Let's back up here a little bit, because
when the Lord in the Gospels trained the
twelve, in Luke chapter 9, verse 1, He
sent them out.
And the first thing He said to them,
He said, Behold, I've given you authority and
power over demons.
That's the first thing the Lord told those
twelve.
And then in Luke chapter 10, after the
seventy had come back, same kind of a
training mission, the first thing they said was,
Lord, even the demons are subject to us.
And the Lord responded, Don't rejoice in that.
And let me say the same thing, don't
rejoice in that.
That's not the issue, people.
Rejoice in the fact that your name is
written in the last book of life.
We're not trying to dispel the darkness, we're
trying to turn on the light.
And the difference is profound.
The Lord went on to say, Behold, I
saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning, but
I've given you authority and power over serpents
and scorpions.
That's not snakes and bugs, that's the devil
and his angels.
And that's what you and I have, because
you and I are seated with Christ in
the heavenlies.
What's the difference between authority and power?
Well, authority is the right to rule.
It's because of a position that we have.
For instance, you could be a rookie cop
and just graduate from academy, and your first
assignment is to go down into some intersection
where there's four lanes one way and four
lanes going the other way, and for whatever
reason the signal light isn't working.
And you're supposed to go out there and
direct the traffic.
Now, as a rookie cop, that could be
a little intimidating.
I'm just going to walk out there and
somehow direct that traffic, and that Mack truck
is going to stop for me?
What would a seasoned cop do?
Well, he'd just walk out there, he knows
he has the authority to do it, and
he would just blow his whistle and direct
the traffic, and after a while the rookie
cop would establish the same confidence.
Now, does he have the power to stop
that?
The answer is no.
He may be tempted to pull out his
41 police special and shoot a few radiators,
but truth of the matter is, the truck
would probably still keep coming.
Now, what if I went out into that
intersection in the middle of the night and
put a huge cement block?
It would stop the traffic, too.
Not because I have the authority to do
it, but because it has the power.
Guess what every child of God has?
Well, we all have both.
We have the authority because we're in Christ.
Now, that authority is not over each other.
There is that kind of authority, too.
We're dealing with the authority that the Church
has over the kingdom of darkness, and we
have the power, as long as we continue
to operate according to the Spirit.
That's why Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10 says,
Be strong in the Lord and in the
strength of his might.
It's not our might, nor is it our
position, but because we're children of God, and
we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies,
then we occupy that.
Now, the Great Commission says, Go unto all
the world and make disciples, but people don't
ever read that without the preceding verse.
All authority has been given to me in
heaven and upon this earth.
Go therefore.
Well, the Lord understands management 101.
You can't delegate responsibility without authority, and so
you and I are to carry on the
work of Christ on planet earth, and he
has limited himself to work and operate through
that church.
That's the divine purpose.
We are clearly told that, by the way,
in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 8 and following,
it says, To me, the very least of
all saints, this grace was given to priests
to the Gentiles, the unfathomable riches of Christ,
and to bring to light what is the
administration of the mystery which for ages has
been hidden in God, who created all things,
in order that the manifold wisdom of God
might now be made known through the church.
To whom?
To the rulers and authorities in the heavenly
places.
That's the spiritual realm.
So here's the eternal purpose of God, to
operate through the church and to make his
wisdom known to the principalities and powers of
the spiritual world, and if that be the
case, how are we doing?
Well, let me go on.
Verse 11 says, This was in accordance with
the eternal purpose which he carried out in
Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have
boldness and competent access to faith in him.
And so, here's the work of God.
First John 3 says that Jesus came to
undo the works of Satan, and now he's
going to make that wisdom known around the
world through the church.
Again, you'd have to ask the question, how
are we doing?
And frankly, not very well.
Half the church doesn't even believe the devil
exists.
We're operating as though we're a hospital where
sick people go, when we're not.
We're a military outpost that's been called to
storm the fortresses and tear down those strongholds
that thank God has an infirmary.
But we don't exist for the infirmary.
The infirmary exists for the military outpost.
I spend a lot of time in the
infirmary because we've got a lot of wounded
warriors out there.
But we want to nurture them back in
health, present a complete, pure, spotless, undefiled in
Christ, and help them find their rightful position,
free from their past, alive in him, so
they can carry on the work of God
on planet earth.
Well, such is our battle.
What qualifies me for this authority?
Well, three things.
This power that's been extended towards you who
believe.
See, everything is conditioned by how we believe.
The Lord would say to the church today,
be it done to you according to how
you believe.
Believing it doesn't make it true is true,
therefore I believe it.
We're not New Agers.
We don't create reality with our mind.
We respond to reality in an appropriate way.
So we've got to believe.
Secondly, humility.
