Reading: Video Transcript: Going on Offense: Disciples Join the Battle

🌟 Welcome back as we continue to explore the subject of spiritual warfare!

Now, where we are – just a reminder – is:
🔸 We are going on the offensive.
We’ve learned the defensive things, and now we’re learning these things that we can do to be on the offensive, to be against the enemy.

💡 So today we’re going to look at the disciples joining the battle.
We saw that:
⚔️ We have the weapon of the sword – the sword of the Spirit, that Rhema, that fit word.
🙏 We have the weapon of prayer – and the power that gives.
📢 We have the weapon of command – at least, that’s how Jesus exercised the battle.

✨ What about the disciples?
In this session, we’re going to look at a few of the passages that indicate where the disciples were in this.

🔹 Just a reminder:
Jesus, when He was in His ministry, recognized demonic activity, and He responded with power and authority.
In that John 9 passage, we saw that the disciples couldn’t do it. They came across this demon in this boy that they could not cast out. Apparently, they tried.
Then Jesus comes on the scene – and His power and authority does it.

📖 Now we’re going to be looking only at a couple of passages that indicate how the disciples went about the battle in the book of Acts.
However, I don’t want to give the idea or implication that there are only a few such things.

📚 In fact, here’s something I just pulled. I just scanned this out of a book that I have.

📜 You'll notice here direct references in the New Testament to the spirit world.
This is how many there are. We're not going to look at all of those for sure.
But rather, I want to look at specific ministry challenges that were given to the disciples.
Let’s look at that together.

📖 First of all, Luke 10:
After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them, two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.
He told them, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go, I’m sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals. Do not greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house, first say, “Peace to this house.” If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

🔎 Now, just a couple of things I want to note about this before we go on and finish this passage:
They were sent out two by two.
I find that important. I find that rather amazing, that in our more modern life, we send people out one by one. That kind of shocks me, because we’re in a battle, and in a battle, one person is far more vulnerable than two.
So just that idea – when we’re entering battle, we shouldn’t do it alone. We should have at least one partner, if not other partners, who are going to be doing battle with us and for us. Vitally important.

And then there’s the whole idea – the harvest is plentiful.
Jesus is on a mission to get the gospel into the hearts and lives of people.
He says, No, I’m sending you out like lambs among wolves.

⚠️ That’s another one!
You’ve got to be aware there are wolves. Now, if you’re a lamb, a wolf is a dangerous animal. It’s out there to attack you and kill you and eat you.
So you’ve got to be aware: I’m sending you out like lambs among wolves.
But I’m going to take care of you. You don’t have to worry about your provision.
You don’t need money along. You don’t need a bag. You don’t need sandals.
I’m going to provide for you.

⏩ And don’t greet anyone on the road.
I love that statement.
He said, This is so important a mission, you can’t waste your time.
Now, the tradition back then was:
When you met somebody on the road, you’d kind of do this whole greeting thing, then you’d share stories, find out to whom you’re equally related, and you could spend a lot of time on that.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 In my tradition, I didn’t spend much time in churches from my tradition growing up.
But when I went back as an interim pastor into a church that’s pretty traditional in my religious background, right away someone asked:
“Ballast, Ballast – are you related to so and so? Bev Ballast? (She happened to be my sister, now with the Lord.)
Were you related to Beth? Oh yeah, played in a band with her. She played flute. I played clarinet. Da, ta, da. Are you related to Dan Ballas? (For my brothers.)
There’s this thing that goes on, then how they shared together, time together, and what they thought, etc., etc., etc.

🏠 When you enter a house, you are carrying as someone commissioned by Jesus peace – shalom – a sense of rightness.
When you enter a house, say Peace to this house.
And if someone who is equally committed to peace is there, your peace is going to rest on them.
Otherwise, it’s going to come back to you.

