The Eternal Consequences of Your Thoughts | Sermon by John Lomacang

[Music] hello and welcome to 3abn worship hour i'm pastor john loma king thank you for taking the time to join us and if you've been joining us from week to week we thank you for supportively coming to the place where we believe god continues to give us messages to strengthen and encourage your hearts today we're going to take a different path i often talk about bible prophecy or end time events or maybe sometimes doctrinal topics but today i want you to really lean forward and listening because we're talking about a topic entitled just my imagination we're talking about the place where we are born the place where we communicate and how we can be more effective in finding the victories that can come to us in the place of our thoughts and our imaginations before i go any further though i'd like to bow and ask for the lord's leading and guiding in this message loving father in heaven thank you for the privilege and responsibility of reaching into the hearts and minds and even today the thoughts and imaginations of our audience we do pray that your holy spirit will guide and be the act of power to speak to us and bring us to the place of new beginnings and realizations and when this message is done may we find in you the power that we need not only to understand it but to implement it in our lives we ask in jesus name i pray amen just my imaginations sometimes things occur in our hearts and minds that we wonder how they got there and what we're going to do because they are there today in order to illustrate the power of imaginations and thoughts come with me to my past i'm going to take you down memory lane to the place where when i was a young man there was a group called the temptations that wrote a song that goes as follows and i want you to pay particularly close attention to the lyrics because as it is in the beginning of a show or a documentary how this sermon begins is the mountain on which we're going to build the remainder of it listen carefully it talks about a man who was in love with the woman of his dreams and desires and these are the lyrics to the songs each day through my window i watched her as she passed me by i said to myself you're such a lucky guy to have a girl like her is truly a dream come true out of all the fellas in the world she belongs to me and he continues as he admires her he said soon we'll be married and raise a family oh yeah on a cozy little home out in the country with two children maybe three and then he says i tell you i i can visualize it all this couldn't be a dream for it is too real it all seems but the tagline says but it was just my imagination running away with me it was just my imagination running away with me i want you to think about that think about that friends just my imagination running away with me now apart from the tagline in the chorus you might ask yourself i wonder what kind of woman she was the woman he looked forward to being with did not exist the woman he was singing and imagining about was just a figment of his imagination so today come with me to the most amazing arena on the earth i welcome you to the cdc the character development center of the human mind it is the place of the greatest victories or the greatest defeats it is the birthplace of beginnings and endings the mind is where success motivates us and failure pursues us the mind is where the future happens before it even comes to past it is where mountains come down and walls go up it is where we love and we hate at the same time but we love in our thoughts and we hate in our thoughts before any one of those actions come to pass let me go a little deeper some of us are beaten up by thoughts and imaginations that don't have arms multitudes of us are incarcerated by what we think and what we imagine others spend their lives dodging the results of their own imaginations and their own thoughts and many i say again many waste their lives at the intersection of i thought and i imagined but friends think about this the ability to think and imagine permeates our entire existence every day our minds are thinking every day our minds are imagining and if you are captivated by social media you know that a lot of times your thoughts and imaginations are stimulated by external stimuli by what you see by what you read by what you hear but our imagination influences everything we do everything we think about and everything we create to be even deeper the thoughts that are going on in our mind they lead to elaborate theories and indispensable inventions our thoughts and imaginations are the catalyst of our dreams the doorway to shaping our intellect and the ticket to our creativity or lack thereof if you think about it we have the cell phones why because somebody thought about it and imagined it many of the things that we have today that surround us that we rely on were simply the product or the seed of someone's thought and someone's imagination and you think about it how much we rely on it today but i simply ask the question what would we do if people didn't think about it where would we be if steve jobs did not think about the apple computer if you're a pc user maybe those who started a dell computer where would we be today if people like bill gates did not start microsoft it started in the recesses of his thoughts and imaginations and so today what we're going to do is we are going to examine the figments of your imaginations that shape you and that impact your outlook on life we're going to also address the phantoms that are chasing you that don't even have legs that are not even there we're going to reveal the sequences of gaining the victory over thoughts and imaginations pursuing you that really don't exist where does this come from when i was reading my bible there in the book of genesis the genesis of humanity something struck my my my mind and really began to tap on my center for thinking and say look at that text again read that verse all over again and i looked at it again