Video Transcript: Spiritual Warfare part 3

Well, you've been looking at Satan. And we've been looking at the power that he has back.  Here's just a review of where we then we looked at who he is, through His names, through  what Scripture reveals about his origin as a fallen angel. We've looked at his strategies, how  he goes about trying to steal, steal, kill, and destroy. And we've seen a variety of strategies,  but within the church setting, that idea of subtlety and schism, siege and surprise. Now I want to before I go on to talk about the weapons that we have. I want to just do an aside here for  just a moment. And that is to talk about what does it mean to be demonized? You know, in the Western world, we have this old movie, which is called the Exorcism. It's been redone several  different times with expansion of the truth. But the Exorcist was a story, fake story of this  young woman who's demon possessed and a priest comes trying to do an exorcism to cast  the demon out. And, and the movie is all about the dynamics of this spiritual battle that's  going on. And so it makes you wonder, does it not? Whether this can happen today? Does this happen to people today? Where they are possessed by possessed by the devil or possessed  by a demon? Well, a bigger question about that. We call it you know not demon possession so much anymore, but call it being demonized. Oh, the bigger question is, can this happen to a  believer? There's a couple of passages here that are maybe going to help us a little bit. Luke  9:37-43 is the story of a young father with a young boy. And remember, Jesus spent some  time on the mountain with Peter, James and John, when he comes down, he notices there's a  crowd gathered, and they're the one of the things they're dealing with his disciples down  there is this man who comes and says, you know, oh, you know, Jesus, could you heal my son, he's possessed, and there's this, this demon comes over him at various times and throws  them into convulsions. And Jesus says, Okay, bring him here. And even while they're bringing  him to Jesus, he falls into this convulsive state on the ground, and Jesus rebukes the demon  and casts him out of the kid. And then he goes into this thing of being tired. He says, How  long do I have to be among you? unbelieving and perverse generation, etc, etc, etc. But  what's striking about that passage is that little boy was a child of the covenant. In other  words, he's got a believing father. He's somebody who has put his faith in Jesus Christ. He  believes Jesus is the answer to the problem he faces now he doesn't have the whole theology  about the the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ doesn't have that in his head, but he  knows that Jesus is the answer and believes it and yet his son is somebody who is controlled  by this spirit, this demon. Now, does that mean it could happen to a believer? Not sure about  that. Acts 5:1-11 is the story of Ananias and Sapphira, I referred to that in the last session,  where Ananias and Sapphira give this land, they sell it, and they give the proceeds to the  church, but they hold some of it back and they lie about it. And Peter says, How is it that the  Satan has put it in your hearts to lie to the Holy Spirit? We talked about that and concerns in  terms of injecting evil purposes into the hearts of a person. But now, how does Satan get into  a believer post Pentecost? I mean, this is after Pentecost. Right? So how in the world does  Satan make that entrance into a believer's life? Well, some have found it helpful to look at  different categories in this regard, a demon oppression. This is something that all of us  experience at various times, it's the fact that demons can come to us, they can hurt us, they  can cause limitation in our lives. Remember, Paul in II Corinthians 12, where he had this thorn  in the flesh, and it was something that limited to him. And he's cried out to God three times to deliver me from this, please deliver me from this. And God's answer you remember was, you  know, my strength is made perfect in weakness. And so there was this, a weakness  experience that he was having. And he said, this, this thorn was a messenger from Satan. And so all of us at some time because we live in a world where there's a prince of this world, and  we live in a world that has been twisted by sin, the original sin of Adam and Eve and all of our  sins after that, because we live in the place we do because we are the people we are sinful  ourselves. There are times when we're going to experience the presence of the enemy.  Secondly, there's demonic obsession. That goes beyond oppression. This is somebody who is  experiencing and, an engagement with the enemy on a regular basis and maybe even is  inviting the enemy. Maybe this is somebody who wants some power in his life, and he sees  somebody who has the power of evil and is attracted to it. I think about the old book in our  true book, story of the Cross and the Switchblade where David Wilkerson is somebody who  feels called by God to go and deal with the gangs in New York City. And as he goes there, he's 

