Truth Or Snare After Hours

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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Welcome to Masking Journey After Hours. We are excited about the topic this week, mainly because Danny brought it to us. That's really why we're excited about it.

I can see the sincerity in your face. Yeah, it's not there. No, it's not there. But it is a good topic. So far. You want to tell us a little bit about it?

Yeah, I think so. I'll try again. Okay, let's try. It's called Truth or Snare? I don't believe you.

Yeah, I don't think it's true. Okay, I'm going back. Darren, can I hang out with you?

I heard they're hiring a plumber's helper somewhere. We're changing the topic to Use Your Friends Wisely. I have not. You're going to plunge the depths. Oh, goodness. Oh, you have to listen to the other show.

He will, he will. Truth or Snare? We're just talking about times when in our lives when we know the truth or whatever, but just maybe a mixture of lies that we've created, or the enemy's whispered or whatever, and has misled us and snared us up in some way.

You know, either because we had a lack of faith or just weren't sure what was going on, didn't have the whole story or anything like that. So that's kind of what we're talking about. Absolutely.

And so we kind of left off, we'd been talking about some different things. You shared a clip from Andy Griffith. I know that's a stretch that you would have a clip from Andy Griffith. Yeah.

It's hard to find clips from there. It is, it is. And then I shared a clip from a Christmas movie. And that brings us to our next clip or clip for this show is your clip, which is also a Christmas movie, Rodney. It's January, y'all. You know that, right? We do, but it's only 11 months until Christmas. Christmas never ends.

Yeah, that's true. It's right around the corner. It's almost worth getting, man. It happens really quick. I think the decorations go out next week at most department stores. They're getting earlier every year.

So, you know, yeah, you know, it should be before Valentine's day. I think I still drive by quite a few houses that still have them up. Well, that's true. I see that some, I don't think they're going to be out for all year long. I know.

I think a lot of people do. I'm surprised that the ones still have the lights on. Yeah.

It's like, wow. Yeah. You really set up and they're still on. Yeah. Yeah.

I go to work early in the morning is dark and there's a few that they're, they're on all night. See, my thought is they're always out of town. I think they're out of town, you know, it's like, ah, I just think they forgot. Yeah.

Anyway, back to your clip. It is, we're going to go to home alone. Um, this is Harry. This is one of the thieves that he's coming to steal literally, you know, kind of kill and destroy. That's why it kind of depicts the enemy, but he's coming in, you know, the night before they're out, they're going out of town and he's going through the neighborhood dressed as a policeman trying to ascertain, you know, what's going on and all these families and who's staying, who's going, trying to figure out what he's going to do as far as what houses he's going to try to rob because he's figuring nobody's home. Most of us have, I'm sure seen the movie, but he steps into the house and there's just kind of chaos going on.

That's what's happened at the beginning of the scene. And then he's just trying to ask somebody what's going on. Cause he's trying to find out from somebody, just tell me what's going on. So he knows whether he needs to come back or when he needs to come back. And if he's, if this is a good house to rob or not. And that's what he's constantly asking questions, stopping kids and getting all kinds of different answers. It's kind of funny.

And then eventually at the very end, mom spills the full beans. Yeah, we're leaving in the morning. So go ahead. Hey, pardon me. Are your parents home?

Yeah, but they don't live there. Tracy, did you order the pizza? Excuse me, miss. Are your parents here?

My parents live in Paris. Sorry. Hi.

Hi. Are your parents home? Yeah. Do they live here? No. No.

Why should they? All kids, no parents, probably a fancy orphanage. How are your kids doing? Huh? Good. A lot of action around here today.

Huh? Going on vacation. Where are you going?

You hear me or what? Going on a trip. Where are you going kid? Okay.

That's a hundred and twenty two fifty. Not for me kid. I don't live here. Oh, you're just around for the holidays.

I guess you could say that. Hey, the pizza's here. That's a hundred and twenty two fifty.

My brother's house. He'll take care of it. Hi. Hi. Are you Mr. McAllister? Yeah. The Mr. McAllister who lives here? Yes. Oh, good. Because somebody owes me a hundred and twenty two fifty. I'd like a word with you, sir. Am I under arrest or something?

