Jentezen Franklin - Stand Truth Up On Its Feet
If you have your Bibles, I'd love for you to open them with me to Isaiah 59. Verse 2 says, "But your iniquities have separated you from your God and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear you". Then he gives the reason why in verse 3. "For your hands are defiled with blood, your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue has muttered perversity. No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies. They conceive evil", listen, "and bring forth", or birth, "iniquity". And then verse 5. "They hatch vipers' eggs and weave spiders' webs".
He's talking about vipers or snake eggs, and then he says spider webs. "He who eats their eggs dies, and from that which is crushed, a viper breaks out. The webs will not become garments, nor will they cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and the acts of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil. They make haste to shed innocent blood". There it is again. Notice this. "Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity". Verse 14. I promise this is a good news message, but sometimes you gotta to go through the death before you get to the resurrection. Some things need to die this morning.
Verse 14. Listen to the state. There's so much sin in the people that it's affecting the whole state of the nation. And he says, "Justice is turned back... righteousness stands far off". Listen to this saying. "Truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey". But the last part of that verse says, but "the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice". And then it talks about intercession.
And I want to quickly go to verse 20. But here comes the answer now to all of the stuff that I've been reading. "The Redeemer will come to Zion", that's the church, "'and those who turn back from transgression in Jacob,' says the Lord. 'As for me,' says the Lord, 'this is my covenant with them. My spirit who is upon you, and my word, which I will put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants,'" your children's children, "says the Lord, 'from this time and forever more.'"
I want to talk to you about snake eggs and spider webs. And I guess if I had a title, it's "Let's Stand Truth Up on its Feet Again". He said the dilemma is that God has hid His face from you because your hands are stained with blood. 1972. Roe versus Wade. Abortion became legal in America, and since that time, there have been over 50 million babies aborted. Truly, truly, our hands are polluted with blood. It's amazing that you can crush an eagle egg, and you will be sent to prison for one year and have to pay a $10.000 fine. But a baby eagle is worth more than a baby human being in many people's eyes in America.
In verse 5, they hatch snake eggs or viper eggs, and they weave spiders' webs. He who eats the eggs dies. People are swallowing, the prophet was saying, poisonous snake eggs. The snake eggs represent deadly philosophies of man, hatched by the granddaddy serpent himself, Satan, in the Garden of Eden. Straight from the incubators of hell, there are snake eggs that are being hatched in the minds of a whole generation of deadly philosophies that say live any way you want to live. Do anything you want to do. All roads lead to Heaven. Any God you pick. Pick one. Try to be a good person. Do nice things. And all roads lead to Heaven. That is a snake egg hatched in this generation that is being eaten by a whole generation. That live and let live, and everybody do what's right in your own eyes. There's no such thing as morality and all of that. That's just old, stupid stuff from an old book called the Bible.
And people are swallowing those poisonous snake eggs. And he says their thoughts have become evil. It speaks of the idea spawned by the devil, swallowed by a nation, and because of that they become separated from God. And they don't have peace and they don't have relationships that work, and they don't have freedom. They are bound. They are addicted. They are in places that they can't get out of on their own because they have swallowed the snake eggs of lies and deception. And then the Bible said not only are they hatching snake eggs: vain philosophies of man, doing away with the truth of the Word of God, he said, "And they weave spiders' webs".
Like a spider, Satan weaves sticky traps across the path of people. Of young people, and dads, and moms, and... I'm 55 years old, and I thought it would get easier to live for the Lord. And I find myself needing God's grace more at 55 than I've ever needed it in my life. With all of the responsibilities, and I was in prayer the other day, and I said "Lord, if I'm fighting, how in the world are the people doing in the pews"?
Let's be real. Let's be honest. We better be real and say God, I need your help. I need your strength. I need your grace. I don't want to become a professional, plastic Christian who pretends one thing and doesn't live it the rest of the week.
Oh, I'm going to preach. It doesn't matter if you want to, you just sit there. They weave spiders' webs. See, Satan catches people in webs of alcoholism. Webs of drug addiction. Webs of pornography. Webs of fornication. Webs of homosexuality and immorality. He injects his poison. The victims get entangled. First he poisons the mind through snake eggs, and he gets you to thinking that the Word of God doesn't matter anymore. And once he gets the snake eggs in your head, then outwardly he tries to entangle your body with spiders' webs.
