© 2018
Fred R. Coulter
Christian Biblical Church of God
P. O. Box 1442
Hollister, California 95024-1442

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner. This includes electronic and mechanical photocopying or recording, as well as the use of information storage and retrieval systems.

Addicted Society I

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Addicted Society II

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Addicted Society III

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Addicted Society IV

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Addicted Society V

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Contents

Booklet

Addicted Society I

Addicted Society II

Addicted Society III

Addicted Society IV

Addicted Society V

Compact Disc

[When included]

Tracks 1 & 2 Addicted Society I

Tracks 3 & 4 Addicted Society II

Tracks 5 & 6 Addicted Society III

Track 7 & 8 Addicted Society IV

Track 9 & 10 Addicted Society V

Addicted Society
Foreword

This book contains the transcripts from five sermons delivered by Fred R. Coulter on the Addicted Society In these five powerful and inspiring sermons Fred provides shocking statistics showing the state of our decaying society and the part that addictions have played. Wrong choices have resulted in STDs that will cause suffering for the entire lifetime of the sinner. Other wrong choices have resulted in millions of people being incarcerated at great expense to society. There are many ramifications of people being addicted to substance abuse. The following five sermon transcripts will show the problem, the causes of the problem, and the only way out of the problem for individuals and entire nations.

The first sermon transcript, “The Addicted Society I”, informs the reader of how Satan and his demons control the behavior of mankind. It covers how the very shepherds of a nation, the clergy, have been overcome with problems of pornography, false doctrines, and covetousness. Described in detail is how a Christian nation dies because its churches have become involved in leavening the truth with error.

The second sermon transcript, “The Addicted Society II” speaks of how nations are judged by God. It also covers what happens to individuals in society who go along and get along and allow evil to be part of their life. There does not exist a neutral ground between good and evil.

The third sermon transcript, “The Addicted Society III”, studies the forms of addiction and what must be done to recover from such addiction. The very real problem of recovering from one addition only to be ensnared with a new addiction is explained. This sermon lays out steps that, if followed, will enable recovery. Addiction actually destroys parts of the mind and the ability to think correctly.

The fourth sermon transcript, “The Addicted Society IV”, discloses that people who are involved in substance abuse start out thinking that they can handle the substance but they wind up enslaved to it. Another part of the nationwide problem is that of schools prescribing Ritalin to overactive young men who are normal being young men full of energy who the schools want to sit still and be quiet. When a nation practices tolerance and acceptance of illicit sex that nation is setting itself up for the collapse of society.

The fifth and last sermon transcript of this book is “The Addicted Society V”. In it is discussed how does one live with prescription drugs that they need to take for health conditions. Advice is given regarding the importance of people to consider their health. It is important what one eats, supplements to take, and juicing. Articles regarding health are mentioned. People can overcome substance abuse with help, with support, and with understanding.

A special thanks goes to Bonnie Orswell, Laila Patterson and Nancy Spaller for producing the transcripts.

The Addicted Society I
What Addiction Am I Hooked On?

Fred R. Coulter

I gave a sermon on The Spirit of Sodom and how the ‘spirit of whoredoms’ has almost literally possessed this nation, if not the whole world. It brought up another thing that we really need to look to, and that is this is the addicted society. Let’s think about it. God made us so we function best when we have a regular routine. We were created to be habitual creatures. God made us this way so we could be made in His image and develop the character of Christ, learn the laws of God, and so forth.

Enter Satan and, of course, you know what happened in the Garden of Eden. Now we come down to our society today and let’s look at it this way: Satan is more powerfully deceiving the world than ever before because he has every tool available for him to do so. Today we are

- deceived and self-deceived

- driven by lust

- driven by addiction

- broken and shattered lives

- controlled, influenced or possessed

- ruled by Satan and his demons

More and more that’s the way the world is; reflected in the way that people live, reflected in all of the media, especially television, movies, etc. Then we have tremendous addiction problems:

- alcohol addiction

- drug addiction

- porn addiction

- sex addiction

- food addiction

and you can throw in with the foods that people are hooked on—junk foods—’junk food junkies.’ Then you have the control of:

- television

- movies

- video games

- music

- witchcraft

- lying

- stealing

—all of those things.

Today we have a generation that has been brought up that is not responsible, does not understand the word responsibility except in a very few, rare cases. You can’t depend on them to come to work on time; they get there when they are ready, and they work when they feel like it. A lot of that is reflected in their lives, and a lot of it is because they are suffering from addiction, and suffering from being cut off from God.

God has many witnesses and many people called into repentance and God works in the ways that are true. People, like Protestants, won’t listen to Sabbath-keepers—because after all we don’t know anything—but they will listen to one of their own. Mickey Bonner has written a book, Brokenness, the Forgotten Factor of Prayer

I want to focus especially on the addiction factor, and not only on alcohol and drugs, but addiction to pornography online. There are probably 30-40-million people hooked online to pornography; they are addicted to it. Some of them spend hours a day watching it—men and women. Women get all mad when men watch pornography, but if it weren’t for women showing off their bodies on television and on the Internet, for a fee, men wouldn’t be watching pornography. So, to condemn men without condemning women is the wrong thing to do.

From: Brokenness, the Forgotten Factor of Prayer, by Mickey Bonner:

pg 29—For many years we have taught spiritual warfare in fundamentalist churches throughout the country. Many learned critics from the realms of academics and traditional church leadership have accused us of teaching foolishness. In spite of these criticisms, the church at large is now faced with the explosion of witchcraft and suicides among young people in the families of pastors and other Christians.

They actually have an addiction center for recovering pastors who are addicted to pornography.

This has been brought on by rock music, the New Age movement...

Of course, false teachings within churches—a lawless grace.

…Suddenly the wise ones find themselves devoid of ability to offer doctrinal help in these areas. Now the church is being overcome and destroyed. It has lost its power to stand against what is happening. It is non-praying, leaders blinded by unbrokenness...

—because the theme of it is in brokenness that in order to return to God with such callous consciences that they have to have a ‘broken spirit and a contrite heart’ and truly seek God that way. What is happening? The blind are leading the blind!

And we said this before didn’t we? Based on what? We see this in action (Matt. 13). What is interesting about Jer. 23 is that God said even the false prophets that He didn’t send, who are teachers of Baalism: If they would cause His people to stand by His Word, He would honor that, because ‘His Word is exalted above His name.’ We’re seeing this happen in a very profound way, much more so the difference between the Truth of what God’s Word is and the reality of how the world is functioning, the gap is greater and greater because this living principle is happening:

Matthew 13:10: “And His disciples came to Him and asked, ‘Why do You speak to them in parables?’ And He answered and said to them, ‘Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been given’” (vs 10-11). Now, that’s something that we all need to really understand. We understand what we understand because of God, the Spirit of God, the Word of God, and because of God’s Spirit in us. It’s been given to us to know, to the world it hasn’t been given to them.

Now a perfect example: One the news commentators on Fox News Channel—Juan Williams—wrote a book, The War Over Christmas, and because of the ‘happy holiday’ controversy, they’ve been promoting Christmas and ‘merry Christmas’ and putting up Christmas scenes everywhere as much as they can.

I’ve got here a little cartoon and it shows a woman buying a package in a store. And the clerk doesn’t know how to treat the customers that come in because of the raging holiday controversy and she’s handing the lady the package and she says, ‘Happy holidays, unless that phrase offends you, of course, in which case: best wishes for the season, or merry winter weeks, or enjoy a festive end-of-the-year revel, or felicities on which-ever observance you may or may not be pausing to reflect upon within a familial, cultural, or sectarian milieu or whatever.’ And the woman reaches out to take the package and says, ‘Merry Christmas to you.’

All of those on Fox are good Catholics. It’s owned by a good Catholic—Murdock—and he is a high mucky-muck in the Knights of Columbus and all of this sort of thing. They have been promoting all this Christmas. Here comes this fellow to tell you about mythology you don’t know about. And Tony Snow says, ‘Well tell us about Christmas.’ He said, ‘Well, Jesus wasn’t born on this day.’ What they’ve been saying is that Christmas is all about Christ and the birth of Christ, and even on the same program he even had Franklin Graham on there and he’s saying, ‘Well it’s all about the birth of Christ.’ This man comes on and says, ‘This has nothing to do with the birth of Christ. The 25th of December has nothing to do with when Jesus was born. It was originally pagan.’ And then Tony Snow says, ‘What else can you tell me?’ He’s trying to use up the two minutes, and then he starts on about Easter and how that’s pagan and none of it’s Christian. And poor old Tony Snow is sitting there swallowing, nearly choking, he can hardly wait until the two minutes is up so he can move on.

I thought it was interesting. Did God arrange that as a witness for all those gung-ho Christmas-keepers to give them a little witness that what they are upholding is a perversion of the Truth of God married to a pagan custom? Just like this man here [Mickey Bonner], he is a fundamental Protestant, so the Protestants will listen to him. Here is what he says of this generation:

pg 208—Future historians, if there be any, will look at what was once a Christian nation that died because the church lost its place by becoming involved in the business of doing things like the world did. The church became caught up in the busyness of propagation that brought to a dying planet a watered-down, compromising gospel that leavened its truth with error. Propagation became a religious foundation of sand.

Very well put.

Time has shown that many such churches are sinking; some are already gone. These churches have traded activity for prayer as well as compromise for conviction. They are now meeting the people where they are, rather than where Christ is.

Quite a statement!

Consequently, one complete generation of young people has been lost to the value systems that have been coordinated by the demonic calling evil good and good evil and having no use for God and His Christ. We now face the acceleration of the demise and disintegration of the world’s first truly foundationally Christian nation. Its very beginning was a harvest of laws and rights for persons who sought God in deep brokenness and prayer. America was birthed by prayer and will die by religion as have many nations in history. America’s traditions began with the Holy God and ending with mother earth or better said New Age Wicca or witchcraft. The auctioneer just like that declares at the end of a sale: Going, going, gone! So have our traditional values been going and now are already gone. Not going, but gone are the principles of righteousness; not going, but are gone, the hope of glory.

Quite a thing—isn’t it? A very accurate description of where we are in this world.

Let’s see how this fits in exactly with Matthew 13:12—here is a living principle: “For whoever has understanding, to him more shall be given...” What’s the key to understanding? A good understanding have they who keep His commandments (Psa. 111:10).

“…and he shall have an abundance…” Why? Because as we grow in grace and knowledge, we learn more and more! That’s why! And it all comes from God, just like Jesus said, ‘The words that I speak to you, these are not My words but the words that the Father commanded Me to speak.’ And the things that we learn, learn of the Bible, and the understanding that we have does not come because of any great intelligence on our part, but because of the mercy, love, grace and kindness of God as we yield to Him and are led by His Holy Spirit and keep His commandments.

Notice what else happens. “…but whoever does not have understanding, even what he has shall be taken away from him” (v 12). That’s exactly what’s happening in the battle for Christmas now. What they thought they had that was Christian is being taken from them, and being exposed for what it really is.

Verse 13: “For this reason I speak to them in parables, because seeing, they see not; and hearing, they hear not; neither do they understand.”

I couldn’t help thinking of that when I was watching Tony Snow’s face because they had the split screen showing the man bringing the things about mythology, and then Tony Snow’s face over here and he was kind of glum and swallowing and anxious for him to get over, because what he thought he had with this man was taking away from him by really bringing the truth of what it really was. I couldn’t help thinking of that.

Verse 14: “And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, ‘In hearing you shall hear, and in no way understand; and in seeing you shall see, and in no way perceive… [Now why does God do this?] ...for the heart of this people has grown fat...’” (vs 14-15). If you want your way, that’s exactly what God is going to give you! And when that happens:

- you’re going to lose understanding

- you’re going to lose Truth

- you’re going to lose conscience

- you will go into the depths of satanism and addiction in any one of these things that I have mentioned here

- What are you addicted to?

- What are the secret sins that you may have that nobody else really knows except you and God?

And be guaranteed, sooner or later someone else is going to know and find out because you don’t live in a vacuum.

- Which category do you fit into?

- Growing in grace and knowledge and having understanding?

or

- Do you fit into the other category: having your own way?

“…and their ears are dull of hearing...” (v 15). So, if you bring up ‘Well, you shouldn’t do this.’ Well, now you just don’t understand. You’ve got to be broadminded about this!

“…and their eyes they have closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and should hear with their ears, and should understand with their hearts, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (v 15). You mean Christ doesn’t want people converted? Have you ever thought of that? That’s exactly what He is saying. He doesn’t want them converted, at this time!

Now that’s almost the same thing when Adam and Eve sinned and were put out of the Garden of Eden? What did God do? He closed the way to the Tree of Life so they couldn’t be converted, and set cherubims at the east end of the Garden of Eden to preserve the way of the Tree of Life. What was the sentence? ‘If you want your way, you have it, but get out of here! If you want your way, you are going to suffer in pain, agony and the sweat of your brow, because dust you are and to dust you will return. You will die because I have cut off salvation from you.’

That’s pretty strong medicine, and people don’t like to hear that because a lot of people think they are saved. But you don’t know if you’re really a Christian or not unless you compare it with the Bible. If your behavior compares with it and you know that you have repented and have been baptized and received God’s Spirit, you know you are a true Christian. Otherwise, you are a fake Christian, or as the Greek says ‘pseudo’—false Christian.

You can’t be addicted to these things and have very much of God’s Spirit, if you have any at all. This is to say nothing of we used to make a great deal out of smoking, and let’s add to this gambling.

Now notice what happens if you really believe God and the Truth, Verse 16: “But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous men have desired to see what you see, and have not seen; and to hear what you hear, and have not heard” (vs 16-17). All of it is a gift of grace from God!

Let’s see why these things are happening. These things go in cycles, because human beings are given to cycles starting out fresh with zeal just like the pilgrims did when they came to America, and now, as he brought out, we are right at the botch of corruption.

2-Timothy 3:1: “Know this also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” Key that to 2-Chron. 35 about Manasseh and what happened when he gave all of Judah over to worshipping other gods and witchcraft and passing the children through the fire. It became criminal; innocent blood was shed. So, that exemplifies the cycle.

Verse 2: “For men will be lovers of self… [that’s where all addiction comes] ...lovers of money, braggarts, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, savage, despisers of those who are good, betrayers, reckless, egotistical, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. [there you have a perfect description of the whole world] …having an outward appearance of Godliness, but denying the power of true Godliness....” (vs 2-5). Isn’t that something? Eighty percent-plus of Americans profess a belief in God, and as James said, ‘Don’t think that’s any big deal, folks, the demons do and tremble!’

“...But as for you, turn away from all these. For from men such as these come those who are worming their way into houses, and are gaining control over empty-headed gullible women given over to various sins, being driven by all kinds of lust. They are always learning but are never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth. Now just as Jannes and Jambres stood against Moses, in the same manner also these are brazenly standing against the Truth; they are men of depraved minds, reprobate in respect to the faith” (vs 5-8). Quite a thing!

Verse 13: “But wicked men and imposters shall become worse and worse, deceiving others and being deceived themselves.” There is where we are. That’s how we have all of this, that’s how these things come about.

Let’s look at some of the addictions, especially sex addiction, which this whole nation is given over to a whole spirit of whoredoms. The reason I am bringing this is because there are a good number who are in the Church, or who have been in the Church who are currently deceiving themselves—who are hooked on porn, hooked on drugs, hooked on alcohol, destroying their marriages, destroying their lives—and they know better, but are unwilling to listen because they are caught up in the times.

Jeremiah 6:13: “For everyone from the least of them even to the greatest of them is greedy for gain; and from the prophet even unto the priest everyone deals falsely.” That’s exactly what he wrote in this book: Brokenness, the Forgotten Factor of Prayer And in doing so, all of these things are a step-by-step-by-step process to sear the conscience, to make it almost impossible to repent. So, we’ll talk a little later about how you recover from that.

Verse 14: “They have also healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, nor could they blush; therefore, they shall fall among those who fall. At the time that I punish them, they shall be cast down,’ says the LORD. Thus says the LORD, ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where the good way is and walk in it… [that’s talking about God’s way] …and you shall find rest for your souls....’” (vs 14-16). If there is any one thing that an addict does not have it is rest and peace of mind.

‘“...But they said, “We will not walk in it.” Also I set watchmen over you, saying, “Hearken to the sound of the ram’s horn.”.. [Disaster is coming!] … But they said, “We will not hearken.” Therefore, hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear, O earth; behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts because they have not hearkened to My words, nor to My law, but have rejected it” (vs 16-19). That’s to say nothing of pornography and things like that .

Now let me read to you from the book The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian. What occupies your mind? Because a lot of people may not be addicted to drugs, or addicted to sex or to pornography, but a lot of people are addicted to music. If you want to know if you are addicted or not concerning music, try this: Turn off the radio. Turn off the TV. See if you can think, because most people have their minds occupied by other people’s words and other people’s ideas, which come straight from Satan the devil through music right into your life and into your mind and into your heart.

We learn how things go into your mind, because everything that you do is registered. What did Jesus say? In the judgment day we’re going to give account for every idle word! That’s why repentance is important, that that can be wiped out and forgotten.

Things you learn:

- 1% you learn through taste

- 1.5% through touch unless you are blind, then you learn more

- 3.5% through smell

- 11% through hearing

- 83% through sight

People are glued to television. Try this with your kids: Turn off the TV, take away the cartoons and sit down and see if you can carry on a little mini-conversation with your kids.

Things we remember:

- 10% of what we read

- 20% of what we hear

- 30% of what we see

- 50% of what we see and hear

- 80% of what we say

- 90% of what we say as we do a thing.

Very interesting—isn’t it? What happens when we come to church and we bring our Bibles, and we open them up and we go from Scripture to Scripture?

- you are seeing

- you are hearing

- you are reading

- you are understanding

—at the same time. That’s why Sabbath services become so very important. I dare say this; none of us would survive very long without the Sabbath.

How many people who have given up the Sabbath, have really survived? They haven’t! They have gone back into the world, and they don’t want to be bothered. This happens because they’ve been programmed and we’ve seen it even happen within the Church. It’s called a paradigm shift. Have you heard that before? Yes! ‘Oh, we’ve got to get rid of the old paradigm.’ God says go back to the old paradigm there in Jer. 6, but people don’t want that.

from—The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian

pg. 185-186—Media Matrix: Don’t think for a minute that this dynamic of being programmed by others occurs only in far off lands. It goes right here in the good old USA in your state, in your town—perhaps in your home. Of course, for most of us, particularly in America, the pressures are usually less obvious than they are for those living under horrendous “isms” like Communism or radical Islamism. But the principles are exactly the same. Pick a behavior—say, body piercing....

or we could say tattooing

…Do you really think millions of people independently arrived at the idea that it’s a great thing to bore holes in multiple parts of their bodies (and I’m not talking about earrings) and imbed metal objects there? Obviously, people do this because they see others doing it…

Remember what I just read here?

...yet somehow they still believe it’s their own idea! No one likes to think he or she has a weak mind or is acting out of the suggestions of other people!”

So what do they say? It’s my choice! I want to express my freedom!

But here is the key point about being influenced and shaped by peer pressure:

We’re going to talk about that in just a little bit because the Bible talks about peer pressure.

If you are unwilling to recognize that something is wrong with your programming, with the way you think and act and feel, that means you’re firmly in its grip.

In other words, you’re deceived, self-deluded.

But if you are more self-aware—if you’re introspective and sincere enough to recognize that there is something wrong with the way you are living—then you can break out the peer-pressure matrix….

How do you break out of addiction?

…God rewards honest people, those who are willing to give up the lie, no matter how painful that is, or how damaging to our pride.

But since we all seem to have this part in our nature that is somehow more inclined to believe flattering con men than prophets telling us painful truths, it’s essential that our nation’s culture revolve around reality.

However we have a ready-made deceived reality.

That’s what true civilization is. A culture that affirms good as good and evil as evil acts as a mirror of sorts, helping each of us keep a firm grip on public and private morality.

Then he quoted Isaiah 5:20: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” Another four-letter acronym for that is ACLU.

Indeed, this book is about how evil is packaged and perfumed to look good—and good made to appear evil.

‘Why, you wouldn’t want to read the Bible! You must be nuts!’

Unfortunately, today’s establishment press, the primary filter through which we receive most of our information about the world, does not revolve about reality. As a matter of fact, over the past few decades no institution has been more culpable for making evil appear good and good appear evil than the media.

So, we are in the age of evil.

- What is your addiction?

- What do you need to overcome?

Let’s look at some of these things. Deut. 30 is what God sets before everyone. You cannot change this proposition. Everyone has to choose. Everyone has to know what is right and wrong; no one is going to have an excuse! Even Paul Harvey and Zig Zieglar made the comment concerning the Ten Commandments when people say, ‘They’re hard to understand.’ Well no, the Ten Commandments are very easy to understand, but people don’t want to understand them because it infringes upon their sins and makes them uncomfortable, and they don’t want to change. God made it simple.

In reading this I want you to think about how many Bibles there are in the world. Billions! Translated into how many languages? Probably pretty close to 500 by now, and the New Testament in over 1,800 languages, and the book of Mark in probably 2,500 languages. So, it’s not hidden, and I dare say every home must have a Bible in it somewhere. That means God made sure it was there. It’s a witness against them, for them and to them, and if they don’t read it, that’s not God’s fault.

Deuteronomy 30:11: “For this commandment which I command you today is not hidden from you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that you should say, ‘Who shall go up to heaven for us, and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and do it?’” (vs 11-12). Just think of the billions that men would spend if that were the case. ‘Oh we’ve got to go up and do it!’ No!

Verse 13: “Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, ‘Who shall go over the sea for us to bring it to us, so that we may hear it and do it?’ But the Word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do it” (vs 13-14). This is telling you not that God’s laws are in your heart and in your mouth, but the language that you speak is in your heart and in your mouth. If you read the Word of God, you can hear it and do it. That’s what it’s saying here.

Because of this, v 15: “Behold, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil.” That’s before every human being, and everyone has to choose. God wants you to choose the right thing. We are also going to see the answer to addiction begins right here:

Verse 16: “In that I command you this day to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments so that you may live and multiply. And the LORD your God shall bless you in the land where you go to possess it. But if your heart turn away. [that’s exactly what both of these men in both of these books are talking about: a national turning away] ...so that you will not hear...” (vs 1617).

Wouldn’t it be interesting if all of those advocates of Christmas on Fox News and elsewhere really understood about it? I wonder, since they say they want the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. Do they really? or Do they really want the Truth the way they view the Truth and want to enforce upon other people?

Bill O’Reilly also had someone tell him about Christmas, that it’s pagan and saturnalia and everything, and he just kind of flipped it off. Now, if “...you will not hear...’—that’s important.

“…but shall be drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I denounce to you this day that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days on the land where you pass over Jordan to go to possess it” (17-18).

What is the leading cause of premature death today? Drug addicts reaching the old age of between 40 and 55! Did they prolong their days? Think about all the teenagers that died when they got in a car and had their drunken graduation parties, etc. Did they prolong their days? No! You can add on many more here.

To give the reality, and lot’s of times it’s good to have a reality check, whether you believe God or not. Everyone can do this, they can go outside and stand on terra firma, the earth, and they can look up and see the heavens, and every time you do, you affirm this verse whether you agree with it or not.

(go to the next track)

Now v 19 is a witness to everyone in the world, because every human being in the world is on the earth. They know about the earth, they know about the world. They can look up and see the sky and see the heavens. So, God makes it simple.

Verse 19: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you...” If you don’t believe a man, if you don’t believe the Word of God, the heaven and the earth have already witnessed against you— it’s very existence. What did Jesus say of His words? ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.’ You can’t run and hide! Where are you going to go? As long as you’re on the earth or in the heavens, if you’re shot out on a rocket, God is witnessing to you that He is Creator, that He has given laws, commandments, statutes, judgments, and that He has commanded you to love Him. As we’re going through this, I want you to ask:

- What occupies my mind?

- What am I addicted to?

Any one of the things we have covered here? Then we will see the solution, what to do about it.

Verse 19: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing….”

Human nature is perverse, because human nature, the carnal mind, is enmity against God; deceives itself. It wants to live in a state of sin and to receive all the blessings of God. That’s an impossibility! There is a deception in it that begins at first when you are sinning which is this: There’s ‘pleasure in sin for a season,’ and then reality hits you; the circumstances around you hit you.

I recall Dolores read an article about a man who was a cocaine addict, and he had been to many different twelve-step programs to overcome his addiction. But all of those overcoming-addiction programs do not work unless you choose to quit being addicted! He had just gotten out of the rehab center and was on his way to buy some cocaine. Reality struck him and he remembered his kids, remembered his wife. Turned his car around, went back home and stopped everything from that instant on because he made up his mind and chose to do so. That’s what God is telling us here. What we are talking about is your own personal responsibility. You are responsible for your own life.

“...set before you life and death, blessing and cursing… [What does God want you to do? You have to choose!] .Therefore, choose life, so that both you and your seed…. [descendents] ...may live, that you may love the LORD your God, and may obey His voice, and may cleave to Him…” (vs 1920). That’s what God wants. Every blessing will come from God because of that; even eternal life!

Here is what most people don’t realize. Everyone thinks that he or she, because of independent free choice that God has given them, that it’s ‘my choice to make and it’s my life to live.’ That is true! However, you have this witness against you.

Now God says, “…for He is your life, and the length of your days....” (v 20). What makes you keep breathing? God originally breathed into Adam the breath of life—didn’t He? What makes you keep breathing? You hardly ever think about it! How many thousands of times a day do you breathe? Hundreds of thousands of times a day, and figure your whole life long. Times that by 70-years, 80-years, and even some people live up to be 120 maximum. But the only way you reach whatever age you reach is because you breathe. God put it in you, in your system to do so, and it’s automatic, it’s involuntary. We are all breathing right now. God gave that to you. You live and exist because of God!

