John chapter 10 is the teaching of Jesus about the sheep finding the true door, following the true shepherd, and avoiding the thief. According to John 10:10 the express purpose of the thief is to steal, kill, and destroy. He comes for no other reason but that of selfish gain. He comes not to bring the sheep to the pasture but to ultimately take the life from the sheep.
Psalm 100 says that we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. The devil is our enemy and the thief of the souls of mankind. He uses them for his own selfish purpose and when he is finished with them he kills them and destroys them, leaving them on the side of the road somewhere. Therefore the Bible tells us in 1 Peter 5:8 - Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: The devil wants to steal everything of value that is in your life and strip you of everything worthwhile and leave you with nothing at all except depression and discouragement. But that’s not all because he also wants your life as well. He wants to steal and kill and destroy.
But this evening I am thankful that John 10:10 did not end with what the thief wants to do but it continues on and it tells me and you what God wants to do in your life. While the thief has come to take life and destroy it God has come that he might give you life and give you a reason to live. In fact he said I not only want you to have life but I want you to have abundant life. I want your joy to be full the scripture says.
Let’s take a moment and thank him for abundant life.
In the USA Today newspaper on Friday, September 7th of this year, there was a headline on page 4D that said this: “Take a security expert’s advice to avoid travel theft.” The article began by stating this particular expert’s qualifications.
“Going on vacation? Better watch your wallet. Richard Lefler, former head of security for American Express, says growing numbers of travelers are falling victim to pickpockets and purse-snatchers. Lefler, who also spent 20 years of tracking bad guys at the U.S. Secret Service, talks to USA Today’s Gene Sloan about the latest thievery techniques and what travelers should do to keep valuables safe.
In this article, Lefler said that travel theft is on the rise and it can happen to anybody. He said, “I see it all over the world including major cities in the United States.” He admitted that two years ago it almost happened to him, of all people. When someone drops coins in front of you the natural response is to bend over and help them pick up the coins. Since I knew this kind of trick the first thing I did was reach back to check my wallet and when I did there was a hand reaching in my pocket to take it out. “They almost got it,” he said.
Another trick is what he called the airport security checkpoint distraction. You put your valuables on the belt and just before you go through the metal detector someone distracts you. Usually they appear to have picked up an airline ticket and ask you if you dropped it. This delays your getting through the detector and an accomplice picks up your things and by the time you get through your things are gone.
Another technique is the ketchup or mustard scam. Your standing by the airline gate when all of the sudden you realize that you have mustard squirted on your shoulder. The person who did it appears to be very upset and apologetic and tries to make it better by helping you to wipe it off. But at the same time a partner is walking off with your valuables.
Spiritually speaking there are some valuables that I want to keep safe in my walk with God. There are some things that I really value about living for the Lord Jesus Christ.
For example I love:
∑ The presence of the Lord
∑ His Spirit inside of me – the Holy Ghost
∑ His hand on my life
∑ The peace that passes all understanding
∑ The joy unspeakable and full of glory
∑ The love of God that he showers down on me
∑ The contentment
∑ The blessings of the Lord
And that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the valuable things he has added to my life.
So I want to always guard and protect my spiritual valuables because they are always at risk from attack by the enemy.
One of the saddest stories in scripture is found in the book of Judges. We read about part of that story in our scripture text. It is the story of a man called Samson. It appears in scripture in just a few short chapters in the book of Judges. He sat as a judge for the children of Israel for twenty years. Samson was a man that was used greatly by God, but Samson was also a man that had never quite conquered and gotten rid of his own lusts and his own desire for the things of the world.
The story of Samson is a story about a man that allowed the enemy to slowly but surely steal all of the things that were of value in his life.
