A New Beginning

Guest (Male): There are times when we can feel far away from God. Well, coming up today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie warns us against letting the devil gain a foothold in our lives.

Greg Laurie: Are you filled with anger for someone right now? If that anger is controlling your life, the person that's being hurt is you, not them. It's eating you up inside. And the Bible actually says, "Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry," for anger gives a mighty foothold to the devil.

Guest (Male): When you have to walk a ways in the snow, sometimes it's easiest to use the same footprints on your way back. They're easy enough to see. What footprints do we leave in our lives that allow our adversary the easiest access to our thoughts and actions? Today on A New Beginning, as Pastor Greg Laurie continues his series in Genesis, we'll see the enemy is always on the prowl, looking for his next target. But we'll learn practical principles for locking the devil out, leaving him out in the cold.

Greg Laurie: Grab your Bible, hang a hard left, go all the way to the first book of the Bible, that would be the book of Genesis. And the title of my message is God's Solution to Man's Problem. So, the Lord placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was literally paradise. They could eat of any tree. I mean, imagine, God said, "This is all yours to enjoy. You can eat of all of the fruit of the trees of the garden and behold the beauty I placed in it.

One restriction: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, don't eat from that tree." Scene two: Adam and Eve standing at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So, Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit. Now let's see what happens after sin has entered the world. Go to Genesis chapter four, starting in verse one. I'm reading from the New Living Translation. Now Adam knew his wife Eve, and she became pregnant. And when she gave birth to Cain, she said, "With the Lord's help, I produced a man." Later, she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel.

When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. When it was time for harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift, the best portions of the firstborn lambs from the flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected. "Why are you so angry?" the Lord asked Cain. "Why do you look so dejected?" And God gives him this interesting warning in verse seven.

Listen: "You'll be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what's right, watch out! Sin is crouching at your door, eager to control you, but you must subdue it and be its master." The Lord is saying, "Cain, you're flirting with disaster. Sin is like a crouching beast, poised and ready to strike and ruin your life if you don't get control of it." I read a book a number of years ago called Death in the Long Grass. It was written by a big-game hunter.

He tells incredible stories of not only hunting lions but actually being hunted by them. There was a group of lions that got a taste for human blood and began hunting people. And one cat alone killed a hundred people. And they would come into these tented camps at night and sometimes step over several people and pick their prey and take them out, and no one would even know it happened until the next morning. And a lion can move very quickly. So I think this is interesting because the devil is not only compared to a snake, he's also compared to a lion.

Over in 1 Peter 5, we read, "Be self-controlled and alert because your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." Bringing me to my next point: the devil is always looking for trouble. He's looking for a life to ruin. Jesus said of Satan in John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy." So we have to keep our guard up and be alert to this fact.

There's an interesting passage in the book of Job where the angels of the Lord came and presented themselves before God, and Lucifer was among them. And in Job 1:7, God says to Satan, "Where have you come from?" And the devil answers, "I've been going back and forth across the earth, watching everything that's going on." He's just looking for a life to ruin, ready to pounce. One way that he can get a foothold in our life is when we're isolating ourselves from God's people.

This is why we're told in Hebrews, "Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhort one another daily, and so much more as you see the day of the Lord approaching." So basically, the author of Hebrews—some believe that's Paul, I don't know, but inspired by God, nonetheless, whoever wrote it—is saying, "Hey, the Lord's coming back. Make sure that you're gathering with fellow Christians, encouraging one another, if necessary, correcting one another, because the Lord is coming soon."

But some are not doing this. And so, like when you watch one of those nature shows and you see the prey that the lions get, it's often the stragglers. You know, all the little antelopes are out there running together, and there's one struggling antelope. That's lunch for the lion. And lions don't like to expend energy unnecessarily. They'll just kind of lay there in the long grass, and then they strike. And once they've got their claws on that creature and then they bite into their neck—oh man, game over, okay?

