I'm in the Lord's Army | Pastor Jason McKinnies | Purpose House Church

All right, let's start with a school called Sunday. Everybody ready to sing last week's song? He's got the whole world in his hands, right? Well today, I'm probably gonna teach some of you a new song which fits right into what I was just kinda saying over here. We're gonna, maybe, how many of you know the song The Devil is a Sly Old Fox? Let's do this, I can't see your hands. Would you stand with me if you know the song? Get ready, you just get ready. Okay, so man, I think I'm understanding some of y'all's spiritual backgrounds about who knows the song and who doesn't. Okay, you can be seated. So, we're gonna be teaching a lot of you this song about how the devil is a sly old fox. And so, in your Bibles, I want you to turn with me to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 10. We're gonna read three verses there, verses three, four, and five. And then we're gonna learn another song, apparently we're gonna learn another song called I'm in the Lord's Army. All right, so let's do this. How many of y'all know that song? You can stand if you know that song. All right, fantastic. All right, you can be seated, thank you. So, The Devil is a Sly Old Fox must just have been

a South Bend in the Hood song. All right. But there's a reason why I combine these two songs together. So, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses three through five, I'm reading out of the New King James. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare, warfare, are not carnal. So, that tells you right then, first of all, we got weapons and we are in a war. Weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for the pulling down strong, for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And so, it's not just bring a thought into captivity, then you have to place it into obedience of Christ. And so, last week, we talked about this, that he's got the whole world in his hands. We sang about the wind and the rain. We sang about the tiny little baby. We sang about you and me. And we sang, that song kind of filled the room and there was faith that began to build in the room because it's hard to be afraid of anything when you are convinced that the God who used the same hands to fling the stars and the moon and the planets into orbit also holds you and your name

in the palm of his hand. So, I don't wanna let go of that truth that we talked about last week. We gotta hold on to that. What many of us do is we learn something about God and then we learn something new and we put off the old thing that we learned and we only focus on the new. I need you to focus on all of it together because when you get into battle, you cannot go into battle with only one weapon or one piece of knowledge. You're gonna have to go into battle. So, you gotta hold on to everything I'm teaching you here in Sunday school. Apparently, some of y'all didn't go to Sunday school like I went to Sunday school and learned that the devil is a sly old fox. So, when we get into this, I want you to talk about that he's got the whole world in his hands. That's the foundation. Now, if he has the whole world in his hands, that raises a very important question. What does he do with our hands? Or what should we be doing with our hands? And a lot of you are holding on to your troubles and your worries and anxieties and you should have let them be in his hands. So, if you are in the hands of God, then your hands should not be idle.

Your hands are not helpless. Your hands are not empty. The same God who holds you also commissions you. And that's where today's two old Sunday school songs are gonna come kind of marching into us. And I like the little pun there. Oh, when the saints go marching in. So, you probably learned, those of you like me, now that you don't know the sly old fox, I probably need to rewrite this sermon. I learned this song before I could read. The devil is a sly old fox. And then my favorite, one of my favorites, besides Father Abraham, which is just really Pentecostal calisthenics. I'm in the Lord's army. We sang them in children, but we did not know the weight of the theology that was really being tucked inside those simple words. And so, I wanna unpack them and get you from being, just saying you're in the Lord's army to knowing why you're in the Lord's army. So, Pastor Melissa and some of her helpers are gonna come and we're gonna teach you this song. The devil is a sly old fox. Some of them were a little more excited about. I'm singing this. You ready? Here we go, we got this.

You ready? The devil is a sly old fox. If I could catch him, I'd put him in a box. I'd lock the door and throw away the key. For all those tricks he's played on me. All right, you got it? That's it. You got it? All right, how many of you, the devil has played some tricks on you? Stay right here. All right, come with me. We gonna do it again? Okay, you ready? We got this. You got the motions this time, right? Yeah. I can't remember this. I'm too old for this. You ready? Don't. Here we go. The devil is a sly old fox. If I could catch him, I'd put him in a box. I'd lock the door and throw away the key. For all those tricks he's played on me. It's that easy. Now, the devil is a sly old fox. Now, I was thinking about this, why?

And I wrote a letter the other day to the guy who was the Sunday school superintendent because he's the guy that poured all these songs into me. So if you wanna, if you're bored during this series, I'll give you his email address and you can email him. But why was it important for us as children to know and for them to teach us that the devil was a sly old fox? Well, I think they figured that when he showed up like a roaring lion or that when he showed up like a dragon, we would recognize that. But they wanted us to get a theology before we could even read that it is the subtle little things that the enemy does and how he appears as an angel of light. And you feel like he ain't no trouble, but he's really causing a lot of trouble in your life. And so before there was a seminary and before there were Bible commentaries on your phones and on every show and before ChatGPT could download you a theology in about 30 seconds, when we were children in Sunday school, we were being taught an important intelligence lesson about the enemy of our soul. And it was that you need to remember, he doesn't always show up as a lion and he doesn't always show up as a dragon. Sometimes he shows up like a fox. He shows up like a fox. He's creeping in your back door because you're listening for a lion out the front one. And he's putting things very subtly in your life.

