Herbert W Armstrong

   Now it is very important that we understand that because without that information, we may not begin to understand the source of the problems that we come across. It is often that people will look at a problem and will try to solve the problem by looking at the surface of it or the symptoms that it may produce. We've talked about how that people often, I, I think to me one of the advertising campaigns that I found to be kind of along this line would be the type of campaign that you have, say, for something like Alka-Seltzer. Which basically gets across the idea that when you have sinned, Alka-Seltzer will take away the penalty. And that this is the solution we should seek, that when you've done something wrong, don't try to correct what you did that was wrong. As a matter of fact, a number of times the commercial gives the impression that wow, once you take the Alka-Seltzer, you can go right back and do it again. And there's no effort to change the cause of the problem.

   Well, if we approach our problems in that way without having that basic bit of information recognizing the source of those problems, then we try to solve the problem by dealing with the symptom instead of recognizing the source of the problem and getting to the cause of it and rooting that out instead. So we must have that information. If you don't have all the information, your conclusions are erroneous.

   Now, we had an example of that given at the feast in Mount Pocono. I mentioned it to the fellows in the Spokesman's Club, but I thought it illustrated the point very well. It seemed that there was a situation that developed where there was an automobile accident. And the people involved in this accident were hurt, and they were not able to give the information that was needed to figure out exactly what happened, but here it was a bright sunny day, straight stretch of road, and all of a sudden this car had veered off the road and smashed into a tree. And there was a man and a woman and two children in the car and their pet. And it happened to be a pet monkey in this case.

   And they, the man who was investigating was trying to figure out, well, how in the world did this happen? It just doesn't make sense what occurred. And he saw this monkey making some signs. We talked about a monkey like that in Bible study the other night, and this one was kind of making some signs, and they thought, well, maybe this monkey has the ability to communicate at least certain things. So he went up to the monkey and he said, "Monkey, can you talk?...." And he said, Well, if I ask you questions, can you make signs to show me what happened?" The monkey nodded his head. "Is that all right?" He said, "Tell me, monkey, what was the man doing when the accident occurred?" And the monkey went, [drinking gestures]. "Ah, OK, well, that explains a lot. The man was drinking. So his, his mind wasn't really on what he was doing and he was probably kind of half drunk anyway. So that explains a great deal. OK, monkey, what was the woman doing?" And the monkey went [shaking her finger gestures]. "OK, now we're getting a picture. The man was drinking, the woman was nagging him, probably about the fact that he was drinking, and that probably distracted him and upset him quite a bit. So, OK, I'm beginning to see this," and I said, "OK, monkey, what were the kids doing?" And the monkey went [fighting gestures]. "OK, so the kids were in the back of the car and they were fighting and probably he was drinking and a little bit drunk. His wife was irritating him. The kids were fighting. He turned around to get the kids to stop fighting and he just didn't pay attention to where he was going. He veered off and smashed into the tree. OK, that, you know, I, I've got it. That explains the whole thing. Now it makes sense how this accident all came about."

   He started to walk away and then he thought for a minute, he turned around and says, "Monkey, what were you doing when the accident occurred?" And the monkey went [driving gesture]. OK. Now you get the point. That without that one final bit of information, the whole conclusion that you draw is wrong. You don't understand it properly because of missing one thing.

   OK, now the same is true with us as we face the problems that we face as human beings. If you don't have all the information, then the conclusions you draw are incorrect. That's why I said in the very first sermon in this series about education in this world that they don't come up with the right solutions, the right answers, because they don't understand all of the information. They don't have all the information to solve the problem. The Bible tells us that man does not know the way to peace. That all the peace talks in the world don't change anything, that the Pope four times in one week asking for peace in Lebanon didn't produce one bit of peace. He doesn't know how to produce peace. President Reagan doesn't know how to produce peace. Jerry Falwell doesn't know how to produce peace. They don't know how to produce peace because they're missing one crucial element. And that is the understanding that we have been talking about, that there is a spirit in man and that spirit is influenced by an outside source.

   They don't recognize that peace is a spiritual matter and lack of peace, upset, turmoil, confusion, and war is not a physical problem. It is a spiritual problem with a spiritual solution. They don't grasp it. They don't see it. They don't see it on an international level. They don't see it on the personal level between individuals, and they don't see it within the family. And the turmoil that exists in so many homes. They don't recognize the problem is spiritual. And sometimes I think even we don't recognize that that problem is spiritual. So we must have this information clearly in our minds.

   Now, as I was wrapping up last week, I was making the point that Satan above all else wants to destroy God's character, God's mind in you. Of all the things that he wants to do more than anything else is destroy the character and mind of God in you. Just getting you to do something physically is not really all that big a thing one way or another. But if he can destroy the character and mind of God in you, then he is successful in what he's striving to accomplish. Satan broadcasts through a counterfeit spirit in moods, in attitudes, and in thoughts.

   Now when Adam and Eve allowed Satan to rule over them, which is what they did when they took of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they began to exhibit some of the same attitudes that Satan himself has. They began for the very first time to show what it's like when the human spirit is influenced by this satanic broadcasting. Up until that time, they did not show those characteristics. But they began then to show those characteristics.

   Now let's just quickly review the story of what happened. Let's go back to Genesis chapter 3. And I want to go through several verses here without a lot of comments. But I want you to think carefully about each point as we go through it, because I will be drawing upon these points as we progress today.

   Genesis chapter 3. Pick it up here in verse one (Genesis 3:1). "Now the serpent," again, remember, as far as we can determine, Adam and Eve had no idea that there even was a Satan. That is not important for them to know at that point. All that Eve knew was here was a being which spoke. As far as she knew, it had the ability to speak. It was a normal thing. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, 'Yeah, has God said you shall not eat of every tree in the garden?'" And the woman said unto the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat of it. Neither shall you touch it lest you die.'" The serpent said unto the woman, "You shall not surely die, for God does know that in the day that you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as gods or as God as Elohim, knowing good and evil."

