Exodus Chapter 13 Series #16

Into a review of this morning’s teaching, although some of it is going to be reviewed, the latter portion—what I said this morning—we rushed through a section that I think is so very important. Our study is in Exodus 13, and I would challenge you to open your Bibles again to that passage. We will be here this Sunday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and on the 13th, morning and evening, to finish the 13th chapter. That’s how important I believe this chapter is because these are the instructions or the related issues after deliverance in reference to the people of God.

And they teach us very clearly the principle that redemption is God’s intervention in our life, but that the purpose of that redemption is our usefulness and not just release. Now that is a very simple statement, and yet that’s the crux over which most of the Christian world fails to enter into God’s purpose: that God does not redeem us. In fact, the very name “redeem” in the Old Testament means to buy back in order to use. In other words, you would not redeem something unless it had the value of usefulness. That is a part of the word. So, when God delivers us or redeems us, there is a purpose of usefulness. And thus, redemption or deliverance is meant to reorder our life, and nothing is meant to be the same after we have been delivered. There are to be clear marks in our life of before and after. We are to see clearly that there is a difference between Egypt and Canaan, that there is a clear difference between when we were in bondage and when we were delivered.

Exodus 13 is a lot more than just a parenthesis, as some scholars wish to teach it, but it is indeed a divine imperative concerning spiritual warfare, and that is that believers who get delivered and then do not enter into an understanding of their purpose are in great danger. In other words, religious bondages become worse than the original bondages to sin.

And we have seen, and will see, that it’s one thing to get out of Egypt; it’s quite another thing to understand the principle of who or what we are to be in Christ. So there’s this imperative in our life that we understand that when a man or woman receives deliverance or redemption in its initial stage and does not enter into purpose, they are, in the words of Jesus, subject to that incredible bondage in which the spirit that has left them goes seeking another place to dwell, comes back, and finds their life.

And listen to the description; we heard it this morning, saw it in two translations. The demon finds their life cleansed and set in order but empty, vacant. So he moves back in and brings with him seven demons so that Jesus says the latter state of this person is worse than the former. Now if you study the context of that passage, you understand that that is exactly what Jesus is referring to.

He goes on to say, in other words, the context is to whom? It’s to the Pharisees, to the religious leaders. And after Jesus has given this illustration, he closes the paragraph by saying that’s the way it is with this generation. That’s the way it is with this generation. Cleaned up, set in order, but vacant, and then inhabited by worse demons or worse spiritual results than they had to begin with.

Now you need to understand this: Deliverance and redemption have to lead to purpose, or the last state is worse than the former. And I’m going to repeat something I said this morning. No one said they were upset by it, but normally somebody says they’re upset by it. I was surprised this morning. I think I got out too early for some of you to find me, probably.

But I want you to hear it again. If you take heaven and hell out of the equation, it would be better for some people not to be redeemed. Now you need to hear the whole context of that. Taking heaven and hell out of the equation, which you never do, of course. Heaven is in the equation. Hell is in the equation.

But if you did take those out of the equation, many people who are set free through redemption or deliverance are worse off after they become delivered than they were before. And I simply made the comparison to you this morning, which you already know: Some people who are not in the church are happier, more resolved, more creative, more responsive, more released than some who are in the church.

And that is, again, because if you are redeemed, again, use Jesus’ words. If you’ve been set free, if you’ve been cleaned up, and you remain vacant, you’re a sitting duck. And so it is with this generation. Now, I’m going to just say this, which I did not say this morning. I believe that’s the state of the Evangelical Church in general.

In other words, I think, as a whole, the reason that we have this hostile, negative Evangelical Church today, that faces the world with sword and spear in hand, and which sees itself as an adversary, not a proponent, of the people who are lost. The reason for that is that the evangelical church itself is possessed of a religious spirit.

I’m absolutely convinced that that’s true. With rare exceptions, do you see or hear from the religious right today that you do not see evidence of the satanic and religious spirit? Now, I realize that’s a very controversial word, and I, uh, you have your opinion, I have mine. But I believe that is exactly the state.

Emptied, cleansed, set in order, but vacant. Not purposefully involved. We were, Anita and I were this week with our dear friends, the Foremans, for an evening out on the town. It was a great evening. But you can’t be with Kenny Foreman for five minutes. Not because he’s bragging; he never, I’ve never even heard from Kenny what the number of seats is in that church.

I’ve never heard him say, even during Easter or some other time, “We had 10,000 people here over this weekend.” But the one thing that Kenny will brag about on a consistent and real basis is this.

What they have been led to do for people. And he was telling me he was full of it because last weekend, they took a park in one of the lower sections of the city of San Jose. They got a bunch of prizes, television sets, and bikes, and so forth. And they went there for an entire afternoon. I believe the number was, and I could be wrong, but I think it was a thousand bags of groceries and a thousand turkeys.

I think that’s what he said. They had music, songs, testimonies. He said, “I gave a 15-minute message like I used to when I was preaching in Africa or somewhere else. We sent a bus there the next day and bused in all the people who wanted to come. He said, “This is not a one-time event. We’re going to go back to that same neighborhood again and again and again until they know they can trust us.”

And he said, “I had lunch with the policeman, the, the, the chief of police this week. And he said, ‘The crime statistics in that neighborhood already have dropped, showing the influence of that one weekend that your church spent.’ One day this week, this summer, Ken Jr., who’s like a son to me, and whom I love very deeply, and have been privileged to be involved and impact to some degree in his ministry, felt led of God to go to the mayor of that city, who most of you know to be…

Nicest thing I can say, extremely liberal. He went to her and said, “What are the dirtiest parts of this city? What are the parts that you can’t keep clean? What are the parks or the ditches or the places where there’s garbage and you can’t get them clean?” He said, “I’m going to turn out a thousand Christians on one Saturday, and we’re going to clean up those neighborhoods.”

Instead of a thousand, they had five thousand Christians on a Saturday. Not just from that one church. Although it was organized by that church. And they covered the neighborhood. Now I’m, I’m saying to you, that is an emptied, cleaned vessel that is not vacant. See? Versus an empty, clean vessel that is vacant and then becomes inhabited by a religious spirit.

