Address—Manuel Adames
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Can everybody hear me well?
Good evening.
Before we start, I'd like to ask the Lord for help.
The blessed God and our Father, we thank Thee for thy love towards us and send in thine only Son, the Lord Jesus.
To rescue us from sin and to ring us up through relationship with the to the place of sons and daughters, to the to the very very position of thy.
Beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The head of the new race.
We thank the old God and our Father for.
Umm, by provisions.
In.
Our wrestle against, uh, the enemy, the enemy of our souls, our enemy. We thank the Father because it is not in our own strength that we are overcoming, but in the strength that, uh, that does provide. We ask you, Father, for like help as we open thy word. We ask for help, uh, for the Speaker.
We I confess our Father, our feebleness, we trust that Thy word may reach each one of our hearts. We pray, Father, in the name that is, that is above every name, the name of our Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
What I have in my heart has a lot to do with what we have been discussing.
In the last few days, actually this morning and also, umm, in the last few days, uh, brother Paul spoke about.
Spiritual warfare.
Brother Bob, uh, talked about Ephesians 6, the armor of God against spiritual warfare.
And, umm, I'd like to talk a little bit about.
Some of what we discussed this morning.
Satan's UMM services and.
What he wants to do with each one of his own. And we have some examples in the Word of God. And I was thinking in umm, Daniel chapter one, it is a chapter that we know well, but I'd like to go a little bit on that.
Over that for the benefit of of the young people as well as the older ones.
Daniel, Chapter one.
And I'll just read the first few verses.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, came the bucket Nazar, king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem.
And besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah, into his hand with part of the vessels of the House of God, which he carried into the land of Shiner to the House of his God. And he brought the vessels into the treasure House of his God. And the king speak unto Ashman as Ashman as the master of his Unox.
That he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the King's seed, and of the Princess children in whom was no blemish.
But well favored and skillful in all wisdom, and cunning, and knowledge, and understanding science, and such as that ability in them to stand in the King's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the song of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed them a daily provision of the King's meat, and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three years.
But at the end, they're all they might stand before the king.
So let's read it up to that point.
So this morning we were talking about.
There was a question about Satan controlling our lives.
The possibility of that controlling our thoughts, our actions.
And what can we do to fight?
Or to defend ourselves, rather. That was the question.
I was thinking of this chapter and how it typifies what Satan is trying to do to the young people.
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At that time and today, the Book of Necessary is a type of Satan. It's a figure of Satan in this chapter.
And we see how he took control of Jerusalem and he took of the young people there.
Because why the young people? Because the young people are a target for him. He does not want young ones to follow the Lord. He's an enemy of the Lord. And anything that is the Lord, he wants to attack. He wants young people to live a life without a testimony for the Lord.
And so he did that.
And if we, if we look at these things as, as a figure of this, umm, things, it could be of benefit to us.
But it says the Lord gave the way I came, King of Judah, into his hand.
It's not umm system is not more powerful than the Lord. The Lord is more powerful than him. We need not to forget that.
So the Lord sometimes allows umm.
The presence of Satan.
The activity of Satan in our lives so that we understand that everything is of him, that we should be dependent on him. Satan asked the asked for the disciples. He didn't only ask for Peter, he asked for all of them. The Lord says I have prayed for you, I have prayed for thee.
And umm, so the lower inter fees for us, he's interceding so that we do not fail.
But Peter?
UMM became proud, thinking that he loved the Lord more than anyone of his, any of his disciples, and the Lord allowed this fall in his life.
And it says verse two. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand with part of the vessels of the House of God. The vessel is something that you use for a purpose.
And this vessel were were for the House of God.
For the king of Babylon wanted this vessel for his house, for the House of his daughter. And that's what Satan wants from you. He wants to.
Umm, they use that. You could be for the Lord. He wants to use you for his purposes, not for the lower purposes. He's an enemy. He's contrary to God. And it's interesting that it says.
