Hello and welcome to One On One. We are so pleased that you've chosen Christian programming to be in your homes and we are honored and blessed that you have chosen us, Buddy and Veronica McLaughlin, to come and to break the bread of life with you and bring the good news. And yes, it is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There's wonderful airwaves through these facilities that God has blessed us with right into your home.
We're so thankful that you're carving out the time to get into God's Word. And we know and encourage you, it will help you through your day, it will make you stronger in your walk with Christ and let you be blessings to other folks as we try to be blessings to you. And we want to elaborate on that a little bit that we don't have a conversation with the devil. One of my best friends, Jackie Hess, my dearest friend who I grew up with and cherished in love, home to be with the Lord last year.
And she was a fireball. And one of the things- That's an understatement. An understatement. And so her girls now, she's passed that on her legacy and we love them dearly.
And I have just, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of her and the things that we would talk about. We would have conversations and it would be about the Lord. And one thing that I remember her saying really strongly all of the time, you can't buy in to the lies of the devil. I'm not talking to the devil.
I'm not listening to that junk. And I would just get tickled. But that's how she lived her life. She said, no, when the devil comes and he comes, she said, I'm not talking to him.
Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. You can't have a conversation with the devil. It will only leave you in despair. It will leave you with doubt.
It will leave you empty. And we can see what happened with the first conversation with the devil. Who sure starts you down the wrong road? It starts you down and it was with a woman because you know, the enemy prays on our vulnerabilities and I'm speaking to my sisters out there.
We have more of a tendency to be more emotional. Our emotions are on our sleeve. We're vulnerable with that way. And the enemy wants to come in and weave lies in certain areas of our lives.
And he thinks that that's a weakness for us. So it's really a strength because it's our nurturing nature. It's our way to care. And we listen to each other.
You know, we have conversations that my girlfriends and I, we really have conversations. We get into details. Tell me how wonderful her husband's are. Yeah, those details.
All those great things. Guys don't really get into the details. You know, we want, what did she wear? What kind of makeup?
How'd she fit? You know, and you're like, what? I'm going to it. Well, the enemy knew that with Eve and it piqued her interest.
And in Genesis 3, I have to understand that Adam and Eve had been in the garden for, we don't know, maybe years and years. You know, God had prepared it for them. God had had a relationship with them, had come down and had an intimate relationship with them, walking and talking with them in the afternoons. What a great life.
Being in a beautiful garden, having everything just, that's how God planned it for all of us. He had it perfect. But then there was an enemy to come in very shrewdly because he hated God and to get back at God for casting him out of heaven, he hated God's children. So who is he going to pray on?
Somebody that's going to talk to him. So in Genesis 3, it says, now the serpent was more cunning than any of the rest of the field which the Lord had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree in the garden? So he's asking her a question.
The thing is, why was Eve around this tree? He knew that she had probably come there to just take a look at it, to see its beauty, to see its splendor. I think that was really being inquisitive about what God said not to do was really the first fall that Eve had. She should have been nowhere around that tree whatsoever.
So he entwines herself around the tree and starts speaking to her. And then instead of just saying, I'm not talking to you, God told me I can't eat of this tree and just walking away, her choice here, she decides to have a conversation with the devil. We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but at the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, you shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it lest you die. So here we go.
The conversation becomes interesting. So she talks back, now say new that this was the tree of knowledge and that God had told them that you can have any tree, any fruit, anything in this garden is yours. The animals are yours, everything I prepared, everything. But this tree, you can't touch it and you can't eat of the fruit of it.
Say new that. So he wanted to bring that back to say, okay, God's withholding something from you. So he must really not care for you. And he was doubting what God had told her, the goodness that God had prepared for her in the garden in Eve.
Then the conversation goes on. The serpent said to the woman, you shall surely not die. What a liar. Satan is the chief of liars, twists things around will lie to you to make you think that things are actually real.
The first lie here, you will not surely die. For God knows in that day that you eat, your eyes will be open. Now that was a truth. You know, he stretches the truth.
Say your eyes will be open. Just gives you enough truth to hook you and to bring you in. And you shall be like God, knowing good and evil. Oh, that intrigued her.
That intrigued her to the point she didn't walk away this time. How many times had she gone there and just walked away? If she had not had this conversation, how many times does the enemy come to us to make us doubt the promises of God? To put that into our spirit.
How many times does he say, you're not worthy? Who do you think you are? A child of God or something? You can't do anything for God.
You're worthless. Don't have a conversation with the enemy. He's a liar. After the conversation, it's very short to the point.
