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In our wide handouts, Psalm 126, or in your Bibles, either way, if you know the tune. Psalm 126, let's sing it out. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then said they among the heathen, the Lord had done great things for them, the Lord had done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Turn again our activity, O Lord, as the streams in the south, they that sow with tears shall reap in joy, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Then said they among the heathen, the Lord had done great things for them, the Lord had done great things for us, whereof we are glad. He that goeth forth and weepeth, every precious seed, shall doubtless come again, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheeps within. Then said they among the heathen, the Lord had done great things for them, the Lord had done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Amen. Let's pray. God, thank you for this opportunity that we have to be in your house. I pray you be with us as we sing. It fills the joy, Lord, and gladness of singing. I pray you be with the pastor later on as he preaches from your holy word, filling with the Holy Spirit. And we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's go to hymn number 66. Hymn number 66 at Calvary. Hymn number 66, feel free to add the enthusiasm at the free and mean conditions. I even heard some people add it like Calvary, ree, ree, ree, but that's too much, don't do that. Just do it free and part of it will apply to me and me. Alright, so hymn number 66 at Calvary. Hymn number 66 at Calvary. Hymn number 66 at Calvary. Years I stand in vanity and pride, of caring not my Lord was crucified, knowing not it was for me that, at Calvary, mercy there was great and grace was free, free heart and there was want applied to me, there a burden sold down liberty, at Calvary. By God's word at last my sin I learned, then I trembled at the law I spurned, till my guilty soul implored, returned to Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free, free heart and there was want applied to me, there a burden sold down liberty, at Calvary. O the love that true salvation's planned, O the grace that brought it down to man, O the mighty gulf that God did span, at Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free, free heart and there was want applied to me, there a burden sold down liberty, at Calvary. Now I've envisioned Jesus everything, now I'm gladly owed Him as my King, now my raptured soul can only sing, of Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free, free heart and there was want applied to me, there a burden sold down liberty, at Calvary. Amen. Well it's great to see you guys here at OKC and it's been too long since I've been up here but I'm very pleased to be with you guys this evening. I think we have some old bulletins for you if you want one. We can get you a bulletin. For some reason the printer is just not liking us this evening so sorry about that. But we have on the inside, just for a couple announcements, we have a list of our ladies that are expecting, continue to pray for Miss Reed and also upcoming events. We have on September 3rd, so this Saturday, a soul winning marathon at Fort Smith and it's going to be meeting there at 9 a.m. and so who's participating in our soul winning marathon? Alright great, so that's going to be a lot of fun. Also we have a couple other just fun activities, at least on September 17th. We have the zoo field trip and then we have the chili cook off and apparently we allow heresy up here so you know, I'm just kidding. But y'all can have fun up here and do whatever you want. But down in the promised land, we don't put beans in our chili or anything like that, okay, so just FYI. I'm sure that'll kick up a rivalry again but it's okay. Some people can be wrong, some people can be right and we'll get to heaven and we'll find out, right? Okay. But also I have been preaching consistently at Pure Words on Thursdays and mostly just because, for a lot of reasons, but I mean they haven't had a very good rotation or necessarily a lot of able men down there to preach but recently we had ordained brother Duncan Urbanek to be an evangelist down there similar to like we have brother Fur here and he's going to be picking up a lot of the preaching duties and so I'm actually planning on kind of alternating between Houston and Oklahoma a little bit more and so I'm planning on preaching here a little bit more often just since I haven't been up here just to kind of try and catch up a little bit and preach a little bit more often here for a little while. So also I am going to come on a Sunday, September 11th, I'm going to be coming up here and bringing my whole family and so we'll be here preaching on that Sunday but also I'm coming the Thursday, September 22nd, I'm coming October 6th, October 20th, November 3rd and December 1st. So a lot of extra Thursdays I'll be coming up here as well and only reason I'm doing that is just I would like to split my time more evenly in the past but it just was more needful to be down there and so I just wanted to come up here and be a blessing. It's not because I need to fix anything or whatever but you know of course if you feel like I need to fix anything then of course I'm needing to fix some things okay so just FYI. But Brother Fur has been doing a really good job with the church and I'm definitely really appreciative of his leadership and it's always great to see you guys. You guys are a really close-knit church and it's really a blessing to come up here and see you guys. It's hard to find a church that is really almost like a family in every way you could possibly imagine and so it's definitely cool coming up here and seeing you guys and it'll be fun to come on a Sunday too and get to see a few of the extra brethren as well. So I'm definitely excited for the next couple months and coming up here and seeing you guys but the church is going really well from my perspective. I'm really pleased with everything that's going on. It was great to see a lot of you guys down at the men's conference and so that's always a lot of fun as well. But that's pretty much all I have for announcements at this time. We can go ahead and go to our third song, 262. Brother Salvador is going to lead for us. Song 262, The Light of the World is Jesus. Alright, we're going to go ahead and hold it out on those fermata's in the chorus and then on the last chorus we're going to hold it out even more on those two owl eyes that you see there. We're going to hold it out there and the last chorus that we sing is going to be even more on the fourth verse. So sing it out, 262. The light of the world is Jesus The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin The light of the world is Jesus My sunshine and good day is glory shown in The light of the world is Jesus Come to the light is shining for me Sweetly the light has dawned upon me Once I was blind but now I can see The light of the world is Jesus No darkness have we who hate Jesus applied The light of the world is Jesus We fall in the light when we follow our guides The light of the world is Jesus Come to the light is shining for me Sweetly the light has dawned upon me Once I was blind but now I can see The light of the world is Jesus Sweet wellers in darkness with sin-blinded eyes The light of the world is Jesus Come watch at his bidding and light will arise The light of the world is Jesus Come to the light is shining for me Sweetly the light has dawned upon me Once I was blind but now I can see The light of the world is Jesus No need of the sunlight in heaven we're told The light of the world is Jesus The land is the light in the city of gold The light of the world is Jesus Come to the light is shining for me Sweetly the light has dawned upon me Once I was blind but now I can see The light of the world is Jesus Amen. Great singing. Let's go to Luke chapter 4 for the Bible reading. Luke chapter 4 for the Bible reading as the men take the offer. Good evening. Luke chapter number 4. I'll give you a second to get there. Luke chapter number 4. The Bible reads, And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing, and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command these stones that be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the devil, taking him up into the high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them for what is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence. For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season. And Jesus returned in power of the Spirit into Galilee, and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as his custom was, he went to the synagogue on Sabbath day and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet, Isaias. And when he had opened the book, he found a place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, and he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears, and all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me, This proverb, Physician, heal thyself, whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country, but I tell you of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in the day of Elias, when the heaven was shut up, three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Zidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisias the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they had heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him into the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way. And he came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days. And they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power. And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone, what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth, art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him and heard him not. And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! For with authority and power he commanded the unclean spirit, and they come out. And the fame of him went out to every place of the country round about, and he arose out of the synagogue and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever, and they besought him for her. And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she arose and ministered unto them. Now when the sun was setting, all that had any sick and diverse disease brought them unto him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And the devils also came out of many, crying out and saying, They are Christ the Son of God, and he rebuking them suffered them not to speak, for they knew that he was Christ. And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place, and the people sought him and came unto him and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore I am sent. And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just thank you so much for this day. We thank you that we could gather together today to hear your word preached. Lord, we just ask you at this time now that you just fill Pastor with your spirit and just give him the words to speak and just pray for the congregation, that they would listen and focus in, that we could be edified. Lord, we love you. We thank you. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. Amen. The part of the chapter that I want to focus on is there at the beginning, and Luke 4 is a big chapter. It covers a lot of topics. We really kind of enter into the beginning of Jesus Christ's ministry as an adult here in the beginning of Luke chapter number 4, and it starts out with Jesus Christ going into the wilderness, but the Bible describes it as being led by the Spirit. Look at verse 1 again. It says, And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil, and in those days he did eat nothing. And when they were ended, he afterward hungered. Now, it's really kind of an interesting verse to skip over, but the Bible describes Jesus Christ going in the wilderness, being tempted of the devil for forty days. That is a long temptation period. And the Bible says after this, you know, after forty full days of being tempted of the devil in the wilderness, it says he's hungry. I would have been hungry after forty minutes. Okay, so I can't even imagine forty days of being in the wilderness, having not eaten, essentially fasted. Not only that, just the amount of energy exerted to resist the devil. We all know the more you work out or put forth energy, the hungrier you're going to be. And Jesus Christ, having gone through this, is still going to be tempted of the devil three more times, as kind of mentioned here in Scripture. And really, the title of my sermon this evening is coming from this passage, and it's called Temptations of the Devil. Temptations of the Devil. Now, I do not believe that these three temptations we see are necessarily replete. There's probably other ways the devil can tempt us, and there's other strategies, but generally speaking, I think that these three are three of the biggest ways that the devil tries to tempt us as Christians. Now, as I was kind of thinking about this topic and this sermon, I felt like there was just too much material to kind of just do in one sermon, so I really just kind of want to focus on one of the first ones, but I'll kind of give you the layout of what the Bible is saying here and kind of what the devil did, and then we're going to kind of tackle the first one. But notice what it says here in verse 3, And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone, that it be made bread. So the devil is tempting the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's suggesting to him, are you really the Son of God? He's doubting whether Jesus is the Son of God, or he's trying to put shade on Jesus being the Son of God, and really that is at the cornerstone of all false religion. They're always trying to put shade on Jesus being the Son of God, and the devil wants to put doubt into everyone's mind of Jesus being the Son of God. The Muslims do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They believe that God has no son, so they suggest that Jesus is simply a prophet, and we're talking about a billion people on the planet all in this false religion of Islam, and whether they're Shiite or Sunni, it doesn't matter because they all deny who Jesus is. They deny the deity of Jesus Christ. They deny the sonship of Jesus Christ, and they're all going to go to hell when they die. Not only that, there's all kinds of cults in America today that put shade on Jesus Christ being the Son of God or pervert Jesus being the Son of God, and that's obviously coming from the devil. The devil always wants to put doubt in people's mind of Jesus being the Son of God. In fact, that's why the Jews even killed Jesus is they denied that he was the Son of God. They rejected that he was the Son of God. That is the antichrist religion is denying the Son Jesus Christ. Of course, the devil himself is even going to tempt Christ with the notion of are you really the Son of God? If you were really the Son of God, then you would just be able to command stones and make bread out of them. Now, as I think about what the devil is doing here, we get Jesus' answer to kind of really understand what it is the devil's kind of tempting him with, though, because it says in verse 4, And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And, you know, there's a lot of verses I love. I love Luke 4.4. It's just like one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It's always stuck with me. I just really love that phrasing of every word of God. And, you know, what's sad is that this verse in every modern version virtually takes that phrase out. It just takes out every word of God. It just says, Man just lives by bread alone. And I'm like, how is that even a complete answer? You know, if the devil's sitting here saying, If you're the Son of God, command these stones and be made bread. And Jesus is like, Man doesn't live by bread alone. OK, you know, what does that mean? You know, you need that second part to even make sense of the passage. It says, but by every word of God, meaning that I don't need bread more than I need the words of God. The word of God is more important than bread. Now, ultimately, to me, what the devil is trying to tempt Jesus Christ with here in this moment of extreme temptation is that of just simply pleasure. What does food really ultimately give us? Of course, it gives us nourishment. We get that. But ultimately, it gives your flesh some level of pleasure, some level of satisfaction, some level of nourishment. And, of course, we have to eat in order to survive. If we never ate, we would just simply die. But the question here is not just Christ just never eating to die. It's more about how much food do I really have to consume? You know, you really only technically have to consume enough food to just keep going. You don't have to have more than that, right? But why do we eat more? Because we like it. You know, I like food. Who in here likes food? OK, all right. Yeah, I love food. OK, and especially good food. You know, and then I would always joke, my wife, I would say like her family eats to survive and my family eats to thrive. You know, and it's like some people, they prepare a meal just simply because they got to eat. But it's like we prepare a meal because we enjoy it. Like we want to eat this. We're excited to eat this. You know, as a kid, there's a lot of meals you have to eat, right? But isn't it nice when you enjoy a meal that you get to eat? You know, isn't there a difference between the meal you get to eat versus the meal you kind of have to eat or that item on your plate that you get to eat versus the item on your plate that you have to eat? So my children know this very well because you put grapes on the plate and they get to eat grapes, right? You put broccoli and they have to eat broccoli, you know? And so it's this kind of a concept here. But generally speaking, eating is ultimately a pleasure task. It's something that we get to enjoy. It brings us a lot of happiness. Most of our society is literally built around eating. It is hard to find any business or any place that you can go where you can't get food. And even if food is not even the primary thing that's going on, they probably have a snack bar somewhere or they have a vending machine somewhere or they have some kind of option in order to eat. I mean, every workplace seems to have food as an option. I mean, it will be hard. You have to go to like an industrial warehouse or something. You'd have to go to a really specific business where they just have no food in the building. Like food is not even an option. You couldn't even get something if you needed it. It is a main thing that we think about. We build our lives around. I mean, Oklahoma City, I believe it has more restaurants per capita than any other like major city in America. And I just joke it's because you have nothing else better to do than to eat. Okay. That and smoke pot. But we'll get there in a minute. But here's the thing. Of course, we love it. And you know, any time my family has traveled up here, if you try to get a dinner reservation on Friday night or Saturday night or actually I'm just saying this way, if you go to eat out and you don't have a reservation on a Friday or Saturday night, it's very difficult, especially when your family is the size of seven, you know, because they consider that a large party or whatever. It's just like, hey, this is my family, right? But you're just trying to go out somewhere and everybody's going out to eat. Everybody loves it. It's fun. We enjoy it. And there's nothing wrong with eating. But what does eating really symbolize? It simply symbolizes pleasure. And why would I choose something over that? Because I believe it's more important. And Jesus is illustrating the fact that the Word of God, the Bible, spiritual things are more important than pleasure. You know, God gave us pleasure to enjoy things on this earth. God gave us things to have some happiness and to have some satisfaction. But more important than us just spending our lives indulging in pleasure is to serve God, is to be spiritual. And that's why he's saying it's more