And so it's just an idiom describing a person who's very clever, cunning, experienced, often using underhanded, sneaky or secretive methods to get what they want. Can I just tell you that the enemy will show up any way he needs to show up to get you to be giving up on Jesus. See, lest Satan, 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11, lest Satan should take advantage of us for we are not ignorant of his devices. Ignorance means we're not lacking information about him. And apparently like three quarters of this crowd was lacking some information about how to catch the devil, put him in a box, lock the box and throw away the key. For all the little dirty tricks that he's played in your marriage and played in your finances and played on your children and played on your emotions and gave you depression and oppressed you and put diseases into your life and then said that that was God that was the one putting cancer into your life. And all of a sudden you started blaming God for things that the devil really did. So Paul's riding to that church at Corinth and I'm speaking to Purpose House. He says, hey, you cannot be ignorant of his devices. The word devices is a Greek word noema and it means thoughts, schemes, mental strategies. This is a mind game. So the enemy doesn't fight fair.

He does not come through the front door in a red suit with a pitchfork. He is a fox. Foxes are cunning. Foxes are patient. They circle quietly. They wait for you to drop your guard. The Song of Solomon chapter two, verse 15 warns us to catch the little foxes that spoil the vines. So the devil does his worst work, not in the dramatic and the obvious, but in the small and the subtle. A little bitterness here, a little doubt there, a small compromise today, a bigger one next month. We call that a slow fade, but a fast way to be defeated. That's the nature of a fox. It doesn't announce his arrival. But the good news is buried deep inside that little children's song. It's the very act of naming the fox is an act of power. When you teach a child to say the devil is a sly old fox, you're teaching them how to have the discerning of spirits. For the subtle little things, you're teaching them that evil doesn't come labeled as evil. You're teaching them to watch, to be sober, and to be vigilant. You need to teach your children that just because Taylor Swift is cool doesn't mean it is advantageous for you to listen

to it. It's gonna get tight in here for a minute. Okay? Just because it's Lady Gaga doesn't mean that you need to be listening to it. And just because Brandon Lake puts out a song doesn't mean that you need to reintroduce yourself to another Jesus. I mean, I read the words of that song. You ought to be careful what you're listening to, and everything you're listening to needs to line up to the Word of God. I don't care whose name is attached to it. Right? Because now we're getting this subtle little trip up that holiness doesn't matter anymore to God. But without holiness, no man can see the Lord. Boy, I mean, I just offended like 90%. You mean Brandon?

No, I'm telling you that whatever you're listening to or whatever you're watching, if it doesn't line up to God's Word, they need to be a curse, and God's Word needs to stand true. And yes and amen to your life. Even if Pastor Jason says it. Be sober. Be vigilant. Your adversary walks about like a roaring lion. Sometimes he wants to roar. You know what a roaring lion is? It's a lion who's had his teeth knocked out. So we need to get some discernment about when he's coming as a roaring lion, and when is the roar over here distracting us from the fox that's coming in the back door. Well, it was just my old flame. Be careful. A fox just entered through a chat room to mess up your marriage.

Be sober. So sometimes the enemy comes as a fox, subtle, cunning, patient. Sometimes he's a lion, loud, terrifying, overwhelming. And then he changes his approach based on what he thinks will work on you. He studied you. He's watching you for an hour when you're tired, grieving, lonely, frustrated, and that is when he starts knocking on the door. But my friends, we are not ignorant because we've been told because somebody put a song in our mouth before we even had a vocabulary for spiritual warfare, and that knowledge is that through awareness, awareness is our first line of defense. Being aware, because you cannot pull down what you refuse to identify. You cannot resist things

that you pretend like they don't exist. The church has an ostrich syndrome. We just stick our head in the sand and expect it just to go away. No, my friend, you are required to pull down some strongholds. Church has made the mistake of being polite, sanitized, so sophisticated that we just stop talking about the enemy altogether, but Paul refused to do that and we should do. Jesus didn't even do that. The old Sunday school songs didn't do that either. The devil is a sly old fox, and because you know it, now you're not ignorant of his devices. You are now already dangerous to his kingdom, but let me just say this to you. If you recognize him as the fox, be careful.

He'll send the lion, and if you recognize him as the lion, he'll show up like a dragon, and if he shows up like a dragon and you recognize him, then think it not strange that he would appear as an angel of light. Okay, I already offended you about Brandon Lake and Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. Let me just offend you about the gifts right now, an office of gifts. It usually shows up in the prophetic. Oh, I've got a word for you. Come over here and let me give you a word. Well, first of all, if your word cannot stand up to the witnesses of other people that are involved in my life, then I don't want to receive your word because Corinthians says

that every word should be established by witnesses, but I got a word. Just come over here into my little secret closet. I don't want to be in a secret closet with you because eventually I've got to come out of that closet and there's going to be a whole lot of accusations when I come out of that closet. I know you're mopping what I'm dropping because usually the sheep don't bleat when they eat. That's the more biblical way of saying you're mopping what I'm dropping. Okay, so then that takes us to this next one. Pastor Melissa and your team, you ready? Oh yeah? You ready? You're taking notes. The second song

marches right in on the heels of the first. Now, how many of you know this song? I'm in the Lord's Army. There's a couple. A couple of words of this that I, come on, yeah, Caleb. Okay, you're gonna have to stand for this one. You can get out of the aisle for this one because there's motions. Oh, oh, okay, okay, okay. Okay, you ready? I'm ready. All right, let's leave it. How are we gonna do this? Like, we can do it, right? We can do it. Okay, you ready? Does everybody know the actions to this? Who knows the actions to it? Josh got out of this, where's Josh? Okay, Debbie Mannion, come on up on the stage. Scarlett, you know him, come on. Come on, Scarlett. Who knows him on this side? Who knows the actions on this side? Come on up. Maddie, you know it? All right, is that Maddie? Yep, all right.

