Are You Prepared for Spiritual Warfare? | Same Demons. Different Day. | Week 4

Am thrilled and honored beyond words to be here this morning. I'm grateful to God for the opportunity to be here and I want to salute your pastor, you know, he's a Great man dear. I don't know if y'all know this. He is a great man of God. Did y'all know that? Come on, let's celebrate and thank God for your pastor pastor Jim And I'm also proud of our son really Pastor Steven has Grew up with my kids and I've watched him grow up get licensed and do the work of God And I'm so proud of him, and I want to salute him help me All right, I'm been given the assignment today of talking to you and this on this theme of spiritual warfare And I'm delighted to do so Will you pray with me? Father we thank you for the privilege and the opportunity of Being in your house. Thank you for the people of God in this place. I pray that you would annoy us To be your mouthpiece pray that you heavenly father would Save somebody that needs to be saved draw somebody who's in a backslidden condition to rededicate I pray Father that you would let your perfect will be done that hearts be transformed and impacted and let the name of Jesus Get all of the glory and honor in his name. We pray. Amen. Oh, I forgot to tell y'all about my family I guess me and my wife have been married for 46 years I Wish I could tell you that we stayed together for 46 years because I've been the bomb.com husband But that would be far from the truth one occasion. She got frustrated with me. I don't even remember what the issue was And she started crying and she went in the closet and broke out the suitcase She started packing. She said she's leaving. I Didn't know what to do So I went in the closet behind I broke out my suitcase. I said I'm tired of this mess - I'm going with you We have six kids and seven grandkids Amen and last Sunday I celebrated my 68th birthday Go ahead, I know what you want to say look at your neighbor and say he don't look 68 years old Go ahead, tell them In all those 68 years we've had a lot of journeys and experiences

One day that we were driving I was driving With her in the car. We was I don't remember where we're going, but we stopped at a 7-eleven In front of the 7-eleven Was a guy who was high-drunk or something, but he was Inebriated. I don't know what his issue was and it turned out to be one of her old flames a Guy she almost married and I said is that so-and-so She said yes And I I started thinking That over these years we've been married all of the things we've accomplished. We have traveled the world I have preached to presidents and professional athletes and senators and governors and so I mean We we have done trim. We have accomplished so many things and I'm the pastor of the largest church in the state of Maryland We came there. There was 400 people last Sunday. We had 10,000 people in church Amen So I said to her I Feeling good about myself Aren't you glad you married me instead of that joker? She said if I had married him he would be the pastor Do not encourage that foolishness But I thank God that we've had quite a journey and quote quite a joy and I'm getting ready actually past two years I'm retiring. So I'm making making plans to Succeed to retire and we're developing a succession plan So I'm I'm just grateful and I can say that in all of the achievements of my life I'm glad to be a flat flat iron today It's a wonderful church. If you have your Bibles, I want you to open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Now, I'll be preaching from the New King James translation. Let me just read these verses right here.

Chapter 6, I want to read verses 10 through 13. Again, from the New King James translation. It says, "Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole arm of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, verse 13, take up the whole arm of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand." So I want to talk to you today about spiritual warfare. I'm chiming in on the theme that you all have been studying over the last several weeks. I want to talk about this book of this letter that Paul, the apostle, wrote to the church in Ephesus. It is an insightful deal, what he had to say. Because in fact, the church in Ephesus is a powerful, anointed church. It is a church that impacted its community. I think that when the church isn't impacting its community, you might as well shut it down. It impacted its community. They saw them doing the works of God, and the community tried to emulate them. They tried to repeat what they saw them doing. They saw them laying hands on people who were demon-possessed and casting out demons.

