The Devil and His Demons

I thought I, I thought I'd never, I'm never supposed to hit the mute button, but for some reason that thing always gets muted, maybe just some, oh great, great to have you here with me today, I'm glad you're here with us, good to see some, some faces back, last week we had a lot of empty seats, starting to see some fuller seats again, I don't, I don't know what, what, what made everybody miss last week, but glad you're here this week. So next week, we're going to have all of you here, and then all of you online or elsewhere in these seats as well, so we're going to be back to, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, invite a few friends too, invite a few friends to come out as well, again, as, as Miranda mentioned, we are having our trunk or treat next week, right after service, so, so come on out, bring some kids, we're going to have a, have a great down, yeah, somebody's excited about that, right? Amen. Also, yes, so the nature of our baptism, we do it right outside the building here, we have, you know, a nice warm hot tub, so, so, don't be scared to be baptized, right, but, but because we can't do it in the building, because it's a theater, we do it right outside, so the weather was a little bad today, so there's a few of you that, that have registered, and if you've already registered, you don't have to register again, we have you ready to go, but if you are somebody who wants to get baptized, who wants to be a part of that, celebrate with, with our church, in that, take the next step, let's be baptized, come on out, and register, you can register at our next steps table, and we would love to baptize you, honor, it'd be our honor to celebrate that with you, so, if you do that. Also, just kind of sneak peek, November 20th is our next turkey drop, okay, and I'm putting this out really early, because you've got some time to figure it out, I know that turkey prices are a little higher this year than they were last year, but.

We've got a goal this year, 250 turkeys, so I'm thrilled to be able to do that. Okay, and I don't know why, another thing I just wanted to mention is, I don't know how, and I didn't even know it was a thing, but somehow Salt Church got voted Best Denominational Church in 2022 in Virginia Beach. Did I get that right? Yeah, I did. I said non-denominational.

Non-denominational Church in the non-denominational category. I thought that was really cool. So we don't know who nominated us, what happened, but it was really cool to get that note that we were nominated for Virginia Beach. That's great. And y'all do that.

We participate a lot. We do a lot here in the community and get really involved. For a small church, we do a whole lot. We do a whole lot. So thank you for being a part of that.

And let's continue to be a dynamic impact for our city. And greater things are coming. We're believing God's going to move us into greater things. So I'm glad you're on board and a part of that. And if you're new with us today and you're just kicking the tires, we welcome you here.

We're so thankful you're with us. If you want to fill out a connection card and we'll give you more information about the church and we won't sell your email or anything like that. But we just want to let you know that we love you. And and we've got we we've just been praying for you. We've been praying for you.

So so thankful for you to be here with us today. I am thrilled and also a little nervous, not nervous. That might not be the right word. Just there's been a lot of preparation for what I'm about to talk talk about today. And we are in a series called Stranger Stories.

And we've been looking in the background of what's happening in the unseen. We are in a season where we're thinking about spiritual things, whether you're a believer or not. There's a there's a lot going on out there, ghosts and goblins. And I remember this series on television called Supernatural. And if you remember, if you if you were in that, it had a cult following and it was on for like 100 years.

I mean, I'm exaggerating, of course. It was on for a really long time. It just kept going and going, going. Somebody else pick them up, pick it up. And it just had this cult following.

It was about Sam and Dean, these kids that that are young adults. That is, they were probably old adults by the time it went off the air because it was on so long. But they fought this this supernatural world. They were they were basically demon slayers. And they had, you know, all these demons and monsters that would show up.

It's kind of a monster of the week. And then there was this overarching theme of angels and demons at war. And it was really, really popular because there's kind of an excitement in it. real about the unknown, like people tend to want to know what's going on in places they can't see, and there's a reason for that because we are not physical beings living or having a temporary physical experience. We are spiritual beings having this physical temporary period of time in which we live.

We are actually built and made to be supernatural beings. We were made spiritual, and we're here today living this physical existence, but something in us desires for more because that's how we're built. That's how we're made. We're made in the image of God. God is spirit, and He has breathed the breath of life into us, which is the spirit of God, and that's why we are longing to be with God.

Or if we don't know who God is, there's something inside of us that says there's more. There's more than just this. There's more than just this. And that's what we're talking about, this life beyond. There's an ongoing saga of good and evil, and good is battling evil in places that we cannot see.

So we need to be aware of that. As believers, as people who follow Christ, we need to be aware that our belief is not just a doctrinal system that we've written on a piece of paper and memorized, right? That there is an overarching battle. There is an overarching war going on that ultimately God is the victor of, and He is the victor already. Amen?

He's already won the battle. Amen? He has. He has. But we're in those battles.

We're in those battles constantly in our lives, and we need to know the enemy, and we need to know who's on our side. So we've been dealing with that. Next week, I'm going to talk about angels. So if you have any questions about angels, that's the week you want to be here, what they are and what they aren't. You can also post on my Facebook page.