And Violet, all right. Anybody else in this section? Where's Eddie? I thought Eddie knew this song. Eddie knows it. Eddie knows it. Where's Eddie at? Eddie's, oh. Eddie, where you at? You can come right over here, miss. Okay, come on, Eddie. Come on out here. Yeah, come on out here. Oh, no, no, you're good. Yeah, no, no, right here, right here. Right here. If you know it. Yeah, all right. You gonna help me today, Violet? You gonna help me? No, you're gonna play shy now? You can't be shy up here. I'm with you. I got you. All right, Eddie, you know this because you sang this in rehearsal this morning. All right, here we go. You ready? ♪ I'm in the Lord's army, yes, sir ♪ ♪ I'm in the Lord's army, yes, sir ♪

♪ I may never march on the infantry ♪ ♪ Ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery ♪ ♪ I may never fly or the enemy ♪ ♪ But I'm in the Lord's army, yes, sir ♪ One more time? Okay. Uh, uh, let's take it up a little bit. Okay. Because it's a little low. ♪ I'm in the Lord's army, yes, sir ♪ ♪ I'm in the Lord's army, yes, sir ♪ ♪ I may never march in the infantry ♪ ♪ Ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery ♪ ♪ I may never fly or the enemy ♪ ♪ But I'm in the Lord's army, yes, sir ♪ Woo! Good job, girlfriends. Give me a high five. Yeah! Okay. Oh, oh, okay, I'll take that, too. That's awesome. You'll be seeing. You know, if you were a first-time guest here, this is almost as awkward as when we say, here's a cup of communion, this is Jesus's blood. We were taught that song. Most of you knew that song. Now you all do. It brings back something into our minds.

Your feet start marching, you start riding in the cavalry, your hands start doing the motions, and that's not an accident, because the Holy Spirit actually embedded military language into the hearts of his children, because he knew that when we grew up out of children's church, we would grow up into a worldwide war. Whether you recognize it or not. This is why Ephesians, I mean, just listen to this. Put on the whole armor 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. So Paul does not say there that we might be in a battle. Paul says we wrestle. That's a present tense. That's a active tense. It's a right now tense. It's happening now. And that word wrestle in the Greek, it means hand-to-hand combat, up close, personal, and intense. So this is not a distant war being fought somewhere else on someone else's turf. This is a war for your mind, for your family,

for your health, for your community, for your future. This is where the war. So Paul says we're not wrestling right now. We're not wrestling against flesh and blood. Now let me just pause here for a moment. He's saying presently, you are in actively involved in a fight right now. Now most of you think it's that weirdo on Facebook or that weird uncle or aunt that you're fighting against. You're not fighting against them. You're fighting actively right now against whatever principality or whatever power or whatever demonic activity has rose up in their life and allowed them to be used to come against you. And so you're spending all your time trying to figure out how to defeat somebody in the flesh, but you're not wrestling. Against them in the flesh you're wrestling against that sly old fox that tricked you that you thought it was your mom and dad Or your brothers and sisters, but it was really that sly old fox that you should have wrestled to the ground But instead you split your marriage up and you split your family up and you split out of a church over what the Fox was doing And the enemy's sitting there going yeah, you're in the Lord's army and you may never fly over me Yeah, buddy one day I am gonna fly over you one day the trumpets gonna sound and I'm gonna rise to meet him in the air And I am gonna shoot the artillery and I am gonna ride in the cavalry. Oh Yeah, I'm coming back with him when he's on his white horse So what happens to us is we get caught up in who wounded us and we're fighting Them instead of fighting the real enemy That's why we must understand. We cannot fight this war with fleshly weapons We have a spiritual enemy. So it's not the relative who wounded you

Your real enemy is the principalities and the powers. This is why we're in the Lord's army and not our own We're not in a political army. We're not in a social media army. We're not an army of righteous anger human strategy We're in the Lord's army and the Lord's army fights with the Lord's weapons now think about what it means to be in an army Soldiers do not fight alone Soldiers have orders Soldiers have a commanding officer Soldiers have a mission Soldiers have training soldiers have equipment designed for the specific terrain that they are fighting in Are you fighting as a soldier now? Or are you fighting as a civilian or a church member who wandered onto a battlefield? Are you putting on the whole armor of God or you just picking up the pieces that you find comfortable? Are you taking your orders from the word or you're running on feelings and opinions and assumptions that somebody posted online? We are in the Lord's army, that's not a casual statement It's a covenant identity. It means we are under orders It means we have a commander who has never lost a battle It means that when he says advance we advance if he says we're gonna have revival We're gonna have revival if he says you're gonna be healed You're gonna be healed if he says your whole house is gonna be saved your whole house is gonna be saved When he says stand we stand When he says stand we stand when he says pull down that stronghold we pull the stronghold down We're on your orders. Are you following them? Now last week we said he's got the whole world in his hands today We're in his army. The devil is a sly fox that we've been warned about But because he holds everything in his hands that means when he places something into our hands it carries authority He has all authority in heaven and earth in his hand now you're in his hand So now you are operating under all authority that he has 2nd Corinthians chapter 10 Paul says in verse 3 for though we walk in the flesh. We do not war After the flesh live in physical bodies live in a physical world But our warfare is not decided by physical strategy alone Let's read the verses again for the weapons of our warfare are

