Sermon: "The Art of War: John 10" Guest Speaker Corey Hall

Hi, and welcome to the Sermon Podcast of First Baptist

Church Woodlawn in Woodlawn, Illinois. I'm Senior Pastor Brian Fuller,

and it is our desire to impact the world with

the Gospel of Jesus. We do so through small group ministry,

personal testimony, as well as corporate gatherings. You can find

us on Facebook, YouTube, and our website Fbcwoodlawn dot org.

Join us now as we hear from God's Word, John.

Chapter ten is where we're going to start.

But our main text this morning is going to be

out of Genesis three, So if you want to go

to John ten, it'll be on the screen. We're just

going to go to one verse there, but we're going

to spend the majority of our time in Genesis three

this morning. During the time of the writing of the

Minor Prophets of the Old Testament, across the map in China,

there was a man named Sun Zoo. He was a

Chinese military general and a strategist who was writing a

book about military philosophy and strategy. It was illegal to

write military strategy down at that time, but he would

have been condemned to death had this book been found

in his possession, but he found it of such great

importance that these things be written down, and then as

time went on, they were hidden throughout time until they

were discovered later. And then this book was translated, and

it was thought and is still thought to be one

of the greatest military strategy and philosophical books in history,

with the core philosophy being of war and knowing the

wisdom to know when and how to fight.

The title of that book is the Art of War.

That's the title of our message this morning, The Art

of War. A couple of things that Sun Zou said

in this book. The highest realization of warfare is to

attack the enemy's plans, he said in another place of

the book this Thus it has said that one who

knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered.

In one hundred engagements.

One who does not know the enemy but knows himself

will sometimes be victorious and sometimes met with defeat. But

one who knows neither the enemy nor himself will invariably

be defeated in every engagement. It is that idea and

that philosophy that can be tied to the very basis

of the message today, that we must know our enemy

but we aren't to preach historical philosophy and historical ideas, right,

We're to preach Scripture and Christ alone. So the question becomes,

does this align? Does this idea align with proper doctrine

and proper theology.

It's a simple.

It's a fairly simple yet profound idea that we must.

Know our enemy in order to defeat them.

This is why Scripture so clearly describes and details the tactics.

Of our enemy. I know we like to go to

church and we love to hear.

Tell me about the grace of God and the mercy

of God. And tell me about how much Jesus loves me.

And tell me about how I'm going to heaven someday.

And tell me about how I'm supposed to love my neighbor,

and how I'm supposed to receive the blessing of God. Preacher,

make me happy because I share something. None of that

matters if you don't understand the truth of your opposition.

The blessings don't matter if you don't understand what's keeping

you from them. Hello, how to love people? It will

never matter if you first don't understand what's preventing you

from loving people.

Yeah, John Chapter ten, Verse ten.

The thief comes only to steal, and to kill, and

to destroy.

He comes only for these things.

His sole objective, The one thing that he has focused

on is to steal, kill, and destroy. Guess who he's

stealing from you. Guess who he's trying to kill you.

Guess what he's trying to destroy you. This is not

about them, It's about us. Hear that, But Jesus said,

I came that they may have life and.

Have it abundantly. First the warning.

And then the promise, because with every attack of hell

comes a promise of God. See that's why I know

y'all Baptist, because Pentecostals would have shouted over that. So

let me preface something very quickly before I continue. I

want to preface if I know that there's monitors in

the nursery and maybe downstairs, and if you catch this

on YouTube, Hello world, if you catch this later, some.

Of the things I'm going to say today may.

Not be appropriate for little ears. Okay, So I just

I want to throw that out there. I'm not going

to use any vulgar or or intentionally distasteful language, but

I'm going to use a couple of that are poignant

to this, but they may not be appropriate for tiny years.

So I want to make sure I say that so

that I'm covered.

Everything here.

This next statement I'm going to make, I'm trying. I'm

still trying to set this up to get you to

where we're going today. Everything that the Devil does is

a demonic effort to steal, to kill, and to destroy,

and everything that he has is a direct result of

deception and the lie.

John chapter eight.