Which he carried into the land of China.
And that is interesting to me, the land of China. And one of the first mentions is not the first mention of the land of China. It's in Genesis.
I believe it's Genesis 11.
Genesis 11.
Says on the holder was one language and 1:00 speech.
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plane in the land of China, and they dwelt there.
They dwelt there, the land of China. We see later on that they built, it says in verse three. And they said one to another, go, go to let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and slime, a day for mortar. And they say, go to let us build out the city and a tower.
The stop may reason to heaven, and let us make us a name, that we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men build it, and so on.
But what was interesting to me was the land of China. This land was the first land where there was a city established where multiple cities by one man. If we go to the prior chapter.
Chapter 10 of Genesis.
Verse 9. Verse 8.
And Kush begat Nimrod. He began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord, the beginning of his Kingdom was Fable, and Eric and a cat, and in the land of China.
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So this land, in this land of China, it was the first time after the flood that men gathered in complete rebellion against God.
Is the opposition against God, and it is the type of the world. That's what the world does. Is an opposition to God.
The God of this world and the Prince of this world is Satan, and Satan wants to go contrary to God all the time.
And he let this man, Nimrod to build a city in this, in the land of China.
The land of China talks to us about that. People that don't want to be subject to God, they want to have their own ideas.
And they put away God in their lives.
And this was the same land in which the children of Israel were taken to the land of China.
And it's interesting that it says they dwelt there. So it the tower available, I don't imagine happened right away. It's not that they went, they found a plane and said, oh, let's build the Tower of Babel here.
It has to be available before the tower was going to be built.
It has to be cities before that. So you see, it goes slowly towards the rebellion of God. Rebelling against God is not obvious right away. We may think that the people of the world are not that rebellious. We may think that when we talk to them, they say, well, I, I believe in God. But you know, I, I don't go, I don't do this. I don't go to church or they, they, they give their own idea.
What it is to believe in God, but they don't believe in God. So it happened. It says they dwell there and then it was obvious that they came up with the idea of bricks rather than stone. God built with tones, man built with bricks. If you know bricks are our umm, they're built with, with the with the mold. So you put.
Umm, in such a way that a brick is the same as the other brick because they all follow the same pattern. It's systematic.
And that's what the world is. It's a it's a system. It's a system to make you to be conformed to it. The Lord says be not conformed to this world or be transformed. Be not conformed.
This water takes the shape of the bottle, and if we are conformed to the world, we will take the shape of the world. The world wants us to take its shape, and that's exactly what the Nesser the King wanted to do here.
He wanted to establish a system so that the people of Israel would be umm, would they would take away their focus, their inheritance, so that they would be focusing on the things of his Kingdom and forget about the things of the Lord. That was his purpose. That is the same purpose of stating today He wants to take away your joy.
In the Lord He wants to take away your.
Testimony he wants to take away everything that is of the Lord in you so that you would serve his purposes instead of the purposes of God and we see various things that he does at least six things here that the Buccaneers doing to take away the young people from from Israel the the lineage of the Princess.
To serve him.
And it says the first one is.
And he speak unto Ashpen as the master of his eunuch.
You know a eunuch could not have children and they were put in the House of the unit and they had a master unit. So the first thing that Satan wants to do is take away the fruitfulness from you any that you do not give any fruit for the Lord.
And it says.
That he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the King's seed, and of the Princess children in whom was no blemish, but well favored. They were good looking, skillful in all wisdom and cunning and knowledge and understanding science.
And so I just had ability in them.
And whom they might teach the learning and the song of the Chaldeans. So the next thing that he does.
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Is.
Bring children where there is no blemish. So good looking and intelligent. And those are things that the Lord gives us. Umm, there are brothers are very intelligent, their sisters are very intelligent. Their brothers are very handsome. Sisters are very beautiful.
These are good things, but know that Satan wants to use those things.
