Pathway to Victory

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Hey, podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes.

Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

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Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day. This Bible teaching program on today's edition.

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Of Pathway to Victory. We can't control what happens to us, but we can control our response to those hurts.

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We can either hold on to those hurts and turn them over and over in our minds until they metastasize into.

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A tumor of bitterness, or we can respond to the grace of God to heal those hurts.

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Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Over the past few weeks, we've discussed that there are four channels through which the Holy Spirit empowers our lives.

But if we don't live right, we could accidentally snuff out the Spirit's power. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress describes four spirit quenchers to avoid if we want to experience God at work in our lives.

Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.

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Dr. Jeffress, thanks, David, and welcome again. Welcome to Pathway to Victory. Most Christians are familiar with Christ's miracles in the New Testament or God's incredible acts of power in the Old Testament. But many of us would have a hard time defining the work in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Well, God never intended for His Holy Spirit to remain a mystery. In fact, if you're a follower of Jesus, then God's Spirit is dwelling inside of you at this very moment, and he's waiting to unleash his power in your life.

To help you discover how, I've written a highly practical book titled *I Want More*. In this book, I answer questions like: Why are Christians losing in their struggle against sin? And why are prayers for supernatural healing rarely offered and rarely answered? Again, my book is titled *I Want More*, and you're invited to request your copy when you give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory. I'll say more about that later, but right now let's continue with our study on the Holy Spirit called *Unleashed*.

For the past few weeks, we've been learning about the four different conduits of God's power. Just as there are things we can do to hasten that power into our lives, there are also ways we can hinder it. Now, a quick word of warning: today's study will address some very sensitive issues regarding marital intimacy that might not be suitable for everyone. So I would advise you to please listen with discretion. My message is titled *Flamethrowers versus Fire Extinguishers*.

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My grandfather grew up in a small town north of here of about 5,000 people.

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And he always told us stories about.

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Growing up in this small town. And one of the stories he told us was about a rash of fires that hit the city on a regular basis. The residents were awakened to the shrill sound of a fire engine racing to a fire.

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And fortunately, they had a very dedicated.

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Fire chief who was always there working.

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To put out the fire. Well, one night the telephone rang in the middle of the evening and awakened.

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My grandfather, telling him that his own.

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Dry goods business was on fire.

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And so he got dressed as quickly.

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As he could, he went down to his business, saw it engulfed in flames.

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And there was the fire chief and the fireman. And my grandfather worked the hose with the fire chief to try to salvage.

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What was left and of his business. Finally, after a series of investigations, the.

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Cause of this rash of fires was determined.

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It wasn't faulty wiring. It wasn't a group of delinquent teenagers.

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It was discovered that the fire chief.

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Himself was setting the fires.

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He was a pyromaniac who actually would go and start the fires and then.

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Work to put out fire the fires.

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Now, you can hardly imagine anything more ludicrous. Somebody working to start a fire and then working feverishly to put out that fire. It's hard to imagine anything more idiotic.

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Until you look at your own life.

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You know, in this series on the Holy Spirit, we've been talking about what we can do to ignite the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We've said that God has provided the heat that is the Holy Spirit of God the moment we trust in Christ as our savior.

But you know, a fire needs two things. It needs heat and energy. God has supplied the heat. We have to supply the energy. And in this series we've said there are four combustibles that God uses in our life to ignite the Spirit's flame in our life.

Combustible number one is the word of God, the Bible. That's one energy source for the Christian. Combustible number two is conversation with God, prayer. Combustible number three we looked at last week was the people of God, that is the church.

And today we're going to look at...

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The fourth combustible, and that is obedience to God.

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And yet here we work with God to put this fire, to get this fire of his power and his spirit going on inside of us. And then we who are the ones who start the fire, many times, we're.

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The very ones who extinguish the fire by our own disobedience to God.

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And I think it's that phenomenon that God had in mind when, through the Apostle Paul, he wrote in First Thessalonians.

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5, 19, do not quench the Holy Spirit of God.

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Don't put out the flame of God's Spirit in your life. That's what he's talking about, quenching the.

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Flame, the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

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How do we do that? Well, today we're going to talk about.

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Four spirit quenchers to avoid.

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If you want to keep the power.

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Of the Holy Spirit burning brightly in.

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Your life, if you have your Bibles.

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I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians, chapter 6 as we look at the four spirit quenchers every Christian needs to avoid.

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This whole series is built around the premise that you want more in your relationship with God.