“...for He is your life and the length of your days, so that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers—to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob—to give it to them” (v 20).

Brethren, that’s why we’re here in good old USA, because of the blessing of God! Isn’t that something? Even to the wicked, God does not take away the right to breathe, they may live shorter lives because of their sins, but God hasn’t taken it away. What all of this tells us is another thing, and we can sum it up this way when we realize that Satan is ‘the god of this world’: You are either under the authority of God, or you’re under the authority of Satan, and a lot of people would like to choose the middle ground, but there is no middle ground.

So, as we go through this ask yourself: What addiction am I hooked on?

- Is it alcohol?

- Is it drugs?

- Is it pornography?

- Is it sex?

- Is it video games?

- Is it television?

- is it music?

- Is it witchcraft?

- Is it fun and daring?

- Is it sports?

- What drives and motivates your life?

We’ll see how we can look at it. You are either under the authority of God or under the authority of Satan because he is the ‘god of this world.’ Paul wrote, ‘There are spirits and principalities at work in high places’—which sets the agenda for Satan’s way. You read Rev. 12:9, he’s got the whole world deceived—right? The whole world!

Now let’s look at some things concerning how we think and how we act and how we behave. In what we’re covering, we have to go through some basic Scriptures, but these are fundamental. This is a Scripture to learn and never, never forget:

Proverbs 14:12: “There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.” It seems right, natural, good, fun, exciting, thrilling, exhilarating! Ends in death!

Let’s look at another Proverb. We’re going to spend some time in the book of Proverbs because the truth is, the book of Proverbs is perhaps the most important book for anyone who has led a criminal life—been addicted to whatever addiction—to get your life straightened around, because the only way you can recover is to understand there are absolute truths: right and wrong, good and evil. The book of Proverbs tells you in simple, easy-to-understand terms.

Let’s come to Proverbs 23:7, a very interesting verse. “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he...”

- What’s in your heart?

- What occupies your mind?

- What are you addicted to?

- Who is your god?

- Where are you going?

- How are you going to end up?

Especially if you are in the Church and baptized, and you have any of these problems, I tell you in the name of Jesus Christ, you are on dangerous ground. We will cover on how you can get out of it, because God is there to help. But God is not going to help you unless you repent and understand the weaknesses that are involved.

Whatever your addiction is, whatever your secret sins are, God knows and He wants you to get rid of them, but you have to choose to get rid of them! You have to choose to want God’s way! This is easy to understand, this is not complicated. God wants us to live His way and wants us to avoid the evil, He tells us how.

Proverbs 4:14: “Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not into the way of evil men.” That’s the way of transgressing the laws of God, the commandments of God.

Verse 15: “Avoid it... [don’t dabble in it] ...do not go in it… [in other words, don’t go that way] … turn from it, and pass on!” All the marketers of evil, the purveyors of evil that want to ensnare you in satanic culture and drugs and addiction and sex and pornography and gambling and all the other addictions that I have mentioned.

Verse 16: “For they do not sleep except when they have done mischief.” That’s exactly what David Kupelian brings out in the book The Marketing of Evil.

- they plan it

- they plan the response

- they plan the television

- they plan the movies

All of these things are scripted for a response from you! Every ad you see or hear is scripted for a response! Every song, every word in those songs is scripted for a response! That’s why:

“...and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall” (v 16). They would lose sleep if they started losing numbers. And I tell every teenager: Do not get involved in MTV.

- Do not enter into it!

- Don’t turn on the channel!

- Don’t go that way!

- Avoid it!

- Pass by it!

Interesting, I was in Nob Hill the other night and I couldn’t resist. Here is a mother exasperated with her teenage daughter gawking and looking at these women’s magazines. When you go through the checkout counter, and I have mentioned this before, every magazine is geared to women to keep them deceived and locked into the way of the world:

- sin

- divorce

- promiscuity

- envy

- jealousy

- lust

I will have to give Nob Hill credit, they had at the bottom, almost could hardly see it, a picture on a man’s magazine with a muscle man on the front; only time I’ve ever seen it.

Here is this mother, and I looked at the teenaged girl, and she was looking at these and I said, ‘Hey, you need to be careful, these things are designed to make you do wrong, to keep your mind on evil.’ Her mother is sitting over there nodding her head And I said, ‘You would do well not to pay any attention to them.’ And the mother is nodding her head—yes, yes, yes!

Now here is their agenda, v 17: “For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.” To see how many people they can ensnare in it; to see how many teenage minds they can blow and corrupt.

Do yourself a favor some time, when high school gets out, go park the car and watch all of the sad teenagers pass by hooked with their music blasting in their ears, talking on their cell phones to their friends, knowing that they are going home to a home devoid of mother and father because Satan has created a world where mother and father must work and they cannot do what they need to do to take care of the family. The kids are left to their own and swamped and deluded into all kinds of evil. beginning with sex education in the third grade, maybe even kindergarten, so what do you suppose they are going to do when they get home? Caught! Hooked! Addicted!

Verse 19: “The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble.” They have problems, they have difficulties; they don’t know what to do. They can’t find any answers. Their lives are a wreck; their emotions are a wreck. They have given the most precious thing that they have in sin: their lives, their minds, their bodies. And they wonder what’s wrong.

Proverbs 1:1 starts out and tells you how you can avoid this; here is the very first thing: “The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel.” A lot of these are David’s proverbs that Solomon put out. But Solomon, as we have covered, is an example of going against everything that he was taught. So, why should we be surprised if people in the Church become like people in the world? Solomon did, and led the way!

Verse 2: “To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding.” Of course, that’s what everyone wants; to be smart, to be intelligent, to be wise!

Verse 3: “To receive the instruction of wisdom, righteousness, and judgment, and equity; to give prudence to the simple...” (vs 3-4). In other words, to give you the thinking capacity to understand right and wrong, good and evil, blessing and cursing.

“…knowledge and discretion to the young man [or woman]” (v 4). Let’s see if you’re smart or not. It doesn’t matter what your age is.

Verse 5: “A wise man will hear and will increase learning, and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsel.” Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like Matt. 13 that we read? Yes, indeed! What you need to understand is this: the Word of God agrees with itself over and over and over again; it doesn’t contradict itself.

Verse 6: “To understand a proverb and its interpretation, the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.... [Here is how you begin life] … .The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge....” (vs 6-7). What does that mean? That is to give you a conscience and a sense of right and wrong! It begins with the fear of the Lord.

Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom...” It doesn’t matter what your IQ may say on an SAT test, because many wise men are fools when it comes to understanding God’s way.

“…and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding” (v 10). In other words, to understand the Word of God gives you understanding so you can live and cope in this world and not be drug down, and that’s not in the way of a pun, but to be dragged into things because you do not have the will power to resist. You have to have the will power to resist and the beginning of that will power is the fear of the Lord. And everything that Satan does is to whittle away at your conscience; to drag you further, and further, and further down into the cesspool of sin to where you have no conscience at all! Then he’s got you! Have you ever talked to a person who has no conscience? It is difficult, indeed! Pitiful! Sorrowful! But the only way that they can come out of it, is to begin to know right and wrong. Start at the beginning again. That’s why it says here, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom ; and the knowledge....”

Proverbs 1:7 “. but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” What are you? A fool? or Wise? How the Proverbs make it righteousness or sin, goodness or evil, all the way through.

Verse 8: “My son, hear the instruction of your father... [this is how we know that this is from David to Solomon] ...and forsake not the law of your mother.” What’s the first thing that teenagers are known to do? Reject the instruction of their parents, and rebel against them! Isn’t that true? Yes, indeed!

I know, and you know, and every person alive knows that when you were a teenager and you got out on your own that you did things that your mom and dad never knew about and you never told them. Hopefully, you have been able to repent of them. That’s the pull of human nature. The way that you overcome the pull of human nature is to understand that God gave you fathers and mothers to teach you the right way. Today, there are very few that teach the right way, for they themselves have been compromised in the generation preceding you.

Now, here is what’s going to happen. You want everything to go right in your life as a young person? Then listen to the instruction of your father, and the law of your mother!

Verse 9: “For they shall be an ornament of grace to your head and chains of honor... [of decoration and honor] ...around your neck.” That means

- it’s going to give you strength.

- it’s going to give you the ability to say, ‘no!’

- it is going to give you the ability to not get involved in transgressing the laws of God

—to get involved in drugs, or sex, or music.

Friends and Peer Pressure

Now then, let’s talk about friends and peer pressure because all teenagers, young people have been made to believe through the educational system through television, through movies, through everything else that they have to conform to the teenagers, and have something made special for them, because after all, ‘we’re different’! And, of course, your parents don’t know what it’s like to be a teen; never thinking that their parents were young once.

When you grow up in a family, you look at your father and mother, they’re already grown up— right? You don’t think of them as being little at one time. This is how Satan has divided it, ‘Oh don’t listen to your parents; they’re old fashioned. We have new modern things. You need this; you need that; you need the other thing. Listen to this music; watch that video program; get involved in this video game.’ And most video games are almost pure Satanism and occultism. Have your own cell phone so you can talk to your friends. Get your music and blast it into your ears—so Satan can totally occupy your mind all the time—and have friends that agree with you.

Verse 10: “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.” It’s your choice! Same way if you are an adult and you’re addicted to pornography and you go online and turn it on, and you sneak around and don’t let your wife know, don’t let anyone else know until your life is already captured and nearly destroyed! Same way with women. There are 30-million women hooked on porn—online porn—and probably that many men or more. So, we are dealing with close to a third of the population of America, hooked on porn one way or the other, then comes drugs, then comes gambling, then comes all of these other things.

Verse 11: “If they say, ‘Come with us...’” Let’s form a club. That goes clear up into adult life—doesn’t it? Don’t they have secret societies? Secret clubs? Yes!

“...let us lie in wait for blood...” (v 11). This is gang related. Do we have problems with gangs? Yes!

“...we will watch secretly for the innocent without cause” (v 11). Do they have crimes in the cities based on that? Yes, indeed!

Verse 12: “Let us swallow them up alive as the grave, and whole, as those who go down into the pit. we shall find all precious substance; we shall fill our houses with plunder; cast in your lot among us, and let us have one purse” (vs 12-14).

Now in the good little old wonderful town of Hollister, California, they just recently broke up a crime ring, organized by two adult women. They had teenagers that would go out and in the daytime break into homes and steal things: steal cars, drive around and watch where a car is running, let one of them out, jump in the car and drive away POOF! your car is gone! Go in the house and steal things, and then they had the audacity—they shouldn’t have done this because when they did this, they really got the people upset—to go into a house and guess what they found, nine Labrador blonde puppies worth hundreds of dollars, so they stole them. That got them! They were still nursing from their mother and they were about five to six weeks old. That’s how they got caught, peddling this. They went into the house, and they found the house full of all these stolen goods that the police in Hollister had been chasing down all of these things for months! That’s to say nothing of the other thing: There was even a gang shooting in Hollister!

But what does God say: ‘your choice.’ Peer pressure: ‘Oh, you aren’t macho if you don’t join us.’ Or like girls, and there are girl gangs and girl things, too, yes!

Verse 15: “My son, do not walk in the way with them! Keep back your foot from their path.” Don’t go with them!

Are you willing to stand alone for the Truth of God and to obey God? or To go along with sinners because you need friends? Are they your friends if they lead you into sin? That’s what you need to ask! We live in a respectable neighborhood. A respectable neighborhood today is no longer respectable. Dolores told me this morning—I didn’t hear it because I went to bed early—that there was a fist fight and a possible shooting across the street in front of our house. Good thing I was asleep. So, it’s reaching down; that’s what we read there in Jer. 6. Everyone is given over to evil! Amazing thing!

Verse 16: “For their feet run to evil and make haste to shed blood.... [that’s quoted in Rom. 3] .Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird, but they lie in wait for their own blood...” (vs 16-18). Sooner or later it’s going to come back on them, after they have done evil to other people, of course.

“...they watch secretly for their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who gets gain by violence, who takes away the life of its owners” (vs 18-19). You can take and apply that to anything, and if you are involved in addiction, then you are involved in this way.

The rest of the chapter is really quite an important one because God has not left this world without the knowledge of basic right and wrong He is not calling the world, but He has not left them without the basic knowledge of right and wrong, otherwise God could not hold them accountable for their behavior. Because ‘where there is no law there is no sin,’ but there is law; therefore, there is sin!

Verse 20: “Wisdom cries outside; she utters her voice in the streets; she cries in the chief place of gathering, in the openings of the gates; in the city she utters her words, saying, ‘How long will you love simplicity, simple ones?....’” (vs 20-22). That means stupid ones. Will you love stupidity? In the Greek it is ‘idiotes.’ I don’t know what it is in the Hebrew. But that’s where we get the word idiot today. The Spanish Bible says, they are mocking what is right and thinking that nothing wrong will come upon them.

“…And will scorners delight in their scorning? And will fools hate knowledge?” (v 22).

Every time you do something wrong, you have a chance to change. You don’t have to be hooked in it. Just like this cocaine addict was on his way to the man who sold it to him, the dealer, and it finally dawned on him that he better quit. So, he turned and stopped. Every time that evil comes along, you have a chance to turn and stop.

Verse 23: “Turn back at my reproof; behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.” Everybody has a chance. If you don’t, which is what this world is coming to, let me ask this:

- What are you going to do with your next chance to change and repent?

- What are you going to do the next time you want to take a drink?

- The next time you take a drug?

- The next time you go into a casino?

- The next time you go to online porn?

- The next time you go to online gambling?

- What are you going to do?

- What are you going to do the next time you want to commit adultery with your neighbor’s wife or husband? W

- hat are you going to do when all the kids want you to go with them?

- What is your choice?

When you reject God you reject choice, you refuse Truth, and then God says this, v 24: “Because I called, and you refused to hearken, I stretched out my hand, and no one paid attention; but you have despised all my counsel… [you counted it as nothing] …and would have none of my reproof...” (vs 24-25).

You don’t want any correction; you don’t want anyone telling you what to do. When you reach that point, that you have

- no conscience

- no sense of right and wrong

- no sense of good and evil

- completely seared your conscience

—that you don’t care for anyone but yourself and your addiction—and whatever it is that runs your life:

- whether you are young

- whether you are old

- whether you are in between

all of those things are there.

Verse 26: “I also will laugh at your calamity...” You’re going to have a lot of trouble and it’s coming! Happens in the way of accidents, bankruptcy, lying, cheating, stealing, sexually transmitted diseases, of which there are probably over a hundred different varieties.

“...I will mock when your fear comes; when your calamity comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when trouble and pain come upon you. [Why?] ...then they shall call upon me, but I will not answer...” (vs 26-28). That’s one place you never want to get in your life, that you have disregarded God so much and have scorned everything of God so badly, that when you are in the deep pit of your troubles, God is not going to hear you because you won’t repent!

“...they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, they would have none of my counsel; they despised all my correction” (v 28-30). Your life is going to come upon you the way you laid it out.

Verse 31: “Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices. For the waywardness of the simple shall slay them, and the complacency of fools destroys them. But whoever hearkens to me shall dwell safely and shall be secure without fear of harm” (vs 31-33).

The Book of Proverbs gives you the foundation where you can begin to sort out

- right and wrong

- good and evil

- truth

- knowledge

- understanding

—and the way of God so you can get your life squared around. But you have to choose, and you have to choose God’s way.

All Scriptures from The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version by Fred R. Coulter

Scriptural References:

1. Matthew 13:10-17

2. 2 Timothy 3:1-8, 13

3. Jeremiah 6:13-19

4. Isaiah 5:20

5. Deuteronomy 30:11-20

6. Proverbs 14:12

7. Proverbs 23:7

8. Proverbs 4:14-17, 19

9. Proverbs 1:1-7

10. Proverbs 9:10

11. Proverbs 1: 7-33

Scriptures referenced, not quoted:

- Jeremiah 23

- Psalm 111:10

- 2 Chronicles 35

- Revelation 12:9

- Romans 3

Also referenced:

Sermon: Spirit of Sodom
Books:

- Brokenness, the Forgotten Factor of Prayer by Mickey Bonner

- War Over Christmas by Juan Williams

- Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian

FRC/jea
Transcribed: 11/5/06
Reformatted/corrected—bo—9/2014

The Addicted Society II
Addictions

Fred R. Coulter

We look around the world, especially those of us who are in our senior years; we are aghast at what is happening and taking place, and yet, in the process of time this country has been brought down to a level of evil that is permeating the whole society and permeating the whole world. It truly fulfills what Rev.12:9 says, that Satan is ‘deceiving the whole world.’ I want to talk a little bit about what happens to a society and why it is so pervasive.

Proverbs 1:20 “Wisdom cries outside; she utters her voice in the streets.” What does this mean: wisdom cries out? What happens to a society when there is no wisdom? You can go back and you can read the history of America and how it was founded on Biblical principles, in the main. And yet, the Achilles Heel, which killed the whole thing, was Sunday. You read what they were teaching concerning the rest of the commandments of God. They made people learn them. They taught children to learn them. What happens when that takes place? What happens to a society when that takes place?

God blesses anyone—whether in the letter of the Law or the spirit of the Law—who obeys Him. We will see that God judges nations. Then we will see what happens to other people who go along and get along and allow all of these things to take place.

Proverbs 14:34: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” This is a truism: You take the commandments of God, which are righteousness, and you evaluate any nation or society, the closer they are to the laws of God and keeping them as the laws of the land:

- the greater the nation is

- the more prosperous the nation is

- the lower the crime rate

- the lower the rate of

- infidelity

- homosexuality

- thievery

- disobedience to parents

—they are all lower. It is a society what you would call righteous. I’m sure there were times in American history when we came fairly close to that.

Notice the other half, and this is what’s important concerning the book of Proverbs. As we’ll understand later, the only way to separate good thinking from stinking thinking is to study the Proverbs. The Proverbs tell us right from wrong, good from evil, all the way through.

It says: “...but sin is a reproach to any people” (v 34)—and the margin says to nations. So, when a nation comes to a point that it goes against God, goes against the Truth of God, then they’re going to find themselves in grave and terrible trouble.

Let’s see what happens, because we are going to understand that this wickedness comes from the very leaders who are supposed to keep the nation righteous.

Psalm 7:9: “O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous…” There is a division. Even in the midst of all the things that are going on, God still can separate His people.

“...for the righteous God tries the hearts and reins” (v 9). That’s important that we understand that every human being is being judged by God by their behavior. That’s how He does it.

Verse 11: “God is a righteous judge, and a God Who has indignation every day.”

Here’s what’s happened: When those who don’t believe in God control education, government and law, then you have what we have in America today. There was quite a good documentary on Fox News—Church and State—and it showed how that this nation went down the tubes, when the Supreme Court began getting rid of God! That’s when it went down. Satan has a plan. When they had the Scopes trial to get rid of teaching of God and about creation in the classroom, now they can’t get rid of it. Parents cannot even have a four-paragraph, intelligent design read to the students on the first day of biology class—only once!—because the ones who have done this are those who cannot allow God in their thoughts.

A recent poll says up to 94% of people believe in God. How is that 6% can cause such distress? Well, the truth is, the way they believe in God is far different from the way that God says they ought to believe in Him!

Always remember this: James says, ‘You believe there’s one God, you do well—the demons do and tremble!’ How do you believe in God? It’s one thing to believe in God, it’s another thing to believe God. That’s the difference! In that special that they ran—Church and State—it comes down where we are now, that the atheists are really controlling everything that is done. One of the most fatal judgments made was by Sandra Day O’Connor in the opinion that she wrote that said: ‘in the expression of religion, if it offends someone it should not be allowed.’ That’s where we are on all the flap that’s going on. There is a real spiritual warfare going on!

Psalm 14:1: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God!’…” What do they do? They get attractive, good-looking spokeswomen and men— with the exception of Newdow—and say, ‘I don’t believe in God and I’m normal’! So, people being tolerant say, ‘Why should I be critical?’ The reason they make that judgment is because they can’t discern the difference between Truth and error and they cannot be willing to bring a judgment against someone attractive, to bring a negative or condemning judgment against them. Satan knows that!

But God says: “...They are corrupt; they have done abominable works; there is none who does good.... [God is seeing all of this going on] …The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God” (vs 1-2).

Jesus made a statement that ‘When the Son of man comes will He find faith on the earth?’ I don’t think that was in reference to the world! That has got to be in reference to the Church! What we are seeing more and more is that people want to bring the world into the Church. That’s what they’ve done with Protestantism, and Protestantism is going down the tubes fast, and they want to compromise with the world. They want to get as close to the world as they can and still be accepted of God. Now, if that isn’t pure Laodicean thinking, I don’t know what is.

God says, v 3: “They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not even one. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, those who devour My people as men eat bread and do not call upon the LORD?” (vs 3-4). That’s what they’re doing.

Psalm 9:16: “The LORD has made Himself known. He has executed judgment; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Selah. The wicked shall be turned into the grave, and all the nations that forget God” (vs 16-17). That’s what’s happening! This nation is forgetting God—we will see that a little bit more!

- Why is that?

- How does it come to this?

- Where are we headed with it?

Let’s understand what the warfare is. We’re going to understand how this comes about. We’re going to see how it’s taking place today right in front of eyes. We need to see this and realize how much we have to do this every day.

Ephesians 6:10: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the might of His strength… [that’s the only sanity; that’s the only way out] …Put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil… [he is clever, slick and promotional] .because we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers, against the world rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual power of wickedness in high places” (vs 10-12). What does that mean? We’ve already seen how it is with the Supreme Court! We’ve already seen how it is with religion!

Let’s look at something here that’s important for us to understand and important for us to realize what is taking place. As we know about Babylon the Great, remember, there is an economic aspect— business and economy—with Babylon the Great. There is religion! There is government!

from: The Marketing of Evil: A Quiet American Revolution by David Kupelian
pg 57-58—Common sense provides ample proof to a rational person that the First Amendment’s religion clauses couldn’t possibly mean what the ACLU and many of today’s judges say they mean, since there is simply no evidence of it in history….

Anti-Christian Liberation Union—that’s what it is!

We are deluding ourselves into believing there is some neutral ground between good and evil…

This is why the book of Proverbs is so important to get straightened out in an addictive society. You have to have right and wrong; good and evil; Truth and error.

…and that this is where the government is supposed to be. But such a neutral ground, if such can even be said to exist, is in itself evil.

pg 61—Chapter three: The Killer Culture—Who’s Selling Sex and Rebellion to Your Children

Here’s the aspect of it that has the ‘stage has been set’ by the elimination of God and by the problems that we have in education, and it’s coming right into the churches.

pgs 64-65—Merchants of Cool: “They want to be cool. They are impressionable, and they have the cash… [and very little, if any, parental supervision] …They are corporate America’s $150-billion dream.” That’s the opening statement in PBS’s stunning 2001 Frontline documentary: The Merchants of Cool,’ narrated by author and media critic Douglas Rushkoff. What emerges in the following sixty minutes is a scandalous portrait of how major corporations—Ciacom, Disney, AOL/Time Warner, and others—study America’s children like laboratory rats in order to sell them billions of dollars in merchandise by tempting, degrading and corrupting them. Think that’s a bit of an overstatement? It’s an understatement.

And you can see what has happened! Here’s what the problem is:

“When you’ve got a few gigantic transnational corporations, each one loaded down with debt, competing madly for as much shelf space and brain space as they can take,” says NYU communications Professor Mark Crispin-Miller, “they’re going to do whatever they think works the fastest and with the most people, which means that they will drag standards down.”

This is what has happened.

“It’s a blizzard of brands, all competing for the same kids,” explains Rushkoff. “To win teens’ loyalty, marketers believe, they have to speak their language the best. So they study them carefully, as an anthropologist would an exotic native culture. Today,” Rushkoff discloses, “five enormous companies are responsible for selling nearly all of youth culture. These are the true merchants of cool: Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp…

Though He owns Fox News—which you do and most people think is fair and balanced and good news—he also has a stake in MTV.

…Disney, Viacom, Universal Vivendi, and AOL/Time Warner.” The documentary demonstrates how big corporations literally send spies to infiltrate young people’s social settings to gather intelligence on what they can induce these children to buy next.

As I read this next part, I want you to understand that today, the most dangerous thing you can allow your children to do is watch MTV and the major sitcoms on the major television networks: NBC, ABC, CBS, UPS and so forth. Another thing: These entertainment corporations control all the music that is put out. Music is the most devastating and the most controlling factor that captures the mind of children. They are designed to make them rebellious, turn them away from the their parents, cause them to not believe in God, get them involved in sex and promiscuity and drugs as a normal behavior!

“The entertainment companies, which are a handful of massive conglomerates that own four of the five music companies that sell 90 percent of the music in the United States…

Wonder why you can’t get any good music anymore? That’s why!

…those same companies also own all the film studios, all the major TV networks, all the TV stations pretty much in the 10 largest markets,” University of Illinois communications professor Robert McChesney reveals in the documentary. “They own all or part of every single commercial cable channel.”

And to show you how they make their money: They tie MTV together—they bunch it—with four channels on the cable. They have it like with Discovery or History, and they bunch it together with those, and in order to get the ones you want you have to buy MTV. They say, ‘We can block it.’ Okay, then block it. But what happens? Even though it’s blocked, when I pay my cable television bill, a certain portion goes to MTV. Here’s what they do:

pg 66—”They look at the teen market as part of this massive empire that they’re colonizing…”

MTV: What about the cable channel that positions itself as champion of today’s teens and preteens—champions of their music, their rebellious free spirit, and their genuine, if ever-changing, notions of what is “cool”? Whatever else MTV might be, at least it’s interested in kids, right? Sure, just like the lion is interested in the gazelle.

