One of the things we shared last night,
and I would really encourage you that when
you go into a motel room, a hotel
room, why don't you just pray in that
room and ask God to remove all the
forces of darkness, you know, and any wickedness
that's been committed in that room and all,
that it would be removed and there would
be no harassment or any oppression or anything
like that taking place in that room.
And the reason we mentioned the houses last
night, because often every house you move into
as a missionary has already been prededicated to
the enemy.
Just turn right around and dedicate the house
and everything to the Lord, that it would
be a light, you know, in that community
and so on.
There's a book out that is the only
book I know of, and I wanted to
mention it to you, written on the subject,
it's John Dawson's Taking Our Cities for God.
Now if you've never, he's the president of
Y-Rammers, isn't it Y-Rammers that he's
the president of?
He wrote that book, it gets a little
bit bogged down, a little bit detailed, but
it's an excellent book in how to pray
against principalities and powers.
It's amazing, he and his wife would walk
and stand before houses, they moved into the
bad part of the city, that's not the
word I want, but he moved into a
bad part of the city where it was
really not a safe neighborhood, he felt he
wanted to be where the people were in
L.A. to reach, and they began to
evangelistically pray for their neighbors, house by house
by house as they would walk, and pray
against the forces of darkness, and you read
the book, it's awesome, just what this guy
did in this neighborhood, and how to take
your cities for the Lord and pray against
principalities and powers, and just a lot of
ideas and how to identify what's in control
of our city, what seems to be the
predominating thing here.
Demonism and How to Win Against the Devil
by Chuck Swindoll is a good little pamphlet,
it's $1.98, you can get it at
Christian bookstores, by Mount Noma Press, it's kind
of one of the long ones, and it's
just how Chuck Swindoll can take a lot
of information and just kind of squeeze it
in and make it humorous and interesting, and
it's just a dynamic little thing, and a
lot of people will read that, because it's
probably 28 pages, rather than some of these
hefty books, and they go, I'm overwhelmed with
a hefty one, but it's interesting here on
resisting, and I think we need to look
at resisting the devil, and we talked about
it, but we kind of skipped away from
it, we need to get back to it,
how do we effectively resist the devil?
Now this is right out of Chuck Swindoll's
little book, and he has four steps, now
remember we said in resisting we wanted to
use Remas, well there's another aspect of Rema,
and that is where Logos is referring to
the written word, the Rema literally can mean
speaking forth the word, it's the spoken word
rather than the written word, which is interesting
when you look at that, and as I
read this I realized that Chuck Swindoll knew
what he was doing, there's one page here
that I feel that on that page, I
do not feel that this statement is accurate,
although I didn't write it, but it's just
the one before that, which is be a
person of spiritual power, and if you read
there, you'll see on the page it says,
under number two, recognize that Satan attacks you
by planting his suggestions in your mind, and
the first thing is Satan can read your
thoughts, I do not believe that is true,
and a number of the men that I
talked to, and I'm not afraid to get
on a phone and call a theologian and
say, hey I'm talking to people and I
want to say what's right on and square,
and I just have not seen this in
scripture at all, now I know that Satan
can put thoughts in your mind, we already
saw that right, I mean absolutely that's where
the battlefield is, but can Satan read your
thoughts, and if you read that verse, and
this was written by Bill Gothard, but it's
excellent, I mean outside of that one little
statement I said, Bill I don't agree with
you, and his concept was, well Satan knows
how to attack us so, like we said,
he knows my buttons so specifically, he knows
where to wipe me out, but that's just
from watching us, I mean some of you
know, I know missionaries in Mexico have found
that there was dossiers on them, that had
more information about them than they remembered about
themselves, so if you have governments that have
more information about you, and you have on
yourself, it's no wonder the enemy has a
lot of information on me, and knows those
areas, but if you look at Swindoll, all
of his four steps is you say it
out loud, when you're resisting, you resist how?
Out loud, if you resist in your heart,
can the enemy hear it?