finding these people, one of whom is Nicki Cruz, who's who has been, has been immersed in  the gang culture, and the violence of it, and the hatred of it and the demeaning of the people  around them, and the gang battles. And Nicki Cruz got to that position because he wanted  power, he grew up in a in a home that was broken, and it was damaged. And as a result, he  was broken and damaged. And what he wanted was power. And so he became obsessed with  the people who had power and how to get that well, in that time, was be part of a gang, be  part of the drug culture, be part of all those kinds of situations that are ugly, though, for some of us, it'll be demonic obsession, which is a step above oppression now because we've been  engaged in it and interested in it. And then there's the demonic possession. That somehow  this Satan is allowed to possess part of us, or all of us. I put down there Ephesians 4:27. That's Paul's statement about anger. He's talking about putting off certain things and putting on  certain things. But he says, "In your anger," he says, "do not sin. Do not let the sun go down  while you're angry, lest you give the devil a foothold." And the idea there is that by  disobeying God by hanging on to our anger and hanging onto our bitterness, it opens up the  door for the enemy to come in and create a root of bitterness that grows into a bush or a tree  and begins to control our lives. I've known several people like that, I think of one man I've  dealt with who was divorced and not pleasantly divorced. And it was a painful, painful time for him. And yet, he turned bitter against anybody who had anything to do with his wife making  that decision. And some people in the church had cared for her because they thought she was being physically abused or emotionally abused. And so anyway, it was an ugly situation. But if you talk to him today, you cannot talk to minutes with him, whether you're new to his  acquaintance or not, where he won't bring this up. This this is the kind of thing that Satan will  do. He gets a foothold. And then he comes in and this man's a believer, he believes in Jesus  Christ. He's believes that Jesus died for his sins. But the devil has gotten a foothold. And so  he's gotten in he's, he's worked his way in. And later on, those can become strongholds as  well talk about in a few moments. So demonic oppression, obsession, possession, what do you do when you encounter someone in your ministry? This is kind of an aside too because it  doesn't have to do with leadership so much as it does with the activity of Satan in an  individual's life. So what do you do? Well, the first thing you do is identify whether this is  indeed the work of Satan, or it is just the the fact that the person is stained by sin the way all  of us are now, you can go overboard now I looked up on the web, you know, what are some of the signs or some of the demonic spirits? You know, what's a list of demonic spirits? Here's a  listing of one website, but it's common to many of them. Anxiety is listed as demonic spirits.  Alzheimer's disease is listed as a demonic spirit cancer, a smoking, taking cocaine, crying  depression are all demonic spirits. Divorce is a demonic spirit grieving insecurity is a demonic  spirit. Obesity osteo arthritis blood pressure high, high or low. Yeah, that's concerned to me, I  take a pill every day for my blood pressure, a bronchitis claustrophobia envy, having a  headache, lust, marijuana, and on and on and on to thief or a stealing and schizophrenia and  sinusitis and etc, etc, etc. And this goes on and on and on. But you can say, you know, okay,  this is Satan. Right. But the reality is, I don't like these lists, because they take away all  personal responsibility. You know what? Oh, you know, I stole Well, you know, Satan made me  do it. That's the line of a comedian in our country from years and years ago. He'd say, The  devil made me do it. The devil made me do it. It's easy to say I steal something I envy  somebody. I'm I'm crying or depressed. Well, you know, it must be the enemy. All I got to do is deal with that spirit and there are some in Our country, much to the detriment I think of the  believers in this country who would like us to believe that everything is Satan's demons  somehow. And that takes away our responsibility, as I said, but also limits us with a clear view of what he actually does do. And so we've got to identify it, you know, is there compulsive  behavior here? Does the person sense it, sometimes the person will sense evil, I think of a  couple that I dealt with where they were brand new Christians and I was involved in discipling  them. And they had been involved trying to sell their house for months and months and  months. And they had to move because of his job. He was now commuting for hours. And  from our city in California, down to San Diego, which could be a two or if traffic is bad three  hour commute. And so his time with family was being limited because he would stay down  there and, and they were just finding they were stretched to the max. And so they had to sell 

