Iniquity

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Learn more at arnicare.com. That's a-r-n-i-c-a-r-e.com. Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show. Stories of hopelessness turned into hope. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call The Masculine Journey. The Masculine Journey starts here now.

Welcome to Masculine Journey. We're glad that you're with us today, and I know that I say every week, I'm not going to say that the next week, but I am so glad that you join us and that you listen to the show, you know? He actually is. Yeah, I am.

I'm very happy that people listen to the show and reach out to us from time to time and make mostly nice comments. Mostly? No, they've all been nice comments. We have been doing a series forever now. It's been a few months. We normally don't do this. No.

There's only been a couple of times in the big Masculine Journey history. Yeah, and so we are working our way through what we've called the Tools of the Enemy. We've called it The Enemy's Toolbox. We've called it Satan's Palette. Right? No new names. I think we're stuck with Satan's Palette is probably the final one.

I hope so. But we have been talking about in this series things that the enemy uses against us. Right? And Robby coined the term Satan's Palette, which is very good, because he uses multiple things most of the time. It's not like he's just taking out the hammer and hitting you, although it feels like that.

You know, he's doing a lot of other things around that, you know, and so the one main thing's not getting you, he's got three or four other backup plans all the time. And so he's painting this tapestry or tapestry, I guess, would be like a woven thing, painting a picture. Yeah, what was that?

A mural. Thank you. Thank you, Harold. But Rodney, do you remember what all we've been to? I know you haven't written down. Well, that's just it. I remember I haven't typed into my phone. Well, that's good. That's more than I got.

I know, that's what I do. I knew I never remember. I knew we'd all struggle with it because we did there about week three, because we've been through a little bit here. So unforgiveness, we'll go chronologically. Then we went to agreements, then busyness, condemnation. We talked about the orphan spirit, shame. Last week, we had Bob on with pride and ego.

And this week is iniquity. Basically, the theme was kind of how you measure yourself against another. And we'll just let Mr. Dilmore go from there. Oh, before we get to Mr. Dilmore, before we get to Mr. Dilmore, this was his topic. And it is quite a good topic.

It still is. Yeah, it's still his topic. I think it's quite a good topic because of the amount of conversation that we've had as a team. We're all learning more about the Bible, like everybody else that's a Christian, as we walk. We're learning along the way.

But I don't think we've ever had as much conversation about a topic, trying to just understand it collectively. And I have to admit, I'm the one that's been like dragging behind, trying to understand it, because I keep thinking inequity instead of iniquity. And they're not the same thing. And they're not the same thing.

Robby, I'll go ahead and turn it over to you because it is your topic. Well, like many things in life that I'm struggling with to understand, and this is one of them, is the first three verses of the 119 Psalms seem critically important since they are the first three verses and they start out like the Beatitudes. It says, blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. That's pretty clear. And you can only be that if you're in Christ, right? And then it says, you know, they keep his testimonies and seek him with their whole heart.

So there you go. That seems, again, like I can understand that. And then the third verse says, they also, these are still the blessed people, they also do know iniquity, and they walk in his ways.

And so there I landed, you know, about a year ago, trying to discern, you know, exactly what that meant and to get a grip on it. And so for me, as you know, I look at the Hebrew, and from that, the very first letter in that word is an ion. And an ion has to do with your eyes. There's two, it looks like a Y, and so if you can picture your two eyes looking at something and it's trying to create a vision, well, that same word is the beginning of the word meek. So if I have God's vision, I'm anav. But if I have my vision, then I am anal, which is almost like the exact opposite of the meek is somebody that's in it for them.

Right? And so when we talk about the larger story, this is how I've interpreted it. Like when we do the talk on the larger story, like, am I trying to see this from God's perspective of my life? Like, he's the hero of the story, or am I the hero of the story? And so if he's the hero of the story, I look at things completely different. And so in doing that, you know, one of the examples of that, you got two different kinds of iniquity in my view. In the prodigal story, you've got the younger son, who ends up obviously in iniquity in the pig pen, because again, he's concerned about getting what he's got coming to him.

And that's a form of it as well. But then you got the older brother, and the older brother goes to that, that's not fair. Again, not concerned about what God's view of how things are going to be.

But in other words, and I think that these are issues of our own flesh, however, Satan is very well aware of how to say, are you sure God's looking out for you in this? Because, you know, it doesn't look like this is going your way there, big brother. And so thus leads to this clip of a children's show that talks about it's not fair.

Oh, there you go. And I don't know if you've ever sang that song. But unfortunately, I sing it all the time. It's not fair, Robby.

