Speaker 1 0:05

Hello and welcome to the West Side Church's special podcast.

Speaker 2 0:14

Sean started in a good place. So let's start there too. Let's go to Ephesians chapter six. I'm gonna start out in the Bible. I hope you'll go there in your Bible too . Back to Ephesians chapter six. And since, since Sean has already essentially read everything that I wanted to read at the beginning, I just wanna point you back there, we did work together for a while. I just wanna go back and ask you to notice the language of battle. Will you do that with me? Because it runs all the way through this segment. Notice the language of battle. I would point out first in verse 12, he talks about our struggle, right? You see that our struggle. So that's what he's dealing with. And then in verse 10, he admonishes us. Be strong. Verse 11, stand firm. And then he likes that phrase, 'cause he keeps above it . Coming back to it. Verse 13, stand firm. And then he follows it in 14 with stand firm. And then, and then I think what we most recognize here in Ephesians six at the end of this letter is the armor language, right? He tells us in verse 11 to put on the full armor of God. He says it again in verse 13. And then, and then he starts the list, right? Y'all see that there he starts working through the list of armor. In fact, mark , I bet whole sermon series have been born right here in this text, right? Either real long sermon going through all of 'em or one by one with each piece. Ger loins with truth. He talks about the breastplate. Sh your feet take up the shield of faith, put on the helmet, take up the sword. And I think typically when we're working in Ephesians six, that's what we're thinking about, right? Putting on the armor of God. I wanna invite you this afternoon to notice something that interestingly I do not think gets a lot of our attention when we're working this text. And it is kind of odd because it is the one thing that is the reason for everything else that is here. And so if you look at verse 11, he says, put on the armor so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. He talks about the adversary, he's gonna do that again in 16 when he talks about the shield of faith. He says, we need that so that we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. In fact, all of this battle talk you're gonna hear all weekend long is only relevant because we have an adversary who is at war with us. Paul is not the only one concerned about that. If you go to the book of one Peter, maybe, maybe the text that's even more familiar to us when we think about the adversary, I notice Sean used that one too. Glad he didn't do a lot with that one. But one Peter five, in verse eight, he says, be sober of spirit beyond the alert. Your adversary, the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. That's when we recognize right In our free time. My wife and I spend a lot of time Hiking at national parks. If you doubt that, check out our Facebook page. All the evidence is there. I'll tell you that I've never gone to a national park where I was warned about lions. That has never been a concern for us bears. However, the warnings are everywhere. Sometimes when you start down a trail, there's a warning sign about you may encounter bears and here's the things you need to do. Sometimes a trail will actually be closed because they say bear activity and we don't really want you going down there. In fact, one time, one time when we were up at Glacier National Park, we actually encountered a grizzly bear on the trail while we were hiking. That was memorable. I told that in a a sermon recently and a lady came up to me afterwards and said, how did that work out?

Speaker 3 4:38

<laugh>?

