In the last few meetings we have been
looking at what God is like in His
relationship with us and what He desires us
to know about Him, so that we can
have confidence and boldness as we approach Him
and also so that we can be bold
in our encounters with Satan.
Now in the Bible, right at the beginning
we are told about the entry of Satan
into the Garden of Eden.
We are not told about his origin right
at the beginning, even though we are told
about it later.
But it is important for us to know
how Satan became Satan, because that is how
all the evil in the world began.
And if we are not clear in our
mind concerning how sin and evil originated, we
will be handicapped in our battle with him,
and we won't be able to recognize evil
and sin for what it is.
Generally speaking, when people in the world talk
about sin, they are thinking of serious things
like murder, adultery, theft, and things like that,
the type of things which a human government
would punish people for.
But sin did not come into the world
through murder, or adultery, or theft.
Those were not the sins committed, not by
Lucifer, the head of the angels, and not
by Adam.
So we can say evil originated with certain
other things, and it finally resulted in all
the evils that we see in the world
today.
And if we content ourselves with the fact
that we don't commit all these gross sins
that other people commit, well, then we may
still fall into the sins that caused evil
to first come into the world.
And that is why it is good for
us to think of the origin of evil.
In Genesis, in chapter one, we read that
God created the heavens and the earth, and
we know that whenever God creates anything, it
will be perfect.
He never creates anything imperfect.
But yet we read in the next verse,
the condition of the earth, and the real
translation of that verse would be, and the
earth became formless, empty, and dark.
So something happened between verses one and two.
After God created the heavens and the earth
perfectly, to make the earth formless, empty, and
dark.
And that is the fall of the angels,
with the head of the angels, Lucifer, or
the morning star.
We don't know exactly what his name was.
Lucifer is just an expression from Isaiah 14.
It's referred to there as the morning star.
Let's turn there for a moment.
In Isaiah 14, it says here, in verse
12, how you have fallen from heaven, O
star of the morning.
That's why we get that word, Lucifer, son
of the dawn.
You've been cut down to the earth.
And why did he fall?
Because you said in your heart, I will
ascend to heaven, I will raise my throne
above the stars of God, I will sit
on the mount of the assembly, I will
ascend above the heights, I will make myself
like the Most High.
How did sin originate?
Through the head of the angels, saying, in
verse 13 and 14, you read him saying
five times, I will, I will, I will,
I will, I will.
All sin originates when a man wants to
do his will, and not the will of
God.
It's not just murder, adultery and theft.
Anything contrary to the will of God is
sin.
Jesus taught us to pray, thy will be
done on earth as it is done in
heaven.
Now if we don't identify sin, we can
be living in sin and not even know
it.
If my understanding of sin is the same
as the world's understanding of sin, then I
don't have any light to give them, I
don't have anything to teach them.
They already know those things.
You see sin in a little child, not
because he commits murder or adultery or theft,
but because he's got a stubborn, I will,
I want to do what I want to
do.
And you see that's how the highest of
the angels became a devil.
He said, I will, I will, I will.
Do you see that strong self-will in
you?
All quarrels between people are because of this,
I will.
All quarrels between husbands and wives and brothers
and brothers and churches because I want my
way and you want your way and we
clash.
And it's the spirit of the devil there
and here.
And if that is how sin came, salvation
came when Jesus came to earth and said,
not as I will, but as thou wilt
father.
That is the root of salvation.
And until that root has taken, until that
seed has taken root in our heart, we
are not going to experience a full salvation.
A lot of people when they say they
have repented, they have repented from smoking and
drinking and gambling and certain external evil habits.
But the root remains.
And if the root remains, you can be
a Christian for twenty, thirty years.
You can be a missionary, Bible teacher, anything.
But you're not going to deliver other people
from the root of sin because you haven't
seen the root of sin yourself.
Where is the root of sin?
It is you want your way.
That child wants his way, you accepted the
Lord some years ago, but the axe was
never laid to the root of the tree.
You just used a pair of scissors and
snipped off certain bad habits which came from
this root, which gave you a bad testimony
before others.
In fact, the vast majority of believers that
I have met, even full-time Christian workers,
it doesn't make a difference.