“Everything on MTV is a commercial,” explains McChesney. “That’s all that MTV is. Sometimes it’s an explicit advertisement paid for by a company to sell a product. Sometimes it’s going to be a video for a music company there to sell music. Sometimes it’s going to be the set that’s filled with trendy clothes and stuff there to sell a look that will include products on that set. Sometimes it will be a show about an upcoming movie paid for by the studio, though you don’t know it, to hype a move that’s coming out from Hollywood. But everything’s an infomercial. There is no non-commercial part of MTV.”

So, this is how they make the addicted society. Just like a drug-pusher, they are, standing on a corner giving out free drugs and then come back and we’ll give you some very cheaply. Also, the law is on the side of the kids, that parents can’t keep control of what goes on in kid’s room. They lock themselves in there and they have their porn; they have their sex; they have their drugs; they have their MTV; they have their cell phones; they have all of this sort of thing.

As I said before, the generation that is now is the generation of Matt. 24 and it is building itself for a slaughter! You can understand why God is going to absolutely wipe the face of the earth and why there are going to be dead bodies strewn from one end of the horizon to the other end of the horizon, because of what this generation is doing right now. We’ll see how that happened before. For example: He talks about the midriff, about teens running around showing their midriff. Where did it first start? How did such a thing happen? It started on MTV! Women are involved in it, as well as teens, because it’s the cool thing to do.

Let me read you about this one music group that is captivating; they keep changing so they can captivate them. Isn’t it interesting: captivating! Whatever you are captivated by, you are addicted! And if you are captivated by something it occupies your mind. Whatever occupies your mind is what you are! Here’s a new group out called Insane Clown Posse—that’s a music group.

pg 69—A member explains: “Everybody that likes our music feels a super connection… You feel like you’re the only one that knows about it.”

“These are the extremes,” intones Rushkoff, “to which teens are willing to go to ensure the authenticity of their own scene. It’s the front line of the teen cultural resistance: Become so crude, so intolerable, and break so many rules that you become indigestible.”

Amazing! Isn’t it? No limits! That’s where it’s coming to. Everything! No limits on anything! Remember, they kicked Howard Stern off one of the radio stations, fined them a great fine. So, what did they do? Now they’re going to have satellite radio on Sirius—which is the name of the channel—and he can say anything, do anything.

Even Bill O’Rielly interview him on Fox News, and he virtually told Bill O’Rielly, ‘I’m going to be gross, evil, and as pornographic as I can.’ And he said at ‘five-years-old he had a dream that he would do this.’ Whose agent gave the dream? Now we’re into no limits! Look at the way they dress. Look at the way they do.

pg 71—Guess what? Those Hollywood depictions [of Sodom and Gomorrah] don’t even begin to capture the shocking reality of what is going on in America’s culture today—they’re not even close.

First of all, there’s sex. Very simply, there seem to be neither boundaries nor taboos anymore when it comes to sex. Anything goes—from heterosexual to homosexual to bi-, trans-. Poly-, and you-don’t-want-to-know sexual experiences.

It gets into bestiality and things like this on an open basis and they cannot even convict people in the law of the land for bestiality anymore.

pg. 7—Sex has become a ubiquitous, cheap, meaningless quest for ever-greater thrills… Moreover, with the evolution f online pornography, every type of sexual experience has literally been shoved under the noses of millions of Americans against their will.

I will have to say: with their will!

Then it talks about body-piercing. It talks about other things. Then they get to the extremes, those who are going out were called ‘bug chasers,’ and what do they do? Those are young men seeking out other men who have HIV and AIDS to have sexual relations with them so they can receive the disease.

Let’s see who’s to blame in this. Everyone is to blame! Then we will see what happens when everyone is to blame. One place in the Jeremiah. God said, ‘there is no Truth!’ So, when we get to the point that there is no longer any Truth—and we are getting closer and closer to it. Now you understand why there are such abominable translations of the Bible out there:

- to mock God

- to mock the Word of God

- to get rid of the Word of God

In America it all started when they did not keep the Sabbath with the rest of the Ten Commandments. That left the door open! Now, that may sound a little extreme, but that is true, because you may know about God; you may have principles concerning the Word of God, which you live by; but you do not know God and you are not sanctified by God unless you keep His Sabbaths—He says so! (Exo. 31)

So, here’s what happens, and this is going to happen to us, Isaiah 3:1: “For behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water.” As we’re reading this, let’s understand that it did happen; let’s understand that these are part of the punishments that God brings, because of sin.

Notice who it affects, v 2: “the man of might and the man of war, the judge and the prophet, the diviner and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the honorable man and the adviser, and the cunning charmer and the skillful enchanter. ‘And I will give young lads to be their princes, and capricious children shall rule over them. And the people shall be crushed, every man by another, and every man by his neighbor; the young shall rise up against the old, and the base against the honorable.’” (vs 1-5). And we’re going to see:

- they are corrupt

- they are degenerate

- they are satanic

That’s what’s happening.

Verse 5: “And I will give young lads to be their princes, and capricious children shall rule over them. And the people shall be crushed, every man by another, and every man by his neighbor…” (vs 4-5). You don’t know who your neighbor is; you don’t know what the kids are like; you try and be nice with them.

Like happened in one case. It was a 14-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl. She came over to his house and they became friends and then she went into the boy’s bedroom, and lo and behold, he had his own computer with a big sign to the parents: Keep Out! Of course, the court will uphold that as ‘private property’ for the children against the parents. He was involved in porn and all kinds of stuff. He got involved with the 8-year-old girl, killed her, didn’t know what to do with her; stuffed her body between the mattress and the box-springs and wasn’t discovered until the body started stinking and they had to find out what was going on. You can’t even trust your neighbor; like it says here: oppressed!

“…the young shall rise up against the old…” (v 5). Just recently a bus driver, because of the yakking of one child, put some tape over the mouth of the child to keep it quiet, and he was reprimanded and moved to a different job.

“…and the base against the honorable” (v 5). And it’s going to get so bad

Verse 9: “The look of their faces witnesses against them; and they declare their sin like Sodom. They do not hide it! Woe to their soul! For they have rewarded evil to themselves.” That’s exactly what it is in this society.

Now, here’s one little verse to give you hope about your life, v 10: “Say to the righteous that it shall be well with him; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.” That is of righteousness and obedience toward God.

Verse 11: “Woe to the wicked! For the evil doing of his hand will be given to him.” We’re going to see whatever you are addicted to, you’re going to receive.

Verse 12: “As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them....” Every writer, just as this writer of The Marketing of Evil, shows that the degradation of the family began when women demanded equal rights

- it was equal political rights

- then equal working rights

- then equal sexual rights

- then we want all of men’s rights, as well as, all women’s rights,

—and men have none! That’s where we are!

“…Oh, My people, those who lead you cause you to err and destroy the way of your paths” (v 12). It’s been planned, calculated, inspired by Satan the devil and his Babylon corporations of the world.

- it is intended to get us addicted

- it is intended to tear us down

- it is intended to make the nation immoral and corrupt and debased

And according to the doctrine of Balaam to sell them to sin so that God must judge them, and it is going to happen! Without a doubt!

Verse 13: “The LORD stands up to plead His case, and stands up to judge the people. The LORD will enter into judgment with the elders of His people, and their kings: ‘For you have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean? You crush My people and grind the faces of the poor?’ says the Lord, GOD of hosts” (vs 13-15). Then it talks about what the daughters of Zion do and what they have done. And it’s going to come just exactly as He says here:

Verse 16: “And the LORD says, ‘Because the daughters of Zion are proud…’” All you have to do when you go through the checkout stand look at the ‘haughty’ faces of all women on these magazines, designed to keep all women brainwashed into the foolishness of the feminist movement and promotion of homosexuality and lesbianism and the fashions design.

“…and have walked with stretched out necks and ogling with their eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet. [having ornaments and things like this] .therefore, the LORD will strike with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will uncover their secret parts” (vs 16-17)—and making them naked in public, and we go full circle to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now, what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah? Well, Lot should have moved! Look at how disjointed and dysfunctional his family was. When it came time to go, he told his sons—they didn’t want to go. They probably said, ‘Well, this is cool. We understand this. We’re not affected by it; we can keep it away from us. We’ll be fine.’ And what happened? They died with it! They died with the destruction! Even Lot’s wife didn’t believe. She had to turn around and look when she was told: ‘Don’t turn around and look.’ She turn to a pillar of salt. Josephus says that the tourists come and ‘view that pillar of salt to this day.’ Amazing, isn’t it? Let’s see how God does this. Then, Lot’s daughter’s felt free to molest their own dad, so we have Moab and Ammon.

Jeremiah 18:7: “If at any time I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck it up and to pull it down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have spoken, will turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them. And if at any time I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build it and to plant it; if it does evil in My sight, that it not obey My voice, then I will repent of the good with which I said I would do them good” (vs 710). And that’s exactly what has happened here in America over the last 200 years.

Verse 11: “Now, therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the people of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am forming evil against you, and devising a plan against you. Return now, each one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good”‘“ That’s their responsibility. For any addict to say, ‘Oh, I’m helpless and can’t stop it,’ you’re kidding yourself. You don’t want to change. All the misery you go through hasn’t convinced you you ought to change. It is your responsibility to change.

Verse 12: “And they said, ‘There is no hope; but we will walk after our own ways, and we will each one do according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’” We’re just about there again—aren’t we? Yes, indeed! God is going to judge, not only in individual lives. What happens when people get to this point? Instead of there being wisdom in the street, let’s put it this way: You are under two authorities:

1. The authority of God

2. The authority of Satan

—and if you put yourself under the authority of God, there’s going to be wisdom—there’s going to be a spirit of wisdom. So, we’re talking about the spirit that is permeated in a society because of righteousness or because of sin. The more sin, and the more that people give themselves over to Satan, the more demons that are allowed to come to control. You have the spirit of whoredoms; the spirit of addiction! Rather than the spirit, which comes from righteousness. God’s Spirit is not devoid in the world. Where there is a group of people that do righteousness and do what God wants, they have a spirit of doing right. When you have the permeating of evil, more and more evil comes, and more and more demons are let loose to control.

Let’s go back to some of the other things that I have given in the past years. When was the first Parliament of Religions of the World? 1893! When was the challenge concerning Sabbath and Sunday between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants? 1893! Re-read Rome’s Challenge to the Protestants! And like I said, keeping Sunday was the key to opening the door to evil!

Now, when they had this great witness in 1893 and they rejected it, when did we start coming apart as a nation? Right about that time—step-by-step-by- step!

(go to the next track)

Addiction: Let’s talk about how much it costs in America—all kinds of addiction! It’s one of the most costly public health problem in the United States. It’s very simple to solve: quit promoting it! Singapore has a policy: If you are caught with drugs, you’re executed—that’s it! No appeal! No nothing! If you’re selling them, you’re dead! That would end it, but people don’t want to do it. One way or the other, if you’re addicted to it, are you not the walking dead. So, what is the difference if you are executed for doing it.

You might give those who are addicts a chance to quit, but what it says from a compilation of various websites:

Addiction Statistics—It is a progressive syndrome, which means it increases in severity over time unless it’s treated.

Do we have more drugs than ever before? Yes, indeed!

Substance abuse is characterized by frequent relapse or return to the abused substance. Substance abusers often make repeated attempts to quit before they are successful.

Which is true. They go to rehab centers sometimes two, three, four, five times before they finally get it turned around.

In 1995 the economic cost of substance abuse in the United States exceeded $414-billion. Healthcare costs attributed to it: $114-billion.

So, you are dealing with over a half-trillion dollars a year! And then they list all different addictions and the solution for them.

- sexual addiction

- gambling addiction

- drug addiction

- alcohol addiction

- eating addiction

- tobacco addiction—causes more sickness and disease than anything else

If you are an addict, you’ve got to quit being an addict instead of substituting one thing for your addiction.

Alcoholics: When they go to AA they have candy. And candy is only a substitute for the alcohol, because what you’re getting, you’re getting the carbohydrates from the sugar which alcohol is.

Smoking: Instead of taking cocaine or something like that, now you smoke. Instead of taking ‘meth,’ now you smoke. And ‘meth’ is the most destructive of all; it stays in your system, it stays in your liver and kicks out every once in a while when you are recovering and makes you angst and angry and all of those sorts of things.

What we need to do is realize how pervasive addiction is. All of these addictions change the chemistry of your brain!

One person overcame alcohol addiction by becoming and ice cream addict—and ate it by the gallons.

Eating addiction: I want to cover two things on eating addictions. Eating addictions come from:

1. eating the wrong things—you don’t know what is nutritious and what is not

2. you’re so concerned about your appearance—either too fat or too thin

Anorexia and bulimia and bingeing and all of those affects 5-millon American men and women. Fifteen percent of young women have substantially disordered attitudes toward eating and eating behaviors.

Diet soda addiction: You can always tell if someone is addicted to a soda. Sodas are as bad a alcohol! You can tell because they carry a bottle of soda with them and they take the top off and they take a little swig and nip on it and they put the top back on and they walk along and carry the bottle.

One thing about diet sodas: Aspartame is the major sweetener that is used—and some of these other substitute sweeteners are just as bad—is a protein. When it gets into the system, it causes a carbohydrate craving, because your body is imbalanced without enough carbohydrates. People believe that if they eat carbohydrates—those that are low in fat—they don’t gain weight. But it causes them to gain even more weight. Those who are addicted to the diet sodas generally become obese over a period of time because of that. They get into the habit and pattern of drinking more diet sodas so they won’t gain weight.

Fat-free foods is one of the worst things you can have, and also you need to realize that your body needs a certain amount of the right kinds of fat. Your brain is made up mostly of fat and cholesterol anyway.

There are many, many different addictions!

Prescription pain killer addictions

Pornography:

Let’s understand something that’s important. There are two things that Satan wants to capture that you have and that you alone are responsible for:

1. your mind

2. your sex organs

If he can capture you on those two things, he’s got you! This is why ‘guard the door of your mind,’ because ‘as a man thinks in his heart so he is.’ Let me just read some of the things that I have marked on the important problems in pornography, because we are under the spirit of whoredoms. We are under the spiri t of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Internet pornography: 2.5-billion e-mails per day are pornographic. Thirty-four percent of church-going women say they have intentionally visited porn websites online. Eighty-one pastors surveyed—74 men, 7 women—98% were exposed to porn; 43% intentionally accessed a sexually explicit website.

MSNBC ran a trap—a chat-room with kids—where they made out as if they were a little kid looking for something online, and they had come to a home. They had a Catholic priest; a banker, a rabbi and all walks of life come in there and they wanted to see how far this guy would go.

So, he said, ‘Oh yes, by the way, come into the garage, it will be open, and undress and then come into the house.’ Sure enough he did! Then the next day, he said, ‘I need help’ and all this sort of thing. The next day they trapped him again, and said, ‘Meet me down at McDonald’s.’ So he came down to McDonald’s hoping to get a pedophilia relationship with a kid. They all said, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever done it.’ What’s that old saying: ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire!’

In 2004 there were 272-million pornographic web-pages; 2.5-billion e-mails—which is 8% of all e-mails; 100-thousand websites offering illegal child pornography; and 72-million worldwide visitors to pornographic websites.

They even have websites setup for kids to order little innocent things and then download pornography right in front of them. You have to be careful of that.

One in five kids have been propositioned for cyber-net sex. Pornography and cable television and videos: There are 800-million rentals each year of adult videos and DVDs. Cable companies brought in revenue of $177-million from sexually explicit pay-per-view programming. Americans spend $10-billion annually on pornography. Thirty-eight percent of adults believe it’s morally acceptable to look at pictures of nudity or explicit sexual behavior.

They say there’s nothing wrong with pornography! Here’s a section on teens and sex and sexually transmitted diseases.

Proverbs 5 needs to be taught to every child beginning at five-years-old: guard your mind and guard your pants!

Proverbs 5:1: “My son, attend to my wisdom; bow your ear to my understanding; that you may keep discretion, and that your lips may keep knowledge.... [you’ve got to be taught] ...For the lips of a wanton woman. [or man, girl or boy] ...drip as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil” (vs 1-3).

Sounds good—freedom! ‘Oh, you can take a pill and not get pregnant. Oh, if you’re pregnant you don’t even have to tell your folks and you can have the school take you over there on school day and get an abortion.’ Isn’t that wonderful! You’ve just destroyed your life, because once you give up your mind and give up your sex organs to promiscuity, you’re life is never the same. I can tell you this right now, that most of the marital problems that people are having today—not in the Church and in the Church—because of these kinds of sexual behaviors when they were younger. It still effects them to this day! Impress upon your children you are dealing with the ‘issues of life’ (Prov. 4:23).

- your life

- your health

- your ability to think, to reason, to live, to work

Verse 4: “But her end is as bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on the grave. She does not ponder the path of life; her ways are unstable—... [going to change the tactics, but the end result is the same] ...you cannot know them” (vs 46).

If you allow your children, or your teenagers to watch MTV, get involved in all of these video games—and you do not know what they are doing or where they are going—they are so sexually active today, it’s almost impossible to trust them, to leave alone anywhere! They demand their privacy. Not so they can study the Word of God, not so they can pray to God, but so that they can play together— male and female; male to male; female to female— and have promiscuous sex and everything is all right. You get home from work and you don’t know what’s going on. Today, in this corrupt Sodom and Gomorrah society, parents even encourage their children to have sex at home.

Here’s the advice—we’re going see this again and again: The only way to not get caught up into it is to avoid it—period!

Verse 7: “Now, therefore, hear me, O you children, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your ways far from her…” (vs 7-8). Whatever the temptation is sexually, get away from it! You have no control if you stand there and are enticed in it.

“…and do not come near the door of her house, lest you give your honor unto others and your years unto the cruel; lest strangers be filled with your wealth, and your labors be in the house of a stranger; and you moan when your end comes, when your flesh and your body are consumed, and say, ‘How I hated instruction, and my heart despised correction; and I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ears to those who taught me! I was almost in utter ruin in the midst of the congregation and assembly’” (vs 8-14).

This is why the Proverbs are so important. We’re going to see there is no way that you can overcome any addiction of any kind that we have mentioned here if you give yourself one little degree of fudge-factor! What do I mean by that? ‘Well, a little bit won’t hurt,’ or ‘I can get close to it, but it’s not going to bother me!’ You cannot do that! You must get rid of it totally. You either have to put yourself under the authority of God, or you’re under the authority of Satan. There is no middle ground because Satan owns the middle ground.

Proverbs 6:23: “For the commandment is a lamp. [this is why they wanted to get God out of the schools] …and the Law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life”. You can no longer discipline or correct children; that’s ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ Here’s what it’s to do:

- it is to arm you

- it is to give you mental strength

- it is to give you ability to say ‘no’ when you ought to say ‘no’

Verse 24: “To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Do not lust after her beauty in your heart…” (vs 24-25).

That’s the whole heart an core of pornography! Where would there be pornography if there were not women willing to do that? Just like when I went to the checkout stand. There are thirty magazines with the faces of women in various degrees of whoredom and slutism, and one muscle magazine for men.

“…nor let her seduce you with her eyelids” (v 25). Flashing! Where do you see the first of that? On Disney cartoons! Yes, indeed!

Verse 26: “For by means of a harlot a man is vanquished to a piece of bread; and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” (vs 2527).

Look how many female teachers are seducing their male students, and men the girls. Then, to avoid prosecution, in a news story, they ran off to Georgia—a 15-year-old boy and a 34-year-old woman—and got married, because it’s legal to do so. The way it’s going today, what’s the greatest percentage of ministers and priests that are involved in it? Well, the Catholic Church is notorious for what it’s done!

Verse 28: “Can one walk upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whoever touches her shall not be innocent” (vs 28-29). Then it talks about those who steal compared to those who commit adultery:

Verse 32: “But whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; he who does it destroys his own soul. He shall get a wound and dishonor; and his shame shall not be wiped away” (vs 32-33).

How many churches has this kind of behavior destroyed? They claim to be ‘Christian’; and we’ve seen it also in the Church of God!

Let’s talk about the ‘dagger that goes through you.’ Let’s talk about the ‘two-edged sword’ that gets them. Satan is interested in you from as young as he can get you.

Teens and sex, sexually transmitted diseases: Approximately 19-million new cases of STD occurred in 2000.... [Now, we’re here at 2005—what is it now?] …Sixty-eight percent of teens are unconcerned about sexually transmitted diseases. Seventy-eight percent of new cases of genital herpes are caused by a virus found chiefly in the mouths of 16-21-year-olds.

You tie that in with all the oral sex that’s going on.

Sixty-five percent of all sexually transmitted infections contracted by Americans in a single year will occur in people under age 24. Every day 8,000 teenagers become infected by a sexually transmitted disease. A young mother today has had an average of 2.3 sexually transmitted diseases. Teens from communities of color are disproportionately affected by STDs because they are more sexually active. The only black leader willing to admit that is Bill Cosby…. [He was caught with an illegitimate child.] …Young African-American women experience at least 14-times more the reported gonorrhea rates and about six times the chlamydia rate of young white women. Chlamydia rates among African-American men ages 15-24 are 12-times higher than rates among white males.

That is not discrimination. That is a statistical fact based on their behavior. Where is the worst AIDS and HIV? In Africa! The next: Southeast Asia!

STD and HIV: In 2002 it was estimated that 3.2-million teens under the age of 15 were living with HIV. Although African-Americans comprise only 13% of the US population, it accounts for over 50% of new HIV diagnosis reported in 2002, and 49% of AIDS diagnosis in 2003.

I have one solution, and this is not too radical, and it’s not racist. Quit fooling around! If you don’t get involved in illicit sex you’re not going to get sexual diseases—period! It’s that simple! We’ll talk about what God talks about next on solving the problem.

Pres. Bush wanted to sponsor and have more money for abstinence programs. And guess what? Abstinence programs work! Guess what? Those who sexually abstain do not get sexually transmitted diseases. Wonder of wonders!

Teenage Sex: 42% of guys and 33% of women ages 15-17 have had intercourse. In grades 7-12, 23.4% of first sexual relationships are one-night stands.

They go out to the dance or go to the football game, or go to the basketball game. ‘Oh, mom and dad, you’re such a prude; why can’t I be with my friends? ‘Then there are the ‘overnighters.’

33% of guys and 23% of girls feel some or a lot of pressure to have sex.

Why? Because they go to sex-education classes! Guess what’s on their minds when their walking home from school? Just when their bodies are beginning to mature and the sex hormones are pouring through their systems, and their parents are not home to watch them because the satanic system has it that they have to work in order to live. So, their lives become all messed up: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically—every other use.

Let’s talk about what’s going on here with a lot of teens—77% of teens; I want you think about that!

77% of teens would classify oral sex as sex, while 43% say oral sex is not seen as being a big deal as much as sexual intercourse.

Where did they get that? It’s a big enough problem without having the President of the United States [Bill Clinton] saying that having oral sex is not sex. Now there is a plague of gonorrhea of the throat among teenagers.

55% of teens 13-19 admitted to engaging in oral sex.

This is a summary of hundreds and hundreds of magazines, and we are literally possessed with the spirit of addiction and whoredoms. And it’s not going to get any better unless there is a great deal of repentance coming down the pike.

Delores made a comment just yesterday: ‘What if we could resurrect George Washington, Thomas Jefferson—all the signers of the Constitution—and say: ‘Look at America.’ They would say it is fit for destruction! This is not what we intended.’

Let’s how this has happened through history over and over again. We’re living in a time very similar to what Jeremiah lived in, only on a greatly magnified basis worldwide.

Jeremiah 5:7: “‘How shall I pardon you for this? Your children have forsaken Me, and have sworn by them that are not gods. When I had fed them to the full… [which we are] …then they committed adultery, and gathered themselves by troops in a harlot’s house… [any bar on Friday night, that’s what it is] ...They were like lusty, well-fed stallions in the morning; every one neighing after his neighbor’s wife. Shall I not punish for these things?’ says the LORD. ‘And shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?’” (vs 7-9). Isn’t that something?

It got so bad that Jeremiah had a very tough ministry. He had to stand alone, and he had to withstand everyone’s hatred toward him. In standing alone, here’s how he felt:

Jeremiah 9:1: Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for traveling men, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. ‘And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies. But they are not valiant for the Truth on the earth…’” (vs 1-3). You tell them the Truth and they get angry and mad.

“…for they go from evil to evil…” (v 3). This means, as it has been coined in today’s terminology, the making of deviancy downward— taking away all laws for those kinds of behaviors and making the perverted the norm.

‘“…and they do not know Me,’ says the LORD. ‘Everyone beware of his neighbor, and do not trust any brother! For every brother will supplant his neighbor, and will walk with slanders. And everyone will deceive his neighbor and will not speak the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and they weary themselves to commit iniquity. Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know Me,’ says the LORD” (vs 3-6).

Here’s the heart and core of the whole thing, v 13: “And the LORD says, ‘Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, and have not walked in it, but they have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after the Baalim, which their fathers taught them.’ Therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and make them drink poisonous water. I will also scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them.’” (vs 13-16).

That gives us an obligation what we have to do, and that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing here. We’ll finish where we began, that 94% of the people say they believe in God. This is depicted in Isa. 58.

Recently, the History Channel showed that in the Civil War they had hordes of prostitutes following the army and they actually had more deaths because of venereal disease because of that— syphilis and gonorrhea—than they did of the men who were killed. They had over 300,000 die from venereal diseases.

