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All right. Amen. So we're in Genesis chapter 12. We're going to get right to that, but we're continuing on with the series that I started a few weeks ago called voices in my head. And we've been talking, we kind of gave an overview at the first sermon that I did with that. And then we kind of went and talked about how devils operate and the importance of that. And we're going to come back to that in a couple of weeks. Again, last week we talked about the voice of the world and basically the application there is to understand that the voice of the world is always going to produce vanity and vexation. That's the result of the voice of the world. Today, we're going to talk about the voice of the flesh. Okay. And this is the most important one. Well, I don't know which one's most important, but it's, it's a very important to understand what I'm about to tell you. The voice of the flesh, you're not getting rid of it. Okay. It is with us until the day we die. Once your flesh goes into the ground, then that voice will stay there and thank God for that. But with this series, it's important because a lot of times, you know, we'll have these thoughts and these ideas and it's like, where did this come from? You know, and if you're not up on these things, if you're not studied or learn, you know, it can really mess with you and it can make you think, man, what's wrong with me? You know, does he or she have these same things? If not, you know, and then you can start playing these games and get out of church. All sorts of bad things can happen. And you know, I get a lot of questions about different things. Like, why am I having these thoughts? And they're good questions. And so that was the basis behind this series here. And so again, just to reiterate last week, we talked about the voice of the world, the voice of the flesh is the same thing. Okay. But breaking it down like we are, it's just going to give us a chance to kind of look more in detail and more in depth at that subject. And obviously, you know, the flesh, the old man, the UN, you know, the, the unregenerate man, unsaved man is what makes up the majority of the planet. So it makes sense that the voice of the world and the voice of the flesh would be very, very similar, but for the sermon today, I'm gonna do something a little bit different. So, so a little bit of a Bible study into the introduction here, and you're going to be kind of wondering like, well, where's he going with that? But I'm going to answer that for you. And what we're going to do is we're just going to take a quick look here at the nation of Israel's history from the beginning until their captivity. And with that, you're going to see something very, very important that you have to understand before we get to the application of the sermon today. So Genesis chapter number 12, we're going to start this off here. Look down at verse number one. It says this. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee. Now you can leave your place there. Go one chapter back to chapter number 11 and chapter number 11. So God tells Abraham, he says, the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, get thee away from thy kindred and away from thy father's house. Now, what do all three of these things have in common here? I'm going to show you that look at verse 27, Genesis 11, look at verse 27. It says this. Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah begot Abram, Nahor and Haran and Haran begot Lot. Verse 28 and Haran died before his father Terah and the land of his nativity in Ur of the Chaldees. Okay. I want you to remember that. Where was Abraham from? What was the land of his nativity? Ur of the Chaldees. That's right. The Chaldeans as you're going to see momentarily Babylon. Okay. Now go to Leviticus chapter number 26. Leviticus chapter number 26. And so God's letting him know, Hey, I want you to get away from these people as a whole. I want you to come out of them because there's something very important that you need to see and that I want all people who would follow me thereafter to see, to know and to understand. Okay. God is saying, I'm going to make a physical nation out of you. And with that, I need you to follow some commandments. I need you to follow these statutes and so that it will go well with you. In fact, if you would, Leviticus 23, I'm sorry, 26 Leviticus 26 look at verse number three. It says, this says, if so God is saying, if ye walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and do them look at verse four, then I will give you rain and do season and the land shall yield her increase in the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And then it just goes on. We're going to skip to John to verse number 12. But what do you see there? You see this thing throughout the entire Old Testament. If you do this, so God's always saying, Hey, if you as a nation follow these things, then you will remain my nation. You will be blessed. You'll have food in due time. You will have water, you'll have security, you'll have blessings. You'll have all of these things. Now keep in mind, he's not saying if you do these things, you'll be saved and go to heaven. Okay. That is not the gospel. That wasn't the gospel back then. It's not the gospel today. Okay. These are God is basically saying, Hey, you're going to have a battle with your enemies obviously, but you're also going to have to battle the flesh. You're going to have to battle where you came from. And the best way to do that is to learn these statutes, learn these commandments and follow them. Okay. Very, very important to understand. So jump down to verse number 12. It says this. So remember what we just read in verse three, if right, you see that in Exodus, you see that all over the place. If you do this, then this will happen. Verse number 12 and I will walk among you and will be your God and you shall be my people. Now look at verse number 14. It says this, but okay, but if you will not hearken unto me and will not do all these commandments and if you shall despise my statutes or if your soul or my judgment sounds kind of like the nation we live in today, doesn't it? So that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant. Look at verse 16. I also will do this unto you. And this is where the Zionists have a huge disconnect, right? It's like they don't believe this or they don't want to just acknowledge this. God says, if you do this, if you follow my statutes, you will remain a physical nation and I will be your God and it will go well with thee. But if you don't, and then he starts to list these things, look at verse 16. I will also do this unto you. I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning aug that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain for your enemies shall eat it. Look at verse 17 and I will set my face against you and you shall be slain before your enemies. They that hate you shall reign over you and ye shall flee when none pursue you. And then it just goes on for there from there. I'm sorry to, to basically just, just let us know, let the children of Israel know if you don't follow these things, there's going to come a point to where I'm going to allow you to go into captivity. Now you can leave your place there and go to second Kings chapter number 24 second Kings chapter number 24. So very important to understand. Okay. God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees and then, and the process of time said, Hey, I'm gonna make this nation of you. Here's some statutes. Here are