I will Survive

1 Corinthians chapter 10. We're going to read verse 13. There hath no temptation taken you,! but such as is common to man.

But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted, above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

And we hear this term that we use, sometimes God won't put anything on us more than we can bear. I think it comes from the Scripture, but I don't want us to lose focus of what it's trying to teach us here.

It's saying that we are promised that, along with our trials, along with our problems, along with our temptation, there will be a way to escape, and that we will be able to survive it, is basically what it's saying.

Things are going to come. Things are going to happen. Life's going to show up. And there's going to be plenty of opportunities to fail God.

But in all of our tests, in all of our trials, in all of our temptations, there will be an escape route that God will have for us. And we can survive anything with our faith in God.

Amen. And so I want to give you my title today, I Will Survive. I Will Survive. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you, God, for this word. I believe it's a timely word for me, God.

I pray, God, that it's ministered well today. God, loose my lips, anoint my lips to provide your people the word that you want delivered today, God. I let it be your words, Jesus, that penetrate our hearts.

God, let it have free course into our minds. Let it have free course into our lives. Let it have free course into our hearts. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. When you finally find a way to maintain faith in God and His word, you will see that the things that come in life will not bother you as much as they once did.

This is a recent development for me. Many years I spent living for God. I say living for God, but really I was living for Shane. But about ten years ago, I made up my mind, I'm going to serve the Lord even greater than I had ever before.

And I noticed that the deeper I went with God and had faith in Him and His word, I learned that the things that would bother me so much in life wouldn't bother me as much anymore.

I'm not perfect. I'm not by any means and I still get irritated with things and I still do and say wrong things and act the wrong ways and all this, but it's much different today than it used to be.

We're all guilty of it. Some issue of life comes about and it seems so big and out of control and we get so sideways and crazy about it, but when you finally fully surrender to God, you really make up your mind to focus on living your life in a way that pleases God.

Amen. We don't have to get sideways about those things. When you do that, you can have confidence in a situation that comes up and you can look even death in the eyes and stand firm and unwavered and boldly say even to death, I will survive.

Amen. Death, where is your sting? Amen. We can die in this flesh but we're going to have eternal life. So even death, we can conquer. Amen. We can survive even death.

Even through, even though I will die, I will survive because I know what comes next. I know what I have done now to prepare myself for eternity. So I have confidence that I will survive no matter what.

I can weather any storm. I can face any trial. I can deal with any circumstance knowing there is nothing that can take away what I have in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen. I have promises from my Heavenly Father. I know what's going to come next for me if I remain faithful to Him and I continue to be faithful to Him no matter what comes.

I know what's coming next. And that is the attitude we can have even towards death if we are surrendered to God. But if we aren't surrendered to God, just simple day-to-day issues in life can get us sideways and spun around and you'd think it's the end of the world or something.

And I've been joking with Deanna this week and I wanted to joke with you a little bit today. Okay? There's only two things to worry about in life.

Deanna's already heard this a couple times. There's only two things in life you really need to be worried about. Whether you're healthy or whether you're sick. If you're healthy, you ain't got nothing to worry about.

But if you're sick, you got two things to worry about. Are you going to get better or are you going to get worse? If you're going to get better, you ain't got nothing to worry about.

But if you're going to get worse, you got two things to worry about. Am I going to live or am I going to die? If you're going to live, you ain't got nothing to worry about.

But if you're going to die, you got two things to worry about. Am I going to go to heaven or am I going to go to hell? If you're going to go to heaven, then you ain't got nothing to worry about.

But if you're going to go to hell, you got two things to worry about. Original or extra crispy. As much of it is as a joke, it's true.

No matter what comes our life, we have to survive in God. We can't let things get us sideways that it would jeopardize our walk with God.

We have to make heaven. Amen. At the end of the day, no matter what happens, we have to make heaven. We have to make heaven. We have to remain faithful. It's not the issues of life we need to really focus on or be on guard for.

We blindly get focused on them, not understanding what the real threat is to us. That's what I'm here to talk about today. What we need to be keenly aware of is there is an enemy of mankind whose sole purpose is to get your name off of heaven's roll call.

His sole purpose and his existence has become to make sure that you miss heaven. Ephesians 6 and 10 through 12 says, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Again, it says, Be strong in the Lord. We start listening to the last part about wrestling not against flesh and blood, but we miss the first part.

Be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. We have to be strong in the Lord because there are principalities and rulers of darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places that we have to deal with.

And so it's vitally important that we're strong in the Lord. You may not think about this often, but you should. There are forces against you. There are dark and demonic forces against you that want to see you fail.

There are forces against you that want to ensure that you do not gain eternal life. There are forces against you that their entire objective is to cause you to fall away from God, to backslide from doing what you know you should be doing and to fail and to give up on truth and to give up on your salvation.