Speaker 2 4:40

I thought I am here. We didn't get eaten. I thought that was a strange comeback. But anyway, I would tell you that the encounter with the grizzly bear has had a great impact on my wife and I. So when we hike, whenever we hike, we begin by talking about bears and we're thinking about that and, and we take things to help us weapons. I'm not gonna say in a public setting what that is, but we take weapons with us to uh, to prepare ourselves to arm ourselves. So we have to to deal with the bear. And we've talked about bear strategy. So what if we encounter, what ? What are we going to do? And she said, don't tell them that you're gonna run and I'm gonna fight the bear, which is probably the way that would go <laugh>. So I won't say that. But um, would you look back at the beginning of one Peter five in verse eight and what he says there, be sober of spirit beyond the alert. You see that? That's what we are when we hike at national parks. We are clear thinking about the danger of bears and we are alert When we're out on that trail. We're watching for bears. We're careful around blind corners. My wife, my wife has a habit of walking along saying, it sure is pretty out here. So they know she's coming, right ? Can I be honest with you? It bothers me that I think sometimes we think more about the bears than the lion. Have you been alert for the adversary in the Sermon on the Mount ? As Jesus is talking about prayer in Matthew chapter six, he tells us to pray for deliverance from the evil one. And as I've been thinking about this lecture today and pondering that text, that passage has not at me. So can I make it bother you too ? Is that okay? Will you let this bother you? I wonder one , I wonder all of us, when is the last time you got up in the morning and thought, I gotta go do a battle with the lion today. I need to stop and pray about that and pleaded with the Lord, please help me. My struggle with the devil, when's the last time we prayed that for her ? And it all makes me concerned that maybe, maybe we're just not worried about the adversary anymore in spite of the grave danger. It seems like people aren't worried about the devil, including me and you. Last year, Gallup asked Americans , Americans about five spiritual topics if they believed God, heaven, angels, hell and the devil. Can you see it? Is it big enough? The devil finished dead last 58% of Americans, only 58% of Americans believe in the devil. And that is not the whole story on that statistic because if you just focus in on the crowd on my left young people, the number drops about another 10 points. Less than half of young people even believe that the devil is real. And you could look up there and you could see where the trend lines are going, right? Fewer and fewer people in years to come will believe in the devil. And I've wondered how he must feel about that. You know, the first rule of warfare is to know your enemy, right? How delighted must he be that the people he is after don't even know or believe he exists? So I'd like for you guys to think about your answer to that question today. In fact, I just want that to kind of sit on the back burner all throughout our study today. I want you to think about that. Do I believe the devil is real? And I don't want you to just give the answer you're supposed to give in a Saturday sitting in a church building, right? I mean if you had to lay it all out on the table today and be completely transparent, that is my question. Do I even believe that the devil is real? I think what we decide about that really does matter because after all, folks, if the devil isn't real, if that's all just a myth, we need to stop wasting our time worrying about him and get on with things that matter, right? I mean, I mean when you guys were little, you believed in monsters under the bed, right? And monsters in the closet. I'm getting some head shakes over there. So evidently that was an issue. And then what happened to us? I bet Mark is not concerned about monsters under the bed, big ugly spiders, not monsters on the bed because Mark is old <laugh> . And what happens to us is we grow up and we mature and we realize there are monster on the bed. And we don't worry about that. We don't fear that anymore. And my question is, is that what Satan is just sort of this childish fear that once we grow up and we're educated and enlightened, we need to abandon Or flip that over. What if there really is a spiritual adversary bent on your destruction and mine , how important is it to know that and to be ready for battle? So we've been going a while today it's like 20 minutes till three. I'm glad y'all didn't leave. Thank you. I need you to hang with me a little while longer so that we can talk about three things I think we all need to know about the adversary. I've condensed this down to three words I'm hoping that will make this sticky and it will hang with you and maybe later on this afternoon when you have kind of a quiet moment and you can think or when you lay