and i found that one of the downfalls of the end of the livian world was their thoughts and demanded imaginations it was their greatest asset at one point and then it became their worst liability look at genesis chapter 6 and verse 5 and we're going to read this in the king james version because the way that god describes the liability of the world that has now gone by should be a wake-up call to many of us today it is about the thoughts and imaginations and god's word says in genesis 6 and verse 5 and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually now read that again look at that again the imaginations and the thoughts of the heart were only evil continually let's look at that and examine that you see what the bible is saying is the downfall of the anti-deluvian world was not what they did first but what they thought and what their imaginations were focused on you see before they did anything evil they thought about it and they imagined it look at the sequence of their downfall their thoughts became their actions their actions became their habits their habits developed their characters and their characters shaped their destiny i'll say that one more time it's very important to understand this their thoughts and imaginations became their actions their actions became their habits their habits developed their character and their character became their destiny why did god destroy the end of the luvians because of what started in their thoughts and their imaginations and then became in the documentary of genesis only evil continually and when you read the story of genesis the bible says it it it it made god sick to his heart he was upset he was sorry that he had even made man when he saw the depth at which they had sunk and that's our world today before the antediluvians manifested evil actions they thought about it they imagined it they fed their thoughts they nurtured their imaginations they exposed their thoughts and imaginations to things that they could not control they thought they could until they realized that they could not there are many of you today that are sitting where i'm talking about right now to get to the place where imaginations are only evil continually it's an amazing thing but if you think about it the only way that they could have gotten to where the bible said they did was it required a constant and consistent diet of thoughts that continued to suggest evil continually they exposed themselves to the media of their day and that is why i say to young people today if you are not developing your thoughts your surroundings are if your thoughts are not being developed voluntarily they're being guided involuntarily as one doctor once said the best way to have your own thoughts and imaginations is to turn off all the devices around you that insert thoughts and imaginations into your brain into your thinking patterns without your permission because when you're sitting before a television or an ipad or you're surfing the internet or on your your favorite social media website your mind is being developed involuntarily because you don't have any say in what is before you and before you know it it influences your thoughts it starts tapping on your imaginations and then you begin to think and imagine things that just a few minutes ago weren't even in the recesses of your mind but what you don't understand is thoughts and imaginations are not random they just don't pop up something happens to activate our thoughts something happens to prompt our imagination but the problem is when our thoughts and imaginations begin to guide us the problem is we focus on dealing with the thought we focus on dealing with the imagination and we often don't focus on the precursor to what developed that thought or what developed that imagination case in point why are we thinking that way well if i didn't pick up my device i wouldn't be thinking that thought if i didn't watch that show i wouldn't have those imaginations if i did not allow that external stimuli to come into the way i think and hear and breathe and move then i wouldn't have these thoughts and imaginations and ideas so what do we do we try to deal with the thoughts rather than the precursor if we didn't pick up the device we wouldn't have those thoughts so therefore by instead of dealing with the thoughts as one psychologist said a person was facing the battle with alcohol and he said i've got to find a way to captivate to be successfully victorious over my alcoholism and he was beginning to be questions by the psychologist what do you do that makes you drink and as he was going down the path he says i've got to stop drinking but the psychologist said no what you do prior to that determines whether or not you want to drink whether or not you are prompted to want to reach for that alcohol whether or not you begin to think and imagine that you need a drink to deal with the problem that is the precursor to the behavior and so many of us are trying to deal with habits in our lives but we are ignoring the precursor to the behavior failing to realize that before the thought is there before the thought becomes an imagination before the imagination becomes a temptation we are we are dealing with a precursive behavior that we must look at very carefully let's look at what paul talks about as the precursor to that behavior the precursor to that behavior romans 6 and verse 16 notice what he says this is amazing paul says in romans 6 16 do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey you are that one's slave whom you obey whether of sin leading to death or obedience leading to righteousness i want you to grab that i'm going to say that again and i'll just illustrate something as you watch when the presentation happens what follows that ends up in one of two categories somebody takes over and leads you to obedience which leads to righteousness or disobedience which leads to death but before the leading starts there's a word that's used in this passage that i want to take my time to focus on right