🌿 It’s a mystical thing.
It’s a mystical thing. I’m not so sure how it relates to spiritual warfare, but I think it does.
That within us, because we are in the presence of God, there is peace.
Stay there, eating and drinking. Don’t move around.

🍽️ Okay, so, having said all of that, here’s the rest of the story:
When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what’s offered to you, heal the sick who are there, and tell them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, “Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.” I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

🌍 Now, with the presence of God’s commissioned people, Jesus is saying:
If they reject you, they reject me.
But in you, the Kingdom of God has come near.
All of those things you pray when you pray the Lord’s Prayer: Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
The Kingdom of God is present where you are when you’re going as a minister.

🚶‍♂️ So these 72 people go out.
We’re not told how long it was, but you’ll notice what they were told to do – heal the sick.

📜 Let’s go back to that slide for just a moment:
Sending you out – when you enter a road, you know you’re going out into every town and place where he was about to go.
In other words, they were to prepare the way for Jesus. They were to tell the news about Jesus Christ being the Messiah.

📣 So they go out.
They go into these towns: The kingdom of God has come near.
Here’s what happened:
Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.

🌟 The 72 returned with joy and said:
Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!
Isn’t that something?
Jesus said nothing about demons in his commission to them.
He told them to heal the sick. Didn’t say, “Go do battle.” And yet they did. They had to.

⚡ And he replied:
I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I’ve given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, to overcome all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

🎉 At that time, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, Jesus said:
I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

🛡️ Now, Jesus says:
I’ve given you authority over all the power of the enemy.

📖 Now, there are two words there:

• Exousia is authority. Someone who ruled had authority. For example, someone who was a governor had authority over that area, and he could command the troops to go wherever they needed to go.

• The troops had power, but the power could only be exercised under the authority of the commander.

👑 Jesus says:
I’ve given you authority.
I’ve given you power over the enemy.
All of that is ours. It’s ours.

📢 And so this happens within the context, though, of the missionary mandate.
In other words, Jesus has got these people out there. They’re on the front lines, but they’re telling the fact that God sent Jesus Christ into the world.
It’s a simple gospel message:
In the beginning, Adam and Eve fell into sin, and boy, we’ve been living with the consequences of that. All you’ve got to do is look around the world a little bit.
But there’s good news: Jesus came as God in the flesh, and he’s here now. The Kingdom of God is present. The power of God is present. And the world is changing.
It took place in the context of that incredible missionary mandate.

📜 Now let’s go on – Mark 16.

📖 This is one of those passages that is controversial, to say the least.
It says later, Jesus appeared to the 11 as they were eating. Remember, Judas has betrayed Jesus, so he’s no longer with them.
And Jesus appeared, and he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he’d risen.

🌍 He said to them:
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

✋ And then he says:
And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all. They will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.

✨ After Jesus had spoken to them,
He was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

⚠️ This is a controversial passage.
I have to tell you, some believe it was added later, particularly that whole idea of picking up snakes with your hands.

🐍 I was privileged to be part of a class that took place in Atlanta, Georgia – Peachtree, Georgia actually, one of the suburbs.
It was on church growth and how to facilitate the growth in numbers and spiritual vitality of our churches. And the professor, Peter Wagner, one Saturday evening took us up to a church up in the hills, and it was a snake handlers church.

In other words, they catch copperheads and they catch rattlesnakes, and they believe that you have to do these things that are mentioned here. You’ve got to pick up snakes with your hands, and you should drink deadly poison.

🥼 And so they do this as part of their service.
And so we had a class of us – there were probably 30 of us who were representing Fuller Theological Seminary at that point – and we sat at the back, as you can imagine. But they went through the service.

🎤 There was a pastor there, well into his 70s, who preached about the image of snakes because he knew we were going to be there – the image of snakes throughout the Bible.
And then they went through this kind of musical ecstatic time where they were handling snakes and putting them back.

💀 And they had poison up there – that if anybody felt called, they could have strychnine and drink it and prove that they could overcome, even that.