So Passover deliverance, this is the proposition of Exodus 13, must lead to a proclamation of life purpose, and it must reorder our life. And how does this reordering take place? Well, there are five things; don’t worry, two of them we’re not covering tonight. Um, in fact, two of them we’ll just review, and two of them are for a week from now.

Don’t you love it? I mean, you know, I’ve broken these sermons down into such small bites, it’s just incredible. And to think that I used to preach all of these at one time.

How does it happen? There are five subject areas. I believe the five subject areas relate to five simple questions. One, purpose is proclaimed in our life when we unalterably affect the fruit of our lives. In other words, the issue of ownership. To whom do we belong? This is the whole thing of the firstborn being dedicated and so forth in the actual Exodus 13.

But the issue is, when you’re redeemed, the fruit of your life is unalterably changed. I no longer look for the things I would have prior to my deliverance and conversion. The things that are the fruit of my life now are in a totally different area. What I presume my life’s purpose to be and what I will assume my life’s balance to be are in an entirely different direction.

You cannot be serving God and not have the fruit of your life affected. That’s just the way it is biblically. Secondly, we saw that God wants to affect your appetites. That the activity of your appetites or the issue of your desires and their potential tyranny will be dealt with in this issue of Passover deliverance.

You cannot walk out of an experience with God and say, “Well, this is just the way I am. This is the way I was; this is the way I am.” God wants limits in your life, and again, as we saw in the leaven experience, God did not say to them, “Never have leaven again.” He said the leaven is not to be in your life for seven days.

I want to prove that I have control over your life. And woe be the Christian whom God does not say to, from time to time, “Give this up for a month. I don’t want you to touch the television dial for a month. I don’t want you to read outside literature for a period of time. I don’t want you to listen to someone else for a while.

Listen to me. Whatever.” God disciplines you. I cannot tell you the number of times, because I’m a general person, my family knows this, my friends know this, I get in the car, and I automatically turn on, generally, the stereo. I don’t like the car; I don’t like car radio or talk shows very much, although on long distances I’ll listen to them, but I love certain kinds of music, and I’ve programmed the CD player in such a way that I’ll listen to them more times than I could tell you.

I’m driving along, and the Spirit of God says, “Just turn it off.”

And I’ll reach out and touch the button, and a conversation begins directly with the Lord. That’s Lent. That’s the issue of appetite. God is saying, “I’m not telling you to get yeast out of your life forever. I’m not telling you it’s negative. I’m telling you I want you to know that you’re in control of that subject.

By my grace.” And then, of course, the third area that we came to this morning is that he wants to totally change the emphasis of our deeds, thoughts, and words. This is the issue of our witness, our personality, and the manifestation of change. And I’m going to get to that. Let me just go on to the other two so that you see them.

This fourth one is the one that the Holy Spirit clearly said to me, “I don’t want you to touch the issue on this Sunday because I want you to spend the whole time. I am amazed at the stuff that’s been coming out of my study and reminding me as well. And that is that God clearly spends a paragraph in this passage saying I couldn’t lead you this way for these reasons.

This is the way I’m going to lead you for these reasons. In other words, God’s saying that when there’s been a deliverance in your life, one of the effects is giving to God the right to determine the release and the time in your life. Hearing His voice so that what seems normal becomes abnormal. And what becomes, what is abnormal becomes normal to you in the direction of the Holy Spirit.

I’m going to take an entire Sunday morning on that fourth point, and then, uh, two weeks from Sunday night, on the 13th, I’m going to speak on this last paragraph, and that is that God wants to fill our lives with His presence and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So this deals with the issue of our confidence, our assurance, and the continual guidance that God wants us to have.

Okay? That gives you these five basic topics in this passage. And it’s interesting, again, Passover comes along, people go out, and then there is this parenthetic chapter before we have the great confrontation chapter, which will be our final chapter in studying Exodus, which is the 14th chapter at the Red Sea.

But before that, it’s as if God puts this parenthesis and says, “Now that you’re out, understand some things about your life. It has to be reordered; appetites have to be controlled. Your personality needs to manifest the difference.” And it’s that third issue I want to address quickly with you tonight. If you have your Bibles open, turn to Exodus 13, verses 8 and 9.

God says, “This will be a sign to you on your hand and a memorial between your eyes, that the Lord’s law may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand, the Lord has brought you out of Egypt.” And then in the 16th verse, “It shall be a sign on your hand, frontlets between your eyes, for by the strength of the hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt.”

Now, these are repeated again, with almost the same words in Deuteronomy 6:8 and in Deuteronomy 11:8. These are the words which the Talmudists of the Hebrews ultimately interpreted as meaning that the true Jew needed to wear something when he came before God in prayer. This is where we have the curious custom.

The curious custom of the Jews, especially the Orthodox, is to wear what is called phylacteries. Actually, the Greek word “phylactery” is a Greek word meaning a safeguard or an amulet. But the Jewish name is “tefilin” or “tefilin,” which, by the way, is related to the word “prayer.” Every male Israelite over 13, when he came to God in daily morning prayer, was required to wear, on his forehead (they take this out of the woods), between his eyes, or on the front lid of his eyes, and on his right hand. What he wore was a small cube, a little leather box in the shape of a cube, attached to a leather band that he used to wrap. By the way, without going into detail, the exact length of the band is imperative, and you wouldn’t believe all the complications that go into these tefillin.

The phylactery before the forehead is divided into four small boxes, each containing little tiny parchments on which these four scriptures are written. On the wrist, there is one parchment, but all four verses are written on it. Now, the point is, and I don’t want to be objectionable, but I want you to understand this: Is this what God wanted them to do?

Let me quote to you Kaelin Delitzsch, the great, perhaps the greatest Old Testament scholar, certainly from the viewpoint of German scholarship: “These words are used figuratively, like a proverbial expression employed to give emphasis to the injunction. In other words, the injunction is that they are to bear this precept in their minds, to always be mindful of it, observe it. This is even more apparent from the reason assigned, ‘so that the law of Jehovah will be in your mouth.’ It was not by mnemonic slips upon the hand or forehead that the law was placed in the mouth to be talked about continually, but by receiving it into the heart and continually fulfilling it.” These are very important words that they convey. Let me quote now a great writer, Macintosh, whom I often quote.

