The Most Dangerous Influence in the World

All right, well, good morning, and I also greet you this morning in that worthy name of Jesus Some of you know that I had been preaching through a series the same series I preached at Bible school back in November There was five different messages on the grace of God and the windows of heaven and I originally thought next time I preach I'm going to keep on going through that. I think I'm ready for number four of the five messages Anyway, I got once again Sidetracked I felt like God wanted to wanted me to share about something else this morning So the title is not about the grace of God this morning instead the title of this morning's message I've called the most dangerous influence in the world the most dangerous influence In the world now, I grew up in a home that was concerned about the influence I was very I'm very grateful to To grow up in that kind of a setting where my my family was concerned about the influences were coming into my life My church was concerned about the influences in my life And you know today I see here a group of people that I it looks to me From knowing you and just seeing you even that you're concerned also about the influences that are coming into your life Into your children's lives you're concerned about those influences because influences have an impact they make a difference on how that person ends up and So what influences? Should we be concerned about if we're concerned about any of them at all? Well, let's let's talk about some of the influences that have a potential to To to move us but remember the title is the most dangerous influence in the world Back in 1895. There's a man named.

Mr. Marconi. I think it was over in Italy who? started experimenting with these Scientific things that he was seeing there I don't know if he knew what they were called But eventually they were called radio waves and he was able to talk to make a device that could communicate to somebody Close to half over half a mile away one kilometer away and It was I don't know exactly how clear it was and everything but eventually that thing kept expanding and they kept on toying with these radio waves until They got an antenna by flying a kite that could get that antenna sticking up in the air 500 feet and they could beam Radio wave all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and talk to people over there. That was over a hundred years ago That was in 1901 Well, they kept playing with these things.

And of course, it was the scientists and the government who had it eventually by the 1920s People just the ordinary people were able to get these devices in their homes called a radio and And they could they could listen to things they could hear news. They could hear music They could hear various things across, you know across these radio waves with these little devices called radio now I grew up in a home where By the time I was a boy 50 some years later The there was this radio Device was being used for a lot of things some of it wasn't all that good So my parents and my church said we're not going to use that We're going to stay away from the radio Well, I think that actually was a good thing in my life. However, there were people in my peers They would sneak away and they would find ways to listen to their radio.

Maybe sneak it into their bedroom maybe sneak out to a car that had one that wasn't unhooked and Or maybe re-hook it up and they would listen to whatever they wanted to listen to sometimes it was music sometimes it was you know sports whatever it was and Then they would try to bring this influence in even though there was a there was some effort being made to keep that influence out So here's the question is radio and Have the potential to be a dangerous influence. The answer is yes it does However, it's not the most dangerous Influence in 1927 about that same decade that people were getting the radio Somebody started experiment with another device with a video instead of just a audio reception it was a video reception 1927 someone tried to develop this thing called a we call it now the television Well the very first television image that was sent he thought he was really clever He sent a picture across this television thing that looked like this He said there do you see that they say yeah, we see that that's pretty clever a line But by now people were Investing in his company that was developing this television and they started asking questions They said well you're you're developing this machine. That's supposed to send pictures.

I mean a line is pretty cool I guess but when are we gonna start seeing some money from all this you know all this investment? We're making in your company so the next image. He sent wasn't that he sent this image right here and That was in response to all the objections of people to say we're not making any money at this way eventually it was he became a lot more complicated than that and And But still 20 years later and in the 1940s There's only a few thousand of these devices around these television sets But that grew very very rapidly till the point where 50 50 years later up into the 90s 98% of the homes in America had a TV Not only they have them, but they use them they were going for an average of seven hours per day 98% of the homes had a TV they had them turned on for seven hours per day now That's night night. How many does that leave that didn't have a TV well if 98% had them that one means only 2% of the homes Didn't have a TV I was privileged to be raised in one of those 2% one of those 2% homes that did not have a TV and I think we all are well aware of some of the dangers that come across the TV so is the TV a dangerous Influence yes, it is, but it's not the most dangerous influence Let's talk about some of the things that have come across the radio and the TV Music is one of them many people have testified how music has got a hold of them.

There's worldly music There's even devilish music and how that music got a hook in their life and dragged them down I it never was for me as big of a thing as it was for some of my friends But it was still a dangerous influence But once again music is not the most dangerous influence. Let's start writing some of these things down up here, so We've got a few different influences that come down We've talked about the radio. We've talked about the TV.

