Giants, Demons, and The Rebellion | Same Demons. Different Day. | Week 6

Because you flagged, didn't know about the clocks anyway. Anyway, hey, really glad you're here. I'm going to say it several times, you're going to need a Bible today. And there's Bibles in the back of all of our auditoriums, and you're just staring at me like, "No, I won't get a Bible." You're not going to heaven then. That's all I'm saying. All right? No. There's probably other reasons you're not going to have not that. But anyway, so we're in the final stretch of the series where we are focusing and unpacking several realities, both in the physical world we live in, and also the spiritual realm. It's really important, but too often we have historically either missed or overlooked or failed to see that the physical world and the spiritual world are absolutely connected, right? Okay. All right. Amen. All right. So here's what we covered so far in these six weeks. And I got to tell you last week, I said I'm wrapping it up, but I'm going to extend this one more week because I don't want to rush through what we're covering. This is what we're covering, we're covering what Jesus knew and what Jesus believed was true. This drives so much of what he did and what he taught and what he addressed when he came here. And again, here's why that's so important. Here's the depth of your pastor's theology. Okay? It's very simple.

If Jesus believed it, I do too. Amen. All right. So pretty simple. I'm with Jesus. So here's what we've covered, right? Our battle is not simply against flesh and blood, but our real enemy is the spirits behind everything that comes at you all week long. There are a lot of spirits out there all around us and they're not all good. So we need like a filter or a test to run everything through to see if it points to Jesus. God who put on flesh came and saved us. And if it doesn't, we don't want anything to do with it, spirit truth, spirit of error. But in order to know if it aligns with who Jesus is and what he claimed was true, we must know his word. We must know the word of God, which is our sword of the spirit or else we'll get defeated. We must know who Jesus is and what he said was true or we will be deceived. The Bible used. We're going to look at this in a minute. The word "tricked" will get tricked. Scheme begins. Jesus said this about Satan. He's a murderer. He's a liar. There is no truth in him. And when he speaks, he reveals his character. Again, he was a liar from day one. And it's number one scheme, trick, is for you to let go of God's word. God's truth and pridefully decide, "I know better than God and I can run my life better than or apart from or different than what Jesus said and I'll be fine."

Write this down. No, you won't. His end goal is keeping you from experiencing and enjoying what only Jesus can supply to you and that anti-Jesus spirit will eventually steal, kill, and destroy you and everybody that you love. Now, here's where we landed last week. The sin that leads to every other sin is the same. It is pride. You were here. You remember, right? The sin that leads to all sin is pride. That's what happened last week in the story of Adam and Eve and Satan in the Garden of Eden. So that was rebellion number one. Man rejected God in his word and tried to assume the position of being his or her own God, which is the definition of sin. I don't need you, God. And the ways of sin is death in all parts of your life. And then we closed last week. On Saturday night, I'm going to try to through this out there. And I just give people an opportunity, an invitation to stand and receive Christ as their Lord and Savior. Across our campuses and all of our services, we saw hundreds of men and women stand up and say, "I'm with Jesus for the first time in their life." Can you just encourage them? I think it's going to happen again today. I really, really do, right? See, that's what a Messiah does. And that's where most of us start and stop when it comes to Jesus, because He loves us. Jesus pays for our sin and reconciles us back to God, which is true.

Two weeks from now, it's baptism weekend, all right? It's a public demonstration that I have put my trust in Jesus, my Lord and Savior, and my King. And I renounce all other alliances or allegiances to anything that is not Jesus. So Jesus, the Messiah comes and pays for our sin, traced back to that first rebellion. But if you were to ask, if it was possible, ask any of the people, including the men and women, who would be the very first Christians in the very first church, all right, when the Bible was actually being written, if you were to ask Jesus, "Hey, Jesus, why will you do when you come?" The Messiah, they'd all say this, the Messiah will pay for sin, but they wouldn't stop there. They would go on and then point out two other things that the Messiah would need to accomplish when He comes. And that's what I'm going to look at today. I want to look at one of those today, and then one next week. So if you have your Bible with you, have someone see all your heads, go down on your pages, turn it right. I want you to go to Genesis 6, kind of stick your finger in there or ribbon or right. We are about to unpack. I'm going to be honest with you. The weirdest part of the Bible I've ever found. I mean, it's the least taught about, most skipped over passages in the Bible. In all my years of growing up in church, and I'm church, my mom is a church organist. I was in there, she's playing in order, I'm church, all right. All the years of listening to my dad preach, and all my time in college, where I majored I never heard one teaching on what we're gonna look at today. Well, one sermon, I didn't read one book on what we're gonna cover today until about four years ago and it changed everything for me. When it comes to how I read scripture and understand what is actually being played out

in our world and also, well, I've always known Jesus as the son of God, I was baptized when I was eight years old. I all know Jesus is God in the flesh. He's my Lord and Savior, but after digging into what Jesus is gonna have to do and how he's gonna do it, as I've studied this, Jesus has got so much bigger. He's more powerful, he's greater, he's smarter than I ever considered him to be. So, Genesis chapter six, to understand this next passage, the second rebellion, two of three, all right? Let's go back and look at some of what we've already impact. So this might blow your mind less than it's gonna blow your mind. It's still gonna blow your mind, but when it does, that's actually a good thing. Dad, my mind, blow your leg, okay? Okay? See, I'm here, wake up, all right? This is gonna be a lot, this is gonna be like a fire hose, all right? So if you wanna learn more about what I'm going really quickly through, you can get on the church website, there's a place that says messages, it'll scroll down, look for a series called Rebellion from three years ago where I have him unpacked, I took about a month to unpack what I'm gonna unpack for us today, okay? So background and context for today. Again, this is gonna be review for a lot of us,

