Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:05 I want to welcome you. My name is Michael fueling and the lead pastor. And this is week two in our series on the spiritual war. I want to read to you and start off from Ephesians chapter six, 11 through 12, the apostle Paul says put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil for we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers against the authorities against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places I want, I want to read this last section one more time. We need to listen carefully against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Where did the apostle Paul learn that there are cosmic powers, spiritual forces over what's happening on this earth in such a way that it even implies that there is that there is control over some kind of nations and things moving around on a political landscape.
Speaker 0 00:01:21 Where does he even get this idea from? Well, it goes all the way back to the book of Daniel chapter 10. So I want to invite you open up your Bibles, Daniel chapter 10. And what I need to do is get us kind of all on the same page, because some of you were not here last week. So I want to take, it'll take between 90 seconds and 10 minutes. We'll see what it feel like today. We're gonna do a brief review over last week. Remember last week, what we did is we looked at the book of Ezekiel chapter 28, and we saw that there was a nation, the nation its name was tired. T Y R E, that what's interesting about tire is that there was an actual king, a ruler there, a real human being. But what we learned when we pull back the curtain was that there was a spiritual authority manipulating and moving around stuff happening in tire.
Speaker 0 00:02:09 In fact, what we learned is that the spiritual authority was Satan himself. Now you may not know a lot about tire, but tire is a small city state. It is not a big place. So why on God's green earth would the devil himself who is only can be in one place at one time? Why would he pick this little small city state called tire? Just north of Israel? Well, because at the time they were the primary trade partner with Israel. And what he knew is the best way to get at the people of God is through orchestration of the events in this nation, this little place, this city state called tire. And then what we find here is we're wondering, as we looked at last week, is this normal, is the demonic realm orchestrating itself in such a way that it oversees nations? Or was this just a one-off reality?
Speaker 0 00:02:57 So we learn this, that the spiritual world has organized itself around the physical world for maximum impact. And what we're finding actually is the demonic realm we're going to get deeper into this is that it's not just tire. It's not just the city state, but what you find is that the demonic realm has been orchestrating itself around national entities for a very long time millennia. Now. So let's do some basic review, four points of review that we learned. Number one, angels were created to worship God and to minister, to God's people to purposes. They were created. You see angels around the throne room. And then in the book of Hebrews chapter one, verse 14, speaking of angels, here's what the author of Hebrews says. Are they angels? Not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.
Speaker 0 00:03:49 So angels were created to worship God and to minister to the saints. Now I don't, I don't know how that looks. We're going to get a little glimpse of it in Daniel, chapter 10, but we know that they're here to serve and to minister and to build up the people of God review number two in the demonic realm, Satan is the chief demon leading an army of demons who hate God and hate his people. Now why on earth would Satan want to destroy? God's people. We surmise a few reasons. Here's a couple we saw last week that God had taken Satan's unbelievable, magnificent beauty and made him ugly so that his external appearance reflected his internal character and ugliness. We also saw that God has doomed Satan to hell. And we don't know if Satan understood that that would be the consequence of rebellion. We know that hell was created for the devil and his angels.
Speaker 0 00:04:49 And so maybe he was thinking, oh, I know I have a great idea. I'll rebel, take a third of the demons with me and had no idea for the cost that was actually going to happen. We don't, we don't really know. Well, here's another reason that I think Satan might hate us is because on the cross, Jesus publicly shamed him, humiliated him and made a mockery of him and took away all of his power, something radical shifted, and the death resurrection of Jesus. So that an entire group of people filled with the spirit now have authority over the demonic realm, very weird change of events. And he has been humiliated. Here's the third piece of review. God has given Satan and demons fully over to their sin. I doubt you will ever meet a human being who God gives fully completely 100% over to sin because as a, as a person made in God's image, you're still going to have some level of conscience or awareness of good and evil, maybe, uh, a pricking, your conscience that says maybe if I'm even going to do this evil thing, right.
Speaker 0 00:05:48 That it's probably still not right. But what we find is that with Satan and the demons that God has given them completely over to evil so that there is not one good motive or intention in him or in them in any way now, do they understand that this would be the cost of their sin? We don't know, but that is, that seems to be what is happened. So if you meet a demon, they are always, and forever will be the worst version of themselves that they could ever be. Although they're very, very intelligent. So number four, we saw this, that our spiritual war was launched in the garden when Satan used his brilliance, his beauty, his position to serve Eve to destroy her. And again, I am guessing he had no clue of the aftermath for him and humanity, although he knew he would be bad.