I send out a message every week. Does anybody have any questions about angels or demons? I'd love to answer those. I try to answer them here in sermon the best I can. And I just want to give you what you really want to know and what you really want to hear, because we need to know about our enemy, right?

And we need to know about who's on our side. So angels are next week. This week, I'm talking about the devil and his demons. The devil and his demons. A lot of churches skip over this part.

They mention demons and the devil, but it's really hard when you actually dedicate a whole message to that, because it's just something that's a stranger story, right? It's very strange. It's very bizarre to think about that there is an enemy out there and in a spiritual world that's always working and always doing things to try to hurt us and harm us, to try to take us away from our purpose and our identity. In fact, Paul says it, right? The struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms.

So you see a military structure put together. And the spiritual battle has been happening from Genesis all the way to Revelation. The spiritual battle was there. You cannot deny it. You cannot look over it.

You cannot glance through it and pretend it's not there. It is very much there. And we, as believers, need to understand that. We, as a church, need to understand that battle. Because there is a God who loves you.

There is a God who loves this world. For God so loved this world that He gave His Son, right? So that none should perish, but all should have eternal life. But there is a little God that is currently over this world that wants you to suffer. He does not want you to have life.

He wants you to perish. He wants you to perish. And that's the ongoing battle. That's the ongoing story. So I want to take you to Mark 5.

If you have your Bibles, pull those out. If you have your electronic Bibles, scroll those out, or whatever you do. Tap them out, or you do have permission to use them. Although I like to hear, used to you would hear people move their Bible pages around. It was just so nice to hear that at one time.

So if any of you are like physical Bible people, it is welcomed here. It is welcomed and wanted, but it's not illegal to have electronic Bibles as well. Okay, so I get that, and you can pull those out. But I do encourage you to take notes and to digest and be nourished from what we learn each week. You don't want to just hear it and then let it go out the other ear and not put it in your heart each week.

So here we are in Mark 5, and this is the story, the Gospels, and Jesus' ministry. And Jesus is getting off of a boat, and he encounters this man who has an evil spirit. It says this, When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. The man lived in the tombs, and no one would bind him anymore, not even with chains, for he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. That's pretty incredible.

It's like this supernatural strength that was in this man. And no one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from the distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him, and he shouted at the top of his voice, What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High? Swear to God that you won't torture me.

For Jesus had said to him, Come out of this man, you evil spirit, you evil spirit. What we know about this story is the demon's name was Legion, meaning there were many, and it's a real interesting story because the demon actually begs him not to cast him out into nothing, put me in something, and what does he do? He casts him into the swine, and thousands of swine jump off a cliff into the water. Just a really, really interesting story. But you may ask me as a pastor, do you believe in demons?

And the answer is absolutely yes. The next question you may ask me is have you ever encountered some kind of demon or a demon experience or demonic experience? And my answer would be probably way more than I even know or think. Probably a lot more than I even realize. In fact, there is a few stories that I have, and I don't have time to share them all, but I think the most vivid experience I've had with demonic oppression, demons, demons being around and in, and I've been to a lot of places.

I've, I've, I've, I've, I've witnessed things that have happened. I've, I've experienced it walking into rooms and walking into places knowing that there's an evil spirit there, but I had a personal attack or encounter with a demonic presence when I was in graduate school. And I was in my room one night and I felt this ominous, dark presence almost nightly as I would wake up around two or three o'clock in the morning. And I sensed this presence and I could hear this presence and, and just the things that it was saying, it was doing was, was just very strange, very weird, very eerie. Interestingly enough, I wasn't afraid because I had the spirit of God in me.

I knew exactly what it was, but definitely there was, there was an oppression that was happening in, at that moment. Um, and in fact, some nights I would even wake up and I would feel as if my body was leaving the bed, like, like sliding off the bed. It was very, very, very strange. Never experienced anything like that in my life. That was just so, just, you know, it kind of puts goosebumps on your, on your back when you think about it.

And, and, uh, I, I didn't know what was going on at the time. I, I, I, I wasn't sure what, what was happening, but I knew that something was, was found me and was trying to hinder whatever was going on in my life at that time. And what I learned later is that, uh, just a few houses down, there was a, a new age, a cultic gathering that was taking place that was conjuring and calling spirits, uh, into, into the area. And for some reason it found me, one of those spirits, if not multiple spirits found me and they knew who I was. And interestingly enough, when you're a man or a woman of God, and this is going to help you with understanding this, when you're a man and woman of God and you've got a purpose on your life and got a calling on your life, let those demons find you and they.

They read you and they study you and they want to talk against your calling and your anointing and many times that's what was happening. You're not good. You're not able to do this. You haven't been given the skills or the gifts to do this. It's just a really, it was a powerful thing.

