Herbert W Armstrong

   He goes on a little bit further in breaking into the thought, he says, we still have spots to clean out and wrinkles to iron out before we can be the glorious Church that He shall present to Himself in the great marriage between Christ and His Church. Pray with me that this festival will be not only enjoyable, which I think it's going to be, inspirational. I'm certainly praying that that's what's going to be for each and every one of us, that we'll take tremendous things out of it to help us.

   But also he adds a dimension, he says, but corrective in drawing us closer to Jesus Christ. It's important to understand correction is not something that is punishment, but a sincere desire to correct when a particular thing is off course or missing the mark. And certainly I'm sure we're going to receive a lot of God's correction lovingly given to us for the purpose of strengthening us as men and women in Christ and for the benefit of our young folks, the same way that they might be better able to have a perspective of what is really happening in the world all around us.

   And so it is to this intent, what Mr. Armstrong has said here, that I present this sermon message to you this morning, brethren, and I'd like to ask you to begin by turning to Colossians chapter 3 this morning. Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3, beginning in verse 1 through 10 (Colossians 3:1-10). He says, If we then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God.

   Set your affections, that's where you're to draw your attention to, and set your affections on things above and not the things that are on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid in Christ, in God. That's a very important scripture.

   If you haven't noticed that before, it fits very much in the context of the holy days in which we have been observing, because truly the first part of the festivals of God, the spring beginning with Passover or Days of Unleavened Bread, moving on into Pentecost itself, are the holy days that deal with the firstfruits of God. Those who have been singled out and called by a miraculous divine intervention for the purpose of showing and revealing the great plan and purpose that God is working with mankind, so that truly, as Christ told his own disciples, and as you are modern day disciples, he says, Blessed are your eyes, for you see. But it is not given unto others at this particular time to see and understand what we have been privileged to be placed in our hands as truly a pearl of great price.

   But now that we come to the fall festival season, we begin to see a different connotation. Now our lives no longer are hid in Christ. Now there is a sudden explosion, as it were, of the plan of God being made manifest to the entirety of the world, beginning with trumpets when Christ comes back in dynamic power, an explosive force, and with that rod of iron to beat down warring nations and to begin to arrest the problems that are on this earth and begin to establish what we heard in the sermonette, the wonderful world tomorrow.

   Then comes the putting away of Satan the devil, a very powerful force and influence that dominates on the scene that so many individuals are not aware of in real totality and what he represents, and then comes this glorious time of the wonderful world tomorrow, the Feast of Tabernacles, and then followed by The Last Great and eighth Day. He goes on and says, "...mortify therefore, since your life is hid in Christ, you be busy mortifying, meaning putting to death, stopping, as it were, therefore your members which are upon the earth from fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection," He goes on to say, "...evil concupiscence," which is just sex lust in other words, "...covetousness," which is idolatry, "...for which things say, The wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience." That's very important and will tie into what I'll be talking to you this morning. He says, "...in which you also walked some time which you lived in them." In other words, every one of us in this auditorium have been guilty of the same things that people in this world are guilty of.

   And some of us are still guilty of these things, and that's why Mr. Armstrong says what he says, that there are blotches and there are spots and there are wrinkles and blemishes in the Church of God, the Bride of Christ to come. He says, "...but now you also put off all this in anger and wrath and malice and blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth," which is by far the sign of this day and age in which we live. "...lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man and his deeds." When you were dead, as it said here, seeing that you are dead, it means baptismally you become dead, the old man you push out of your life and now seek to build, the new man through Christ Jesus in your life.

   And verse 10, it says, "...and have put on that new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." So we are here to be renewed in knowledge during this holy festival season, and again it is like a giant stop sign that causes us to stop what we're doing so that we might pause to be renewed in perspective of what God is doing. As we've already heard, these particular festivals must be proclaimed. We are negligent if we do not proclaim these festivals in due season.

   You are negligent if you do not come before God in his commanded assemblies once you know and understand that is where God wants you to be, that you might learn the fear of God, which is religious devotion and worship of the highest magnitude, as Mr. Meredith was pointing out. Whether you are a part of the world tomorrow or not will depend on much in relationship to what you do today, right now in your life. It's very imperative that you understand this.

   There is a being and a force on this planet Earth who does not want you to experience the joy, the happiness, and everything that the world tomorrow represents. And to this end, this great being and force is dedicated to completely thwart you in any way, shape, or form that he might completely rout you and cause you to be forfeit and a wasted individual so that you never experience what we are experiencing in a foretaste right here in these temporary days of the Feast of Tabernacles. This is to illuminate our minds to what God has coming.

   But there is another being and another force that is constantly trying to thwart you at every step of the way. This year I think more people have stated how they have had more interference and more hindrances and things in preparation to come to this Festival of Tabernacles than ever before. People have had problems with deaths in the family, upset conditions, sicknesses, things of you wouldn't believe just popping out here, there, and everywhere, trying to keep you from coming to the Feast of Tabernacles.

   This you need to be aware of, brethren, where it comes from. The object of the sermon then that I am going to discuss and give in detail is to prepare you how to do spiritual combat with that force that is out there, a force that you are going to have to go back into this world and deal with, a force that many of you have been very, very negligent in looking upon as a real adversary that is designed and designing day in and day out ways to try to get at you to overthrow you spiritually as a human being. The prerequisite for this sermon is that you have proved to yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt the veracity of the Almighty Living God.

   If you have not proved that, then these words will go right over your head. In fact, I anticipate that much of the material that I will bring to you will be like dynamite to that force and that being that is trying to blind the eyes of individuals so that they will not understand, they will not perceive, for this being does not want you to comprehend how to do combat with him. He does not want you to be in the victorious position of having the advantage over him.

   He wants to have the advantage over you, and in all too many cases we have given place to the devil, who is the representative of that force, and as a result, many individuals are finding that their lives are plagued with all these blemishes and things that Mr. Armstrong has been talking about and so inspirationally moved to bring to our attention. There is coming a time, according to the book of Revelation, which it says, He that is righteous, let him be righteous still. He that is unrighteous, let him be unrighteous still, which can only be interpreted one way.

   There is coming a cut-off time in God's plan and purpose where if you have not locked in to your character, that you desire to serve your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and to worship him as the great living Creator who made you, whose breath, your breath, is in his hands. If that has not been locked in, there is coming a cut-off time, God says, that's all. I can hold it back no longer.