This isn't in the screen, so just listen, John, chapter eight.

You are of your father, the devil. Jesus is speaking.

Here, and you will do your father's desires.

Here's the details of who the Devil is.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not

stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character,

for he is a liar and the father of lies.

This is our enemy, the father of lies. The truth

is not in him.

When he speaks a lie, he's speaking out of his

nature because it's all he knows how to do. There

is no truth in him. He doesn't have a concept

for truth. Nothing the Devil has ever told you about

you is true about you because he doesn't know how

to tell the truth.

Did you hear that, Brad?

The Devil's never said a truth thing about you to

you because he don't know how to tell the truth.

So that means anything he's ever said about you, you

can go ahead and reject that thing and cast it

under your feet because you know it's a lie because

it came from the father of lies. Stop believing devils

that don't know how to speak truth as if they

know something you don't.

That's the deception.

Deception is making you believe a lie as if it

were truth.

That's deception.

It's taking something untrue, twisting it just enough to make

it seem true, and then presenting it to you so

that you'll buy into it and believe it is truth,

when really the wolves been cover over your.

Eyes and you don't realize it. That's deception.

If I don't stay playing behind this pulpit more, Gabe's

gonna kill me. I got in trouble last time I

appreach y'all. I got told I preached you long. We're

eating today, so we ain't gonna preach that long day.

And I got told that ga Gabe finally gave up

He's trying to follow me with the camera all morning,

and finally he just said, I'm gonna is lends this thing.

And sit back. That was grace, is what that was.

Yeah, I gotta tear the stage down before I come

up next time. So Satan is the father of lies.

There is no truth in him. It's all he knows

to do. Therefore, because of that, Satan cannot make anything.

Because God is sovereign over everything. Follow this. So here's

what Satan does.

He takes what God has already made, what God has

already done in his holiness, and he perverts the Holy Thing.

Follow this.

I want to explain what I'm about to say to

you later, but here are this sentence. He perverts the

Holy Thing to proselytize those who have heard the truth,

in an effort to prostitute what is holy for his

own demonic pleasure. I told you there's gonna be words,

uncomfortable words. We don't necessarily like to hear those words,

especially at church. But I need you this morning to

get uncomfortable for a moment. I need you to be

offended for a moment. I need your kouth to be

thrown out the door for just one Sunday morning, because

I need you to understand the devil doesn't care about

your offense. He didn't care about what hurts you. He

didn't care about how you feel. All he cares about

is preventing you from understanding the truth of who he is.

So I hope that the believer gets uncomfortable enough to

hear truth this morning, and I hope some devils get

uncomfortable with truth.

Being revealed this morning.

While it is true that we are overcomers, how ma

y'all know that we win in the end. We are

already victorious. We are blessed people. How many y'all saved

and know you saved? Raise your hand, get happy, you

are a blessed people.

It is also true that we.

Know what to look for and how to engage the

resources that are available to us to defeat the enemies

when they do raise themselves up. And I promise you,

they will raise themselves up against you. So Genesis chapter three.

One of the most used demonic strategies from the beginning

of time has been the.

Of the truth of the Word of God.

Genesis chapter three. Outam and Eve are in the garden.

They have been instructed not to partake of the tree

of the knowledge of good and evil, and then choices

are made. Genesis chapter three and verse one. We're going

to take our time and.

Go through these few verses slowly.

We're not going to get through the chapter, but we're

going to try to get through four or five verses

at least, so I can at least get you to

the goal of the message. Now, the serpent was more

crafty than any other beast of the field that the

Lord God had made. And he said to the woman,

did God actually say?

You shall not eat of the tree in the garden?

So I told you that one of the goals of

the enemy with the word of God is to.

Pervert the word of God.

The word pervert means to alter something from its original intent,

to change the original meaning, or to change its state

of being. It's corrupting what was first intended. Satan said

to him, did God actually say? Noticed He imposed a question.

He imposed to Eve to question it. Did God say

what God really said?

His first attempt.

Was to distort her understanding of what God had said.

He took something that.

