Underlying Reason You Couldn't Overcome

I was thinking in the quiet time that this program is built primarily on two things, the spirit of God, which is why we pray, pray, pray, and pray some more on staff here. Because the need is tremendous and only the spirit of God can do the work inside of you that's needed. Many of you came here just because we're the cheapest place in town. And you could have went to the, you know, the famous place where you had the air-conditioned room and your own bathroom and $30,000 for a month and hear a bunch of worldly garbage. But you came to a place, probably had no idea what you were getting into, where the presence of God dwells and He's here for you. That's why He's here. Because He loves you tremendously and He wants to give you Himself. And the other, what, anchor or foundation of this residential program is the Word of God. Because this is the only credible source we have at our fingertips in this world for the answers to our problems, in spite of what the experts say and the way they, I could just sit down and cry, the way Christians even diminish the Word of God as if it's nothing. Anyway, that's what I want to talk about this morning. Number one, what went wrong? Most of you were sitting in churches where the Word of God was preached faithfully, or at least some number of you. Maybe others, your church was so-so or whatever, but you heard the Word of God and you were sitting in church week after week, year after year, terribly bound up in habitual sin. Why? Why didn't the Word of God find an entrance into your heart to bring you into real repentance, life-changing repentance? That's what I want to talk about. I'm going to be in Proverbs 1 for a minute, I'm going to be in James 1 for a minute, but we're headed for Luke chapter 8 here in a while. I want to talk about the word receive. The word receive is in the Bible. It's in the Old Testament, it's in the New Testament. The question isn't, you know, as the Lord has been speaking to you all these years, the question isn't, have you been listening, have you been hearing? The question is, have you been receiving? That's the issue. Have you been receiving? Now Proverbs 1 is really a pretty powerful chapter. You start, especially starting in verse 20, and it's depicting wisdom as a woman who's shouting in the streets, trying to get people's attention, and people aren't really paying attention to her. And so because they're not responding, then the word becomes very serious, and you start hearing words like calamity, calamity like, what is it, calamity like a storm, right? Somewhere I saw that. Dread, distress, anguish. Those are very powerful terms. But the most frightening of all is in verse 28, then they will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. I mean, nothing could be more frightening, really. I mean, literally. Think of any horror movie you've seen, whatever. Nothing could be more frightening than a God who will not listen when you cry out to Him. And the Lord says in verse 30, they would not accept my counsel. They spurned all my reproof, so they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be satiated with their own devices. But then in verse 33, the Lord, this is so much like the Lord, and you really see it in the prophets especially, but the Lord, it's almost like He gets so angry, He's raging in one minute, but in the next, He turns tender and, you know, He just falls apart and just pleading. And just keep in mind here that these chapter divisions weren't in the original Bible. You understand that, right? Some monk came up with that in the 12th century, I believe, but there was no division here. So let's read verse 33, but he who listens to me shall live securely and will be at ease from the dread of evil. My son, if you will receive my words, let me just stop there for a second. Because this is really what Solomon's trying to get at. He wants the listeners not to just listen to it, but to receive those words. And he gives four descriptions as to what that looks like in these next few verses. Treasuring the word, treasuring it, treasuring it. Like you treasured your idol before you came here, right? Three of you? Why do we have this place then? Treasure, think about what that means in light of what you came out of. Thinking on it all the time, scheming, figuring out ways to get into it. Spending money, spending time, spending effort. Destroying your relationships with your family. That's a good description of what it means to treasure something, right? And the Lord is saying you need to do that with the word of God. I'm not mad at you, at least not yet. Inclined. You know, have you ever heard someone... Sometimes I speak really softly, believe it or not. And my wife says, what? Stuff like that. But, you know, when you're trying to hear someone, you kind of lean into... It's almost like an inadvertent... What's the word I'm trying to think of? Pastor Adam, what am I thinking of? Huh? What? Inclined. You know, you really are so interested. You want to hear, but you're not quite making it out. And that's the way the still, small voice of the Lord is, right? You have to really be... I mean, wanting to hear. Cry out. You know, if he's not speaking loudly enough, you have to start crying out. Lord, I'm not hearing you. Speak to me. Make sure I understand what you're desiring of me. What are you telling me? What are you showing me? Crying out, does it mean enough to know what God wants