3 - Spiritual Warfare

In this transcription, the speaker is discussing the importance of understanding spiritual warfare and the tactics of the evil one. They emphasize the need for repetition and understanding the truth of God's word. The speaker also talks about the power of thoughts and imaginations, and how they can either hold us captive or be taken captive by us. They mention the need to cast down imaginations and thoughts that go against the knowledge of God. The speaker also highlights the importance of being mindful and prepared in our minds for spiritual battle. Good morning, Abba's House Church. We're continuing with our lesson on spiritual warfare. There's a little bit of review to take place, and we may get into the next lesson, I don't know. I said at the beginning we're going to take our time, and by that I mean we're going to take our time. There's no need in rushing through it if we're not getting it. And repetition is the best teacher. If I teach what I feel like the Lord has showed me today, and I go on next week and teach something else, and we don't remember what I taught this week, or we didn't get it, we remember just a piece of it, but we didn't get it, then I'm not accomplishing anything, and we're not accomplishing anything, and the one that we're warring against is really tricking us into thinking that we're doing something and we're not. He wants us to think we've got this. And here's the truth. I'm sure that each one of us has heard this said or said at one time or another. It's all in your head. You say you're hurting, you say you're sick, but I think it's just all in your head. We'll tell ourselves that. Everybody else thinks it's just in your head. And here's the shocker. They're right. Partially. That's where the evil one works. And here's what the evil one will do, Mom. He will give you truth, but he'll never give you the whole truth. He'll give you truth that's diluted or polluted. If he gives you a whole truth, he adds to it. God's Word says that nothing can be added to nor taken away from. If you add to the truth, it no longer is truth. And if you take away from truth, finish it. And if you take away from truth, it's no longer truth. It's no longer truth. So we have to have it. We have to have this thing that is truth. The only truth that we have is the Word of God. And anything that contradicts the Word of God, that diminishes the Word of God, that belittles the Word of God, is our enemy. Whether it comes in spirit form or whether it comes in our mind and thought form, most of the time you're going to find out that's still spirit form. It's just not your spirit. The evil one likes to shoot and jump through our minds, those little darts that we've talked about, to disrupt us, to divert our thinking, to change the truth just like he did with Eve. That was his first tactic. He used the truth, polluted the truth, diluted the truth, and she accepted a partial truth and added to it, and it cost mankind thousands of years, cost them death. All their wages were dead. They got their wages. It cost them life is what it costed them. So where are we at? We're talking about casting down imaginations. You know, we've covered this, but what is an imagination? Imagination is an image. It's a movie playing in your mind. It's a video. It's a video that someone has painted a picture that you can see playing out in your mind. Casting down imaginations, and that word cast down means to thrust down to the ground and pierce through with a sword or spear until it's dead. Casting it down doesn't mean just knocking it down and walking off because it's going to get back up. That thing's got to die. Casting down imaginations and every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. That's a lot, y'all. All of us have been born again, with the exception of one, for a long time. She ain't been around long enough to be born again a long time, but we'll keep her anyway. So we've had this thing, and we've all had knowledge, and we've all had godly knowledge, but we've had knowledge that will puff up, whether it is some type of a revelation that we laid hold of more than Christ, some type of a teaching, some type of a... And that's what it says, every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. So if I have a thought, even about some teaching that someone had, and they did it throughout the Bible. The Pharisees were known for it. They had their thoughts, and they made them traditions. They were good thoughts, but they were not God's thoughts. They made them traditions, and people started following the traditions, and Jesus said, Because of your traditions, the Word of God is not a fake. It exalted itself above the knowledge of God. Certain things that we think we have to do in life, that exalts itself above the knowledge of God. You can't do that. We can't get before Him and live. We've got to walk with Him, not before Him. We can't lag behind Him, we can't run ahead. It's walking with Him. So just a few things about what's going on in our head. One thing is, either you hold the thought captive, or it holds you captive. That's just simple. And all of this is simple truth, y'all. Jesus said in Luke 4.18, Bonnie, you want to read that, because you can get to it pretty quick. This is Luke 4.18. This is the ESV Bible. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. To set at liberty the captives. Jesus came to set us free. We should no longer be prisoners of war. So when we allow these thoughts, these images, these imaginations, to build a stronghold, and it says casting down these strongholds, tearing down strongholds, fortified cities that we allow to be built within us, when we allow these things in there, we allow them to take us captive and literally make void and null what Christ came to do. We help the evil one hold us captive by allowing thoughts to be in our mind that are not God thoughts. Captives, prisoners of war. Now we've seen the news lately, and the news in America is bad enough. The war zones we call schools, the malls where they go in and shoot places up and shoot people up. We've seen that, but that's not the horror of war. What we see going on in Israel and in the areas around there and over in Europe, that is the horror of war, and it's death. It always brings death. It always brings destruction. It always brings captivity. It always brings hunger. It brings all of these things, and we see it. We're not experiencing it in ourselves, but we see it, and those people are experiencing it. I want you to know we are experiencing it in a different way. What you see on the world news going on in these war zones is what's going on in reality in the spirit realm. People are being killed. People are being taken captive. People are being starved. People are just tortured in the spirit realm in peace-loving countries, probably worse over here spiritually than it is there because they expect it. They know it's taking place. We think everything is cool. Everything is all right, and we don't know that we're captives. The evil one takes us captive in our own life. This is just a few things, just a few thoughts, James 4, 1 and 2. You got it? I do. Okay. Go ahead and read it. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder, you covet and cannot attain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongfully to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Okay. Now listen. He's talking to Christians here. This was written to Christians. This was not written to a lost community out in the middle of the desert. This was written to born-again believers, and he says, and where do these wars come from, these fights among you? Do they not come from your desires and pleasures? King James says from your lust, from your desires that you want this, you want this, you want this, all of these wars are taking place because everybody wants something that somebody else has instead of being satisfied with what the Lord gives us. I want more. I want better. I want bigger. Or I want less. I got plenty of trouble. I want less. I want less of that. Where is it? It's right here between your ears, Mama said. The battlefield, the major battlefield on a personal level, and that's what we've got to relate that there's more than one battlefield, but the battlefield on a personal level is right where you said it was and right where your family said it was, it's in your head. But it's not the way they think it is, and it's not the way we think it is. The evil one is doing everything he can to control you, and he uses you to do it because he has no authority and no power over you. But because of a lack of knowledge, my people perish. But Paul said knowledge puffs up. So where are we with that? Worldly knowledge puffs up. Carnal knowledge puffs up. Knowledge that tries to make me something that I'm not puffs up. Knowledge that inflates me puffs up. Inflate blows it up bigger than what it is. Knowledge that makes me look good. Knowledge that makes me look good in front of others puffs up. Knowledge that makes me look less in front of others so that I can have a martyr mentality puffs up. So that I can feel sorry for myself puffs up. It's not just the high knowledge, but the low knowledge. Pride and false humility is the same thing. A false humility is living so that people can see and acting so that people can acknowledge and say, oh, that person's so humble. That's pride. Because we want them to say we're humble. Still pride. Either way. And so that's what's going on there. So here's where it's at, though. It's in 1 Peter 1.13. We're going to look at a few scriptures. We may not get into the exact weapons today, but we'll get into this, finishing up this little ... Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So that translation said, prepare your minds for action. The King James says, gird up the loins of your mind. Another translation says, arm yourself. Gird up the reproductive parts of your mind. That's what it's saying. And you're going to make yourself strong, you're going to make everything tight, you're going to make it where everything is clear, but it's something that you have to do. Nobody else has any authority over your mind and over your thoughts. That is your responsibility. That's yours to keep uncluttered, it's yours to keep pure, or it's yours to make filthy. Whatever choice you make with your mind is what you're going to have. But we have to understand the choice that we make with our mind, what we allow to be loose or free in our mind, is going to do one of two things, it's going to allow the evil one access and rulership, or it's going to submit to Christ and give him rulership. Paul said that to be naturally-minded or carnally-minded is death, but to be spiritually-minded is life in Christ Jesus. And I know that this probably could be considered not spiritual warfare, but until we get this, this is the very foundation of spiritual warfare. This is the very battlefield that the enemy wants to control. Because if you can't help you, you can't help nobody else. Now there's a trick here. It's not about you, but it is about you. It's a paradox. How can it be about me and not be about me? It's not about what