TV 1770 | Know Your Enemy Part One

this. Of course, that's, hopefully, that's not a new thing. I need to be trusting the Lord all the time. But I feel especially inadequate, and yet, isn't that the foundation of everything? We are inadequate. We can't live. We can't serve. We can't do anything unless He does it in and through us. So that's my prayer this morning that the Lord will absolutely take over and just have His way. I'd like to read a scripture that we often read. I just want to focus in a particular way today, and that's in Ephesians chapter 6. Carl, I'm sorry, I guess I have your affliction this morning. But anyway, this is where Paul, after talking about so many aspects of truth and encouragement that the believers needed, he says in verse 10, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. Where our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." And then he goes on to describe the armor. But my focus is on the fact that we have talked about a number of times the reality of this world and what it's about. And of course, we'll get to where it how it affects us, because it's not just information about the world. We need something that will help us right where we're at in our Christian walk. But the fact is, there is an unseen kingdom. We see the kingdoms of the world, the presidents, the emperors, the kings, whatever they are, prime ministers, and the various levels of government, the armies of the world. We see all those things visibly.

We think of this capital city and that one and wars, and we think in a very physical way, but there is an unseen kingdom that's very real. And I feel like the Lord wants us to delve into this a little bit more than perhaps we have and become a little more conscious of what it is that Paul is talking about when he says to take on the armor because we wrestle not and so forth. What does that mean? Well, for the world, it means that this world is, as we have often pointed out, under the control of the enemy. There is an unseen kingdom that literally rules over the hearts of men. It blinds their minds. It causes them to be under his power, unaware of the Lord and his purposes and his kingdom. But I wonder, many times, if this isn't just a kind of a vague idea, okay, there's a kingdom out there and we see its effects in this broad general sense, but I believe the Lord wants us to get back to where we are conscious of the fact that that breaks down into individual members of that kingdom. We call them demons. We call them evil spirits, devils, whatever you want to call them. We think about earthly governments and we say, Putin attacked, you know, was it Ukraine? Don't get old. Putin was sitting there probably in a bunker or a secure location in Moscow and he didn't have anything to do with it. He wasn't the one out there pulling the triggers and throwing the bomb, dropping the bombs and all of that. But yet we say he did it. There are a lot of things where we read in the scripture about the devil, you know, resist the devil. Well, I think we have to realize, if we're honest, that Lucifer, the person we know as the devil, does not literally come down and bother us as individual believers or individual people. Now, he does interact with humanity, but that's when it's talking about the devil is talking

about his kingdom. And there are hordes of literal spirit beings who serve his interests and who affect the lives of individual people. You know, there was a time when the Lord was visiting the church here in unusual way. We don't spend a lot of time talking about that. It's not what we're about, but it was real. And we became very conscious of the activity of demon spirits and how they affected people. In some cases it was demon possession, but there were many others where, you know, you saw that you could see the effect of something, but then you realize, hey, there's a spirit. bring up something like this, it says, "Oh, don't talk about that." It's just people's personalities. And you know, it's just kind of, where does that wisdom come from? Yeah. We've got a kingdom of spirits that literally have a plan and a purpose to dominate humankind. They would love, if they could, to drive out God and all of His people from this earth and Satan would have His hands completely on everything and everybody. That's what He would like. Thank God for the blood that was shed on that cross. Thank God that He was defeated. You know, in the message that we preached and the one in the MCM, things the devil knows, he knows that his time is short and he knows he doesn't have the power. But that doesn't mean we don't have to have some understanding in this area because spirits do affect people. Now, I know one of the things that as soon as you get into that, you get into questions about demon possession and oppression and all that kind of stuff. Frankly, I don't care about trying to sort all that out. All I know is the devil will affect any person that he can. To any degree he can. If it's just a matter of whispering in their ear and shaping their thinking and encouraging their motivations in a wrong sense and it's all from out here, well, that's part of it. But if it gets to the point where spirits gain such an access to a person that they come to live in that person, you know that happens literally. Yeah, I mean, we know from scripture certainly, that they literally can be taken over and then you get cases where someone's totally out of control. And like when Jesus saw the man in the tombs there, he talked, but the person that talked back to him was not the man, was it? It was one of the many spirits that were living inside the man that had such control that he literally was able to exercise the man's mind, his body, his

