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
two young women,
one named Donna, the other named Jody,
were both shot as they sat inside a parked car
on a street outside of Donna’s apartment in the Bronx.
Donna was killed; Jody survived.
In October there was another shooting.
This time it occurred in Queens.
Again, the victims were in a parked car.
A month later in November,
two other teenagers were shot
as they walked home from a movie.
And then in the new year, in January,
an engaged couple was shot
as they sat together in their parked car.
And in March a college student was shot by a passerby
as he walked in Queens.
NYC was terrorized by this string of shootings,
especially after the police announced
that the same .44 caliber pistol
had been used in all the shootings.
Then this killer started writing letters to the police
saying that he was ordered to kill these various people
by a person named “Sam,”
and he called himself “The Son of Sam.”
Question:
How do you explain serial killings
like the Son of Sam,
or mass murders like what happened at Virginia Tech,
or other schools?
Or the lady last week in Florida
that killed her own two teenage kids,
because they were “mouthy.”
How do you explain that?
Do you say,
“Well these people are just psychologically deranged?”
Obviously, they are,
but is that all of it?
Well, they were mistreated by parents,
or by others?
Yeah, often, that’s the case.
But a lot of kids are mistreated,
or have psychological problems,
and don’t go kill a bunch of people.
Let me share with you
Son of Sam’s story,
in his own words,
of why he committed these killings.
Ever since I was a small child my life seemed to be filled with torment. I would often have seizures in which I would roll on the floor. Sometimes furniture would get knocked over. When these attacks came, it felt like something was entering me. I was like a wild and destructive animal. My father had to pin me to the floor until these attacks stopped.
As a young man, it seemed like an evil force would come upon me in the middle of the night. When this would happen, I felt an urge to sneak out of the house and wander the dark streets. I roamed the neighborhood like an alley cat and would creep back into the house by climbing the fire escapes.
I constantly had thoughts of suicide. Sometimes I spent time sitting on a window ledge with my legs dangling over the side. We lived on the sixth floor of an old apartment building. When my dad saw me doing this, he would yell at me to get back inside.
At age 22, after I completed a three-year enlistment in the Army, I met some guys at a party who were heavily involved in the occult. I had always been fascinated by witchcraft, Satanism, and occult things since I was a child. When I was growing up I watched countless horror and satanic movies, one of which was Rosemary's Baby. That movie, in particular, totally captivated my mind.
Now I was 22 and this evil force was still reaching out to me. Everywhere I went it seemed like there was a sign or symbol pointing to Satan. “I felt as if something were trying to take control of my life. I began to read the Satanic Bible and began to practice various occult rituals and incantations.
I am utterly convinced that something Satanic had entered into my mind. I realize that I had been slowly deceived and I was gradually giving more and more of my life over to Satan. Eventually, I crossed the invisible line of no return… I became the criminal that it seemed my destiny was to become.
Berkowitz also said that Sam,
the one that spoke to him and told him to kill people,
was not a person, He was an ancient spirit.
David Berkowitz was sentenced to 365 years in prison.
He almost certainly will never be released.
So what do you think?
Was David Berkowitz just another schizo
that heard voices in his head?
On a more global scale,
when you hear news of genocide around the world
like the slaughter of the Tutsi people in Rwanda,
where hundreds of thousands of Tutsi
men, women and children
were macheted to death, by Hutu militia.
How do you explain that?
Do you say,
Oh, they were all mistreated as kids,
they all had psychological problems.
I believe that one of the major causes
of spiritual ineffectiveness
of Christians in America
is that for the most part
are completely out of touch,
we are blind to spiritual reality
and the spiritual world.
That’s not true of Christians
in other parts of our world,
but its definitely true in America.
If our eyes were opened,
and we could suddenly see into the spiritual realm,
what would we see?
We would see a universe at war.
Gene Peterson, who wrote the great paraphrase of the Bible
called The Message,
writes this:
“There is a spiritual war in progress, an all-out moral battle. There is evil and cruelty, unhappiness and illness. There is superstition and ignorance, brutality and pain. God is in continuous and energetic battle against all of it. God is for life and against death. God is for love and against hate. God is for hope and against despair. God is for heaven and against hell. There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square foot of space is contested.”
I believe that the largest cause
of Christian spiritual ineffectiveness,
is that we simply don’t see
that we live in the middle of a war zone.
We are peace-time Christians
we don’t want to be in the army,
we’re too comfortable for that,
but then we’re constantly surprised
when we face opposition,
people around us are wounded,
and hurting and injured,
and we aren’t growing spiritually,
our faith isn’t good for much,
But we think,
oh, that couldn’t be due to a spiritual battle,
because I can’t see it with my eyes.