We've talked about music. Let's go on to another one What are some of the other things that were coming across some of these mediums? We had this thing called movies. You know movies is a you know well You know what a movie is, but you know you have these actors and actresses And and it's a way to tell a story typically unless it's a documentary of some sort But typically a movie is a way to tell a story Probably one of the most powerful ways to tell a story as far as communicating that thing across moving the audience changing ways people think They can be extremely pleasurable.

They can be extremely sad. They can there's extremely powerful in in many many ways I This one again was something that I was at least there was an attempt to protect us from Movies and the power that they had however they get in that protection didn't always work I spent a couple of years down in Central America as a missionary when I got home. I was I think I was 21 years old and so my parents weren't here, but I was here and We had friends and my friends well, I had a sister you know a number of hours away in another community we decided to go visit her and I don't remember I told this story before or not but there was a carload of us young guys who jumped in a car and we're gonna drive down the road to to visit my sister and Along the way we come to this little place in along the road in In well, there's a truck stop there.

I think it was a Flying J Anyway, this truck stop was state-of-the-art truck stop Well the nicer truck stops around and so we went inside and I didn't know what was going on I mean, I was kind of sheltered. I've been in Central America the last while well a couple the other guys They had an idea they knew something that was in this truck stop I didn't know was there that was a movie room that they had and this movie room was in the back and there was you Could rent these movies and you could watch them and well, I didn't know but pretty soon here This is what's happening and I started looking at this and what's going on and I finally realized here's what's happening And I decide you know what? I don't really feel the best about this. I got up.

I walked out, you know, take your time I'll be I'll just wait in the car or something and So, you know, I never really thought about it again we eventually got on our way got laid got arrived at our destination later than what I thought but later Some of those same guys who had been there at that truck stop They've come to me and they remind me of that incident I kind of forgot about it until they reminded me that you know we remember that yeah, you didn't you didn't watch those movies with that movie with us and Turned out it wasn't an extremely clean movie. One of the guys came and he said, you know I just wanted to years and years later. I wanted to just Apologize to you because you were involved that night that that happened and he says, you know that was the beginning for me or at least a step in the process of Of an addiction.

He says I didn't stop with that movie with some impurity he says I eventually got into pornography and I just have recently been convicted. I need to let go of this thing once and for all and so I'm going back and Making some things right and now I'm calling you and saying I you know I we should not have done that that night, you know back in our teenage early 20 years and So, okay. Well, thank you for that.

Apology. May God bless him as he continues this fight Are movies a dangerous influence? The answer is yes, they are but they're not the most dangerous Influence I'll put those up movies up here as well We already mentioned this next one Pornography Many people get hooked into Pornography, there's the book called the freedom fight if you haven't read it. It's a it's a great book on the whole issue of pornography I think the subtitle says what's called the freedom fight and then it says the new drug and The truth that sets you free the new drug and the truth that sets you free some scientists have done some study on this thing of I think it's dopamine this chemical in the brain that causes pleasure and I guess the way they're Calculate, I don't know how they do the calculation, but there's probably very few things If anything, it might be the the number one thing that causes this rush of dopamine more than anything else And that's this thing of pornography in that book.

There's a story about a king and The king had a prince. It's a fictional story. I'm sure but the prince and the king and their Empire They had an enemy called that was a dragon and they said stay away from the dragon stay away from this jungle But the prince the son of the king He was walking through the woods one day till he heard a little and he heard a little whisper and here it was this dragon And here the dragon wasn't nearly as dangerous as what he thought it was going to be and the dragon says hey give him Jump on I'll give you a ride and so he jumped on the Dragons back and he gives it gives him a little ride up through the clouds and lands again and lets him off and wow that was kind of fun, and he goes back again the next day and another ride longer ride and Till the point came he couldn't stay away from that dragon and Not only that but he's starting to grow scales on parts of his bodies, and he's trying to hide his relationship with the dragon and Until finally it came to a head and he just brought it out in the open and confessed that he's been riding this dragon And it was affecting the entire kingdom by this time and Instead of being angry at him the king offered forgiveness to him But it wasn't just that other people his older brother came forward and says you know what I've also ridden the dragon It started to come out that other people once that that that that chain of secrecy was broken It set it was starting to set other people free and obviously it's talking about this this very real fight this fight with Pornography and how many people are getting trapped in it? This is another thing these various things they come across so is porn a dangerous Influence it is it's a hugely dangerous input influence But it's not the most dangerous Here's another one.

