Marcus Mecum - Who Is Surrounding You?
Deuteronomy 6. I wanna talk to you about who is surrounding you. Verse 12, «Be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods,» this is the important part, «And the gods of the peoples around you». And the gods of the people around you. The book of Deuteronomy is written by Moses. It means new law. The very first verse of the book of Deuteronomy tells us these are the words of Moses. Specifically words to a brand new generation.
So, when you look at the book of Deuteronomy, it is written to a new generation. This generation specifically has been in the wilderness for 40 years. They spent all of their life wandering in the desert with their parents, until their parents have died. So, they were not there for the most part, or they would’ve been extremely young when their parents experience Moses coming down from mount Sinai with the commandments, and all the instructions that we read about in the law, the Old Testament law, in all the instructions concerning building the tabernacle. All of those things that God gave Moses on Sinai that he came down and their parents had experienced all of that, but this generation had yet to be born.
So, Deuteronomy really isn’t a new law, it’s the same law given to a new generation. Moses is in his final days. He’s about to be pushed aside, he’s 120 years old. And he’s going to climb up this famous mountain, where he’ll die. There’s going to be nobody there with them, he’s not going to have a public funeral, there will be no eulogy spoken to, the people will hear about his death, they’ll mourn for 30 days, and then they’ll move on from Moses. God would be there when Moses died, God himself would bury Moses. You might remember the scripture says that satan and Michael, the Archangel, were fighting over Moses' bones. And so, God specifically said, «I don’t want no one to know where these bones are, I’m gonna bury Moses myself».
And then, God would’ve given the eulogy. I can only imagine what kind of eulogy that might have been. But here he is, about to die, he’s almost done, Moses is almost finished, he’s at the end of his assignment, and he has 11 days to wrap things up. Eleven days to tell a new generation how to live for God. Again, he’s 120 years old, so I’m guessing he was struggling to relate to this new generation. He possibly didn’t understand their words, their phrases, their music, their style. I’m guessing he felt out of touch. I’m sure they thought, «What does this old geezer know about our generation, our struggles, and our problems»? It’s a brand new generation, and Moses is trying to lead them after he’s had 40 years with their parents. And by the way, they missed it terribly.
Now, he’s thinking to himself, «I’ve only got 11 days with this new generation, and I’ve gotta pull off what I couldn’t do in 40 years with their parents». So, the baton is about to be passed, he has a limited amount of time to get this new generation’s mindset right for the Promised Land. He can’t go with them. I’m sure he wishes that he would. A lot of times, we think to ourselves, «Man, if I could just go with my child. If I could just be there with there. If I could just help them handle those struggles». But Moses can’t go, he’s got 11 days to inspire them to face the challenges that they will face. Ultimately, he’s there to help them serve God as a new generation in a new land. He’s got a big job. He’s going to face God, he’s going to stand before God.
And so, he wants to finish strong. He reminds this new generation of their parent’s failures. He reminds them of how they missed it, even how he missed it. And as a result, he doesn’t get to enter in. But then he turns to this new generation and talks to them about their new challenges. Challenges that their parents never faced, challenges that he has never faces. These were completely new to their generation. And so it is with every generation. We have unique struggles that haven’t existed before we showed up on the planet. Temptations that exist that previous generations have never faced. Generations before didn’t experience, are not experiencing the dangers that this generation is facing.
And so, here we are with this new generation. And the older generation, if it’s careful, can be judgmental. They can look down their nose at the new generation. They can begin to think, «What’s the problem with these kids? They don’t understand how it was when we grew up. They don’t understand how it was back in the day». The Bible says that, «They will invent new ways of doing evil». So, it’s not necessarily new evil, it’s just new ways of doing the same evil. One third of the angels fell from heaven, so we know that demons are fallen angels. Angels do not reproduce, they were created by God. So, the same one third that existed in the fall is the same one third that attacked Moses' generation and is the same one third that’s here on the planet today attacking this generation.