No, no, no, no, no. It's Christmas time. There's always a lot of burglaries around the holidays.

So we're just checking the neighborhood to see if everyone's taking proper precautions. That's all. Oh, yeah. Well, we have automatic timers for our lights, locks for our doors.

That's about as well as anybody can do these days, right? Do you get some eggnog or something like that? Come on, Deb. Let's eat.

Eggnog? Pizza! Oh, listen.

Will you be leaving? Pizza! Why do I always get treated like skunk? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This house is just crazy. We've got all these extra kids running around. My brother-in-law drove in from Ohio today. It's just nuts. How come you didn't bring more cheese pizzas? Nice tip.

Thanks a lot. Having a reunion or something? Oh, no. My husband's better transferred to Paris last summer and both of his kids are still going to school here. And I guess he missed the whole family. He's giving us all this trip to Paris for the holidays so we can be together. You're taking a trip to Paris?

Yes, we hope to leave tomorrow morning. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, that's just like the clip in, I'm trying to get another movie, but it's just excellent.

Just wonderful. That's that old Satan sneer, right? Just, ah, I find out what I needed to know. I'm going to slip right in and I'm going to steal everything you've got.

And that's what, like here, he's actually a thief and that's what Satan is, is that he's going for something that's a lot more critical, which is your soul. And that's the one thing when you're sitting there trying to figure out, okay, what do I say? How do I present this myself? Do I give him the full truth, the half truth, or no bit of truth? You can go a lot of different ways and give that information. And one of the things that we didn't talk about earlier, but I was on my mind, was there are times when you don't want to share everything.

Absolutely. There's times when you want to spare somebody something that really is just, it's truthful, but it's just ugly and all you're going to do is hurt somebody. But a lot of times we do way more hurting of other people when we're not true.

When we manipulate and deceive, like we were talking about before, there's a lot of that that goes on. One of the big things that happened for me that got me out to North Carolina was, came out and I interviewed and we're trying to figure out where we'd like to go, because at the time I had a great job and I didn't really want to change jobs, but we kind of wanted to just change locations. It's like, oh, I think we found a great location. The job was maybe not, well the company anyway seemed like it was not as good, but I literally loved my boss that I interviewed with and we hit it off, excuse me, and then next thing I know, six months in, he quit and went and did a completely different job. Something that he was like, well, I didn't know when we interviewed that I'd be doing that. I'm like, but you have to do all this training and pass all these certifications to go do that for a living. You had to be doing this well more than six months in advance.

It probably takes you a year at least to go through that. And I just hated that whole deception of, no, really I didn't know at the time we were interviewing. When you have those kinds of things, it's better just to say, yeah, I knew, but I just couldn't say something. I had to put my best foot forward.

I'd have appreciated that a lot more. But when you take deception and then you just flat out lie about it, it's just one of those things that we have to think about the consequences and what we're doing for other people too, because it's really easy. I look in my life and I look at many ways in which I can deceive real easy. It kind of comes a lot easier than you think it does when you're sitting there talking to somebody and trying to tell them either who you are or what you stand for or the situation that happened because that fear of man, you want to protect yourself. You don't want to look bad. There's all kinds of reasons why you justify it, but you just leave out a little detail here and a little detail there. And then next thing you know, you got to cover all those lies with another lie. It just builds and builds and builds. And that's where it's just better if you don't start down the path, you better kind of a lot of times just keep silent.

Agreed. You said something there that the enemy is after your soul. He is definitely after separating you from God, right? And so if you don't listen to the show often, you're stumbling upon it and you're like, really guys, you think the enemy really cares? First of all, do I have an enemy?

Yeah, you do. Does he really care about all this stuff? No, he doesn't care. What he cares about is destroying anything he can that God loves. Right? Because he can't attack God.

He's tried that. He's got cast down. Revelation chapter 12, go look it up. It talks about it there.

A little cryptic, but you can figure it out. But it's in there about the dragon being thrown down. He was kicked out of heaven. And so he can't hurt God. And he knows that from a physical standpoint, he can't overthrow God. But in any great movie, you know, what happens when you can't attack the good guy, you attack his friends and family.