The truth is,
There’s a very real spiritual battle going on,
all around us.
[video] Lifechurch.tv
What you see in the physical world
is not all that there is.
Lets look at the question,
WHAT DOES SATAN DO?
Well, he does a lot of things,
but today we are going to look at five specific things
that scripture tells us our enemy, the devil, does.
The first one,.
Satan, works to blind the minds of unbelievers.
He loves to blind the minds of unbelievers.
For example, right now some of you might say,
“I’m not a follower of Christ.
I’m not one of His disciples.”
Some of you might say,
“I’m not even sure I believe in God,”
And if that’s the case,
then right now as you hear God’s words,
it’s going to be hard to pay attention.
Your mind is going to be wandering.
You’re going to be thinking,
“You know, hey, I’ve got to take the trash out later on.
We’re out of butter, so I better stop by the store”
and your mind’s going to wander.
And what, what’s happening is,
Satan is trying to blind your minds.
That’s what Jesus told us.
Satan will try to stop you from hearing the truth,
because if you hear and experience the truth,
the truth will set you free.
The truth will change you.
2 Corinthians 4:4 says it this way.
The god of this age
now, notice the word god has a little “g”,
that’s Satan.
“The god of this age has,”
What?
“blinded the minds of unbelievers.”
Why?
so that they cannot see the light of the gospel.
He tries to blind your minds,
so you don’t hear the truth.
The second thing that he loves to do is,
He tries to steal God’s word from you.
He tries to rob you of God’s word.
For example,
How many times has it happened to you,
where you heard something about God,
maybe on a Sunday morning,
or at a small group,
or on the radio,
or maybe you read it in the Bible,
But something from God’s word really hit you,
and it did something inside of you.
and you said,
yeah, that is really true,
that’s really important,
I need to do that,
I need to apply that in my life,
that is really good stuff,
that’s powerful.
Then, you got up the next day,
and all of those spiritual thoughts, they’re gone.
disappeared.
And life goes on just like it is, no change,
and you’re wondering,
“What was that yesterday?
I can’t even remember what it was.
I thought maybe I would go that direction,”
and boom! It’s gone.
Where did it go?
Why did it vanish?
Jesus tells us why it vanished.
He says that Satan tries to
steal God’s word from us.
Matthew 13:19, Jesus says:
When people hear the message about the kingdom and do not understand it,
who shows up?
the evil one comes
and what does he do?
and snatches away what was sown in their hearts.
He blinds the minds of unbelievers.
and He steals away the word of God.
A third thing that he loves to do is,
He attempts to set traps to ensnare you.
He wants to trap you into a lifestyle
of destructive sin.
Have you ever set any animal traps?
A few months ago I started feeding the birds behind our house,
and now every morning there’s 20-30 birds on my back deck,
having breakfast at my 4 different bird feeders.
Unfortunately, I’ve also have 5 or 6 squirrels that like my birdfeeders.
Now, I like squirrels,
I wouldn’t mind the squirrels eating the seed that drops to the ground,
because birds are really messy eaters,
they drop about half the seeds they get out of the feeder,
so there’s plenty on the ground for the squirrels.
And I’ve even put extra seed on the ground for the squirrels,
But the squirrels are not content with that.
They’ll walk right by the seed on the ground,
climb up the pole, onto my feeders,
knock them down off the poles,
pry the tops off,
and then pour the seed all over the ground.
These squirrels obviously have little demons in them,
its spiritual warfare. No, I’m kidding.
Then one time,
one of the squirrels managed to get inside my screen porch,
where I used to keep the bags of birdseed.
I don’t keep it there anymore because of those demon squirrels.
But I saw that little squirrel in my screen porch,
so I went out on the porch,
and stood there looking at him.
And of course the moment he sees me,
coming out the door,
he wants to take off,
but there’s a problem, the screens, in the way,
and he can’t remember how he got in,
So he is frantically looking for a way out,
running all over the screened windows.
but he can’t find his way out.
He is trapped,
he can’t escape.
And I was just enjoying the moment.
See what you get for knocking over my birdfeeders,
you little demon squirrel.
you deserve to be trapped.
Well, after a couple minutes of torment,
I decided to have mercy,
and let him out of his trap.
I opened the door to the outside,,
and herded him out of the porch to safety.
And then, I solved the squirrel problem:
I bought some grease,
and I greased the poles that the birdfeeders are on.
Its really funny to watch squirrels jump up on a pole, trying to climb…
but they can’t,
so now the squirrels and I are friends again.
The point of this story is,
There is an enemy who’s setting traps,
and you’re the squirrel,
and when you get caught in his trap,
he doesn’t have mercy like I did.
What do those traps look like?
Well, Satan is the master of deceit,
so he’d not gonna let you see his trap.