From the emphatic language in which Moses urged this double duty, too often forgotten, of remembering and showing forth the goodness of God, sprang the curious custom of wearing phylacteries. But the Jews were not commanded to wear signs and frontlets. They were commanded to let hallowed memories be unto them in the place of such charms as they had seen the Egyptians wear.

Now, I want you to see the importance of this statement: What the Jews really did by making this a physical thing is that they repeated what God hated in the Egyptians. Do you see that point? God was saying to them, “Don’t do this as the Egyptians did, always wearing reminders on their face, neck, or hands. Instead, have this before you so that the law of God will be in your heart.”

Such language is frequent in the Old Testament, where “mercy and truth will be bound around your neck,” “your father’s commandments should be tied around your neck or bound on your fingers,” “it should be written on your hearts,” and “Zion should clothe herself as converts as an ornament and gird them upon her as a bride, death,” and so forth.

In other words, God frequently, in the Old Testament, uses this concept of symbolism. The issue is that their memory is to be so sharply aware of what God has done for them that their mouths speak. One more quote from Kyle and Delitzsch: “The line of thought referred to merely expresses the idea that the Israelites were not only to retain the commandments of God in their hearts and confess them with their mouths, but they were to fulfill them with their hands or enact deeds.”

Thus, to show themselves in their whole bearing as the guardians and observers of the law. As the hand is the medium of action, carrying in the hand represents handling. So the space between the eyes or the forehead is the part of the body that is generally visible, and what is worn there is worn to be seen.

This figurative interpretation is confirmed and placed beyond doubt by parallel passages in Proverbs 3 and so forth and so on, just as Macintosh has stated. So, some of you, I’m sure, are saying, “So, why worry about the Jews? We’re not Jews, and we don’t wear phylacteries or Tefillin. Who cares whether they should have done it or not?”

What does this have to do with us? Well, the fact is that doing something physically or demanding of people some kind of ritualistic response is always the excuse of religion. That’s what religion always does. Religion says, “If you’re saved, then you don’t eat, drink, swear, spit, chew, or go with those who do.”

Here’s the list: You want to be a member of this church? “I won’t go to movies. I won’t do so and so. I won’t do so and so.” That’s religion’s response always to what God says. God says the concept is to be in your heart so that your total being is changed. In other words, what the Lord is speaking to here is personalities, the dominant principle of God’s ownership in your life, remembrance constantly before you of who you were and what you were and what God has now done.

In fact, there’s a change in the actual verses here, a change in construction. And by the way, Kylin Dielich also mentioned this. In other words, the first two are to be done so that the latter will be done. In other words, you keep this constantly before you while you’re working in your thoughts. The constant thing is who God is to you and what God has done for you. And therefore, the witness of your life will be obvious. The third thing comes out of the first two things being exactly true, so that the memorial of the great deliverance is to be on their hand and before their eye.

But as Macintosh says, human nature finds the letter of the commandment easier than the spirit. Now let’s just stop there for a moment. That’s where you are, and that’s where I am. The letter of the commandment is easier than the spirit of the commandment. Now let me just take this at a pause for a moment.

Because if you follow the letter, you always know you’re right. “I don’t go to movies.”

If you follow the spirit, you don’t always know what’s right because the circumstance makes an entirely different interpretation of the event. Wine is an interesting thing. The Assemblies of God recently, what, five or six years ago, maybe ten years ago, came out with a statement about drinking no alcoholic beverages, and they did so largely because of what they perceived to be a problem with missionaries.

The reason is that outside of this nation, many of the predominant countries in which the Assemblies of God minister, wine is a part of the culture. It’s a part of the Assemblies of God culture and church. So they made a national standard here in America. Now, I have no problem with abstinence. I think it’s a good, basic decision to make a decision in this or any other culture not to have anything alcoholic.

I think that’s a good decision. But to make that the letter rather than the spirit means that you are willing, in the presence, let’s say, of French Christians or Italian Christians, to be obstinate, self-righteous, to cause their faith to be looked down upon by your superiority because you think the letter is the issue when God says the spirit is the issue.

Do you see? Totally different thing. That’s why the letter is easy for us. Spirit is tough for us. And the same way as he says, going on ceremony is easier than an obedient heart. Sign up for the ceremony. Not too excited about obedience. Penance is easier than penitence. Penance meaning pay your money, do your thing, whatever religion requires of you.

But penitence means brokenness. Ashes on the forehead is easier than a contrite spirit. A phylactery is easier than gratitude and the acknowledgment which ought to be for us as signs on our hands and frontlets between our eyes. Do you remember what Jesus actually said about the fact that our mouth would reveal our true inner self?

This is basic psychology, of course. It’s basic understanding. He said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” And he said, “A good man, out of the treasure in his heart, brings forth good things.” And went on to say that evil words—every evil word that a man speaks—will be brought into account on the day of judgment. For by your words, you are justified, and by your words, you are condemned.

Now, let’s look at this in the message, as we did this morning. Your minds are like a snake pit. How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you’re so foul-minded? It’s your heart, not the dictionary, which gives you meaning. A good person produces good deeds, words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard.

Let me tell you something. Every one of those careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation, and words can also be your damnation. Jesus was saying, basically, let a man talk. Let a man talk, and I’ll tell you what his priorities are.

And by that, it’s very clear that some people we think are not spiritual are really very spiritual, and some people whom we judge to be spiritual are very non-spiritual. Let them talk. Let the abundance of their mouth show. And so, what’s being said here, of course, in this Exodus 13, is that the hand, or the hand is a symbol of practice and work.

The eyes are a symbol of knowledge and thought. The mouth is a symbol of expression or word. And we have these three, then. Now let’s just take a second with these. What I do is important because the hand symbolizes what eventually is work. That’s why the hand had to be washed; the priest had to wash his feet and his hands.