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I know I do.

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You want more of God's power in your life. Well, the way to experience more of God's power in your life is to.

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Avoid these spirit quenchers.

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And spirit quencher number one that is mentioned here is immorality. Immorality will extinguish the power of God's.

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Spirit in your life.

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Look at 1 Corinthians 6, 18, 20. You know, by the way, before we.

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Look at that, have you ever heard.

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People say all sin is the same to God? God doesn't grade sin.

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All sin is the same in God's eyes.

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Have you ever heard that before?

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Nothing could be further from the truth.

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Now, it's true that any sin is.

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Sufficient to separate you and me from God.

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Okay, all sin separates us from God. But there are some sins that have more serious consequences than other sins. You know, nobody has ever gone to.

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Prison for harboring hateful thoughts toward another person.

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Hate is wrong, but you don't go to prison for that. Nobody has ever sat in the electric chair for not paying their income tax. I mean, the fact is, there are some transgressions that have more consequences in this life than others.

The same is true with God. Yes, all sin can separate us from God, but there is some sin that has more consequence to it than others.

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And number one at the list, at.

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The Top of the list of sins that have greater consequences than others is.

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The sin of immorality.

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Look at what Paul says in First.

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Corinthians 6, beginning with verse 18.

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Paul says, "Flee immorality; for every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body."

Now, that word "immorality" is porneia in Greek. We get our word "pornography" from it. It is an umbrella term that describes any sexual activity outside of marriage.

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It could be fornication, that is premarital sex.

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I hear that there are a lot.

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Of Christians who are single adults who.

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Say, well, you know, where does it.

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Say in the Bible you can't have sex before you're married?

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Anytime the Bible talks about fornication, it's.

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Talking about sex before marriage.

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The Bible over and over again says, flee fornication. That is sex before marriage. Adultery, sex with somebody else in the marriage relationship, homosexuality, pornography. All of those are a form of immorality.

God's not against sex. He thought it up. It's his idea. But he said, the way the sexual relationship works, the best is within the.

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Security of the marriage relationship.

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So he says, flee immorality. And notice how he makes the distinction between immorality and every other sin. He said every other sin. Covetousness, hatred, lying, stealing. All of those sins a man commits outside the body.

But the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy?

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Spirit, who is in you, whom you.

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Have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been.

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Bought with a price.

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Therefore glorify God in your body. Immorality is in a special category all of its own.

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And there are certainly physical consequences to immorality, AIDS, STDs.

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There are emotional consequences to having sex.

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Outside the marriage relationship.

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There is a bond you form with that other person that is very, very difficult to break.

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But there are also spiritual consequences to immorality that are unlike any other spiritual consequences to any other sin.

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Because, you see, when you commit immorality, you are not sinning outside the body.

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You're sinning with your body. You say, well, what's the big deal about that? He says, for do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Immorality quenches the spirit's presence in your life.

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Now, I'm about to paint a very.

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Disgusting word picture, but it's necessary for you to understand exactly what Paul is saying here. For those of you who are married, I want you to imagine being forced to watch your mate have sex with another person.

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For those of you who are parents.

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I want you to imagine being forced to watch your teenage child have sex with someone. Can you imagine anything more disgusting? Only the sickest Voyer would find any pleasure in that.

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Why, if you were placed in front.

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Of that situation, if you were able, you would run out of the room as quickly as possible. And yet, when you, as a Christian who has the Holy Spirit of God in you, when you engage in immorality.

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You'Re not only asking the Holy Spirit.

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To watch you commit that act, you're actually asking him to participate in. In that act with you.

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So the next time you're tempted by.

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Premarital sex, by adultery, by sitting in front of a computer screen watching pornographic images, I want you to imagine yourself saying, holy Spirit of God, I want you to sit here with me and watch this with me.

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Holy Spirit of God, I want you to.

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To have sex with this person as well. I want you to join me in this immoral activity. That's what he's talking about.

Every other sin is outside the body. Immorality is with your own body and, more importantly, with the Holy Spirit of God.

What is the remedy to that kind of immorality that quenches the presence of God's spirit?

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You see, the fact is, the Holy.

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Spirit in a theological sense, doesn't leave you. But whenever you ask him to participate in a sexual activity with you, I guarantee you he's not going to hang around. He is going to get out of there as quickly as possible.

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So in a very practical sense, you.

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Lose the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life whenever you engage in immorality. What's the remedy to that? Notice what he says here.