   That portion of grace, you might say, for giving people the time to change and overcome in those areas and problems, will come to an end and then will strike this world with the great tribulation and the problems that the Bible has so strongly prophesied and that we know is well on the way and coming. So the success then of this sermon depends on your willingness to act on the instruction that is found in the word of God, which I am going to try in the time remaining to give to you this morning. And I've got a lot of material, I'm going to hit the highlights of it to give you information on how you might do combat and survive when you have to deal with the devil.

   And you do have to deal with the devil. And some of you don't realize how much you deal with the devil. He is not an individual that you want to, as the TV program says, let's make a deal.

   You don't want to make a deal with Satan the devil. If you make a deal with him and cast your league in with him, you're on the short end of the stick when it comes to the Almighty God. Most people literally are in the dark, as the old expression says, with a vivid awareness or actually a lack of a vivid awareness and understanding about the devil.

   In the Bible, much is spoken concerning the devil or Satan. He is much more than a biblical doctrine. The Bible says he is a literal danger that you and I must face each and every day of our lives, that he actually will invade our minds at night while we're sleeping if we're not careful, if we do not pray and ask God to guard the door of our minds.

   He will slip in with a capacity that he has that many of you don't realize. And I'm going to try to expose some of those capacities and how he gets to you and into you and causes you to become, at times, shocking as it may sound, literally a satanically controlled Christian. Because you would not want to be a satanic controlled Christian.

   You want to be a God controlled Christian. But there are times when we literally fall into becoming satanically controlled Christians and that is why the Bible says to whom you yield yourselves to obey, his servants you are. Christ talked about the Pharisees, he said, you're of your father the devil.

   You're doing the same works that your father does. We don't want to do the works that Satan does, but I'd like to show you very quickly some of the quick points of what you are to be aware of in watching for Satan and then applying it to your life very quickly and looking and seeing areas where you sometimes don't even suspect that Satan is working on you. Notice very quickly, II Corinthians 11:4 tells us that he is an angel of light.

   You can write these verses down, I don't have time to turn to these that I'm giving to you. They're just elusive of the points that I want to make. I want to point out some of the attributes of this being.

   He is called there an angel of light. I Peter 5:8 tells us that he is an adversary. He is not a friend, he is your adversary.

   I Thessalonians 3:5 tells us that he is a tempter and he will be out to try to tempt you in some way, shape or form as a man and a woman. Whether you be young or old, there is no respect with regard to persons concerning age. He will zero in in any particular age bracket.

   II Corinthians 11:3 tells us he is a deceiver. That's another attribute he has. I Thessalonians 2:18 says he is a hinderer.

   And I mentioned this year, so many people have been hindered with so many unbelievable problems just popping up here, there, and everywhere, trying to hinder them from coming to the feast. And unfortunately some of our brethren were hindered and could not break away to come to the feast this year. You need to pray for them that God would give them strength and encouragement, even though they are not with us physically, that they might be with us and mindful in the spirit of what these days are.

   I Peter 5:8 tells us he is a roaring lion, not a tame little pussy cat that you come around with occasionally. He is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. The Scripture affirms in II Corinthians 4:4 that he goes as a god in his conduct.

   He's called the god of this world, small letter g. Ephesians 2 says he is a prince. He is the prince of the power of the air. So literally the Bible affirms we've got to be a watcher or a watcher for Satan.

   You notice these birds flying around here from time to time. There are people called bird watchers. They say, wow, look at that one, that was a such and such.

   I saw the other day a car was following behind it and said on the bumper sticker, I am a bird watcher. Well, as Christian men and women we must be on the lookout for Satan. See, there are the birds, they're making sounds for us, backing in.

   But we have to be alert and aware that Satan certainly is on the prowl. And you must be watching for him exactly as the Scripture says. Luke 21:36.

   Notice Luke 21:36 very quickly. There are many Scriptures to go through, so I'll ask you to just move as quickly as possible with me. Luke 21:36.

   It says, Watch you therefore, and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape, we want to escape what is coming in the future. We don't want to be here when literally everything is going to explode before human beings and their very way of life is going to disintegrate before their eyes. And as Deuteronomy prophesied, you will be mad for your eyes if you're here at that time.

   You'll literally go insane to see what is going to happen. And it is very difficult to try to explain in words to convey the impact of literally what God says as whole societies come crumbling down, and as the whole world begins to disintegrate and fall apart, and as the days and the influence of Israel will begin to wane, and the times of the Gentiles will grow stronger and stronger, as we've already heard. Therefore, he says, you want to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man.

   You want to stand with confidence. You don't want to have to stand and be called down on the carpet for it, but to stand with confidence because you are looking with confidence to the arrival of Jesus Christ. Now the Bible tells us you are to watch and pray.

   And you are to watch and pray what? Well, you are to watch, as it says in verse 34 and 35 prior to this time, that you take heed to yourselves. You're busy watching world news, yes. And there's a lot to watch.

   Everything we see today is just like pow, pow, pow, prophecy upon prophecy exploding before our very eyes. But how many of us are really watching ourselves, realizing there are certain things that God wants us to be aware of? What about that attitude we wake up with some morning that is not quite the right attitude? What about the things that fly out of our mouth sometimes that are not quite the right in Christian thing to say or do? What about these things? Where do they come from? God wants you to watch so that you will find yourself properly prepared for what comes ahead. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, which the Bible affirms and declares with powerful force, then you must also believe with equal force that there is a god of this world and a devil who is so powerful that he is working everything in his scheme of tricks, his wiles, and wiles merely translates to the word schemes.

   He has plots or little conspiracies designed to try to sidetrack you so that you will never become part of the wonderful world tomorrow. That is the goal and the intent that he is striving for. As he knows his time is short and his world is coming to an end, he wants your world to come to an end too.

   He wants you to forfeit everything that God has already in visionary and in the mind's eye shown you that is yet to come via these holy days. You know, there will be no time for Madeline Murray O'Hara and people like that to say, There is no God. I don't believe in a God.

   The atheist is going to feel very, very sheepish indeed when suddenly Jesus Christ takes up residence on 111 Jerusalem Lane in Jerusalem. It will be very difficult for that individual to say, There is no God, because there he is, and he comes back with all that tremendous, spectacular heavenly fireworks. The Bible declares with equal force that Satan is an enemy.

   In World War II, many of you who are veterans of World War II, you remember if you receive one of these books that T. H. Teetons was the author of the Germany plots with the Kremlin and the new Germany and the old Nazis and some of these books that he wrote. You don't hear too much about his books anymore. They are kind of just put down.