important that I have the Word of God than I have pleasure, than I have the things to enjoy in this world. And I believe, you know, why did he give this answer to him in response to if thou be the Son of God is the fact that Jesus doesn't need to prove to himself that he's the Son of God. He can simply just believe the scripture about himself. You know, he doesn't have to turn rocks into bread to think that he's Jesus Christ. He doesn't need a miracle to believe that he's Jesus. He believes the Bible. And isn't that the same that he gives for us? Isn't the same he gave for the Jews? He wasn't going to just perform a lot of miracles to prove that he was the Son of God. He was getting them to want to believe the Bible, to believe Moses, to believe the scripture. The scripture is enough for him. He doesn't need some particular miracle or some particular sign in order to acknowledge the fact that he's the Son of God. I don't need that. And you shouldn't need that. I've never even seen these miracles that Jesus did because he's still in heaven right now. You know, Jesus didn't come down and walk on water for me. Jesus didn't come down and raise people from the dead for me. Jesus didn't perform a lot of the miracles that we see in the Bible for me before my eyes. I didn't see them. You know, I read them in the Bible and through faith, I believe them. And I don't need some miracle to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe the scripture. I believe this book is why I trust in Jesus Christ. Now, I'm not going to get into it too deep. Let's just cover the rest of this chapter quickly because I want to stick on this idea of pleasure. But notice a couple other things the devil tempts him with. Verse 6, And the devil said unto them, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Get thee behind me, Satan. For it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. So another thing the devil's tempting with, not just pleasure, but what? Power. He's saying, Hey, I got all this power. I've got all this glory. I'll just give it to you if you worship me. But of course, Jesus rebukes him and is not interested in receiving power from the devil because he is here to what? He is here to serve. Look at the latter part of verse eight. And him only shalt thou serve. Instead of Jesus being served, he served. And the devil wants you to get all this power or decide to want to get all this power so that you'll be served and you'll have all this stuff for you. But what did Jesus do? He came here to serve. Right? So we see that the devil's tempting him with pleasure. He's tempting him with power. And look at verse nine. And he brought him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said unto him, If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down from hence. For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against the stone. And Jesus answering said unto them, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from them for a season. So the third way that the devil tries to tempt Jesus is through his pride. First is pleasure. Second, it's through power. And then third is through pride. And it is a prideful thing, is a presumptuous thing to sit here and tempt God and to try to suggest to the Lord what he should or should not do or how he should respond or just taking some kind of verse and running with it. You know, a lot of people love to do this. They love to take one verse in the Bible and believe that they understand it and then accuse God of not fulfilling their understanding of that verse. Here's an example. A lot of atheists and a lot of these God-hating reprobates will say, Oh, well, if God was love, why is there all this suffering in the world? And the thing is, is God is love. That's not a false statement. We do believe that. But it's not necessarily your version of that that is true. It's God's version of that that is true. And so you can't then tempt God or test God and say, Well, then I guess nothing bad should ever happen to me because you're love. But, you know, that's stupid. Just like to take this verse and run with it and say, Oh, God said he'll catch me if I'm falling or whatever, so I better just jump off a big, high building. That's not what the Bible's suggesting, though. The Bible's not giving you that commandment of, Hey, let's just jump off buildings. That's a dumb idea to interpret the scripture that way. And of course, you know, the devil loves to do is give dumb interpretations of the Bible to give you one verse to run with it, to ignore the whole of scripture, to ignore the context, to ignore exactly what God's even instructing us in. Okay, so that's just to give you a layout. I wanted to preach all of that, but I don't believe I can. So we're going to stick with our first point this evening. Go if you would to Deuteronomy chapter number eight, though, Deuteronomy chapter number eight. Now, in a Bible study, really, to get a full picture, it's often best to look up quotes of the New Testament. You know, when the New Testament was bringing up a quote to go find that in the Old Testament, right? Isn't Jesus Christ here in Luke four? He doesn't really have the New Testament at his disposal. I mean, he's kind of actively living the New Testament. But, you know, when we're going to reference something that's written, or we're going to reference some kind of scripture, he's talking about the Old Testament. That's what Jesus had at his disposal. He had the Moses. He had the Psalms. He had the prophets. He had these different things at his disposal. And that's enough to rebuke the devil here. And what he was bringing up is kind of a quote that's coming from Deuteronomy chapter number eight. And it's speaking of what God kind of tested the Israelites with. And he wants them to basically realize through physical pictures, spiritual truths. Look at verse one. All the commandments like command me this day. Shall you observe to do? They may live and multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord swear on your fathers. Now, so remember all the way which the Lord thy God led the these 40 years in the wilderness, the humble the and to prove the to know what was in my heart, whether that would keep his commandments or no. Now, isn't this interesting that in verse number two, the Bible says the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for what? 40 years. And then how long did Jesus wander in the wilderness for 40 days, didn't he? That's not a coincidence. And what was the ultimate goal is to see what's in their heart. OK, now Jesus at the end of that 40 years, didn't he pass the test? He's his heart was still right with God, even after going through all of that struggle, temptation, difficulty. But the children of Israel were not. So the Israel struggled in the wilderness, did they not? Now, he gives a specific example here, verse three, and he humbled thee and suffered the hunger and fed thee with manna, which thou knew is not. Neither did thy fathers know that he might make me know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord, the man live. And this is the exact quote coming from Matthew for four. Matthew four four brings us up. Luke four four brings it up. Luke four four is more of a kind of a summary of that statement in the sense that it's by every word of God. And here it's saying the words that proceed out of the mouth of the Lord. But ultimately, we see the exact same example here where he's putting them in this temptation atmosphere, where they're going through struggling, they're going through difficulty, and God's trying to figure out what they value more. What's important to them? How are they going to deal with this scenario? What is it that the children of Israel had to do? They had to gather manna every single day in order to survive. But, you know, it wasn't that he was giving them this food to try to illustrate to them the importance of food. There was a spiritual connection tied to this. What is the picture of the spiritual connection? Well, the spiritual connection is the fact that manna is a picture and representation of God's word, because that's what he's comparing it to. Right? But by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. It was not the manna that God was after. What God was after is them physically going out there and physically picking up the manna and physically taking it home and physically eating it to illustrate their willingness to follow God's commandments and that they were going to follow his instructions and that they were going to do his word. You know, the word of God was important to them. It wasn't the manna specifically. It could have been any item. It could have been quail. It could have been, you know, corn flakes. It could have been pancakes. It wasn't really about the food. It was about the following of God's commandments that was important to them. And, you know, a parallel to this would be simply, you know, our need to read the Bible on a regular basis. You know, reading the Bible on a regular basis is is not something because here's the thing. You can't read the Bible one day. You know, if you were to just sit down, just try to read the Bible. It takes approximately 70 to 90 hours to read the Bible. So you cannot accomplish it in one day. You probably could never accomplish it even in one reading. You'd probably fall asleep before you got there. And I know this for a fact is whenever I try to read the Bible late at night, it's just like the easiest way for me to go to sleep. That'll put you to sleep. Now, if you're using a screen, it might you might prolong a little bit. But if you're reading like a physical book at night and you're tired, good luck. You know, at least for me, that's that's a big struggle. Right. But if you're to sit down, just try to read the whole Bible in one sitting, it's just almost physically impossible. I would just venture to say it's not possible. OK. Obviously, there could be an exception. Some weirdos, you know, I mean, someone that we did planking for a men's conference and someone looked up for the world record. Someone did it for nine hours. And it's like, come