Speaker 0 00:06:38 All right, we're all caught up on the same page, Daniel chapter 10. So this morning we're going to focus on verses 12 to 21, but in order to get us kind of prepped for this, because it's a very strange text of scripture. First, I need to give you the political context. Then I need to give you the scriptural context. Then we're going to read the verses up to it. Then we're going to jump in. You ready? All right. Political context. The year of Daniel, 10 is 5 36 BC. Daniel is morning. He is fasting. He is praying. This has been going on for three weeks. And the reason he's doing this is because there are a group of Israelites in Israel, Jerusalem trying to rebuild the city and the temple. And he is burdened because the building reconstruction project is getting opposition at every single corner.
Speaker 0 00:07:35 Now rewind maybe 70 years or so. And here's what happened. Imagine you're Daniel, you're a young boy. You grew up in Jerusalem and in Israel and Babylon comes in this evil empire and it obliterates and destroys your entire nation and your capital city. But Babylon had a head of foreign policy initiative. And here's how it went. We're going to kill a whole bunch of people, but we're going to take the brightest the best and the smartest. We're going to ship them 900 miles east. We're going to give them new names. We're going to give them a new language and we're going to erase everything about their old culture. And we're going to force them to comply culturally well, that's, that's an issue. Well, here's what happened. Actually, as the decades went on Babylon, the great foul and a new empire came in its place. And his name was Persia.
Speaker 0 00:08:22 And in the writing of Daniel chapter 10, we have Cyrus king of Persia and the Persians had a different foreign policy approach. What they would do is they would actually take a people group like the Jews. And they would say, go back to your home, rebuild your nation. In fact, we'll even resource you. And here here's the deal. You have to serve us when the time comes. But by and large, you go do your own thing. And every once in a while, we'll tax you. But I want you to go home. Now, who would you rather be led by Babylon or Persia? Persia for sure. A hundred percent. And so here's what we is that we're in Daniel chapter 10. Let's get to the scriptural context now. And he's, he is morning YZ morning. He's morning because it's the week after Passover he's morning, because let me give you like an analogy.
Speaker 0 00:09:08 I think that could help you understand this. I want you to imagine you're 15 years old and China grows to be a superpower. So strong that it obliterates the U S nukes half the country destroys. All of our politics kills. All of our government officials tastes the brightest and the best ships them over to China makes them learn. Chinese gives them all new languages. And now we are here. You're living in a different land. How are you feeling as a 15 year old boy crushed? And every decade that goes by you remember what freedom was like? You remember what it was like to live amongst God's people. You remember the joy. You remember Passover. You remember the sacrifices and celebration. Well, all of a sudden now a new emperor comes in. Russia grows in power and Russia, obliterates China and takes over and says, now, listen, everybody, I want you to go back home and I want you to rebuild America.
Speaker 0 00:10:01 Now, I want you to, I want you to imagine you're 80 years old and there are a bunch of 20, 30, and 40 something year old families going back to the Homeland to rebuild the white house, to rebuild our national monuments, to rebuild our culture. What does your heart feel? Don't you want to be there? The nation you grew up with don't you want to go back and be a part of like the redemption of what was so violently taken away from you. Now, can you understand Daniel is he's waiting. It's two years into this rebuilding process. So much of this is supposed to been done, but opposition is coming from every corner and Daniel knows the opposition is spiritual in nature. And so Daniel sets his face to pray and he prays and he fast and he mourns and we get ourselves to Daniel chapter 10, verse one.
Speaker 0 00:10:45 And here's what we read in the third year of king Cyrus, king of Persia word was revealed to Daniel who was named Belteshazzar and that's his new Babylonian name. And the word was true. And it was a great conflict. And he understood the word and had understanding of the vision. Now in verse two, Daniel is going to start speaking in those days. I, Daniel was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delegacies no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all for the full three weeks on the 24th day of the first month as I was standing in the bank of the great river, that is the Tigris. I lifted up my eyes and looked and behold, a man clothed in linen with a belt of fine gold from <inaudible> around his waist. His body was like Beryl. We're starting to get the idea that this is probably not just a man.