God had made im perfection, and he twisted it up

just enough that he distorted the truth into a false word,

and he changed her perception of what God had actually said.

Did God actually say, well, I know that's what you remember.

But did God actually say that, or did he.

Say something else. It was later that Eve would respond

God said we shouldn't eat of it, nor touch it.

All it took was one question to distort her understanding

of what God had said. Verse two, and the woman

said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit

of the trees in the garden. But God said, this

is Eve talking, answering the devil's question. But God said,

you shall not eat of.

The fruit of the tree that is in the midst

of the garden.

Neither shall you touch it lest you die. God never

said that, by the way, he said don't eat it.

He never said don't touch it. Y'all listen, details matter.

But the servant said to the woman, you will not

surely die.

You see it.

You won't die, for God knows that when you eat it,

your eyes will be open, and you'll be like God,

knowing good and evil.

The devil.

Was now trying to proselytize the word of God. What

does the word proselytize mean. It means to convert or

to attempt to convert someone from a belief or from

a religion.

We really shouldn't even touch it. But then the devil said, oh,

you'll be fine, you won't die.

In fact, the reason God doesn't want you to go

near it is because if you do, you'll become like him.

That wasn't the reason that God told them to stay

away from it.

All.

God wanted his creation to remain in the holiness that

he had created them to give him the glory that

he created them for. But instead they chose sin before them,

and they corrupted.

The holy thing.

It was not to prevent them from becoming as him

so that he wouldn't lose his throne.

It was about preventing them from death. But the devil

shows up.

In an effort to convert them from an understanding of

the truth to a lie. Let me share this with you.

This always begins with perversion. You cannot first proselytize someone

until you first pervert their understanding of truth.

This is true of every cult group that's ever existed.

They take a minor amount of truth, and they twisted

and perverted enough, and then they add their own skin

to it and their own ideologies.

To it to convince.

People that they are the correct way. Further down in

chapter three quarter verse fifteen. So after this conversation takes place,

they partake of the tree of the knowledge of good

and evil, as God instructed them not to. Suddenly they

find themselves in conversation with God, and God has found

them in their state of sin, of undress, of perversion.

They now instead of looking at themselves in full nudity

and the holy perfection of the creation of God, they

now look at themselves in a state of oh, I

must cover myself. It's improper for me to be seen

in such a state now. Instead of what God may

be holy, now it's a thing of filth, and it's dirty,

and it isn't to be shown. It isn't to be

displayed publicly. Now the very thing that God made for

a holy thing has now become a perverted thing verse fifteen.

As a result of this sin, the curse is placed

upon man, and he says, I will put enmity between

you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

There's a curse that came with the act of sin.

Go back though real quick.

Verse six. Let me read through this quickly.

So the woman saw that the tree was good for food,

and it was delightful to the eyes, and she partook

of the fruit.

She ate. She gave to her husband.

He ate. Their eyes were open, they knew they were naked.

They sold fick leaves together and made themselves closed. Then

they heard the voice of the Lord and the cool

in the garden. In the cool of today, the man

said to his wife, hide yourself from the presence of

the Lord in the trees.

But God called out to them and said where are you?

And they said, well, I heard the sound of you

in the guard, and I was afraid because I was naked,

and I hid myself. God asked him, did you eat

of the tree that I commanded you not to? And

then the man said, the woman you gave me to

be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree.

We ain't got time to talk about the blame game

happening here.

The man said, the woman who you gave to me,

she's the one that gave me and I ate. And

the Lord said to the woman, what is it that

you have done? The woman said, watch this This is

an important sentence.

The woman said, the serpent deceived me, and I ate

he deceived me. I said that the devil will prostitute

the word of God.

That's an uncomfortable word in church, isn't it. To prostitute

something means to put one's self or one's talents to

an unworthy or a corrupt use or purpose, for the

use for the sake of personal or financial gain. Satan

takes the public use of something meant for holiness and

he uses it for his own demonic glory.

And he does it all through deception.

The very first effort upon mankind was to steal, to kill,

and to destroy. Every act of the enemy begins with perversion.