To his advantage. So be careful with that. Satan wants to use your intelligence and your umm, the fact that you were well favored to bring things in of the world to you and to attract you to the things of the world. So be careful.
It says and such as had ability in them to stand in the King's palaces. That was his purpose. His purpose was not so that all they could be, umm, better for the land of Israel when they go back.
There was no going back in his mind. It was all for his palace and whom they might teach the learning and the song of the Chaldeans. Another thing that he did to them was change their tongue, change, change their language.
When Umm.
When we come to the Lord, the Lord asked us to to umm, we, we, we bring certain speech from the world.
That we recognize from the word of God that is not umm, it's not umm, suitable for a Christian. There. There are certain words that the world uses that we do not use because they are corrupt. But Satan wants to turn us back. He wants us to use the same words that the word the world uses. He wants us to use the same language. And that's why.
Umm, the Lord the the king of Umm of Babylon did with them. Do you remember Umm the case of Peter Umm they started talking to Peter and they said your speech.
Makes you manifest, it gives you out, is what they're saying. Your speech gives you out. And umm, Peter then started talking differently, and I do understand he was Vega, Lillian, I do understand that he had a different accent and so on. But I believe it was more than just that. It says your speech gives you out.
And then he started, umm, talking in a different way.
So that they would believe that he was did not know the Lord. And we sometimes, umm, could do that.
And it says that he wanted to change first their location, so he moved them away from the families, from probably a brother, umm, Bob was saying probably their parents mostly got killed, umm, but they took them away umm, to another place, to the place of China, The place where?
There was rebellion and opposition against God, the place where everybody would do anything that they wanted in term in in regards to.
The the things that God requested and they did not re regard anything that got requested and they changed their location. And many times Satan does that. He wants to put you away from your family. He wants you to be separated from your family. And sometimes we are living in the same house with our with our parents, but we are way in the sense that there is no interaction.
And there is no communion there. And that's what Satan wants. He presents the worldly friends as as if they were friends but and tries to separate children from their parents. And that's that's what he does.
And then he change tries to change their language. And then verse five. And the king appointed a daily provision of the King's meat and of the wine which he drank.
So not only did he change the language.
We also wanted to change the diet. Isn't that exactly what Satan wants to do with you? Also, isn't that why he does with all this?
Electronics and and and things that he presents to you to change your diet so that you do not taste you do not you don't have any any umm, appetite for the word of God.
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You know, in the in the wilderness, umm, the children of Israel receive the mana. Mana was the name that they gave.
So the bread that came from heaven, and they asked, when they saw it, they asked what is it? They didn't know what it was. And that's why I told Mana. And Mana tasted like what somebody can help. What did manna taste like?
What was that again?
Wafers and honey. Wafers and honey. That's the sweet flavor.
But there's another part that says that it tasted like oil. Why is that?
Yeah. So they grounded, they changed it. They did a lot of things with it because they were not happy with it.
And that's what happens when we we're not happy with the Saints of the Lord. We try to change it to accommodate our own desires, our own and, umm, intellectuality and so on. And it loses its flavor, does not taste like wafers and honey anymore. It tastes like new oil. And the lower wants us to have a flavor for his saying, for his personal, for the person of the Lord.
They you cannot desire the onions and the garlic and all that from Egypt and and have a taste for the man at the same time.
That's a strong flavor, but it does not provide what the mana provides. That's what the Lord wants us today. He wants us to have that delic, delicate flavor in our spiritual umm, palette. We could call it that and taste of the Lord Jesus, not only about the word of God. Sometimes when, when we ask what is the man, that type of what we say is, is the type of the word of God.
The Lord says in John that I am.
The bread that came from heaven is more than the word of God. It's him. The word of God is, is, uh, talks about him. It's not a religion in the Southeast in, in that we should follow or just the knowing a lot about scripture and on. It's a relationship. It's a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And umm, Satan does not want that.
He he wants religion, he just doesn't want love for the Lord Jesus.
And going back it says.
In verse umm verse 5 again.