Isaiah 58:1: “Cry aloud, do not spare, lift up your voice like a ram’s horn...”—not to be mealy-mouthed, not to compromise. We need to ask ourselves: If anyone is offended by what I’ve said in these sermons, then you’ll just have to be offended, because you’re offended at the Word of the Truth of God, and the truth of the facts that are going on in the society around you. We have a responsibility not only to the Church but also to the people at large.

“...and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins” (v 1). So, if 94% of the people believe in God, but we have this kind of behavior, what are we dealing with?

Verse 2: “Yet, they seek Me daily, and seem eager to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and one that did not forget the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me the ordinances of justice; they seem eager to draw near to God.”

But they take no delight in doing what God wants them to do. Isn’t it interesting? You read all the way through this—the 58th chapter—and what do you do? You come down here to v 13, and it comes right back where I started! What did I say is the chink in the teachings of ‘Christian’ America: Sunday-keeping. What does God say:

Verse 13: “If you turn your foot away from the Sabbath, from doing your own desires on My Holy day…” It starts at sundown!

- How many crimes are committed on Friday night through Sabbath morning?

- How many adulteries?

- How many drunkennesses?

- How many addictions?

- How many sales of cocaine and illicit drugs take place on Friday night?

Then they desecrate it with sports activities in the daytime, all day on the Sabbath. they don’t know God! So, God says the solution is to start with the Sabbath!

“…and call the Sabbath a delight, the Holy of the LORD, honorable; and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor pursuing your own desires, nor speaking your own words” (vs 13). It has to begin with the Sabbath.

We’re going to see some things in part three of this series on how you stop becoming an addict. You’ve got to do it, and you’ve got to do it no uncertain terms, regardless of what the addiction is.

All Scriptures from The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version by Fred R. Coulter

Scriptural References:

1. Proverbs 1:20

2. Proverbs 14:34

3. Psalm 7:9, 11

4. Psalm 14:1-4

5. Psalm 9:16-17

6. Ephesians 6:10-12

7. Isaiah 3:1-5, 9-17

8. Jeremiah 18:7-12

9. Proverbs 5:1-14

10. Proverbs 6:23-29, 32-33

11. Jeremiah 5:7-9

12. Jeremiah 9:1-6, 13-16

13. Isaiah 58:1-2, 13

Scriptures referenced, not quoted:

- Revelation 12:9

- James

- Matthew 24

- Exodus 31

- Proverbs 4:23

Also referenced:
Books:

- Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian

- Jo sephus

Article: Rome’s Challenge to the Protestants (cbcg.org)

FRC:bo
Transcribed: 12-20-09
Reformatted/Corrected:9/2014

The Addicted Society III
Steps to Overcoming Addictions

Fred R. Coulter

Before we get into the specifics of the Scriptures involved—because they’re all necessary—to really understand how anyone who is addicted to anything can really overcome. God will give you the help and the strength and the power to do it, if you turn to Him.

Many people are addicted physically. The worst kind of addiction, physically, is substance abuse. Substance abuse comes in many, many different forms from food addictions to drug addictions—hard drugs, soft drugs, prescription drugs—and all of these have varying affects on the body; this includes smoking tobacco, smoking marijuana and other things that go along with physical addictions. These are not only physical— we put them in the category of physical—but they go in the category of mental and spiritual, too.

They are physical from this point of view: Many of the programs which are out there that can help people, and there are many rehab programs: Gamblers Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, state mandated rehab programs for cocaine and heroin users, methamphetamine users, those that are addicted to prescription drugs, and so forth. Many of these programs work. However, there is a great recidivism, or a repeat offending, because many who go through the programs have to go through them three or four times, in some cases. Some can go through them once and pretty well overcome, because their addiction is not so severe.

Nevertheless, in all of these situations we need to realize that whatever help that can be gotten from these programs, by all means use them! Each one is going to have varying degrees of damage that the drugs have done to the body and to the mind. So, with any of these substance abuse rehabilitation and reprogramming, what you’re going to have to do is you’re going to have to do some real deep research on it so you can understand it, or have someone do it for you, and someone to help you with a health program. You have to change your diet. You probably have to get quiet a few supplements to up-build your system again, because all the drugs take away vitamins, minerals and body strength from you. These have to be rebuilt! And because they’re not rebuilt, this gives a re-occurrence of the craving to go back to taking the substances.

It’s very hard to get rid of the craving of heroine, cocaine and methamphetamine. These things lodge into the liver, and you can have repeats—especially with methamphetamine; it’s as dangerous as any of the substances that people take—whether it is smoking it or shooting it up or whatever kind that you are addicted to. It destroys the body, so you must—in your program of rehabilitation—rebuild the body; rebuild your health, and it’s going to take some help and cooperation to do so.

When you are recovering, do not get hooked on a secondary addiction. What do I mean by that? A lot of people who have been on drugs then take prescription drugs to counteract what the illegal drugs they have done, and they become addicted to that; that is a substitute addiction. Many times smokers and those who are alcoholics (alcohol addiction) will revert back—especially with an alcohol program—and they’re still addicted. Or a cocaine or a methamphetamine addiction—people will revert back to smoking cigarettes. While cigarettes may be legal to buy over the counter, they’re still addicting, and you’re only substituting one addiction for another!

Another addiction that alcohol addicts have is that they substitute alcohol for candy or ice cream. Their high sugar content becomes, in the body, another form of alcohol that the body is craving. So, what has to happen with these? You must get on a health-building program! You must also get on a mind reprogramming regiment, as well. You must have your health taken care of. You must be working at that simultaneously as you are recovering.

First of all, let’s understand the first point that an addict needs to come to in order to begin. A lot of people want help. A lot of people can admit that they have a problem. Admitting that you have a problem, that’s fine, but there are a lot of people who admit that they have problem but still continue in it, because they haven’t done what is necessary to do. They haven’t really sat down and talked to themselves and come to themselves.

In the story of the prodigal son and receiving forgiveness and so forth, here’s a young man who went out, got his money from his inheritance from his father, and then he found himself in terrible, wretched conditions. He ended up losing everything.

Luke 15:15: “Then he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he was longing to fill his stomach with the husks that the swine were eating, but no one gave anything to him” (vs 15-16).

Part of the beginning of recovery that all addicts have to come to is that you have got to go the bottom! The bottom may be varying degrees of difficulty, problems, troubles, anxieties and psychological hang-ups and maybe encounters with the law, jail time, prison time, probation time, fines; all of those various things are the signposts of coming down to hit the bottom! That’s what happened with the prodigal son. When he came to the realization of what he needed to do—and this is where every addict needs to come—you need to do this before God as well:

Verse 17: “And when he came to himself…” In other words he came to himself to be honest, not only to admit he had a problem, but that he was really going to do something about it. That admission was followed by repentance, which is very, very important! A lot of people, before they reach this point, admit it; they begin to quit, but they have relapses. Some give up and just go back and become even worse, rather than try again, rather than see if they can overcome again.

Let’s see another example, another parable. Even if you slip back, there is still hope. Remember this: As long as there is life, there is hope!

- it depends on what you do with your life

- it depends whether you take advantage of the hope

Luke 13:6: “And He spoke this parable: ‘A certain man had planted a fig tree in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it, but he did not find any. Then he said to the vinedresser, “Look here! For three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and have not found any. Cut it down. Why should it continue to waste space in the ground?” But he answered and said to him, “Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it and put in manure”‘“(vs 6-8). To do this it will revive the plant. Likewise, a lot of the slipups, fallbacks and reoccurrences happen because there’s not the physical nourishing that is necessary to take care of the body to produce the fruit.

Verse 9: “And see if in fact it will bear fruit; but if not, after that you shall cut it down.” Here is a chance that people have, but you’ve got to do something about it.

It’s the same way with asking for forgiveness. God is there to forgive, and He will forgive, but you have to do something about it. You’ve got to come to yourself! When you come to yourself, one of the first things you need to do is this: Do not allow yourself any fudge-factors. What do I mean by that? Fudge factor is going back to the same sit uation that you were in.

- the same kind of problems

- the same kind of difficulties

- the same kind of friends

- the same kind of environment

- the same kind of thinking

and you allow yourself a fudge-factor. ‘Oh well, if I slip just a little bit, that won’t matter because I’m improving. That is only continuing your self-deception and justification of what you do for your bad behavior. You cannot allow yourself a fudge-factor.

Luke 15:17: “And when he came to himself…” he started thinking correctly, and that’s what you need to do:

- get your mind oriented right

- get your thinking correctly

- get rid of accusing others

- stop accusing the environments

- stop accusing the drug dealers

- stop accusing those who allow it

You have control over yourself and you are responsible to God for yourself, and you must make the choices. God will be there to help you and uplift you and bring you out of it. But you must come to yourself!

“...he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have an abundance of bread, and I am dying of hunger?’” (v 17). You know the story: he went back, he was forgiven, his father accepted him and so forth. You’ve got to come to yourself!

The next thing you have to do is when you are confronted with situations that you will not allow a fudge-factor to get hold of you. This applies for every addiction—whether it is:

- TV addiction

- food addiction

- soda addiction

- pornography addiction

- gambling addiction

- sex addiction

- hard drug addiction

—whatever it is! Here is a principle that you need to understand and realize:

1-Corinthians 6:13: “Foods are for the belly, and the belly is for foods; but God will destroy both it and those. Now the body is not for sexual immorality…” or addiction, or drugs, or porn, or any of the things that people are addicted to.

“…but for the Lord…” God created you; He created you to receive His Spirit. He created you in His image, and He wants you to change and repent and come to yourself and come back to Him.

“…and the Lord for the body” (v 13). God wants to do His work within you, but you have to come to yourself.

Here is what you need to do: If you happen to be a baptized member and you have slipped and you’re addicted and you’re into some of these things, and you don’t know how to get out and you’re trying to repent and so forth, then you need to understand what is happening here.

- you can’t allow yourself a fudge-factor

- you can’t justify your behaviors

- you can’t blame it on other people

Verse 15: “Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot?...”—or of drugs, pornography, whatever addiction that there is.

“…MAY IT NEVER BE! WHAT! Don’t you know that he who is joined to a harlot... [or to drugs, pornography, gambling] ...is one body? For He says, ‘The two shall be one flesh’” (vs 15-16). This is applying strictly to sexual problems, and today it’s out there everywhere!

Verse 17: “But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.... [here’s what you need to do]: ...Flee sexual immorality....” (vs 17-18). Flee drugs; get away from it; temptation comes at us, get out of there, don’t get around it. Don’t go back to the same friends, the same environment, the same hangout. Flee whatever it is, be it:

- sexual immorality

- drug addiction

- food addiction

- television addiction

Television addiction is probably the easiest to handle. Hit the remote, kill it!

- music addiction

Don’t let it blast into your ears! Those are probably easier to stop. But

- you still have to come to yourself

- you still can’t give yourself a fudge-factor

- you still can’t go back and give yourself excuses for doing it

- you have to flee!

All of these things you have to get away from!

“…Every sin that a man may commit is outside the body, but the one who commits sexual immorality is sinning against his own body” (v 18). That goes along with substance abuse, as well. You’re putting it into your body.

- You’re sinning against your body

- you’re sinning against your mind

- you’re sinning against Christ

- you’re sinning against God the Father

God is not going to be mocked! Until you come to yourself, until you realize what you need to do, I recommend people do—when they’re confronted with these things—is sit down, have a good long, hard talk with yourself in prayer to God, and ask yourself:

- What am I doing?

- Where am I going?

- How am I going to overcome?

- How can I change?

- How can I get out of this?

and:

- look at what you’ve done

- look at all the people you have hurt

- look at all the people you have caused great problems for

Drug abuse causes great havoc in families mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially; and many parents have to go out and shell out thousands and thousands of dollars to help their adult children out of substance abuse. It’s a terrible situation. It leads to divorce, and it leads to all kinds of problems.

Now, let me just mention here—something you need to realize and understand: If you’ve come from a family that has had divorce—maybe once, twice or three times—or if it is a dysfunctional family, or if it is a drug-addicted family, or whatever the family addiction may be, you must break that cycle. You must, by your own self—with the help of God and His Spirit—come out of it. You must stop! But there can be no stopping unless you come to yourself and make up your mind and realize ‘I’ve got to turn and quit!’

There’s another factor that Jesus said with the woman who was caught in adultery—and it was actually a matter of judgment rather than a matter of mercy there (John 8). When no one accused her He said, ‘Neither do I. Go and sin no more.’ And likewise, when He healed in the account of John 5, He told him, ‘Go and sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you.’

STEPS to OVERCOMING ADDICTION:
Step # 1: Admit it

- recognize it

- do not excuse it

- no fudge-factors

- realize what you’re doing to yourself and other people

Step # 2: Repentance! Repentance to God!

The kind of repentance that God wants is not just a superficial thing—like: ‘Oh, I know I got a problem.’ NO! It is a deep and profound repentance that comes from within, from the very guts of your being! It is not a superficial thing at all, but it is a profound and traumatic and deep and lasting repentance that needs to be.

Here in the book of Joel we find how to repent. We’re going to look at several verses here on how to repent and what repentance is.

- repentance to God

- repentance to those you have offended

- repentance to those you have caused to spend money on you to help you recover

In many cases people lose their jobs, lose their family, lose their children, lose everything that they have because they’re so intent on shooting up and sticking drugs in their nose, or swallowing them, taking them, and then you add all of this to the music and the things that just pounds into your very being! You’ve got to come to yourself and get rid of all of it. God will help you. Other people will help you. Maybe some of these other programs that are out there can help you. So, get whatever help and support that you need.

Here’s the kind of repentance that God will honor: Joel 2:12: “‘Therefore, even now,’ says the LORD, ‘turn to Me with all your heart…’” Can’t be any half-heartedness, can’t be any fainting, can’t be any superficial thing; your whole heart, because God knows! If you want God to help you, it’s got to be with your whole heart!

“‘…and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. Yes, rend your heart and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God…’” (vs 12-13).

That’s what it has to be: a complete turning around; that your repentance to God is always on a continuous basis. The initial great repentance that comes when you come to yourself and recognize what you are. Then continuous repentance as you see and God unfolds to you step-by-step the depths of your lust and your selfishness and your vanity and your greed, and doing all of these things to ignore and hurt and despise other people. We know the world is wicked out there and we know that it’s filled with a lot of these things. But you can come out of it.

Verse 13: “Yes, rend your heart and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and He repents of the evil.” All the evil that you have gone through is a direct result of breaking and transgressing the laws of God. That evil that has come upon you and you find yourself down at the bottom of the pit and you don’t know what to do or where to go because you have brought upon yourself the curses of disobeying God!

- He’s willing to lift them

- He’s willing to take it from you

- He’s willing to put it all on Christ

because ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him may not perish, but may have everlasting life.’ He took upon Him ALL of our sins. He was beaten! He was scourged! He was crucified! (Isa. 53). For everyone who comes to Christ in deep repentance that sacrifice is applied!

Let’s see an amplification here; a very important Psalm because David—who was king— was chosen by God to be over the 12 tribes of Israel. You can read the whole account of his debacle with Bathsheba. Great sin! When he finally came to himself, when God had to send Nathan the prophet to tell him that ‘you are that man!’ then David came to himself. So, as we go through here, I want to ask: What is going to take for you:

- to come to yourself?

- to quit deceiving yourself?

- to quit lying to yourself?

- to quit making excuses for yourself?

- to quit falling down and getting back into all of these substance abuse problems?

- mental abuse problems?

- emotional abuse problems?

—because people become addicted to them! As you rend your heart, here is the prayer, and see what this is and see how this has to apply, and see what you need to do.

Psalm 51:1: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving kindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion, blot out my transgressions”—because God will. God will forgive them! He will ‘remove them as far as east is from the west.’ He will ‘remember them no more.’ But we’re going to see there’s something else you need to do when you repent, because repentance is only a step! Repentance is not a completion, but a step toward completion.

Verse 2: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Part of coming to yourself and with the Spirit of God, He’s got to clean you inside out. He’s got to start with your mind, your heart. You’ve got to admit your lust and your attitudes. You’ve got to admit the substance and the destruction of your body that it’s caused. And you also, in your repentance, have to take care of your body and start building it up.

But here’s what you need to do, v 3: “For I acknowledge my transgressions...”

- go to God and confess them

- go to God and repent

- go to God and pour out your heart to Him in weeping, mourning and fasting

—that God will turn to you (Joel 2).

“…and my sin is ever before me” (v 3). That’s exactly what addicts know. They know that they’re in the clutches of sin. It is ever before them. It is ever something that they are held in the grips of. So, you must break—with the help of God through repentance—that bondage of addiction and giving yourself over to your own lusts.

Here’s the thing that you need to realize: Yes, you hurt other people in the world:

- your wife/husband

- your mother/father

- your children

- your neighbors

- your employer

They become disillusioned. They become disheartened to see you go through all of these things. Everyone of them are willing and hopeful that you will recover and repent! And God wants you to!

But here’s what you have to admit, v 4: “Against You, You only, have I sinned...” You’ve gone against God. God has made you. God has given you life and breath, a mind and a body for a great and fantastic purpose, which has been totally corrupted and nearly destroyed by addiction. There is a way out and that way out is Christ, and you have to take it. There is no other way.

“…and done this evil in Your sight…” (v 4). Every time you go through a session of addiction, God knows! He knows!

- He knows the evil!

- He knows the depths.

- He knows the degree.

- He knows everything!

And He’s willing to forgive you with this kind of repentance.

“…that You might be justified when You speak, and be in the right when You judge” (v 4). Whatever penalty, whatever hardship has come upon you, God is justified in doing so. God has done so to bring you to your senses. God has done so to let you know that there is a right way, and there is a way that is evil; so that you can change what you are doing.

Verse 5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” That means you’re born with a human nature that has a downward pull to sin and you’ve just given into it totally!

Here’s what God wants with this kind of repentance, because there are other things that you have to do when we get to the part of reprogramming—because you’ve got to reprogram your mind, your thoughts, all of these things, because it is repentance, recovery, and reprogramming!

Verse 6: “Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts…” Not all those hidden lies and self-deceits that you go through to kid yourself into thinking that everything is okay. Or you look around and you think: well everybody else is doing it, and if everybody else is doing it, then hey, it’s got to be okay. No! You judge everything based upon:

- the Truth of God

- the Word of God

- the laws of God

- the commandments of God

- the teachings of the Bible

- the teachings of Jesus Christ and the apostles

“…and in the hidden part. [that’s between you and God]… You shall make me to know wisdom” (v 6).

Here’s what you have to be willing to let God’s Spirit and God’s Word do for you, v 7: “Purge me with hyssop…” Just like taking a crusty old dirty pot and cleaning it with steel wool and harsh soap to get rid of all the crud and the scum and everything associated with it.

“…and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (v 7). Then it goes on that there’s going to joy and repentance (v 8).

Verse 9: “Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.” Here’s what has to happen. This is part of the recovery and reprogramming. We’ll get into more particulars on reprogramming the mind, because that’s what has to happen. In order to beat addiction, you must, with the Spirit of God and the Word of God, reprogram your mind; because you have destroyed parts of your mind and ability to think, especially by the substances that you have used. If you’re into substance abuse, and you have perverted your way of thinking; if you’re into pornography and television addiction; food addictions can also, as the book Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills points out, you can actually damage the brain, the connections in the brain that make you think, that help you to put things together. That’s why it’s important to get things reprogrammed.

That’s what he’s talking about here in v 10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” This is something that has to be completely renewed every day! Just like they tell you in every recovery programs: one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time—it has to be. And some of these cravings of addictions will take quite a while to overcome. You really have to exert the effort. You need the help! You need the strength! You need other people to help you if they are willing to help you!

Here’s what to realize: Some people are so ashamed of what they have done. Some people are so down and think that they can’t come back to God. Some people have ruined their lives so much that they really feel that there’s no hope and some even go out and commit suicide. Well, that’s not the answer! Yes, it does end the problem, but that’s not the answer. Yes, God will forgive you upon deep and profound repentance!

Psalm 86:1: “Bow down Your ear, O LORD, answer me, for I am poor and needy.” And everyone who has been addicted to whatever the addiction is, you’re poor and needy:

- you need the help of God

- you need the Spirit of God

- you need the Word of God

- you need the strength to build up your mind

Verse 2: “Preserve my soul, for I am Holy; O You my God, save Your servant who trusts in You.” You’ve got to trust in God every day, every hour, every minute—begin trusting in God for everything that you do.

Verse 3: “Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I cry unto You all day long” (vs 2-3). You can’t just have a one-time thing and everything is okay and now everybody’s got to get back to normal because ‘I have been successful this one day.’ NO! Daily!

- Prayer daily!

- Repentance daily!

- Reprogramming daily!

All of those things have to be done. Then there is hope. Then there is progress. Then there will be no slip-backs. All the way along, as I have said, do not give yourself any fudge-factors! You must have it absolutely! Do not go back. If that’s a hard thing to do at first, resolve over and over again, and with the help of God and continuing on whatever program you are in, the guidelines for recovery, repentance and reprogramming that we’re covering here, you can overcome; you will overcome; you will change. God loves you and is for you and wants you to do His will.

Verse 4: “Rejoice the soul of Your servant...” In other words, let God’s Spirit and His Word and the change that’s affected in your life give you some joy. You haven’t had anything but sorrow and depression and wretchedness.

“…for to You, O LORD, do I lift up my soul” (v 4). Lift up your whole life, mind, heart, your very being, to God.

Understand this, v 5: “For You, LORD, are good, and ready to forgive…” God is just waiting for you to repent. He’s ready to forgive! He’s not going to begrudge you. He’s not going to turn His back on you. If you turn to Him, He will turn to you, and He’s ready to forgive.

“…and rich in mercy to all those who call upon You. Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer…” (vs 5-6). It’s got to be through prayer—deep, profound, personal prayer—daily. You can accomplish that. Use the Psalms as a guide. Pour out your heart to God. He knows the very depths of your very being.

- He will help you

- He will strengthen you

- He will give you the hope

—if you turn to Him with all your heart and mind and soul and being!

When there are difficulties, v 7: “In the day of my trouble I will call upon You, for You will answer me.” So, as you go day-by-day, and a temptation comes along, and you resist it and you don’t give yourself any fudge-factor—you flee from it; you get away from it; you get your mind off of it—God will help you! Without a doubt!

As we go along we will see that all of these main things are interconnected.

Step #3: Constantly seek God

- He will hear you

- He will answer your prayers

- He will do so and encourage you and uplift you and help you and strengthen you day-by-day.

You’re going to have some days that will be other days. You’re going to have up days; you’re going to have down days, especially if you’ve been on substance abuse. There are residuals of the drug within your body—within your liver, your mind, your tissue—that will begin leeching out into your system. That’s why it’s important that you get on a good physical rehab program, too, and diet to help purge these things out.

With the different ups and downs you have, you’ve got to seek God daily! Let’s look at the promises that are also contained in Psa. 119. Every verse is a promise from God to do His part IF you do your part; that’s what’s important.

Psalm 119:2: “Blessed are they that keep His testimonies...” We’ll talk about keeping the laws of God in reprogramming in a little bit, get into that even more specifically.

“…and who seek Him with the whole heart” (v 2). What do we have here? We have repenting with your whole heart, seeking Him with your whole heart! Then we’re also going to see loving Him with all your heart, mind, soul and being! That’s how you overcome the cravings and the temptations. You:

- recognize it

- get away from it

- stop it

- avoid it

- flee from it

and then—with prayer and repentance—seek Him with the whole heart!

When you do that, v 3: “They also do no iniquity. [that means you can overcome] …they walk in His ways”—instead of your own ways.

- walk in the way of God

- walk in the way of His commandments

- walk in the way of His Truth

Verse 4: “You have commanded us to keep Your precepts diligently. O that my ways were directed to keep Your statutes!” (vs 4-5). David was lamenting the difficulties and problems of human nature that is inclined to be carried away by lust and human desires. It’s a process.

- You must change!

- You must grow!

- You must develop!

- You must reprogram!

Verse 6: “Then I shall not be ashamed when I have respect unto all Your commandments.” Isn’t that something?

Verse 9: “With what shall a young man cleanse his way?.... [God has His part; you have your part] .By taking heed according to Your Word.” Following God’s Word. Seeking His way. They all go hand-in-hand.

Matthew 7:7—here is a promise. When you discouraged, you get down, you go to God and say:

- God, I’m discouraged

- I’m down

- I’m fighting this problem

- it’s a temptation

- it’s coming upon me

- Lift me up out of it

- Give me the strength to overcome

- Help me to resist

- Give me Your word

- Intervene for me

- Help me to seek the way

- Give me the strength and resistance that I need

- Help me to not have any more fudge-factors

- Help me to not get enticed

- Help me to seek You with my whole heart

Matthew 7:7: “Ask, and it shall be given to you....” Claim the promise. Not because you’re righteous, but because God promised it, and He’s Holy.

“...Seek, and you shall find....” (v 7). The Greek in all of this means: ask and keep on asking; seek and keep on seeking

“...Knock... [and keep on knocking] ...and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it shall be opened” (vs 7-8).

- God will help you

- God will strengthen you

- God will be right there to give you the ability to:

- repent

- recover

- reprogram

(go to the next track)

Let’s see how we can apply this, and let’s begin to look at the aspect of reprogramming. We’ve covered somewhat on prayer.

Step #4: Prayer

Daily prayer! Coming to God in a repentant attitude and broken heart and mind and praying to Him:

- yielding to Him

- asking for His guidance

- asking for His help

- asking for His deliverance

in everything. We find we have the model prayer (Matt. 6). If you analyze all the Psalms, you will see that they very carefully follow the model prayer that Jesus gave here. That is not to repeat this prayer; this is a guideline.

