 American stress levels are skyrocketing. The survey says that more than seven out of 10 US adults feel completely overwhelmed. People now sleep two and a half fewer hours each night than people did 100 years ago. So you're most likely sleeping less than your grandparents did. Your dog is sleeping twice as much as you do, but you probably sleeping less. Average workload is now longer than those in 1960s. An estimated 49.5% of young people have a mental health disorder at some point in their lives. Dr. Richard Swinson, he's a doctor and also an author of a book called Margin, said the following. Conditions of a modern day living devour margin. If you're homeless, we direct you to the shelter. If you're penning less, we offer you food stamps. If you are breathless, we connect you to oxygen. If you're margin less, meaning you don't have breathing room, you don't have margin in your life, we give you one more thing to do. Margin less is being 30 minutes late to the doctor's office because you were 20 minutes late getting out of the hairdresser. And because you were 10 minutes late dropping off your kids at school because the car ran out of gas two blocks before the gas station and you forgot your purse. It's supposed to make you laugh. But I'm guessing some of us can relate so we're not laughing, we're like, ain't funny, okay? You read my mail. That's being margin less. Margin, on the other hand, is having breath at the top of the staircase, money at the end of the month. Insanity left over after the end of adolescence. Margin is grandma taking the baby for the afternoon. Margin is having a friend help carry you the burden. Margin less is not having enough time to finish the book you're reading on stress. Margin is having the time to read it twice. Margin less is our culture. Margin is counterculture. Having space in your life and schedule. Margin less is the disease of our decade and margin is the cure. Margin, in other words, if you're taking notes, write this down, is having a space between your limit and your load. We all have a load and we all have a limit. It's a common thing in our culture to push this idea that's not biblical and it's not even common sense. Doesn't even make sense that you can break your limits. You know, overcome your limits. All of us are finite. We have 24 hours. We have X amount of years that we're going to live. We have strengths and we have weaknesses. Having margin is having a breathing room in your life where your load and your limits never meet. Let me say that again. Where your load and your limits never meet. Where your expenses and your income don't meet. But there is a breathing room. There's a little bit of extra. Breathing room. If you don't have a breathing room in your life, if you don't have margin in your life, two things will happen. Number one, your stress levels will go up. Number two, your relationships, relational intimacy goes down. All relationships become superficial. All relationships become only surface. They're not deep anymore because it takes room for relationships to flourish. Even relationship with God. And the second thing or the first thing that happens when there is no margin or there is no breathing room in life is that our stress begins to go up. As the stress goes up, we begin to develop diseases that otherwise wouldn't be there. Some people begin to faint and end up in an emergency. Some people begin to gain weight, others lose it. Some people can't sleep well, so then we medicate all of that. And so today what I'm going to do is first I'm gonna address the spiritual part. By God's grace, if everything works out and I'll be here next week and you'll be here next week, we will address the physical component of living a life with margin. Because as Christians, we believe that the world we see was created by the world we don't see. We believe that the roots of our natural world exist in the spiritual world. Now think of this. When you see a spider web in your lawn, you know that there is a spider. When you see a tree, you know there are roots. When you see a human being, you know that inside of them lives a being that you cannot see. It's their thoughts, it's their emotions. It's the stuff that you cannot put it through a microscope. It's the real them. The real world is the spiritual world. So if we deal with anxiety, being overwhelmed, depressed, only with the symptoms, meaning the natural world, and we say that we need to improve our schedule. You know, we need to wake up a little bit earlier, improve on our diet, add broccoli, add walking. You know, go to the nature more. You know, turn off the computer, limit the social media exposure. All of that is great. Don't focus on success as much and focus on relationships more. All of that has its place and I'll address some of that next week. But if we don't deal with the spiritual problem and the spiritual roots of the problem, we might miss walking in permanent freedom. A lady came last week from a different state and she has a being that sleeps with her during the night. And this being has physical relationship with her. She experiences all of the feelings, wakes up as a total different person, feels angry, upset. All of that leads to her already losing two marriages. So a lady like that, she doesn't need just a therapy. She needs to be delivered from that. Somebody here who hears voices in the third person in them, they don't need to have a better planning of their schedule. They need to have deliverance. And some of you may say, well Vlad, you always go to