Priorities

Most men don’t understand God’s grace. If you call a man, “Man of God,” most men will look down and look away. When you ask him why, he’ll say, “Because I feel unworthy.” They think God’s righteousness is based on their performance and they realize they have fallen far from God’s glory. However, Ephesians 2:8 says, “By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” Salvation is not because of our goodness, but because of God’s grace through his son Jesus Christ who paid the price of our guilty blood with his innocent blood.

Jesus said, there are two roads: a broad way that leads to destruction, and a narrow way through the narrow gate that leads to life eternal. Jesus Christ himself is the narrow gate and the narrow road. Even after we have accepted Jesus as Lord and enter into the narrow way, we will stray from the narrow way. However, God by his mercy and grace allows us to return to the narrow way…. For if we confess our sins, of having fallen and broken fellowship, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and forgive us from all unrighteousness.

How do we live a life acceptable and well pleasing to God? Most men think that it’s our good behavior that pleases God. Men are consumed by guilt and shame when they stray from God’s narrow way. However, God is a loving Father who loves his children even when we fall. God loves us unconditionally. According to 1 John 3, for (even) if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things.

Not all men who profess to know Jesus really belong to him. Some say, Lord didn’t we cast out demons and do many mighty works in thy name. Jesus said to them, depart from me ye workers of iniquity, I never knew thee. Likewise, the scribes and Pharisees in Jerusalem thought they knew and worshipped God according to the letter of the Old Testament law. However, Jesus said to them in Matthew 15:7-8 “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.”

Jesus said to his followers, you shall know them by their fruit…. For an evil tree brings forth corrupt and rotten fruit, but a good tree produces good fruit. He also said, you shall know they are my disciples because they love one another with the love of God. Love is a fruit of the spirit. He did not call us to judge others, he called us to inspect their fruit.

In Matthew 28, Jesus said, “Come unto me all ye who are weary and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”  He has given us an open invitation to follow him. Entering into his presence is on his terms, not ours. Bonhoeffer said, when a Jesus bids a man come, he bids him, come and die. In order to live for Christ we must die to self. To confess Jesus is Lord means that I give up lordship over my own life to accept that Jesus is Lord.

According to Psalm 37, delight thyself also in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. When we deliberately delight and rejoice in the Lord, his delight will be our delight, his desire our desire, his will our will, and his joy our rejoicing. When we love God above all, then we will be blessed to bless the Blessor by doing His will.

Jesus said, he that hears the word and does not do it is like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. When the trials and storms of life came, the house fell, and great was the fall of it. The house washed away because it was built upon the sand of good intentions without actions. However he that hears the word and then does the word is the one who builds his house upon the rock, Jesus Christ himself. In the doing of the Word…. In following the Lord’s footsteps, Jesus Christ is our sure foundation. Then whatsoever his disciples do in following him shall prosper.

Salvation is not in the Confession of sin, of missing the mark. Instead salvation is the confession of the savior from sin: that Jesus is Lord. In turning away from pursuing sin and unto pursuing the Lord, God through his Son Jesus Christ, is the one who saves, rescues, delivers us, and makes us whole. When the gospel of the good news of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is the message of our life, then we will be a testimony and a witnesses of His salvation.

What is it that you love most? There is a hierarchy of love in the kingdom of heaven. A wise man said, the best way to love your children is to love your wife. When you love your wife you demonstrate to your children the essence of a loving relationship. Then the best way to love your wife is to love the Lord Jesus Christ. There are irreconcilable differences between husbands and wives. Jesus Christ is the one who reconciles…. Who brings together that which has been separated. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. When our hearts are joined together with God’s heart, then we can love others as Christ has loved us.

In order to keep that which God has entrusted to us, then give it away…. For it is more blessed to give than to receive. In God’s economy, Jesus said, if anyone wishes to save his life, he must lose it. But he who loses his life for my sake will save it. For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul? When we let go of those things we hold dear, God will fill us…. Blessed are the poor in spirit. As Mother Theresa said, God works best with nothing.

God himself is our sufficiency in all things…. What is it that we really need? All I need is thee. He is our allotment, our best portion, our all in all.

… that in loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves,
We may live to the praise of the glory of our Father’s grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael

The Cost of Discipleship

For those who have ears to hear, God always gave a word of wisdom and knowledge to prepare his people for the spiritual battles ahead. America has been an anomaly among the nations of the world. The United States is one of only two nations of the world that was founded on the Word of God. America has been blessed by God who honors his word. Ours is the only nation to have enjoyed freedom of worship over the last three hundred years.

Jesus had an unusual way of recruiting his followers. As Bonhoeffer said, when Jesus bids a man come, he bids him come and die. In order to live for Christ we must die to self. People are glad to receive Jesus as savior. Not many are willing to receive him as Lord. There are many more references to Jesus as Lord than there are as savior.

The finest response is made when the greatest challenge is given. Jesus said to the crowds, If you are required by law to carry a soldier’s pack one mile, then volunteer to go two miles. If someone slaps you on one cheek, then turn the other cheek. He said, If you follow me, the world will hate you as it has hated me. In order to follow me, you have to forsake the world and even your own selfish desires.

Jesus said, In this world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. Even if we never experience persecution for following Jesus Christ, preparation for persecution allows us to bear up under pressure. According to Psalms, the crucible is for silver and the furnace for Gold, but the Lord tries, tests, and refines the heart.

The rich young ruler had many worldly so-called blessings. He came to Jesus and asked, “Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus knew what was in his heart so he answered, “Why do you call me good? There is none good (in the flesh). Only God himself is good.” Then Jesus quoted six of the Ten Commandments that pertain to “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” He said, “Don’t commit murder. Don’t bear false witness. Don’t steal. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t defraud anyone. Honor your mother and your father.” The man responded. “These things I have done since my youth.” Even though Jesus knew what was in his heart, Jesus looked upon him with love and compassion. Then Jesus said, “one thing you lack. Go sell all your worldly possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, then come, take up your cross and follow me and you will have treasure in heaven.” The rich young ruler went away sorrowful for he had great wealth.

The rich young ruler thought that he kept the law. His problem was that ye had broken the most important commandment of all: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” His god was his wealth…. He treasured treasures upon earth and not treasures in heaven. His possessions came between his face and God’s face. The greatest commandment is, “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength.” Only then can we love our neighbor as ourselves. There is a priority in love. The question is, what do you love the most? The rich young ruler loved his riches more than he loved God.

In John 6, Jesus said to the multitude, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can have no part of me.” When they heard this, many forsook him. They wanted to follow on their own terms, not the Lord’s. True Disciples of Jesus Christ are his disciplined followers who learn to walk in the footsteps of their Lord. They walk the talk and talk the walk.

Garibaldi an Italian general is considered the father of the modern Italian republic. He is renown for recruiting soldiers known as “Red Shirts” for battle. Some recruits said, what do I get for following you? Geribaldi said, “If you’re doing it for your own reward, we don’t want you. If you do not serve for the love of your country and the honor of your nation, then you are not worthy of military service.”

Following the Lord are on God’s terms. You have to count the cost in order to serve.

What does it mean to serve the Lord? The story of Abu Tabor illustrates the price and the cost of lordship. As the story goes, a powerful king had conquered the territories surrounding Abor Tabor’s tiny kingdom. Abu Tabor was known far and wide as a fierce warrior and leader of a dedicated band of elite fighting men. The conquering king knew of Abor Tabor’s reputation so he sent an emissary to offer him terms of peace. The emissary said to Abor Tabor, “Our king has conquered all of your surrounding territories. However, we’re offering you an opportunity to join an alliance with our king. If you pledge to serve our king, you and your people will be spared. If you do not accept these terms, our vast army will invade your kingdom and we will decimate your army and take your people captive.”

Abu Tabor said to one of his warriors, “take this dagger and plunge it into your heart.” The warrior took the dagger, plunged it into his heart and fell dead at Abu Tabor’s feet. He said to another warrior, “run and jump over this cliff.” The man immediately ran, jumped from the cliff, and plunged to his death on the rocks below. Abu Tabor said to the emissary, “I have three hundred more committed warriors just like these. If your king attacks, we will annihilate your army and your king will be chained to my dogs by evening.” The king and his vast army attacked. The battle raged all day long. By evening the king was chained to Abu Tabor’s dogs.

What does Lord-ship really mean? According to Luke 9:57-62:
57 And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.
58 And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.
61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house.
62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Lord-ship means that I am no longer in control of my own life… He is. The story of Abu Tabor is an illustration that when the crisis comes and courage is required, God expects his men to have such confidence in him that they will be the reliable dependable ones.

A US secret agent was felt that his service was not valued. He became disgruntled so he decided to sell state secrets to the Russian government. He became aware of secret information that he knew would shift the balance of power from the US to Russia. His Russian contacts said, give us the information. The US agent said, I’ve gone as far as I can go. I cannot reveal these national secrets. He said you can torture me to death but I will not reveal them. They said, we won’t torture you. Instead we will torture and kill your wife and then your children.

What is the cost of following the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you continue to surrender your will to his will? Will you bare up under suffering, sacrifice yourself for the good of others, and discipline yourself for the sake of godliness?

1 Coringhians 4 says we (apostles and ministers) are fools for Christ’s sake and roughly treated for the kingdom of God. But ye, to whom we have imparted God’s wisdom, are wise. We are weak but ye are strong. We are despised by the world but ye are honorable unto God.

Many of these biblical passages never made sense to American Christians, but given today’s ever increasing anti-God and anti-Christian American culture, they are slowly coming into view.