these commandments. I need you to follow these things so that it will go well with you. Understand that. Well, second Kings chapter number 24 beginning in verse 10 is going to let us know what eventually happened. And I know most of you know the story here, but look at verse number 10. It says this second Kings 24 verse 10 says, at that time, the servants of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon came up against Jerusalem and the city was besieged. Go to second Kings 25 second Kings chapter number 25. So at this point, just to get you caught up into the history of this nation, if you remember many years prior to this, there was a split in the nation of Israel. It was no longer a nation made up of 12 tribes and one King after Solomon died, that changed. Okay. And we've talked about this in great detail, but then you had the Northern kingdom of Israel, which was made up of primarily the 10 tribes. And then you had the nation of Judah and they all had their perspective Kings. Well, eventually the nation of Israel, God just ran out of patience with them and delivered them over to the Assyrians. They were no longer. So now you have Israel reduced down to the nation of Judah. And so pick it up here in verse number five. So what has happened between second Kings 24 and second Kings 25 is Jehoiachin got taken captive and brought to Babylon. And then Nebuchadnezzar appointed a guy named Zedekiah to rule that nation under him, obviously. And this guy gets a little too big for his britches and decides, well, I'm going to rebel and do things my way. Look at verse number five and don't miss this. And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the King and overtook him in the Plains of Jericho and all his army were scattered from him verse six. So they took the King and brought him up to the King of Babylon to Ribla and they gave judgment upon him and they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and to put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with fetters of brass and carried him to Babylon. Now go back to Genesis chapter number 11. And so we saw God said, Hey, Abraham gets you out of this nation, the nation of the Chaldees, the Chaldeans. Okay. And then what happened? God made a nation said, Hey, if you do these things, it's going to go well with you. Well, during the process of time, they said, no, we're going to do things our way. We don't need your statutes. We don't need your commandments. And God said, okay, fine. I'm done with you. And he takes the last King and allows his enemy Nebuchadnezzar to put out his eyes. After the last thing that he saw was his children being put to death in front of his own eyes. That is a horrible way to go. Okay. But very under very, very important for us to understand first you have what you have Abraham coming out of, uh, or of the Chaldees, and then you have him going to Canaan. And then what happens while during the process of time, they go to Egypt, God rescues them from Egypt. They go to the Plains of Moab. Like we talked about on Sunday, God gives them the law and says, Hey, I want you to follow these things as you go and possess the promised land. They eventually say, okay, we're going to do that. They do that. They go inherit the promised land. And then what happens over the process of time, the very people that the God called Abram out of, come back and conquer that nation. Very interesting to understand that. Now look at verse number four. You're there in Genesis chapter number 11. Look at verse number four and we'll look at why this is, why did God, why is say, get you away from these people. What is it about those people and what does that symbolize? And you're going to see that here in a moment. Genesis 11, look at verse four. And they said, go to, okay, so this is the story after the flood where they travel east and they realize, you know what, we're just going to go ahead and build this big tower. Look at what it says in verse four. And they said, go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. They don't miss this. And let us make us a name lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Okay. Go back to chapter nine, Genesis chapter nine, and I'll show you why this is a problem. So what do we have here? We have the people of the earth here in what is called the place of Babel or modern day Iraq. They've got this idea here where they're, they're like, okay, hey, we don't want to get scattered abroad to the face of the whole earth. So why don't we just build up so that we don't have to build out. Okay. Have you ever wondered like, why are they doing that? What is the point of doing that? Well, here's why. Genesis nine, look at verse number one, after the flood, this is what God says, and God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. So God tells them after the flood, Hey, be fruitful, multiply and replenish the entire earth. That would cause them to have to scatter abroad. That was the goal. That's what God wanted for the planet. But by the time you get to Genesis chapter number 11, you have the people of the earth again saying, now we don't need that. We don't want to be scattered abroad. We want to build up. So what happens? God says, okay, God comes down and he looks at this tower or at this structure that they're building and says, wow, that's pretty impressive, but I'm going to go ahead and take care of this right now. And what does he do? He confounds their languages and scatters them anyways. He makes the world do what he wants. Okay. We're not Calvinists here. It just is what it is. That's, you know, God said, Hey, I want you to replenish the earth. That is very important for my plans. And I'm going to make this happen one way or the other, but here's what you have to understand. Even though God spread the nations during that time throughout the whole, the whole earth came. And then from there you have the, the basically the, the father languages, if you will, that started there. And then you have all the nations today, but here's what you got to understand. There's a certain dialect that still threads throughout all of those languages of the people that were scattered abroad. And that is this human achievement. So God has his standard. God has his statutes. God has his way, but your flesh, the world man says, no, no, no, no, we don't need any of that. We're going to do things our way. We're going to do things our way. We don't need you watching over us. We're not going to scatter. We're not going to replenish the earth. We're going to build up and we're going to be equal to you. Why is that? Because we live in a fallen state. Look, it's no coincidence that God said, Hey, get you away from your country, from your kindred and from your father's house. Because those same people have this agenda. You seen it here in Genesis chapter 11, right? Where was the tower of Babel constructed and Babylon, right? And so God's saying, Hey, I want you away from that. That is a picture of us looking at the Bible and all the statutes and commandments and saying, you know what? These are to protect me from Babel, right? I mean, think about that. The people that God said to Abraham, Hey, I want you to get away from these people. Don't take your father's house with you. Don't take these kindreds, get away from them. And I'm going to start new. That's a picture of salvation, right? Salvation is a free gift. Once you get it, you were born again. And then you know what that means? It means we don't get to play by the rules of the world. We are no longer of the world, but we are in the world. And