David: Karen, I’m going to get you to define some words because I want to use them later. And it was such that I had to look up at least one of them. So, are you ready? They’re all words starting with the letter I. First word is invisible.

Karen: Can’t be seen.

David: Okay, this is a little bit harder. Indomitable.

Karen: I would say it’s something that can’t be overcome easily. Someone who doesn’t give up quickly.

David: Okay. The last one is insidious.

Karen: Something that is not overtly negative or evil, but it’s the evil subtext that lies underneath a person’s demeanor or their words. Did it come close at all?

David: You’re very close. Yeah, it’s treacherous. A sense of slyness to it. These are all words that are describing our enemy. Okay, so I just wanted to make sure people understood what they were because if I listened as a new person then those words were used, I think that’s a little bit beyond me. I have to look that up, but I probably wouldn’t. We’ll talk about it and we’re going to put it in the context of our great enemy, Satan.

Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David: What triggered this in me, Karen, was I got a very disturbing phone call the other day. It was from Commonwealth Edison. Supposedly it was from them. And the voice on the other end of the line said, “You haven’t paid your bill for some reason in the last two months.”

And I said, “That’s not true. I paid my bill.” And they said, “Well, you haven’t paid it.” And then they named the amount and I was getting my checkbook. I said, “I did. I paid that.” And then they gave the next month’s amount. And I said, “I paid that one as well. In fact, wait just a minute.” And I got my bank statement out and my bank statement said that the first check, not the second one yet, but the first check had already come through. I said, “It’s come through.”

“Doesn’t matter”, the voice said. “We didn’t get those checks. And we are going to turn your power off in an hour if you don’t send us money in accord with what we said.” Well, I’ve never had a call like that before. And I said, “You know, you’re joking, aren’t you?” “Oh, no, this is not joking at all. We’ve tried to contact you before, you haven’t been…” And I’m thinking, “What?”

Karen: About this time, your wife walks into the room. You’re flustered and getting upset because you’re not being heard.

David: And in fact, I said to the guy, “Do you have a supervisor? Because I want to talk to that individual. I’ve been a customer for years.” And so they gave me a new name and he said, “I’ve looked at your record and you are a very good customer. You’ve always paid on time. But these two bills have not been paid.” I said, “That’s why I wanted to talk to you because the first person was quite rude and I have paid those bills. I’m right up to date. I’ve never been late with a payment.”

Karen: And your wife says, “Hang up, David. It’s a scam. They were trying to get your money.”

David: My dollars. And finally, I just said, “I’m going to hang up. And then I called Commonwealth Edison. And I said, “Would you tell me if I’m paid up on my account?”

“Yes, you’re paid up.” They looked at it immediately and I said, “Well, I got a call and here’s the number of those dirty guys.” And that bothered me. But what if I were single? What if my wife hadn’t walked in when she did?  Who reads the articles I probably should read. But it just was very, very aggravating to me. It got me to the place where I was thinking that’s a little bit unfair. I wasn’t ready for somebody to lie to me or take advantage of me and then on top of that tried to rob me.

Karen: Yeah. Well, we don’t really run in that crowd very much. You know, not that kind of a crowd. So you weren’t used to it.

David: I’m a preacher.

Karen: Right.

David: So I immediately put it into kind of a…

Karen: You spiritualized. You made a metaphor out of it.

David: Yeah, I did.

Karen: A living metaphor.

David: This is 2 Corinthians 2 verse 11, the apostle Paul. And he says, I’m writing the way I’m writing to you, which was quite strong, quote, in order that Satan might not outwit us for we are not unaware of his schemes.

And that’s when I began to look up, here’s my opponent. And I really haven’t given them as much credit as I should Satan because Satan is invisible. Satan is indomitable. He doesn’t quit. He just keeps coming and coming and coming. He is insidious in that he is sly and he is crafty and he is treacherous. And I’m thinking, oh man, I haven’t given him the credits that I should probably.

Karen: So what we want our listeners to do right now is to take the scammer idea. And as we talk about the enemy and his approaches, just think of that scam phone call. You’ll have it right there. Someone’s trying to do you dirt. They’re trying to deceive you. They’re trying to take precious things from you or hard-earned funds from you or whatever it is.

David: Trying to pretend to be your friend. Jesus said about Satan, Karen. These are very strong words. There is no truth in him. When he lies, oh, this is a great line. It’s a funny line, but it’s also very strong lines. When Satan lies, he speaks his native language. Isn’t that strong?

Karen: That is a wonderful, wonderful phrase.

David: For he is a liar and the father of lies. I have a sense that maybe someone listening to us would say Satan. I mean, you’re talking about the devil. Nobody talks about the devil.