Their main aim in life is to cut
off all the bad fruits so that they
have a good testimony before men.
And if they have a good testimony before
men, they think they're okay.
Their lives don't count for God, they're not
effective, because the root is not being dealt
with.
Jesus came to lay the axe to the
root of the tree.
See, when the root is eliminated, then the
disease goes away totally.
Then we enter into true spirituality.
Otherwise, we will keep on battling with sins.
Many people, they stopped battling with one sin,
they've overcome that, but they're battling with another
one.
And their whole life is defeat, defeat, defeat.
And at the same time, they have to
go and preach to other people that Jesus
can give you victory.
It's such a hypocritical life.
A sincere person will just give up and
say, I don't want to be a hypocrite
anymore, let me go out into the world.
But since most Christians are not sincere, they
are hypocrites.
They keep on pretending that they have victory
when they are thoroughly defeated.
And they keep on preaching victory to others
when they are defeated themselves.
What is the reason?
I'm not saying anything to condemn you, my
dear friends.
I'm saying something to help you to identify
the root of sin in your life.
If you don't deal with this, I will.
You will never become holy, you will never
fulfill God's full purpose for your life.
Your entire Christian life will be shallow.
Sin did not originate even with disobedience.
Adam and Eve disobeyed.
But long before that, what Lucifer, the head
of the angels did, was not disobedience.
He wanted his way.
That is the poison he put into Adam.
Seek your own.
Seek what's good for you.
Look at the multitudes of people who say
that they are serving the Lord in this
country, in different parts, all seeking their own.
And here and there you find a few
who are really seeking the will of God.
Which category do you want to be in?
Don't think that because a man gives up
his job and becomes a full-time worker
or goes and studies in a Bible college
and gets a degree and begins to teach
in a Bible college, he is spiritual.
He may be just as carnal, more carnal
than another person in a secular job.
Because spirituality does not come by giving up
our job.
It comes by giving up our will.
And it's much easier to give up our
job than to give up our will.
Satan said, I will, I will, I will.
And with those expressions, into this perfect universe,
sin came.
And it will always be there, wherever people
say, I will, until they understand what Jesus
said.
Take up the cross.
In very simple words, what is the cross?
The cross is where my will crosses God's
will.
And that's where I have to die.
I die to my will and choose God's
will.
I want to say to you, my dear
brothers and sisters, that is the root of
true Christianity.
That is the root from which you will
really become a spiritual person.
And it is not something that you can
do once in your life, you know, like
getting married.
You can get married in a moment.
To get married is easy.
But to have a happy married life, that
is a daily affair.
In the same way, to give your heart
to Christ and be born again, that's over
in a moment.
But to walk with God and to become
a spiritual man and woman, you have to
take up the cross every day.
Jesus said that.
And here we see what the root of
that cross is.
It is the denial of this poison of
Lucifer, which has entered the human race, to
seek my will, to seek my own.
Why did Paul tell Timothy that even among
his co-workers, even among Paul's co-workers,
he said in Philippians 2 and verse 21,
all seek after their own, not the things
that are Christ Jesus.
Now, if he had said that about worldly
people, we can understand it.
If he had said that about a whole
lot of carnal Christians in the Corinthian church,
that also we can understand.
But he said that about full-time Christian
workers who were going around with him.
And Paul had discernment to see these people
have given up their jobs, but they have
not given up seeking their own.
And some of you are young, you look
up at some of the older so-called
servants of the Lord whom you see, and
as you observe carefully, you will find that
in many ways they seek their own comfort
and their own profit.
And their own gain, and their own salary,
and their own hundred and one things, all
in the name of Jesus.
And you, who came to serve the Lord
sincerely, will begin to lose your vision when
you see such people.
And then you look around at others, and
you'll find most of them are like that,
and you'll say, well, I might as well
be like that too.
And that's how the devil destroys a lot
of sincere young people.
Because the role models whom they look at
are people who are seeking their own.
And that's where I want to encourage you,
never to make a man your example who
does not walk in the spirit of Christ,
who never sought his own, who never did
his own will.
It's not Bible knowledge.