the way for the believer to survive is to understand how the world works and to understand that God's statutes and his commandments, they're not meant to save us for one. I always say that because it's true, but they are meant to save us from physical trouble. They're meant to save us from headache and heartache and from being consumed by the enemy. That's the whole point here. Okay. Look, again, it's no coincidence. God said, Hey, get you away from these people. And then we see those same people many generations later taking the nation that Abraham basically started, obviously, you know, through God captive. And it's not just, you know, there's this dialect of human achievement. It's not just native to the Chaldeans. Okay. This is human nature, human nature, or our flesh. The voice of the flesh is always going to be on, you know, to, to bring the focus away from God and back to what you achieve. Now, am I up here saying, you know, you shouldn't try to win trophies. You shouldn't try to do anything good. You shouldn't try to accomplish. No, whatever you do, you should do it with all your mind. Look, you have secular jobs. You have all these things. You got families, you know, do that stuff. Well, but here's the thing. Don't ever fail to give God credit and don't be like, you know what, I'm in this position here. Whoa. Do I go to church or do I just not, you know, that, you know, that that's the voice of the flesh when it's like, Oh, you know, don't worry about it. You know, you can go next year. You can go two years back, you know, just do you now. You see the flesh isn't going to be like the devil where we'll talk about next week. The flesh is like, Hey, it's cool that you're saved. It's cool that your question, no problem, man, no problem at all. But don't you think they're a little too strict, right? You can do you, you can have your success now. I mean, think about who in here has ever had something just awesome happened to them and you know, it was God. But when you go tell people about that, maybe you forget, you know, I find myself doing that all the time. When I tell people about how I got promoted at my last job, you know, sometimes I'll forget to actually even give God the credit. But the truth of the matter is there's no way I would have ever gotten those promotions. There's no way I'd be where I'm at today if it wasn't for God. That is just a fact, you know, it, but sometimes, you know, when I'm telling these stories and I'm telling about my successes, you know, these awards that I won, sometimes I'll catch myself leaving God out of those details. That's the voice of the flesh. The voice of the flesh is you are something special. Hey, you're it, right? You are special. You know, I mean, the flesh will get you to glory about anything, even the stuff of God. Hey, you, you're the last person that got somebody to save you. Don't you forget that. And that thing will be following you all the way down into the parking lot here and you walk in here and look, it is what it is. This is so important because we all have it. And so that's why I get so upset when I hear people, Oh, you know, you got to get all the sin out of your life. It's not going to happen. You will have at least at a minimum, most of the time, those voices saying things to you, and that is your flesh. Okay. You're always going to have that temptation. So what you see here is with these Chaldeans, how they came back around many, many, many, many years later to bite the very same nation of Abraham. Israel is the same way that our flesh will come around and bite us if we don't heed to the wisdom that is in the Bible. Okay. So that is the point that I'm trying to make with that. Go to revelation chapter number 18 and Joel see that. So again, the voice of the flesh, you deserve to be great. You're special. You know, you will really say that's kind of how you recognize that, you know, it's always going to try to point back to human achievement. This is why it's, you know, that the doctrine of probation is just so popular with modern day churches, because it points to what man has done. You know, I've been to the Calvary churches, what do they always say? You know, if you want to get baptized, you know, we just need to see a long list. We're going to put you through a seven month class. We want to know all the sins, you know, that you've turned from and all the, you know, all your history so that we could just tell that to the church. It'll be a glorious thing. Okay. Show me that in the Bible. That's not Bible doctrine. That's not biblical at all. That's human achievement. Look at what man has done. Look at what I have done, right? Just like the people, the Chaldees in Genesis chapter number 11, same thing, right? Well, we don't really need Genesis nine. Let's just build up. Let's just do things our way. Okay. Let's see what we can achieve. And then maybe God will be impressed and your flesh will do that to you too. Hey, the, the, the, the more you just skip the things of God, you don't need to pray every day. You know, you could just hit that alarm button, you know, you can just, just get away. And, and, and when you win that trophy, when you win that award, when you get that recognition, when you've done that good thing, then God will be pleased with you. Okay. That's the voice of the flesh. I'm sorry. Revelation chapter 18, look at verse number one. It says this. And after these things, I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power. And the earth was lightened with his glory verse two. And he cried mightily with a strong voice saying, Babylon, the great is fallen is fallen and has become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. And we talked about this first a few weeks ago so that we can understand, you know, a lot of people think, and it's probably true that America is Babylon, even though right now it doesn't see like, you know, with the leadership we have, like, how could this be Babylon? You got these ships off the coast of California. They can't drop off their goods because there's not enough truckers. There's just, we just have a lot of problems. The point is that more than this, this is the world power right now, right? We influence the world. I've been to Japan and you know what you see over there in the malls and in the stores, you see people trying to emulate what's going on here in America, right? They have their own rappers. They have their own rockers. They have their own skaters. They have their own emo. I'm serious. All of that stuff is over there. Even though they still have some of their own culture, you still see our influence over there. And with that being said, we talked about this a while back, that this nation is definitely quickly becoming a cage and a place of every foul spirit. And so, like I said, we're going to come back to that here in a couple of weeks, but look at verse number three. It says, for all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her and the merchants of the earth are waxed with rich through the abundance of her delicacies. Verse four, and I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her my people. What does that remind you of? Kind of reminds you of Genesis chapter 12, where God's telling Abram, Hey, get you out of your country away from my kindred and out of the father's house, right? Same kind of attitude here. And then he tells you why that should be not partakers of her sins and that you receive not of her plagues. Verse five, for her sins have reached unto heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities. Verse