It's in his nature, because there's no truth in him,

to distort the truth. And then proselytizing begins with a

twisted gospel, a false gospel. Hear, this is a bait

and switch meant to draw us from sound reasoning and

sound doctrine into a faulty doctrine and a misunderstanding of truth.

And then he prostitutes the word of God. Prostitution begins

with a demonization of the truth. Hence the reason this

word is used for sexual deviance in the marketplace. Sex

was not meant to be a public commodity to be bought.

It is a perverted, proselytized version of a holy thing

that God gave to.

Man and woman for their marriage.

The first act of the devil in the garden was

to pervert the truth. Then he sought to proselytize him

through perversion, and all of this was done in an

effort to cause the prostitution of man for his own

demonic glory. Every lie of the enemy begins with an

attempt to persuade men against the truth with a lie.

Jesus is the truth, he said, He is one with

the Father. He created all things for his own glory.

I heard Jackie hil Perry recently say something that struck

me that the devil doesn't go after after the ministry.

He goes after the minister. He didn't go after prophecy.

He goes after the prophet. He didn't go after a nation,

he goes after its government. The devil doesn't go after

a family. He goes after the marriage and the relationship

between the parents and the children.

He didn't go after the church.

He goes after the believer's faith.

He didn't go looking to impress a lie upon people.

He goes looking to manipulate the truth.

He didn't go trying to convince people to worship him.

He goes looking to dismantle sound doctrine.

Biblical reasoning.

Because if the devil can dismantle your faith, he can

dismantle your effectiveness.

Hear me.

His attack strategy is not to go after what God

has ordained and named as his own and created for himself,

but it's to go after the system of faith that

is built upon that person with that thing. He didn't

try to attack Adam and Eve to overcome them. He

went after them intellectually.

Y'all with me.

Satan cannot dismantle the church. He cannot attack and dismantle

the church because Jesus.

Put his name on it. It's his, It's his bride.

Y'all listen and say I am how many y'all say no,

you say, put your hand up. I asked that question

a lot, don't, huh. I just want to make sure

you know you are the bride of Christ. You want

to find joy and rest and peace in knowing that

truth that you you are His bride, and God is

not letting anything happen to the bride of Christ.

He will protect his bride at all costs.

His bride will not be overcome by a deceitful enemy.

His pride will prevail. Hah.

So Satan can't go after the church because Jesus.

Owns that thing. It's his, it's his bride.

He doesn't go after the institution, so he goes after

its foundation. He goes after sound doctrine, biblical theology, a

proper understanding, textual reasoning. Because the devil cat distort our

understanding of scripture, that he can distort our faith, because

a proper understanding of God is rooted from a proper

understanding of his word. This is why an ignorant Christian

is a dangerous Christian. This is why you ought to

be in the Word, studying this thing, knowing that front

to back, back to front, upside down and backwards. You

ought to be a verst educator of the Word of

God because your life depends on it.

Do you hear me?

If you ain't studying this thing, If the only consumption

of the Word of God you're getting your Christian walk

is what you're given on this platform on a Sunday morning.

Then you are only hurting you.

You were causing deceit to be brought to you. You

were causing yourself to be ignorant. So when you have

things happen in your life, when life happens and struggles come,

and trials happen and things go upside down, and you

don't understand why all of this is happening to me,

then don't act like you don't know. Because God gave

you the instruction book of what to know.

Well, I didn't understand that.

That's how how Because if you was in the word,

you would know.

He gave you the manual for living.

Life is hard, Yeah, but you got a book to

tell you how to get through it. Stop acting surprised

that life is hard. God said it's going to be hard.

Life will come with tribulation and trial.

We were warned living ain't for sissies, y'all.

It's life is a tough thing.

If you're weak, you ain't gonna make it.

Boy, he's using all kinds of trigger words today. In Genesis,

Satan presented a manipulated and a perverted version of the

truth to Adam and Eve. He proselytized them. He tried

to convince them of his own lie. With this distorted

version of the truth to his false version of truth,

he effectively prostituted the word of God in shaming them

publicly before God and each other.

As a result, the warning.