Now, this is a tough one, because about
the time you think you've got that one
licked, you're probably going to lose it.
But what is humility?
Humility is confidence, properly placed.
So Paul says, put no confidence in the
flesh, but we ought to have the greatest
confidence in God and who we are as
children of God.
That's why he says, you come before him
with confident access, through faith in him, with
boldness.
And thirdly, boldness.
That's a tough one, because fear is such
a critical part of this problem.
But listen to what the word of God
had to say to Joshua before he went
into the promised land.
Joshua chapter 1, four times he says, only
be strong and courageous, only be strong and
courageous, only be strong and courageous, only be
strong and courageous.
Proverbs 28, verse 1 says, the wicked flee
when no one is pursuing, but the righteous
are as bold as a lion.
In Acts chapter 4, verse 31, it says,
the place where they prayed was shaken.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit,
and they spoke the word of God with
boldness.
God hasn't given us a spirit of fear,
but of power, love, and a sound mind.
In Revelation chapter 21, verses 6 through 8,
it says, and he said to me, it
is done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning and the end.
I will give to the one who thirsts
from the spring of the water of life
without cost.
He who overcomes shall inherit these things, and
I will be his God, and he will
be my son.
But for the cowardly, and unbelieving, and abominable,
and murderers, and immoral persons, and sorcerers, and
idolaters, and all liars, their part will be
in the lake that burns with fire and
brimstone, which is the second death.
Now, if you were going to make a
list of a rogues gallery, would you have
the list with cowardly and unbelieving?
God did.
See, I don't believe the Lord looks with
favor upon a church that acts in unbelief
and cowers as though we don't have an
answer.
We can't significantly contribute to what is taking
place in the world.
Paul writes to Timothy, the church is the
pillar and the support of truth.
We've got to take our rightful place.
Do you know the passage well where the
Lord fed the 5,000, and then he
went up to the mountain to pray, and
he sent his disciples across the Sea of
Galilee, and they were just rolling against the
storm, and they weren't getting anywhere.
And then the Lord came walking by, and
the text says in Mark that the Lord
intended to pass them by.
I believe that the Lord intends to pass
by the self-sufficient today.
Go ahead, roll against the storm if you
want to, but the weapons of our warfare
are not of the flesh.
You will never accomplish anything that way.
And when they call upon the Lord, as
we must today, when we call upon the
name of the Lord, then we shall be
saved.
And we have to have a strict dependence
upon God throughout all of our life.
Now, if boldness is a problem, then fear
is a major, major issue.
And I want to submit to you that
it is.
Anybody caught in a spiritual conflict is probably
going to struggle with fear.
Fear is a little bit different from anxiety.
Anxiety has sometimes been understood as fear without
an adequate cause.
And so, if I'm anxious about something, it's
because I don't know.
That's why scripture says, don't be anxious about
tomorrow, because I don't know what tomorrow is
going to bring forth.
The answer to that is, we've got to
trust God.
If he takes care of the lilies of
the field, etc., then much more so will
he take care of us, because we're of
infinite more value than a lily of the
field or the bird of the sky.
Fear is different from that, because fear has
an object.
In fact, fear is categorized by its identifiable
objects.
For instance, agoraphobia is fear of the marketplace.
Claustrophobia is fear of enclosed places.
Now, in order for a fear object to
be legitimate, it has to have two attributes.
Somehow, that fear object has to be present
and potent.
Now, let me illustrate.
I don't like rattlesnakes.
I never have liked rattlesnakes.
But I sit here right now, I have
no fear of rattlesnakes.
The reason is, there's not one present here
right now.
But if you were to open that door
and throw one of those babies through that
door, and it landed at my feet, from
a scale of zero to ten, I'd be
at a ten and exit stage left immediately.
Because in my mind, it is now both
present and potent.
It has a power over me, because I
would fear it could bite me, and I
could potentially die.
Now, if you open the door and throw
a dead one in, it is also present.
But it's no longer potent.
And I would no longer have to fear
it.
I probably wouldn't go to zero, because you'd
always have that lingering doubt.
Is it really dead?
But the point of it is, all you
have to do is to remove one of
the attributes, and that fear object is no
longer valid as a fear object.
Now, we are told in scripture that we're
to fear neither man nor death.
Let's look at death for a moment.
Death is still imminent.
It's appointed unto every man that one day
he shall die.
Now, how then has God removed fear of
death as a legitimate object?
Death is a legitimate object for a fear.
The answer is, he's removed his power.
It is no longer potent.
That's why in 1 Corinthians 15, it says,
where, O death, is your sting?
And so, he has removed that.
That's why Paul could say, for me to
live is Christ, to die is actually gain.
I've asked some people, I said, tell me
what's the worst thing that could happen to
you?