now it says do you not know to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey let me make a point that i think will grab you right away before eve got to the tree in eden the tree got to eve in her thoughts and in her imaginations before we get to the place of temptation the place of temptation gets to us the building the club the social gathering the addiction the habit the drug the thing you watch the thing you read the thing you listen to before we get to that before we decide to pick it up we present ourselves to the thought that presents itself and let me break down carefully what paul the apostle in essence is saying here he is saying the temptation will come but no one sins without first yielding to the temptation it is virtually and legitimately impossible to sin until you yield and that word yield means present so the temptation comes and we say hello temptation i'm here what would you like me to do well paul is saying when that moment comes instead of saying the temptation is too great for you he said don't even present yourself to it don't even answer the door when it knocks don't even say i can handle it because we are not able to wrestle against flesh and blood we are not able in our own human strength to have any kind of victory over an enemy that we cannot see we do not do not wrestle against flesh and blood so what is he saying don't present yourself because no one can sin without first yielding temptation may present itself to us but nothing happens until we present ourselves to it we don't sin simply because we yield to sin it happens in steps let's walk through the steps very carefully and i've outlined them one to four and i want to be very intentional about telling you what these steps are the first thing we do is decide to present ourselves to the thought that's how it happens the first thing we do is we decide to present ourselves to the thought the temptation is here we are deciding should i present myself or not the tree is there should i present myself or not the drug the alcohol the video the controller the remote the the social media device is there if i don't pick it up i won't have to worry about what's on the other side of it so the very first thing that happens is we decide to present ourselves the second thing when we present ourselves the next thing we decide to do is to obey or to disobey that's why paul says when we obey it is either sin leading to death or obedience leading to righteousness meaning we decide which one to obey sin or obedience the sin if we obey it leads to death the obedience if we obey it it leads to righteousness we decide the second phase is we decide whether or not to obey thirdly when we obey the thought we embrace it like eve embraced the fruit we embrace it we begin examining the thought when we examine righteous things and embrace righteous things the outcome will be a righteous outcome but the downside is when we imagine and obey negative thoughts or evil thoughts or sinful thoughts and then when we embrace it the outcome is going to be sin leading to death something in your mind is going to die something in your character is going to die something in your constitution to fight against the evil is going to die and when you yield you are no longer in control because sin begins to lead to death or obedience begins to lead to righteousness as paul said in i think is romans 7 17 it is no longer i who do it but sin that dwells in me and the fourth thing we do in the fourth stage process is when we embrace it we cross over from imagination to manifestation now i want you to grab that we cross over from imagination to manifestation let's think about it this way imagination forms the mental picture or thought in the mind but when we yield to the imagination and begin to embrace it begin to handle it begin to yield to it it goes from just an imagination to a manifestation meaning it now becomes dimensional when we yield to the precursor there's an activating factor it opens the door to the thoughts and imaginations and then it makes room it says come on in it makes room for the enslavement but if we don't yield to it it cannot enslave us if we don't embrace it it cannot have a lasting impact on us it cannot begin to change the way we feel think or behave if we do not follow the four steps that leads to either a good outcome or a negative outcome but i want you to notice what happens when we yield there's something that's powerfully transforming when we yield one of the things that happens when we yield there is a psychological disconnect and that psychological disconnect disconnects us from the center for development of character which is christ for good character development notice how paul analyzes the antediluvian world and what happened to them look at romans 1 and verse 21 romans 1 and verse 21 the bible says because that this is amazing to me when they knew god they glorified him not as god neither was thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened watch what happened look what happened they knew god but they did not glorify him as god and when they did not glorify him as god they were not thankful and the disconnect happened and when the disconnect occurred what happened in their minds they became vain in their imaginations meaning their imaginations were now under their carnal dark control no consciousness of right no consciousness of godliness no consciousness of doing good that's why people when they do evil when they continue to do evil they get to the point where evil is a natural outcome they don't even blink about it they don't even think about it because they've yielded so much that they have a an ongoing disconnect from god and that's why the bible says what happens next and this is amazing to me it says in verse 21 of romans 1 their foolish hearts were darkened now wait a minute think about that if there's not light in your heart there's only darkness what is the bible said that's why i always say to people if you're not reading your bible and not studying your