So in the middle of the verse, so nourishing them three years, nursing them three years. Why three years?
Because they can notes that he will umm, the deliver that is solid that is.
Has been enjoying the things of the Lord that has been in the word. He cannot take that away in one day, but he's going to do it slowly. He's going to slowly bring the things of the world to you. The first thing is to change the location. He wants to separate you from communion, from all, from others.
Then he wants to change.
The name.
Umm.
Verse.
He wants to change the name in verse six, but before that in verse four, children at home was no blemish but well favored.
And scale for and always #7 was umm where he changes the name.
So he changes the location, he brings them in and he tries to change the language, the way they speak. He changes their umm, their diet, and he wants to change their names in verse six and seven. Why the name?
Because we have we identify ourselves as believers and we we If we identify ourselves as believers, then the world knows who we belong to.
And with names such as Hananiah, Misael, Azariah, Daniel, when somebody asked somebody on the street, Umm Hannah and I on the street, what is your name? And he said Han. And I said, oh, he's a Jew. So they would immediately know that he was coming from, from Israel. But they changed it so that they, they looked as if they were from Babylon. And that's what Satan wants. He doesn't want you to testify.
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To say who you are, it says well, because you live inside. If that's fine because you live inside, you don't have, you don't, that's that's OK. Just don't say it.
But the lower wants us to say to testify for him. Remember Joseph of Arimathea? And he was afraid he was a disciple. But internally he was afraid to say I am a disciple. But when he saw the Lord crucified, it took courage.
And he came out and said, and clearly he let people know that he was a disciple, and he took the body of the Lord and put it in A and a tomb that was, that was his own, his own tomb.
And we have so a change of name there. I didn't want to take umm all the time and in this chapter just saying what Satan wants to do with us. But I also wanted to cover what is what is the what is that something that we could do?
To counteract his attack. We had a lot of that yesterday.
When Brother Bob was talking about the Armor of God.
Umm, but it is a UMM, it is a war and it is a true warfare that Satan has against us. He has a plan for each one of us. He wants to destroy the testimony. He cannot take away your salvation. The Lord UMM has given you your salvation. It is only through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But Satan can take away your testimony, and that's why he does. Umm.
In in First Corinthians 3.
It talks about someone that is saved as by fire and we'll just go there for a moment.
2nd.
Somebody can help me out with that scripture?
What was that 15?
Yeah, thank you brother. 1St Corinthians 3, verse 15.
If any, well I'll read umm.
Verse 15. If any man's word shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yes, so as by fire.
Are you not that you're the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If any man's word shall be burnt, if any man works shall be burned, he shall suffer loss. So we don't want to live our lives.
Like this man, there's three men mentioned here in this chapter and two of them are believers. One is the one that builds that is a good builder. The other one is a bad one and it says.
That he shall suffer loss. So we want to be that man when, when our life is over and this life is very short. When our life is over. Do you want to be like that person that has just lived a life?
Umm, that is has been wasted. That's let let let the Lord not that happen to us and umm.
Going back to Daniel again, I just wanted to point a few things that Daniel had that we could take advantage of.
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Verse eight of chapter one.
But Daniel purpose in his heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the King's meat, nor with the wine which he drank.
Daniel purpose in his heart.
It is the desire of the Lord that each one of us would be like Daniel in this sense.
We should have exercises the Lord the Lord Jesus, umm.
Is the one that saves us. But we should all have exercises. Daniel purposing is hard that he would not defile himself with a portion of the King's meat, nor with the wine which he drank.
I had some scriptures also in regards to our exercises.
I was thinking of First Timothy chapter 4.
For a few months before and verse 7, but refused profane and all wives fables an exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
Refuse profane and all wives fables, and exercise myself rather unto godliness.
For bodily exercise profit as little, but godliness is profitable unto all things.
So these were things that that Daniel had Daniel purposes in his heart not to defile himself.
