Young Men are Strong: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:01 And today we’re going to hit the stage of spiritual growth that John, in 1 John chapter 2, calls the young men stage. John gives us these stages of growth, and this is the young men stage. John calls it very powerful. Stage, 1 John 2:13: “I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one.” Hallelujah. Or overcome evil, overcome bad, overcome harm, you’re victorious over Satan, you’re victorious over evil. Hallelujah, it’s very powerful.

▶ 0:52 Now, how many Christians do you know are at the young men’s stage? “I have written unto young men because you are strong.” You are powerful, you are not weak. See, what was the problem with the newborn? They were weak, they were carnal, they were jealous, they quarreled, they followed little heroes, and they followed little groups, and they had problems in the flesh with sexual immorality and anger and hatred and heresies and so forth. But the young men’s stage, they’re not weak at all. They don’t give in to the flesh. You see, they don’t follow a group, they’re not sectarian, they don’t quarrel, they just stand for truth.

▶ 1:47 You don’t have to argue when you know you’re right, you don’t have to argue, you don’t have to defend yourself. Powerful, strong. Number three: “The word of God abides in you.” And he repeats that they’ve overcome the wicked one. The word of God abides in you. The Bible tells us that Jesus is the living word, the bread that came down, the living bread that came down from heaven, so Jesus is abiding in him. In John 15:5 Jesus said, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will be fruitful.” See, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, patience, gentleness, kindness, meekness, temperance, and faith. You see, this is where God wants us to go; he wants us to grow and obtain these things, and this stage, they are obtaining.

▶ 2:52 The word of God abides in you; they not only have a desire for the word, but the word of God is alive in them, it lives in them, both Jesus and the Word. Now, let’s look at overcoming the wicked one. All right, how do you overcome the wicked one? Revelations 12:11 says they overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb. See, what does he mean by the blood of the Lamb? Well, the blood of the Lamb cleanses us from all sin. And so, see, when I mess up as a Christian, I do something I shouldn’t do, Satan comes and he accuses me: “You are no good, you need to quit faking it, quit pretending, and just leave, and quit acting like you’re a Christian, you need to give up on this Christianity.” But see, the blood tells me as a Christian I can go to Christ, and that same blood that cleansed me at the beginning and washed my sins away and delivered me from, is the same blood that will cleanse me today. So I overcome Satan’s accusations by going back to the blood, going back to the cross, and asking for forgiveness, turning from that sin, rising up, and keep walking in God. See, overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb.

▶ 4:27 Too many Christians, they fail 10 or 15 times on one issue and they quit and give up, but you got to go back to the blood and let the blood cleanse you, however many times it takes until you’re free from that sin. Could that be an amen? Yeah. See, that’s how we overcome Satan. He accuses us, and you know, he’s got a lot to accuse us about. You, we say we’re Christians, we look in the mirror and go, “Wow, I’m a mess,” and so Satan brings these things out, but we overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. Secondly, you overcome by the word of their testimony. See, when Satan accused Jesus in the garden, Satan asked Jesus to make stones bread and jump down off the pinnacle of the temple, and, uh, Jesus always answered, “It is written.” He always answered the scriptures, and so we overcome Satan by, what?

▶ 5:36 Referring to the scriptures. Hallelujah, so it’s important that that word abides in us. You see, the word of their testimony, and “they love not their lives unto death.” And remember, in the past we’ve told you, Romans 12:1: “Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Okay, so we offer our bodies a living sacrifice, we sacrifice to serve God and not give into sin and not follow the crowd to do evil. That’s how you love your life and death. Okay, and remember Job said, “Though God slay me, yet will I trust him.” Things may be going bad, finances may be difficult, your health may be down, the family may have problems, you know, there may be trouble all around you, like the song said, but you keep serving Christ, even though it’s a sacrifice, it’s not going easy, but you sacrifice, and that’s how we overcome Satan.

