Joe Mueller: John chapter 10 this afternoon, John chapter 10. It’s been quite an exciting day here, and certainly glad to see each one of you. Hope you aren’t too worn out at this point from crazy stuff happening outside and inside, I suppose, with all the cheering and all of that.

But I appreciate so much the attention you’ve had to the preaching over these times. I guess I haven’t introduced myself to the ladies. I have to the men downstairs, but my name is Joe Mueller, And I’m on staff here at the college and church, as well as getting out in evangelism, as the Lord gives us opportunities that way.

And so I’m thankful for the opportunity to be able to open the Word of God here this afternoon. A hunter raised his rifle and took careful aim at a large bear that was approaching him. And when he was about to pull the trigger, the bear spoke to him in a soft, soothing voice.

This is a true story. and the bear said isn’t it better to talk than to shoot uh what do you want let’s let’s negotiate for that lowering his rifle the hunter replied well i want a fur coat and the bear said okay good um that’s a negotiable question all i want is a full stomach so let’s negotiate a compromise So they sat down to negotiate, and after a time, the bear walked away alone.

The negotiations had been successful. The bear had a full stomach, and the hunter now had a fur coat. A humorous and obviously fictitious story, but it points out actually a very serious truth for us today.

We have an enemy. and he is cunning and ruthless and cannot be trusted. You see, the devil is a terrorist involved in a war of deception.

To the very core of his being, he is a liar. He can’t help it but lie. He is a deceiver. It’s been quoted a couple of times already during this summit, but John chapter 8 and verse number 44, Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, pointing out who they were serving, but he gives us some deep insight into the devil when he says,

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own.

For he is a liar and the father of it. Revelation chapter 12 and verse 9 says, And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. Young people, the devil has one objective in his deception, and that’s to deceive you into thinking that you have to go his way, or that his way is best. Now, often his way comes with a different label slapped on it

that says, my way. But it’s his way nonetheless. And he wants you to take his way. He’s trying to deceive you into taking his way because he knows that that is the only place,

the only time when he can win in your life. John chapter 10 and verse number 10 says this, The thief cometh not, but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I want to take a few moments here this afternoon for us to consider as we think about this battle that we’re in, this war that’s being waged, the objective of our enemy.

What is the enemy’s objective? What is his goal in your life? Because, young people, we need to realize what he is after if we’re going to be able to respond to what he’s seeking to do. Our text today here is found really in the midst of a beautiful passage of Scripture as we have the passage of Jesus being the good shepherd

and really him being the door, laying out how he protects and he provides for us. Jesus painting this beautiful pastoral scene. But in this picture, he draws a stark contrast between himself, the good shepherd, and the false religious leaders of his day who sought to lead the Jewish people astray. And those, he clearly indicated a couple of chapters earlier,

those religious leaders were tools of the devil doing his will. And though they claimed to God, they claimed to follow God, they were following the will, the way of the enemy. And he made that clear. And so now here in the midst of this discourse as he’s doing that, he gives us a key truth, some key insight into the enemy that his people were facing,

and even more so, the devil, the enemy that we are facing. And I want us, just in this simple text, it’s not a complicated message this afternoon. It’s very, very simple.

Here in this text, we see three reasons that you cannot afford to take the way of the enemy. Three reasons that you can’t afford to go the way of the enemy. Reason number one, the devil wants to take.

The devil wants to take. It says here that the thief, notice that term that’s used to describe the enemy here, the thief cometh not but for to steal. He’s someone who wants to take that which does not belong to him. and it says that he comes into this situation into your life specifically for this reason to steal to rob you

and the whole time that the deceiver is trying to work in your life he’s he’s trying to communicate he’s saying i want to give you something i want you to experience something i’ve got something for you but the whole time he’s actually trying to take something from you you see he’s a liar and he cannot be trusted and you can’t afford to believe this lie he wants to rob you of your

purity he wants to rob you of your purity young people the devil whispers in your ear that listen you can have fun by playing around with your purity by holding hands with a harlot you can you can do that whether it be in the the mental arena or the the visual arena or in the physical action you can do that and you you might have that fun for a little while but remember this the whole time

that you are messing around with that, the purity, the intimacy, the sweetness of your future marriage is being ripped away. It’s being taken from you. And girls, we’re not just talking to guys. See, everything that you give away before marriage,

you won’t have after marriage. You’re not only allowing yourself to be robbed, you’re also robbing your future spouse. When you go the way of the devil and let him rob you.

Every time that you look at that dirty image, your future marriage is being robbed. Every time you watch that Netflix flick or that dirty YouTube video, your marriage is being robbed. Your purity is being taken from you. And listen, while you’re busy enjoying the pleasures of that sin,

the devil is laughing as he robs you blind of your purity. Young people, the devil wants to take. He wants to take your purity.