That's really dangerous The liberal media, I'll just put up here media the liberal news media You know they have an agenda And we've heard a lot about this agenda the liberal news media And they're out to try to influence people and we're not sure exactly what they're trying to do but rumor has that they're trying to turn us into socialists or maybe even communists and They're trying to hold a move the whole nation in that direction the liberal news media Maybe some people said well me what about the conservative news media? Well? I don't know I'll just put up media up there, and I'm going to ask the question is the media in America a dangerous influence and I would say absolutely it is But it's not the most dangerous Let's go to another one as Time went on you got the radio TV you got all these things that people want to go with and now we have this thing called the internet and suddenly through computers and through connections we can get Everything that you could ever get before on radio and TV you can get it by your choice You can get music you can get movies you get porn you can get all of the into the media all through this thing called the internet you have access to all these things and and much much more is the internet a dangerous Influence the answer is yes, it's absolutely dangerous. It is extremely dangerous, but it's not the most dangerous influence in the world Well as time went on we didn't just have the internet now we have smartphones I'll just go ahead and write it out smartphones now the difference between This one down here the internet and that one up there Smartphones is it's so easy to you know put these things in your pocket. You can carry these things around and it's it's They're small and you can have access to pretty much everything that you had before on a computer little smaller images But now you can hide it you can slip it under a mattress you can hide it under a pillow You can you can you know sneak off to Walmart and and get one you can get them unfiltered if you want and You can carry it around your pocket so is a smartphone a Dangerous influence in the world today, and the answer is yes, it absolutely is But it's not the most dangerous So what is the most dangerous you're asking well? Let's keep asking some questions What if it's something that isn't in this category at all? It's you can't access it on the internet What if it was something like that could that possibly be the most dangerous? Influence if that was the way it was if that was the thing that we're trying to protect against Suppose you would go to what you would consider.

Maybe the most lowdown area of the country You would go down here to Eugene or up to Portland you would go to one of these homeless camps You know there's tents and sleeping bags and a bad smell and people are obviously just at the bottom of the barrel socially In these homeless camps, and you go through there, and you'd ask these homeless people who are living a very Unclean life by what we would normally Measure them anyway and ask them the question hey What was it that brought you primarily that brought you here onto the streets of Eugene? And why are you homeless today was it maybe the radio was it TV was it music was it movies? Maybe it was pornography. I bet they'd say no to all of those was it the liberal media the internet I Bet they'd say no most of them would say no. What was it? probably drugs probably some sort of drugs their various stages of legality or illegality Heroin cocaine meth now they have this thing called fentanyl.

They said it's 50 times more potent than heroin and People are dying from these things. They're getting hooked. They can't get off so our drugs a Dangerous influence in the world today, I'm gonna say yes, they absolutely are but they're still not the most dangerous Keith Daniel tells about He talks in his in a sermon.

I say he tells he told he's gone now But when he talked about all these drugs, he said but there's one substance that has caused more Devastation than all these drugs put together down through history He said that is alcohol It has hurt more people ruined more lives destroyed more marriages destroyed families caused death and destruction And sin and people ending up in hell More than probably all those other chemicals put together alcohol is alcohol a dangerous influence in our world today The answer is absolutely alcohol is dangerous But it's not the most dangerous You say well, what is the most dangerous we we? What are you talking about? What are you referring to? We're the title of the message this morning is the most dangerous info. What is the most dangerous? Well, here's one Jesus said That a certain thing is the root of all evil or you can say all kinds of evil. What is it? Well, it's money and the love of money so we could put up here money I know actually we're gonna I'm shortening it but actually Jesus said it's the love of money Okay, so we put that up there on the board.

Is that is the love of money a dangerous influence in the world today? The answer is yes, it is. It's hugely dangerous But it is still not the most dangerous I'd like you to think about an island out in a big ocean and this island gets stocked with a bunch of the things on here and We're talking about sin. We're talking about danger.

We're talking about people being destroyed and so Just imagine this island out there in the middle of the ocean and Somebody would go out to that island and they would stock it with all of these things there You'd put radios on there. You'd have generators to run the radios. You'd have TVs You'd have all kind every kind of music maybe on a CD that's available.