but here we go, there's a physical universe and a spiritual unseen realm, both of them were created by God, okay? The spiritual realm, in the spiritual realm, God has a spiritual family that we don't talk about a lot, but we are now, okay? Made up of what the Bible calls the Hebrew word is Elohim, say Elohim. Spiritual entities created by God almighty. Now God is a spiritual, right? God is Elohim, but this is important. God almighty is Elohim of Elohim, all right? He wasn't created, he's timeless. We know some of these spiritual entities, angels, seraphim, cherubim, each one have a specific duty and a job description. For example, angel literally means messenger 'cause that's the main job of an angel. And most of us can hang with that concept. What we have missed in the past or skipped over is a group in this spiritual world that God created in the spiritual realm. The scripture calls them, look at this, the sons of God, plural. Also called Elohim. Now Jesus is not one of the sons of God, he's different, he's unique, the one and only son of God. Jesus wasn't created, he was with the Father before creation, for all eternity. These other sons of God were made by God.

And here's where it gets weird dirt, all right? And confusing, because the Bible authors call the sons of God, gods. And some of these gods serve in what is called the divine council. We look at this, Psalm 82, look at this, he says, God, Elohim, has taken his place in the divine council in the midst of the, what? God's, he holds judgment. So some of these sons of God, small G gods, and there are myths of a bunch of them, all right? They sit in what the Bible says, a divine council for the purpose of ruling and reigning with, with big G God. Now why does God need help running the universe? He doesn't, but we learn that God's character delights in sharing his reign and his rule with his creation, right? He's always done that. Why did he need Adam and Eve to take care of and spread Eden to the rest of the world? He didn't, he just wanted to. Why does God need a church? Why does he need a church to take the gospel to the nations of the earth? He could do it any way he wants to, he doesn't need us. He could say the word and everybody on the planet believes and does the right thing, he could do it any way he wants to do it. He chooses to do it through his creation,

both in the spiritual world and in our human world. Now there's a risk, okay? The risk with him doing this is that when he shares his reign and his rule with those who are created in his image, his image will always include his good gift of free will. And the risk is that they and we will take the good gift of free will and rebel against God and choose something other than God, which we saw last week. And we still see it in our lives today. Here's some big questions that maybe this will help, it makes sense, look at the screen, right? Why is there evil, sickness, pain, and death in the world? Anybody been asked that or asked themselves that? Yeah, here's why, because people take God's good gift, free will, and abuse it. Well, why doesn't God make it stop, he will, but if he does it now, he either has to kill all of us or take away our free will and make us puppets and love and relationship when they're coerced, that's not love. See, love has to be a choice. Love says I have options, I have free will, and I choose God. Question, what is the wage of any and all sin of using God's good gifts? Death and separation from God. Now remember this, God knew all of this before He ever said, "Let there be anything." Right? And He knew what it would cost to rescue creation when it went south, and He chose to do it anyway.

Jesus is not God's backup plan in case things go bad. No, God knew what He was doing in getting with the universe and with you, and He said, "I'm going to do it." Jesus has always been God's plan A. There is no plan B. So what we saw last week was a serpent in the garden who rebelled and wanted to be God, and what Adam and Eve did when they let go of God's word and decided to rule and reign their lives apart from God to be their own God, we see the same thing happen among some of the sons of God who do the same things. We don't want to work for anybody. We don't want to be under the rule or reign of the God whose image we were made in. Here's what we want to do. We want to rule and reign over those that we will make in our image. There's a silly rebel, and they try. Genesis 6, this takes place about 1400 years as best we can calculate after Adam and Eve. Genesis 6, verse 1, "Prepare," this is going to get weird, here we go, ready? When man, people began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man, human daughters, were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years." Now look at this, the Nephilim might want to underline that one, right? We're on the earth in those days, and also afterward after the flood, when, or maybe whenever, because it happens multiple times, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These Nephilim were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Now let me put all, take a breath and say, "What cult have I landed in today?" So let me put all this into context, all right? Last week in Genesis chapter 3, we saw a supernatural divine being, a serpent, a guardian cherub, or as why Ezekiel calls him, Isaiah calls him, later to be identified as Satan,

rebelling against God's plan and deceiving and hopefully destroying God's image-bearers in an attempt to elevate himself into the place of God by telling Adam and Eve, you don't need God, be your own God. This week in chapter 6, we see supernatural sons of God, members of God's divine counsel, rebelling against God, taking on the form of men, embodied as men, and taking them, the daughters having sex with the image of God's daughters of men and having offspring with them, and these children that they're having are made in their own image. These offspring are called Nephilim, they're half human, half rebellious sons of God, and we find out they're demonic. So if you're right in this corner of your Bible, I circle a Nephilim, I mean out in the margin, Nephilim actually translates giants. They existed before and after the flood, they make appearances all through the first five books of the Bible. They were giants and don't think Jolly Green Giant, he's 90 feet tall, something like this, no, no, that's a cartoon. The average height for humans at this time, all right, was about five feet high, five feet tall. The Nephilim were probably like seven, eight feet tall, maybe, told it in any other people around, and remember this, when Moses leads the people out of Egypt, they come across the desert, they come to the Jordan River, they send spies into the Promised Land, and the spies come back, and this is what they say, and there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anik who come from the descendants of the Nephilim, and we seem to ourselves, we felt like grasshoppers, and so we seem to them, like they're gonna crush us. They're giants, we will not be able to conquer them. And God tells them you don't have enough faith, so take a 40-year lap around the desert until you're all dead, this is what they do, and then your children, they will go into the Promised Land. And they're the ones who will go in and conquer the Promised Land almost, okay? I hear this a lot, I don't know if you've ever thought about this. I have a hard time with a God of love who goes in and wipes out entire cities and families