And they tried to do the same thing. They saw them praying for the sick, and people got healed. They tried to do the same thing. And the issue is, how did this church get to be so powerful? How did it get to be such an anointed church that impacted its community? It got that way, I believe, because the teachings that Paul gave them, and one of the things Paul taught them is right here in Ephesians 6. He taught them about spiritual warfare. He said to them in verse number 12, "We are not wrestling against flesh and blood." That's a very important point. Let me lay that out for you, write it to the outset. The fact is that all of us need to understand that whatever issues you have in life, whatever problems, whatever challenges that you are having in life, it is not the person who's bringing it to the table. There is something beyond the person that's influencing the person to do what they're doing, say what they're saying. But we get too much engaged in battling with the person. I know y'all don't want to hear this, but brothers, your drama and your problem is not your wife. OK, wife, your problem is not your husband. OK, nobody wants to say amen, because they don't believe that. It's OK, it's OK. My job is to try to tell you, don't fight with your wife. Don't fight with your husband. Don't battle with your boss.

There is a spirit behind that person influencing them. I used to pass her a church in Virginia before I passed it, this is my home church, I pass her. But before that church, I passed her the little small church. And there was a woman in the church that fought me tooth and nail. Everything I said, she would fight me. If I said the sky was blue, she said it's green. If I said the grass is growing, she said it's not growing. She had something to say about everything. And I would spend hours upon hours talking to her and trying to show her scriptures and trying to get her to understand that what we're trying to do is follow the scriptures when we make decisions, when we do things. But she fought me tooth and nail. And one day God opened my eyes to this passage and let me know, the problem is not with Edna. The problem is with the spirit behind Edna that's influencing Edna to say what she say and do what she do and treat you the way she's treating you. And so when I learned that and began to deal with the spirit behind her, everything changed. Thank you all, 15 of y'all for that rousing information of this deep spiritual truth. It's not the person, that's the problem. And if we could just get you to stop wrestling with people and wrestling with individuals and recognize it's demons from hell. It is demons that are trying to frustrate you and defeat you and get you into a place of frustration.

we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but he tells us right in the passage that we are fighting, we have enemies, and he tells us who those enemies are. What did it say? He gives us four entities that we're wrestling with. Four of them, right here, listed in Ephesians chapter six. He says, first of all, we're wrestling with principalities. There it is right there, principalities. Y'all know what a principality is? It's a prince over palities. Go here, Pastor, you're so deep. Demons are ranked, they have ranking, just like in the, in the heavenlies. The devil, when he got kicked out of heaven and took angels with him, he took what he saw God doing and replicated in the demonic kingdom, and demons have rankings and principalities are ranked demons. The problem that we have is you spend it too much time dealing with the little bitty peony demons rather than getting to the head demon and rebuking the head demon. When you deal with the head demon, everything under it has to be submitted and to stop. So ask yourself the question, what am I wrestling with? Have I dealt, have I rebuked, have I challenged, have I, have I rejected the head demon, or am I spending all of my time with? Smaller demons.

Somebody said, well, Pastor, how do I deal with the prince over these palities? That's what they are, prince of palities. The first thing you got to know that they're princes and they're not kings. Y'all miss a great spot to amen. I always got to tell white people when they say amen. If I was at my church, they would say, "Preach y'all, Pastor!" I'm trying to help y'all get some soul in you. And when you hear something true, you're supposed to say, "Amen, preach on, go ahead with it." I'm with you, that's what you're supposed to do. I'm trying to help you have some flavor and some soul in you. Thank you, that's what I'm talking about right there. So what I'm trying to tell you is that the princes, that's all they are and you have to understand, we have to understand that the principalities are ranked demons and they are subject to a king. Y'all miss that. Now, if you can't say amen or that point right there, amen, the devil has power, but God has all power. (congregation cheering) I don't woke up somebody here. White people can say amen, praise the Lord. They are ranked demons that think that they have control and authority and the fact and the truth of the matter is they don't have any authority over us. We are chosen of the Most High God.