Then the woman saw, she looked, she started thinking that the tree was good for food and it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree that was desirable to make her wise. It's like God's holding out on something. She took of its fruit and she ate. She also gave it to her husband and he ate it with her.
So we know that the conversation in the garden that day had consequences, Betty. Anytime there's disobedience, God told them, don't do it. They're boundaries. God tells us things not to do because he wants to protect us.
He doesn't want to take away our free will. He made us free moral agents. He sets guidelines for us so that we don't fall into the traps of sin that will lead to destruction, that will lead to death because the Bible tells us the enemy will come to steal, to kill and to destroy. That's his main objective.
That's exactly what he came to hear. That was his tactic and he won. Yes. And how did he approach?
He approached with all of the weaknesses that he knew the woman had. And he approached everyone and she identified everyone as she went through the actions of sinning. That's what the enemy wants to do. He wants to tell you, hey, it's okay.
He's looking. Nobody's going to know it's okay. Hey, you're going to enjoy this. You know, the reason why you shouldn't be doing is because it's so pleasurable.
And it's all about you, all about deceiving the pleasure symptoms, the sensors that we have in our bodies and our minds. And we think would be pleasing to us. You know, I've been there. I mean, when I got out of the house and got away from my mother and my family, I got into things I shouldn't get into.
Why? Because I'd always heard about it. And I thought they were interesting and surely it couldn't be as bad. It couldn't draw you down the road.
Well, I'm telling you, it did. And many things that didn't have to happen in my life happened because of that. Those choices that I made. Yes, you have a conversation with the enemy.
And it is going to lead you down a road that is unhealthy for you personally, for your family. And the thing is with sin, it's not just that you have the sin that you committed. There are ripple effects from that. It affects others lives.
You and I today are still feeling the ripple effect from the sin from the garden. You and I are now pray to the same judgment that Eve brought upon all of mankind because of her sin. That's the ripple effects of sin. And why?
Because she listened to the wrong voice. Have you been there? You know when you're hearing the devil, the satanic voice, the lure of pleasure, of self-fulfillment, of self-indulgent. All those things are happening in your life and you're feeling them.
And all of a sudden you think, okay, maybe I can just get away with that. Maybe I can just take a little taste of that and see what it's like. Sample it. You know, that's where the enemy really gets to us.
It's just a sampling that all of a sudden becomes a full-course meal that you can't control any longer. And then you have the desire to try it again because he kind of went with it once. Let's try it again. Let's ramp it up a little bit.
Take it dude. He will coach you right along. He's a great coach. He'll coach you right straight to the pits of hell.
That's what he wants to do. And if you listen to him, that is his objective. Don't ever forget what his objective is. It is not your pleasure.
Although you may find pleasure for a season. That's all you're going to have. It's not permanent. But what is eternal is the thing that you need to think about.
Hey, if I go down this road, if I listen to this voice and I go down this road, am I going down the road to hell or am I going to go to heaven? Where am I going to go? Where is this going to lead me? It's really honestly that simple of a question to ask yourself.
And how do we fight it? What do we do? Yeah, we've identified it. That voice still looks really tempting.
It still looks desirable. It still looks something that really I think would fulfill me, would make me happy, would be so pleasing to some sense within me. What do we do? We're going through that.
We stop. First of all, we stop. We check ourselves. We rebuke him.
We have the authority to rebuke him. Then we speak to him with the Word of God. We use the Scriptures. We use the Scriptures to shut him up because he won't come across that bloodline.
He can't come across that bloodline. You draw that line and say, it is written. It is written. Jesus' words tells me that if I live a righteous life, if I live a holy life, I can climb the hill that I know I'm going to have to climb.
It is written. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It's not your word that strengthens me. It's Christ's word that strengthens me.
He gives me the ability. You don't give me the ability. Those are the things you've got to really wrap your mind around. This is a battle.
We've told you time and time again. It's a war going on. It's a war for you, for your family, for the conscience of this nation, for the world. It's a whole.
The enemy has come in. Yes, we might play a small role. Eve was playing a small role in this, right? She was going to eat of a tree.
That's it. No big deal. Well, it was a big deal. He just made it a small deal.
Whatever it is in your life, he's tempting you with because that's what he did. He tempted Eve and she listened to him, had the conversation as Veronica said, what's he tempting you with in your life today? Have you stopped to think the effects that's going to have on your family, your job, your community, you, yourself, how's that going to sit with you with your integrity? What's that going to do for you to help you?
So if you're listening to those lies today, we employ you to stop. Check yourself. It's okay. It's okay if you're just tempted, but it's not okay when you act because that is an unholy act against God and that's called sin.