Not carnal meaning they're not of the flesh but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ So the weapons of our warfare first mighty through God not mighty through us not mighty through your title or the office that you sit In they're not mighty because of our cleverness of our or our degrees or our resources or our reputation They are mighty through God So the power belongs to him the authority belongs to him the victory belongs to him But he has placed the weapons in our hands. So we use our hands to do what to pull down Strongholds Now that Greek phrase would make me want to speak in tongues But it's really catharsis. It means to pull down a stronghold means to demolish a Fortification to demolish it one day. I was talking to a Preacher and I used the verse where it says and the anointing breaks He said no, sir. That is not what the scripture says. It says the anointing destroys The yoke of bondage something that is broken can be fixed but something that is destroyed cannot be put back together again So the church has got to stop breaking the back of the devil. We need to utterly destroy and demolish every fortification so it cannot be put back together again and used against us again. To demolish a fortification. So a stronghold, what is a stronghold? A stronghold is a lie, a lie that has built a fortress in someone's mind. A stronghold is a pattern of thinking that has fortified itself against the truth of God and God's word. A stronghold is an argument, it's an ideology, it's a fear, a wound, a habit, anything that has set itself up higher than the knowledge of God in that person's life.

And God says, your hands, filled with my authority and my weapons are equipped and you are commanded to pull those fortifications down and demolish them. Not with anger, not with manipulation, not with human cleverness. How do you do it? With prayer, with truth, with the word of God declared in boldness, with intercession, with a love that does not quit. So if he has the whole world in his hands, so when his hands work through your hands, there is nothing too fortified for it to fall. Let me say that again. If you're in his hands and he's using your hands with his weapons and his power and his authority, there is nothing in your life that is strong enough to combat the word of God that's coming out of your mouth. My family's had this for 38 years. Well, there was a woman with an issue of blood. There was people that were diseased for these years and these years. It doesn't matter how long you've had it. All it takes is one moment and that fortification in your life can be utterly destroyed and demolished so that you can walk out of this building a completely different individual. I still believe that God can instantaneously and miraculously change your life. So last night I was rereading this

and my beautiful bride wanted to go away and I felt like I needed to focus my attention on her. And so last night I went out to our little pool house out there and I sat down and started writing it and I thought, I forgot to tell you guys what the weapons were. What good would it be just to say you have weapons and you don't even know the song, The Sly Old Fox. So now I'm going to assume as pastor, the watchman on the wall, you must not know what the weapons are. Because if you knew what the weapons were, you'd be using them. So I thought, I need to rewrite this and so the scriptures are not gonna come up, so I rewrote it last night in the middle of the night, got up again this morning, rewrote it again, I wanna tell you what the weapons are. I even texted the children's pastor and said, you're gonna be a little bit later today. She sent back, for the weapons of our warfare. For the weapons of our warfare, excuse me, are not carnal, but mighty and gone for the pulling down of strongholds. What are the weapons of our warfare? If we're in his army and he's equipping us with spiritual weapons that carry divine power, what are they? Well, number one, we have the word of God. You have a Bible? You have it.

And some of you feel like you can't use it unless you know all of it. Well, that would be what we would call the logos, having all of the word, the logos. So we would call the logos a sword, a big, long sword. You don't have to know all of it. There's another word that we use talking about the word and is what's called a rhema word. Now, in Ephesians chapter six, it doesn't give us by the sword of the spirit, it's not using the logos. It's not talking about the big sword because the enemy, remember, this is hand-to-hand combat. I would invite Pastor Michael, but I've picked on him so much. I'm afraid he might not have any restraint on me, but we've done this before. We've used this example, is you're hand-to-hand, you're in close with each other, he's fighting with you. He's talking and spitting in your face and screaming at you about how he's got you and he's got your family. And then you hear the diagnosis of the doctor and he's all up in your grill. And you cannot get the whole sword off your belt of truth to get and wield a sword against him. But Ephesians chapter six doesn't use, in verse 17, the sword of the spirit isn't talking about the logos. It's talking about the rhema word.

