Spiritual Warfare Series

WINNING THE SPIRITUAL WAR

Supernatural, Part 1

This is the first week of our series “Supernatural”.

Some of you are saying,

“Are we going to become weird, now?”

Okay, ushers, if you would bring forward the poisonous snakes up front…. joking…

I promise you, I hate snakes.

The only way you’ll ever see a snake here,

is if you bring him or her with you.

Today is the start of our 5 week Journey,

which means that we’re joining together with other churches

to explore this topic of the supernatural,

and look at how it affects our natural world

that we live in,

We’re not looking at this just for knowledge sake,

we want to be able to apply things,

that will help our lives,

and build God’s kingdom in this world.

Now, to start with,

All of us believe in the supernatural,

because we all believe there’s a God,

who we can’t see.

If you were a complete atheist,

you probably wouldn’t be sitting here.

So we all believe in the supernatural,

But when we talk about supernatural things,

there’s often two very common mistakes

that people make.

Author C.S. Lewis said this…

"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about demons. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them."

Some people have an over emphasis on supernatural things

they’re so focused the demonic world,

that any time something bad happens,

they’d say, “It must be Satan?”

But it’s a lot more common in our culture,

to have an under emphasis,

A lot of people would say,

“I don’t really know if there is a spirit world,

and if there is,

I don’t really think about it,

and I’m not aware of it.”

What we want do in the next few weeks

is try to get a Biblical perspective.

And what we are going to do today is,

kind of a broad view of the spirit world,

setting the stage for the following weeks.

Next week, we’ll deal with the reality

of the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The third week, we’ll look at the subject of demons,

Are they real,

are they still active today,

and if so, what do they do,

and how can we stop or overcome

anything they’re trying to do in our lives?

And the fourth week,

we are going to look at angels.

What do they do?

How do they affect our daily lives.

And the fifth week,

we’ll look at healing from God,

how that works,

how do you pray for someone who needs healing.

2 Corinthians 10:3-4

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.

Though we live in a physical world,

there is another world.

There is a spirit world,

where there’s a war raging.

There’s a war going on,

the Kingdom of Light versus the kingdom of darkness.

And when we engage in the spiritual battle,

we don’t fight with the weapons of this world.

We don’t fight with nuclear bombs,

or machine guns,

or army tanks,

or a 22 rifle,

or numbchucks,

or a slingshot.

Instead, we engage in this battle with prayer

and by faith, and using God’s word.

Maybe you’d say, I’m not even sure if I believe in Satan,

I’m not even sure if I believe in a literal devil,

who goes around trying to wreck people’s lives.

so maybe if I just ignore

this whole area of spiritual warfare,

and if I just ignore the devil,

maybe he’ll just leave me alone,

I’m sorry to say that

none of us have a choice about that.

In fact there’s 2 problems with trying to ignore

this area of spiritual warfare,

and pretending like there are no evil forces.

First, it means you have to ignore large chunks of the Bible,

And if you ignore large chunks of the Bible,

that’s gonna prevent God from using you

in ways that he otherwise could.

It’ll make you less effective in building his kingdom.

2nd, you’ve got an enemy who is fighting you,

and if you ignore him

you’re just making his job easy.

The devil doesn’t go away

just because we don’t believe in him,

he won’t leave us alone

just because we leave him alone.

In spiritual warfare, ignorance is not bliss.

Ignorance can lead to

bondage

and defeat,

and pain in our lives.

In the summer of 1976

there was a series of shootings

that terrified New York City

and gained international press coverage.

The shooter was initially called “The .44 Caliber Killer”

after his weapon of choice.

Beginning on July 29, 1976