You'd have a whole stack of Movies that could be played along with a DVD player you would have stacks and stacks of pornography magazines on this island you would have smartphones and internet Devices no filter on them whatsoever and you'd fill that island With those things you'd put drugs out there Have a whole refrigerator full or whatever of drugs and alcohol you'd have suitcases full of $100 bills Can you imagine that island a year later having zero sin on it? It's possible It's possible a year later ten years later There would not be one sin committed on that island And now let's draw another island and this island has none of these things It doesn't have any radios TVs music movies, there's no pornography There's no internet there's no smartphones and Yet it is full of sin What's the difference turn in your Bibles if you would to mark chapter 7 Mark chapter 7 and here we're going to discover what the most dangerous influence in the world today is Mark chapter 7 Jesus speaking starting with verse 20 and He said that which cometh out of a man that defileth the man the man For that, I'm sorry start over and he said that which cometh out of the man that defileth the man for from within out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts adulteries fornications murders thefts covetousness wickedness deceit lasciviousness and evil, I blasphemy pride and foolishness all of these things come from within and defile the man the heart of man The heart of man is the most destructive the most dangerous influence. This world has ever known that island with all of these other devices would never see sin one time as long as that island was inhabited by elephants and kangaroos and chimpanzees dogs and cats and all kinds of plants The Sun would come up and the Sun would go down the moon would come up and the moon would go down day after day Year after year never one sin would happen on that island Unless the heart of man shows up there But the other island it can be two young boys who grow up In a home that has they're protected from Radio and TV because they haven't been invented yet these two boys Never watched a movie in their life. They've never had access to pornography or the liberal news media They never had access to the Internet or smartphones or drugs or alcohol But then Cain rises up and kills Abel the very first murder because the heart of man was present and Not only that but you have people who then later turn to God and You have You know people call on God, but even then there's there's whole societies that go downhill the heart of man keeps taking them downhill I don't know what inventions they had.

Maybe they didn't have Internet I don't know before the flood, but either way They didn't start out with it and whatever they ended up with The heart of man took these this whole society so low so wicked that God said it's time to destroy the whole lot and start over with Noah the one man who was still trying to do somewhat righteous and So he started over killed everybody except for Noah and his family, but even Noah didn't do so well He got drunk and then later his family they had children They had children and hearts of men started to grow again They're more and more of these hearts of man until the story of Sodom come along and these are all children of Noah You know the whole group of Sodom and Gomorrah. These are whole cities That are part of the righteous family Noah and yet they got so wicked that God rained down fire from heaven and destroyed everybody the heart of man was there and then you have people come to You know come to God and you have people turn to God and they get they repent and they become righteous You have David who you know, I suppose many of you here have been blessed by reading the Psalms I'm blessed. I'm reading through the Psalms right now, and I've been very blessed by them There was a man who not only Read the Psalms.

He was the one who wrote many of the Psalms His name was David and he was a servant of God and yet What did he do when he had a quiet moment up on that rooftop look down? saw a woman bathing he fell into sin ended up killing her husband and What was going on there had he been exposed perhaps to movies I doubt it had David been exposed to The radio or TV or the liberal news media? I don't I don't think so Did he have a smartphone or the Internet was he on drugs? Maybe I Don't know any of that was true But he had the heart of man beating within his breast and It influenced him away from God Thankfully he repented his son should have had a lot better chance. He's just a daddy. I saw what you did I'll never do that That was a bad move, you know, I'm gonna do a lot better and then he did for a while Solomon Did he asked for wisdom? He he wrote also a large part of one of the books of the Bible the Proverbs In fact, a lot of that was warning people to stay away from the sin that took my daddy down Stay away from the adulterous woman.

So Solomon he had his act together now. He knew not to fall But he still had the heart of man beaten in his breast and it got a hold of him and he ended up marrying how many wives hundreds of them plus hundreds of concubines and They let him led him into idolatry what was Solomon's problem It wasn't these influences up here primarily. He had the heart of man within him So, what can we do we're a group of people that want to protect our children want to protect ourselves What are we possibly gonna do with this problem that we have these influences, you know We can limit a lot of these things and I think we should I was very grateful That these things were limited my growing up years.

I would say let's for sure do what we can But what are you gonna do about the heart of man? That every one of your children so to speak is carrying around in his pocket Actually deeper than that you can't you can get rid of pockets you can't get rid of the heart that he has What are you gonna do to protect them from that? You you can't in in the same way that you can protect them from some of these other things Or even worse. What are you gonna do when two hearts of men get together? Your child and their friend now they can think about doing things together This is really really serious and it's really really bad What are we gonna do to Solve this problem I Do have some good news and that is that there is a solution Ezekiel 36 verses 26 and 27 says a new heart Also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh And I'll give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes And you shall keep my judgments and do them You know, the answer is a new heart and children young people adults If you don't have a new heart, you need one It's offered to you. Jesus described it this way kind of the same thing.