We, when we accepted Jesus, greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. No weapon formed against us can prosper. We have to understand who we are and whose we are. We are a child of the Most High God. We are children of the king and the devil has no authority over us. (congregation cheering) I like it here, I might have to come back next Sunday. (congregation cheering) We're dealing with principalities, but that's not all, we're dealing with powers. It says principalities are number two powers, powers. Powers means these are spirits that have ability, capacity, control, they have influence. And I need to just talk up to you about this for a moment because people don't realize and recognize the devil does have power. He can do spectacular things. People get impressed by some of the things he can do and think that it's a godly thing. When you go to Palm readers and go to Ouija boards and crystal glass readers and Voodoo and witchcraft and psychics, when you were looking at astrology signs to determine what your day is gonna be and who you should get married. I tell people don't bring that astrological stuff to me. I don't follow the stars, the stars. I follow the star, the bright and morning star. I'm not governed by what the newspaper says,

what by the horror, matter of fact, the horror scope. Y'all missed it, horror scope. And the devil impresses people and somehow another, he thinks he has the capacity and the ability to, by showing you and telling you stuff and revealing about your history and your past. Yes, he has power, but he doesn't have all power. Don't use Ouija boards and don't go to palm readers and don't look due to glass readers or the voodoo or the witchcraft or psychics or astrological sign. Lead that alone, that's demonic. Our lives are governed by the Prince of Peace. Our lives are governed by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our King. He is our authority. And though the devil has power, he doesn't have all power. I don't know who I'm preaching to today who has somehow been following something of somebody because they told you something spectacular, that nobody else knew. They told you what color your drawers was. So you got impressed with them. But please do not get tricked. And matter of fact, the problem is the devil is able to influence us because we let him in our houses. We let him in our homes. We let him come in and we open the door and let him put his foot in the door. "Preach our pastor." I'm doing the best that I can right now.

Yes, we let him in. We let him in by the music that we listen to, the shows that we watch, the books that we read, the magazines that we subscribe to, by the channels that we subscribe to to come into our house. We let him into our houses. And my assignment is to try to tell you, get the devil out of your house. I'm trying to tell you, recognize you're letting stuff into your house and you don't even realize that this is what happens to your kids. That's why they're acting crazy. That's why they don't listen to you, let them in. Let me go over here. They want to hear what I got to say on this side. Do you hear what I'm saying to you today? We are exposing ourselves to powers, but that's not the only thing. Not only are we wrestling against principalities and powers, there's a third thing he says, "We are wrestling against the rulers of darkness." That's a big deal. If you don't hear anything else I say today, I want you to hear me say this, the devil rules in darkness. He is the ruler of darkness. What does that mean, Pastor? Darkness means the absence of light. There is no light. Here's what it means, rulers of darkness means

the devil operates in shadowy places. What are those shadowy places? They are secrets, closed doors, undisclosed, hidden stuff that you keep secret, that you don't want anybody to know when you got a secret that you don't want to talk about and nobody knows about it. That's the realm of the devil. You might as well be honest. You've had some dark days and darkness in your life. You've had rulers of darkness in your life with secret phone numbers, secret relationships, secret habits, secret shows you watch, secret things you participate in. Go on, Pastor, secret stuff going on. I see I got to encourage myself. I thought I had freed you all up but something must have happened that it came back. But the purpose of the kingdom is to help get you out of darkness. And we get you out of darkness by putting you in relationships with people where you can be honest with them. And you can say in relationship to somebody who loves you and pray with you, will challenge you and hold you accountable. You can say, you ought to say to them, I have a problem here. I desire to do this. I feel the temptation to go here. When you expose it, the devil gets defeated

when you bring it out of darkness and bring it into light. What I'm trying to tell you is, because y'all have woken up in this place here, all I'm trying to tell you is stop operating in darkness, stop keeping secrets, stop hiding it, stop pushing it, 'cause that's what we're wrestling against the rulers, they rule in darkness. That's why they're able to keep you in darkness because they rule in darkness. But when you put some light on it, when you put the light on it, when you tell somebody else about it, you're able to get free when you put some light on it. (audience applauding) Hallelujah. There's a fourth thing, I'm almost finished. (audience laughing) Spiritual hosts in heavenly places. Spiritual hosts, spiritual hosts in heavenly places. What does that mean? Let me first of all, define what heavenly places are. Heavenly places is the place in your heart and mind that God wants to rule and reign. That's what the heavenly place is. Heavenly places is the place where God wants you to worship Him and praise Him and glorify Him and honor Him. It's your thought, life, He wants to heavenly places,

