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[Silence] Bless us. [MUSIC PLAYING] He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high God,

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♪ Of the most high God ♪ ♪ He that dwelleth in the secret place ♪ ♪ Of the most high God ♪ ♪ He that dwelleth in the secret place ♪

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♪ In the secret place of the most high God ♪ ♪ Of the most high God ♪ ♪ He that dwelleth in the secret place ♪ ♪ Of the most high God ♪

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[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [ Music ] [ Singing ]

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♪ He that dwelleth ♪ ♪ He that dwelleth in the secret place ♪ ♪ Of the most high God ♪ ♪ Of the most high God ♪

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♪ He that dwelleth in the secret place ♪ ♪ The secret place of the force ♪ ♪ I've found ♪ ♪ Where the man is free ♪

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♪ Now that I might be free ♪ [Music] ♪ The hope and the light ♪ ♪ The light of the world ♪

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♪ He that, he that ♪ ♪ Shall live in the secret place ♪ Of the lost I've found, of the lost I've found Be that word and fill the secret place

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Of the road I've found [Music] ♪ Secret place ♪ ♪ On the walls I know ♪

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♪ On the walls I know ♪ ♪ See that well within ♪ ♪ The secret place ♪ ♪ On the walls I know ♪

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♪ I know ♪ ♪ He that dwelleth in the secret place ♪ ♪ Of the most high God ♪ ♪ Of the most high God ♪

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♪ He that dwelleth in the secret place ♪ ♪ The great red hills of the North ♪ ♪ I've come ♪ (dramatic music)

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(dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) [MUSIC]

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[ Music ] >> Amen. This message is one that I shared with our National Congress and I've been asked to share it with you.

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Lift up this word from Paul's letter to the Colossians, the second chapter of the fourth verse, just a portion of that verse.

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It reads, I say this in order that no one may delude you with beguiling speech.

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The subject, combating sublineal messages. Paul's heart's desire for the Colossian Christians is that they would not be deceived, but that they would possess authentic faith.

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He does not want them to be deluded. He does not want them to be deceived. by that which looks like what it is not. He does not want them to be victimized by false claims.

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In his warning, the apostle alludes to how the Colossian Christians may suffer from delusions. It is through beguiling speech. It is through deceptive communication. He is saying to them, "Don't be hoodwinked.

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Don't be robbed of the real thing by accepting a cheap substitute. Be on guard so you will not be subject to the charms of diabolical evil forces. The church in Colossae is troubled by an insidious heresy known as Gnosticism. They need to recognize it and be prepared to fight it.

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This is the task of every person who is a disciple of Jesus Christ. We must be prepared to combat sublineal messages. Some messages often come to us in sweet-sounding tunes. The tunes sound very pleasant and delightful to the ears, but they often convey some hidden

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messages. I remember a concert of Lionel Hampton and his band when I was a teenager. The song "Hey Bobby Rebop" was very popular. "Hey Bobby Rebop, Hey Bobby Rebop, Hey Bobby Rebop, Hey Bobby Rebop, Yes your daddy knows."

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I never knew what all that meant, but the tune sounded good. And then after singing that several times, they would put in this stanza, "Of all the fishes in the sea, I'd rather be a bass. I'd climb up on those tall seaweeds and slide down on my hands and knees.

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Now there is a subliminal message in there somewhere hidden. The listener is tempted to become a captive of beguiling speech. Subliminal messages are dangerous because they threaten the wholesome development of human personality. The main task of the church is to develop Christ-like persons, to develop persons who think like Jesus Christ, who act like Jesus Christ.

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This is our task. Now the psychologists tell us that the human personality is made up of the id, which is the subconscious, the ego, which is the conscious, and the super ego, which is the conscience, which has to do with judgment. And the whole person,

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that person who experiences healing wholeness is one who has all of these rightly related. Paul is saying, "Don't be misled. "Don't be subdued by sublineal messages."

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I say this in order not to delude you, but that you may really know how you should conduct yourself in the midst of a secular society.