He wants to rob you of your freedom. Oh, he tells you, listen, listen, you need to just cast off the shackles of authority in your life. don’t let anybody tell you what to do listen you just do what you want to do be what you want to be go where you want to go say what you want to go don’t let anybody else put restrictions on you

you just be who you are he says that’s when you’re going to have freedom and the whole time as you go you believe his lie and you pursue after being what you want to be and doing what you want to do thinking that I’m finally my own boss, you’re not. Now he is. And while you think that, yeah, I’m enjoying being, doing what I want to do and my own freedom,

he laughs as he forges yet another link in the chain that binds you. He wants to rob you of your freedom, young people. The devil wants to rob you of your purpose.

You know, you have an amazing purpose in life. Whether you know it or not, God made you for an amazing reason. We talked about this a little bit with the guys.

He’s got an awesome plan for your life. I mean, something better than you can imagine. But the devil wants to distract you from that plan.

He wants to lie to you about that plan. He wants to misdirect you from that plan. He wants to confuse you about that plan.

He wants you to get so discouraged that you don’t even think that plan is possible. He wants you to miss out on the incredible purpose that God has for you. And maybe he says, oh, pursue this.

That’s where you’re going to find fulfillment. That’s where you’re going to find joy. Oh, that’s the dream you’ve always dreamed of doing.

That’s going to be awesome. Do that. And while you’re pursuing after that instead of what God wants for your life, The devil laughs yet again as he robs you of the fulfillment that comes from your God-given purpose in life.

In 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, Germany and Russia signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. And this treaty promised that neither nation would attack the other, and it kind of laid out a plan for how they would divide the nations of Eastern Europe. Well, in 1941, without any warning or provocation, Adolf Hitler sent his tanks across the Russian border in a sneak attack.

Hitler really, though he had made this pact just two years before, had no intention. No intention at all in keeping his word. The treaty was just a temporary measure so that he could do what he wanted to do.

He couldn’t be trusted. And young people, the enemy can’t be trusted. You can’t believe his lies.

He’s here. He comes specifically because he wants to take from you. And Satan promises the best, Thomas Brooks says, but pays the worst.

He promises honor and pays with disgrace. He promises pleasure and pays with pain. He promises profit and pays with loss.

He promises life and pays with death. Which brings us to point number two. Not only does the devil want to take, to steal, to rob you, the devil wants death.

That’s what it says. The thief cometh not, but for to steal and to kill. Now listen, I love the month of October because we have the Youth Summit in October, and it’s a great time of the year.

We have a great time, and I always look forward to that. But otherwise, I’m sorry for all you people who are born in October. It’s one of my least favorite months of the year, apart from that.

And it’s because of this. I hate Halloween. I can’t stand it. a day that’s set aside really to glorify death and it seems to me over the course of my life either i missed it when i was a younger child or things have gotten a whole lot more graphic and violent in this matter of halloween decoration you drive through the neighborhood

and what you see i i just i look at it and it just turns my stomach as they depict people being hung and it’s freaky looking stuff i’m just i i can’t stand it i’m we drive through the neighborhood and tell the kids close our eyes i don’t want you to see that you know why halloween is so much glorifying death because that’s what satan’s all about

he is all about death that’s what he wants he wants to kill he wants to kill it’s who he is see the devil wants death in your soul he wants death in your soul now he certainly wants death eternal death for people to spend eternity in hell forever that’s that’s the debt one of the devil’s objectives and brother bosler talked a little bit about that and and friends don’t let the devil

have his way in your life if you’re here and you have not made that decision to trust jesus christ as your personal savior you don’t know for sure that your sins are forgiven on your way to heaven you need to take care of that today. Don’t mess around because the devil is out to see you burn in hell forever. And if you put it off today, you’ll maybe put it off tomorrow and the next day

and the next day. Eternal death is not something to mess around with. But when I speak of death in your soul, I’m not talking necessarily about that. I’m talking about spiritual death, experiencing that, yes, you’re saved and you’re on your way to heaven, but there’s a separation between you and

God. Death in the physical realm is separation of the soul from the body. Eternal death is separation of someone from someone being separated from God for all of eternity in hell.

But in this life, you and I can experience as saved people death in our soul. When sin comes between you and God. And now you no longer can have that relationship with God that God longs to have with you and that we should long to have with him.

Spiritual death. And that’s certainly the condition of lost people, but friends, it can be us as well. And the devil is actively working with his temptations and the things that he’s going to bring into your life trying to build that wall to separate you and God.