And we can't disguise it anyway other than to call it what it is what she did. God told her not to do that sin. We know what the commandments are. We know the right way to live in this world.
And when we don't do it and we fall short and we cross over that line, we listen to the lies of the enemy. We have committed sin. And that is, as I said, an unholy act against God. Now that's a pretty tough thing to say.
You know, I'm not trying to give you a tough pill to swallow. I'm trying to open your eyes to the reality of how severe these conversations can be and what the goal of the one who's tempting you is, and it's not to give you pleasure, is to take pleasure from you, is to give you an eternity of a terrible, terrible existence in hell. Or God wants to say, look, if you will ignore that, come to heaven and live with me. It's a narrow road to get there and the road to hell is broad.
And there's a lot of conversations going on on that broad road. So today, Veronica, I think it's a beautiful thing that when the Lord laid this into your heart about having this conversation. Well, I just remember Jackie telling me, don't buy into the lies of the devil. Whatever that may be, if it's telling you that you'll never be healed, she was fighting a battle.
I mean, we fight battles. We've heard the lies of the devil. When Buddy was diagnosed with cancer, the enemy came to us with those lies and said, you know, he's going to die. He's going to have cancer.
I said, no, we're not buying into that. When I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, I said, nope, I have a destiny. I'm not buying into that. When he comes to you with the lies with your children to tell you that they will never be saved, they'll never serve God, they'll never fulfill their destiny.
He said, nope, I'm not buying into that. Satan's temptation, whether it be in any realm that we're talking about, any lustful thing or any doubtful thing, his goal is to give us that invitation so that we will start thinking that that invitation, that his world is better than the world that God promised. That what he is painting is so much better than what God said that he can do and what God is withholding. So we don't take that invitation.
We say that we are not responding. We don't RSVP to Satan's invitation to temptation. We're not going to do it because if you do what Eve had, she got in her mind, I've got to have it. I've got to have it at all cost.
I've got to have that wisdom. I think God's holding out on me. So I'm going to take it. Well, was it?
It was the lust of the eyes. She saw it. She saw that it was beautiful. And then it was like, well, you know, I deserve that.
You know, I have everything else here. Why can't I have that? It was self-indulgent. And then it was the power.
Yeah, I'll have that knowledge. I'll be just like God. And we see that happening all in the world today. Power hungry people who are in corruption and who lie.
And then it just swirls and it's so very destructive. And that is what the enemy is still doing today, the tactic. And we see the tactic what he did with Jesus. That was the first thing when Jesus was baptized.
The Holy Spirit came upon him. The heavens opened and God said, this is my beloved son. Well, Satan heard that as well. I was like, oh, here we go.
Oh, well, it worked the first time in the garden. I'll just go and I'll just use the same tactic. Satan's tactics are the same over and over again. He doesn't have any new things to offer.
He just knows our weaknesses. So here he targets the Son of God. Then we go to Matthew in chapter four. This is that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
Here's the invitation. Temptation isn't the sin. What do you do with the temptation? And he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights.
And afterward he was hungry. He was vulnerable. He was weak. He knew Eve's weakness in the garden.
He saw that she had been coming around that tree for how many years looking at it. Think he almost touching it, then just coming back. The vulnerability, he knows when we're weak. He knows when we get those doctors' reports.
He knows when we get the phone calls in the middle of the night. And then here come the lies. Well, if God truly loved you, he wouldn't let this happen. He wouldn't let Buddy have thyroid cancer.
I thought that you all were ministers. I thought you all were exempt from this. You've seen others be healed. Do you know what he told me right before I was going into surgery to remove a brain tumor?
He came to me. I heard that temptation. He said, oh, so, so, I don't think and who is this in my room talking to me? So you've laid hands on them and they've been healed because we've seen so many glorious miracles for God, documented miracles.
Alzheimer's healed, Parkinson's healed, stage four cancer heal. I could go on and on. We've seen God do all of this. So he knows that I've put my hope and trust in God, the healer, the Jehovah Raha.
He comes to me and says, oh, you've laid hands on them, which is the truth. And they have been healed by God's glory. So just lay hands on yourself. And I'm like, what?
The temptation had come to look at God and say, I'm bitter with you. Why would you do this to me? I reject you. No.
No. I said, no. I'm not buying into that. I know who God is.
I know he loves me. I know he can deliver me from this. And then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, I'm well able to deliver you from this. If you'll just trust me.
I'll walk with you through it. And that's what he did. And here I am today, totally healthy and whole before you. So the temptations come.