Things of this world never make good objects of devotion. What is it that you love above all? Whether wealth, power, position, or praise of others, everything of this world will turn to dust. Even every loving earthly relationship will end in sorrow and separation. When we love things and use people, the things of this world will come to naught. Jesus said, For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?

To count the cost we must understand the meaning of value…. What’s it worth to you? What do you value most? According to Hebrews 6, beware of covetousness, (greed, avarice) but be ye content with such things as ye have…. For he hath said, I will never (Never, no not ever) leave you nor forsake you. We are complete in Him…. He is all we ever need. He is our sufficiency in all things.

The theme of the song by Casting Crowns, “Only Jesus” is on-point. There is only one thing that will last into eternity…. I don’t care if they remember me. I don’t want to leave a legacy… only Jesus!

Some things are priceless. They are beyond cost…. Beyond the value of anything on earth. This is why the price of our salvation was paid by the sacrifice Jesus Christ paid on our behalf. For I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me…. And the life that I now live I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me….

… that because of the value of the life of Christ in me, I may live to the praise of the glory of the grace of our Lord!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael

On His Terms

The scripture says, morning by morning new mercies I se. There is always more to learn…God opens the eyes of our spiritual understanding as we walk daily in the newness of life. As we walk in the light of the truth, we will know by the experience that God is love and in him there is no darkness at all. We will understand His “terms of endearment” as we walk in His love, mercy, and grace.

In the Old Testament, Israel repeatedly turned their hearts from the truth of the Word of God to follow their own devices. According to Romans 1:18-32, Paul outlines the downfall of a culture and nations who descend into perversion and depravity…. Directly contrary to the truth of Scripture and the truth of the Word of God.

The devil’s ploy is to steal, kill and destroy. His tactic is to divide and conquer. He separates people into factions so they will fight against each other and destroy each other. He pits husbands against wives, brothers against sisters, parents against children, liberals against conservatives, Republicans against Democrats, haves against have-nots, rich against poor, citizens against aliens, Angels against Dodgers, Trojans against Bruins…. And on and on ad infinitum. He stirs up strife and contention for where there is strife there is confusion and every evil work.

In order to stand against the schemes of the devil, be alert…. Be on your guard. Acquit ye like men. Be strong in the Lord. To identify the counterfeit, we need to become familiar with the genuine… the truth of the Word of God. To identify the sin, train our eyes to see the glimmer of the reflection of sin in our own minds and in the world around us. Then as we approach the end of God’s assignment for our lives, as Paul said in 2 Timothy 4, I’ve fought the good fight, I have run my race, I have finished the course. Henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness and to all who love his appearing and anticipate the joy of Christ’s return.

Jesus said, don’t hide the light of the truth of the Word of God under a bushel basket. When we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. As we walk together with other believers in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, we are God’s light bearers… his photo-multipliers in a perverted world of darkness. For we have this treasure (of God’s Holy Spirit) that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

Walking in the love and the light of Christ, is according to God’s terms, not the world’s. The word of God separates the sheep from the goats. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me and they know me and I give unto them eternal life…. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

Following Jesus Christ according to God’s terms is not a popularity contest. Quality and not quantity is the requirement for walking in the light as he is in the light. The quality of life is tested in the crucible of tribulation…. For tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience (proven and tested character) and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy spirit which is given to us.

Jesus did three things: He bore up under suffering, he sacrificed for the good of others. He stood in the face of danger. Likewise, our testing and trials, through tribulation and pressure, reveals God’s true character within us.

Jesus warned the people about the false prophets who look like sheep. They are ravenous wolves disguised in sheep’s clothing. Their purpose is to ravage and devour the flock. They serve the thief whose ultimate purpose is to steal, kill and destroy God’s flock.

Unbelievers question God’s motives: they question the love of God and the Word of God. However, believers walk by faith and not by sight. For faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen through the eyes of the flesh. As believers who walk by the spirit we see through Christ’s eyes behind our eyes. Through his eyes God reveals to us the hope of his calling and the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.

The devil will distract us to focus on the problems of this world…. When we fight against the worldly powers as Martin Luther said, “Did we in our own strength confide, our battle would be loosing, were not the Right Man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. Doth ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is he. And he must win the battle.”

When we approach God’s throne of grace with meekness and humility, He will teach us what is really important in this life. The understanding is gained in the crucible of refinement. As the Psalmist said, the crucible is for silver and the furnace for gold, but God refines the heart. Paul learned this lesson the hard way. After he had prayed three times for God to remove his thorn in the flesh, God finally answered Paul’s prayer. But the answer was not what Paul expected… God finally revealed the hardest life lesson of all:  God said to Paul, My strength is made perfect in thy weakness, My grace is sufficient for thee.

When Paul wrote the epistle of joy to the beloved believers in Philippi, he told them, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. As Jesus had said, seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things…. The necessities of life, will be added unto you. To live for Christ is to die to self and to the things of this world… For I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Jesus Christ raised the standard of the Word of God to cull the crowd. Christianity is not a popularity contest. In God’s eyes the majority doesn’t win. God wins according to His word. One with God is a majority (of power, grace, mercy, and love.). The victory is on God’s terms.

On God’s terms, the greatest victory is in the greatest surrender. In surrendering to Jesus Christ and submitting our will to God’s will and our desire to His desire, our greatest blessing is to bless the Blessor. According to Psalms Delight thyself also in the Lord and he will give thee desires of thine heart. Therefore, thanks be unto God who always giveth us the victory in Christ and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place.

Be therefore steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord in as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord…

…That according to His terms we may live to love God above all to the praise of the glory of His grace,
Your brother in Christ,
Michael

Heavenly Cause

Jesus gave his message on the Sermon on the Mount to prepare the multitude about his purpose…. To redeem them from the sin nature they inherited from Adam’s fall. All men have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Jesus Christ defeated death, the consequence of sin through his death and resurrection.

In Luke 14, Jesus said there are three things that you cannot do. First he said, you need to love God above all because you cannot love your family until you love God first. Second, you cannot live for your worldly possessions. Third, neither can you live for the praise of the world.

Jesus said, if you are preparing to build a tower, you must first count the cost. What is it worth to you…. Do you have the resources of time, materials, manpower and wisdom to build a tower that will not fall? Without proper preparation and planning, you will be laughed to scorn when you build the tower and it falls because you failed to plan.

When the crisis comes and courage is required God expects his men to have such confidence in him that they will be the reliable and dependable ones. There is safety in the midst of the crisis when we trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not unto our own understanding. As the Apostle Paul said, Thy strength is made perfect in my weakness… thy grace is sufficient for me. When a disciple is dedicated and convinced of the majesty, glory, and value of the cause to which he’s dedicated his life… then he will “be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.” For yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me.

If we have nothing to stand for, then we will fall for anything. If there is nothing worth dying for, then there is nothing worth living for.

AW Tozier said, “Christ’s Savior-hood is tied to his lord-ship.” Can you accept Jesus Christ as savior and not Lord? Many have been taught what it means to accept salvation. However, not many have been taught what it means to confess “Jesus is Lord.” There are many definitions of the word “saved.” These include, to be saved from danger and to be rescued or delivered from harm, death, and destruction. Another meaning of salvation is to be made whole. Salvation means to be made complete by receiving God’s gift of Holy Spirit.

The word Lord means ruler… the one who has ownership and preeminence. To confess Jesus is Lord means to change ownership. It means that I am no longer the owner of my own life…. It means that my life is hid in Christ with God. Christianity is not “who we are.” Christianity is “WHOSE we are.”

What is the cost of following your cause? The story of Abu Tabor illustrates what it means to be willing to give your life for your Lord. As the story goes, there was a powerful king who had conquered the rulers of the surrounding territories. He approached the land that was controlled by a chieftain named Abu Tabor whose reputation had proceeded him as a fierce leader. The king was impressed so he sent an emissary to offer an alliance if Abu Tabor would pledge allegiance to the conquering king. The emissary said, if you don’t agree to these terms, our vast army will decimate your troops just like we have done to the surrounding kingdoms…. Abu Tabor said to one of his warriors, “take this dagger and plunge it into your heart.” The warrior took the dagger, plunged it into his heart and fell dead at Abu Tabor’s feet. He said to another warrior, “run and jump over this cliff.” The man immediately ran, jumped from the cliff, and plunged to his death on the rocks below. Abu Tabor said to the emissary, I have three hundred more committed warriors just like these. If your king attacks, we will annihilate your army and your king will be chained to my dogs by evening. The king and his vast army attacked. The battle raged all day long. By evening the king was chained to Abu Tabor’s dogs.

The greatest response is the response to the most difficult challenge. Jesus Christ challenged the multitude that followed him around. Most of them were drawn to him to witness the signs, miracles, and wonders he did. The rich young ruler approached Jesus in Matthew 19 and said, “Good master, what must I do to be inherit eternal life?” Jesus quoted the last six of the Ten Commandments regarding “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Jesus knew what was in the heart of men. The young man said, these commandments I have kept since my youth. Then Jesus looked upon him with love and said, “then you need to sell all of your material possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and come follow me.” The young ruler went away sorrowful because he had great wealth. The problem was that the young man served the wrong god. He had broken the first of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” His wealth was his God. As Mother Theresa said, God works best with nothing. The first of the Beatitudes says, blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit the earth. God cannot fill us unless we come to him with empty hands.