   And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat, and the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked. And they sowed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Adam and his wife hid themselves in the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden, and the Lord God called unto Adam and he said unto him, "Where are you?"

   And as we brought out in the Bible study, obviously God knew where he was, but he was giving him an opportunity to repent and to come forward and to admit the problem. And he said, "I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself." Again, it's very obvious there that you know that many times when you do something that's wrong, one of the first things that you do automatically is stick your foot in your mouth. And that's what Adam did in this case. Nobody asked him about why he was doing what he did. He just simply said, "Where are you?" And instead of Adam saying, "Oh, here I am," Adam said, "Well, I hid myself because I knew I was naked." And probably immediately he thought, "Oh, I shouldn't have said that," because he really nailed himself right away.

   And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree whereof I commanded you that you should not eat?" That's a very strong, stern statement God makes to Adam. And the man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the tree, and I did eat." So again, it's point the finger at somebody else. It was the woman and really it wasn't her fault because you gave her to me. So it's your fault that I did this. And the Lord God said unto the woman, "What is this that you've done?" Now it's not nearly so strong a statement to her. "What is this you've done?" And the woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."

   Now God goes on and takes certain action as a result of that. And as we read at the end of that chapter, he drove them out of the garden and he cut them off from the tree of life, which means he cut them off from the spirit of God. They did not have access to that any longer because they had disobeyed, and God's spirit is only available to those who obey him.

   Now with those points in mind, we need to stop and meditate a bit in detail on what was actually occurring and what attitudes begin to appear here. We can see as we read through this, what kind of attitudes they began to develop as a result of Satan's influence. And when we see the attitudes of Satan in them, it should serve as a warning to us to make us aware of what attitudes we might suddenly find in ourselves which are not of God but are in fact satanic. So we need to ask ourselves as we go through this section, what kinds of attitudes does Satan's broadcasting produce? How does Satan's broadcasting affect the human mind?

   Now it is very common for us to refer to human nature. And again, we need to recognize what God has revealed about human nature and what God's church has written about human nature to help us to realize that in reality, human nature is not human nature. Humans are created neutral. The nature that they begin to exhibit is Satan's nature. It is that constant bombardment of Satan's broadcasting that creates in us a certain nature which is really Satan's nature, not human nature, but a satanic nature. Therefore, we can never excuse ourselves by saying, "Well, this is human nature. It's only human to whatever it may be." Well, no, that's not true. It is satanic to go in a wrong direction, a negative direction.

   Now as we go through these attitudes, you may see in them certain attitudes which you have seen in yourself, or you may recognize certain attitudes you might have seen in someone else, even. We need to recognize that Satan's broadcasting affects different people in different ways. We've drawn the analogy before with God's spirit, that God's spirit affects different people in different ways. And we've used the analogy of alcohol to help us understand that. That when some people drink to excess, and it doesn't take that much to drink to excess, when they begin to drink to excess and their personality begins to come out in certain ways, that there are different ways that different people will react to alcohol. Some become the life of the party. Some become very affectionate. It's probably nothing as disgusting as an affectionate drunk. Some become belligerent. Some become quiet and sit in the dark with a look on their face that you better not say anything to me. Because alcohol affects different people in different ways.

   Now, God's spirit affects different people in different ways, and it may bring out certain strong characteristics in one that might not be in another as we brought out the principle concerning even the ministry. The ministers are not ministers because they are more righteous than God's people, but simply because God's spirit produces characteristics in the ministry that make them more capable of ministering, whereas it produces different characteristics in others. One is not better than the other in a competitive way. It's simply a matter of the characteristics which God's spirit produces.

   The same is true where Satan's broadcasting is concerned. It will produce different things in different people. Some people will turn to drugs, to alcohol, to various forms of escape. Some will become let's say, wrapped up in seeking pleasures. Some may enjoy violence more than others so that we have prisons filled with people who have committed violent crimes and again I, I think this past week having been down to see Mr. Wilson down in the maximum security institution down in Rosharing, it's not a pleasant experience to go into that type of an environment, you know, and walk in through the gates and see the concertina wire across the top with the razor sharp points on it that you know nobody's going over that and on and on with the various things there and yet you realize that most of the people who are there are hardened criminals.

   They're not like you and I. I mean, there is a vast difference. You and I would find ourselves incapable of committing the crimes that many of those people have done. We cannot imagine murdering someone in cold blood as some of them have done. Probably most of us cannot see ourselves maybe committing armed robbery or some of the other horrible crimes that are committed by the people who are there. Again, that doesn't make us better, it just means that Satan's broadcasting influences us in a different way. That broadcasting can influence people in so many different directions. We need to understand how it can influence people and therefore be able to watch ourselves a bit more.

   So what I want to do is go through in reference to, without necessarily going back to each individual point, in reference to what we have just read in Genesis 3, the first 13 verses (Genesis 3:1-13), showing us the satanic attitude that begins to come out and see what attitudes are revealed and how those attitudes may begin to manifest themselves in us today.

   One of the first attitudes that begins to come out that Satan got across to them is the idea that sin is good. Now God told them, "Don't take of that tree. It is not good for you. It will produce death if you take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." But Satan comes along and begins to inject within them the attitude that that tree is good. "If you were to take of that tree, it would give you things you don't have now. God's holding back. He won't let you have something that's really good."

   Now what is the attitude that exists today concerning sin? Don't most people feel that sin is where the fun is? I mean, living without sin, you know, we've all heard the thing. Everything I like is, uh, what is it, uh, uh, illegal or fattening or sin, you know, something along that line would be anything that we would enjoy is is no good. We can't have it. And sin is held out as being good. This is what's really exciting. This is where the fun is. And Satan loves to broadcast in that kind of an attitude to where people can begin almost self-righteously to sit back and and take an approach of, "Well, I won't do that because God says it's sin. But boy, if God would let me. Oh, would I ever be involved in that one?"