❗ Now this is a controversial passage.

🎤 That’s the point I’m trying to make.
And believe me, it was interesting. After the service, we spent time just talking with the people there, and this is a powerful belief in them.

💬 But the belief is that where I go as a follower of Jesus Christ, there should be signs that accompany me.

Sign number one, whoever wrote this—this may have been an addition. You know, the way the Bible was copied for many years, it was copied by hand. And so sometimes, you know, those who were copying would put a note in the margin, and the next copier would put that in there.

📜 We know all of this from the way we track how the Bible came to us from generation to generation, being copied by hand.
This may have been something that was added in.

But what did they add? They said signs have to accompany.

🚩 Number one is drive out demons, speak in new tongues.
So, you know, argument from Pentecostal church, certainly, but the point I’m trying to make here is that there has to be some demonstration of power. The people who put that in there expected power.

📖 Now, when we get to the book of Acts, we find that the enemy is at work.

• Chapters three and four: He tries to stop the evangelism outreach. You can read about that. The apostles are imprisoned, they’re questioned, they are beaten and released.

• Chapter five: The pollution of the church—you know, that’s where you get these people who are trying to deceive the Holy Spirit by selling a piece of land and only giving part of it, but claiming that they gave it all.

• Imprisonment happens in chapter five.

• Chapter six: Division in the church. The widows are complaining—the Grecian and the Hebraic widows are complaining. And there’s a division in the church.

• Chapter twelve: Political leadership attacks. There’s the execution of James, Peter is in prison, and Satan does all sorts of things to try to stop the growth of the church.

🔥 The battle is enjoined. The disciples are now part of it.
It’s past Pentecost. They’ve got the power of the Holy Spirit with them.

📖 Let’s look at some of the things that happened:
Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip, one of the deacons, went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the message there—first of all, in Samaria, where the Jews hated Samaritans and vice versa.

👀 When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. Why?
For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city.

🌆 City – He cast out demons that created an opportunity for people to listen to him.
Wow, that’s potent, isn’t it?

👥 The disciples are part of the battle. They’re not taken away from it—they’re part of the battle. Let’s go on and see what happens.

📖 Another passage: Simon the Sorcerer.
Now, for some time, a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city. This from the book of Acts, and he amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the great power of God.” They followed him because he amazed them for a long time with his sorcery.

💡 But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
Simon himself believed and was baptized, and he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

📝 Now, note that the people saw the signs, but the signs made them believe the word.
It wasn’t just the signs, but it was the fact that this was an impact—that this is truth being spoken here.

🤔 But then, you know, there’s an interesting thing there, that this Simon man, who practiced sorcery, also believes and is baptized. He’s part of the in-crowd.

👑 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said,
“Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Spirit.”

⚡ Now Peter, who had just come on the scene, answered:
“May your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that He may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”

🙏 Then Simon answered:
“Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

🔍 Now, several things to note here:

• First of all, this power of receiving the Spirit. We don’t know exactly how this happens today.

• Within the Pentecostal tradition, you believe it happens when you lay hands on and people begin to speak in tongues.

• For all of us—you know, when I was ordained in the ministry, I had a group of people laying hands on me, and the idea is conferring the authority of the Church upon me as one of its representatives, the authority of Jesus Christ on me as one of his representatives in the world.

👀 But it’s fascinating, isn’t it, that Peter can see what’s wrong?

• First of all, that Simon is now part of the church.

• Secondly, Peter seems to have the gift to discern what’s not of the Holy Spirit.

🔎 Now the spiritual gift of discernment is an important one.
Here’s a definition:
The spiritual gift of discernment is the special ability that God gives to some to know with assurance whether certain behavior or teaching is from God, Satan, human error, or human power. It is the divine enablement to distinguish between truth and error, to discern the spirits, differentiating between good and evil, right and wrong.

