Voice of the Nazarene 10-20-24

Voice of the Nazarene 10-20-24

Transcript

Pastor Ray LaSalle: 0:01

Coming to you from North Central Ohio. We share with you the voice of the Nazarene, a week by week. Venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus, Ohio Church of the Nazarene. We join our Pastor Reverend Ray LaSalle and the voice of the Nazarene. Ephesians, chapter four, verse 27 Neither give place to the devil, and he's not getting my seat, and I don't want him sitting next to me. I came in this morning and stood at the seat clear back on the left hand side from where I'm at. We lost a dear man that's been so faithful to be here every Sunday for the last few years. And went into the hospital, never made it home, and I miss him in his place, but we don't want to give the devil any place do we let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the things which is good. There's a principle there. You see, there won't anything work if we don't. And the harder you work, the luckier you are. Sitting still and wishing makes no man great. The Lord sends the fishing, but we gotta dig the bait. So he says, working with your hands the things which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. Whereby you're sealed unto the day of redemption. And I trust this morning that you're aware of the strongholds of Satan. The year was 1912 and they had built a ship, they said, was unsinkable, indestructible. Ship was called the Titanic. It was setting sail on its maiden voyage from Newfoundland to New York City with 2200 passengers. There's a seaman that worked on that crew. His name was David Blair. He was excited to be on that maiden voyage, prepared for it, and they'd look forward, and they'd practice everything. And just a little bit before he was to take off on that great ship, the captain came and said to David Blair, you're not making the voyage. We decided that we needed a more experienced seaman on this voyage. He was disappointed. Now his job was very important. He held the key to the nest locker where they kept the binoculars, and in the exchange, when they took him off the job, put someone else in the job, he forgot to pass on the key to the nest locker for the binoculars were he didn't pass the key on, just a little key. And can you imagine, on the voyage, when they begin to look around and they couldn't find the key and couldn't get in the nest locker, were unable to pull out the binoculars, they could have looked off into the distance. saw that massive iceberg, the result 1503 people died that should have lived. All simply because they hadn't gotten the key. That story tells me that little things have a great impact. Maybe that's why the Bible says there in the Songs of Solomon, chapter two, verse 15, it's the little foxes that spoil the vine. Little things, small things. Those little foxes would come in in the springtime and would eat the grapes before they were ripe and chew up the vines and destroyed the crop. It's the little foxes that spoil the vine. And when God said, Neither give place to the devil. God, being omniscient and knowing that little things can cause great damage. And may I say to you, little things in your life can cause great damage. Some of you may listen and take heed to the Weather Channel where they're talking about those big hurricanes and tornadoes and flooding. Can I tell you this? Every year in America, termites destroy more property than any hurricane, tornado and flooding. Termites, little things that can have such a great impact on your life, some habits. The Devil's got you connected to a habit, and it's like a chain. You're going to get free and you're going to do something for God, and then the devil rattles your chain, and that habit hurts your testimony pulls you back. You can't seem to break with it, and can't seem to get over it, around it and past it. May I begin by talking about creating a climate for the devil. The verse says, neither give place to the devil. You look at that verse, and you kind of wondered to whom it is written. But if you'll back up, Ephesians 1:1, it says it was written to the saints in Ephesus. They were Christians. They were believers. They'd follow the Lord and believers baptism, and they were a part of the kingdom and part of the church. They were you and I, believers. It's saying people just like you and people just like me, we can give place to the devil. Let me share something with you when the Bible said Neither give place to the devil, that word place is an English word in the New Testament was written in Greek. And the Greek word there is topas, from which we get the word topography, which is land mass and the lay of the land and ground and territory. And when it says, Neither give place to the devil or ground or territory you hurry over there and you

read in Second Corinthians 10: 6:44

4, where it says that the devil gets a stronghold, a toehold, a foothold, a hand hold in our life. Do you have a stronghold in your life? Most people do. Some area of weakness, some area where the enemy can just poke you and hit your hot button, something just so small, something so little. Starts out small, the devil gets a stronghold in our life. And before long, rather than we controlling it, it’s controlling us. What creates a stronghold in our lives and in my life. Well, I think it's wonderful that God talks to us about not giving place to the devil, and I'm scratching my head wondering what he's talking about, and he turns right around and he tells us these things that create a climate for a stronghold. Let me give you five of them. These are not mine. So don't get excited. Not my fault. The Bible gives these, and I want you to notice first, it says lying. Look at

what Ephesians 4: 7:53

25, says, Wherefore, putting away, lying. Speak every man truth with his neighbor. Now I want you to understand when you live a lie, when you love a lie, when you tell a lie, you're creating a climate for the enemy to begin to get in a stronghold in your life. You say it's just a little white lie. No, it's either a lie or it's the truth. You tell somebody, well, I was there at that place and you weren't there. You just told a lie. When you embellish something, you just told a lie. When you send something out on a text and it's not true. You just told a lie. When you deceive people, that's a lie, when you don't tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth, you just told a lie. You can make the Bible tell a half truth, and actually you're telling a lie. Bible said, Let him that stole steal no more and you can turn around, so let him the stole, steal. Bible said it, but you didn't tell all of it. And a half lie is a whole untruth. Just thought I'd mention that. Now I'm simply talking to you from the Bible.