   I remember one person who unfortunately is no longer with us in God's church, who used to say that one of the first things he was going to do when he became a member of the family of God, was he was going to make rum-soaked Havana cigars legal. He really wanted those. Because that seems so good. But it's not good. Maybe with you it's something else. Maybe you miss your pork chops or whatever. You're going to cleanse pigs when you become God. But we get the idea, "Oh this is good. It would be so good to be able to sin just a little bit."

   Back in Hebrews chapter 11, we see that this is a part of Satan's deception. In Hebrews 11, he's talking about Moses and I'm breaking into the middle of the thought here as far as the concept of faith that Moses exhibited. But here in Hebrews 11, notice what he tells us in verse 25 (Hebrews 11:25). It says "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." In other words, it tells us sin does have pleasure for a season. For a short time. The season is a relatively short period of time. Sin does have its pleasure for a season. And that pleasure is gone. You pay the penalty for that sin. It may be a lifelong penalty that you pay. But it does have a certain appeal because of the temporary pleasure that an individual might gain from sin.

   In Hebrews chapter 3, a few pages back, it’s talking about the instruction to us that we are to have a concern for one another. And he says in verse 13 (Hebrews 3:13), "But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." It tells us sin is deceitful. It's something that can trick you, can deceive you, can make you think in certain ways that are totally wrong. It tells us that sin can appear good, can appear appealing, something you want.

   Now you stop again to analyze yourself. Are there areas in your life where sin is appealing to you? We talked last week about the attitudes that are in this world and how this world is Satan's world. He is the god of this world. Are there things in this world that you want? That you long for that you would like to have. Because, as has been brought out by Mr. Armstrong, until we come to the point where we don't want anything in this world, then we really haven't gotten the picture yet. That there should be nothing in this world that we desire. And if you're still desiring something in the world, what this world has to offer, then what you're really experiencing is that same subtle influence of Satan to make you think that what the world has to offer, what Satan's world has to offer, is good. We ought to be like Satan's world.

   We talk about peer pressure. And I'll tell you another story here about how this world produces a pressure upon us to do things that are not right. And sometimes that pressure is so strong. It is so appealing for us to try to do something which is evil.

   Now, the minister who happened to give that story at the feast about the monkey, there's also a minister who a couple of years ago told us about another situation where there was a man who had a reputation as a great fisherman. And everybody really admired him because he would go out fishing and he would come back with tubs full of fish. And he would take them to old folks' homes and give them away and so on, and everybody thought he was really a great man, but they couldn't figure out how he caught so many fish. And his brother-in-law was a game warden, so he was especially interested. He couldn't figure it out. "Well, OK, yeah. I just," you know, "keep trying to find out how he does it." Couldn't figure it out and everybody kept asking, "Please, I want to go fishing with you." And he never would let anyone go. He'd go out at night and disappear, and come back the next morning with all these fish.

   Finally his brother-in-law talked him into it. "Oh, look, I won't tell anybody anything. Just I've got to go with you and find out how you do it." "All right, you meet me at midnight." He met him, the boat and so on hauled the tackle out. Went out just a few miles away to a local lake. It wasn't really very far at all. Got in the boat and started out toward the middle of the lake. And the brother-in-law thought this is kind of strange. "I fished this lake a lot of times and I never brought in fish like that. How he's doing it must be the tackle that he has." So I got out in the middle of the lake and they stopped and anchored the boat. The fellow reached down, opened up his tackle box, and he pulled out a stick of dynamite. He lit it, threw it over the edge. And all these fish came floating up to the top, and they just started netting them, bringing them in. His brother-in-law, the game warden says, "Hey, you can't do that. You know that's wrong. You can't do that. I'm gonna have to take you in. That's illegal." And he said, "Well, all right, if you have to, I, I understand that." He said, "Just a minute though," he reached down his tackle box and he pulled out another stick of dynamite and he lit it. He threw it in his brother-in-law's lap. And he said, "Now you're going to keep talking or start fishing?"

   OK. Now that is peer pressure. Sometimes there's a tremendous pressure to do what's wrong. OK. Now, in this world, Satan's world, there is that kind of a pressure that constantly pulls on people and makes them think they wanna be like the world.

   Why is it that it was such a problem for years and maybe to a certain extent still is for the men in God's church to wear their hair like men instead of like women? Do men like long hair? Any boy who has ever grown up trying to keep his hair neat because Mother is constantly pulling at you, if you don't, doesn't like his hair that long. It is not normal. As Paul put it in I Corinthians 11, even nature itself teaches you that. But we had trouble with the men in God's church wearing their hair too long. Why? Because the world said you should wear it that way. And we hadn't come to the point where we rejected the values of the world. Instead, we wanted to be like them. And to look as much like this after all, I mean, you wouldn't want to look any different than the world. Surely you wouldn't want to stand out to be different. You want to go into the middle of the world and have them look at you and not think anything about you, just like you're just like everybody else. So women have to wear makeup and men have to have the long hair, and then we put on, you know, all the affectations I guess you could say, of the world. And all we're doing is beginning to be motivated by that attitude that sin that what the world, Satan's world has to offer is good.

   OK, a second attitude. I'm not going to tell you how many of these attitudes I have down because I don't know how many I'll get through. But the second one that I have down is a natural outgrowth of that first one. The idea that sin is good leads to the next one, which is the idea God isn't fair. It's not fair that God would not let you do some of the things that you want or that God requires certain things of you. It's not fair.

   I heard the comment since I mentioned makeup already. I heard the comment by a few ladies when Mr. Armstrong made the statement about the ladies are not to wear makeup. And I heard the comment by some, you know, the men, not too many men had trouble with that one. Most of the men said, "OK, I accept that. That's fine." But some of the women said "You wait till it's something that affects you. You'll see. You'll see." And really what is that attitude? Well, it's not fair. God makes me give it up, but he doesn't make my husband give up anything. "I make them shave their heads bald, boy, that'd get them." You know, it's, it's that same attitude. See, now I'm not saying that someone intends to have the attitude. I would hope as we go through these attitudes, frankly, I would hope you could see all of them in yourself at some time or another. You can see where you have had that attitude and maybe you didn't recognize what the source of it was. Because I guarantee you every one of these things I've seen in myself. But we need to be able to recognize what's the source, where did it come from? Why did I have that approach? Why did I feel it's not fair. God isn't being fair to me. The church isn't being fair. I shouldn't have to do this or do that. That's too hard. Because Satan broadcast that attitude, it's not fair.