That's the devil. He's just watching. "Oh, look at that straggler. Look at that person that isolates themselves from other Christians, always feeling sorry for themselves. That looks like a good prey to me. I'm going to strike." So that's one way the devil can get a foothold in your life. And there's another way, and that is when we allow ourselves to be consumed by our anger, like Cain was. Over in Ephesians 4:26, it says, "Don't sin by letting anger gain control over you. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the devil."

Let me ask you: are you filled with anger for someone right now? Well, Greg, they hurt me. Okay. Maybe it's your parents. Maybe it's your children. Maybe it's a neighbor. Maybe it's a friend. Maybe it's someone else. But if that anger is controlling your life, the person that's being hurt is you, not them. It's eating you up inside. And the Bible actually says, "Don't let the sun go down on your wrath," because when you do, you give the devil a foothold.

Bringing me to my next point: sin is crouching at our doors, too. He's ready to strike. He's looking for vulnerability. So we want to be careful and protect our homes from the power of the devil, starting with this simple fact: I can't do this on my own. I need to pray and ask God to help me. And I want to say a word to fathers and mothers out there: you need to protect your home in every way.

I know you may have alarm systems and you put all your locks on and you've got everything right, and that's fantastic. But also remember to have spiritual protection. Have a time where you get together with your family and have a meal together and get rid of the devices. No phones, no tablets, no TV playing in the background. Let's just talk to each other. Let's pray together. Let's read the Bible together. And men, I want to say a word to you: you should be taking the initiative and leading in this area. Men need to be the spiritual leaders in their home. Right? You can do this. You must do this.

So, Cain didn't listen, and he was filled with envy. Envy's a tricky kind of a sin. Shakespeare called envy the green-eyed monster. Webster defines envy as a malignant or hostile feeling of ill will toward another. The funny thing about envy is that we often envy those not people that we perceive as greater than us, but more like people we see as equal to us. Envy has been described as a small-town sin. It thrives on proximity—it breeds on proximity, I should say.

In other words, I don't sit around and think, "Why can't I be as wealthy as Elon Musk?" Or, "Why can't I fill a stadium like Taylor Swift?" No, I'm more like, "Why does my neighbor have that and I don't have that? Why did my co-worker get that raise and I didn't get that raise? Why did they get that opportunity and I don't get that opportunity?" See? Victor Hugo said, "The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring." So it's a thing that can start to consume us.

I heard a story of a crab fisherman who was walking around with a pail full of crabs. Someone asked him, "Do you put a lid on that?" "No, I don't have to." "Well, can't the crabs climb out?" He goes, "No problem, because the moment one crab climbs out, the others reach up and pull him back down." Right? You know people like that. "Oh, that's a great thing just happened to me," and they want to pull you right back down. They don't want you to have that. That's envy, and envy can consume you. And that's what happened to Cain as well.

Guest (Male): We love to hear stories of how lives have been changed through the teaching of God's Word.

Guest (Female): Hi, Pastor Greg. I'm very thankful for your gospel messages that helped lead my mother-in-law to Christ. That then trickled down to my husband and finally reached me. At that time, I was part of a religious group that I thought was teaching the truth, but found out the real truth by listening to you teach the Bible and then my own study in God's Word. I now know Jesus personally and feel led to share the truth of Jesus with them also. Thank you.

Guest (Male): How have these studies in God's Word touched your life? If you have a story to share, why not call us and let us know? Call 1-866-871-1144. That's 866-871-1144. Well, glad you're along today for our study in Genesis called "God's Solution to Man's Problem." We're talking about the danger of envy right now, and Pastor Greg continues.

Greg Laurie: So sin has now entered the world, and Cain acts on this envy and this anger, and you all know the story: he killed his brother Abel. Horrible thing. But God had a solution for Cain's sin and all our sin, and that takes us back to Genesis chapter three. Because the Lord promised he was going to send a deliverer. After Eve and Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, the Lord made this profound statement, and this is the first messianic passage in the Bible. By messianic, I mean the first verse in the Bible that spoke of Jesus coming.