So I began to pray immediately. Every time that happened I'd pray in the name of Jesus and that spirit would go away. It just could not take the power of God. When we say the power and if we speak the power of the name of Jesus over our situations, trust me, it works. Amen.

Amen. My dad, he's actually getting ready to retire soon. I don't know if I should make that announcement. Somebody at his church might hear it. Maybe they're watching or maybe they're not.

I don't know how far in the future he'll be doing that. Yeah, he's been in ministry for a very, very long time since he was 16 years old. And he's had a lot of experiences. He shared one with me I thought was really interesting. He was basically a professional singer.

He's a very good vocalist. He was in a lot of, back then southern gospel groups would travel around when he was, you know, 16, 17, 18, 19 years old. And while he was in Bible school, he would do that. And they'd also have these evangelism services. They would go to these different churches in different areas.

And he and a group of guys would trade off preaching and have basically a revival service or two or a whole week of it. And there was an event where a lady came in that was possessed with an evil spirit said she came in. There was ominous look on her face. Something wasn't right. And as they were preaching the gospel, the evil presence began to speak against them.

And they began to stop what they were doing and pray over this woman. And there were probably about five or six people around this woman praying for her. There was a 250 pound man, one of my dad's buddies. He was a very, very big guy. And he was praying over this woman and asking for the demon to be to be cast out, to be delivered.

And a supernatural power came over this woman and she took and threw him across the room. I mean, just spitting and and crying out and condemning and all that stuff. And eventually, you know, they didn't give up because, you know, they're you know, they went in and just just prayed over to this woman. And eventually the spirit just left her left her in the in the presence and the peace of God just came over. It was like a completely different person.

And so so, you know, you've got experiences like this that have happened. And whether you've experienced it or you haven't experienced things are happening in this world. And more than likely, you're going to see things that you're not going to see. You're going to see. Heads spin around.

You're not going to see people throwing up in aisles and things like that. Maybe, but the way the devil works, he works in ways that he's not a dummy, okay? He's very strategic in the way he works. So, let me just start by explaining the origin of Satan and his demons, then I'll talk about some misconceptions, and then I'll give you some ways to battle the devil and his demons, okay? So, the origin of Satan, the origin of Satan, there's a lot of different stories or different thoughts about how different theologians say different things about Satan, but most of us agree that in Ezekiel and Isaiah particularly, we see from the prophet Isaiah and the prophet Ezekiel some kind of picture of what was happening in heaven many, who knows how long ago.

And although the prophet was speaking to a specific moment, to a specific people in a specific time, the spirit was also working through the prophet to demonstrate who Satan was. Satan was an angel of light. He was an archangel in heaven. In fact, there's only three angels mentioned. I'll talk about that next week.

Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer are the only angels that are actually given names. I guess you could say Beelzebub was one too, you know? But they're the only ones that are actually labeled in scripture. And so, Satan was an angel in heaven, and he rebelled against God, and he was cast out of heaven. Let me take you to Isaiah, if you want to follow along here, underline this particular scripture.

It's in Isaiah 14, 12, and 14. And this is how we know what happened. It says, Now, this is the most demonic thing that could be said in the Bible. I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God.

I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High. So, Satan wanted to make himself God. He wanted to be his own God.

He didn't want to be ruled by God in heaven. And what did God do? He said, Nope, that's not going to happen. It won't happen. And he cast him out of heaven.

And it even shows us in scripture that it was possibly a third of his angels that went with him. And so, let me just say this. One of the most demonic things that we can hear in this life is, I'm my own God. I will do it my way. I'm my own authority.

I did it on my own authority. I, I'm my own God. We got five I will statements here. I will, I will, I will. I will be my own God.

That's the struggle, right? Being our own God. This is how Satan works. In Revelation 12, we also get a glimpse of the battle that's going on, understanding that Satan has angels and God has angels. It says this, and there was war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down, the ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who led the whole world astray and he was hurled to earth and his angels with him. He was hurled to earth. There was a battle in heaven, God's angels, Satan's angels, and what, what, what the, what was the victory? The victory was that God won and cast him down with the third of his angels.

So let me just share some misconceptions, possibly, well, three, just three quick things about what, what people may not understand about Satan and demons or, or their views on it. C.S. Lewis says it like this, there are two equal and opposite errors in which the race can fall into the devils. I love how he says devils instead of demons, you know, it's like a nice British way of saying it, devils, you know.

One is to disbelieve in their existence and the other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hell a materialist or a magician with the same delight, meaning that you can be somebody who doesn't believe in God at all and they're happy or you can be somebody who believes everything about spiritual things. You can be a magician, you can be on Satan's side and he delights in that as well. So what is Satan trying to do? A misconception is that there is a demon behind everything, that there's a demon behind every bush.