I want to encourage you, don't ever be
impressed with a man's Bible knowledge or knowledge
of Greek and Hebrew.
Don't ever be impressed with a man's degrees.
Jesus had none of them.
Be impressed with godliness, with humility, with brokenness,
with a man who knows how to say
no to his own will and who doesn't
seek his own.
Such men and women you should follow.
And if you don't find such men and
women, look at Jesus.
He's always there for you to look at
and follow and determine that you will never
follow a bad example.
You don't want to judge them, you're not
their judge, God is their judge.
Don't judge them, don't speak evil of them,
don't criticize them, but discern them and say,
that's not an example for me to follow.
And seek to follow Jesus who came to
undo the works of Satan.
The Bible says in 1 John 3, verse
8, that the Son of God appeared for
this purpose, to destroy the works of the
devil or to undo the works of the
devil.
All the works of the devil are done
by when a man says, I will, against
God's will.
That's the poison he put into Eve's mind
in the Garden of Eden.
God said, do not eat of that tree
of knowledge of good and evil.
The devil put a poison after a little
bit of reasoning into Eve's mind and Eve
said, I will eat of that tree.
And when she gave that fruit to Adam,
Adam also knew the commandment.
God said, don't eat of that tree, but
Adam said, I will eat of that tree
and sin came.
And as long as this self-will remains
unbroken within us, we will never experience a
full salvation.
That is why the greatest aim of God
in our life is to break our self
-will.
And that does not happen the day you
are born again.
It does not happen with any amount of
Bible study.
It happens when you have seen that this
is the root of sin and you come
to the Lord and say, Lord, remove it
from me.
The Holy Spirit works within us to make
us like Jesus.
What is he doing?
He is seeking to break this self-will.
He is telling you to tide your tongue
when you want to speak with your tongue.
Think of this verse in the Psalms.
It says in Psalm 12 and verse 4.
It speaks about, in the first verse it
says, godly men have ceased to exist.
That means it is very rare to find
a godly man nowadays.
The faithful disappear.
Godly men are fast disappearing.
And then he gives some of the reasons.
The reason is usually in the careless use
of the tongue.
And these ungodly people, they say, verse 4,
the last part, our lips are our own.
Who is Lord over us?
Who is there to tell me what I
should say and what I should not say?
I speak what I like.
And there we see the spirit of rebellion.
You may be born again, but you do
not allow the spirit of God to control
your speech.
Somebody irritates you and you speak back in
the same tone.
Why?
Because you say, with my tongue, verse 4,
I will prevail.
My lips are my own.
I will speak what I like.
I will write to people what I like.
And what is the end result?
Sin.
And more sin.
So where does holiness begin?
It is not just in giving up different
things or removing our ornaments and wearing white
clothes.
It is all a deception.
You can look very holy, but you can
be like the devil inside.
In fact, the devil usually comes as an
angel of light.
I think if the devil ever came into
our midst, he'd come with white clothes.
Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to fool us.
He won't come with black clothes.
You'd be able to identify him.
Now, I'm not speaking against simplicity, but I'm
just telling you, you don't become holy with
your clothes.
I wish it were so easy.
Then we could make everybody holy.
Just stitch white dresses for them and they'll
all be holy.
But it's not so easy.
It's not even the length of your hair
or that you stop wearing stylish dresses.
It's none of these things.
Sin lies deep within the heart, where a
man says, I want my way.
And salvation also lies deep within, where that
man has yielded to the claims of Christ
and let that my will be done.
I want to show you something further from
Isaiah 14.
It says, he said, I will ascend, verse
13.
I will raise my throne above the stars
of God.
I will sit on the mountain.
I will ascend.
I will make myself like the Most High.
All those five I wills are related to
going up and up and up.
There was only one person above Lucifer in
the universe, and that was God.
He was above everybody else, all the angels,
but he wasn't satisfied.
That spirit that wants to rule and dominate
and get other people underneath them is the
root of sin.
That's how sin began.
When Lucifer said, I'm not happy with where
I am.
I want to go up and up and
up till there's nobody above me.
Do you find that spirit in Christian work?
Or maybe you haven't seen Christian work enough.
I was very naive.