down tonight in bed and the lights are off, you're kind of rehearsing what you've heard this weekend. Maybe a couple of these will pop up in your mind and you can think about what you believe about the devil. So I've got three words that I want to give you before I get into that. It is just always cool to come to youth lectures. This church says this event so well, I've been watching it, I've been watching it since I was bringing junior high school kids to this event and now my kids have kids, right? So it's been a long, long time. I just really appreciate what the church invests in this. But I gotta tell you , I'm not taking anything away from the what the church does, but this works 'cause of y'all , okay? Um, y'all come and you hang around and you spend this whole weekend study. I really appreciate that about you. That's a big encouragement to all of us. We appreciate that. And so I'm gonna take a little bit of time to help all of us think about the adversary and I hope when we get done you'll find that to be useful. So maybe you got a little scrap of paper, an e empty spot in your Bible where you can write this down. I hope you will because I want you to hang onto these three words. The first word I wanna give you is just gonna deal with the obvious question we need to settle. And that is the question, is the devil real? And I wanna tell you absolutely that he is and we need to be concerned about him. But my concern is that that is not a very popular point of view and I think everybody needs to be aware of that and recognize that. And it isn't just that people out there are going to have a different opinion, people's opinion about you will change if they know you believe in the in the devil. I think by and large people think that folks who believe there really is a devil are just kind of dumb that it enlightened society like ours. Surely people ought to know better. I'll give you an example of that. 10 years ago, Dr. Phil Zuckerman wrote an article for Psychology Today and the title of the article was, can y'all see that up there? The title of the article was The Devil. Seriously? Does that kind of tell you where he is going? I mean don't have to read anything else. Kind of know what his point's gonna be. And if you missed it, the subtitle is, how could people Believe in the manifestly Absurd? In other words, what he really saying is, how dumb are you if you believe in the devil? And I think that's kind of the spirit of the age. He would gone say the article, there is no evidence for such a thing, not a shred. It is simply simply that germinated from the unscientific irrational minds of early humans who tried their best to explain why bad things happen to good people, why good people sometimes do bad things, and why there's so much needless suffering in the world. So can you hear him what he's saying? This idea of a devil came from a time when we were ignorant and backward and now we're enlightened and we're educated and we know better. And nobody who is smart today should believe that the devil is real. In fact, his contingent is there just isn't any evidence of such a terrible being. So what I wanna ask is, is that true? Is it true that there's no evidence for the devil? In fact, flip that around. If someone says, how do you know that the devil is real? How would you answer that question? I would contend that the evidence for the devil is actually wrapped up in most of the basic things that we believe as Christians. For example, do you think there's any evidence that God exists? See, I think there is. In fact, I think the evidence for God is so overwhelming that it's almost silly not to believe in God. I mean, when someone tells me that DNA was a natural process, I'm thinking you probably need to study DNAA little more. I don't see how that works. That sounds like a fairytale to me. I think there's a amazing evidence for an incre , an incredible creator that is out there, right? Second question, do you believe there's any evidence that the Bible is the word of God? And I think there is too. I mean, if that's the path we were going today, we could I could we another hour piling up some evidence that this book couldn't have been done by men. God had to do it. I think that's there. How about the fact that God came? Is there any evidence God came? Because that's what Jesus claimed. He claimed to be God who came. And I think there's compelling evidence for that, compelling evidence for the resurrection historical evidence that we could go and cite how long I wanna stay today We could go, we could go till it's time to go eat. Someone says, well that's all fine and good, but how is that evidence for the devil in the Bible that came from God? Jesus who rose from the dead says that Satan is real. There's your evidence. Do you see it in the Bible that came from God? Jesus who rose from the dead says that Satan is real. Remember in Matthew six , verse 13, we mentioned this earlier, that Jesus warns us about the adversary. Who is he warning us about?