It was prophesied to Samson’s mother, by the Angel of the Lord, that she would bear a son and he would be a deliverer for God’s people from the Philistines. At that time the children of Israel had been under 40 years of oppression from the Philistines. Samson was to be a special child and mightily used by God. We see this in scripture at the time of his birth where it says:
Judges 13:24-25
24 And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.
25 And the spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.
According to the prophecy of the Angel of the Lord Samson was to be a Nazirite. A Nazirite was a person who took a vow of consecration to the Lord. The vow included:
∑ Abstaining from intoxicating drinks.
∑ Refraining from cutting the hair.
∑ Refusing to go near a dead body.
Samson was called to be different and to be set apart. He was to be the deliverer for the people of God. But early in his life we find Samson going down into the world to satisfy his fleshly desires. Judges 14 and verse 1 says that Samson went down in Timnath (a city of the Philistines) and saw a Philistine girl that caught his eye and he decided that he would marry this girl.
Note, the scripture said Samson went DOWN to Timnath.
∑ Whenever you leave the presence of God to go to the world it’s always a downward trip.
∑ When you leave the house of God to go to the world you are always leaving behind the best things and trading them for things that will not last.
∑ Whenever you leave a life of living for God and trade it for a life in the pleasures of this world you’re opting for second place instead of first place.
The worst days in the house of God are better than the best days in the world.
After the marriage of Samson and his wife the leaders of Timnath turned Samson’s wife against him and ultimately gave her to someone else and that caused Samson to finally start doing the will of God and he began to move against the enemy of God – the Philistines. He would do all kinds of exploits against them. One time he slew 1000 of them with just the jawbone of a donkey.
At times the Spirit of the Lord would move on him and he would feel the wonderful presence of God in his life. But at other times he had never learned to control his own desires and submit to God and he would seek to please himself. So he found himself another woman of the Philistines and of the world. This time it was a prostitute by the name of Delilah. Notice that Samson is still going down further and further.
The leaders of the Philistines knew what Samson’s weaknesses were and they were waiting for him to fall. The Devil too knows your weaknesses and that is the place that he will begin his assault against your life. He won’t attack you in the strong areas of your life but he will attack in the weak areas.
If he knows he can’t get you with drugs or some other vise of this world he will start somewhere else. Maybe he knows you like to worry, he will start there. He’ll get you to worry about everything. He’ll get you to worry so much that you will lose your trust and confidence in God. If he can’t get you with worry he try to get you with lust. If he can’t get you with lust he will try to get you with pride. He knows how to steal the valuable things from your life and he wants to steal and kill and destroy.
So the Philistines got to Delilah and persuaded her to try to find out what the secret of Samson’s great strength was. She began to compel Samson and pressure him to tell her the secret of his strength. She worked on him day after day. Day after day she hammered away at him. Tell me the secret of your strength. Day after day she compelled him until finally he said:
∑ Bind me with seven green withes that were never dried and I’ll be as weak as any other man.
∑ Bind me with new ropes that have never been occupied and I’ll be as weak as any man.
Delilah said you are mocking me and you have told me lies and she began to press him all the more. Then he told her to weave the seven locks of his hair together and he would be as any other man. Notice how he is getting closer to giving in completely. Notice how he is getting closer and closer to the true secret of his strength. Notice how little by little the enemy is stealing things away from his life.
She wove his hair to the pin of a weavers beam and shouted the Philistines are upon you. He got up and shook himself awake and he defeated the Philistines again like he had at other times. But this time it was a little more difficult because he had the pin of the beam woven in to his hair. He was fighting the enemy but at the same time dragging around the things of the world.
Now it was an all out assault against Samson. The Bible says that Delilah pressed him daily with her words and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death. Tell me Samson the secret to your strength. You say that you love me Samson. Why won’t you just tell me.
∑ You say that you love me so why do you go to church so much. It won’t matter if you miss a service every now and again.
∑ You say you love me so Sunday mornings are okay – you don’t need Sunday night.
∑ You say you love me so you don’t need Bible Study. All they do there is get strong in the word.
∑ You say that you love me so you don’t need a prayer life.