No, now it doesn't mean you have to
yell or scream, I mean people are going
to think, you're whetcliffs, you're missionaries, you're already
weird, and if you're going around and saying
this stuff out loud, they're going to know
for sure, you know I mean like yelling
and all of this, let me give you
an instance, one of our gals was going
to Manhattan to go to one of these
welfare hotels to share Christ with the children
that are trapped in those places, five, six
hundred children in one of these hotels, sometimes
a thousand kids, they did a survey in
Manhattan, one block, they surveyed ten thousand children
in one block living in these things, ten
thousand, all of them in the deepest darkness,
as dark as any tribal person anywhere, and
as evil and as gross living, and she
was in the subway, and she went in
and sat down, she sensed evil in the
car, and we've talked about that, you know
where you just sense, and God gives a
woman a good sense, and if a woman
would follow her senses, the women would not
have sexual attacks, if they would just follow
that initial, I don't know how a woman,
why she sensed it in her spirit, but
you know what I'm talking about, this is
not good, and she sat there and said
this isn't good, and she thought if I
look around the car, I don't want to
look around the subway train, this is the
only time it happened to her once, and
all the time she's going, but there was
an evil presence there, and there was hardly
anybody on the subway car, now it doesn't
make a difference to a lot of people,
I was discipling a Royals baseball player, and
he had gone on the subway in New
York to the stadium, he took off his
World Series ring, he took everything out of
his pocket except a dollar for going and
a dollar for coming back, so he's back
on the subway, full of people, a guy
pulls out a gun, sticks it in his
stomach, and asks him for something of value,
and he had nothing, and you know, have
you ever been in a New York subway,
you know when it stops, the doors go,
and the doors went, and he goes, and
the guy got off and full of people,
people go like this, so here you're standing
with a gun in your stomach and everybody's
looking away, and he said, Jim, I always
carry at least a dollar to give them
now, you know, if I get robbed in
the subway, but here's this girl, but no
one's in the car, it doesn't really make
much difference in New York who's in there,
who isn't, and all of a sudden she's
sitting with her legs crossed, she's got the
materials to take the gospel to these children,
and this guy walks over, strange, and just
glares down at her, so she looks at
him and she realizes that if she doesn't
maintain eye contact with this guy, she doesn't
know what he'll do to her, but he
is out of it, in fact it happened
to be the girl that took the course
at Moody with us from Fred Dickinson on
how to counsel the demonized, so she had
an idea here, this guy was getting help,
you know, with his derangement, there was enemy
forces there in his life, and she's looking
up at him, he's glaring down at her,
and she cried out to her heart to
God to protect her, he kicked her, and
just sent her foot flying, and if she
hadn't had it crossed in the way she
had it, it would have maybe broken her
leg, and she just kept looking at him
and crying out to the Lord, and he
left, and she said, do you think I
resisted him, and I said no, but you
did cry out to God to intervene in
your behalf, and it may not have been
wise for her to look at him and
say in the name of Jesus, although there's
times I've had to when my life has
been threatened, and you may find that, that
you have to, you know, look at the
individual and verbally resist the enemy, as he's
trying to attack you through an individual, and
that can happen any place, anywhere, in any
country, I mean, you know, any place, people
can, the enemy can send someone, but if
you look at this, vocally, vocally, vocally, vocally,
all what Swindoll says, Swindoll's right on the
ball, that book is right on in the
area of dealing with the enemy, now I'd
like to share with you a tremendous story,
has, oh I knew I'd forget his name,
I knew I would on the way over,
and I, someone, one of the missionaries stole
my ink pen, so, or maybe I lost
it, I'm not sure which was first, but
anyway, I didn't have a pen to write
it down, the guy that, if you, if
you have read the pineapple story, who wrote
that, you know, he was a missionary, he's
Dutch, Koning, Otto Koning, I knew, Otto Koning
has a video out, it's absolutely awesome, but
I don't know if they're going to release
it, called the snake story, it's just tremendous,
but I want to share this with you,
because this is resisting in our ministries, Otto
Koning, if you've read the pineapple story, was
in, is it Erie and Gyra where he
was, or where was he, he was somewhere
down there with the cannibals anyway, and he
struggled with his pineapples, you know, and finally
after he got, protected his pineapples, the nationals
got so sick of him, they all moved
away, so here he was a missionary with
all his pineapples, but nobody to minister to,
because he ran them all off, and he
liked it for a while, but he didn't
know what to write in prayer letters, he
ran them off all the tribe, oh, it's
awesome, that's really funny, but it goes on,
and he realized, he was there seven years,
there were nine couples that came and left,
and he never knew anything about resisting, in
his ministry, and resisting the enemy, and here
he is, trying to reach a tribe, knowing
that the demons are real, because the drums
would beat, and nobody would either, you know,
there was all this demonic activity, so he
knew what was going on, he had a,
he said his whole, you know, he believed
demons, he had a theology class, and seminary
on it, so he knew all, you know,
that was his concept of all of this,
but seven years and two converts, and he
was taking tranquilizers, his wife was on tranquilizers,
and you know what she said to him
one day, she said, Otto, if this is
Christianity, we sure don't have much, he says,
there's got to be more to it than
this, just trying to survive, emotionally and everything,
there's got to be more to this, to
Christianity than this, and someone gave him a
book, on one of the pilots, pilots give
away books, and then get them back, a
fellow flew in and gave Otto a book
that changed his life, and it was Spirit
Controlled Temperament, he read it, and he said,
well I could be a Spirit Controlled Missionary,
he never thought of that before, and he
read the book, and it transformed his life,
and he said, you got to trouble when
you got a Spirit Controlled Missionary living in
a demonic situation, you know, now he had
new troubles, became more aware of the enemy,
and then the pilot took that book and
gave him another book when he flew in
to read, he said, Otto, try this one,
and this was on how to resist the
devil, and he looked at that, and he
read it, and it was just a whole
new concept, because his particular theological background is