   What do you tell Eve? Can you imagine that you got to read between the lines what was going on. Can you imagine Satan talking with Eve at that time? "Hey Eve, I heard that God said you couldn't have it. This God fellow said you couldn't have any of the fruit of the garden." "Oh no, that's not true. No, we can have anything except the fruit of this one tree." And Satan's, "You mean, you mean he told you you can't have that tree? I mean, of all the trees, he told you not that one. I can't believe it. I mean that's the one that would have done you some good. That's I, I just can't believe he did that." Can you imagine the approach that Satan took in this? You know, we only have the bare outline. But undoubtedly he took that approach. God isn't being fair with you. I mean, after all, you should have a right to that.

   There are many examples in the Bible where people thought God wasn't fair. Just look at Genesis chapter 4 for one. Genesis chapter 4. And here is a case where Cain was punished because of a sin which he committed. He killed his brother. Now God didn't really exact the penalty that he could have. And he says here in verse 12. I'll pick it up in verse 11 (Genesis 4:11). "Now are you cursed from the earth, which has opened her mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto you her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shall you be in the earth." And Cain said unto the Lord, "My punishment's greater than I can bear." I mean, that's not fair. "Come on, God, you know, ease off a little bit. That's not fair. God isn't dealing with me properly."

   Again, Cain had yielded himself to Satan's attitude, and now he was beginning to accuse God. "That's not fair, God, you're not doing the right thing. You're not being fair to me. You're not treating me in the way that I ought to be treated."

   So that Satan then, in order to get that idea across, begins to do some other things in order to make people feel that God isn't fair. One of those things that he does, again, it's shown right there in Genesis 3, he likes to twist God's words a little bit. "Yeah has God said you shall not eat of all the trees of the garden." Well, it isn't exactly what God said. But Satan liked to twist it just a little bit.

   Let's go back to Matthew chapter 4 and see if he changes his tactics at all. Matthew chapter 4 and verse 5 (Matthew 4:5). Here is the account where Christ is being tempted by Satan after having fasted 40 days and 40 nights. And he says here in verse 5, we're breaking into the middle of it here, but the second temptation, I think illustrates the point. "The devil took him up into the holy city, set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, 'If you be the Son of God, cast yourself down, for it's written he shall give His angels charge concerning you, and in their hands they shall bear you up lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.'" Did he accurately quote the Bible? Yes, he did. He accurately quoted it. Now Christ then goes on to say, "Jesus said unto him, it's written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God." So he recognized you can't just take one thing out of context and base all your actions upon one thing taken out of context. You gotta put these things together. But Satan then takes God's word and he twists them just a little out of context.

   Does the same thing happen today? You bet it does. People come along and take the word of God and twist it. Just a little bit. Just a little. To make people feel or understand things in the wrong way.

   Now there's an example of that. Let me just give you a quick example. I haven't planned on this one. Back in I Timothy. Now that we've looked at that one, let's go to II Timothy. II Timothy chapter 2. II Timothy 2:15. He says "Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

   Now there have been those who have left the Church of God, who have taken this particular scripture and said, "Now you see there, you're supposed to divide God's word." And they then go on to try to show that what you do is you divide the Old Testament from the new and you throw out the old and you don't pay any attention to it anymore, that the only place you get instruction is from the new, so a real servant of God divides these things and just throws out that that doesn't apply anymore. Well, is that really what it means? They know and they can look it up just as well as any of the rest of us, that the word they're dividing in the Greek actually means to cut straight through like a path. It doesn't mean to divide in the sense of separating, but it means in essence a shortcut to cut across as a path from one point to the next to the next. So it says a real servant of God is one who is able to go from one scripture straight to another, straight to another in a single path following one particular doctrine or concept right through the scripture from point to point to point very clearly what it means. But you see, when you begin to yield to Satan, you don't want to see that. You don't want to recognize that's what it means. But you want to twist those things just a little and begin to veer off in wrong directions.

   They like to twist God's word in II Peter chapter 3. It was a problem that was common in that day, and we should expect it to be common in that day because Satan was active in that day just as he is today. In II Peter 3:15. Again, you're breaking into the middle of a thought here, but I think we can pick it up clearly enough. "And account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, has written unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest or twist as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction." So he said people were twisting what was said in the Bible. They would take the scriptures and twist it just a little bit. And what they produce is destruction instead of something that's good. That is a common method that Satan uses even to this day.

   In the prophecies of Matthew 24, what do we find as the very first of the signs listed as a characteristic of this end time age? It started in that day, but it's also very common in our age today. You pick it up in Matthew 24:4. He says "Jesus answered and said unto them, 'Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name, saying, I'm Christ and shall deceive many.'" Mr. Armstrong has brought out very clearly that what it's saying is that there would be many coming on the scene saying Jesus is the Christ. Sure there will be individuals who come along and say that they are Christ, but who is deceived by it? How many people are fooled? Somebody walked up on the street and told you, "Hello, my name is Jesus Christ." Are you in danger of being deceived? Would you just stand there and say, "Oh my, I've been waiting for you." Well, you wouldn't be deceived. I wouldn't deceive you at all. And it certainly wouldn't have deceived the apostles in that day.

   I don't know if it appeared here in this area. I assume it did, but about, uh, it must have been a year and a half ago. There was a full page ad that appeared on major newspapers in major newspapers around the country advertising the coming of the Messiah as of July '83 or '82 somewhere in there, may have been July of '82. Yeah, it must have been. That he would be on the scene by the second week in July of '82. Full page ads. I got the one I had was out of the New York Times. I mean big things. What happened? Well, I don't know what happened to the people who paid for the ad. They sure wasted a lot of money. But nothing happened, didn't show up, no such thing.