bible there's no light in there because the bible says in the book of psalms thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path god's word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths so if we're not studying god's word there's no lamp and there is no light and and jesus says in the book of john when there is darkness how amazingly deep that darkness is he also says walk in the light while you have the light lest darkness comes upon you what is paul saying what is jesus saying if there's nothing to guide your centers for developing right character traits if you turn off the very light that you need there is no way that in your natural inclinations you're going to say well i want to do right it's not possible you know why because you're because your imaginations are vain and your heart is foolish and darkened how can a foolishly darkened heart and a mind that has vain imaginations even think about god and that's why young folk let me just reach out to you for a moment that's why it's vitally important for you to choose your stimulus from sunday to friday because there's no way that you're going to come to church on sabbath morning and christians generally whatever church you go to there's no way you're going to present yourself before god if during the week you are presenting yourself to things that are developing your thoughts downward there's no way that you're going to go to church and sing songs to praise god or even feel like you're in the right place that's why some people come to church and sleep and when the sermon is going forth which is affecting one life it's not even touching yours because you have been teflon by your evil thoughts against god even permeating your heart you see how it happens when you know god that's not enough you have to be thankful you have to be thankful or else your heart is going to become a vain place your imagination is a vain place and your heart is going to be foolish and darkened but that's not even the end of result that's not even the last part of the story when i looked at this diagnosis of the anti-deluvian world it shocked me into thinking wait a minute pastor john you've got to really be intentional about what you let come into your mind and what you let come into your heart and so i'm saying to you if you're not intentional about what's coming into your mind and what is coming into your heart then you're allowing yourself to be a canoe in a rapid river and you're on your way to a waterfall there's no possible way for you to stop the rushing river of evil around you if the word of god is not your anchor if the word of god is not your light if the word of god is not in your cdc you're a center for the development of character but there's something else the ant of the luvians did that is even more shocking look at romans 1 and verse 28 romans 1 and verse 28 and the bible said and even as they did not like to retain god in their knowledge god gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting and then the apostle paul begins to outline the the the dark sensual sadistically sexual behavior and that's why today in our society we see this and we say what can be in the mind of a man to want to marry a man or the mind of a woman to want to marry a woman where are their hearts well the bible says when you don't like to retain god in your knowledge you don't have a god-guiding system you don't have a system that's guiding you god's program is not in your senses the gps the god program senses the gps god is not guiding you so there is not even a sense of feeling that anything is wrong that's why today people can participate in some of the darkest behaviors and they'll call it love some people can participate in the most degrading habits and practices and they call it just a lifestyle because they have no god complex why because they did not like to retain god in their knowledge when god tried to get into their knowledge they said i don't want god in my knowledge like in noah's day noah preached but that generation did not like to retain god in its knowledge and today we are in the same kind of generation the bible says in the last days perilous times will come for men will be lovers of themselves lovers of pleasure more than lovers of god so here we are in the middle of a socially driven society the movies the music the rap artists the hip-hop artists and i even go so far as saying some of the christian artists have so diluted christian music that it sounds so much like the world that you can go from christian music to worldly music and no pun intended not even skip a beat because it doesn't even sound any different the only thing that may be a little different is they will call god him and they'll call god him so you have to put the word him you have to put god where the word him is and in so much christian music nowadays jesus is not even in it they say him i love him well who is him it could be a guy who could be god the world is melting down the church so that it can control our thoughts and our imaginations and the heart where god is supposed to abide will eventually be filled with vain imaginations and the heart that should be dedicated only to god will become a place where the foolish heart becomes darkened my friends let me warn you the only safeguard today is to retain god in your knowledge the only hope for us in this world today is say we got to get god in there because if god is not living in your house or in your mind that's why i believe it's in philippians where paul says let this mind be in you which was also in christ jesus let this mind be in you which was also in christ jesus he also says be transformed by the renewing of your mind we cannot be renewed in our minds if we are on a constant diet of the world and we wonder why somebody on one side is excited about jesus and on the other side a person is completely turned off they don't want to hear anything about god i guarantee you you can trace it right down to the external stimuli and what is coming into their minds and their