and cows and sheep and kitty cats, I mean, what kind of God? So let me see if this helps, okay, when you see in those, especially like in Joshua and numbers and when they're going into the Promised Land, when you see God commands Joshua, the commander of the army to go in and the phrases devote to total destruction, destroy everyone and everything in those cities, those are only the cities where the Nephilim live, demonic half-breaths. In other cities, Joshua's told by God just to go in and drive the people out, and Joshua does that kind of, some of the Nephilim escape later one of these Nephilim shows up, his name is Goliath and David has to kill him, but the Nephilim half-spiritual, demonic, and half-human are renowned for their mighty acts, and they have a mission, our destruction. And how will they do that? Okay, I'm gonna nerd out some yay history stuff Bible said I say, answering fact about one of the most boring parts I bet whenever you read the Bible, you go like, yeah, no. And then you skip it. And that's the genealogies of Jesus. And we just dig those. Somebody begat somebody, begat somebody, begat somebody. Right, right, right, right. Matthew chapter one and Luke chapter three. One of the reasons the authors includes the genealogies of Jesus is to trace his ancestry back through David and then back to Abraham. Luke's genealogy goes all the way back to Adam. So it's just tracking the bloodline. But the other reason is to show evidence that Jesus did not have any of this unclean nephilim demonic blood in his line. He's pure.

OK, why are the nephilim here? And what are they going to do that will necessitate a messiah? Jesus is coming and fixing it. So last week in rebellion number one, we saw this, the wage of sin rejecting God in his word and calling yourself God is death and separation from God. Jesus will die on a cross and he'll fix that, right? This week in rebellion number two, the rebellious sons of God and the nephilim are going to teach us how to destroy ourselves and one another more efficiently. Man has always had a bent towards sin. Our free will just once to turn away from God. In chapter six, the sons of God put human depravity on steroids. When Genesis-- Bible nerd-- when Genesis was written down, it came from Moses, but Moses didn't want to run it down. It was actually written down years after the events that we're going to look at actually happened. And it was written by authors who at the time they're writing it, they've been taken captive when the Babylonians came in, invaded Israel and had taken Israel captive. So they're slaves now in Babylon because they-- the reason is because they turned away from the ones who got and started worshiping Baal. And God says, don't do it. Don't do it. And they did it. And so he allowed them to be conquered. So the Israelites are now living as prisoners

in the middle of this pagan belief system, which the Babylonians, when they get there, they have the same story. But through the Babylonians, these half-God, half-human beings were a good thing, not a bad thing. To them, they believed that they could point to the same event that we're looking at in our Bible and claim the gods-- in their cult today, they didn't call them the ephlon, by the way, they call them apculus. The gods, mated with human women, gave birth to giant offspring who taught us certain things. That's why we're the greatest civilization in the world, because they showed us how to do it. Now, here's what gets really, really interesting. Here's what the Babylonians and the Mesopotamians believed about the apculus, the Nephilim. When they came, they helped the Babylonians create the great kingdom by teaching them about this, taking notes about astrology. The idea that stars are actually gods and should be worshiped because they guide and control our destiny, write this down. Astrology is idolatry. Come on, all right. No, it's just my horoscope, horoscope. That's right, right, right? How does that destroy us, all right? Well, back in Genesis 3, it says that even though we sin, we can turn back to the one through God,

and He will provide a way back into relationship with Him. Idolatry is turning away from the one through God and turning to someone or something else to do for us what only the real God can do. Astrology is putting your faith in something different than God in His Word. Only God determines your destiny, not the stars, not the constellations, I'm a Pisces, I'm an Aries. I'm a Christian, period, all right? Now, okay, I'll tell you this, all right? (congregation applauding) I gotta clear something up, okay? When you find idols in the Bible or idols throughout history, the statue itself, I talked about Islam, right? There's a big rock in Mecca, right? That's, they don't think that's God, right? It's the focal point of worship, right? It's like God is spirit, right? It represents the spirit behind the idol, right? If you tear it down, if you knock over the idol, you don't kill the spirit, the evil spirit just goes and finds another focal point, right? Like this building is not the church, we are. But we come here as the focal point to worship the one through God, right, right? So they taught them about astrology, they taught them about how to forge metal into weapons of warfare and how to kill one another on a huge scale.