Listen, he does not want you to experience the joy of a relationship with God. He doesn’t want you to experience the sweetness of friendship with God. He doesn’t want you to know what it means to be close with the one who made you. He wants you to experience death, being separated from that one, because there’s sin between you and God that you’re not willing to deal with,

that hasn’t been taken care of. And some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re sitting here and you feel far from God.

You feel like God is millions of miles away. There’s no sweetness to your fellowship. It’s all, everything that you do is just, you know, well, I’m supposed to do this, and it’s just rote motions.

There’s no reality to God in your life. And the devil is there whispering in your ear, yeah, that’s just the way it’s going to be. That’s just how it is.

You just got to have to resign yourself to it. Listen, you’ve gone too far. God doesn’t want you anymore.

You’re too scarred. So just, hey, you might as well just kind of enjoy it where you’re at. Just kind of enjoy this place and, you know, enjoy some of those pleasures over here.

Enjoy this, enjoy that. Enjoy the misery because you’re not going to get out. The devil wants that death in your soul.

That separation from God. But he doesn’t stop there. He does not just want death in your soul.

He wants the death of your physical body as well. He is out to kill. Can I ask you, why is suicide the common next step for someone who’s depressed?

For someone who kind of feels like, oh, God’s so far away? Why is it even Christian people that happens? Because the devil is out to kill.

He wants you dead. Young people, the devil hates you. He doesn’t care about you.

He wants to see you in the coffin. Have you thought about this? Humanity is the only part of creation that the devil seems to really attack.

can go after. Have you thought about that? The only ones that there really seems to be, that Satan seems to be bent on destroying, and you know why?

Because we are the image bearers of God. We are made in God’s image. Yes, all of creation displays God’s glory, but we alone display his person.

And because of that, the devil hates humanity. That’s why some of these atrocities happen around the world, like the Rwandan massacre in 1994, where 800,000 to a million people were killed in a mass murder in only 100 days. That’s why in Armenia, under the stalwart rule of Enver Pasha, between 1 and 1.8 million Armenians were massacred, deported, or starved to death at the end of World War I.

The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s under Pol Pot’s communist regime killed between 1.7 and 2 million Cambodians. I’m just talking about cold-blooded murder of people. Why is that?

Why do these things happen? Because the devil hates humanity. The Holocaust, probably what we’re most familiar with when we think of a genocide. Adolf Hitler’s attempt to exterminate all of his undesirables,

spanning over 35 countries and claiming the lives of more than 6 million Jews. In Stalin’s regime, over 23 million people, perhaps even up to 50 million lives, were taken. In cold blood. In China, under Mao Zedong, between 40 million, perhaps even up to 70 million,

people were killed. Young people, I don’t go through that because it’s enjoyable or it’s fun to think about millions of people murdered in a mass way. But I do it simply this, we need to stop and realize that the enemy is out to kill.

He is not your friend. He is all about death. He hates you and your life and he won’t be happy until you are dead and your influence is gone, especially as a child of God. And listen, friend, if you give him an inch in your life,

he will take a mile, even to the point of death. See, the devil wants to steal, to take. The devil wants to kill.

The devil also wants utter destruction in your life. The thief cometh not before to steal and to kill and to destroy. 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse number 8 says, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour. The devil wants, like that roaring lion,

to literally take you and tear you to pieces. That’s his objective. He’s out to crush you, to make you completely ineffective, to absolutely destroy your life, and he will stop at nothing to do it, young people.

You can’t afford to take the way of the devil. I can think of more people than I want to count who have sat in chairs like this, who today their lives are absolutely destroyed. Their marriage is destroyed. Their effectiveness for God is destroyed because they started to listen to the lies of the devil

and go his way. And the devil had his way in destroying them. the devil wants your destruction listen he isn’t some cartoon character with horns and a red tail he’s not some mythical creature who maybe you who does he really exist he is a bully who finds pleasure in your pain who wants to destroy you in the most destructive way possible

and listen young people say well you know i don’t okay the devil doesn’t care how you’re destroyed he just cares that you’re destroyed and you might say well i’m not i’m not involved in some of these things that you mentioned okay where are you taking the way of the devil because if you are you know where are you following his way he doesn’t care how the destruction happens he just wants to see

that it happens he wants to make it so that you cannot be used so that you’re you’re in defeat and destruction and so that you miss out entirely on what god made you to do that’s his objective there’s no hiding it it’s clear so can i ask you this question where have we gotten this idea that we can listen to the devil for a

little while and go his way for a while and everything’s going to be okay in the long run that when those temptations come when we kind of sit there and we think well you know it’ll be okay i can kind of go along this for a while i’ll be able to stop when i want to stop listen that is a lie from the devil himself

the devil wants you to think that you can as the old phrase goes have your cake and eat it too he wants you to think that you can go his way for as long as you want enjoy the pleasures that he offers maybe experience a few minor consequences from it you know but but you can stop whenever you want and be none the worse for it. At least you’ll have gotten your pleasure out of it.