He wanted to have a godly life and you could think of Daniel and in the scenario where he lived, it was more difficult, I believe than any of us here. You see the young people today and you know, they say, well, there's a lot of pressure, There's a lot of peer pressure. Umm, the, the people that they associate themselves with are doing.
Certain things and they yield onto those things and we see that Daniel was in a in a bad situation. He was away from home. He could have come up with many excuses. He could have come up with the with the excuse that oh, we are.
We're captive. What can we do? Umm, we are, we are subject to the Kingdom of Babylon. Why can't we do? There's nothing we could do but he purposing his heart and the Lord rewarded the purpose of his heart. You could say well.
It's different difficult times. It's not like the times my parents live. This is there is more temptations now and you could imagine how Daniel.
Live in what sort of temptations? In a in a scenario where there was nothing in his favor, absolutely nothing. He didn't have a parent to guide him. He was surrounded by companions, and this companion is the majority of them. They were just following what they were told.
All these things that the scene of Babylon wanted to do, they said, OK, we have. We have no choice, we'll do it.
For Daniel purpose thing is hard not to be filed himself and it's because he wanted to live a godly life. Godly is not a synonym of sin.
One I believe leads to the other, but they're not synonym. What is an ungodly person? Somebody can help me out? What is? What is it to be ungodly?
Somebody has said that godliness is being like God, not in the sense of.
His essence but in the sense of his umm of how he is morally and ungodliness is the the opposite of that but also is living the life knowing that there is a God living like if there's no God. So the person doesn't have AI mean an external immoral life per southeast.
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People, at least don't see it.
He goes to his job, he doesn't umm, hurt anyone in his in his mind he believes he is pretty decent.
But God says and but then he doesn't pay attention to what who God is or has no not has no desire to have any relationship with God. The word of God says he's ungodly.
And, umm.
That Daniel wanted a relationship with God, he wanted to be like him in the in the moral sense and it says here First Timothy 4 refused for paying an old wife's labels and exercise myself rather into godliness. Exercise takes an effort. Umm we may exercise umm.
Physically and it helps us, but it says that the profit profit is little doesn't mean that it doesn't profit at all. It says that it profits only for this time is only for down here.
But godliness?
Profited is profitable onto all things, having promised of this life, of the life that now is and of that which is to come. So that means it's more than just down here. That one is good for down here and it's good for the for the life to come in the sense that we we will, it will continue.
But we must exercise. Exercise spiritually speaking, is having conviction.
And a young person that doesn't have convictions will live a life that is, uh, a life it will, it will have an end that is the disasters. And we need to have convictions.
If we live our lives without conviction, we will have an end, like Samsung for example. Samsung was a young man of faith and we have that in in.
In the New Testament that is is shown to us that he had faith but he lacked conviction.
He was umm, a young man raised in a home that he was, that was a separate home. He was a Nazarite, and they also had an ulcer in that home because the Angel suggested that there would be an altering. He offered umm to the Lord and so on. It was a good home and he was raised with a lot of privileges, like many of us.
And, uh, we talked this morning.
The children are holy. Why? Because it it is a privilege to be raised in a Christian home. It'll it avoids many trouble. Many people are that are not raised in Christian homes and come to the Lord later on. They would they would have wished that they would have been raised in a Christian home because there is a lot of things that are avoided in that home.
And, umm.
But Samsung, he wanted to bring down the convictions of his parents and the first thing that he does after he asked for.
Umm, for that woman, he says, I, I this, this is the woman I like. Take me that one. I'm paraphrasing, but that's what he's saying. He takes his time through the vineyards of cinnamon. And that is interesting that he does that because that's one of the three things.
That, and that's right. To not do was to eat anything from the vine.
He could not eat anything any the the kernels, the horse, the grape, the wine, the liquor. He could not eat anything from the vine. And he takes his parents and you can imagine that, and I say this because there is a lion.
As they go to to meet this girl, there's a lion that comes up.