It's not. You know, I see certain things go on with other families, you know, and I'm like, God, that's not fair. And it's unbelievable how quickly I go down that road. And I can feel Satan just spinning it like crazy, like crazy, like crazy, especially, you know, for whatever reason within my family, right? The closer you get to people, you know, like your brothers and sisters, you know, I can't even believe what God has done to reconcile my family in spite of my attitude just like that.

It's not, you know, it just wasn't fair this and it wasn't, you know, my sister got to go to college. There were all sorts of things that were not fair in my perspective that clearly, you know, Satan kept that spinning, which put not only a problem between me and God, but a problem between me and my family, right? And so therein lies iniquity, and I would rather walk in his ways.

So I'm working on it. I want to commend you for clipping that at the exact right spot because one second longer I'd be wanting to commit some iniquities myself. It was just so grating. It was such a great example. But you clipped it well and it didn't make the point well. But man, wow.

That's all I'm saying. I'd rather see him slug him. I like that. That was a good line. That part was good. That part was good. Danny, I think we got time to get your clip in in this first segment.

If you don't set it up way too long. Oh, okay. The clip is from a movie, The Overcomer or Overcomer. And this young lady who is in sports and a coach comes into her life, now I have not seen the movie, but several people have. But the clip is where she's talking to her father toward the end of the movie, I think. And he is asking for her forgiveness because he's lived in iniquity and he's thought about himself. And so he's asking for her forgiveness.

And so you can play the clip. I was worried I said the wrong thing. No, you didn't. I know you must have a lot of questions. You can say anything, ask anything you want. I promise to be honest.

What happened? You know how people think that they're a good person. I thought I was, but I wasn't Anna. I lived selfish all my life. I lived it for me. I hurt so many people, your mother, your grandmother, you, so many others. I left because I was a fool.

And I wouldn't listen to anyone, especially God. I ran from everything that mattered because God loves me. He let me be broken and I needed to be broken.

He finally got my attention and I gave him my heart because that's the only thing I got left. So I'm sorry, Anna. I'm sorry, I wasn't there for you. If I could take it all back, I would. I know I don't deserve it. But I pray one day that you will forgive me. It's hard.

Hard as dead. Yeah, that that that story I've lived and because of former lifestyles and and you know, living in iniquity and addiction and the living an addiction and it was all about self. And Robby made the statement earlier that you want to get what was coming to me. Well, when you pursue iniquity, you get what's coming to you. And, you know, just life down the toilet. And I was just like that guy. Just, you know, I was just like that guy. I was just like that guy.

Just the guy that says I had nothing left to give but my heart. And, you know, luckily Jesus found me. And, you know, had conversations with my daughter about, you know, just living for self and not realizing that my actions affected because the heart of addiction is, well, I'm not hurting anybody but me.

And that's the biggest lie you can live. And but I was hurting my daughter. I was hurting my parents. I was hurting those around me. And just the pursuit of that over and over and over again. And so, you know, fast forward to to come to that broken place and to recognize that a life of iniquity is not the way to go.

I like the prodigal son and the older son. You know, it is not fair but life is not fair. Thank you, Danny. Robby, I want to go back to something you said. You said something about, you know, some of iniquity being, you know, internal for us, right? But part of the tools the enemy uses is the old self, right? The old flesh, the old man or whatever you want to call it. And we're looking around the room, the very old man. And also the world.

He uses the world. So that's tools that we kind of touched on. Yeah, and he's bringing those things up.

You know, you're a drunk, you're, you know, an addict, all those things. For me, describing boot camp, when I heard the stories from the stage that the other men had, and then during my prayer time, I'm getting a download from God on where my life is and how I have wounds and I have a place in His story. To know how I heard from God is one of those things. He really does communicate with us.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. What has boot camp meant to me? That's a really tough thing to articulate. It's so deep inside me. It's ingrained in every part of me. Understanding woundedness, that's where God really caught me at my first boot camp. And also helping me step into healing and restoration from those wounds. It's kind of cool. It's like an onion. He keeps peeling back layers and it's exciting and sometimes frustrating to go there with Him. But I enjoy the process and the way God leads me to freedom.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. I had a friend named Rambling Bob. He used to steal, gamble, and rock.

He thought he was the smartest guy around. Well, I found out last Monday that Bob got locked up Sunday and they've got him in the jailhouse way downtown. He's in the jailhouse now.