I want. It's about, to Jesus Christ, it's about me. To me, it has to be about Jesus Christ and everybody else that he bought with his blood. So that's the way we have to, and that's the way we win victory over this thing. If I think it's about me, I've already lost the battle. I've already given the evil one a foot in, and he don't just crack the door, people. He bust it wide open. He won't see him. So we, let's look at James, I'm sorry, 2 Peter verses 1 through 4, 2 Peter 2, 1 through 4. And I'm not going to, I'm going to try not to cover this again next week. Next week we're going to talk a little bit about, by the grace of God, we're going to talk a little bit about Palm Sunday, and we're going to talk some about Good Friday. And then on Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday, we're going to talk about Resurrection Sunday. So we're going to come off of spiritual warfare for two weeks, and then we're going to come back to it because it's so important we've got to have this. Amen. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. So he said, you, but not you. Paul, while we was gone, we were saying it's about you, but it's not about you. It's about Christ. It's about, to Christ, it's about you. But to you, it has to be about Christ and about everybody else around you. So he says, you then, endure hardness as a good soldier. The things that you have heard and learned from me, the same share or teach with faithful people, he said, men, faithful people, so that they can in turn do the same thing. So what we give away, and we will give something away, you can't live close to someone and not give something away. It's got nothing to do with shoes, does it, mom? It's got nothing to do with watches. It's got nothing to do with iPhones. It's got nothing to do with iPads. It's got to do with what I give away from my heart, because what I am is what I give away. What I know or what I think I know is what I give away. What I share with you is who I am, and who I am is what this thing says I am. That's not what God's word says. Don't get me wrong. God's word says you are who you are by the grace of God. But because we've allowed the evil one access to God's garden, he comes in and tells four lies that are half truths, and we give them away. Can I tell you, and this, I'm still on spiritual warfare, but I'm going to do a little bit of gardening right quick. We're going to do a little horticulture. The job that God gave man in the very beginning has not changed at all. His job description was gardener. Amen. God planted a garden east of Eden and told Adam, this is for you to take care of. If it grows, good on you. If it don't grow, it's your fault. If it's got good fruit, good on you. If it's got bad fruit, it's your fault. If it's got vines and weeds, you did it. You permitted it. You allowed them. You didn't pull them up. The job description hasn't changed. If you've got weeds in your garden, you allowed them to be there. The evil one is still playing in the garden. We've got to get some weed killer. We've got to get our rakes and our shovels and our hoes out and start digging all of this junk out of us. Because that's the battlefield. That's the personal battlefield. That's the personal battlefield. And if we can't get the victory on that battlefield, we lose the war. We lose it. Bristol, we can't afford to lose the battle. Because lives are at stake. Your children's lives are at stake. My son's 45. I'm going to tell you this story. My son's 45, and he was a teenager at one time. Can't look at it and tell it. But he was acting really, really goofy one day. I mean, he was giving me fits. He was being rebellious, and he was being disrespectful. He was being ugly to his dad. And I had a choice to make at that time. It was me and him go at it, tooth and nail, or me do what I felt like God was going to do. What God would do. So in the heat of the battle, I stopped. And I started praying. Now, he's a teenager, Bristol. He ain't got no children. But I said, Lord, I ask you to bless Shane with the seed that he's planting today. And let his children treat him the way he's treating me. He said, whoa, whoa, Dad. Man, you can't pray that. I said, it's too late, son. I just prayed it. And there was a time in his life that his children treated him the way he treated me. The seed that we sow now, because we have to kill this garden. We're keepers of the garden. The seed that we sow now, or the seed that we allow the evil one to plant in our garden. The plant in our garden, we're going to reap a harvest of it in our life and in our children's lives. So it's not just affecting us. This battle and this war is not just about us. It's about generations. That's what we sang a while ago. Many generations. Therefore, be strong. James 4, verse 7 through 9. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you civil-minded. Be wretched, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to blame. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Boy, that's a lot right there. He said a lot of things right there in those three little verses. He said a lot of things right there. Why would he want us? I mean, here we are. We're from Matthew to here. He said he gives us beauty for ashes. You know, he said, blessed are those that mourn. For they shall be comforted. And then right here in James, he says, be mournful, be sorry. Why? Because of the way we've been thinking. Because we've allowed death to reign. How can we have life in our body if we have death in our soul? I mean, that's a legitimate question. How can I have life in my body if I allow death to rule in my mind, in my will, and in my emotions? Soul, soul, soul. In the way that I think, in the decisions that I think, I will do this or I will not do that, and my emotions are tore all to pieces because all this stuff is going on, and it's all against me, and people just don't like me. They just don't understand. Who cares? Get over it. Grow up. It ain't about you. How can I see the light of Christ if I'm in you, if all I can see in you is whining and crying? Yes, it hurts. It hurts your soul just as bad as it does your mouth when you get teeth snatched out. Thank you. It hurts. It's real. We've got to understand this thing. Look at this. Therefore, submit yourself to God. That's what it said, right? That's what it said, right? Verse 7. Submit yourself to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Can I tell you that you can resist the devil all you want, and he ain't going nowhere? That ain't what you just read. Yes, it is. The requirement is submit yourself to God, and then resist the devil. Then he has to go. But if I don't submit myself to God first, I can tell the devil where to go, and he's just going to sit there and laugh, have a good time. While we've got tears running down our faces, while we've got pain in our bodies, while our children are shipwrecked, we can resist him. But can I tell you that to the degree that you submit yourself to God, you have authority over the evil one? Nobody's telling you that. Nobody's taught you that. Nobody has told you that. They just say, resist the devil, and he'll flee from you. No, he won't. In the real world, it don't work that way. Therefore, submit yourself to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Now, we're talking about the battlefield right here. The next verse is, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Now, listen. I might not be a smart man, but I know if I'm in a battle, I really need God near to me. I need the one that's going to win to be on my side. What's your ammunition stockpile look like? Good. Good and healthy. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. That's a hard one. Double-minded. Yep. Another place, he says, let not a double-minded... He said, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, and let not that man think that he will receive anything from God. Now, this is battlefield. This is spiritual warfare that we're talking about. This is not just some pretty teaching so that someone says, good word, pastor. No, this ain't about that. It ain't about that in Office House Church. It ain't about that in the First Baptist. It ain't about that at Gateway Church. It ain't about that at Elevation Church. It ain't about that at Hillsong Church. It's not about that at Bethel Church. It's about the reality of the Word of God, the reality of the spiritual realm, the reality of warfare going on, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, and the reality of whose side we choose to be on. Either I am for Him or I am against Him. Amen. My thoughts determine that, not my words. My words can be prudy and say all kind of nice stuff, but my thoughts can be saying something totally different. I can look you right in the face and tell you what you want me to tell you, and it may not be what's in my heart. Straight in your eyes. But that's not my thoughts. My thoughts are, man, those are some really ugly glasses. How can it work? I got my dad's glasses on, and I'm talking about somebody else's glasses being ugly. But we say things, and what our mind is saying is something else. Oh, you're my best friend. I'll kick you in the dirt. That ain't the way it works, but that is the way it works. The way people do it anyway. That's what I said. That's the way we bring it out. So he said, because of this, lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom. Because you need to face the reality of the mess you've made. You created this mess. Now there's a way out of it. Look in there and find out what you did. There's a way out of it. I'm going to read another scripture in just a minute, and I'm going to quit. But I'm going to ask this question. For the day. For the day. I'm going to ask this question, and it's up so we can have several different definitions if we want. But what is repentance? Regretting something you've done. Mama says regretting something you've done is repentance. And asking forgiveness. Anybody else? Anybody else got a thought? It's basically the same thing. Being sorry for what you've done and turning around and doing it differently. Oh, there's a turning that has to take place. Yeah, there's a turning that has to take place. Before the turning can take place, what has to happen? You've got to be sorry for it. Well, okay. Okay. Godly sorrow does what? Leads to repentance. So being sorry is not repentance. It's the start of repentance. Being sorry is the road to repentance. Repentance is turning around. If I'm going in this direction and I'm thinking, I'm going to take it and I'm going to dot that out right there. But I have a better thought. I might get my eyes dotted back. So what I'm going to do is repent. I'm going to repent. I'm going to turn and go back to safety. But what happened before I turned? You had another thought. I had another thought. I had to have a change of mind. I had to change my thought pattern, my thought process. I had to stop agreeing with the evil one, that is the accuser and the one that loves me. The evil one, that is the accuser and the one that loves to bring destruction and death and sickness. I had to stop agreeing. Now listen, I'm going to