   Interesting how so many of these books that are informative have a lot of information on them, just quietly kept in the background. Nevertheless, he was impounded by the U.S. government and utilized for the purpose of putting out a little brochure and a tract that when Allied forces went into the German fatherland in World War II after they had finally capitulated, there was a book entitled Know Your Enemy. In other words, here is what you need to understand about the enemy of the Nazi power and the German people as you move into their homeland.

   This is what you can anticipate. Well, God, the same way, wants us not to be ignorant of our adversary, our enemy. You have to study this book to know how he operates and how he is working to try to keep you from your date with destiny to fulfill your purpose in life, which you have already been given eyes to see.

   That's why you're here. It is not only your hope, it is the hope of your loved ones to come who may come up in a second resurrection but nevertheless are part and parcel of your hopes and dreams for the future. You want to be there to help greet them and help them to understand what this great plan and purpose is all about.

   You're hoping that your children can be spared, as we read in Luke 21:36, from these terrible things that are coming so that they will have a life to look forward to and not like everything is closing in and that's all she wrote. And I think it's important that we, sometimes as individuals in God's church, get rid of this idea, this apology that Satan puts into our minds that somehow our children are at a disadvantage for being in the church of God, as if, oh, wow, is me. You know, my poor child is deprived because he or she is a member of the church of God and can't get out and do the things other kids do.

   Our young people don't want to get out and do the other things that the other young people do today. Oh, they may want to, but that's the temptation of this force again, working on them. Because they're young.

   They just have the normal reactions, but they don't fully understand. And this is where we, as parents, are given the charge to help run interference on behalf of our young ones and our teenage sons and daughters, to give them the encouragement and show them that that's not where it's at, that there's something far better to look forward to. And you better watch your P's and Q's, or otherwise you will pay a price if you begin to throw God's instruction to the wind.

   The book of Proverbs makes that very clear. As you did not like to listen to instruction, as you did not like to be told what to do from God's Word, then God says he turns you over to go your own way. And then when everything blows sky high, don't come crying to God and say, God, how come? Why? Why now does it happen? He says your own ways will punish you and bring you to your senses.

   But that's not the place we want to be. We don't want to be punished. We want to be corrected now so we can avert disaster in the future.

   Satan is a god, and he is a god of darkness. He needs darkness to operate. The scriptures very clearly define that we are in a struggle.

   Notice Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians 6:11. It says put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles or the schemes, as I have mentioned, other translations show that to be, the schemes of the devil. Now why would you need armor if there were no devil? Why would the Bible constantly admonish you as men and women that you're going to have to put on a certain type of armor in order to defend yourself in daily living in this life, when the Bible shows that literally you are a sojourner, that you're walking in enemy territory, that this is not a friendly environment, that this is a hostile environment and that we need the blessing of Almighty God to move carefully through this hostile environment that is spawned and controlled by the God of this world.

   If you remember the old TV series back in the fifties, Herb Philbrick, entitled I Led Three Lives, he was a counter-spy and he actually tried to penetrate and did penetrate the communist cells and structures in this country. He operated actually like he was working as a Soviet agent, then he was actually a counter-spy and yet he had a normal life. He looked just like the average person living a life, businessman and so forth.

   Satan needs a cover also. He needs the cover of darkness in order to operate. And darkness is where he hides so that you might not see and understand how he functions and how he gets at you.

   We are in a struggle, it goes on to say in verse 12 (Ephesians 6:12), for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. There has been a time period over these last years in the Church of God, the early years of the Church of God, people seem to be much more aware of the devil. Then suddenly the devil just disappeared from the Church of God.

   Oh, you would hear from him a time or two, but literally people began to just kind of shelve the devil. He just was out of the way. He was not a force to contend with.

   Very little did you hear about him, how he could maneuver, how he could get in, how he could literally destroy a person's spiritual foundation. It's time you become aware that as you have a personal Savior, which Jesus Christ is, why do you need a personal Savior? Because the Bible affirms you have a personal adversary. And the more you are aware of a personal adversary, the more you will appreciate and love your Lord and Savior who gave His life for you as your personal Savior.

   He came in to interfere with that personal adversary that's on your back and to throw him off your back and provide a way that you can be freed from his controlling influence and be set free from darkness into the glorious liberty of the light of the kingdom of God which is to come. It's a beautiful thing that is revealed in the pages of the Scripture. Notice some similarities about God and Satan.

   I think we tend to sell Satan short, brethren. Mr. Armstrong talks a lot about how important it is to be aware of Satan. And we need to really focus in and heed those words.

   Satan was the greatest angelic creation of God. He was called Lucifer, that light bringer. He was not a lesser peon of the angelic realm.

   He was one of the greatest. In fact, he summed up beauty, as Ezekiel 28 says. He was a sum epitome of everything beautiful that God has created of all His angelic creatures.

   He was the highest. He was not the lowest. And he came in at that very high rank and then turned all that around.

   You need to take appraisal of what it is you are dealing with. We tend to underestimate the power of the devil when God's very holy day of Atonement tells us through a symbolic ceremony in the Old Testament, He takes all the sins of Israel and literally dumps it on Satan's back. Picture by the Azazel, the goat that is sent out into the wilderness.

   Why does God do that? Because God is telling us He is the source and He is the one who brings sin into your life. God tells us that we suffer because of acts of complicity with the devil. But the source and the origination of sin and where it comes from is Satan the devil.

   And God is going to make an atonement like He did for ancient Israel in those physical ceremonies. He is making an atonement through Jesus Christ to take away the sin of mankind and put it all right back where it belongs. And He is telling us where our problems originate from.

   But many times we don't really focus in to recognize that He is the cause of those problems. And I don't mean, brethren, that you begin to use Satan as a cop-out by saying, The devil made me do it. The devil made me do it.

   That becomes a cop-out. No, we do it. But the devil is the engineering source of much of what we do.

   We have to be responsible for our acts and God separates the two. He says, Oh no, you'll be punished for what you do. You did it, not the devil.

   But the devil is the source from where you gleaned your inspiration to do the evils that you do as a human being. And therein it becomes great revelation in the Scripture. Satan will always divert, note this, Satan will always divert attention away from himself.

   He's got to masquerade in darkness. He does not want you to focus in. He wants you to worry about demons.

   He wants you to think about this, think about that. But he does not want you to focus in on him. Therein he has the complete supremacy that he needs to operate in the realm of darkness.

   He used a disguise in the Garden of Eden. That was called a serpent. Satan was there, as we've already heard, in the Garden of Eden.

   If he could capture the first two human beings, then all mankind was now sold, as it were, under the power and the influence of the devil, the god of this world. He was there in Eden, the Garden of God, as Ezekiel 28 tells us. He did capture Mother Eve.