▶ 7:00 And we overcome evil. James 4:7 says, “Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.” So we got to resist him, we got to put up some resistance, and he goes on to say in the next verse that if you draw nigh to God, he tells us how to resist Satan: “Draw nigh to God and God will draw nigh to you.” So I resist Satan by what? Praying, worshiping, going to church, getting in the Bible studies, reading my Bible. I resist Satan by pursuing God. Hallelujah. And he says, “Cleanse your hands,” and don’t speak evil of one another. Don’t let Satan get you into measuring other people by you or you by other people. Just zip the lip.

▶ 7:51 The Bible says even a fool is wise when he keeps his mouth shut. Learn to zip the lip. That’s how you resist the Devil. You know, you don’t got to attack everybody every time you, you know, you get opposed by somebody, especially in your home. Just zip the lip. Resist the Devil. The Devil loves for you to start speaking out. And then in 2 Corinthians 2:10, this is really good: “Whom you forgive anything,” Paul says, writing to the Corinthians, “whom you forgive anything, I forgive also.

▶ 8:52 Whom you pardon anything, I pardon also. Whom you release anything, I release also, lest Satan get advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.” Satan doesn’t want you exercising forgiveness. Why? Because when you don’t forgive, you open the door to anger, you open the door to hatred, you open the door to conflict between you and the person, separation.

▶ 9:44 Forgiveness is a top weapon of the young men stage. Forgiveness is a very important weapon. Okay, forgiveness: you pardon, you give freedom. If nothing else, you will free yourself. Hallelujah. Very, very powerful weapon. People either forgive themselves and go on sinning, or they don’t forgive themselves and stay down and become defeated. But we should forgive ourselves, get up, and walk in the pathway that’s right. Amen. We should forgive ourselves for doing wrong, get up and start doing right, not just forgive myself and then go back and do it again, and go back and do it again, and knowing you’re going to go back and do it again.

▶ 10:56 Or people don’t forgive themselves; there’s people that just can’t believe that God will forgive them, and they can’t forgive themselves, and so that brings guilt, that brings condemnation. But the young men stay just forgiving others, forgiving themselves, and getting up and doing what’s right and never quitting, and this is the top weapon of the young man stage: forgiveness. Now, let me explain a little further. The Bible opposes, is against, homosexuality and other sexual immorality. Okay, 30,000, over 30,000 people die every year in North America from sexually transmitted diseases, and so the Bible’s right.

▶ 12:09 You know, why give yourself to something that’s going to harm you? The Bible opposes drug and alcohol intoxication. 177,000 people die every year and 1 million are injured from drug-related deaths and accidents. 85,000 die every year and 4 million are hurt from alcohol-related incidents. And so God is just trying to save you from harm and danger and evil.

▶ 12:57 God is against abusing children, and yet in America 5 million children are abused every year, not just verbally but physically, sexually, and over 1,800 die from that abuse every year. 48% today are born to unwed mothers, and 44% of children in America live with a single-parent home, and God is against that. He wants us to marry, stay married, raise those kids in the way they should go; that’s God’s way. God is against witchcraft and idols and murder.

▶ 13:59 We kill over a million babies every year in America. God’s against divorce, and yet there’s 50% divorcing. God’s against lies, teaching lies in education, and yet our public schools teach lies. God is against welfare without work, and yet our government is increasingly giving people money without any responsibility of working to earn that money. 93,000 males were raped last year in America. 70% of female soldiers are raped.

▶ 14:52 7%, or 140,000, male soldiers are sexually abused and raped, and yet our government is wanting to give freedom to all of these sexually immoral practices, and it is hurting people. See, the Bible opposes that. There are 38,000 suicides every year, and a half a million people every year have self-inflicted injuries because of depression, loneliness, wanting to give up. Now, it is our job to preach the word.

▶ 15:44 Okay, but if you don’t have forgiveness and forgive these people for what they do, or it could have happened to you, and if you don’t have this forgiveness power in you, you’re going to walk around depressed and heavy and angry, resentful, and if nothing else, it will free you. And so the church must preach the word, but we must also forgive so that they can come in, hear the word, and get free. You understand?