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It's the realization, he says in verse.

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19, that you are not your own.

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You have been bought with a price. You're not free to do with your.

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Body whatever you want to do with it, because you have been bought with a price. That word, bought, the word redeemed, had a special meaning to Paul's audience.

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Remember when Paul wrote these words, one third of the Roman Empire were slaves. And so they were very familiar with.

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This concept of redeeming.

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That word redeem, exaggeratis, is a word that means to buy out of the slave market. If you wanted to purchase a slave, you would go down to the agora, the marketplace, and there the slaves would be on display and people would bid for the slaves.

And if you wanted to purchase a slave, you would pay the highest price. And once that slave became yours, it was like chattel property.

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You were free to do with it whatever you wanted to. If you wanted to mistreat it, abuse.

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It, if you wanted to slit its.

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Throat, you were free to do so. The slave was your property. You had redeemed it. You had purchased it out of the market. That's what the word redeemed means.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, listen to this. The Bible says when we are born into this world, we are born not free. We are born slaves of Satan.

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He is our master, and all he has planned for us is a lifetime and an eternity of misery. That is what Satan's plan is for your life and my life. All of us were born into this world in bondage. We had no future and no hope but God.

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For no other reason, the Bible says.

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Than the great love with which he loved you, he sent Jesus his son to shed his blood to pay the price to redeem us from the bondage.

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Of Satan so that we can enter into everlasting life. That's what it means to be redeemed.

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God has purchased us.

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He has bought us with his blood.

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Now, what's the result of that? The result of that is he says, therefore you are not your own.

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You have been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your bodies. I read the story one time about Abraham Lincoln when he was a congressman in Illinois. He had heard about slave auctions, but he had never attended one.

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And there was one going on in his community.

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And so he thought he would attend and see exactly what happened at a slave auction. And there in the crowd was a young, teenage African American girl. They had her up on the auction block, and people were bidding for her.

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And so Abraham Lincoln entered into the bidding process. And the price kept going higher and.

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And higher and higher. And finally Lincoln offered the winning bid.

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And the auctioneer said, sold.

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And the girl, the young African American, was brought to Abraham Lincoln. She didn't dare look up at him. She had her head bowed. And Lincoln said to her, you're free. She said, mister, I don't know what that means.

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He said, it means you are free.

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To do whatever you want to do.

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You're free to say whatever you want to say. You're free to go wherever you want to go.

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She lifted up her head and said, with tears streaming down her face, then, sir, I'll go with you. That's the response to somebody who understands that they've been redeemed.

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God purchased us out of the marketplace of Satan and sin and death. Not so that we could be free.

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To do what we want to do. So that we are free to follow him, to serve him with all of our heart. That's the reason we flee immorality.

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You are not your own.

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You have been bought with a price. Immorality quenches the spirit's presence in our life.

Spirit quencher number two is bitterness. Bitterness quenches the spirit's power to heal our hurts. You know, every one of us, sooner or later, and probably sooner, is going to be hurt by somebody and hurt deeply. We don't have any choice over that.

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Some of you this morning, some of.

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You watching on television, you've been hurt by a friend who betrayed you or maybe a business associate who cheated you.

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It may be a child who's ignored.

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You or a mate who has abandoned you. We can't control what happens to us, but we can control our response to those hurts.

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We can either hold onto those hurts and turn them over and over in our minds until they metastasize into a.

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Tumor of bitterness, or we can respond to the grace of God to heal those hurts.

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You see, the Bible teaches for a.

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Christian, every time you're hurt by somebody, God provides an antidote to that hurt, a soothing balm called the Holy Spirit of God. And he gives you an extra measure of grace in order to deal with that offense.

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He doesn't give it to other people. He gives it to you.

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That's why, by the way, you should never get angry and take up somebody else's vengeance, you know, when they're mistreated and make that your cause.

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Because the fact is, God has given you, that person, an extra measure of.

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Grace that he hasn't given you or me.

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But we have a choice what to.

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Do with that grace. We can either accept it or refuse it.

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And that's why Hebrews 12:15 says, See.

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To it that no one of you comes short of the grace of God.

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That no root of bitterness springing up.

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Causes trouble, and by it, many are defiled.

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He says, when these hurts come into your life, don't fall short of receiving.

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That grace that God offers you. Because the only alternative is bitterness, a bitterness that destroys you and will destroy everything and everyone around you.

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How can you make sure that you don't fall short of the grace of.