Well, I could die.
Well, actually, biblically, that may not be the
worst thing that could happen to you.
It could be the best thing that happened
to you.
Well, that's not advocating suicide or something, but
it's just simply saying that if I have
today no fear of death, then I'm really
free to live today.
Man.
Why is man such a fear object in
our life?
Suppose you're a secretary and you're just intimidated
by your boss.
And whenever he's around, what controls you is
not faith or responsible Christian living, but fear
of your boss.
But you're probably listening right now and you're
not afraid of him.
The reason is, he's not there.
But if he walked in the room, suddenly
he would be there.
But the question is, what power does he
have over you when he is present?
Well, he could fire you, I suppose.
How would you resolve that?
Well, quit, or better, be willing to quit.
I'm not advocating that we are not to
be submissive to our masters.
What I'm saying is, when we give somebody
that kind of power over us, it is
really going to wreak havoc with our Christian
life.
I honestly believe that's why it says in
1 Peter chapter 3, around 14 and 15,
it says, we are not to fear their
intimidation, but we're to sanctify Christ as the
Lord of our lives.
Now, the moment we do that, then there's
only one legitimate fear object in our life.
Now, what two attributes of God make him
the ultimate fear object in our life?
Well, he's omnipresent and he's omnipotent.
Now, if we keep that in mind, that
becomes the one fear object that expels all
other fear objects.
Let me read to you Isaiah chapter 8,
verse 12 and following.
It says, you are not to say it
is a conspiracy in regard to all that
these people call a conspiracy, and you are
not to fear what they fear or be
in dread of it.
It is the Lord of hosts whom you
should regard as holy, and he shall be
your fear, and he shall be your dread.
Then he shall become a sanctuary.
When you sanctify Christ as Lord of your
life, when the Lord becomes the ultimate fear
object in your life, then it expels all
other fears.
You'll stop a problem like this.
Whoa, there's something in my room last night.
I said, no, God was there.
No, something else.
No, God was there.
See, God is always there.
He's here right now.
He's omnipresent.
He's omnipotent.
See, people caught in spiritual battles, they get
a posture after a while that they see
Satan over there, kingdom of darkness, battle of
Satan, and good old God over here, poor
little me, caught in between these two equal
and opposite powers.
If that's what you believe, you're defeated.
You couldn't help but be defeated.
The truth is, and what the New Testament
is trying to tell us, is that God
is off the charts.
He's omnipotent.
He's omnipresent.
He's omniscient.
He's kind.
He's loving.
And Satan is a defeated foe, and I'm
in Christ.
I'm seated with Christ in the heavenlies.
And you realize because of that position you
have, because of your dependency upon the Lord,
you can say to Satan any time, take
a hike, submit to God, resist the devil,
because you have that authority because of your
position in Christ.
Two cautions here, though.
One, this is not an independent authority.
I can't just go out and do what
I want to do.
It's determined by my position in Christ and
my dependency upon him.
And you think this is some ritual or
magic formula, you might find yourself like the
seven sons of Sceva in Acts chapter 19,
when they try to somehow effect some spiritual
deliverance just by some ritual or slogan or
using the name of Jesus.
And the demonic person looks back and says,
Jesus, we know.
Paul, we heard of.
Who are you?
And stripped him of the clothes, beat him
up and kicked him out.
But if that confronted you today, how would
you respond?
Well, I'd say I'm a child of God.
That's what I would say.
Now, let me illustrate that, because when people
are under that kind of an attack, pressure
come upon them, overwhelming fear, whatever else, in
our secular world, they call that a panic
attack or an anxiety attack.
Why do they do that?
Because they cannot identify the fear object.
Well, if you cannot identify what it is,
you're overcome by a wave of fear.
I'll tell you what it is.
It's spiritual.
As I do conferences, I ask thousands of
people around the world three questions, and I
caution them because the answer to all three
questions has been yes for me a number
of times.
You can't do my kind of ministry and
not have that kind of opposition.
But ask yourself some questions.
Number one, have you ever personally had some
direct encounter with some presence or struggled with
thoughts in your mind and just seemed to
be paralyzed by that kind of a problem,
didn't know how to get out of it,
knew it was spiritual or suspected that it
was?
And the answer, if not for you, in
the general population is always between 50 percent
and much, much higher than that.
In some Christian leadership circles I've been in,
when I ask that question, the percentage is
usually around 95 percent.
Let's go one step further.
Have you ever awakened, either terrorized or alertly
awake at some precise time in the morning,
like three o'clock?
And if you respond to that, you say,
what was that?
What happened?
Usually the response to that, the minimum response
is 35 percent.
The maximum response I've seen, again, about 95
percent amongst Christian leaders.
And you say, what is that?