▶ 16:34 So there’s a balance between, no one, God opposes these things, so we oppose them, but we oppose them with a forgiving attitude. Repent: Luke 24:47, “repentance for remission,” or for forgiveness, “of sin should be preached.” 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive.” So if we confess and we turn from our sin, God will forgive us. So there is a requirement, not just to admit you’re wrong, but there’s a requirement to, what? Turn from the wrong. Hallelujah. See, how else are you going, see, civil government is there to correct by punishing people for doing wrong. They are there to correct them by punishment, either a fine or a beating or a, uh, house arrest, you know, secluded place, or, you know, something should be done to get their attention.

▶ 17:54 But see, our civil government is more and more not correcting people, they are approving of harmful lifestyles. Isn’t that true? Yeah. Just since the ‘50s it’s been a dynamic turnaround. See, and so when somebody hurts me, my responsibility is to admit I’m hurt. That hurt, my spirit is wounded.

▶ 18:37 But if I don’t repent from that, and I want that person, God, put a [unclear] and strike them dead, or let him get in an accident, or let something bad happen, you know, get them, God, and the Bible says in the Old Testament, when you want God to get them, he won’t get him, because see, your attitude’s wrong. And this is why you’re wrong: because you make mistakes and you don’t want God getting you until you have a chance to correct it, am I right? Hallelujah. So this person hurts me, does really something bad to me, he say I must forgive them immediately so that anger, resentment does not arise and I wind up reacting and hurting them, then the thing I didn’t want them to do to me, now I’m doing. Are you out there? So see, forgiveness: I go to God, “I’m hurt, I want that guy to pay for what he did to me,” and I’m wrong. “I want you to forgive me, Lord, forgive me. I forgive that person that hurt me.”

▶ 20:03 Now, that doesn’t change that person at all, but it changes you. See, now you’re free. See, forgiveness means you’re pardoned, you are free. See, you’re free from the penalty of the wrong that you’re doing, and you’re free from the hurt that that person put on you, because now you’ve forgiven him. Hallelujah. See, it’s amazing, but it is a powerful principle in God. Someone once told, well, several people have told me that nothing seems to bother you. No, it doesn’t, because I learned to forgive them. I know they’re going to hurt me, so when they hurt me, I’ve already forgiven them. I forgive them ahead of time, because the Bible says offenses are going to come, people are going to offend you.

▶ 21:11 Now, this same person may not have done anything to hurt me, and here’s, here’s where you need to listen: I just perceive that they did something to hurt me. I perceive that they said something they didn’t say or meant something they didn’t mean. I perceived it, I supposed it. See, I supposed their action was out to get me, and so I get hurt, not because they actually hurt me, but because my perception was that they hurt me, so I’m just as hurt. Are you there?

▶ 22:00 And honestly, being a pastor and talking to a lot of people, a lot of people are hurt totally from perception. The other person didn’t really mean it that way at all, but they got to get forgiveness the same way. You see, and then you go to that person and say, “I forgive you what you did wrong to me,” and they go, “What? I didn’t say that, I didn’t do that, I didn’t mean that,” and then you get hurt again. You won’t be honest, you know, you just won’t admit you need to get before God and repent. See, now we’re back into our bad attitude again. You see how forgiveness is very important. Yeah. Matthew 16:15 says, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses.”

▶ 23:09 Wow. So forgiveness is what? Very important in the home. You really need to exercise forgiveness, both from actual hurt from your family member or perceived hurt from your family member. Amen. See, spouses need to forgive each other, parents need to forgive their kids, kids need to forgive their parents, both from actual hurt or perceived hurt. It doesn’t matter, it’s still going to affect you. You’re going to get angry, you’re going to get resentful, you’re going to retaliate, you’re going to seek for revenge.