It's talking about a right now word. And the word rhema and the word sword there isn't talking about a big sword. It's talking about a little knife, about six to eight inches long that you can just pull out. And when he's up in your face, he's taking out and he's stabbing with it. And what happens when he backs up? He backs up because you stabbed him. Now that he's backed up because of the rhema word, now you can pull out the whole sword and go after him and say, hey, God did not give me the spirit. of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. I shall not die, but I shall live, and declare the works of the Lord. Now you start wielding the whole sword. And some of you are trying to use the whole sword when you need a right now word from God. Aramis, so the sword of the spirit, which is, Ephesians 6, 17, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. The sword there is machaira, meaning a short, precise weapon for close combat. We wrestle, and listen, some of y'all are like, well, I don't want to stab him. We ain't fighting fair, we're fighting like we down in the hood. I ain't gonna square up with you and let you throw the first, my mom and dad,

you let them throw the first punch. Are you out of your mind? The guy's six foot five. He'll knock all the teeth out of my mouth. When he walked up, I'm sorry, I'm five foot seven. Whoop, right there, and then punched him in the throat, and down he went. Why, timber! Down goes the giant, everybody's a giant to me. I ain't fighting fair, so the devil shows up, and he's talking about, hey, I got your dad with cancer. I got your grandma with cancer. You mean I'm gonna allow him to stand there and square up with me and fight fair with him? No, the blood of Jesus has been applied to my life, and generational curses are broken off of me by the power of the authority of the name of Jesus and the blood of Jesus. Stop squaring up with him, and let him fight fair with me. Stop squaring up with him, and stab him. Again, I can hear people, the guys in the prison, like, oh, I was, no. The devil, spiritually speaking. Gotta clean this language up. What does the sword do? It cuts through lies. It exposes deception. It destroys false arguments. Jesus modeled this for us when he said, it is written. Jesus didn't argue, he declared.

You don't defeat the enemy with opinions. You defeat him with, it is written. Number two weapon, this is one we think we do, but we don't do it enough, prayer. Prayer is the strike weapon. Praying, Ephesians 6, 18, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit. I don't believe that. Pastor Melissa said up there, I'm gonna leave that church. She said, if you have a prayer language, you should pray. Praying in the spirit. What does that do? It engages heaven's power, disrupts enemy's plans. It advances spiritual territory, and prayer is how we apply the power of demolition. What you bind in prayer cannot stand in your life. If you don't know how to pray, I would encourage you to get on the path. Get in the path classes. Sign up right now, go on your phone. Learn how to pray, and most of us think, I can't pray like them. We don't need you to pray like us. We need you to pray like you, and you need to talk to God like you talk to God. And so if you say, yo homie, he knows you're talking to him. Some of you gotta get all serious. Our heavenly father, hey, Jesus, take the wheel. Okay? So pray.

Number three, the number three weapon. They're not in order of authority, just how I listed them out. Number three is the name of Jesus. This is an authority weapon. Philippians chapter two, verses nine and 10. The name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. Luke 10, 17, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. So what does the name of Jesus do? It enforces authority. It breaks spiritual resistance. It establishes dominion, and you don't fight for authority, you fight from authority. Let me say it like some of you are used to. You don't fight for victory, you fight from a position of victory. You already have the authority. I don't know if I can just throw him out of my house. No, you can go home and throw him out of your house. You have authority. You need to get that snake, dragon, lion, angel of light that's appearing as such, and that fox out of your house. What would you do if a real fox showed up in your house? Don's over here going click, click. We're not gonna have a discussion. Oh, are you only here for the milk and the eggs? Oh, then fine, come on in and take what you want.

No, get out, because once he gets the taste of your stuff, he comes back for more of your stuff. All right, number four. So we got the name, we got the sword of the spirit, we got prayer, here's the name of Jesus. What's the name of Jesus? We got the sword of the spirit, we got prayer. Here's the number four, the blood of Jesus. This is our victory weapon. Revelation chapter 12, verse 11, and they overcame him, that's a small h, talking about the enemy, by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. How did we get a testimony? The blood of the lamb. So what does the blood do? It cancels out accusations. That's the dragon strategy. It cancels out accusations. The fox sneaks, the lion roars, the dragon accuses. He secures, and the blood secures victory, and it silences condemnation. So the enemy cannot accuse you for what the blood has already covered in your life. This is really hard for us in today's age where social media and people on social media will bring up your past, and all of a sudden, as they bring up your past, you think that Jesus remembers your past. Jesus is not your Facebook friend.

Jesus is not your ex-wife who wants to remind you of how bad you were. Jesus, if he forgave you, it is under the blood, and the scripture says it like this, as far as the east is from the west. Another one, and it's in the sea of forgetfulness. So the enemy cannot accuse what the blood has already. Number five, a weapon is, this is a warfare weapon, worship and praise. 2 Chronicles 20, verses 22. Now, when they begin to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the enemy. So worship and praise shifts the atmosphere. It invites God's presence. It confuses the enemy. So praise, when we begin to praise and passible is his life, say the name of Jesus. That isn't passive. It's quite aggressive, actually. Why? Because demons tremble. It's a weapon that sets up ambushes, and the enemy starts fighting each other because he's like, why did you send me to Purpose House? They just say the name of Jesus, and I don't know where to go, and I don't know what to do, and why couldn't I just went down there and just hung out at the bar where they're victorious? No, they sent them to church, and then they heard the name that is above every name,

and that name, every knee should bow, and so the demon come in to attack you, and you said the name Jesus, and while the enemy was getting ready to stab you, he had to drop to a knee because he has to bow to the name. So when you don't know what else to say, you just say the name, the name Jesus. Number six is truth. It's the belt that holds it all. Having girded your waist with truth. What does truth do? Truth stabilizes your thinking. It anchors your identity. It destroys deception. You have to have truth. Listen, and I love praise and worship, but there's some folks that got it confused. We are not saved by worship and praise. We're not saved by that, and so you cannot have a church that is so heavily on worship and praise and doesn't have any word, because word is what brings the balance to you, and that's why people can write songs, and you guys will worship to them, and they're AI songs, or they're writing things that aren't even biblical because you are worshiping without your belt of truth because you have to line up the words of the song