Speaker 0 00:11:46 This is something spiritual. His face, like the appearance of lightening, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs, like the gleam of burnished bronze. And the sound of his words was like the sound of a multitude. And I, Daniel alone saw the vision for the men who were with me, did not see the vision, but a great trembling fell upon them and they fled to hide themselves. So I was left alone and saw the great vision and no strength was left in me. My radiant appearance was fearfully changed, pretty humble, huh? And I retained no strength. Then I heard the sound of his words. And as I heard the sound of his words, I fell on my face in deep sleep with my face to the ground. In other words, the moment he heard his voice, he falls flat on his face and passes out and behold a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees.
Speaker 0 00:12:54 And he said to me, oh, Daniel man, greatly loved understand the words that I speak to you and stand upright for now. I have been sent to you. And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. All right. Now do our text, Daniel 10, 12 to 21. What I want to do is this is going to be probably more like a training session on the dynamics of the spiritual realm and spiritual war. And I want to share with you four facts that I think actually three of the four, most Christians don't really fully understand. And so what I want to do is I want to share these four facts about the spiritual realm with you to help you strategically engage. I want to show you the nature of how this thing works and God willing encourage you in the process. You ready fact, number one, prayer.
Speaker 0 00:13:49 INAX spiritual realities like no other physical act. The entire text. The whole reason Daniel 10 exists is because of Daniel's prayer life. Watch what happens in verse 12. Then he said to me, this is the angel to Daniel fear, not Daniel for, from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard. And I have come because of your words. How long has Daniel been praying by the way, 21 days. And when did God send this messenger to Daniel from the first day he started praying and you should be asking at this point, okay, messenger angel, what took you so long? We're going to get there, but I want you to catch this, that in this moment, Daniel opens up his mouth and humble prayer to the Lord and the Lord immediately releases a response to him.
Speaker 0 00:14:49 Now, if this were a day of the prayer and the, you were to sit down with Daniel after you've been fasting and mourning and crying and grieving and praying and say, Daniel, did the Lord hear your prayer? And he's going to do anything about it. Daniel probably would have said something like I know he heard my prayer. I don't know what he's doing. In fact, sometimes I just wonder is the guy even listening? Like I know he's listening, don't get me wrong, but it seems like I pray. And I pray and I pray. And nothing happens. Now is this for day 22, the day after you had this vision and you were to say to Daniel, Hey Daniel, this is the Lord. Here are your prayer. Daniel go. I will never doubt the Lord's heart. When he hears me pray to him. I now know for the rest of my life, that there is no useless word thrown up to our God.
Speaker 0 00:15:37 I know that the Lord loves to hear my prayer. In fact, the Lord has told me I am greatly loved. And in fact, on the first day that I prayed, he sent and dispatch an angel just to minister to me personally, like I know, I know that my prayer life is effective. No singular tool compares to the power of prayer in this spiritual war. We've talked about this, that what you do in the physical realm impacts the spiritual realm. What happens in the spiritual realm impacts the physical realm, but there is no singular act more powerful than praying. That is a physical act that creates spiritual dynamics and spiritual realities. And it is no accident that the most powerful tool amongst modern American Christians is the most neglected tool. Could it be that we are all victims of a massive global disinformation campaign on the power of prayer.
Speaker 0 00:16:30 Now later on in this series, we're going to spend a lot more time on this one. So I'm going to skip the point number two, but we have a lot to say on prayer and warfare more coming up on that fact. Number two, the demonic is strategically organized around nations. Why I would presume because it has proven the most effective way to control and destroy humanity. Look at verse 13, the prince of the kingdom of Persia. This is an angel talking by the way we stood me 21 days. So I'm guessing the prince of the kingdom of Persia is not a physical human. Then it says, but Michael, one of the chief princes, he came to help me for, I was the left there with the Kings of Persian plural. And I came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days for the vision is for days yet to come verse 20 says this.
Speaker 0 00:17:33 Then he said to me, do you know why I've come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia. When I go out behold, the prince of Greece will come, okay. I have a lot of questions, six to be specific. Here's the first three who is the prince of Persia. We don't know for sure. I don't think the prince, the purchase Satan, but here's what we do know. It is an incredibly powerful demon high on the organizational chart. We know that lesser demons are submitting to this demon. I, second question is who's the prince of Greece? Well, this is another demon. So whatever demon is competing, probably on the same hierarchical level as the prince of Persia is the prince of Greece. Now let me help you understand this. If you aren't a basketball team with a bunch of narcissistic ball hogs, is there going to be competition on the team?