Christianity is not a part-time job. The key to living life more abundantly is to live for the heavenly cause to which he called us: that we would glorify him by living to the praise of the glory of His grace. If we worship the things of this world…. The people we love, worldly wealth and possessions, or the praise and accolades of others…. Then we have the wrong god. The first of the Ten Commandments says in the Aramaic text, thou shalt have no other gods between your face and my face. Why? Because when we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength…. This is the first and great commandment.

There is an order of priority in love. For a father, the best way to love your children is to love their mother. The best way to love your wife is to love the Lord Jesus Christ. There are always irreconcilable differences between husbands and wives. Jesus Christ is the one who reconciles. He is the one who breaks down the middle walls of partition between our hearts and God’s heart so that we can be reconciled together in fellowship with God and with others in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace…. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus…..

That in having prepared our hearts to live for the cause of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, we will love God above all in the unity of the spirt, that we may forever live to the praise of the glory of God’s grace,
Your brother in. Christ,
Michael

The Holy Spirit Makes Us Holy

John 16: says, When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world of judgment and righteousness.

About 100 years ago there was a division in the Christian church over this scripture and its meaning. One faction who became the Pentecostalists said the work of the Holy Spirit is to empower us. The other faction said, the work of the Holy Spirit is to make us holy.

In Acts 2:37 Peter said, repent and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of your sins and ye shall receive the gift of Holy Spirit. Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost to believing Jews about the powerful things that were happening at the original outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit on the church…. One purpose for the gift of God’s Holy Spirit was to save the believers from a wicked and perverse generation.

AW Tozer says, minimally the Holy Spirit is coming to make us holy. The name of the Holy Spirit itself implies a life of holiness. If a person’s life is not holy, then their lives are not sanctified… set apart unto the Lord according to His divine design and divine purpose.

Man’s basic problem started with the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. This was the spiritual root of the problems that we experience today. God’s spirit within Adam and Eve died the day they disobeyed God by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There are also problems rooted in spiritual darkness described in Genesis chapter 6 about the flood of Noah’s time, and chapter 11 about the Tower of Babel.

Genesis chapter 6 is about the events that preceded the flood:

1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

The ancient Jews believed that the first 8 verses of this chapter described the spiritual perversion of God’s original divine design. This spiritual perversion manifest itself in sexual perversion contrary to God’s divine order. This explosion of sexual sin rooted in spiritual darkness precipitated the flood.

One perspective of these verses according to John McArthur, Chuck Smith, and Chuck Missler, teaches that the perversion of God’s divine order defied God’s purpose for one man to marry one woman in order to be fruitful and multiply to replenish the earth. God’s purpose for a husband and wife to procreate and reproduce was perverted and prevented by spiritual defilement that went ballistic and affected the whole of mankind in Genesis 6 so that “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Peter’s sermon In Acts 2 says, “As in the days of Noah, judgement will come.” In the days of Noah, the judgement came suddenly. The deluge of God’s judgement was the result of the spiritual perversion of God’s Devine order.

In today’s America what is the parallel path of the perversion of God’s divine order? In 1978, only 5% of American men had seen hardcore pornography in a video format. In 1983, 55% had seen these videos after the invention of the BetaMax by Sony. Today, pornography is so common that it’s only one click away on our smart phones. This perversion of God’s divine design has destroyed countless marriages, many of them Christian.

Today we are living in something akin to the days of Noah. As in Noah’s day, today’s message is “deliver yourselves from this wicked and perverse generation.” Jesus said, “you shall be hated by all men for my namesake. Many will fall away and betray one another. Many false prophets will lead people astray and lawlessness will be increased.”

Today’s popular American culture celebrates the month of June as “pride month,” insisting that all Americans bow down and revere the sexual perversion of homosexuality. The so-called “Gay Pride movement” has gone so far as to usurp very symbol that God gave to Noah…. The rainbow as a seal of God’s promise to remind all mankind that he would never again destroy the earth with a worldwide flood. Children in America have not been taught about God’s promise to Noah. They have been indoctrinated that the rainbow represents “Gay Pride” and the LGBTQ+ movement.

Every perversion of this fallen world is a manifestation of spiritual evil, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness from on high. Some think that Genesis 6 may refer to fallen angels…. Devil spirits who posessed influential leaders, “giants among men,” to infect the entire human population with spiritually defiled perversion of God’s natural order. This defilement caused the flood to wipe out every living creature upon the face of the earth to purge the spiritual perversion.

The message of freedom is for God to deliver us from the bondage of spiritual perversion. Today 66% of all Christian men are watching porn. One third of women in the church watch porn. As in the days of Noah there is an increase of sexual perversion. The most alarming statistic is that fifty percent of all pastors in America today watch porn regularly.

According to Ephesians 5:3, Among you let there be not even a hint of sexual immorality. Thank God for 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Freedom from the addiction to spiritual perversion requires an encounter with the Holy Spirit. John said, “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Jesus said, if you abide in my word ye shall be my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. If the son therefore shall set you free, then you shall be free indeed.

Three of the nine sins listed in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 are related to sexual immorality. Paul said, those who practice these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Reading these verses in Canada would be grounds for arrest for violating the laws against “hate speech.”

The solution to the sins listed in 1 Corinthians 6 is found in verse 11: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”

The riches of the glory of the mystery that God had kept hidden until he revealed it to the Apostle Paul is this…. Christ in you the hope of glory. The gift of God’s Holy Spirit, Christ in you will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. For Jesus Christ who was without sin was made the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him.

How do you get free from sexual perversion? The remedy is in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20. “Flee fornication.” You are not your own, ye have been bought with a price…. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Therefore glorify God in your body which is God’s.

God in his mercy, by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, has set us apart… sanctified and made us holy according to His divine design…
That we should live to the praise of the glory of His grace!

Your brother in Christ,
Michael

Built On the Rock

The Sermon on the Mount is more than a life-style… it is Jesus’ instruction for life itself… for in Jesus Christ we live and move and have our being. In Mathew 7 Jesus concluded his Sermon on the Mount with an illustration…. “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”

Jesus had said to Simon Peter, thou art Peter, a small stone, but upon this Rock (Jesus Christ himself) I will build my church.

As John said, “if you walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The cleansing is in walking close to him. In close proximity with the Lord, the things of the world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

The world says that righteousness depends on our own performance…. Theirs is a works based system of self righteousness. Jesus said, whoever hears my words and acts upon them, seeking first the kingdom of God, my Father will bless. James says, putting aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us, let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

Jesus’s exhortation in the Sermon on the Mount is to Receive the implanted word which is able to save your souls. But don’t be deceived, faith without works is dead. He that hears the word and does not do it is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror, and then immediately forgets what type of man he is. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty reflected in the Word of God, he not being a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the Word, this man shall be blessed in his deeds that proceed from from a pure heart…. Christ’s heart behind our heart.

The way of the love of God thinks no evil… it keeps no record of wrongs done. It is eager to believe the best of others. It perceives others from through the eyes of Christ.

We chase after men who chase after Christ. As men of God we gladly choke in the dust of those who follow in the dust of the rabbi.

Chuck Swindal had been discipled by the Navigators Christian ministry in Okinawa prior to becoming head pastor of EV Free Church in Fullerton. Pete was also trained by the Navigators. They sent him to Southern California where he was called to serve at EV Free. It’s important to attach ourselves to likeminded believers to strengthen our stand with Christ and and our fellowship with one another…. As Psalm 133 says, Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

In a parallel passage to Matthew 7, Jesus said in Luke 6, the wise man dug deep to lay the foundation of his house on the bedrock. However the foolish man, laid his foundation on the sand. Undisciplined by wisdom, this man was a fool. He took shortcuts and did not consider that his shoddy workmanship would not withstand the test of time. He did not take into account the rules of wisdom and structural integrity. In contrast, the wise man is informed, knowledgeable and takes deliberate steps to prepare to build a sound structure upon a firm foundation… a foundation that will endure against the ravages of the world. A wise man increases in knowledge and understanding founded upon the fear, awe, and respect of the Lord.

Paul Nyquist wrote a book called Prepared, Living your faith in an increasingly hostile culture. This book was published in 2016 and describes the conditions of our times. In days gone by, prior to the 60’s, America was tied to her roots as a godly nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Our founding fathers esteemed religion and the truth of scripture according to God who is all-knowing and all-wise.

America is an anomaly among nations, having known freedom and liberty for most of the last 300 years. However, in the coming decades, Christians in America will be tested as never before. What’s coming? The changes in America will accelerate as the previous generations who valued traditional Christian principles pass away. Today, our Judeo-Christian heritage celebrated by previous generations has diminished as the godless values of secularism have eclipsed the light of Truth.

Detoqueville said of America in the 1800’s, America is great because America is good. Her values are molded in her houses of worship on every corner of every village and township. Her citizens embrace the God-fearing values of honesty, integrity, brotherly kindness and the love of God.

Jesus prepared his followers for the coming persecution. He said in the last of the beatitudes, blessed are they when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake…. For great is your reward in heaven.

Paul reminded us that the battle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness from above. There is a spiritual root of the strife and contention and confusion of the world around us. Therefore put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand in the evil day and having done all to stand.

The preparation for spiritual battle is fought on our knees. Our victory against the evil of this world is won only in the power of His might. Victory In the spiritual battle begins with humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God. Then as we work out our own salvation, our own wholeness with awe, reverence, and respect for the Lord.. it is God who works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure as we delight ourselves in the Lord….

The wise man built his house upon the rock… Jesus Christ himself…. He is the chief cornerstone. He is the anchor of our souls.. Jesus said, upon this rock I shall build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it…

That as God ‘s living church, his dwelling place, we shall live to the praise of the glory of His grace!

