Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: Steal, kill, destroy. The devil's job is to get in your head, in your life, in your family, in your kids, in your husband, in your wife, in your boss, anywhere he can and throw a wrench in the deal and mess it all up.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Thanks for allowing us to share this time with you. You may be stuck in traffic or stuck in life. Either way, today's message is going to help you get on the right track as you learn how much God loves you right where you are.

Richard's unique style checks all the boxes with a lot of hope, insight, truth, and of course, humor. Today's talk with Richard will get our conversation started, but we want to keep it going with you. So let's stay in touch through our website, richardellistalks.com. But right now, let's go ahead and get right into today's talk. Here's Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "Monkey Wrench." Let me read you something. This is more of what we're going to talk about, although a monkey wrench is a tool in sabotage. Sabotage is any underhand interference with production, work, etc., in a plant, factory, or any other place as by enemy agents during wartime or by employees during a trade dispute. The second definition I found is any undermining of a cause.

We're going to talk about sabotage today in your own life. Where it comes from. Is it you? Is it someone else? Does God allow this? How does it work? C. S. Lewis says, "Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in his great campaign of sabotage."

A lady named Alice P. Cornyn-Selby said, "Self-sabotage is when we say we want something and then go about making sure it doesn't happen." She also went on to say, "Procrastination is hands down our favorite form of self-sabotage." And the Beastie Boys actually have a song called "Sabotage," which I do not recommend, but it's out there.

I think clearly God has a plan. He's got a purpose. He's up to something in my life and in your life. And so you embark on a journey. As a kid, this happens. Children moving along and the enemy attacks our children, small children. I have no idea anymore how many people I talk to at a very, very early age, small children, who were abused in one way or another. And the enemy tries to sabotage their life early on.

Now before we get too far into this, I'm going to tell you already I do not have an answer for your question. Where is God when bad things happen to innocent people? Why, if he is God, does he not step in and stop all evil? The day will come and he will stop all evil, but that will be the end. And see, the problem with your problem is that we selectively want God to stop evil.

I want God to stop evil and violate someone's will when they are hurting someone that I don't think should be hurt. But when I choose to do evil, I want God to mind his own business. You go stop in that stuff, but leave me alone when I go to sabotage my own life because I'm up to something here that's really none of your business right now.

And if I mess it up too bad, then I may cry out to you. I need your help, but you're God and everything, so you got to put up with my crap. So I'll just call on you when I need you, but otherwise, you stay out of my business, right? You say, "Well, that sounds horrible." It's what we do every day. We pick and choose.

So if you want God to stop all the evil, you're going to have to let him stop your evil. And he's not violating your will. Now it appears that sometimes crazy things are about to happen and God intervenes. I just there's a big old word, sovereignty. And it means that he is a sovereign king, meaning he's in control. He is ruler of all and he sees what we don't see. He knows what we don't know and that's just the way it is.

His ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts, the Scripture says. So you at some point have got to say, "God, I do not get this, but I got nowhere else to go. So I trust you and I'm going to keep moving." Okay? But bad things happen to kids. Bad things happen to kids. Kids do stupid things.

I have if I pull out my driver's license, there's a little marking on my driver's license that I have a motorcycle license. If you get on a motorcycle without a helmet, it's sabotage. It's not a matter of if you're going to get hurt, it's when. You say, "Well, but I'm having fun. I just want the wind in my face and, you know, got Free Bird on the iPod and I'm rolling."

I'm having a good time. Your good time turns into a horrible time for everybody else. You say, "Yeah, but that's my choice." But my choice sometimes end up being a nightmare for other people. I got too much responsibility to screw my life up. You say, "Well, but I want to have fun. You're going to wreck my life." No, you're going to wreck your life.

There are simple things. And you say, "Well, but I don't ride a motorcycle." Then what do you do? How are you jacking your life up? And every time God goes to move in a direction and says, "Okay, it's now. I made you. I know you. I got a plan. I got a purpose. I've been working this since the foundation of the world and here we go. I'm about to light the fuse on your rocket and it's going to fly," and you go, "psst," you put it out. No, no, no, God. Or I'm going to do something and mess it up.