to whether or not it's being truthful or not. It stabilizes your thinking. It anchors your identity. It destroys deception, the angel of light strategy, and let me just tell you what I really wanted to preach on Easter. What happened when Jesus came into Jerusalem, the first thing he did after they said, Hosanna, Hosanna, he went down to the temple, and he was upset that they had commercialized worship because there wasn't bands and lights and smoke machines. Worship was sacrifice, and they had commercialized their worship, and we are not careful. We are commercializing our worship. We'll go to concerts, but we won't sit in preaching. We'll listen to music, but we won't hear the word. My friend, what gets into your life and destroys the yoke of bondage in your life is the word of God and the anointing that is on it. I love worship and praise. I'll worship with you, and I'll praise with you, but if you get up and walk out of the preaching, you're missing your blessing. You're just saying that because you're a preacher. No, I'm saying that because it is by the foolishness of preaching that we are saved. Boy, that guy's ruining me. I'm trying to pull you out of the fire. The little fox has slithered right in,

and he's spoiling your whole vine. Oh, but I got my Jesus on. If you can put Jesus on, you can take Jesus off. I got Jesus on the inside, and he lives there, so everywhere I go, he's with me. I love you. Stabilize your thinking, anchors your idea, destroys deception, so if truth isn't holding you together, deception will pull you apart. Number seven, righteousness is the defensive armor. Ephesians 6, 14, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, what does it do? It guards your heart. It blocks condemnation, and it keeps you battle-ready, because many of the people in the church are so condemned, they won't even pick up a weapon. But if you have on a breastplate of righteousness, what is righteousness? And they're not getting up and walking out of the sermon, that's my man, and he always sends me a text. Hey, Michael, thank you for being such a great Barnabas to me. They're gonna take care of his mother. Happens every time, like right around the same time I say something. Like that, they get on people like, Michael and Tracy Bradley don't like the pastor. Righteousness, what is righteousness? Righteousness means right standing with God. Okay, there are people who have to get prayed up

before they can pray for other people. That means you are not prepared for the battle. Right when in Acts chapter three, they were on their way to the temple to pray. They hadn't got the prayer yet, but they already had enough of that man to be healed. They were already right standing enough with God. So guard your heart, it blocks condemnation, it keeps you battle ready. Number eight, faith, which is the shield. Ephesians 6, 16, above all taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. What it does, it stops attacks before they land. It neutralizes fear, which is the lion strategy, and it protects your mind. Listen though, faith doesn't stop the darts from coming. It stops them from working. So the Lord has these weapons. It's the word, it cuts deceptions, prayer, releases power. The name of Jesus enforces authority. The blood of Jesus secures victory. Worship shifts battles. Truth stabilizes the mind. Righteousness guards the heart and faith blocks the attack. And so when the enemy begins to operate as a fox, very subtle, as a lion to intimidate, a dragon to control through accusation, or an angel of light through deception, we begin to fight with the weapons

that are mighty through God to the pulling down, to the demolishing of strongholds that are subtle, strongholds of intimidation, strongholds of control and accusation, and strongholds of deception. We begin to break them apart so the enemy may have his strategies, but we have weapons. And our weapons are not just strong, they are mighty in God. So what do we do this? Just let me be practical for a moment, and then we're gonna go through an altar call. You are not ignorant of the devil's devices. That means you need to stay in the word. You stay in prayer, you stay in community, stay in D group, stay in CR, you stay there. Because when you're there, it helps keep your spiritual intelligence current. A soldier cannot fight an enemy he refuses to study. So read your Bible, not just as a devotional comfort, read it as a field manual for battle. Second, know whose army you're in. When the battle gets hard and it will get hard, remind yourself, I did not enlist in my army. I did not sign up to fight in my own strength, I am in the Lord's army. And my commander has all authority in heaven and on earth, and he has the whole world in his hands, he has me in his hands, and nothing can pluck me out of his hands. So you're not fighting on. Third, use your hands.

Every believer in this room has God-given weapons that are mighty through God. Prayer is a weapon, worship is a weapon, the spoken word of God is a weapon, forgiveness is a weapon. It breaks the chains of the enemy that he thought that he had around you. Use what God has placed in your hands. Number four, target the real enemy. Stop spending your energy on flesh and blood battles. Stop trying to defeat spiritual darkness with political noise or social outrage. Get strategic, means get on your knees. Ask God to show you what stronghold needs to come down, in our own mind first, then in our family, then in our community, and then use those mighty weapons to pull them down. That's why the scripture says in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. We are more than conquerors, not barely surviving, not just hanging on, we are more than conquerors through him. So we've talked about the fox, we've talked about the lion, we've talked about the dragon, we've exposed the angel of light, but that's how the enemy fights. I came to remind you how you fight. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God of pulling down strongholds, meaning not weak, not symbolic, not theoretical, they're mighty in God. That's what it means when the enemy whispers,