And only Samsung sees the lion and fights the lion, but they do not, so they must have been going in different paths is what I imagine.
But what I'm trying to say here is that Samsung takes his parents through the vineyard knowing that he's not supposed to eat anything from the vine and knowing that his mother is also was also.
Umm, given that instruction by the Angel, by the Angel of the Lord, and he does that to debilitate, if you want to call it that, the principal from the conviction of his parents, because by doing so he would, he would be very close to the temptation who was bringing him and he and them very close to the temptation.
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And it's not clear if Samsung is Samsung ate any of those grades.
Doesn't say any of that, but he was bringing in his parents and himself very close to it. If we're wise, we do not get close to temptation. That's not what Joseph did and umm, that's not what the Lord tells us to do. There's something that we only win by fleeing from, and that is from fornication.
When he talks about fornication, it doesn't say wrestle.
Against fornication or combat or fight so that you could win. Doesn't say that. Says flee, flee fornication.
We do we're known of us is strong in that we we do not flirt with with the things that are going to bring us down and you know a story that is very.
Is known on on too many of us Is that umm, there was a a man and I'm not sure I'm saying the story right.
There was a man that was that wanted to have UMM was interviewing 33 young men to drive his chariot for for his daughter and one of them he asked how close can you get to the Cliff without the horses pulling? And he was very proud of himself and said you know, I could get about a meter distance from the Cliff. No, no issues.
Again, I'm I'm repeating the story. I'm not sure if it's right this way, but this is, umm, the idea. The second one says, well Sir.
I can get it put from that distance and the whole and I can I have full control of the horses. And then the third one says, well, Sir, I do not get close to flip. That's the one of course, that he hired and the the point is that we do not flirt with 10. The Lord says to we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities is is an external.
Fight when it When it comes to the flash, we.
It doesn't fight the flesh. Do not fight the flesh. We consider ourselves dead onto it. That's the only way to win.
When there is a strong master that has dominion over slave.
If it's the slave dies, the master still has all the power, so the slave is dead.
And it says consider yourself dead. So it's not that the flesh is weaker.
The flash is the same and you could ask the older one among us. You could probably ask umm brother umm Bob and sister Barb and they would tell you that the flash is the same but it says consider yourself debt onto it. If I am dead, the flash could have all the power, but I'm dead has no power over that of a dead person.
And that's what the Lord wants with every one of us.
It says in.
Another exercise that we could have is in Acts 24. I believe Brother Bob tries upon upon this before.
Acts 24.
#16.
And again, an exercise, spiritually speaking, is a conviction that we should have and it it takes diligence.
It takes diligence. We will not fall into godliness. It doesn't happen that way. You exercise towards it. You can fall, you can fall into sin, but you don't fall into godliness.
In Acts 2416 and here in do I exercise myself to have always?
A conscience void of offense for God and toward men.
And we we umm, couple that with first team at the chapter one, verse 19.
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First you must be 119.
Holding faith and a good conscience, which some have been put away concerning faith, has made shipwreck.
We need faith and a good conscience. Some have been put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck. The apostle Paul says that he exercised to have, umm, a good conscience and actually for a year. And do I exercise myself to have always a good conscience void of offense for God and toward men?
And Brother Bob was talking about conscience.
In Spanish is conscientious with science, with knowledge. That's what I mean.
And.
It and again he also mentioned that we acquired conscience in the Garden of Eden after man sin after we sent and it is necessary to have a clear good conscience. But how do we have a good conscience? The first thing that Daniel did was to have to have a live walk in godliness.
And he also had a good conscience. How do we have a good conscience?
By never sinning.
Confessing. We need to confess our sins, and if we confess our thoughts to the Lord, they don't become action. The problem with us is that we do not confess. We do not when when there is a sin in our lives. If we have an evil thought, we let it come to our minds.
And it goes down to our hearts, and then it keeps going down to our hands and our feet, because then we start doing this thing.