There's a demon of bad hair, okay? Oh, I have a bad hair day, therefore I have a demon, you know. No, you just have a bad hair day. Or my car broke down and there must be a demon on my car, okay? Demons are just all around me doing things.

I just don't understand it. We put a demon behind. That's a misconception about demons. I love how David Powlison, he wrote a book on counseling as it relates to spiritual warfare and let me just quote him on this and kind of a funny, funny thing here. He says, some people really do see a demon behind every bush.

Cynthia, a woman I counseled, once cast a demon out of her toaster when it failed to work. Condemn you, burnt toast. Demon of toast and toasters. More seriously, she and her husband, Andrew, had a remarkable and remarkably destructive way of arguing with each other. For the first five minutes, and by the way, if you're married, don't do this, okay?

For the first five minutes, they warmed up with normal person-to-person bickering. But at a certain point, when the fighting turned nasty, they shifted gears and wheeled in heavier artillery. They would bind, rebuke, and attempt to cast out demons of anger and pride and self-righteousness from each other. In Cynthia's words, I saw the demon looking out of his eyes, glittering and murderous, okay? So I said, Demon of anger, I bid your power in Jesus' name.

And then I claimed the power of Jesus' blood as my cover for all my demonic assault coming through my husband. And the result, he said, not only did Cynthia and Andrew reinforce their hostility, they trampled the name of Jesus through the mud in their superstition, their hostility, their fear and confusion. And needless to say, the real devil, who aimed to dishonor God and conform us to his evil ways, would only be pleased at the personal and interpersonal wreckage he brought about in this situation. So we can have a very unhealthy view of how demons work. If we blame everything on a demon, then it can be destructive.

But on the other hand, Satan certainly wants us to either belittle his power or believe he doesn't even exist. If he can make us believe he doesn't exist, he can do a lot more damage in this world. Because if we don't believe we have the power of Christ Jesus to keep these evil forces and these strongholds and these attacks from happening, if we don't even believe they exist, if we don't believe that things are out there happening, then he wins. He can win. He can infiltrate situations.

He can cause damage. And he can cause destruction in our lives. So it's important that we understand that there is a lot going on. Some of the things you may think aren't demonic may be demonic. Some of the things you think are just simple things in this world, in this life, or maybe they're just coincidence, they may be demonic.

Because the devil is always working and always studying. The third thing is Satan is equal to God, according to those who have misconceptions about the devil. That is untrue. Satan is not equal to God. Satan has limited power.

Satan is a created being. Satan is not able to see and do the things that God is able to do. Satan is not able to know. He has no knowledge of what the future brings or what the past brings. He is not omnipresent.

He is not omniscient. He is not omnipotent. He is not all those things that God is. He is not those things. He is limited, guys.

And if you understand that he is limited, you have the power to fight him. That's what He cannot do. He cannot do the Lord. He cannot rule like God rules. In fact, that's why in Mark 5, the scripture I read earlier, when Jesus enters into the picture, the demon actually runs to Jesus and says, Please, please, I beg of you, don't throw me out, don't cast me, don't torment me, son of the Most High.

You know why? Because Jesus is authority. God has authority over Satan. Demons don't have authority over God. Demons don't have authority over Jesus.

Demons don't have the authority over the Holy Spirit. And if you have the Holy Spirit in your life, if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is working in you and through you, He does not stand a chance. You have a power. Amen, Pastor Leon. Yeah, good job.

Thank you. Thank you, Pastor. Amen. It's okay to be, it actually helps me to just give a little amen once in a while. Okay?

Because I want to know y'all are hearing. I mean, I understand y'all are very smart people and you're probably writing all this down and thinking about it and stuff. I get that, but it does help. So what do devils do? Number one, they strategize against you.

Powers and principalities, Paul labels a strategic structure when he talks about the authorities that are out there. Meaning that they are a military structure, interestingly. And they strategize. They're building plans. They're studying.

They're working. They're always trying to figure out what you're thinking, what you're doing. Now again, they're not God, so they can't read your mind. But they can read your actions. They can read what you're processing through your mind, how you're working.

They're always studying. They're always looking. In fact, right now, even around this place, they're probably studying and looking even at our church. How do we keep this church from growing? How do we keep this church from impacting a city?

How do we keep them from being the best denominational church of 2022, you know? How do we keep the turkey drop from really going out and making a difference in our community? How do we keep them? How do we attack them? And they're always studying and they're using things that perhaps could bring destruction to us.

But we have a power above all powers. We have God that is available. We need to change that thinking. They can't see what God sees. And what does God see?

God sees a power-filled people, right? A spirit-filled people that can work in this world. So they strategize. In fact, look at Genesis 3. It says, Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? He was crafty. He studied her. Hmm, I know what God said to you. Did He really say that?