thoughts all week long and that's why many people don't like to study god's word because the thoughts and imaginations god's word will point out what you're thinking and god's word will uncover your imaginations i've often said it this way we're going to go to hebrews 4 12. i've often said it this way before i read the text when you read the bible the bible will start reading you let me say that one more time when you begin to read the bible without prejudice of any text don't pick what you're going to read and what you're not going to read because some churches today the pastor says let's not read that that's old testament that's done away with don't fool yourself if you can't read the whole bible your thoughts and imaginations are going to become dark and the truth of god's word his commandments his sabbath the truth about death the truth about what happens the truth about the way jesus feels about us will be distorted if you pick and choose what you read in god's word you can't pick and choose what tools a surgeon uses on your operation don't try to pick and choose what text in the bible you read because it doesn't fit your fancy and i would guarantee you that the person that's massaging your thoughts spiritually can also be leading your spiritual thoughts to be dark and vain without the presence of god so why is it important to read god's word for yourself look at hebrews 4 and verse 12. this is powerful hebrews 4 and verse 12 the bible says for the word of god is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the division of soul and spirit meaning it gets way down in there and of joints and marrow and watch this and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart did you get that when you read the bible the very place where the ant of the luvians failed their thoughts and intentions were only evil continually the bible says god's word is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart when you read god's word god's word begins to read you when you are studying god's word god's word begins to study you when you are reading about righteous material when you are reading and learning about the righteous god on the righteous life it begins to examine and cover the wickedness in your mind the wickedness and the evil in your thoughts and in your imaginations but if you have fallen in love with evil and wickedness and untruth and lies and scriptural deception then you'll reject the word of god and embrace the very lie that satan wants to use to guide your thoughts and imagination but here's the caution when evil no longer seems wicked and good is no longer desirable when darkness seems more pleasing and the truth of god's word seems to be the thing you want to reject because it doesn't cross your path and exercise you are on dangerous ground when living right loses its appeal there is a bewitching addiction that turns to darkness and that bewitching addiction makes you feel that somehow you can live one way and expect a different result don't fool yourself let me make another point some people think that well you know the christian died well god is a forgiving god let me make a very important point right here the very character that you are developing now is the character that you're going to come out of the grave with you're not going to become righteous on the day you die if you are living a habit a life of habitual practices that are dark there's no way that somebody can lie at your funeral and make you righteous in the resurrection you've got to develop and practice those habits now you've got to live a life that's what the bible talked about that he that has this hope in himself purifies himself jesus will wash away your sin but you've got to make pure choices because you're developing thoughts and imaginations that will either lead you in one direction or lead you in another look look what isaiah points out as this bewitching addiction it's an amazing thing when you reject light look what happens isaiah 5 and verse 20. the bible says woe to those who call evil good and good evil who put darkness for light and light for darkness who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight that's a cautious scripture meaning you are measuring everything by yourself that's why some people look more evil than you because you're measuring yourself against them but i guarantee you if you measure yourself against god's word you'll see yourself for who you are if you allow god's law to be your mirror you will see who you are developing what kind of character you really have you see the point friends is when our discerning center yields to evil thoughts and imagination two things happen two things happen i'm going to tell you about the first one right now and i want you to listen carefully because these are critical these are life and death developments one we're not discerning when our discerning center yields to evil thoughts and imaginations the first thing happens is we see sin as our enemy and we fail to see ourselves let me break that down if sin is my enemy then sin is making me be do do evil but sin cannot make you do evil sin is our enemy but sin has no power over you until you yield what am i saying we blame this we blame the substance or the attraction and we stop taking responsibility for our choices you see character is developed when you take responsibility for your choices nobody can force you to eat nobody can force you to be evil it's a choice you make it's a decision you make every day and the second thing we do the second very important thing we do when our dessert when our discerning center yields to evil thoughts and imaginations the second thing we do is we see others as our enemy we see the devil as our arch enemy which he is but let me take you outside of blaming him or blaming others when we see others or satan as the reason why we do what we do we no longer examine ourselves we no longer take responsibility we blame others and we take no responsibility for our behavior one of the problems i have with christian