Where are the nine



Doctrine Of Demons

(Preventing The Influence)

1Timothy 4: 1- 6(NIV): The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. 6 If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed.

In these Scriptures we see the Apostle Paul make a direct correlation between the giving of thanks and things taught by demons. At first glance one might say – what in the world does one thing have to do with the other? What does giving thanks have to do with things that demons teach? But the Apostle relates the two by talking about them together here in these Scriptures. Paul is saying to us that if you are unthankful, if you are an ungrateful person and especially if you are an ungrateful Christian then you are living under demonic influence. Now that may sound like overkill to you and yet how do we feel about children who don’t have manners? How do we feel about ungrateful kids – kids who take for granted your goodness; kids who don’t pay any attention or have any respect toward the sacrifice you make to insure that they have the abundant life that they enjoy? How do you feel about disrespectful kids, kids who won’t say “thank you” kids who don’t appreciate what you do for them, but act like you have to do for them what you are doing? How do you feel about stuff like that; well I don’t know about you, but it bothers me because gratitude ought to be part of “good training,” in other words children ought to be taught to say: ”thank you”, to say ”please,” children ought to know why mama and daddy get up and go to work every day; kids need to know the sacrifice that is required in order that there be food on the table, and a roof over their heads. Kids ought to know how to say “thank you.” Likewise Christians, which are the Children of God, should express their gratitude to our Father in Heaven because He has sacrificed so much in order that we might have not only life, but abundant life. Jesus says in John 10:10(AMP): The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). It is completely out of order to not give thanks. Christians who are growing up in the Lord need to be trained, so that we all understand the necessity of saying: “Thank you Lord.” The Apostle Paul ties the issue of ingratitude, the issue of people not giving thanks to a spiritual source; it is an issue that is more than just human omission. The Apostle speaking to the Ephesians speaks of the “later times.” He says: The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Now understand that the “later time” is that time period that extends out from the time of the Apostle Paul to this present day. Paul says that in the later time deceiving spirits will be in operation on the earth; how many know that they are already here and operating at present? The Apostle says that in the later time, these deceiving spirits will cause many people to abandon the faith and follow the doctrine of demons. Deceiving Spirits and the doctrine of demons – this is spiritual warfare, and it is the same spiritual warfare that we have been fighting; it is not a new conflict; it is the same conflict that we have always fought, except that in the later time the battle gets more intense; in the later time the deceptions get more powerful; in the later time the temptations get hotter; in the later time the attacks get more vicious. Paul says that in the later time the doctrine of demons will be taught. Who would you suppose will teach this demonic doctrine?

Well let me ask you this; would you ever follow a beast with ten horns or would you follow a Dragon that has power and the ability to perform great signs and wonders? Would you follow anything that was beastly or demonic looking? No, you wouldn’t, but you might follow a well- groomed, well educated, religious man who speaks eloquently whose appearance is one of righteousness; you might be tempted to follow a man who looks and sounds like a holy man; a man who speaks about spiritual things, a man who carries a cross and a bible; you might be tempted to follow a man who comes with the label apostle, evangelist, minister, preacher or teacher. My point is this: men are going to be the ones teaching this demonic doctrine and not demons as we think of demons. The Apostle speaking about this demonic doctrine says in 1Timothy 4: 2 that: Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. In the later time cold hearted men who are hypocrites will teach the doctrine of demons; in the later time hard hearted men who have lost their ability to feel will teach the demonic doctrine. The Bible says of these men that they are hypocritical liars; they are men who have false virtue; they appear to be extremely righteous men; and they appear to be great religious authorities, but it is all a big lie. Their virtue is false virtue; their righteousness is actually unrighteousness and their religion is a false religion taught to them by demons. The deceiving spirits that are in the world during the later time will deceive many people and set those people under the teachings of cold hearted hypocritical men who teach them things that come from demons. Now what is the content of this demonic doctrine that will be taught? Well in 1Timothy 4: 3, the Apostle Paul speaking about what these men teach says that: They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. The Apostle had to deal with this issue in his day just as we have to today. False teachers had infiltrated the Church at Ephesus and brought with them a list of things that you couldn’t do; these false teachers were teaching the Ephesians that they couldn’t eat certain foods; and these men announced what foods the people were to not eat. So these false teachers caused the people to make lists of foods that were suppose to be forbidden. These false teachers kept telling the people that these foods that they were to abstain from were unclean foods that would make whoever ate them unclean. In other words, God would not be pleased with the people who eat this unclean stuff.