And the Lord does not want us to live a life like that.
Let's confess our sins. If we do that, if we confess, if we do short accounts, and we've heard this many, many times, short accounts. And there's a reason for that, that our older brethren have told us. This short account means that if I confess my thoughts.
Then they will not become actions and the and then it is it gets worse and worse and I get deeper and deeper into it.
The Lord wants us to confess our sins. I have a good conscience. I have a good conscience. Of course, if I leave a godly life, I have a good conscience. But if I if I sin, and we all do.
If I confess my sin, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin we we are.
We have we live our lives with a good conscience. It's not a good thing to go against the con conscience.
But let's remember, conscience is not our guide. Some people live let their conscience be their guide. And some people, they even say that why do we not let our conscious be our guide? Because we can have a conscience that umm is not enlightened, is not is not in the light. The word of God is the light. But if we're living a life like the children of Israel were when they were transported.
From Israel, from Jerusalem, by the by the king of Babylon.
You're separated from there. You do not have the light of the word of God. You're not no longer feeding from, from the, the same things that you, that you used to eat that you have other things that you're feeding on the wine that he drank and the, and the meat that he ate. And you're, you're being, umm, you're being fed with this thing. Your name has been changed. You're, you're now speaking another language.
And this thing starts changing you and you start behaving like a Babylonian. And that's what happens to us too, as believers. We start behaving like the people of the world. Umm, and there's, there's another umm, example that was put, umm, some time ago also, and we were probably all familiar with it. If you put a frog in a boiling pot.
What will it do?
It's obvious, right? Jumps out.
But what they have done is they have put a frog in.
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And look in, in, in water at room temperature. And then they increase, umm, the fire little by little, little by little. And the, the frog star is adjusting and it gets warmer and adjust, gets hot and adjust and it finally boils. They did that. It's a real experiment. And the fraud does that. It adjusts itself until it boils.
And that's what we do, too.
When we are in the presence of evil, we hear, umm, we hear words are defiling.
Some of our of our friends or, or, or neighbors or people we interact with, they start cursing and at first we cringe and then we get used to that and sorry, you know, hearing it all the time, it doesn't affect us as much because we get used to it.
And umm, why do they curse Umm and without any problem when we are present? Because we are.
Like the, the children of, of, of dude, I hear of, of Jerusalem. We are acting like them. We are speaking like them. And they do not feel anymore that light that, umm, manifest everything when we're walking. Well, you know, even people from the world, they even say, oh, I'm sorry.
Because when they have, if they occurred before before us, but when we're not walking well, they do not see a difference.
And that I think that's happened to to many of us.
And then another one, umm, before we finish. We only have 5-4 minutes.
Umm, just wanted to read two more, one in Hebrews 5.
5.
Hebrews 513.
For everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for his abate, but strongly the longest to them that are of full age. Even those who by reason of use have their senses exercise to discern both good and evil. We know that Daniel exercise godliness, Daniel exercise confession.
He confessed his sin and the sins of his people.
And he also exercised this, he looked deeply into the word. He not only read the word just sporadically and see where you know he would something would fall and and just read that. I'm not saying that that is wrong in itself. What I'm saying is that we should be diligent, exercise ourselves to know what the Lord says.
In his word and then put it in practice. That's how it senses our exercise, not only the basics of of.
Of the principles of the word of God, but grow in it and the the way we grow is walking in the things that we have learned. The PEO, the children of Israel were given all the land, but it says also all the land that they set their food on because it was a practical thing. It's not only here in the head, it's a practical thing.
And then finally, umm, I just went through reading Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 11.
We know that they Daniel also umm.
Read the word of God and even he read Jeremiah, who was a prophet of his own time prior. It was a young, young person when, but it was, uh, from his own time and he knew that that was the word of God and he looked, umm, deeply into that. Hebrews 12.
And verse 11.
Says now no chasing in for the presidency must be joyous but previous.