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Now, the enemies of the Christian faith often come from underground, and they gain entrance through the subconscious like a subterranean stream gathering momentum as it flows. So it passes from the conscious to the subconscious and there it remains. There are a lot of things that come into our lives through the conscious and then it somehow

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goes into the subconscious down underneath. And some things we've forgotten about. And someone asked us about it and we pause and we finally say, "Well, I don't remember and then maybe a day or two later you're able to remember it, you're able to get it from down underneath that

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in the subconscious and bring it up into our consciousness. And we are so constructed that someone has said that we're like an iceberg and that about eight-tenths of the iceberg is underwater. So we only get to see just two-tenths of the person when he's smiling and all that.

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that you don't really know what's underneath. And really what Paul is talking about is how things come into our lives from outside our consciousness and how they affect us and how they direct us and how they influence us. This is what he's saying in another experience as he writes to Christians in Rome.

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He says, "Be not conformed to this world. "Do not let this world squeeze you into its own mold, "but be transformed by the renewing of your minds." So the problems we face in our society today

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may be seen in the fact that our lives are largely being shaped by television rather than by activities related to Christ and His church. Our generation is shaped by sports, entertainment, and advertising industries, by shopping malls, by the streets and there's always a danger in that.

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These things, someone says, "Well, look Reverend, "you're out of date, you don't really understand." But John Bunyan says in Pilgrim's Progress, "There is a way that leads to hell

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"from the gates of heaven." There's a way that looks like it's the perfect and good way to travel, but it leads to hell. There is a way that leads to hell from the gates of heaven.

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Eve was more inclined to listen to the serpent in the garden than to listen to God. God forbid that the church should become deluded by sublineal messages.

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God forbid that we become victims of deception. You remember the story of the Trojan horse? Well, in the Trojan War, the Greeks defeated the city of Troy by deceptive tactics. presented a wooden horse to the Trojans as a gift and the Trojans dragged the

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horse into their city and inside the horse were hidden several Greek soldiers having gained entrance the Greeks did from the inside what they could not do from the outside, they burned the city and took the people as captives. So in many ways television is the Trojan horse in our living rooms, bedrooms, and

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kitchens. The enemy is within our gates. And these messages come in, they're They're very subtle, very hidden. One of the popular daytime soap operas, The Young and the Restless.

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And many people spend more time listening and commenting on The Young and the Restless than they do the sermons that they hear from Sunday to Sunday.

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And of course, Victor is one of my favorite characters on The Young and the Restless. But you have to be careful because when you see Victor Newman, if you go and you analyze what's happening, most of the women that are not in his family, Victor has been in and out of the bed with them.

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Now is that the kind of message we want to convey? Is that the kind of life we want to condone? Well, no, we all will say no, but if you aren't careful, you find yourself going along with that, that message is rather subtle but you look at it every day and you become if you aren't careful you say well now Victor is all right and all of that and

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we we find ourselves being influenced to to condone a way of life which is not in keeping with our Christian standards so we have to be careful we have to be careful about how many hours we let our children watch TV and what's on when they're watching. Some people say well this is a good source of entertainment I

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don't have to spend that time with them and so we just turn it over and you can find almost anything you want at some time. Explicit sex on television. So these sublineal messages come in the form of X-rated films, they come through violence in the media, they come in the relationship of liberty to virtue, they

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come wrapped in the disguise of delightful musical tones that encourage a way of life that is foreign to the Christian faith. Nasty as he wants to be. This is a phrase from gangster rapper Tupac Shakur. But notice where it leads. It led this rapper to a prison term for sexual assault. You know one 15 year old

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saw where a guy points a gun, says a prayer from the Bible, and kills everybody and the 15 year old says that he was thrilled by that when that which thrills our children and our youth comes from the wrong source we are producing a a lost generation. So Paul is saying, "Let no one delude you with beguiling speech."