deliverance. The reason why is because the world is spiritual. And so to ignore the spiritual roots to our problems would be similar to sweeping the spider web and never catching the spider and crushing it. So that's why today what we're going to do is we're going to deal with the spiritual thing. Some of us in here today, our problem with being overwhelmed, stressed out and depressed has been passed on from our family. Some of you will look in your family and you will see that they've battled with that. They struggled with that. They didn't overcome that. This is not to blame your family. This is to recognize where it's coming from and to attack it at the root so you can pass to your children, not enter depression pills, but better habits and better lifestyle. Amen. Let's go together with me to book of Acts chapter 16 and verse 16. Now it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune telling. Now I want you to notice that the Greek word for the word divination, spirit of divination, the Greek word there is python. Python is the word there. Now this is the city of Philippi. Let me tell you just a little bit of a background of what's happening with this girl. They believed there is a myth that was going on that a giant snake called python inhabited the site in Greece called Delphi. Python controlled that place until God Apollo came and killed python and then he took over that place and they even had a snake as a, like an image of a snake on this site, this temple site right there at Delphi. So Apollo was this God, that he had priestesses on that temple, in that temple who he would possess and they would have information they otherwise did not have and they would give that information to people who would come and pay for it. So kind of like psychics now. And so, and then through that information they would get money. These women, priestesses, they were actually high paying priestesses and they were possessed with a spirit of Apollo or spirit of divination, of spirit of python. So when Paul comes to preach, one of these girls that's working for this temple and most likely being a slave girl as well who predicts things is following Paul and saying different things. And Paul of course gets annoyed after a while and he commends the spirit of divination. In other words, he actually commends the spirit of a python to come out of her. And then she gets free and of course Paul gets in trouble. As any time you do the deliverance you get in trouble with people. And so it's just, it could get you in trouble. And so he gets in trouble, then God kind of works things out and everything becomes fine. I find it interesting that a demon takes the name and the nature of a snake or an animal. And it's common. You see, when you cast out a demon sometimes a demon will say, I am her husband. You're like, but her husband is standing there. And so, so who is this man then? She says, I don't know, he's not her husband because the demon will take a role. I'm anger. The demon takes the role by its function or sometimes the name of a snake. So what I wanna deal with right now is I want to deal with specifically three traits of a snake called python how it relates to the demonic tactics to our life. Now, do I believe there's a spirit of python? Yes. But I believe that the enemy, he takes the traits and some of these traits in snakes can be found also in our enemy. So I'm gonna deal with three of them and then we're going to pray. For those of you who come today and need deliverance we've seen in the first service you will experience that you may say, but that's not a deliverance Saturday. Yes, it's a deliverance Sunday. Because I don't want to pray for somebody who has depression problems that's going on for 10 generations and prescribed to you to download a better time management app. If your problem is a demon there's only one solution that demons know and that is freedom. Your therapist probably won't offer that to you nor is your doctor, but you can receive that at church. You can receive that at God's house. The prayer for freedom and that can happen today. Like that lady last Sunday who was delivered the demon came out and she was set free. Today could be that day for you as well in Jesus' name. Can somebody give the Lord a clap offering? Hallelujah. Number one, pythons can swallow the prey as a whole. Pythons have very flexible ligaments connected to their jaws that stretch around the large prey. Pythons when they're young they would eat rabbits, frogs and other things. But as they get bigger, their appetites get bigger they no longer waste their time on small prey. Sometimes they'll go hungry for days and weeks to wait to find something very, very big. And what they do is they would bite the prey and then swallow the whole thing inside and their jaws would spread as they swallowed that prey. Wattiba, 54 years of age, went missing one Thursday after checking on her vegetable garden. Local people mounted a huge search looking for her. They found her sandals not very far from where she went missing and not very far from there they found a bloated python. They cut the python and lo and behold their neighbor was inside. Swallowed alive. Now when I researched this I was like thank God we got rattlesnakes. Those are not as intimidating. I know they're poisonous, I know they're bad but you know they're not pythons. Those pythons are big. I went for a prayer walk today with my dog and you know what I saw on the road? A rattlesnake and it was dead like somebody gutted it. And so kind of