It's how we respond to that. The temptation came to Jesus at his vulnerable state, at my vulnerable state, when I was getting ready to go into surgery at Eve's vulnerable state, going into the lies, the temptations. And he said, if you are the Son of God, make these stones bread. He knew he was hungry, but he wanted him to doubt that he was the Son of God.
The enemy wants us to come. The first thing to doubt who we are and that God loves us. But Jesus refused to have a conversation with him. He just answered him back with the word of God.
It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Ding. All right, Satan, you take that, but did he go? No, here he comes again.
He's persistent. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on a pinnacle and said, again, making him doubt if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. And then this is when the enemy uses the word of God. He starts twisting it around.
Oh, the enemy knows the word of God. He'll twist it around. He said, he shall give his angels charge over you. That's what Psalms 91 says.
And in their hands, they shall bear you up. Bless you, dash your foot against the stone. And what did Jesus do? It is written.
It is written. No conversation here. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. And then the third time the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world.
It's like I have it in my power to give you all of these things. If you will fall down and worship me, the power thing came in. Oh, how many people have sold out? Have sold their souls to the enemy for the power.
And what did Jesus say? He said, away with you, Satan. For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God. And only him shall you serve away with you.
It is written. You can't do this. It failed. Everything the enemy used against Jesus, it failed.
And then the devil left him and behold angels came and ministered to him. If you do not have that conversation with the enemy, he will leave. When you hear those things come, when you hear those lies coming, you raise your hands and you say, nope, I'm not listening to that junk. I'm not having that conversation.
That's not my thought. I am a child of God. I am healed. I am delivered.
I am restored. Now away with you. And start singing. Start praising God.
Start lifting his name up. If you just say the name of Jesus, the enemy has to go. Just say that right where you are today. Jesus, Jesus, the atmosphere changes.
Every temptation will have to go. That's exactly what he is our example today. The same tactic that he used on with Eve, he know that he won. But every tactic that the enemy came to with Jesus Christ had failed, even the tactic of the cross.
If I'll just kill him, I'll get rid of him. But then there was a third day. The devil's lost. We are the winners.
And now we know how to handle this temptation. We know how to handle the struggles of life. Yes, they come. But we don't have to have a conversation.
We don't allow that into our spirits. And one thing that I've stopped allowing into my spirit is secular media. I'm not letting that into my spirit anymore. Yeah, it's good to be informed.
But I want to know the truth. And I'm not letting that junk into my spirit, as Jackie would say. I'm not letting that junk. I'm allowing the pure things into my spirit.
God's word into my spirit. God will lead us and guide us and direct us. There are certain things and certain choices in our lives, but then we talked about this that we have to make, that we're saying we're not letting that into our spirit. We're not buying into the lie of the devil.
Well, you know, we keep Christian music playing. And the reason why is because it glorifies God. It does. It glorifies the Lord.
If you let the other words from these other songs, and we're not being critical of other arts, of other venues of music, we're just saying be selective what you let into your spirit. Let the things that are pleasing to God, that will direct you toward heavenly values and heavenly goals, not the lust of the flesh, the desires of this world, because the enemy has no new tricks. If he's lured into it before, with it, he'll lure you into it again. So recognize it for what it is.
It is your walk in this world. And again, we are free moral aid. And God's not going to take you and put his thumb on your head and twist you around to show you which road you should turn down. He's given you the truth of his word.
He's given you your opportunity to hear his voice, to let the angelic hosts come and be the gods in your life, to hear their voices, not the voices of the enemies. It's whatever you want to entertain. That's what you're going to become. That's what you're going to resemble.
You're going to look in the mirror one day, and you're going to see that person, that you've allowed all these things to come into your life. That's the person you're going to be. I hope that I can look in that mirror, and I can see the face of God staring back at me, pleasing things in my life, not things of regret, but things of joy, things of a hope and a future, and a horizon that's beautiful that I'm looking forward to. We hope that for you too.
We hope you receive this today. Well, we love you. And God loves you. Until we see you again next week, remember that God is always faithful.
Hello, everyone. Veronica and I would like to thank you so much for partnering with Dufsong Ministries through these many years. We appreciate your support, your love. We look forward each week to coming and being a part of your life, in your homes.
We bring you God's Word. We are so humbled to receive your praise reports of salvation, of healing, and restoration. We are excited to take this gospel across the world. We know this next season is bringing great harvest for His glory.
Thank you. And remember, the best is yet to come. We hope this program has enlightened and enriched your life. This ministry is made possible by the grace of God and your generous financial support.
If you would like to partner with our ministry to spread the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, right? Call or visit our website at www.buddyandvaronica.com. We look forward to visiting with you again soon. Until then, remember, God is always faithful.