   There will be people certainly who come along with that kind of an approach and probably they're getting that attitude from Satan as well. But for the most part, it's talking about those who say Jesus is the Christ. But they're deceiving because they're twisting what God says. In verse 24, it says "There shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." So we're told these false Christs and false prophets are going to come on the scene. And they're going to deceive people. That even the very elect are in danger of deception. So the warning is there. Satan will twist the truth just a bit, and certainly I think you could tie in II Corinthians 11:13-15. It talks about the ministers of Satan who don't know they're the ministers of Satan, but they masquerade as the ministers of light thinking they're serving God.

   So, Satan begins to twist God's word to make people feel God isn't fair. I happened to be listening on the way to Spokesman Club the other night to an individual who was propounding his beliefs in atheism. Why he believed there was no God. And I really had to say I felt very sorry for the man. Because his proofs didn't prove anything. He said, "I can't believe in a God that would allow a mortal being to commit a sin that is so great that that being would have to suffer for all eternity." I'd say amen. I don't believe in a God like that either. The Bible doesn't teach any God like that. But he thought it did. And on and on he went through all of his different proofs of why there couldn't be a God, and he was, he was totally off base. He had not one thing that proved anything.

   But you see, when people begin to twist God's word, it begins to create the impression, God isn't fair. God's harsh and unjust. You know if I told you about the quote I saw the other day, I lost the article, but it was a quote in, in the Houston Chronicle. An individual who was describing what the article was about. But he was talking about being godlike. And then he said, "But what's God like? God is stern and unyielding and implacable and, and, and uh wrathful. Who would want to be like God?" And I thought my, you poor person, I know a lot of people that want to be like God. But his idea of God was this twisted perverse idea of a wrathful hate-filled being. Instead of understanding what God's really like.

   So Satan has twisted things around, has deceived people, so they began to think, God isn't being fair. God isn't right. God isn't using things or doing things in the right way. Again, you can tell in Revelation 12:9, it talks about Satan being the the serpent who has deceived the whole world, deceived them about what God truly is like.

   And that leads to the third attitude that began to come out. Satan began to show and Eve picked up on it very, very quickly. And that was the attitude of being judgmental and critical. It started with accusations and lies and half-truths. It is a half truth that Satan proclaimed when he said that God had said they couldn't eat of all the trees of the garden. Well, it was half true. God said there was one tree they couldn't eat of. God said you're going to die. Satan said, no, you're not. Well, that's a lie. They were going to die, but after all, they did continue living for better than 900 years after that. They still died just like God said they would. But there was a half truth, a twist to it, an accusation, and it's really what Satan was doing. He was accusing God. He was accusing God of being unrighteous. He was accusing God and saying God's holding back from you what's, what's really good for you.

   We're told in Revelation 12:10 that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. I brought out to you that the name devil means the slanderer, the false accuser. Accusation does not come from God, but from Satan's spirit, and it manifests itself in many ways. It even can manifest itself within the church of God with an attitude of being judgmental and critical of others without necessarily having all the information to make that judgment. And not being the one who ought to make it in the first place.

   Now I am not saying that so that some in the congregation might sit back and say that's right. People have really judged me harshly. No, we have all judged in the wrong way. Thinking we have the right to sit in judgment of someone else in the congregation of God, or sometimes even...

[Tape Flipped]

   It really has virtually no community function. It just is a place where you can set up a bar and all the veterans can go and drink with one another. Well, we would occasionally have trouble when we came out of Bible study or Spokesman's Club and go into that parking lot with people coming out of the bar having had a few. And one night coming out with three other fellows, and we were standing in the parking lot talking and some woman walked up to us. I almost used the term lady, but that was wrong. Some woman walked up to us and said, "Hi fellas, I'm too drunk to drive. How about when are you taking me home?" And the last thing I saw was this lady standing there looking around wondering how come there were four cars going in four directions so quickly. We just took off. "Oh, gotta go now," and she didn't have any help at all.

   I remember one night coming out of there and there was an old fellow leaning against a car. And the shirt kind of half open and he was saying, "Hey, I'm too drunk to drive. Would you take me home?" And you know it's just after a while you get so disgusted with it. These old drunks that are always around there wanting somebody to take care of them and you know we just told them look sorry, you know, one of your buddies in the bar can get you home. And another one of our people came out, a young lady who happened to work at the veterans hospital there. And said, "You know, he tried to get her to take him home too," and of course she wouldn't do that. And as she left, she said, "You know, I bet tomorrow this guy is gonna show up as one of my patients." And sure enough, the next day, there he was as a patient.

   So she began to learn a little bit about the fellow. And what he was going through. It seemed that he'd been married, I don't know how many years it was, but brought up his whole family. And the children were all grown and had left home and basically didn't have anything to do with their parents. They were wrapped up in their own lives, going their own way, doing their own thing as children often do when they leave home. And they didn't really have much to do with it. Virtually the day the last one left home, his wife moved out, announced she wanted a divorce, and she was going to be marrying another man. That she'd been kind of seeing on the side anyway. And they began through the process of divorce. In that period of time while the divorce was going on, he got to feeling very poorly, so he went to the doctor to see what was wrong. And he was diagnosed as having a cancer. And by the time they found that it was a terminal cancer, too far to do anything even about it. And then the divorce came through the day that it came through. She married another man. He had found out, as I said, about having the terminal cancer. And he had spent that day in town making his own funeral arrangements. Because there wasn't another person alive who cared enough to even be there with him. And instead of going home to an empty house, no one there. He stopped by the bar to see if one of his old veteran buddies might be there and he could talk with them. And since there wasn't, he drank one and another and another. And ended up with too much. And when he finally left the bar, he said, "I don't want to hurt anybody. So I don't dare drive." And he tried to get somebody to help him to get home.

   Well, as you begin to understand what he had gone through, it doesn't justify being drunk. Being drunk is wrong. It's a sin. You shouldn't have done it. But it does temper the judgment just a bit. As you begin to see, no, he's not just another old drunk. He's a human being. He's hurting very deeply.