but the problem is spiritual host of wickedness have invaded your heavenly place. This is demonic when you allow spiritual host of wickedness to invade your heart and your thinking. For a long part of my life growing up, when I was growing up, the devil had control of my heavenly place. I was depressed, suicidal, felt unloved, unwanted, uncared for, felt like my life had no purpose, no assignment. And so the devil had invaded and had a whole of my heavenly place. And I don't know who I'm preaching to, but I want somebody to know today that the devil might have your heavenly place today that we serve a God that will take your heavenly place back. Amen. If you let God come in and be worshiped, if you let him rule, if you feel your heart with the word of God, if you spend time opening up your heart, rather than coming to worship and just watching the praise teams sing, if you open up your mouth and raise your hands and give God the glory, he will come into your heavenly place. He doesn't want to share that heavenly place with anybody. He wants control, he wants the authority. And when I began to recognize

that the devil had my heart and when I began to take the word of God and put it in my life and put it in my heart, when I began to meditate on the word, when I began to think about what the word said about me, when I learned that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, when I recognized that God had created me, he made me understand that I had a purpose, I had an assignment, I had a destiny, I had a call, I had an anointing and the devil can't stop me from what God created me for. (audience cheering) I don't know who I'm preaching to today, but no weapon formed against you can prosper. (audience cheering) The devil knows something about you that you don't know about yourself. If you ever get to God's will for your life, if you ever step into the realm of why God created you and do what he wants you to do, you represent a tremendous threat to the demons of hell. There are some people here today who have not begun to step up into the call that God has on your life. But if you ever do, you're going to reap hell on hell. Excuse me for a second. Can I say hell here is hell okay word for me to say? Isn't it an appropriate word to say hell? You're about to repel on hell. It is through your life that souls are going to be saved.

It'll be through your life that marriages will be healed. It will be through your life that people will come off drugs, women will come off the streets. It is through your life and your call that you will make a difference if you ever get to the place that God has called you to be. And so I wanted to come here today and I want to thank Pastor Jim for inviting me all the way from Maryland to come and preach to you and make known to you the wondrous works of God. Yes, thank God, we're in a battle. Yes, we are wrestling. We are wrestling with demonic forces. But greater is he. Matter of fact, the scripture tells us what our weapons are. We've got weapons. We can win this battle. He tells us number one here, I like this. He tells us in verse 10, 11 and 13 what our weapons are. He says, "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might." Not your power, don't be strong in your power, your know-how, your gifting, your education, no, no. Be strong in the power of his might. And then he tells us to put on the whole arm of God. Look at your name and say put on the whole armor. Look at the person on the other side, say put on the whole armor. You have to put it on. You have to put it on. It ain't gonna jump on you.

Your clothes didn't jump on you today. You had to put it on. And the scripture says put on the whole armor. I love this that he tells us. And I had to learn to put it on. he gives us seven pieces of He says, "Put on the belt of truth." When you get the truth in you, when you understand God's truth, you know, we live in a culture that don't know what truth is. As a matter of fact, we live in a culture that will accept a lie before it accepts the truth. Well, what is the truth? Well, the truth is I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. The truth is that I'm a child of the whole most high God. The truth is that God loves me and has a purpose and an assignment for me. But our children are being taught that don't accept how God created you, choose to be something else. Preach on, Pastor. The weapons of our warfare, we have weapons, put on all the weapons, put on the belt of truth, put on the breastplate of righteousness. That breastplate means that you are in right relationship with God and with others. Be in right relationship with God and be in right relationship with other people. Put on the shoes of the preparation