And it's not what we would expect. We might think, "Well, it's Isaiah 9:6: 'Unto you a child is born, unto you a son is given, his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God.'" That's not the first one. Or maybe it's Isaiah 53, that vividly describes the suffering of the Messiah. No, that's not it. Well, maybe Psalm 22, that begins with the words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" the very words Jesus cried from the cross. No, that's not the first one. The first messianic passage in the Bible is Genesis 3:14 to 15.

Let's look at it together. After Adam and Eve have sinned, the Lord said to the serpent, "Because you've done this, you're cursed more than all cattle, more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go and eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel." So this is the Messiah. So here's what God is saying: "Devil, I'm now putting you on notice. There is coming one who's going to crush your head. But you'll bruise his heel."

And sure enough, Satan struck out at Jesus. He thought he had the ultimate plan. "I'll infiltrate their ranks," Lucifer thought. "I'll get one of Jesus' very disciples to betray him." And he did. Judas Iscariot betrayed our Lord for 30 pieces of silver. "I'll make sure Jesus is killed and murdered in cold blood on a Roman cross, and that'll be the end of it." No, that was the fulfillment of it. Because Jesus came to die on the cross. And he said so repeatedly. In fact, the Bible says of Jesus, he was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth.

What this means is before there was a solar system, before there was a planet called Earth, before there was a garden called Eden, before there was a couple named Adam and Eve, a decision was made in the councils of eternity that God would send his own Son, that God would walk among us as a man and live a perfect life and die a perfect death and rise again from the dead. This was the plan. And the devil didn't know it, and actually, in his weird way, helped to bring the plan about. It blew up in his face.

But once the devil knew Jesus was coming, he wanted to stop him. So we go to the next book of the Bible, the book of Exodus. And we have the Jews multiplying in the land of Egypt under the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh sees them as a potential threat, and he gives a command to the Jewish midwives: "I want you to drown those little Jewish baby boys." And of course, those midwives refused to do it, but he's trying to stop Messiah from coming. What is it with the devil always wanting to kill our children?

We talk about abortion. Here is the Pharaoh saying, "Kill those baby boys." You know, with some people, abortion—or women's reproductive rights, as they like to call it—is almost like a religion. They're passionate about it. That's the most important thing to them. And we simply say every child should have the right to live. Every child should be able to live their life and make their own choices in life, not for you to terminate the pregnancy, as you like to say, but in reality, you're murdering an unborn child. But here's the devil doing it, back in the book of Exodus.

Now we fast forward to the book of Esther. And there's an evil man that hatches a plot to destroy all the Jewish people. But thankfully, God raised up a courageous young woman named Esther, who was the queen and also was a Jew, who stood up for her fellow Jews and saved them. But here's another thing we see that Satan hates: not only unborn children, but Jewish people. Satan wanted to stop Messiah from coming, but Satan failed. Even Herod, hearing that there was one born who was known as the King of the Jews, of course, slaughtered once again the little ones in Bethlehem. But he failed. And Jesus came and accomplished his mission and died on that cross for the sin of the world.

As we close now, let me ask you this: has sin been bringing havoc into your life? Is there some sin or some vice that has gotten a control of you? Remember what God said to Cain: "You better master it, or it's going to master you." And the same is true for all of us. Now, I cannot master sin in my own power. I cannot overcome a sin in my own strength. But through the power of God, I can do it, because greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.

So take whatever issue you're dealing with, whatever sin you're struggling with, whatever vice seems to have a permanent hold in your life, and I want to tell you something: God is bigger than that problem. He's bigger than that sin. He's bigger than that addiction. And you can overcome it through Jesus Christ. But keep something in mind: don't unnecessarily put yourself in a place of vulnerability. Don't unnecessarily put yourself in a place where you could be pulled down.

Where did Adam and Eve get tempted? At the place God told them to not be. So, I cannot avoid the influence of culture and the world—it's everywhere. But if I'm on a diet, should I hang around at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts? If I have a weakness in another area, should I be in a place where I could be more easily tempted? So make practical decisions.

