[Music] God gave us his word so that we can be strong Christians we must reflect on these principles given to us in the Bible and allow them to guide our path the Bible tells us in Psalm 119: 105 your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path for the next few moments let us consider five signs as indicators that we may be in spiritual trouble or that danger is headed our way I encourage you to deeply consider if you may be in danger of harming your walk with God or your
life and that you allow God to lovingly correct you while there is still time one you are in spiritual danger when you become rebellious God warns us constantly throughout his word to avoid becoming rebellious in the Old Testament the children of Israel are very frequently called out for being stiff necked and rebellious just to put into perspective how bad Rebellion is let us take a look at an important scripture on the matter in 1st Samuel 15 King Saul of Israel is commanded by God to completely Wipe Out the amalekites every living creature is to be
destroyed Saul does not do this according to 1 samuel: 8-9 Saul keeps the king alive and some of the quality animals Saul is confronted for doing this he tries to cover it all up by insisting that his Rebellion toward what God had instructed him to do was actually for Spiritual reasons Saul has the nerve to act like he makes better decisions than God Saul claims that the reason he did this was so that he could offer sacrifices to God what Saul does not seem to realize is that God does not make mistakes if God wanted
sacrifices to be performed to him with the spoils obtained through the battle he would have certainly asked for them the fact of the matter is that Saul willingly disobeyed God because of this Samuel is sent from God and delivers some devastating words to King Saul we see this in verse 22 to 23 which say has the Lord as great Delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of Rams for Rebellion is as the sin of divination and
presumption is as iniquity and idolatry because you have rejected the word of the Lord he has also rejected you from being King we see here that God is much more interested in our obedience than he is in a sacrifice King Saul would learn that God is serious when he commands something Saul is told that the Lord is no longer willing for him to be king and the cause is the rebellious heart of King Saul I have noticed in my life that when I want to do something contrary to what I know God wants I will
try and package it up to be as palatable and accept acceptable as possible however if I honest with myself I will see that I often am openly rebelling against God and just need to get my heart right we might try to justify our Rebellion but we have just seen that God equates it to divination or witchcraft let us use this story to avoid the dangers that Rebellion will certainly bring us two you are in spiritual danger when you become prideful pride is a common theme in the Bible the danger signs are listed from cover to
cover and it would be in our best interest to pay attention to the warning the Bible says Proverbs 16: 18 Pride goes before destruction and a hotty spirit before a fall and then we're warned again in Proverbs 29:23 that one's Pride will bring him low but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor you can be sure that when you catch yourself being prideful if you do not repent of that quickly you will find yourself in spiritual danger a prideful place is a dangerous place to be being filled with pride is practically an open
invitation for God to bring you down to size not because he is mean but because he alone deserves our worship throughout society today we see people who think much too highly of themselves the Bible warns us that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble we all are in desperate need of God God's grace and he is less willing to provide us with that Grace when we are arrogant and full of ourselves this lesson was learned the hard way by a famous King named Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4: 28-33 Nebuchadnezzar learned that being prideful
puts a person in grave danger he says is not this great Babylon which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my Majesty in his mind he is the best thing to have ever happened to the world in his mind he alone built Babylon he has no concept of the fact that God puts rulers where they are even in ungodly Nations any rank a person has achieved is because God allowed it to happen as these prideful words leave his mouth God steps in to intervene he strips the
king of all his lavish lifestyle right at that very moment the king loses his mind and goes and lives in the fields like a wild beast until he comes to his senses amazingly at the end of this he comes to worship the one true God he just had to lose everything including his sanity to be in a humble enough place to look to God when a person becomes prideful they are at risk of losing everything friend let's ensure we keep our pride in check before an event like this occurs in our lives three you are
in spiritual Danger when you lose your care for the things of God another sign we can use to determine if we are heading for Spiritual danger is if we seem to have lost interest in the things of God we see here how God responds to the church at Ephesus about their loss of zeal for the things of God Revelation 2: 2:5 says I know your Works your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil but have tested those who call themselves Apostles and are not and found them to
be false I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake and you have not grown weary but I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first remember therefore from where you have fallen repent and do the works you did at first if not I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent notice that this church is still mentioned as currently having good attributes and good works that are indeed worthy of respect their problem is however that they are beginning to