Karen: He’s a joke, isn’t he? Kind of the red cloak, the horn, the trident.

David: The truth is, scripture presents him as a very real being. We say the Lord’s prayer every day together. And then we say, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil or deliver us from the evil one. So, we have very strong feelings about Satan being real and being, again, this insidious, invisible, indomitable force that we’re wrestling against all the time.

I was reading Karen in Sprague. Now, that’s the name most people wouldn’t know. I was reading on a different topic, Lectures on Revival. When I read his words, he’s basically saying when people become new believers, we have to treat them with great care and give them warnings because their world is going to be different now. And one of those warnings he says is that, well, I’ll actually read it. Read it from his words here. Remind that new believer also that, quote, he has a powerful, invisible enemy to contend with, the enemy of all good against the influence of those whose wilds, no condition in life can secure him. So he’s saying, you got to be careful about the enemy.

Now, this is the part that I wanted to read. It is true of every Christian, you’re to say to these new believers, that there is some one sin to which he is more inclined than any other. What that sin will be in any particular case may depend on the previous moral habits of the individual or on the circumstances in which he is placed or on some original infirmity. For his bodily disease is most likely to seat itself in the part which is originally the weakest so that depravity, the heart usually concentrates its energies in some passion or appetite, which is marked by the greatest degree of natural perverseness. He therefore, who ascertains in his own case what that sin is and who regards it as the most formidable enemy to be encountered in his conflict and succeeds in gaining victory over it, accomplishes much in the way of his sanctification.

Karen: So, what he’s talking about is what I have learned. Just really the last 15 or 20 years is called a prevailing sin. It’s a core area of your life where you’re extraordinarily vulnerable and we’ve learned to live with that prevailing sin but what we need to do is begin to name it, to examine ourselves and to begin to name what that setting sin is. So, I can tell what mine is but do you want to talk a little bit about yours?

David: Well, I think they change over time.

Karen: Yeah, that’s probably true although mine has been with me a long time. I have to learn to live with it.

David: I get rid of mine faster. I would say that my prevailing sin which is new to me but I’m becoming more and more aware of it. We had a conversation with a friend about trauma and that friend said probably 90% of the people have trauma in their background. I thought I must be in the 10% because I have very little trauma in my background. Then I began to think about it more. She was talking about things like childless sexual abuse but then I look back on my life with the death of a son. That’s a traumatic experience. I began to look at my life and I named six or seven of those.

Karen: Then it happened since you were adult.

David: So, I said Karen you know what we’ve gone from one trauma to another losing your ministry. That’s a huge trauma to go through.

Karen: Falsely accused in the public.

David: Saying we were new age and losing in many ways, friends, whatever, lost income in all of that. I realized that I have been very careful in my life not to allow those things to happen anymore where you get blindsided and it has made me a fearful person. And there are times I say “Lord I’m not going to move out on that because I know what that’s like when you get clobbered.”

Karen: You’ll get blasted.

David: Yeah So, fear is something that’s new to me. That is a sin especially when you’re afraid of what God might ask you to do. In my earlier life I was very prompt to be obedient even though it was a frightening thing because I had to step out in faith in different ways. So fear is something that I’m wrestling with. In fact, I was confronted by a friend the other day and said, “I think you’re afraid to do this.” And I said, “I am and if God told you to do it you would be afraid to do it too.” So yes, that probably is my prevailing sin but it wouldn’t have been my sin back at the time where…

Karen: You were young and eager and a visionary and…

David: Yeah. God said go into the city all the churches are leaving you go in and start a church in that neighborhood with all the churches.

Karen: Not only that making an interracial church with an interracial staff that was 45 some years ago.

David: Yeah. And I did it. We did it we did it together. And it was a wonderful experience. Yes. So fear yeah that would be a prevailing sin in my life. Yeah wow.

Karen: Okay. I took one of those temperament evaluation tests a friend made it available to me and asked me to take it in that helps you see what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are. So my prevailing sin is envy.

This is a characteristic sin. I mean it’s something that has been probably a part of my adult life. And it manifests itself in this way. I don’t want fancy cars I don’t want a lot of material expensive clothes. I certainly do not want fame or recognition. We’ve had enough of that and we’ve suffered the consequences of people knowing who you are and wanting to take off after you and such and such. What I envy is the fact that people of means, they live high but don’t use their money to work in the fields of the poor and the helpless and the powerless. So, the way it affects me personally is I would like to have more money to be generous. And that’s a great thing. That’s a lovely quality but I get resentful when I don’t have enough money to do what I would like to do for other people, even our grandchildren.