Your brother in Christ,
Michael

Colin Cumbee 0:00
I thank You, Lord, thank you for being the Lion and the Lamb. You are so powerful so mighty so great and so just but you are also so loving so kindness so merciful, Lord, I can’t even wrap my head around. I love you and I want to get to know you more. Please, Lord, help me focus on you. Help us all to focus on you. Let everything else just melt away in our life, Lord, help us to see things clearly. And when people are talking about stuff that’s not a view, it’s just clear in our minds, it’s apparent and we know what path we’re supposed to be on more because we’re too close to you and we’re listening to you. Thank you for these men here thank you that we have this time together to worship thank you that the church has opened this up Lord to further your kingdom helped us further your kingdom Lord help the message tonight. The words going forth fall on fertile soil. Please open men’s hearts even now Lord Spirit works like only you can please open our hearts Lord, help us to hear you. Thank you for my brothers thank you that we get to lock shields during these times. I love you Jesus your precious name Amen.

Unknown Speaker 1:26
Amen. What a sweet time of worship I fellas, let’s give a worship team at hand here. Thanks, guys. Yeah, it probably the most important worship team members right there in the back Sergio and Timothy on video and sound. Thank you, fellas. I was just excellent, excellent time. Well, I love being here with you guys. This is a really cool space that the Lord is made for us to get together in this is through his eyes Thursdays and we gather together on the third Thursday of every month for any of us a challenge to remember that. I’m like what? Third Thursday again? already? You’re kidding. Yeah, there’s at least one of you who will remain unnamed who I was just calling to check in on driving over here is like, oh my gosh, that’s tonight. Do I gotta go? I’ll see you there. Yeah, it’s a little bit tricky. But But thanks, guys. It’s great to see you all and just trust that Jesus has some good things for us tonight. For those of you who were here last time, we’re doing a series on Spiritual Warfare. And this is a subject that’s that’s near and dear to me. It doesn’t matter this near and dear to me. What matters is that it is a primary theme in the Bible. And it’s really important. As followers of Christ, we understand what the Bible has to say about it and we know how to apply it to our lives. So Father, we pray that as we look into your word that you would that you would just speak to us. We ask that we would be equipped for every good work that you’ve created us for works that you created in advance that have specificity father, you said that we are your workmanship created to do these works and father tonight Lord, we just open our hands we open our hearts we open our heads Lord, we pray that you would tool us up that you would equip us that you would make us better more efficient, more impactful ministers of the gospel In Jesus mighty name a min so when we say spiritual warfare, all kinds of things come to mind. Right? How many of you when you hear spiritual warfare do you think of like the exorcist and spinning heads and vomit going? 360? Like, like when we’re sprinklers? TGG? Yes, most spiritual warfare is completely not that way. is completely not some of it is. Now I’ve actually seen some of it that is that way. I’ll tell you a little story. Because I shared with you guys last time before I came to the Lord, I was I was very lost and very spiritually wide open and really, really looking for answers and really hating on Jesus and hating on Christians, I was looking everywhere else and in the process, got into some alternative spiritualities and, and started really pursuing, you know, alliances with sort of allies in nature and ended up getting getting demonized. And so when I came to the Lord, all of this stuff that I thought was was good and nice and natural, ended up being really, really evil. And it really had a hold on me. And so I had to go through a process of deliverance, where I got set free. And so this really opened my eyes to you know, the true nature of reality and the fact that there is a spiritual layer that we don’t often see, but there’s a powerful, powerful light that shines in the darkness and that is Jesus Christ. And he is indomitable, and he is absolutely one he’s completely victorious. And we’re talking about spiritual warfare. We always have to keep that in mind that Jesus is the winner and we’re never here to glorify the works of the devil. We’re focused on him. We’re gonna focus on Jesus and love on him like we just spent the last 30 minutes doing together. But God also doesn’t want us to be unaware of the devil schemes. He tells us in His Word, and so Because of my background, I had this experience of coming out of all that stuff. And when that I was at a party in college, and I was talking to a friend because well, I got saved. It was like a massive, massive change. I was singing leading rock band at the time and I had a house, we were not very good, really. We were, I think people drank enough, they thought we were good. And so we were sort of just surviving on those fumes, just a pure alcohol in the air.

Unknown Speaker 5:28
But so when I came to Jesus and stopped doing all that people, people notice a lot of people noticed. And I kept going to parties by go to parties, I wouldn’t drink and I wouldn’t get stoned or do any drugs or engage in any any nefarious activities. And I just talk to people about Jesus. And sometimes I’d be talking to a person and another person start listening and another person start listening another person start listening, and there would be a hush that would actually fall over the room. And I find myself preaching to 50 people who were completely hammered drunk five minutes ago. And now they’re all like sober, because the Holy Spirit’s working on him. And so those were really, really fun moments, you can’t make that happen. Right. And so I was I was in one of those settings one night, and afterwards and, and I talked a little bit about the devil and his power and how you’d had a hold on me and how Jesus set me free and, and this gal comes up to me after he says, You know, I really have to talk to you. I said, Okay, and so you’re on my brand new Christian, I did not grow up knowing the Bible. So there’s a lot of things that we’ll talk about tonight that I had no idea about, okay, I just knew my testimony. And I knew the power of Christ. But I didn’t know how that all worked. And I want us to walk out of here tonight, knowing a little bit better about how it all works, right? And so she says, Yeah, well, you know, I have to tell you, I’m, I’m a Christian, I was raised in a Christian family, but I’ve gotten in a really bad place. I’ve started seeing this guy, and he’s not a believer. And you know, we started sleeping together. And lately of, I can’t go to church, I get terrified when I try to walk in the door. Sometimes when I’m doing my homework, or taking notes, trying to write a paper, my hand will start just writing all by itself. And it’s writing blast and the stuff against God. And you know, Colin, there’s been a couple of nights actually, where I’ve woken up, and I feel like I’m pinned to my bed and the bed is actually bouncing up and down. I can hear it banging against the floor. I’m like, Oh, no. Oh, no, I have no idea how to deal with this, you know, but I didn’t know what to send, or I didn’t know what to do. And I knew what Jesus had done in my life. So I had another buddy who was there and he wasn’t a believer. He’s like, Oh, wide eyed. I’m like, hey, look, okay, we’re gonna pray. I’m tell you what. And I just had this instinct that I shouldn’t do it alone, which is a good instinct, Jesus said, the disciples out two by two, for a reason. And I do want to say that if you if you are engaging in in spiritual warfare, you know that you’re going to be doing the kinds of things that I’m talking about right now, which is the vast minority of spiritual warfare. Okay. But should you be called into such an engagement? And you may be and that may be why the Lord has you’re here tonight. Don’t do it alone. And that’s important. And so I decided that it would be holier If we met at a church, should there be more God at a church, of course, which, of course, isn’t true. But that was my thinking at the time. And so I Hey, why don’t we meet at the church? And you know, I asked my buddy, if he would come and he’s like, yeah, he was he was really afraid, because your story. And so we showed up, and fellas, I was I was terrified. I did not know what was going to happen. And, you know, I had had some experiences along the way where I know the power that demons can wield and the kinds of things that can happen. And so I was afraid I really was. But I also felt like Jesus absolutely wanted us to do this. And so we met and we sat down, we like read the Lord’s Prayer. And then we kind of prayed. And then I sort of prayed over her the way I had been prayed over, and we’ll talk about that some tonight. And I was waiting, I was just, I was waiting for the vomit and the head spinning and all that stuff. Nothing. Nothing happened. And I walked away going, I guess it didn’t work. It didn’t work, you know. And so and that’s the way it is most of the time, because the enemy likes to conceal his presence, because if he doesn’t, first of all, a real enemy requires a real God. You can’t have pure evil without there also being pure good. And so it’s sometimes it’s a little bit fun to notice in these horror movies, different horror movies, every now and then there’s one, you might have seen with the priest, where there’s a sort of Catholic preschool around slaying vampires and just kicking butt it was awesome. But, but wherever you have just manifest evil, it requires a good and usually they’ll twist and pervert it with like a really corrupt priest or something. But but God is still necessitated by pure evil. And so because of that the enemy keeps a very low profile in Western society. Okay, and it because if we see that he is real, we might go, Oh, my God, I have to do something about this. I need a Savior. I need help. I can’t live under this stuff. And so most of the time with this kind of sort of deliverance prayer. You don’t see anything. And so I walked away because I had seen some dramatic things along the way. I walked away going well, it just didn’t work. And that was my first foray into this area of ministry. And then I got a letter two months later. And because we didn’t have email back then we didn’t have cell phones back then. And I got I got a letter from this gal. And she said, you know, Colin, just wants you to know that I went back to college, and I broke up with my boyfriend, I knew it was wrong. I was really convicted, walked away from that, and I felt like I could breathe again. You know, after we prayed, and she said, I haven’t had a single incidents of the automatic handwriting. I haven’t had a single incidents of my bed bouncing up and down, and I’m walking with Jesus, I’m loving him again. And so she got really powerfully powerfully set free by somebody who completely didn’t know what he was doing. And lots of times the kingdom advances exactly that way. And if we know what we’re doing, how much more powerful is that? Right? Okay, so let’s let’s let’s look into this. We we talked about this quote last time, CS Lewis said this, there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race humans can fall about the about doubles. One is to disbelieve in their existence, the others to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. And sometimes spiritual warfare, people are like that. Sometimes intercessory people are like that. Anybody know any intercessors. I was like to say they’re kind of like the intestines of the Body of Christ. They do really crucial work, but you don’t want to see them, keep them in the back.