Trend downward as far as their passion for the things of God goes God notices this downward Trend and tells them that they need to change God is informing them that they need to rekindle that love that they had for the things of God like at the start and climb back to that Mountaintop of Faith let's do a heart check have we lost any of our love for the things of God does reading his word praying or spending time with the people of God just not excite us anymore let's work on correcting this while we can
God wants us to return to days when we were burning bright with a desire to know God and make him known to others four you are in spiritual danger when you become distracted people are well aware that driving a vehicle under the influence of drugs or alcohol is a potentially deadly choice for the driver and s there are signs everywhere that are pleading with people to not drive under the influence from texting to applying makeup it seems more and more people are out driving our roadways distracted this is dangerous spiritually speaking I fear we have
many Christians who are completely distracted does the Bible speak on distraction yes it most certainly does 1 Peter 5:8 be sober minded Be watchful your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour if a lion was prowling around your backyard what would you do even worse what if that lion had access to your house your bedroom the bedrooms of your family I am sure you would want to prepare yourself for such a battle and you should because this lion certainly exists and his name is Satan we as Christians need to
be vigilant and anticipate attacks from the devil we need to be busy arming ourselves for spiritual warfare the worst thing a Christian could do is lie there asleep or drunk while a lion is roaming about looking for an easy meal fighting a lion is hard enough when you are prepared for it even more so when you're caught off guard thankfully for us there are some things to do that will keep us alert and help protect us from spiritual danger reading our Bibles and studying them diligently praying and going to church are all ways to stay
diligent let us heed the clear warning in scripture of staying alert and avoid becoming distracted five you are in spiritual danger when you are too comfortable is there anything inherently wrong with being comfortable extra leg room on a flight freshly washed sheets and bed a nice hot shower there's nothing wrong with any of these things there's nothing wrong with Comfort however like many things in life sometimes too much of a good thing can quickly turn into a bad thing we tend to become somewhat spoiled when we become too comfortable the Bible warns us Proverbs 27:7
one who is full loathes honey but to one who is hungry everything bitter is Sweet Honey is great when we have luxuries like this or any other Comforts God allows us to have we should enjoy them but there's a difference between enjoying and overindulging the Bible tells us that we can get to such a place of comfort that the luxuries we should enjoy become disgusting to us and dangerous to our spiritual lives we need to avoid being in a place of abundant Comfort when we become intoxicated by all the Comforts we enjoy this has the
potential to cause us to take it all for granted and to become so comfortable that we do not lean on God like we should when my family and I are out preaching the gospel time and time again we see more people come to Christ in economically challenged neighborhoods than others the reasoning for this is the fact that these people typically do not enjoy an overabundance of comfort going without luxuries or even Essentials in some cases causes people to be more humble and to see their need for God this of course is just a generalization the
truth remains regardless we as Christians need to avoid becoming too comfortable we've seen just how important it is to take the warning signs we find in scripture and apply them to our own lives to protect ourselves spiritually the warning signs are scattered throughout the Bible for our benefit and we should take them to heart allow the word of God to resonate with you and keep you on the path of righteousness dear friends the focus of today's prayer is all to do with our habits habits can reveal important things about our lives our habits reflect our
thoughts our habits reflect our priorities but our habits also reflect where our hearts are and your heart is only ever in one of two places with God in his will and in obedience to his word or it's in the world and in darkness and people always think when we say dark Darkness we mean witchcraft or evil rituals darkness is absence from God you don't have to be a bad person to be in darkness you don't have to be an evil person to be in darkness it's a state of being away from God that's Darkness God
is light God is life Jesus said in John 8:12 I am the light of the world whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life that's why the Bible says do not conform to this world because the moment you conform you're in darkness you're in darkness because you have conformed to an authority that is not godly the Bible says repeatedly do not fear why because there is no fear in Jesus and if you walk in him you walk in light you walk with a sound mind in a spirit of
power and love but if you walk in fear you walk in darkness because fear is not nor can it be found in the Lord you find fear when you move out of the light and walk in darkness one of the most popular phrases is walk by faith not by sight but think about it when you walk by faith you see Jesus when you walk by faith God's word is a lamp unto your feet but when you walk by sight you see this world you see Darkness that's what walk by faith not by sight really means