Speaker 3 17:20

Who is it

Speaker 2 17:23

In Matthew 26, in verse 41, as he's describing the yin , he says, there is this place in hell for the devil and his angels. Why does he need a spot if he isn't real? But perhaps the best evidence for the devil is that that interaction between Jesus and the devil in Matthew chapter four, I'm not gonna read this whole story, but I'm gonna ask you to just kind of walk through the highlights of it with me. Do you remember when Jesus has a personal encounter with the devil where the devil tempts him? Watch this Je the the text says that the devil comes to Jesus and that the devil temps Jesus and that he speaks to Jesus. In fact, he quotes scripture to Jesus and uses that to make arguments with Jesus. And Jesus responds to those arguments and at the end of the story it says that the devil leaves him. What is that?

Speaker 3 18:28

If Satan

Speaker 2 18:29

Is not real, how does God in the Bible tell us about his son who rose from the dead and who has this encounter with the devil in the wilderness? How does that even work? You see , I think what we have is a package deal. If you believe there's a God and a message from God, the Bible and the Son of God came and lived among us as a man. If you believe all of that, if you want there to be salvation and the hope of heaven, guess what? You're stuck with the devil to you . 'cause the God we believe in the book, we read from the Savior, we honor with our worship. They all believe the devil. It all goes together. Dr. Zuckerman is completely wrong. There's abundant evidence as Satan is real. Now I wanna say something to y'all about this. Can , can I grab your attention just for one second? I really want you to hear this. This is important. If you've got questions about that, maybe you're thinking David did not do an adequate job giving the evidence or I've got like 12 other questions about this whole Satan thing that are not resolved in my mind. Y'all hear me on this? Are y'all listening? Everybody's eyes up here. This is the place to come ask those questions. This is a safe place to come. Ask those questions. If y'all agree with that, will you say a amen? Is this a safe place? Amen . You hear it? You hear it. Nobody's gonna jump down your case, nobody's gonna judge you or be harsh or critical. We want you to come to this place, to these people and ask those questions. It's okay to ask about that. You're thinking, I'm not even sure the devil is real. I'm not sure I buy that. Fine. Come ask. Let's talk about it. Let's have a study about it. We need to make the church family setting the place where people come to ask those kinds of questions, okay? Need to press on. First thing I want you to know is that the devil is real. Let me give you a second one. Number two, here's our second word. I want you to know he's a liar. Now you scared me last night Don, because you went to John A right? Actually, you know for the longest time in your sermon he kept talking about truth and I wasn't sure like truth, bible or truth. I kept going back and forth. I was kind of confused. But I want you to go to John chapter eight because it sure looks like Jesus wanted us to know this, right? So in this text, as Don showed us last night, that says so much about the truth. In contrast to that, Jesus clearly wants us to understand that. On the other side of that is the devil who is a liar, who does not mark it in truth. I'm gonna give you just a little bit of context. Go down to verse 42. This is John eight, verse 42. I'll tell you when we get to verse 44, roll down your window and look outside really carefully 'cause that's where we're coming back to. But let's start in verse 42. The text says, Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and have come from God for I've not come on my own initiative. But he sent me, why do you not understand what I'm saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning. Watch this and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature. For he is a liar and the father of lies. But verse 45, because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God for this reason. You do not hear them because you are not of God. Now again, 44 is where I want us to concentrate. When he tells us that the devil is a liar. In fact, I think in this context he's trying to balance the devil or contrast rather that the devil with Jesus Jesus is truth. Jesus gives life the devil lies. The devil is a murderer. In fact, notice the way in 44, he just keeps working that he keep working, that he doesn't stand in the truth, no truth in him. He speaks a lie. He is a liar. He's the father of lies. Do you think Jesus wanted us to know that the devil lies? I think he wanted us to know that because it is his fundamental tactic. In fact, you'll notice that Jesus says he's been this way from the beginning. So could we go back to the beginning? Go back to Genesis chapter three. Certainly chapters in Genesis are just so, so important, so much here that lays the foundation for everything that we believe, including what we believe about the devil. So look at Genesis three. Let's work this familiar Bible story starting in verse one. The text says, now the servants was more crafty than any beast in the field, which the Lord God had made and said to the woman, indeed as God said, you shall not eat from any tree in the garden. A woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees in the garden, we may eat. Or from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, God, God has said, you shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die. Isn't that simple? This is a really simple story. God said to Adam and Eve, you don't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, right? If you do that, you'll die. Eve understood that the devil comes along and he says, you're not gonna die. That is not true. Question. Who's right about that? I know, I know. It's a dumb question. I mean it's just obvious. God is always the good guy. God is the one who loves us. The devil is the adversary. Obviously she needs to listen to God and not the adversary. And she, she does it And the consequences are, are disastrous for her. And so first of all, notice that the devil lies to us about sin. He says the opposite of what God says. And I think we look at Eve's story and we think, wow, how foolish and silly she is. How could she have done this? Listen, don't be too hard on Eve. 'cause Eve's story is everyone's story. We all do this. The garden story is repeated over and over again. Oh, come on. If we all had to be honest, we may have already repeated it today. God said, I don't want you to do that. The devil says, come on, it's okay. And who do we hear? We hear the devil and we make messes. And here's the bizarre thing. We do this simple process over and over and over again and we have an advantage over Eve. We have her story. The bizarre thing is we watch her foolish choice and then we replicate it over and over and over again. Even when sin beats us up and causes suffering and trouble in our life, we get back up and we say, I need to go back and do some more of that. It seems so simple, doesn't it? Until the me moment of temptation comes. When are we gonna learn if the devil is lying to us about all of this, but you know there's something worse that is going on here. Something more fundamental and more profound. He doesn't just lie to us about sin. It's not like there's this thing out here that I desire and look good to me. And devil's trying to say, it really is okay when God says it isn't right, there's something else going on. The Satan. The Satan also lies to eve about God. Will you notice that? Look at the next verse, verse five. Remember at four he said, you surely shall not die. And then he adds a verse five, for God knows if you're one who marks in your Bible, those three words, those three words are really important. Deserve a little underline there. I've got a little red one right there in my Bible. I hope you'll put one in yours too. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil. What's he saying there? You say God's holding out on you. This is really good and he's depriving you of it worse yet he knows you'll be like him. God doesn't really love you. You know what's bizarre about that? As she lives in God's garden paradise. She believes the lie about God. Remember, remember earlier in verse three, when she sees the eve , the tree all eve sees is death. But then in verse six, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she gave also her husband with her and he ate what happened? At first it was awful and then it was great.