Matthew 6:8: “Now then, do not be like them.”—the heathen, who, in just vain repetition kind of pray. They think that in multiplying words that they shall be heard. Jesus says, ‘Don’t be like them.’

“…for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him… [God knows!] .Therefore, you are to pray after this manner: ‘Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name’” (vs 8-9). You pray directly to God the Father in the name of Christ.

- He is Holy

- He is there in heaven

- He controls the vastness of the universe

- He is the sole Sovereign of everything that there is

- He loves you

- He cares for you

- He wants you to change and grow and overcome

- He wants you to overcome your addiction

- He wants you to solve the problems that have been the result of it

- He will help you

- He will strengthen you

That’s why you go to Him first!

Verse 10: “Your kingdom come; Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven... [let God’s will be in your life] …give us this day our daily bread” (vs 10-11)—which means every need that we have: our physical needs, our spiritual needs, our mental needs, everything that we have daily; not just once whenever you’re in trouble, but daily! This is an outline on how to pray daily.

- sometimes your prayers will have a lot of joy

- sometimes they’ll have a lot of sorrow

- sometimes they’ll be a lot of repentance

- sometimes there will be a lot of thanksgiving and praise to God

All depending on how your particular day is going!

And here’s another thing that’s important to remember, v 12: “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors… [ ‘our sins’ (Luke 11)] …and lead us not into temptation…” (vs 12-13). Don’t let us be led into trials and difficulties, because Satan is there ready to entrap you.

“…but rescue us from the evil one....” (v 13). Satan the devil is the one out there perpetrating and causing all of these things, as we’ve seen in Addicted Society #s 1-2, and he is making it happen! We need daily to be rescued from the evil one. Then to acknowledge that all the authority and all the power comes from God the Father, through Jesus Christ, to everyone.

“...For Yours is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (v 13).

Step #5: Reprogramming

Let’s begin on the reprogramming aspect of overcoming. Remember this is: Repentance, Recovery and Reprogramming. So, we’ve seen:

1. resist and you flee—you get away from it

2. repent

3. seek God

4. have prayer daily

5. reprogramming

Let’s understand something that’s important, and, of course, these points will interlock and overlap. We find here how they do that.

James 4:6: “But He gives greater grace… [than our own lust and our own envy (v 5) ] …This is the reason it says, ‘God sets Himself against the proud…” God was against you when you were addicted. And every time you go back to that addiction and give yourself a fudge-factor you’re going against God. You are tempting God to set Himself against you again.

“…but He gives grace to the humble” (v 6) .

- that’s why the repentance

- that’s why the confession of sin

- that’s why all of these things are so profound and important

Verse 7: “Therefore, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” First you submit to God, then you can resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Verse 8: “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded!” It has to be a wholehearted effort on your part. You can’t have one foot in your way and one foot in God’s way, and have a split mind. You want to change, You want to overcome, but you’re really not willing to put forth the wholehearted effort, because that makes you ‘double-minded.’

‘A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways.’ (James 1). It will just be a repeat, relapse, going back into it, unless you draw near to God and humble yourself to Him, and unless you apply yourself. God will help you! He’s not going to do it for you. You must do it, but He will help you! That’s important to understand and remember.

Now, let’s go back here to the book of Proverbs and let’s see how we begin reprogramming the mind. That’s the whole point of true Christianity: Reprogram the mind with the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and develop the mind of Christ. Instead of thinking on your own ways and your own lusts and your own things, you think on God’s way and His plan and His Truth and with His Word and it’s a wholehearted effort—a complete fulltime effort! Wherever you are, whatever you are doing: to be reprogrammed!

And lots of times it’s going to take the nutritional things that I have mentioned in order to physically help repair the mind and get it going again. Help clean out all of these toxins out of your mind, out of your liver, out of your system:

- if you’re addicted to porn, to get erased out of your mind, cleaned out of your mind

- if you have a craving for something

- if you have an addiction to gambling

whatever it may be. You cannot give yourself a fudge-factor because you always end up being double-minded and unstable.

Let’s see how you can be established; here are the keys. Proverbs 16:1 “The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, are from the LORD… [He created it in you, it’s part of you] …All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes…” (vs 1-2). We covered that previously. Just don’t look to your own ways and think ‘well, I’m doing better than so and so; I’ve improved here’; or ‘I’ve been good for one day.’ How about two? How about ten? How about many months? How about a year? Two years? Five years? Ten years? It’s not just what you’ve done in a short time.

“…but the LORD weighs the spirits. Commit your works unto the LORD, and your thoughts shall be established” (vs 2-3). Reprogramming your mind is establishing your thoughts! Gaining control and discipline:

- over your mind

- over your passions

- over your urges

- over your desires

- over your addiction.

Verse 6: “By mercy and Truth iniquity is purged…” Mercy is showing repentance; Truth is the Word of God.

- being truthful with yourself.

- being truthful about your circumstances.

- being truthful with other people

quit

- lying

- cheating

- deceiving

- hiding

- excusing

- justifying

- When you repent, replace it with Truth

- When you recognize error, replace it with Truth

- When you get rid of self-deception, replace it with Truth

“…is purged... [it is a process. It is a reprogramming of the mind.] …and by the fear of the LORD men turn away from evil” (v 6).

How do you handle evil? That which held you in its grips?

- you must learn to hate

- you must learn to abhor

- you must see the power that that has done to you

- you must overcome it

- you must realize that only with the power of God and His Spirit.

That’s why it’s important not only to repent, but when you do that and you’re recovering, if you have not been baptized and buried your sins in the watery grave and have come to Christ, that you can, after baptism—which is the full burial of the self in the watery grave—when you come up out of that, then you can have hands laid upon you to receive the Holy Spirit so that you can have the strength and power to overcome even more.

In the final analysis, unless you turn to God with all your heart, mind, soul and being, you’re going to have, at best, an uphill battle. Here’s part of the reprogramming of the mind that you have to have. That which you liked before, that which you craved before, that which you were addicted to before, you must learn to hate! There’s a proper Godly hatred; hating iniquity. Christ was commended because He loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Those who are addicted are lawless. You’ve got to change that! You’ve got to change your thought process by being reprogrammed with the Word and the Spirit of God.

Proverbs 8:13: “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil...” Because if you hate it, if you despise it, if you just absolutely cut it off as an abomination, then you can begin to reprogram your mind, and you can begin to change.

“…I hate pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the perverse mouth” (v 13)—says God. And every one of these addictions are all involved in self, pride, arrogancy and evil ways; and it’s just got you right in its grip. What is that song? He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands. That’s not of Christ, that’s of Satan—he’s got the whole world in his hands. You’ve got to come out from underneath it.

Let’s see how you need to do it. That’s why I said that the book of Proverbs is the way to start. I’m going to encourage everyone of you to read and study the book of Proverbs; do so on your knees; do so in a prayerful way. Not only when you’re reading and studying and you learn from each proverb as you go through, but that gives you a chance to talk with God, to repent, to cleanse your heart, cleanse your mind with the Spirit of God.

Here’s the attitude we need to have. This is not just kind of a half-hearted thing that you can get away with. This is a full-time thing. This is a complete absolute, with repentance, turning around and going the other way. That’s what repentance is all about. Repentance is not just being sorrowful. Repentance is turning to God and turning from sin. Then when you have done that, here shows how we do it, how we become reprogrammed.

Proverbs 2:1: “My son, if...” I want you to understand how these are all conditional for every single one of us.

“…you will receive my words, and treasure up my commandments within you… [they become a very part of your being] …so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding… [notice all of these conditions] ...yea, if you cry after knowledge...” (vs 1-3). You’ve got to go after this tooth and nail; just as you were hooked and addicted to whatever addiction that you have, now you’ve got to turn around and apply yourself in the total opposite direction. You’ve got to cry after knowledge. That only comes from God’s Word.

“… and lift up your voice for understanding.... [that implies daily prayer] ...If... [we have three ifs here; use this as a test for yourself: Are you doing this?] ...if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures” (vs 3-4). That is God’s way, God’s Word, God’s Spirit, everything about God.

Verse 5: “Then shall you understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.” This means

- you’ve got to be thorough in it

- you’ve got to follow through in it

- you’ve got to realize that these conditions you have to meet

God has given His promises that He will fulfill and He will provide. If you do these things, then:

- He will give you wisdom

- He will give you understanding

But you have to apply the effort as if you’re searching for “…silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you shall understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom… [that’s where it comes from] …out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding” (vs 4-6).

Please understand this: Every word that God wants you to know He has caused to be recorded in the Bible and these are the words of God. That’s why Jesus said, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God shall man live.’ He’s had them recorded. He’s had them preserved. God down through all the centuries of time:

- has watched over His Word

- has preserved His Word

- has inspired His Word

- has given this as a spiritual guide and understanding

so

- we can come out of our sins

- we can come out of our addictions

- we can come out of our problems

- we can solve our difficulties

- we can draw close to God

They are here, but we must apply ourselves. God is not going to come down and put a funnel hole in the top of your skull and put a funnel and insert it in there. That’s why Prov. 2 is important. But you’ve really got to apply yourself for it.

Verse 7: “He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous… [and you’ll be able to begin to think straight] …He is a shield to those who walk uprightly… [that means a defender] …He keeps the paths of right judgment and preserves the way of His saints… [Compare that now with v 9—all the other first 8 verses apply]: … Then you shall understand righteousness and judgment and equity, every good path” (vs 7-9).

- that’s the way out of it

- that’s the way you reprogram

- that’s the way you overcome

- that’s the way that you build the right pattern of living and thinking

so you can resist against the evil and sin that is engulfed and enveloped your life.

Verse 10: “Wisdom shall enter into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasing to your soul; discretion shall preserve you and, understanding shall keep you” (vs 10-11).

- you’re going to make the right choices

- you’re going to be able to resist

- you’re going to be able to flee

- you’re going to be able to get away from it

- you’re going to be able to get your life and you mind squared around

Verse 12: “To deliver you from the way of the evil man...” That’s what got you where you are: your own lusts, your own deception, and giving in to evil people. Who first gave you or sold you ‘meth’? crack cocaine? cocaine? heroine? whatever substance abuse there is? Teenagers now die from taking ‘ecstasy’ and all of those things. Whoever first gave it to you or sold it to you, you walked in the way of evil men! You’ve got to come out of that.

Look at all that it takes. This is all the effort that you have to put forth. God will bless you in it, but you’ve got to put forth the effort. You’ve got to take these Proverbs, and as I said, get on your knees and study them and ask God to make them a part of your heart, your mind, your thinking, your will and your way.

- God will do that!

- God loves you!

- God is for you!

- God wants you to overcome!

- God wants you to change!

He doesn’t want you addicted to any of these addictions that we have mentioned. You can come out of every single one of them and have a clean heart and have a clean mind. Over a period of time begin to put it away from you further and further and further. The more of God’s Word and God’s Spirit that you put into your mind and your heart and your way of doing things, as God blesses you and gives you His strength and His Spirit, the more you’re going to be away and forgetting these things and overcoming the temptations and the urges that are deeply rooted in your system. Some of them you’re going to have to fight for many, many years because of how you may have been addicted to them—just depending on your circumstances.

“…from the man who speaks wicked things, those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness” (vs 12-13). That’s where you have gone:

- in the ways of Satan

- in the ways darkness

- in the ways of this world

Think of what it has done:

- it has made you addicted

- it has brought you low

- given you mental anguish

- give you emotional anguish

- the loss of family

- the loss of friends

- the loss of job

- the loss of financial ability

- the loss of ability to work

- the loss of ability to think

—because you sold your soul to the devil by the hands of evil men!

Verse 14: “Who rejoice to do evil and delight in the perversities of the wicked.” These are the things you have come to hate. You cannot guard against any of these things unless you make a part of your being and the way of thinking (Prov. 2:1-13)— then you can. This takes time. This takes practice. This takes determination. This takes the will and the will is what you must recover! You must recover your free choice out of the depths and the dregs addiction! You can do that through Christ! It is all possible; every bit of it is possible. It’s possible because God loves you! Christ gave Himself for you! He’s ready to forgive your sins. He wants you to change and overcome. But you have to make the choice.

Verse 15 “Whose ways are crooked, and are devious in their paths; to deliver you from the wanton woman… [this can be any sin] …even from the stranger who flatters with her words, who forsakes the guide of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God” (vs 15-17).

This can be applied to any addiction—not just sexual immorality; not just to adultery or fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, or any of those things; but it can be applied to heroine addiction, cocaine addiction, prescription addiction—any of these things! God gives you the guarantee that if you do the things that He has given you to d o:

- You can overcome!

- You can change!

- You can come out of the addition!

- There is forgiveness!

- There is mercy!

- There is kindness!

- There is help!

Verse 18: “For her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the dead.” Look at the bodies that are strewn all over. If you want an eye-opening experience, talk to a nurse who works in emergency and ask her what happens at their hospital every Friday night: drug overdoses, drug addictions, all of these things, because people have just been hooked! God says that that’s the way these things are.

Verse 19: “None that go unto her return again, nor do they take hold of the paths of life in order that you may walk in the way of good and keep the paths of the righteous” (vs 19-20).

If you avoid it, you’re going to avoid all of these things. If you have been in the clutches and grips of it, you’ve got to determine to come out of it.

- you’ve got to flee these things

- you’ve got to repent to God

- you’ve got to pray to God

- you’ve got to seek God

- you’ve got to now reprogram your mind

Let’s understand this: You must have the laws and commandments of God in your mind! When you’re baptized and receive the Holy Spirit of God, God says He ‘will remember your sins no more.’ He will begin to write and inscribe in your heart and in your mind His laws and His commandments. It cannot be done unless you obey God! It also includes the Sabbath and the Holy Days of God. If you are going to really change and overcome from addiction, and live by every Word of God and have the Spirit of God, it must encompass all of God’s way—not part of it! That’s only a patch job.

Proverbs 3:1: “My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commandments.” Jesus said: ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments’ (John 14:15). John said, ‘And hereby we know that we love God when we love the children of God and keep His commandments—and His commandments are not burdensome. By this we know that we love God.’ That’s all New Testament doctrine.

The truth is that the Bible agrees with itself from one end to the other. There’s no contradictions in the Word of God. There are no loopholes in the Word of God. There are no fudge-factors in the Word of God. The only way, if you’ve been addicted, that you can come out from being in the grips of addiction is that you’ve got to understand the absolutes of right and wrong, good and evil— Truth and righteousness, the commandments of God. You need to know what sin is and how it destroys.

“…but let your heart keep my commandments; for they shall add length of days, and long life, and peace, to you. Do not let mercy and Truth forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them upon the tablet of your heart” (vs 1-3). There is the active, ongoing reprogramming that everyone must do. Not only if you’re recovering from an addiction, but if you’re going to grow in grace and knowledge as a Christian, you must do the same thing.

Verse 4: “And so you shall find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man.” God will bless you:

- you’ll be able to retain your job

- you can recover your health

- you can recover your dignity

- you can recover from the shame that you have put on

- you

- your family

- your children

- your relatives

- everyone through

because of your inordinate addiction

- you can recover

This is all a part of the reprogramming, v 5: “Trust in the LORD... [not in your own way; not in other men; not in ministers and preachers—but in the Lord] ...with all your heart...” That’s what God wants; that’s how you can change and overcome; that’s how you can come totally out of the grips of any addiction.

“...and lean not unto your own understanding” (v 5). Don’t just do it your way. Look at what your way has done to get you where you are. Do you want that again? “...lean not unto your own understanding”—but to the understanding of the Word of God. You have to study and you have to know to know what the Word of God is, and that way you won’t be leaning to your own understanding, but to the ways of God.

Verse 6: “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.”

- Do you want God to direct your paths?

- Do you want God to help you in time of trouble?

- Do you want God to help you overcome?

Here’s the formula—this is all part of the reprogramming.

Verse 7: “Do not be wise in your own eyes… [don’t go your own way] …fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” There is Psa 34: depart from evil, seek the Lord—all of these things. When you start going through the Psalms and the Proverbs in your program of reprogramming your mind and overcoming addiction, you’re going to be surprised how much strength and power comes from the very words of God, because Jesus said that ‘these words are spirit and they are life.’

Verse 8: “It shall be health to your navel… [the innermost part of being]… and marrow to your bones.” The bones are what produces the blood and the life is in the blood. It means you’re going to be healthy.

Verse 9: “Honor the LORD with your substance and with the firstfruits of all your increase.” Then you need to come to God. The way that you thank God is not just through words alone, but through tithes and offerings; through giving. God will honor you and bless you even more if you do.

Verse 10: “And your barns shall be filled with plenty, and your presses shall burst with new wine.” In other words, you shall be prosperous in what you are doing, regardless of what occupation you have or work that you do, God will bless you in.

God is going to continue to correct you. This is not going to be a one-time, five step program as we’re outlining here. There are going to be corrections! There are going to be circumstances! There are going to be difficulties! You’re going to have to work your way through it, just like every one of us. When I’m saying ‘you’ I’m also talking to myself! Because if I don’t teach myself from the Word of God while I am teaching others, I am nothing! I’m just like so much blowing of the wind.

Verse 11: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be weary of His correction”—because it’s going to come. There are going to be tests that you’re going to face. There are going to be difficulties that you’re going to be confronted with. But you can come through all of them!

Verse 12: “For whom the LORD loves He corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.”

- this is how you can do it

- this is how you can change

- this is how you can reprogram your mind

Proverbs 4:1: “O children, hear the instruction of a father, and be attentive in order to know understanding, for I give you good doctrine; do not forsake my law, for I was my father’s son, tender and the only beloved in the sight of my mother” (vs 1-3). This is Solomon writing about his personal circumstances.

Verse 4: “He taught me also, and said unto me, ‘Let your heart hold fast my words… [think of this as God the Father talking to you] …keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom; get understanding; forget it not, nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she shall keep you; love her… [the wisdom of God and the Word of God] …and she shall preserve you. Wisdom is the principal thing; get wisdom; and with all your getting get understanding” (vs 4-7). So these are some practical steps that you need to do.

Let’s see some other things that will come with it, a very important Psalm in reprogramming. Psalm 112:1: “Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who delights greatly in His commandments.”

Psalm 111:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever.”

Psalm 112:2: “His seed shall be mighty upon earth… [God will bless you and bless your children] …the generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house… [God promises that in a right way and a right balance] …and his righteousness endures forever. To the upright there arises light in the darkness... [and that’s what you want in your life: the light Christ, the light of His Word; the light of His Truth] …he is gracious and full of compassion and righteousness” (vs 2-4). That’s how God is. That’s how you get reprogrammed and straightened out.

Verse 7: “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.” That’s where you need to come to in the resolve. Like I mentioned, no fudge-factor! Now you’ve got to graduate to the point of having your heart fixed:

- fixed on God’s way

- fixed on the love of God

- fixed on the Truth of God

- fixed on His commandments

- fixed on His Word

Then these things replace all lust and desire and craving for evil.

“…His heart is established; he shall not be afraid until he sees his desire upon his enemies” (vs 7-8). Addiction is your greatest enemy! You want to see your desire come upon overcoming those. That’s what it’s talking about. Let’s go one step further and see what God wants us to do.

Luke 10:25: “Now, a certain doctor of the law suddenly stood up, tempting Him and saying, ‘Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” We need to move from beyond just overcoming addiction; to how do you receive eternal life. You must have the Spirit of God to do it, that’s true, absolutely! You must keep the commandments of God, that is true, absolutely!

Verse 26: “And He [Jesus] said to him, ‘What is written in the law? How do you read it?’ Then he answered and said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ And He said to him, ‘You have answered correctly. Do this, and you shall live’” (vs 26-28). That’s what God wants you to do.

Let’s see that upon loving God and neighbor the whole of God’s Word has been completely structured. This is a parallel account of what we just read in Luke 10:

Matthew 22:35: “And one of them, a doctor of the law, questioned Him, tempting Him, and saying, ‘Master, which commandment is the great commandment in the Law?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment” (vs 35-38).

This is how you replace the addiction that has held you in its grips. The ultimate of these steps that I have given is coming to love God with all your heart, mind, soul and being. That’s why:

1. you’ve got to resist and flee it

2. you’ve got to repent

3. you’ve got to seek God continually; continually ask, and God will hear

4. you’ve got to constantly pray daily, wherever you are—

- at work

- in the car

pray in your mind silently to God

That’s what Paul talks about ‘pray without ceasing.’

5. you’ve got to reprogram your mind which entails building up

- your physical health

- your mental health

- your spiritual health

and

- reprogram the way that you think

- reprogram the way that you operate

- reprogram you mind with:

- the Word of God

- the love of God

- the commandments of God

- obedience to God

And Jesus said: “And the second one is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets’” (vs 39-40).

- there is hope

- you can overcome

- God wants you to overcome

- God wants you to get rid of your addiction

- God wants you to put them aside

There is a way to do it and that way is through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All Scriptures from The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version by Fred R. Coulter

Scriptural References:

1. Luke 15:15-17

2. Luke 13:6-9

3. Luke 15:17

4. 1 Corinthians 6:13, 15-18

5. Joel 2:12-13

6. Psalm 51:1-7, 9-10

7. Psalm 86:1-7

8. Psalm 119:2-6, 9

9. Matthew 7:7-8

10. Matthew 6:8-13

11. James 4:6-8

12. Proverbs 16:1-3, 6

13. Proverbs 8:13

14. Proverbs 2:1-5, 4-20

15. Proverbs 3:1-12

16. Proverbs 4:1-7

17. Psalm 112:1

18. Psalm 111:10

19. Psalm 112:2-4, 7-8

20. Luke 10:25-28

21. Matthew 22:35-40

Scriptures referenced, not quoted:

- John 8, 5

- Isaiah 53

- Psalm 51:8

- Luke 11

- James 4:5, 1

- John 14:15

- Psalm 34

Also referenced: Book:

Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills by Russell l.
Blaylock

FRC:bo
Transcribed: 12-20-09
Reformatted: bo—9/2014

The Addicted Society IV
Reprogram Your Mind

Fred R. Coulter

We’re certainly living in an addicted society; addicted to so many different things that it is really something! The most difficult addictions to overcome are substance abuse, be it: drugs—legal or illegal—or whatever other substance that you’re going to have. A lot of people say, ‘Are you on drugs?’ They say no!. But they don’t tell you that they don’t consider smoking pot being a drug. When you look at what is happening, substance abuse is the worst.

- Television addiction: it’s easy to make up your mind to hit the switch.

- Pornography addiction is a little harder to do because it’s in your mind so much. But you can turn off the computer and not play the DVDs.

But substance abuse is entirely different. People need a lot of help on that; if you do not make up your mind and finally make the decision—if you are on substance abuse—to quit.

When people get into substance abuse, they start out and think ‘Well, I can handle it. It’s not going to affect me. I’ll never get addicted.’ They don’t understand how powerful that these drugs are, and they don’t realize what they’re doing to their lives, their families: mothers and fathers and their own children, etc.

What the schools do with Ritalin is very close to cocaine. They get addicted and they start at a young age. The reason that it is because there’s no discipline at home, there’s no discipline at school, and they do not have enough men teachers to have enough authority to rule over the boys. It’s mostly boys that are on Ritalin because all of these feminist women cannot handle boys. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to do it. They don’t think like boys. They don’t think like men. So, the only way they can handle it is drug them out.

Here you have a generation coming up that is dumbed-downed, stooped-downed, drugged-downed, and by the time they get to teenage they’re already hooked. Then mix in illicit sex and all the other things that go with it, and you have got a society that is headed for disaster—which we are! Also on the playground, there are those giving it out free and getting them hooked early.

What happens in families when substance abuse comes along is that it costs a lot of money. They end up not working, they end up stealing, they lose their homes, they lose their cars, they lose their jobs. Parents try to help them out. They lie to them; they rob them in the sense they say they’ll do things. I know of one family that spent $8,000 for six weeks rehab. The guy went in there and everything was good, fine, lovely, roses; came out and BAM! right back to cocaine. Because in there he did not come to himself and he did not have a confrontation with God and His Word. That’s a key!

In order to overcome—part 3 of this series I covered repentance, recovery and reprogramming— there’s got to be that repentance first; you’ve got to come to yourself; you’ve got to come to God! Not just a matter of admitting—like with Alcoholics Anonymous: everyone gets up there and says, ‘My name is So-and-So and I’m an alcoholic’—while he’s sucking on candy and puffing on a cigarette. He’s still an addict!

Admission won’t work. Just like this MSNBC thing in entrapping men coming after children in their pedophilia case. They all said, ‘Oh, this is my first time.’ Then they catch them the second time and they say, ‘Oh, I need help!’ They haven’t said, ‘I’m a dirty, rotten, pedophile and I’m repenting to God, never again to get involved in it.’ NO! They blame other people—’Oh, I need help. Oh, it’s the society.’ NO! It’s your lust! It’s your selfishness! All substance abuse revolves around lust, lawlessness and selfishness! Just for you! You think

- nothing about your family

- nothing about your children

- nothing about your husband

- nothing about your wife

- nothing about the repercussions on the rest of the family

- nothing about the repercussions in the rest of society

- nothing about all the repercussion of all of those tax dollars going to try an enforce and help and stamp out and everything

I tell you what, someone said if you want a real eye-opener, go to a big city emergency hospital room on Friday night, where they have all of those who come in with ‘ODs’ and what do they have on Friday night to desecrate the Sabbath? All of their parties, rock concerts, all of the things where all of this goes on. It’s something that this society is possessed of the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah and whoredoms, and possessed with the spirit of drugs. That all comes from Satan the devil, and that all comes from the enemies of God.