   He put a suggestion into her mind. Would she bite? Would she yield to that particular influence? That was a very critical time in human history. She yielded.

   She succumbed. Eve did not see the evil forces swirling all about her, whether or not she would obey God or whether or not she would yield to Satan. Then, of course, Adam was caught in a very, very, you might say, defenseless position.

   It says Mother Eve gave to him and he ate also, which merely meant that Adam was caught in the trap of family devotion. As a family man, who would suspect that your own wife would stick you in the side, so to speak, with a knife? Because that's literally what happened at that time. And yet Mother Eve didn't fully grasp and understand the consequences at that time of what she was doing.

   And so, there is a responsibility that we have, not that every woman is guilty of doing her husband in, but women must be constantly aware of what happened to Mother Eve. If you love your husband, if you want to be the right type of helpmate to him, as God intended, then remember God's admonition. Your desire must be unto God and then to your husband.

   He reaffirmed that because at that moment Eve allowed her desire to get taken away and focused in on a tree, a desire to make one wise. And when she got away from her mission of staying with Adam and helping, not only did she fall in that particular mental mind of approach to God, not that it's the concept of the fall of sin, but she yielded to that influence and Adam just went right along. How many times do human beings get caught in those kind of traps? Because we just do not think.

   And Satan was able to capture the whole world in that one fell swoop. Free moral agency is what you and I have as human beings. God has decreed that.

   You must exercise in this life which spirit will rule in your life, whether it is God or whether it is the spirit of Satan. That is a choice that you make each and every day. Both are present with you, both give you personal attention, the Bible shows, both possess fantastic powers in the spirit realm and both are ready to exercise dominion and rule in your life if you will give them that opportunity.

   One wants to literally possess you. God will not possess you. He will lead you through His spirit.

   He will not force you to go his way. Satan wants at all costs to get his hooks into you so that he can destroy you as a human being. He is called a destroyer in the book of Revelation.

   We do not realize how dedicated he is to that proposition to destroy, as Christ said he was a murderer from the beginning. If an unholy spirit like Satan can get you to do his will, note this, you do it of your own free will. If Satan, I will repeat that again, can get you to do his will or accomplish his purpose, the Bible is telling you he did not make you do it, he is working on you, wants you to do his will, and if you yield to it, you do it of your own free will.

   This is why you end up being judged in complicity. This is why we suffer the effects of sin in our life. Did Satan make you drink too much? Did Satan make you get hooked on cigarettes? Did he cause you to start chewing tobacco, dipping snuff? Does he do all those things or do human beings do those things and get caught in what we call the vices of mankind? Human beings do it, brethren.

   We do it to ourselves, but we do it aggravated by this force behind the scene that lies in darkness, that does not want to be recognized, so that you then are caught in a terrible dilemma, a dilemma that causes guilt to arise, and you don't know how to free that guilt. You want to do what's right, that God says, and yet you constantly have this terrible gnawing in your innermost being. What Paul said, the good that I would, he said, I can't do it.

   I want to do it, but I find this, that every time I turn around, evil is present with me. I'm going to show you why. I'm going to show you why that evil is present with you a little more specifically here.

   Everything that in life happens, you think you are responsible. You think you're responsible. Do you know the only thing you're responsible for? Your choice.

   There's only two ways. It was declared from the beginning, God's way or Satan's way. Choose.

   God said choose life, that you and your seed, those that come after you, might live. If you don't choose life, you're going to choose death. But I don't want you to choose death.

   I don't want you to be destroyed. I don't want your life to be compounded with suffering. But Satan constantly works on human beings in such a way, so that when it is all said and done, to use the modern expression, your life is wasted.

   You are wasted. You go nowhere. You have no purpose, no goal in life to look forward to.

   When you come to the end of your physical life, you look back and what have you accomplished? Nothing. You go nowhere. And that becomes very depressing and very debilitating.

   God does not want you to be depressed. He wants you to look to the glorious hope. As this day, these holy days, picture our shadows of things to come, yet future, that you can become very richly inspired.

   The average Christian does not dream how his life is being led at times by Satan. And we in the church of God never dreamed how Satan had penetrated and got into the Church of God and literally was doing mayhem in our midst. We were looking outwardly, always thinking out there is where the devil is.

   We left the doors wide open and just as the Bible said, he came right in amidst our midst. It is a group. Very thing, when the sons of God came before God, Satan was with them in the days of Job.

   We come as the sons and daughters of God, begotten of God's Spirit. And do not fool yourself that Satan is not in our midst also. Seeking, prowling, whom he may devour, what attitudes are not right that he can begin to intensify, magnify, and use to his own evil intent.

   And to whom you yield yourselves, his servants you are. And you need to know that. You need to know and understand that also while Satan is here, so is the great eternal God who walks up and down the camp of Israel to see and to learn and to understand and evaluate our hearts during this holy time of the Feast of Tabernacles.

   II Corinthians 11:3, II Corinthians 11:3, here the apostle Paul said, But I fear, lest by any means, that the serpent who beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Your mind can be corrupted, brethren. Your mind has to be renewed daily in the Spirit.

   Paul tells us that in Romans 12:1, he says, You've got to be renewed in your mind, so that you may always be able to prove what is that good, right, and acceptable will of God. An undisciplined mind is wide open for satanic attack. The mind of man, in many ways, is the theater of satanic action, and people don't realize it.

   Satan gives you personal attention. From a dark point of view, he hides in the background, but he focuses in on you. Just as Mr. Armstrong said yesterday, Satan focuses in on him.

   He's got him in the telescopic crosshairs of his spiritual rifle. He's looking at the man of God whom God is using, and he's looking at every one of us also, zeroing in, looking for a weak spot. If we will give him the right place where he can shoot his fiery dart, and the Scripture affirms, we have got to be on our toes.

   Satan, when he was Lucifer, well understood that God, by his divine power, has the capacity to be omnipresent in all areas. Satan, in no way, shape, or form, is omnipresent like God. But as Mr. Armstrong brought forth, the Scripture clearly affirms that he has a counterfeit system of being omnipresent like God.

   And the way he does it is what is spoken of in Ephesians 2:2, that he is able to broadcast by charging the airways with his attitude. And a person can pick up that attitude, and then, of course, once Satan locks in, then he merely sends his demonic forces in to monitor, to control, to aggravate and hold those areas that Satan himself brings under his control. It becomes a very, very realistic point of view of understanding, especially in this day and age of radio and television.

   We use the airways constantly. We turn on the television. We don't think twice about it.