That means I didn't know much.
And I thought full-time work must be
like heaven.
And Christian organizations must be like heaven.
Because everybody there has come out to serve
the Lord.
What a surprise I got when I came
out and I found in churches and Christian
organizations people trying to get on top of
each other and pushing other people down and
speaking evil of others and running after money.
It was just like in the Navy.
It was worse than what I had in
a secular job.
And it was all being done in the
name of Jesus.
I got a tremendous shock.
But I knew God had called me.
So I said, well, I'm still going to
serve the Lord.
Let everybody else be whatever way they want
to be.
I don't want to judge them.
But I'm not going to follow their example.
I know what God called me to and
I'm going to do that.
Now I say this to you because some
of you may think all Christian workers are
like Jesus and very spiritual and don't be
deceived.
They're not.
And every Christian organization is like a little
heaven.
It's not.
But when you see that, don't get discouraged.
If God's called you, live for Him.
In the midst of all that darkness, be
a light.
And when you see people having the spirit
of Lucifer, wanting to go up and up
and up and up and up and up,
you decide you're not going to have that
spirit.
I decided that.
I decided that more than 33 years ago
when I quit my job.
I said, I'm not going to have anything
to do with this spirit.
Because the Lord had opened my eyes to
see the way Jesus went.
He brought salvation by coming down.
And at the end of His life, before
He went to the cross, He was at
the feet of His disciples, washing their feet.
But the disciples hadn't understood their spirits.
They were discussing who's going to be the
next director after Jesus dies.
That was their discussion.
But Jesus was not interested.
He was never a director.
He was nothing.
He was a servant, washing people's feet.
That is the spirit that brought salvation into
this world.
And that is the only spirit with which
we can bring salvation into Christendom today.
God is looking for people who have the
very opposite of the spirit of Satan.
Why am I pointing out to you the
spirit of Satan?
So that you can see that the opposite
of that is the spirit of Christ.
Satan said, I will.
Jesus said, not as I will.
Satan said, I will ascend.
Jesus said, I will descend.
Satan said, I will ascend right up to
the top till everybody is underneath me.
I'll be the director of everything.
And Jesus said, I will descend and I
will become a slave.
And I will be the servant of everybody.
And at the end of my life, I
shall die as a slave, not as a
director.
If you have that spirit, you will be
a servant of God in the midst of
so many who in the name of Jesus
seek their own and who have not identified
that what they have within them is the
spirit of Lucifer.
You can have any amount of Bible knowledge
and be motivated by the spirit of Lucifer.
I've seen lots of people like that.
I don't judge them.
I leave them alone.
And I say, I do what God has
called me to do.
And I want to encourage you, my brothers
and sisters, keep this before you.
Go down.
It's not easy.
Because you'll find everywhere around you people are
seeking to go up.
And you say, Lord, I'm going to go
down.
I'm not interested in position, title.
I want to serve others.
I don't want to ever lord it over
one person in my life.
I want to be a servant of all
men.
I never want to do anything or say
anything or give people an impression that elevates
me above them.
Why did Jesus say to his disciples, don't
be called rabbi, father, leader.
Don't have such titles.
He gave us two titles.
He says, you're all brothers and you are
servants.
If you want a title, here are two
of them which Jesus gave.
Brothers and servants.
In Matthew 23, why did he say that?
Don't have these titles.
Because the purpose of a title is to
elevate you above somebody else who doesn't have
that title.
That's why Jesus in his entire life, he
never took a title.
He was not reverend Jesus or right reverend
Jesus or pastor Jesus.
No.
He never wanted a title.
Because that would elevate him above the people
he came to serve.
You may say that's a very small thing.
But it is in small things that our
obedience is tested.
And if it is an unimportant thing, Jesus
would not even have mentioned it.
But he told his disciples specifically, don't take
titles.
How do we test the obedience of children?
Supposing I'm sending my little boy to school,
what do I tell him?
Now, my son, make sure you don't murder
anybody on the way.
And on the way to school, don't go
and rob a bank.
And on the way to school, this five
-year-old boy, I'm telling him, don't commit
adultery.
And he comes back and says, Dad, I
obeyed all those commandments.