Of John ten ten was not that we will be

subject to the deceit of the enemy.

It was a warning.

That you would encounter an enemy, not a declaration that

you would be subject to him.

Did you get that he came to steal, to kill

and destroy? The promise was.

That Jesus said, I came to give you life and

that you would have it abundantly. I came so that

you could live a life where you could overcome what

he's trying to steal.

I can't. Oh, my God, the God said.

I came, I said, my son, so that everything the

devil stole.

From you, God could reclaim it for you. That everything

he killed in.

Your life, God could restore it, because he's a life

saver that can raise above the dead. He said, I'll

prove it. I'll defeat death, and I'll kill that thing myself,

and I'll show it. It ain't got no buried on me

that I control. In everything he came to steal, he said,

I'll restore it. Everything the devil came to kill. I'll

bring life to it. Everything he destroyed. I'll restore that thing,

and I'll give it back to you and double measure. Why,

because God is not going to be defeated by a foe.

You do not serve a weak God.

You do not serve a God that is just trying

to get by, just trying to get you a blessing,

that's just trying to get you into heaven. You serve

a God that said, I've already won this thing.

I'm in full control of this thing.

We need to realize as the Pride of Christ that

our leader, our husband, our.

Dictor has won. Yeah.

Revelation chapter four, verse eleven. I'm trying to wind down, y'all.

I'm trying. I gotta wind up for I can wind

down growing. Revelation, chapter four, verse eleven. Worthy are you

are Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power.

For you created all things, and by your will they

existed and were created. God created all things. If it exists,

it was God's creation.

So wait a minute, you're saying that God made evil

because evil exists, doesn't it?

Oh, the greatest philosophical and religious question that's.

Ever been asked by man. So wait, God created evil?

No, No, he didn't create it, but he allowed its existence. Yet,

though he allowed its existence, he is sovereign over it.

Evil exists in the cage that God allows it to exist.

Spend one day it will be swallowed up in defeat,

and it will die with death. God created all things.

All things were created for his glory, and he will

not stand idle as his creation is perverted, because in

due time he will judge ly. That that, in due

time he will justly judge all things. Oh, God is

just that He's also a just judge. You better hope

you find yourself before a just God instead of before

a God that.

Is only just because he's gonna be just over you.

He will have justice.

You better hope you stand before God that's offering grace

in justice and not just justice. That's your decision. You

better do something about that. Let me read you a

closing passage. Got a First Peter. First Peter, Chapter one.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to

be born again to a living hope. Through the resurrection

of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that

is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in a heaven for you,

who by God's power are being guarded through faith for

a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while,

if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so

that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than

gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may

be found to result in praise and glory and honor

at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him.

Though you do not now see him, you believe in him,

and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with

glory obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of

your souls.

Say, comes with testing to develop. Can I give you this?

When I hear people say, my spiritual gift is faith, No,

it ain't, because every believer ought to have that. You

ain't special because you've got more faith than somebody else.

Amen.

Every believer should have a measure of faith that is

constantly growing, and the only way it grows is through

the test in order to bring it growth.

Our faith is not given without testing.

It's not a gift that God wrapped up in a

box and presented to you and said, I know you

couldn't do anything. I know you didn't want this, but

here it is, Mary Christmas.

It's not a gift.

It's something every believer should possess and can possess. But

you've got to put in the effort to strengthen it

and build it. But then Jesus came along and said,

the battle is mine because this war can't be fought

by you and I worship team. Go ahead and come, y'all,

beert get up here. So you tell me be quiet.

Quicker that sins the quicker we eat lunch.

I love. I love to be told about how good

my God is.

I love to hear about the grace of God over me,

and how I so undeserved that grace, but how He

gave it to me. Oh, I love to hear about

the mercy of God and the work that Heaven put

into redeeming me, and how unworthy I was before God,

and how He's still made away for me.

I love to hear all of that truth but.

One of the most dangerous things you can do in

any job, any task, is to.

Be complacent of the truth of the job.

One of the most dangerous things you can do and

get in the car is become complacent of what's happening

around you and fall asleep behind the wheel. I've done that.