their house and move closer to his work. But the house wasn't selling months on the market,  no bites whatsoever. And the woman said, interestingly, we weren't talking about spiritual  warfare. But what she said was, this is something to the point where I think that the enemy is  trying to, you know, destroy our new faith, we we've just experienced this wonderful salvation experience he's trying to destroy it. And so we prayed that way, we prayed a spiritual warfare  prayer, the next day, their house sold. So if someone comes to you and says, you know, I  really sense the presence and the engagement of the evil one, take that seriously. They sense it. Somebody with a gift of discernment is there. I've shared a little bit about this gift before,  but some people are able a spiritual gift, able to discern whether something is of God or the  enemy or nothing. And I try to always when I'm dealing with any situation that has to do with  spiritual warfare, have somebody who has this spiritual gift engaged as well. And I've been in  situations where somebody would say, Nope, this isn't, this isn't the enemy. This is just a show about behavior of a certain person that has being prayed for. So then you pray deliverance.  Now there are a couple of things about praying for deliverance. Two things one, it's in the  name of Jesus. You remember, in Acts 16, when when Paul is facing this young girl who's  possessed by this demon who allows her to foretell the future, and she's making a lucrative  income for her master, she's a slave. And Paul sets her free, he turns around, and he says, In  the name of Jesus, I command you to come out of her. That's Acts 16:18, I believe it is, in the  name of Jesus, the name of Jesus is power. Here we come against the enemy, not because we  are so powerful, but because he is. And then note that it's a command directed to the demon  presence it is not a petition to God saying, oh, please deliver this person, it's command that  we come with the authority of Jesus Christ. Now, how do we do that, and that's important,  because of the next one, the fulfilling prayer in Luke 11, Jesus talks about somebody being set free from the spirit of the Spirit wandering through watery places until he comes back to  where he was. And when he comes back to where he was, he finds all the rooms clean and  swept. And so he comes in and he takes residence and he invites other demons in with him.  And so it's important what you do afterwards that this demon is dealt with. And so if you can  cast out a demon, where is it going to go? You remember Jesus, when He confronted Legion?  Actually had that conversation, the demon said, can we go into those pigs that he said, All  right, I'll give you leave to go into those pigs. Then they go into the pigs, pigs run over a cliff  and destroy themselves. It's been my practice and one by learning from some people who are more experienced in this than I of saying, I command you to go to Jesus, that He may deal  with you as he sees fit, so that it's not me giving the direction but that that the demon is dealt with so that the person can be free. And then praying for filling for them, getting them into a  discipleship program, having them engage with other Christians, having them engage in the  word so that they become filled with the Spirit. That's the other part of that. So that's kind of  an aside, the last 15 minutes have been kind of a side of looking at this issue of demon  possession or demon oppression. What I want to do next is just look at some pictures of  warfare that are given to us in Scripture. Here's Jesus' picture in Mark 3, "Jesus entered a  house and again, a crowd gathered so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him for they said, he's out of  his mind. And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said he is possessed by Beelzebub by the prince of demons. He is driving out demons. So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables. How can Satan drive out Satan if a kingdom is divided? against itself that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, it that house cannot stand. And if  Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand. His end is come, in fact, no one can  enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong  man, then he can rob his house." Now, Jesus is that telling that parable in this context of the  accusation that he's casting out demons by the power of Satan himself. And he tells a  parable, He says Satan is a strong man. But nobody can rob a strong man unless he first  comes in and ties him up, and then he can steal his possessions. Now, those who interpret  this parable, scholars say that Satan is the strong man here, He's the prince of this world, he  is somebody who has power in this fallen world. Jesus comes in as the stronger one who ties  them up and now is taking his possessions is uh, bringing people to faith in in Jesus Christ,  and reuniting them with God the Father. So this is a part of the the picture that we're given of 

this battle of the strong man and the stronger man. In Luke 9:1, Jesus puts it even more  succinctly, he is sending out his people. And he says, "When Jesus had called the 12,  together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure all diseases.  And he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick." Now, this is given  to the 12 disciples sent out two by two, and it's given with authority, you know authority  means I can do this, like a policeman holds up, their hand says, stop, you stop, because you  know, they got the authority of the state behind them. Well the disciples now have the  authority of God Almighty behind them, but it's pictured as warfare, right? You're going to cast out these demons, you're going to cure diseases, you're going to be engaged in this battle.  