from you? To cry out to him. And seek is in there. Seeking, searching, looking for something. Because it's valuable. And you get down to verse 10, and there's the promise. For wisdom will enter. Alright, now flip over to James 1. Wisdom will enter your heart. James 1. This is James' version of what we just heard. He says in verse 21, Therefore, put aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness. Guys, let me just tell you, until you repent, and start going against the filthiness, the wickedness, you're not going to hear from the Lord. And it's delusional to think so. You can't receive from the Lord when you're in rebellion to him. But then here's where it says it, right here. In humility, receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. Do you believe that? Anyone in here actually believe that? You do, okay. In humility, receive the word implanted. Do you believe that that's how you should receive the word? Then why do you guys argue and fight with your counselor week in and week out? Why? Think about it. Guys, I mean, I'm just telling you. You come here from a lifetime of perversion and sexual sin. You have got to go through a lot of coming down. I had to, and if I had to do it, so do you. We all had to. Right, guys? Staff? We had to really get humbled. I was so prideful. So arrogant. Couldn't tell me anything. I knew everything until God started humbling me, and then I started realizing how little I knew. Are you there? Are you getting there? In humility, receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. You know, the word implanted is referring to a seed, a divine seed that gets implanted into your heart and germinates there and springs to life. That sounds like a pretty good deal, right? All right. Turn to Luke 8, and this is where we're going to be. This is, of course, the parable of the sower and the seed. Let's start with verse 5. The sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away because it had no moisture. Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it out. Other seed fell into the good soil and grew up and produced a crop a hundred times as great. As he said these things, he would call out, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And then he, you know, just a little interlude there to the disciples, sharing with them how blessed they are to be able to hear what he's saying. And then in verse 11. Now the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. There's nothing more powerful that can be sowed into your heart than the word of God. Nothing. It's the inspired word of Almighty God. And to have it, and to put it into your heart, and to breathe life into it, to where it just fills your being. It grows in there. Nothing could be more powerful than that. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sit against thee. Thy law is perfect to the restoring of the soul. There's nothing more powerful than the word of God. But you know, it feels dry and tiresome to people whose hearts are hardened. The word is the seed of the Lord that's created to... What? Man, getting old sucks, you know what? Just words. I mean, it's just a simple word, right? And it's just, you know, something we use every day. But it just drops out. It's gone. Well, now you're jumping to the end of the sermon. This is someone who just wants to get out of here, right? Let's kind of wrap it up here. I'm getting a little bored. It is the seed, and the seed has life in it. But it also has a genetic code written in it. I mean, just naturally, your seed's out there, right? You plant a tomato seed in soil. You're not going to have a corn stalk rise up, all right? We know that. In fact, Jesus said grapes are not going to be gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? I mean, that's just a fact of life. That's the way it is. And John tells us that Jesus Christ is the word. And one person said that Jesus is the seed, and the word of God is the husk that brings us the seed. And that's about right. I think that's right. Because it's Jesus Christ that we need. This is only a means to a different end. This is not the end product here. You can memorize this entire Bible. You can know it from back to... Wait a minute. Is that right? Front to back. You can memorize this book and how many theologians never made it into heaven because this was nothing but an academic study to them. They never let it penetrate their hearts. But if it does penetrate your heart, because it has a DNA in it, then absolutely something is going to happen. You will start to grow into the likeness of Jesus Christ. And if you're not in the likeness of Jesus Christ, it was never implanted there, or something went terribly wrong somewhere. Does that make sense? You will know them by their fruit. That's what Jesus said. Alright, so he gives this parable. Parable. And these are four different types of church people, okay? By the way, every one of these individuals was convinced that they were walking with the Lord, convinced that they were in, convinced that they knew the Lord and all that, but that's not the way Jesus sees it. Now look guys, this is really important stuff for you because I'm hoping that as we get into these, especially these first three soils, that you will see something in there that will speak to you as to why things went south for you. South is that way. Why things didn't work out. So this is going to be kind of an investigation a little bit this morning. So open your hearts, okay? Open your hearts. Maybe you've been here long enough and you've had a breakthrough. You have experienced life-changing repentance. Tyree, bump that kid right there who's nodding out next to you. Are you with me? If you're tired, listen, I understand. I'm a very boring preacher. If you're tired, are you listening to me? Just get up and stand in the back. It's okay to do that. Any of you can do that. Any service, all right? No problem. But I expect you to be awake, at least when I preach. Are you with me? He keeps... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, this is a brutal crowd here this morning. All right, number one, verse 12. Those beside the road are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart so that they will not believe and be saved. This is a religious heart. That's what I'm going to call this first group, a religious heart. Now, if this describes you, some of the things I'm going to say, please don't get offended, okay? I'm in this group too. Not this one, but the second one. I'll talk about it later, but I'm in here. I was there. That second one that we'll get to here in a second, that would be my natural propensity. So don't be offended. We're all guilty as charged, right? Something went wrong, and I'm just trying to kind of lead us in this investigation. What went wrong? Why didn't the word of God get into me to the point that I really had a life-changing repentance? I'm your friend up here, okay? I'm not your attacker or accuser, okay? Everyone say, Pastor Steve, you're our friend. Pastor Steve, you're our friend. Wow, that's great. I think even the young guy said it. Yeah. Now, of the four different soils described here, this is the only one that says the seed did not germinate. It didn't even germinate. This describes people, you know, there's a wide array of different kinds of folks, but careless hearers, I'll say. People who go to church, and maybe they even like sermons, you know, hearing good sermons or whatever, but the bottom line is they don't allow the seed to get into their heart where it would disrupt their lifestyle. You know, really the truth is they're kind of looking at their watch through the service, kind of thinking about the football games going on today, stuff like that. Their mind is elsewhere, or they're kind of listening, you know, listening along and stuff like that to the message, but they're not really interested. They're satisfied to get just enough Christianity to escape hell, although that is a delusion. No one with that mindset goes to heaven, I can promise you that. They have a form of godliness, but they deny the power of God to do a work inside of them. And there's others that are interested, but it's all intellectual. And I think this would probably be the case of some of you in here, the way you were before. The seed never really gets to your heart because it only goes here. It's always something, you know, you intellectualize everything. And you think you know a lot of different stuff, you know doctrines and you know all these different tidbits and interesting things, facts about biblical times and all this stuff, but it never gets into your heart to really create the revolution inside you that's needed. You know, it needs to go through the brain, of course, but for it to be implanted, it's got to go deeper than that. These people are ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Because you don't come into the knowledge of God's truth just by thinking, by understanding with the mind. That's not enough. You're not saved through your mind. Whichever, you know, wherever you might have been, if you were in this group. I'll just say this, that most people that this is describing really do believe that they walk with the Lord. But James said, right after that verse we read before, prove yourselves to be doers of the word, not hearers who delude themselves. That's the Bible said that, not Pastor Steve. Right? Is it possible to be a hearer of the word, but only be in delusion about your spiritual condition? Is that possible? According to what he says. You know, here's the problem with hearing the word of God mentally, is you hear sermon after sermon after sermon, teaching after teaching, and if you're not allowing it to get into your heart, what's happening on your heart, okay, your brain's getting full, but your heart, every time you hear the word, but deny it entrance, another film of callousness grows over your heart. Every week, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, you're becoming increasingly more hardened to the word of God. Jesus, you know, he hated the wickedness of the publicans and prostitutes. He hated that filthy lifestyle. But he had more hope for those people than the religious people of his day. Because they, you know, it's the pathway has been hardened by week after week of being trampled down. And the word can never penetrate because you keep learning and learning and learning. And the more you learn but not respond in your heart, the further away you're getting from the kingdom of God. You think you're getting closer, but actually you're getting further. That's good preaching. That should keep you awake. You know, and for you guys, it's even more dangerous. Because not only have you been hardened, you know, if this describes you, hardened by sitting in church week after week and not responding. Well, I guess that is true of all of you, one way or the other. But also, sin hardens the heart. So you've got two things working against you, have had in the past. All right, number two. This is the one that describes me, my past. A shallow heart. I don't know how many times I came to the Lord and backslid, came to the Lord, backslid, came to the Lord, backslid, came to the Lord, backslid, you know. And if you ever read my book, it gets frustrating. It's like, when does this guy get it? I mean, I was just that way, just kind of flighty and flaky. I'm just one of those, like, high energy sort of guys, total type A personality. And okay, there's some good sides to that, but there's some bad sides too, you know. We can be really flaky, people like me. Let's read verse 13 here. Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, but they have no root. It says firm root, but that's supplied. They have no root, is what Jesus said. They believe for a while, and in time of temptation, fall away. Now, I'm going to read this out of a couple of paraphrases. Let me just say a real quick commercial on paraphrases. There are three good paraphrases that I know of. The living Bible, the voice, and the passion. Those two last two are fairly recent versions. And I've studied all three a lot, and I really like what I'm seeing in these paraphrases. But if it's a paraphrase, don't look at it. I mean, if you're going to read it, that's fine, but make sure you have your literal translation, like the NES, the New King James, the ESV, or the NIV, whatever. As long as you have a good, solid translation there, you can do that and refer to it, and that's good, because the paraphrases have ways of bringing out the freshness with different terms and stuff like that. So anyway, let me read it in the passion and voice. When a season of harassment of the enemy and difficulty come to them, they wither and fall away, for they have no root in the truth, and their faith is temporary. You know, I don't have time. I wish I could read that about five times so it really got into you. That was the passion. Let me read the voice. Others receive the message enthusiastically, but their vitality is short-lived because the message cannot be deeply rooted in their shallow hearts. In the heat of temptation, their faith withers. That was me. That was me. It seemed like every time I would start to get on track, I'd fall into sin, whatever, and, man, I was off and gone again. So in Palestine, they have these, how do you say it, plates of limestone there, and sometimes, you know, that plate will come up almost to the surface, and so the dirt above the plate is pretty thin, and that's what Jesus is referring to here. And so what happens is, you know, it rains, or maybe even just the dew in the morning, and so because it's so shallow, that dirt, what little there is there, is rich and has perfect conditions for growth, and so that little seedling just pops up and starts to grow and actually gets through the surface because it doesn't have that far to go, and it looks good, but there's no root. And this is so typical of people who receive the Word of God, it seems. I mean, it looks like the same guy with the good soil, which we'll get to in a minute. The beginning looks the same, shows tremendous promise. You know, he's the kind of guy that gets saved and, well, I'm saying gets saved, you know, gets saved. And it's like a whole new world opens up to him, and he is all kinds of excited. He's the most bold guy around, going out, sharing his faith, knocking on doors, whatever. He will talk to anybody about Christianity, but then as soon as things get rough or temptation or whatever, he falls away. You know, when you've been around for a while, you learn, when you see someone get all excited about the Lord, you learn to wait and see, you know, because sometimes that joy can actually be a bad sign because this guy never really stops long enough to consider what his sin did to God, what his sin did to other people, loved ones. There's no deep sorrow over what he's done, how he's hurt people and stuff like that. There's no brokenness, and if there's no brokenness, there's no real repentance. He just kind of, let me put it this way, the same kind of response, that rapid response to the Word is the same kind of nature that rapidly leaves. If you want the Word of God to be implanted in your heart, then it also has to go deeper than the emotional level. We need our brains, we need our emotions, but we need our heart and our will most of all. Now, Luke uses the word temptation here, which is right, but Matthew and Mark both use the word for affliction, and, you know, either way it's the same basic thing because he has no root into the Lord, not really, he's not anchored into the Lord. So when the temptations come, the trials come, he just doesn't have the spiritual wherewithal, the capacity to weather the storm. All right, the third soil is here in verse 14. The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way, they're choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to maturity. I'm going to read that in the voice, okay? Are you all with me, or should everyone go in the back and stand? Maybe I will go too. I'm kind of feeling a little tired. A third group hears the message, but as time passes, the daily anxieties, the pursuit of wealth, and life's addicting delights outpace the growth of the message in their hearts. Outpace the growth of the message in their hearts, which really does correspond to what Jesus is saying. They grow up