walk in the light of God not in the darkness of this world so once again where are your habits leading you to walk by faith to walk in light in Jesus or to walk in the world to walk in darkness people today are unaware that your habits the things that you do day in and day out the things that control you can lead you to Dark Places darkness is not just some evil Corner in hell where all demons and bad spirits meet up you can be going to church but if God isn't the number one
priority in your life then you're in darkness if God's not first if there isn't a burning desire to know him to obey him then you're in darkness and here's what happens when people don't have God first in their hearts some will be controlled by their work their business or money for them it's all about working it's all about their career when really it should be all about the Lord some people become slaves to jealousy and envy if it looks good makes them feel good they want it and if you have something they don't then jealousy
kicks in be careful about your habits be careful concerning where your habits will take you and so I want us for the next few moments to go before the Lord and pray that he will give us Godly habits may he help us to cultivate habits that will bring us closer to him the Bible in Galatians 6:9 says let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up don't get tired of doing good on a daily basis that is people of God we
need to develop strong routines that are firmly centered around Jesus Christ and one of the main habits that we need to develop is daily communion with the Holy Spirit the Amplified translation for Ephesians 5: 18 says do not get drunk with wine for that is wickedness corruption stupidity but be filled with the Holy Spirit and constantly Guided by him when we're filled with the Holy Spirit then that means we're always led by the spirit it means we're constantly being Guided by the spirit it's a state of dependency you're no longer dependent on yourself or on
your resources or your circle of influence but you're dependent on the Holy Ghost day in and day out that's why it's so important to be filled with the Holy Spirit you find that when you're filled with with the Holy Spirit you're more sensitive to the voice of God your heart becomes more responsive to the things of God to the instructions of God with the Holy Spirit you can read enjoy and understand the word of God in a way that's different than if you tried it on your own so strive to make it a habit that
each day you spend time with the Holy Spirit spend that time developing and building a relationship with the Lord through the help the guidance and the leadership of the Holy Ghost now let's go to God In Prayer dear father God I thank you I honor you and I Praise You Lord I Thank you for being more than enough and all that I need God I thank you for giving me life giving me health and giving me another chance and Lord as I come before you today I ask that you would help me to be a
believer who fully depends on you Lord I pray that I would be someone who's completely devoted to you may the Holy Spirit influence me on a daily basis Ephesians 5: 1 and 2 say the therefore be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling Aroma Lord Jesus my desire is to imitate you when you walked on this Earth the Bible tells us that you often withdrew from the disciples you often withdrew from
other people so that you could pray to God the father and Lord I pray that you would give me that same Grace to model my life around the example that you set help me to withdraw from the world and from all the busyness of life so that I can spend time alone with you in prayer Lord let that be my habit when you walked on this Earth Lord you showed people from all types of backgrounds compassion and love and mercy you would eat with Sinners you would love on those who were shunned by Society help
me to love others Lord those who don't look like me who don't sound like me who don't have the same background as me help me to love my neighbor with a Godly love help me to love others regardless of their sin Lord help me not to judge others because of their sin for I too am a sinner saved by grace one who is in need of your mercy and your compassion King Jesus when you walk this Earth Lord you are about your father's business you put your will aside so that the will of God the
Father father would be done Lord I pray for that kind of heart a heart that puts your will before mine a heart that puts you first Let It Be My Delight to obey your word and fulfill the purpose and the plans that you have over my life the Bible says in Ephesians 5: 15-1 17 therefore that you walk carefully living life with honor purpose and courage shunning those who tolerate and enable evil not as the unwise but as wise sensible intelligent Discerning people making the very most of your time on Earth recognizing and taking advantage
of each opportunity and using it with wisdom and diligence because the days are filled with evil therefore do not be foolish and thoughtless but understand and firmly grasp what the will of the Lord is Father please help me to walk uprightly help us as your children to walk with wisdom and honor before you raise us up to be a faithful people a people who are not foolish and thoughtless but raise us up to be a people who understand and firmly grasp what the will of the Lord is raise us up to be a people who
are obedient to your will Lord Jesus Lord I ask that you would renew my strength daily I know your grace is sufficient for me each and every day you extend the grace so that I may walk in obedience to your commands Lord I pray that my daily habits would be beneficial to my soul and to my spirit let me not sew into the flesh because the flesh is corrupt and I don't want to reap a corrupt Harvest but instead Lord I pray that you would revive my spirit Quicken my spirit Lord l so that I
may sew into that which gives me eternal life and Lord I know that that is you you King Jesus give me eternal life God I thank you for hearing my prayer I glorify you for being a loving and a caring God it's in the mighty name of Jesus that we pray this prayer amen