nowadays and years ago there was a guy called flip wilson excuse me young folk you don't even know who that is but this man named flip wilson years ago used to say the devil made me do it if the devil made him do it he was not responsible for his behavior there are many people that go to church today that blame the way they feel the way they think on sabbath morning or sunday morning whenever you go to church they're people that blame other people for the way they behave for their christian spirit for the lack of the development of the fruit of the spirit because if that person doesn't like you it doesn't mean you don't like don't have to like them follow the patterns of christ if you are a christian let the character and the personality and the traits of jesus shine through you jesus didn't love folk because they loved him he loved them because that's who he is and when christ is reigning in you it is impossible to say that jesus is in me but i can't stand the people that i go to church with or i don't like the pastor or i don't like the elders or i can't stand my mom i can't stand her religious stances you've got to take personal responsibility for your behavior when all the forces outside of you are the reason why you behave the way you do then you have failed to take personal responsibility for your actions that's why the apostle paul says in second corinthians 13 verse 5 listen to this he says this so plainly listen to this passage he says examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith as to whether you are in the faith test yourselves notice he's not saying anybody else you are your own responsibility he says do you not know yourselves that jesus christ is in you unless indeed you are disqualified examine yourself test yourself because nobody is going to be lost because somebody else did something wrong ezekiel 18 verse 20 makes it clear if you're blaming the drug or the substance or other people that are you believe responsible for your behavior it is impossible for you to be saved if you blame everybody else for your character development or lack thereof look at ezekiel 18 and verse 20. the bible shows where the responsibility really is ezekiel says the soul who sins shall die the son shall not bear the guilt of the father nor the father bear the guilt of the son the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself what is ezekiel saying to us each one of us is responsible for his or her own destiny no body will stand in the judgment for you and you cannot receive anybody's responsibility and nobody will be responsible for you everybody is responsible for his or her own destiny now let's talk about the flip side let's talk about deliverance we've analyzed the problem we've talked about yielding ourselves we'll talk about how we present ourselves to the temptation and how it takes us over when we yield and embrace it but now let's talk about the steps of deliverance the first step in deliverance is taking personal responsibility and this is where god will help you a lot but you got to ask him to help you i know that if you ask god for help he'll help you look at the prayer of david in psalm 139 verse 23 and 24 psalm 139 verse 23 and 24. look at the first two words of what david says here it is he says search me oh god and know my thought try me i mean know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting let me read that one more time search me o god and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting there's that word sin leading to death obedience leading to righteousness when you ask god to examine you you say lord i want you to lead me how many of you want jesus to be your guide how many of you want god to lead you if you allow god to lead you he will lead you in the way everlasting but that's the challenge nowadays how do you turn off the phone the media the tick tock the the facebook the instagram the twitter all the stuff that's just pouring in at at an infinitesimal speeds of digital know-how is just coming in and you're so addicted to it you can't stop it and then you say god help me but you got to make some choices you got to say search me father where am i standing before you the first thing that must happen is we got to ask god to search us search me and i ask the question what would god find if we invited god to examine our thoughts would you be comfortable what would god find if he examined your thoughts what would happen if we asked god to reveal our thoughts to us would you be embarrassed if god revealed your thoughts to you in his presence how different would we be if we asked god to expose our imaginations are you brave enough to ask god to do that let me say something when you are brave enough to ask god to examine your thoughts expose your thoughts reveal your thoughts expose your imaginations then you're saying god i'm serious about this eternity thing i don't want to be lost because i took no responsibility i want to be different you see david prayed that prayer because david knew that his sin was born when he gave his thoughts and imaginations supremacy over making the right choices when david fell into the sin with bathsheba david became a bloodthirsty king david looked back on his life and he knew that when he gave his thoughts and imaginations supremacy over making right choices he fell into sin but friends the facts of the matter is sin cannot force us sin cannot take over our will we must surrender that we are not victims of our sins we are victims of our wrong choices watch this we are not victims of the sin around us we are first victims of our wrong choices the sin then affects us because of our wrong choices notice why i didn't blame the sin because i looked at the precursor the sin could not affect you unless you first decided to choose or to choose for it or against it the precursor is the issue not the thing itself not the alcohol the drugs the pornography the cigarettes the theft the lying the stealing it's the precursor of what is happening prior to that that leads you to