looked over I really felt that it was maybe a sign from the Lord that somebody's gonna get set free today. Come on somebody, amen. Amen. Now let me speak to you directly. I believe the Satan's task is to swallow people alive. John 1010 it says for the thief does not come except to steal, to kill and to destroy. One of the ways he does that is through suicidal tendencies, thoughts of suicide. When the person gets swallowed up by the amount of pressure and problems they face. They can't take it anymore and they decide to tap out. Suicide is the 11th cause of death in the USA. And it's the second cause of death among the youth. Ages 10 through 34. And it's the fifth cause of death ages 35 to 54. Suicide is a permanent solution. That's what person who takes their own life to a temporary problem. It's trying to solve something that's temporary by something that's permanent. Now please understand the Bible has a lot to say about people who went through very difficult times and who wanted to quit. Give up. One of them is actually Solomon. In his pursuit of pleasure he reached a point where he hated life. Ecclesiastes 2.17. One of them is Elijah. He was fearful and depressed and yearned for death. 1 Kings 19.4. Jonah was another one. He was so angry with God that he wished to die. Jonah 4.8. Even Apostle Paul and his missionary companions at one point were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure so that they despaired of life itself. We see that anxiety, depression, being overwhelmed. I mean read Book of Job. Read Psalms. Half of Psalms is David walking around depressed. So the idea that if you're a Christian you always walk around with a plastic happy smile it's not biblical and it's not practical. If you live special in the United States inflation is high, get prices is high, everything is high. And so you're looking at the world and then if you add to that your parents getting divorced, you add to that hearing a bad news from the doctor, you add to that having an accident, you add to that getting an attack in your mind. What the enemy comes is he loves to come and offer you a solution. And this is the enemy's solution. Your life is better with you not in it. The world will be better if you're not in it. Your hope, your salvation is in the robe. Tie a robe and yourself. All your pain will end. But as Christians we understand that suicide is sin because it's murder of self and you are not God. You're not supposed to take your life. You didn't give it. It's God's life to give and God's job to take. You are not God. Now sometimes Christians, anytime I mention this topic I have people well meaning Christians come up and say if I take my life as a Christian do I go to heaven or do I go to hell? And I have a video about this or we'll come out very soon on YouTube but how I address that question to those Christians is I said this you're asking the wrong question. If you're asking this Jesus to meet you on the other side of your known sin that you're going to commit why don't you ask me the question how can Jesus deliver me from this? If you're contemplating struggling with this today and you're coming to church and you want to know where you will end up I want to tell you something that Jesus we serve wants to give you hope not in your funeral but in his death on the cross. Our God gives us life and gives us hope. You may say but you don't understand how hard things are. I don't understand but I do know one thing is there is a spirit of death that wants to partner with you go through the valley of the shatter of death when you go through divorce when you go through heartbreak when you go through loss of job when you did something so stupid and you're so embarrassed you say I can't live with myself anymore like Judas betrayed Jesus and says I can't live anymore I deserve to die I can't take this anymore you must understand your salvation is not in the robe it's in the cross hope is not found in ending it our hope is found in going to Jesus and laying our life down to him when I was younger I despaired of life as well I didn't see a purpose for life I didn't see future for my life I thought that I was dealt with a bad hand and there were thoughts that would come in my mind I felt that they were mine now I know they were not mine because everyone would be better off with you not being here I felt a burden to my family I felt a burden to very few friends that I had and I felt that God abandoned me by making me I had extreme migrant headaches I did not like the way I looked in the mirror I had social anxiety I had a difficult time speaking in front of people speaking is actually number one fear in the United States is being dead so the idea of speaking in front of people gave me anxiety gave me fear and something that I do now I did not like anything and there's nothing I could do to change those things so I felt as I tried my best to change my life and I couldn't at the age of 14 how can someone come to that conclusion they can't unless somebody plants an idea in their head I didn't know those thoughts were not mine I praise God for the local church I praise God for godly parents and I praise God that God the Holy Spirit did not let me and protected me from this I knew I wouldn't have the courage to take my life but you know what I was hoping for that God will cause an accident and that God will take my life and I'm so glad God didn't listen to that because these were voices of the devil Satan is after you and if he cannot destroy you he would rather swallow you alive