And can I tell you, young people, there is nothing further from the truth. As you enjoy your pleasures, he is carrying out your destruction. He is a liar, young people, and he is not to be trusted. You can’t afford to go the way

of the devil. In 1896, Norman the Kid McCoy was the welterweight boxing champion. In one of his fights, he learned that his opponent was actually deaf. And so when he discovered this, as they were nearing the end of the third line, McCoy stepped back and pointed to his opponent’s corner,

indicating that the bell had rung. And when his opponent turned his head to look, McCoy unloaded a powerful blow that knocked him out. It wasn’t very fair, was it? But it was effective, and that’s all

that mattered to him. Friend, the devil doesn’t play fair. He doesn’t play fair.

There’s no rules in his game. You can’t mess around. You can’t mess around with the devil.

It’s a serious matter. Young people, every time the devil speaks to you. It is a lie. He is a liar from the beginning

and the father of lies. He literally cannot speak without deception. He cannot speak the truth. And as I was meditating on this earlier this summer, I asked myself the question,

then why do I ever entertain his words? Why do I ever listen to him for a moment? Because he cannot speak the truth.

And he is out to destroy. To utterly destroy your life. Listen, you can’t afford to take the way of the enemy.

The stakes are too high. Listen, I’m not trying to scare you here today. That is not my intention at all.

I’m not trying to be sensational. I’m not trying to make you fearful of the devil. But I want us to understand that if you are taking the way of the enemy, maybe you have a reason to fear. but my friends there is a better way there is a better way to take and if you are taking the way of jesus you have no reason to fear

because jesus has already defeated the devil and he cannot stand against the name of jesus there’s a contrast here in this passage i didn’t read the second half of the verse you all probably notice that, which is the part that we maybe read more often or think about more. The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I, this is Jesus, I am come.

I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. Friends, the devil has only one objective, to destroy life. But Jesus has an objective as well, and it is to give life.

And he does that by giving himself. The next verse says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

Can you just notice the contrast? The devil wants to take from you. He wants to take your purity.

He wants to take your freedom. He wants to take your purpose. He wants to take your peace.

He wants to take your power. But Jesus wants to give you himself and everything that you could ever dream of in him. Jesus wants to give.

Listen, Satan, he wants death. Jesus wants you to have life. And not just life, just as Satan wants your utter destruction, Jesus wants you to have abundant life.

I love this term, that you might have it more abundantly. That term there, abundantly, literally means exceptional or more than expected. Young people, can I say this? When you choose sin and Satan,

the destruction in your life is far worse than you expected it to be. But if you’ll choose Jesus and His way, what you will experience is far better than you expected it to be. What Jesus offers you is more than you think it is.

It’s better than you think it is today. You say, well, I don’t know about this, dealing with these things, taking God’s way instead of my way or the devil’s way. I don’t know if it’s worth it.

I’m telling you, friends, it is worth it. Because what Jesus’ way is better than you think it is. Think the best you could think, and it’s better than that.

It’s more than you expect it to be. There’s no way to describe a real, vibrant, living relationship with Jesus other than this, it’s way better than I thought it could be. Young people, you can’t afford to take the way of the enemy.

The stakes are too high. Your very life is on the line. The devil absolutely hates you, and everything he’s ever told you is a lie. And some of you, after a day of preaching like this,

you’re sitting at a situation where you’re making a choice. What way am I going to go? What way am I going to take?

Whose way am I going to go? Am I going to go this way of confessing my sin and being open with somebody about the things happening inside my life or dealing with these things? Am I going to go that way?

or am I going to think, well, I’m just going to keep going the way I’m going. I’m going to keep going my way. I kind of like the way I’m living, though God’s not really a part of it.

Young person, I plead with you. You can’t afford to take the way of the devil. You can’t afford to go his way.

He is out to steal and to kill and to destroy. And can I tell you, young people, there is someone who loves you, who has a far better way. And he pleads with you, and he says, I’m come that you might have life and life more abundantly.

It’s better than you thought it could be. But you’ve got to choose. What way am I going to take?

What way am I going to go? Am I going to stay on the way of the enemy and experience the sure end? Will I choose Jesus and his way and experience the life more abundant that he gave himself so that he could give me?

young people who can’t afford to take the way of the enemy. Let’s bow our heads for prayer.