It did not begin with us, but it is still here today. There are forces that are against God. And so if you are with God or God is with you, then those forces are against you.

And we have to remember that it's not against flesh and blood that we're fighting. Meaning it's not against other people. It's not against other humans. It's not against the common things of life that I talked about.

There's no temptation. That's not common. It's not about the common things of life. It's not against finances. It's not against illnesses. It's not against unfortunate circumstances or any other things of life that come.

The fight is not against those things. But that's hard to remember because that's what we see. We see the circumstances. We see the issues. We see the people that bother us.

We see the humans that we can't get along with. We see all these, the common things of life that I mentioned. We see all those things. And that usually is the face of the enemy to us in our minds.

We see all those situations. It's the things people say to us. It's how they treat us. It's what they do to us that gets us all bent out of shape. But we have to remember it's not them. It's not the flesh and blood.

It's not the things of the physical world. It's not these things that we deal with. It is an unseeable spiritual force at play against us. And we are all subject to what I'm talking about today. When we all have to deal with it, how many times have I been frustrated at people when I should have been frustrated with the devil?

It is the devil that is trying to get us to quit. It's the devil that's trying to get us to forfeit our eternal life and salvation over something stupid in life. Worthless in life.

And the devil is the one that's trying to manipulate us to get us all bent out of shape and want to quit and backslide and not live for God and get angry and upset and all these things.

He wants to see us lose. He wants to see us fail. And he wants to see us destroyed. But we have to make up our minds and say whatever comes against me, I'm not going to backslide.

I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to turn around. I'm not going to go backwards. But I'm going to survive. Amen. Amen. I'm going to survive. I made up my mind that I'm going to live for God. I'm going to survive. I'm going to make heaven my home.

Isaiah 54 and 17 says, No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. And every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.

And it says, This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. And their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. Although God's people face great dangers, the faithful will survive.

The faithful will not be destroyed. No weapon formed against us is going to prosper. If we are the servants of the Lord, we will survive. Amen. I'm going to make sure I'm a servant of the Lord.

1 Peter 5 and 8 says, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Our adversary, the devil, has thousands of years of experience warring against God and the people of God.

Your adversary, the devil, wants you spiritually dead. The devil wants you to be overcome. The devil wants you to be destroyed. The devil wants you to lose out on your salvation.

And he is the enemy of our souls. Amen. For thousands of years now, he has been fighting and trying to annihilate God's people. From Adam and Eve in the garden until today, the devil has been against humanity and especially against anyone who would be faithful to the things of God.

Anyone that would want to stand up for truth and stand up for God and put their nose in this Bible and try to apply the things that you hear and read about in this Bible to your life, the devil is going to stand against you.

His whole objective from the beginning is to get us to be unfaithful to God. He got the very first two humans, Adam and Eve, to be unfaithful and disobedient to God's word.

And let me tell you, if you want to be faithful to God and you struggle with it, the struggle is that with that nasty spirit that has been trying to get humans to reject God's word since the beginning.

Amen. That's where our struggle comes from. There's nothing bad in this book. There's nothing in here that we should say that we wouldn't want. Everything in here should be desirable. A life lived for God is the best life lived.

Amen. I believe that. I refuse to be manipulated by the devil. I'm going to be faithful. I'm not going to let the devil win in my life. I'm not. It was first told to us by God in Genesis 3, verse 15.

Adam and Eve fell for the devil's trick, speaking to the devil. This is after Adam and Eve fell. Now God's dealing out punishments and judgments because of disobedience.

And God turns to the devil and says, I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed.

It shall bruise thy head and thou shall bruise his heel. We are, now became mortal enemies of Satan. And it goes from Genesis to Revelation.

In Revelation chapter 12, verse 17, it says, And the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Satan, the dragon, the old serpent, has hatred and enmity towards the people of God, towards Israel and towards the church.

He seeks to devour, to persecute, make war against and overcome the people of God. But if you have the Holy Ghost and remain faithful, greater is He that's in you than he that's in the world.

Amen. Let's look at the context of our opening Scripture. Okay, we read 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13. I want to start in verse 1. Moreover, brethren, I would not have you ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea.

Paul's speaking to the church of Corinth and he's saying don't be ignorant. I need you to understand what's happened. Okay, all of our fathers talking about Israel, talking about the Israelites.

They're under the cloud and all passed through the sea. Talking about the Red Sea when they're delivered out of Egypt. And we're all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And did eat all the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ.

But with many of them God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.

Neither be ye idolaters as were some of them as it is written the people sat down to eat and drink and rose to play. Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day three in twenty thousand.

Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer.

Now all these things happened unto them for in samples and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world has come.