   Now many times we get very judgmental. And I know when I heard what the man had been through, I felt rather guilt-stricken because after all, I judged him pretty harshly too. And I found out, well, I didn't have the whole story. And once I understood it, my judgment changed a good bit. But you see, Satan wants you to be in that attitude of judgment and criticism, because judgment and criticism divides. It separates people and instead of being one body unified in one mind, we're divided, we're separated, and we don't have the strength that we should have. The kind of a strength that Paul describes there in I Corinthians 12 when he says that when one member hurts, everybody hurts, and when one rejoices, they all rejoice. That's the kind of closeness God wants us to have. But Satan wants to divide that, and he does it by creating that attitude of judgment and criticism. Of being down on one another, of making accusations to one another, of idle gossiping. It goes on.

   In Matthew chapter 12, Christ put it very clearly for us. And in some ways I think in a frightening way. Matthew 12:34. He says, "O generation of vipers. How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." In other words, it's not that every word that comes out of your mouth is a direct reflection of your your innermost thoughts. But the attitude that comes from the mouth reveals what's going on inside. The basic approach a person has shows what's in the heart. And he says "A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things." If the heart's good, it's going to bring forth good, uplifting things. "An evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say unto you that every idle word," that phrase idle word we need to understand. It doesn't just mean something that's kind of said off the cuff, but basically it means any speaking that does not have a good positive effect. Anything you say that doesn't have a good positive effect. "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by your words, you shall be justified, and by your words, you shall be condemned."

   And that's kind of a sobering and frightening thought. When you stop to think about the words that have come forth from your mouth. And as I think about those that have come from mine. That God says we will be judged according to those words. That if those words show a good heart, a converted heart, then by those words will be justified. And if those words show the negative, critical, judgmental attitude of an evil heart, influenced by the spirit and attitude, and judgmental critical attitude of Satan, then by those words we'll be condemned. So it's a very sober and stern warning for us to watch, to be careful of what kind of things come out of our mouths that we don't allow in our minds an attitude of judgment and criticism toward God's people or even toward God's church.

   In Psalm 31. Psalm 31:18, David asks of God a blessing. He says, "Let the lying lips be put to silence which speak grievous or hard things, proudly and contemptuously against the righteous." So I was bringing out in Bible study the other night. God looks upon Lot, and he calls Lot a righteous man. And yet we look upon Lot and we see a lot of the sins that he committed. And we don't tend to think of him as being all that righteous. But God's viewpoint is what counts, and God says, here's a righteous man. A righteous man makes mistakes sometimes, but God judged that man righteous. Sometimes we may look at others within the church of God and we may see them do something that's wrong. I don't think it would be a big shock to us to find out that other people in the church do things that are wrong occasionally. Not very often, but occasionally they may do something that's wrong. I mean, if, if you were like I was, when I first came to church, I figured I was the only one who wasn't perfect. Everybody else was already pretty well there. And it didn't take too many weeks to find out that wasn't true.

   So you'll see other people doing something that are not right. Does that mean they're not righteous people? Does that mean that you have the right to speak contemptuously or proudly against someone because they're doing something that doesn't seem right in your eyes? And maybe it isn't even right in God's eyes. David's prayer is that those lips will be put to silence. That's a permanent silence take place. You see, Satan began to broadcast into Adam and Eve an attitude of judgment and criticism. Where they began to judge and criticize God Himself. They didn't think of it in that way, but that's really what it was. They were criticizing God. They didn't see it that way. And that's what it really amounts to. So that's an attitude that we have to be very cautious of.

   A fourth attitude that can begin to come up that Satan began to broadcast again was it won't happen to you. It won't happen to you. You can handle it. Now is that not a common attitude in human nature? "Well, I know what the chances are that someone will be hurt, but I can handle it. I won't take a literal survey and ask you to raise your hands, but how many of you were smoking before you came in the church of God? How did you justify it? "Well, other people get cancer. Other people get heart disease." You know, the figures are literally that one out of every three people who start smoking will die a nicotine induced death. One out of three, maybe cancer, maybe heart disease, maybe a number of other things. One out of three who smoke will die a nicotine induced death. The others probably are related in that way, but maybe not exactly. If you knew you had to fly Eastern Airlines, and every third Eastern Airlines plane was going to crash and everyone would be killed, would you fly Eastern? But you smoked. And many people out there are smoking saying "It won't happen to me. I can handle it."

   How many times I talked last week about young people dating outside of God's church. How many times has it happened that a young person will say, "Oh well, I know what they said, but after all, this person is different. I can handle this situation. After all, this fellow or this girl is interested." How many times does it not pan out? How many times does that fail? OK, I know we can point to examples where, yes, that person finally did come into the Church of God. Well, that's wonderful if God is that merciful in those cases. That's great. But we always think it's the other guy. It's somebody else who's going to have the problem. "I can speed down the road and I won't have the accident. It won't happen to me." And that's what Satan broadcast to them. "Oh, I know God said that you'd die if you took of that tree, but you can handle it. I mean, after all, just stop and reason it out, look at it. Is there anything dangerous about it? What's going to happen? I mean, is it an electrical tree? You're gonna grab the fruit and get electrocuted? Come on. What's going to happen to you? You can handle it." And he begins to pump out that kind of an attitude. "It won't hurt you. You're all right."

   In Ecclesiastes chapter 8. Ecclesiastes chapter 8. An important verse there is verse 11 (Ecclesiastes 8:11). Solomon says "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." So because the punishment doesn't come right away, they feel like, "Oh, I can get away with it, it won't hurt me. I can handle it. After all, look at this person over here, they did it, didn't hurt them. They puffed on the pot. It didn't bother them. They gave it up whenever they wanted. Won't bother me. It didn't hurt them. I can handle it. I can deal with this situation." God says, "OK, that's the attitude Satan's going to inspire in people. If the punishment doesn't come instantly, they'll think I can get away with it."