I have a word for every person today that is standing on the edge maybe solution is not found in suicide solution is found in Jesus Christ you may say my life sucks I can't take it anymore I have something better that you can do with your life than to take it lay it down lay it down give your life and that's what the Lord spoke to me when I was a teenager Jesus says give it to me and watch what I can do with it you don't like it give it to me I gave you this life I know what I gave you for it your life was born on purpose with a purpose but I said Jesus I don't see the purpose he says the purpose is not in you the purpose is in me give me your life I said Lord what can you do with this life he says just trust me if I took dirt and made something out of it can you imagine what I can make out of your life you surrender your life don't take your life lay it down at the feet of Jesus Christ do not believe a lie that is coming in your mind and says you know what your life has no purpose your life has no meaning the best solution you have you made a mess out of your life exit this life by stopping all this pain that you're experiencing what the enemy doesn't tell you is you're stepping into Christless Eternity what the enemy doesn't tell you not trusting in Jesus to deliver you from this not trusting in Jesus to forgive you of your sin you're ending emotional pain to step into eternal pain the enemy doesn't tell you that the enemy also doesn't tell you that it's a selfish thing because you're ending your pain and you're transferring that to your children your grandchildren and all of your close friends who do love you the enemy doesn't tell you is that this spirit of death that is attacking you will have a legal foothold now in your children's lives and they're gonna have to wrestle with it twice as hard as you did you came to the right place to come to church today and today the spirits of death the spirits of intrusive thoughts the spirits of murder the spirits that want to end your life have made a greatest mistake by letting you come here because the God who sits on the throne Jesus who died on the cross has a purpose for your life an assignment for your life if he can take a Ukrainian insecure boy with eye problems and headache problems and can make something out of him can you imagine what he can do out of your life so much more because our God is greater than any mistake you made your future is brighter than anything you've done your God made you maybe your mama didn't want you but God wanted you fearfully and wonderfully are you made out of God existence you were born on purpose with purpose and if you walk through a difficult season in your life right now do not partner with the spirit of death do not partner with lies you may say but it's hard yes it's hard but Solomon learned to fear God and keep his commandments Elijah was comforted by an angel and allowed to rest and was given new assignment that although the pressure he faced was beyond his ability to endure the Lord can bear all things none of these men ended their life but they finished their race and I prophesy in Jesus name so will you suicide will not be your portion dying early will not be your portion your portion will be to live long and to praise God your portion will be to be fresh and fruitful even in your old age you will pass on life and hope and future to your children and there will be a day you will stand in a different season of your life you will look back at the hardest most difficult season and you will say I am so glad I didn't quit I am so glad I didn't buy into a lie because I would have not enjoyed the things that I am enjoying today when I look at my life today and I said there was no way no way in million years I would have thought that God could use someone like me that God had a plan for someone like me if he did it for me he can do it for you our God makes a way with there is no way but it does not happen if you make an idol out of death our solution is not in our death his death was enough your death is not necessary to end your pain there is another way and it is better way it is his way to experience healing from pain as anybody here experience that deliverance anybody here experience that Jesus is better forgiveness is better deliverance is better salvation is better hope from God come on you can do better than that church let the regime of the Lord say so come on some of you were supposed to be dead the enemy wanted to he came for the kill and wanted to swallow you but God God stepped in you cried out to God and God answered and that snake was defeated and you were victorious come on somebody I just feel like just giving God one more time a little bit of praise hallelujah love you Jesus love you Jesus Lord don't give up on us when we go stupid don't give up on us when we want to quit amen sorry just little moment me and Jesus over here the second thing that I want you to see that python loves to do and that is to squeeze the breath of its victims so the first thing that I mentioned is to swallow the victims as a whole and I believe that I'm going to reference that to suicide and we see this pandemic happening in our culture the second thing is this is going to get hit home squeezes the breath of its victims pythons doesn't kill with venom instead it encircles its intended prey and tightens its grip until the last bit of air is expelled pythons can reach the length of 32 feet attack in an ambush wrapping themselves around their prey crushing it squeezing it tighter as the