Well, I didn't know what that was.
For me, it was three o'clock.
I don't mean 2.59 or 3.01.
I mean, bam, I was awake at three
o'clock.
And I started to see that in some
other people's writings and experiences.
And I had the privilege several years ago,
people in ministry full time came to me
after conference and shared their story, which is
remarkable of their involvement in Satanism as little
children and by the grace of God coming
out of that years ago.
And I asked them, I said, what's with
three o'clock in the morning?
And they said, well, that's prime time.
They didn't hesitate a moment.
Satanists meet from midnight to three in the
morning, according to them.
And basically, we've been targeted.
Well, that's the fiery darts of which we
put up the shield of faith.
Just remember that greater is he that is
in you than he that is in the
world.
For me, that's just a nuisance.
I may wake up.
Typically, I go right back to sleep or
I know how to pray.
But let me move one step further.
Let's ask the question.
Have you ever had a wave of fear
come over you?
It could have felt as though you were
half asleep or just coming out of your
sleep.
You felt a tremendous sense of fear and
couldn't respond physically.
You tried to say something like Jesus and
just couldn't seem to get it out.
If you ask that question in any place
in America, you will get about a third
of your population saying, yes, that's happened to
me.
Now, you describe that symptom.
You have probably described what the secular world
would call an anxiety or panic attack.
How do you respond to that?
Well, the order of scripture is critical here.
In James 4, 7, it says, submit to
God, resist the devil.
You try to resist the devil without first
submitting to God.
You probably won't get out of that.
Now, realize that you could not, for some
reason, call upon the name of the Lord.
The reason is that the weapons of our
warfare are not of the flesh.
We try to always physically respond to something
like that.
And we can't seem to do that.
Inwardly, God knows the thoughts and intentions of
your heart.
So you can respond back to him freely.
Inwardly, God knows that always.
And as soon as you acknowledge his authority,
he is Lord of your life.
You will be freed up.
All you'd have to say is Jesus.
That's all you'd have to say.
And that attack would stop immediately.
Let me illustrate how transferable as well as
universal this is.
Every child of God is in Christ, and
seated with Christ in the heavenly, and has
the same authority that I do.
Some people wrongly think, well, God has called
you into this, or you're unique, or you
have a strong personality, or a big body.
That has nothing to do with what we're
talking about.
I was the speaker for a national convention
of churches, and the pastor went home, and
just based on the information in this book,
sat down with one of the dear people
in this church, and led her to freedom.
I want you to hear her testimony.
For the past 35 years, I have lived
from one surge of adrenaline to the next.
My entire life, the portion I can remember,
has been gripped by paralyzing fears, which seem
to come from nowhere and everywhere.
Fears which made very little sense to me
or anyone else.
I invested four years of my life obtaining
a degree in psychology, hoping it would enable
me to understand and conquer those fears.
Psychology only perpetuated my questions and insecurity.
Six years of professional counseling offered little insight
and no change in my level of anxiety.
After two hospitalizations, trips to the emergency room,
repeated EKGs, a visit to the thoracic surgeon,
and a battery of other tests, my panic
attacks only worsened.
By the time I came to see you,
full-blown panic attacks had become a daily
feature.
It has now been three weeks since I've
experienced a panic attack.
I have gone to malls, church services, played
for an entire worship service, and even made
it through Sunday school with peace in my
heart.
I had no idea what freedom meant until
now.
When I came to see you, I had
hoped that the truth would set me free,
but now I know it has.
Friends have told me that even my voice
is different, and my husband thinks I'm taller.
When you live in a constant state of
anxiety, most of life passes you by because
you are physically, emotionally, and mentally unable to
focus on anything but the fear which is
swallowing you.
I could barely read a verse of scripture
at one sitting.
It was as though someone snatched it away
from my mind as soon as it entered.
Scripture was such a fog to me.
I could only hear the verses which spoke
of death and punishment.
I had actually become afraid to open my
Bible.
These past weeks, I have spent hours a
day in the Word, and it makes sense.
The fog is gone.
I am amazed at what I am able
to hear, see, understand, and retain.
Before the bondage breaker, I could not say
Jesus Christ without my metabolism going berserk.
I could refer to the Lord with no
ill effect, but whenever I said Jesus Christ,
my insides went into orbit.
I can now call upon the name of
Jesus Christ with peace and confidence, and I
do it regularly.
That kind of freedom is something that we
would like to see every child of God
around the entire world experience.
Not only that, but every church could help
that kind of person find their freedom in
Christ.
One would have to wonder how a defeated
fool like Satan could carry on such an
effective work.
If he has lost that sense of power,
then why isn't this working for us better
than it should be?
Well, we have been talking about deception.
We have been talking about fear.
Let me illustrate in a childhood story.