tongue, everything about him, it was not the person, it was the spirit. Do you know that's real? You read the headlines every day and it's pretty obvious what's happening in the world. And you think about Mary Magdalene, one of the characters, one of the ladies who went around and no doubt cooked food and helped take care of the disciples in Jesus when they traveled around. But what does it say about her? Out of her went seven devils. What does that literally mean? If somebody had seen her someplace, they would say there is a woman and her name is Mary and so Mary lives inside this human body that I see before me. But Mary wasn't alone. Before Jesus came along, there were seven, anyway, seven other personalities. You know demons have names? They are real beings. And you know we've had testimony recently and from time to time of incidents where people have been able to see demon spirits. They are real. Now, I want to very quickly point out that all of this is not to inspire fear, that demon spirits do not have the power to just come in like some kind of monster gobble you up and take over. They've got to work behind the scenes. They have got to use strategy, which is one thing Paul talks about here. They have got to work almost like a gorilla force, if you will. They've got to be behind the scenes unrecognized. I'll tell you this world is totally, is it not under the control of the devil? Do they not live under his dominion? Are they not blind? That's the world that we live in. And people do not know where their ideas, where their motivations come from, and you literally have spirits whose job it is to go around and study people. Do you know their spirits that study you and me? What's going on? What's that about? The devil is looking for any kind of a weakness, any kind of an opening that's there. And of course, we know that people are unique, aren't they? None of us, we're not the same as each other. And you have people that are more into and all kinds of different variations of human personality. Well, the devil is gonna study each person, say, "Now, where's the weakness here? "How can I get to them? "How can I begin to inject my influence "into their minds and their hearts?" And you can almost see, I don't know how literal this is,

but you can almost see spirits going around with a notebook, studying somebody, it's as real as if they were doing that. This is not fantasy. There are people the Lord has allowed to know these things and then come and be able to tell us because the Lord pulled them out of that. This is real. But there are devils that literally will study you and say, "You know, there's a weakness here." Hey, you, spirit, you spirit of fear. Come here, there's a weakness. It's in the family. And I want you to take this person and work on that. And I want you to just keep ministering that and get a degree of influence and control over their lives. I want you to weaken them. And as you do, I want you to kind of pay attention and study them because other weaknesses are gonna show up and then maybe we can bring in a spirit of something else and all these things. And we're gonna get control. See, I don't care whether it's the degree that we, where you have to put somebody in a asylum or whether it's somebody that looks respectable. There are plenty of people who look respectable in our society and you don't have any real, any idea that they are under the control of Lucifer in their thinking and their actions.

It doesn't have to be some crazy crime that makes it obvious. If the devil has got somebody to the point where they love this world, any aspect of it, whether it's the lust of the flesh or the pride of life or the things that they can see, the lust of the eyes, he's gonna take control. Now you think about the man that came to Jesus and he wanted to come part of the kingdom. But Jesus knew he had an idol. And so he said, here's what you do. You sell everything you have. You give it to the poor and then you come, take up your cross and follow me. Well, what happened? He walked away, sadly. There was a weakness in his life. Now anybody looking on would've think, there's a respectable guy, he's wealthy, he's successful, God's blessed him. Isn't that awesome? Do you think that that was just an interaction between Jesus and a human being or was there the influence of the enemy that had built up to the point where there was a strong hold in his life? Well, that's the world that we're dealing with. And you remember how Paul spoke earlier in the book of Corinthians and he talks about how we have been brought out. We have been delivered, I think is the word,

I have to look it up, but delivered from the power or the dominion of darkness and what brought into the kingdom of his dear son in whom we have redemption through his blood, I believe. Praise God, I'll tell you, those are the only alternatives, by the way. If there's somebody who has never come to Christ that puts your faith in what he accomplished on the cross, surrendered your life and you're serving him, you're part of his kingdom, you are part of this kingdom of darkness that will ultimately be destroyed. Those are the only alternatives. And so I just appeal to anybody who hears this and that's where you're at, you need a savior. You have no power, there are things that happen in your life that you don't understand, he understands. There's things that are going on, you don't know and you need a savior to open your eyes and set you free from that power. But I believe with all my heart that the Lord wants us to be just a little more aware of some of these things. The Lord has many times emphasized the secrets of Christian living and talks about faith and talks about the word and coming, being filled with that and seeking Lord last week about coming to the Lord and listening, having a listening ear and seeking him. All of that is part of it.