Because 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, "There is no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God who is faithful will not allow you to be tempted above your capacity to resist, but will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it." Let me just paraphrase that: there's always a way out of every temptation. There just is. Sometimes it's as simple as the door. Sometimes it's as simple as the off button. Press it. Sometimes it's as simple as terminating the conversation.

But then instead of being in places of vulnerability, be in places where you're being built up, like you are right now in church, worshipping together, hearing the Word of God together. But sin is crouching at our door; we don't want to be overcome. And then there's some of us that might be green with envy over somebody else or what God is doing in their life or what they have or whatever it is. Don't let that happen to you. Just focus on your own walk and relationship with Christ.

But let me close with this: maybe I'm talking to somebody right now that doesn't have Jesus living in their life. Now, I've talked about the devil. I want you to know that he's a powerful force. And we are not his equal. And there's no way we can overcome him in our own strength. The only way to overcome him is through the power of Jesus Christ. And if you don't have Christ living in your life, my friend, you are a sitting duck with a bullseye on you.

And that's why you need Jesus in your life. And Jesus died on that cross for your sin. He paid the price for every wrong that you have done. And he will forgive you of your sin if you'll turn from it and ask him to come into your life. So I want to close by extending an invitation for anyone here that would like to ask Jesus to come into their heart and life. He stands at the door of your life and he knocks. And he says if you will hear his voice and open the door, he will come in.

If you want Christ to come into your life, if you want your sin forgiven, if you want to know with confidence that you will go to heaven when you die, if you want to find the meaning and purpose of your life, respond to this invitation right now. Let's pray. Father, speak to every heart here, listening, watching, wherever they are. If they don't know you, let this be the moment they believe, the moment they receive, the moment that you come and live inside of them, and they begin a brand new life. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): An important prayer from Pastor Greg Laurie today here on A New Beginning. He's praying that people would open their hearts to the Lord and receive the free gift he offers. Pastor Greg, what would you say to the person who is ready to make that kind of change in their life today?

Greg Laurie: What I would say is, he's only a prayer away. Which means if you will call upon the name of the Lord right now through prayer, he will hear your prayer and answer your prayer. Listen, if you want Jesus Christ to come into your life, if you want him to forgive you of your sin, if you want to know that you'll go to heaven when you die, just pray this prayer right now after me. Just pray: Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner, but I know that you're the Savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. I turn from my sin now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward as my Savior and Lord, as my God and my friend. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. Listen, if you have just prayed that prayer along with Pastor Greg and meant those words sincerely, we want to welcome you into God's family. And we want to help you get started in your new life of faith. Pastor Greg would like to send you his New Believer's Bible free of charge, along with some other helpful resources. Just let us know you prayed with Pastor Greg and that you want the New Believer's Bible when you call 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime at 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org and click the words "Know God."

And then let us take a moment to thank you for praying for this ministry and for supporting it through your generous donation. It's an investment in kingdom business, isn't that right, Pastor Greg?

Greg Laurie: Yeah, it's really true, Dave. And I believe it's so important because you know the gospel saves lives. It saves eternal lives, because when a person believes in Jesus according to scripture, they pass from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the power of God. And then of course, that changes the course of their future. That impacts their children and their children's children. The gospel changes everything. And thousands and thousands of people respond every single year. Thanks to the Lord, also thanks to you for your investment in this ministry, enabling us to reach people wherever they are. So if this is something you care about, I encourage you to make a financial investment in A New Beginning and Harvest Ministries.

Guest (Male): Yeah, that's right. And we really do appreciate your support. Thanks for partnering with us today. It can make a real difference, not just for today or this week, but for eternity. So get in touch with your support today by calling 1-800-821-3300. That's a 24/7 phone number: 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org. Well, next time, Pastor Greg points us to the promises of God—promises we can count on no matter what. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.