Speaker 0 00:18:33 Absolutely. And so what we find is that the org chart of the demonic realm, very, very cleanly reflects the nature and the character of their leader, Satan himself. So even though they have some like joint opposition against the people of God and they hate God internally in the process, there is, seems to be quite a bit of demonic competition as navigation as empires go. And so here's what you find is that the prince of Persia is kind of arguing with the prince of Greece and then inevitably Persia wanes in its authority, Greece overtakes the world beyond those historically, but there seems to be demonic influence behind all, all of this. Okay, well, who's Michael. I mean, he's got a great name, but who is this guy?
Speaker 0 00:19:17 He's one of the archangels. It seems on the angelic realm. There is no higher angel in terms of org chart authority. In fact, the only greater authority than Michael or one of the archangels would be Jesus himself. And so we find that he is one of the archangels and we'll see later in this chapter, many people think that he is the angel that has been assigned to the nation of Israel as their angel to guide the nation and demonic and spiritual warfare behind the scenes. I've got three more questions who are the Kings of Persia. So we know we have a prince of Persia, but who are these other lesser ones that seem to be trapping this messenger angel up. They seem to be a part of the organizational chart of the demonic hierarchy. And so you have an authority demon who is running the entire, we'll say empire from the demonic realm, but then he's got a whole bunch of submissive demons under him.
Speaker 0 00:20:07 And I imagine that there's also the prince of Greece and he's saying, God, don't go with that guy. Come with me. We're going to take him over, just watch. Here's another one. How exactly did Michael set this angel free? So you have a messenger angel. Let's just process Daniel praise, Yahweh here's day one messenger angel sent to Daniel messenger. Angel gets caught up by the prince of Persia and the other princes of Persia, Michael, the Archangel is then released and sent to free this messenger angel up so that he can give the message to Daniel. How do you do that? Like, do they fight and like angels bleed, right? Is that a thing? And so we're going to, we're going to explore more of this towards the end of the message, but you're gonna, you're gonna find pretty quickly. They don't fight with sores. They fight with authority.
Speaker 0 00:20:55 So the way that Jesus has established the spiritual realm is that authority is king. Whether you are an angel or a demon, you cannot go beyond your authority. And the person with the highest authority ends up submitting inevitably to the higher authority. And so this is what you find in the demonic realm. It's very strange. It's different than the way we do it, but this is why Michael has to show up because Michael has the highest authority and it required an angel, the highest authority to be able to release this messenger angel from the prince of Persia and their little minions. Most important question, how fast can angels fly?
Speaker 0 00:21:32 I have no idea. I want to pull back and I want you to see this big principle. The two most effective organizations in history are the demonic and the angelic organizations. And you have to think about them like an org chart. And Satan is at the top of the demonic word or chart. And Jesus is the top of the angelic org chart. He is the commander in chief and he has all authority. And it's interesting because there's this battle between the book of Jude. It's one chapter long, total trip of a book, go read it. It's in the new Testament. And there's this point in the book of Jude where Satan and Michael are arguing. It says contending. It's like a verbal argument, the contending of the body of Moses. Now, what, what do they want to do with the body? Maybe Satan wants to like drag it across.
Speaker 0 00:22:21 And maybe they want to make some kind of weird religion out of it. Who knows what Satan and the evil one, the evil demons want to do with the body of Moses, but they're fighting. Well, it seems that they're equal in terms of archangels in terms of authority. So who does Michael call on to defeat Satan in this moment, he calls on Jesus and he says the Lord review queue. And it seems that he had no inherent ability in and of himself to defeat Satan, which is why he needed to call upon a higher authority. By the way, greater is he is in you than he used in the world. Do you see this? So the spirit of Jesus Christ dwells in you, which even Michael had to call on Jesus and you didn't have this inherent power over demonic realm. You have the spirit of Christ in you, which gives you complete power, which means you're not subject to them, which means you don't need to fear them.
