Video Transcript: Two Realities

Welcome to a course on Spiritual Warfare. That’s what we’re going to be considering over these next weeks together as I record these sessions and develop them.

This is an interesting course for me, and to begin today, I want to just share a story.

The most interesting conversion story I’ve heard was by a man named Jim. At the time I heard him speak, he was a regional director for another denomination other than mine. Doesn’t make any difference, but he shared something that caught my attention right away.

He said, as far as he knows, he is the only person who has ever converted as a result of going to the movie The Exorcist. Now, if you’re younger, you probably have never seen this movie, or maybe you’ve seen it on some cable station late at night or something like that, but it came out in 1973 and it was the true horror movie.

Now, for those of you who don’t know, the story is of a young girl who becomes demon-possessed. And so, the family finally realizes things are out of their control. They’ve tried doctors, they’ve tried everything. They call a priest in who’s an exorcist—a Roman Catholic priest—and so the movie is about him trying to exorcise this demon out of this young girl. And it’s powerful and, in some senses, really scary.

Well, Jim went to this movie because his friends told him, “Hey, you gotta see this movie. It’s got the latest special effects.” He said, “A chick’s head turns in that movie.”

And so he went—not expecting much of anything—but he went, hopefully expecting to be scared or whatever. Who knows what he was expecting? But he goes, and he said he got into the movie, and he sat down, and the movie started, and all of a sudden he was struck with this horrible fear—a terror, almost.

This is the way he put it: he said the terror wasn’t because of the movie itself. He said, “But I became aware that there’s a greater reality than what I thought of before. There’s something more in life, I realize, than what you can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell.”

I was terrified of this movie. I watched the whole thing scrunched down in my seat, with my jacket pulled up and my thumbs plugged in my ears.

And so he watches the movie, and the terror just kind of grows as he goes through the whole movie. And afterwards, he’s walking back to his dorm at Fresno State University in California, and he said, “I was looking at every—every bush. I’m scared. Something’s going to—some demon’s going to jump out.”

And so he’s almost shaking as he walks back to his dorm, and while he’s walking, he’s mumbling to himself. But he starts to hear in his mind the voice of somebody from the past. A friend of his, when he was in high school, had invited him to a youth engagement at his church. And there, the young man who spoke told how to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord.

And he began hearing this voice.

He got back to his dorm—says no roommates were around. It was just him. And he’s scared, and he’s walking back and forth. And finally, as he hears this voice of this youth pastor in his mind, he gets down on his knees and he asks Jesus into his life.

Now, he did it—you know—not the typical way: “Lord, I’m a sinner,” etc. What he said was: “God, I don’t even know if you’re real. Jesus, I don’t even know if you’re real. But if you are, I need you to come into my life right now.”

And Jesus never, never denies that request. So Christ came into his life, and things began to change.

And this is how he put the change. He says the big change was that I became aware there are really two worlds, two realities. There’s a world of furniture and roads and cars and rooms and walls—all of that is reality. But beyond that, there’s another reality. There’s the temporal, and there’s the eternal. They are very different realms that exist together.

Now I begin this class that way, with his story, because that’s what this class is about—that there are two very distinct realities, both very, very real. And we like to think they’re separate.

We’re going to talk about that now in one of the sessions. And sometimes in our world, we even deny that other reality in the name of science. But now—we have to see that. We are involved in warfare. That’s what we are engaging with—this reality.

And so over these next weeks, I’m going to be looking with you at the two realities. And we’re going to see many things. But let me introduce myself, first of all, as we begin this journey together.

My name is Bruce Ballast. I grew up in a Christian home. I’m one of eight children in that family—seventh out of eight born—and that has affected my view of life in so many ways.

I am married. I have three children and eleven grandchildren. And I pastored churches for many, many years—in fact, over 40 years.

Let me give you just an introduction to some of those churches.

The first church I served was Calvary Church in Plainwell, Michigan. The little house next door is the one we lived in—that was their parsonage. I’m sorry about that—I took this off the internet since I didn’t have any pictures of this place where I spent four and a half years as their pastor.

I went there straight out of seminary, and wow—it was an exciting place to be in so many ways. I learned there much about God. I learned much about myself.

And recently, we had a gathering—one of the men that was there when I was there many years ago (now this is back in 1979 that I went there, in February)—one of the men was dying of cancer. And so he invited all the people that had an impact in his life. And so we went. We hadn’t seen these people in years—over 30 years. And the stories of how people came to Christ—this was a delightful place to be, and delightful people to interact with.

Now, I spent four and a half years there. And then I accepted a call to Southern California, to CrossPoint Church. In fact, when I went there, it was Calvary, and it was not in this building.

I spent 20 years as pastor in this place. And in the last six years, we moved and we built this facility. We had experienced a great deal of growth. The previous building was on four acres and held, you know, four to five hundred people—and that was it. And we were in three services in the morning and two at night on Sunday. And so we decided to relocate into a rapidly growing area of our community.