Is that really how it works? Is that really going on? In fact, 2 Corinthians says the devil schemes. He's a schemer. He's figuring out a plan to scheme you and pull you into something.

In fact, we see in Genesis 3, he uses three things. Possession, pleasure, and power. He uses possession, pleasure, and power. In verse 6, it says, when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food. Hmm, I like that food.

I want that food. I'm going to covet that food. He said not to eat of that, but you know what? Hmm, I think I want it. I want it.

I want to possess it. I want to have it. I want that house. I want that car. I want that popularity.

I want that level in my work. I want that so bad I'm willing to do whatever I need to do to get it because that's what I want. That's what makes my life work. And that's what Satan wants to convince you. And he did it with Eve and he'll do it with us.

Possession and pleasure, and he saw it was pleasing to the eye. She saw it was pleasing to the eye. That the fruit was, oh, okay, I want it. And man, it's pleasing, right? Pleasure, the pleasures.

And pleasure can be a good thing within the right context, but Satan wants to take that pleasure and make it something that it's not, right? He wants to poison that pleasure or power. You can be like God. God's holding something back from you. God's doing, you know, God, I've done this.

I've done that. I've done this. You should give to me. That's not how it works. God is God and God and he's not holding things back from you.

He really isn't. He wants the best for you. He wants to give you the very best. And the devil will convince you that God is not on your side. God is not helping you.

He's holding back. He's not doing anything to service you or bring favor to your life. That's what he's going to do. Possession, power, and pleasure. So he strategizes.

He looks at things that can work for his favor. Number two, they influence leaders of nations. They influence leaders of nations. I mentioned this scripture in week one, but I'm going to bring it back, kind of take it from a different context. Daniel was praying and fasting for 21 days when he, and an angel appeared to him.

And he says this, and if you're following along, Daniel 10, 13. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me 21 days. Then my... One of the chief princes came to help me because I was detained there with the king of Persia. This is what the angel was saying.

There was an evil spirit that actually for 21 days while he was praying and fasting, for 21 days there was a battle going on. The angel could not get to Daniel because there was an evil spirit over the king of Persia that was fighting against God's anointed angel, God's messenger. God was sending a spirit to communicate with Daniel. There was a battle going on over a ruler and what happens as he prays and fasts and that's why I mentioned the other week your prayers do a lot more than you think they do. When you pray things are happening in heavenly realms.

God's commissioning angels and Michael comes in, big bad Michael comes in, you know, the archangel comes in and fights this Persian spirit away, the spirit over the Persian king away so that the angel could get to Daniel. So, they rule over nations, they rule over rulers. That's why it's important for you to pray for your people, for our rulers, for our government, for our leaders, those who are placed in authority. We don't just sit around and condemn them and whine and all this other stuff if we don't like what they're doing. We pray for them.

We pray that the spirit of God would intercede and be a part of their decision making, that he would have authority in all those things that are happening. If you disagree with those things, you need to be praying that the right decisions come into play because your prayers do a lot more than you think they do because there are spirits that are ruling and reigning over governments. That's why Holocaust, evil dictators, genocide of innocent people throughout history, those are all examples of evil rules that were, that the devil seeks to kill, steal, and destroy, right? Still kill and destroy. He will use rulers to do it and we need to understand that there are, there's an evil force at play.

Number three, they want to inflict suffering on you, okay? They're not for you. They want to hurt you. They want to harm you. Take it, take it, take this thought into account.

Some of you have had children. Maybe you have little children. Imagine if your child was tortured. How would that make you feel? How about if you knew that the devil was torturing your child?

That's exactly what was happening in scripture. This is how evil and sinister the devil is. He was torturing a child and in Matthew 17 beginning with verse 15 it says, Lord have mercy on my son. This man came to him and was requesting of Jesus and he has seizures and he is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire and into the water and then Jesus said, bring the boy here to me and Jesus rebuked the demon.

It came out of the boy and he was healed from that moment, a little child. If he will harm a little child, imagine what he wants to do to you. If he'll harm a little innocent child, what will he do to you? Imagine what he wants to do to your marriages and your relationships and the fellowships you have, your children. What does he want to do to your children?

That's why you need to be praying. You need to be putting on the full armor of God. You need to be fighting the enemy's schemes, okay? He does not want anything good for you and he will inflict anxiety, he will inflict depression, he will inflict all of those emotional issues on you and he will hold them over you and he will take a hold of your thoughts. That's why the Bible says take every thought captive, right?

Because the enemy studies you and when you're acting on your thoughts, when you're communicating even to yourself about who you are who you think you are, the enemy sees that and he intensifies it. He lets you know, yeah, you are that. You are no good. You aren't worth anything. You aren't meant to be in this world.

God doesn't care about you. God doesn't have a plan for you, but you can attack with the Word of God. In fact, he did that with Jesus even, right? He hated even Jesus. He attacked him.

