Voices Part 3: Hearing God Through The Chaos

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Three Forms of Temptation

Lust of the Flesh

Lust of the Eyes

Pride of Life

Genesis 3:6 NIV84

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

All three forms of temptation were present in the first temptation.

Lust of the flesh: good for food

Lust of the eye: pleasing to the eye

Pride of life: desirable for gaining wisdom

Lust of the Flesh

John’s language here in no way suggests that the world nor the flesh are inherently evil. Both should be seen as gifts from God- who created all things good.

Rather, it is the desires of the flesh that have been tainted by sin and now long for evil things that is evil.

What are the sins of the flesh?

Galatians 5:19–21 NIV84

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Lust of the Eyes

The eye lusts for beautiful things:

Women

Houses

Places

Jewelry

Exotic cars

New tools

This is why the internet can be so devastating. People can live in a non-stop state of shopping, always looking for (seeing) something to buy.

E.T. In the middle of the movie, ET discovers the delight of eating Reeses Pieces. So masses of people were watching seeing Reeses Pieces on screen. Guest what happened. Over the months that it was in theatres, millions of people bought Reeses Pieces after the movie. They had a huge boom in sales.

Pride of Life

The boasting of what he has and does.

This is the desire to be important in the eyes of man. Men do all kinds of things to appease the pride of life.

This speaks or arrogance, pretension, being boastful.

It is the result of basing our worth on what we can do, what we have acquired, what we have accomplished.

2 Corinthians 5:16–21 NIV84

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Objectification

Objectification is the root of the pride of life. We reduce the value of a person down to what benefit they provide to us. We fail to see people as people, made in the image of God. Instead they become tools for our benefit and pleasure. This is a result of pride elevating us in our own eyes above other people to the level of a god in our own mind. Then the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes take over.

Condom Road/Prostitute Village

The pride of life caused men to value their own pleasure more than the dignity of the women in the village.

Then they exploited the women, using their money to buy their bodies.

Left the womem soul-less and themselves defiled.

Jesus Resisted the Voice of the Enemy with the Word

Luke 4:1–12 NIV84

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’” The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’” The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Lust of the flesh: temptation to turn rocks to food to satisfy the body

Lust of the eyes: Saw with His eyes the kingdoms of the world He could rule

Pride of life: temptation to use God’s power to validate His identity

Deflect the devil’s Fiery Darts with the Word of God

Ephesians 6:16 NIV84

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

The Voice of the Enemy Will:

Alienate

Separate

Denigrate

Alienate: to dry to fill our minds with shame and guilt to alienate us from God until we feel like God is an enemy trying to destroy us rather than a father

Separate: just as lions seek to separate the weak from the strength of the pack, so the enemy seeks to alienate us from the rest of the body of Christ so that He can devour us. We need the body of Christ.

Distance multiplies offenses. Mission TEN teams. Mosquito bites turns into malaria. Scratch turns into an amputation.

When we are separated from our brothers and sisters in Christ and not reconciled from them, offenses and fears grow. The devil’s echo chamber multiples every wrong thing they have said and every wrong thing we have said until we are bitter against them and terrified they are angry with us.

Denigrate: tell us that we are worthless so that we will settle for less than God’s best for our lives.

If you think you are worthless, you will be thrilled to get anything. But if you know you are child of the King, you expect better.

Pride is the source of all sin.

Humility is the act from which all righteousness flows.

Humility acknowledges our need for God and cries out for His help.

Pride hooks you up to drink from satan’s sewer pipes.

Humility brings you to heaven’s banqueting table.

Romans 10:13 NIV84

for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Do not let the devil alienate you from God. Humble yourself and run to God.

Do not let the devil separate yourself from the Body of Christ. Humble yourself and join in community with the people of God.

Do not let the devil denigrate you. Feed on the Word of God.

Do not worry. It only leads to evil.

Don’t worry. Worship and let God fight for you! Worship creates an atmosphere that is miserable for the devil, so he will leave you alone. The more you worship, the more the devil has to flee. This gives us the space to renew our minds with the word.

Which table are you eating from?

Table of Grace

Table of Guilt: accuser of the brethren

When you eat at the table of guilt, casting blame and receiving blame, you are eating at the table of satan.

Revelation 12:10 NIV84

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.