   You read all of Psalm 73, and that's what the whole subject of the Psalm is. David looks at people who are wealthy in this world's standards. And he says, "I looked at them and I thought this isn't fair. Look at what they've got, they have all of these blessings and I don't have any of them, and I don't understand. They're not trying to obey God. And I am, and they have all the blessings, and I don't. Doesn't seem right. Maybe I ought to try living their way because after all, it didn't hurt them." And of course in Psalm 73, he shows what he came to understand about that that that was the wrong attitude, but Satan broadcasts that you can handle it. It won't hurt you.

   OK, a fifth attitude that comes up, an attitude of compromise. You see, Satan doesn't have to get you to blatantly break God's law. All he needs to do is get you to compromise with God's law a little bit. And if you'll compromise with it, then you are proving to God He cannot trust you to be faithful.

   In Luke chapter 16, there's a parable here we've referred to it a couple of times, but we just notice here one verse Luke 16:10. The principle that tells us "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. He that's unjust in the least is unjust also in much." So God looks upon us and he says, "OK, here's a small thing. I'm telling you to do this, be faithful with it," as Mr. Davy brought out in the sermonette, the Sabbath. "Oh, here's something that God says to keep." Now it's not the Sabbath isn't a small thing, but there might be one little small activity, you think, "Oh well, you know, it's just a little thing and it doesn't really matter that much." If Satan can get you to compromise on just little things, then you're proving to God he can't trust you because God knows if you'll compromise on something that's little and doesn't matter anyway, then if it were a big thing and the pressure were that much greater, He knows you would compromise. If on the other hand you'll be faithful even when it's only a little thing, then God knows he can trust you to be faithful.

   So Satan wants you to compromise. You can sign in with that Romans 14:22-23, which talks about how that the person is blessed who doesn't condemn himself by the things that he allows. By allowing himself to do things that are wrong. Because as he says there, if a person thinks it's sin to him, it is sin. So Satan wants you to have that attitude of compromise, giving in, not being faithful exactly to God's word.

   A sixth attitude that Satan puts out is an attitude of rebellion to God's authority. An attitude of rebellion to God's authority. That you don't want God to rule over you. Satan says you ought to take what you want because after all, you have a right to it. You have a right to this or that. You know what, when you became a Christian, you lost rights. You gave up rights. Sometimes people in the church of God think, "Well, if things don't go the way that I think they ought to, I'm gonna leave." You know, you don't have the right to leave. You gave up that right. You said, "I belong to God, and He may do anything with me he wants." You gave up the rights. When you made the commitment to God's way, you don't have the right to leave, to walk out, to do any of those things. But the satanic attitude is one of rebellion, of bristling against authority. "I don't like the fact that I have to be obedient." Instead, there is a constant striving for power.

   You look around you in this world and you will see that one of the main motivations in this world is the lust for power. That's the whole name of the game in politics, getting power. Why do people want money? Because they like being surrounded by green? It's because of what you can do when you have money. Money is power in this world. And they want power. You look on the international scene, you look at the women's liberation movement, you look at politics and the whole thrust is power. Who's in charge? "I want power and authority," and that comes from Satan, that attitude of rebellion to authority and especially God's authority, being self-willed. "I'll do what I want to do."

   A seventh attribute or attitude that Satan begins to put out. Is he wants to turn our eyes away from the goal. In other words, getting our eyes on other things. It doesn't matter what. As long as you lose sight of where you're going. You can turn aside in any direction and it doesn't matter at all. So Satan holds up a lot of things that may be appealing. Some people really strive for wealth. Unfortunately, I've seen that even around God's church, you know, one of the things that uh the motivational people try to get salesmen to do. They'll tell you, if you want a house, you have in your mind a house that you'd like to have, and what you ought to do is get a picture of that house and carry it with you. Put it in your appointment book or your, your wallet or something so that every time you open it up, every day you see that. You put it on your mirror when you go to shave in the morning and when you get up, you look at that and you say "That's gonna be my house." And it's supposed to motivate you, to push you to keep going.

   I've seen people around God's church do the same thing. "Oh, I want this airplane. I want this house, or I want this boat, I want this swimming pool." It doesn't matter what it is. You get your eyes on those things. You've automatically taken your eyes off the goal. You get your eyes on problems. OK, fine. You've got your eyes off the goal. That's all that's necessary. Satan doesn't care where you look. If he can get you thinking about health, if he can get you thinking about problems on the job, problems in your marriage, it doesn't matter where, anywhere, if he can distract you so that your attentions are focused on something other than seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Got it.

   Well that's what Satan did with Adam and Eve. Instead of keeping them pointed toward the goal, they took their eyes off of the goal and they looked at the tree. Now God was going to make them God. They could have anything. They could have absolute power and authority over everything. But they took their eyes off of that. And they said, "I want the tree." A beautiful example of that, which I don't have time to go into today, but you can meditate about the example of Jacob and Esau. But Esau took his eyes off the birthright and traded it for a pot of beans. Satan wants you to do the same thing. He broadcast in the same way today, just as he did with Adam and Eve.

   An eighth attitude. And I don't begin to have time to go through all my notes on this, but we will, as time goes by. One of the things that Satan did right at that point was he began to project out attitudes which destroy the family. Attitudes which destroy the family. Now Mr. Neff made a very good point on the ministerial refreshing program about marriage problems, and he said marriage problems generally speaking boil down to two things. And generally both factors are involved in any marriage. One is a woman who is too independent. And two is a husband who is selfish. Who wants to please himself. Those two factors more than anything else come into marriage problems and in virtually every case that is true. Those factors do come in and affect a marriage. And Satan put both of those attitudes in Adam and Eve.