on. The guy was so stiff. He couldn't even his arms were just like this after, you know, like they're picking him up and he's still just like, you know. So he's just like frozen in that position or something. OK, folks. But that's silly. You know, obviously, God gave us a big book for a reason. It's because he wants us to try and read a little bit every day. That's the reason why it's because if you could just read all one day, then you just like, why read it yesterday? You know, I already got it, you know. But the fact that it's so big and so vast, it kind of forces us to have to do a little bit by a little bit, by a little bit, by a little bit, by a little bit. And it's this daily pattern. And then God is basically testing you to see what's in your heart. Are you willing to do it every single day? Because it's easy to have endurance one time. You know, it's easy to just do something just once, but it's different to do it just every day, just a little bit every day, every day, every day, just every day. That shows a completely different type of commitment, a completely different heart. And that is what God is after is our heart on a daily basis, not just a one time sacrifice, not just a one time burden, not just a one time event. Well, I did it. You know, church is the same way. Church is not supposed to be just Easter once a year. It's supposed to be you go every single time the doors are open and you say, well, I don't always enjoy it. OK, that's the point. Because if it was just pleasure, then that's that's not really that's not hard. Just like eating. It's not hard for any of us to eat, especially good food. We're not sitting here just like, oh, man, I have to eat brisket or, you know, I have to eat ice cream or, you know, oh, man, you have to do that to me. It's like we look forward to eating. OK, we enjoy that. But a lot of the things of the spirit, you have to force your flesh to do it. You have to force yourself to go to church, to read the Bible, to go so and do these things on a regular basis. You're not always going to enjoy it. And if you claim that you always enjoy it, you just haven't been doing it long enough. OK, because all of us know you're going to get to a point where your flesh is going to say, I'm not that interested. You know, I don't want to do that. I only want pleasure. I only am interested in the pleasures of this world. Now, go to Second Timothy, chapter number three, Second Timothy, chapter number three. And of course, you've got to think about this. If the devil is going to tempt you, the devil is not dumb. In fact, according to the scripture, he's wiser than Daniel. The devil is going to tempt you with something you want. OK, so the devil is not going to sit here and say, do you really want to eat crickets? You know, who wants some cricket for dinner? You know, who wants to go run 50 miles? You know, who wants to go and basically be a martyr? It's like he's not tempting you with those type of things. He's tempting the things that you want. He's tempting you with things that you desire. I mean, after you haven't eaten for 40 days, what are you going to want more than you want some bread? And of course, we all know the bread that Jesus makes is better than the one at Cheesecake Factory. You know, it's better than one at Outback. You know, this is some high quality bread that Jesus could make. I mean, like the manna coming down from heaven, I guarantee you with some some special type of bread. But you know what? That pleasure is not more important than Jesus being faithful to God's commandments, than doing what God has for him, than being right with the Lord. You know, sometimes in our life, we have to say no to something that's pleasurable so that we can serve God. And you say, well, I don't know if that's true. I think serving God should just always be fun. But that's just not reality, OK? And in 2 Timothy, it brings up how in the end times, there's going to be a great falling away from Christ and from truth and from God, and it's because of pleasure. Look what it says in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1. This know also that in the last days perilous times to come, that means dangerous, for men should be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded. Notice this one. Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Now, that's a really important phrase because here's just reality. Of course, we're all going to love pleasure. OK, you can't escape that. No one just hates pleasure. We all love pleasure. But here's the problem. When you love pleasure more than God. And people are going to get to a point where they just say no to God because they want to have more pleasure in their life. Why is it you think that church is deteriorating in America, Pastor Shelley? Because men are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Why is it that people won't come to church on a Sunday night? Because they're more lovers of pleasures than they are than lovers of God. Why will people not come to church on Wednesday night? Because they're more lovers of pleasure than they are lovers of God. Why is it that people won't read their Bible? Because they're more lovers of pleasures than lovers of God. Why is it that someone won't spend time going out soul winning during the week? It's because they're more lovers of pleasures than they are lovers of God. Why is it that people aren't spiritual in this world today? It's because they're lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Because your flesh loves pleasure. And you know what? Most every single person is just, I want as much pleasure. I want to maximize pleasure in my life. And so they're going to strive their whole life to seek pleasure. But what did Jesus do? He was denying pleasure so that he could what? Serve God. And I'll tell you this, you can't have both. You can have one of them. I mean you can serve God. But you probably won't have as much pleasure as other people. Or you can have a lot of pleasure, but you won't be able to serve God. And there's going to be a cost to both. Go over to Matthew chapter number 6, Matthew chapter number 6. Now this is what is really deceitful about this idea or this concept. That some people will then suggest to you, okay, so you're saying if I serve God I don't get any pleasure. No. That is not what I'm saying. In fact, what's silly about this is you typically are going to have more pleasure by serving God than you would if you didn't. It's a lie and it's a deceit that the devil tries to give you. But it is going to be different. It's going to be a little bit different. Now the Bible says in Matthew chapter number 6, look at verse 19. Sorry, I turned to Mark, but I need to go to Matthew. Matthew chapter 6, look at verse 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So, of course, you can lay up a lot of treasure on earth. Obviously, the Bible wouldn't even bring up this verse if you couldn't. Christians can lay up a lot of treasure on earth if they want to. But the problem is, you know, when you lay up treasure on earth, it makes you a target. It makes you a victim of rust, decay. How about this? Inflation. It makes you a victim of people stealing from you. I mean, that's inflation too. It's both. You know, that's the rust and the thievery. You have all kinds of other ways that people can rip you off, rob you, steal from you. I've had it happen to me. I've had people rip me off for large sums of money. You really, even if you're really smart and really diligent, you can't necessarily anticipate evil. Evil will catch you by surprise. Evil will take you for all that you've got. And really, there's not a big point in laying up a lot of treasure on this earth. You know, really, we should be more focused on laying up treasure in heaven. That doesn't mean that you can't do well for yourself or make money or give an inheritance to your children. But, you know, I want to give my children a spiritual inheritance over a physical inheritance. Now, of course, I want to give them both. But at the same time, you know, it's more important that we're focused on the things of heaven. It says in verse 22, the light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. Now, what does this mean about your eye being single? It's that you have one focus. You have one mission. You have one goal. If you don't have one mission, you're going to basically be a double-minded man and you're going to be unstable in all your ways. And if my eye is just focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, then I'm going to be full of light. Whereas if my eye is not single and it's kind of just off, often what's going to happen is I'm not going to have that same kind of effect. I'm not going to have that same kind of light. You have to have your eye just focused on the target. Just like in anything. Shooting. You can't just like be just kind of like looking around and you're going to hit the target. I mean, you've got to have your eye right on the exact dot of where you want. Because if you're just kind of generally looking, you're never going to hit that target. You're never going to hit that bull's eye. You're not going to get what you're actually aiming for. You have to, you know, aim small, miss small. You have to keep your eye on the prize. You have to be looking where you're going. You know, how many people drive successfully and they're just kind of like, you know, you know. You've got to keep your eyes on the road. You've got to keep your eye single, you know, focused on what you're doing. Otherwise, you're going to have a lot of problems very quickly. That's why it's important. And if driving is important to keep your eyes focused, how much more is just your life? That you keep your vision focused on that which matters is the Lord Jesus Christ. Is the things of God. And when you start getting your eyes on other things, on the pleasures of this world, you're going to have a car accident. You're going to go into the ditch. You're going to hit things that you didn't want to hit. You know, that's why you have to keep your eye single. Verse 23, but if I and I