I never robbed a bank.
I never killed anybody.
Are those the areas where we test a
child's obedience?
No.
That child's obedience is tested when he's out
there playing with his friends.
And daddy or mommy says, come in.
Help me with some work.
Small thing.
And he says, no, I've got to finish
this game or something like that.
That's where his obedience is tested.
And that's where your obedience is tested too.
Not in the big, big commandments which we
all keep.
But in the small things.
Please remember this.
There are many small commandments in scripture.
And it's in all those small commandments that
you really detect your spirit.
And so we see here this spirit of
pride and self-exaltation which made Lucifer in
a moment into a devil.
And that's another thing we see.
That it doesn't take long for a perfect
person to become a devil.
And it's good for us to remember that.
You can walk for years in the way
of the Lord and then in a moment
decide, well, I've had enough of this.
I want to exalt myself and be like
everybody else.
And you go crashing down in a moment.
I want to turn further in Ezekiel, in
chapter 28, which tells us something more about
how sin came into the world through Satan.
It says here that Satan, I don't have
time to show you everything here.
It's a lamentation against the king of Tyre,
verse 12.
And the real king of Tyre was Satan
who indwelt that human king.
And it's written here in verse 12, the
last part is Ezekiel 28, 12.
You had the seal of perfection, full of
wisdom and perfect in beauty.
Full of wisdom, perfect in beauty.
Extremely clever.
I remember reading somewhere once that it was
not a donkey who became the devil.
It was the highest of the angels.
You see, a donkey cannot rise very high
and because it cannot rise very high, it
cannot fall very low either.
But the higher your capability, the greater your
fall when you fall.
You know the difference between falling from the
first floor and falling from the tenth floor.
There's a lot of difference.
It was not a donkey who became a
devil.
But it was the cleverest and the smartest.
It is clever people in the church who
are far more in danger than simple people.
I have seen that through the years.
Clever people, smart people, highly intelligent people, people
in high positions, they are more in danger.
I'm not saying God cannot use them.
Paul was a very clever, brilliant man, but
he humbled himself.
But I'm saying they are far more in
danger.
That is why it is very difficult for
God to find a spiritual man among those
who are very clever and brilliant and who
have high positions.
Paul said to the Corinthians, you look at
your own calling.
Not many among you are very clever in
this world.
Not many among you are big and great
and noble in the world.
But God has chosen the foolish things.
God has chosen the weak things.
Why?
Because those who are very clever and mighty,
they seek their own.
They want to use their abilities for the
world.
Don't you see that so much in the
world today?
Here in Kerala, if a father or mother
finds a brilliant child, he must be an
engineer or a doctor.
And if there is someone who is failing
regularly in 10th standard, they will send him
to Bible school.
I'm not saying all of you are like
that.
I'm just saying that's the spirit out in
the world.
Why?
Because the best must be given to the
world.
And the rubbish must be given to God.
That is the attitude.
But God picks up that rubbish and makes
fools of those clever people.
That's God's way.
He picks up the Peters and the James
and the John's illiterate fishermen and confounds the
wisdom of all the wise great scholars of
their time.
Praise the Lord for that.
He doesn't need human cleverness.
When you have the power and the anointing
of the Holy Spirit, you don't need any
of this human cleverness and greatness.
But remember, Satan was full of wisdom, perfect
in beauty.
He was in Eden, the garden of God,
before that initial world was destroyed, as we
read in Genesis 1, 2.
Before that, there was another garden of Eden
in which Satan was.
And after God remade the earth in Genesis
1, he remade that garden of Eden and
put Adam there.
And that's what made Lucifer so jealous.
This chap has taken my place.
I've got to get him out of there.
And he succeeded in getting him out.
There were three things that Satan had at
that time.
Beauty, he must have been physically extremely attractive.
Intelligence, highly intelligent.
Here it calls him in verse 3, wiser
than Daniel.
Very intelligent, very good looking and a very,
very high position.
And he became proud of his beauty, proud
of his intelligence and proud of his position.
Things that all of us have to be
careful about.
Well, if God has given us good looks,
you can't do anything about that, but you
don't have to be proud of it.