agree with one or the other. There's only two voices in the world. The voice of creator or the voice of destroyer. The voice of life or the voice of death. The voice of healing or the voice of sickness. The voice of joy or the voice of sorrow. There's only two voices. So I'm going to agree with one voice or the other. There's no middle ground. And the one I'm going to agree with is going to give access and rulership to this vessel. Because this controls this. Spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is different. It can't be separated from any part of our lifestyle. I am... Okay, I'm going to go there. We have in our nation what we call weekend warriors. What do they call them, Paul? It's the guardsmen. The National Guard. I'm going to tell you there's no such thing as a weekend warrior. Those men are warriors 24-7. Or women. They're on the call. They have to think like a warrior all the time. Your battle and your warfare cannot be separated from your civilian life. Same thing applies to our spiritual warfare. You cannot come to church on Sunday expecting your spirit man to be strong if you're not taking on your spiritual battle during the week and being that same warrior. You can't leave it at the house. That's part of it. You can't decide. So here's the thing. A warrior is who you are. A warrior is what you are. You can be a gentle warrior when it comes to brothers and sisters. But when it comes to the evil one, you can't be gentle. Now, why are we doing this? We read it just a few minutes ago. There's no warrior who does it for his own good but that he might please him who enlisted him. Amen. So my spiritual warfare is so that I can please the one that enlisted me. Bristol, when I was born again, I received a personal savior. You know what else I received? A personal enemy. At the same time, at the same moment, one loves me with an everlasting love, the other one hates me with an everlasting hatred. One wants to give me everlasting life and the other one wants to make sure I get everlasting death. You can't separate this warfare from the fabric of the Christian. It's impossible. It's impossible. And we've done that. We've tried to do that. Because we think we live in peace times. There is no peace time in the kingdom of God when it comes to spiritual warfare. He said, I have come to give you peace. But he's also said, as I am in this world, so are you. And he said, I didn't come to bring peace but a sword. Yeah. So where's the balance? Where's the balance? You gotta have a sword so you can conquer this enemy. You cannot have peace without war. You can't have it without weapons. Having done all, we're going to get there, having done all stand. Stand. Okay, so it's here. This is the beginning place of the war. It's in your mind. Bonnie, it's in your mind. Well, let me expand on that. When warriors of the past, before our modern day era, when they were told to stand, that means that they stood ready to go back into battle. That means they stood with shield in hand, either sword or spear, ready to go on the attack again. Having withstood all, stand. So with having withstood what the enemy throws at us, stand. Amen. Amen. Stand. Good job. Now back up. Stand, stand your ground. Someone tries to come in my front door that's not welcome here, I'm going to stand my ground. If I don't, they're going to come in. If they come in, they're going to have to walk over me. That's the only way we're going to do this. If they walk over you, do you think they're going to run your house or run whoever's in it? This battle is not about sickness and disease. It's not about good versus bad. It's about life and death. It's literally a life and death battle. Jews. This is what happened. This is what happened and what a lot of people don't see. They should see it. But God told Adam, on the day, he said, you can have anything in this garden. You can have anything in this garden. You can eat anything you want to and you can eat from any tree you want to. But don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because on the day that you eat thereof, not you'll get sick. Not that you'll be in rebellion. He was already in rebellion when he did it. The day you eat thereof, death has started. And that's what it's about. The battle's always been about life and death. Spiritual life and spiritual death. We're going to have one or the other. And those that we are in contact with is going to have one or the other. And the downside to that is, is there ain't no way back in the garden. No, we have to endure all until Jesus returns. We'll get there. I'm sorry. We'll get there. We love you and thank you. We thank you for your word this morning. Well, let it be reality to us. Let it be something that we think about beyond this room. Even let it irritate us if necessary. Let it grab a hold of us. That we can see the reality of what you have for your people. It's not always glorious. Warfare is not always glorious, but it's always necessary. It's not always beautiful. It's not like the songs that we sing. But God, you're worthy. You're worthy. You're worthy of whatever we go through. Because we know that you're with us. Because you're the one that gives us life. You're the one that gave us the kingdom. So Lord, we just thank you for teaching us by the power of your spirit. I ask you, Lord, to seal the words in our hearts. We give you praise for that as well. Bless everyone, Lord, that's here and everyone that hears these words. Let them receive them, Lord God, with gladness. Let it bring change in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.