Get what Paul's saying. He's saying everything we can look back at Israel all the failings in the wilderness every time they turned from God every time they got their eyes on the idols of the nations to their left and to their right and they always had something in the peripheral vision instead of focusing on God and they always they would get right with God and then they would disobey God and they would be on God's side and then they wouldn't.

All this stuff is all to be an example to us upon whom the ends of the world are come. Verse 12 wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

In other words if you think you're good and you got nothing to worry about you need to take heed lest you fall. Sometimes we think we're saved when we're not.

Sometimes we think we're okay with this and okay with that and God will be fine with this and God will be fine with that and he won't be. So we have to make sure wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

And that's where we read verse 13 there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man but God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it.

Paul used the history of Israel God's chosen people as an example to the church today. 1 Corinthians 10 11 again says now all these things happen unto them for the examples and they were written for admonition upon whom the ends of the world have come.

We are in the last days. We are the generation that the end of the world has come upon and we are the church and we are to learn from the ancient Israel as our examples and Paul brought up all a lot of these things about the deliverance from Egypt and crossing the Red Sea and wandering in the wilderness but today I want to bring our attention to an example from ancient Israel from exactly 2400 years ago this past week.

All through Israel's history there have been forces against them. there's a spirit of annihilation.

We've seen it manifested in recent history by the Nazis through Hitler. You really need to think about this. History proves it. It's in the word of God but history proves it as well.

Think about it. How much evil comes against the Jews the people of Israel. Nazis, Hitler, 6 million Jews killed.

Still to this day the Jewish population hasn't recovered to what it was right before the Nazis mass murder of them. There was about 16 million Jews in that day and there's only about 15 million today.

And if those 6 million Jews had not been murdered by the Nazis with how reproduction works and all that there would be over 50 million Jews today.

So it wasn't that they just killed 60 million Jews it's like they killed 35 the potential of 35 million Jews from coming into existence.

And that's we have an enemy that is so purpose is to destroy God's people. And in the physical that is the that is Israel and in the spiritual it is the church.

The spirit behind destroying God's chosen people has always been been there and it will always be there and we know what it is. 2,400 years ago Persia which is modern day Iran controlled all of the Middle East.

The Bible says from India to Ethiopia 127 provinces were controlled by Persia which is today's Iran. and if you read the book of Esther the king of Persia had a massive feast for his officials.

The king asked the queen to display her beauty before all his drunken guests and the queen refused and so ultimately the king divorced her and put her to the side and there was a big decree that went out and all the virgin women were to gather up for the king to choose a new wife to be queen and a young Jewish woman named Esther is one of them.

See at this time Israel had been conquered and they were spread across the known parts of the world at that time. They were living in all these 127 different provinces.

There was no Israel. There was no nation of Israel. They were conquered and spread out all over the place in all these different provinces ruled by Persia which is Iran.

And a young Jewish woman named Esther is one of the ones that would come. And Esther is an orphan with no mother and no father and her older cousin Mordecai was raising her.

They did not reveal that she was Jewish and during the process of the king selecting she won favor and Esther became the queen. You can read all this in the book of Esther.

I really encourage you to go and read it. I'm not doing it justice. So they didn't reveal she was Jewish. She ended up getting selected as queen. She becomes queen and her older cousin Mordecai would spend his time around the gates of the palace and he overheard a plot to kill the king.

And he provided that information to the new queen Esther and she let the king know and the assassination was thwarted. And then later the king appointed a man named Haman to be second in command.

Haman had an ego and it was required that everyone would have to bow to him and give him reverence. And Mordecai refused several times as a Jew to bow to him because he would only bow to God.

And so Haman was enraged with this. Haman couldn't stand the Jews because they didn't conform to their ways. So Haman came up with a plan to kill all the Jews in all 127 provinces in one single day.

Haman cast lots which is like rolling the dice to see what month and what day to annihilate the Jews. The day was determined and Haman manipulated the king of Persia and the king was convinced that the Jews were disloyal and so he gave his approval to Haman to do what he wanted to do with them.

The letter was sent to all 127 promises that on that specific day and that specific month upcoming all the Jews were going to be killed. And Esther chapter 4 verse 1 through 3 says when Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes.

And put on sackcloth with ashes and went out into the midst of the city and cried with a loud and bitter cry and came even before the king's gate for none may enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth.

And in every province whithersoever the king's commandment and his decree came there was a great mourning among the Jews and fasting and weeping and wailing and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

And so the Jews are set to be annihilated in one single day. And Haman is the manifestation of that spirit of Satan that wants nothing else but to destroy the Jews.

And so Persia what is modern day Iran has the plan to destroy all of the Jews in one single day. And the response of the Jews and Mordecai was to put on sackcloth and ashes and to mourn and to fast and to weep and to wail.

And Queen Esther found out through Mordecai. Mordecai wanted her to gain an audience with the king and try to convince him to stop the plan.