Babylon, this is history, it's one of the first civilizations to forge metal into weapons and they had the greatest army in the world at that time. They took over everything. They'd taken violence and war and murder and slaughtered their enemies, including Israel. They slaughtered them by the thousands. They taught them, the book of first Enoch, come back to that, calls it the arts of seduction and sexual immorality, rape, adultery, homosexuality. Jude compares what they did to why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The Babylonians took sexual perversion and made it an Olympic sport, I mean, off the top, right? Side note, book of Enoch, first Enoch, right? It's not in our Bible. But both Peter and Jude quote directly from it. It was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls believed it, and they quoted that in our Bible. How about this? They taught them, let me just one, wait. No, I can't wait, we gotta go, we gotta ball game. Here we go, all right, so. They taught them how to make intoxicating potions out of roots and plants. They taught them how to make drugs, to expand their mind and open themselves up to whatever the spirits, whatever the demons might wanna teach them, or use them. Does this sound like, I don't know, 2026?

It's been familiar, idolatry, I'll worship anything, but the ones who God, sexual immorality is off the chart, violence, murder, war, bloodshed, drug abuse, and addiction, in the Old Testament, it also always included child sacrifice. Welcome to Colorado. See, the Babylonians said, this is what makes us great, and the Jews said, no, this is horrible. Now here's where it leaves, look down in verse six, Genesis, all right, all right, verse five, all right. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the what, thoughts of his heart, thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 120 years later, there's a flood, different sermon, here we go, now, who cares? Why is this important today? Well, how is everything we covered relevant today? Why should we care about any of that in 2026? Well, again, you have to go back to what the people believed 2,000 years ago, and this is what Jesus believed, and the writers of the Bible believed, and they knew, and we have never connected it, and it's this, spirits are eternal. They're spiritual. The only one who can defeat them or kill them is the one who made them. And here's something I've missed for years, all right? Did you know this, like, I think it's fascinating,

demons have been around, at least since Genesis chapter three, and then big time in Genesis six, but in all of history, Jesus is the first person who ever cast a demon out of anybody. Not a prophet, Moses didn't, Elijah didn't, Jesus the first one, you know why? Because he's God, and he's the only one who can do it. Now, you gotta get this, all right? Now, this is the tie-in. This is what Jesus believed, this is why the first century Christians believed. When the Nephilim were killed, their disembodied spirits became the demons that populated the world of Jesus, and populate our world today that we found out in Ephesians six, the powers of Prince Valley. Remember this story? Okay, listen, are you all right? Or you get off the screen, right? It says this, just keep ahead of Jesus today, Jesus and his disciples that came to the other side of the sea, Sea of Galilee, right? To the country of the Gerasines, all right? And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs, out of the cemetery, a man with a, what's the two words there? Uncleaned spirit, underlying that in your Bible, right? And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him, and crying out with a loud voice, he says,

what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? I adjure you, like, swear to me by God, don't torment me. For he, Jesus, was saying to him, come out of the man, you uncleaned spirit, and Jesus asked him, what is your name? And he replied, my name is Legion, for we are many. So Jesus cast these uncleaned spirits into a herd of pigs who run down a cliff, drowned in the sea, so the pigs die, but the demons are spiritual. They just have to go find a new place to live, but they're still around the day until the final judgment. The part I want you to catch is, first of all, the demons immediately recognize Jesus, like we have history with you, we know who you are, Jesus, son of the most high God, we've been around a long time, we've gone through some stuff together. They also know what their eventual fate is. Are you gonna torment us? Are you gonna destroy us? But in this passage, it doesn't say demon, or it doesn't say spirit, Jesus uses the phrase unclean spirit. And in the Jewish phase, the thing that makes something unclean is improper mixtures, things that were combined that never should have been combined. All right, here's boring parts of the Bible again, right? Like the book of Leviticus, whoo! If you can't go to sleep, read Leviticus, all right? You just read through there and you go like,

that's weird, like why is that important? Like, don't combine this cloth with this kind of cloth. Oh, why? Don't cook this in the pot with that. That doesn't make sense, that just seems dumb, all right? Until you realize they are physical reminders from God that as the people go into a new land they've never been to before, full of false gods and different belief systems, here's the message, don't mix. Don't combine your faith in the one true God with false religions and idolatry. God and Baal don't mix. Jesus and Allah, they don't mix, they're incompatible. Don't forget about what happened in Genesis 6, when things that were never supposed to intermingle, mingle, because the result is what you're now facing in your life. In order to go take possession of your promised land, the life that God promised you, you're gonna have to go in and face and kill demonic giants that never should have been in the first place. That's still true today. The thing standing in the way of you and I having the life that God promised us, our sinful giants in our life that should never have been there in the first place. True, amen, all right? And the only way, they're gonna have to be conquered

and totally destroyed for us to experience the promised land and the promised life. Now this is, I am, this is, I love you, you're going to heaven, all right? So now, this is new information for a lot of us. You're going like, I've never, I've never, I've been in church all my, I've never heard this, all right? It was basic reality for the people back when it was written, especially at the time of Jesus. They knew where the demons came from and they knew what the demons could do. And the Jewish people knew that when the Messiah came, he would not only have to fix the ways of sin which is death and separation from God. He'll do that, but he'll also have to fix the inner depravity of the human heart and mind that succumbs to sin and demonic attacks internally in the heart of man. I'm sorry I'm gonna have to fix that too. Here's how Jesus does that. In order to beat sin and death, you have to have a resurrection you have to have a crucifixion and die. So Jesus did that. But over and over and over throughout his teaching, Jesus taught his disciples and they never, they never really got it. They never really understood what he was referring to until it actually happened. We're gonna talk about that next week,