Colin Cumbee 11:33
But the devil wants us to either feel an excessive or unhealthy interest in them or not believing their existence, they themselves are equally pleased by both errors. That is, the demons are pleased by this. And hail a materialist, which is someone who believes is only what’s physical and can be described by science, or a magician, a hyper spiritual, wacko, as I like to say, with the same delight, then he will take it either way. So what we want to do is occupy, what I like to call the radical middle is actually really, really hard to find the middle ground and hold the middle ground, our society pushes towards extremes, it pushes towards poles, Jesus is usually found in the middle, you guys it’s in. It’s a tricky place to remain. And we don’t stay in the middle because it’s the middle, we stay where the truth is. But many times the truth does happen to be in the middle of two poles. So last time, we talked a lot about who Satan is where he came from, what demons are and how they operate. And we said that there’s three battlegrounds, right, so the first battleground anybody know the first one. inside of us right here, that’s the first battleground. The second battleground is interpersonal. It’s between us it’s in our relationships, it’s person to person where the enemy gets in and starts messing around. The final battleground is sort of in the air, it’s the atmosphere, the Bible calls this that Eros in the original languages. Next time we get together, we’ll wrap up this series and we’ll we’ll talk about the that third battleground. But for tonight, we’re going to revisit the first battleground a little bit, make sure that we got our bases covered there, because that’s where we do 90% of our spiritual warfare fellas, and then we’ll get into the second into the intrapersonal. So spiritual warfare is is rarely taught on and it’s actually a big deal biblically. And it should be a regular part of the Christian life. So what do we mean by that? How do we know this? Let’s look at the Lord’s Prayer from it. It’s this is Matthew 690 13. And I’m reading from the ESV. If you guys, you’re gonna see a slightly different version up there, but they’re very close. Okay, so forgive me for the disparity. The disciples asked Jesus, you know, teach us to pray. And then he says, Okay, well, when you pray, you pray like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. This is part of Jesus’s basic, rudimentary, standard fundamental teaching on prayer. Pray, God, deliver us from evil. Do you do that? You should do that. We should do this guys. I do do this. I don’t do it. Probably enough. But But if the Lord said it, there’s there’s a reason for it. And so asking him to lead us not into temptation to help us to handle temptation the way that he wants us to, and to deliver us from evil is a very big deal, that spiritual warfare. So spiritual warfare is first of all prayer. It is first of all prayer, this asking God to step in and help us with temptation as asking God to step in and break the plans of the evil one against us against our spouses, against our families, against our workplaces, against our nation. All of those things spiritual warfare is first of all that secondly, spirit Two warfare is confession, this confession to God and his confession to each other. For the confession to God, we can look at first John one, nine. And if you don’t have this verse memorized, it is a great one to memorize. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That’s, that’s my washing with soap right there, that that that kills the condemnation that will just get under our skin as we’re walking the earth because we’re going to make mistakes, we’re going to commit sins, we’re going to have issues. And if we deny those things, then we start, we start harboring them up, and we start hiding from God. But if we if we confess Him to God, He cleanses us from all unrighteousness in addition to forgiving us, that’s a pretty good deal. Right? Okay, so that’s a huge part of spiritual warfare. Here’s another part a part that I’ve learned a lot about. Is that my phone that would be so weird.

Unknown Speaker 16:05
I don’t think so. Could be holding on, come out. Jesus name that’s right. confessing our sins to one another is huge. And and I kind of understood this before. And I feel like I have a new level of understanding on this. Now. James 516 says, Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, why that you may be healed. Now it’s talking about physical healing in that context. But I want to tell you, fellas, there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s more to it than that. And it finishes with the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. So when we confess our sins to one another, and we pray for one another, there is a healing that takes place. And so I used to think that this was like praying for sins that we committed, oh, gosh, I kicked my dog, oh, gosh, I stole my neighbor’s newspaper, oh, gosh, I got a link that I clicked through on that I shouldn’t have. And we should confess those kinds of sins to God, and to a brother who’s a safe place. And fellows, this has to be a safe place. This has to be a place where we can confess our sins to one another, and know that our brother loves us. And we’re going to keep it in the strictest of confidence and bring it before the Lord together with you. And pray for us when we’re not together. But not talk about it, and not judge us and not look down on us. Because there is nothing that any one of us is incapable of. I can just tell you that right now. And it’s the grace of God that really keeps us and one of God’s mechanisms for distributing grace is fellowship, he distributes his grace through the relationships that we have right here in this room. And that we have outside of this room, it’s one of the main ways that he does it. And so confessing sins to one another is powerful, it can break them I can remember a time where I felt like this was you know, decades ago, where I felt like there was a certain neighbor that was really, you know, pursuing me and and sort of trying to seduce me. And I went to a Christian brother and just said, Hey, you know, I am there’s this gal and she is attractive. And I feel like she is just trying to get me and he was like, oh, man, let’s pray. And we did. And that thing evaporated, like it absolutely evaporated. He was really, really cool. There’s great power in that. What I want to say is that the sins that we confess to one another aren’t just the sins that we commit, but they’re the it’s the sinful thinking, even the wrong thinking, like, oh my gosh, I am so upset with my boss. I am so angry at my sister. I’m so angry at my wife. Oh, my dog has been so disobedient I’m ready to chop his tail off or whatever, whatever it may be. Even confessing those things having a safe place to vent guys. It just, it shines the light in dark places and stuff just evaporates. It’s just evaporates. So spiritual warfare is prayer. Spiritual Warfare is confession confession to God confession to one another. Third, spiritual warfare is actually resisting temptation, and not just temptation to do bad things. That’s where we always go. But it can also be temptation not to do good things. Gee, I Oh, gosh, man, Colin just called me it’s five o’clock is to Third Thursday, I completely forgot. I’m really tired. I’ve had a hard day I think maybe I’ll just watch some TV and go to bed.

Unknown Speaker 19:17
Well, that’s not resisting, that’s capitulating. And, you know, I’m not saying that religious duty should always be engaged in no matter what, what should always be engaged into the things that God has called us to. And sometimes that is religious duty. We do duty out of just a sense of, of obligation rather than out of obedience. That takes no pleasure in this, but he does love acts of obedience. And we do have to resist the evil one, in order to in order to accomplish the things that he made us to accomplish. Okay, so let’s look at how Satan tempted Jesus when He walked the earth and let’s see how Jesus To handle this and when we look at the life of Christ in the gospels, we see that Satan is regularly opposing Jesus. So he gets tempted in the wilderness. And I’m going to read through Matthew four verses one through 11, which is kind of a long passage. Let’s see, okay, Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, so he’s fasting. Alright, so that’s, that’s on the table as a method of spiritual warfare. After fasting 40 Days and nights, he was hungry, and the tempter came and said to him, it’s interesting that the devil is called the tempter. Here, why is he called the tempter. Because that’s one of his main jobs. That’s one of his main functions. So he has that title, he is the temperature, the temperature came and said to him, if you are the Son of God commanded these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He is countering Satan’s temptation with the Word of God, which is important for us to see. And it’s important for us to be in the word regularly, it’s important for us to know it stored up in our hearts, when we face temptation, we can answer with it, because that’s what Jesus did. And he’s our model, right? Then the devil, took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you’re the Son of God, throw yourself down for his written, He will command his angels concerning you. And I’ve been to Jerusalem, Brian just got back from Jerusalem, you’ve probably stood Brian in that spot. I’ve stood in at least what we believe is that spot, and it is high, it is a high place. And looking down. It’s amazing that that, that the enemy took Jesus to that place and and basically said, Hey, prove that you’re special to God, prove that he really loves you, tests his test his love. And Jesus again, counters with the Word of God, it is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And then again, the devil took them to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and said to him, all of these I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me. Because Satan wants worship, like we talked about last time, he wants to be worshipped above God. And if Jesus did this, it would have actually been God worshipping him. Right, it would have been the coup d’etat, it would have been everything that Satan was looking for. And Jesus says, beyond Satan, for it is written again with the Word of God, You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. And the devil left him hold, angels came and were ministering to him. Interesting thing about that passage, guys, when Satan says, Hey, Jesus, you know what, all you got to do is fall down and worship me, sing a few worship tunes, you know, grab a ukulele, and I’ll give you all of these kingdoms, all of the world is mine to give you and Jesus doesn’t go to your lying, you can’t get those to me, they don’t belong to you. Why? They do, they do belong to Him. He is the God of this world. And as such, he is active in this world. And we have a very significant foe, and we need to be aware of who he is and what his tactics are, and how we resist. And so Jesus just modeled so many things for us there. We resist with the Word of God, we resist with prayer, we resist with fasting, and we resistance, not giving in when we do that, eventually, the devil must flee James four, seven says this, submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. And it doesn’t say how long. It doesn’t say how long, it doesn’t say, you know, resist the devil for five minutes, resist that temptation to click through on that link for five minutes, the devil will flee from you. It doesn’t say that. It just says to resist. And so oftentimes, we, when we think about spiritual warfare, we just want to think about victory, and forging ahead and powering ahead, and this incredible advance of God in His purposes. And so many times, it doesn’t look like that. It looks like this.