So, it’s not necessarily a new enemy, he just has new ways of attacking a new generation. So, this generation that Moses is talking to is fighting something their parents never had to fight. It’s not that their fights were easy. It’s not that their fights were a walk in the park. I mean, they had to stand there in Egypt under the yoke of slavery watching the plagues hit the Egyptians and have the faith that they could put the blood on the doorpost, and the destroyer would pass over. They had to trust the protection of God would be there during those plagues. They had to trust that when Pharaoh’s army was closing in on 'em, and they were at the Red Sea with no way out, they had to trust that God was gonna provide a way of escape, and so he did swallow up the Egyptian army in the Red Sea.
They had to trust God when they faced the bitter waters dying of dehydration, and God would show them the tree that they would throw in the waters and the bitter waters were made sweet, and God would heal those waters, and so they would survive to continue in the wilderness. He protected them from thirst by day by providing a rock that would follow them. He helped them survive hunger by giving them manna every single day. In the heat of the desert sun, God would give them a cloud to survive in the day for 40 years. At night when the freezing temperatures would hit them, God would give 'em a pillar of fire to warm them at night. My point is simply this, God had a way of helping them face their unique challenges, challenges that this new generation is not going to have.
For example, Egypt, when they enslaved the Israelites, they made sure that the Israelites were, kind of, like, in their own slave territory. They didn’t live where the Egyptians lived, they lived in Goshen, which would’ve been thousands of miles from where the Egyptians lived. So, God made sure there was a distance between the Egyptians and the Israelites. God made sure that though Israel was enslave, Israel would not experience the temptation of Egyptian gods. They didn’t live next door to an Egyptian. They didn’t live in the same neighborhood as an Egyptian. They were surrounded by a community of faith. All they had ever heard, anyone they had ever known talked about Abraham.
God gave Abraham the promise. God gave Abraham, the father of our faith, the promise that we would be a nation. God gave them Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph. And they’d heard all the stories, and everywhere they went, whether in Egypt or the wilderness, they never encountered another God. All the gods that they knew, the only God that they knew was the one true God of Israel. They had fights, they had enemies to deal with, they had obstacles, they had problems to solve, sin to resist. They had to bury their parents because the fear, and the unbelief, and the negativity that their parents had allowed to rule their life. So, the previous generation had its issues, it’s not like they didn’t have their struggles. We’re not trying to make, Moses is not making light of those struggles. Moses isn’t saying that they did not go through things, he 's just saying, «Hey, there’s a new generation in a new land, and they will face new challenges».
Now, I like the fact that God begins to talk to them about when they move into these new areas, they’re going to move into homes, and the homes they move into are going to have neighbors that don’t know the God of Israel. And that these neighbors are gonna have their gods, and these gods will be close to them, these gods will be around them that every city, every town, every culture, every neighborhood they go to, there’s going to be about 24 strange gods that they will be experiencing. And it’s not that the people were bad, it’s that the people that they’re going to be living with are going to have their own gods. So, when you move into the houses that they used to live in, their gods and their idols will be buried in the foundation, they’ll be hidden in the walls of the house.
When you wake up in the morning and you go on the porch, and you drink a cup of coffee you’re going to look out and you’re gonna see in the high places, altars that had been built to worship their gods. And though you’ve never seen these gods, though you’ve never experienced these gods, they’re going to be all around you. When you walk down the street, when you go eat at a neighbor’s house, when your kids play with their kids. All around you, they’re going to be close. These gods will not be distant like it was in former generations. Every single day of your life, everywhere you go, you’re going to face this completely new struggle because the people that are around you are going to have these gods.
And Moses is really warning them. He’s really trying to get into where it really counts in their life. He’s really trying to help 'em understand the dangers that exist, that they’re going to have to watch out for gods that are all around them. Gods they’ve never had to deal with before. He’s not talking to them about natural things like spears and swords and enemies of the flesh that we would see. He’s talking to them about something deeper. He’s going into the spiritual nature of this new territory, and this new land, and how the enemy is going to be all around them. That they won’t be able to get away from the temptation. That they won’t be able to move away from it. They can’t sell their home and go some place else. Everywhere they go, in every house, in every home, in every city, in every town, there will be gods that are all around them.