Speaker 0 00:23:13 And that is something that they do not want you to hear. They want you afraid weak trembling. You are greater because of the spirit of Jesus. And because it's an authority game, you have ultimate authority because the spirit of Jesus is in you. Now it's interesting. The demonic realm, again, it reflects the character of its leader. It's competitive, but so does the angelic realm. And the angelic realm is submissively ordered after the character of their leader, Jesus and each of the angels know their, they were created to worship God and to serve the saints. And they stick within this rubric because that is good. And that is right now. In fact, number three, to help you fight only with God's permission. The angelic realm is able to impact us physically. Remember they are created to serve humanity. And this will dabble later in the series on issues of oppression and possession and ways that the angelic and spiritual realm are able to impact us physically.
Speaker 0 00:24:24 But I want you to see this. Here's a glimpse of how this works. Verse 15. When he had spoken to me, according to these words, I turned my face toward the ground and was mute. It's kind of funny and behold one in the likeness of the children of man touched my lips. Then I opened my mouth and I spoke. I said to him, who stood before me? Oh my Lord. By reason of the vision pains have come upon me and I retained no strength, meaning I've seen this angel and I am, I'm done for now. No strength remains in me and no breath has left in me. And again, one having the appearance of a man touched me and strengthened me can consider job for a moment. You remember, Satan goes to God and says, let me harm him. And he'll disown you. And God basically says, inevitably, you can do whatever you want to as body.
Speaker 0 00:25:20 You just can't take his life. And immediately we see the ability of the spiritual realm to create physical realities, even sometimes bodily and people will explore also whether in a sermon Q and a, or a sermon, this idea that Paul was given a thorn in his side, a messenger of Satan, like what do these things actually mean? What's interesting. When you watch the angelic realm, they are using their power to strengthen and to encourage and to lift up, look at verse 19. And he said to me, oh man, greatly loved. This is the second time he's called him. Greatly loved fear, not peace. Be with you, be strong and of good courage. And as he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, let my Lord speak for you. Has strengthened me. Don't you just wish everybody was like this angel don't you wish that you saw someone. And they were like, can I just encourage you? Don't be afraid. You are loved by God. Like don't we all need more people who act like this angel. Amen. Let's all be more like this guy, but he had the ability somehow, and I don't get it. I don't understand scientifically spiritually how it works with his words and with his touch to strengthen the body and the soul of Daniel.
Speaker 0 00:26:43 In fact, number four, angels fight not with swords, but with authority and lies first 20, then he said, do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia. And when I go out behold, the prince of Greece will come, but I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth? There is none who contends by my side against these demons, except Michael, your prince. Let's talk about authority. Why, why is Michael? The only angel fighting the prince of Persia with this messenger angel, because they do not fight with swords. They fight with authority. You can send a million lower authority angels to fight the prince of Persia. And it will do no good that this is a battle won on the basis of authority. And so who do you send? You send the most authorized angel to deal with this once and for all. And because Michael, just like Satan can only be in one place at one time. There's only one battle that can be fought again. I don't know how it all works out, but inevitably Persia was defeated. And then a new demon, the prince of Greece came over and he overtook with world power. The spiritual stage.
Speaker 0 00:28:15 Why is prayer so effective? Whose authority do you call on in prayer? Our commander in chief, the reason prayer is effective is because of who you're calling on. And when the spirit of Christ is in you and you call on Jesus himself, you have inherent authority. There is no higher authority. And so in the, in the spiritual realm and this dynamic of things, we have access to the highest authority, which is why prayer is so, so powerful. Hear me. There is some kind of spiritual warfare and your life. Again, we'll talk about some ways to discern that these things might be happening in your life. There's too much to go through in one sermon. Otherwise we'll be here for like six hours today on this subject alone. But if you sense that that is happening in your life, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. And even if it takes 21 days or 21 years, do not for a moment, believe that your prayers are empty.
Speaker 0 00:29:21 When you pray in Jesus name and you're praying against the evil one and their influence on your children or your grandchildren or your family, or your friends, angels fight not with swords, but with authority and with lies. Let's talk about the lies. Why were these demons? So we invested in stopping Daniel from getting this information. So let's, let's play the scenario. Daniel's praying, Yahweh hears it. Messenger angel released the prince of Persia and his little minions. See it. They use their authority to trap messenger angel for 21 days. What were they so afraid of? Truth? That's it? Can I just tell you if anything that I said this morning is true about the demonic realm of the spiritual realm, the evil one hates it. I would love by the way, to just get a glimpse into a spiritual realm of what happens on Sunday mornings.