Luke 10:18, Jesus has sent out the 72 followers to do ministry and they come back and report. They say, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in Your name. And he replied, I saw Satan fall  like lightning from heaven. I've given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy." See we have power, we have power to defeat the  enemy. Matthew 16:18, is that wonderful statement by Peter, when Jesus asked Who do you  say that I am after going through all the the listings of various people says, are various  people's perceptions of Jesus some say you know your a prophet some say you know, your  this your that your Jeremiah, your Elijah, your John the Baptist come back. And Jesus says,  "Who do you say that I am? And Peter says, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And  Jesus says to him, then, Blessed are you, Peter, when you, you say this you are Peter, and on  this rack, I'm going to build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." It  won't be able to stand. Now it's an offensive kind of thing. The gates are protecting hell, but  we have power and authority. It's again, it's a picture of a battle to go in and attack and we  will win because our power is greater than theirs. And even Paul pictures our relationship with  Satan as a battle. II Corinthians 10. He says, "Though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the  contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every  pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to  make make it obedient to Christ." He says there's these strongholds, but now the weapons we have are ones that are able to destroy those strongholds. Now, what is a stronghold? There  are those who have identified them personally, I'm sorry, the small type here you can look on  your PowerPoint more closely. But things like deceit and bitterness and heaviness, jealousy,  confusion, rejection, pride, really religiosity, independence, prayerlessness, rebellion. The idea here with all of these things on this list, is that Satan has gotten that foothold such as you  know, don't let the sun go down on your anger, lest you give the the devil a foothold. He's  gotten a foothold and he begins to build a stronghold, a place that you can't overcome. Now  as I've said, addictions are one of these things that I think are strongholds. Other other  illnesses sometimes are strongholds is uh, as I'm praying for somebody right now who has  anorexia and, and it's a stronghold. Some of these ideas in our mind that are controlling her.  They become a stronghold where we need to go to battle, and we need to fight effectively. So  having said all of that, okay. How do you go into battle? What are the weapons? Well,  Ephesians 6 has the description of the armor of God. Now, a couple of observations about the  armor of God. First of all, there's no protection for the back in the armor of God. You'll notice  when you read Ephesians 6:10 and following for specific reference. In other words, if you turn  and run, you're you're open, you're open, pray, you can't run away, you can't turn away. A  second thing is some aspects of the armor is worn all the time, you always wear the belt, you  would always wear the breastplate, probably if you were in a situation where a battle might  come. These are things you wore all the time. But there are others that you've picked up  when the call to battle would come. So you take up the sword, and you take up a shield. And  you would go to battle with those things in your hands, because you were ready, then. But  some you wear all the time. In other words, we are people like a picture of a soldier being  ready for battle. That's how we are we were some things all the time, truth should always  characterize us the breastplate of righteousness should always characterize us, in some  senses, the shoes that are shod with the gospel of peace, these, this should characterize us  that the helmet of salvation, these are things that you characterize us, but there are times  we're going to go on the offensive. And we're going to use the shield to push against the 

enemy. And we're going to use the sword to destroy them. So for just a few moments, I want  to look at this listing of the armor of God and your primary weapons. First of all, there's the  belt of truth. That's the first one mentioned. Now the belt was a belt which went around the  waist it was cinched around the waist and it had several functions. Truth serves several  functions. One it held the other things together, you attach the breastplate to the belt. You  know, the soldier in that day, wore kind of a skirt kind of situation, but that could get in the  way in battle. So you tuck it in the belt. The belt is the one that held things together. And  what holds your life together as a believer in Jesus Christ is the truth. It's a belt of truth in the  sense that it's Jesus Christ, the way the truth and the life but also that you engage in truth.  Remember, Jesus said, I think it was John 8 where he said, You know, when you lie, you're in  the, you're in the camp of the enemy, because he's the father of lies. And when he lies, he's  just living out his own character. Where people are people the truth, speak truth to one  another, since you put off the old man and put on the new which is being renewed in Jesus  Christ. That's the way Paul puts it in the book of Ephesians. And so the truth is something that has to characterize our lives, and that is a weapon, protecting us from the enemy. And so we  tell the truth, even when it is painful to us. The breastplate of righteousness, that's an  important piece of, of equipment, the breastplate of righteousness covers the heart. It means  that this idea of our righteousness not being in us, not us being always living perfectly, but  our righteousness in Jesus Christ is protecting our hearts, but also our choices for righteous  living. In other words, God has put various boundaries in our lives, right? There are places he  has said by the 10 commandments, and by his other directions in Scripture, don't go there.  