And he’s saying, «I want this new generation to understand that when they go into this new land, they’re going to be facing something brand new». So, he says, «In this new land, there’s gonna be gods all around you. Everywhere you go, you’ll see it». Of course, that generation, like most generations, did not heed the words of Moses, and judges 1:12 says, «And they forsook the Lord of their fathers that brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed other gods,» watch this, «The gods of the people that were around them».
The greatest temptation that every generation has to face is the temptations that other generations have never had to face before. Things that my generation did not face that this generation will face. I never had a computer growing up. I knew nothing about the internet. I couldn’t just Google anything, let alone AI. Are you here? When we woke up in the morning, we didn’t have very many options. We went outside and we played. From the break of Dawn until the street lights went on, we went and played. We didn’t have any contact with our parents, we didn’t see our parents, they didn’t know where we were, they didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t have to worry about school shootings. Never one time did I ever go to school and worry about someone shooting the place up. I mean, we had kids that weren’t right, but that wasn’t our worry. To think about the fact that we pastor a church that we have to have police here every week.
What’s the point of all that? When I was growing up and you went to the airport, there wasn’t metal detectors and all kinds of things. You just went and jumped on a airplane. We didn’t go to school and face other hidden agendas. I’m not being ugly, but when I grew up, and I’m sincerely not being ugly, and don’t need anybody to clap or… I’m not even making a statement. But in my growing up, we knew the difference between a boy and a girl. I didn’t even know… I said to not clap. I’m not being ugly. I’m just saying there’s a new set of problems and challenges and gods that are trying to be elevated. It would have never entered my mind that I was born a boy, but I could have a girl trapped in my body. That would’ve never, I didn’t even know that you could think like that. I’d never been exposed to it. Anxiety, depression, I never even heard of those phrases.
I know they existed, but I never faced those type of things. Add, ADHD. We didn’t have some test to take or some pill to take, we just had a dad that had a belt. I’m not saying it don’t exist, probably did exist. But that was the prescription, you got beat. That was it. I’m not trying to tell you that this generation should spank their children, that’s between you, God, and however you wanna do it. I’m telling you that it was different when I grew up. There was a different set of challenges is the point I’m trying to make. It’s all around you. Stuff that wasn’t around my generation. Children are targeted in cartoons, targeted in the classroom, and it’s just a different generation. They’ve got stuff that they’re facing that I did not have to face, and the temptation is that we can misunderstand that it’s the same law, it’s the same God, it’s the same principles, even though it’s a new generation and it’s new challenges.
It was never a temptation for me to think certain things, and the danger lies around us when we’re tempted by something that before, never even existed. A danger that before, those gods weren’t even in the picture before this generation, but now it’s accessible. It’s right at your fingertips. You don’t have to leave the country for it. You don’t have to go into the corner of a dark alley for it. You don’t have to leave your neighborhood, you don’t have to leave your house, you don’t even have to leave your bedroom. Moses said, «These gods are going to be all around you». He said, «I can’t go with you. I want to go with you. I really do want to be there with you, but I’m 120 years old, and I can’t help you any longer. You’re going to have to go out there on your own, and I’ve got 11 days to get you ready to face these gods that will be all around you on every side».
You’ll go to school with them, they’re on every social media platform, they’re coming at you from every single direction. They’re against you, they are contrary to you. They are an enemy to you, but they are all around you. They enclose you, they envelope you, and you won’t to go somewhere crazy to find them, they will be all around you. And the struggle with our day is similar to a new struggle that this new generation had, and it’s the struggle with proximity. That the evil and the wickedness is getting closer and closer and closer, and it’s so enticing. And the gods of this world are so intriguing, why? Because they’re all around us. They’re all around us. Cell phones at your fingertips. The kind of things that you would have to really work to go find.
The kind of information that you would have to work to go find. Young girls right now can just set up a platform on their phone and become a porn star in a matter of minutes. In my generation, how would you even become that if you wanted to become that? How would you even find a way to do it? Now, «I just need to make a few extra bucks, so I’m just gonna set up a platform». Things that we’ve never even thought about now, the proximity of it. It’s not necessarily a new spirit, a new demon, but it is being presented to them in a way with access that we’ve never had before. And so, Moses says, «Not only are you going to be surrounded by gods, but be careful to not underestimate the people. That there are people that you are going to have to deal with that have different gods».