that he would suffer and he would die. And they'd say, you shouldn't do that. That he'd be resurrected. That's like we've never seen that. And he would return to his heavenly father. But here it is, how Jesus will overcome depravity and brokenness in the mind and the heart. Jesus promised he would send the Holy Spirit. Who would live in every believer. If you're a Christian, if you're a follower of Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in you. And through the transformation of the inner person who is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, sin was paid for by the blood of Jesus. Depravity and brokenness will be defeated and healed from the inside out. Not by therapy, not by trying harder, but by the Holy Spirit of Jesus. Transforming us closer and closer and closer over time into the image of Jesus Christ. That's what he's doing in you right now. So again, what's the application for us today, all right? Well, when Paul writes in Ephesians 6 and we've hit it every week, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil surrounding us and waging war in our hearts and our minds. When he writes that 2,000 years ago, he's also kind of telescoping ahead 2,000 years. And he's saying this, hey, 2026 Christian,

same demons, different day, same agenda. Be careful. The fallen sense of God and the demons they spawned have a lost their authority at the cross. They can't make you do anything. But make no mistake, they are still here and they delight in your destruction. And their goal is to steal, kill, and destroy you and help us destroy one another. And our only hope is to put on the former of God. You have to know the truth. You have to have righteousness. You have to know the gospel. You have to have faith and you have to know the word of God, which is your sort of the spirit. Within you to fight, to help you test and see what's going on and be strong so you can take your stand. Bottom line, you cannot be forgiven and in a relationship with God without faith in Jesus. You cannot overcome temptation and brokenness without the spirit of God in you. If you could have, you would have. He would give you the wisdom to understand and the power to stand and to see what's, and recognize what's really going on all around you in this world on a spiritual level. Now, not to bring up a touchy subject from a few weeks ago. Okay, I'm gonna bring it up. Okay, all right.

But I stood up here and I said there is a direct connection to what's happening in our government, our education system, the collapse of our marriages and our families, the assaults on our children and their identities and their gender, the normalization of sexual immorality and the rejection of anything that is connected to Jesus Christ, it's all connected. I totally believe because Jesus believed it and scripture teaches it that all those things have a direct connection to the demonic realm, a demonic agenda. Now listen, even if those involved in the implementation of those demonic agendas are aware of it or not, it's possible, lean in, okay, Larry, it's possible to be used by Satan, by your participation in his agenda or your passivity in ignoring or failing to fight that agenda. I'm gonna use a strong word here, either way you're complicit with Satan continuing to win and take more ground. Now to say this, I will die on this hill, all right? Without knowing the word of God, and discernment of the Holy Spirit. You can't, you will be, you will be used by Satan or blinded to what Satan's up to until it's too late and you've lost more than you ever could have imagined. I do think, I'm going to be careful here. I do think we have some politicians, some educators, some celebrities, some social influencers, some parents, ready? Some pastors who either don't know the Word of God or do know the Word of God but have changed it to make it more palatable and inclusive, who are without even realizing it, carrying out a demonic agenda that eventually will reveal itself. All right. Now listen.

All right. So we're just flooded with words like coexist and can't we all get along and equity and diversion and inclusion, inclusion. Justice, we all went justice. Justice, you know, detached from God's Word. That's the definition of woke. Everyone's justice, but we're going to leave God out of it. Those are words and lies that are used. And by that, I mean weaponized to keep you from believing, let alone building your life upon the important truth. Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life. And no one comes to the Father, except through Jesus, period. All right. Now, I'll tell you, I'm about to get fired up. So get your, get your, get your amen. All right. Here we go. If I hear one more speech, one more Christian point at Jesus saying, Hey, let's, can we just be tolerant? Everybody love everybody? And can we just get along? I'll lose my mind. I get, I get, I get this. All right. Jim, you're being divisive. You're stirring up suspicion and hatred. No, I'm not. God is calling us to wake up and be wise. All right. Of course, of course, Jesus wants us to love everyone. We are to love one another as Jesus loved us. That's who we're going to close today. But loving others will never include you letting go of Jesus and his word and what he says is true, even if it costs you everything in order to hold on to Jesus. Jesus said to love your enemies. He never said you won't have enemies. Jesus had enemies. They nailed him to a cross. If you love Jesus, I promise you will have enemies because the enemy hates truth, which means they hate Jesus because Jesus is the only truth. If you're not, if you're not experienced attacks and resistance from the enemy, it's probably because you and the enemy are going the same direction. If you don't have any enemies because of your firm hold on the Word of God and your refusal to let go of it, it's probably because your life doesn't really reflect the truth of Jesus and that makes you not a threat. It makes you a pawn, right? It's Jesus, all right? Listen, okay, baby, Jesus is going to leave a manger. What's this, okay? So is Jesus talking? Everyone who acknowledges me holds on to me. I'm holding on to this. Everyone who acknowledges me before people, other people. I will also acknowledge, oh, and you, before my father who's in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, before one another, I also will deny before my father who's in heaven. Let that one sink in. Now, this is it, right? Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. This is Jesus. I have not come to bring peace but a sword and he's pointing at that, right? For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, which isn't hard, research, and come on, come on.