Before a person can really make any progress, he or she has to come to the point of understanding that:

- they have sinned against God

- they have sinned against their family

- the have sinned against themselves

- they have sinned against their bodies

—and the only way out is to turn to God! They can, in some cases, make some progress and make some improvement without going to God directly. However, that’s very rare and few in between!

Let’s look at something that is important. A lot of people think, ‘well, if you study the Bible you’re religious.’ If you believe God, which is different than believing in God—because if you believe in God you’re no different than the demons; they believe in God and tremble. People don’t believe God! ‘Well, the Bible is only for those people who want it.’ They don’t understand that God is going to judge them by the words in this Bible whether they know it or not!

After Jesus had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, Matthew 4:3: “And when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’” Which Jesus could have done just like that. But if He had done it, He would have obeyed Satan and Satan would have become His god—because whoever you obey that’s your god. So, if you are a slave of an addiction of any kind, that addiction is your god.

- you’ll work for it

- you’ll pay for it

- you’ll lie for it

- you’ll do anything for it

Some people even kill for it. That’s your god! Now, whether you shoot it up in your arms, stick it in your nose, put it in your mouth that is your god!

Verse 4: “But He answered and said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”’” Who is man? In this sense that’s the plural of every human being on earth—from the time of Adam until the time there are no more human beings.

Let’s also understand something else. This does not have to do with just people in the Church. This is all human beings that are walking the face of the earth at any time during any point in history. God expects them, if they are not converted, to obey in the letter of the Law. If they are converted to obey in the spirit of the Law.

What else does this tell us? That everything in the Old Testament has been endorsed by Jesus Christ! No such thing as New Testament replaces the Old. The New Testament spiritually amplifies and magnifies the laws of God, as Jesus said. That’s why in The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version we have Appendix H (also in A Harmony of the Gospels): How Did Jesus Fulfill the Law and the Prophets. Very important to understand. He did not, at any time, do away or abolish anything that He did to improve from the physical of the Old Covenant to the spiritual of the New Covenant, you will see it was:

- to make the standard higher

- to make it spiritual

- to make it permanent

This tells us it applies to everyone.

Now we are going to see that while there are different programs that people can get into in the world—while they may be taught to think positively; to overcome certain things—they haven’t come to fundamental realization that the only way that they can change is:

- through God

- through His Word

- through His Spirit

This is where it has to be—can’t be any other way—for a permanent change! You also have to consider the people raised in a society where God has been removed from their lives, removed from the school, removed from the churches—how do you do it? You have to tell them the place to begin is you need to find God, and you need to find Him in the Word of God! You need to understand that as much help as people can be, God can help you even more. His Word can help you even more. That can help you reprogram your mind.

It may seem like a very foreign thing to them to turn to God, but that’s the very reason why the Word of God is here, so they can start someplace! Even those who don’t believe in God and still make a measurable recovery, well that’s commendable, but everything that they do that is in a positive way is based somewhere, somehow, on the Word of God—whether it is directly stated or not.

Let’s look at the reprogramming that has to happen, When people get involved in addiction, they lower the standards of right and wrong, good and evil. They blur all of these into a way of thinking where these things are not wrong. And the reason that the addiction comes is because when they get to this point, they have nothing where they can just say no! They have no standard. They have no foundation. This is why in the Word of God the place to begin is not with conversion. The place to begin is getting the right things into your mind, then conversion can come later if that’s what God wants.

The book of Proverbs is the place to begin; it is not a doctrinal issue concerning salvation, Sabbath, Holy Days or any of those things. The book of Proverbs is designed to give all people in the letter and, in many cases, the spirit of the law how they need to live their lives. This is what is so important. Here’s why you need the Word of God. Here’s how you begin to do it.

As I mentioned, to admit you have a problem is perhaps the first half-step. To really understand that you have a problem, begin to cope with all the consequences of it, and begin to realize what you need to do about it becomes another thing.

Proverbs 8:13: “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil...” You have got to come to hate what you are doing with such a passion that it gives you a motivation to not do it. That’s the beginning of the ‘fear of the Lord,’ and that’s the beginning of re-instituting a conscience that has been so destroyed by being addicted and compromising everything that you know and that you do.

Here are the things that cause all the problems that people are in: “…I hate pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the perverse mouth” (v 13). This means a complete change in thought pattern and behavior.

Now, the way that you rewire is going to take some effort. Every one of the recovery programs that they have, they have classes that different ones attend and they learn to identify things and they learn how to get their thinking squared around to a certain rate. But here is the way to break through even that a little bit more:

Proverbs 7:1: “My son, keep my words... [you do it through the book of Proverbs] …and store up my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live...” (vs 1-2). Just understand this: Before you live, overcome, survive and get out of this addiction you’ve got to keep the commandments of God, and it begins right here in the book of Proverbs. How do you orient your mind? The way that you orient your mind and get it reprogrammed is to put the right things in there. That’s what it says here.

“…and keep my law as the apple of your eye. Bind them upon your fingers; write them upon the tablet of your heart” (vs 2-3).

Now, this tells us something very important, because this is all about programming the mind and the thinking that you have. If you succumb to any addiction, you’ve got to reprogram your mind this way. At first, this is going to be very alien to a lot of people, because growing up in a society where God is not around, though they’ve had the Bible everywhere, it’s a difficult proposition. But it can be done. ‘Bind them upon the table of your heart.’

Let’s come back to Prov. 3 and review it again, where it says it again; and wherever it says something like this it means that it’s important. In overcoming an addiction, repetition to reprogram the mind is vital! Key things you have got to repeat and repeat, over and over again, and this is what the book of Proverbs does.

Proverbs 3:3: “Do not let mercy and Truth forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them upon the tablet of your heart.” Mercy and Truth have to do with character, the Word of God, the commandments of God, right thoughts, and “…write them upon the tablet of your heart.” This tells what we need to do to reprogram the mind.

Verse 4: “And so you shall find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man.”

Prov. 4 bears repeating. This becomes the heart and core and the central way to overcome addictions and to get yourself reprogrammed where your thinking is getting squared around. Whenever you’re on substance abuse, or addicted to anything, you’re thinking has been all messed up. You may have a lot of various mood swings.

You may go along and because of health problems you have brought upon yourself because of the abuse that you have been giving to your body and to your mind, you also need to take care of your health. Sometimes these things will be residual in your body and your liver and come back and hit you again. That’s all the process of getting it out of your system. You’ve got to have both the mental reprogramming and the health conditioning in order to get yourself back on the right way. Here is the difference. Here’s part of the reprogramming— absolutes: right/wrong, truth/error, obedience/sin. This is what Proverbs does.

Proverbs 4:18: “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more to the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness...” (vs 18-19). If you’ve been addicted to something:

- think of all the darkness that you’ve gone through

- think of all the misery that you have suffered and caused other people to suffer

- think about the depressions that you have had

- think about the things that you have brought to others on it

It is a way of darkness! And here’s what happens when you are addicted:

“…they know not at what they stumble” (v 19). They have fears. They have anxieties. They have all kinds of problems and difficulties because of it. So, there is the contrast:

Verse 20: “My son, attend to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart” (vs 20-21). How many times have we read about the heart here? Three times! Very important! That’s part of reprogramming.

Now, a simple way to start reprogramming is this: memorize the Ten Commandments! Then start memorizing some of the Proverbs. Let that be in your mind and go into your mind, because when it does your mind is a fantastic thing that God has created, and you can reprogram your mind. They’ve been able to do this with people who have had brain tumors and they have had to take out one-half of their brain. Through therapy and reprogramming and teaching, they are able to recover to a very high degree every aspect of thinking and learning and speaking. But they have to really apply themselves to it. So, you need to realize how much you need to apply yourself, too; and it talks about ‘in the midst of your heart.’

Verse 22: “For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh.” This is going to give you:

- a good attitude

- a positive attitude

- a right way

- a coming out of the depths of the abuse that you have been in

—whether it is substance abuse, porn addiction, smoking cigarettes; whatever it is, it will help you.

Verse 23: “Above all guard the door of your mind with diligence…” You are responsible for what goes into your mind and stays in your mind. Some things can go in your mind and you can’t get them out of your mind. You have to guard it.

Here’s why: “…for out of it. [the heart/mind] …are the issues of life.” The very thing of

- how to live

- why you’re here

- where you’re going

- what are you going to do

- how you’re going to repair all the damage that has been done because of your addiction

- how you are going to find yourself

- how you are going to be stable

- how you are going to be able to control your emotions

- how you are going to do all of these things

The deeper the substance abuse and the difficulty that a person is in, the more they have to come back to ground zero and start everything all over again. That’s what’s important to remember, and that’s what’s you’re doing. “…out of it are the issues of life.”

That’s why in being addicted your life is all messed up; your life is upside down. A lot of people end up doing crimes and things where because of drug addictions they steal, they commit murder, manslaughter, beat up people, and all because they’re addicted!

Stop and think for a minute, what a fantastic thing that it’s going to be when the Kingdom of God is on the earth. None of that’s going to happen.

There’s a book by Dr. Laura Schlessinger which is: Bad Childhood, Good Life. The long and short of that book is this: Regardless of what has happened in your childhood or in your life stop blaming other people! Stop blaming the circumstances! You got yourself in the circumstances, you fell into it and you gave into it. So, you’ve got to stop saying, ‘He did it.’ Just like those pedophiles they caught on MSNBC: ‘Oh, this is my first time I ever did it.’ Every single one of them. No!

Let’s talk a little bit about Ritalin again because a comment was brought up which is this: Kids in school are given Ritalin and they’re innocent victims of it. They’re told that they need this and then when they get out of school they’re addicted to it and now they’re ripe for cocaine addiction and they’re told that that is wrong. Not only are we dealing with substance abuse, we are dealing with adult abuse of children by giving them drugs.

When you watch the news, how many are drug ads? Almost all of them! It is Satan’s endeavor to addict this nation, to destroy it. So, it’s a perfect setting in an atheistic school where there is no God, where there are feminist women who destroy little boys—and they can’t control them. Give them drugs! Give them drugs! Give them drugs! A drug for this, a drug for that, a drug for the other thing!

What did the world do for thousands of years without the drug companies. What do you do when you grow up and you’ve been reared on Ritalin? You’re still faced with the same choices we’re talking about here! If you want to get your life squared around, you’re going to have to do this. And I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that are suffering from it and going through it. It’s really quite a difficult thing for them.

Also, a lot of parents don’t want to take care of the kids anymore, so they turn them over:

- to TV

- to fast foods

- to video games

- to unsupervised playing with other children

- to daycare centers

- to teachers

Teachers are all frustrated because they can’t control the kids, because they’re not controlled at home. So, you have one great huge problem that is going to impact this nation in the next few years. The biggest thing we’re going to be faced with is overcoming addiction from those who grew up being addicted to the drugs and the system and to the way that it is.

I’ll tell you what the final solution is going to be to a lot of it. The only way out of it with the state is to put the mark of the beast on them so you can control them.

Back to what we need to be doing here, because this is an important thing that we need to understand. If you’re a child who has been victimized by it, and if you have come through the system and have grown up in it—and you don’t know what to do with your life and you’re fighting all kinds of wrong thoughts, depressions and all these sort of things—you have got to get on a health-cleansing program and a mental-cleansing program that does not involve drugs or medications, but where you can use those thing to clean your system out and get it functioning correctly; so you can begin to think. The first point in straightening is to get yourself to a point where you can begin to think!

Prov. 5 talks about the ‘strange woman.’ Let’s not use this for just pornography, sex addiction, adultery and fornication, though many people are addicted to sex. They have sex clubs where they have ‘swinging adults’ where they swap husbands and wives and all of this sort of thing on Carnival cruises and in hotels and things like this. I mean, this world is going nuts! But what it has to be is that you have got to combine some of these Proverbs that we have seen, how you’ve got to hate the evil. If you don’t, it says right here:

Proverbs 5:8: “Remove your way far from her…” Substitute her for whatever your addiction is: pornography, substance abuse, alcohol abuse, gambling addiction, food addiction; remove yourself from it.

“…and do not come near the door of her house” (v 8). Don’t let any of these temptations take you down.

What do you do when a temptation comes along? Because, lo, they’re going to come! They’re going to put themselves upon you in a pretty powerful way. What do you do? How do you handle it? You’ve got to recognize it when it comes. You know what it is, and the temptation is there: ‘Oh, I need something to help me. Oh I’ve got this craving.’

I’ve told those who need to overcome smoking addiction and alcohol addiction—and it has even helped out in some cases of cocaine addiction—that whenever you get an urge, whenever you get a strong feeling that you’ve got to have whatever substance it was that you had before, get yourself a whole batch of lemons and whenever you get a craving take a lemon, cut a little hole in the small end of it, and then squeeze it and suck on it. Just keep that with you and squeeze it and suck on it.

Very good, because your body is receiving something because it’s craving something. What the lemon juice will do is it will help cleanse the system, will bring you Vitamin C, will help you regain your control—very important to do. What the lemon juice does is helps clean out the liver. You can take as many as you can. When you get too much your lips may get a little puckered and you may have a little lemon sore on the inside of your mouth temporarily, but you can overcome that. That helps cleanse the liver, helps end the urge.

James 1:13: “Do not let anyone who is tempted say, ‘I am being tempted by God’ because God is not tempted by evil, and He Himself tempts no one with evil.” It’s your own lust. It is Satan the devil. It is the society around you.

Let’s put in there another thing that unhinges your mind and sets you up for all kinds of addiction is the music—the rock music, the rap music and all of that. I tell you the most brainless people in the world are those who drive through the neighborhood with the windows down and their low-booming box going BOOM! BOOM! and the whole neighborhood is shaking! Every house is shaking as they drive by, and they sit there and nod their heads: ‘Hey, I’m cool!’

Verse 14: “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away and is enticed by his own lust.” The temptation comes along and starts drawing you away and then you’re entrapped by your own lust, your own selfishness, your own desire to please the self and to feed the addiction.

When you give into that, v 15: “And after lust has conceived…” A process that takes place, and each point along the line you can say NO, you can get up and run away from it, you can go get away from it, you can replace your thoughts with something else, you can do something else. In cases I’ve mentioned, grab a lemon.

“…after lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin…” There’s a process; all of this you can stop up to the point of sin.

“…when it is completely finished, brings forth death… [that’s the end result of all of this] …Do not deceive yourselves, my beloved brethren” (vs 15-16). Every time you justify giving into a sin or temptation, you are deceiving yourself and you’re staying in deception, and you are serving self and Satan.

Let’s talk a little bit about drug addiction for senior citizens. A lot of people are on drugs for many different things. A lot of senior citizen like to talk about the drugs that they have and say, ‘I take this one and I take that one. What do you take?’ The biggest drug-pushers now are the pharmacies and the drug companies.

If for example, Jim and Betty Hyles—way past 60 and into their 70s—they were talking to someone and they said, ‘How old are you?’ They were surprised when they told them what their age was. Then they said, ‘By the way we don’t take any medicine.’ You don’t take any medicine! Why? They try and take care of themselves and eat right and so forth!

A lot of senior citizens are addicts to the medicines that the doctors give you, and you are as much hooked as the addict that shoots up cocaine or heroine that you condemn! A lot of it is because you have not taken care of your health as you’ve gotten older. That’s a struggle. I know what that’s like and I have to take care of my health. I’ve had to learn. I’ve had to just come to myself and say, ‘Fred, if you don’t take care of yourself nobody will.’

Just as an aside for people who don’t know the Word of God. You need to understand about clean and unclean meats. A lot of sicknesses are caused by pork, by shrimp, by lobster, by all the things that God said don’t eat. And the there’s a reason He said don’t eat it, because He wants you to be healthy.

What do you do mentally? How do you handle it mentally? Proverbs 5:20: “For why will you, my son, be ravished with a strange woman…” Substitute that for whatever the addiction is.

- Will you be ravaged by marijuana? cocaine? methamphetamine?

- Will you be ravaged by pornography?

- Will you be ravaged by prescription drugs?

Whatever it is just put that in there and that’s what it is.

“…and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and He ponders all his paths” (vs 20-21).

- God is there to help you!

- God is there to give you the strength that you need!

That’s why the book of Proverbs, as well as the whole Bible. Here’s a key; you can bank on this. What is it they say? ‘Take it to the bank.’

Verse 22: “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be held with the cords of his sins.” In other words, he’s going to be a complete slave to his lusts and his sins, and that’s what’s going to control him.

Now, if he doesn’t get a hold of himself and begin to work at overcoming the addiction, v 23: “He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall breathe his last.” That’s talking about an awful lot of people in the world today; an awful lot of people with the problems and difficulties that they are in.

Proverbs 6:20: “My son, keep your father’s commandments, and do not forsake the instruction of your mother.” Again, reprogramming your mind. Consider your Father: God! Consider your mother as it were: the Church, but not in the strictest sense.

Verse 21: “Bind them continually upon your heart…” Notice how many times we’ve talked about the heart and what you need to do to control your thoughts. Bind them!

- Make it a part of the way that you think!

- Make it a part of the way that you act!

This is the only way you’re going to get reprogrammed! It’s not going to happen any other way.

That’s why some of these programs that are by the state—the state can’t tell you about God because they’re forbidden—have a 3-step, 8-step or 12-step program that they go through. It only takes you so far; that’s why there are so many repeats. Those that go through the drug rehab sometimes they’ve got to go through two, three, four, sometimes five times, until they get to the point they say, ‘I’m tired of it and I’ve got to stop.’ What happens? They finally made the choice they’ve got to quit!

Here’s a way you won’t have to go back and repeat: “…tie them around your neck. When you go, they shall lead you; when you sleep, they shall keep you; and when you awake, they shall talk with you” (vs 21-22).

What does that mean? Every person talks to himself all day long! That’s called thinking within! So, if you have the laws and commandments of God that you are thinking on, it is going to talk with you as you go. In other words, you’re going to think in the right way! It’s going to help you overcome—‘Get rid of stinkin’ thinkin’!’ {note sermon: Stinkin’ Thinkin’!}

(go to the next track)

I need to also mention something that’s important: There are a lot of medications that people need. They may not necessarily be addictive medications, but they need them. If you’re in that category, then that’s fine; take those, no problem. However, do yourself a favor and do some research because there are a lot of things that you can find with natural remedies, herbs, and things like this which will help you.

For example: I just talked to a diabetic up in the Northwest, and he’s had a terrible diabetic problem for a long time. So, he found out about cinnamon and started taking quite a bit of cinnamon and, lo and behold, he’s lost 85 lbs and he has cut his insulin that he has to take every day in half. He told his doctor what he’s doing. He said it works, and as long as it works, keep at it. He said, ‘You’re better off.’

So, look at that with other things, too. There are a lot of things that can be done to help your body and your system so you can function well without having to be on various drugs and medications. Lots of times a doctor will say you need this and you need that and you need the other thing. You may or may not need them; you need to find out for yourself because most doctors operate their practice based upon their malpractice insurance policies. They prescribe things for people that they really don’t need to cover themselves in case of a lawsuit. You need to realize that. A lot of doctors do not practice to help you, they practice to minimize their malpractice insurance. Some doctors have to pay $200,000 a year malpractice insurance. So, you can understand where they’re coming from, which then gets back to another whole thing about not only are we to ‘guard the door of our mind’ but maybe we ought to say, we ought to guard the door of our stomachs—what goes in it and what we put there!

Jim was telling me about a woman who had been consigned to drugs because of mental difficulties, emotional problems and the state said, ‘You need this and we’ll provide it for you. You can get your prescription over here.’ She took it and gained weight and gained weight and he saw her recently at a local restaurant and he kept looking at her and looking at her and said, ‘I know this woman.’ So, he went up and said, ‘Are you So-and-so?’ and she said, ‘Yeah!’ He said, ‘My, you really lost a lot of weight.’ She said, ‘Yes, I just had to make up my mind to stop these medicines and lose weight.’ She figured it out herself!

What does that tell you? That comes right in to what we’ve said all along: You have got to come to yourself and make the decision and commit to doing it! Not giving excuses; not blaming other people, but take responsibility for yourself: your mind, your body and your life!

Also another suggestion was brought up with this. A man went to a doctor and said, ‘I’m having trouble sleeping and now he’s discovered that his problem in sleeping was not what the doctor thought it was. The doctor said, rather than give him any real understanding, he said, ‘here, take this drug.’ He said, ‘What is it?’ Oh, it’s not addictive. What you’re up against is this: A lot of the drug salesmen convince the doctors to prescribe these things and give samples of it. So, what this man did was he went home checked up the drug on the Internet and the first thing it said was, ‘This drug is addictive.’

You need to understand, people can get themselves in very bad situation when they give the responsibility of their health and their bodies and their minds to professional people who are locked into a system in the way that they do things.

They’re able to help a lot of people. They’re able to do a lot of good. There is a place for MDs, there is a place for chiropractors, there is a place for acupuncture, there is place for herbs, etc. But it’s got to be in the right way. Now, there are a lot of doctors who are so busy that they have their nurses line them up and overbook and run them in and run them out, give them this, give them that—not even checking what to do. Please understand this: Doctors are not taught anything about nutrition!

A good book you need to get is Natural Cures: “They” Don’t Want You to Know About by Kevin Trudeau. You might be surprised if you are on a lot of prescription drugs, that you can probably reduce the amount that you are taking or eliminate them altogether. You need to look at that, because you may be in the addicted position and think you’re addicted because ‘the doctor’ has prescribed it. Remember, I did mention addiction to prescription drugs when we first started.

Proverbs 6:23—this is what the world does not like. “For the commandment is a lamp…” We are living in a dark world and you need to see where you’re going, and the commandments give you light.

“...and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life” (v 23). Instructions which tell you to do this; don’t do that! Follow this; don’t follow that! This is evil; this is good!

Verse 24: “To keep thee from the evil woman. [whatever your addiction is, put it in there] …from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman”

Isn’t that what it is when all the dealers come along. ‘Here, try some.’ How much does it cost? ‘It’s free, try it.’ Get them hooked! That’s what they did with crack cocaine. Destroyed lives! Destroyed communities! Destroyed whole areas of big cities! It was hard to get those crack addicts off of it. Some of them, the only way they could get them out of the addictions was because they had committed crimes and they had to go to jail and they couldn’t get any there. However, there are smugglers of drugs who bring it right into the jails. I’ve heard people say, ‘When I was in jail for a drug thing, I could have gotten it right there.’ Right here in Hollister, what did they find here recently? A probation officer, working for the county, was pushing drugs and carrying a gun! How corrupt is the world? We’ll talk about what you need to do.

Verse 25: “Do not lust after her beauty…”— or after the effect that you want from the drug or whatever it is.

“…in your heart… [all these decisions are within] …nor let her seduce you with her eyelids” (v 25). Where do you first see that? On Bug Bunny cartoons! Minnie Mouse would flutter, move her eyelids, and what do they have? Look at the look of every woman on the cover of every woman’s magazine and what do you find? Some kind of look! Some kind of stare? Something!

Verse 26: “For by means of a harlot… [or an addictions] …a man is vanquished to a piece of bread, and the adulteress… [or drug dealer] …will hunt for the precious life”—or the pedophile, or the pornographer.

Verse 27: “Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one walk upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?” (vs 27-28). Then it talks about adultery and all those sort of things.

I just found out here recently that there was a man (not in the Church but one of the relatives was in the Church) who happened to work on one of these offshore oil platforms. He was gone two weeks and home two weeks and work two, and his wife, while he was gone two weeks, had another man on the side; just before she divorced him and took everything. The judge agreed to give her everything and make him pay for all her debts, because that’s how crooked the system is. You get the book The Marketing of Evil—there’s a whole section in there on the ‘divorce industry’ and how much they are supported by the government.

What happened? He caught her and she left! Got everything! Unless you have a commitment to God, believe in God, believe God, keep His commandments, you’re always going to have the subterfuge of deceitful human nature: whether it be man, whether it be woman, whether it be boy, whether it be girl, whether it is young, whether it is old. Whatever your situation is it’s going to be there, and it’s going to cause you terrible and miserable things in your life.

Verse 32: “But whoever commits adultery with a woman…” Whoever becomes addicted to any of the forms of addictions that we’ve been talking about—especially substance abuse:

“…understanding; he who does it destroys his own soul” (v 32).

- destroy your mind

- destroy your heart

- destroy your ability:

- to think

- to reason

- to work!

All of those things are destroyed!

Verse 33: “He shall get a wound and dishonor; and his shame shall not be wiped away.” That is unless you change and repent and turn to God! Amazing!

Here’s what the book of Proverbs does. It’s called wisdom! Wisdom that comes from God, that’s available to everyone in the world, not just those in the Church—everyone in the world.

- right and wrong

- good and evil

- Truth and error

The first place to come, in making up your mind, is to realize there are absolutes and you need to begin thinking in the terms of absolutes, not in the realm of the gray areas where temptation lurks.

Proverbs 8:1: “Does not wisdom call? And does not understanding put forth her voice?” How many books are out there written by how many people saying:

- get rid of this

- stop this

- how to overcome drugs

- how to overcome family problems

- how to overcome all of these difficulties

These are written by people who have wisdom that God has provided, that is there in the world and it is much like we find here in the book of Proverbs.

Verse 2: “She stands in the top of high places, by the place where the paths meet.” In other words, it’s out there for you to see and hear and understand.

Verse 5: “O you simple ones, understand wisdom…” Begin to make right decisions. That’s what the whole book of Proverbs is about—to give you wisdom! To give you the means of making the choices!