victim exhales National Geographic said something fascinating that pythons actually can feel the heartbeat of a victim so they stop squeezing when the heart stops beating they know when the victim takes the last breath so when they circle around its victim they squeeze it harder, harder, harder until you can no longer take a breath because you're so squeezed in and the moment you die is when they stop squeezing because they accomplished their purpose the horrifying study suggests that pythons kill their prey by squeezing until brain becomes over pressurized snakes can squeeze their prey much harder than the prey's blood pressure this could stop the prey's blood flow killing a person or being an animal quickly by carrying too much pressure on the brain distorting its nervous system two canadian boys five and seven were living below a zoo, snake zoo and your person on the top has a snake zoo move the snake escaped trappings went through the ventilation came to where the boys were sleeping nobody heard a sound and in the morning they found both boys dead and the snake wrapped around them because that's how pythons kill their prey they cannot swallow the whole prey they circle around it tighten it closer and closer until you no longer can breathe which means they're after your breath I believe the enemy of our soul is not only wants to take our life he wants to take our breath in the bible breath represents life breath is actually the Holy Spirit spirit is breath God breathed into the corpses the skeletons the bodies that were life less and they became living beings Jesus breathed into disciples in John and they became born again the bible says God breathed into his words 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 all scripture is God breathed that's why this is a different book than self help book because this is God breathed book when you're reading it something is happening to you the enemy is after squeezing not only breathing place but a breathing spiritual breathing in your life Jensen Franklin in his book the spirit of python mentioned 7 signs that you're being squeezed by a python right now mark them in your notes number 1 loss of hunger for God number 2 physically being tired all the time number 3 is attack of lack number 4 is struggling or nonexistent prayer life number 5 super overwhelmed number 6 old habits making their way back and number 7 pulling away from the Christian community sometimes what we could perceive as something oh I'm just going through this and it's true some of us are going through challenging and difficult times but if you notice you are stuck in this place where your spiritual hunger is gone your physical fatigue is there and you're eating right you're sleeping right you're taking your vitamins there's constant lack you're working you're noticing this satisfaction with life sense of overwhelm you're like walking on eggshells any moment everything triggers you something someone does and you will just explode if your husband your wife or your children you feel like you're about to snap and then there's this desire to pull away from the church you need a break from everybody like I can't take this anymore if I see another person in church if I go to church one more time somebody is gonna get hurt and I will be in jail that kind of a thing at first they may seem like oh I'm just going through a phase but if that's been going on for the last 15 years it's not a phase you might be under a spiritual attack what if I were to tell you that in a spiritual world what might be looking like in your life something is squeezing wants to take your breath so you come to church but you don't feel God anymore you open your Bible and it's dry you look at your children and you're like don't want them anymore you look at your life and you say I don't want it anymore and it's just like this this deadness you exist but you don't live many people die at 30 we bury them at 60 they just exist for the rest of their life something is gone breath is gone rhythm is gone no breathing room no breathing at all they suffer a call from spiritual asma the breath is no longer there life is no longer there movement is no longer there and the enemy wants to take that from your life he wants to take your breath he wants to take your prayer life he wants to take your love for Jesus he wants to take your love for life he wants to take your fascination with Jesus he wants to take your desire to be in the Christian community so that you can be life less if he doesn't swallow he focuses on squeezing and he doesn't squeeze all at once it's just every month every year more things as you grow more squeezing until you just say I can't do this anymore I'm done and if the breath is out if life is out he accomplishes his purpose because he's a python he's a spirit but today I want to encourage you you came to the right place we are at war with snakes amen those of you that are experiencing the very thing that I just explained I'm going to invite you forward because we're going to pray for you I believe in the power of prayer I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit I believe in the power of deliverance and I believe in the power of healing and we believe in the power of God can somebody say amen but there's something that we must do not only receive prayer we must read the word that's inhale somebody say inhale you are inhaling God's Spirit so for those of you who feel like well it's great I can receive prayer but if I go home you don't know the life that I've lived