Day after day Samson was pressed upon until Samson finally was powerless to resist Delilah and he told her the secret of his strength, that no razor had ever touched his head. The next time she called out the Philistines are upon you she had already cut off his hair. Samson awoke out of his sleep and said I will go out as at other times and shake myself. But it says he knew not that the Lord had departed from him.
There are people that like to dabble in the things of the world and then come back to church and try to do the things of God. It may work for a while and you may be able to pull it off for a period of time but what you don’t understand is that the devil is stealing things of value away from and out of your life. Pretty soon you come back to church and you say like Samson I’ll go out like at other times and shake myself and it will be all right.
∑ I’ll clap my hands
∑ I’ll sing the songs of Zion
∑ I’ll raise my hands
∑ I’ll praise God
∑ I’ll go through the motions of being a Christian.
But all of the sudden you realize that you don’t feel anything any longer. You no longer feel the Spirit of God in your life. You never even recognized that the Spirit of God had been taken away from you and you are powerless to battle against it and defeat it because your head is still in the lap of Delilah. It’s still in the lap of the world. You can’t guard against the world if your head is in the lap of the world.
It’s one of the saddest things that there is to see someone that was living for God be deceived and lose the very things that they valued in their life.
That is the story of Samson. He allowed the enemy to deceive him and to steal the things of value out of his life. He allowed the world to get a hold on his heart and he could not shake it lose in the end of things at the end of his life.
∑ On the one hand he was a vessel for the Spirit of God and mightily used by God and on the other hand he could not quench his own fleshly desires.
∑ On the one hand God had a hold of him and on the other hand the world still gripped his life.
∑ On the one hand he desired to feel and be used by the Spirit of God and on the other hand he still had fleshly desires of his own.
∑ On the one hand he did the will of God for his life and on the other hand he lived to please himself.
That is never God’s way and that is never God’s plan. With God it is all or nothing. With God he wants to be the Lord of your life or nothing in your life. For if he’s not Lord of everything then he’s not Lord at all.
∑ Some people today on the one hand want to be used mightily by the Spirit of God but on the other hand are not willing to bring their own fleshly desires into submission to God.
∑ On the one hand they love to feel the great presence of God as he touches their life but on the other hand they love the pleasures of this present world.
∑ On the one hand they feel like God is trying to get a hold on their life but on the other hand the world still grips their heart and they are bound by the cares of this life.
∑ One the one hand when in church they want to do God’s will for their life but on the other hand when outside of church not if it means I can’t do my will.
∑ On the one hand they love the blessings that come by living for God and they love the blessings of the Holy Ghost but on the other hand not if it means I can’t live my own lifestyle.
God wants you to be on one side or the other and never in the middle. God wants you on one side of the fence or the other side and never straddling the fence. God wants you to be either red hot or ice cold and never lukewarm. He would rather you be on his side. He would rather you be on his side of the fence. He would rather you be red hot. He doesn’t ever want you to try both. Stay out of the middle. Stay off the fence. Don’t be lukewarm.
Do you know what that means? To be lukewarm means you are part hot and part cold. To ride the fence means your part on one side and part on the other. It means part of you is living for God and the other part is not and living for self and the world. And God hates that. He despises that. He said if you get like that and come around me I will spit you out of my mouth. He said I don’t want anything to do with a fence sitter. You’re either with me or against me. Either I’m the Lord of your life or you are none of mine.
Why?
∑ Because there is no room for the devil in the church.
∑ Because there is no room for the world in the church.
∑ Because there is no room for the devil in your life.
∑ Because there is no room for the world in your life.
God does not want the lukewarm in the church because:
∑ They bring with them the things of the world into the church.
∑ They bring with them attitudes from the world into the church.
∑ They bring with them the thinking of the world into the church.
∑ They bring with them lifestyle of the world into the church.
And the church of God is to be a pure church and without spot, wrinkle, or any such blemish.
Let me just say here that if you’re in this church and working through a problem and you are trying to get right with God we are going to love you and we are gong to help you but I am talking about the one that tries to flaunt their lifestyle and attitude it in the face of God. There’s no room for that in the church.