embrace the darkness that's why we have to look at the responsibility james 1 verse 14 and 15 talks about how we are all responsible we are responsible no one else notice what he says in james 1 verse 14 he says but each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed then when desire has conceived look what happens it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown brings forth death look at the progress james the apostle outlined it he says first of all it begins with our desires the things that entice us we are drawn away by our own desires that's why when you start developing bad habits bad thoughts it becomes desires and i'm going to tell you there's nothing more powerful in the human character than desire and will the right action of the will and the things that you develop in your thoughts become your desire and when you desire stuff it becomes an addiction it starts calling your voice like a drug addict like an alcoholic it starts calling you it haunts you in your quiet moments because you've yielded so much has become a part of your makeup your dna your desire and it's haunting you and you yield to it because you allow that thing to entice you to the point where it's now a very strong part of you what happens when you yield to that desire it's conceived it brings forth birth sin full grown it brings forth death you can prevent death by looking at the precursor to your temptations and asking god to help you at the precursor point you don't have to yield jesus can give you the power over the yielding aspect and you can come out victorious every one of us has the power to choose every one of us has a choice to make but here's the key are we training ourselves now first of all we examine we take responsibility we look at we need help but then there's something else we have to do we got to train ourselves look what joshua 24 15 talks about when he says choices it's a short verse but let me read this portion to you joshua 24 15 we are told and if it seems evil to you to serve the lord choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve let's apply that right now you got to choose today you got to choose when today you got to choose when choose you this day whom you will serve not two weeks from now because when the temptation presents itself two weeks from now you got to choose at that very moment but here's where we fail we fail to train ourselves to make right choices our thoughts and imaginations will have supremacy over us if we don't train ourselves now why do i use the word train we train dogs we train cats we train children we train horses we train circus animals and depending on what kind of animal it is depending on the level of difficulty we eventually make that child or that animal or that bird or that horse or that lion do what we want them to do because we have hung in there and we train them we train them we train them but here's the powerful point that i want you to grab if we can train an animal why do we allow our thoughts and imaginations to train us we need to take responsibility and start training ourselves that's what jesus said to his disciples in luke chapter 6 and verse 40 look at that with me he said that very carefully in luke chapter 6 and verse 40 look at this verse he said a disciple is not above his teacher but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher oh did you grab that i want to be like jesus but how does that happen i've got to be perfectly trained to be like my teacher the disciple is not above his teacher the teacher is there to give the example this the disciple is there to follow the example if we are in fact disciples of christ let christ train us don't leave your thoughts and imaginations to the world to let the world train you how ironic that is i'm a christian but i live like the world i'm a disciple but i behave like the world that's ironic jesus divorces himself from that kind of behavior that's not my child that's not my disciple that's not my children what he's in essence saying is i love the child but their behavior does not identify with who they say they are children of we've got to be like our teacher we've got to be like our heavenly father we have to train ourselves there's a quotation i want to share with you right now from one of my favorite authors it's from the book testimony for the church volume 3 page 22. listen to this quotation it is powerful here's what it says the mind must be trained through daily tests to habits of fidelity to a sense of the claims of right and duty above inclination and pleasure minds thus trained do not wander between right and wrong as the reed trembles in the wind but as soon as matters come before them they discern at once that principle is involved and they instinctively choose the right without long debating the matter they are loyal because they have look at these two words trained themselves in habits of faithfulness and truth that is a powerful quotation why when the temptation comes they don't fall because they like the three hebrews on the plane of dura in babylon why did they not bow when nebuchadnezzar threatened them with heating the furnace seven times hotter because before they got to babylon they trained themselves in jerusalem they trained themselves in judea they were raised by their parents their parents raised them to honor god in spite of circumstances in spite of their lives they chose to be obedient rather than to compromise when their lives were on the line let me tell you something friend if you wait till the moment to train yourself you'll bow if you wait till the furnace is heated seven times harder to make your decision and start your training then you will fall you cannot make the decision at the crisis moment you have to train yourself before that like a faithful olympian you've got to take years of painstaking development your muscles train your muscles to do right train your mind to think right train your thoughts to choose right train your body to make right habits and actions go in the right direction