you answer with the word. When the enemy roars, you stand in faith. When the enemy accuses, you plead the blood of Jesus. When the enemy tries to intimidate, you call on the name of Jesus. When the atmosphere gets heavy, you lift up praise. When confusion sets in, you anchor yourself in truth. You are not powerless, you are not defenseless, you are not outmatched. You are in the Lord's army and your commander has never lost a battle. So fight from victory. Not barely surviving, not hanging on, more than a conqueror. So every stronghold in your mind, every lie the enemy has whispered, every weight that has tried to settle onto your life, it has to come down. Because your hands are not empty, they're filled with heaven's weapons. And when your hands move, God's hands move. When you begin to exercise power and authority, God's power and authority is right behind you. So I thought about this for a long time and I even leaned over to Pastor Andrews. I don't know how I wanna finish this, but here is where I wanna go. We hear sermons all the time, I preach all the time. In fact, I'm rewriting sermons and putting them out on social media

and many of you are like, this is the best thing I've ever heard. I'm like, I preached that just a week ago. We don't need to just hear it, we have to use our weapons. And weapons don't work sitting idle. They work when they are activated. And so I'm gonna ask my team, I'm gonna have you just for a moment, I want you to think about your stronghold and we're gonna utilize our response tables back there and the altar here. But I want you to think about what lie the enemy has told you about you. Not about anybody else, about you. And what lies the enemy told you about you? What does he whisper? When he comes and talks to you, what does he roar at you? What is he accusing you of? What's he trying to deceive you with? Since I want you to be honest, I'll just tell you just from a pastoral standpoint, I'm gonna be transparent but not vulnerable in this moment. Every Sunday when I get done and I get in the car and I wanna go home, the enemy says, you're done here. They've tuned you out. I told you to never come here. I hear all that almost every Sunday afternoon. I get up on Monday morning so I don't study on Mondays. I come here, I stay as busy as I can because as I would tell all the pastors who talk to me,

you never resign on a Monday. Why? Because you're no longer in the anointing that you were on a Sunday and the enemy is not just whispering now, he's shouting at you. And all hell's breaking loose and you're like, man, yesterday I preached my guts out and people are still doing what I told them not to do on Sunday and the enemy just wears you out. And so the enemy, he starts in subtly. If I don't listen to it subtly, then he starts shouting it and then he starts accusing and that's what he does. And so I wanna know what the enemy's doing to you. And so the pastors have got some pens and paper and there's some on the tables already over there. What we do here is when we have a need in our life and we want other people to pray for us because one can put 1,000 and two can put 10,000 but sometimes it's so personal, we don't want anybody to see it but we want them to pray for us. So if you pin it to the cross and you don't want anybody else to know exactly what they should be praying for, you put the writing towards the cross. If you want them to know what's going on in your life, you put the writing facing outward. And you know now that almost every Easter we put those on the cross. And Don so eloquently told us

and he just put the stamp on it and what we have written, these strongholds that are in our life. And Don on Friday night when we carried Jesus to the tomb and he stamped on there paid in full, it meant that all the accusations that the enemy has whispered to you about you, Jesus already paid a price and so the enemy's lying. But I wanna know right now just for the Holy Spirit to speak to you about what stronghold is happening in your life right now. And if you would like to either get a piece of paper and put it on the cross, you can move now or Ms. Brandy and Pastor Brand have pens and paper here and you can also lay it on the altar. So there's three areas that you can go to and then when you're done, I want you to come back to your seat and we're gonna go to step number two. Right now step number one is what is the stronghold that the enemy is whispering to you or shouting at you right now in your life? So Holy Spirit speak to every life. Let honesty, transparency and vulnerability hit this house right now. Ask the Holy Spirit, what's the stronghold of my mind? Is it fear? Is it anxiety? Is it bitterness? Is it shame?

Is it a lie about your identity? Is it unforgiveness? Is it wounds from the past? You can come here, there's some down here that are at both of the crosses as well. There's pens there, there's papers there on the tables and you just put it on the cross how you feel comfortable. Just write it down because you can't tear down what you won't give a name. Thank you. For those of you that are here at the altar, same thing as the cross, you can turn it face down or leave it face up, however you feel comfortable. You can turn it face down or leave it face up, however you feel comfortable. This, now, we've identified it. We've started writing it. We've named it. It has a name. If it has a name, it has to bow. Step three is to apply the weapons that God gave you. I want to do this very slowly. I'm trying to be as intentional as I can because I don't want to miss this moment. Now we've identified that we have a stronghold that needs to be demolished. A stronghold that has to be pulled down. Now what do we do? We speak truth now. We speak truth over that lie. So if you wrote down, like, I'm abandoned, really you were chosen. If you live in fear and anxiety, for God did not give me the spirit of fear, but a power of love and of a sound mind.

Maybe you have a diagnosis. Then you would say, I shall not die, but I shall live and declare the works of the Lord. Maybe you feel like no one is around you. Then you say, God is my refuge and he is my strength. Maybe you feel like you're at rock bottom. You can quote Deuteronomy 33 and 27. The eternal God is my refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out my enemies before me and he will destroy them. He rescues me from a powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into an open place. He rescued me because he delighted in me. If I will submit myself to God, I then can resist the devil and he will flee from me. So I'm submitting to God and the enemy must flee. That enemy came into me in one direction, but in Jesus' name, he's now fleeing from me in seven different ways. Demonic forces are now leaving. They are weakened. They are divided in Jesus' name. Then I can pursue my enemies and I can overtake them. And I did not turn back until they were destroyed. I crushed them so that they could not rise and they fell beneath my feet. That's Psalm 18. Jesus said to his disciples, I give you authority to trample on snakes, things that may bite you that are venomous, scorpions, things that sting you while you walk, and to overcome all the power of the enemy and nothing, nothing will harm you. So now we've declared some truth. Now just for a moment, I'm going to give you a space of time and I want you to pray over that. Prayer is how you activate God's power in your life. And many of you may not even know how to pray, so I'm going to pray, but I don't want you to just listen to me pray.