   Here was Eve who instead of obeying God and instead of obeying the instructions of her husband, instead of going to him to seek his counsel and advice, "What should I do? I'm being told that it's OK for me to take of this tree." Instead, she says, "I'm going to rule myself. God isn't gonna tell me what to do, and no man's gonna tell me what to do cause he's no better than I am." So she did her thing. An attitude of independence. And Adam came along and had an attitude of selfishness. "I'm not gonna let her get ahead of me." So in selfishness he reached out and took for himself. His attitude was wrong. God says back in I Timothy 2:14 that Eve was deceived, but Adam wasn't. So if anything, his sin was even worse, but those attributes that would come in to destroy the family were being broadcast at that time, and it shouldn't be hard for us to look at this world to realize all the efforts that Satan is putting into destroying the family. From women's liberation, homosexuality on, Satan desperately wants to destroy the family because it pictures God's plan.

   A ninth attitude, and I'm going to get through ten of them. Ninth attitude is an attitude of self-justification. What happened when God came to Adam and Eve and said, "What did you do?" First thing Adam did was justify himself. "It was the woman that you gave me. Don't blame me, it was the woman." "Woman, what did you do?" "Well, it was the snake."

   Now why is self justification such a terrible problem? If you justify your sins, then you have not repented of that sin. And if you don't repent of it, you're not forgiven for it. And if you're not forgiven, the wages of sin is death. So if Satan can get you to justify yourself in your mind, he can commit you to death. And at the same time, is there any attitude which more clearly reflects the attitude of Satan himself than self-justification? He still feels he's right and God's wrong. He justifies his actions even to this day. So he broadcasts in that same attitude.

   People love to blame something else for their problems. You know, most of the people in prison aren't guilty of anything. I mean you talk to them and you find out most of them, and I'm not talking about the members of God's church, their attitude is entirely different. But you talked to most of them. "Why are you here?" "Well, it was what somebody else did. And I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." They're not really all that guilty. That attitude permeates this world. We want to blame anything else. "Oh well, I had this problem because I had a little too much to drink." Or, "Well, this came up and I committed this sin because uh well I was just under a lot of stress or I've got quite a temper." I'm gonna blame everything. "Well, you know, I was just, I was, uh, kind of critical and harsh with people because I was having some job problems. I was having some family problems." We want to blame anything. Carpenters blame their tools, you know, smack your thumb with a hammer. What do you curse, the hammer. The golfer gets out on the, on the golf course. What does he curse? The clubs, the course, the weather, the sunlight, everything. But where's the problem? To the individual. We want to blame everything else. We want to justify our sin.

   In Luke chapter 16, we're right there. Notice verse 15 (Luke 16:15). Speaking to the Pharisees, he said unto them, "You are they which justify yourselves before men. But God knows your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." They made a habit of justifying themselves, and they refused to repent.

   In Psalm 32. Psalm 32:5. David says, "I acknowledged my sin unto you, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." Now when you read that, do you stop to say why must I go before God to confess sin? After all, God knows about the sin before we do. He knows it's sin, so why must I go and confess it? Because by confessing that sin, instead of justifying it, going before God and confessing it, we are forced to acknowledge that our actions are sin. And there is no justification for it. We don't just go before God and ask some kind of a general prayer of forgiveness. We don't go in and say, "Well God, um, if I did anything wrong, well please forgive it." If you've got that attitude of "if I did anything wrong," you haven't repented any. We have to go before God and acknowledge sin and face it and recognize "I have sinned. And I need to be forgiven for it." So that attitude of self-justification is one that Satan broadcasts. If you can find some way to justify it, bring somebody else into it. Blame someone else. Point the finger at someone else and say, "Look what they did. I'm a rebellious wife because look at what my husband did." Or "I haven't shown the love to my wife because she's so rebellious." Sin and self-justification. Satan wants you to feel that way.

   The tenth attitude that Satan broadcast very strongly. It is an attitude of negativism, defeatism. There's no hope. "I may as well give up. What's the sense of fighting? There's no hope for me." That isn't an attitude of God. God never gives up. But Satan does. Satan feels that everything that is done is hopeless, useless, worthless.

   You see, Satan's attitude, I won't turn back to it for lack of time, but in the book of Job. God said, "What do you think about Job, my servant? There's nobody more righteous than him." And Satan says, "Well, sure he's righteous. You bless him as much as you do. Well, no wonder he's righteous. Anybody'd be righteous. You did that for him." An attitude of negativism. And God said, "OK, take everything away from him, but don't touch his body." And Satan took everything away. He came back before God. God said, "What do you think about Job? The righteous man took everything away. You said he'd give up. Took everything away." Satan said, "Well, sure he did. What do you expect? You wouldn't let me touch his body." There's always a little something more and God says, "OK, but you can't kill him." And then he was afflicted with incredible boils all over his entire body. We can't begin to imagine the pain that man went through. Now, God was teaching them a lesson at the same time. A lesson which Satan couldn't see about self-righteousness because Satan was self-righteous. He couldn't see Job's problem because he had it.

   But at the same time, you see that attitude of negativism, constant defeatism. "There's no hope, may as well give up. Oh my, I, I blew it. I committed this sin. What's the sense of coming to church when I commit a sin like that?" It's incredible how many times that attitude comes out among people who are supposed to be converted people and they don't recognize the source.

   Now we could go on and on with many other attitudes. But recognize these are all attitudes you find in Genesis chapter 3, the first 13 verses, and they are Satan's attitudes. They were in Adam and Eve. And they are still Satan's attitudes today. And when they begin to arise in us, the source of that attitude is Satan, not God, Satan, and we need to recognize "Where am I getting these thoughts? Why am I feeling depressed and discouraged and down? Why am I being critical of other people? Why am I so judgmental? Why am I having this problem of feeling that the world offers so much and I want some of it? Why am I longing for what the world has to offer? Why am I so rebellious to authority over me, whether in the church of God or even outside, maybe just in the family?"

   Those attitudes come from Satan, and if we're going to overcome them, we have to recognize the source and begin working at it at the source.

   Now next week in what should be the final one of these messages, God willing, on this particular subject, we want to get into what God's spirit does. We talked today about how Satan's broadcasting affects man's mind. Next week we want to talk about how God's spirit affects man's mind and the change that it makes possible for us to overcome the spiritual source of our problems. So God willing, we'll continue that next week.