Sister Dorothy Sunday School 1/25/15

Sister Dorothy Sunday School 1/25/15

The mean old devil and his mean old ways: he wants to destroy us.  He has many tactics.  Sometimes I think, “How did I let him get past me?  How did I fail there?”  Through these lessons God has helped me to see that I am not above the temptations of the enemy.

I treasure the treasures that God has given me through salvation and sanctification.  The enemy wants to steal from us all the possessions that God has so graciously provided for us.  He paid a supreme price that we could have these possessions.

No man is exempt from temptations.  Jesus was tempted by the devil.  The best way to defeat the adversary is by the Word of God.  To be tempted is not sin while temptations are resisted.  If not resisted then it can become sin.

The fear of being tempted can become a dangerous snare.  To fail to prepare for temptations and trials is dangerous.  God has given us this book full of promises that we can use to defeat the enemy.

When God allows a trial to come, He will give us grace to overcome it.  He has given us every source and resource to resist the temptations of the enemy.

Wiles are methods, traveling over, and iniquity.  He walks about as a roaring lion to seek whom he may devour.  He will get on your shoulders and if you rebuke him then he goes to someone else.  He wants to dwell right among us as his people.

He will lie in wait a long time as a lion.  If he sees a deer out there, he will let him come. 

The wiles of the devil are unbelief and doubt: they are very strong temptations of the enemy.  Discouragement, being critical, going by feelings, moments of ecstasy:  we feel good about it all and, “Lord let us stay right here.” 

Luke warmness.  Lord let us never get used to sin but to keep it exceedingly sinful.

Indifference:  We don’t want to get indifferent to the truth but hold it all important.  Strife, vainglory, the love of money.  We can be overcome not with money but with what money can buy.  It can be our wants or even our needs.  Money is a competitor with the service of God.  It really pulls.

Slothfulness and being high-minded, disgust: acts 24 16 have a conscience void of offence.  Disgust is offensive.  We can be so disgusted with the world that we don’t want to work with them.  Our warfare is not carnal.  We don’t fight against men and women but against sin.

Gossip is a temptation.  Do you have something to tell me today?  God wants us to be careful. 

Jas 3:5  Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

Jas 3:6  And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

Be careful.  Be careful of when we get together that there is no temptation to gossip. 

Moody and depression is an awful thing.  If you have tended even in your life before you got saved to be moody, “Don’t talk to me until I get a cup of coffee.”  That is moody.  Depression is an awful thing.  If the enemy gets us under depression, hopelessness comes with that. 

Indifference leads to depression.  Start at the beginning don’t let it get a hold of you or it will lead to depression.  Thankfulness, we have a lot to be thankful for, but the enemy will try to work hopelessness or discouragement.  If we turn inward to feel sorry for our self, thinking “There’s no way out,” instead of feeling thankful for what God has done is doing and is going to do. 

It is important to know where the oppression or depression is coming from.  It can come from the devil.  It can be physical, being tired, after being real sick, sometimes it just shows up.  Don’t deny it but identify it and be determined, “I am going to overcome.” 

If I am indecisive it brings a heaviness.  Look to God and have goals.  Long term and short term goals.  Healthy goals.  Sometimes it helps to realize, “That is what is going on.”  Sometimes the winter darkness gets to me.  When I realize that is the reason that I am feeling down then I can deal with it.

These things immobilize us so that we don’t take care of the things we should both in our temporal life and spiritual.

Worry is very hard to overcome.  We are tended to worry and fret. 

Pro 3:5,6 trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not to your own understanding. 

My understanding is that my husband is supposed to be here at five o’clock and he isn’t here yet.  I was fine until five o’clock and now I’m not.  I don’t know why the delay is but I know that you are going to take care of it.  Even if some of my imaginations have come to pass then Lord I know that you will give me grace. 

I remember when my sister died and I wanted to make it to her funeral.  I was laying in Virginia with the ice pelting the window, the plane was canceled.  Driving to the airport we went five miles an hour.  God spoke to my heart, “Lean not to your own understanding.” 

It was a terrible experience and a wonderful experience.  I had an eight hour delay in Manassas.  Again God gave me the promise, “Lean not to your own understanding.”  I got home and we immediately left for eastern Montana, in time for the funeral.

When He delays what do we do?  Are we tempted to doubt and worry?  “Be still and know that I am God.”  The devil tempts us to give into these things and if we do give in then we come in bondage to what we gave in to.  It takes the power of God to deliver us. 

Complaining:

Psa 77:3  I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.

When we complain we do get overwhelmed. 

Psa 77:8  Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?

Psa 77:9  Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.

We complain then we think, “Has God forgotten his mercies?” 

Psa 77:10  And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.

Psa 77:11  I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.

Psa 77:12  I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.

Psa 77:13  Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?

What a way God has given us if we will just stop and consider!  If we are bound by complaining then God has deliverance.

I’ve found that if I will do everything that I know to do, then it is, “Lord I have done everything I can do I will trust you to do the rest because I don’t have any more resources.”  Sometimes we worry without doing anything. 

There is a grievous charge in complaining,

Jud 1:16  These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.

Jud 1:20  But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

Jud 1:21  Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Watch that we will not be a complainer, it is serious. 

Self-pity: it is taking the wrong standpoint.  If it is indulged in before long we will take part in the decaying thing instead of that which grows more and more in the eternal glory of God’s presence. 

Self-pity will decay our trust in God.

Leakage: curiosity is a great thing to cause us to leak the very things God has given us right out of our life.  What we read, does it attack the foundation of your faith?  Are they in truth?  It can shake the very foundation of our faith. 

We must be secure, steadfast, and unmovable.  Beware lest you fall from your own steadfastness.  I ask when someone recommends a book, “Who is it written by?”  If it is not a church of God person then I don’t read it.

Worldly friends and companions.  We don’t want to hurt anyone.  Be careful that you don’t become used to it.

2Co 6:14  Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

It can be in your own family.  The enemy will work to destroy your possessions in this way.  We need to pray that we know how to help each other.  I cannot say to someone that suffers from depression, “Just get a hold of your bootstraps, pull yourself up, and get going.” 

Let us help one another that we will not fall into those things.  If our pastor becomes discouraged, it is very detrimental not only to our pastor but to us.  When the body is the body then everything affects each other.