Only two things to signify his walk and his work. And that’s why Peter got the message all straight, all confused when Jesus wanted to wash his feet. “Well, then wash me all,” Jesus said, “No, you’re clean, but your feet need to be washed.” That we understand the difference in reference to that.

The same with the eyes, which are a symbol of knowledge and thought. I want to talk about that. And the mouth, which is a symbol of expression and the word. Now, these three things, words, thoughts, and works, express what? When you combine them, they are talking about personality, or we would say personhood.

That’s really who we are. And the scripture is so very, very clear about this. That the eyes, the mouth, the hand, that’s really the expression of who we are, regardless of what we say, regardless of what our mouth is, or even our commitment in reference to religious things. This really reveals who we are.

So in Exodus chapter 13, rather than commanding phylacteries, God was saying the presence of deliverance is to be so real to you, and in your daily life, that your whole personhood is revolutionized and changed after this point. If there’s to be a focus on the other side of deliverance, it’s that your personhood will be different than your personhood was before.

Now let me just posit that this stuff is so important. Is it true with you?

Do you really point and say, “This is the kind of person I am naturally. This is what I would normally be. This is the way I grew up—angry, hostile, outspoken, whatever the words are. But after God did a work in me, the reminder of that work in my mind produces a difference in my personality.” Do you see that point?

God says, “The reminder before you of Christ’s significant work in your life means that your personhood is different.” Now, I’ve learned a great deal. I am not an expert in dealing with demonic things, and I’ve already told you, I am totally disinterested in demons. I couldn’t possibly have less concern about demons.

I don’t like them. I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t care what their names are or where they came from. I’ve got no concern at all for demons, except when I see their influence, particularly in reference to the Christian life.

And I said this morning, “You can tell a lot from the eyes.” Now, let me make something very clear to you: I could quote you a lot of scriptures. The Bible talks about the eyes melting with sorrow. It speaks about how much the eyes are an expression of life. But nobody says this better than Jesus. In Matthew 6:22, when Jesus said, “The light of the body is the eye. If, therefore, your eye is single, it’s full of light. But if your eye is double or evil, then your body is full of darkness.” That’s a very interesting word because in Greek, the word is translated as “single” or “good” in the new translations. If your eye is good, your body is full of light.

By the way, the word is “lamp,” actually. Your eye is a lamp, is what is said. If your eye is single, a very interesting Greek word, “hapalus,” actually means “not folded.” Let me ask you a question: Why do you normally fold a napkin when you’re in a restaurant after you’ve eaten? How do you fold it?

You fold it with the dirty side inside. You don’t want people to know what a pig you’ve been during the meal. So you carefully fold the napkin. Most of you do, at least. I know there are some of you that probably don’t even pick it up from the floor. But most of you fold it. “Unfolded,” which is really what the word “opulus” means, “single,” actually is the closest Greek word we have to “integrity.”

When the eye is “integris,” when it is single, then the light penetrates the body. When the body is evil, when the eye is evil, or “poneros” is the Greek word from which we eventually get “pornography” and so forth, when it is evil, double, when it is not single, then the body is full of darkness. I said this morning, and it’s very true: You can see a person, and they say, “I love you,” and yet their eyes say to you, “Keep your distance.”

They are speaking words to you, and yet you know they are flattering you because they want to use you. It’s so clear. Watch the eyes. It’s all in the eyes. If there are any fighters here, any karate people here, they’ll tell you exactly what I’m saying now. How do they know the next move? It’s the eyes. That’s exactly the way a policeman learns to react in reference to a gun. It’s the eyes. That’s where you know the next move’s gonna come from. And you’re very careful to understand that.

Now the fact is, if there’s been deliverance in your life, God wants to make your personality different. He wants to give you a personality change. And some of us, I know, have spent years in certain patterns. And I’m not talking about abracadabra and all of this suddenly goes away. But the focus of God is that He wants to transform your personality so that you’ll show you’ve been brought out.

Now that’s the key thing. If you’ve been delivered, if you’ve been redeemed, then God wants to transform your personality so that you show you’ve been delivered. You show you’ve been redeemed. Now, the reason why this is so important is that the teaching that I gave this morning in such a very basic way, and I will repeat tonight, is that that’s why the enemy’s greatest effort is not to get you to watch pornography.

The enemy’s greatest effort in your life is to distort your personality because that’s the method of evidence by which God speaks to the world of redemption. That’s why a religious spirit replaces compassion. What is Jesus? Jesus is compassion. Sinners are absolutely at ease with Jesus. They love to put Him on the party list.

If you run out of wine, He provides it. Have Jesus at your party. Why not? Put Him on the list. That’s the last evangelical in the history of the world that ever got invited to the world’s parties.

In fact, I remember a person saying to me once in this church, “You know, Rick, I appreciate you, but I have a serious question about you because I see how comfortable the world is with you and how comfortable you are with the world.” I said, “You don’t know, but you’ve just given me the greatest compliment you could possibly give me.”

That, to me, is the most Christ-like character, and I know we’ve grown up saying, if Jesus walked into this room, you’d all die for the carpet. I don’t believe that. Now, there’s an aspect of Christ’s personality that we need to be reminded of, that Christ too has the robe, the pure white robe and the brazen feet.

But the aspect of Jesus’ ministry among people does not convince me at all of this. It convinces me children love him. I tell you, children just have an automatic danger signal about phonies. They know them a yard, yards away. And I tell you when there’s something wrong and I see children not comfortable responding to me, I want to reevaluate what I’m doing in my life.

And you should as well. So God wants to manifest difference in your life. Now, we come to this passage that’s so often quoted. And that even the translations have trouble with. Because in the King James, we have this word, “the weapons of our warfare, not carnal but spiritual, to the casting down of strongholds.”

That’s what the King James says. The New King James says, “arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” But I want you to see this, because I believe it’s the best translation. I gave it this morning in 2 Corinthians 5 in the New International Version. The weapons with which we fight are not the weapons of the world.

They have power to tear down strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Again, I want to say very clearly that the first person who turned me on to seeing this passage in a different light was Jack Hayford.