Now think about your life. Think about how the enemy. Steal, kill, destroy. How he gets in the middle of this mess. It may be a relationship. Maybe he's sent someone into your life and everything's fine and you get duped. You get deceived. Then people say, "Well, how do I know?" A guy comes along, I'm single. How do I know this is the guy? I'm discerning.

Let me tell you something. If you're not walking and talking with God pretty much along the way, do not depend on your discernment for anything. You say, "Well, I just had a good gut feeling about it." And what does that mean? When's the last time you had a conversation with God where you actually dialed it in and he said something to you? He might have said no about something and you heard that and said, "Okay, I'll obey that."

The book says a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. So if you're single-minded, your purpose is we sang a song about it, to glorify him. That you say, "I want my life to please you. I am tired of my life pleasing me because when it only pleases me, it does not please you. If your will and my will don't line up, and now I got another problem."

Just stop for a few minutes somewhere along the way and go, "God, talk to me. Show me. What am I doing to sabotage my life?" And the machinery's working. Where the monkey wrench term comes from is large machinery. Someone would take a big monkey wrench and throw it like in the middle of the gears and lock the thing up.

You say, "Why would someone do that?" Because they're trying to destroy it. They're trying to shut it down. There's industrial sabotage. There's now software sabotage. There's some story about whether the CIA during the Cold War got into some software and shut down a pipeline. You think, "Well, why would they do that?" Because it's war. Because they're trying to stop things and mess things up.

And the enemy is the same way. Sometimes he attacks from without. Sometimes he just uses us. Genesis chapter 15. And by the way, you can almost it's not completely true. You could almost take your Bible, put it down, let it drop open and put your finger down and find sabotage. Because wherever there is sin, there is sabotage. It is destroying something.

Genesis chapter 15, listen to what God says here, verse one: "After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, 'Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.' But Abram said, 'Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?'"

Then Abram said, "Look, you have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!" And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir." Then he brought him outside and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them."

Well, the point is, no, you can't. And he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed in the Lord, and he accounted it to him for righteousness. So Abram believed. But the next chapter! It's like we are brain dead or something. One day God reveals himself, speaks to us, and then we forget within hours what he said.

Genesis 16:1: "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, 'See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go into my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.'" You should never sleep with the help.

So Sarai concocts a plan. It is sabotage. You say, "Well, what was Sarai thinking?" That's not the problem. What was Abram thinking? And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. Then Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.

So he went into Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes. Then Sarai said to Abram, "My wrong." Now we're going to step up and say it was wrong. "My wrong be upon you! I gave my maid into your embrace; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between you and me."

So Abram said to Sarai, "Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please." And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence. And God still, because it was Abraham's offspring, went out and took care of Hagar. But we've got a mess on the planet over that one little act of sabotage, of doubt. If God tells you something, he's going to back it up.

Go to 1 Kings chapter 11. 1 Kings 11: "But King Solomon loved many foreign women. As well as the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Sidonians, the Hittites, from the nations," and look at this phrase, "from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, 'You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.' Solomon clung to these in love."

Now, the point was, his wives turned away his heart. "For it was so, when Solomon was old." Now look at this, 1 Kings 11, verse 4: "For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites."

"Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David." You know what his sabotage was? Women. "Then Solomon built a high place to Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods."

"So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the Lord had commanded." Now, if you go back and read the beginning of the story of King Solomon, it is brilliant.

It is amazing. You got this kid and God offers him a blank check. And God signs it, basically, and says, "Fill in the amount." And he says, "I want wisdom. I'll never be able to rule these people without wisdom." He goes, "It's going to be great." And then the wisdom falls apart with the women. And here this guy, and God basically spares his life in the judgment that comes on him because of his dad who God loved, and then it hit the next generation.

Now, hopefully, while I'm talking or while we're going through this, what I'm after is that you will personally think: what is the sabotage in my life? What is it that every time God calls me out, tries to pull out, every time I start to move in the right direction, what is it that shuts you down almost every time? We'll get to a verse on that in a little bit.

But there's another example: women. Let me go to this 2 Corinthians 6:14. Now this is straight out of the Bible: "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?" If you are a Christian and you get deceived into marrying someone who is not a Christian, you are in for the ride of your life.

You're going to eventually have nothing to talk about because the things that God will draw him back to himself, you will have stirrings, you will have feelings, you will have thoughts, you will have desires toward God, hopefully, and then you go to say something to your spouse, they're like, "I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to go to your church. I don't want to pray with you. I don't want to do any of this. Just, you know, that's your deal."