And he’s looking them in the eye, he’s being as sincere, as straight forward as he can saying, «Do not tell yourself you can just deal with it. Don’t say this will not hurt you. Don’t think that you can just play with this and you’ll be different than other people. Don’t let your guard down, even for a moment. It’s the Promised Land. God wants to bless you. He’s got great things for you. He’s got an incredible future for you. But yet, be careful, keep your guard up because there’s gods all around you. But first,» he says, «Be on guard with the people because it’s the people first, then it’s their gods».
It’s your friendships, your relationships, you associate with somebody. Someone that may, for all reasons be a good person in your mind. The reason you’re drawn to them, they’re fun, they’re attractive, you’re drawn to them. There’s something magnetic about them, they’re carefree. They don’t have the burdens maybe, and something just… Now, you have an affection for 'em, then you’re intimate with them, and then before you know it, you’re attached to them. In the end, you’ve embraced the spirit that they’re of. Now, it’s normal. It’s just normal life. Just a normal experience. It’s just how the world is. Those crazy Christians, those crazy God people, Moses said, «Be careful when you go into the new land. There’s going to be gods all around you, but it’s the people first that you have to be aware of. The people will get your attention. The people will introduce you to these gods».
In other words, satan doesn’t show up with a pitchfork and horns. That’s not how it works. He approaches us, the Bible says many times, as an angel of light. That before the enemy has access into our lives, he has to get flesh somewhere to cooperate with him. In other words, a person has to take on his agenda, and then that person Carries out his agenda in other people’s lives. So, when people enter your life, they bring more than a body, they bring a spirit. And so, our job is not to say, «Well, do I like them? Are they fun? Do I laugh a lot? Do I like the same things that they like? Do we have similar things in common? Are we at a similar phase in life»?
None of that stuff should be your question, the question is, what spirit is that person of? That you’re to be a discerner of the spirit of a person. And some of the biggest problems we have is because we lack discernment when it comes to people, and then we underestimate that those people bring with them a spirit, and that spirit is how the enemy tries and works to destroy your life. Uh-oh. So, do they have an offended spirit? A religious spirit? A lustful spirit? A prideful spirit? You label the spirit, but know the devil, when he wants to wreck your life, he simply sends a person. It’s the person that the enemy sends first.
The enemy knows your weakness, he knows your struggles, he knows your vulnerabilities, so don’t be deceived. The enemy is not gonna show up in an obvious way. He is subtle, he is sneaky, he’s camouflaged in the way that he comes at us, and he shows up in a way that is extremely appealing. He’s saying these gods, and the people of these gods will be attractive to be eye. They’ll entice you and they’ll influence you, and their ultimate distraction will be to keep you away from worshiping the one true God. The Bible does teach us that there are many lords, little l, and many gods, little g.
So, we have to be aware that in the earth, satan is the God, little g, of this world. He’s the prince and the power of the air. Everywhere you and I go, atmospheres that we enter, relationships that we walk into, there is a spirit that we have to be on guard with that is going to distract us and rob us of our relationship with God. So God, the Bible says, has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. Notice God gives you a mindset. The Bible says, «You renew the spirit of your mind by the reading of the Word of God».
In other words, you gotta get your mind right. You gotta say, «God,» the Bible says we love the Lord, our God with all our heart, soul, mind. Everybody say, «Mind». You gotta know that God’s given you a mind, he’s given you a brain, he’s given you the ability to think and process. He’s given you the ability to go out into the future and work back and ask yourself, «Where is this going? Where is this leading»? He’s given you an ability to say, «There will be consequences to this relationship. There’s going to be consequences to where this goes».
He’s given you a mind, use it. The problem with the body of Christ is we don’t think our brain works when it comes to spiritual things. God don’t need you to pray about certain things. He don’t need you to fast about it. He don’t need you to quote any scriptures about it. He’s given you a brain to say, «This person is unequal to you. And why would you yoke yourself to someone that’s not going where you’re going»? They’re not bad, they’re not evil, they just have gods that they’ve chosen to surrender their life to. And if you let them in, they bring those same influences into your life.