together, just like wheat and tares. They grow up together. Even if the message blossoms and fruit begins to form, the fruit never fully matures because the thorns choke out the plant's vitality. It's really some good writing there. Trust me, as a writer, I know good writing when I see it, and that's some good writing. Now, have you noticed the advancement of these soils? The first one, the seed doesn't even make it into the heart. The second one, I don't know how the theological debate is on this, so, you know, let's set that aside. But that one penetrates, has a growth spurt, and dies. But this one penetrates, and it says here, Jesus says, as they go on their way. I mean, there's something growing there, but the thorns of worldliness choke it out. Basically, Jesus said the same thing in John 15. If you abide in me, you will bear fruit. But if you don't bear fruit, you're taken out and thrown into the fire. Any true believer has fruit to show for his life in God. You have to. If you take a seed of a tomato plant, put it in good soil, give it water and sunshine, it is going to bring forth a healthy tomato plant, and it's going to have tomatoes on it. Jesus mentions here in Luke's version three different aspects of worldliness. The first is anxiety. This is someone who is so dominated by fear of the future and how things can go south on them and how bad things could be and the possibilities, and there's no faith in the Lord. When they look into the future, they see all darkness. They don't see the Lord standing alongside them, walking them through the difficult times. And so that anxiety chokes out the vitality of the word. Riches is the second one. It's the love of money. It's not money in itself. There's nothing wrong, evil in money. Money is immaterial, really. It's the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It's the love of it. It's being so focused on it and wanting more and conniving and scheming in life to make sure you're always heading in that direction because money provides you the things you want in this world. The third one is pleasure. Anybody in here ever have a struggle there? A couple of you. Mark adds a fourth one I'm going to put in here, the desire for other things. That's just another way of saying idolatry, right? It's just another way of describing idolatry. The cares of this world, little by little, fill the heart, leaving no room, no time, no energy for his life with God. And that describes a lot of people who name the name of Christ. They think they're walking with the Lord, but it's all a delusion. It's all a delusion. Well, thank goodness there's a fourth soil Jesus mentions, verse 15, but the seed in the good soil. These are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart and hold it fast. They receive it and they hold it fast and they bear fruit with perseverance. Again, let me read the voice. But some people hear the message and let it take root deeply in receptive hearts made fertile by honesty and goodness. With patient dependability they bear good fruit. The good soil has none of the faults of the other three soils. It's loose and crumbly, not beaten down like the soil on the path. It's deep, not shallow like the rocky soil, and it's clean, not filled with thorn roots and so on. Here at last the precious seed finally finds soil it can thrive in. And Mark says he hears and accepts, and that word accepts is the same word in James 1 that received the word implanted, receives the word. Hears and receives the word implanted, which is able to save your soul. He accepts the word of God as the needed instruction for life. His heart is open to receive it. He reaches up in faith and takes it from the Lord because that word, actually in the Greek and the Hebrew, has the idea of take. In fact, these words are usually used more in a general sense. The one in the Old Testament is used a thousand times, and most of it's found in the narrative sections of the Bible. Half the time it's used as receive, and half the time it's used as take. And both of those things are true in the Christian life. You know, let me put it this way. If you're a Calvinist, you're going to focus on the receiving side, and if you're an Arminianist, you're going to focus on the taking side. But they're both true, and they're both realities of the Christian life. Well, that was doctrinal. This person is receiving the word, not just intellectually, not just emotionally, but absorbing the truth of God in his whole being, the deepest part of his heart. I talked about, didn't I in SI, about the spiritual womb? Didn't I talk about that? Anybody ever read that book? The spiritual womb. I can't remember exactly how I said it, but I said something about that. I know it was really good. Listen, God created the plant world to operate in a certain way, right? And it's like I said before. If you put the right conditions, plants are going to grow and fruits are going to come of it. That's just the way it is. And Luke doesn't... Well, he does say 100 times is great in verse 8. In Matthew and Mark's versions, they said 30, 60, and 100 times. You know, we all have different capacities for how much the Lord can do through our lives. And he's not saying that the one with 100 is a better something. They're all good. You know, just different people have different capacities to be able to be used by the Lord for whatever the reasons. And, you know, when I think about fruit, the first thing I think about is character, godly character. Because without godly character, anything you do is worthless. You know, I kind of hate to even say this, but I've got to use it as an example. Okay, so this was 19... What year was that? 1987? 