Right? That's who you go after. And so that's what the enemy is constantly doing. He doesn't really even care about you. What he cares about is hurting God. And the way he can try to do that is hurt those that God loves. Right? And ultimately, if he hurts us enough, and he gets us to believe enough, then maybe we will separate from our relationship with God. Or say, God's abandoned me. Right? Because that's really, at the end of the day, what he's after is you to give up on your relationship with God or feel like God's given up on the relationship with you.

Yes, Robin? And he really goes after your image of God, like you begin to doubt that God has a good heart. Right. And that he's really your, you know, biggest supporter. Right. And that's, that's the place where all these, you know, snares.

They are. And a lot of times, he snares you with the truth. You know, but it's equally the message that he spins off that is like, oh, you didn't know so and so was up to this, did you? And next thing you know, you start to doubt their heart. That ends up in a conflict. And then God, you're, where were you in all this?

Right. Because we all have been here, you know, and ultimately, Satan knows it leads to that spot. Yeah, we like to think that we want free will in our lives. We want God to intervene and everybody else's free will.

You know, I mean, that's ultimately what we would like to have at some point. I mean, that's what we tell ourselves. Ultimately, we want God intervening. But, you know, when God doesn't step in, quote, unquote, you know, when he should, in our opinion, then, you know, that's where the enemy twists and turns and takes it in a direction. And God is always intervening. We just don't always have the eyes to see it. And he's not doing it in a way we think he should. It doesn't mean that he's not doing something.

Right. And even if it's a horrible thing that he didn't want, but he allowed to happen because of free will, right, he's always on the backside, trying to find some good from that or trying to get you to a healing or healthy place. He's always there. You know, we just don't always have the eyes to see it.

You know, one of the greatest allies of the enemy is our flesh. And I was just sitting here thinking and I think it is relevant that the story where Peter walks on water is kind of a great example of what we're talking about, because, you know, he saw Jesus coming across the ocean, walking on water. And, Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come. And Jesus just says, come. So Peter bails out of a perfectly good boat onto the ocean and he's walking on water. But what he sees is his circumstances.

And his flesh begins to tell him you're going to die because he's looking at this thing and he takes his eyes off the one who can save him. And, you know, I was thinking about, you know, when we started the Amos House ministry in Ashboro, I knew what the vision was because God had given it to me. But walking through the circumstances of it and the process, because there's always a process. And I think Darren mentioned it before the show, you know, maybe not know clearly like Abram, the exact you're going to be this, this, but there's this journey that he wants to take you on. But the faith and not looking at the circumstances so much, but going, OK, God, you said we were going to do this and we were going in this direction. But I've got all this in my way. So I either have to face to know that you're going to move these mountains or face down these giants or show me how. Or I begin looking at the circumstances and I waver and I begin to sink. And I'm ensnared in my own conscience at that point.

Yeah, we had a pastor come one time. We were talking about feelings and emotions before on the first show about that's one of the ways in which the enemy is going to attack us. And he did a really good job.

It's one of the most applicable things I've ever used because it's just it's simple enough for me to actually understand. Because when he counsels people, he starts talking about, OK, they tell him about the situation. They used to ask him, OK, well, how does that make you feel? Well, what are your emotions like and things of that nature? And you get that feedback from him. He's like, OK, that's what you feel.

I get that. Now, how do you think about that situation? Oh, this is how I think about it. And they go through that.

What do you know about that situation? Now you're starting to get into Scripture. Now you're starting to take the higher order, right, principalities and things of that nature. Not just, hey, this is my thought. No, what's God's thought?

What does he know? What do you know about what God says about you? You're a son or a daughter. You're not just dog meat. You're not an idiot. You're not whatever you're thinking about yourself. You're not what emotions came out.

And getting your knowing to drive thinking and to drive feelings rather than the other way around. Because we can jump to a conclusion really quickly. Danny's just flat out mean because he said this about me one day, right?

You can go there really quickly. Darrell Bock It was true, though. Well, yeah. But you did it to be mean. But you can go down that path and have, like you said, this is the conclusion. This is the motivation behind that and subscribing that to somebody saying, that's what you're trying to do to me. This is what you're trying to do.