That when you get entangled in them, he injects his poison into your spirit and sucks the life out of them. Spiders are all beasts of prey. I think the wording of the text is so interesting. These snake eggs in the head, and then spider webs that the enemy lays like traps that people get entangled in. And they try to get the web off, and they get more entangled and more entangled. And suddenly, Satan like a spider comes. There are different kinds of spiders. There's a spider called the wolf spider that chases its victims. There's a spider called the jumping spider that makes a pounce like a cat against its victim. There's a spider called the crab spider, and it uses the environment.
It can change its colors, and it uses the environment to surprise attack. But all spiders trap mostly their victims in its web. And then, once it's trapped in the web, once the mind is taken over, the mind is not being renewed in the Word of God, but the philosophies of snake eggs are being planted with every movie, and every TV show, and everybody. And even Christians who are compromising. Suddenly all of those things start getting in your head. And if that's not enough, then the spider webs. The enemy sets a trap, and you touch it, and suddenly you're in spiders' webs. And he's got the body bound. He's got the mind bound.
And then Satan comes like a spider with poison. And he just, I don't know if you've ever seen the little insects that get caught in spiders' webs, but it's just a shell of the life that used to be there. Because what they do is they just drain the life out. And there's nothing left but an empty shell. And that's what the enemy is trying to do to every believer. I'm not preaching to people who are lost. I'm preaching to church people. I'm preaching to church people who have snake eggs that are being hatched in their head. You're eating snake omelets, and you're taking it in. And what you take in, it will hatch in your head.
You can't help it if a bird flies over your head, but you can stop it from building a nest in your hair and hatching eggs. And what I'm saying is, if you are taking stuff in, it's a matter of time before the eggs hatch. If we don't watch it, we're going to lose our children. We' going to lose our children's children because the more you let go, the more you lose. You get entangled. You get entangled. You get entangled. You swallow more and more lies. And philosophies of man replace the truth of God's Word, the conviction of God, the standard of God, with the philosophies of man.
And suddenly, life means nothing. Marriage means nothing. Family means nothing. Home means nothing. Church means nothing. Bible means nothing. It's just some stuff in your life when you need an emergency situation, instead of living with Jesus, and walking with Jesus, and having vital relationship with Jesus. We've weaved spiders' webs. And Romans 1 says that God gave them up. There came a point where they took in so many vain philosophies and imaginations. And then they got so entangled in their sin in Romans 1 that He said, I gave them up. And then it says later in that same chapter, and He gave them over.
The greatest threat is not the enemy on the outside or the enemy beside you. Your greatest threat is the enemy above you. If God himself ever decides to turn you over, and turn you over to that thing that you are demanding that you have, that's when it's bad. And now, in America we're watching marijuana, state by state being passed. It's legal in California. You can go anywhere you want and children are buying candy and brownies and cookies and they're starting to have the repercussions already. And it's going to be everywhere before we know it. It's spreading like wild fire.
See, we're living in a generation that's swallowing the snake eggs. What do you mean it's okay to get high every day? Satan repackages old weapons for a new generation. And every time Satan opens his mouth, he's lying. This is good. This is good. And you get entangled in that web. And then you need something else, so you go to another drug. You go to another high. You go to another affair. You go to another thing. You go to another website. You go to another, deeper sin. And before you know it, your life is messed up. You don't have any relationships. You don't have any joy. You're drowning in addiction.
It doesn't happen overnight. The eggs hatch if you keep putting them in up there. You better protect and preserve your house. You better not make room for Satan in your home, and your marriage, and your family. The enemy wants us to become the walking dead. And he said, listen to it, he said they have snake eggs in their head. Spider webs they're being trapped in. And then he makes this powerful truth and statement. He says truth has fallen in the streets. The shock of sin is gone.
Jeremiah said they can't even blush anymore. There's no such thing as modesty. Justice and truth have fallen. Justice stands afar off, and truth has stumbled into the street. Truth has been tripped up and chloroformed by, I'm going to say it like I want to, by liberal preachers who don't ever stand up and preach the truth of God's word. There is a difference between clean and unclean. There is a difference between righteous and unrighteous. There is a difference between holy and unholy. And we've gotta preach it. We have to lift truth back up on her feet. We have to lift truth to stand tall again in our nation, and in our families, and in our church, and in our life.