   And yet we are sending signals left and right. These airways are just literally charged with signals. But God says above and beyond all that is the charging of the signal of Satan going out into this world, broadcasting.

   In our minds, whether we like it or not, are tuned to that frequency. And we pick that signal up at times, unless we know how to spot, recognize that signal and begin to jam that signal with the power of God. And to force those attitudes and those thoughts out and say, No, I will not yield to that.

   I don't want that. Get out of my life, Satan! Get out of here, you tempter! Get out, you hinderer! Get out of my life! You mean no good to me. You are unclean.

   You are vile. You are corruptible. With me, my life, I will serve the Eternal.

   You notice the men like Joshua. He says, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord God. That is the attitude God wants to see in our very lives.

   Ephesians 2:2. Let's notice that chapter again. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 2. It says, Where in times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit. Notice, the Spirit that now works, note in the children of disobedience.

   Satan doesn't work from the outside in. He works from the inside out. And that's what Christ confirmed.

   He said, It is what comes out of a man, the inner things that defile and corrupt. But we are asleep many times. We think that we are in control of our own lives.

   We say, Oh, I am going to be my own boss, my own man, my own woman. No one is going to tell me what to do. Oh yes, somebody is going to tell you what to do, either God or the devil.

   And the only thing you have to say about it is who you will choose. It's all been laid out. There's no other way that you can choose to go.

   The Bible says that and affirms that again and again. It's God or the devil. It's love, giving, outgoing concern, or it's get, taking, seeking for yourself.

   That's it. Simple. But it can elude you.

   Just like one young man years ago didn't want to obey, didn't want to do what God told him. And so he determined, I'm tired of the Church of God. I'm tired of taking orders.

   I'm going to go out and join the Marines. Any of you been in the Marines? Then my point is well taken. And I think you get the point very clearly.

   And this man had just finished his service as a conscientious objector. Can you imagine what they must have done to him? It's unreal, brethren, how many times things can slip up upon you, and yet you fail to realize that it is Satan working inside. And that is a powerful revelation.

   Notice Philippians, the book of Philippians chapter 2 and verse 13. Philippians 2:13. Satan has to get inside to do his dirty work because he is counterfeiting what God does.

   God also has to get inside to do his good works for which you were fashioned. You are saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.

   But you are made unto good works as God has decreed. Notice verse 13. For it is God which works in you, both to will and to do his good pleasure.

   So do all things without murmurings and disputing. God works his saving work from within. The new man is born from within through God's Spirit.

   And so Satan counterfeits in this area the function of the Holy Spirit through his broadcasting frequency. Satan sees as a counterfeit like God sees. Notice, Hebrews 4, Hebrews 4:13.

   Notice the attribute of Almighty God. Hebrews 4:13. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked or exposed and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

   God said in the book of Ezekiel, He says, O Israel, I know everything that comes into your mind. I know it all. I see it.

   He looked and surveyed back in the time of the flood in Noah's days, in the book of Genesis, the sixth chapter. He said, He looked and evaluated the hearts of human beings. He says, And the imagination of their hearts was only evil continually.

   That's all they thought about back at that time. And people are getting that way again. They're always looking for the evil and the wrong things to do.

   That's why the love of many is going to wax cold. It's going to be a time period where people are going to say, Ah, what's the use? Why try to live a legitimate and a good and a law-abiding life? Only the bad guy gets away with things today. The good guy gets punished.

   That's the spirit and attitude of the day and age in which we're living. And we have got to come out of this world. If we don't, we're going to start absorbing that wrong spirit, as some have, and some have fallen and left the church of God because they have forgotten God's admonition.

   Come out of her, my people. Don't go back into her unless you want to die spiritually. You come out of her.

   You get rid of that attitude and that spirit. You have been translated from darkness, the kingdom of darkness, into the kingdom of light. Don't forget your calling.

   Notice in Matthew chapter 13 and verse 9, Matthew chapter 13 and verse, excuse me 19, Matthew 13:19. So we see that God Almighty can look into our innermost minds. He can read our thoughts and the intent of our heart.

   Right here it talks about the parable of the sower and so forth. And in verse 19, note, Christ is explaining. He says, Hear you the parable of the sower.

   Verse 19, when anyone hears the word, they hear the word of God and about the kingdom of God, and note, understands it not. All right, you don't understand it. You don't comprehend it.

   You're reading it and you don't understand it. What is the next thing that happens to such a person? Notice, he says, Then comes the wicked one, that personal attention by Satan himself. Not a low flunky on the board.

   Not a demon, but Satan himself. He spots that you are receiving the word of God and he sees that you don't understand it. And notice, he catches away that which was sown in his heart or in his mind.

   This is he which has received the seed by the wayside. My point is this, brethren. Where does a person have to be to be able to see and comprehend in the mind of a human being that you don't understand something? Satan has to have access right into the innermost workings of your mind, just like God has.

   We are Satan's property in that sense. The flesh, the flesh is Satan's property. He conquered that back in the Garden of Eden.

   So he has accessibility to flesh. That's an important thing to remember, because now we come to a very important thing that I think many of us don't fully comprehend, or we just don't bring it to mind enough to remember where we are in these particular moves that are spoken of in the Bible. There are three tenses of the word salvation used in the Scripture.

   Three tenses. There is a past, there is a present, and there is a future tense. The Bible constantly affirms that once we have accepted the blood of Jesus Christ, we are literally cleansed and washed of all past sin.

   That means the guilt of sin, you don't have to sit around tormenting yourself for things you have done in the past. You are free to throw your shoulders back, take a deep breath, and with the deepest reverence in your heart, thank your God for completely blotting out all the sin of accomplishing and going along with Satan the devil in acts of disobedience to God's law. So you are free.

   That's a tremendous weight off your shoulders. You are very happy by that. But the Bible affirms, and you read this in Paul's writings in the book of Romans, where are we now? If the past is forgiven, where are we now? We are in the present.

   And what we struggle with each and every day is being delivered from the power of sin that is active and viable every day of our lives. Now, which is another way of saying you are just one step away from disobedience to God. If you allow yourself to go unchecked, you can just literally jump the line that quick.

   That's what the Apostle Paul was saying. He said he literally was afraid. He says, I look in my members, he says, and I see this other evil law, a law of evil that is in me, because there is something interwoven throughout all of society, in our very flesh, that is part of what Satan has done in constructing his world, that everything out there pulls at you.

   Oh, come on, partake of it. It's not all that bad. Get into it.

   Just try it. You'll like it. And it just begins to have a mesmerizing effect upon you.