And for women, this is particularly devastating, but unfortunately, women more times than not make this mistake. They get sucked in under security issues. The guy's got money and he's nice-looking and it's going to be great. And then it's not so good all of a sudden. And they make deals and do things before and negotiate, manipulate. And then if you get in that way, you got to keep it going that way.

Just stop and say, "God, this guy is not a Christian. I am not going to marry someone who's not a Christian." And not just a Christian, but he's walking and talking with you so I know what kind of life we're going to have. You say, "Well, I'll turn him around later." You probably won't. Because who a man is up front is a good chance that's who he is.

Job chapter 3, go back to Old Testament. Job chapter 3, and I'm not going to read you all this stuff around this, but it is a very revealing verse in terms of where Job was before calamity and catastrophe fell on his home, basically taking all of his children, all of his property. Nothing was spared but the life of his wife and his life, but physically, even health-wise, he was allowed to be attacked.

And look at this little verse in Job 3:25: "For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, for trouble comes." Fear sabotage. What is it that you are afraid of? What is it that you live? You say, "Well, I'm younger than, you know, than somebody else, but I'm not as young as I used to be, and I see old people and I see all these problems they have with their health and I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'm going to get old. I'm afraid I won't be able to take care of myself. I'm afraid."

You know what? The very thing you fear, a lot of times it's almost a rule is what comes upon you. Instead of being afraid of getting old, do something while you can. Part of the reason I'm working out and trying to eat better and all these things is I don't want to be a burden to my wife or to myself, or to God himself where I'm, "Oh God, save me, make me better, make me well."

You cannot eat cases of Twinkies and be healthy when you're old or even now. You say, "Oh, well, porn's an issue and all this sexual stuff and we attack all these things." If you've got food stashes in your house, it is sabotage. You say, "Oh, those people shouldn't be doing that," all the while you're dipping your hand in a 1,500-calorie bag of potato chips.

Of course you don't feel good. And you get in the mirror, you go, "I don't look so good." Well, of course you don't look. Get you one of those mirrors that concaves or whatever where you look smaller. You say, "Well, some people got health issues." You know what the biggest health issue I got with food? It's this tongue right here. It likes things that taste good.

I'm still having trouble going into a restaurant and not getting a Dr Pepper instead of ordering water. And every time I drink something with eight packages of sugar in it, it cannot possibly be good for me. You say, "Well, I need a little something-something for me." That is the rational lie that you tell yourself.

The devil says, "You know what? You've been serving God so faithfully and trusting him and having your quiet time and leading people to Christ and teaching and being so faithful, I think it's time we did something for us." Everybody listening has something that they use to sabotage, something to throw a monkey in the wrench and go, "Oh, I'm out, God. Sorry. I know you were about to do something big and great through me, but, you know, look at me. All my problems. I can't stop drinking, God. I want to be a big witness for you and everything, but I get to the party and I got a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other hand and I can't give that up even if it ruins my witness. So I tell you what. You go find you somebody else. I'll be over here in the corner."

Now, how many of you actually know specifically what it is, at least at the moment, when you sabotage God's plan for your life? You know without a doubt what it is. Go to Matthew chapter 26. This one is very puzzling to me, Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot is basically a saboteur that is planted in the inner circle of Jesus himself.

And Jesus knows who he is when he picks him and picks him. Which is very fascinating to me. God used sabotage to pull off his own plan. He planted Judas Iscariot in the chosen group, knowing who he was and what he would do. You do not want to be this person in the plan of God.

In Matthew chapter 26, let's jump in here in verse three: "Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill him. But they said, 'Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.' And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table."

"But when his disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, 'Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.' But when Jesus was aware of it, he said to them, 'Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for me. For you have the poor with you always, but me you do not always have. For in the pouring of this fragrant oil on my body, she did it for my burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.'"

"Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and said, 'What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?'" In other words, "I'm done. I've had enough of this." If you go read the same account of the story in John chapter 12 and in verse 5, this is specifically what is asked: "'Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?' This he said, not that he cared for the poor," Judas says this, "but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it." He was stealing from Jesus.