John 14: 9:21

6 says, I am the way of the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. John 17:17, says, The Word is truth, and when we lie, we create a climate for the devil to get in. Johnny was a little boy, but he had a problem with lying. He made things a whole lot bigger than they were. I know a lot of folk like that, and their names not Johnny either. I'm just thinking, I'm allowed. And he told his mom. Said, Mom, there's a gorilla in the backyard. She said, Johnny, you know? He said, Mama, you look out there for yourself it's a gorilla. She came back from the window and said, I'm ashamed of you. That's a Saint Bernard dog. That's not a gorilla. Now you go upstairs and get on your knees and confess to Jesus that you lied. I love it when people tell me how to pray, too. And on his knees, he told Jesus, and he came back downstairs, wiping the tears. His mom said, Did you tell Jesus you lied? Yes. And what did he say? He said, first time he saw that dog, he thought it was a gorilla too. Lying creates a climate to give place to the devil. Second thing, and it's not mine, it's the Bible, anger. It's anger. Be angry and sin not. It's okay to be angry. When I grew up they said you couldn't be but that's not what the Bible said. But nobody looked back in those days much anyhow. Just sounded good and hammered us hard. Remember, Jesus got angry. He showed up at the temple and the temple crowd made a Walmart blue light special. They were selling things, they weren't praying. And Jesus said, You've made my house as a house of prayer into a den of thieves. There in Matthew 21 verse 12 and on, he had fire in his eyes. He was angry. And here's what I know, you can be angry and sin, not when you're angry at sin. Jesus never responded into anger when people did something to him, but when people did something against others, they say that an average woman loses her temper. These are notes that Keith left up here. Three times a week, and an average man loses his temper six times a week. Women get angry at people. Men get angry at things. That's why they kick the truck when it won't start, when they can't get that bolt loose, they throw the hammer. Women, when they get angry, they get verbal. Men, when they get angry, they get physical. Do you know where people get angry? The number one place that people get angry, where you get angry, and I get angry, the number one place is home. Home. I said, home. And if you can't be a Christian at home, if you can be you can be a Christian anywhere. And if you can't be at home, don't export it anywhere else. If you can't live it there don't go down the factory and tell everybody what a saint you are. They'll know differently. Look

at Ephesians 4: 13:12

31, and look at this process. Let all bitterness. What is bitterness? Why this is what bitterness is when you deem that somebody has done you wrong, and he's done me wrong, and she's done me wrong, and I've been taking advantage. And it starts with bitterness, but it doesn't stay there it turns into anger and a wrath rather. And what is wrath mean? If you look at the Greek there, it means burning a smoldering. Have you ever seen somebody they were bitter for a little bit, and didn't long you see that burning in their eyes, and they say little words that are smoldering. Yes, Pastor, I have thank you. And then it moves to anger. Anger, they say, is what you feel, while anger is wrath turned inside out, and then it turns into clamor. Clamor is when we get to yelling. That's what a little boy said to his daddy once when he heard me preach. Said, Why is he up there yelling? Because you're deaf. I wanted to answer that problem, and somebody said, quit yelling. I'm not yelling. And then it turns into evil speaking, and that's when we say things you're just like your mama, and you'll never be any good. And we say things that we'll live to regret, and you can't take them back. What creates a climate that gives place to the devil lying and another's anger? And then a third thing is stealing. Let him that stole steal no

more. Ephesians, 4: 14:53

28, ladies standing before the judge, and the judge said, you stole a can of peaches. She said, Yes, I did. He said, How many peaches were in the can? She said, six. He said, I sent you to six months in jail. Her husband jumped up and said she also stole a can of peas.

Look at what John 10: 15:20

10 says, The thief cometh, but for to steal and get it down. If you take a pencil from your place of employment without being authorized, it's stealing. Well, you're getting legalistic Pastor, I know. Are you saying something so small matters? Can I read you a verse? It's Luke,