When I was a boy, I was raised
on a farm in Minnesota.
We had some Norwegian bachelor brothers who we
used to share product and labor and service
with, and my dad, my brother, and myself
would get in our old pickup and drive
over there.
As we entered their barnyard, they had this
yappy little dog that would come barking around
the corner.
As we got out of our pickup, that
dog would start chasing us, and I ran.
Guess who he chased?
He didn't chase my brother.
He didn't chase my father.
He chased me.
He chased me right up on top of
the pickup cab, and I would sit down
and look at that ornery little mutt barking
at me, and my brother standing right beside
him, and my dad standing right there.
It wasn't bothering them a bit, and one
day dad said, son, this is kind of
embarrassing.
That's just a little dog.
Why don't you stay on your ground?
And so we went over another time, and
I worked up my courage, and great big
beads of sweat welled up in my forehead.
As that dog came barking at me, I
kicked a rock at it.
Guess what happened?
He took off.
You resist the devil, he'll flee from you.
Well, one would ask the question, what power
did that dog have over me?
And the answer is only what I gave
to it, and what he used was fear.
How did I get up on top of
that pickup cab?
That dog used my mind, my will, my
emotions, and my muscles.
That's how I got up there, and we
literally have Christians all around the country on
top of a pickup cab, frightened to death
of things that go bump in the night,
and oftentimes no fear of God.
Something is radically wrong in our orientation and
in our understanding.
The practicality of this cannot be overstated, because
everybody struggles with thoughts.
Everybody has tempting thoughts and accusing thoughts.
The tragedy of some of this is that
we just think maybe we're weird, and so
we can't bring it out into the open.
Suppose you're driving down a freeway, and suddenly
you have a little thought, drive into that
railing, or jump over that cliff.
Or as we found out amongst our teenagers,
that grab that knife and stab somebody, and
you ask the question, man, where did that
come from?
Is that me?
Am I feeling this way?
And if you don't realize that that's just
a spiritual battle, you will personalize that yourself,
and then suddenly you'll freak out.
It's like the horrible problem that some of
our wives face after they've had maybe a
second or a third child in postpartum depression.
As I've shared this across the country, I'm
amazed at how many ladies have come up
and said, that's exactly what happened.
Here is a mother, she's depleted physically, she's
come to the end of her resources oftentimes,
and the other kids are maybe raising a
fuss, and then a little thought, kill your
baby.
Kill my baby?
How could I be thinking that?
That's not you, ma'am.
That's not you thinking that thought.
But if you think it's you, then suddenly
you just overcome by a wave of depression.
And the answer, of course, is to take
every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
This is so profound when we start realizing
that that battle is there for a mind,
and the fear that induces.
We had a dear colleague in ministry who
has a wonderful wife, wonderful marriage.
He's very educated, very mature, very pious.
Suddenly his wife became sick with pneumonia, and
got to the point after a while where
she could really not function.
And so they took her in surgically, removed
a liter and a half of fluid from
her lungs.
And then they found the cancer, a big
mass of cancer.
And when I come back from a conference
tour one summer, he called me and asked
if I could speak with his wife.
And so we went over to her house
and sat down.
She wanted to see me alone.
She pointed to her Bible and said, see
my Bible there?
I said, yes.
And hanging out of it was a piece
of paper.
She said, that's a list of who I
am in Christ.
I heard you speak two years ago, and
I just want you to know that that
has really kept me going for these two
years.
Then this very lovely, pious woman looked at
me and said, Neil, I'm not sure I'm
a Christian.
I was shocked.
I said, ma'am, if you're not a
Christian, I'm in deep trouble.
I said, why would you ever even think
that?
She said, well, I go to church and
I struggle with these blasphemous thoughts and foul
thoughts go through my mind.
I said, that's not you.
You see, how do I know that's not
her?
Well, what we read earlier, Romans chapter seven,
you joyfully concur with the law of God
in the inner man.
That's the real you.
Well, with her maturity and love for the
Lord, within a half an hour, she is
free to those kind of thoughts.
And she went on through the most horrendous
year of physical treatment to try to recover
physically.
And the last I heard, she was doing
very, very well.
Well, I remember the first time I encountered
this.
I was a young pastor and this gal
was classified as paranoid schizophrenic and fear was
just plaguing her life.
She finally told me one day of the
snakes.
I said, well, tell me about the snakes.
She said, I go to sleep at night
and the snakes crawl over my bed on
me.
I said, what do you do?
I go running into my mother.
I said, well, this is years ago now.
And I said, well, try this.
Just say, get behind me, Satan.
She came back the next week and I
asked her how it went.
She said, I couldn't say it.
I said, why not?
She said, I didn't want Satan behind me.
I laughed.