you never talk to the devil, you never
do that, and so there was a try,
and he said, Otto, you know, there was
a type on the other side of the
swamp that wanted Otto to go to them,
but he was, he really didn't like to
go, he hated the swamps, whenever he would
get in the swamps, he would get this
feeling, and when he would preach, his, the
fellows that were there, they'd say, Otto, go
with us in the swamps, he'd say, he'd
make excuse for not going, they said, ah,
you're afraid the demons will get you in
the swamps, no, my God will protect me,
they said, prove it, he said, I don't
have to prove it, I don't prove everything
that's in the Bible, you know, I just
believe it, but he was frightened to go,
and one day, these chiefs begged him to
come with the gospel, they couldn't come because
every time they came, the snake was across
the path, and they could not cross the
snake, that's why it's called the snake story,
they couldn't go across the snake, so the
only way that these people could get the
gospel, and they're asking him to come, is
for Otto to go through the swamps to
them, and so he and one of the
fellows are going through the swamps, and he
was sweating, and they were upset with him,
they had him walked first, because they said,
not only was his feet dumb, you know,
he had dumb feet, missionary with the dumb
feet, fell over everything, you know, this guy
is stumbling behind, and the guy's walking behind
him, as he stumbles through, leading the way
through this jungle, hacking into the swamps and
all, and while he's sweating, and he doesn't
even care anymore, he steps over the yellow
snake, and the guy says, Tuan, not only
are your feet dumb, your head's dumb, you
know, can't you see, you stepped over the
snake, we never step over the snake, the
demons will get you, that's what we've been
telling you, no one steps over the snake,
they'll get you now, and he said, do
you want your pack here, or do you
want me to carry it back, and Otto
was so upset, he took a stick, and
he beat that yellow snake to death, you
know, it had its head at one end
of the swamp, and its tail in the
other, and he just beat and beat that
snake, until it stopped wiggling, and he said,
now come on, and the guy, it's worse
to cross a dead one, and he didn't
know how to get there, I mean, the
swamp, he didn't know how to find this
tribe, and he begged this guy to please
come, so he circled around all this stuff,
I mean, way, he said the snake couldn't
have been that long, way out, and caught
up with him, and they're walking through this
thick, thick jungle, thorny place, and the guy
says, Tuan, I have to go to the
bathroom, I've relieved myself, so he went off
to relieve himself, and Otto Koenig is walking
along, and all of a sudden, out of
the thorny wall of the jungle, came screams,
like out of a horror movie, here he
is all by himself, he said he got
a hold of the log, it had a
little stick on it, and he was shaking,
and this thing began to sink in the
mud, and he thought, this is it, it's
all over for me, and as he was
sinking, he said, you know, you don't want
to grab anything in the swamps, because it
will either bite you, or a thorn will
go in your hand, he said, just let
the leeches get you, it's slower, as this
guy slowly is sinking in the mud, and
all of a sudden, he thought, resist him,
and he thought, in what language, right, whatever
it was, or whatever he was speaking, Dutch,
English, you know, what do you speak to
demons, in the jungle, so he did it
in the language of the people, and he
shouted, to be sure they would hear him,
he shouted out, in the name and the
authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command
you to leave, and to go where Jesus
Christ sent you, stop, the fellow comes out,
and sees him, and he said, I met
Hoi Hoi in the jungles, and he attacked
me, and I resisted him, in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ, they go to
the village of these headhunters, they go in,
the chief is there, he has got over
twenty skulls in his hut, and they sit
down, and all the men are coming in,
and he said the floor was creaking, and
they're, you know, up above the ground, about
four feet, and they were just listening, and
he says, guess what, he said, the missionary
met Hoi Hoi in the jungles, and he
screamed at him, and he resisted him in
the name of Jesus, and he left, and
they just all, I guess they rub their
nose when they think, you know, they're all
rubbing their noses, and then the chief said,
could he come into my stomach, and they
all laughed, they said, oh he's terrible, no,
your Jesus wouldn't want him, he's really bad,
and he shared the gospel that day, now
here the people realized, there's what, something stronger
in Hoi Hoi, forty men received the Lord
Jesus Christ as savior, seven years, he had
never resisted the devil, two converts, he resisted
the enemy, and shared Christ, and forty men
got saved, he was walking back to the
jungles, he's going, what was the difference, and
he realized, that was the difference, and then
he tells how he was asked to go
to another place, since these people got saved,
they asked, and he went somewhere else, and
they decided that if they got the missionary,
maybe he would sell them stuff and all
this, so they built a church, and they
didn't know how to build a church, and
everybody got in this thing, and there wasn't
any room for anybody, and he's standing against
the wall, and a pig runs in, and
this pig is running in and out of
this church, and it ran on the lady's
side, and they're all screaming, and the men
are all laughing, and then they got it
out, and it ran, and when the ladies
would stand up, the benches would flip, and
they'd all slide off, and then it ran
in on the men's side, and the lady
thought, that was really good, and they were
laughing, and this pig was demon possessed, and
it just totally tore up the whole service,
and it was the next Sunday after forty
got saved in another place, nothing happened, and
he went, the most discouraged missionary, he said,
I'm never going back there, and on the
way back, the Lord said, why didn't you
resist them, and I never thought of that,
I've never been there, but he said, the
lady's side in the church is always terrible,
they're always talking to the babies, he said,
it's unbelievable, it's always chaos and pandemonium on
the lady's side, in fact, some of the
churches, he told the ladies they couldn't come,
and his wife taught him flannel graft somewhere
else, you know, he said, it's just awful,
well he went back there, and he resisted
the devil, and when he walked in the
church, they were, the whole village was sitting
in the church, there wasn't a sound, and
he got up, and he preached, and many
came to Christ, and as you know his
story, they came to Christ all over that
area, as he began to resist the forces
of darkness, you've got to get a hold
of this, you've got to get a hold
that there's one who is opposing you, and
we need to oppose him, right?