The Bible calls these men liars and hypocrites, which says to me that the very things that they were telling the people to not do; they themselves did them when they were out of sight of the people and behind closed doors. Maybe you know folks like that today, folks who say that you ought to live like them, but in reality they live another way. These false teachers were teaching the people: you can’t eat this because this is “bad;” you can’t eat that because that’s “bad”. You can’t have this relationship or that relationship because it’s “bad and there were many such things that they taught. Paul pulls out for us a couple of the things that these false teachers were teaching. He says that they forbid people to marry; they were against the institution of marriage and these men also ordered the people to abstain from certain foods. So the problem is that false teachers under the influence of demons keep Christians from fully enjoying what God has provided. This is what Satan did in the Garden of Eden and he is doing the same thing today; Satan does not want you to experience the freedom that is in Christ. He wants you bound by the regulations of the law so that when you break any little piece of that law your conscious will become guilty and then displace the joy of the Lord that is in your heart. The Bible tells us that Satan used to stand before God day and night talking about things that we had done or things that we ought not have done. Revelation 12: 10(KJV) says: And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. Satan has been cast down to the earth and there is now no place for him in heaven anymore. Not only has he been thrown out of heaven, but when Christ died for our sins salvation came to the brethren because of the Blood shed by Christ for us; this shedding of Blood by Jesus for our sins has left Satan no further grounds for making accusations against you and me. The Power of Christ set us free from the sins that Satan used to accuse us of. What I am saying is that Jesus took our sins on Himself and then died on the Cross with our sins still on Him; when Christ did this it nullified all of Satan’s accusations; His accusations against us became groundless – they became baseless having no more substance and so God dismisses those accusations against us because of the Blood. But this has not stopped Satan from trying to come between God and His Children. Satan decided to teach a doctrine that undermines what Christ has done. In Paul’s time this doctrine took the form of forbidding people to marry and ordering them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. Demonic doctrine was and is intended to keep Christians from fully enjoying what God has provided in Christ for all those who believe and know the truth. Now I don’t know about you, but there are some Christians who don’t give thanks to God for much of anything and it is because they are not enjoying the things that God has provided for them to enjoy. If Christian life to you is a negative; in other words if your life is measured only in the things that you can’t do, instead of in all of the many, many things that you can do, then you have been duped by the devil. The Christian life should be made up more of what I do enjoy under God, rather than what I can’t enjoy under God. So then one of the things that demonic doctrine does is that it promotes an atmosphere of “lack of gratitude.” Let me illustrate my point. When Eve was in the Garden of Eden, Satan who is an Angel, and is head of all the demons got Eve to question the “Goodness of God.” Satan got Eve to focus all her attention on the one tree that she couldn’t eat from, rather than the 10,000 trees that she could eat from. Satan says to Eve: Do you see that tree there in the middle of the garden that God has said you should not to eat from, well if God was really on your side, He wouldn’t keep that tree from you, He would let you eat from that tree just like He lets you eat from all the rest of the trees, but the reason that God won’t let you eat from it is because He is jealous; God knows that if you eat from that tree Eve, you are going to be a God just like He is. You see what Satan did with Eve was to keep talking to her about the one thing that she couldn’t have until Eve lost sight of all the things that she could have- in effect she lost sight of the “Goodness of God.” Genesis 2: 15 – 17(NIV) says: The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Adam and Eve were free to eat from all the trees in the garden except one, but Satan gets Eve to focus on that one tree. Every morning when Eve got up she would walk over and look at that tree; she quit looking at all the other tress that she had the freedom to do with as she pleased. You see she lost complete sight of the many other blessings put in the garden for her to enjoy. If you live your life focusing on what you don’t have or on what can’t have then “ingratitude” will be the result. You won’t thank God properly for what you do have and for what you can do because you will always be looking at what you can’t have or what you don’t have and when you do this you are missing out on the abundant life that the Grace of God through the work of Christ has bestowed upon us. The Apostle calls this thing that limits your Christian life to the miserable existence of: I can’t do this, or I can’t do that, I can’t eat this, I’m scared to do this, scared to do that “the doctrine of demons. This doctrine of demons imprisons people, it places people back in bondage, and it blinds us to the “Goodness of the Lord.” This kind of stuff is certainly not Christ’s Doctrine; it is the devil’s own doctrine. The Truth which is what Christ brought to us breaks the yoke of oppression; it makes us free; it does not bind or put in bondage. Jesus says in Luke 4 18 -19(NIV): "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Your freedom should be good news to you; your freedom ought to be news worthy of celebrating; it ought to be the kind of news that causes you to “give thanks to God for what He has done. Now let there be no misunderstanding about what I am saying; there are certain things that Christians should not do, and through the Holy Spirit we reach a point in life where we don’t want to do those things anyway; so then it is not grievous to us to not do them. The work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying you will cause you to not only love the Lord but love His Commands also, for His Commands are not burdensome; His Commands are not oppressive; therefore it is not a hard thing for us to obey the Word of the Lord. But as he did in the beginning with Eve, Satan comes along and causes us to focus all of our attention on the few things that we shouldn’t do and so we forget about all the benefits of Christ. It is the doctrine of demons that prohibits a man or woman from being able to fully enjoy that which God has provided in Christ. Please notice Romans 1 where the Apostle says that God’s Wrath will be revealed not just because of the wickedness in the world, but notice that it is also revealed because of a spirit of “ingratitude” and a lack of willingness to “give thanks.” Romans 1: 18 – 21(NIV) says: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.  