consistently so that when the trial comes you will go in the right direction instinctively why because you trained yourself how powerful is training ask the doctor how powerful is training as the psychologist the teacher ask the baseball player the basketball player like michael jackson he's on the like michael jordan he's standing at the foul line he wanted to be at the foul line in the critical moments one of the most famous basketball players in the nba history he says put me on the line in the critical moments why because when the gym was empty and the fans were not there there he was practicing his free throws there he was practicing his foul shots so that when the critical testing moment when the crowd was intensely against him he thought nothing of them because he trained himself for these challenging moments well i'll tell you one thing the reason why god brings us to the fountains of bitter waters is to train us that we have made the wrong choices god will bring us to the bitter places if we fail to make right decisions why does he take us there so he can lead us back to retrain ourselves you see if god decides to chastise you there's a reason for it because he knows you're not making the right decisions he'll chastise you to bring you back to the place and say now don't do that again but the only way to prevent that is to train yourself look at hebrews 12 and verse 11. look what the lord says about this very action that we must partake in he says no chastening now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present but painful nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it you see that word trained by it trials sometimes train us we don't like them but god will bring trials to train us he'll say to what you haven't done right so i need to train you to do right in the battle against sin the problem is we try to suppress the sin instead of training ourselves we cannot suppress the sin if we haven't trained ourselves and asked for divine assistance in those very moments we've got to make the right choices we've got to exercise our will the way that we should look at isaiah 1 and verse 16 the bible tells us look at the responsibility of the christian we are told wash yourselves make yourselves clean put away the evil of your doing from before my eye cease to do evil learn to do good notice learn to do good the problem is many christians want to be right they want righteous lives without training themselves or putting forth any effort to develop those kind of characters don't desire a righteous life unless you put forth effort to begin to develop that kind of life that's why when you look at the life of christ you will discover something in the most crucial moment of the life of jesus when he was facing crucifixion when he was facing the bitter cup his father did not remove the bitter cup because it was at that moment he wanted jesus to make the right choice to be our sacrifice he wanted the human the son of man to not succumb to the pressures of his tormentors his persecutors the jeering crowd but notice what jesus said in order to survive that moment luke 22 and verse 47. he says father if it is your will take this cup away from me nevertheless not my will but yours be done now i want you to see something as soon as jesus chose to obey in that critical moment what did the father do the thing that he did for jesus he will do for you look at verse 43 the bible says in luke 22 43 then an angel appeared to him from heaven strengthening him you see when the angel came to strengthen jesus his human disability was combined with divine ability he laid aside the human frailty and divine assistance came friends the lord's under the same the lord will do the very same thing for you when you call on god at that very moment when you choose to be obedient angels will come and take your human disability and combine it with the divine ability he will do for us and our thoughts and imaginations will no longer have power over us because we chose to submit to the will of god now what happens let's look at the last part of the puzzle what kind of weapons should we have in those critical moments second corinthians chapter 10 verse 4 and 5. look at what the bible says for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds casting down look imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of god and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of christ how does that happen the first thing we do is we decide to present ourselves to the lord the second thing we do when we present ourselves the next thing we do is we decide to obey him the steps to righteousness the third thing is when we obey him we embrace him like eve embrace the fruit and the fourth thing when we embrace him we cross over from imagination to manifestation you see friends god never intended a righteous life to be just our imagination he intended to be our experience let me go to the last text how does that happen how does that happen philippians 4 and verse 8 how does that happen the bible says it carefully philippians 4 and verse 8. finally brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any virtue if there be any praise notice what he says think on these things my appeal to you is very simple the world is tired of imaginary christians when we surrender our thoughts and imaginations the world will finally see and get a glimpse of god's thoughts and imaginations today let me encourage you give up your thoughts and imaginations yield your will to christ he'll send you divine aid and it will no longer be just your imagination you will finally be just like christ god bless you [Music] so [Music] you

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Keywords: imagination, Three Angels Broadcasting Network, yt:quality=high, 3ABN, john lomacang, Sermon, bible, live church, god, seventh day adventist, worship hour, the bible, sda, mind, character

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Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 13 2021