it's the same problems how do I survive those problems there's something that you must do the way you live physically is you inhale every day every moment and then you exhale you inhale God's word some of us have been inhaling for news for too long and it's like contaminated air and it's just like it's damaging my lungs it's damaging my life I feel more anxious I keep inhaling Instagram and I look at the weight scale I don't like myself I look in the mirror I don't like myself we haven't went to a vacation and my friends went on a vacation and you keep inhaling toxic air of social media so when you read it you go you inhale in God's pure it tells you who you are some of you you're not inhaling the right stuff every day some of us came in this room and we used to smoke stuff and inhale stuff and today I want to encourage you to inhale God's word by reading the Bible when you read God's word you are inhaling God's Spirit you are inhaling God's life Jesus says my words are Spirit and life you may say but Vlad it's the same old book the Bible is like air for a Christian you don't see it but you can't live without it God without God's word I want to challenge you develop a rhythm I don't read the Bible to preach I read the Bible to live I preach the Bible but the reason why I read it is because spiritual being that needs to inhale God's word any spiritual inhalers we have in this room that are inhaling God's word anybody love their Bible love reading the Bible listening to the Bible memorizing the Bible meditating on the Bible living the Bible come on somebody make some noise if you are grateful for B-I-B-L-E that's the book for me come on somebody I'm back in Sunday school I'm pronounced that right B-I-B-L-E I now have to check myself after Bryson did the dead there was a time Bryson was pronouncing dead from the stage he said D-E-D instead of D-E-A-D and stuff so but the Bible is the book for me can somebody say amen that's inhale there's one thing that you can do to exhale and that is prayer the Bible says everything that has breath praise the Lord Paul says in Philippians this about prayer he says be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God in other words don't keep it inside see when you get the breath in you have to let the breath out when a Christian only reads the Bible but they don't pray they bottle store their anxieties frustrations and hurts that is not how you overcome them you will blow up and those of us who are men I don't want to talk about my feelings I'm fine you're not fine you're a broken human being and you have to have a rhythm now you might not feel comfortable talking to your spouse you might not feel comfortable talking to God but please understand you have to develop a rhythm breathing in breathing out breathing out is Paul says be anxious for nothing he says don't live a stressful life so what do I do prayer supplication with thanksgiving let your requests known to God let God know what you feel for those of us who struggle with that read the book of Psalms read the book of lamentation these men men of God complain to God thank God confess their sins to God but one thing they did not do men had a problem where they exploded on everybody else or blood and everything they touched we have to let God know what's happening if God is doing blessing things in your life spend time breathing in God's word and then spend time talking to God and say Lord thank you for blessing me thank you for my good family thank you for saving me Lord thank you for protecting me if you messed up say Lord I am so sorry wash me with your blood and you're breathing out you're breathing out it's not staying in you and then if you're going through something very difficult say Lord you know that person I really want them dead but God forgive me for those ones and just bless them I forgive them Lord but I'm struggling with them could you give me peace as I go to work and I see that demon and Lord could you help me with that you're breathing out the frustration God is giving you strength now to endure those situations there's a practical solution to fight the spirit of python who wants to take your breath and that is breathe in God's word breathe out prayer breathe out praise breathe out thanksgiving to God call on the Lord and he will answer you in the day of trouble and he will show you great and mighty things like we were singing today if you call on him he will manifest himself but so many Christians are going I'm talking about my feelings no no I got it I got it I'm going to deal because your daddy taught you to do that it doesn't mean you should do that let your requests be made known to God no I got it no you didn't get it because Jesus says he wants to help you let God know you need help so Jesus help me amen come on somebody pray every day I don't know how to pray talk to God let God know what's on your mind but it's hard for me to talk try let it out breathe it out to God let him know that's the rhythm of spiritual life you're breathing God's word in breathing prayer out breathing God's word in breathing praise out breathing God's word in breathing confession out can somebody say amen let's give the Lord a clap offering the last thing is pythons lay eggs and incubate them until they hatch National Geographic published an article about a corpse 17 foot long 164 pounds female python was found in ever grass ever glades carrying a record setting of 84 eggs pythons incubate them until they hatch but there's just one thing about python eggs they cannot hatch