Speaker 0 00:30:22 I have no idea. I'm not even gonna presume, but I do imagine there's spiritual warfare. I imagine when the people of God sing, which is literally prayer in unison, two words and melody, right? When the people of God in unison sing these words that the Lord loves it. The evil one hates it. When the word is preached, when people are fellowshipping together. When you see somebody after the service and you are encouraging when you use your spiritual gift to really build into and benefit another person spiritually, when people point each other to Jesus, especially when they eat food together, I think that's just super spiritual. Amen.
Speaker 0 00:30:58 I would love to see what happens behind the scenes. In fact, I would guarantee you this, none of us would ever skip church again. If we had one glimpse into what happens behind the scenes on a Sunday morning, when God's people come together in weekly worship in unison, a prayer and unity of worship and unity of, of even just the gospel as the word of God is preached. I mean, I'm telling you, we would be blown away by the spiritual dynamics that are happening. We're so caught up in whether or not we felt something. God is up to something even way bigger informationally than what we feel, but why are they so invested truth? They do not want Daniel to know truth. They do not want Daniel to be encouraged to pray. You have one of the most intense prayer warriors on the planet, and they do not want him to keep praying because Daniel is making a difference in the spiritual realm.
Speaker 0 00:31:49 So they can withhold this information, which is the why here's why all of this stuff is happening. And here's the future. Keep praying. Daniel don't give up. I mean, imagine how would your prayer life be impacted if an angel literally showed up in front of you after you prayed and said, I heard your words and God did too. And he sent me to give you an answer to your prayer. Would you ever, ever stop praying for the rest of your life? You better believe that you wouldn't. So they've got every ounce of their energy invested in making sure that this angel does not get to Daniel to tell him the truth, the truth of what's really going on. And I wonder how much has been invested in us not knowing the truth so that we are not motivated to pray passionately and regularly. All right, I want to share with you three. So what's number one, never the trajectory of history moves only in one direction. And that is victory for God and victory for us, the rise and fall of nations is ugly because demons are competing with each other and it's always going to be ugly and there's going to be dead bodies until Jesus comes back. This is the nature of what they do in the fallout of evil people, competing with evil people or demons with demons.
Speaker 0 00:33:10 I'm not sure what's happening globally. Like there's a part of me that would love to sit down with some close friends and answer questions like switch country. Do you think Satan is controlling right now? I haven't I've opinion for 30 years. Right? Who knows? I'm not a prophet, but I really try to figure out like, okay, what's happening globally. I know this. A lot of people are dead a lot. There's just really bad things going on. And I don't know what it is or where it's at. I don't even know if people, if like you're the president of a country. Are you even aware of the demonic control that happens over that nation? I don't know how it works. I don't know how it all goes down. I think about like COVID itself. Okay. So I'm not going to pretend to know how it all happened and how it all started, whether it was demonically motivated in the beginning or whether or not whatever, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 0 00:34:02 I do know this, that the demonic realm is having a field day with COVID globally. Oh, how can we divide humanity? Ruin people's lives. How can we pit people against each other? Like, I know this, that there's an opportunity that arose and now we're watching and I don't know who and where and when and how, but I'm not dumb. I can see like the dynamics of spiritual warfare happening globally in ways that we've never seen. And so I look at that and I think this is a dark, this is darkness. And the people of God, we need to not be just relegated to this. Oh, I wish they would. Or how could they, or our political party, like we really actually do need to learn to bring the kingdom of God, to our current sphere of influence and pray like crazy believing that our prayers are actually heard by God.
Speaker 0 00:34:44 And the evil one does not want the people of God praying it does not want it. And so if I had one big like, oh, this would be my takeaway from this whole series, it would be that you would have confidence and that you would pray like never before. But this brings us to point number two, the demonic has been disarmed Colossians two 15, Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them. What would happen? And this is a, this is an illusion to what happened. When a nation would take over another nation, they would take the king and they would put them on the back of a horse or a chariot. And they would drag them to the capital city as a sign of shame and humiliation. And typically that king would often die on the, on the route.