24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. This thing of giving thanks to God is bigger than we think. Hell is going to be full of people who knew the truth about the Goodness of God, it is going to be running over with people who chose to not give God Glory nor did they give Him thanks and so God gave them over to their own selves. Don’t you know that if God doesn’t keep you, you can’t keep you? The old folks used to say about God, that He is a mind regulator and heart fixer; if God stops regulating your mind; if God stops working on your heart then you end up a person with a reprobate mind – and a reprobate mind knows no bounds and because it will not submit to God, nor acknowledge Him, nor give thanks to God, it ends up in Hell because of its own filthiness. To lose sight of giving thanks is a form of idolatry because the “lack of gratitude” toward God means that something else or someone else is receiving the attention due God; it means that you are worshipping the creature or the creation instead of worshipping God. Worshipping the creature means that you are praising and worshipping men, and the statues of men, the memory of men, the legacy of men instead of praising and worshipping the Living God; you see some folks have chosen to serve the interest of the world, to serve the people of the world, which are nothing more than God’s creatures rather than to serve God. People who do this are serving the created creature instead of the Creator of all creatures. Other folks worship created things; they love their jobs and so they serve their jobs, they serve their positions, their houses, their cars, their clothes, their jewelry, their wealth, and their bodies; they pay more attention to those things than to anything of the Lord’s. What a foolish way to go, but men go to their destruction having been told the truth – knowing the truth but still refusing to give God Glory, still refusing to give to thanks to One who created heaven and earth. Psalm 24: 1 -5(NIV) says: The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; 2 for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. 3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. 5 He will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from God his Savior. Vindication for sin is tied to thanksgiving; the blessings of the Lord are tied to thanksgiving. The Word asks the question: Who may stand in the Lord’s Holy Place? Who can come up heaven? It is only those whose hearts have been made pure through belief in the Lord Jesus Christ; it is only those who do not worship the idols which are the created things; it is only those who do not worship the creatures which are the living things created by God. Only the pure in heart shall see God, only those who give God Glory for what has been done through Christ get to see and taste the Goodness of the Lord. The others get to see Him too, but they get to see a side of Him reserved for the sinner; they get to see a side of Him reserved for those who knew the truth, but suppressed that truth; they get to see a side of Him reserved for all those who did not give Him Glory and neither were they thankful. But we are the ones who give thanks to the Lord; we are the ones who give God Glory for the things that He has done. We are the ones who have peace with God, we have salvation in Him and we are eternally grateful to Him for His Grace and Mercy towards us. We know that He didn’t have to do what He did in saving us, but He did it anyway - and so as the Redeemed of the Lord we say so, we say so through much praise and much thanksgiving. Today people are forgetting God; they are forgetting to say thank you to Him and that is idolatry. God created everything that is and He created it for men to enjoy, but we only enjoy it under His Control. So then understand that it is the doctrine of demons that turns the Christian life into a drudgery that you don’t enjoy. Don’t blame God if you have a consistently miserable life; blame yourself for having lost sight of how good God is and how to give God thanks for that Goodness. We see an example of this in Deuteronomy 6: 10 – 15(KJV): And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, 11And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; 12 Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. 13 Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. 14 Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you; 15 (For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. Do not forget the Lord; do not forget to be grateful. I wonder if any us here tonight have adopted the doctrine of demons and have forgotten to be grateful, have forgotten to live a grateful kind of life. The Apostle is not talking about just saying; thank you; thank you; thank you; thank you; thank you; he’s talking about a grateful heart; he’s talking about giving thanks with a grateful heart. Because it is the doctrine of demons that causes people to lose sight of the Goodness of God and then neglect thankfulness. 1Timothy 4” 3 says about those who teach the doctrine of demons that: They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. Now the most grateful people in all of the world should be the people who believe and know the truth. That’s us. The Christians who really know who God is and what God does and what God has done and what God has promised to do in the future, ought to be the most grateful people around understanding that all kinds of good and perfect gifts have come down to us from God above. So then we do as Ephesians 5: 20(NIV) says in that we are: always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. But many Christians today don’t give thanks; they don’t have time or take the time to be thankful. As I said previously being thankful is more than just saying; thank you, thank you, thank you, even though that is part of it. I say to you that being thankful to God is a lifestyle and it can be a joyous one if you know the truth. But many today don’t know the whole truth so they end up only wanting to enjoy the benefits of God without having the attitude of gratitude that comes from knowing the truth which then makes one truly grateful to God for all His Benefits to us. Every good thing that we enjoy in life can be traced back to God and the fact that He created it for our enjoyment and for our fulfillment. We see it in Genesis 1: 26 -30(NIV): Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."  