We need to resist him, and if you
can get the snake story, if Bill Gotham
will let you have it, it is just
the most thrilling thing to see, and you
know the guy is really unique, he is
so funny to hear him talk, he's quite
a guy, and I didn't tell you the
whole story, but there's more to the story
than that, but just exciting, as this guy
just got a hold of a simple truth,
that he, as a missionary, could stand against
the forces of darkness, and all how God
honored that, it was a tremendous thing.
We want to talk about, let's see what
we've got left here, we want to start
talking about the enemy, and how he attacks
us, and then how to help someone who
is not resisting, and is finding themselves on
the losing end of this, and they're saying,
I need help, I know that I'm on
the winning team, but I'm a loser, could
you help me?
How can we help them?
Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, this is
a tremendous warfare passage, in fact, I think
out of Ephesians 6, I like this one,
or maybe this is my favorite one, and
Ephesians 6 is my second favorite, but this
puts it right there, it says, this is
what's going on, for though we walk, verse
3, for though we walk around in the
flesh, we do not war after the flesh,
isn't that exactly what the message was in
Ephesians?
Same message, that you and I cannot, in
the flesh, stand against the enemy, eventually it's
all over for us, because we're fighting a
spiritual battle, and we need to be spiritual
people, with God's spiritual protection, and following God's
direction, and how to stand against them, for
the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,
you know the word weapons there is the
same Greek word translated in Ephesians 6 as
armor, interesting, you could say the armor of
our warfare is not carnal, exactly what he's
saying, but mighty, what's the word mighty?
The ability to perform anything, mighty power, that's
what God has given us, mighty power, the
ability to perform anything, through God, to the
pulling down of strongholds, the enemy, we're going
to look at, wants ground in your life,
you know what he's going to do with
the ground?
He wants to build a stronghold, what are
strongholds?
Write this down and look at it, it's
an excellent definition, I wish I would have
thought it up, mental patterns of thought, a
stronghold is a mental pattern of thought, burned
into your mind, over a period of time,
or by a traumatic experience, I want you
to write it down, because people don't know
what is these strongholds, God tells me to
cast down, they are mental patterns of thought,
burned into your mind, so it's thought patterns,
it's like the farm roads in the spring,
ruts, you got some thinking ruts up here,
I had a thinking rut, you know what
my thinking rut was?
I could never do anything right, I was
sitting in CEF's office, in my office, executive
of that mission, and one day, you know
I told you I taught in a couple
of bible colleges, one day I'm sitting there,
you know the thought came to me, you
know what the thought was?
That was like 3 or 4 years ago,
Logan you're not dumb, I never challenged that
thought, I believed all of my life I
was what?
Dumb, you know why I believed that?
Because my family told me I was dumb,
especially my father, and I never challenged that
thought, it became so much a rut in
my life, I just believed it, and one
day I said I may not be the
smartest guy in the world, but two colleges
wouldn't hire somebody super dumb, maybe one, but
not two, so obviously I'm not dumb, and
I got really excited, God it's neat I'm
not dumb, but you know we've got those
ruts, don't we?
And let me tell you the enemy will
use them, he'll attack them, and the Lord
said deal with those things because they'll hinder
your effectiveness, you won't be willing, if you'd
asked me to come here 12 years ago,
I wouldn't have come here for love nor
money, stand in front of a bunch of
critical missionaries and talk to them?
No way, they might say something they don't
like, but I'd be a mess, I was
already half a mess, you know you want
to learn about warfare, you know how to
study warfare?
Read the Old Testament, see you and I
are to stand against God's enemies, the children
of Israel stood against who?
God's enemies, you know we can learn a
lot about the spiritual battle by reading through
the Old Testament and seeing how God's people
stood and fought against God's enemies, and how
then sometimes they didn't stand, I don't know
if you saw this in the scriptures, but
remember Moses sent out the spies and they
came back and said no way, just no
way, it's impossible, walled cities, those are strongholds,
giants, there's no way, Joshua sent out the
spies, they came back and said hey let's
go, do you know what the difference was?
Do you know that Moses violated scripture and
Joshua didn't?
God told Moses very distinctly that they would
take the land how?
Little by little, you check it out, and
they spied out the whole land, Joshua sent
the spies in and guess what they spied
out?
Jericho, one place, and they came back and
they said well we could take one city,
do you know there's a real principle there,
sometimes the wholeness of the task will overwhelm
us, and we need to break it down
into achievable pieces, right?
This morning I got here early, I wanted
a cup of coffee because my tank's half
empty, and I went over there to peek
in to see if I could see anything,
I haven't had a chance to go in
your buildings over here and I'm leaving tomorrow,
but I peeked in the windows and I
just saw a little office with chairs, that
was exciting, and didn't see much, so I
decided to walk over to the other building
and I walked over there and I saw
a tombstone and I thought, oh this is
interesting, CEF, the founder is buried on the
property, and I thought how wonderful, the man's
heart needs to be where his work is,
and I pushed the button and I listened
to speaking to Biola, I wonder if I
was sitting there when he said that at
Biola, but what was his cry?
What did he say exactly Lane, how many
tries did he say on that?
Two thousand, you have to go, and he's
pleading isn't he, you hear the pleading in
his voice, two thousand, and some people say
two thousand, how do you reach two thousand
tries?