And so I spent 20 years there working with a staff. I had to learn a great deal about leadership. And if you have taken any of my courses—especially the ones on leadership—you’ll hear more about the story of this place.

But in Southern California, it’s a fascinating place to do ministry because people have tried everything there. And sometimes they’re ready to hear about and receive Jesus Christ because they have come to know that there’s—something’s got to be—something more than what they’ve got going.

So I spent that time there. And again, learned a lot about God, learned a lot about myself.

The last church I served as pastor is this one—I’m showing you the entryway. This is Covenant Life Church in Grand Haven, Michigan.

It’s a church that started with a dream. They wanted to be a different church in the community—one that was welcoming to anyone. And so a small group started. They’d been in the YMCA for years. And then there was this derelict building. It had been a piano factory. And somebody had the money, purchased this place, and they spent years—and by the time I left there, millions of dollars—fixing this place up to be a powerful, powerful addition to ministry and benefiting ministry.

In this place, we had a worship area that sat about 500 when we had two services in the morning. We had ministry rooms. That’s a three- or four-floor building. The brick building on the left is three or four floors. And those floors are full of ministry.

In fact, it’s got some unique ministry. The third floor is a woodworking shop. We’ve got a group of men who bless the community by building desks during the pandemic for kids. They build beds for kids in the community—for families that don’t have a bed that meets federal standards.

We found out that that’s something that can cause someone to pull a child out of that home. And so we began building beds. We get engineers, and it is something—they gather every once in a while to build more beds. I think this year they’ve done almost 400 beds for kids in our broader community.

But anyway—it’s a unique kind of place. It’s a place that people come in. And in fact, one man put it very well—a friend, ministry partner, who was part of the beginning of this church—just died recently.

Anyway, he said that in his life—as an alcoholic, as a variety of things—he lived on the wrong side of life for many, many years. The building’s just a metaphor for all of us, as we’re in process. We are people under construction. We are being expanded and renewed. And that was the ministry of that place.

And wow—did God teach me a lot there.

So that’s a little bit about me. And now, to talk a little bit about what—what are we going to look at in this class on Spiritual Warfare?

Let me tell you a little bit about how this class came to be.

First of all, I was asked to teach a class on Spiritual Warfare. I was subbing for the teacher who does the men's class, where there are about 45 men who gather on Friday morning. They do a lot of things—Bible study for an hour, and then they do work around the building. And these are all retired men, and it’s a delightful ministry.

And the teacher was going to be gone. And so somebody asked if I would fill in, and we talked about subjects. They said, “What about spiritual warfare?” So I remembered notes that I had done years ago, and I said, “Okay, I’ll do Spiritual Warfare.”

Turns out, I searched everywhere—high and low—through computer records, through my files, etc., etc., etc. And usually I keep pretty good files, but I could find nothing that I had done for a long time. Finally, I found a few notes somewhere.

But anyway, so I started preparing for this class—one hour. And what can you say in one hour?

Turns out, when I taught the class, the discussion was so vigorous and people so engaged that we didn’t get halfway through the material that I had in one hour.

Anyway, after that, I had an experience that was somewhat unique. There is a phenomenon. It’s called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Sometimes it’s called cognitive bias, sometimes it’s called frequency illusion.

Now, if you’re wondering, here is the definition of that: the illusion in which a word, a name, or a thing that has recently come to one’s attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly thereafter.

Let me give you an example of that. Recently, I was in the market for a used car. And my grandkids—I have three grandkids who live near us—and I was taking them to school one day. And—well, we can talk about this—the one, the oldest, is 14 years old. So he’s a car maniac right now, looking at cars.

And I said, “You know what? The car I want to buy, after doing some research, is a Subaru Forester.” And I said, “I want you to look for Subaru Foresters.”

And a couple of days later, when I was taking them home from school that day, you know, my oldest grandson says, “Grandpa,” he says, “I can’t believe how many Subaru Foresters there are in this area. I never noticed that before.”

That’s the frequency illusion. They were always there, but you never noticed them before.

And so as I was preparing that one-hour class—and afterwards, for those men—I experienced the frequency illusion in that, as I read Scripture, I found spiritual warfare cropping up all the time. All the time, all the time, all the time—more and more.

And so, as I began looking at that and talking with Henry, who is the leader of Christian Leaders Institute, I said, “I want to do a class on Spiritual Warfare. I think there’s enough for a full class here—36 sessions.” And he gave me the freedom to do that.

So I’ve been developing this. But you’ve got to know that this subject is all through Scripture. It’s always been there—I just didn’t notice it. And there are just these little sentences.

We’re not going to look at every passage that has to do with spiritual warfare—that would take months and months and months for me to prepare and record.

So we’re going to be looking at spiritual warfare. Here’s just some of the stuff we are going to cover.

We’re going to look at the Bible statements about the reality of spiritual warfare—that there is that other element, that other dimension—and that dimension, in that dimension, there is war. And that war comes down into our temporal world very, very often.

