So the text in Isaiah
gives us a great insight as to
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what went on in
heaven and why we are in this
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terrible mess that we're all in
because of the awfulness of sin.
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Let's continue
in Isaiah 14:12-14.
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It says, "O
Lucifer, son of the morning.
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How are you cut
down to the ground,
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that weakened the nations!"
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God never meant for
the nations to be weakened.
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He never meant for
death and sorrow, disease,
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and all these things that we
see everywhere, war and horrors.
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"For you have
said in your heart..."
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Now that's interesting.
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That's a very important point.
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You see, God takes
a risk when He makes
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a human being or
a free moral agent.
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As I mentioned the other day,
I used that little illustration
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about your children
being robots, would you
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choose for them to be robots?
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No. Because when
they say, "I love you,"
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you don't want to be
listening to a computer.
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No, you want your
child to say that because
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he really loves you.
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So God takes a risk.
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And He took a risk with
Lucifer and all the angels.
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He took a risk with all of us.
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We have the power of
choice, we can choose.
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One person called this,
the temptation from within.
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Because you have
the power to choose,
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you can choose evil.
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And Lucifer was
not made a devil.
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He was made a
perfect, powerful, wonderful,
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glorious being.
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But because of
his internal choices
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and because yielding to
that internal temptation,
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he made a devil out of himself.
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He destroyed himself.
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That's why those sad words,
"How are you fallen from heaven,
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O Lucifer, son of the morning.
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How are you cut
down to the ground."
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Because he said in
his heart, the text says,
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"I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God."
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Above the angels of God.
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In other words, he
wanted God's place.
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Now a lot of people are
not going to like me for this,
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and that's okay, I
love you just the same,
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I know our world is
filled with competition.
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But heaven is not going to
be filled with competition.
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Heaven is going to be
filled with cooperation.
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It was the devil and his
evil angels that invented
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this competition.
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You know, the board rooms of
America and around the world,
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they get, "What can we
do to knock this one down
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so we can put ourselves up?"
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I know we live in that world.
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But I'm looking
forward to a heaven
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where nobody is
coveting anyone else,
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no one wants to compete.
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But Satan began to
covet God's throne.
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But he's a created being.
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God is not created.
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God always has
been, always will be.
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Satan couldn't say that.
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He had a beginning.
God has no beginning.
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And God is love
to His very core.
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I'm glad that God never changes.
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Because His love
will never change.
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His unselfish love.
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So he says, "I will also sit
on the mount of the congregation
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on the sides of the north."
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"I will be like," he
says, "the Most High."
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He wanted competition.
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And so he went
about it very cunningly
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to get as many of the angels
as he could get on his side.
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And he had a
very appealing line.
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And I want to get
down to what that line is.
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You cannot run the
universe without law.
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Now I mentioned
some of this before,
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but I'm going to keep
coming back to this theme.
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Because I think our
world doesn't understand it.
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People think freedom is
the ability to overthrow law.
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Well yes, there are sometimes
oppressive laws that man made.
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But we're not talking
about man's laws here.
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We're talking about God's laws.
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God created the universe.
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And when I get to
that subject on evolution,
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I think I
mentioned that earlier,
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we're going to
talk more about this.
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But God runs the
universe with finely tuned laws.
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That's the way He makes it work.
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That's the way life is possible.
00:04:05.17\00:04:07.58
Satan came up with another idea.
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He says, "I don't believe that."
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In other words,
he didn't trust God.
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He says, "No, I can get along.
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I can live without
obeying Your laws, God.
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You know, we angels,
we're pretty intelligent.
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We can add and subtract,
we know what's going on.
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Why should we always have
to be subject to Your laws?"
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Now here comes the punch.
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"No, we should be free. Free."
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In other words, "In
the name of freedom,
00:04:40.44\00:04:43.14
we want not to obey Your laws."
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But those laws
are essential to life.
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Satan, nor the evil angels,
are going to survive this.
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They're all going to die.
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Just like the whole
human race is dying.
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They're dying because they're
ignoring the good, gracious,
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essential laws of God.
00:05:04.90\00:05:07.34
So when God made
the Ten Commandments,
00:05:07.37\00:05:09.07
He didn't sit up there and say,
"Well, I kind of like this one.
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Well, I kind of like..." No, no.
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They're all essential.
00:05:12.84\00:05:14.18
You can't do
away with any of them.
00:05:14.91\00:05:16.51
If you break any of them, you're
going to undermine life itself.
00:05:17.18\00:05:21.62
And by the way,
there's no freedom,
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there's no
freedom in being dead.
00:05:25.29\00:05:29.86
Have you ever
gone to a graveyard
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and look at all the
people that are buried there
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and say, "Oh, don't these
people have lots of freedom?"
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No, they don't have any freedom.
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Most of the
people that went there
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would rather
not have gone there.
00:05:41.77\00:05:43.77
And most of us are
trying to stay out of there
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because we like freedom.
