I encourage you to listen to the audio Bible Study that goes along with these notes on Sermon Audio at Liberty United Baptist Church. I currently work as a State Probation and Parole Officer and in my career I have worked in residential facilities as well as Maximum Secure Facilities. I have seen firsthand the devastation caused by addiction. In these mountains of Appalachia with the jobless rate climbing and decline in strong Biblical preaching and teaching; our community and nation morally has steeped to great levels of depravity! I maintain the Bible has all our answers to the problems of life and only a personal walk with Jesus Christ can any individual overcome the demonic stronghold of an addiction.

Proverbs 23:29-35 (KJV)
²⁹ Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
³⁰ They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
³¹ Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
³² At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
³³ Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
³⁴ Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. ³⁵ They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.

1. How You Know You May Have An Addiction? Proverbs 14:10 The heart knoweth his own bitterness..

1. Priority- It becomes the number priority in all your daily life

2. Pursue it at all cost even to lie, steal, and cheat whatever it takes to get it.

3. Personality changes because the addiction has stronghold on your life. You become a different person all together.

4. Puffed Up- You get highly offended if anybody says something about your addiction to you.

B. How You Become Involved in Addiction in the first place?

Genesis 3:1-7 (KJV)
¹ Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
² And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
³ But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
⁴ And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
⁵ For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
⁶ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
⁷ And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

1. Entrance is always at a weak area. Genesis 3:1 he said unto the woman. The devil will always come to an already weak area in your life.

2. Entertainment in the mind. Genesis 3:1 he planted a thought in the mind of the woman. The devil always comes questioning getting you to entertain things you should not entertain.

3. Enticement by the devil. Genesis 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall opened

4. Experience Genesis 3:6 she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat

5. Encourage others to join you, Genesis 3:6 and gave also unto her husband with her. Misery loves company! Ever notice how addicted folks congregate with others who are in same condition.

6. Entanglement Genesis 3:7. They knew their condition, they attempted to hide their condition, and they tried to hide it! They became entangled in SIN! The harder you fight the spider’s web the more entangled you become!

C. How To Break the Chains of Bondage of Addiction?

1. Acknowledge You HAVE A BAD PROBLEM! How many times did Jesus ask people in the Bible, what is your problem? He asked the man in John 5 what you want me to do. He asked the man in John 9, what is wrong with you? Over and over again we see Jesus asking these questions? You will never be delivered from your addiction until you become honest with yourself before God and your fellow man that its YOU that have a problem!

2. Agree with God how wicked the addiction really is, in other words see it just as God see's it! Alcoholism is a pretty word God calls it drunkenness, Chemically Dependent on pills is what man calls it, God says it is SORCERY! Get in agreement with God just how wicked it is!

3. Abandon all attempts to defeat it on your own will or by restraining yourself. You only fight against yourself when you do this and become weak and lose the battle in the flesh every time. You have to have Jesus working through you and in you to gain real victory over addiction! Mark 5 the demon possessed man had been chained and fettered couldn't help him. Matthew 12:43-45. Unclean spirit seeketh dry places where no water is at; water in scripture is symbolic of the Word of God. Unclean spirits don’t like to be where the water of the Word of God is at! He found a place that was empty, swept, and garnished. Garnished means everything was in order. You can get in order and cleaned out but if the Lord don't take up residence your going to be in big trouble trying to do this on your own.

4. Avoid areas where you can run into problems in your flesh or addiction. If the temptation and opportunity are both present your flesh will likely win the battle. 2 Corinthians 6:14 (KJV) Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? People who you once associated you have to find different associates; Places You once went You have to find new places, Philosophies or any type of influences you once had got to go! What I mean by philosophies are those people or ideas that have an impact on your thinking. They got to go!

5. Accountability to other people. Hebrews 10:24-25 (KJV) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

James 5:16 (KJV) Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

There is protection in a local church, encouragement, rebuke, and reprove, Godly fellowship that you and I need! Admit you have a problem today, agree with God how wicked the problem really is, abandon all hope you can conquer this on your own, avoid people, places, philosophies (ideas that influence) your mind, and have others hold you ACCOUNTABLE in a local New Testament Church!

God Bless,

Pastor Kevin Bowling

Liberty United Baptist Church