I said, well, that's just a figure of
speech.
And you learn after a while and trying
to deal with people's fears and phobias like
this.
I said, well, you just call upon the
name of the Lord.
And she did that, came back the next
week and said the snakes were gone.
Now, people, if that's neurological, if there's a
chemical imbalance here, that isn't going to work,
obviously, but it doesn't cost you anything to
take that position in Christ and to exercise
your authority.
I remember a gal that was referred to
me by a local Christian counselor.
Actually, I went to his office to provide
some sense of diagnosis.
He had been counseling her for four years.
I was with her about five minutes.
And I said, there's a battle going on
for your mind.
And she said, oh, thank God.
Somebody will listen to me or believe me.
She had been given EKGs and CAT scans.
And her counselor was a very fine Christian
man.
He just never had any experience in this
at all.
And when I walked in, I saw a
pentagram cut into her skin.
I thought, gee, there's a clue.
So, anyway, the next week she came into
my office.
And she was a very large girl.
And halfway through our conversation time, she got
up out of her chair and started to
walk towards me.
What would you do?
Well, I looked at her and I said,
I'm a child of God.
The evil one can't touch me.
She stopped right in her tracks.
And listen to me carefully, people.
Authority does not increase with volume.
We're not called to shout out the devil.
If we're in that mode, you're probably operating
out of the flesh somewhere you've already lost
control.
It's the same thing when we're dealing with
parents with our children.
When we start screaming and yelling at our
children, chances are that's just a deed of
the flesh.
We probably ought to stop, ask God for
forgiveness, and maybe our children too.
Maintain that sense of control by not losing
our position in Christ, which you can't really
lose anyhow.
But you start operating as a deed of
the flesh instead of operating by the fruit
of the Spirit, which is the whole intention
of this fear.
And so I am powerless then to deal
with this as an issue.
I had a man who was a doctoral
student on the East Coast, had heard that
illustration and said, I want to thank you
for that.
I said, why?
He said, well, he said, I went to
the train station to come and catch a
commuter train and three thugs came up and
demanded my money.
He said, Neil, it's like I could see
right through them.
I said, what did you do?
I said, I looked at him and said,
I'm a child of God.
The evil one can't touch me.
They said, what?
And he repeated, I'm a child of God.
The evil one can't touch me.
They said, oh, and walked away.
I had a very disturbed husband, was really
creating tremendous problems for his wife.
And I suggested that she respond to him
if she ever had that sense of discernment
that there's something more going on here than
just a difficult husband.
Well, one morning he started to come after
her when she was in the shower and
she looked at him and said, I'm a
child of God.
You can't touch me.
And he got disoriented and actually ran out
of the house.
Well, people listen, we do have that position
in Christ.
We are alive.
We're seated with Christ in the heavenlies.
Don't let anybody take that away from you.
Otherwise we have no power to stand against
the God of this world.
But because we're seated with Christ in the
heavenlies, we have a position to do this.
And, and we are not left down here
on planet earth without some sense of defense.
I want you to hear a tremendous letter
that was shared with me by a gal
who attended one of our conferences.
Dear Dr. Anderson, I attended your Sunday sessions,
but while waiting to talk to you after
the Sunday evening meeting, I suddenly felt ill.
I was burning up like I had a
fever and I got so weak.
I thought I was going to faint.
So I went home.
I need help.
I've had more trouble in my life since
I became a Christian than I ever had
before.
I've overdosed on alcohol and drugs so many
times I can't count them.
I've cut myself several times with razor blades,
sometimes very seriously.
I have thoughts and feelings and ideas of
suicide weekly, like stabbing myself through the heart.
I'm a slave to masturbation.
I'm out of control and I don't know
how to stop.
On the outside, I appear very normal.
I have a good job and I live
with an outstanding family in our community.
I even work with junior hires at my
church, but I can't really explain my relationship
with God anymore.
I've been seeing a psychiatrist for two years.
Sometimes I think I'm this way because of
a messed up childhood, or maybe I was
born this way.
How can I tell if my problems are
in my mind or the result of sin
and disobedience against God or the evidence of
demonic influence?
I would like to talk to you during
the conference, but I don't want to try
any more remedies that don't work.
Well, it did work for her.
She found her freedom that week.
She wrote me a letter a year later.
She said she could not believe that somebody
who had all of her troubles in life
could ever again serve the Lord.
I went back to that same location about
a year later and she came up to
me and I said, how are you doing?
She said, great.
This is my friend.
She's living with a youth pastor now.
She's got the same problem I had.
And indeed she did.
And that Saturday afternoon, I think it was,
the youth pastor's wife and I helped this
woman also find her freedom in Christ.