He just mentioned it in passing, and I, as I normally do, I take notes if it’s a schoolboy giving his first message. Because the Word of God and its proclamation is that important to me. And when Jack hit that point, it immediately said to me, I have a total misunderstanding of this passage. I talked to him for a couple of hours after that, and then subsequently did a great deal of research, and it’s been foundational to me ever since.

Jack mentioned, and it’s true, that there are two words in this verse that explain it. And these two words, uniquely, are identified with what the Greeks called the diatribe, or the debate. And the actual Greek word “diatribe” means to rub out or to rub through. And the principle of a diatribe was very simple.

Two things in the diatribe that are important. And you need to see these as important this evening. First,

Those arguing would get a strategy. How can we destroy our enemy? How can we destroy him? And that strategy, called a “noema,” is the word “thought” in 2 Corinthians 10. We must capture every thought. In other words, you need, as a Christian, to get hold of the strategy the enemy has against you. What is he trying to do?

The second thing after the strategy was the reasoning, or the argument, or the “logismos,” as the Greek word is, and this was used to accomplish the purpose. The strategy, through an argument, was used to cause that person’s arguments to be rubbed out and to substitute for their arguments, your arguments. Now, I can’t tell you how important those two things are, because if this holds any water with you at all, and it certainly stands up against everything that the Word teaches, stands with it, and it certainly illustrates this principle tonight that I want you to understand.

If God has delivered you, and if you’re not going to end up as an empty, vacant vessel that is seven times worse at the beginning than at the ending than the beginning. Then one of the things that has to happen is you must manifest in your life, allow God to manifest in your life, personality change. So personality becomes the battlefield.

And I’ve asked you, I asked you this morning to imagine with me three things. One, God has an image of who you are to be. Who you are to be in Jesus Christ. It’s very interesting because I often get a glimpse of this, even in some of you that I find it difficult, and maybe you find it difficult, and me as well.

I’ll give you that right as well. But sometimes I will see in you a glimpse of what I perceive to be what Christ really had in mind for your life. For example, I will see on occasion true compassion. Now I’m not talking about just a weak sister approach in which everybody and every need calls your attention.

Some people think that’s compassion. It’s just a nagging voice that points to need. But true compassion is a marvelous gift. It sets people free almost instantly. It has a power like nothing else I know. And I’ve seen in some of you that. But it is so clouded over by your fear. For example, many of you here, and I, though I have taught against this many years, many of you here do not know the difference between acceptance and approval.

And as a result of that, you live in an inability to accept, to genuinely accept, and receive the sinner. Because you believe that if you did that, you are approving their lifestyle, you’re approving their immorality, you’re approving their drunkenness, you’re approving their gossip, whatever else. That is a lie.

That is a lie. If that were true, then everything Jesus did almost was immoral. Jesus understood that he could be in the presence and totally accept people without approving their lifestyle, and that his compassion on their life would be the means of saving them. His compassion would be the means of bringing them through.

So there’s an image of what you were to be. I don’t know what it is. You know, I see your natural giftedness. Many of you are naturally gifted in certain areas. And, uh, many people with natural gifts come into the church, and we just baptize their natural gifts, and they go on continuing to be who they were in the world, just baptized in the Holy Spirit, and we say this is their gift.

Not true at all. That’s their natural genetic inheritance, whatever else. It has nothing to do with that unique person that God designed them to be. So the attack of the enemy always is to do these two things. And this isn’t trying to be clever; Loren works very hard. I give him some ideas, he works hard to put them together, but really the noema, or the strategy, is like the bow.

The logismo is like the arrow. And what Satan does then, in this diatribe against you, is to try to rub out this true person that God meant you to be. That’s why he redeemed you in the first place. He meant your personhood to manifest this characteristic. And so Satan’s whole scheme is to rub out that image until you know even, you know, you may have had a vision of it once as to what you thought, felt like the Lord wanted you to be.

But it’s no longer even in your thinking process. There’s been a total substitution. That thing has just been thoroughly rubbed away and substituted by this argument, and by this substitution is another image. And you begin to accept that substituted image. You’re a murderer, you’re an adulterer, you’re, as we said this morning, you’re a homosexual, whatever else.

Most of the things that Satan says to us are not only not true, they are very, very far from being true. But the longer he says that, and the more the real image of who you are in Christ is rubbed out, the more you begin to accept that. Well, I guess I’ll always be this way. This must actually be who I am.

And Satan destroys the characteristic in this clever strategy. And I said this morning, I want to repeat this and be very clear to you, that even in charismatic churches we have this name of prophetic ministry. Now I believe strongly in the prophetic ministry. I think my own ministry is often in the area of the prophetic.

But I need you to understand this principle, that often Satan baptizes a critical spirit, a divisive, negative, pessimistic spirit, and we baptize it in the name of prophetic ministry, and that person becomes, though they are Christians, a tool of the enemy in attacking and destroying what the true character of Christ is in another believer’s life.

Do you understand what I’m saying? Now that’s not said to eliminate your dependence on the prophetic. I have the most prophetic nephew, I mean, son-in-law you could possibly have. In fact, Jeff’s the only person who can make a spiritual journey out of buying a car. It just becomes, you know, I hate almost to do anything with Jeff.

It’s like Jack McAllister used to be. You go to a movie with Jack McAllister. I remember going with Jack McAllister to see Patton one time, and the whole movie he was talking about world evangelism. Do you see? That’s the kind of spirit we need, so forth and so on. The movie was totally ruined. I mean, all I heard was that the whole night.

In fact, the two most interesting people to go to a movie, Jack McAllister, who interprets it all in terms of world evangelism, and Kenny Foreman, who sleeps through the whole thing. I’ve never been with Kenny Foreman, but he, they went to sleep. In fact, we went to see Jaws the first week that Jaws was open. I was sitting there screaming with my feet up off the floor, and Kenny was sleeping.

It was the most amazing experience.

So what happens is Satan gives a spiritual reason to a carnal activity. Now, I’m going to say, I’m going to quit preaching pretty quickly. I’m almost done, but I want you to understand this. I want to say a couple of things about this. Satan’s greatest accomplishments will occur this week from Sunday night to Sunday morning in the conversations of believers.