Let me tell you what the Bible says about the world.
1 John 2:15-17
15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
If I’m living for the world I’m going to pass away in the very thing that brought me pleasure, but if I’m living for God according to his will I am going to abide forever. I’d rather be on God’s side any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
The song says:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of this world
Will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace.
We must keep our spiritual valuables safe. We must guard against the attacks of the world in our life. The devil will use all kinds of schemes and ploys to separate you from your salvation. He will stop at nothing to keep you out of Heaven. He will rob you of your faith faster than you can bat an eye. He has come to steal and to kill and to destroy.
His ultimate goal is to steal the Holy Ghost right out of your heart. He usually does not start there though. He starts with other things in our life.
∑ Coming to church – that’s not important. God knows my heart.
∑ I don’t need to pay my tithes.
∑ I’m not real sure about the holiness standard of this church. God looks at the heart and not the outside anyway.
∑ It doesn’t matter what type of music I listen to.
∑ One drink won’t hurt me will it?
Before you know it the Holy Ghost is gone. If we are not alert he can do it so quickly, so smoothly, and so silently that we may not even know that he robbed us. Samson knew not that the Spirit of the Lord was departed from him.
For every person who backslides and leaves the church and goes back into the world there may be several who lose the Holy Ghost but continue attending church and singing and testifying and acting like nothing at all is wrong. No wonder Paul said in:
2 Corinthians 13:5
5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
We must make sure that we are full of the Holy Ghost at all times. Guard against spiritual theft in your life.
The devil wants to steal:
∑ Your joy…don’t let him do it.
∑ Your peace
∑ Your contentment
∑ Your faith
∑ Your love for God
∑ Your commitment to God
∑ Your consecration to God
∑ Your dedication to God
∑ Your salvation – the Holy Ghost
Be sober and be vigilant against the attacks of the devil. Guard your heart and guard your mind and guard the Holy Ghost in your life.
The church as a body also has some spiritual valuables that we must protect at all cost. God wants this to be a worshipping church. He wants our worship to be:
∑ Pure
∑ Holy
∑ Sincere
∑ Spiritual
∑ Authentic
So in this pulpit you will continue to hear about the necessity of true worship.
The devil will persist in trying to steal it away from the church. He is relentless in his ever changing strategies to deprive the church of true worship to God.
∑ Don’t ever become comfortable in a dead, dry service.
∑ Don’t ever become comfortable with just having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.
∑ Don’t ever become comfortable in a service without true worship.
The devil also wants to steal revival from the church. The words “revival” and “life” share the same root word in the Hebrew language. Revival is life! That’s what the devil wants to steal away from the church – our very life.
To the church of Sardis the Lord said you have a name that you are alive but you are really dead.
I pray that this church, while we are singing our songs and playing our instruments and preaching our sermons and being involved in worship, I pray that we will be aware that the devil wants to steal our revival. He will let you pray and sing and preach and worship as long as it’s not real and full of life.
∑ It’s God’s will for this church to be a revival church.
∑ It’s God’s will for this church to be a soul-winning church.
∑ It’s God’s will for this to be a church full of life. God came to give us life and that more abundantly.
STAND
How will the devil steal away our valuables? He will do it using distraction. While the nature of distraction always changes, what never changes is the fact that he uses distraction.
The word distraction means: to turn aside; to draw or direct one’s attention to a different object or in different directions at the same time; to stir up or confuse with conflicting emotions or motives.
Before the devil can steal from you or from the church he must distract us.
Internal church problems are nothing more than distractions that can cause a church to lose its focus on worship and life giving, life sustaining revival. And if the devil steals those vital valuables from the church what remains is a dead church no matter how loud things are. If that happens we are no longer worthy of the name Apostolic or Pentecostal.
So what are the valuables in your life?
Are you protecting them?
Don’t be like Samson when he knew not the Lord had departed from him.
Let’s avoid spiritual theft.