Now, this is going to hit really close for some of us, right? And if person's enemies will be those of his own household, whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Think about the compromises we've made to keep our kids happy or keep our parents happy and we let go of Jesus. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life, like this is my life, will lose it. But whoever loses, like lays down his life for my sake, will find it. Let it sink in. Jesus said that following him means you're going to go to war, holding on to Jesus and rejecting anything that isn't from him. Jesus didn't say there's a chance or it might happen. He says it will happen and he knew once he came that it would start happening, that when we hold on to what he said was true, not everybody's going to like it, agree or vote for it. Families will break apart over the gospel. Some of you, this used to be kind of hypothetical. Some of us, I believe, will lose our life because of the gospel. It most definitely will mean sacrificing your own agendas and comfort in order to follow Jesus in a world set against following Jesus. That doesn't sound a lot like, look, can we just get along? Can we just coexist? You're right, it doesn't sound like that. It means there is a battle going on and the enemy is real and the stakes are high. And we know that Jesus wins in the end, but right now we're going to have to do this. If he's in six, be strong in the Lord. And in the strength of his might, you're not strong enough, Here's my put on the whole arm. against the tricks of the devil. I read that, yeah. You don't need armor if following Jesus is a picnic in the parks, surrounded by daisies and unicorns and Jesus ferried us. No, it's a battle. It's a spiritual, it's a spiritual war. Say, I had this thought. I love YouTube, some of it. You'll be on YouTube this afternoon, all right? Have you all ever heard of larping? (audience murmurs)

It's amazing, all right? We're grown adults, semi-growing, oh no, I blarp. Repent, that's what I'm saying, okay? We're grown adults, they dress up in medieval costumes, they go out in public parts, and they fight with plastic armor and foam swords, and they get into it. Like, in their imagines, I'm a knight. I'm a brave soldier, right? And I'm like, all right. So I think that many times, that would describe a lot of us. We're larping Christians. We put on something that kinda looks like the armor of God, and we have some plastic pseudo-version of God's word, and then we could go out there and face a real world that has real armor and really sharp metal swords, and we get creamed, and we act surprised why it happens over and over, right? When I see grown men larping, I look at him, and I'm like, bless your heart. (audience laughs) Which is just not a compliment, all right? (audience laughs) You know, way to go, embrace it, be you, all right? Now, I really think that's kinda sad, all right? But, you know, people are in the difference, so I don't, if you larp, God bless you, all right? Now, I think Satan looks at us and thinks the same thing, except Satan delights in it.

There's nothing he loves more than a weak church made of weak Christians who don't recognize the real enemy, and the enemy's strategies, and they have no actual weapons to fight evil. He loves churches like that. What terrifies him, I hope it's flattered. A strong church with well equipped warriors who are willing to go to war for Jesus, for our salvation, for the good of our marriages, and our children who live in a world that has declared war against him. (audience applauds) The world's battle cry is anything but Jesus, all right? So, let's go back to Ephesians 6. If you have Ephesians 6, it's about 2/3, right? It ends with identifying the enemy, the spiritual enemy, and the armor of God needed to experience victory, but in that same chapter, if you go back up to the top of chapter six, Paul is talking to parents, especially to fathers who, let me just talk all the dads, all right? Dad, your primary mission and job description, you might do everything else, but if you do this, you miss it, right? It's to bring up your children in the Lord so they don't end up living lives of total frustration. If you can do everything else, and get the scholarships, and win games,

and whatever that is, if you missed that, you missed it. So, let me talk to parents. How's that going? Yeah, your children go to school every day, 18,000 hours between kindergarten and high school. They walk into buildings every day where the standard, accepted, celebrated agenda is, anything but what Jesus says is true. If your children come home or go to school and say something like Mary's is a sacramental covenant of one man, one woman joined together by God for life, they will be called a bigot, intolerant, and homophobic, where it's okay to hang a pride flag in the hallway, but it's illegal to hang a cross of the Ten Commandments, which was the norm in every public school in America until the 60s and 70s. (audience applauds) Something changed. All right, public school, studying the Bible during school hours, teachers, you're not even allowed to be close to those dudes, right? Praying out loud over lunch is called unconstitutional and illegal, yep, the school will, and I talked to public school teachers last week about this who go to flat ends. The school won't hesitate to carve out space and time for any Muslim student to unroll his or her prayer rug so they can observe Islamic times of prayer, anything, but Jesus. A school system that says this,

parents should not have the right or ability to impose or mold their children into the teachings of Christ, including what's right or wrong, or even to influence their gender. Be quiet, parents, the government will decide what your children should be molded by. More and more, you're excluded. It's a demonic plan, which means this, parents, that if you don't know how to combat this satanic agenda with the word of God, it's time to realize that you've got to armor up. You have to learn how, 'cause if you don't, I'm gonna make you mad, right? If you don't, by your passivity, you are complicit in their destruction. By doing nothing, just like Adam said, nothing, while Eve was getting destroyed. He just stood there and said, what am I gonna do? How about this, all right? We talked about this a few weeks ago. I think you grew this way. So you and Jesus, when you give your life to Him, you're one. I'm hidden in Christ. I no longer live, Christ lives in me. Everybody with me? where we hit this, we talked about sexual sin. Sexual sin is different than all other sins. It's not worse than, it's just different because when you engage in sexual sin, immorality,