I went to New York City and I
looked at all those children there in New
York City and I got overwhelmed, I'm the
kind that could sit down in the gutter
and say woe is me, and I said
to Tom, how do you reach all these
teen prostitutes, you spend your whole life just
reaching the kids that aren't even teenagers yet
in full time prostitution, how in the world,
and then the drug addict said, how in
the world do you do it, I mean
how do you reach all these kids, he
said it's easy, one at a time, see
I get overwhelmed with the bigness of the
thing, so I need someone to break it
down in chewable pieces, then I can go,
that's what Joshua did, and they went into
the land and they looked at that city,
and you know what walled cities were like,
I mean they lived in the wall, we're
not talking about these things that fold around,
you know the city of Jerusalem, you can
drive a car on the wall, there are
stones in the wall that weigh tons, one
stone, and it'll go, shove it down, it
could be a little bit overwhelming, and I'm
creative, why don't we just leave the stronghold
and take the land around it, it'd work
for a while, but what would be the
problem by leaving the stronghold there, the gates
would open, the enemy would come out, attack
me, go back in the gates, and I'm
fighting, constantly fighting, within myself, we're not talking
about the flesh here, we're talking about the
enemy, and so you read Jericho, and they
walk around the city, and it's amazing, and
the amazing thing is that nobody could talk,
obviously I wasn't there, but I could see
some woman saying, honey do you think this
is working, I don't even see a crack
in the thing, do you see any cracks
in it, no, man are you sure Moses
got it right, and they're walking around, and
walking around, and walking around, and walking around,
then the whole thing falls down, and they
say, praise God, now we know how to
destroy strongholds, let's go up to AI and
walk around it, isn't it amazing how each
stronghold was different, did you notice that, have
you noticed that, and I think it's so
we don't get this method, now I got
a method, Peter wrote a neat book, did
you ever read his book, how to walk
on water 10 steps, but I mean that's
the tendency, how to cast a stronghold, I've
got it, you walk around 7 days and
don't say anything, I figured out how to
do it, isn't it unique, each stronghold was
a different strategy, one time they went out
and praised, and the battle was won, but
beloved, you've got to deal with the strongholds,
and I don't care if you're, we had
a lady, 84 years of age, brought to
me, an evangelist wife, by her daughter, at
the University of Indiana, we had 10,000
people come out, we had a tremendous meeting
in sharing warfare, in fact there's some people
here that were at that meeting at the
university, and I prayed with this lady, and
I was commanding the forces of darkness to
leave her life, and she said, stop, don't
tell my friends to go, because they talked
to her, they're not going to go, and
the daughter's crying, this lady needs to deal
with strongholds, they're destroying her, literally destroying her,
she talks to these spirits, almost all day
long, and obviously they're talking to her, you
can't hear what they're saying to her, but
she's talking to them, the pulling down of
strongholds, the casting down of imaginations, this is
the war, beloved, this is the battle, we're
talking here about the battle, the battle is
fought between your ears, when you see someone
committing sin, you know they first lost the
battle where?
Here, this is where the battle was lost,
every sin is first registered consciously in my
mind, and if it's lost here, eventually it's
going to come out in how?
Actions in my life, and we've got to
fight the battle, and the battle will go
on up here, casting down imaginations, do a
study on imaginations, a word study in Old
and New Testament imaginations, and you will not
find that word ever used positively, God looked
down from heaven and what?
The imagination of man's heart was what?
Evil continually, now a creative mind and imaginations
are two different things, you have a lot
of creative minds in jars, you know how
to destroy a creative mind?
Give them an education beyond high school, and
the more degrees the man gets, the less
creative he will be, there are organizations that
do not want men that have anything beyond
a BA in their research and development department,
you know why?
Because they've learned that it can't be done
in their education, and they need men that
can look beyond what can't be done, and
get out of their little narrow realm of
whatever, and reach out, we know right now
there's one of the most unique inventions by
someone that got out of their little realm,
they went into three different areas of schools
of thinking, and they developed a transformer that
you use with electric neon lights that uses,
oh I forget, I think it's 3 force
less electricity, will send a neon light, I
forget how far, and doesn't get warm at
all, and it's been approved by the UA,
and it was unbelievable, the only way they
did it was to get out of the
electricity and get into some other areas, and
they designed this thing, and it's going to
hit the market, and everybody wants it, these
people are instant millionaires, instant millionaires, and this
oil crisis helped a lot to sell this
thing, because the states are going to pass
laws that every single transformer that they're using,
and this thing is small, you can hold
it in your hand, that this transformer will
now transform all electric lights, not all electric