I want you to pray. Over that area. It's a heavenly father. We come to you Lord humbly today Lord, we know that we are in your hand and Lord because we are in your hand you have all power and all Authority in your hand. It's the Lord. I ask you Lord that you would send your power and Send your authority Lord into my life and that you would break every stronghold By the authority of your name in every area where the enemy is accusing me of my past and things Dealing with in my present and he's trying to tell me I forfeited my future Lord I plead your blood right now over my mind and over my heart and over my life I plead your blood for protection over my family Lord is the enemy whispers that my children are going to be destroyed and this curse is going to come upon them Lord I by the authority of your word and the power of your name I plead your blood right now God over my life and we say Satan the blood of Jesus is against you may it silence the voice of the accuser May it kill the foxes sneaking through my house and may the snake be evicted for that snake has already been Cursed by you and you said Lord that you would take care of him for me You will fight my battles for me So Lord, I will stand still and see the salvation of the Lord in my life Lord You told me I Lord I don't even know which way to go But the steps of a good man are ordered by you Lord. So order my steps. Oh God order my way For Lord, I would desire to be in your will and in your way in my life Just begin to pray over that and begin to plead the blood of Jesus over it If the enemy is accusing you the scripture said that he was standing for God accusing you day and night But you overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony so I plead the blood right now over that area of my life and in the name of Jesus You got to say that one out loud in the name of Jesus that stronghold must come down See the enemy says when the thief has found he has to repay Double for what he took you identified that the thief had come in and was stealing some things from you And so now that he has found He has to repay you double

What he has taken from you And then this is the one we love to do. This is now the enemy is so confused, right? He came in one way But now that we begin to pray and begin to tear down the stronghold He doesn't know how to leave so he's leaving out seven different ways And so now there's seven different ways He's going out and you're trying to figure out which one that you want to go chase down and attack again No, no, no, that's not what you do What you do is you begin to praise and you begin to worship and when you praise and you begin to worship God Then that God begins to ambush the enemies for you. You know, you just got to do a standstill And now he's running out of my house. He's running out of my marriage. He's running down the street and Lord I can't catch up to it. But Oh Lord, you are a shield for me You are the glory and the lifter up on my head thou Oh Lord are great for me and all of a sudden he starts setting up ambushes on the enemy and praise and worship That's what we do So, you know how we end here, right? We end with praise and worship. Why because The enemy has now been identified and now we're just going to stand to our feet and if we would stand to our feet Pastor Melissa and the team are going to lead us into a just a moment of worship and a praise and we're just going to Watch the Lord begin to set up ambushes on the enemy all those accusers are getting ambushed right now The Lord is sending his angels. Yeah, one third of the angels fell but two-third of the angels fell So we're going to stand to our feet and we're going to stand to our feet and we're going to stand to our feet The Lord is sending his angels. Yeah, one-third of the angels fell but two-third of the angels still remain And the worshipers are what fell so you're replacing the worshipers You do what fell out of heaven and then he'll send the rest of heaven to take care of you Which are the warring angels and the ministering angels Gabriel Michael's fellas are about to go to war for you because this is how we fight our battles worship with the team We'll come back and dismiss in just a moment Do two things simultaneously. I'm at this mission But I also want to invite anybody down front that there's trouble in your house If there's trouble inside of your house, however, that is represented whether that be your marriage your children

Whatever's going on in your house That there's a tussle going on in your house Well Everybody else is gonna go that way. I want you to come this way Because there's strength in numbers One can put a thousand to flight Two can put ten thousand Can you imagine how many can go to flight with this whole house praying for you? So Lord be with us Lord protect us When the enemy comes in Like a flood the Spirit of the Lord raises up a standard against him So we thank you Lord for your great love over our lives For your power for your name for our faith for our salvation We thank you Lord for every weapon that you have placed into our hands And we fight from your hand And you hold all power in heaven and earth in your hand So Lord leave us out of here victorious With a high hand and may we lift up our hands and pull down Every stronghold And bring every thought into the captivity and the obedience of Jesus Christ In Jesus name I pray and all of God's people said Amen There's trouble in your house you come this way Otherwise i'll see you next sunday 10 o'clock My prayer teams if you'd come Be Thank you again for tuning into the purpose house church youtube channel When you're on site here

We do a three-week challenge asking you to come to any and all of our services for three weeks And we believe that you would find your new church home But now that you're online i'm asking you to do the three-click challenge Click the subscribe button click the like button and click the share button by liking and sharing our video You're helping us fulfill our purpose of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world Then if you would in the comments section Please let me know where you're watching from and if there is anything that we can pray with you about in your life Thank you again for tuning in to the purpose house church youtube channel, and I look forward to seeing you again real soon