That’s far more important to Satan. Please hear this. It’s far more important to Satan than what he’s doing out in the world in pornography or drugs or whatever else because that’s his territory. What he does out in that territory, if he wants to mess up his own backyard, that’s up to him. But what he does in the conversation between Christian people in a given week is to destroy the effectiveness of the church and many times to absolutely destroy the purpose of God in another believer by the process of what goes on in conversation. Now, I said to you this morning, I will not listen to a demon, okay? I have no interest in him at all. When he begins to read my laundry list, I let him know I know it better than he does, and God knows it a lot better than he does, and I just tell him to shut up. I’m not interested in what you have to say about my laundry list or anybody else’s laundry list.

That same principle goes into conversations with other Christians. Now, if you want to be a perpetual garbage can, then you just let believers dump everything they have in your ear. I learned a long time ago that life is too short, and my mind is too precious for me to allow people to make my life a garbage can.

And when they begin, I make it very clear. I’m interested in you, I love you, I want to know how to help you, but I am not interested in the garbage. Now, it’s a particularly interesting thing in modern psychology; we say the opposite, you know. Just give me all your garbage, and I’ll take it all. This is why many Christians in this church live by the offenses of other people.

They carry them. They warm the offenses of other people. You can stop and talk to them, and they’ll tell you in five minutes who’s offended, how they were offended, what their problem is. And your natural response should be, “What in tarnation are you doing with their offense?” You have no grace to carry their offense.

God in no way has graced you with this circumstance. And for you to carry that offense is both to destroy you and them.

So what goes on in this conversation thing is very interesting. Now you say, Rick, how in the world did you get here? What did I just tell you? Words are the expression of what’s going on in our life. It’s who we are. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Are you not discerning enough to know when someone starts speaking that kind of garbage?

Now I want to tell you something. As an elder of this church, I will not allow people to speak against an elder. Because the Word of God says to me, “Never accept an accusation against the elder except in the presence of witnesses.” So someone says, you know, “I still don’t understand what Dick Bendix does on the golf course all week. You know? He hasn’t gotten any better since you retired either. You know, some people retire and they get better. But, you know, others, not that lucky.” You know, if someone said that to me, my first comment would be immediately, “You obviously have something to say. Can I get Dick, that’s the highest expression. Can I bring Dick into this conversation?”

“Well, no, I don’t want to say this to him.” Have you said this to him? Second question. Third question. “Would you stand here and let me get witnesses to what you have to say?”

Now somebody’s going to say, “Boy, nobody will talk to you with that kind of a rule.” That’s exactly the principle. Why do I need to hear that garbage?

Every single person in this church has something in their personality that God’s working on. And if I become a part of this satanic scheme of rubbing out the value of that person and replacing it with something else, I become a tool in the hand of the enemy. My conversation has undone months of prayers.

One conversation can undo months of prayers. And of course, most of us are saying, “Well, this is who I am, that’s just the way it is, you know, I mean, it can’t be any other, that’s who I am.” No, see, what God is constantly saying is, “I want it to be different. Now, do you know the difference in your life?”

Every week, I see the difference. I know the old Rick Howard; I know exactly how he responds to every situation. I had a very unique situation yesterday; there’s no need to go into details; I’ve shared it with the person I needed to share it with. But it was the kind of experience where I know exactly what I would have done, I know exactly how I would have handled that, I know exactly the normal response, even in my saved life to handle it, and I know what God is working in my personality, which was to respond to that situation entirely differently than I did before.

In fact, the whole setup of that situation was because I had responded differently than I normally would have, and I had set in motion a series of events that caused this rejection to occur in the manner in which it did. I want you to know this; this is the most important thing in my life.

I’ve said it to you before. If there is a period in my life, I mean, a long period of time in which I’m not in the presence of the world without someone who doesn’t know me saying to me, “I don’t know what there is about you. I feel confident with you. I feel safe with you. I’m saying things to you I’ve never said to anyone else before.”

If I were in the presence of the world for months on end and no one ever said that to me, if I had to wear my little label (I hate the label), most of the people whom I know do not know I’m a minister. That, in itself, would eliminate the hope of a relationship. Many of them do not know I’m an evangelical Christian.

In those terms, that would change the nature of the relationship. But I believe every relationship God puts me in manifests the changed personality of God at work in my spirit, which is at work to change their personality by the work of His Holy Spirit. That’s the uniqueness, so it’s a continual process.

I ask you this morning, and I’ll bring it again to a very specific foundation, I believe some of us, in fact, I just don’t believe you could ever have been truly delivered or redeemed of God if there’s not at least a glimpse of what he wanted you to be. You know, of how he saw your gifts released, that image of God released in who you are.

Sometimes through natural giftedness, but often in opposite areas of natural giftedness. Totally opposite. See, I receive a prophetic word, I mean, a very sharp prophetic word, more specifically when it comes from someone who never says a sharp word. Do you understand? Because then… It does not have the edge of natural giftedness. It has the unique sense of the Spirit of God having designed a weapon to be used in my life. Now that’s not saying that we don’t often function in reference to natural giftedness. I’m just telling you that that’s not the limit of who you are. And if you make that the limit of who you are, then you’re accepting a satanic lie.

If you’re operating only in the dimensions of what your natural gift is, then you’re limiting how God wants to show this super manifestation. In other words, what is God saying in the 13th chapter of Exodus? He’s saying, wherever you go, because deliverance is constantly on your mind, your words and your deeds and your eye will manifest change.

There is a passage, and I’ll close with this; it has nothing to do at all with what I’m going to say. In other words, I’m taking it entirely out of context, and I never do that. I don’t use the Word of God out of context. But this is not a violation of the context; it is just not the specific context. The word is from Romans 8, that the creation waits for God, for the manifestation of the sons of God. Later it says, the whole creation groans waiting for the adoption, to wit, the liberty or the adoption of the children of God. The redemption, which is the adoption of the children of God.

I know what that is. I understand it theologically. I understand it’s the future expectation. I understand that God begins a work and it’s not fulfilled. I know the context of Romans 8 very well, but I want to tell you this because I’m taking these words very gingerly out of their context because they say something very, very unique to me.

