saying was right but I'll tell you I was biting my lip because of my pride that I really didn't appreciate them not turning that TV and So some and for a while there it was getting changed. I couldn't even watch the continuity of any program I just quit watching TV for a while But You see that's God's principle and as we fill our hearts and our minds in that spare thought time with his thoughts His music his words It keeps that heart pure Now what is meditation Meditation is the spiritual and mental process of digesting Scripture So that it actually becomes a living part of my life. These are just words In fact, this is just ink Have you ever read the word and five minutes later you walk away from you can't remember a thing you read Boy if you've got that short of a memory how in the world are you gonna take something that you read and Actually get it to become a part of your life Because that's the purpose of God's Word man shall not live by bread alone But by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, how do I get what I read to become a part of my life? Now If you look down here on page 29 at the bottom We have that spirit soul body laid out in a different way We have our spirit and as we said earlier the Spirit of God indwells our spirit when we're born again, and the Word of God is our authority and The thing that confirms in our hearts that it's true is God's Spirit in my spirit His spirit bears witness with my spirit that I'm a child of God God is the Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth So at the heart of all of this is my heart relationship with God and an authority in my life That is to dictate everything that I do in every area of my life Now even though I'm born again, and my spirit is reborn Do I still have problems as a Christian? I? Sure, do I have problems in my mind. My thinking is all backwards See it's logical to say hey to really be broad-minded you need to know the good from the bad Right, so you need to experiment in both that's logical But it's not God's logic It's logical to say God has made this whole world and God has allowed everything to happen That's happened, and there are some things that have happened in my life that I wish hadn't happened Therefore I won't trust God with my life. That's logic and It's the wrong logic Most of the ways that our natural inclinations Suggest that we do something are just the opposite of God's in fact I have figured out more answers to many of my problems by thinking what I feel is probably the right answer and then trying to figure out what's the opposite of that And then you're usually right on target I Not only have struggles in my mind. I have all kinds of struggles in my emotions I Have all kinds of struggles in my will trying to make decisions Make the right decisions. I don't know how to do that So as a new Christian with all of these problems still existing in my life Between my wife and me between me and raising kids my finances My thought life, and that's what I'm going to use to illustrate this If we want to know God's thoughts and God's ways Then we have to go back to his word and find out what he thinks about this problem That's what I did about raising my kids. I Was so intensely committed to Christ and I felt I had the Holy Spirit in my life directing me that my philosophy of raising my kids is Lord nobody's perfect, but I am gonna burn myself out for you and whatever mistakes I make with my kids I'm just gonna trust you to make up the difference That's logical The Surefire way to know it's wrong Not when God in the owner's manuals laid it out how you deal with the kids He's laid it all out Same thing with the finances and when I went back to God's Word and took the over 1,000 verses that is dealing with money and What you do is you go back to his word and you gather everything God has to say and in this instance It's on temptation and lust Now I am convinced in my heart That God's Word is true. And whatever God says about immorality and lust and what-have-you is the right thing Okay, so that is my conviction So the first thing I have to do is I have to take God's Word into my mind so I went and I gathered all the verses that I could gather on temptation and lust and what-have-you and Then I began to memorize God's thoughts instead of reading it and summarizing it and putting in a little outline I would start memorizing God's thoughts in the first chapter that I ever memorized along this line was James chapter 1 And one of my struggles with temptation and lust is That I resented this happening since I had given my life to Christ. I used to say God I've given my whole life to you. I mean, why am I still tempted and I really resented it and Second I felt that he should have somehow Miraculously turned this problem off because my commitment is so sincere But instead these things keep pulling me down And I used to say if I just didn't have this one problem. My life wouldn't keep collapsing on me spiritually So First thing I've got to do is get God's Word into my mind. So I started memorizing James 1 It starts out like this when all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers Don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends Realize they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance and Let that process go on until that endurance is fully developed And then you will become a man of mature character with the right sort of independence If in the process you don't know how to solve any particular problem Let him ask God By the way, do you know what I used to think that meant if any man lacked wisdom let him ask God You know what, I actually thought that meant that I get on my knees and ask God and I would get on my knees and I would ask God for this wisdom. I Didn't have the vaguest idea how this problem was ever gonna get the answer to me maybe Trial and error by luck or somebody's gonna come by and talk to me That but as soon as I and he will give it to you. That's what it says let him ask wisdom and he will give it to you without making you feel foolish embarrassed or guilty and You can be quite sure the necessary wisdom will be given him No bolt of