1988. I shared my testimony on the Oprah Winfrey show. I don't know how many people watched it that day. I don't know. I have no idea. But I know this. The Lord anointed me to share my testimony even when she was basically arguing with me. He just opened it up for me to share. And, yeah, maybe a million people watched it that day. I don't know. There's 300,000 copies of SI around the world, something like that. But none of that means anything. If I am not living a godly life, if I don't have mercy in my heart for people in need, you know, what does it matter if there's 300,000 copies of one of my books out there if I see, you know, a little old lady in the store who can't pick up a thing of water if I'm too busy or too important or something to go and pick it up for? You know what? No, it's not a great illustration. I'll come up with something better in a minute. You know, this is the problem in America. All we think about is outward results. That's what we gauge everything by and judge everything by. How many people are in our church? How many radio stations carry my show? How many books I've sold or whatever? And everything's gauged that way. That's not how the Lord gauges things, I promise you that. I promise you that. All right, now here's where I want to leave you with this thing. You may find yourself, well, you should. You should find yourself in one of those three soils, if not all. Either the way you were in the past or the way you still are or your propensity to be that way, however you want to look at it. But you don't need to remain there. There's nothing saying that you need to continue to be that person. This is the great thing about the kingdom of God. You know? Today is the day of salvation. I mean, this is the first day of the rest of your life. Everything can change. The fallow soil of the hard heart can be broken up. The shallow soil of the superficial hearer can be deepened. The thorny soil of the worldly minded can be cleansed. I mean, that's what you guys are here for, right? For change to happen. Thank God the wicked man may turn from his wicked ways. Thank God for that. There's always hope, you know, but we've got to respond to the word. I mean, you can't just hear it in one ear and let it go out the other and not respond. You have to respond, and you have to respond in your heart. All right? So I'm going to close in prayer. Lord, I thank you for the simple truths that you presented in the Gospels. Just the way that you would explain things so concisely, and yet the meanings of your stories and parables, illustrations are so deep that thousands of preachers can preach on them and write about them and all of that, and still not derive all the truth that's in them. So this is just one more that can be added to thousands of other sermons, no doubt, that have been preached on this parable. And Lord, I guess my main prayer here this morning, you know who's who in this room. You know what you've been doing or attempting to do in each heart. And I just, my prayer, Holy Spirit, is that you will go into their hearts, the hearts of these men especially, that they would see themselves in here somewhere and that they would see the need to push back on that natural tendency to be religious or to be superficial or to be worldly, that they would push back on that, that they would understand that the rest of their life they are going to have to resist that natural tendency to go in that direction. And all I can do, Lord, is pray for your help for each of these men. Please continue to do your wonderful work inside their hearts, calling them to yourself. In Jesus' name, amen. and the rapture theory may interest people. These are not the things that Scripture emphasizes. The one thing that is stressed repeatedly in the Bible is that there will be deception on a massive scale outside and inside the church so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Why are Christians so unconcerned about something so strongly emphasized in Scripture? You and I are being lied to on a regular basis through the academic realm, big business, the media, the Internet, and yes, of course, politicians. The fact of the matter is that our entire culture is riddled with deception. Things have gotten so bad that we need a variety of independent websites to monitor the veracity of what we're being told by public figures, including Christian ministers. The worst part about it is how much deception has overtaken the church. This deceptive atmosphere is exactly what Scripture predicted for the end times and this is the reality of the Christian culture right now. Is it possible that we're being deceived and don't even realize it? Yes. Walking in truth in a world of lies is a profound examination of Scripture that will open your eyes to the massive deception currently overtaking us. It will address and answer questions like, what is the power that fuels Satan's lies? How do I keep from being deceived? Why does God love truth in the innermost being? Why must you love the truth to be saved? Friends, I want to encourage you to get this book and to meditate on the truth in it. It's time for Christians to conquer the lies of the enemy with the truth of God's Word. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.