of the gospel of peace. What does that mean? That means be prepared to share the gospel with somebody that you know who's not saved. Learn how to lead somebody to the Lord. That's what you have in the shoes, but the preparation of the gospel of peace. He tells us to take the shield of faith. Somebody say, take the shield of faith. That means I'm a belief God for whatever I'm believing God for. What God has spoken to believe, who slow down, whatever God's spoken to me, whatever promises God made to me, I believe God is going to bring it to pass. The shield of faith says, I don't make decisions based on what I see out of my natural eye. I make decisions and have faith in God based on what I see out of my spiritual eye. Put on the helmet of salvation, he says. Put it on, the helmet of salvation has to do with the way you think. Get your video stinking thinking and get the thinking that God wants you to have. I feel a shout down in my soul. Then he says, grab a hole of the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Don't govern your life by what people say, amen. Govern your life by what the word of God says. Stop listening to the celebrities and start listening to the King of Kings

and the Lord of Lords. Let the word guide you, let the word order your steps. Let the word be your guide for every choice and decision you make. And then he says, put on, not only put on truth, not only put on righteousness and the shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace, put on the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation. Pick up the sword of the spirit and win your finished prayer. Prayer, prayer, somebody say pray. Tell your neighbor you gotta keep on praying. All right, I'm finished. I'm coming to a close. I'm bringing my plane in for a landing. I'm pulling my dope boat by boat into the dock. I'm pulling my car into the garage. I'm putting the dishes in the dishwasher. I'm about to be finished. But I can't finish until I tell you what our posture needs to be. What is our posture? Our posture is to stand. That's what it says in verse 11 and 13 says, stand. I like this verse right here. It tells us that we may be able to stand against the wilds or the tricks of the devil. That's what verse 11 says. Verse 13 says, take up the whole arm of God that you will be able to withstand.

Wistan means to stand against opposition and resist when somebody tries to get you to go opposite way. And let me remind you, the devil is gonna try to not believe the word of God. He will try to get you to give up and quit. But my assignment is to tell you to stand and withstand. And after you've stood and we've stood to stand some more. Go ahead, look at your neighbor, say stand. Look on the person on the other side, say stand. Tap the person in front of you and say stand. Look at the jacked up joker behind you and say, are you standing? Stand, stand. That's what you gotta do. Stand, I'm finished. I'm coming to a close. I'm closing my book, but I want you to stand. I wanna challenge you to stand. Hang on to the word of God. Be assured that no weapon formed against you shall possibly stand. Somebody say stand. Somebody say stand. (congregation applauding) I'm almost finished. (congregation applauding) That means I'm being aggressive. >> [APPLAUSE] >> I don't know what I'm doing. And I need you to get this a few years ago,

I was on vacation and I went to a location where I was in a foreign country. I was in Mexico. And while I was there, I saw this crowd in the mall gathered around a statue. And I was wondering why was this big crowd around the statue? So I walked down to where they were and I saw all these people staring at the statue. I was trying to feel why they're looking at the statue. Then I started looking at the statue, so now I'm joining the crowd looking at the statue. And while I was looking at the statue, it dawned on me that that statue looked real. It looked like a human being. In fact, it was a human being. It was a guy who was just standing there and he wouldn't move. And everybody was looking at him and they were trying to get him to move. They were talking to women. And I said, you know what, I bet you I can get him to move. So I went over to the man and I jumped in front of him and I act like I was gonna hit him. But he didn't move. So finally I said, I can get you to move. Because people were dropping money in a hat to him. I said to him, I bet you if I take that hat with that money and it's your move. So I reached down to get the hat and I grabbed it and I moved over. But even with me taking his hat, he didn't move. Y'all missing my point, I'm trying to make a point here. No matter what anybody does to you, if they fire you from your job, keep standing. If they talk about you, keep standing. If they're critical of you, keep standing. If they don't like you, keep standing. Stand and having done all, stand. Jesus stood for us when he died on the cross. He stood for us and he didn't give up. And my assignment to you for spiritual warfare, hold your ground, keep standing and don't

give up. [BLANK_AUDIO]