▶ 24:04 Jesus was the example on the cross. He said, “Father, forgive them.” They killed him, they beat him, they stabbed him, they put a crown of thorns, they really mistreated him, they mocked him, they made fun of him, and he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Stephen was another example. All he wanted to do was show them a more perfect way in the scriptures, and they got angry at him. These were believers, got angry at Stephen and took him out and stoned him, and he said, “Lord, don’t lay this sin to their charge.” See, he forgave them, and all he wanted to do is help the believer. See, Christians have hatred and resentment for one another, especially if you don’t belong to my camp.

▶ 25:03 I brought this, “Love one another,” the new commandment, God gave it recently in a foreign nation, and, man, they almost kicked me out of that nation to actually exercise loving other believers that wasn’t in your camp. We got to protect ourselves from false doctrines, and you can’t be with your sheep 24 hours a day to protect them from false doctrine. We’re to love one another, and you might learn something when you mix. When you accept people, somebody asked me Friday when I was witnessing what do I think about Obama, and I said, “Listen, it’s just like you, you say you’re a Christian. Obama says he’s a Christian until I know different and have fruit different, I have to accept his word.”

▶ 26:05 Somewhere we got to accept one another, even if it’s at the embryo stage or the newborn stage, we got to accept until we have evidence that their life doesn’t match up. Could that be true? If a Catholic says, “I believe in Jesus, I’m a follower of Jesus,” it’s not my job to say, “Well, you can’t be and be a Catholic.” It is my job to love. The new commandment I give to you, Jesus said, “Love one another,” do no harm one to another. Amen. See, so you got to forgive, you got to forgive. The Bible says in 1 Peter 2:22-23 that when Jesus was spoken evil of, he didn’t speak evil back, and it says there he’s our example. You see, when he was hurt by people, he didn’t hurt back; when he was threatened, he didn’t threaten back, but this is the kicker: he committed himself to God that judges righteously. He just let it go, he forgave them and let God deal with it, and trust me, folks, God knows how to deal with us.

▶ 27:35 He deals with us for our good; we have a tendency to deal with each other for our destruction. Are you there? So the balance between forgiveness and punishment for criminals is to love and forgive while we’re confronting. You see, we got to confront, but we got to have genuine love and genuine forgiveness so that our confrontation isn’t just an argument, “I’m right, you’re wrong,” it is an approach to bring them out of wrong. Hallelujah. So when people tell me, “I hate homosexuals because I tell them they’re going to hell,” they’re lying.

▶ 28:39 I do not hate homosexuals; I have led over 50 of them to Jesus Christ. And it’s hard to lead them to Christ because everybody’s telling them they’re okay, and see, when you think you’re right there’s no need for repentance. So somebody has to give them the word that not only homosexuality is wrong, but adultery is wrong, and fornication’s wrong, and sex with children is wrong, and incest is wrong. All these things are wrong because God says they’re wrong, and he’s going to punish you eternally in the lake of fire if you don’t correct the wrong. Somebody’s got to tell them, and that’s not hate, that’s love. And yes, I go into their home and I eat with them. I don’t hate them. I’m not afraid to use their toilet that they sit on. You see, a lot of Christians want, oh man, they’re going, “I’m going to catch a disease.”

▶ 29:46 I’m yeah, but you can be wise, you can be wise. You don’t have to ostracize people because you, you know, need to be safe; you can be wise. Are you there? See, when’s the last time you sat down with an adulterer, a prostitute, or a homosexual and ate at their table and sat on their toilet seat? And I said that because I meet so many Christians that are petrified they’re going to catch something. Well, how in the world are you ever going to reach people if you’re afraid of them? Are you there? Now, let me give you a little story. I’m going to call this lady Alice.

▶ 30:44 Alice is a teenager. This is a real person, things I’ve experienced in my lifetime. She’s bullied at school, mocked at school, she’s one of these oddballs, and she’s an oddball because at home her parents are alcohol and drug users, and they fight all the time. The money’s consumed with alcohol and drugs, there’s really not much in the home. She doesn’t have the stylish clothes to wear or anything else, she doesn’t even have exactly healthy food to eat. She’s kind of an unacceptable look, and teenagers hate unacceptable looks, so they mock and they make fun of them, but you teenagers wouldn’t do that, right? Yeah.