   And before you know it, you can get sucked into it ever so easily. And you can find yourself then going into the depths of Satan again, and then you say, oh, what have I done? Then you begin to forget and you think, well, God hasn't forgiven me my sins. Oh, yes.

   He forgave you your past sins. What you have done now is you have compounded the problem. You have created new sins in the present.

   And they now have to be forgiven. They now have to be brought under the blood of Jesus Christ if you are to be delivered from these present sins. And this is what Mr. Armstrong is talking about, the blotches and the wrinkles and the spots in our midst now, presently.

   Once those are blotted out by the blood of Jesus Christ, then there remains only one other thing yet to be done. The Bible affirms this also, that in the future, you are going to be changed from flesh to divine Spirit. Why? Once this flesh has been changed, now Satan the devil no longer has access to you.

   You cannot sin and you will not sin because now you have a spirit body to match the character that you have developed in this life so that you, as a man and a woman of God, will serve your God and your elder brother Jesus Christ for all eternity. And you will walk through the portals of eternity with Him. And you will want to do nothing but the will of God and rejoice in His plan and His purpose because you know you owe Him all.

   And once the flesh is gone, there is nothing Satan can get his hands on, so to speak, using the modern vernacular. So, in the present power of sin, what we are learning then, brethren, is that we all are fighting battles. And battles can be won and they can be lost.

   Nowhere in the Bible do you find that God tells us that you are always going to win these battles. In fact, many times He shows you lose these battles. But notice II Timothy, or excuse me, I Timothy.

   Let me check here to be sure. It's either I or II. Let me check I Timothy first. Chapter 2, verse 26.

   Okay, it's II Timothy. Got it. II Timothy 2:26.

   Notice the instruction to the servants of God how that He must be in meekness instructing those who oppose themselves, who are stumbling all over themselves, if peradventure God may give unto them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil. What is a snare? If any of you are a hunter or use that type of terminology in terms of a snare, you could use it on a small animal. It's to throw you down.

   It's to entangle in a snare. That's exactly what Satan tries to do on a daily basis to mankind. And we are to try to recover ourselves.

   So wherever we find ourselves falling down on the job as men and women of God, we have got to remember we have a job to do. Not to say, oh, what's the use? But to thank God that we can have those sins of the present blotted out beneath Christ's saving blood and that we can literally recover ourselves with the help of God from the snare of the devil. This is why I said a satanically controlled Christian, that's not what you want to be.

   There are many people in this world who say they're Christian. They're very fine moral people, but they do not obey God as God says He wants to be obeyed. They obey God as they want to obey Him, not as God says He wants to be obeyed.

   In fact, they even say, go to the church of your choice. That's what you were told years ago to do, many of you, on Sunday mornings. Not on the day that God said to go.

   And certainly when you find out the truth of the matter is you don't have a choice concerning the church. The church is there. It is God's church.

   And you find that you have been bequeathed the greatest knowledge and understanding that has ever been given to a people on the face of the earth in your lifetime. And what an awesome and humbling thing that is. And no wonder God says, to whom much is given, much shall be required.

   And brethren, much is being required of us. And God is beginning His judgment upon His church, the house of God. He's finding out, do we really want to be His people or do we just want to play church? Do we just want to go through the motions? In dealing with the devil, we must remember we have no immunity.

   God has never promised that we would get Him off our back once and for all and that's it. Just fight Him once and that's it. The Bible says He'll come back again and again and again.

   Christ battled with Satan. Even after Matthew 4:4 and you read about the account of the great battle for world control, you find out it says after that, when the angels came and ministered and put the other accounts with it, it says Satan left Him for a season. There will be times when Satan will get off your back for a while.

   He'll give you a little bit of a breather. You'll put your guard down because you'll think, well, he's not here to bother me anymore. As soon as you do that, bang, he's right there in a way you don't anticipate.

   Or like as we say in the old terms out west, he comes as that sidewinder, coming in at an angle as we already heard described, in a way that you don't anticipate. Therefore, we've got to remember that people tend to relax once they know they have been delivered from the guilt of sin, but it is the warring on a daily basis and the power of sin that we've got to fight and war in our daily lives. Notice what Jesus Christ said in Matthew 6 and verse 13.

   Matthew 6 and verse 13. Matthew 6:13. You are to pray in this outline of the Lord's Prayer and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, or more clearly in its indication, from the evil one, the one who is always on the prowl, who is always looking for that which he can destroy.

   For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. John 17 and verse 15. John 17:15.

   He says, I pray, Christ talking about His disciples here. He says, I pray not that you should take them out of the world, so we find ourselves in this world, all right. He said, but that you should keep them from the evil, to shield us from the evil effect of this world and, of course, the evil one himself who is the driving force of the evils in this world.

   Satan has tremendous powers, brethren. I can't emphasize this enough because you are going to live to see some of those powers demonstrated on a powerful magnitude in the years to come. There's going to be a man who is going to stand up and have powers to call fire down from heaven.

   And people are going to be amazed by that. There's going to go a strong delusion from God that's going to go out that people should believe a lie if they do not love the truth. And, of course, the Word of God is the defining factor.

   Not to be caught by all the fancy fireworks, not to be led by show, but to be led by the Word of God. So every time you do combat in battle with Satan the devil, you must remember he has one instant and immediate access to your mind. That's a shocking revelation because sometimes you didn't think he knew that, that you were thinking.

   But he does. Just like God knows, so does Satan have access. He can survey the complete panorama of your thoughts, your imaginations, including your inner motives and your intentions, your secret longings and your ambitions.

   He knows that. He is familiar with every weakness and strength that makes us vulnerable as a human being. And either by careless or by ignorance, he can plant or remove ideas from our very mind.

   He can take away the Word of God from our mind if we're not careful. Now you see why you have to hang on with all that you're worth. He works by the power of suggestion.

   That's one of the most powerful forces that Satan has. The very fact that the Bible affirms he cannot do anything to you other than use wiles or schemes showing that God has set a limitation on him. He can only go so far and no further.

   But what goes beyond that is in your hands. And so if he can read a certain area in your life that is not quite right, he can begin to magnetize that thought and magnify it so beautifully and put the right circumstance before you, and you'll just naturally go with it. We have all had it happen to us, brethren.

   I'm talking the reality of what we live as men and women. I'm not talking vague theology. I'm talking about those innermost problems that plague your mind and you wonder, why does this bother me? Why do I worry? Because Satan can engender worry into your mind.