So we’re going to learn about the reality of this warfare.

We’re going to learn about the reality of our enemy. In fact, we’re going to define what he does, who he is. We’re going to look at his names through Scripture, and we’re going to see how they give glimpses into how he acts in your life, so that you can be a watchman. You can regularly identify where he is at work. And we’re going to talk about that a great deal.

And then we’re going to talk about the battle, and how we engage in the battle.

We’re going to look at the defensive weapons that God has given us. And we’re going to look at the offensive weapons. We’re not just to be in defense here.

You know, Jesus said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. Now, the gates of hell are a protective thing, right? Which means we’re on the offensive. We’re going to attack. We’re going to come against him where we see the enemy at work.

And so we’re going to look at the defensive and then the offensive weapons and postures that we can take.

Now, this class is going to be different than other ones I’ve taught. If you’ve taken some of those classes that are done for Christian Leaders Institute before, it’s going to be part Bible study, where we just look at what the Bible says. It’s going to be part preaching—I am going to be preaching occasionally. It’s going to be part philosophical.

In fact, the first couple of sessions—if you’re not philosophically inclined—I ask you just to hang in there with me, would you please? Because we’re going to get to the really exciting stuff in a little while.

But I want to establish a philosophical, theological basis for understanding this warfare and why we don’t notice it. Why do we go through life without the frequency illusion—that we don’t see the evil around us?

And so we’re going to do that. We’re going to be occasionally worshiping. I’m going to introduce some songs and some worship that, hopefully, will—you know—bring our minds back into the heavenly realms, as Paul says in Colossians.

And so we’re going to be doing all those things, and we’re going to be praying.

Now, I knew before I started preparing this class that there is such a thing as spiritual warfare—that there are fallen angels, demons that are at work in this world.

After working on it for a short time—I’m only going to, you know, in this session of my recording, you’re going to see six of my lectures—but I’ve become very aware of the reality of the enemy, and I’ve become very aware of the fact that he doesn’t want me doing this.

Now, people that I read, as I was preparing for this class, would tell me about things that happened to distract them.

One guy talked about every time he teaches on this subject, he says, some major appliance in the house goes out, or he had a car accident, or he had this, or he had that, or he had another thing.

Well, I’ve got to tell you that as I’ve started preparing this class, some things happened. For instance, I’ve fallen out of bed twice in the last two weeks. I’ve never fallen out of bed. And yet here I am, falling out of bed and whacking my head on the table next to my bed.

And at first, you think, that’s crazy. But one morning, it was about ten after four in the morning, and all of a sudden—thump—I’m wide awake, and whack, I hit my ear. And, you know, thinking, Is this the enemy attacking?

Because now, you know, I’ve got some discs in my back that don’t especially appreciate me falling right onto my rear end.

And anyway, so I didn’t think much about it—except I was talking to my daughter, one of the people I’ve asked to pray while I do this class. And I said, “You know, some crazy things have been happening.” And I said, “I’ve fallen—I’ve fallen out of bed.”

And she said, “Was one of them Friday night, a little after four o’clock?”

I said, “Yeah.”

She said, “I woke up—wide awake—at 4:10, about. And all of a sudden it came in: I’ve got to pray for Dad—my dad. I’ve got to pray for this class on Spiritual Warfare.”

So those kinds of things happening.

I bought a used car—as I said, I was in the market for one. I bought one. On the way home, all of a sudden the thing just went wild. The cruise control wouldn’t work. All of these various warning lights are flashing. And so instead of coming home and getting back to work on preparing these lectures, I end up going back to the dealership. And it took me another week to get that car. And in the meantime, yeah—we had to struggle along in transportation issues.

I’ve had other things happen that are just scary. I’ve been working on some stuff, and I was on a website—just one I’ve been on many times before—to prepare some videos for you, to do that sort of thing and put them in the PowerPoint that I’m using.

And all of a sudden, a banner came up that said I’ve been infected by viruses, and I’ve got to click here to get rid of them. And I never trust that sort of thing.

And so I went to my virus prevention software, right? And it turns out it had expired two days before. So okay—so now I’ve gotta reload it. So I purchased—I updated, purchased the updated version of that virus catcher. And I tried to load it, and it wouldn’t load, and it wouldn’t load, and it wouldn’t load.

And I’m thinking, What do I do? What do I do? And now, every time I click, weird stuff comes up. I mean—naked women coming up, winking at me on my computer.

And it wasn’t until I found out—I have an Apple computer—it wasn’t until I found Apple Help again, and a woman was able to help me clear my computer out.

But it’s that sort of thing—that sort of thing, as well as my own temptations—that are heightened during this period. And so I’m very aware that there’s an enemy.

And I want to tell you about him—and tell you how to find victory in the battle.

Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.

One part of this class is going to be prayer. Join me in prayer as we close this session.

Our Lord, we are aware that there is an enemy, that there are two worlds. Remind us that greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Thank you. I’ll see you next time.