If God has given you intelligence, there's nothing
wrong with that, but when you become proud
of it, it says your heart was lifted
up because of your beauty, because of your
wisdom, because of your position.
There are so many things God can give
us.
Abilities, talents, Bible knowledge.
But if any of these things lift up
our heart, that means I begin to think
that I'm a little better than that person.
You've got the spirit of Satan already.
And in a moment, you can become like
the devil.
It's not your intelligence that makes you like
the devil, it's your pride in your intelligence.
It can be pride in your Bible knowledge.
You can preach the word and feel, boy,
I can preach better than that person.
And you become like the devil already.
It can be anywhere.
It can be in prayer.
When you pray in such a fantastic way
in public, that everybody says, boy, Amen and
Hallelujah and you're excited yourself because you've performed
such a, it's like a dramatic performance, you
have performed such a wonderful prayer.
It never went beyond the roof because God
never heard it.
You were just proud of it.
You were not praying to God, you were
just praying to impress all the other people
in the room.
There's a lot of that.
So the devil comes into our holiest activities
when you do a work for the Lord
and you want everybody to know what a
wonderful work you did.
And of course you will say it very
humbly, brother, I'm only sharing this for prayer
and thankfulness so nobody realizes that your real
motive is to show other people what you're
doing.
My brothers and sisters, pride lifts up its
head in every activity.
Whatever you may do, there Satan comes to
try and elevate you above others, make others
small, make yourself big, show what God is
doing through you.
Now I believe there is a legitimate place
to share our testimony and to share with
others for thanksgiving and prayer what God is
doing, but I tell you it is a
very dangerous area.
And I myself always do it with fear
and trembling.
If you don't have any fear and trembling
when you are reporting what the Lord did
through you, you have not understood how close
sin is to you at such times.
We have to do it in a real
spirit of humility, cleansing ourselves from any desire
to exalt ourselves, remembering that that is the
spirit of Satan who exalted himself, who got
exalted because of his beauty, his position, his
ministry.
He had a ministry, a God-given ministry.
He was anointed and he became proud of
his anointing.
He became proud of his ministry.
And how many Christians have destroyed themselves through
pride in their anointing, through pride in their
ministry.
That's why we need to look carefully at
the origin of sin.
Let's look at this in another way.
We can say that Satan was discontented with
the place God had appointed for him.
Even though it was such a high place
and we can say his boundary was so
huge, all the angels, millions of angels were
under him.
He was discontented.
He wanted something more.
He was greedy for more.
And there we see discontentment with the lot
that God has appointed for us is another
thing that can make us like the devil.
That was the origin of sin.
It could be discontentment with anything.
To start with you may be discontented with
your face.
You look into your mirror and say, God
why did you make me like this?
Why did you make me a little more
good looking like the other person?
Or why did you make me this color?
It can be anything.
You can be discontented with your family.
Why oh God did you bring me into
this family?
There are so many people in the world
who are discontented with something or the other.
They are discontented with their house.
They are discontented with their salary.
They always have a spirit of murmuring and
complaining.
You see it in children, discontented with their
food.
You read in the Old Testament that God
gave them manna.
And do you know that the manna came
every day.
Their breakfast was the same color, same size,
same taste every day for forty years.
No variety, no chutney, nothing.
Just manna.
And they said, what is this?
God was angry with them.
The Bible says God slew many of them
because they grumbled.
Because grumbling and complaining is the spirit of
Satan, who was discontented with what God gave
him.
If you want to serve the Lord, one
of the most important things you need to
learn in your life is contentment.
The Bible says in 1 Timothy 6, Godliness,
it doesn't say Godliness is great gain.
We would think Godliness is great gain, but
the Bible says Godliness with contentment is great
gain.
And Paul said in Philippians 4.11, I
have learned.
Learned is a word that comes from education.
I have learned to be content in all
my circumstances.
When I am betrayed by my brothers, I
am content.
When I am beaten on the back for
serving the Lord, I am content.
When I am locked up in a jail
for serving the Lord, I am content.
When other people take advantage of me, I
am content.
When God gives me a little bit of
ease and comfort, I am content.