He doesn't use the word heart I don't think here but he answered and said unto them John chapter 3 Verily verily I say unto you except a man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God Nicodemus saith to him. How can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born Jesus answered verily verily I say unto you Except a man be born of water in the Spirit He cannot enter the kingdom of God That which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit of Spirit Marvel not that I say unto you you must be born again and That's an amazing thing that God can do he can actually take away that old heart and and and and put a new one in its place But some have read those verses take away put a new one into the idea that says now there's no more temptation now There's total eradication of all the desire all the temptations.

It would be nice if that were true I haven't seen that in the Bible. I haven't seen that in my own life Instead what I see is war Galatians 5 17 says for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh or you could say there's a war between the two and Maybe you know, we could substitute the heart of man for this thing called flesh I'm not sure they're exactly parallel But they're they're close the flesh and the Spirit the old heart and the new there's a war going on they're contrary to one another you cannot do the things that you would Galatians 5 verse 17 and It starts out by saying walk in the Spirit so that you don't fulfill the lust of the flesh So maybe that explains this war that's going on Why some people who truly are born again who truly have been walking with the Lord Why'd they fall away? I remember one of those shocking things that Happened to me in my Christian life was not somebody close to me, but somebody distant I was getting for many years this magazine called voice of the martyrs telling about the the battle that's going on It's not so much going on in our country with the persecution But going on in many other countries people are getting killed for their faith voice of the martyrs was an organization that stepped up and said We're gonna we're going to advocate for these people overseas and we're gonna try to help them Well, it's pretty obvious that this voice of the martyrs organization if they're going to be stepping in and helping these people I was led first of all by Richard Wurmbrand and You know there was a war going on people didn't like their acts being exposed people overseas said you know We don't like those Christians and we especially don't like the Christians that are advocating for them And so when the news came that the leader of voice of the martyrs had died my first response was Wow, they got him the enemies of the faith. He's a martyr.

They killed him because They hated him. Maybe it was the Muslims. Maybe it was the communists from North Korea or Russia or China or somewhere Maybe it was maybe was the Hindus I don't know who it was But some enemy of the gospel came along and must have killed this man His name was Tom white and I don't know what it was 15 years ago, maybe but he was dead and Well, thank the Lord that he's in heaven because he gave his life fighting for the gospel He was a man who had spent time in a prison down in Cuba.

He had flown an airplane over Cuba dropping gospel tracts and Bibles I believe letting a parachute down into this communist country and but his plane went down and he was captured he's put in prisons he had spent time not only Spreading the gospel but suffering for the gospel. And so then later he was the leader of this voice of the martyrs thing and it is this organization and so it's not surprising that the People from other religions and enemy countries would try to kill him. And so now he's dead But then we started to hear reports back that that wasn't how he died he died by suicide and As much as everybody wanted to believe the opposite all the evidence Seemed to come down to this that he had as I don't know a man in his 50s.

I guess had abused a Girl that was like 10 years old and they were starting to do an investigation on the authorities were involved and they were checking him out and saying hey what's going on, but before they could get very far in the investigation, he had killed himself by drinking poison and As much as everybody wanted something else to be true The fact was that appeared to be what the truth was and that was shocking that was how how you know a time a martyrdom is a time of rejoicing but a Suicide because I'm afraid I'm gonna get caught in my sin. That's not a time of rejoicing. That's a time of sorrow devastation and I was very distantly connected to the voice of the martyrs.

I was getting their magazine That was you know, that was kind of it, but many people were a lot closer How can you explain that? Somebody who's given their life to the Lord so clearly been born again so clearly suffered for the gospel and then they fall away To the point of suicide. How is that? How can we ever explain that and all I can say is there's a war going on the flesh lusts against the spirit Even though it'd be nice to say there is no more heart of man to deal with It appears that even in the case of someone like that The heart of man is still a dangerous thing and what about us those of us who have been born again here Do we consider the heart of man? Do you sense those passions rising up and you do you sense the the possibility that you could fall away Paul did? He said I Chasen my body. I beat my body.

I He Says I keep under my body have it in subjection lest I That by any means when I've preached to others I myself should be a castaway the Apostle Paul the greatest missionary ever. He sensed that Problem in his life that influence that it's in his life that exceeded all of these He sensed that the heart of man if he didn't do something about it was going to get him. What about you? Ravi Zacharias another one a powerful story saved on a bed of suicide over in India He didn't know anything about the gospel But there in the gospel somebody brought him a New Testament and he became a Christian became one of the most powerful Evangelists here in America.