lightning ever happened no voice ever spoke nobody accidentally Told me what this wisdom was. What is wisdom looking at life from God's viewpoint? If you want to look at life from God's viewpoint about lust and temptation He says he'll give it to me. Where do I get it? from his word That's great, too. If you know how to get it out of it. I didn't know how to get it out of it What do you do read until something hits you? I? Already knew which books to stay away from you won't get anything in Leviticus on your thought life You get nothing in the genealogy of the Kings and I could name the whole sections of Scripture That would be a waste of my time to read. I didn't know how to do this but Then when he says if you lack the wisdom about an area then ask God and he'll give you but You must ask in sincere faith without secret doubts as to whether you really want God's help or not the man who trusts God But with inward reservations is like the wave of the sea Carried forward by the wind one moment driven back the next and that sort of person Cannot hope to receive any help from the Lord for the life of a man of divided loyalty Will show instability at every turn Now I would memorize this and I had a little project that I used to memorize it because I don't like to memorize Since I don't do too well all by myself I would get groups of young people together and then and this project by the way is in your syllabus I'd get groups of young people together and we'd set aside an hour on Sunday afternoon and Each of us would find our own chapter I was working on temptation somebody else was working on problems with authority Somebody else was working on self-worth and what-have-you and we each had our own Section of Scripture and then for 30 minutes we would memorize all we could memorize in 30 minutes I mean on a good concentration. I was good for for three verses These kids would whip off seven eight nine verses. I mean then they could say him back, too Then after I memorized all I could memorize In 30 minutes, I'd take a three by five card out and I would write the verses out and So from Sunday to Wednesday Every time I had a spare thought time One was always after the light went out at night Another one was before my eyes got unglued in the morning reach over and slap the alarm and keep my eyes shut. I Would immediately start to say when all kinds of trials and temptations Crowd into my life now when I go to bed and especially the first part of the week I'd forget it. I'd turn the light on get up. Look at my cheat sheet and And You know lay it back down turn the light out and then try to go to sleep and say it Well by Wednesday, I had it down word-perfect. I Mean I could say it back with three verse I could say in backwards and forwards I finally did not have to concentrate on trying to remember these words So now I'm free By the way, none of this that I'm telling you about is meditation. None of this is Now I'm free to take the word into my emotions I'm making it mine So I would just switch the whole thing to the first person When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into my life I'm not going to resent them as intruders. I'm going to welcome them as friends Because now I know that they come to test my faith and to produce in me the quality of endurance And I'm gonna let the process go on until the endurance is fully developed and then I'll become a man of mature character with the right sort of independence if I run into any kind of problem, and I don't know how to solve all I have to do is ask you Lord and You'll give me the answer without making me feel foolish or guilty But I understand that I have to trust you in sincere faith without secret debts. You see what I'm doing What have I started doing I'm talking To God in his language. I'm now letting his thoughts be my thoughts So once I got it to be mine Now in my spare thought time I would lay there in the bed and I would actually Fellowship with God and I would start going over his words And I remember that the first time it happened. I am laying there and I and I said No wonder that's been messing me up because you're telling me that I'm supposed to be welcoming these things as friends And I've been resenting them right and You're telling me that these things are to build me up and I've been saying these things keep pulling me down So what's happening God's changing my whole thinking about this thing and you know once I start understanding his ways now listen to it again When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into my life, I'm not going to resent them as intruders I'm going to welcome them as friends. What did I just do? I just shifted it from my emotions into my will Let me make it a new decision So now God's Word I've taken it into my mind on into my emotions and made it mine and then I went on and made the decision and guess what my outward behavior started changing Because it was an inward change I wasn't trying to figure out how I was supposed to behave and I'm still all racked up inside And So as you take that And then what we would do is we get back the following Sunday And I'd start on verse 4 go as long as I could two more verses These kids who start on verse 9 and they're lit and their chapter and then go for nine more verse I mean here they are with 18 verses in two weeks, and here's me with five And So we'd do it again spend the 30 minutes memorizing right what we just memorized on a card And then we'd take the next 30 minutes and start sharing with each other what we discovered in our meditation What's meditation? That process of the Digesting scripture so that it actually becomes a part of my life and you know, we never got done in 30 minutes We would go for an hour These kids felt like they were cheated if they didn't get a share What they had learned and they're explained to one another you can't believe this. I was this was just the opposite of what I thought And So what we're doing is that we're allowing God then to take those problem areas and this is exactly how every insight in this seminar was developed Take the problems a person had go to God's Word and find out what I had to say about it