be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Now, it's funny because I think some people just don't believe this verse. They literally think they can serve both. Oh, no, no, Pastor Shelley, I can. You know, I'm going to be a millionaire and I'm going to be a faithful Christian. You know, it's like, probably not. Now, obviously with inflation we'll probably all be millionaires pretty soon and it won't really even be like being millionaires. But, you know, the new one's like, I'll be a billionaire, right? I'll be a billionaire and I'll be a faithful Christian. It's not very realistic. Why? Because God already told you, you cannot serve both. You know, and of course as a man it's really hard, I can't do more than two things, I can't do more than one thing at a time. You know, we're really limited as men to typically do multitasking. You know, women are pretty capable of this, men just like, man, we struggle to do a lot of things at the same time. If my focus is on one thing, I pretty much ignore everything else. And it can be frustrating, I know if I'm focused on something, my wife says something to me, I can sometimes genuinely not even hear that she spoke to me. And I remember this about my father, because I remember I would sometimes watch basketball with my dad. And he was a huge Kentucky basketball fan, just a big Wildcat fan, he grew up in Kentucky. And they're always really good at basketball, they have a lot of players that end up going into the NBA. But when he was watching a game, I mean you could literally just be like, his face is here and you're just like this close and you're just like, Dad, hey, you're asking him a question and he doesn't hear you. And it was just like, it was the most incredible thing, I'm just thinking like, because he's focused. You know, and when he's focused, he just doesn't, all everything else is white noise, it doesn't even matter. I mean, you have to like shake the man, you know, to try and get his attention. And then he's like, what? You know, it's like, dude, I want to ask you a question. You know, it's like, but he's just like laser focused. And that's the reality, it's like if you're serving God, you can't really be focused on mammon. But if you're focused on mammon, you can't really be focused on God, you just can't have divided attention. Because your divided attention will never work, it's just too impossible. Now, what does mammon picture here? It pictures that which is money. Because again, we have the same kind of illustration with the devil in the wilderness. We have that turning stone into bread. We have the same picture of the children of Israel in the wilderness. And ultimately, money is often kind of related to food in general. You know, when you don't have money, you're hungry. When you have a lot of money, you're full. You know, so it's kind of this parallel. Most people didn't live in America in human history. Okay, so for the majority of people, when they're not having, when they don't have money, they're hungry a lot of times. They're starving. Go to India and you'll find out what poverty is really like. Go to Africa, you'll find out what poverty is really like. You'll see people where you can see their bones. You can see every single bone in their body. They know what poverty is like. And throughout human history, without modern inventions and modern craft, a lot of people would starve. A lot of people went hungry through the winter and through these difficult times. And throughout history, having food was a sign of richness, of wealth, of prosperity. And it still is today. It's just we live in such an insulated world that's full of riches that we don't realize that. So we're just so blessed. I mean, our country is just have so much fullness, just so much food, just so much overabundance of everything we could ever want that we kind of sometimes forget the scope of scripture and the scope of this world. But even though we have all the food we could ever want, it's not like our country is satisfied with that. They want more. You know, it's not like they're satisfied with bread. They're not satisfied with food. They want to be Elon Musk. They want to have a two hundred and forty six billion dollar net worth. I looked it up recently and changed probably every second, but it was like it was like two hundred and forty billion dollars or something like that. Now, that is an unfathomable amount of money. I was just trying to like do some statistics on this and just try to like look up some of the numbers. And I was thinking about if you have these people's net worth. I mean, it's so much money. It would literally be you would have millions and millions of dollars to spend every day and you could never run out of money your entire life. I mean, you could have you could spend six million dollars every day for one hundred years and you'd still have money if you had Elon Musk net worth. I mean, you couldn't spend six million dollars a day every day. You might could like for a few days, but then it would just start stacking up and you'd be like, I don't know. You know, what are you going to buy at that point? I mean, why do you need that much money? What is that going to do for you? It's all it's going to do is give you more stress and anxiety and more worry and more people that want to get that money from you that hate you. All these type of things, you know, and when you have enough food to eat and you have clothing and you have a roof over your head and you have the things you kind of need. You got to start asking yourself this question, why do I need more? What is the point of me having more? It's because I want to maximize pleasure. That's what it is. You know, having food and Raymond, we're supposed to be content is what the Bible describes. Why? Because once you kind of have the bare necessities, you have the things that you need. Then it becomes a question of kind of a balancing act of how much pleasure versus what is the counter to that. And at the end of the day, when we get into heaven, your personal net worth isn't coming with you. And, you know, a good thing, your debt isn't either. You know, some of you is just like, I'm glad, you know, I'm going up to heaven because I can't pay these bills, you know. But it doesn't matter, because when you get to heaven, your spiritual bank account is the only thing that mattered. None of the other things even really mattered. But we have people that are just so concerned with just all the mamma of this life, the mammon of this life, but the mammon is going to perish. I mean, what if I told you, you know what I have in my house, I have a warehouse full of loaves of bread. I mean, I have 10 million loaves of bread in my warehouse. You'd be like, well, that's kind of dumb. Are you going to be able to eat all that? No. And pretty soon it's going to all turn green and it's going to waste away and it's going to be worthless. No. But pretty soon your green money is going to waste away and be worthless too. It doesn't really matter. It doesn't really benefit anything. But then that's what people just spend their whole life just gathering as much bread, as much mammon as they can. And you know what? What was the whole lesson that Jesus was giving them in the wilderness? You can only get enough mammon for today. Why? Because that's all you need. I mean, do I really need more food to eat than the food I'm going to eat today? No, I only need just enough to get by today and then I need just enough for the next day and just enough for the next day. And then whenever I die, I don't need any more because I'm dead. What's the point of me gathering all this extra? What happens is it breadworms and it stank. And you know what? All of our earthly possessions, all the earthly things we have in this world are going to eventually breadworms, quote unquote, and stank, meaning they're going to be burned up, they're meaningless, they're worthless, they have no real value. You say, well, you're saying that we can't have any fun. We're not going to have any pleasure. No, I'm trying to help illustrate this fact to you. You're going to have the exact same levels of pleasure. The problem is one equation equals God and everything else that you wanted. The other equation is only the things you were going to get anyways and no God. Because if we keep reading in this parallel or in this parable or in this story, He says, Therefore I say, and you take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on, is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? Behold, a thousand of the air, for they sow not, and neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto a stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, though they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. I like how God just disses man hardcore. He says, All your fashion shows are ugly. Every just weed of the field and every little flower of the field is way better looking than anything you could dream up. He's like, Hey, you want to talk about fashion? I got you covered, buddy. He's like, Hey, even just my creations, my lilies and my flowers and whatever look better than anything you could ever dream up. Anything you could ever desire or array yourself as. Verse 30, Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow's cast in the oven, shall he not much more clothe you? O ye of little faith. Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or where shall we be clothed? For after all these things that a Gentile seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow should take thought for the things of itself, sufficient unto the days evil thereof. What God is telling you is this. If you see God first, tomorrow you're going to eat. If you don't see God first, tomorrow you're going to eat. Hey, if you see God first, you're going to have clothes. If you don't see God, you're going to have clothes. If you see God first, you're going to have all the things that you need. If you don't see God first, you're probably still gonna have all the things that you need. So he's saying, Why in the world then are you so worried about this? He's saying, if you seek me first, you're still going to have the food. You're still going to have the raiment. You're still going to have all the things that you need, but what you're going to also have is you're going to have God, is you're going to have the service towards the Lord. You're going to have the spiritual rewards. If I gather twice the meals that I'm going to eat in a day, what does that benefit me? It doesn't benefit me anything because I can't eat that, so it's going to go to waste. Whereas if I serve God, God's basically saying, I'm still going to have all the things I needed. I'm still going to get all those things. It's not like I'm not going to have the pleasure of eating. I'm not going to have the pleasure of wearing clothes. I'm not going to have the pleasure of the things of this life. I'm still going to get all that. It's just that I'm not going to have all this extra waste and having sought all of that and just come up short and just having all this overabundance and having no treasure or riches towards God. There's other parables and other stories in the Bible. If that rich man had so many goods, he couldn't even store it all. He's like, I'm going to build a bigger barn just so I can have even more that I'll never eat, that I'll never use, that has no benefit to me whatsoever because he's still going to have the exact same meal. If that rich man and say, you know what, all this extra abundance, I'm just going to give it all to the poor. He was still going to have the exact same meal that night. He was going to have the same clothes that night. He was going to sleep in the same bed in the same house with the same wife, with the same kids. All of his life was all the same, but you know, here's the difference. He would have been rich toward God on top of that, whereas the other guy is just going to waste all of it. That's what God is trying to illustrate to you. He's trying to wake you up and say, hey, you're going to be the, it's the same equation from the carnal perspective, but you get the added bonus of all the spiritual when you seek me first. But when you don't seek me first, you lose out on all that. You don't get all that. And he says, look, everybody's seeking after this. It's not like, oh, well, if I serve God, there's no pleasure with that. No, you get all that pleasure. You get all the carnal pleasure that all those people are getting, but then you get the spiritual pleasure on top of it. So it's actually even better joy. And in fact, the spiritual joys are even greater than the physical joys. So you end up just having even greater joy than all the people that are seeking for joy. All the people that are seeking pleasure, they don't even get the pleasure and the satisfaction they wanted, and you get all of it. You just get every single thing that you could possibly have wanted, but you can't serve God and mammon. You got to pick one. Now you say, well, that doesn't make sense to me. It makes sense to me, pastor Shelley, that if I'm seeking for money and seeking for clothes and seeking for goods, that's how I'm going to get it. Not seeking God, but that's where faith comes in. And isn't it interesting that all the people I know that seem to be putting God first and seeking God, they seem to always have all those things that they need to. For some reason, it's just they, they still get to eat food. I mean, I haven't seen anybody just starving to death because they're serving God lately, especially in the old IV. Those guys look like they could miss a couple of meals. Tony Hudson. I mean, that guy doesn't look like he's missed a meal in a while. I don't think that he's missing meals because he's serving God. Missing Raymond. You know, the last time I, I haven't seen an independent funnel Baptist pastor up here in tattered rags in a while. Anybody seen that? I've heard they all have a house to go to. They all have at least one car. It doesn't seem like I, I just really would challenge you to say, show me the person that's serving God. It just seems like he just, but he's living on the street. He can't, he's, he hasn't eaten a meal in a couple of weeks. I mean, where is this guy? I haven't seen him, neither is the Bible because the Bible says I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor is he begging bread. So how did that work? It's like, I've never seen this boogeyman that doesn't exist, but you know what I have seen? I have seen a lot of people that have tons of money and tons of food and tons of clothes and know God in their life. And they have a lot of consequences for their sin. They have a lot of consequences for the actions that they're making in their lives. Good at Matthew chapter 10, go to Matthew chapter number 10 verse 37. You can only have so much pleasure. You're going to max out at some level. It's just like a buffet. Why do they even have the base? Because you can't eat at all and they don't give you a doggy bags. You can't take it with you. Okay. But at the buffet, I mean, you're going to max out at some point. There's going to be at least, there's going to be the last bite eventually, you know, you're going to run out and you're going to max out and it doesn't, you don't need any more than whatever's going to be your last bite. Whatever is going to be the amount that you're going to finally stop at. You don't need any more than that. And when it comes to this life, it's like we have this scared scavenger mentality. It's like, we just got to make sure we just gather just so much. I just want to make sure I have way more than I need, but that's just not living by faith. That's living by sight. Matthew chapter 10, it says in verse 37, he that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth me is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it. He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. Notice he's saying, Hey, lose yourself, lose what you want, seek God. And guess what? You'll magically find that that's what God wanted. God actually is going to give you the desires of your heart. It's just sometimes we don't realize it. Sometimes we think that the flesh is what we really want, but that's not what we really want. We want the one that's inside the spirit man. And when we deny that flesh, when we lose that life that the flesh wanted and we pick up that spiritual man, we start realizing that's the one we really wanted anyways. Whereas when you start seeking that flesh life, you start end up realizing that's not the life you wanted anyways. It was vain. It was vain anyways. It didn't really have any value. It wasn't really purposeful. And, you know, he's trying to tell you, you need to start taking up your cross and following after me. You know, you start chasing these family relationships that are going to lead you away from God. And then you start realizing it wasn't even worth it anyways. That relationship is terrible. You know, that relationship is not even bringing any satisfaction. That person still doesn't want anything to do with you, even though you bent over backwards to try and be their friend and hang out with them and do things with them. It's like, they're still not that interested in you. They're still not even really your friend. You'll chase after that relationship that's leading you away from God. And then what'll end up happening is that person will leave you high and dry. So then you won't have that relationship or God because you forsake both. Whereas when you start seeking God, you'll have relationships just form that you weren't even trying for that lasts a lifetime. You'll have real mother and brethren and real brothers and sisters that actually care about you and that'll stick with you and that'll help you and come alongside you that you would have never had when you were just pursuing the ones that you just automatically were gifted with through life. And you know, there's nothing wrong with having both. You know, I would love it. I would love it if my dad and my sister and my brother and all my sisters-in-law and brother-in-law and cousins and nephews and uncles and aunts, all of them came to my church. I would love it. I would love it if every person that I know growing up, all of my friends in high school and all my friends in college, I would love it if they came to my church. But you know what? I don't really have that. Some people do. Praise God for it. But at the end of the day, I have a lot of friends and I have a lot of people that are my brothers and sisters and mothers in Christ and I didn't even try for those relationships. I was simply just trying to seek God and then it just happened and then I just got all these ex-relationships. And you know what? I'm closer with those people than I am with all those people that are blood anyways because the blood people don't really care about me that much. They can say it. You know, they'll say it. They'll give me a gift on, you know, a birthday or a holiday and pretend like they like you as long as you give them a gift too. Isn't it interesting that people that get the most mad at you for not reciprocal gifts are blood? Whereas a spiritual brother, they may give you a gift and you don't give them back and they don't care. They're still your friend. Whereas if you don't give, you know, so-and-so a gift and Christmas, oh, they'll get you. You know, and if your gift, like if they gave you a $50 gift and you give them a $25 gift, they know. They will remember. They'll be like, where's the other one? You know, where's the other $25, right? And you're just thinking like, what are you talking about, you know, and they're going to hold it over your head. You're going to have the worst argument. I mean, this is what the Bible is bringing up and he's saying, look, if you love these relationships more than me, you're just not even worthy of them anyways. Some people are going to quit on God because they care more about hanging out with mom and dad than being right with God. And again, what is the temptation that the devil's tempting you with? The danger. Okay, don't get this wrong. It's not like it's bad to hang out with mom and dad. It's not like it's bad to hang out with brother and sister. In fact, my family