“…and, you fools, be of an understanding heart… [Listen to these things!] …Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things” (vs 5-6). Proverbs 8-9 are introducing the rest of the book of Proverbs, because you’ll see when we get to Prov. 10 it suddenly changes. Proverbs 1-9 is setting the stage so that you can being to use the Proverbs in a right way and understand what they are about.

Verse 7: “For my mouth shall speak truth...” Let’s understanding something: Truth is what you need to seek in everything!

“…and wickedness is an abomination to my lips… [starting to get the contrast: truth and wickedness] …All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing twisted or perverse in them. They are all plain to him who understands, and right to those that find knowledge. Receive my instruction and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it” (vs 7-11).

If you lose your mind, your emotions, your health, you can’t buy it with those things. That’s what it’s talking about. Read all the rest of it! Study the Proverbs on your knees. What do I mean by that? Obviously, you can’t do it all at once! You open your Bible to the book of Proverbs and you start reading and praying and studying; ask God, ‘Help me to understand. Help me to put this together.’

You don’t have to be there with your eyes closed. A lot of people think the way you pray is point your hand like this upward to heaven and you close your eyes and you mutter. No! Right while you’re reading it you can pray. Ask for understanding. It’s going to take time. This is a long-term project and if you need to, go back and do it again. Always come back and refresh your memory with it, because this is going to help you.

Verse 32: “And now, therefore, hearken unto me, O you children, for blessed are those who keep my ways.”

- Are you tired of the curses and all the penalties that come along from the addiction that you’re in?

- Are you tired of the self-deception and the lies that you’ve been telling yourself, that other people have been telling you?

- Are you tired of being depressed and having your mind all messed up because of these things?

Listen, v 33: “Hear instruction, and be wise, and do not refuse it.” Don’t say, ‘Oh well, it’s just some preacher!’ or ‘He’s some religious nut!’ Whatever!

Verse 34: “Blessed is the man who hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.” Anxiously anticipating how you can use the new Truth that you are coming across in the book of Proverbs.

Verse 35: “For whoever finds me finds life and shall obtain favor from the LORD.” God will bless you! Even in the letter of the Law, even in the society in general. Where did we start out? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word of God! Every human being will benefit from it.

Verse 36: “But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul... [you’re doing it to yourself!] …all who hate me. [can’t stand God, don’t want God, don’t want the Bible, get rid of it, it’s too restrictive] …love death.” You think about that!

Let’s just do this. Why don’t you do a survey of all the famous rock stars who are drug addicts and great abominable sinners in most cases. Most of their music is made to destroy your mind and get you to give into all these various addictions that we’ve been talking about.

As David Kupelian brought out in his book The Marketing of Evil, one of the first songs that came along that started people into thinking along promiscuous lines and then one step leads to another is this: If You Can’t Be with the One You Love, Love the One You are With. That sounds innocent enough. ‘Oh that rhymes, isn’t that interesting?’ Set to a nice tune. But it programs the mind for promiscuity. “...all who hate me love death.” There you go, that’s it!

Proverbs 9:6: “Forsake the foolish and live…” If you’ve got friends that pull you down, they’re not your friends. If you’ve got friends that pressure you and intimidate you to go along with what they want to do, which is sinful—especially if you’re a teenager or a young person. You’ve got to go along and get along with everybody. You have been brainwashed in school in the herd mentality. You’ve got to have people around. You can’t do anything alone. That’s exactly what Satan wants to lead you astray.

It was brought about in an ad, which talks about friends and what they do, and peer pressure. Corporations are out to make you buy what they want. Here’s this one ad: This daughter comes up and says, ‘Dad, I need 80-bucks.’ He looks up from whatever he was doing and says, ‘What for?’ And she says, ‘To buy some jeans. Everybody has them.’ You gotta get along, go along; you’ve got to conform. Why do you have to conform to the herd? He says, ‘Let’s go look at it.’ They went and found it online. Now, I don’t know if he ordered it online, but I think the gist of it was that well, hey, he’s going to agree with this because he’s and investor and now he’s going to invest money in this company because they’re selling these ridiculous, stupid jeans at $80 a pop!

You can just repeat that over and over again! ‘Oh, I gotta have these shoes because everybody’s got ‘em. Oh, I gotta wear these baggy jeans, which the crotch is down to the knees and I’m walking on the bottom of the cuff.’ You’ve gotta have this hair hanging down and you’ve gotta have this black jacket, and you’ve gotta have these Nike shoes. All original thought—right? NO!

- You’ve been programmed!

- You’ve been had!

- You are addicted!

Verse 6: “Forsake the foolish and live; and go in the way of understanding. The one who rebukes a scorner gets shame to himself...” (vs 6-7). That’s what happens! When you say, ‘That’s wrong.’ Who are you to tell me what to do? You’re just an old fogy!

“…and the one who rebukes a wicked one gets himself an insult. Do not reprove a scorner, lest he hate you; give rebuke to a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise one, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.” (vs 7-9). Which are you? You have to make the choice! Are you willing to learn and change? Are you willing to come to yourself and repent and overcome these addictions; quit going along with the crowd?

Know this: Jesus said, ‘Broad is the way and wide is the gate that lead to death, and many are those who go in that gate.’

Know this: If the whole world does it, stop and think: Why should I? Maybe there are some things that they do that are good. But you have consider and make the choice. That’s what we’re talking about here in all these things.

Verse 16: “‘Whoever is thoughtless... [that is, does not have understanding] ...let him turn in here.’.... [come and sin with me] ...And to one lacking understanding, she says to him, ‘Stolen waters are sweet…’ (vs 16-17). Oh, this is going to be the best thing that ever happened to you, whether it’s:

- a woman

- illicit sex

- a man

- homosexuality—male or female

I mean, we’ve got to cover the whole thing—don’t we? It’s kind of like this cartoon that we had about the poor clerk who didn’t know what to say with the attack against ‘Merry Christmas’; should I say, ‘have a good winter season; happy holiday or winter solstice festival. And the woman in the cartoon said, ‘Merry Christmas.’

Verse 17: “‘Stolen waters are sweet… [this is good; never had anything like it] … and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ But he does not know that the dead are there; her guests are in the depths of the grave” (vs 17-18).

Not many people realize it, but during the Civil War they had hordes of women—prostitutes— following wherever the soldiers went. This program said that more people died of venereal disease than were killed in the Civil War in America. Amazing!

Proverbs 10:1 “The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father…” Here we have a contrast—right and wrong, good and evil, wise and foolish, diligent and sluggard, and so forth.

“…but a foolish son is grief to his mother” (v 1).

You go back and you read what God said to Eve, that ‘in sorrow shall you bring forth children.’ That’s not just the pain of childbearing. This sorrow here, ‘heaviness of mother,’ is because women have more of an emotional attachment to their children than the fathers, and they worry and they stew about their children, and it just becomes heaviness and depressing.

If your children are out there doing things you know they shouldn’t do, and you have no control over it and you don’t know where they are, and you don’t know who they’re with—it doesn’t matter what age they are, whether they still live in your home, or they have their own home, whatever: ‘Heaviness of his mother’ regardless of the age.

Verse 2: “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing…” That’s clear and easy to understand. Recently, a woman didn’t know it, but she got from the bank some counterfeit bills and she didn’t know they were counterfeit until she went in to buy something, and now they have a machine where you can put the 20s, 50s, 100s and just lay them on there and it will instantly tell whether it’s counterfeit or not.

So, she got $700 worth of these bills. I think they were $100 bills—all counterfeit—from the bank! She went to the bank and said, ‘Hey, I want my money, I got these from you.’ They said, ‘Sorry, we’re not responsible for it.’ So now, if you get a $100 from the bank, have your own little black pen and go over it.

Verse 2: “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing…” How many deaths and murders occur because of trying to split the spoil of illicit gain? How many are in jail now because of trying to get treasures? Look at how many corporate executives have been indicted here in the past three years for what? Back at the end of the 90s when they were bumping up all the oil and the gas and all the electric prices and everything; and they were buying and selling back and forth to each other to create a shortage in the market and all this sort of thing, they found out: Hey, they made billions of dollars. How about Enron—$11-billion, that was fraud. Those that sold their stock in time lucked out, but the others were left holding the bag.

Verse 2: “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivers from death.” In other words, do the right thing all the time. Don’t succumb to the temptation or the sin or the desire or the lust. You see how these change into simple to understand things. These are going to help program the mind, reprogram it what you need to do to get your mind squared around.

Verse 3: “The LORD will not allow the soul of the righteous to famish, but He thwarts the desire of the wicked.” True—isn’t it? Whenever you get involved in addiction, what happens? It’s going to cost you a lot of money and it’s going to cost a lot of other people a lot of money. And in the case of teenagers and parents, it’s going to cost the parents a lot of money. It’s going to take away your substance, especially if you get involved, you get arrested, you go to court, you go to jail—and the jails are full of these things! Taking away substance. Yes, it does!

Verse 4: “He who deals with a lazy hand becomes poor. [which tells you what you need to do] ...but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” Quit being lazy! Why are you poor? Because you won’t work! The city of New Orleans is a testament to the whole welfare system of the poor that depend on the handout and they don’t want to work! They had to get out and work and some of them say, ‘Hey, I’m glad I’m working. I’m not going back to New Orleans. I’m not going to be enslaved into that welfare system anymore.’ But it had to take Hurricane Katrina to get them out of there so they could see the difference—living proverb!

Verse 5: “He that gathers in summer is a wise son.”—because that’s when the crops ripen. You’re not going to go out there in the middle of winter and pick apples. You’re not going to go out there in the middle of the winter and dig up potatoes. You’re not going to go out there in the middle of the winter and find any fruit or anything you can eat.

Today, all you have to do is run down to supermarket, and we live in an artificial world! You don’t have to work to get your food. You don’t have to dig, you don’t have to plant, you don’t have sow, you don’t have to harvest—you don’t have to do any of those things—just walk down to the store if it’s close enough or get in your car and go down to the supermarket and VOILA! the world is there for you! Where does milk come from? Oh, from a carton, mommy!

I’ll tell you one story on Rachelle, she was about three years old when we were living out north of Hollister on Lover’s Lane. We were in the throws of a drought at that time. So, we’re coming back from church and here’s this big area where they had all the sprinklers going to irrigate for the crop. And we’re going along and she says, ‘Look, daddy, it’s raining!’ Because, in her three years she hadn’t seen any rain. She heard about it. So, she says, ‘Look, daddy, it’s raining!’

Notice the last half of this: right and wrong, good and evil: “…but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame” (v 5).

Today there are a lot of people who are hooked on drugs, or wasted out on marijuana. You will find in many of the building trades a lot of these guys don’t get up till noon. I know one man who’s having a house built and some of the guys he’s dealing with are so-called ‘recovering’ drug addicts. They don’t show up on time, so what does he do? He knows where they live, drives down there and sure enough, 10:30 in the morning the guy who’s suppose d to be out there working is still in bed!

You have the other extreme of those who are on methamphetamine they’re so high and hyper they get out there and do it as quickly as they can and they take shortcuts and they have sloppy workmanship. So here it is, right here, right in the book of Proverbs.

Verse 6: “Blessings are upon the head of the just, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked.” Why is there so much crime? Because they’re wicked! They’re not taught the way of God. Just think how much better it would be if the schools could teach the Ten Commandments? Or if the schools could sit down and teach out of the book of Proverbs? Give the children some consciousness of God so that they will have the understanding to know that they have to be responsible for what they do! and they’re going to be held accountable!

Most of the world is in the middle ground. They’re sitting there in the middle ground and they say to their kids: ‘Don’t get involved in pornography. I’ve got this online so you can’t get into pornography.’ And they’re sitting there reading a catalog from Victoria Secrets or the local paper which the ads for women’s wear are nearly pornographic. And the kid looks at that and says, ‘Huh? I’m not to watch pornography. What are you reading?’ Oh, well, this is just a catalog! So you see the things that you’re confronted with.

These things are intended then so you can get your mind reprogrammed in the right way with the Word of God!

All Scriptures from The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version by Fred R. Coulter

Scriptural References:

1. Matthew 4:3-4

2. Proverbs 8:13

3. Proverbs 7:1-3

4. Proverbs 3:3-4

5. Proverbs 4:18-23

6. Proverbs 5:8

7. James 1:13-16

8. Proverbs 5:20-23

9. Proverbs 6:20-28, 32-33

10. Proverbs 8:1-2, 5-11, 32-36

11. Proverbs 9:6-9, 16-18

12. Proverbs 10:1-6

Also referenced:
Books:

- A Harmony of the Gospels by Fred R. Coulter

- Bad Childhood, Good Life by Dr. Laura Schlessinger

- Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want you to Know About by Kevin Trudeau

- The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian

from: The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version—Appendix H: How Did Jesus Fulfill the Law and the Prophets

Sermon: Stinkin’ Thinkin’

FRC:bo
Transcribed: 12-20-09
Reformatted/Corrected: 9/2014

The Addicted Society V
Heal Your Body, Your Mind and Your Spirit

Fred R. Coulter

Believe it or not, here’s something we also need to discuss. On #4 I discussed some health things, and someone asked me if I would discuss some health things. I’ll try and do that because there are a lot of health things we need to do because of the way that the food supply is today, that we really need to take care of ourselves with a great deal of diligence.

Half of Americans use prescription drugs. In the case of an illness and you really need them, then that’s fine. But let me just suggest one book that you might get; I’m not suggesting throw away your prescription drugs, because you may need them. But what I’m suggesting is that you investigate and see. This is particularly true for anyone who has been addicted, that you do not make a substitution addiction for your illegal drug addiction, which is very easy to do.

Now, let me mention in order of severity from least to worst. A television addiction, a music addiction; you have to be very, very careful with music, too. Just to give you an example: I got the car washed the other day and it was about 8:50 in the morning and I’m sitting there sipping on a cup of coffee and guess what they have playing? The first hard rock of Elvis Presley. Banging away at 8:50 in the morning! I’m sitting there drinking coffee, trying to wake up, get ready for the day and all this sort of thing.

So, I asked the gal, ‘Could you please ask the manager if he could put some softer music on— it’s kind of nice to wake up to something pleasant.’ So, she went back and turned if off. I said, ‘Thank you, I do appreciate that.’ But, I’m sure she turned it up as soon as I went out to get the car. Here’s this other lady standing there and I said, ‘Boy, that’s sure nice to have it quiet. That sort of pounds into your head—doesn’t it?’ She said, ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ she pulled out her iPOD and said, ‘You’d be surprised what I have to keep me going all day long.’ So, she’s got her iPOD with all the rock music that she pounds into her head all day long. I just looked at her and I said, ‘That’s kind of sad.’ It is, that you have to have your life governed by someone else. So, TV addiction: you can turn off the switch. Music addiction: You can turn off the player.

When you get into prescription drugs then you have to decide how you’re going to take care of yourself. One book I would recommend is this— there’s a new edition of it—you’ve probably seen it advertised on television. The author is Kevin Trudeau and it is: Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know—very, very good. By the way, he says, don’t eat pork, don’t eat shrimp, don’t eat lobsters, and the best rest you can get is from Friday night to Saturday night, because of the cycle of the body and everything else. Maybe he’s a ‘closet Christian’—who knows!

Then you start getting into substance abuse, which then we can label cigarettes, then marijuana. The problem with marijuana is that lot of people who have been on harder drugs go back up the scale to marijuana because they say marijuana is not a drug. Well, all they’re doing is substituting a worse evil for what they consider a less evil. Then you go down the line and the next one would be cocaine. Worst than that is crack cocaine. Then you get into heroine and the worst of all is methamphetamines because of what they do. The substances that they use to make ‘meth’ are so absolutely deteriorating to the body.

Handout: Brain Can Bounce Back After Meth-users Quit. That’s an important thing. We won’t read through it, that’s an important thing because that means there is hope for the ‘meth’ addicts. Look at pg. 2 and look at what happens to people who get hooked on ‘meth.’ If this doesn’t backup what the Proverbs say: ‘In the end a dart goes through your liver.’ All of these drugs affect the liver. It’s very, very sad what happens.

What is worse—and this is important to understand for young kids; and this is why in the book The Marketing of Evil he says the solution for young people is home-schooling. Home-schooling with what they have online you can really do a good job. Actually, your children come out a whole lot better and they have many more job skills when they come to the job market, because they’ve learned how to think, they’ve learned how to apply themselves and so forth. The reason I mention that is because I heard an interview of a man who was a ‘meth’ addict, and someone gave it to him first when he eight-years-old!

It’s a shame that we live in such an evil society, that you have to tell your young children some of the hard facts of life that they may be confronted with. We are in such a society that it’s absolutely imperative that you do. At 24 he was finally able to quit, after many, many bouts with recovery; it is profound. ‘Meth’ makes you feel so good that you think ‘this is wonderful, this is the best stuff in the world.’ People take it so they can do more, stay up later, and all they’re doing is killing their bodies very quickly.

So, when you look at the pictures of what happens to people who become addicted to ‘meth’ it is absolutely incredible! That is sad. How much these people can recover that get hooked on that is really something. Then it gives some reports on all the different things about ‘meth’; clandestine laboratories and so forth.

Delores saw on the History Channel about ‘methamphetamine’ laboratories. They can use up to 300 different chemicals to make ‘meth.’ They can buy a lot of the stuff right off the grocery shelf and put it together. One of the ones they use is Drano. Now if you want to know what that does to your system, just put some down the sink, if you can have a clear, plastic sink to watch it work.

It is so absolutely devastating that now policemen that have to go in and raid ‘meth’ labs are suffering from the effects of the chemicals that are in those places. In the city of Hollister they have a policy, especially if it’s a mobile home, because a lot of them live in mobile homes and do the ‘meth’ there, they make them move the mobile home out and destroy it. That’s how severe it is.

Those who are hooked on it really need the help and the support and the encouragement and they need to also repair their health by supplements, vitamins, juices, liver cleanses and different things like that. Because if they don’t, that ‘meth’ in the liver is going to come out and hit them again, and when it does, if it’s just a little bit, then they become angst and cranky and hard to get along with. If it comes out real heavy then it can have more severe results. I tell you, it’s amazing!

Guess where the ‘meth’ capital of the world is? In America? No, it’s not San Bernadino. Lake Ellsinore? No! No place in California. ‘Meth’ capital of the United States? Franklin, Missouri! Virtually all the police there have swat team training, because you have to deal with it. It’s amazing!

Now, I’m glad we have it here [about the handout]. They have quite a few things here on the ‘bounce back’ level.

NAA levels didn’t bounce back either when abusers kicked their habit, researchers noted, with levels staying more or less the same years later. However, former methamphetamine users who have been off the drug for one to six months showed elevated CHO levels suggestive of neuron growth.

When you take these drugs you actually sever the connections between brain cells—these little fiber neuro growths.

While those who have been off the drug one to five years had CHO levels equal to those of a healthy controlled group.

So there is a recovery period, and they can recover. If you have the right kind of diet, the right kind of supplements and eating the right kind of food and probably drinking a lot of juices to purge your system, then the recovery level will probably be a whole lot easier. So, that’s hope!

In all of these situations there has to be a condemnation of the drug. There has to be a condemnation of the practice. But there also has to be hope for the addict that they can get out of it.

What I’m trying to do here is show how they can recover; how they reprogram their minds. They have to repent, then there has to be recovery and whatever support group they need, wherever they can get that, they need that. But, you can’t give yourself any fudge-factor! You’ve got to stick with it. They have to be very disciplined in it.

We’re going to spend all the time in the book of Proverbs, because the book of Proverbs is very important in getting the mind programmed the way it needs to. The book of Proverbs is very, very important for young people so that they can get the values of right and wrong, good and evil, set! One of the problems that you have in public schools today is that beginning very early they can’t teach them absolute moral values, because that would be akin to teaching religion in schools.

I’ve got an article here: Erasing of Christianity in America. That’s what they have done. We’re going to see another generation rising here that is going to overwhelm the so-called conservative movement. You can see this anywhere, anytime. Watch any sports event, especially college sports events. And when they show a shot of the audience and the students and everything there, just think of this: They’ve grown up in a public school system where there is no God. They’ve grown up in a public school system where everything is relative—meaning: If you have an opinion and an idea and it’s good for you, then it’s truth for you. What happens is that in that frame of mind where everything is relative, what you believe is true so you look to see things that will prove what you believe is true.

Whereas, those who know and understand the Bible, when they see it then they believe it, rather than believe it then see it. There’s a difference. And if you’ve watched anything of the confirmation hearings of Judge Alito and Roberts, you’ll see that’s exactly what they did. Those who were against them framed what they believe and then came after them to find it. That’s how they work, rather than saying, ‘What is Truth and let’s follow the Truth.’

One thing that’s going to help every addict is this, and also all young people: Not to scare them, not to give them fear, but to know that God is always there and that they can always cry out to God. They can always ask God for help.

This is quite a verse, Proverbs 15:3: “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” You can tie that in with the sermons that I did The Spirit of God, The Spirit of Man, The Seven Spirits of God.

Verse 4: “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life...” Do you see the contrast here? Wherever the Proverbs condemns and evil, it gives a way out— showing the right and the wrong. This is what addicts need. They need wholesome talking or speaking.

“…but perverseness in it crushes the spirit” (v 4). That’s quite something—isn’t it? Everyone who has been addicted to something has come to the point that you have blurred the standards enough that you don’t think it’s going to happen to you. ‘Oh well, I can handle this. I won’t get addicted.’ And guess what, BAM! it happens.

So, if you know anyone who has an addiction problem they need to overcome, encourage them and let them know, yes, it can be overcome! But they really need to grasp a hold of it themselves. When they come to that point then they can make progress.

Fear:

Let’s look at some things here concerning fear. Prov. 10 is a sudden shift in the book of Proverbs. Prov. 1-9 is all the preparation coming up to chapter 10. Here then we have the good/the evil, the right/the wrong, righteousness, wrong kind of fear/good kind of fear. So, the thing we’re going to look at is the two kinds of fear. Whenever someone is addicted they have fears, and they try and overcome the fears by denying the reality—that’s what happens.

Just like how many people still smoke today but know that it causes cancer. Yet, you see them smoke. They don’t think it’s going to come upon them, or they think, ‘Well, if I do this or I do that or if I do the other thing, then it won’t come upon me.’

But here is a truism in life that everyone needs to understand, Proverbs 10:24: “The fears of the wicked shall come upon him…” Just like Job said, ‘That which I greatly feared has come upon me.’ God says to the wicked that He will bring the fear upon them.

“…but…” (v 24). Now you see the complete opposite; this is why the Proverbs are so good, because what is so important for any addict to overcome an addiction is to begin to think in absolutes:

- right/wrong

- good/evil

- resist sin

- resist temptation

- yield to God.

Reprogram your mind with these Proverbs. Read and study them over and over again.

“…the desire of the righteous shall be granted” (v 24). If you want good things to happen, you have to be righteous with God—even in the letter of the Law. Since God is not calling people in the world—the calling to salvation is a special calling—God expects everyone in the world to live by the letter of His laws and commandments. They are blessed if they do.

The whole thing that the Church of God has, unfortunately—in condemning sin and condemning the world—not realized how God will deal with is those in the letter of the Law if they obey Him. That’s why you see many programs that work. Many people who follow the letter of the Law. We have a lot of letter of the Law Christians—don’t we? They take some of the things of Christianity and they have certain amount of blessings because of it, though they may not necessarily be called to salvation. So, this is important to realize. You can’t say, ‘Unless you’re converted there’s no hope.’ There’s got to be some hope even in this physical life. Then, if they’re successful in that, then maybe God can begin to call them and deal with them.

That’s why people who confess their sins to God, not knowing anything about salvation, if they confess their sins and repent of them, God will forgive them to the letter of the Law. He will! That’s important to understand. So, that people who are addicts can have hope. We don’t want to come along and say, ‘You’re an addict. Unless you’re converted you’re going o hell and burn,’ because that’ll never work!

Good Fear:

All right, let’s look at some good fear. You take these pictures of these poor people who were addicted to ‘meth,’ v 27: “The fear of the LORD prolongs days...” They can change. They can turn around. They can cleanse their bodies and cleanse their minds. Reprogram their minds with the Proverbs and the Word of God.

“…but the expectation of the wicked shall perish” (v 27). That’s why the Proverbs are good. They show this contrast. This is easy for them to understand. Those who have been addicted need things that are easy to understand, that are easy to remember.

Proverbs 14:2: “He that walks in his uprightness fears the LORD…” That is keeping the commandments of God, which are righteous; the laws of God, which are righteous.

“…but he who is perverse in his ways despises Him” (v 2). Everyone that comes out of it. They’re going to have to be dealing with friends that are fellow-addicts. When they come out of it, at first, they’re going to be ridiculed. ‘Oh, what are you trying to do?’ They’re going to be ridiculed. So, don’t worry about people not caring for you. Maybe some of the friends that you’ve had in the past, that you considered friends, are really not friends because they got you addicted. And if they despise you when you’re coming out of it, walk away and leave them!

Verse 16: “A wise man fears and departs from evil...” That’s a good kind of fear. Fear of God, fear of evil—and with addictions you’ve got to stay away from it. You’ve got to get totally out of it. If necessary, you have to move out of the area that you are in. Sometimes, in many cases, they have to do that, because there’s just so much there.

“…but the fool rages, and is confident” (v 16). Quite a contrast—isn’t it?

Verse 26: “In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence…” That is anyone who has been hooked on any kind of drugs, that’s what they need, confidence! This fear of God then is going to give them the confidence that God will hear them! God will help them! As long as they are using the way of God and the Proverbs of God to get their minds reoriented and reconnected and reprogrammed, God is going to hear them.

“…and His children shall have a place of refuge. The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death” (vs 26-27).