lights, and then they've got another thing that
will go into the neon tubes, that will
make them last, I forget how much longer,
it's unbelievable, and cheaper than what they already
have, when these guys thought beyond their little
restrictions, so imaginations is not creativity, and I
need to cast down imaginations, a lot of
our struggles is subjective thinking, do you know
that, just subjective thinking is what we imagine
to be true, or what we what, feel
is true, and God said, is it true,
set your mind, think on these things, remember
in Philippians, you want to do a word
study, that's an interesting study, do a Greek
word study, on the words where he says,
set your mind on these things, it's not,
well it would be a good idea to
think on these things, he said, your thoughts
are to be in this area, on these
things, think on, and what is the very
first thing, whatsoever is what, true, well what
do you think would be the opposite of
true, I mean just in English, true and,
but you know that's not true, it isn't,
you look at it in the Greek, it
says, whatsoever things are true, the word true
carries strongly in the Greek the meaning, conforming
to reality, so it's not just false thinking,
it could be what, a lot of imaginations,
it's not necessarily false, but it's not true,
it doesn't conform to reality, a lot of
fantasy, do you know that a lot of
people use fantasy to escape reality, don't they,
do you suppose a missionary could do that,
just kind of travel off in their mind,
flip off in their mind, the battle is,
don't do that, don't do that, casting out
imagination and every high thing that exalts itself
against what, the knowledge of this book, and
you must learn to bring every thought into
captivity to the obedience of Jesus Christ, you
know I shared with you walking up 42nd
street in New York City, right, remember with
the guys, well let me share a real
tremendous illustration here, the enemy will try to
wipe you out any way he can, one
of the ways is to put thoughts faster
in your head than you can cast them
down, and so you're constantly casting down thoughts,
I mean have you ever tried to sit
at a computer and compute, with all these
thoughts going in your mind and you're thinking
of scriptures to cast, you know what I'm
saying, and all of a sudden you're sitting
there and you're getting wore out mentally, casting
all this stuff down, let me give you
an illustration, when we walked up 42nd street,
which is the wicked street in New York
City, Christianity Today had an article, that the
only people that walk up that street are
the brave and the addicted, and Jim Logan,
I didn't fit in either category, I'm not
brave and I'm not addicted, we're stepping on
these little, it looks like diamonds on the
sidewalk, and you walk up and you're crunching,
and I reached down and I picked up
one that had a little, and I'm real
dumb, had a little green thing on the
end of it, and I said, what is
this, and they said, well Logan it's crack
vials, hundreds of them, I mean thousands of
them, all over the street, and we're walking
up, and as we're walking up the street,
it's where all the pornography, prostitution, this is
where it is in New York City, and
we're walking up a street and the first
thing a guy comes up to me and
he pulls up his shirt, and he's a
jeweler, and he's selling watches, you know he
sells them in one corner and his partner
collects them on the other corner, and then
there's ladies standing there and they're saying, you
know, do you want to party, it ain't
my birthday, you know, and guys are saying,
smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, I said
to the missionary, you know I'm real sharp,
I said, what does he mean, smoke, smoke,
smoke, smoke, all these guys are walking around
with smoke, and they only picked me out
of the whole bunch, do I look like
that kind, you know, all the girls are
winking at me and they're not winking at
anybody else, and I'm going, what is wrong
here, this is terrible, hey some of us
are selling drugs, you know we watch people
buy drugs in the sidewalk, then there's the
girly shows, with the movies of the live
girls, come on in, come on in guys,
come on in, come and see, wicked, wicked,
wicked, you know I could have gone up
to a girl and said, does your mother
know you're doing this, you're probably breaking her
heart, let me tell you about the Lord
Jesus and I'm going to give you a
track, you know, hey you shouldn't be selling
stolen watches, God is not pleased with that,
give him a track, you know, and going
up that street, dealing with all the voices,
you know what would have happened, I never
would have got to the hotel where God
called me to minister, I would have been
distracted by the voices, right, and the enemy
is going to call out at you, it's
what he does, and you can spend your
whole life, as Neil Anderson says in his
book, bopping corks, here's a guy sinking in
the ocean trying to push these corks down,
and they keep bopping up, I like what
Dr. Dickinson said, he said this in the
class, it just meant so much to me,
he said, when the enemy speaks and you
hear his voice, as it comes in a
temptation, all you need to say is I
give no consent to that, and go on,
I didn't feel dirty because a prostitute winked
at me, I didn't feel I must be
some horrible person because some guy wanted to
sell me drugs, or somebody wanted me to
come and see a Pono movie, and I
didn't fall on my knees and cry out
to God for this poor wretched man that
I am, that I, you know, that someone
said go see a rotten movie, I gave
no consent to it, and went on.