you sin against yourself, you sin against the other person and then you sin against Jesus because you drag Jesus into that bed or into that porn site with you. When you, I was gonna say men, but 40% of Christian women weekly look at porn. So when you engage in pornography, what you're saying, I didn't mean to say that, okay, but what you're saying is, hey, Jesus, let's go. I'm dragging you into this with me. Let's do this together. Here's what we're gonna do. Let's partner with Satan in the destruction of women and children because pornography is not just about the two people you're watching on screen. It's the biggest financial funder of human trafficking and you're paying for it. I didn't pay, you clicked on it, they get an advertising dollar, you paid for it. All right, here we go, right? Last year, last year we stuck a flag in the ground and declared that we will fight to see the elimination of child sex trafficking in Colorado. And there we go, let's go, right? I also got this, Jim, you're getting way too political. Let me ask you this, all right? What did you think that the defeat of trafficking and restoring shattered children's life would entail and make sure that pedophiles

that buy and sell children are stopped? Did you think we were just gonna gather in the lobby and have a prayer circle that it would just go away? No, we're gonna pray based on what God's word says is true. Yeah, we're gonna pray and then we're gonna get up off our knees and we're gonna stand up and put our faith into action 'cause we don't have dead faith, our faith acts, all right? And we're gonna do something, right? Okay, this is for the rest of you, I haven't offended yet. The easiest way to fight for our children is to vote on Tuesday for candidates and policies who closely align with what God says is true. Now let me tell you this, all right? Somebody go on church and state. If you're still holding on to church and state line, you need counseling, you need something, all right? Listen, of everything we're gonna vote on, right? The sanctity of life and the protection of children are more important than anything else on that ballot, right? The issue to be cited. It's more important than what you don't like about the candidate. When you fail to vote to see laws enacted that will protect children from being bought and sold for the purpose of rape and destruction, your lack of voting is a passive vote for evil to continue and prosper. That's called complicity. I didn't do anything to cause it,

but you didn't do anything to stop it. Even though you had an opportunity to stop it. God cannot bless a nation or a state or a city that celebrates or passively doesn't care enough to defend and protect the lives of children both born and unborn. Today's election is decided by dozens or hundreds, sometimes thousands of votes in our bipolar nation. Most studies agree that 32 million self-identified pro-Jesus Christians didn't vote in the last election, which means that anti-Jesus is destroying our state, our nation and our children and our grandchildren. They will live with what we did or didn't do. And if we did nothing, even though God's word is clear, it's our fault. Not voting for good is voting for evil. It's a systemic strategy, and listen, it's working. Look around, for the most part, Christians do nothing. Well, what's one person, what's one vote, all right? I can't do much to change it. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. The problem is, when 32 million Christians all say the same thing, in America, our biggest issue, it's not voter fraud or ballot counting or voter ID. It's 32 million Christians who could have legally voted, stayed home or threw their ballots away in the trash with the rest of the mail. So, it's too late to mail them in. But I got online yesterday and I found out that you can still go to the bowl with your driver's license

and you can vote, you'll have to stand in line, but you have to do something. Look at this, James chapter four verse 17. Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him, it's sin. Now, you gotta let that one, right? You gotta say the right thing to do is protect children. Amen? It's to say, well, I must stay home and do nothing. It's sin, crime is up, abortion, up, sex trafficking, rising, drug use, up, anxiety and depression, up, mental and spiritual health, down. We'll continue to pray and to fight. But this Tuesday, the lives of children, born and unborn, will be decided. Jesus said this, he says, give the Caesar what is Caesar, give the gods what is gods. These children and babies belong to God, not the state of Colorado. Hands off, right? (congregation applauding) the purpose of this series, and it has all the reasons that I've given that we boil down to, like, one word, what would it be?" Write this down. Clarity. I'm trying to bring clarity. The Holy Spirit's trying to be clarity. Open your eyes to what's really going on. Open your eyes to a real enemy with a real battle plan that is working, the destruction of people that God loves, and then take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word

of God, and fight for what Jesus says is right and good and true. And fight for our children and our grandchildren who live with what we did or did not do on their behalf. Now, here's a... I know a lot of conversations are going in our head. None of those issues really affect me. Right? I get it. Right? Robin and I, we're not going to have an abortion. She's 65, I'm 64. No plans. Right? No sex-altering surgeries planned for either one of us, as far as I know. Right? She's already done that. All right? And we don't participate in pornography or sex trafficking, all right? But my children are raising my grandchildren, and my grandchildren will raise their children in the world that I hand them, the world that Jesus loves so much that He died so that those who believe will not perish but have everlasting life. So the application of the series, which is going to go one more week, is this. Be strong in the Lord so the devil doesn't knock you down and take you out of the fight and leave those who are depending on you to provide and protect them in the faith, don't leave them undefended. Which, looking at the state of our world, they're getting slaughtered. It looks like... It looks like... Let's be honest. When you look around in our world, it feels like Satan is winning, and the church is silent

or neutral or impotent. So we look around, and it just seems overwhelming and impossible and unbeatable. But God... But King Jesus says it's possible and provides you with what you're going to need, a Messiah who has forgiven your sin, and a Messiah who will put His own spirit in you to do, and for what us to do together, what we can never do without Him. Jesus said on your own, "You can do nothing. You can't even save yourself, but with God, with God's spirit in you, all things are possible." He says... Listen, on the theory... Yeah, it is possible, but you have to pick up and put on the armor of God. The Word of God is your sword. So why do... I'm not done. All right? Why do I keep on beating the drum of, "Hey, please come to church every week more than you currently are." Here's why, because I know one week won't change your life, but an ongoing washing in the Word over time will change your life and equip you for what God is commanding you to do. All right? It's over time. Him once just makes you soar, right? Then you look at the picture on day one, and the picture on day 100, and you go, "Oh, when did it change? I don't know. I'm just different." Why do I keep on harping? Please start bringing your own Bible. Why?