You're trying to hurt me. And they're just maybe even actually trying to help you because it's something you need to do. If you're getting admonishment because you were doing things that weren't right, it's like, hey, sometimes you need to be called under the carpet.

It's good for you. But when you assign motives and emotions and other things to this and get charged up, you completely reverse the script. And I just love always coming back to, okay, what does God's Word say? And it helps so much to come from that because I avoid doing a lot of train wrecks in my own life. Dr. Darrell Bock Well, you're taking it in the direction that I actually wanted to go next was what do you do to try to counteract what the enemy is doing? Right? What things do you do?

And that's one thing they can do, right? Not do I, what do I feel? What do I think?

What do I really know? Yes. Dr. Darrell Bock Right.

And start there. That's a tool you can use to help. So what else can we use?

Or what else do you use? Dr. Darrell Bock Praying. And not just praying, but praying daily, the blood of Christ between me and you, between me and all peoples, between me and obviously the lives of the enemy. And praying that blood of Christ over his ability to spin the truth.

I mean, as Danny was bringing up and Ravi said, it could very well be the truth. And, you know, Abraham knew exactly what God told him. You're going to be a father of many nations. David knew.

You're going to be a king. Other people have known. We look at it in our lives and we'll go, I don't, I mean, yeah, I believe in God and I know he loves me, but I don't have a destination, you know, that he's promised, this is going to happen for me. And so I can't compare it to that. And so I'd like to have faith about what God's told me.

I'm just not sure what it is. Which brings up the reason why you need a band of brothers and not just any band of brothers. I mean, it can't be your, you know, your favorite crackheads, right? It needs to be a band of brothers that are all walking in truth, are being vulnerable with you, brave with you, truthful with you, different things. Darrell Bock I hear their bootcamps are more high active though.

David It actually happened at one bootcamp, actually. But the reality is, yes, the, that, you know, praying like that daily, obviously reminding myself of that going back there a few times a day, 700. But having a band of brothers that I walk with, that can go, well, wait a minute, what are you thinking, Darren?

What are you feeling? What, what, how are you interpreting this? And, and can go back there and start saying, is that really true? And is that the truest thing about you? Is that the truest thing about God? Is that the truest thing about those people?

It's good point. One thing that helped me over the past couple years is I've been involved with this thing that got started at church is a group Bible app, and reading daily readings every day. And so you're immersing yourself in, in God's Word and in truth.

When, so when falsehoods come up, you have a better reference point, so to speak. It's been good, because we've got like a group app that, you know, people share their thoughts and stuff like that. That's been really good to kind of, you know, because I heard it said one time, the way they train people to see counterfeit bills is they get them to study and learn the actual bills, so you know what's not real. So, and that's kind of the same principle, I think.

It's a good point. I'm big on fruit tasting. Like, how does that taste in my mouth, what it is I'm experiencing right this minute?

And is that tasting sweet? Or do I feel something, you know, that's obviously not of the fruit of the Spirit, you know, rage or distrust? Am I just trusting somebody else's heart?

Am I just trusting God's heart? And you got to, I've got a series, this is a Christian car guy, I've got a series of check engine, low oil pressure, overheat. You know, all these lights start flashing on the dashboard of Robby and I'm going, yeah, there's something that's being manipulated in order to create this fruit in my soul right this minute that is not love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, you know.

You know, for me, it's listening, one piece of it is, there's lots of pieces, obviously, but one piece is listening for words I know are not good for me. Things like, I deserve, right? I'm entitled to, I should have, they shouldn't have. You know, these types of things where it's an entitlement mentality, because I don't really deserve anything. I only deserve God's grace.

He chooses to give it to me, right? Robert Chisholm Always and never are typically words that are coming from Satan. Darrell Bock Yeah, always and never. Robert Chisholm Plunger. Darrell Bock Yeah, plunger. Robert Chisholm Plunger is one of those that I wouldn't listen for. Robert Chisholm Or remembering I was.

Darrell Bock Yeah, yeah. You know, and so listening to those things are indicators, oh, this is probably not going to go in the right direction. You know, ever since we've talked about always and never years ago, I try to stay away from those words, because they're not true. You know, someone doesn't always do this. No one's that predictable, right?