   He can cause you to lack faith. And one of the key areas that would be hit in this end time would be the very thing of faith, a crisis of confidence in God. And God is going to look and zero in to see if you do have your confidence in Him or is it your confidence in something else.

   Have you ever stopped to consider that God's promises deal with the future? Satan encourages you always to do things now. We live in what is called the now generation. Buy now, pay later.

   Use your Master Charge. Use your clout. What have you.

   All these things hit us from day in and day out, bombardments on television. It's just an accepted way of life. And people never stop to think.

   They don't realize how their minds are being bombarded by subliminal influences, by the advertising industry, and how you're being utilized day in and day out like the Scripture says, whereby with faint words, they make merchandise of you. I heard one before I came down to the feast. It blew my mind.

   The man says, come down to so-and-so's car center. He says, profit is out and savings is in. And I thought, he's not in business then very long if profit is out.

   He's got to make profit to stay in business. But if someone wants to believe that, that profit is out and he's just there to do you this wonderful service of giving you cars at his, you know, lack of profit, it just doesn't hold water. And yet people don't stop and really zero in on what he's saying.

   It is just an accepted way. Buy now, pay later. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

   Man says he is the greatest, but God says he is. I want you to consider that Satan himself, his greatest disguise is the mask of self. You know, you are yourself, your own person.

   But little do you ever stop to analyze that Satan hides behind you. He lets you take the credit for quote, what you think sometimes is your idea. And yet here he is, hiding in darkness behind you.

   Notice very quickly Isaiah 14. Isaiah 14. Isaiah 14 beginning in verse 12 (Isaiah 14:12).

   How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? Again, this tremendous angelic creation. I can't emphasize that enough, brethren. Do not think in terms of your personal adversary is like he's some kind of a hinky that you can just blow on him or stick him in the pocket.

   You know, when you're finished with him, you hear people talk about it. Well, they're going to ring the tail of the devil. They're going to do this to the devil.

   They're going to kick the devil out of here. You're not going to do any such thing because the devil has no fear of anything except a converted Christian man and woman who knows how to use the Word of God against him. And when you turn that Word of God against him, it becomes a powerful two-edged sword and is spoken of in Ephesians 6 as the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, in which you can cut to shreds the power and the influence of Satan the devil.

   And when you start flashing and wielding that sword at Satan the devil, it's just like that most delicate time in combat, in warfare. Probably the most difficult time is when a commanding officer gives his men the command, fix bayonets, which means they pull out the bayonet, fix it on, and it means you're going to have to do combat eyeball to eyeball with that enemy soldier coming right at you. That is not pleasant because you know it's him or you.

   And God says, Satan's coming after you like hand-to-hand combat. And you're going to have to meet him head on. But be of good cheer.

   I have overcome the world. I've thrown down Satan. And if I am allowed to dwell within you through the power of My Spirit, then every time we meet Satan, we'll meet him together, My sons and daughters.

   And as I threw him down when he was trying to get to me in my life, I will help you through My Spirit to throw him down, to spot him where he operates in your life. And I will grant you that victory through the Spirit, not by anything you do, but by My power and My Spirit. And that's what Satan fears when he sees the powerful life of Jesus Christ being formed within you as a man and a woman.

   Satan went on to say in this particular chapter, and God classifies exactly what he was, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne. I will sit upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.

   I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. I want to be like God Himself.

   Therefore, I will. I will. I will.

   How many times do we focus in on the I in our own life? How many times do we realize that to actually follow Satan, all you have to do is be a self-worshipper? You don't have to be like some of these freaky cults that worship Satan on the West Coast and some of these others. All you have to do is be a worshipper of yourself. You will do things your way.

   I want this. I want that. You want self-aggrandizement.

   You want self-satisfaction. The 1970s have actually been dubbed the decade of the self. So many books on self-improvement, the Better You, the New You.

   Study this to make you a better person. What about the Word of God? That is the original manual to tell you how to be a better person, how to be the right type of father to your children and to your wife as a husband and a wife, how to be the right type of loving wife and encouragement to her husband and mother to the children. For the children, how to be the type of sons and daughters not only that parents can be proud of, but that Almighty God Himself can be very well pleased seeing them growing up, knowing them as children destined to be a part of His future kingdom in the world tomorrow.

   The spirit of man in this world is one of self-assertion, self-exaltation, self-satisfaction, and self-glorification. This is what God does not want to see in our lives. He wants us to see an attitude of true humility and love and respect for each and every one of us in what God can accomplish in and through our lives.

   We can't do anything apart from Him. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Thank God for God, because there's no one like Him.

   He is truly a majesty on high. He is a holy, He is a mighty majesty on high. And He is our great Creator God, the One who has promised to deliver us from all evil.

   If we look to Him, Scripture says the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation. Do we believe that? Are we calling on Him for strength and help in those areas? Satan works on us in many ways, brethren. I would just say in conclusion, as we draw to the final minutes here, if you are going to set up a defense system against him, you must remember, just like today, in order to thwart crime, men come up with certain devices, certain techniques, how to stop prowlers from burglarizing, getting in and stealing and doing mayhem.

   We have to build, as it were, our own, with God's help, anti-Satan system. For we become anti-Satan. Not pro-Satan, but anti-Satan.

   Remember, His spirit is a spirit of anti-Christ. If you allow His spirit into your life, you can become part of an anti-Christ spirit. And God says He is going to come and destroy an anti-Christ spirit that exists on this planet.

   Whereas we heard that the nations of this world are going to be so filled with an anti-Christ spirit that they literally are going to turn their weapons on the living God. That is mind-boggling to think human beings fighting their very Creator, but the Bible affirms it will happen. And we are going to see something that is going to rival Star Wars and Buck Rogers in the 25th century because you are going to live to see the whole heavens explode.

   You are going to live to see the living God come back in the years ahead because they are telling us now from all sources we will never get through the 1980s. Some of the reports like Kiplinger's want to say, well, this is the exciting 80s. I will tell you what I would like to call them, the explosive 80s, because I think something explosive is about to happen that is going to literally tear this world from one end to another.

   And if there be no God, then God help us all. But if there is a God, then the way you are going to have to use the help that that great God offers, knowing that we live in perilous times, you are going to have to use the Bible which is called light. God is light.

   Satan is darkness. Use the Bible as a source of light to expose the methodology, the modus operandi of Satan and how he gets to you, how he hinders you, how he upsets you, causes you to become dissatisfied with this, dissatisfied with that to such a degree that you are willing to throw reason to the wind. You see what is happening in the world.