27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."  29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so. But the doctrine of demons being taught to the Ephesians was saying that it is not so. That doctrine of demons was saying that you can’t eat this kind of food; that you are forbidden from eating this and that; whatever was on the list of those false teaches the people were to abstain from it because in their words it was an unclean food. But I tell you that whatever we do we do as unto the Lord so whether we eat certain food or abstain from certain food it is all done as unto the Lord. Being clean or unclean has nothing to do with what we eat or don’t eat it has everything to do with the Blood of Christ. Romans 14: 5 - 6 says: One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. Basically what Paul is saying is that God ought to be the center and sum total of your life, but because of the combined efforts of deceiving spirits and men who teach demonic doctrine we do not give thanks to God as we ought or in the way that we should. Now we know that the men who teach this doctrine were and are as Paul puts it “hypocritical liars, so what they teach others to do, they themselves do not do; what they teach people to abstain from they themselves eat the same in secret. Now Apostle Paul’s other example of this demonic doctrine was the marriage institution; the false teachers were forbidding marriage between a man and woman; but if we look in Genesis 2: 20 -25 we see what God has said on the subject: For Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman, ' for she was taken out of man." 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. The doctrine of demons was prohibiting people from marrying, but God says otherwise. Please understand that this “doctrine of demons” was developed by the ‘Chief Demon” which is Satan and Satan’s agenda is to destabilize God’s Word in our understanding so that we don’t know anymore what to believe. 1Timothy 4: 1- 6(NIV): says that: The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.  The Father of lies is still lying. There are many people carrying around a guilty conscious because of some demonic teaching that has deceived them. People are bearing burdens that they don’t have to bear. They continue to carry the burdens because they are being deceived by deceiving spirits. Jesus has come so that we might know the Truth and the Truth sets us free from the power of lying spirits and demonic doctrine. The examples that the Apostle gave us tonight was about abstaining from food which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth and the Apostle’s other example is about marriage which God has said that men and woman should enter into. Now I want you to understand that the scope of this demonic doctrine is much broader than just marriage and food alone, there are many things which are being taught that God has never said or else God’s Words have been twisted in such a way as to obscure the truth and spirit of what the Lord has said. The intended end result of the teaching of demonic doctrine is that God be not praised that God be not Glorified. Now you might think by the title of the doctrine that it is only being taught in Hell, but no, that’s not where this stuff is being taught; it is being taught in our Churches. Some church leaders are sanctioning same sex marriages; some congregations ordain self professed homosexuals to high positions within the Clergy in blatant defiance of the Word of God – how are you going to give thanks for this? What Glory does God get from this? I’ll tell that the The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1: 18 -21). Christians know God and in knowing Him we sure know what He has done for us so we give proper thanks. Every morning that our feet hit the floor we need to give thanks to the Lord for waking us up; but some because of the passage of time have come to think that waking up is automatic; it’s not automatic – just look in the obituaries and that in itself should clue you to the fact that not everybody wakes up every morning. You say, well I don’t feel like giving thanks every morning so I don’t; but what if God felt that way about waking you up; what if He decided that He didn’t feel like waking folks up this morning; what if He decided that He was tired of waking folks up only to watch them get dress and run out of the house without ever saying a word to Him? What if He gets tired of waking you up and then watching you run out of the house on your way to job worship, run out of the house on your way to mall worship, run out of the house on your way to boyfriend or girlfriend worship? What if He didn’t feel like waking you up tomorrow morning? “Thank You Lord” is the proper response; it’s what we should do; it’s what we should say. The classic story of this is the story of the ten Lepers found in Luke 17: 12 – 19. As the story goes there were ten lepers who had the disease leprosy; now there was no cure for this disease. Leprosy would run its course uninhibited; it is a dreadful and crippling disease of the skin; it is a sort of cancer of the skin; it causes one to lose all sensation in the limbs until finally its victim is completely paralyzed; people with this disease watch their hands and their feet waste away; and then the eye sight begins to go, blindness sets in; this disease just literally eats a person alive. Now these ten men had the leprosy disease and one day they saw Jesus Christ passing by and in their desperation they all called out to Jesus to have mercy on them to somehow help them; they wanted Jesus to heal them of this dreaded disease and the Bible says that Jesus had compassion on all ten and He spoke the Word telling them to go show themselves to the Priest and as those ten men went to show themselves to the priest their skin became as smooth as the skin of a baby; as they went they were totally healed, but as the ten made their way to the priests one of the ten remembered something; he remembered that he had not said thanks; he had been totally healed and transformed and hadn’t said thanks so he stopped in his tracks and he turned around and went back to where Jesus was standing and he fell down at the feet of the Lord and said: “Thank You for healing me”; “Thank You