He said in Isaiah 59, "The redeemer going to come, and those will turn from their transgression". The answer to the dilemma is not to get a broom and start sweeping spider webs and stomping out snake eggs. The answer is to stand truth on its feet again. And if we'll stand with Jesus, and Jesus is truth. He is the person of truth. The redeemer shall come to Zion. Then he says, and the Holy Spirit, the next verse says, "This is my covenant with them. My spirit who is upon you".
Notice that there's the person of truth. He needs to stand tall again in your life because He's tripped. He's fallen. You've pushed Him aside. You've made truth stand way out. And you've been eating snake eggs, and you've been entangled in things that you shouldn't be entangled in. And the scripture said that Zion will come back. The person of truth. Jesus is the answer. He will take care of the spider webs. He'll take care of the snake eggs. But then it says, "and my Spirit", notice that's the spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit.
You have the person of truth. Then my spirit is going to come on you. The power of truth. The anointing of truth. The spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit. He's not going to lie to you. He's not going to let you go down a road of deception. He's going to lead you in a holy walk. "My spirit is upon you", and notice this, "My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth". That's the proclamation of truth. He said if you want this thing to be fixed, when He the Spirit of truth is come, He'll teach you all things. "And my words", notice what he said, "will not depart".
The proclamation of truth. He said, if you see the enemy coming, and putting snake eggs and philosophies of man, trying to bombard your mind, saying it's not real, saying it doesn't matter, and then you have spider webs. Things that people are getting entangled in. He said the answer to it is stand truth back up in your life, and then allow the Holy Spirit to come back in fullness in your life. He'll clean you out. Then I'll begin a proclamation of truth. But it's not just you.
Notice He said my word shall not depart out of your seed. That's your children. And your seed's seed. That's your children's children. If we preach the person of Jesus, if we receive the spirit of truth, which is the Holy Spirit, if we let it pour forth from us with a proclamation of truth like hot lava, you don't have to stomp the snake eggs out. You don't have to sweep the spider webs away. All we have to do is get truth up on its feet. And devils will run, and addiction will break, and spider webs will loose, and people will know what freedom is. Because you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
If you know I'm preaching it, give Jesus a big praise. Come on and praise Him just a minute. What we have to do is come at seasons and times in our life, and stand and say, God, I've come again to say search me, and try me, and see if there's any wicked way in me. Create in me a clean heart and a righteous spirit. And when you can stand, and there's no unconfessed sin, and you can look and say I turn from everything I know to be wrong. There's a real warning here. For after they have escaped the pollutions of the world... how many of you have had God clean you up when He saved you? Through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, watch this, "they are again entangled in them"?
Now he's not talking to people out in the world. He's saying after you have knowledge of Jesus Christ, and you have escaped the pollution, and God pulled you out of the sewer you were in and set you free, but then you go back, and notice the word again, get entangled, that's that spider web, in them. Notice, here's the way the enemy operates. He can't overcome you until he first entangles you.
So he gets you to thinking with snake eggs that you can compromise. That it doesn't matter, and everybody's doing it, and look at your friends. College students, look at your friends. Oh, that old stuff you were raised in over there at Free Chapel? Those people are nuts. This is the real, this crowd here, they're enlightened. But once you've known the knowledge and tasted it, and then you go back to the very stuff that God set you free from, and you again are entangled? It was wrong then, but now you've changed your mind because you haven't been filling your mind with the Word. You've been filling it with junk. And you're entangled again.
Notice what it says. And overcome. When the enemy's getting you entangled, his next step is to overcome you, your family, your marriage, your home. I can handle it. I can handle it. I'm different. I can handle it. Entangled. Then overcome. Notice and the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. And then the next verse is stunning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb. He gives you an illustration.
A dog returns to his vomit. A pig is going back to the mire and the slop that he was brought out of. Folks, this is serious stuff. And if we don't watch it, there is such a... you cannot remain neutral. You cannot just be "kicked back Christians" in the 21st Century. There is a real divide coming. You're either going to be wheat, or you're going to be tare. You're either going to be on fire for God, or you're going to be playing lukewarm Christianity.
I'm not a mean preacher. I'm a positive guy. I'm an up guy. Y'all know that. But the Lord spoke to me, and He said, "Stand truth up on its feet today. And I will clean out the cobwebs. And I will crush the snake eggs. And I'll set my people free for one generation, to another generation, to another generation". Does anybody believe in freedom that comes through the truth?