📖 Excuse me just a moment here.
The word discernment comes from the Greek diakrisis, which embodies several ideas: to see, consider, examine, understand, hear, judge closely.

🕊️ But notice now, dear friends, the Scriptures:
“Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

🔥 Paul adds:
“No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.”

💬 Here’s a definition from Graham:
“Have an uncanny ability to perceive hypocrisy, shallowness, deceit, or phoniness. This is the spirit of discernment.”

🧠 The spirit of discernment gives insight, and usually there’s a confrontation then. Philip is a lay leader. Now, is there always a request for forgiveness or deliverance? Don’t always know, but sometimes there is.

🔍 But what I want you to see there is that there had to be a discernment, because Simon was part of the church.

• He was one of those who believed and was baptized.

• He was somebody who belonged.
  So there had to be discernment there, and Peter says, “Oh, I can see you’re full of bitterness. You’ve got to take care of that. Pray to God that something won’t happen to you as a result.”

🤝 I found it very helpful.
There are people with the spirit of discernment. The gift of discernment is one of the spiritual gifts, as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12. And I found it very helpful to have people along with me when I’m engaged in something that will allow me to depend on whether I’m actually facing demons.

📖 I remember one person:
I had a request to engage in a time of deliverance, exorcism of a demon from this young man. So I got a team of people together to do that. It wasn’t going to be me meeting with the person. One of the key people was a man who had the spiritual gift of discernment.

👀 So we began to engage this young man, first of all, an interview, find out when these problems in his life began, etc., trying to get the key—what are the demons here that we need to exercise? The young man who was the focus of our evening together began to act weird. And the one person I had who had the spiritual gift of discernment was able to say, “No, this is not the enemy. This guy is just getting attention.”

💡 So the gift of discernment—if you don’t have it, it’s helpful if you’re going to engage on some of the higher levels of spiritual warfare. The disciples had it.

🌍 Another example:
After they traveled through the whole island of Cyprus until they came to Paphos, where they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the Word of God.

⚔️ But Elymas the sorcerer (for that’s what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith.
Then Saul, who becomes Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said,
“You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that’s right. You’re full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? And now the hand of the Lord is going to be against you.”

🌟 When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.

🌍 Now, once again, there was a discernment that happened here, and it was part of the missionary enterprise. There’s a people movement that’s going to happen here—throughout history, we find that some key people within a tribe or group can lead the whole group to faith. That’s what’s happening here.

🔎 There’s discernment, there’s boldness.
Paul says, “I can see you. I see who you are. I see what you are. You’re the enemy of everything that’s good.” He had the gift of discernment, but he was also empowered by the Spirit.

📖 One more example: Acts 16
Once, when they were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting,
“These men are servants of the Most High God who are telling you the way to be saved.”
She kept this up for many days. Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit,
“In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her.”
At that moment, the spirit left her.

🏛️ Now just a couple of things to note about that:
Here are the ruins of Philippi. It’s down in that pretty open area where this happened—that’s where the seat of judgment was within the city. It was a thriving city, largely a Roman city where former Roman legionnaires could settle after serving 25 years. Here’s where the prison was that they were sent into.

🐍 A couple of words about this deliverance:
The demon here is identified as Python in the Scripture, supposedly inhabited by the spirit of Apollo, could recognize the future, and was accurate. The demon had some knowledge about the future and recognized Jesus’ people—Paul and Barnabas—as those who were there on behalf of Jesus.

🤔 Now, did she want help?
Was she saying this because she wanted help or deliverance? We don’t know.

🎯 But what did the enemy offer?
There was attraction—people were attracted to knowing about the future. There was knowledge. And yet, Paul gives a command.

📚 Now, the point of this overview in this session was simply this:
See that the disciples were continuing the ministry of Jesus Christ, and they continued it in much the same way—discern the spirits, give a command in the power and the name of Jesus.

⚔️ We’re going to explore these ideas and our offensive weapons more in the next session. So join me then, won’t you? Please?