arguably is one of the strongest families that ever grown up in or ever seen. We hung out all the time. My family, we literally, we all lived in the same town at different stages in our lives and we would literally, Friday night, we would all hang out and play games. Saturday night, we'd all go to church together and then we'd go to dinner after church and then we'd hang out and play games. And then Sunday, we would all hang out, we'd watch football, we would play games again. We all went on family vacations everywhere. I mean, I hung out with my family 24-7 all the time. It was just the closest relationships you could ever imagine and I thought it was great. There's nothing wrong with it. It was a lot of fun. But here's the thing, if I have to pick between staying in that dynamic for the rest of my life or serving God, I'm going to choose serving God. Again, what would the devil tempt me with? Pleasure. And I'll tell you what, it's fun to play games with my family. It's funding of my family. My sister is one of the best cooks I've ever seen in my life and she would always cook for us. She would make some of the greatest meals and some of the greatest food and I didn't pay for it. I'm just showing up, just eating some of the greatest meals, greatest food, very hospitable, play all kinds of games, have all kinds of fun. They got everything you could imagine. I've played probably every board game you could imagine except for the weird ones, like Dungeons and Dragons, or some bizarre game. But virtually every board game I've played, they have a pool, basketball, football. You could play anything, every video game, every movie. Just pleasure. It's not like having fun or doing these things is bad. What I am saying is this though. If I'm seeking after that in replace of God instead of God, I'll end up getting to a point where I have no pleasure in none of those things. Whereas if I seek after God, I'll get it both because you know what? We still play games at church. You know what? We still have fun with church. We still talk. In fact, most of the people in our churches, they just love talking to each other. They can't even play. They'll come over to play a game and we can't play a game because you're just talking so much. You're just having so much fun. Whereas every time I hung out with my family, you know what eventually happened in the game night? Everyone was screaming at each other and mad and we left angry. I'm just telling you what would happen. It would get ugly. You know, moms and dads would get brought in the conversation and it was bad. You know what I mean? Whereas I haven't seen that in the church, praise God, yet. Okay, better not. No, that's good. Go to Luke chapter number eight. Go to Luke chapter number eight. What I'm telling you is it's a boogeyman that you think, oh, man, I got to chase after pleasure. You know what? You chase after pleasure and you're just never going to get there, whereas if you seek after God, you're going to get the pleasure on top of it. And the devil wants to sit here and offer you all this stuff that sounds really good and it's not that it isn't good. It's not like the tree in the midst of the garden didn't taste good necessarily. We don't even know how it tasted. It might have been the best thing she ever tasted, but I doubt it was because I bet there was a pit in her stomach from having sinned. I bet there was that shame that immediately set in as soon as you took that bite and it wasn't really that sweet anymore. It really didn't taste that good anymore. And you know what? That's what the world does. It offers you something that looks really good, but there's not really any everlasting satisfaction in it. There's not any real joy in it. Luke chapter number eight, look at verse 11. Now the parable is this, the seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are they that hear then come at the devil and take it away the word out of their hearts lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they which when they hear receive the word of joy and these have no root, which for a while believe and in time of temptation fall away and that which fell among thorns are they which when they have heard go forth and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection. Now you have to understand this parable, it's four groups of people. The first group is those by the wayside. These are all your unsaved people, which really it doesn't matter if you were the best or the worst unsaved person, you're still going to hell and it didn't really matter. So we just discard them. The second group is those that believe and got saved, but the Bible describes them as being on stony ground, meaning that they don't really get plugged into church at all. They don't really ever go to church. They don't really ever read the Bible. They're just kind of instantly offended by everything else in the scripture. Like they loved the gospel, but then as soon as they heard anything negative, they were like, oh, well, I don't know about that or I don't, I'm not that interested about church. You know, I don't like religion or, you know, whatever excuse they give, they basically just anything that's difficult or a negative or I don't want to invest any time or money or effort or energy. So they just immediately are gone. There's a second group though. There's a second group that they love the Bible. They receive it with joy. They love the truth. They love all these things. But then something chokes out all of that joy and excitement and zeal for God. And how does the Bible describe it? It says very clearly cares, riches, and pleasures of this life. Think about this parable, how it has to make sense though. In order to be choked, these things have to exist. These thorns have to exist. That tells me that there are literal Christians that will get riches. They'll get the pleasures of this life. It's not like they're trading in Jesus for Brussels sprouts here. It's not like they're trading in, you know, their church card for a library card and going and reading a bunch of bibliographies or something like that. You know, it's not like they're just trading in church for some boring activity. No, they're trading in church for fun stuff. They're trading in church for the football game. They're trading, you know, church in for going out to the lake and having fun. They're trading in church for $100,000. They're trading church in for a third garage. You know, they're trading church in or Jesus Christ or the Bible for that Mercedes, you know, or whatever. Whatever it is. Now, of course, when you serve God, he might even give you those things anyways. But it's silly to think that I need to chase after that kind of stuff because look, ultimately it can choke you to the point where you just won't actually do anything for God. I've seen it. I know people that are like this where they literally, they want the pleasure more than they want to serve God. And at the end of the day, if you just came out of the wilderness and someone's offering you a piece of bread over the word of God, a lot of people are going to take the bread because it hurts. It's a suffering. It's a little bit of a sacrifice there. And let me tell you something. Coming to church on a Wednesday night is a sacrifice. Because I guarantee the people in this room, if you didn't come to church tonight, you're probably going to do something that you enjoyed. You probably weren't going to just go and, you know, punch yourself or something. You probably weren't going to just be at home just like, well, I'm not at church, but this is all I can do is stare at the wall. You know, you're probably going to do something you liked, weren't you? I know you guys, you're going to enjoy yourselves, weren't you? Yeah, of course you were. You were going to go and do something you hate. You were going to do something dumb. You know, some people might've been working even, make more money, or they might've been enjoying themselves. They might've been eating. I might've been eating. Okay. Right? You would have done something that you enjoy. So going to church was a sacrifice. Going to the Bible is a sacrifice. Going soul winning is a sacrifice. Doing the things of God is a literal sacrifice. And what can cause you to decide, I don't want to do those things, is look you over here. Money. Oh, look you over here. Pleasure. Look over here. Joy. The problem is it's not even really going to happen. You think that you want that, but here's the, I'm still going to eat today. It's just later. I'm still going to wear clothes today. Praise God. Okay. You still got clothes on. I'm still going home tonight. You guys are going home tonight. I'm still going to get a car. I don't even have to walk home. Praise the Lord. Right? You're going to still get all of those things. It's just about the principle of I'm going to put God first. You know, even like tithing is the same principle. It's like, you think that you're going to have less money, but God acts like he's going to bless you more. So you like, Oh, I want, I can't give money to God because I don't want to lose money. But it's like, by not giving him money, you're going to lose money. You know, by not giving him of your time, you're going to lose time by not giving him of your, not sacrificing of your will and your desire. You're going to lose out on your will and desire. You're going to end up being caught in things that you didn't want to do and going places you didn't want to go and losing money and joy and all manner of things that you didn't want. Now, of course, you know, we can overindulge in these areas too. You know, the world, they, what about, what do they do with food? They, they, they're full of gluttony. They just have to just have more food than they really need for their physical body or clothing. They have more clothes than they could ever wear. I mean, have you seen, I mean, most houses they, you know what keeps changing about houses, closet sizes. If you go in the market and you look at older homes, what is going to be a complaint about people? Closet sizes. No one has the master closet of the day like they did