The only time you need to resist the
enemy is when he steps out in front
of you and impedes your process, do you
see what I'm saying, you can get so
caught up in resisting, you're not going to
do anything but play mental games and get
wore out, and Satan can put the thoughts
faster than you can cast them down, but
if you say I give no consent to
that, I don't have to confess it because
I didn't what, receive it, it's not my
thought, it didn't even come from me, I
don't need to confess it, but if I
receive a thought and I hang on to
the thought, and I think about a thought,
then I need to do 2 Corinthians 10,
do you see what I'm telling you, it
can save you lots of heartaches, right, and
it can be so hard, but it must
be awful, I said wait a minute, look,
let's take David, remember we said, it said
that Satan spoke to David, and David listened
to what Satan said, and David began to
do what Satan told him to do, do
you remember that, when he numbered, I just
mentioned it in passing, well let me explain
that to you, because it may be a
real help to you here, because we've got
to learn when to resist and when to
ignore, and we're in trouble if we don't,
because Satan causes us to go what, we're
going to be resisting all the time, or
we don't resist at all, rather than staying
in the middle and be balanced, David, someone
could have walked up to him and said,
David, you're the general here, David, how many
young men do we have out there that
are military age that we could draft in
case we needed them, and David said, well,
I'm king and general, and I don't know,
do you think that's really wise, now is
it really wise, we're in battle, we're fighting
all these people, and you don't even know
how many guys you could muster up, you
had to be 20 years of age, they
didn't give these kids guns, what happened to
these kids that got guns in Vietnam, they
were shooting kids too, and families and everything
else, you had to be 20 years old
in order to get in the army in
Israel, and he said, I don't know, and
so I could just see the enemy coming
along and saying, David, that is really stupid,
I mean, obviously, how can you be a
wise leader of your country if you don't
even know how many guys out there can
be in the army, now does that sound
wicked, and evil, but David should have whiffed
brimstone, he didn't whiff, because what, it appealed
to seem like it was so normal, and
he went out and he numbered, and God
brought a terrible judgment, now why did God
do that, because this is what God, he
didn't say it, but I know that when
you get to heaven, God is going to
tell you I'm right, on this one, he's
going to say Logan was right, this is
what God said, David, you missed it, victory
for you and Israel has nothing to do
with the size of the army, it has
to do with the size of your God,
and you got your eyes off God, and
on the army, and be careful in the
battle, friends, that you get your eyes off
of, you take your eyes away from the
author and the finisher of our faith, and
get them on anything less, demonic spirits or
whatever, now I know we focus it on
this week, because that's what we were supposed
to do, but you don't live with that
focus, that's not my focus, and I trust
it won't be your focus, I will have
failed this week, if I leave here and
your focus is demons, I don't want your
focus there, I want your focus on the
Lord Jesus Christ, his empowering, and that if
the enemy steps in front of you, you
have everything you need to resist them and
go on and do what God has called
you to do, hear me, and I see
people go off, and these people bother me,
everything is the enemy, everything, it's just terrible,
and so I am to, the more I
know the word, the more I can know
if my thinking is not proper, a wonderful
statement was made, I love it, and that
was by Zig Ziglar, and he says some
priceless things, and he said, you know what
your trouble is, stinking thinking, I don't want
stinking thinking, and when I have to deal
with it, deal with it, ignore it, and
go on, the voices will call, just go
on, hear the voice of the Lord, get
involved, now, we have some points on an
overhead, and we don't want to use the
overhead, and I wanted to give you some
overhead here, but just write these points down,
because it's moving into tonight, as we get
into, we got to figure out how a
person really loses, and how we can help
them to get back on victory ground, the
battle ground between God and Satan is a
human mind, you can just put that down,
that is where the battle is, I've said
it, but write it down, so you can
just get a rough outline here, and put
2 Corinthians 10, 4 and 5, now what
is the chief weapon of the enemy, that's
the next point, what is Satan's chief weapon,
it's deception, deception, and there are three sources
of deception in the word of God, first
of all, we can deceive ourselves, haven't we
told, be not deceived, don't deceive yourself, listen,
the worst deception that you can pull off
is self-deception, isn't it, boy, if you're
deceiving yourself, you're in trouble, don't deceive yourself,
I'm not telling you to go out and
deceive others, but if you have to be
in deception, you're healthier deceiving others, than you
are deceiving yourself, you're in trouble, Galatians 6,
3, 1 John 1, 8, those are interesting,
look them up, if we say we have
no sin, we what, we deceive ourselves, Galatians
6, 3, I can live any way I
want to, and nothing's going to happen, is
that right, you know what McGee said, oh
McGee, he was my pastor for a number
of years, he's a wonderful guy, Dr. McGee
said, if you have sold wild oats, pray
for crop failure, as you reap what you
sow, and don't be deceived, teenagers are deceived,
they think they can do this, and this,
and this, and reap, godliness, and everlasting, and
blessing, and everything, and they're reaping what, corruption,
and they don't believe it, they don't believe
that God's word is true, and James 1,
26, a man who doesn't, who reads scripture
and doesn't practice it is what, a deceiver,
a self-deceiver, and that's just a few,
remember I told you, I got a computer
from a medical doctor that we were able
to help him with his demonic problems, and
he got me a bible program, and I
just put deception and pushed a button with
an asterisk, and I got pages of every
verse in the New Testament that has deceiver,
deception, or whatever, remember Revelation, I mentioned this
in the beginning, has the word evil once,
and deception is on every page, we've got
to see that God says, be careful, we
are so susceptible to being deceived, and then
the second one is we can be deceived
by others, Ephesians 5, 6, just look these
up and do some study yourself, John 7,
11, and no, it's John 7, pardon me,
and then 2 John 7, missed that one,
pardon me, 2 John 7, in my version
there's only one chapter, and then 2 Timothy
3.13, there's some scripture that says others
can deceive us, and I need to be
wise, and then the last is we can
be deceived by Satan, 1 Timothy 2.14,
I wish we could look these up, but
we've only got a few minutes, and I'd
like to get through this, 2 Corinthians 11
.14, and Revelation 12.9, now why is
the enemy deceiving us?
Ephesians 4.27 tells us why, that he
may gain ground in our lives, so Satan's
goal in deceiving you is that he might
get ground in your life, and Paul warned,
be careful, don't give the enemy ground in
your life, and why does he want ground?
To build a stronghold, and if I try
to live my life and not take back
the ground, and not deal with the strongholds
that are in my life that have been
burned in my life for a period of
time, you know I never gave you the
rest of that definition did I?
The second part of the definition is strongholds
are revealed in un-Christlike temperaments and behavior
patterns.