Speaker 3 28:42

How did that happen?

Speaker 2 28:46

He lied to her about God and she believed him . So I think we need to remember that when we're battling temptation with the adversary, there's something bigger going on than just this thing that God says no to that I desire. And it's am I gonna believe the lie about this sin or not? There's something bigger going on here. I think we need to see that the more important issue at stake is what do I believe about God? Do I really believe that God loves me? Do I really believe that He's looking out for me? That he wants what is best for me? With every temptation, what the devil is trying to do is get you and me to doubt God. God is not really who we believe he is to us . And if he can get you to cave to temptation and buy that lie about God, every time he does it, he just chips away a little bit more at our confidence in God. That's the bigger issue when I believe his lie about God. Think how different our struggles with temptation would be if we recognized we were hearing the voice of a liar, Tempted to have sex With your boyfriend or girlfriend, tempted to cheat on your spouse. And at the moment of that temptation, that opportunity looks awfully pleasurable. I'm thinking this is really, this is gonna be a a wonderful experience. Just think if the, if the , if the cogs in your brain could click into place and say, Nope , that's the liar, that's the devil, that's the devil who wants me to believe that. And it isn't true. If I do this, it's gonna be a disaster. It's gonna be a big mess. I need to hear God not hear him think how much better it would be in temptation if that's what our brain started to doing . Or if you're really tempted to lie. Because frankly, sometimes it seems like if I just drop this little live right here, you know , if I just lie to my mom and dad about this and it , it'll get me over the hump, I'll stay outta trouble. No big deal, just a little white lie. Let's put some label on. It'll make it sound pretty good. No big deal. If our brain would say, no, no, no, no, that's the devil. That is not what God said about that. That's what the devil said about that. And if I, if I follow his path, if I hear his voice, this is going to end badly for me. I do not wanna go that way. Think of the difference that it would make and suddenly now we get it. Now we understand why. Why? God wanted us to know why in John A , he puts so much emphasis on he is a liar. He does not deal in the truth. Don't believe him. One last word, I want you to hang on to this word too . I want you to remember that the devil is a loser. 12 years ago I got mad at at and t and I cut off my U-verse service. After 12 years, I have had no cable or no satellite service at all at my house. Someone says, wow, you were pretty mad at at and t. You got that right now. The upside of cutting off all the cable services over 12 years, do the math. I have saved a lot of money. The downside of that is it is really hard to watch sports Without any cable or satellite service. Now, I don't care about that most of the time because even though my wife is from Indiana, I persuaded her like me to hate basketball. We're completely together about that. Um, she hates football even more than we hate basketball. And I don't really care that much about football. But in the spring, when America's sport is played <laugh> , this starts getting really, really hard and we can't watch baseball. So we have devised a system for keeping up with baseball without having cable. So what I do is I get up in the morning like I did this morning and I check the score to see if the Astros won last night. Mark is just groaning in his soul right now because the Astros did win last night for the first time in 2024 are in, I would ask Mark to say it with me, but he will fling a song songbook in my direction, first place in the National League West. So if they win, we go to YouTube , which we'll post about a 10 minute summary of all the key plays in the ball game . And so my wife makes coffee, I pull up the summary and she, and that's what we do in the morning. We watch the game summary and that's how we keep up with baseball. I know it's not like being there and seeing the game. However, the upside to doing that, we always know that the Astros are going to win in because, because if they lose, we don't watch the summary. What would be the point of that? <laugh>? So no matter what happens in the game, no matter how it looks in any one inning, we know the score. We know how it turns out, we watch with complete peace of mind most of the time. I mean a couple of months back I pulled up the game and in the first inning the Astros had gone down five to two. The starting pitcher did not record an out mark. And after the first inning was over, Heidi looks at me and said, are you sure you read the score right? 'cause this is not looking good. But sure enough, as the game went on, they kind of clawed their way back and ultimately wound up winning the game. We were not worried because we'd already seen the score. We knew how the game would come out. It's a great way to watch baseball and it's how we need to see all of this, this drama that's playing out before us here on earth. What I need you guys to understand is this great battle we're fighting, the outcome of it is not in question. We already know how this ends. The devil loses and everyone with him loses. And God and his people are victorious. Boy , it doesn't seem like it's gonna be that way sometimes, does it? I know, I know you guys, you guys have been stressing over, not you guys. You guys over politics, right? Oh man, what is gonna happen? I mean we, we give ourselves ulcers worried about what's going on in our country and how all of this looks in a moment of time. And I'm telling you something folks, it looks like the devil has the upper hand,

Speaker 3 36:08

Doesn't it?