Do you think your marriage might be waiting for the manifestation of the Son of God that you are? Do you think, perhaps, that your business experience, where you work, and your social life are waiting for the manifestation, the release of this personhood of whom God has made you through Jesus Christ?

Is there a sense in which the surroundings of your life are waiting for that kind of release? I really believe that. I don’t know when the count is made at the end of my life. Certainly within ten years, most people, even people who are heads of denominations and all those kinds of positions, are generally forgotten within ten years.

Only a few historians would even know who they were during their term of service.

But the absolute, unchangeable imprint material of our life is people. And I want you to understand that people are the only currency of eternity. When God says, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” He’s not talking about gold or silver or precious stones because they have no manifest value in heaven.

But the currency of heaven is people.

And because the currency of heaven is people, the ultimate evaluation of how I’m doing is in this area of what’s happening in the response of my life to people. That’s incredible. If you believe that, if you understand that Satan’s greatest scheme against you is to bind up your personality, to eliminate this view of who God wants your personality to be through your hands, eyes, and deeds, then Satan hits that personality issue in order to eliminate it, in order to not only eliminate the positive but also to replace it with a negative view. This is, to me, exactly what has happened in the Evangelical Church in the last few years. You’re not hearing this from anyone else, I know, because it’s not being said.

And I will agree with anyone saying whatever they want to in reference to this. I try to listen to my brethren as carefully as I can on this subject. I believe the Evangelical Church has found itself in the last few years in exactly this syndrome. What God meant us to be has been successfully erased.

And Satan has put a religious image in its place, which is anti-world, anti-compassion, and anti-effectiveness. So in this greatest day of harvest, we’ve become, rather than a safe place, a place of condemnation, guilt, and turning off the world that we’re meant to save. I look at many of you, some of you I’ve known for 25 years, some for 20, 15 years, and some of you just recently.

I don’t know many of you well enough to say, “I see this, I see that,” but in some of you, that’s true. And in all of you, including myself, I say this: we are only beginning to see what the image of Christ would be in us if we’d let this thing happen, if we’d deny this rubbing effect of the enemy, if we’d capture his strategy. What is his strategy? What is he substituting in your life? What is he using to rub against the purposes of God and substitute in your life something that is not true? Let me close with this experience. Now, of course, you have to know Jack Hayford to understand this illustration.

Because Jack Hayford is so spiritual, he would never have problems with the things Rick Howard has problems with. It just wouldn’t even be in his thought processes. But Jack confessed to this, which I thought was a very spiritual confession, but nonetheless, he confessed that for months, well, first of all, he said in a couple of statements, and I know the relationship, so I knew exactly what he meant.

That he had a brother, another minister, whom he admired, a great scholar and a wonderful teacher. And he so admired this man that he began discovering when he was studying for his message that his thoughts were filled like this. “Well, I wonder what he’d think of this. I wonder what he’d think of this statement.”

And when he was finished preaching, he would say to himself, “I wonder if he would, I wonder how he would have done this. And I wonder if that’s the way he would have said this.” He said at first it was just an occasional thought, and then it became almost a daily practice in his life.

He’s constantly thinking about what it was. In fact, he said, “I’d be counseling someone, and the thought would come to me, now, what answer would he give? How would he deal with this situation?” He said, “This thing got bigger and bigger to me until finally,” he said, “one night I couldn’t sleep. I got up.” And he said, “I put on my clothes and decided to go out for a walk.”

It was the middle of the night. He said his wife turned over and saw what he was doing and asked, “What’s going on?” She said, “I’ll walk with you.” And she got up as well. They quickly put on something for walking in the neighborhood and walked out. After a few minutes, Jack said, “I just need to tell you this. You know how much I love so-and-so, how much he’s impacted my life. You know, da da da da da. But this is what’s been happening to my life.” He said about three or four sentences to her when Anna turned to him and said, “Jack, that’s idolatry.”

“That’s idolatry.”

He said at first he wanted to respond back to that word; it was so sharp and abrupt. Then he said it was as though he saw it for what it was. He saw when it got in. Of course, you have to be spiritual to understand this illustration. But Jack said when he got back to the shower to prepare for his day’s activity, he stood in the shower and saw the chains around his life.

He felt the Holy Spirit say to him, “Paint the blood of Christ on those shackles.” He said, “I, I literally, as it were, took a brush and painted it upon those shackles.” He said, “I watched in my mind as the Spirit of God broke those shackles, and they went down the drain of the shower.” He said, “I came out of that experience free.”

Now, that’s a kind of simple illustration, as I said, only Jack Kafer would have that kind of experience. But you and I have the privilege in a very common, realistic way of having someone say to us, “That’s not who you are.” I mentioned this morning, “I love it when I hear Floyd say in the process of Choices Ministry, there are only two: sex is male and female; there’s nobody in between. And it’s only degrees of bondage in one area or the other that distort that true image of Christ.” That’s not speaking less about someone’s bondage; it’s just saying, “Here’s the way it is, here’s what God intended; anything out, out from that, is distorting that wonderful and pure image that God has.”

The same is true with so many of you. I want to say to you, “Where did you get into this bondage? How did you allow this to happen? How did you allow this religious spirit to come into your life and dominate and dictate who you are and what you’re going to be? And when are you going to get tired of it? When are you going to say, even in the name of a religious thing that’s going on in your life, but it is not Christ’s thing? A false prophetic spirit, a false operation of criticism and resentment and bitterness. When are you going to, by God’s grace, paint the blood of Christ over that thing and refuse the process of this rubbing that’s going on in your life, destroying the effective image of Jesus Christ? Don, come to the piano, please.

Let’s stand for a moment. We’re not going to continue long this evening. This is a very special and unique Sunday. Pastor Jeff and some of the others are at Zion in their time. Plus, I don’t ever want our response to be the same. Hello. God’s creative. I can’t walk in the wilderness. I can’t walk out here in the ocean, which is my favorite place, walk on the beach and observe the ocean and then think that every service we have ought to end the same way.