- give yourself a space

- give yourself a cushion

- set some rules for yourself that:

- you won’t do this

- you won’t do that

- you won’t do the other thing

and

- you will do this

- you will do that

- you will do the other thing

Whatever the addiction is, what is the temptation leading up to it? How quickly can you recognize it and stop it? Each one of us are responsible for ourselves, what goes in our minds, what goes in our bodies, etc., etc. God gave that responsibility to us. So, if we have the fear of God to depart from evil; the snares of death.

I look back on my childhood and my teen life and my early adult life and I can see that there were certain key turning points where I had to make a decision. What was right? What was wrong? What was I going to do? I can also look back and see that, yes, I’m convinced that God had a hand in giving me the right choice. That’s the frame of mind that we need. This is something that needs to be.

You’re going to have a lot of temptations if you’ve been hooked. You’re going to have times when you’re going to stumble and fail. Do not get discouraged. Remember this: As long as there is life, there is hope! Remember that! Here’s what you do. You’re probably, as well as all of us, because we sin, you’re going to have to confess your sins daily. You’re going to have ask for God’s mercy daily. That’s an important thing. I know I do! One of the most important things in relying on God is this: Understand that you are not adequate yourself! I’m not adequate myself for anything. In teaching and preaching the Word of God, if I try and do it on my own because I’m some big thing, then sure enough I’m going to fall right on my face.

We all need mercy and Truth all the time, but here’s what it does, here is the key. This is the program on getting your mind cleansed, purged, as well as taking care of your physical body with the things you need to do.

Proverbs 16:6 “By mercy and Truth iniquity is purged…” That’s how it’s going to be wiped out of your mind. Those who are addicted to pornography, you have to have your mind cleansed. You’ve got to stay away from it. You can’t do it. You can’t watch it. You’ve got to count it the most evil thing in the world. Just like a person addicted to a hard substance. You’ve got to have mercy and Truth. Repentance to God, mercy and forgiveness for your sins and replace it with Truth. What is the Truth?

- the Word of God

- the laws of God

- the commandments of God

- the teachings of Jesus Christ

“…and by the fear of the LORD men turn away from evil.” Again, notice how much the fear of God is important! As I mentioned before, the fear of God restores your conscience! When you get into compromising, everything is relative, nothing is right, nothing is wrong, whatever you believe if you think it’s good, it’s good; if you think it’s bad, it’s bad; you have to completely reorient your mind. So, this is how you do it. You must develop a conscience, which then is going to be the automatic trigger of what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s good, what’s evil. This is going to give you a barrier and a buffer so that you are not going to be taken down by temptations. That’s why when you read in 1-Cor. 6, what is the solution for sex sins? What does Paul say? Flee fornication! Why? Because you can’t dabble in it, because if you dabble in it, you’re going to go down! You’ve got to get away from it. This is the same thing here.

Verse 7: “When a man’s ways please the LORD…” It’s possible to please the Lord. Is not God pleased whenever anyone is seeking Him? Yes, indeed!

“…He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” That’s what you need to rely on, especially when you start overcoming, especially when you are having the problems of temptation with the addiction coming along. But give yourself more and more space from being in situations where you’re going to be tempted and taken down.

Wisdom and Foolishness:

Let’s look at some other things. Let’s look at the wise and the foolish, because this is important to do. Just realize this: Part of repentance and part of admitting what is wrong is to really say, ‘Oh, God, I have been foolish and dumb and ignorant.’ So, let’s look at some things comparing wisdom and foolishness and so forth.

Proverbs 10:8: “The wise in heart will receive commandments…” Instead of having resistance toward the commandments of God, which is foolish, then you’re going to be wise. You will receive them. You’ll receive the Word of God. You’ll receive instruction from those who are trying to help you.

“…but a prating fool shall fall” (v 8). In other words, if you don’t hear, you don’t listen, you’re still going to fall.

Verse 9: “He who walks uprightly walks surely: but he who perverts his ways shall be known.” There’s no way around it.

Here’s another thing that’s important to realize: When people are coming off addictions, when they make a little progress, they think, Boy! They’ve really done it! Like one man I know of. He got so addicted that he wouldn’t work. He had his own business, he could really do great, he could make fantastic amounts of money, but he got so wasted down on drugs and pot that he wouldn’t work. It was hard to get through to him. Finally, I got through to him and he started to go back to work. But then he slipped back. I said, ‘Well, when are you going to go to work?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve been to work, yesterday.’ I said, ‘You’ve got to do it every day.’ One day is fine, but the next day is another day.

Here’s the key, because it’s going to be hard, as an addict you’re used to giving in to the worst and not making yourself do anything. It’s important for this:

Proverbs 11:27: “He that diligently seeks good seeks favor…”

- if you want God to bless you, be diligent

- if you want God to help you, you do your part

- if you want to get your mind reoriented— which is possible—and reprogrammed, and your brain reconnected the way it should be, be diligent!

Take every day, make sure that every day you start out:

- with the determination

- with the diligence

- with the guarding of your mind

to not succumb to any temptations! You’ve got to talk with yourself. You’ve got to tell yourself: Today’s a new day. I made it through yesterday.

- What am I going to do today?

- Am I going to fear God?

- Am I going to keep His commandments?

- Am I going to resist temptation?

- What am I going to do when I’m confronted with some of my old friends?

- How am I going to handle it?

- you’ve got to prepare yourself for it

- you’ve got to think ahead about it

That’s what it is here, v 27: “He who diligently seeks good seeks favor; but he who seeks mischief, it shall come to him.” Always does!

Verse 29: “He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind, and the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise” (vs 29-30). So, let it all be a tree of life, let it heal you! You have to heal your body, your mind and your spirit. All of that can be healed. That’s all a part of overcoming and changing.

We’ve talked about a tree of life, here it talks about a well of life, Proverbs 10:11: “The mouth of a righteous one is a well of life…”—to impart and teach knowledge, and that’s what the Proverbs is all about, to give you that.

“…but violence covers the mouth of the wicked. Hatred stirs up strifes, but love covers all sins” (vs 11-12). That’s what we are dealing with here. In starting out to overcome the addictions, starting out to change the past habit patterns, addiction patterns, thought patterns, and yes, sleep patterns, eating patterns—the addict’s life is totally upside down!

What we are teaching is the love of God. That’s what John said, ‘For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome.’ What we are trying to do and what you are trying to do is, through the forgiveness of God you are covering the sins and you are overcoming the past! As you overcome the past you’re coving sins. If you’re dealing with anyone who has been an addict, continually encourage them. You can warn them, but don’t live in the past! You must take today, every day. That’s one thing that athletes have; they have that mindset that you take today. They say, ‘One game at a time.’

What is it that a good athlete is able to do, which every recovering addict needs to learn: If you make a mistake, learn from it and blot it out! In the case of overcoming addictions and things like that, repent to God and have Him blot it out and overcome it. He’ll give you the strength to do it. All of these things are building blocks of recovery. They’re all right there in the Word of God.

Now, we’ll look at some of the fools, and everyone who has been involved in drug addiction has some sort of foolishness. Foolish to get into it.

Verse 21: “The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of wisdom.” Quite a Proverb! Think about that! Think about all the situations where people do foolish things and die— especially teenagers! And especially when you get away from your parents for the first time and you are on your own and you know that you can do things that your parents will probably never find out about, and yea, all of us as teenagers did that! I mean, to say you didn’t, then boy! show me; you’re a perfect person! But know, as we started out, the eyes of the Lord are everywhere beholding the good and the evil! So, if you know, God knows!

Now, to show you an example of something stupid—and we all do stupid things, we all do foolish things. When I was about 13 or 14 we were blasting off firecrackers for the 4th of July and we have some of these cherry-bombs. You know what cherry-bombs are—don’t you? They’re about and inch and a quarter long, somewhere around there, and they’re about half-inch thick and they’re round and they have a fuse in it. We were lighting off these cherry-bombs.

So I did something very stupid! And God saved me from it, but it was stupid! I wondered what it would be like if I held it in my hand and let it go off? So I did! BAM! Whoooo, did that hurt! All my fingers and everything was there, and I said, ‘That was stupid, that was dumb!’ If my parents would have been there and I would tried to do it, they would have said, ‘Don’t do that!’ But they weren’t there. So, in my foolish wisdom I decided I’ll see how it is.

Unfortunately, that’s how a lot of people get hooked on drugs—try it, you’ll like it, it’s good; it’ll made you cool. And then BAM! You look at the pictures of these poor people who have been on drugs—and notice it didn’t take very long if you look at the timeframe—I wonder what they thought if they came to themselves and looked in the mirror and then looked at a picture of themselves before and asked: What have I done? Is this not dumb? Is this not foolish?

Don’t let yourself get involved in stupid and foolish things when you’re overcoming!

(go to the next track)

Proverbs 12—here’s the deceitfulness of it. All addictions are deceitful, and all addictions appeal to the lower based lusts of human beings. That you’re going to get something great and special out this. But remember this:

Proverbs 12:15: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes...” If these things come along and they look good, they sound good, they appear good and pressure is put upon you, think about what’s happening! Don’t take the explanation that this is good or this is cool. ‘Well, everybody does it.’ Know this for sure: If everybody does it, it’s got to be wrong! Except breathing! That’s the peer pressure that comes along. That’s why God gives so many warnings: Don’t follow the crowd.

Here it is, the fool one way and the one who is wise: “...but he who listens to advice is wise.” So, what you’re trying to do in overcoming an addiction is to rec over from foolishness by using wisdom.

That’s what the whole book of Proverbs is; that’s what the Word of God is, and that’s what those who are trying to help you get across to you. So listen! Listen!

Verse 16: “A fool’s wrath is presently known: but a prudent man covers shame.” This is what we’re trying to do. We are dealing with a society out there that is so addicted, so hooked on so many things. I fear for the generation that is coming up now, because there is now a complete generation coming out that has had no training in God, no understanding of the Bible, and are now being nurtured on Harry Potter and occultism.

In the book Occult Holiday or God’s Holy Days—Which? I talk about Hinduism—one practice of Hinduism is Deepak Chopra; who wrote in his book How To Know God the long and the short of knowing God is this: Know yourself and when you look in the mirror you see God because God is in you and you are God.

In Hinduism there is what is called the left-hand way to God. Here’s the kind of reasoning that they use: Since God is everywhere—they believe in a pantheistic god: god is in the wall, god is in the ceiling, god is in everything, every person, god is also in the evil and corrupt.

Since that is the premise that they operate on, therefore, the left-hand way to God is to go do the evil and the base things, even sleeping in cemeteries with corpses that are rotting. This is where you get the body-piercing, the tongue-splitting, the tattooing and these shows that are on television now; reality shows! They are base. They are evil. They are teaching people to destroy their consciences and fear by doing things that normal people would not do. What that is doing is presenting the Hindu of the way of the left-hand way to God.

In other words, if you can find God through good, because He’s in good, you can also find God through evil because He’s in the evil. You talk about perverted thinking! Here Deepak Chopra said, ‘Well, it’s been a tradition for thousands of years so it must work.’ What are people going to believe? All of those that get into it have justification—don’t they? That’s e xactly what we’re talking about.

Here’s what they’re doing in that, Proverbs 14:9 “Fools laugh at sin…” That’s what’s going to happen, especially for teenagers and young people. When you have to go against the crowd. When you have to go against those who have no morals. They’re going to mock it! If you say ‘no, I’m not going to do that because I’m not going to get involved in sex, I’m going to save myself until I marry.’ You got to be kidding! Everybody does it! They’ll mock at you. Don’t let that bother you. Stand up and walk away. It can be the same thing with drugs. ‘Oh, let’s go to this party.’ And by the way, most parties and most dancing today is designed to break down the moral barriers that you have. If you’ve ever wondered why they have these flashing lights—strobe lights—it hypnotizes people! It gets them in the mood. It gets them into going along with everything that’s going on. Then they add to it.

People have given me a lot of books. I have a whole stack of books. Someone just sent me something on rock music and what it does with the strobe lights and everything like this, and how the beat of the music is designed to break down the moral barriers of those who participate in it. Some people may say, ‘Ahhhhhh, how can that be?’ I’ll just tell you this: If that is not so, then you tell me what causes all of the sin among young people today, if you eliminate that. Rock concerts, by the way, have music that is not designed to listen to. I mean, you hear it, but it is so powerful and they turn up the amps so high and the beat is so absolutely overwhelming that it is designed to go through your body. The sound actually goes through your body. I wonder if that has to do with the morals and everything like that.

You’ve all experienced this just a little bit when someone goes down the street with the windows rolled down and he’s got this big boom box on and he’s got his 200 watt thing in the backseat and he’s driving down the street, shaking his head to the beat of it. It comes down the street BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! And as he’s going down the street the houses vibrate, your room vibrates! And here, he may be 100 feet away going down the street! Think of what that’s doing to the mind and to the body! Think of what it’s going to take to get away from that kind of behavior so you can return to normal. That’s really something!

Verse 9: “Fools laugh at sin, but among the righteous there is favor.”

Verse 12—key verse, first one to memorize when you come into the knowledge of the Truth: “There is a way which seems right unto a man...” That’s what we have today: everyone is right, everyone has an opinion, everyone knows how to solve the problems of the world. They won’t do it God’s way.

“...but the end thereof is the way of death” (v 12). The very first thing! So, whatever you do check it out with the Word of God.

Very important! Here’s the very first thing that’s most important to do: Stop lying to yourself! That’s very important from this point of view: The way that you compromise yourself to sin is to lie to yourself that it’s okay! Stop lying to yourself! And you’re also going to have to apply some self-correction. Let’s look at some Proverbs here. When you first start out, you’re on a difficult path.

Proverbs 15:9: “The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the LORD, but He loves him who pursues righteousness… [God loves those who follow after righteousness] …There is grievous correction…” (vs 9-10). It’s going to be hard.

What about those who are hooked on alcohol so bad that they have the shakes, and they just can’t get along without a drink. They have these bad dreams where a lot of them visualize that they’re being, in many cases, attacked by things and snakes and all this sort of thing, that their minds are just so out of it. To stop that, ‘I just got to have a drink’ when they get the shakes so bad. That happens with heroin! That happens with cocaine! That happens with ‘meth’! That happens with alcohol! The changing of that is grievous—you really need help when you’re at that point. You need other people to help you, and you’ve got to do the things to not only build up your resistance health-wise, but set your resolve.

Verse 10: “There is grievous correction for him who forsakes the way… [of God] …and he who hates reproof shall die” (v 10). In many cases, you’re up against a point: You’re either going to live or you’re going to die.

Here’s what’s important, v 31: “The ear that hearkens to the reproof of life…”—which is what it is. It’s correction! People who want to continue in sin don’t like correction. They just don’t like it!

“…life shall remain among the wise. He who refuses instruction despises his own soul, but he who hearkens to reproof gains understanding” (vs 31-32). What you need to do is go through the book of Proverbs and maybe through the whole Bible

Verse 33: “The fear of the LORD... [is restoring the conscience] …is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility” (vs 31-33). That’s all involved in repenting, and so forth.

Proverbs 12:1: “Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge…” What you have to do, you have to come from the point of resisting correction; then hating evil, then you have to come to the point of loving reproof and correction and then loving instruction. What you need is the saving knowledge to overcome an addiction.

“…but he who hates correction is stupid” (v 1).

Verse 5: “The thoughts of the righteous are right…” That’s what you need to come to, the righteousness of God. It’s going to give you:

- good thinking

- clear thinking

- decision making

- being able to resist sin and resist those things

“…the counsels of the wicked are deceit” (v 5). You can go all the way back to Gen. 3 and the Garden of Eden.

Verses 17: “He who speaks truth shows forth righteousness, but a false witness deceit. There are those who speak like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise heals.” In other words, what he’s saying here: To face the truth of an addiction is difficult, and the first correction that comes along is like you’re being stabbed! You don’t like it.

Verse 19: “The lips of truth shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment. Deceit is in the heart of those who imagine evil…” (vs 19-20). This is what you’re going to have to do, because remember what it says there in Jer. 17:9—The heart is deceitful above all things!

In order to quit deceiving yourself, you’ve got to admit that you’ve been lying to yourself. And you’ve got admit and forsake all of your faults, deceitful justifications for doing what you’re doing. And then you have to replace that with Truth. You have to replace that with righteousness. It’s really quite and exercise for you to overcome.

“…but to counselors of peace there is joy. There shall no harm befall the righteous, but the wicked shall be filled with trouble” (vs 20-21). You think about what happens to all of those who are addicts:

- How many times do they get arrested?

- How many times do they go to jail?

- How many times do they post bail?

- How many times do they go to rehab?

All of that’s mischief and difficulty and the rehab, hopefully, will help. But for some people, the only way to get them off of it, is to do some jail time. However, even in jail you have to be careful, because they can smuggle drugs in there. It still gets down to your own decision.

How to Overcome:

Verse 22—let’s understand that this is important: “Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD… [quit lying to yourself, lying to others]… but those who deal truly are His delight.” That’s what God wants you to do—His delight.

Let’s see the program on how to do it. God gives the ways. God shows how. And this is important Proverbs 16:1: “The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, are from the LORD.” If you want to get your heart squared around, get your mind squared around, be able to overcome an addiction, you’ve got to have the preparations from God, which is from His Word!

Verse 2: “All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirits.” God knows. You can trust Him all the time for everything. • He’s merciful

- He’s kind

- He’s righteous

- He wants you to overcome

- He wants you to change

- He wants you to kick the habit

You’ve got to do this, v 3: “Commit your works unto the LORD... [That’s how to do it. The right works develop right thoughts.] …and your thoughts shall be established.” Because if you’re addicted to something, your thoughts are all helter-skelter, they’re not established.

- they’ve got to be established in Truth

- they’ve got to be established in righteousness

- they’ve got to be established in discipline

All of that amounts to what you’re doing is building character! That you can have the strength to say, ‘no!’ You can have the strength to resist! What will happen, the further and further space you give between yourself and your addiction, the more you’re going to understand this. The more that you apply the Proverbs in your life and go through and learn them, think about them and pray about them: study the Proverbs on your knees in a prayerful attitude before God. Let that be correction to you directly from God with His Spirit, which He will do! It’s going to take time to do it. Just take it as a project to go through.

Diligence & Discipline:

Let’s look at diligence, because all of this is going to take discipline. Discipline is a synonym for diligence.

Proverbs 12:24: “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule…” Let’s apply this in several ways:

- you have to rule over yourself

- you have to rule over your thoughts

- you have to rule over your lusts and your temptation

- you have to rule over sin

Remember what God told Cain when he brought the wrong kind of offering, God said, ‘Sin lies at the door, but you shall rule over it.’ Cain wanted to do it his way instead of God’s way. So, if you’re going to overcome: “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule…”

In going through these Proverbs and in setting out a course of overcoming addiction for yourself, you have to be diligent in it. Make yourself a list. Give yourself reminders. Set yourself out a pattern to do so, by using the different things that we have covered here and diligently do it. Then you will rule over yourself. When you rule over yourself, what’s going to happen?

- You’re going to be reliable on the job!
No more calling in sick when you’re not sick, but you’re on drugs.

- You’re going to work better at work!.

- You’re going to work better at home.

- You’re going to treat people better,

because you’re off this addiction, whatever it may be

- You’re going to have a clearer conscience,

because you’re fearing God and developing a conscience

But you have to do it diligently! “…but the lazy shall be under tribute” (v 24). What is the biggest tribute that drug addicts are under? Paying for the drugs! They’re under tribute because they lose their jobs, they lose their families, they lose their children—all of those things happen. They follow one right after the other. So, you’ve got to be diligent in it.

They’re going to be times when you’re depressed. Everyone coming out of any kind of addiction is going to be depressed. Why? Because they haven’t used their minds correctly!

Verse 25: “Heaviness in the heart of man weighs it down... [That’s a way of saying depression. Ever been depressed? Yes!] …but a good word makes it glad.” How do you get out of depression? You pray! You study! You get the words of God! Let them be in your heart and in your mind, and that will lift you up!

What does Paul say? Philip. 4 is what you need to do in time of depression. Let’s add to this to this also—let’s add one more addiction. We won’t really say it’s an addiction but a bad fault—people who worry all the time that everything is going to go bad, and wonder about how the bad things are going to happen. Sooner or later they do happen—don’t they? The way to get out of that kind of thinking, worrying and the way to get out of depression is to set your thoughts aright. Here we have it:

Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything…” If you’re anxious or have anxiety or you’re worrying; what’s the old saying? A worrywart! If you’re a worrywart, stop worrying. Ask yourself this: How many of your fears and worry actually took place? You’ll probably find not very many!

“...but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God in everything.” Whatever it is. God:

- help me out of this

- help me to overcome this

- give me mercy and grace

- forgive me my sins

And then begin focusing on the right things.

Verse 7: “And the peace of God…” This is what needs to happen. You need to have the peace of God, the peace of mind, because all of those who are depressed do not have peace of mind. All of those who are worrywarts do not have peace of mind. You have to ask for the peace of God, which comes from God. Wiping out of the sins, cleansing of the heart, cleansing of the mind, all of those together.

“…which surpasses all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true... [that’s what to think on] …whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things… [that’s how you’re able to do it] Whatever things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, you do also; and the God of peace shall be with you” (vs 7-9).

That’s how to get your mind on that. And this is what’s so important in diligently keeping your heart and your mind and your soul. Because if you do that, God promises you success.

Stop and think for a minute: Every one of these men who teach successful living. I’ve been to some of Zig Zieglar’s things years ago. What does he do? He goes right back to the Word of God— YEP! He says without God, without love and without Truth you can’t be successful. He helps a lot of people succeed, and one of things He teaches is that you have to be diligent! That’s the key in overcoming.

Proverbs 13:4: “The soul of the sluggard desires and has nothing…” I don’t know what the circumstances are, so I’m not judging the heart. There’s a homeless man that I walked past him and I thought, Fred, you’re going over here to the hotel, it’s warm, it’s comfortable, and you’re going to have a nice bed to sleep in. I turned around and gave him whatever money I had in my pocket. I think it was $20-25, whatever. He was thankful to get it. Then I asked him, ‘Do you have any place to take a shower.’ Oh, yeah, I take a shower once a week. He named the place where he goes.

Here he is, everything he had in his life was in this little cart in a couple of plastic bags, and he’s wrapped with a plastic hood over his head to try and keep the cold out. I said, ‘How long have you been homeless?’ Twenty-two years! That blew me away! Though I felt sorry for him, I had to think of this: In 22-years surely he could have come to a condition, if he would have applied himself just a eeny-teeny bit to get out of that situation. And I think that personifies this Proverb 13

Verse 4: “The soul of the sluggard desires and has nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be abundantly gratified.” That means to receive the goodness of everything. That means you’re going to have the riches of everything.

Verse 5: “The righteous hate lying…” That’s what you need to do to quit lying to yourself.

Proverbs 15:19 tells us that a lot of the troubles we have in life are our own difficulties. With the help of God and with the help of the Word of God, and with the help of others you can come out of it! Proverbs 15:19: “The way of the sluggard is like a hedge of thorns…” Nothing but trouble in your life everywhere you turn. Nothing works out right. All kinds of problems. All kinds of difficulties.

Notice the contrast: “…but the way of the righteous is made plain” (v 19).

- You can see your way through it!

- You can overcome it!

- You can change!

I have gone through this series step-by-step with all these Proverbs to give you a pattern that now you can take that and you can use this to study:

- sit down and write out what you need to do

- sit down and think out what you need to overcome

- list your weaknesses and then give yourself a program:

- how do I overcome weaknesses

- how do I overcome temptations

- use the Proverbs, which will give you the answer

Proverbs 13:12: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” God always gives you hope. He will give it to you. It is there. You have to rely on it, but you have to be diligent to secure it.

“…but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life” (v 12). When you receive that hope of overcoming, it’s going to be like a tree of life!

- to restore your mind

- to restore your body

- to restore your heart

- to restore your spirit

- to bring you back to a semblance of normalcy in your physical life

And when you do that, now you are ready to begin seeking the spiritual things of God to help you with spiritual growth and change, because the hope that God gives is eternal life. Of course, that’s the next step.

I hope with this series that we have done on the addicted society helps define the problem, look at it realistically and gives you some things that you can do to help overcome!

All Scriptures from The Holy Bible in Its Original Order, A Faithful Version by Fred R. Coulter

Scriptural References:

1. Proverbs 15:3-4

2. Proverbs 10: 24, 27

3. Proverbs 14:2, 16, 26-27

4. Proverbs 16:6-7

5. Proverbs 10:8-9

6. Proverbs 11:27, 29-30

7. Proverbs 10:11-12, 21

8. Proverbs 12:15-16

9. Proverbs 14:9, 12

10. Proverbs 15:9-10, 31-33

11. Proverbs12:1, 5, 17-22

12. Proverbs 16:1-3

13. Proverbs 12:24-25

14. Philippians 4:6-9

15. Proverbs 13:4-5

16. Proverbs 15:19

17. Proverbs 13:12

Scriptures referenced, not quoted:

- 1 Corinthians 6

- Genesis 3

- Jeremiah 17:9

Also referenced:
Books:

- Natural Cures—”They” Don’t Want You to Know by Kevin Trudeau

- Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian

- Occult Holidays or God’s Holy Days—Which? by Fred R. Coulter

- How to Know God by Deepak Chopra

Article: Erasing of Christianity in America
by Jon Christian Ryter

Sermon: The Spirit of God, The Spirit of Man, Seven Sprits of God #s 1-2

FRC: bo
Transcribed: 12-20-09
Reformatted/Corrected: 9/2014

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