00:05:47.78\00:05:50.41
But death doesn't bring freedom.
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And sin brings death.
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Now I want to say this clearly,
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because people have
a hard time getting it.
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You can't play around with sin,
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the transgression of
God's law, breaking His law.
00:06:07.66\00:06:11.27
Just like you can't, if
you had the power to start
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shoving the planets
around, you'd destroy
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life on earth very quickly.
00:06:16.24\00:06:18.21
Shove the moon
around, you destroy life.
00:06:18.24\00:06:20.74
You can't play around
with that kind of thing.
00:06:21.01\00:06:23.11
Because breaking
the law of God is fatal.
00:06:23.21\00:06:28.68
It's always lethal.
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It will always destroy.
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And Satan believed his own lie.
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And he sold it to
a lot of the angels,
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that somehow they
could have freedom,
00:06:43.83\00:06:47.17
they could be free
by breaking God's law
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and not being subject
to His wisdom and His love.
00:06:51.11\00:06:55.54
God never does anything unless
He does it in unselfish love.
00:06:55.94\00:07:01.02
So this is why Satan
hates the woman, the church.
00:07:01.42\00:07:06.79
This woman, by the way.
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This one that's dressed
with the lights of the universe.
00:07:08.79\00:07:12.89
She's in harmony
with the universe.
00:07:13.26\00:07:15.60
The rest of the universe.
00:07:15.80\00:07:17.27
Because Satan and his evil
angels were kicked out of heaven
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and he's making a huge
problem down here for all of us.
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But the Bible is
very clear why he's angry.
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And listen to it. Here
it is in Revelation 12:17.
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"And the dragon was
enraged with the woman,
00:07:33.68\00:07:36.62
and he went to make war..."
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There it is, just
like he did in heaven.
00:07:39.52\00:07:41.72
"...went to make war with
the rest of her offspring..."
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In other words,
we're talking about time.
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This is not just
a moment in time.
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This is all of
Christian history.
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And this rest of her
offspring, or remnant
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as it's sometimes called,
are those in the end of time,
00:07:55.50\00:07:59.24
in the time of the end,
when the mark of the beast
00:07:59.27\00:08:02.38
and all of these great
temptations are starting
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to take their toll on humanity.
00:08:06.28\00:08:10.09
Here, this woman keeps
the commandments of God
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and has the testimony of Jesus.
00:08:15.76\00:08:17.56
There it is.
00:08:17.59\00:08:18.93
That's why he
hates God's church.
00:08:18.96\00:08:20.73
He hates God's true church
00:08:20.76\00:08:23.33
because it keeps
the commandments of God.
00:08:23.37\00:08:25.73
He hates every Christian who
keeps the commandments of God.
00:08:25.77\00:08:29.50
He hates every Christian
that has the testimony of Jesus.
00:08:29.54\00:08:33.78
By the way, the ark of
the covenant was often called,
00:08:34.11\00:08:37.25
the ark of the testimony.
00:08:37.28\00:08:39.08
The Ten Commandments were
often called, the testimony.
00:08:39.11\00:08:42.55
And Jesus here
is also fulfilling
00:08:42.98\00:08:46.89
those Ten Commandments.
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I'll talk about that in just
a few moments, a little later.
00:08:48.29\00:08:50.66
But Jesus is really the Ten
Commandments in living life.
00:08:50.86\00:08:57.03
They have the
testimony of Jesus.
00:08:57.30\00:08:59.47
Yes, the testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
00:08:59.50\00:09:02.60
It's the Spirit
through the prophets,
00:09:02.64\00:09:04.47
the Holy Spirit
through the prophets
00:09:04.51\00:09:06.88
that teaches us what
God's law is all about
00:09:06.91\00:09:10.58
and why it's good for us.
00:09:10.61\00:09:12.61
As you know, the psalmist
would tell us how wonderful...
00:09:13.35\00:09:16.58
In fact, the longest
psalm in the whole Bible,
00:09:16.62\00:09:18.82
the whole longest chapter in
the Bible is a psalm all about
00:09:18.85\00:09:23.29
the law of God and
why it brings life,
00:09:23.32\00:09:26.46
and why this
testimony of God's character
00:09:26.76\00:09:30.23
is so important to all of us.
00:09:30.27\00:09:32.90
So how did we
get into this mess?
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Well, you know the story of
the fall and the temptation.
00:09:36.87\00:09:40.78
And that's exactly
what Satan went after Eve.
00:09:40.81\00:09:43.55
When she was standing
there in front of that tree,
00:09:43.85\00:09:46.51
he says to her,
00:09:46.61\00:09:48.32
"Has God said you can't eat
of the trees of the garden?"
00:09:48.35\00:09:51.55
"Oh no," she says.
00:09:51.59\00:09:52.92
"No, we can eat of all the trees
of the garden except this one.
00:09:52.95\00:09:55.49
But the day we eat
of that, we'll die."