Lord.” And then Jesus seeing him asked the question but were there not ten who were healed? What happened to the other nine? The nine were so busy enjoying the blessing they forgot about the Blessor. The nine were so busy enjoying the Goodness of God that they forgot the God who had been good. Listen; whenever you love the blessing more than you love the Blessor it is idolatry. Idolatry happens when one thinks more of someone or something than he thinks of God. I say to you tonight that many of us are not getting more from God because God is not about to give us more for which we will be even more unthankful for. So then the question before each of us tonight is this: “are you forgetting to say thanks? Are you forgetting to say thanks as a lifestyle? Is your thanks a verbal thanks only; does what you do everyday praise the Lord and give Glory to God or do the things that you do send a bad message or worse yet no message at all. The people who forget to give thanks are idolaters and remember behind idolaters are demons and God is not going to help you worship demons. Now notice1 Timothy 4: 4: For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.  This is a powerful verse; it says that everything that God created is good, if it is received with thanksgiving, but Satan’s doctrine would have you believe that it’s more to it than that; Satan wants us to believe that God is holding out on us. Satan wants us to believe that there is more to things than just what God has said about it and I tell you that if you listen to Satan and believe that there is more required than what the Lord says is required, then you are being deceived by deceiving spirits and being taught the doctrine of demons. Understand that the only reason something that God made is not good today is because Satan has tampered with it. James 1:17 says that: Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. This verse explains that what comes to you from God is like a gift from a father to a son; the gifts from the father to the son or to the daughter are relational gifts – that means that they are good and they are beneficial gifts. Now we only equate good gifts with feel good stuff – stuff that makes us happy, but a beneficial gift is one that you need whether it makes you happy or not. For instance trials and tests are beneficial gifts; they are not pleasant while you are going through them but they come from above and are beneficial for spiritual growth. The devil’s doctrine would have you believe that God’s Wrath is upon you as you go through these trials. Satan comes and says how in the world could this stuff that you are going through be beneficial to anybody? He wants to cause you to not be thankful to God to not count it all joy; he wants to separate you from the truth of James 1: 2 where it says to: count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Let me illustrate further: when you take your child to the doctor and the child has to get a shot – that needle is painful and that child doesn’t understand why you helped the doctor hold him down and hurt him; he doesn’t understand why you, the one he trusts the most, the one he loves, the one he obeys would hold him down and let a stranger stick him with a needle. That shot that the doctor gives doesn’t feel good but that shot was good in that the shot was beneficial. Everything that comes to us from God is good and it will always be good even if it hurts sometimes. James 1: 17 says: Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. God is not like the shifting shadows that change as the sun moves across the sky – God is consistent. He is consistently good; He changeth not, so then if there is a shadow of turning in your life if there has come a nighttime in your life it is because you have shifted; it is because you have been turning; it is you who has changed and not God because the Word says that God does not change. Hebrews 13: 8 says that: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. You say: I hear you brother, but how can I not turn when I have a bad day, how can I not turn when my boss cusses me out, how can I not turn when my husband doesn’t come home at night; how can I not turn when my wife listens to everybody but me, how can I not turn when they talk about me behind my back; how can I not turn when everything that I have worked for slips from my grasp. Well to all who feel this way, I say to you that you can keep from turning by giving thanks. Giving thanks will point you back to God regardless of your circumstances. What many of us do in the face of tough circumstances is turn to the circumstances; we begin devote all of our time and energy to the circumstance when we ought to be like our Father in Heaven in whom there is no shadow of turning; in other words we shouldn’t let circumstances turn us; we ought to remain the same giving thanks through the good times as well as the bad. What I am say is that when the bad day comes and things are not going well on the human side – give thanks anyway for this is God’s Will concerning you. You say but what do I have to give thanks for? Listen; even in the worst of situations there is always something to give thanks for; if your car is not running right, think about the man who has no car and give thanks, if your feet hurt, think about the man with no legs and give thanks; if you can’t pay your bills, just thank God that they won’t let you make any more bills. There is always something to thank God for because God is always working on our behalf. Put your trust in God and there will always be something for you to give thanks for. So Brothers and Sisters what I am saying is that we have the provision of thanksgiving and it counteracts the doctrine of demons; whatever situation you happen to be in remember to look for the Goodness of God in that situation because His Goodness is always there; it is always around us and when you see His Goodness be sure to give thanks. Consider Job when you think your problems are bigger than other folks problems, just remember old Job. Job was severely afflicted, but nevertheless Job did not lose sight of God’s Goodness – Job’s wife said to Job, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!" 10 He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. There are times when we have to accept trouble but let’s not let those times keep us from praising the Lord and giving thanks. Job never does turn from trusting God; He says of God that even though He slay me yet will I trust Him. In Lamentations 3: 23 we see Jerusalem coming apart at the seams being pulled down and destroyed but we hear the Prophet declare: great is thy faithfulness oh Lord.