You aren't this or you aren't that. You know, if you're God, if you're truly God, do this or do that. The next thing is they want to lure you away from God. They want to lure you away from God. Their sole purpose in strategizing, we said they strategize well, is to lure you away from God.

They do not want you to be an instrument in the kingdom of God. They realize that you are powerful. If you are a man of God or a woman of God and you have a purpose on your life, which you do if you are a believer and you're following Christ, he has a divine purpose, a powerful purpose for your life. Guess what? The enemy doesn't like it and they're going to do everything they can to lure you away from God, take you away from God.

In fact, 1 Timothy says it like this, the Spirit clearly says that in later times, some will abandon the faith, meaning they were once in the faith and they will abandon it and they'll follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. They will listen to things, not only possession, power, and pleasure, which I believe is one of those key things over America and our society. They'll draw you away with intellectualism. They'll draw you away with spiritual enlightenment, right? I've been spiritually enlightened.

And he can use things that are otherwise good and virtuous. He can use things that are virtuous and good and use them against you. Things that you think you're doing the right thing. You think you're moving in a direction that helps you and gets you better and it can be otherwise devastating. destroying if it's outside of the will of God or what God's plan for your life is.

We think we're doing the right things. We think that the way of the world is better for us, but in fact, when God has a better way, even though it seems counterintuitive, God definitely has a better way for us if we just follow Him. I've heard this statement, I left the church because it's full of hypocrites, and I don't want to be around hypocrites. Well, what's the opposite of being in the church around hypocrites? Being in the world with Satan ruling?

The hypocrite of hypocrites? It says, you know, he is the liar, he's a liar, and his native tongue is lying, right? So why would you want to be with him rather than be with the hypocrites in the church? Yeah, we got people, we got flawed people in our church, right? Yeah, there are hypocrites in the church, but I would much rather be in the presence of God, working it out among people that are trying desperately to follow Jesus than be out there with people who want nothing to do with God or Jesus.

Because that's what Satan wants you to do. Get away from the church, get away from the people that are going to help you, get with the people that are going to harm you, get with the world that's going to harm you, get with the ruler of this world who wants nothing for you but to destroy you. But he says this, you know, back to that fruit, isn't it pleasing to the eye? Yeah, yeah, I'm here to help you. It's better for you to be over here.

It's better for you to be away from these so-called godly people, right? That's what he does. He's a trickster. He's deceiving. And he also wants to paralyze you with fear.

He wants to make you very fearful. Imagine what it would be like if we could eliminate fear from our lives. We would be healthier people physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Worry, anxiety, all that depression, burnout, all those things. How do all those things happen?

Exhaustion that we deal with because we're constantly worried about what we're doing, what someone else said, how we feel about ourselves, our performance, all those things. If we could eliminate fear, man, what kind of people would we be? See, Satan doesn't want that. He wants you to be fearful. But God has not given us a spirit of fear, right?

He's given us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. Power, love, and a sound mind. You need to just quote that the next time you're experiencing fear. Power, love, and sound mind. What do you need to do?

You need to cast. Cast, you need to be filled, and you need to trust. You need to cast your cares on Him, right? Because He cares for you when you're feeling anxiety. Cast those cares on Him.

And you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with love, filled with power in order to overtake the enemy. And trust in Him. Trust in Christ. Trust in Jesus. Know that He has a perfect plan.

He has everything that you could possibly need. No need to fear. Who is... If He is for me, who can be against me? Right?

If God is for me, nobody can be. I'm not afraid of anything. Not even death. We need not even fear death. Because He has life.

He's promised us. You've been born again, right? Into new life. We have nothing to fear. But He hates you and He wants to destroy you.

That's what sin does. That's what the enemy does. That's how he works. That's how the adversary works. So how do we win the battle?

First of all, we don't treat the enemy lightly. Let's not pop culture our devil, okay? Put him in a red suit with a pitchfork standing on your shoulder. He's not really that bad. He's not even really there.

I'm going to be, you know, Sam and Dean on Supernatural and, you know, I'm going to attack them with a steak or whatever. You know, whatever that is. However that works, right? Let's not over pop culture who Satan is. He is bad.

And he wants to destroy you. Even Michael understood this. I love the book of Jude because it goes into this world. It says, But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, apparently that happened in the spiritual realm, you know, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against even Satan, but said, The Lord rebuke you. He didn't even feel he had the power to rebuke Satan.

And the archangel of heaven that is right beside God, commissioned by God to fight on our behalf and fight on his behalf, didn't even feel that he had the power to rebuke Satan. That's how we have to take the enemy. We have to take him seriously. Even in the book of Acts, the sons of Sceva, remember, these men went in to cast out a demon, and they said, Hey, I don't know you. I know Paul, and I know Jesus, and I know, but I do not know you.