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So remember that the task of the church is to communicate the gospel to the world, not gospel mixed with Gnosticism but the unadulterated gospel. Now Paul is concerned about transformation, transformation. First of all he's concerned about that with which they identify themselves and sometimes we

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find ourselves unconsciously identifying ourselves with the wrong thing. I was visiting one of my parishioners and when I was pastoring in Waco and she was saying in the course of her conversation how she practiced her devotional patterns and she said "Oh yes Reverend!" She said "I read my Bible every day and the

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sixth and seventh books of Moses and she said that several times. Yes, Reverend, I read my Bible and the sixth and seventh books of Moses and I said to myself, what is this sixth and seventh books of Moses she's talking about? What is this she's talking about? And so I finally mustered up enough courage I said, sister may I see your sixth and seventh books of Moses? She said, oh yes! And she went and got it and it was

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a collection in those books of voodooism. She was reading the Bible and she was also practicing and believing in voodooism going right along with it. Well, Paul has said, "Let no one delude you." Let no one. Our popular culture puts profit ahead of what is primary. Movies and music are often used to promote that which is vulgar

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rather than that which is virtuous. X-rated and R-fims flood the market, but we have a task to combat these sublineal messages. So I would suggest, as I have alluded just earlier, that we would tighten our parental supervision. Parents need to play a greater role

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in combating sublineal messages and determining what their children are viewing. And adults themselves need to be more selective in viewing. You know, if we don't view these things,

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then they will not be profitable to the stations and to the networks that produce them. So if we support them and say nothing, then of course we deserve what we get.

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Then of course there ought to be encouragement on our part for some type of censorship. So let us go forth to do our work as people of God, as persons who are dedicated to doing His will

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and recognize that in fighting this battle, we must be strong in the Lord. That's how Paul speaks as he addresses the Ephesians. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

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Don't listen to the serpent, but be strong in the Lord. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Don't listen to the serpent. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in our places.

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Don't listen to the serpent. Prepare for battle. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.

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And having done all to stand, don't listen to the serpent. Fight the good fight. Stand firm with the belt of truth

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buckled around your waist. Stand firm with the breastplate of righteousness in place. place, Stanford, with your feet fitted with readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, take up the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery dots

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of the wicked. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the the Word of God. Praying always with all prayer and supplication for all saints. And you know we have no choice in this matter. It's not ours just to stand on the sidelines and watch. We

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must fight. We must fight. Am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb? And shall I fear to hold His cause, or to speak his name? Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas? Are there no foes for me to face?

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Must I not stem the flood? Is this my world a friend of grace to help me on to God? But Here's the answer. Here's the answer. It's the answer for you, it's the answer for me,

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it's the answer for every blood-bought child of God. It is the answer of every soldier of the cross. "Sure, sure, sure, I must fight if I would reign. Increase my courage, Lord.

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I'll bear the toll and do the pain supported by thy Word." This is the fight, the good fight, that we are to make in combating sublineal messages that we encounter in our power structure and in our world. As we sing the hymn "My Soul Beyond Thy Guard," we extend the privilege of the church to accept

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to become a soldier in the Lord's army. Accepting Jesus Christ as Lord of your life. We invite you to come. (orchestral music)

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[MUSIC] ♪ Oh, the rush ♪ ♪ Of sin, of prayer ♪ ♪ It's all a-moving ♪

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♪ 'Round the sky ♪ ♪ Oh, watch them fight and pray ♪ ♪ For the new-deckin' home ♪ ♪ We will win, oh we will ♪

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♪ We will win ♪ ♪ And we'll be back in form ♪ ♪ The enemies of victory won ♪ ♪ No need to call them down ♪

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♪ The white-hawked men will not ♪ ♪ He knows dear what pains I've known ♪ ♪ Why am I so dilliant ♪ ♪ So weakly to my God ♪

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♪ He'll make me at my wanting ♪ ♪ To his divine abode ♪ - Send us forth, oh God, to be courageous warriors. we were able to generate it in one, to generate it in one…