Speaker 0 00:35:31 And here's what's happening. Something happened with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ or the demonic realm in a way that had never been before has been disarmed, shamed, and humiliated. And the people of God have been empowered. I want you to imagine this. It's like, if somebody came up to you and they pointed a gun at your face and said, give me all your money, you'd be tempted to give them all your money. Unless you knew it was a toy gun, or it was a real gun. And all it had was blanks in it. And that's what Satan's like, he's threatening you. He's pointing a gun at you, but he has no inherent power and he can't touch you. But meanwhile, in your pocket you have your own gun and it's loaded and it is powerful. Would you be afraid of that guy? No, you wouldn't. And so you are empowered and you have strength and they have been disarmed and shamed and humiliated. And I think we forget, we forget that we're not weak. We might feel weak. We might be exhausted greater is he who's in us than he who's in the world. It brings us to point number three. God's people are now in power.
Speaker 0 00:36:35 Let me just read a couple passages of scripture that I think are just honestly, so clarifying James four seven, submit yourselves, therefore to God resist the devil. And he will flee from you Ephesians six 11, put on the whole armor of God that you might stand, be able to stand against the devil. First, Peter five, nine, resist him firm in your faith. Matthew 16, 18, the gates of hell shall not prevail. Matthew 28 18. Jesus says about himself. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me cautions two 15. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them. The demonic round does not want you to know the inherent power you have because of the spirit of Christ in you. Interesting insight, nowhere in the old Testament is any believer ever told to like engage dark, demonic, forces, something powerful happened with the death and resurrection of Jesus, where the people of God have now been empowered in a way historically, they never were before.
Speaker 0 00:37:50 This is the promise of the new covenant. That when you come to Christ, you get the holy spirit. The very presence of Jesus dwelling inside of you greater is he who's in you than he is in the world. And with the death and resurrection of Jesus, every person who places their faith in Christ now has control power and authority over the demonic realm. Now, does this mean that you should go dabble in the demonic? No, that is forbidden. Again, more to come. We're going to deal with all that I want to. I want to come back as we close here to one, one passage of scripture, we've read Clausius two 15. Again, Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities. He put them to open shame by triumphing over them. In a moment we're gonna celebrate communion together. And I want to ask that you just savor one thing this morning because of the blood of Christ and the resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:38:45 You have nothing to fear. If you have trusted in Jesus greater is he who is in you than he used in the world. And there are so many reasons. Jesus went to the cross to pay for sins, to set us free, to transfer us from the domain of darkness, to the kingdom of his beloved son, to satisfy. God's just wrath at our sin. There's a million reasons. But today I just want to encourage you savor the fact that you, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, you have nothing to fear and you have been granted authority over the demonic realm, and we're going to do communion just a tiny bit different than usual. What we're going to do is we're going to have a time of silence. And then during this time of silence, would you go get communion elements? If you have not yet there to my right, your left of that beam over my left your right at that beam.
Speaker 0 00:39:36 And then also in the middle between the double doors and we're going to do is we're going to partake of communion before we sing our last song. So we'll have about a minute or so of silence where you can get up, grab those, and then come back to your seat. Some of you are here and you're visiting. It's your first time here. You don't know if you should take communion or not. I want to invite you. If you have trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, I wanna invite you. Would you partake with us? If you're hearing, you've never trusted in Jesus. I want to ask that you not partake because the partaking of communion is a personal declaration of your confidence and trust in Jesus as your savior and commander in chief. But if today you are personally ready to trust in Christ.
Speaker 0 00:40:17 Maybe as you start to watch the character of the demonic, you start to see evidences of it globally. And you do not want to be a part of the domain of darkness, but you want to be transferred out of that domain into the kingdom of Jesus, the kingdom of light and truth. And he, maybe you heard the angel and the way the angel speaks to Daniel and let you're like, that's God's heart for me. I want that. I don't want this darkness. I don't want oppression. I don't, I don't want this whole dark world. I actually want truth and light and life. And if today you're ready to trust in Christ. I want to invite you when we partake of communion, partake with us, and then you're partaking. You're making a declaration that you believe Jesus Christ died for. Your sins was raised from the dead.
Speaker 0 00:41:04 You believe that he's coming back. You're not believing that you're going to get to heaven or forgiven because you accrued a bunch of good works. You were believing that Jesus, what he did was for your place on the cross. And if that's a decision you want to make, I want to invite you partake of communion. And then we're done with the service. Anybody you see up front or anybody, there's some opportunities for somebody to pray with you or to my right and your left. Please let one of us know. We'd love to encourage you resource you and help you take your next step and your relationship with God. All right. So let's have about a minute or so of just silence and feel free to go get communion elements in this time.