six, reward her even as she rewarded you and double unto her, double according to her works in the cup, which she hath filled, fill to her, to her double. Look at verse seven, how much she hath glorified herself. Do you see that? So what does Babylon do? What is, first of all, what's the intention of Babylon? World dominance, world power without God. Okay. That, that, that was the, that was, uh, you know, the, um, obviously what am I trying to say here? The Chaldeans, the original Babylon, that was the Persian Medo empire, uh, the Greek empire, the Romans, right? World domination without the blessing of the Lord. We'll look at what we've done. Look at what we've conquered. Look at what we've accomplished. Okay. It's the same thing of every great nation that's ever had mass influence in the world. It's what our nation's all about now. Our nation is look at how respectful we are. Look at how tolerant we are. Look at all the stuff that we've done, right? You don't go overseas and, you know, find in the malls and in the shopping centers, you know, look at how many missionaries America has sent. Now you don't find that. Look at how they're respecting everyone's gender, you know, in these 83,000 genders that are out there. Okay. That's, that's the message that our nation is sending and they're glorifying about it. It says this and live deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her for she's safe in her heart. I sit a queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow. That is the voice of the flesh. That is the voice of the world. Self glorification, the glorification of mankind. Very easy to recognize once you've seen these examples. Now, if you would go to Romans chapter number seven, Romans chapter number seven, and we're going to move on and learn about the flesh here, the voice of the flesh, Romans chapter number seven. So when you get to Romans chapter seven, look at verse number 14, verse number 14. It says this, Romans seven, look at verse 14 for we know that the law spiritual, but look at what Paul says next. He says, but I am carnal sold under sin. This is Paul being honest here. Paul is saved. He's born again. And obviously he's probably the greatest Christian that's ever lived. And what does he say here? What does, when he's writing to the Romans, what's one thing he wants to make sure that they understand that he's not perfect in and of his own accord, right? So he understands this human achievement doctrine. You've got two basically concepts. You've got human achievement. And what does Romans four tell us? We have imputation, divine imputation. That is God has gifted us freely the gift of everlasting life. Okay. It's one of the other, the world and your flesh doesn't like that. This is honestly, when you guys talk to people on the community, right? And they just keep wanting to go back. But look at what I've turned from that is pride. That is the voice of the flesh. Okay. But look what he says, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal sold under sin verse 15 for that, which I do. I allow not for what I would that I, or that do I not, but what I hate that do I, so Paul's letting us know, Hey, I preach all this stuff that we should turn from these things and obviously get better and you can improve. But what he's telling us here is, Hey, oftentimes the things that I say not to do, I find myself doing those things. Okay. Guess what? That's because at this moment in time, he has the flesh. And if you have the flesh, you will have the voice of the flesh and you will listen to it from time to time. You just have to be honest with yourself and understand that you have to realize that it's a battle. Just like when we read out of Leviticus chapter 26, when God said, Hey, not only are you going to have battles with your enemies, but you're going to have to follow these statutes and these commandments. And it's not going to be easy because you're going to have to put your flesh aside in order to actually do that. Cause your flesh is going to want to live. Like you were living in Egypt and before, but I don't want that. Okay. That's what God's saying. You're looking for a 16. If then I do that, which I would not, I consent into the law that it is good. Now, then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. You see that? So when people are telling you, Hey, okay, you can be perfect. And there are denominations out there. Like for an example, the Nazarene denomination, they teach this doctrine called holy sanctification. They teach that you can actually get to a place in your life where you don't sin anymore. Okay. Ray comfort. He's not a Nazarene, but he teaches something very similar. Doesn't he? Did you have to repent of your sins? You have to turn from your sins. That is demonic. That is false doctrine. But the reason why it's so appealing and the people fight tooth and nail for that doctrine is because it lifts up the flesh. It makes the flesh feel good. You see mankind wants to feel good about themselves. They want to say, look at what I've done. Look at these accomplishments. Look at this drive that I have. God has to respect it, but he doesn't look at verse 18 for, I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwell of no good thing, right? He says, dwell of no good thing for to will as present with me, but how to perform that which is good. I find not. And so he's mentioning this struggle here when you're saved. Yeah. You have the new man. And after the inner man, you do delight in the law. So when you fight that flesh and you actually come to church, you read your Bible, you pray for somebody, you serve somebody, you know, that inner man's, you know, feeling good, right? And therefore you feel good. Well, it's the same thing when you, when you feed the flesh, it feels good. You know, I mentioned this several, several weeks ago. I was talking about how, you know, our parents told us, you know, oh, don't retaliate, you know, don't hit because then you're going to feel bad. And I told you, you know, it feels good. It does, doesn't it? But it's not right. It's wrong. But when we lie to ourselves like that and say, oh, it's going to make you feel bad. Come on, mom. It's like, you know, better, you know, it feels good to get revenge on people. Okay. It does. It feels great. But the problem is it feels great in that old man. It feels good in the flesh. And that's the voice of the flesh, which is from the voice of the world, which just causes us trouble. And we don't want to go down the road right now because I'm gonna get way off of track here. So go to Galatians chapter number five, and we will come back to this later. We'll come back to Romans seven. So make sure you can come back to this here. In a while, Galatians chapter number five. So again, we're talking about this Babylonian dialect, this dialect that every nation under the sun has every human, which is human achievement, right? We have to learn how to balance our efforts in the world with our efforts for the Lord because of the efforts and the things that we do for God. Those are what go on into eternity, right? And because we can't see it, we don't have an actual picture of what it's like up there. It's very easy for the flesh to just distract you and say, don't worry about that. You've got plenty of time left. Hey, you've got plenty of time left. Don't even worry about it. You can learn soul winning next year. You can learn how to pray next year. You could just put that aside. That's what your flesh will do to you. Say what matters most is the here and the now. Okay. But the problem with that is no one knows what tomorrow holds. So you might as well make up your mind today to serve God now, because look, you don't want to get up to the judgment seat of Christ and have nothing to show. You will feel bad. And then you won't be able to look at me and say, Hey, you never warned us because I've warned you bazillions of times since the church has started Galatians chapter number five. Look at verse number 19. Look at what it says here. It says this. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. Okay. So if you're wondering like, gee, why do I have this thought? What what's going on here? Well, does it fall into any one of these categories? Because these are the works of the flesh. This is what your flesh, this is what our flesh conjures up. Look at verse 21 envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like of the, which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past the day, which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now let's just stop right there because if somebody were to just read this to you and be like, so you got to repent of your sins, you know, and you didn't know better. You might be like, yeah, wow, I better, I'm not going to go to heaven if I have any of these things. Okay. But when you have the new man, what does the Bible say in Psalm 103? The God has forgiven your sins as far as the east is from the west. Notice he doesn't say as far as the south is from the north, right? Because as soon as you get to the north pole and you take a step in either direction, you know, that's a finite distance. That's a measurable distance. You're now going in a different direction, right? So he says he has forgiven us of our sins as far as the east is from the west. So if you get on a plane and you start heading east, how long is it going to be till you start going west? Well, you'd have to turn around. So he's basically saying, I've forgiven you from all your sins, created a new person inside of you. That's what you have to understand. So what Paul's telling the Galatians here is he's saying that people that aren't saved, people that haven't been forgiven are not going to go to heaven. Your flesh, and it talks about this in first Corinthians 15, we don't have time to turn there, but it says that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Okay. It's the new man. The body, the flesh is going into the ground because it's corrupted. It's a done deal. It's over with. Okay. But now we have the difficult task in the battle to live with this thing. And it is a battle. It is hard. Okay. And there's something about understanding that there's something about realizing that that gives you peace, right? You're like, oh, it's just a stupid flesh talking, right? I got to beat myself up here. So speak, go to Matthew 15, Matthew chapter number 15. It's a good way to get flat earthers upset too. When you read Psalm 103, I've had them get mad at me for that too, but I don't want to go off on that right now. Matthew 15, look at verse number 18. So, you know, the story here, Matthew 15, you got the Pharisees, you got these scribes whining and complaining because Jesus and his disciples aren't following their traditions, but we're going to look at verse one in a minute, but just look at verse 18 here. It says this, but those things which proceed out of the mouth, come forth from the heart and they defile the man. This is why we ask people questions. If you were to die today, are you a hundred percent sure you'd go to heaven and say, yeah, cause I'm a good person. I follow the commandments. I'm pretty good. We had someone tell us that today. Yeah, I'm pretty good. Okay, sure. Look at verse 19 for out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts. Now stop right there. Does that say sometimes out of the heart? No, it says for out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts. Evil means hurtful, right? So when someone cuts you off in traffic and you want to rip them out of the car, guess what? That comes from your heart. Don't lie because everybody in your has a heart. Okay. And you will have these thoughts. It's not necessarily that there's something wrong with you. Well, there is, and there isn't okay. If you're saved, there is, and there isn't cause there's something wrong with the old man, but not something wrong with a new man. Okay. For out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, murders, adultries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, verse 20. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashing hands defileth not a man. And so Jesus is trying to tell these guys, Hey, your dumb traditions about actually cleaning your body and stuff like that. That's not what saves you. That's not what helps you. Yeah. You might not catch a cold. You might not get sick, but guess what? That's not what defiles you. But man comes along and say, we don't like that because that takes all the achievement onto God that puts all the achievement on him. Right. And on the cross. And they say, no, no, no, no, no. We need our traditions here. So human achievement or the voice of the flesh says, look at verse number one. And you'll see this here. Look at verse number one says, then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem saying, why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. I mean, just, just let's stop right there. These guys are so gone, so far away from actual scripture, from what the Bible teaches that they admit that they hold the traditions that they came up with, that their fathers came up with over the commandments in the Bible. And they're just like right out there with it. Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? It's just like, who do you think you are? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread verse three, but he answered and said to them, why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? You see, so man takes the statutes, man takes these commandments and finds a way to bring the focus back onto what we can achieve. Go back to Galatians chapter five, and you'll see, that's the thread. That's the theme in the book of Galatians. It's the same thing. The voice of the flesh is always going to try to take the focus off of God, off of his word and put it back on to mankind. You see, because they know that this takes humility and they don't have a lot of humility. The scribes and Pharisees of that day, they had pride. That's what ran that nation, pride. And they said, well, we don't really want to give that up. So we'll just make all these extra things up here. And if people can't meet them, then we'll mock them and we'll make fun of them and we'll look down on them. And this'll give us chief positions at the feasts and parties and it will be great. And then people can see how righteous and how good we are. Isn't that the Catholic church, right? Why does the Pope have to wear that white dress and the fish hat? Because if he's full of pride and he's a pedophile, there's a whole lot of reasons why, but one, you know, the reason why they're like that is so that man will be like, wow, look at how clean and righteous he looks. Oh, he's a holy man. That's that's, that's, that's, that's great. Right? And most people eat that up. You have to go knock on their door and show them, Hey, that's wrong. That's human achievement. You're not saved because you did communion. You're not saved because you afflicted yourself. You're saved because you called upon the name of the Lord, which is his will in John chapter number six, verse 40, Galatians chapter one. It's the same