Since there is a God of this world
and a prince of power of the air,
and he's roaring around like a hungry lion
seeking for someone to devour, are we defenseless
in opposition to that?
The answer is, of course not.
God has supplied us the armor of God.
Suppose that you were a foot soldier in
Desert Storm and you were called into action
and you found out that the next morning
your platoon was going to have to go
behind enemy territory.
And so you'd cautioned all of your men
to come tomorrow morning with their full equipment
on and their headgear and whatever.
And you showed up in the morning, you
were ready to go, but all your troops
showed up and all they had on was
their skivvies.
What would you think of those guys?
You would be inclined to say, where's your
helmet?
Oh, Sarge, I sweat under that thing.
Well, where's your gun?
Carry that thing.
You don't know how much that weighs after
walking a few miles.
It really gets burdensome.
Where's your gas mask?
I mean, what would you think of these
people?
I mean, you'd be inclined to say, you
idiots, get back there and put your armor
on.
Well, I think sometimes the Lord has to
look at the church today and said, you
don't seem to realize what the real battle
is here.
If you did, you'd put on that armor
of God.
Let's read it.
It's in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10 and
following.
It says, finally be strong in the Lord
and in the strength of his might.
Let me say again that our position in
Christ is really dependent upon him.
It's really his strength.
It is not ours.
Then he says, put on the full armor
of God that you may be able to
stand against the schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers, against the powers,
against the world forces of this darkness, against
the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly
places.
That's the spiritual realm.
Now, since we are down here on planet
earth, one would have to ask the question,
is it really out there?
Since you don't see those kinds of opposition.
Well, it's a little bit like saying, are
there germs in this world?
It's amazing how many people have never seen
a germ, but without question believe what our
microbiologists are telling us.
Well, I believe that too.
I've never seen a germ, but I believe
they're out there.
I've seen a few Germans.
But what are we to do in response
to the fact that there are germs in
this world, not only in the world, but
frankly in us?
And the answer is to be germ oriented.
No, you do that.
You'll be a hypochondriac.
The only proper response to the fact that
there are germs in this world is to
live a balanced physical life.
Get enough sleep, eat right, exercise, diet, et
cetera.
And your immune system will take care of
itself.
There's demons in this world.
Yes, and the only appropriate response to that
is to live a righteous life.
See, that is really the thrust of this.
There are two things we want to point
out in reference to that armor of God.
Number one is it requires an active participation
in our part.
In fact, Jesse Penn Lewis, who wrote War
on the Saints around the turn of this
century, said, really, the chief condition for Satan
operating in the church is our passivity, just
failing to assume our own personal responsibility.
Let me highlight some of the things that
it says here.
It says, be strong, put on the armor
of God, stand firm.
Verse 13 says, therefore, take up the full
armor of God that you may be able
to resist in the able day and having
done everything to stand firm.
Stand firm, therefore.
Verse 16 again says, and taking up.
Verse 17 starts out, and take, and to
pray at all the times.
You see, the point of it is it
requires us to assume our responsibility.
Now, let me illustrate this.
As I've talked with people over the years
who are in deep problem spiritually, don't know
how to get out of it.
And before I even start, I always will
sit down and explain.
There is a line drawn.
It's a very important line that is drawn.
On one side of the line, God's responsibility
exists.
You can't do that.
You can't create anything.
We cannot save ourselves.
We shouldn't be in another person's conscience.
You just have to trust God for what
he said he has done and will do
on our behalf.
On the other side of the line is
my responsibility.
And if I don't do it, God won't
do it for me.
Let me illustrate that.
Suppose you've got a problem person in your
church.
And so a few of you get together
and you start praying and ask God to
remove them from your church and nothing happens.
And really to your horror, he ends up
to be chairman of your board or something.
And you say, well, God, don't you care
about your church?
Why don't you do something?
And the answer is he won't, because that's
our responsibility.
We're first to go in private, then bring
two or three witnesses, etc.
And if we don't do that, he won't
do it for us.
Now, when people come to me, they've been
caught in bondage for so long and struggling
in their life.
They don't know how to get out of
it.
They cry out to God.
God, you're all powerful.
You could do something.
Why won't you help me?
And then they start struggling.
Well, maybe it's something odd.
Maybe I'm not a Christian.
And so by the time I get to
talk to them, they are so ticked off,
burned out towards God, frustrated, can't trust him
anymore, or burned out at themselves.
You say, what's wrong with this picture?
What's wrong with this picture is that God
loves us.
And there have been thoughts raised up against
the knowledge of God.
And if the only two players that you
have in your world view is yourself and
God, then either God or yourself is going
to take a bad rap for this.
But why wouldn't God do something?
It's like the person who feels under attack
at home, and he pulls the sheets over
his covers and calls upon the name of
the Lord, and nothing seems to happen.