But have you ever noticed that,
If you have some area of weakness,
in your life,
that something always seems to find you
at your weak moments,
to tempt you,
to fall in that area of weakness.
For example,
If you decide you’re going to
try to purify your mind,
and think only God-honoring thoughts,
well, guaranteed, next thing you know
there’s gonna be some image on tv,
or on a billboard,
that creates a lustful thought.
If you decide to spend time in the morning with God,
then your alarm clock is going to fail,
or the toast burns,
and suddenly you’re out of time,
you have to leave for work.
If you’re trying to get out of debt,
guaranteed next day,
they’ve got a sale on clothing at your favorite store,
or your car breaks down.
Wherever it is,
that you’re trying to grow spiritually,
that is exactly where you’ll have
extra temptations,
and problems,
and frustrations.
Those are the enemies traps,
and he is really creative at setting traps for you.
wherever and whenever you’re weak,
that’s where he attacks.
When I was in my early twenties, in the Navy,
I was trying to follow Christ the best I could,
but I kept blowing it, and sinning,
and I’d look around and I’d think,
whoh, all those Christians around me
look like they’re doing good,
they’re not sinners like me,
what’s wrong with me,
why do I keep blowing it time after time.
Then I had a conversation
with this really wise older man,
He was a Christian psychologist
so he knew a lot about people,
and he said,
don’t be fooled by the externals,
by what people look like on the outside,
because every single person has,
what he called,
a besetting sin.
This is the one area
that seems to trip you up
time after time after time,
and you pray and ask forgiveness,
and try to stop sinning,
but you keep blowing it.
That’s what he called
a besetting sin.
He said, every Christians got at least one of them.
And there’s a reason for that.
Its because Satan looks for your weakest area,
the weak link in your armor,
the place where you have the hardest time,
and then he just attacks that same place
time after time.
Some of the common besetting sins,
are pride, fear,
pornography and lust,
coveting,
and most of these are areas
that we can hide from other people pretty well,
which is why they’re so persistent.
Here’s how it’s explained very clearly in scripture.
2 Timothy 2:26,
They will come to their senses and escape from,”
What?
“They will escape from the, the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive, to do the devil’s will.
Satan works to
blind the minds of unbelievers,
steal God’s word from you,
and set traps to ensnare you into a lifestyle of destructive sin.
He fights to stop the work of God in your life.
For example, if you get a vision from God
to do something for him,
just watch how Satan will try to block you.
Some of you were here the last four Sunday evenings,
for the Love and Respect teaching on marriage,
which is great stuff,
so you decide,
we can do this,
“We’re going to have a great marriage,
We’re going to be an example
for our kids and grandkids,
and we’re going to turn this thing around.
you go home and say,
“Honey, let’s have a great marriage,”
And all of a sudden,
all Hell breaks loose
and you have the fight of the decade.
What’s going on?
That’s Satan trying to block God’s work in your life.
Or you decide,
I want to share my faith with this person,”
and so you pray for them,
and pray for an opportunity,
and you wait and you wait,
and all of a sudden, the moment’s right.
And they ask you a question,
related to spiritual things,
and you’re about to tell them about your faith,
and their cell phone rings.
What on earth is happening?
Well, you’ve got spiritual opposition,
Satan’s trying to stop you
from doing
what God has called you to do.
Paul gives us an example in
1 Thessalonians 2:18,
Paul says,
“For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but,”
What does he say happened?
But What???
“But Satan stopped us.”
Satan tries to block the work of God.
That’s just what Satan does.
He blinds the minds.
He steals God’s truth.
He sets up traps.
He tries to block God’s work,
and finally, the Bible says,
Satan looks for opportunities to destroy you.
He wants to take you out.
I Peter 5:8,
“Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to….”
do what?
He’s looking for someone to,
“devour,”
someone to destroy.
Now notice,
Satan is compared to a lion,
which is from the cat family.
Satan, cats …
You see how this all fits together.
(actually, I like cats, but… last time I did a cat joke someone gave me this) A little Potato Sack with a cats tail sticking out… squeeze it…)
Seriously, the evil one is prowling around.
looking for people to devour.
That means he wants to devour your marriage.
He loves divorce.
He wants to devour your witness, your example.
He wants to take you out with sin
so he can disqualify you
from sharing your faith in Jesus.
He wants to devour your kids.
He would just love to get them hooked
on drugs and pornography
and destructive sin.
He wants to devour your finances.
He loves debt
and financial bondage and materialism,
He wants your finances stretched,
so you always fight
and worry about money.
He wants to destroy your health.
He loves sickness and disease and pain.
Most of all,
He wants to destroy your relationship with God.