00:09:56.62\00:09:58.96
And Satan cunningly
says, "You won't die."
00:09:59.06\00:10:03.00
Contradicted God.
00:10:03.33\00:10:05.03
And then he says
to her, "God knows..."
00:10:06.13\00:10:11.47
He cast doubt on God's love.
00:10:11.87\00:10:13.98
He cast doubt on God's
goodness, on God's truth.
00:10:14.01\00:10:17.98
"God knows that in the
day that you eat of it,
00:10:18.38\00:10:21.88
you'll be like Him."
00:10:22.12\00:10:24.89
That's what Satan wanted.
00:10:26.55\00:10:27.89
He wanted God's immortality.
He wanted to be God.
00:10:27.92\00:10:32.36
And so he used the
same temptation now to Eve.
00:10:32.39\00:10:35.96
He uses it externally.
00:10:36.00\00:10:38.07
And you know the story.
00:10:39.70\00:10:42.07
That's why we're all here.
00:10:42.17\00:10:43.94
She stands now in front of Adam,
her hands filled with the fruit,
00:10:44.51\00:10:48.24
the forbidden fruit.
00:10:48.28\00:10:49.84
Adam is faced with
a terrible decision.
00:10:49.88\00:10:52.31
Satan is now using
Eve as his emissary.
00:10:52.68\00:10:55.38
You've got to be
careful who you associate with.
00:10:55.42\00:10:57.59
You want to make sure that
Satan doesn't use your friends
00:10:58.25\00:11:02.46
to influence you
in the wrong way.
00:11:02.49\00:11:04.46
Even those you love.
00:11:04.49\00:11:05.93
And there is Eve, standing
with the forbidden fruit,
00:11:06.29\00:11:09.93
in all of her beauty,
in all of her loveliness.
00:11:10.20\00:11:12.40
Adam loves her.
00:11:12.43\00:11:14.20
But Adam has to make a choice.
00:11:14.67\00:11:16.40
Is he going to
trust the God of heaven
00:11:16.87\00:11:20.61
who gave him Eve, or is
he going to trust himself?
00:11:21.51\00:11:28.42
Who is he going
to love the most,
00:11:28.45\00:11:30.39
the Giver or the gift?
00:11:30.99\00:11:35.32
Now we can understand a
little better why Jesus said,
00:11:36.86\00:11:39.19
"If you love father
or mother more than Me,
00:11:40.16\00:11:42.10
if you love husband
or wife more than Me,
00:11:42.60\00:11:44.00
if you love
children more than Me,
00:11:44.03\00:11:45.60
you're not worthy of Me."
00:11:45.83\00:11:47.34
It's not because Jesus was
trying to be mean or arbitrary.
00:11:47.57\00:11:51.67
It's because He's
the source of love.
00:11:51.87\00:11:54.14
The greatest
security that anybody has,
00:11:54.61\00:11:58.28
that children have, or a
husband has, or a wife has,
00:11:58.31\00:12:01.68
is if their parents or
their spouse loves the Lord
00:12:01.72\00:12:05.92
more than they love them.
00:12:05.95\00:12:08.92
That gives them great security
00:12:09.36\00:12:11.83
for God's
goodness in their life.
00:12:12.19\00:12:15.16
This war in heaven,
this great controversy,
00:12:15.36\00:12:20.04
is about selfishness
versus unselfish love.
00:12:20.60\00:12:26.14
That's why we
had to have a Savior.
00:12:26.51\00:12:28.64
The Savior who is so
full of unselfish love.
00:12:28.74\00:12:31.21
He came here, and He's the
only one who has ever done it,
00:12:31.25\00:12:34.65
but He lived a
life of unselfish love.
00:12:34.68\00:12:38.75
I mean, don't you
think you can trust Him?
00:12:39.19\00:12:41.46
Don't you think you
should trust your life to Him?
00:12:42.56\00:12:44.99
Why would you just want to
practice a few of the pleasures
00:12:45.33\00:12:48.36
of unselfish love
only to lose life eternal?
00:12:48.40\00:12:52.27
Not to speak of
the challenges here.
00:12:52.37\00:12:54.54
I want to appeal to you.
00:12:55.14\00:12:56.60
That war is raging in
every human being's heart.
00:12:56.64\00:12:59.14
Are you going to be
selfish or unselfish?
00:12:59.24\00:13:01.94
With the power of the
Lord Jesus, you can become
00:13:02.04\00:13:06.35
an unselfish person.
00:13:06.38\00:13:08.35
A person that moves from
selfishness to unselfishness.
00:13:08.38\00:13:12.39
That war can be
won in your heart.
00:13:12.59\00:13:15.22
It can be won in your
heart because the Savior,
00:13:15.26\00:13:17.96
if He comes into your
heart by faith, He wins.
00:13:17.99\00:13:22.06
He turns you into a
being of unselfish love.
00:13:22.16\00:13:27.87