Unknown Speaker 24:05
Where you are holding, holding the ground, and it may take everything you have. But there’s a promise here. If you’ll stand, if you hold that ground, he will flee. He can’t not flee. And so that’s a huge piece for us. And we see we see Jesus doing that. And that’s something that that we must set ourselves to do. And we can’t do that on our own strength, we will fail. But when we’re when we’re praying, we’re in the word we’re calling on the Lord and asking him for his strength, who gives us strength to stand? And that kind of resistance always triumphs over the evil ones. That makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. So if Jesus had opposition when he walked the earth, as he continues his ministry through us, do you think we while opposition? Yes, do you think we will have physical temptation, where we have temptation to doubt God’s character and his love? For us, we have temptation to take shortcuts to do the right thing, the wrong way to compromise, to use the world to gain the world. All those things you just got thrown to Jesus are being thrown at you are being thrown at me. And God hasn’t left us on equipped and powerless to deal with that. So God’s word, prayer, fasting, resisting, confession, fellowship, spiritual warfare, essence of our spiritual warfare. And if Jesus was tempted to sin, you know, the Bible says that He was tempted in every way, not just for men, I want you to just catalogue through through your list of temptations. That that’s that’s a dark, nasty Rolodex. It’s got some some nice lighter cards on it. But it’s got some really slimy, ugly ones that we just absolutely wish weren’t there. Jesus went through that. He was tempted in every way yet he never said and where we’ve failed, he is successful. And he gives us that success. Because he loves us. And because we put our trust in Him. And He allows us to overcome through that. So let’s look at how temptation works. The original sin, when Adam and Eve sinned, and tasted the fruit of the tree, the knowledge of good and evil. What did they do when God showed up? Do you remember? The HID? What do you tend to want to do when you said, hide? Satan likes us to commit sin. They live in sin, not because it makes God run from us. It makes us run from God. And when we’re running from God, we can’t fulfill His purposes for our lives. We’re not an intimate relationship with him. We’re not being empowered by His Spirit to make an impact on the world around us in advancing the kingdom. We’re hiding. And so that’s a powerful tool that Satan uses. But God has given us more powerful tools not to go there. James 112 15 says, Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, because sometimes trials require steadfastness they go for a while blessing as the one who endures that when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him. What awesome promise. Hey, just resist, just stand fast. Just stand firm. There’s going to be joy on the backside, there’s going to be victory on the backside. How does temptation work? Well, Let no one say when he is tempted on being tempted by God, God never tempts us from God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire, then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin. And sin when it is fully grown, brings forth death. So God never tempts us, it’s our own desires to do. And notice that desire, once it’s engaged in temptation, it leads to sin. So the temptation comes, you feel the desire, and you engage the desire, and all of a sudden, through an act of your will, you are now walking into that thing, and sin is born. And when sin grows for a while, it brings forth something else, death. And this is true for the non Christian, and it is true for the Christian and follows I don’t know about you, but I know I’ve tasted some seasons of death, and they ain’t fun. And that is not a place that I want to live as a zip code I absolutely want to avoid. So I’m gonna do it with a word, prayer, fasting, confession, fellowship, resisting the evil one. And as we do, we’ll receive that crown of life that the Lord has promised to us.

Unknown Speaker 28:57
So believers will be tempted, but God is always faithful for First Corinthians 10 1214. We looked at this last time, No temptation has overtaken you that’s not common to man, God is faithful, He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with that temptation, he will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. So you’re saying you’re saying, Lord, that there is no sin that should be able to take me down there is there is no temptation that necessarily will cause me to stumble? Nope. There is no room we can get trapped in that God hasn’t built an exit door into but he won’t make us go out of it. And sometimes we have to spend a little bit of time in that room, get our teeth kicked in, and feel some of that fire and some of that pain to next time we get in that room go Oh, exiting Stage Right, right here. So God always makes that available for us in our primary battleground when we think about our personal walk with the Lord is in our mind. And we are to take every thought captive. It says in Second Corinthians 10, four through five. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. And we take every thought captive to obey Christ. It is all about our thought life, our primary battleground is in our mind. And so the Holy Spirit will enable us to take thoughts captive. Have you ever had just an obsessively negative thought that you couldn’t get rid of? It’s the very worst thing, right? Because no matter where you go, it is still with you. And it could be true, but it’s usually not true. And one thing that the Lord has kind of taught me along the way, is if I ever get into that place ravaged this obsessively negative thought, I’ll start going, you know, what, what if? What if I knew everything was going to be okay? What if I did? How would I feel? How would I act? Would I be justified in thinking that everything’s gonna be okay? Well, I can’t have hope in the future, because I know Who holds the future. And just asking myself that question, what if I knew everything was going to be okay? And beginning to settle into think about that reality and settle into it. And that will help break those cycles, and the Holy Spirit will will help cast those things down. But sometimes, the more you focus on on not doing a thing, the more you focus on that thing. You know what I mean? So instead, it’s really important to focus on the Word of God, to find a scripture that addresses whatever it is that we’re struggling with, and maybe ask yourself that question, what if I knew that everything was going to be okay? And finally, is we’re doing all of these things and this first battleground of personal warfare Ephesians 613 says this, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm. So there again, we see that resistance, okay. I’ve been in the word, okay. I’ve confessed to God, I’ve confessed to my buddy, okay, I’m in fellowship, I’m actually fasting. I’ve been fasting today. And I’ve really been praying, and I, I’ve done everything. I’ve done everything. But I still feel this, this warfare, still feel this pressure, I still feel this temptation, I still stand. After you’ve done everything standing Resist the devil and he will

Unknown Speaker 32:32
flee, he absolutely will. And so a lot of the essence of our warfare is just standing, doing all of those things, and then standing. If I had if I had a good eye, there’s a video clip out of a movie called 300 that I don’t recommend that you watch. But if you have happened to seen this movie, there’s a scene where there’s a Spartan, I think it’s called a phalanx. Is that the right word? Were these guys are all standing together, and each guy covers the guy next to him with his shield, and there’s this horrible Persian Horde is rushing down this, this valley and they are just going to crush the Spartans, and the head Spartan, you know, pulls out Spartans, and they they, and they all dropped down in this formation, each one’s covering the guy next to him with his shield, which is kind of a prophetic picture of how we should live gentlemen, if we’re just trying to cover ourselves, we’re not going to be able to do it. But But man, if I’m covering you, and you’re covering me, there’s power in that because wherever two or more agree on anything on earth, it will be done in heaven. The Lord said, he likes us doing things together. He absolutely does. But then this movie, so this Persian horde comes rushing down this valley, and they just crash into the Spartans. And it’s really cool because the camera pans down and it shows the Spartans feet, and their feet are in the sand, and you just watch them get pushed back, like maybe 10 yards. But then the pushback stops, and the guys like they fresh, their shields open, they thrust their spears into the enemy, then they they take out the first layer and then close the shields back up, and they move forward. And then they do it again. And they move forward. And it’s little by little by little, and eventually they absolutely route the enemy. But it starts with a big push back. And all they can do is resist and try to hold the ground, and they hold it. And then they move forward a little bit and a little bit more, a little bit more and eventually they’re completely victorious. It’s such a powerful picture of spiritual warfare, how it is for us in our own lives. Let’s let’s make sure that we’re clear on this fact Satan cannot just walk waltz into our lives and do whatever he wants whenever he wants to First John 518 and 19 says this, we know that everyone who’s been born of God does not keep on sinning. Okay, there’s an important thing here that we’re gonna have to circle back and really grab hold of but the piece I really want you to get is But he who was born of God, Jesus Christ protects him, the one who’s been born again, us that is, and the Evil One does not touch him. He doesn’t touch him. And so lots of times, you can get around Christians who have this victimhood mentality like, Oh, I’m sick, Satan is just kicking my teeth in and, oh, I’m having all this trouble at work. Oh, Satan is so busy, oh, Satan is doing all these things. Like, shut up, please, let’s not give him all of that credit. If we believe that he can just do whatever he wants whenever you know, whenever he wants to. Well, that’s a statement of faith. That’s permission. That’s saying, hey, take it take a swipe at me. But the word of God tells us this. He who was born of God protects us and the Evil One does not touch us. Now, I am not saying that we won’t have demonic opposition. I’m not saying that Satan does doesn’t push back against us. Okay, but I am saying he can’t just waltz in and out of our lives, doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants. The men. In a victimhood mentality can open a door for that. People who are always doing spiritual warfare are always doing spiritual warfare. There’s a reason for this. Now notice at the beginning of that verse, we know that everyone who has been born of God us does not keep on sinning but he was born of God protects him, the evil one does not touch him. Well, what if we do keep on sending?

Unknown Speaker 36:28
We’re not.