Satan knows that its war,
there is war going on
between the Kingdom of Light
versus the kingdom of darkness.
What you see with the natural eyes
is not all there is.
There is a spiritual battle.
raging in the spirit world,
So how do you fight?
How do you engage in the battle?
Well, there’s 2 keys to this battle:
Remember we now live in Christ’s kingdom; holy, without blemish, free from accusation.
Col 1:13, 22
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves… to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.
Notice we have been rescued from the dominion of darkness,
We’re rescued from any power
the devil ever had over us.
and we now live in the kingdom of the son.
That means Satan has no hold on you,
The only hold Satan has on you
is what you give him.
If you don’t give him anything,
he’s already lost.
He can’t even get away with accusing you.
Satan is called the great accuser,
that’s one of his best strategies,
But because of what Christ did,
all we have to do is remember,
we are now holy in his sight,
without blemish,
and free from accusation.
So that means,
Satan’s got nothing on us,
unless, we give it to him,
unless, we give him a foothold.
The 2nd key, is
Remember we are strongest when we are weakest.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 Paul tells us:
(God) said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Therefore [Paul says]
I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me… For when I am weak, then I am strong.
When I depend completely on God
because I realize my weakness,
that’s when I’m strong,
that’s when I am most secure.
I want to close with this.
I began with the story of David Berkowitz,
a man who was invaded by the demonic,
and who became one of the most
frightening serial killers in American history.
Let me tell you the rest of the story.
In 1987 another inmate named Rick
came up to David in the prison yard
and told him about Jesus Christ.
This other inmate said that
Jesus Christ loved even David
and wanted to forgive him.
David said that
at first he mocked Rick,
because he didn't think that
God would ever want to forgive him,
or in fact, ever want anything to do with him
other than to judge him
and send him straight to hell.
But Rick persisted and persisted.
They became friends.
they’d walk in the yard together
and Rick would share about his own life
and what Jesus had done for him.
Rick kept reminding David
that no matter what a person ever did,
Christ was there ready to forgive him,
if the person was willing to repent
and turn around,
and put their faith in Christ
and what he did for them on the Cross
by dying for their sins.
Rick gave David a Bible
and encouraged him to read the Psalms.
One night David was reading the Psalms
and he came upon
Psalm 34:6, which says:
This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him from all his troubles.
There in his prison cell
David Berkowitz knelt down
and poured out his heart to God.
He poured out the guilt from what he had done,
the disgust at what he’d become,
the filth and brokenness
that he had allowed into his life.
There in his prison cell
he knelt down and cried out to Jesus Christ.
He told Christ
he was sick and tired of doing evil.
and asked Christ to forgive his sins.
and he said that evening
it was like an invisible chain
that had wrapped him up for years
was broken.
He didn't know what was happening,
but he knew something had happened inside of him
and that his life was going to be different
from that point on.
That was more than 15 years ago.
David Berkowitz who was the Son of Sam
has, from the reports I've read,
been walking consistently with Christ
for more than a decade.
He may never get out of prison,
and the harm that he did to others
can never be made up,
but the Son of Sam,
has become a son of God!
And if he found freedom in Christ,
so can you
and so can anyone that you pray for.
Lets STAND and PRAY
“Father, we ask in the name of Your Son, Jesus, that You would bring victory in our spiritual battles.” Help us to recognize there is a battle going on for our relationships, a battle going on for our kids, a battle going on for our finances, a battle going on for our health. There are forces that are fighting against us. God we ask you for strength in this battle. to fight by your power. I pray, God, that You would release Your angels to fight for us. We believe that they are fighting for us right now, even as we pray, just like when Daniel prayed and didn’t see anything for three weeks. God, we know that You are working, even when we don’t see it with our physical eyes. God, teach us to battle, not by our own power, but in Your power and under the authority of the name of Your Son, Jesus. And when Satan does attack, God, we thank You that Your word is clear, that when we resist him, he must flee.
There are those of you right now that, you feel drawn to God, and maybe it’s the first time you’ve felt it that strongly. Let me tell you what that is. That is the Holy Spirit of God, who is drawing you.
But at the same time, you’re going to hear some thoughts, or voices saying, “Ah, don’t buy into that. It’s a bunch of religious garbage. Put it off. Just don’t do it.” There is a battle going on for you, the Kingdom of Light versus the kingdom of darkness, and you have a choice. “No, Jesus, I reject You,” or, “Yes, Jesus, I believe that You are the Son of God, who lived a perfect life, who died on the cross for me, who rose three days later, who is now seated at the right hand of God the Father. Jesus, I believe in You. Save me. Forgive me. Change me. You have a choice, You can tell Jesus right now, “I surrender my life to You. Save me. Make me new. Be the Lord and the Savior of my life.”