Or no one never does this. Those are words that just bring about a war. You know, if you tell somebody, well, you never do this. Wow, that's just the start of a war, right? Robert Chisholm It's just meant to tear down. And, you know, I'll bring this up, you know, talk about deception and manipulation. We are in the middle of a national election year, right? I mean, if you want to see it on steroids, you'll see it professionally done.

Just go watch some debates or watch some candidate on the news talk about everybody else. I mean, this is what goes on. Because for me, I started thinking about this, I'm like, when doesn't this go on in my life?

If it's not going on, I'm thinking it is because I've done it so much on my own that I can just I'm looking for that in in others. And it's really something that's going to take you down. If that's all you're doing is just looking for somebody to lie, lie, lie, lie. You have to be able to discern yourself a little bit and say, okay, I'm going to have their best heart at interest here until you get burned.

And then of course, you might say, oh, man, Robby, after you told me that I'm gonna have to watch you now from now on a little bit more. And then it's like, oh, he did it again, he did it again, then you start to get a pattern. But if you jump into just, oh, they're a liar, they did me one time, I'm just going to get them back.

That is horrible for your heart. You're going to live in a place that you do not want to be in to where you're always hating, and always like not trusting. Because if you if you're not trusting everybody else around you, you're not trusting yourself, you're not trusting God at all. And it's like, you really have to try to go there to say, you know, in the middle of this Lord, yeah, I saw what Robby did, but that's okay, I can, I can work through this, you're gonna, you're gonna be the one that rescued me.

I can't do anything about this. And that's what he's trying to do with this is get him to get us to trust him and go there. And that's, he's going to put you in that situation where it's going to call for trust, not just nice and easy and simple.

And it's hard to walk in those moments. It is. Yeah, it is. Anyone else?

So we recommend anything else you can think of on this? David, do you get anything? Dave? No, I was gonna talk about the band of brothers too. But I guess you are. Yeah, well, I mean, Darren put it very well. Oh, so Ditto is what you're saying.

You're exactly right. Ditto. Thank you, David. Start calling you Ditto.

The you need my plunger. Yeah, we do. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're gonna be digging me out of a hole here. But one of the things Danny had was, does this bring life or death?

Right. If you can discern truth from lie, that can help bring some life. As long as you don't just constantly, like I said earlier, just look for all the wrong things. When you expect it to be negative, to be wrong, to be a lie, that's going to bring a lot of death in your life. But life comes from trusting and having somebody else's best heart and you wanting to do something for somebody else. You know, loving your neighbors yourself.

That's where that kind of comes from. It's like, okay, I trust my neighbors wanting to do the right thing. I'm going to do the right thing to them whether they do it to me or not. There's a big difference between being naive and being aware and alert and being trusting. I think that at some level, yes, we want to find truth in a situation, but in a situation between two people, do you ever really fully get to truth?

Even if you both share your sides of the story, that's sides of the story. It doesn't make it to ultimate truth. It doesn't play in what the enemy was doing in the mix of it. You can guess. You can anticipate.

You can try to figure it out. You don't know what God was doing in the midst of it, what his plan was, right? You never fully get to the truth. And to some level, not that seeking truth isn't a good thing because Jesus is the truth, right? And so I want to seek him, but the truth in a worldly standpoint is not a lot different than seeking the tree of knowledge versus the tree of life. Are you going to choose knowledge over life? And I really want to try to continue to choose life, life in the truth that is God. Truth is in the midst of all that. It's encompassed in it, but that's really more powerful to my heart.

Seeking that other stuff is never going to get me to the satisfaction of the place I want to be. I'm a leader of a church, one of the pastors, and there are often times when people get into these situations and exactly what you just said. And they'll go with all the legalisms, but they don't go to that fundamental question of do you want life or do you want to keep digging for the truth?

And truth is great when it comes from God, but the truth of what I said or the truth of what somebody else said means absolutely nothing if life is not attached. Thank you. Remind us one more time, how do they register for your boot camp or get information? foothillschristianchurch.com and February 1st through the 3rd. Get hold of one of you guys, get hold of me, I can get you there. All right, and we have an entrenchment coming up, and that's the 23rd and the 24th of February. More at maskandjourney.org. This is the Truth Network.