Unknown Speaker 36:32
Possibly, possibly, or possibly what happens is the evil one does touch us. Because he found an open door, because he found an open window, because perhaps it’s a window or a door that we opened by continuing to sin. I do think that there is an implicit teaching in this passage that says habitual sin does create opportunity for the evil one to get very active in unbelievers life. Because that protection that we find from from dwelling in Christ, it gets perforated by the habitual sin. By that place of darkness that we kind of harbor we’re going to talk about this little bit more. Sin is simply darkness. It’s brokenness. Sin is the domain of darkness, it’s where evil can reside. Now, we’re gonna in just a minute, we’re gonna move into the second battleground a bit and talk about that. But I want to just ask the Holy Spirit to come and search our hearts. And, Lord, we ask that You would just just just take inventory with us, Lord, Father, we pray that if there are areas of of habitual sin, if there are areas where we’ve stopped resisting, Lord, if there are times if we’ve if we’ve stopped attending, to your word, and to prayer, and even to fasting, Lord, Father for something that we need to confess to you, if there’s something that’s making us hide from you word, your word to Adam and Eve plus, where are you? So first thing you said, not you’re gonna get it. You said, Where are you, because you love your sons and daughters. You love your voice. And you’re not here to condemn a Scott here to say this. So just want to encourage you follows if there’s a if there’s a place that’s been a struggle, that’s been hard. And maybe where you’ve accepted defeat. I want to encourage you to reject it right now. And I want you to confess that sin to your heavenly Father, and Father, we thank You for Your Word. And first John one nine, that when we confess our sins, you were faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness or we receive your forgiveness. Or we thank You for Your righteousness. Thank you that we are cleansed and free. And Father, if there’s any steps that any of us need to take to confess something to another brother, Lord, help us to be humble and diligent to do that. And God we pray that you would place in each one of us just a new zeal and a new passion for, for Your Word, and for prayer, and for even fasting for God. And for just just just abiding in you and linking arms with our brothers and resisting the evil one. We pray that we would see him flee 10 different ways, Lord, from your presence in our lives. And we thank you for Father in Jesus mighty name. Amen. Amen. Okay, well, I think that that really He covers the whole first battleground very well, and you can see what time we’ve got here. Does anybody have any questions at this point?

Unknown Speaker 40:11
QUESTION But the best way to fast in spiritual warfare like as an offensive weapon, or defending against enemy like holding your ground.

Unknown Speaker 40:21
I’d like to say, first of all, I would, I would say, I’m fasting. Fasting is really a matter of personal conviction. And I’ll tell you what people do and then I’ll tell you why it’s acceptable. And then I’ll speak what the Bible says what I think what people will do is they’ll go, you know, I’m fasting me, I’m fasting licorice, I’m fasting asparagus, I ifs spinach, anytime with you, Brother, if you need if you need a partner and spinach fasting. And you know, whatever doesn’t come from faith is sin is what tells us enrollments. So what does come from faith is not sin. And so when we are really truly making a sacrifice before the Lord, some people fast screen time on their phones, fast television, there’s all kinds of different things you can fast. If it is a real sacrifice, God really does appreciate it. And I think he honors it. Absolutely. Now the Bible doesn’t call you know, passing on Spanish fast. The Daniel fast the Bible actually does not call a fast. It is a diet. Fasting in the Bible consists of not eating period. And sometimes it also consists of not drinking. Now you do a water fast water fasts are in tents. Yeah. And so if you if you’re doing fasting, if you have any health issues, talk with a doctor, make sure you’ve got that base covered. I do find that, you know, the Holy Spirit will rush in and begin to provision you with strength, and energy that is incredible. And for me that that happens with, you know, fasting of all foods, and maybe I’m fasting solid foods, but still drinking juice and water, if I really want to get there quick is just water only. And if you really wanted to just ride you confess water to but you don’t want to do that for more than a day. But then the cool thing about fasting is every time every time you experience a hunger pang, it reminds you, it reminds you, oh, I don’t live by bread alone. but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, oh, I don’t live by by food alone. I subsist on the presence Jesus’s body. Is my bread broken for me, Lord, I need you. God, I want you would you draw me closer to you, Lord, would you speak to me, and I usually find you, for me chase, and it’s different for everybody. But but for me, usually after the first day, the hunger kind of really will subside. And it’s really like in the second and third day, where I start feeling a much more closer relationship with Jesus, I feel like I hear his voice better. And also feel like he, I have a very keen perception of what’s happening in people’s hearts and minds as I’m dealing with them, whether it’s business or just, you know, personal relationship, whatever it is. So I love fasting. But I also don’t do it in a religious sort of way. If I feel like the Lord is calling me to fast, I’m going fast. So I would really encourage you guys to to try some fasting, but but I will see you like fast fasting lunch that this that son does is maybe that’s a baby step. But that’s like a really small facet. If it doesn’t cost you something, it’s probably not worth anything. You know what I mean? And if we really think that we don’t live by bread alone, but by every word that comes to the mouth of the Lord, then we ought to be able to not live by bread alone, we ought to be able to pass it up. And then when you begin to feel the Holy Spirit lifting you and carrying you and giving you energy, and that doesn’t mean he makes you strong. But he does give you energy to persevere. So there’s a there’s a weakness in it. But there’s an incredible strength in it as well. That’s a great question. Chase. Did it. Was it helpful at all?

Unknown Speaker 44:11
Anybody else anything? Okay, all right. Let me see what let’s see what I want to do here. Maybe we’ll just keep going. And I want to make sure that we a little bit of time to pray together. So maybe we’ll go for another 10 minutes or so. And then we’ll we’ll take a little bit of time to pray. Okay, so as we begin to move into the second battleground intrapersonal where Satan in his minions show up in other people in our relationships, and really understand this area, we need to lay some more groundwork just like we had to do the first time. And let’s talk about Satan unbelievers. Ephesians two one through three says this. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked before you knew the Lord following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air. Did you know that if you’re not following Christ, you are following the prince of the power of the air. Now most people who are following him don’t know they’re following him. Some, some do, I actually did towards the end. But they are, they belong to him following the prince, the power there, and the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. This says that Satan and his minions his power, is at work in those who are apart from Christ, period. Now, I’m not happy about that I while I didn’t make it up, you guys didn’t make it up. That’s what the word tells us. It is just the plain fact of the matter. For those of you who, who didn’t get raised in a Christian home and can’t remember a time when you weren’t Christian, you can probably remember what it’s like and what it feels like to have the world in Satan. Knowing on you gnawing on your soul is not a good feeling, among whom we want to live in the passions of our flesh, because that’s what that’s what governs. So we’re not governed by the Spirit of God, carrying out the desires of the body in the mind. There it is engaging desire in temptation, engaging in sin, sin brings forth death, and we’re by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. You mean the rest of mankind are children of wrath? Yes. Did Jesus come to condemn the world? No. Why? Because they’re already condemned. You don’t need to, we already are. Or we already were, thank God. So before we belong to Christ, we actually belong to the evil one, even if we don’t know it, he is at work in the sons of disobedience. He just is Colossians 113 14 says this about us, He has delivered us from the domain, the kingdom of darkness, that’s where we were, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, that forgiveness of sense, there is a kingdom of darkness, there is a domain of the devil, and it’s for those who don’t know Christ live, and they may not know it, but they do. And there is a radical difference between living in that place, and standing in the light and living in fellowship with Jesus and His people, is a radical, radical difference. Darkness is the domain of Satan and demons, they dwell in darkness. And when we come into the kingdom of God, by placing our faith in Jesus, we come out of their rulership, we come out of the ownership of the evil one. This means for someone to get freed from demons, they must be saved. They must be if they’re not saved, can they get set free from demons?

Unknown Speaker 47:41
tricky question. And so you know, as a brand new believer and having the background that I had, and seeing some of the amazing things that I saw really early on with God and setting people free. I thought I walked in on a relative of mine one night, who was an alcoholic, and she was on the couch in a drunken stupor and kind of snorting and she was kind of looking at me with these like really Baleful eyes, I went as a demon out as a demon, I’m gonna get rid of that thing. I’m gonna get it. And so I started trying to cast the demon out of my dear sweet relative. And my dear sweet relative did not react nicely. It did not go well. I was not able to cast that spirit out of her. And it definitely manifested and it definitely reacted. And it really, really scared me. And I thought this, how come I prayed for that one girl and like nothing happened, she got completely set free. And you’re I’m praying for my dear, sweet relative. And she’s like, cussing at me. And I can’t seem to get rid of the steak. Well, she belonged to him. Before she passed, I prayed with her on the phone and walked her through. She couldn’t talk anymore. They held the phone up to your ear, I was out here in California. And she was she was back in Alabama, and prayed with her and read her Psalm 23 and pray dissenters prayer and asked her if she wanted to give her life to Jesus, and she couldn’t talk or really move much. But um, my mom said, She’s crying. There’s tears streaming down her face. And so I have to believe fellas that she that she experienced that exodus from the domain of darkness in that entrance into the kingdom of light, right before she actually went to be with our word. And of course, I can’t know for sure we can never completely know for sure about, we can only know about ourselves, right? But I absolutely trust that that I’ll see her there again, and I’m looking forward to that. So we never want to, we never want to try to cast demons out of non Christian. I’ve done it on other occasions too. It’s always messy is very hard. You can’t keep them away because that person belongs to them and they will come back and they will come back even worse than some of you’re familiar with that teaching. So that’s not that’s not something that we ever really want to try to do. So what do you do? If someone comes to you and says Gosh, chase on my bed is bouncing up and down and I have no idea what the heck’s going on? I feel like Something is gnawing on my arm. So I had a I had a buddy it my last, my last pastoral engagement, come to me and go Colin, my daughter just moved home and she’s been through a really gnarly divorce. And you know, at night she’s being drugged to the bottom of a lake by a demon in her dreams. And it’s snowing on her arms and gnawing on her legs. And when she wakes up, it’s still going on, the knowing is still happening. And we’re doing everything we know to do. We’re reading the Word and we’re playing worship music and we can’t get rid of this thing. You know, would you come pray? Like, yeah, I’ll come pray. And so this was one of those two where I thought, okay, we might get some pyrotechnics here, we might get some manifestations, we might see some stuff. But the very first thing I’m doing is going, okay. Tell me about your relationship with Jesus. And if she’s telling you about it, I go, okay, she knows the Lord. She is safe. She’s trusting to Jesus for her salvation. So now I’ve got roomed to go after this thing, right. And so I start talking with her about about different areas that might be strongholds up into get ahead of myself here. Anyway, we ended up praying and I, we prayed through several different things. And I broke the demonic assignment against her just by speaking it out. I’ll, we’ll do this together, fellas. So you know how to do it. And she got completely set free. She didn’t manifests, there was no throwing up and spinning heads. And I walked away going up not sure. I don’t know, I don’t know what happened. Completely set free walking with Jesus today engaged in ministry, remarried Creek family is really, really, really cool. But Jesus, Jesus didn’t do that without someone to do it through. It’s like the gospel. It won’t preach itself. Sometimes God will spontaneously set people free. Sometimes it does happen. Usually, this kind of work happens with other believers, because it’s a primary way that God dispenses grace. You know, when I when I went through just a really dark season recently, where I was recovering from a very tough season in marriage and a subsequent divorce. I found the one of the primary delivery systems for Grace was you guys. influencers in particular, oh, my goodness, I am so thankful I can’t. I can’t tell you how grateful I am. God is so good. But but He uses us to do this. And so it’s important for us to have an idea of how to engage in that. Okay, so let me see what else we want to talk about here. Before we wrap things up here.