Nevertheless, afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Exercise thereby and we have we don't have much time but here if umm there are three ways to respond to the difficulties of our lives. Umm, one way is to be like it says in.
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I'll I'll read those verses too.
Umm, the prior versus.
Verse 6.
Umm verse five I'm sorry and each and you have forgotten the expectation which he gives unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou are reviewed of him so we could.
Despite the things that the Lord brings to our lives and does not pay attention to them, got no profit from them, we can be faint, we can faint or be discouraged by the things that the Lord allows in our lives.
We can be exercised by those things and we see that Daniel was exercised. We we know that he went through a lot of trials in his life. The last one was he was an old man. You could probably say, but Lord, I have served you all this time and now I'm thrown in the den of lions. How does that make sense?
But he was exercised by it. He did not. He did not despise what the Lord was doing. He did not think.
But it was exercised by there was a we can, we can despise by not taking too hard the things that Laura allows in our lives. We may, umm, experience some bad thing and we could say, well, you know, if that happens to everyone, you know, once in a while it's locked, but.
We could be exercised, and the Lord wants us to be exercised by this thing.
Knowing that he is allowing them for a purpose, it doesn't mean that it's punishment. That's not what I'm saying with because the Lord works in our lives. If we, if there's something that happens to us, we shouldn't take it as, oh, I must have done something bad because the Lord has allowed this in my life. The Lord wants to teach me something. That's that's the thing. And the Lord is allowing these things for a purpose and I should be exercised.
Thanks. Just to summarize, there are four things that Daniel was exercised by and that we should be exercised too. And we have those four things in the in the New Testament, but we see that he will exercise by them and and when we see his life, he was exercise, umm, to walk in, in, in a dog with a godly life.
Umm, he wanted to please the Lord, so he was exercised by that.
Then we know that he was also exercised umm to have a good conscience.
Living a life with a bad conscience is not a good thing. A a Christian that lives with a bad conscience is an unhappy Christian. You cannot have the joy of the Lord. And we can have a good conscience by confessing our sin. And he was exercised to have his senses, his spiritual senses exercised by going into the word of God and being.
Umm, for reading the word of God to be an exercise by it and looking into the word of God and looking deeply into it, not on the the Hebrew believers were were saying only in in the rudiments or the the the basic principles that they had learned that they were not advancing into into, umm other things.
Into, umm, into the.
Although, although.
Benefits and all all the.
The precious things that we have in Christianity, and they were saying we only with those principles. We see many principles of the Word of God in the Gospel. But if we and the Gospels are precious and it talks about the life of the Lord and all the principles are there, but we need also to advance into the epistle and get acquainted with that and finally the things that happen in our lives.
We should be exercised by those things we should not despise and we should not.
Uh, faint, but we should be exercised by those things. There was one, one example just to just to finish our time is up. But there was a brother that, umm had, had been umm, not following the Lord for some time and he was involved in a, in a car accident and a brother visited him and he had, he was that he asked him, you know.
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Have you learned anything from from this accident knowing that the brother was not following the Lord?
And his answer was, well, I learned not to drive a small car. So he got nothing from it. He was just thinking about natural things, not thinking about crucial thing. And he was an exercise by the fact that he had had this accident and he wasn't living for the Lord. There's no accident for the thing in in when we walked for the Lord. So our time is awful. Just closing prayer.
I got on our father. We asked you that this exercise is maybe in our lives. We confess, father, that umm.
Many times, uh, the enemy of our souls does influence our lives. We know that umm, it does not have control of our thoughts, but he can bring things in our lives that can make us doubt and like to make us umm walking and fast, but it's not umm.
But it's not a path for a child by by children.
And we just pray, Father, Thou may deliver us, that we may be exercised, and I think, and we may lay hold of Thy provision that are there for us. We have heard before. We just thank you God and our Father, and we pray for the young people and the rest here also of us that may give us friends, that we may be strengthened by Thy word.
And in prayer we just pray. Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.