▶ 31:46 She’s lonely, no one will be her friend at school, she’s lonely at home, she just has to go up to a room which has no bed. She just sleeps on the floor. So she comes home one day, and she’s going to church, she’s in our children’s church program, had been in it. She comes home one day and Mom and Dad are fighting, and Dad has a knife, and Dad is lunging, you know, at the mom, not necessarily to just, you know, being the macho man, but the daughter, Alice, sees it differently, and she steps in between Dad and Mom just as he lunges, and boom, in goes the knife.

▶ 32:41 Well, the parents are petrified, they’re high on drugs, alcohol, if they call the police they’re in trouble, so they try to cover it up and they try to deal with it on their own. They don’t know that inside this girl is bleeding profusely, and the girl died, and they got caught. Anyway, wouldn’t it have been nice if teenagers at school would have really taken the time to understand that girl, and she would have a true friend, understand? Wouldn’t it be nice if the people of the church would have taken more time to understand that girl and help her get out? If you teenagers have ever done that, have you tried to understand the rejected one? Have you? Good, praise God.

▶ 33:52 See, we can mock and we can laugh and we reject people, but we need to find out if there’s something in their background, something in their life that we can help them with. Too late to forgive for Alice, too late. Let’s talk about Britney. Came from a good home, Christian parents, blue-collar dad, but she’s hurt because she don’t have the latest clothing and the latest electronics, and her mom and dad drive this 15-year-old used car.

▶ 34:35 She’s embarrassed of her dad, she’s embarrassed of her home, she’s embarrassed, and so she gets a boyfriend who buys her stuff, you know, and then, of course, gets sex for it, and then he leaves her, and other boys buy stuff, and so she turns into a teenage prostitute. And this is a girl that went to the Vine church in La Habra several years, in our children’s church program, grew up to be a teenager, and then just took a wrong turn. She got an incurable sexually transmitted disease, and the last time I seen her was on the corner of [unclear] Boulevard in Cypress, very unhealthy looking, very anemic looking, and she was out there trying to pick up a trick. She looked at me and turned away, and I looked at her. Her choices were destroying her.

▶ 35:58 And yes, where were people that would forgive and that would go beyond to help, beyond the children’s church program, beyond the teen program? Beyond, I don’t know what happened to that young lady, but when I saw her she was about 18 or 19 years old, and she didn’t look like she was going to live to the next year. Are you out there? There’s people hurting, and yes, we’re against sin, but at the same time we are for them changing. See, that’s the thing: yes, we have to confront sin for their good, but at the same time we got to forgive them and try to help them in their problem. Could that be an amen?

▶ 36:56 Husbands and wives, lives, and, uh, every year at this time I get a lot of counseling, and it’s homes with the pressure on them to live up to some kind of holiday, uh, standard, and the guy especially if he’s out of work and not making a lot of money, man, the guilt trip is put on him. Now, we want fancy gifts, we want a fancy tree, we want, you, we want a big turkey, we want all this stuff, and you’re not getting it, you’re just a lousy man, and so anger comes up, resentment comes up, clashing in the home, and then they call me, this husband, and we spent hours talking, trying to get it sorted out. A lot of pressure on the homes during these holiday seasons.

▶ 38:00 Kids have a lot of pressure, and, uh, they’re not getting gifts and they’re not being treated like the guy next door and all this, so they get depressed and they get cast down and they think life is meaningless. Somewhere we got to forgive people and just accept. You know, I told you before one Thanksgiving all I could afford was cheese sandwiches, and it was one of the best Thanksgivings I had, honestly, because it’s not in the food. Thanksgiving is not in the food, it’s in the family, the love that you have for one another and the love you have for God. That’s the richness of these holidays, and if you got a big spread, that’s fine too, but that’s not where it’s at. Could that be an amen, church?