thing. Look at what Paul says, stand fast, therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Right? So, you know, the story here, Paul starts this church in Galatia. Obviously these guys had, many of them had been saved. They understand the right gospel. They're excited. They're happy about it, but look what he says, stand fast, therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not a tang entangled again with the yoke of bondage. You see, after a process of time, there's this temptation, right? And it comes from the world. It comes from your flesh and it says, Hey, you're still something just because Christ died on the cross. That's great, but you are something, you are special. Look at what you're doing, right? And when you don't have those earplugs out and you're not sensitive to that voice, it's going to lead you into this situation here. Look at verse two, behold, I Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. So the backstory is these guys, these Zionist type guys came into the church of Galatia and said, Oh, you're saved by grace through faith. Well, that's cool and all, but you're not circumcised, but you still have to do the works, but this, and, and, you know, they would be like, look at, Hey, yeah, you guys are actually following. Yeah, you're, you're doing good. Then they would puff up the flesh. They would fuel the flesh. And next thing you know, these guys are confused and they're out to lunch. Look at verse three. He says, for I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Verse four, Christ has become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified by the law, you're fallen from grace. So he's reminding them, Hey, if you're trusting in the law, if you're trusting in works for your salvation, guess what? That profits you nothing. Christ is become of no effect unto you. Verse five for we through the spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Okay. It's what Jesus did on the cross. That's where it's at. That's the truth. But the world doesn't like that because it takes the spotlight off of humankind. It takes human achievement and puts it on its head where it belongs and throws it into the dumpster. Mankind sees that and they say, we don't like that. We can build upwards. We can build something great. We can, we can get rid of death, right? Do you know that there are scientists right now? There are people out there that are trying to get humankind to the point where they'd never die. And kind of funny. The revelation talks about that. There's going to come a time where people want to die and they can't hide us from him who said it's on the throne. Hide us from that guy up there because he's angry. Look at verse six for in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. Ye did run well. So Paul says, Hey, you did run well. You did start off right. You did run well. Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? And we're talking about this. I was talking about this this morning with Briley and Skulk. You know, you can get somebody saved, right? And they could just not go to church for who knows just a long time. Let's just say five years. Okay. And they could walk into your old Calvary Chapel with a Chuck Smithite who says, Hey, nobody knows what we believe. And get that person completely messed up to the point to where when you knock on their door, you're like, are you a hundred percent sure you'd go to heaven? They're like, I don't know, man. Right. I'm telling you, it happens all the time. But you know how we can tell is when we start going through the verse and they're like, wait, I believe that. And like, well, your church teaches this. Well, I don't believe that. Right. We had that today. You know, Briley was talking to this guy today. He goes to the Mormon church, you know, and he's like, yeah, I'm not really sure. And so Briley's giving him the gospel. He's like, yeah, that's what I believe. And Briley's like, well, the Book of Mormon says this. And he's like, I don't believe that. I don't believe what the Mormon translation says. He's like, why are you going then? He's like, I don't know. Yeah. Right. He's like, yeah, I called upon the name of the Lord when I was younger. Somebody showed me this at some kind of a church camp and yeah, I'm saved. And he's like, and I believe that, you know, and he was receiving everything that they were telling him, but we were like, why do you go there? I don't know. Here's why, because subconsciously that flesh likes that human achievement and the Mormon church will provide that for you. Right. He was like, you know, the guys just came yesterday, white shirts, name tag, and everything. And they came in the house just to check on me. Right. Cause they're checking to make sure he's doing the right stuff. And that's what he said. And he said, he likes that. I was like, well, we got three services a week. You want me to check up on you? I'm glad we do it. We got way more. I look, I'll have way more control. I was just teasing them though. I don't do that. All right. But anyways, you did run well, who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth, right? So there are people out there that know this. There are people out there that know, Hey, one of the ways that we can snatch people out of the will of God is by puffing up the old man, puffing up the flesh. Look at verse number eight. It says this, this persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you now go to Romans chapter 13, real quick Romans chapter number 13. So just a quick recap here, the voice of the world, the voice of the flesh are not necessarily opposed to Bible things. At least it's not going to sound like that, but it will subtly drag you back to human achievement. That's what happened to the church in glacier. They did run well. They did start off right. And then these guys came in and said, Hey, you know, if you start doing these things, man, it's going to really show it's going to really shine. And then once they bid on that date, boy, it was on from there. They were all messed up. And those false prophets had their way in that church. And Paul's upset. He even says, he's like, I don't even know if you guys really believe, you know, he's like, I'm questioning your salvation. Right. And as any of us would do. And like I talked about last week, why do people spend billions of dollars on pro sports and supporting cable and all these different things, you know, and just, just idolize like these actors, these actresses, and these models, these things that they will never be. Why is that? It's because your flesh, our flesh has this desire to just be something, this human achievement. Look, this is, this is why Zionism is as weird as this is going to sound. This is why Zionism is so appealing. If you don't know what Zionism is, it's basically Jew worship. Okay. Being a Jew is not a race. It's a religion. That's what it is. It's not a race. Oh, you're racist. No, shut up. It's a religion that rejects Jesus Christ. In fact, it's a religion that hates Jesus Christ. And they're very outspoken by that. But you say, how in the world can a pastor get up and say, if you didn't do something nice for a Jew today, there's something wrong with you. How can a guy get like that? How can these churches get so wrapped up into actual Jew worship? How does that happen? And I'll tell you right now, the underlying thing is human achievement because people would rather say, well, I suck, you know, and I'm not that good, but at least there's some human on this earth that is. And as weird as that is, there's this voice