I mean you know there’s so many wonderful things that go on and I’d like to buy a bunch of tickets and haul the little ones down there and expose our older adult grandchildren to the things I’ve seen around the world where I’ve walked through those refugee camps and gone into those slums in Africa and it just changes your whole life. This morning there were a couple letters that came through that they had there’s a group of Quakers who are doing extraordinary job in Washington DC, lobbying for peace related issues and I’d love to send them a check. And then there’s a woman I know who teaches literacy by phone to those who are literate but want to teach literacy training to those who can’t read. And I’d love to send a big check or any kind of check to someone like that. So there’s where my envy comes. So that’s the thing that I have to watch. And I don’t recognize I’ve slipped into that kind of negativity till I sit myself down and says okay what’s this about and then I have to confess that and make it right in my spirit.

David: Probably we could say what’s number two on your list David but that gets tiresome people listening would give illustration.

Karen: So we’re just asking people trying to be vulnerable. People do the same process of looking in and saying, “What is the besetting sin in my life?”

David: So like Sprague in his book writes it’s just good you name it and then that in a sense sets you on the right journey because you say, “That’s a problem and I got to be careful in that area.”

Karen: Well and I think we ask God to help us with that or we might even ask our friends or our family members to say, “Okay I have a terrible critical spirit. Uou see it in the way I use my tongue. I’m so sorry. The source is it’s this critical spirit in my soul. There’s a critical spirit. So, will you pray with me? Will you gently remind me when I’m getting critical? Will you call me to account?” I mean that can be done with family and friends trusted advisors. So that’s one of the ways we overcome having a besetting sin.

David: Yeah. It’s wise to be aware of the tactics of your enemy because the enemy will use that it will be like the guy on the phone with me.

Karen: Knowing that you’re a senior and he’s got your check numbers he’s got your home phone number.

David: How in the world he got my check numbers. I don’t know in Commonwealth Edison didn’t know either but he had them and boy. /it was amazing to me.

Karen: And you would be absolutely befuddled by that attack. You don’t work with people like that in your life. You don’t go into a group thinking there’s going to be a deceiver in here among these folk. But that’s the same approach we have to take when the enemy comes against us and he will that’s what we’re saying to people he will come against you so you want to watch out.

David: So you’re working ahead of the game. I know that’s going to happen. I’ve got another question for you. Which is harder to break a good habit or a bad habit?

Karen: Oh. well I know the answer and I know that you know I know the answer but a good habit is hard to break as a bad habit.

David: Isn’t that interesting though?

Karen: It’s really interesting, isn’t it?

David: Basically because you set up a pattern. In fact when you establish a good habit say you’re talking about your prevailing sin and then you begin to establish a good habit in relationship to it you almost make yourself invincible.

Karen: Yeah right. And one of the ways you can do that is by checking yourself every day, maybe at the end of the day or the next morning. I do my devotional work in the morning and you look back in the day before and you say, “Is there any point in that day where that prevailing sin took over and I succumb to its temptation?”

David: I succumbed again.

Karen: Yeah I blew it again oh I blew it again. God forgive me give me strength to recognize it today so I don’t give into it. That’s how we develop a good habit.

David: You do it the next morning and you look back on the day. Before the end of the day I rework my day and it’s amazing to me just in the quiet how the Holy Spirit will speak and say, “Did you realize that you didn’t give that person full attention? You were somewhere else and then you left quicker than you should have. And that person really wanted help but you basically gave them the message that you were too busy.

Karen: Yeah, and your schedule was your to-do list was more important to you than that person’s need.

David: Now you’re getting really personal and just you talk about yourself and I’ll talk about mine.

Karen: It was just a for instance. Anyway, dear listeners but what we’d like to say to you is, this is a tool that we’re giving you these tools and these suggestions for you to overcome your besetting sin in combat the scammer who’s like well to come over the phone or at your door and catch you by surprise.

David: I was doing really well and then all of a sudden this crazy interruption came and got me upset and through the whole day that’s what besetting sins are like. We’re dealing with an enemy who wants to destroy. That’s Peter, “Be careful. Watch out for attacks from Satan, your great enemy. He prowls around like a hungry roaring lion looking for some victim to tear apart.” That’s him. Yeah. That’s him. So anyway, if we can get people to hear us, it’s saying, “Okay see if you can come up with what that besetting sin is.” If a person listening to us right now and says, “I got five besetting sins what do I do?”

Karen: Start with one start with one. Pay down the one account like that we’re being taught in financial commerce, pay down one charge card then you go into the next one. So start with one.

David: Yeah. And then be glad you say, “I only got four of them left. Yeah, sure I’m only going to have two of them left. And boy, I am free.”

Karen: And I will be indomitable.

David: Yeah I will be anyway. Our desire is not to put guilt on the people. Not at all. It’s to be helpful and that’s because Jesus has helped us in so many many ways. Have a good day friend for really really good day.

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