1 Timothy 4: 4-5 says: For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. What verse 5 is saying is that ordinary things become extraordinary once they have been consecrated; once they have been set apart by the Word of God and given over to God in prayer. When you take the good things that God gives and you pray over them giving thanks to God for them then those things become blessed they become extraordinary having been consecrated. Our example is taken from John 6: 5 -13(NIV): When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" 6He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"  8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, 9"Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"  10Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.  12When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. It didn’t take eight months of wages to feed the five thousand; it took the giving of thanks to make a little a lot. The Bible says that Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks and after he had given thanks the disciples distributed bread to every one seated there. Then Jesus took the fish and He gave thanks and again they distributed to everyone seated there fish and the Bible says that everyone of the 5000 people ate as much as he wanted and there was fish and bread left over enough to fill twelve baskets. Your little in life can turn into more than enough if you give thanks to God for that little. Listen; we have to stop always seeing what we don’t have because this is a snare that prevents us from being thankful for what we do have; when we give thanks for what we do have then what we are giving thanks for gets consecrated and that means that when God has received the thanksgiving for it He blesses it till it runs over. Now Jesus could have prayed to God about the lack; He could have said: God why did you bring all the people out here and not provide for them, He didn’t do that, Jesus just looked up to heaven and said God I thank you for this bread and this fish and we know the rest of the story. Listen If you can just find it in your heart to praise God for what you have right now and mean it – then He will bless that little that you have until it runs over, and He will keep on blessing it until it becomes a great amount. Our part as Christians is to learn the lesson of giving thanks and when we do learn to give heartfelt thankfulness to God for where we are now - then will we truly be ready to go further. Now understand that this is not my promise to you – this is God’s Promise to you. It’s in His Word – do you believe His Word – will you follow His Word – Will you give the Lord the thanks that He deserves because if you won’t then you have learned the demon doctrine which results in what Paul spoke about in Romans 1: 21 where he says: 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. If you and I begin to give God thanks, Satan must vacate the premises.

We close this evening with Psalm 100 which says: Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. Give thanks to the Lord and then your mourning will turn to joy; give thanks to the Lord and watch your fish multiply; give thanks to the Lord and your bread basket will run over because of the “The Goodness of God. Amen

 

 

 

 

 

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