Now, Danny, that was your bump in. Yeah, it's one of my favorite movies, Old Brother Where Art Thou? Never made it through it, actually. Never made it through it. It does not surprise me for some reason or another. Yeah, it's in the Forrest Gump-ish kind of thing.

Yeah, those two are on your, not the playlist. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, tell us about the bump. Well, I mean, the story behind it is a guy who was gambling and living in iniquity, obviously, and he got exactly what he deserved.

He's in the jailhouse now. So it just made a fit. And now that I think about it, Rodney kind of looks like one of those guys from that movie, I think. Yeah, it looks like most of the guys. The Soggy Bottom Boys.

Yeah. Yeah, we'll have to partner you with Bob, which we nicknamed last week off the air. So you have to come to boot camp to hear that, though.

If you want to hear the story of the nicknames that we don't say on the air, you have to come to boot camp. And there's one coming up November 17th through the 20th. But before that, we have an entrenchment, which is a weekend, Friday night, Saturday, most of the day kind of thing.

And Robby, the favorite part about it is? F-R-E-E, free. It's free. The entrenchment is free, right? The boot camp is not free, but the entrenchment is free.

If you want to come to the entrenchment and say, do I really want to come to a boot camp, you can kind of get a flavor of it there, right? And the only thing you have invested is your drive up to the Reedsville area, beautiful drive, mostly, on your way up there. And then also just a donation for whatever food. We'd like for you to give a donation towards the foods that the church is putting out.

And other than that, there is no cost to you, just the gas to get up there and maybe a donation. And that is September 30th and October 1st. So it starts right around dinnertime, around six, excuse me, suppertime. Danny, I'm down in the south. It's suppertime. Friday night.

I'm biblical now. Yeah. Friday. Yep. And so we're going to go to my clip because Robby wants me to play my clip so that I have to talk about a topic I'm still trying to understand. So I will be obedient because it's his show and we'll follow that request. Oh, wow.

Yeah, lift your feet. Sorry, we'll get going. So I'm trying to think of a clip and I'm like, oh man, Father, I don't even understand the topic. I mean, I kind of understand it, but every time I think I do, I don't. And I'm really trying to understand it.

It's just not me being flippant or anything. I'm trying to figure it out. And so I plugged in my phone and it starts auto-playing stuff and I just kept fast forwarding through songs and the song came on and I think, I think there's some iniquity in here. And so I've got to play it and talk about why I think there's some iniquity in there and then everybody else can correct me if I'm wrong, but we're going to go ahead and play it. It's from the Eagles. It's a song called Get Over It. This is just one of their verses and a little bit of the chorus and then we'll come back. I'll read some more of the song to you and we'll talk about it. No, there's parts of the song that are really, really good. And there's parts of it I don't agree with, you know, cause it kind of shies you away from doing any type of counseling, you know, in part of the song.

And I'm not going to read that part cause I don't agree with it, but the beginning verse and then the chorus and then the next verse is the first verse is I turn on the tube and what do I see? A whole lot of people crying, don't blame me. They point their crooked little fingers at everybody else, spend all their time feeling sorry for themselves. A victim of this, a victim of that.

Your mama's too thin and your daddy's too fat. I kind of take exception to that. Get over it. Get over it. All this whining and crying and pitching a fit. Get over it. Get over it.

You say you haven't been the same since you had your little crash. That's what we just played, but you might feel better if they gave you some cash. The more I think about it, old Billy was right. Just kill all the lawyers, kill them tonight. You don't want to work. You want to live like a king, but the big bad world doesn't owe you a thing. And as I listen to that, and I've known that song for a long time, but what that song does for me is it tells me to quit putting the focus out there. You know, the problems that I'm dealing with is probably more in the mirror, you know, and with my relationship with God than it is with the other people out there. And so, we have a society for many, many generations that seems to get worse all the time, that it's all about someone's fault, someone else's fault.

You know, and there's some truth to that in some applications, but more times than not, I think we're supposed to, at least I am, turn to God and say, God, what was my part in this? Where did I err? What did I do wrong? Where did I sin? You know, where did I commit iniquity, I guess, if that would be the word. You know, where did I do this?

Yeah, where did I? And help me see that, and how do I avoid that? How do I not fall in that same trap again? You know, a lot of my life, honestly, sin-wise has felt like the movie Groundhog Day.

You know, I just keep falling in the same trap over and over. I think of the scene where he steps in the pothole. It takes him like three quarters of the movie to not step in the pothole, right? It feels like it's taken me a whole bunch of my life to not step in those same potholes, right? And the only way I get it fixed is not by focusing out there, but by focusing up there, you know, and focusing with God.