And what did they do? They attacked them until they were bleeding and bruised. Demons are, they can physically hurt you. They can physically hurt people. So we don't take them lightly.

And we don't flirt with darkness, number two. Let me just say this. Don't flirt. Don't play with darkness. We live in a society.

We live in a culture that plays and fades those lines. Those lines kind of are gray, and we bring stuff into our Christianity. We've got to be careful. We don't want to open the door for any spiritual force to come in. Trust me, he will come in if you open that door.

It doesn't matter how hard you're following after God, how much you love Christ, how much you read your Bible, how much you come to church. If you begin to invite other spirits into your life, other philosophies in, other religions in, all of those are a part of Satan's ploy to pull you away from God. Do not flirt with them. What does Deuteronomy say? Let no one be found among you.

Practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells in who is a medium, or spiritualist, or who consults with the dead. Okay, and he also says this, he goes on to say, anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord. I realize I'm going a little long today, guys, I just looked at the time, oh my gosh, this is just so much stuff. I could continue to talk, I'm almost done. But I'd really have to talk about this, okay?

Because I have people that actually come to me, and not just one person, there's been multiple people, is it okay to talk to a medium, to communicate with my loved one? Okay, that was an easy answer for her. In the Bible Belt, no, you stay away from that stuff, you know, when I grew up in the Bible Belt, you know, where church was church and Christianity was like reigning, you know, and even if religion was more of an issue there than this type of stuff. But what I've learned in our culture, there's just a mix, there's a breed of new age, new occultic, I call it a new brand of occult, that we've mixed things in there and made it polished and made it good and made it fuzzy. People are going to mediums.

Let me just say this about mediums, because this was actually one of the questions I had this week, and I know I'm going long here, but you need to understand this. There's only, the Bible, the only place we see anybody come back through a medium was with Saul and Samuel. Samuel, Saul went to a witch, went to a medium to conjure up the dead, and who showed up? Samuel, okay? The prophet Samuel.

And what did the prophet Samuel do? He says, stop doing what you're doing. You're heading in a deadly direction. You're going to have something coming to you, and you're not going to like it because you're flirting with darkness. You're here in a dark place.

Nowhere else in scripture do we see any loved one or anything like that. In fact, the closest thing we even get to anybody asking the question was the rich man and Lazarus, which the rich man says, can I go back to my family and warn them that there's a hell and I don't want them to come to it. And what did God say? Well, they had Moses and the prophets say, if even if you went back, they wouldn't believe anyway. So even if we were able to conjure up our loved ones, we wouldn't, it wouldn't work.

We wouldn't believe it because we're so hardened in our hearts. And say, well, Jesus shared. Jesus shared that. That's not me. That's Jesus that said that.

So there's no reason for it to happen, and God gives us no, nothing. He gives us no plan. He gives us no indication that we are even able to do that. But right here in scripture, he says, don't do it. Stay away from it.

So, and this is not just an Old Testament passage that has gone with time or changed with time. This is, this is not a civil and ceremonial law that changed with the fulfillment of Jesus. This is a moral law that God put in place said, saying, stay away from evil. Stay away from the devil. Okay.

He does not like it. Ouija boards, crystals. If you have crystals in your Get those things out of your house, okay? They're not just rocks that connect. Oh, we're going to put these crystals that change my mood, connect with the universe, all these things.

We're doing that. We're practicing a new brand of occultic worship. Connecting with the universe, again, I'm my own God. Do you know Satanism is, a lot of people are like, oh, is it the worship of Satan? No, it's the worship of self.

That's right. In fact, thy will be done. No, my will be done. That's kind of their theme. I do it myself.

I am my own God. That's the worst kind of demonic sayings or demonic forces that are out there is when we decide that we're our own God. So, stay away from those things, okay? Get rid of them. Do an old school book burning or something, you know?

If we need to do that, let's just get rid of them. Get rid of that stuff so that we can understand that we have the authority of God in us, and it's way more powerful than any of those things. We don't fight with our own power. We fight with God's authority, right? That's our next point.

Don't fight with your power, but with God's authority. Jesus called his disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. In Luke 19, 10, and we can go ahead and have the band come up, guys. Y'all got to keep me accountable, okay? Y'all need, y'all should have been up here like 10 minutes ago, all right?

I was speaking at my dad's church, and boy, I got to the second point, and they were already up on stage. I was like, oh, man, they're on cue, man. They're not going to let me speak too much, yeah. They're getting me off stage, but here, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the powers of the enemy. See, nothing will harm you.

They're not talking about stomping on insects, guys. They're not talking about going outside and having a good old insect, snake stomping, okay? They're not talking about that. They're talking about the authorities of evil. He's given you the authority to trample over demons and the devil.