Esther chapter 4 verse 11 through 17 says all the king's servants and all the people of the king's provinces do know that whatsoever whether a man or woman shall come unto the king and to the inner court who is not called.

There is one law of his to put him to death except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter that he may live but I have not been called to come into the king these 30 days.

So Mordecai tells Esther you got to go talk to the king. You got to ask your husband you know you need to go talk to him and she's like the king has a rule if you go into his presence without being called if he doesn't put his scepter down to receive you you're killed and I haven't seen him in 30 days.

He hasn't called for me in 30 days. That's an interesting marriage. And so they told Mordecai Esther's words and then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther think not with thyself that thou shall escape in the king's house more than all the Jews.

In other words it's going to be found out you're a Jew too. For if thou all together holdest thy peace at this time then shall their enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this.

In other words he's telling Esther look this is the this is the hand of God that you're even queen of this whole place. This you may have come to the kingdom for such time as this.

Like this is where God's placed you for this. Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer. Go gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan and fast ye for me and neither eat nor drink three days night or day.

I also and my maidens will fast likewise and so will I go and unto the king which is not according to the law and if I perish I perish. So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther had commanded him to do.

And for the sake of time I'm going to skip to the end. The king heard Esther he stopped the mass murder of the Jews he hung Haman and he remembered Mordecai had never been rewarded for spoiling the plot against his life and he gave Mordecai Haman's spot as second command in the kingdom.

So I know that's a long story and I was trying to figure out how to really fit it in here but I want us to understand what I'm trying to say. The Jews till this day celebrate a holiday called Purim which means lot like lots like rolling the dice like Haman did on their lives to find just randomly let's pick a day to kill all the Jews.

In remembrance of what Haman did by casting lots to determine the day and the month he would organize that mass murder of the Jews. And it celebrated every year on its anniversary which is said in the Bible to celebrate that.

The Jews are to celebrate that. Which in 2026 it landed on March 2nd just six days ago. And all this happened 2400 years ago to the week that we're in right now.

On February 28th, 2026 just two days before Purim the United States and Israel launched an operation against Iran which was Persia from back then because of their continued pursuit in trying to obtain the nuclear weapon.

A nuclear weapon intended to destroy all the Jews in one single day. And this past week during their Purim celebration the operation was already ongoing and so they're at war and the Jews were all in bomb shelters being attacked by Iran and there's videos surfacing of them in their bomb shelters during Purim singing and dancing along to the song I Will Survive.

Not a Christian song. But they're not Christians, they're Jews. I hope you understand the message. When I saw that I was like my God.

there's a spirit, there is an entity that is desperate to annihilate the Jews. They're God's people, they're in the land of Israel, they're God's chosen people.

And we're the spiritual Israel, the church is a spiritual Israel. And that same spirit wants to annihilate us. I hope you understand the message today.

There's an enemy that is against the people of God, against Israel, against the spiritual Israel, the church. It's not flesh and blood that we're fighting against.

It's an anti-God spirit. And it wants to destroy us. It wants to annihilate us and make sure we don't make it to heaven. And so every time you feel a pull away from the things of God or a thought comes in your mind that maybe you won't go to church today or maybe I won't be involved as much or maybe I won't prioritize the kingdom of God in my life anymore.

I want you to be aware that there is an enemy trying to destroy you. And by making those decisions you're falling into the enemy's hands. When we feel that pull away from the things of God, that's the enemy trying to kill you in a single day.

when that is revealed, we have to have the same response as Esther and Mordecai.

They did not send letters to all the provinces to pick up arms and fight because it wasn't a battle of flesh and blood. It was a spiritual battle. And they went to spiritual fighting.

They mourned. They wept. They cried. They fasted. They prayed. And they got the victory. Amen. Let's all stand. I see across all of our lives today that the enemy of our souls, he's still at it.

It's no coincidence that 2,400 years to the week that the same entity is still trying to annihilate the children of Israel.

There are plots and plans to destroy us, to cause us to lose out, to cause us to backslide and quit. And today we need to respond to the evil spirit that is trying to destroy our relationship with God.

We need to respond in a spiritual way and get in our minds that no matter what the enemy tries to bring against me, I will survive. As the bombs of life fall overhead, we can take refuge in Jesus and we can sing our own song in the face of the enemy.

I will survive. I'm not going out like this. I'm not going to strengthen my spiritual disciplines. I'm aware of the enemy.

We need to be aware of the enemy. I know you're there and I know you're sinister and you're plotting against me and my family and I'm not going to let you in because I'm on the Lord's side and I'm dedicated to living for him.

I'm not going to backslide. I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to slack on my spiritual disciplines. I'm going to get myself together and I'm going to survive.

survive. I'm going to survive. And so before we leave here today, I want to say