(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

You're never guaranteed anything not guaranteed. You're not guaranteed a victory. You could have a lot of great odds You could either look at it going. Oh, I everything everything's looking pretty good And again, I mean the the the spiritual thing that comes to my mind because it's just the thing that I'm focused on Is that church plant? Hey, everything's lining up. Everything's looking real good. That's not guaranteed We're planning dates. So everything seems to be moving forward great. Hey, that's not a guarantee at all. I Mean we could have something tomorrow boom pops up. It's just wow. This isn't gonna work out at all. There's a major setback right and Look if that happens, what are we gonna do? We're not gonna tuck tail and run. We're just gonna say, okay well here we're gonna try to find something else then and keep fighting keep pushing but It's a lot easier to be blindsided by things first of all, if you just get lifted up and proud and haughty in Whatever it is that you do thinking like oh man everything's you know, nothing bad could ever touch me I'm already I'm an old hand at this. This is all easy. This is no problem, right? You get blinded to reality You get blinded to real opposition. You ought to treat everything carefully. I mean, this is a battle He's going he should you know, he's going to fight a battle. You should you should treat it as a battle Ben hey dad didn't Well, we see in Joshua right after their first battle Jericho right the famous battle where they didn't really have to do much of anything They followed God's Word. I mean they followed God's command Perfectly the walls came crumbling down. They were able to go in You know, just just completely destroy the city No problem So they're thinking like hey, this is this is pretty easy. I like having God with us right and and amen all All the praise all the the celebration great But then when it comes to AI They're already going look at verse number one Joshua 7, but the children of Israel committed a trespass so this is this was the real problem by the way, this is this is the the the the source of their demise The children of Israel committed a trespassing the accursed thing for a kin the son of Carmi the son of Zabdai the son of Zara of the tribe of Judah took of the accursed thing and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel and Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI which is beside Beth Avon on the east side of Bethel and spake unto them saying Go up and view the country and the men went up and viewed AI and They returned to Joshua and said unto him let not all the people go up but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite AI and Make not all the people to labor that they're for there, but few Like well, let's not make everybody work Let's just make some people work Now how about we just all go work together It's a battle. Let's go. Let's let's try to ensure victory here and and just go we're all here to fight Anyways, let's all go fight the battle. So the went up of the people about 3,000 men They fled before the men of AI now that being said They wouldn't have won with everybody going up either Why because God wasn't with them? So God needs to be on your side and God would make sure that they're not going to succeed when They're disobedient and they've got this accursed thing and they've already been in disobedience to them and of course 36 men ended up dying and Then it becomes this this huge Turn of their momentum is just shifted completely against them and they're going like whoa what's going on Maybe we should have never even come into this land. We would have just been fine over there. You know, it's just kind of like You know, they're weeping and mourning before the Lord John and the Lord just like why are you just like there on your face? Like get up There's sin like it like this is the reason why I'm not with you. It's not it's not because like I I just decided I changed my mind that I'm not that you're not my people. I'm not gonna bring you in this in this land I already told you you take of the accursed thing then there's gonna be a problem with that There's gonna be repercussions. So like that's what happened It's exactly like I said, so you've got to deal with this and of course then they do and they're able to get the victory but we we don't want to get so Used to victories or you see God work so mightily at one point and just think like, you know, they about this. I Know for me and I know for other people as well Especially even early on God uses you and works in your life Right, like I know I know for me starting to go soul winning starting to do things You start getting some sin out of your life Right and God has used me in many different areas during times where I've still had a lot of sin in my life But it's you know, it's getting better. You're improving and God's still working with you But then after you reach a certain level you might start to think like Well, God's used me with all this other stuff It must not be that big of a deal or something if I just Indulge in this area or indulge in that way God could still use me or it's just kind of like well look now Here's the difference now, you know better You were going the right direction before Now if you're gonna start going the wrong direction You better not have this this bad attitude of thinking that like well I could just get in any manner of sin It's not gonna matter because God's already used me before I've got more things right now. I'm just gonna keep on serving God. He's gonna be there with me. Well, no, maybe not And and that's a dangerous place to be when you start having those types of thoughts of how to justify your sin or thinking that Everything's still just gonna be okay