You go, why?
Because it's my responsibility to resist the devil.
And if we don't do it, he doesn't
necessarily have to go.
Well, why won't you accommodate me one time,
God?
Why won't you do that for me?
You realize he can't do that.
If he did that, he'd no longer be
God.
He must stay true to himself and true
to his word.
He said, not one yad or tittle, not
one identifying Hebrew mark in the alphabet will
change in my word until all is come
to pass.
And so God is restricted in that sense
in himself to work which is consistent with
his word.
And I've often had to tell people, if
you want to get ticked off at somebody,
get ticked off at somebody like me who
taught a seminary at the church who hasn't
adequately equipped our people to deal with the
reality of the spiritual world, because when those
battles come, they don't know how to stand
against them.
Well, what is the armor of God?
Well, first of all, not to put anybody
down here, but to recite some ritual or
slogan like while I pleaded the blood of
Christ over something is not necessarily putting on
the armor of God, people.
There's nowhere in scripture that that is given
as a carte blanche protection over the matters
that we have to deal with.
When we look at the armor of God,
in essence, what you're really putting on is
Christ.
Let me read out of Romans chapter 13,
verse 12 through 14.
It says, And the night is almost gone,
and the day is at hand.
Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of
darkness and put on the armor of light.
Let us behave properly as in the day,
not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual
promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy,
but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and
make no provision for the flesh in regard
to its lusts.
So when you put on the armor of
light, what are you really putting on?
You're putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our sanctuary is not a building that we
go to.
Our sanctuary is in Christ, to be seated
with Christ in the heavenlies, to be a
child of God.
So if we will assume our responsibility to
take an active role in this process, it
begins then by putting on the belt of
truth.
Now, why is truth so prevalent?
Why is it first and foremost?
Well, it's truth that stands up against deception.
We're going to look at in a moment
the issues of temptation and accusation, but let's
put this in balance for a moment.
If I tempt you, you know it.
If I accuse you, you also know it.
If I deceive you, you don't know it.
Now listen to the logic of scripture.
If you know the truth, the truth will
set you free.
He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life.
In the high priestly prayer in John 17,
Jesus prays.
He said, I ask not that you take
them out of the world, but you keep
them from the evil one.
How?
Sanctify them in thy word.
Thy word is truth.
Now, the first thing you do when you
put on the armor of God is you
gird your loins with truth.
When God intervened in the early church, I
mean dramatically so, and struck down Ananias and
Sapphira, we read that passage and we go,
oh, dear God, don't do that next Sunday.
I mean, who would survive?
What was their great sin?
They gave half of everything they owned to
the church.
Well, I bet every pastor in the country
would like the people to sin that bad.
Now, that wasn't the real issue, people.
They gave half, but they allowed people to
think it was all.
Well, that was their idea.
That's not what scripture says.
What scripture says is, why has Satan filled
your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?
So what was the issue?
The issue is still there and still prominent.
God knew that if the enemy could go
into your home, your family, your life undetected
and get you to believe a lie, he
knew that he could control your life.
If I could somehow cleverly, by persuasion, get
you to believe a lie, something that wasn't
true and you believed it, would that lie
control your life?
And the answer is, absolutely it would.
I mean, there's nothing new here that I'm
sharing with you.
Eve was deceived and she believed a lie
and consequently, Abeneath fell into sin and we
are living with the consequences of that today.
When we talk about truth, we're talking about
it in a comprehensive way.
It's thy word is truth.
Certainly, the only way you're going to overcome
the father of lies is not even by
research, not even by reasoning, but by revelation.
Thy word is truth.
We have to study, to show ourself, to
prove as a workman who needs not be
shamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
There is no substitute for that.
We must assume responsibility for our mind.
Listen to several scriptures.
In your evil, be babes, but in your
thinking, be mature.
Think, therefore, as to have sound judgment.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your
heart.
How are you going to do that?
Let the word of Christ richly dwell within
you.
Or out of Psalm 119, how shall the
young man keep his way pure?
By keeping it according to thy word, that
word of I hid in my heart that
I may not sin against you.
And so, we've got to know the truth.
And it says in Ephesians chapter 4, 6
through 8, be anxious for nothing.
Don't be double-minded about anything.
Return to God is his point there.
And the peace of God that paths us
all understanding will guard your heart and your
mind.
But it doesn't end there.
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is right,
pure, lovely, etc., think on those things.
We must assume our responsibility for our own
thought life.
We've got to choose the truth.
Because it's that truth that's going to set
us free.
The Holy Spirit is first and foremost a
spirit of truth.
And the Lord said he would come and
he would lead us into all truth.
It's that truth that sets us free.
And that's the first part of the armor
of God that we put on.