You have a power that is way beyond what a crystal could give you. Those crystals are nothing. They have nothing. Nothing but evil spirits that they invite in, but we have the power of God. We're able to conquer anything.

By virtue of the Holy Spirit who is in us. And then lastly, we don't fight for victory, okay? We don't fight for victory. What do you mean? Because we fight from victory.

We fight from victory. See, that's what gives us the courage. That's what casts out all fear because we have a God that's already won the battle, that cares and loves us and wants to walk it out with us, and He is concerned for His kingdom. He invites us in to be a part of His kingdom, to extend His kingdom on this earth. We don't have any fear.

Our sole purpose here is to extend His kingdom on this earth, to align with you, to align with you. We're not wrong with you. And to align with you. With His Kingdom. What is in Heaven, you know, Jesus even prays this, you know, with the Lord's Prayer.

Our Father which are in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. That we align with Heaven. What is bound in Heaven is loosed on Earth, right? Because what is already bound or bound in Earth, what's loosed in Heaven is loosed on Earth.

What is already bound on Earth in Heaven is already loosed on Earth and loosed in Heaven. We can loose things and we can bound things, we can bound evil spirits and loose evil spirits because Heaven's already done it. Not that we're controlling Heaven. Heaven has already, it already has the authority of this. He's already placed authority on us.

We fight from victory. That's why Hebrews 2.14 says, Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in our humanity so that by His death He might break the power of Him who holds the power of death. That's good news guys, why am I not hearing clapping in here right now? That is the devil.

That is the devil. He breaks the power of death. In fact, Revelation 20 talks about Satan and his demons being cast into the lake of fire forever and ever. That He will cast them away. They will not have any more, they will be wiped from our existence at least into the lake of fire.

And then Revelation 21.3 and 4 says it like this, This is God, they will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God talking about us. Once Satan is removed and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there will be no more death, there will be no more mourning, there will be no more crying, no more pain. For the old order of things will have passed away because Satan's rule and reign will be no more. Satan's rule and reign is no more.

We fight from victory. We fight from victory, okay? You have to realize, as believers, that God has given you power. Not so that we can just praise ourselves, so that we can enjoy a God who loves us so much, who has all the authority and power. In fact, just an ending, somebody asked, why Satan?

Why Satan? Why would we even have a saint? Why wouldn't God just create a world where all of us just could live happy and utopia and live ignorantly, right? There's lots of ways I could answer that. You know, God's, you know, He's got the perfect, it's the perfect plan of multiple plans.

It's the perfect world of multiple possibilities and this and this and this. Philosophically, if there's good, there has to be the absence of good, which is evil, or wouldn't make sense. You could say all these philosophies and stuff, and they all make sense, but ultimately, if we didn't have a God in His very nature that is love, and He just forced His love on us, it would render love meaningless, that we can truly enjoy God when we make a choice, when He gives us that opportunity. God's a gentleman. See, if you don't know the Lord today, God's a gentleman.

He's not going to force His love on you. He never forces love on you. Yes, He pursues you, and He wants you, and there's convictions in your life that lead you to Him, but ultimately, He allows you in His perfect plan, in His perfect nature, because God is so perfect, and God is so holy, and God is all these things. He's so beautiful because He's perfect. He allows this perfect love by you deciding, making a choice, surrendering your life to Him, so that you can truly enjoy your Savior.

You can truly live a life of joy that overflows, surrendering your life to the only authority that brings joy and hope, to truly enjoy Christ Jesus. That's the decision we make. That's why we make it. That's just His nature. He's not a bad God.

He's a good God. He brought, He allowed the opportunity for evil so that we could truly experience the joy of knowing Him. Father, we thank you for your word, Lord. We thank you that we have the ability to know and see you as the God you are, that your plan is perfect, and you've given us every weapon to be able to battle the enemy, God. We just thank you, God, that, wow, you just reach out of Scripture.

But today, we cannot leave here. We cannot leave here. Because we know that yet, until we give those who have an opportunity to really experience you and know you that may not know you. And with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, I say this, you know, if you're here today, and you have not surrendered your life to Christ, the only one who loves you more than anybody could in this world, make that a choice today to experience the joy of having a Savior. You can make that choice today because He gave His only Son on the cross so that you could have everlasting life.

It's the only thing that works. It's the only religion that says, hey, you don't have to do anything. Just receive me as your Savior. If you are that person, just pray this with me, Lord, I believe that you are the Son of God, I believe that you died on the cross for my sin, I believe that you have made a way for me to enjoy the fullness of who you created me to be and to live with you forever, Lord, I receive you as my Lord and as my Savior, forgive me of my sin, forgive me of the things that I've fallen short on, Lord Jesus, that I've missed the mark, I give my life to you today. And we ask that in the name of Jesus.

Amen. Amen. Can y'all give God a hand clap of praise. I promise you I won't go this long next week.