And when we trespass, we're going there. Think of as a kid, staying at a cottage in Lake  Michigan, and I was just exploring the dunes and I came across the sign that says, No  trespassing. First I was a kid, I went across it. And later on, I got away with it. But later on, I'm  talking to my brother and he says, You can't do that. So you get arrested for that. Well, God  has put us into given us boundaries for our lives where where we can flow in our lives in every way in our professional lives, in our, our sexual lives, in our personal lives, in our family lives  and our businesses, etc. These are, this is a way we are to live. And if we get outside of that  we become vulnerable. But the breastplate of righteousness, then is something that becomes  an important weapon for us. It's living rightly or going to fail. And then we come and we  confess our sin, and we are people who then are back with the breastplate of righteousness  on the shoes, which are shod with the gospel of peace. Now the shoes that the Roman soldier  wore back then were kind of sandals, but they had spikes in them in order to have them be  able to hold ground right. So when they are under attack, the enemy is coming and they're  slashing at them with swords are pressing against them as with just a horde of human beings. The shoes help you stand fast. Well, what helps you stand fast in the day of evil in any time is  that you've got the gospel of peace, that you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, and  that he is coming again. And that When you die, you are going to be in Heaven with Him. You  believe all of those sorts of things of the gospel about your own sinfulness and God's  incredible grace and mercy, as he's responded to your faith, and you have responded to him  in faith. So all of that is something that gives us firmness, in those times when we are in times of battle. So the idea that now I've got the truth on my side, and that truth involves the  gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ, the helmet of salvation protects our mind, that idea that we believe what we have, or heard about our salvation that is not through our works, not  through works lest any man should boast but it's by grace through faith that we are saved.  Now, that's an important one, because minds are under attack, at least in the Western world,  where we we have become post Christian, because as I've said earlier, we've been  bombarded with all kinds of modern ideas. I'm not against education, I'm not against  expanding our ability to understand the world around us. But sometimes, we are bombarded  to the point where we begin to doubt our faith happens to young people all the time who go  off to university somewhere, and they are taught by somebody who leads them astray. And so we need the helmet of salvation, that we are always coming back to the fact that we are  saved by faith, the shield of faith with which we can, you know, extinguish all the fiery darts  of the enemy. Now the shield of faith when those flaming arrows come things that are  intended to harm us, as well as scare us out of our wits, where people who are constantly 

lifting up faith, oh, one of my heroes is, many of my heroes are now dead. But one of them is  David Watson, who was the evangelist in England, as well as in the United States. And he  wants to talk about housing for a weekend, a traveling evangelist, and he, he was walking by  the man's door in the morning, when all of a sudden he yelled out as long as he could praise  the Lord, the man in the bed. And Watson, David Watson opened the door and said, what was  that? And he's always said, that I'm afraid the enemy might occupy my mind. First thing, so I  always start my day with praise to God. Well, you know, that's an extreme example. But the  idea that I my relationship with God is sealed because Jesus Christ died on the cross for me is  something that protects me, and then the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Now,  it's both a defensive and an offensive weapon. We see that with Jesus with the temptation  when the devil tempts him with something that is physically tempting or emotionally at  tempting, he responds with it is written, is written, it is written, but it's also something that we use offensively. I remember dealing with a very disturbed boy, once at one point said in the  name of Jesus I command you to stop, that there is a power in the name of Jesus, but then he  quoted Scripture, about children honoring their parents, this kid was being rebellious and was  attacking physically his mother. And so we talked about children, you know, submit to the  Lord, it's offensive and defensive. And then there are other weapons prayer. I'm going to talk  about that next time. Paul ends that passage by saying and pray in the Spirit. In other words,  pray with awareness of the Spirit, and the name of Jesus, as we've talked about before with  Paul casting out that demon from the girl in Philippi. So these are weapons you can use.  Spiritual Warfare is going to be part of your life, you can bet on it if you're a leader involved in the kingdom. Next time we're going to talk about building that prayer weapon, because that's an important one for us. And so we'll see you next time.