Beware of Satan's traps

As Christians, we have to be aware of sin and the way Satan uses traps to catch us. He is crafty and brilliant with his ways. He's not all knowing but he's been around for a long time. We keep our eyes on Christ and we won't be looking at the mess in the world.

email: RuggedTruthGodsWord@gmail.com

God has a super huge plan. We all have to do our part as He assigns to us. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, brothers and sisters in the Lord. This is Brother Rick, and I hope you all are having a good day and keep looking up. Every one of us just keep looking up. And I hope there are people that are listening that don't know the Lord yet and they want to come to know the Lord. Because that's the whole reason for every season is bringing people to him because God loves everybody much more than we could ever love our children or love each other or love anything. He is love. We just had some mean storms roll through here in North Carolina, that's for sure, and I'm glad they went by. I love the way the good Lord lays something on my heart to put on these podcasts. And I ask him and I just wait and he presents it to me. And I record it on my phone on a notepad and go with that. When I first started doing this, I used to take a lot of notes and they were real choppy. They've smoothed out quite a bit now, and I'm very thankful for that. That being said, I would like to talk about Satan's traps. In 1 Peter 5 8, the Bible says that uh the devil prowls around looking for people who he could devour like a roaring lion. It tells us to even be sober-minded. It doesn't mean sober like drunk wise, which it doesn't mean that too, I'm sure, but uh just being clear-headed and being alert as a Christian because we're in a place that's not our home. This really is not our home anymore. Once you accept Christ, our home is in heaven with Christ. And Satan will uh set up things in your life if you're not careful. He he knows, he's not all-knowing, but he knows a lot of our weaknesses and the things we've been tied up in. And he'll try to drive us toward uh falling into traps and set up things and touch nerves on us that really affect us mentally, and it in effect it will affect us spiritually also. But we just have to remember when all the craziness is going on in the world, we say, but God. That's the final say of all of it. God has a final say, especially over his children, which we are if we're believers. And I'm a believer and I hope you guys are. And remember, no no matter how crazy it does get, it all boils down to one thing. The empty tomb. Christ gave up himself as a sacrifice for us. And it wouldn't have been anything if he hadn't resurrected himself or God hadn't resurrected him. I say that because he is the Son of God and He has the authority to forgive sins also. But the empty tomb is what tells it all, because Mohammed and Buddha and whoever else there is is still in the grave. Still their bones are still there. Christ is the only one that had the top the stone rolled away, and he walked out of there. And Christ has given us permission, ability, the right even because we call on God and we are children of God if we believe, but uh Christ left the grave behind and so can we. Just leave it behind. And with that said, that we have the power of God within us through the Holy Spirit to jump every one of the traps that Satan sets for us, or just turn from them, go in a different direction in life. Just don't go that way. Because we have the Holy Spirit living in us as believers, and we have defeated all of it if we cling to Christ. If we look away and start uh looking at ourselves of what we can do, what we can do, let our pride overtake us. Boy, we're going to take a big fall because in Proverbs 16, 18 it talks about uh pride goes before destruction, even, and a haughty spirit before a fall. So we just need to keep a repentant heart because we sin daily, even though we don't mean to, we don't want to, we do. And sometimes we don't want to admit it to the Lord that we've failed again, and we'll try to say, Well, I didn't do it. Well, look at this, what this person did, what that person did. It's not as bad as what that one did or what this one did. It doesn't matter what somebody else has done, it's what we've done. Each one of us has to look within ourselves because Satan will use that and turn it into pride, and it will swell, and it'll even become festerous and turn to bitterness once we start floating away from the Lord. So we have to be oh so careful because any of us can fall at any time. Like the old saying says, uh, how does it go? There go I, but for the grace of God, there go I. Um, so we all have to be careful, don't be throwing stones at people that have had troubles and uh because every one of us could have had stones thrown at us. So let's just don't be picking any rocks up to chuck them because they could get chucked back at us. And so many times in life we run into trouble and traps and we get caught in things, and we say, Man, how can I ever get out of this? I can't defeat this. I can't do it. But you know what? We call on God. For with Him, nothing is impossible. God says, I make the rules. You don't make the rules, I make the rules. I can change the rules, I can bend the rules, I can do whatever to make it for good. Now he won't change right and wrong, but he can set up different things to straighten things out, and hey, this is God, you know. But with the internet and television and just watching commercials. Uh speaking of which, when I used to travel and do work, and I had to travel internationally, and um I was in England, and I when I get done for the day, I'd go back to the hotel, and they had commercials on there. And on this commercial, there was a woman completely naked, and this was around year 2000, 2002. I mean, completely naked, selling some junk. I couldn't believe it. So that's the kind of mess we have to look forward to unless we can help America get back on track and get away from all this because we're getting pulled toward homosexuality, people saying homosexuality is okay, and and as transgender changes is okay, and it's not okay. It's not the way the Lord set it up. I'm not bashing people. You know, we're to love people and hate the sin. We hate our own sin and we hate their sin. But we love people, but we don't let those catch us in traps, and those things are some terrible traps to get out of. Just like I used to smoke, and that was hard enough to get out of. I couldn't imagine how hard it would be to try to get away from homosexuality and like the partners they have and all this stuff. It's any kind of sin can grab you, but God didn't destroy cities because of smoking or because of lying. He he did because Sodom and Gomorrah. Homosexuality was spreading like a cancer. So that's another trap. There are so many different traps that are laid in this life for us to fall into. And we and when we start taking our eyes off the Lord, that's why we can continually, continually have to keep calling on the Lord, keep an open communication to him. In Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 17, it says, pray without ceasing. And that doesn't mean you have to get on your knees all the time, oh, but you do start the day with prayer and end the day with prayer, and you keep it going. All you have to do is just talking to him as a prayer. Whenever we're talking to God, just talk to him, keep an open line of communication going with him, and it really does help with some of the traps, well, all of the traps that Satan lays. Sometimes you'll get framed up, like poor Daniel did. He was just he was praying to the Lord, and uh the people that didn't like him in the book of Daniel, they had him thrown in jail. They they convinced the the king at the time to uh have the a rule passed that you can't pray to anybody but to their God. But that being said, there are lots of traps that are set. Sometimes we can't dodge them because that does happen. We will get caught in something that wasn't our fault. And the Lord is there to help us, and other believers are there to help us. We encourage one another, we show each other love and compassion, and even when we stumble and fall, we help each other. We don't ridicule each other, say, oh, look at you, look at you. No, we don't act like that. We help each other and we love each other. That's brotherly love and sisterly love. We help each other. That's what God talked about through Christ when he said that uh in Matthew 22, 37 to 40, and again in Mark 12, 29 to 31, he said the uh the two main commandments, the first commandments are to love God with all your heart and mind and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. These are the two great commandments, and we show love to each other by helping one another rather than trying to push people down like a drowning person tries to push people down when you try to save them from drowning, trying to raise themselves up. We don't do that as Christians. We lift each other up and we put each other first. Well, brothers and sisters, I just wanted to talk about some of the traps that Satan lays for us, and we have to be careful all the time because he is definitely he's smart, very intelligent, much smarter than anybody alive except God. And so we just we can't think we can outsmart the devil because we can't. But we do trust God for helping us moment by moment, not just day to day, day by day, but moment to moment. Okay, uh, brothers and sisters, I'm going to get off of here, but uh I pray the good Lord save your souls and help you to have a good day and keep looking up because he's going to return soon. Um, this is Brother Rick, and I love you with all my heart in the name of Jesus.