Because you must know the Word of God. Why? Because you have to have a true filter to test everything happening around you. So read it, study it, memorize God's Word. Okay, join a group here at Flatlands, an unpacking, a deeper understanding of what God's Word says is true, right? Men, sign up for a fight club, our ministry around pornography, not always because pornography is your battle, but I promise it is the battle in most of the men's lives around you. And if you have any hope to have anything to offer to your sons or your brothers or your friends, you're going to have to put on the whole armor of God. We've got men's connect. We've got women's connect. We have couples connect. We've got men who hurt strong cohort, develop as a leader so that you can move beyond spiritual larping and become spiritual warriors defending the faith and contending, fighting for the gospel and the good of those you love most, your spouse, your children, your brothers, your sisters. So they can experience freedom. Now you're just going to go, "Well, why should I do that? Why would you want to do that?" And here's the answer, because it's what King Jesus did for you, and King Jesus doesn't ask. He commands us to do the same for one another. Here's an aha moment, Christians, all right. Becoming a Christian and following Jesus isn't just about what you get out of it. You're saying, "I'm good. These issues don't really hit close to me, all right? But remember this, finish this sentence for me. Free people, free people, it's what we do. Following Jesus means we follow Jesus, we obey Jesus, and Jesus said this.

Remember this? He said, "A new commandment." Say it together. One, two, three. "A new commandment I give to you that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." See, in our minds, we go, "I've loved you. Love me." He doesn't say that. He says, "As I've loved you, then love her and him." Jesus said, "I left my comfort behind." I did that for you. I fought for you. I laid down my life so that you could live. I sent my spirit to you so the same power that raised me from the dead can live in you and make impossible things become possible. When Jesus said that he would build his church on a rock and the gates of hell would not prevail against it, I don't think he was talking about buildings and song services. He was building an army, a movement that would change and save the world that he loves. That's what that means when the angels, well, look at this Christmas, when the angel announced at his birth, the government will be upon his shoulders. It translates, "Thy will be done on earth in Colorado, in schools, in careers, in your marriage, in the life of your children,

thy will be done as it is in heaven." Right here, not after we die and go somewhere else. Listen, we have opened our eyes and we know who we're fighting against, but to be clear what we want to be fighting for, we are fighting for thy will be done on earth in this life as it is in heaven. That's called the kingdom of God and Jesus is the king and we are his agents, we are his operators, his incarnate presence here in this world. This is why we exist. Now, let me tell you this, all right? All that's important, but it's a moot point until you get some stuff figured out with Jesus. Because as much as Jesus wants you to get involved in the world and stuff like that, he says, "Hey, before we even talk about that, "we need to talk about you and me." If you've never taken that step, had that conversation, I'm in, Jesus, I want you to be my Lord and Savior. I need what you did on the cross to count for me. I need forgiveness. I can't even forgive myself, but maybe if we start with you forgiving me, then when your spirit comes and lives inside of me, maybe I can start forgiving. I'm tired of shame, tired of living in fear. I'm actually tired, scared of death to ever meet you, Jesus, 'cause I just know it's not gonna go well. So will you forgive me?

Will you let your blood on the cross count for me? You help me teach me, it's only you can do it, that you actually love me that much, and you want me in your life, 'cause I definitely want you in mind. If that's you, then ask him to come in your life, ask him to forgive you, ask him to be your Lord and Savior. Hey, let me talk to Christ, people are already Christians, the people who are becoming Christians right now, they're going like, well, I don't know what I'm gonna do right now, so you just pray, all right? I was gonna say, hey, Christians, I don't mean to pressure you, but I do. I'm gonna get guilt and shame, right, right? But I hope the conviction of the Holy Spirit's coming on you saying, I have taken my life with Jesus and other parts of my life that are in conflict with Jesus, and I only have one life, and I need to repent, I need to let go of the things that don't agree with Jesus, I'm not pushing a political party, I'm pushing Jesus. If your life doesn't align with you, you're saved, but your life isn't, you know it's just nothing like Jesus. Then let go of that, repent, turn your face back towards Jesus, and he'll forgive you, and he'll accept you. It's like the prodigal son, when he comes home, he's going, I've screwed up this whole sonship thing, and I see my dad, I'm not gonna go well, he has a speech. Hey, Father, I have, all right, he didn't get the words out, the dad just tackles him, he goes, my son, my daughter, you're dead, you're home, that's how he'll greet you.

That's called amazing grace, and it sounds really sweet. Um, let's say all our campuses, let's stand up. If today, I just did groups last week, but give me a cover. If today, for the first time, you've had that conversation with Jesus, and you've asked him to be your Lord and Savior, would you just raise your hand up wherever you are in the room? Yeah, there you go, there you go. There you go, all right. Let's say this all together, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, my Lord and Savior. The only way you can say that, or believe that, is 'cause the Father has taught it to you. Amen? - Amen. - So Father God, in the name of Jesus, I thank you for raising up a people, a kingdom, a family, an army. It doesn't fight one another, but fights for you, and fights for those who cannot fight for themselves. (applause) (applause)