But you can do all of that and need this. Think about the man that Jesus talked about on one occasion. We talked about the man out of whom, you know, the spirit left. Spirit went away and he went into, no way for a demon to find any kind of satisfaction anywhere else except through human beings. And so what he did eventually was to say, he went back to check out the house, the body of the man that he had lived in. Well, he found it empty. It's a dangerous thing just to get devils out but not get Christ in. All right. So this man was still empty. So what did he do? He went and he got seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they went in there and lived and the last state of the man was worse than at the beginning. So now instead of a man in one demon, he's got a man in nine demons, or eight demons, whatever it is. All those personalities living and inhabiting that same, you wonder where all these multiple personalities come from? They're real. Like we pointed out recently in a message we heard when the Lord talked to that man who'd come out of the tombs, what is your name? Well, there was only one spirit literally talking through that man but it was obvious that he was not the only one there because when Jesus said, what is your name? Singular. He said, Legion, for we are many. So he was speaking on behalf of all the other inhabitants. Well, this is the world you live in. We need to be aware of it. Okay? And you can go on and on and on talking about the effects of spirits and all of that. But I'm more interested in how this affects us. And the Lord's kind of gotten my attention with some of the scriptures that we read, and this is one of them obviously, but the Lord will say something like resist the devil and he will flee from you and so forth. He doesn't say resist the bad thought. Doesn't say resist your nature. Obviously those things are involved. But the focus is not on all the things that we would like to focus on and just forget all that demon stuff. That's just scary. By the way, the Lord is not talking about this to scare anybody. The fact that he has to sneak around to do his dirty work should tell us that we're the ones in the position of power, that we have a choice and especially if he has delivered us from that power and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he

loves. Okay? So there's no reason for anyone to be afraid like there's a monster. Okay? So let's just put that aside. But the Lord does want us to understand in a deeper way than we do. And I just want to throw this all out here today and pray that God will bring us to a deeper level of freedom. Because I believe with all my heart that many of the needs, if not most of them, that people come for and what's, you know, there's a problem in my life, there's a bondage, there's this, there's that. Where's that coming from? It's awful easy to say, well, that's just my human nature. That's just this. That's just habit of thinking. That's just, and all those things are involved, but they are more symptoms of an influence. Because the devil knows he cannot take us and steal us from Christ. If you've really been born and he lives in you, he can't steal you and destroy you. Thank God. But he can sure do a lot of bondage. You know, I was at one point when I was thinking about all this, I was picturing a scene. Many of you have probably at some time in your life seen a movie version of Dickens' "Christmas Carol." And you remember the scene near the beginning where Marley's ghost appears to scrooge? What's the scene? How is that depicted? He's this ghostly figure, first of all, but he has chains all over him. Oh, these are the chains I forged in life. Well, this, I mean, yeah, it's kind of amusing in a way. It's portrayed, but isn't there something real about that? The devil would like to put chains on every one of us to the extent that he can. And I fear that most, more of the time than we realize there are chains, the things about which we struggle. It's not a better formula. It's more than just information. There has to come a time when God's power comes into play to set us free from something that is a power that's come against us. This is not just some fantasy, folks. Do you believe this stuff is real? Do you believe there are literal spirits that study you and me looking for opportunities? And I wonder how many times the opportunities are there because we've been born into a family, a context of some kind,

and they have weaknesses. They have chains in their lives. And there's an effect. They have an opportunity right there to affect children that come into that environment. And so they're just programmed from youth with certain limitations, certain weaknesses, certain opportunities for the devil to hinder them. Just because he can't steal your soul and come in and all of that doesn't mean he can't attach chains. And God wants every one of us to come to that place where we recognize the chains that have bound us and where they come from. You know, one thing comes to mind and it certainly doesn't affect a lot of people. So I'm not just thinking about any one place or person. But think about something like unforgiveness. The devil loves to promote a culture where if somebody does something wrong to me, the way I look at it is, they're in the wrong. I'm right, and the only way we're going to get over that is for them to humble themselves, come to me and admit that they were wrong and ask for my forgiveness and then I'll consider it. And you can have whole cultures in families and groups that come from that mistaken idea. Where does that come from? It certainly comes from Satan and his kingdom. There were literal spirits that went to work, maybe on grandpa and grandma,

great grandpa and grandma way back. And there's a culture, there's a spiritual culture that has been handed down and people are born into it. There's a lot of the stuff that afflicts our lives. We don't even aware of it. That's the whole point. The devil hides what he's doing. He'll send a friend so-called into your life. And you don't realize what's really motivating. There's something in control. There's a degree of motivation there and they'll pretend to be your friend. But they'll influence you. We can do this and it'll be okay. You can think this way, you can think that way. Look at our culture. It is devoted to totally programming people's minds in ways that are absolutely anti-Christian, anti-Christ. And God wants us to be a lot more aware than we are. [music] This has been the Midnight Cry Broadcast. If you would like a DVD or CD of today's message in its entirety, please request it by program number. While it is not required, a donation of $10 for DVDs and $5 for CDs is suggested to help with expenses. Also for those who request it, we will send you our quarterly publication, the Midnight Cry Messenger Free and Postage Paid. Send your requests to Midnight Cry Ministries, post office box, 685, Southern Pines, North Carolina,

28388. We invite you to join us again next week at the same time, and may God richly bless you until then. (upbeat music) You