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God and fall into the trap of bitterness? Four quick suggestions. First of all, realize that offenses are inevitable.

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Have you come to the place in.

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Your life where you realize you can't control other people?

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Now, that's one of the greatest realizations we spend so much effort trying to.

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Control what people do or don't do to us, and usually we're helpless.

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The fact is, it doesn't matter how hard you try.

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You can't keep that boss from firing you if he really wants to fire you. You can't keep that mate from leaving you if he or she really wants to leave you.

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Can't keep that child from rebelling against.

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You and God if they really want to rebel. We can't control what people do to us, but we can control our response. Realizes that offenses are inevitable. Secondly, reflect on God's forgiveness of you.

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You know, there is an inseparable link.

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Between our receiving God's forgiveness and our willingness to forgive other people.

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Remember the story about the slave who was brought in before the king?

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He owed him 10,000 talents of gold. Talent was about 80 pounds of gold. And I did the calculation, that would be about $16 billion.

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Gold's gone up again past $1800, so make that about $18 billion. Here was a slave that owed an $18 billion debt.

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But the king chose to forgive him to release him of the debt.

And that slave who had just been forgiven an $18 billion debt goes out and finds a fellow slave who owes him $18.

And the slave who had been forgiven 18 billion was unwilling to forgive that paltry, measly $18 debt.

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And when the king heard about it, he was so enraged, he brought that first slave in and said, you wicked.

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Slave, how could you who have been forgiven of so much, refuse to forgive so little? And he threw the slave into prison and turned him over to the torturers until he should repay every. And then Jesus added the zinger. He said, so shall my heavenly father do to each of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.

See before you get all high and mighty and self-righteous and say, I'm not gonna forgive, I refuse to forgive. Remember the great debt from which you've been forgiven. God's not diminishing at all the hurt some of you have experienced. Some of you have been abused sexually by your parents. Some of you have been betrayed by those closest to you. God is not diminishing what has happened to you. He's saying, put your hurt into perspective.

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You see, the difference between how much.

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Somebody has hurt you, and how much you have hurt God is the difference between $18 and $18 billion. Forgiveness is the obligation of those who have been forgiven.

Number three, release your offender from his obligation to you. You know, forgiveness isn't about forgetting. It's not about sweeping something under the rug or playing like it never happened.

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Real forgiveness, first of all, acknowledge acknowledges that a wrong has occurred. You meant it for evil, joseph said.

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But God used it for good. Go ahead and acknowledge that you've been wrong. Calculate the debt of what is owed you because of the wrong. But thirdly, forgiveness releases the other person of that debt.

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Forgiveness is giving up your right to.

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Hurt somebody else for hurting you. That's what forgiveness is, turning it over to God, letting God do with that person rather than you.

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And we'll discover the next steps to overcoming the Spirit quencher of bitterness on tomorrow's edition of Pathway to Victory.

Earlier in today's broadcast, I mentioned a book I've written called I Want More, and I want to encourage you to request your copy today before the special offer expires on Friday. Perhaps as you listened to today's message, you were able to identify with some of those spirit quenchers in your own life. Well, in my bestselling book, I Want More, I'll teach you how to overcome those stumbling blocks and experience victory and satisfaction in your spiritual life. There's no problem too great for the Holy Spirit to conquer.

You're invited to request your copy of my book titled I Want More when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Thank you so much for giving financially to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. This ministry simply wouldn't be possible without you, and in the last few years we've experienced a groundswell of support from people just like you which has empowered us to expand our influence for the Gospel all across the country and around the world.

You might assume that Pathway to Victory would be suffering financially, but actually God's people are stepping forward to give generously. So rather than retreat, I'm urging you to join us in taking back territory from the enemy. Help us push back the forces of darkness in our culture so that we can shine the light of God's truth to people who are desperately searching for something more.

David will give you our contact information now, and I look forward to hearing from you today. Remember, as you give, you're entitled to request my book I Want More. David.

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Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you invest in the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you the book titled *I Want More*. Call 866-999-2965 or visit our website at ptv.org, and when your investment is $75 or more, we'll also send you the complete unedited CD and DVD teaching set for *Unleashed*. That's a series from Dr. Jeffress about experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you'd like to request both resources, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. You could write to us. Here's that mailing address: P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins inviting you to join us again next time for the conclusion of our message called *Flamethrowers versus Fire Extinguishers*. That's right here on Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress.

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Comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here.

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