So, I don't know if that fits the topic or not. Darrell Bock I think it's spectacular, Sam. I really do. I think that when I look at my iniquity, you know, it's, I know, here we are again, God, we've had this conversation, I don't know how many times. But, you know, to Harold's point of iniquity, it's when you do something you know is wrong and you still do it, right? And unfortunately, from my perspective, once you get your hooked into something, and I told a story about my poor father when he first got married to my mom, they went to this carnival and they had this little game where you swing the little ball to hit over the three little, you know, whatever they were to knock them over and you'd win. And he ended up giving these people like $200 trying to knock, because once they hooked him in, you know, he knew it was stupid, he knew it was wrong, but he just kept doing it because he had to prove he had to be right, you know. And that's unfortunately kind of how Satan, he throws the bait out there, whatever it looks like, and as he hooks you in, at some point you know this is wrong, you know this is stupid, yet, and you just, afterwards, you're sitting there going, how did I do that? And you can't help but think that King David was going, how in the world, how did I get here?

You know, from where I started out and, you know, there you go. So, it's not as much a head issue, right? It's a heart issue. Exactly. Satan gets a hook in your heart, right? You can logically know that it's completely stupid, right? I mean, it's idiotic. I mean, you can make the whole case for it, but I'm right back there.

Yeah, it's crazy, but it's that whole, you know, you got to have a surgeon come in and kind of take that stuff out so that you can move through it. It is, and it's so many things that we talk about every week, and what are your things, Danny, you always talk about? You can't be tired, you can't be lonely. Hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. Right, right, and iniquity will get you in those situations, wouldn't you agree? I mean, that's what's coming. Well, those things would probably take you into iniquity. Right, right, because now we're thinking about, I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm whatever I am, who's the main character of the story here?

I call those Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday sometimes. It's Esau, right? And the beans, the Jacob's beans, right? He was hungry, he was tired, he wanted to just go ahead and go the quick way around God's best for him and the blessing that God had for him.

Well, you see it in both brothers, because you see Esau, because he's hungry, but yet you see Jacob, it's not fair that he gets all the blessings, so. He had a hold of his heel the whole time. He was trying to get a grip on the whole thing.

Yeah, he was always a heel. Well, he ended up getting a grip on an angel, you know, that's got him straight. That's what I played, Andy, I like that. You're exactly right. It's Big Brother, and how many times in Genesis do we see Big Brother? You get a prize from the prize package. The King Pursuit prize vault. I'll show you on the way out.

So we don't have enough time for another clip, so we'll have to save the other clips we have for the after hours. But anything else you'd like to add to this part of the show? We need Rodney. We need Inspector Smoots.

Inspector Gadget over here. Yeah, well, iniquity, what I like from our discussion is, it's what's inside that you don't see. We see it in shame. We see it in agreements and all kinds of other ways that kind of manifest itself. But iniquity, as we've talked about, is really the underlying thing that's in your heart.

This is the disease, not the symptoms. And you can actually go in and say, okay, like we're just talking about, all those things that we do that we know are wrong. I'm like, every one of those girls that I slept with, I knew it was wrong, yet I did it anyway. And I didn't go, it was just selfish.

It was just all about me. And you just did it. It's like, okay. There were many times when I said, okay, I'm not going to, and yet I did. And there was times I said, I'm not going to, that I actually didn't.

But how many times, it was just time after time, I know this is the wrong thing to do. And yet you just walk right back in there, step in that puddle, and you just go around and swim in that puddle for a little bit and then jump back out. And then you're at the shame and you got all this other guilt and everything else that's coming on you that you think, okay, it's okay now I'm out of it. And next thing you know, what do you want to do? You want to jump right back into it. Why are we wired that way?

But we are. It's like we fight like heck when we're drowning, but yet once we're out, we jump right back in. And I think the important thing to keep in mind is the prodigal solution, right? Dad is waiting with open arms if we'll turn, right? If you can just get a half a turn back to your brain, somehow you're in the middle of making this horrible decision to somehow realize, wait a minute, Dad's got a steak dinner waiting for me if I'll stop the stupid. I think my head needs more than half a turn to get screwed on straight though. So what's something that the listener can focus on this week on this topic as they go to talk with God?

Any advice? Yeah, I would be praying like, God, where am I triggered here? And how can I, you and I agree on some way to trigger me back the other way, you know, something that I can set up ahead of time to know this is what I'm doing. Thank you. Go to masculinejourney.org to register for the upcoming boot camp November 17th through 20th and the entrenchment. This is the Truth Network.