When did God go to sleep in your life? You know, when did this creative God who makes this world like it is have to end up in such a monotony in your experience? When did you fail to see how he wants to breathe on you? And I want you to see that with me tonight. To me, I guess the response, a different response from what Jack said is I, I don’t see painting the blood of Christ. I understand that imagery and I love it. It’s a very vivid picture. But what I see is God breathing, just breathing away this whole argument. Now the Bible says, “Capture the strategy. Capture the strategy. And when you capture the thought, then you’ll see the devil’s logic. You’ll see his reasoning against you. That’s rubbing away at the release and the purposes of God.”

We sang this chorus this morning. I don’t even think I have the words for it, but we have them, right? Let’s sing it together. Oh, let the Son of God enfold you. Shall we sing it together? Oh, let the Son of God enfold you. I’m your soul; I’ll descend upon your life and make you whole. Let’s pray it together. SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIII.

Come and take your life. Oh, let Him have the things that hold you, and His Spirit, like a dove, will descend upon your life and make you whole. Descend upon your life.

The second song, the second course of victory. All come and sing the song of gladness as your hearts are filled with joy, as you have the sweet. Oh, give Him all your tears and sadness. Give Him all your years of pain.

Then you’ll enter into life in Jesus’ name. Jesus, oh Jesus.

A moment. Before we sing this again, and this is all we’re going to sing tonight, we’ll dismiss it in just a moment. But I want you to see two things. If you let Him have the things that hold you, then the dove of heaven will come on your life and make you whole. But the second one is very important. If you give Him your tears and sadness and give Him your years of pain, then He will enter into your life in Jesus’ name.

Let me tell you something about what that means. You’ll never talk about it again. Who are you if you don’t have years of pain to talk about? You are a person who follows Jesus Christ. Give Him my years of pain. And then He gives me something else. But see, we like that stuff too much. Oh, this is who I am. Thank you, God. You know, if you knew what had happened to me. I serve the young couples in our church. Say, well, you know, they’re here for this reason and that reason; they need to be healed.

I would have to put my arm around them today and say, “Are we over this stuff yet?” She turned to me, and I said, “Are we finished with this yet? Are we ready to get involved? Are we ready to do what God wants us to do?” Then she said, “Yeah, I think we’re about it.” I said, “No, not about it. Give Him a new release. Make a promise. You’re not gonna talk about it anymore.

It’s part of your history. We’re giving up all the time. I’m sure you do too. Let’s sing that second verse again, and let’s think of these words. Think of what you’re singing. All right.

I just sensed in the spirit a terrific release, just about three lines into that second chorus we were singing. I just sensed a release in somebody’s life. I don’t know who it was, but I just sensed a kind of, “I give it up. I give it over. I don’t have to defend myself. I don’t have to reason. I don’t have to be logical. This is not who I am.”

I’ll tell you, if you could just see yourself as Jesus sees you, you wouldn’t even want a second of that image that the world has put in your life. That is all so unnecessary and hurtful. God wants to produce in you such blessings and such release. And I sensed, I just sensed such a sigh in the spirit there.

I just sensed somebody saying yes. I accept that. Capture the enemy’s thoughts. Capture his strategy. Know what he’s trying to do in your life. And know just as well what God is determined to do in your life by the Holy Spirit. Would you just take hands with someone right near you? Would you just kind of, um, hum that worship song?

Here’s a moment. Please take this course again and hum it for us. And I want you to take the hand of somebody who’ll be right beside you in this session. You may be beside someone who has actually come to believe the lie of the enemy. It’s been so long. The rubbing has taken place so effectively in their life.

And this person needs a miracle. They don’t just need healing. They need a miracle. We have to tear down this one statue and break it up into pieces. And we’ve got to see God restore a whole new image of Himself tonight. That’s what God wants to do. Of course, it only takes Him a second. When we’re willing to release, when we’re willing to let go.

And I think that one phrase in this song is irreplaceable. So let Him have the things that hold you. The things that hold you. Let Him have the things that hold you. And His spirit.

Praise God. Lord, we just pray tonight at the end of this service for dear friends.

We don’t want to be filled with the spirit of criticism toward that either. What we’ve sensed happening in these last years, Lord, it breaks us. We ask for the voices that will help us understand the strategy of the enemy. The name of the enemy. The thought of the enemy which has rubbed out the distinct image and purpose of God and substituted in its place something that is totally unlike what you would have us be as a church, as a people, as individuals.

Lord, may we understand that the proof of this redemption, the proof of this deliverance is that our personality, our personhood is to manifest that difference and that the whole creation is waiting for us to be changed. It’s waiting for us to be revolutionized and to have in our thought processes, before our eyes, upon our hands, and in our mouth, the evidence of change.

And Lord, give us the kind of faith that if we don’t even see it, we’ll speak it. Fill our mouths with your word, Lord. Fill our mouths with what you say and give us that look. At least the strength to say, “No, devil, that is not who I am in the name of Jesus Christ. I will not take that lie any longer.” At least, Lord, give us that.

Give us the courage to let go of the things that hold us and to believe that your Spirit will begin to work in us. Lord, I pray for such a change this week that there’ll be folk around this church who’ll say, “I don’t believe it. I had a conversation with that lady. I can’t believe it’s the same woman I talked to two weeks ago.

I had a conversation with that man. I cannot believe he’s the same person.” Oh God, I pray you will fill this place with the sweet fragrance of the life of Jesus Christ manifest in our hands this week and in our eyes. Lord, fill us with compassion. Take away our judgmentalism. Take away our spirit of rejection.

Take away all of the things that crowd in upon us. And may our hands, our eyes, and our mouth manifest the change of God. Make it visible, Lord. I pray for a miracle of visibility. Bring it to pass so we’ll see it. Lord, if it’s not all week, give us five minutes at least this week in which we see a victory.

In reference to our personality. Oh God, we give you all these broken personalities tonight. All these attacks upon our personhood. All of this rubbing of the enemy. These logismos, these reasonings against us. Lord, in Jesus’ name, we go forth to capture the strategy of the devil. To defeat his purpose. And to erect the purpose of God in its place.

Through the grace of Jesus. And everyone said,

Turn around and greet one another. You’re dismissed. God bless you.