in the sixties. They're like thinking like, what is this for my shoes only, you know, for my weekday purses. I mean, what is this shambles of a closet here, right? You know, there are women out there, I'm not going to name anybody or anything like that. There are women out there that have clothes in their closet they've never worn. Just saying it's out there. Okay. There are shoes they may not have worn. There's outfits they've worn once. Okay. I'm not just talking about the wedding dress. Obviously that's a special garment, but I'm just saying like, what's the point of that though? Like, what's the goal of having just all these clothes that you never wear, that you would never even use for any kind of reason. You know, to me, it doesn't really make any sense. Makes more sense to have the same clothes, like wear the same thing all the time. Like I have a pair of shoes that my wife gave to me for a birthday present when I was 17 and I still wear them. That is 18 years of the same shoes. And I love it. You know, I love those shoes. I would be sad if I lost them. Okay. You know, and I've gotten some new shoes through time. It's okay. But, you know, I'm not trying to say that you can't have new clothes. I'm not trying to say you can't have clothes, you can't buy things. But don't we sometimes get to a point where we have a little too much or a little... Is that really the pursuit of my life is just see how many clothes I can get and stack on my closet that I'll never wear that nobody will ever see. That's why celebrities have to make videos of their closet because otherwise there's no point. I can't remember who it was. It was something like basketball player or something I saw and he's like showing all his shoes. Do you know what I'm talking about? Who was it? Oh man. There was somebody... It was a football player. It was a football player? Who was it? Patrick Mahomes. Yeah. Thank you. Patrick Mahomes made this whole video about all the shoes he has in his closet. I mean this guy has got more shoes than all the women in this room combined probably and this guy... It's a dude. It's like that's not really cool. Show us your gun collection, not your shoe collection. What are you? Right? But it's like he's got all these shoes and he can't wear them all. He's not even going to wear them all. It's just silly. You certainly don't want this for teenagers because they grow every week. So you can't even keep them in the same shoes for very long. But it's just silly. What does the world pursue instead of God? How about carnal relations? But I guarantee all these guys that are going out there and trying to pursue all these carnal relations, they don't nearly get as much action as all the married men in this room. You say, I want to pursue that. Get married. You know what? That is the best way to have that type of relationship. You know, it's just so stupid. You follow the world's way of getting that and you don't even get it. And you get just all kinds of broken homes. You get all kinds of weird relationship issues and situations. I mean, I know of lots of people that I've heard. They go out and whore around, get knocked up, and then now they're just a single parent with no relationship, no one to be with them, and no one wants them now because they're such a train wreck of a life. And so basically they're never going to have anything. Whereas I guarantee, I mean, the people that go to my church that have 10 kids, there's a reason they have 10 kids, folks, okay? You know, people always come up to me and they're like, hey, you know what causes that? And I say, yeah, it's the greatest thing ever. It's like, oh, yeah, well, I don't want to pursue God because I'm going to miss out on all that fun. No, no, no. By going for all that fun, you're going to actually miss out on that fun. You know, if you actually want the things of this, God gives you all of it. God created the pleasure to give to us, but he wants you to put him first and then he gives you all the pleasure with it. Whereas when you seek all the pleasure, you end up missing out on the real pleasure anyways. God usually takes it away from you. God punishes you and God curses you. You know, this area, because it's not seeking God, it's got to find something fun to do. So you know what it does? It just does marijuana all the time. It just does drugs all the time. Just smokes pot. Why would someone smoke pot? It's because they have nothing to do. They have nothing to live for. And they just think, I need a high right now. I need something to engage my brain, so I'm going to smoke marijuana, rather than coming to church and hearing the word of God being preached and having that engage your brain. And you know what? Church gives you the munchies just as much as pot does, okay? So you hear about all this good food being preached and you're like, man, I'm ready to eat, you know. It's just silly. You just pursue all these things. You know, you pursue friendships. Well, if I go to church, I won't have that many friends. But the reality is, I guarantee the people that go to our churches, they have more close personal relationships and friends than all of the worldly people. The worldly people end up having no real friends, vain friends, stupid relationships. You think you want all these things, and so you're going to pursue them. But by pursuing them in place of God, you end up not even getting there. You really get them by actually pursuing God first and putting God first in your life. And he'll give you all those things. Go to Matthew 16, the last verse I'll have you turn to. I knew I couldn't cover all three of those points, so I can barely cover this one in a short amount of time. And it's not been a short amount of time. But Matthew 16, verse 22, the Bible says this, Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be under thee. So Peter didn't want Jesus to die on the cross. That wasn't going to be fun for him. He wanted him to take over the reins, and he'd be the secondhand man. Verse 23, But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto me, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Notice Peter was more interested in the pleasures of this life than the things of God. And you know what? Sometimes God calls for sacrifice, not pleasure, Peter. And we can all be Peter at times and savor the things that are of men, not the things that are of God. Verse 24, Then said Jesus and his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. You were supposed to deny self. What are we denying? You're denying pleasure. You're saying no to pleasure now, but what the reality is is you'll get pleasure later. It's not like you're just saying no to pleasure. You're saying no to pleasure now, seeking God, and then he gives you the pleasure later. You know, you serve God in this life, and you're going to have pleasure in the afterlife. You know, this is not our time to enjoy. This is our time to work, because after this life, you don't get another chance to work. It's not like when you get to heaven, you stand before Jesus, and you're embarrassed because you literally have nothing to show for it, that you're like, can I get a redo? Nope. Because guess what? If I gave you a redo, you'd do the same thing, because I already tested your heart, and I already figured out what was in it. I gave you a test Monday, and a test Tuesday, and a test Wednesday. I gave you a retry on Thursday, and a retry on Friday, and a retry on Saturday, and a retry on Sunday, and you know what? You just kept picking the other thing, and then you picked the next thing. You know, when you were 30, you picked the world. When you were 31, you picked the world. When you were 32, you picked the world. When you were 40, you picked the world. When you were 50, it's like, I gave you a lot of chances, buddy. You already showed me what was in your heart. You already got balance. You already got weighed, and you came up wanting. And I'm telling you, it's just, if we got the wisdom that comes from the Bible, we would realize when you pursue pleasure first, you don't even get it. The only way to even get the real satisfaction, to get the real joy, is to just serve God first. So it's an obvious choice, but the problem is your flesh is weak, and the devil's going to come around with all the little toys. Here's that money. Here's that car. Here's that house. Here's that relationship. Here's that whatever it is. Here's that steak, or whatever. And you think, you know what? I'm just, I'm done with church. It's not as much fun, you know? I don't have as much joy in it. I'm going to seek after more pleasure. But you'll end up getting less pleasure at the end of the day. You got to seek God first, and then you'll actually have the maximum amount of pleasure that God wants to give you in this life. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for the word of God. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to serve you. I pray that we wouldn't squander it through the deception, through the trap that the devil allures us with. And we realize that you're the one that created pleasure. You want to give us joy in our lives. You gave us food, and you gave us marriage, and you gave us all kinds of things to enjoy in this life. You gave us clothing. You've given us all these things to be enjoyed. But I pray that we wouldn't let our heart be set on pleasure, but rather set on God. And we know that if we seek you first, you're going to give us all those things on top of it. I pray that the people in this room wouldn't be deceived when the devil comes around and tries to trick you, and tries to trap you, tries to deceive you, and tries to get you off, and tries to give you his pleasure. Because his pleasure is filled with sorrow, and regret, and shame. But the pleasure that comes from God also comes with everlasting life. And we just thank you for all you give us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In number three hundred and fifty-six, I Must Tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I can not bear my burdens alone, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help me, Jesus can help