if there is not a specific temperature so what the female python would do is lay on its eggs and shiver you produce heat that's why when you have fever your body shakes it's your body's way of raising its temperature by shaking so that it could fight infection and so the female python would shiver around the eggs to produce temperature because the eggs that they make cannot hatch if they are not under a particular temperature so three things we've learned today pythons can swallow they want to squeeze and the third thing is that they want to lay eggs the enemy if he cannot swallow your life with depression and anxiety and then end it with death he would try to slowly squeeze it by being overwhelmed and taking your spiritual rhythms of prayer in the bible out there is one more thing and this is a slightly undetected one it's lying laying eggs in our mind they're not snakes but they are potential snakes if incubated in the proper right temperatures I'm going to deal with just one egg today and that is doubt why am I going to deal with that egg because that's the egg satan laid in the garden of Eden has God said satan put a question mark where God put an exclamation mark he did the same thing to Jesus in the wilderness are you the son of God are you the son of God that means the satan will try to put doubts when you're going through something dark about the things God made very clear and plain in the light he ever had a moment with God and God gave you a promise you shouted praise God for the road in your journal posted everywhere on Facebook and told what God's going to do and then things got hard and the very thing that you were so certain of God's going to bless me, God's going to bring me a husband God's going to bless my life, God's going to open the doors God's going to heal me, all of that and then times get hard the devil will question that in the dark what God made plain in the light that's doubt doubt is not bad if it leads us to God many men in the Bible struggled with doubt John the Baptist was a great man struggled with doubt doubting Jesus was the son of God Thomas struggled with doubt Peter walked on the sea struggled with doubt when he started to sink we see the different man struggled with doubt Abraham at one time got kind of tired and decided to sleep with his concubine according to his wife's request because he wasn't sure if it's really going to happen people struggled with doubt but there's one thing about this is these men did not let those doubts hatch if you're taking notes here's something to keep in mind about doubt is the doubt is questioning your faith unbelief is being determined to not believe doubt is a struggle faced by the believer unbelief is the condition of the unbeliever doubt says I can't believe I need more proof unbelief says I won't believe in spite of proof doubt is honest unbelief is stubborn doubt is looking for the light unbelief is being content in the darkness and out of a troubled mind and a broken heart unbelief is an act of will Jesus helps doubters but he cannot tolerate unbelief great man of God had doubts doubt happens when things happen you didn't expect and things that you were expecting did not happen there's few things that you can do to overcome those doubts is the doubt is the reality because doubt feeds on isolation when Thomas was not with other disciples of Jesus and Jesus showed up Thomas started to doubt that Jesus was really resurrected focus on what God has done focus on what is not happening in our life that only increases our doubt increases our unbelief but if we focus on what God is doing it increases faith remember how much Jesus loves you that his sin left on Jesus and all the doubt that Thomas had vanished Jesus' stripes heal our sickness his scars heal our doubt his stripes bring healing his scars bring hope it wasn't the wounds it was the scars of Jesus that Thomas touched and the doubts were gone when you look at how much Jesus loves you when you look at his cross when you look at that he died for you those doubts begin to subside before call on Jesus in your doubt Peter when he was drowning in the sea he called on Jesus John the Baptist when he was doubting he asked Jesus for help not the Pharisees demon possessed father demon possessed boys father when he was struggling in his faith he said Jesus help me with my unbelief and Jesus helped him God doesn't mind if we doubt as long as we seek answers from him and the last thing is speak God's word against the devil who brings doubts Eve engaged in a conversation with Satan Jesus engaged in a confrontation with Satan Eve says yeah tell me more about how God is keeping good things away from me and Jesus says get behind me Satan for it is written that means when the doubt is persistent you know your faith you know God loves you and it keeps kind of causing you to feel those things after a while I say you know what I say here in the name of Jesus I just come against this right now it's okay to feel moments of doubt I remember when I end up I shared this a while ago when I end up in a Muslim mass Muslim gathering I don't know if it's called it was not a mosque it was in the house so it was a meeting I went there to support my cousin who was trying to win a Muslim person to Christ and when I went there I was just a young teenager and did not know much about the Bible as I know today believed in Jesus my parents believed in Jesus my great grandparents believed in Jesus so I'm a Christian it's like a generational kind of a thing even though I met Jesus