I woke up upside down in a ditch. One of

the most dangerous things you can do as a believer

has become complacent and become so focused on the goodness

of God that you forget about.

The enemy behind you.

There's a reason we have the phrase give the devil

is doom. It's not to give him glory and undoe attention,

but it's to make sure that Hell doesn't forget that

we are aware of their act, that we are aware

of their life.

And it's so that Hell does it forget.

That we are aware of the goodness and the greatness

of our God, and that we know that Hell is defeated.

Sometimes the devil needs to be reminded of where he belongs.

Blest he get too much in your life. Give no

place to the enemy, and when.

You become complacent about him, you give him place that

he doesn't deserve.

It's ground that belongs to God.

That he's a squatter living in a place, and he

ain't got no rights to how many y'allre saved? No,

you saved, You're positive your saved. Raise your hand, hear

me this morning. If you can't raise your.

Hand to that this message hadn't been.

For you, this word ain't for you this morning. The

only part of this word that's for you this morning.

Is that you need salvation.

And I pray God would draw you to himself with

great anticipation this morning, and that today would be the

day of salvation for you.

But if you're a believer, hear me.

The devil has no rights to you.

You are not his. You do not belong to him.

Your marriage does not belong to him, your kids don't

belong to him, your house doesn't belong to him. Your

mind does not benight God, My God, your mind does not.

Belong to him.

Give it back to God because it's all his.

But how do I get back all the stuff that

I've lost?

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he

will flee God. I'm giving you back everything I've lost

today because the only reason I lost it was because

I gave it up everything this morning that you've lost.

I prayed God would restore it. But it begins with

the restoration of your faith. It begins with the restoration

of your walk in Christ. It begins with the restoration

of the eagerness that you once held. Restore unto me

the joy of my salvation. David prayed because he realized

he got complacent. He realized he was giving up ground.

Restore me the joy.

Some of us are so saved, we forgot to be

happy about it. God, make us lad and what you

gave us stand with me. I'm gonna pray real quick,

and then I'm gonna sit down.

If you want to come and pray, please come. If

you want to pray right where you're.

At, you pray right where you're at, or don't avoid

this moment.

Don't you go home with all the stuff that you

showed up with.

Don't you leave without taking the stuff that belongs to you.

And if that means somebody needs to get with you,

and we need.

To pray and cry out to the Lord until after lunchtime,

We'll pray until we need to quit praying. But we

ain't leaving until some devil's heads have been bruised, and

God is honored.

POD's got a low setting.

We'd keep it warm, Amen.

I didn't get many Indians on that for some reason.

For the math. Father, I'm grateful that we serve.

A risen savior, a savior that came and made his

mark on his creation and proved to death itself that

he is in.

Control of it.

So, Father, remind your children this morning of who you are.

Remind all of the deceived of who you are.

Put in the forefront of our mind just how big

you are this morning. Father, some of us came in

this place this morning dragging some baggage that we need.

To let go of.

Father, I pray in Jesus' name that you would release

those things from your children. That you would give your

children the boldness to reject the devils that are oppressing

them in Jesus's name, and that you would give them victory. Father,

there's many of us that came into this place this morning, and.

We have given up ground. We have lost what you

created us for.

So Father, in Jesus name, I pray that you would

begin to restore and to heal your children this morning.

Give us a fresh boldness from Heaven Father.

For those that came into this place and they've never

met you as Savior, they only know you as Judge.

God.

I pray that you would draw it into yourself right now.

You would make yourself ever known to.

Them, that they would act upon this moment, and that

today would be the day of salvation for that person,

that your kingdom would grow.

Pat would we pray for your glory to take imminence

over all. God. We love you, God, We love you

in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you for tuning in to today's broadcast. We hope

you are encouraged and challenged by the preaching of God's word.

You can reach us by phone at six one eight

three nine zero ten forty six, contact us via Facebook

or our website FBC Woodlawn dot org. It's our prayer

that you answer the call of God on your life

to follow him and share your faith story with others.

Goodbye for now, and God bless you.