16: 15:43

10, write it down and hang it on your forehead next time you just think lightly, kind of picking stuff up, sticky fingers. It says, He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. It’s not just laying $100,000 there that you would steal, but it's just even $1. You’re either a thief or you're not a thief. Guy said to the lady, would you spend the night with me if I'd give you a million dollars? She said, I imagine. So he thought he would bargain a little. He said, What about $500,000? Well, I guess. Said, What about $10,000 she said, I probably. He said, What about $10 bucks? She said, What do you think I am? He said, we've already established that now we're quibbling over the price. And if you're steal $1 we know what we are. We're a thief. We're just quibbling over the amount. And when you assassinate somebody's character, you just stole their reputation. You're a thief. I’ve pastored here now 31 years, I've never said this is the pulpit, but I've got a man that I went out when they had desperate situations and won him to Christ and got him in the church, and got his family into the church, and somebody said something false to him about me, and they quit the church, and he has fought me ever since, all over an untruth. Of course. The kicker is the very thing that they swore was me is the very lifestyle that they have lived kind of a joke, is it not? And I'm wondering from time to time, it comes to my mind, what's going to ever happen to that couple? Because if they're never told that they were lied to, they'll always believe a lie and be damned. And I see him kind of flowed in and out of churches. I'm simply saying when you steal and lie on somebody's character, you stole their reputation. That's not yours to steal. And while we're on that and you're shouting happy, what about this thing called tithes? I'm not talking about neckties. I'm talking about a 10th of our