▶ 38:58 See, we need to forgive, we need the pardon, we need to set people free from having to line up to preconceived ideas that mean nothing in the end. Hallelujah. There was a married woman in the church, left a good husband and left her children for a rich man, then he left her and she got another rich man. As time went by, she really went mentally off, spent a lot of money on psychiatric treatment, trying to get help, trying to sort things out in her mind, because she’s got all this guilt. See, she’s got all this guilt built up, and we learned how can she get rid of the guilt? Through forgiveness.

▶ 40:06 She’s got to forgive herself, she’s got to go to God who can only forgive, she’s got to forgive herself. And I find people have a hard time forgiving themselves. They did something really bad in the past. How many of you teenagers did something really bad in your past? Just one, two. Oh man, we got some good teens over here. Okay, how many teenagers have done something not so good, not so really bad in the past, just bad? All right, and you see, we can turn from that, but the guilt of it, until we forgive ourselves we live under the guilt of it, the weight of it, and we’re angry at ourself and we resent ourself. But forgiveness will set you free.

▶ 41:02 You got to forgive yourself, and this woman never did, and she finally killed herself at an early age. A wasted life, because they don’t know the power of forgiveness, they didn’t grow to this place where they could forgive themselves. You see, somebody divorces, okay, God’s against divorce, somewhere the church has to forgive them for the divorce so they can reach them and get them to change and grow in God. Are you with me? You can’t just keep separating people.

▶ 41:47 Somewhere the forgiveness of God has got to be powerful in the church, and yet we confront the truth so that they can repent and change, and without the balance of the two you’re just going to separate people from you, or you’re going to accept people the way they are and there’s no change because they don’t see a need for change, and so they go through life miserable and hurting other people because no one’s told them the truth. Hallelujah. Being strong. This youth chapter here, Ephesians 6:10, every youth group teaches on it two or three times a year: “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the deceits of the Devil.”

▶ 42:52 Okay, the armor is the armor of truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the word of God. All these are connected to the word. See, his word is a word of righteousness, truth is the word, the gospel of peace is the word, salvation is the word. See, all of these are the word, it’s connected to the word. That’s why it’s vital that we go through that child stage and get the word and keep the word. Amen. But most of them leave out the fact that you pray in the Spirit, that’s an armor, not your little “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,” but you get connected and you pray in the Spirit for your children, for your marriage, for the church, for your neighbor, because the Spirit knows how to pray.

▶ 43:59 The Bible says you don’t know how to pray as you ought, that’s what the Bible says, but the Spirit knows. See, the Spirit knows how to pray through you to get you; we’re always praying for the other person, but the Spirit knows how to get to you through prayer to change you. Be alert. What soldier, even if he’s got weapons and he’s got a tank, the super tank and everything else, yet if he’s sleeping in that tank and not paying attention, the enemy is going to blow him up? So being watchful, being alert is a vital part of our armor, isn’t it? And speak confidently the mystery of the gospel.

▶ 44:55 I was witnessing again this week and I was telling this guy, you know, he said he was a Christian, I said, you know, nothing happened till Jesus opened his mouth and started teaching the word. Nothing. He was God, but yet nothing happened because he was God until he started speaking the word, then people hated him or people loved him. I said, until you start speaking the word, you’re not going to stir up anybody. Our weapon is to speak the word, not just live the word. “I’m just going to live the word.”

▶ 45:38 Living the word is great, Jesus lived it for 30 years, there was no sin, and he lived the word for 30 years, no one got saved, no one hated him, there was no problems until he opened his mouth and started speaking the word that he was living, then they wanted to kill him, or they wanted to love him and embrace him and follow him. See, no one was following Jesus till he opened up his mouth. There wasn’t crowds coming to Jesus’s house, not until he opened his mouth. Are you there, church? We got to open our mouth and we got to confront, but we got to confront with what? Forgiveness. Amen. “Alert” means to be attentive, to be prepared and ready to act. How many need some preparation in your life? Yes. And see, this is the young men stage: they are alert, they are prepared, they’ve overcome the wicked one, and they’re ready to roll. So this morning I challenge you, let’s grow up.