Speaker 2 36:11

And sometimes that feeling is deeply personal. Maybe you struggled with a private sin that you have just been battling and you feel like you make a little progress and you just have some colossal failure that just drops you back further than you were before. And you just think, I don't know if I'm gonna win this struggle. So I wanna be crystal clear about this. Our adversary is a loser, always has been, always would be. And the beau will be. And the beauty of apocalyptic language in Revelation chapter 12, not 19, mark 12, revelation chapter 12. There's this picture painted for us of how the devil is defeated in its efforts to stop Jesus from coming and rescuing us. So this is Revelation 12. Look down at verse seven. And there was a war in heaven. Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels waged war. Watch this. And they were not strong enough. Do you see that? And there was no longer a place found from the heaven and the great dragon was thrown down the serpent of old who is called the devil in Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him. So in this business of Jesus coming to the earth and rescuing man from sin, the devil was utterly defeated. And if you'll jump ahead to chapter 20, look at Revelation 20 in verse 10. That's the way the whole thing ends . Revelation 20, verse 10. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and Bri bone , where the beast and the false prophet are also. And there they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. There is your morning scoreboard. Before you watch a video, here's the outcome. We already know he's going to lose the battle. You know what's cool? I thought about that truth when you read that story last night from two king six, those who are with us are more than those who are with them, right? This God who's beaten the devil. All the all the , all the way through. He's on our side. And so one thing that needs to do is impact the way we see the cur , the the current struggle. We need to, we need to quit fretting over one snapshot in time. It's just one inning of the game folks. And we already know the outcome. The devil is a loser. He always loses. And I think that secondly, that needs to impact my choices and my decisions Since I know how this comes out. I don't wanna be on the losing end of this. And I think we need to ponder that when we're struggling with temptation. Listen, the fool in the moment of temptation only looks at this thing. He desires his very, very narrow vision. Just on this thing that God said don't do. And the devil is saying, do it right. What we need to do is get a much bigger picture in that. There's so much more that needs to be seen there. I need to remember who the devil is. He is the adversary. I need to remember like Eve did in the garden. Just think of instead of looking at that one tree, she had looked around at the garden paradise and said, who's been good to me? God has been good to me. I don't need to listen to the liar. I need to listen to him. And I don't wanna side with a loser because I don't wanna be with a loser in the end . And I think if we would do that, we help our struggle right now. 'cause we are at war. The adversary is real. He's trading in lies. And I don't wanna be with him 'cause I know he's gonna lose at the end. 'cause there's a war. Everybody's gonna have to pick a side, right? So what you think with me about that? That's the last thought. I what you stir around in your mind, Todd , have you chosen a side ? Have you chosen a side ? And lemme be crystal clear if you've said, well, I've just not made a decision about that. You've chosen a side . I wanna take that away from you because I think sometimes young people say, well, I'm still kind of , I'm still kind of struggling with this. I'm wrestling with this. If you've decided not to decide, you decided for the wrong side. Hear me on that. Here's the thing I'd like you to wrestle with just for this last moment. As you think about your decision right now, if you've not chosen to be on the Lord's side , I wanna ask you what you believe. Do you believe like DNA is a natural process? 'cause we need to talk if you do. Or do you believe that had to have a powerful, intelligent creator behind it? Do you believe that God exists? And the book you're holding in front of you tonight, do you believe that the book is from God? Do you believe that's true? Do you believe that Jesus is God who came? And we know that's true? 'cause there's this compelling evidence that he died and rose again. Do you believe that one day God is coming back and we're gonna be judged and heaven or hell hanging the ballots? Do you believe those things? Because if you do, you need to choose to be on his side. And that's the choice that's in front of you this afternoon, getting ready to sing this song. The purpose of this song, the reason we do it at every service is because it's God's appeal for you to make a choice to be on the side that we already know is the winning side.

Speaker 1 42:24

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