   You see people who are even not a part of the Church of God, who have basically been good moral people, you would say, 30, 40 years marriage, and they throw marriage to the wind. And they want to start all over. What is wrong with people? People are going crazy, just as the Bible prophesied we would live in perilous times.

   So the Word of God must be used to expose Satan. Then we are going to have to use detection devices. And again, the way you detect Satan in your life is, have you been lusting lately? That's not of God.

   What about idolatry? Got your mind locked in on certain things that are not supposed to be? What about laziness? Have you been a little bit lazy lately, sidestepping your obligations to God? What about touchiness? Somebody doesn't quite agree with you right away, and right away you get touchy and you want to go to blows with them. Where is that coming from? Is that from a godly spirit? Not according to the Bible. What about worry? Do you find any command in the Bible, thou shalt worry? And yet how many people have violated that very thing in the Word of God in this last year of great trial, when they thought, what's happening to the Church of God? The whole Church of God is going to fall apart because California is coming against the church.

   Does that mean California is more powerful than God? Then look to California as your place of safety for what's coming. But if God be God, look to Him, because there won't be a California in those times that are yet coming, but God will survive and everything else will disintegrate. And only those that do and abide the will of God will live forever.

   There's where we've got to keep our mind focused. What about distractions, things that pull you away constantly from God? Ever analyze where that comes from? What about depression? There are human reasons for depression. But you ever stop and think that Satan is one of the most depressed beings on this earth because he sees his whole time schedule just being pulled and ripped away from him, knowing that ultimately God will destroy everything that he has worked for to try to build? Have you ever stopped to consider, brethren, that spotting Satan is not an easy thing? And when the alarm sounds, when you begin to recognize those things, the Bible says, Do what? Let's notice the book of James.

   James chapter 5. Excuse me, James chapter 4 and verse7, James 4:7. It says, Submit yourselves therefore unto God. You must submit to God first. That's the prerequisite.

   Then resist the devil. And how do you resist the devil? You do it by, like Paul said, you fight the good fight of faith. He didn't say here resist the demons, although they're part of that that you have to be aware of.

   He goes right to the source of where all the problems originate. He says resist the devil, but don't you try to resist them without submitting to God because you're a lost cause if you try. You must remember, just like David, that in the end time, we are following the same kind of examples like David.

   In the Old Testament times, he went up against a mighty Goliath. Everyone was absolutely cowardly and fearful. They didn't know what was going to happen.

   And here comes little David, a man after God's own heart. David was going to fight the mighty Goliath. How did David do that? Did David say, Oh, well, don't worry about that.

   I'll just go out there. You know, I'm pretty good with a slingshot. I'll just knock his block off.

   He's just a big oaf out there. He can't do anything. I'm fast, quick.

   I'm young. I'll take care of him. No.

   He goes out and he faces that Goliath, which we might liken to Satan, who is a Goliath in power, a Goliath in might. And you can't do combat with him and you can't go against him armed with cockiness or armed with the flesh, railing against the devil when even Michael, the archangel, would not rail in the struggle against the body of Moses. He said, But the Lord rebuked you, Satan.

   The same thing is true here. You have got to go like David did. Satan comes at you.

   You recognize him and you say, Satan, it's you again, you foul creature. You come at me, you uncircumcised evil creature. All right, I come at you in the name of the God of heaven and earth, in the name of the God of Israel.

   And you do what? You aim your spiritual slingshot and you hit him right between the eyes and you knock him out. He'll come back again because he's much more powerful than even physical Goliath ever was. But the example is there to encourage us and show us that that's the attitude we must maintain if we hope to win.

   But we'll only win if we go in the name of the Eternal, the name of our God, because Satan does not fear us. But you know, as you read in the book of James, it says the demons, they fear and tremble at the Word of God. They know he is alive.

   They know he is real. And so, brethren, when that alarm sounds, you're going to have to go at him and you're going to have to go at him with the weapon which is, again, the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit. Satan tells you, he says, be fearful.

   God says, fear not. You've got to remember those things. Remember how Christ answered Satan.

   Satan says, worry. You wonder where worry comes from. You wonder why sometimes you can't quite let it go.

   It's because Satan's there. He doesn't want you to let it go. He wants you to worry.

   You've got to recognize where it comes from. God says, don't be anxious over anything. Don't become filled with that anxiety.

   Satan says, covet. God says, as we started, set your affections on high. Don't covet anything that's in this world.

   Be thankful for whatever God grants you. Live and enjoy in your sojourning all the blessings, whatever God grants you in this life, your friendships, your wife, your children, everything God has granted unto you. Rejoice, for this is your portion all the days of your vanity.

   As you walk on the place of this earth, you cast Satan out because God Himself will give you the victory. I Timothy 6 and verse 12, I Timothy 6:12. It says, Fight the good fight of faith and lay hold on eternal life, whereunto you are called and have professed a good profession before many witnesses.

   Colossians chapter 1 again. Go to the book of Colossians chapter 1. Beginning in verse 12 (Colossians 1:12). Giving thanks unto the Father which has made us meet the partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

   Not in darkness, brethren, but in light. Who has delivered us from the power of darkness. Who has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

   Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, and by Him were all things created. And then he goes on and he gives emphasis how in verse 18, He is the head of the body, even the church. He is the one who carries our banner.

   We look to Him as our commander-in-chief. And we pray for God's servant, Mr. Armstrong, and for all of the ministry, as the ministry prays also for you, the brethren of the Church of God, because we're all in this battle together, brethren. It's either sink or swim.

   We've got to endure to the end and there's no ifs, ands, about it. It says, verse 21, And you who were sometime alienated as the enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death to present you holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in His sight. God wants to present you as His sons and daughters.

   And Jesus Christ especially, as brothers and sisters, looking from His vantage point, He wants to say, Father in Heaven, here are Your sons and daughters. Here are my brothers and sisters. They are clean.

   Every aspect of vile wickedness has been covered and taken care of. They are no longer accomplices of Satan in his evil course. Satan has been exposed.

   He is now taken care of. And now we have a tremendous job ahead of us as we march through the portals of eternity to plan for future dimensions in God's great work, which will be forever and ever, for His kingdom shall have no end. Brethren, it's going to take all that to be aware that as you leave the joy of this Feast of Tabernacles, remember, there is a force that wants you not to be in the world tomorrow.

   Don't underestimate the power of the enemy. Set your affections on things on high and begin to fight that fight of good faith. With the help of God, we can be victorious.

   He's shown us the way. Christ said it Himself. Be of good cheer.

   I have overcome the world, and so can you, brethren, through God's great and glorious Son, who is our Lord and Savior Supreme.