These strongholds are revealed in un-Christlike temperaments
and behavior patterns.
I followed a pastor one time that stood
before the church and said, I want you
to know I have a temper, and you're
going to have to learn to live with
it, and they did for five years before
they asked him to leave.
He had a stronghold, and the rest of
that is often unrecognized by self, these strongholds,
and if recognized, seldom understood as choices.
It's just the way I am, right?
I'm Irish, whatever that means.
I'm Norwegian.
Worst of all, I'm Swiss.
He woke up.
Okay, well strongholds are mental patterns of thought
burned into our mind over a period of
time or by a traumatic experience.
Strongholds are revealed in un-Christlike temperaments and
behavior patterns, often unrecognized by self, or if
recognized, seldom understood as choices.
It's just kind of, well, that's the way
I am.
I'm from the South.
Did you have trouble moving here to the
South?
Well, I'll tell you.
And being down here.
You know, you go to church, and someone
says, yeah, I'll come over sometime, and I
show up.
And we have to realize these are choices,
and these are choices I've made, and they've
become so much a part of me.
But even after we break the demonic bondage
in someone's life, we have to help them
with what?
The ruts and the strongholds that allowed the
enemy to get that beachhead.
And get rid of the enemy and help
them.
You've got to deal with this.
And get your life back on solid ground.
Now let me just give you four simple
steps, and then we'll get complicated steps tonight,
alright?
These are four simple steps.
Point number four, ground must be retaken before
Satan's power can be broken.
And we have found this, you know, when
we try to break the enemy's power, when
the person is holding onto the ground, it
doesn't work.
I'll share this now, and I'll share it
tonight, because we have different people tonight sometimes
in the morning.
A man is deceived when his mind and
emotions believe a lie.
It's not just a thought, it's feelings.
And we strongly, in our culture, believe it
must be true if I what?
If I feel it.
Now if you'd ask me right now, what
state are you in?
I think I'm in North Carolina.
You'd say, well, how do you feel?
I'd say, well, are we in North Carolina
or South Carolina?
We're somewhere.
Okay, we're in North Carolina.
We're somewhere and nowhere, remember?
North Carolina, how does it feel to be
in North Carolina?
I don't know, but maybe I'm not here.
You know, I don't have any feelings, so
maybe I'm not in North Carolina, right?
Because maybe I don't feel like you're supposed
to feel to be here.
You know, people ask me, you know, if
I'm saved, I don't know if I, you
know, do I feel saved?
I don't know.
How are you supposed to feel?
I just am, right?
I am.
Someone asked me, are you happy?
I said, I don't know, that's not one
of my goals.
It isn't.
That's not one of my goals.
My goal is to minister to others.
It's not to be happy.
You know, I'm not running my life on,
I've got to have these feelings.
Because they can wipe you out.
Okay, number one, under this last point.
Ground must be retaken before satanic powers can
be broken in a person's life.
Number one, the first point.
Revoke past consent.
1 John 1.9. If we confess our
sins, what will God do?
Do you know that He put His character
at stake in forgiving us?
If you confess something more than once, you
know what you're saying?
You're saying God is not faithful and God
is not just.
That's what you're saying, right?
He says, my faithfulness and justice is at
stake, I will what?
I will feel, but I don't feel anything.
That's too bad.
God didn't say that I had to feel
anything, does He?
Do I see feelings in there anywhere?
I'm supposed to feel something?
No.
I am to what?
Believe something.
That's what faith is, God said it, I
believe it, I trust it.
Is your God worthy of your trust?
Is He?
He says He's trustworthy.
The second point, reprove the works of darkness.
Ephesians 5.11. Sometimes it's very difficult for
us to call our sin, sin.
To call that evil, because we justify it.
We water it down.
You know, people are having affairs today.
They don't commit adultery anymore.
Right?
You know, I'm in a gay lifestyle.
I looked all through the scripture, couldn't find
that.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm sick, I have an alcoholic problem.
God calls them drunkards.
We don't call sin, sin.
We're not reproving the works of darkness.
And you want to be free, you've got
to reprove the works of darkness, that you're
through with this.
And you see it as it is, and
you agree with God what it is.
And you are going to step away from
the darkness into the light.
The third area is to remove all provision
for the flesh.
Romans 13.14. You want victory in this
area of your life?
Then you must destroy everything associated with that
area that's defeating you.
Now, if it's materialism, don't burn the house
down.
But you know what I'm saying?
If you are using objects, you are using
things in order to commit your sin.
You must destroy those things, or you will
not have victory.
And you've got to do a thorough cleansing,
not just leave a few for old time's
sakes.
Because if you leave one or two, they'll
get you.
You've got to do a cleansing.
Get rid of this stuff.
And then comes number four.
Resist the devil, and he will what?
He will flee from you.
James 4.7. Father, thank you for this
time today.
Father, may we realize that all of us
are so susceptible to deception.
And we have the deceiver that deceives.
Oh, Father, may we have spiritual antenna out.
May the Holy Spirit minister to us.
And may we recognize when we are deceived
and absolutely, totally rejected.
Refuse to receive that deception.
And stand in the truth.
And walk in the light.
Father, we pray that our spirits would become
sensitive to your spirit.
And you would guide us in the light
and in truth.
And that we would be men and women
of integrity.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.