Unknown Speaker 52:45
Chemists tackle this one. This is a big theological questions, always, always, always comes up. And if we’re not very, very biblical, in our thinking here, we can actually adopt a sort of a systematic theological position of faith. That is actually unbiblical that can become stronghold, through which people can end up being demonized. And I know, it’s just a really big sentence. So let me let me let me try to unpack that. Here’s the question. Can a Christian have a demon problem? If we’ve been purchased by the blood of Christ, and Jesus owns us? Can we be possessed by a demon? And so the there’s an obvious answer to that? And the obvious answer is, no. We can’t. We can’t be possessed by a demon. You can’t. But let me just say there’s two things I want to say about possession. First of all, possession is a really, really, really, really high bar. me right now, would you say I’m in possession of myself? Are you in possession of yourself? Is anyone else making you do what you do? Are you completely making yourself do what you’re doing? No one can raise your arm. No one can make you say something, oh, he’s in possession. We’ll pray later, buddy. You we are in possession of ourselves. So possession means one 100% control not just thinking, not just, you know, feelings, but 100% bodily control, as if someone else is in that body. Can that happen to a Christian? No. It cannot happen to a Christian because they belong to Jesus. The body’s a temple, the Holy Spirit, how could he surrender that completely? To an evil spirit? But what if the inhabitant of that body surrenders partially to an evil spirit? What happens? Let me tell you this about the word possession. So the King James Bibles are first English translation, and the King James translators. We’re dealing with this word, this Greek word demands in my demands and demands in all my demand. is no mine. And they weren’t sure how to translate it. Because all it means is it just means has. So if someone and so a good way for us to translate that would be to say demonized and that’s the way you guys will always hear me talk about this person, you know, as demonized they, they they, they have a demon there is a demon, some way associated with them somehow affecting them. The Bible never uses the Greek word for possession. It doesn’t even use the Greek word for oppression, it just uses this this Demacia mind word, and it just means has a demon. And so the translators would would sort of impose possession or oppression on it. And so we have built all of these theologies of demonization, based on really faulty translation, I’m sorry, but it’s just the fact of the matter. You can look this up yourself. It’s really simple. And so when we start asking the question, you know, can a Christian be possessed by a demon? We’re actually not asking a biblical question. We’re not. So let’s, let’s see, let’s see what the Word says about this. Okay, Ephesians 426 to 27 Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Does that sound good? Yeah, of course. Okay, well, I’ll do that. And give no opportunity to the devil. Well, does that mean that if you let the sun go down on your anger, you might give opportunity to the devil? It sounds that way. That seems to be what what is saying. And if you look at that word, opportunity, you’ll find it as the Greek word Topo. Most and that word is the word that we get the term topology from, or topography. So topography, who knows what topography is? Yes, terrain mountains. So to give him no typos, no space on the map of our soul, don’t give him a little pocket of darkness to stand in. Because he can stand there. And when we continue on, and habitual sin, like we saw in first John 519. If we do continue on in that we can create a little shadow, or maybe a big shadow, a pocket of darkness, on the topography on the map of our soul, where the enemy can eventually eventually work his way through, and come to stand there and begin to make suggestions and begin to color things and begin to affect our perceptions. And he’s got a stronghold that he’s standing in. And that stronghold is is a sin. It’s a wrong belief. It’s a wrong feeling. It gives him a foothold. Ephesians is written to Christians, y’all. So what does this mean for us? Does this mean that whenever I sin, I’m inviting a demon into my life? Absolutely not. Does it mean that with habitual, repetitive, unrepentant, ongoing sin, I can invite a demon into my life and not even know it? Yeah, it sure does. And so when we experience a sin that is turbocharged something that we just can’t quite shake something, we’re we’re so ashamed that we we’ve stopped confessing it to God, we stopped confessing it to our brothers, and we’re hiding, we’re actually protecting that thing. But if we’ll bring it into the light, if you shine light on that little pocket of darkness that that demon is standing in, all of a sudden, he’s got no place to stand. And when he’s commanded to leave, he’s got to go. But if he’s got a place to stand, he’s got a legal right to be there, then he’s going to be there. And so we’ll talk through this more next time we get together fellows about, okay, well, how do we actually implement this as we’re, as we’re praying with one another? But for but for right now, I think what’s important for us to know is that, you know, First John 519 is true, he whose word of God does not continue in sin, and the one who was born of God protects him, and the Evil One does not touch him. But if you find yourself in a place where there’s just a turbocharged sin, it is possible that there is a demonic thing on it. And that doesn’t mean that your heads gonna spin around and that you’re gonna puke everywhere. But it does mean that you may need to pray with a brother, expose that thing, get some light on it on where it’s standing, and then it can be commanded to leave. And just like that girl that I prayed with, you know, so many decades ago, 30 years ago, whatever it was, um, got completely set free just like I got completely set free. You can get completely set free. Amen. Amen. All right, awesome, fellas. Okay before we pray any any more questions on any of this?

Unknown Speaker 1:00:10
Is every sin, spiritual?

Unknown Speaker 1:00:16
That is such a great question. I think every sin has spiritual ramifications. So yes, but a sin could be purely spiritual, like lust, you can commit the sin of lust and not do anything with your body, right? So that’s purely spiritual, it has spiritual ramifications. But there’s another sin theft that requires you doing something with your body. So that has a physical component to it. But it also has spiritual ramifications, right? So I’d say all sin is spiritual and some, some are physical.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:54
I guess I’m thinking more in terms of just when you’re as as a father and a husband, just those moments are just like, I shouldn’t do this for my family right now. And I just don’t want to I just want to sit here and wants to get to. It feels very innocuous. But it feels like from what you’re saying, it’s opening. Its opening me up.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:21
Well, maybe I’ll be careful about it, John, because it takes it takes some work to get to a place where you’re demonized.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:32
Yeah, and isn’t that going that far with it necessarily, but it’s not it’s a it is a tiny little gap in the arm?

Unknown Speaker 1:01:42
Sure. Could it could it lead to the you know, to the cardinal sin of slothfulness? Yeah, it could, you know, you you so so action we’ve habits. So a habit. Ripa character, right. So yeah, I think that is definitely true. So next time, guys. Well, we will talk about we’ll talk a little bit more about the nature of strongholds. And then we will we’ll focus on unforgiveness a bit more we’ll get into what I like to call the chain of authority how man surrendered his authority on earth how Satan carries it how Jesus took it, how he gives it back to us and how we wield it. And we will talk specifically about how to pray with people who may be having demon issues. Does that sound good? All right, cool. All right, well, why don’t we spend a few minutes guys let’s get why don’t we get into groups of three and just you know share anything that kind of stood out to you from from tonight? And can can we just commit right now to each other that what what happens here stays here and I’m not looking for any big like Soul rending you know confessions about anything that’s that’s not our goal here. Now if you have one and you want to make it great, you know go go for it you this is a safe place. But let’s just talk a little bit about about anything that sort of stood out to you and then let’s let’s just let’s just pray for one another day God would would would strengthen us and encourage us and and build us up and cause us to fulfill all of the things that He created us for that sounds good okay great let’s let’s just do that thanks guys

Unknown Speaker 1:03:23
on the map and workplace you overcome versus slogging out here. Do you have access guy? Crazy money for good.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:56
Alright, gentlemen, that’s enough fellowship and prayer. Stop it immediately. Now, it’s really really great hanging out with you guys. And really great praying together and great spending time in the world together. Looking forward to next time. Fellas, please bring bring somebody with you next time. God, God will move and God will do some cool things. But um, yeah, let’s let’s let’s start reaching out the buds and getting some more. Some more bodies in here. Why don’t we pray together guys. Jesus, thank you so much for your faithfulness. Lord, thank you for meeting us. Thank You that You are the wisdom and power of God. And thank you, Lord, that you do protect us from the evil one and that he cannot touch us. And furthermore, as we’re going to talk about next time, you give us authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the evil one, and nothing shall hurt you is what it says in that passage in Luke 10. So we just love that Lord, we love you. We thank you for the authority you’ve given us or we pray that you really teach us about that next time. And we just commit ourselves to you Lord, let it go out and spread your kingdom let us be ambassadors of your kingdom and let us bring guys back in here together next time that you would touch them and change them and equip them and just have your way with our lives Father in Jesus mighty name, as P would say fellas, go give them having love you guys

Transcribed by https://otter.ai