income. Malachi 3: 18:15

8, Will a man rob God? Ye have robbed me. Wherein have we robbed thee? He said, in tithe and offerings. I'd rather rob a bank than rob God. And here's the fourth thing, it's in the text, speech. Look at what Ephesians 4:29 says, Let don't corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. Preacher told a little boy one time. He said, Let me tell you something, son. He said, You know, when I hear somebody swear, it just sends a chill up my spine. The little boy said, Good thing you wasn't at our house last Saturday. So my daddy swung the hammer to hit the nail, and missed and hit his thumbnail. He said you'd have froze to death if you'd heard him. So when we hear things, should we pass them along? Can I just throw you out a sieve or something to qualify, be careful. Whenever I've got to say something that somebody has said, I ask myself, Is this the truth? Am I going to repeat a lie or a gossip, or is this true? Is it helpful what I'm about to say, is it necessary? Is it inspiring? Fact of the matter, is it kind? If it's not kind, I don't need to say it. If it's not the truth, I don't need to say it, because when our speech is not right, we're creating a climate for the enemy to get in. I'm talking about being negative, or being always down on everybody, or when we come to church and we have the pastor for lunch, and when we're negative about the music, and we don't like this, and we don't like that, it's creating a climate for the devil. No wonder the writer said, whatsoever things brethren are true and whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure and whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, think on these things. Talking about our speech. The Bible says that life and death is in the power of the tongue. The last thing I'm going to deal with is bitterness. It says, Let all bitterness and wrath. Lady goes to the doctor, and he says, You've got infectious rabies. She said, Give me a sheet of paper. He said, You don't need a sheet. She said, Give me a sheet of paper. He said, Why you going to write down your last will? She said, I'm not writing down my last will. I want to write down the names of everybody I want to bite. And I'm telling you, when you've got bitterness and there's a anger on the inside, there's something that wants to reach out and become very defensive. Now here's the point that I want to make in this message, Okay. How do we break the stronghold? Whether it be the stronghold of lust, whether it be malice, whether it be materialism, whether it be pride, whether it be pornography, whether it be addictions, where, whether it be some kind of a device. How do I break the stronghold in my life? By the way, folk, most people have a stronghold. Most people have a stronghold. There's so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it hardly behooves any of the rest of us to talk about us. Most everybody's got a stronghold somewhere. They need to get victory over. Let me give you some steps. Number one, recognize your need. There's a little verse in John, If you got a chance to turn to it, you might just kind of want to scribble a little line around some of these verses, but John, chapter eight, verse 32 and I've said this many times in talking to sinners, it says, And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. And I believe that. This week, I got to reading it Keith, and I was reading to whom it was written. It wasn't written to sinners. I believe it will work for sinners. But what this verse is dealing with, let me explain. Look at verse 31, Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, he said, if ye continue my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. They were believers. They believed on him. They were us. But Jesus said to them in verse 32, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They knew the Lord. Apparently, they also had strongholds in their life. They knew the Lord, but they were still in bondage to some areas in their life. I believe the biggest battle is recognizing that we have a need. It's always been a struggle with people. Let me explain. Look at verse 33 now, They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, ye shall be made free? We've never been in bondage to anybody. Are they crazy? Get real. They were in bondage for 400 years to the Egyptians. And right, while this is being written, they were in bondage to the Romans, and they're saying, We've never been in bondage. They had a difficult time recognizing their need. You know, it's easy for me to recognize his need, her need, kind of hard for me to see my own need. I can pretty well tell others what they really ought to do, but kind of hard to do it ourselves sometimes, isn't it? And the second step is repent. And we say, well, that means we're sorry for our sin, and it does. But the real meaning of this thing repent, it means to go in a different direction, and it means we say, God, forgive me, but we don't keep doing it. We begin to go in another direction. You know, for example, you're down there at the office, and you're flirting with Sally, and the preacher preaches, and you go to the altar and you repent. That means you don't hang around with Sally anymore. Hello. That means if you've got a drug problem, you don't hang around with the drug dealers anymore. Why you're going in a different direction. And a third thing, request that God reclaim the ground, the territory, that stronghold that the enemy has gotten into and he's taken some ground from you. You say, where do you get that? I get it in Psalms 23:3 for one, he restoreth my soul. We're taking back. We're getting it restored, that something that we have lost. Maybe you were a 15 year old boy and somebody stuck some pornography in front of you, and you saw things you shouldn't have seen, and they're still embedded in your mind, and you can't seem to lay them down, and you lost ground, and years later, you're still struggling. Do you know something, you can't restore things yourself? You can't reclaim some of those things yourself. You need a God of the universe to reclaim it from Satan, and he can do it, and we can talk about the ladies as well. Well, I'm glad he's not only brings forgiveness, but and cleanseth us from all unrighteousness. And here's the fourth thing, realign your life with accountability. I was reading and 59 times it says one another in the Bible, 59 times one another confess you're faults one to another, love one another, pray one for another, care for another, greet one another. That's what the Christian life is all about, one another, one another, and that's why I say everybody ought to be a part of a church family. Everybody ought to have a church family. And not only have a church family, you ought to find at least a small group in the church. That's why I like little churches. Preacher, we're just a group ourselves. What are you going to do when you go to heaven? You're going to be on some little street sucking on your thumb and your neighbor's thumb, and that's the length of it. Don't you realize God's got a bigger vision than that, don't you realize people on their road to hell, and they need somebody to reach out and get in their way and try to get them into church, get them into the kingdom? You're going to throw out the babies that are born, or you're going to keep them? You're going to let the family grow? Hello, wall. And so here we are everybody needs to have a church family to be a part of it, but you need to find you a small group, somebody that you know by name. I can't know every name, and you can't know every name, but you can have two or three that you can be a part of. And you say, Well, where do you get that Pastor, Jesus? Did you know that he had a group of 12? And I challenge you to get into a group. Now, once in a while, somebody will get upset, probably at the other church in town, and they had a spouse and they got sick and nobody called. And my first question, what group are they in? What Sunday school class did they go to? What did that lady do? Did she make cards? Were they in a grief share group? What group were they in? Because that group's going to care for them. Now I'm standing up here, and I can look clear back in the back and on the back seat, that may be where some of you are sitting. I see Randy back there, barely at this stage in my life. And I honest to God, I can't say, well, that person on the back seat, that man's probably going to have heart surgery, open heart surgery tomorrow, I don't know, but if you'll let us know, we'll care for you. But we can't just know, because we got a crystal ball. And you need some accountability in your life. If there's something that you're struggling with as a man, you can get some godly men around you and say, I struggle in this area. Would you pray for me? Would you ask me if I'm making it? Would you call on me? And if you're a lady, and I know maybe you're in a ladies group of 35 I'll just share with them. I wouldn't recommend that, women can keep a secret just takes more of them. This is notes by Keith again. May I say you need some godly people around you too, somebody that can keep tight lips so the ship doesn't sink. You know I'm saying. And share with them and let them help you. And what I want you to know folk that stronghold in your life, you can get victory over it. Maybe right now, Satan has the victory. You know what it is, but you can have the victory. Do you know the devil's not fighting you in five different areas. He's too smart for that. He gets on that one little string, and he'll pluck that string and pluck that string and wear you down and wear you out, and you'll struggle in that one area. But I love that verse in Jude, verse 24 now unto him is able to keep you from falling, you can get over that addiction. You can get on the other side of that addiction. And then that verse 30, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. What will grieve you more than anything in a Christian's life is for Satan to have you in bondage in some little area, having a stronghold, a foothold, a hand hold in your life, maybe an attitudinal problem, maybe a talking problem, you say more than you should have said, and you realize it, and you regret it, but you can't take it back, and it keeps going and going, and other people are affected by it. Whatever that weakness is, this whole book is saying, Neither give place to the devil. Don't you allow some of these things, or create a climate that he can use in your life, or you'll grieve the Holy Spirit of God. And you know something, God's here this morning, and he's talking to our hearts. And some of us need to get some victory, we need to get some victory over those strongholds. Wouldn't it be something that if, in a service like this, we could just come to a conclusion and say, everybody that's got a stronghold, about 98% of us, could just come forward and let some of the staff pray over them. I believe some folk could get the victory. I don't think we have to spend our life struggling over these things and always having this climate that's just not quite conducive for the movement of God's Spirit, and he's grieved, and we're not effective, and we are never victorious, and we're always under a cloud. You can be set free from that. Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene. Visit us every Sunday at 9am with BNC's Pastor Ray LaSalle, for more information regarding BNC, visit bucyrusnazarene.org, you.