Taking money out of the till because he was the accountant in the group. So he goes then back to Matthew, he goes, "What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?" And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. So from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

And if you keep reading the story, he turns him in. He knows where he goes, what he does. Somebody in the group. You say, "Well, that's not Jesus sabotaging himself, that's someone in the group." How crazy is that? Judas betrays him. But here is one of the ultimate forms of sabotage. Look at Matthew 27.

Jesus has been betrayed, he's been arrested, it's going to run its course. They're going to beat the fire out of him, put a crown of thorns on his head, they're going to crucify him. It's rolling. It's going to that end. "When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put him to death. And when they had bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor."

"Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that he had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, 'I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.' And they said, 'What is that to us? You see to it!' Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself." Suicide is the ultimate sabotage.

Now, people get a little uncomfortable sometimes talking about suicide. I have thought about killing myself. I don't think about it anymore, but I tell you what is crazy. And if you have these thoughts, and I've had these recently. I'll be driving down the freeway in the last couple of weeks I've had this. People in the car with me. And I'll be driving down the road and there'll be a huge embankment.

Like you ever see on the freeway where it's built up and there's a massive embankment and trees down there? And if you went off that edge, there's no way you're surviving that. I'll be driving down the road and out of nowhere have a thought: "Turn the wheel." Not that I want to kill myself. Someone's trying to kill me. Steal, kill, destroy.

The devil's job is to get in your head, in your life, in your family, in your kids, in your husband, in your wife, in your boss, anywhere he can and throw a monkey in the wrench and mess it all up. And if somehow I bit that bait and did just that and went flying down that hill, it's over.

And you say, "Well, but you'd go to heaven." But it's not about getting to heaven before God says it's time to go to heaven. Let him decide that. And there were days in my mom when she was very, very, very sick at the end. And there were moments when you stop praying God heal somebody at a certain point. Everybody been there? Where is the bus already? Come get my mama. Get her out of here. There's got to be something better than this. And there's a moment where that changes.

My mom hit the finish line running and had an impact on my life till the end, which was God's choosing, not mine or anybody else's. So do not be taking your own life. You say, "Well, I can't take it anymore." Let God determine that. Try it with him before you try to kill yourself. You say, "Well, my life doesn't matter. It won't affect anybody." Nobody ever kills themselves, even a bum on the street that commits suicide, somebody's got to pick up that body. Somebody's got to be confronted with the fact that this person is dead and gone. You do not die without affecting somebody.

It's the ultimate sabotage in a life. Goes out and hangs himself. But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, "It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood." And they consulted together and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, "And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me."

Guest (Male): Richard will be back in a moment to wrap up today's talk. But first, I want to share a few thoughts with you. Let's be honest. Real life isn't about living some highlight reel for others to see. Most people have deep hurts, questions, and struggles. We get it and want to help you in any way we can.

So let's keep this conversation going. Give us a call at 855-6-RICHARD or connect with us at our website, richardellistalks.com. You can even put in your prayer request right there on the prayer wall so others can pray for you as well. Call us at 855-6-RICHARD or online at richardellistalks.com. And now, let's get back to Richard with a final word on today's show.

Richard Ellis: Hebrews chapter 12 simply says this. It talks about laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us. Now you say, "You know what, Richard? You talked about these things through the years or maybe this is the first time I've heard you talk about this. I know what my deal is. It's not going to change." That's what the devil's waiting for you to say. "There is no hope. It's just who I am. I'm going to die with this struggle." I don't mind you dying with the struggle. I'm just interested in you winning over the struggle along the way. And see, usually right beyond the struggle is a tremendous victory for Christ.

Guest (Male): This has been Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. The message of the gospel is one we take very seriously in our mission to reach the planet, and you have a vital part of doing that along with us. If you've been encouraged by these talks with Richard, be sure to tell someone about the change they've made in your life.

You can even share today's talk with them through the website, richardellistalks.com. And we'd love to hear your story as well as to how these talks have made a difference to you. Give us a call, 855-6-RICHARD. You can also reach us through our website, richardellistalks.com. And while you're there, check out all the pages we put together for you, richardellistalks.com. Also, be sure to click on the contribute tab to send your very generous gift. If the program is making a difference to you, your gift will make a big difference to us. Until next time, thanks so much for listening to Richard Ellis Talks.