personally I've encountered his love I know the Bible is true but I wasn't faced with a lot of other facts contrary to my Christian faith because I was surrounded by Christians usually so I go to this place and they gave me a Quran as I'm waiting I'm watching in the living room downtown kind of like they're kind of worshiping their stuff and doing their thing and you know put a scary environment all the windows were shaded so I'm sitting there they gave me a Quran to read while I'm waiting for them to finish their deal I'm sitting there scanning through Quran just kind of looking at the stuff I didn't know that you don't put a Quran below your waist because it's like it's like sin in the Islam culture and so as I was sitting I put the Quran on the floor and so they stopped the whole service I thought I thought I'm gonna die I'm not gonna lie to you okay I was like oh my god this is like long bearded man like and nobody knows what I am as I'm like it's it's over die for Jesus today and and they surrounded me and for 15 minutes we just went back and forth arguing about their faith my faith and everything and they didn't get under my skin it's when I left there I remember thinking there's so many Muslim people as many almost as Christian who are committed to their faith it's contrary to the Christian faith how could they be wrong they're smart people I'm like what if they're not wrong and just this starts through to come and of course I did what every teenager does when you're in doubt Google so I went to Google and I typed because this is what they told me right there in that meeting he said your bible can't be trusted because it has a lot of mistakes and it has been edited to suit your Christian message so I went on Google I didn't do enough research up to this point about the bible and I put mistakes found in the bible so Google was really kind to me found me a booklet with 50,000 mistakes in the bible and I'm thinking how could there be 50 no no I apologize I think it was 10,000 because the bible only has 33,000 verses and so I downloaded the book I got to the fifth page and I felt like I was an atheist after that I was like you got to be kidding me this thing that I have my faith build on is is flawed so not that I became Muslim but my Christian faith was shaken so bad and of course eventually I went to my pastor and I said pastor I know I'm a youth pastor I don't know what I believe I got a lot of doubt right now about this whole thing and I was like did you ever endure that and my pastor looked at me and he said he had exactly the same thing happened to him when he was young but not in a Muslim it was communists communists convinced Christians the reason why Christians were believing Jesus is because they were not intelligent so Christian faith was considered mentally dumb so this is what communists the propaganda was the reason why you're believing in your God is because you're all stupid but the funny part they didn't let Christians go to universities because they were Christians that they could stay according to them stupid and my uncle my pastor he says this he says it was hard to go to school when the educated elite were atheists and the only reason you guys believed in God was because you were not educated so almost like Christian faith meant you're uneducated that's why you believe in God but the moment you get education you stop believing in nonsense he said it was very hard and I said what made you become a believer he said it was seeing demons being cast out he says I knew something is different there it can't be explained it's something that's beyond knowledge this world is just almost like a replica of another world and he told me this every person needs to go through seasons of doubts where they discover their faith if you turn to God he said to me he says you will find Jesus to be worthy of your trust and I did found the book that clarified all the 10,000 seemingly contradictions in the bible and other things and honestly my faith was anchored but it was not anchored because I took it to google it was shaken because I took it to google it was anchored because I started to study my faith more but it's not really where my faith is built today that oh we can prove everything about the bible because the bible is faith is this more than this more trust in the Lord and so you have to place your trust in him holy spirit helps us with there and I want to encourage you today if you're in a place where you're experiencing doubt especially maybe you're a young person and you're watching what's happening at the church and what's happening in the world today and the enemy plans they see it's this stuff even real and everything if you press into the Lord and say Lord reveal yourself and you read the word and you say Lord show me your word and show me the truth Thomas did I did and many more that Jesus is worthy of your trust he died on the cross for you he wants to heal you save you and change your life python eggs don't let them incubate in your mind by taking those doubts into the tiktok like tiktok is the place where you can discover look let me just google my faith don't go there go somewhere where you can find the solution don't incubate those eggs by leaving the church, leaving the community leaving good people in your life who can guide you and who can help you to get through the proper path amen thanks for watching if you go to hungrygen.com forward slash sermons you'll actually be able to download the 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