Do I think his conversion was real? I do I believe he was he was he was saved and in a powerful way But once he died of cancer at a fairly young age It started to come out that for years. I don't know how many years but For years he had been living a double life. He had women on the side apart from his wife he had other things going on he had a phone that was separate from the main phone that everybody knew he had and How can that be possible that he could fall away and and keep on preaching the gospel through the whole thing But it apparently it was true.

The evidence was you know was was so much people could not deny it. How is that possible? He still had the heart of man to do it Even though he also had the spirit, but there was a war like Paul says there's a war going on There's a one one lust the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh Are you aware of the war you aware of this dangerous influence in your life? and you know when we talk about these things I applaud every single effort that anybody makes as a family as a church as society anywhere as an individual to mitigate these Influences in your life. I think it's the right thing to do To what extent I'm not sure I know But mitigate but it's it's go ahead and try to limit the danger that they can be done Because when the heart of man connects with many of these things it can become disastrous But even if you can get rid of these things completely and be in an island out there in the Pacific with none of these Influences you're still gonna have to deal with that heart of yours.

We're all gonna have to deal with it Jesus told the parables a parable is so is so a sower There was four types of soil only one of those bore fruit, even though a couple of them it sprouted But it only one went on to perfection So what does Proverbs say how do we deal with this Proverbs 4 23 keep thy heart with all? Diligence for out of it are the issues of life Once you've been born again, you have a job to do Keep your heart the actual word probably is more better translated guard your heart Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life Paul said again, he keeps under his body and brings it into subjection So what does that mean? When you deny yourself when you say no to the things that the heart of man wants to have it hurts Just make it just make a decision. You know what this life is gonna be full of suffering. It's okay.

That's part of life suffering Ultimately brings joy if it's done for the right reason if it's done so choose to suffer fast and pray deny yourselves Take up your cross follow Jesus It Maybe the suffering is coming because of sin in your life you say, you know, nobody knew about this now I'm gonna confess it's gonna hurt go ahead accept it. It's it's part of the process That's actually a good thing to mitigate. Yeah, you can't you know, you can throw the TV over equipment throw You know your your internet away can drive over it with a backhoe or whatever But the heart of man, you're gonna have a little more of a problem doing that.

We'll go ahead and do what needs to be done Accept the path of suffering deny yourselves and Otherwise, it will be a far more dangerous Influence in your life than any of these other things So in closing, I just want to give you the good news. I Gave you a lot of bad news and it is bad news and you're gonna be a lot better Prepared to deal with real life if you accept the bad news, that's really there But acts 2032 says and now brethren I commend you to God and the word of his grace But which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified Jude 1 24 now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to Present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy Do you know God is able to keep you from falling? He can he will he's kept many people from falling Accept what he has what he has provided Accept the instruction he's provided take take take warning that he has given us and In spite of all the evil influences in the world God including your own evil heart God is able to help you He's able to take you all the way through and if you continually yield to them, there is no temptation This is an amazing promise. There's no temptation taking you but such as his common demand and God is faithful He will always with the temptation make a way of escape.

We've heard about some people who didn't take the way of escape There was an exit ramp and they didn't get off. They stayed on the temptation. They stay on the path they followed their heart, but there's always an exit ramp if you take it and if you take it in time and so choose that exit ramp God is Faithful to deliver you if you accept the way of deliverance that he has given.

Let's bow our heads for prayer father we come to you in the name of Jesus and We thank you Lord for your word and we thank you for the warnings in Scripture and we pray God that You would help us take these warnings and Lord. We are concerned about this world We're concerned about the devices of the world. We're concerned about the the people and the influences and the agendas that are out there help us to be wise and know how to Deal with those things and put limits in our own lives But Lord, we're concerned most of all about our own hearts, I pray that you would help us Lord to Deny ourselves take up the cross and follow you I pray that those who are here this morning that are not born again that they would get born again They would they would turn their lives over to you They would repent and believe and accept and follow your son Jesus Who led the way before us through this evil world? He had a good heart and he wants to give us that good heart as well So I pray Lord that you would just come and change us come and help us to walk in the fear of God Lord as we go through the rest of this day this afternoon, whatever you have for us.

We we want to Lord whatever we're doing. We just Pray that most of all the fear of God would be a very real part of our life So I just commit each one to you now in Jesus name. Amen God bless you all