Intro:
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Today, I want to talk to you about the greatest battle that you’ll ever face in your life. It’s the battle whose victory matters most – more than any other.
The battle I’m talking about is the battle within. This is a battle against your own destructive desires. It’s our ultimate battle.
We all have good qualities, strengths, and a desire to do what’s right. You probably have done and probably will do some pretty impressive things in your life. You probably have done and will do some pretty good and kind things in your life.
In some ways you’re a pretty good person! In some ways I am. But we all have a problem.
Deep down we all have thoughts, desires, and emotions that are wrong. They’re not just wrong, but they’re dark, destructive – even evil. You might hide them, suppress them, and keep them in the dark, but they still exist.
The biggest danger this dark side of us has is that if we feed these negative qualities we could destroy a part of our lives or even destroy ourselves.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Owen Wilson. He’s a funny, likeable, successful guy. But recently his dark side showed itself. A source close to him has said, “A good portion of his [Owen’s] life has been dedicated to fighting depression and addiction… This is the third time he’s tried killing himself.”
In People magazine another source close to the actor said, "Owen is in bad mental shape but said he is thankful to be alive. He knows he came close to ending his life, and he is happy that he was saved from himself. He is basically at home with people watching him 24/7."
Owen isn’t the only successful comedian this has happened too. Chris Farley died at the age of only 33 from what they say was a combination of obesity and substance abuse. Jim Belushi died of an overdose.
It’s not just comedians who have a dark side. Check the news and you see senators, businessman, housewives, and pastors being caught in adultery, embezzling money, murder, and all sorts of crazy things!
But it’s not just them! These people are all people just like us. The only difference is that they happen to be in the spotlight, they made decisions that fed their dark side and eventually destroyed part of their lives.
If we don’t face the fact that we have a dark side whose desires, thoughts and emotions could one day destroy us, then we will be blindsided one day by it.
Today I want to use the movie Spiderman 3, as a backdrop to look at this idea and to discover some ways to help save us from ourselves.
The Spiderman 3 DVD isn’t out yet, so we’ll just use the trailer and an online clip to take a peek at the movie.
Listen to the talk below...
NOTE:
I've edited the movie clips out of the audio, but you can pause the audio and watch the clips below when those parts of the talk come on.)
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(Time: 29:55)
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