He says, I am perfectly content with whatever
circumstances God gives me and I don't compare
myself with that other person.
Learn these lessons from the origin of Satan.
That's why the Bible says, do all things,
Philippians 2.13-14, without murmuring, grumbling, complaining.
Everything in my life, I must do without
murmuring and grumbling and complaining.
And if in your young days, you grumble
and murmur and complain about something, can you
imagine what is going to be your condition
a few years from now when life is
more difficult?
If when circumstances are comparatively easy, like you
have it here, you grumble and complain about
something or the other, you will never be
able to serve the Lord.
You can know everything about every single subject
taught here and come first in the class,
but you won't be able to serve the
Lord if you have not learned contentment.
Because discontentment was how the devil became the
devil.
Pride, self-will, self-exaltation, discontentment.
It is there throughout the human race.
I sometimes feel if we could go up
to heaven and look at this world, we
would see it oozing with murmuring and grumbling
and complaining and criticism and finding fault.
And all over, every country, among the barbarians,
among the educated, it makes no difference.
Always complaining, complaining, and here and there in
this world, God sees a godly man, a
godly woman, who sends forth the perfume of
praise.
Lord, I have nothing to complain about.
Everything is perfect.
Everything you have ordered in my life is
exactly the best for me.
See, God has drawn a circle around all
of us.
That circle determines the measure of my intelligence,
the measure of my income, monthly income, the
size of house I live in.
Around somebody else He may draw a bigger
circle, bigger salary, better circumstances, more intelligence.
It is none of my business.
I am not to be a busybody in
other people's matters.
I am to say, Lord, this is the
circle You have drawn around me, and in
this circle I shall find my salvation, and
in this circle I shall become like Christ
and fulfil my ministry.
That is a godly man.
You don't have to travel the world and
preach here and there to be a godly
man, but be content.
And if it pleases God to increase that
circle, fine.
But I will remain content with whatever circle
God draws around me, the colour of my
skin, the beauty of my face, my ministry,
everything.
I am going to be content.
Jesus was content.
Whatever they called him a devil, prince of
devils, it's alright.
He had no complaint against them.
They said he was the son of Mary,
we don't know who his father is.
Okay, fine.
He was content with whatever people said, the
way people treated him.
They never spat on his face, he was
content.
They slapped him, they abused him, they did
all types of things.
He was never would he grumble, never would
he question.
Why?
Why have people done this to me?
Why when I am so faithful to the
Lord is all these things happening?
Always content.
One more thing let me say.
A lot of jealousy comes out of discontentment.
When you are discontent, you compare yourself with
somebody else and it's better with him and
you are jealous.
You want what he has.
Satan was jealous of God.
He is up there, everybody is worshipping him.
I want to be up there.
Jealousy was there right at the beginning which
made Lucifer, the head of the angels, into
a devil.
So what are the things from which sin
originates?
Not murder, theft, adultery and all the commonly
known sins, drinking, smoking, gambling.
These are all secondary.
Self-will, exalting oneself, pride, selfish ambition.
Ambition to become like Jesus, that's okay, but
selfish ambition to exalt oneself, looking down upon
others, taking a position where one puts other
people down, wanting to go up, discontentment with
one's circumstances, comparison of oneself with other people
and jealousy.
These are the roots from which evil came
into this perfect universe which God had made.
These are the things which made the most
beautiful of angels into the worst devil, into
the head of the demons.
And once we see these things, these are
the things we will fear in our life
when we see them.
These things that I have shared with you
this morning.
If you say, Lord, I never want to
find any of these things in my life.
The opposite of this was found in Jesus.
Everything that was the opposite of this, that's
how salvation came.
So these characteristics that I have listed this
morning, the more you have of them in
your life, the more you are like the
devil, no matter how much Bible knowledge you
have.
And the more you are free from these
things, the more you have allowed the Holy
Spirit to give you the opposite of these
characteristics, the more you are a godly man
or woman and the more effective you will
be for the Lord.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, help us to honor you and
please you in everything we do.
We seek your glory.
We pray that we will have clear light
on what makes the devil the devil and
on the spirit of Christ, that we can
walk in the footsteps of Jesus all our
days.
We ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.