inside of them. That's like, Hey, human achievement, human achievement, right? Look at what the Jews achieved because there's something innate in them. There's something great in them that God sees in there, the apple of his eye, even though they reject him. Right? And so your flesh is like, wow, that's, you know, that's really something special there. You know, I mean, think about it. Why do people spend their time and their money and make football and basketball and baseball and pro sports their religion? Why do they do that? They're never going to get as big as a football player by and large. I mean, the amount of people that can actually become professional pitchers is like one in a thousand the last time I checked. But why do you have so many people idolizing these people? It's because of what they can achieve. So in the same way, people will spend their time and their money and the resources to get yoked up into the religion of football and watch people run a ball filled with air down a field real fast and be like, Oh, look at the combine. Look at his numbers. You know, you can do the four-year dash in this month. Wow. That's great. Can you even walk up the stairs? No, but at least he can do it. You know, it's the same thing with Zionism. It all goes back to human achievement. Our flesh, right? Our flesh wants to promote humanity in any way that it can. And if it's through Jew worship, then so be it. Your flesh doesn't care. Just as long as some kind of man's getting lifted up, it's fine. It's going to get some satisfaction. Just be aware of that and understand that hopefully that made sense. Romans 13 verse 14. Now we're going to start to take a look at the answer and what we're going to do about this verse, verse 14, Romans 13, look at verse 14. Paul says, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Go to first John chapter number two. So we need to understand the connection between the world and the flesh. We need to understand that, Hey, we should not put ourselves in situations that is going to fuel the flesh, right? He says, make not provision for the flesh. So if there's some sense that you struggle with and you understand that, you know what? Don't put yourself in that situation because that little voice, that, that little voice of the flesh is like, Hey, you can go to that rave. You can go to that club, right? You can go to that bar. No one's going to know. It's fine. Look at you. You're tough. You're a Christian. You just went soul winning last night, man. You're good to go. I'm telling you it's a trap. Don't make provision for the flesh. I'm going to show you how to do that here. First John chapter number two, look at verse 15, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the father is not in him. It's not saying you're not saved. Okay. Cause there are a lot of people who are saved that love the world. They walk out of here and haven't come back. Okay. We still care about those people. I still pray for them. You still pray for them. And if they come back, it's like, man, it is great to see you. You know, that's fine. It's not, you know, when people come back, we're not like, Hey, you need to get saved again. Now that's false doctrine. Okay. That goes back to human achievement, but he says, love not the world. So how do we not make provision for the flesh? Well, we don't love the world, but we use the world. And we talked about this last week, right? It's okay to use the world. It's okay to use the wisdom that's in the world. It's okay to read books. It's okay to make your money, right? It's okay to have things, but don't let those things have you verse 16 for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father, but as of the world. So if you're like, where's, what, what's going on inside of me now, right now, why do I have these thoughts? Well, God has given us three characteristics here to pay attention to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. If any of those thoughts fall into one of those three categories, you need to stop what you're doing and start praying, ask somebody for help, get some accountability, do something to get yourself back on track. Looking for 17 says this and the world passes away and the lust thereof, but he that do with the will of God abideth forever. And I've already mentioned that, you know what the will of God is, right? It's John chapter six, verse 40, that people would see God and be saved. How do you see him? Through the word, by hearing the word of God and believing and putting your faith and trust on him. Once you've done that, you're saved forever. It's a done deal. Go back to Galatians chapter five. We're going to wrap this up here. Galatians chapter number five. And then we're going to go to Romans seven, Philippians two, and we'll be done. But Galatians chapter number five, one more time. Galatians five, look at verse 13. It says this for brethren, you have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love. Now don't miss this because this is what we're going to do to actually make war with the flesh. Serve one another. Let me read that again. For brethren, you have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love, serve one another. Verse 14, for all the laws fulfilled in one word, even this, thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. So what is the answer? How do we make sure that don't make provision for the flesh? I'm going to tell you right now, serve one another. What, what is one another in this chapter here? Is it the whole world? Is it the queers? No, it's your fellow brother and sister in Christ. That's what he's talking about. That is your neighbor. When he says for love thy neighbor as thyself, the answer to your success into battling the flesh is to serve one another. This is why church is so important. Go to Romans chapter number seven again, Romans chapter number seven again. And like I said, we're getting very close to being done, but serving one another is very, very important here. Now, I don't know how I got this thought, but I had a thought popping in my head. It must've been the voice of God, but as I was studying for this and I was like, you know, I wonder if there've been any studies by these scientists on like brain activity by being served or serving one another. And sure enough, I found one. Okay. And I found this study and it's by the New York Academy of Sciences. And it's called this giving support to others reduces symptomatic nervous system related responses to stress. Okay. And so the study was done on these volunteers to where they made them do well, okay, let me back up for a second here. So they, they got these participants, right? And they did labs. So they took blood, they did brain scans on them. So they got a good baseline and then they had them go and serve other people and to do nice and kind things for other people and to do all of these things. And then they came back after a period of time, they did some scans, they did some blood tests and you know what they found? They found that all of their labs and their brain scans went up, you know, like, like, like they were literally getting healthier. I'm serious. That's what the study says. Now, they, the, the, the main conclusion was that serving others is beneficial for your health. Okay. Now don't raise your hand, but just be honest, who in here had a thought just, just like in the last 10, 15 seconds, like, man, I'm going to go serve somebody after hearing that. But you didn't have that thought when I was reading to you, Galatians chapter five. Okay. If you did, that's the voice of the flesh. Okay. Putting the achievement back on to humanity. Okay. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't do good stuff for people that are lost. Okay. If you can help somebody out, help them out. No problem. I always say this, I'm going to help the church out before we help the world out. That's for sure. That's a fact. Okay. So when you get that 22 year old couple that comes in here and they're like, Hey, you know, we're down on luck and you know, we just don't have anything. I'm like, you can work harder than any of us. You're youthful. What are you talking about? Okay. That is what I'm talking about here. I'm not saying that like helping them is just going to benefit you, right? This study was all done on how to benefit the human race. Okay. And when you read the article, I'm not going to get into it because a lot of, a lot of big words I don't understand, and I'm not a neuroscientist, but that's what these people did. They studied the effects of the brain and they did come to that conclusion. But the Bible told you that thousands of years ago, right? Do we need these studies to motivate us to do good for one another? How about just what the word of God says? I mean, that should be good enough. Don't you think Romans chapter seven, look at verse 24. Actually back up here. Look at verse 22. So Paul says this for I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Okay. Very important to understand, you know, when you battle the flesh and you overcome and you do the right thing, you say, I'm going to serve somebody. I'm going to pray for somebody. I'm gonna read my Bible. I'm going to do something that obviously old man doesn't want to do. You know what? The inward man does rejoice and you will feel good about that. Look at verse 23. He says, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind. You see, this is where it's at. That's what I'm talking about here. Your flesh wars with your mind every day, all day long. This is a 24 seven battle. He says, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. But here's the thing. We don't have to be like the physical nation of Israel and get taken captive by the Chaldeans. We can actually do what Leviticus 26 said and say, you know what? I'm saved. I'm freely saved. I recognize that. I understand that. And now I want to pursue a life for God and we can do what he's about to say here. He says this in verse 24. He says, oh, wretched man that I am. And that's present tense. So when people tell you, oh, you know, Paul got all the centers. No, you don't read the Bible. He says, oh, wretched man that I am. That is present tense. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And then he gives you the answer in verse 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. Go to Philippians chapter number two, Philippians chapter number two. So with the mind, right? What does Philippians chapter two have to say about the mind? And it's going to bring you right back to what we read in Galatians to serve one another. Look at verse number four, Ephesians, Philippians, Philippians chapter two, look at verse number four. Look not every man on his, what? His own things, but every man also on the things of others. What does that, what's another word for that? Service, serve. Look at verse five, let this mind be in you. What mind? The mind of serving, right? Serving. He says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Verse six, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God. That is the application here. You see, how do I not make provision for the flesh? Well, number one, you learn, you know what? I'm not going to love this world because this world has nothing to offer. This world will take me away from the things that God wants me to do. That's what it will do, okay? I'm going to use the world, but I'm not going to love the world, okay? I'm going to have things if God gives them to me, but they're not going to have me. And I'm going to serve one another. And there are many ways you can serve. Got some volunteer opportunities in the church. See me after the service if you want to know what they are, but obviously look, sometimes people just need to talk. Sometimes people just need prayer. Sometimes people just need a friend, right? And we don't need the friends of the world because they're just going to drag us down. They're going to corrupt our manners. So we need to serve each other. Somebody needs help. Look, put yourself aside and find a way to help them out. This is why God said, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is. Because he knows that serving is the key to overcoming and keeping the voice of the flesh in check. And then also understanding this harsh reality, you're going to get some black eyes. We all do. We all do. Okay? And when you hear people say, oh, I can't believe you would sin. You're like, what are you a Nazarene? You know, what are you a Ray Comfortite? Everybody sins. Everybody makes mistakes. But you know what? We can mature. We can get close. We can, you know, we can get a lot of bad things out of our lives because everybody in here should realize, you know, the more you let the Lord prune you, the more fruits you're going to bring, the more opportunities he's going to put in your path to actually disciple somebody. Right. And everybody in here hopefully wants that. Who doesn't want to get somebody saved and bring them in and disciple them and teach them and have them go out and do the same thing. The best feeling I've ever had in my life was winning someone to Christ and then going soul-winning with that individual, like a couple of weeks later, you know, and having that guy be like, so this is what it was like before you knocked on my door. You know, just like, yep, that's right. It's like, man, this is great. You know, that's where it's at, but I'm telling you the way to get there is through service. Serve one another. That is how you keep that voice of the flesh, the voice of the world in check. It's just by service. I promise you, you find a way to serve someone in the body of Christ. You've helped somebody in need. And guess what? You're going to get most of that victory. Okay. But just understand again, I got to say this again because it's so important. You're going to have thoughts. Okay. You're not going to get to the point where somebody really gets under that skin. I'm talking, they found a way in and you're not going to have that. I'll rip your head off thought. You can lie all day long and say, you don't have that, but you do because Jesus said you do. I have it. And I'm honest about it. Sometimes maybe a little too honest. Okay. But I think that's important when we're honest and we realize, you know what? We just need to learn to serve each other because that's, what's going to get us more and more, you know, in tune with the mission of God and get us more results out in the community, which we all want to see. Right. And so let's end with that and bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, again, for the truth that you revealed unto us. Lord, I just pray that you to help us to remember these things or the voice of the world, that it's just got a tones of vanity and vexation, Lord, and the voice of the flesh is human achievement and help us to recognize that throughout the days and the weeks that are coming, Lord, that we may not end up like the church in Galatia and end up like scribes and Pharisees, Lord, but that we would continue to learn and to grow and to be able to win souls and disciple people, Lord, for your kingdom in Jesus name. I pray. Amen.