Angels, Man + Sin 2

---

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 Hey, good to see you all. Thanks so much for coming back tonight. Let's start out with a word of prayer and get rolling. Lord God, Thank you for letting us talk about Your Word tonight. This is a touchy subject so we ask for Your protection. We just ask that Your presence would be very real in this place. I also pray that this would be a moment where we would be able to really think through the world around us and see it as You see it and learn about our enemy so that we can resist that enemy. So I ask that in Your Name. Amen. I probably started out the same way two weeks ago, but I'll start out this way tonight. I am convinced that if we could see the world through a set of spiritual glasses that we could put on and we looked through them we would see two things very strongly. I think we would see way more spiritual presence than we ever dreamed. God's angels—and I think we'd be blown away by what we saw and the amount that we saw and what was going on if we could see that—and also Satan's angels, demons, and I think we'd be troubled by the darkness that we saw there. And so tonight we go into this with that realization. With that said, my hope is that somehow we'll even come out of tonight with a balance of realizing that yes there is a spiritual world and yes there is a spiritual battle, but I don't want us to just become freaked out over it because what we're going to end up with tonight is that in Christ we are victorious and we have the power of Jesus in our life. So I just want to say that upfront here that in the name of Jesus, He wins; and so we get to live in that tonight and so that's where we're going to go at. If you have your notes with you here, I'd love for you to turn to the third page and at the very bottom of it you'll see the words "Very Practical" and I put those there on purpose. I just want to say this as we begin tonight, we're going to talk about the enemy tonight. We're going to talk about Satan. We're going to talk about demons. And I just wrote at the bottom of that page under Very Practical "know your enemy." I'm glad you came tonight. Thanks for coming tonight because we need to know that we are at war time. We are not in peace time. There is a battle going on and we need to know the enemy, and so that's one of the things that makes what we're going to talk about tonight important and worthwhile. We have a real enemy and the battle is against you and against your life. And in fact, the stakes in this battle are insanely high. I mean, you think about any other battle, whatever battle you're going through, any other battle in the world—you may lose something, you may get hurt; but this battle is a battle for your eternal destiny and life and so it's an incredibly important topic and an incredibly important subject. And I believe that if we can get our arms around it a little bit here tonight and we can put those spiritual glasses on and see it and also understand it through God's Word, I think it's going to make a huge difference. So I'm going to start right out at the beginning of your notes now and we told you a few weeks ago we're going to talk about fallen angels tonight. We started two weeks ago talking about angels; we're going to talk about fallen angels tonight. And the question that I felt like it was worthwhile to just begin with tonight is how does this happen? When did this happen and how did this happen? So Isaiah chapter 14, verses 12-14, I believe they are in your notes, say this: 12

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!

By the way, I spent some time just looking over all of the names that are out there for Satan and all of the names that are out there for his angels, and it's helpful to have an eye on those because when you have an eye on those when you're reading your Bible you go, "I know what that's referring to." As we –1–

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 read some of the verses tonight you'll see some of the different names for Satan. I'm not going to go through them. I think I could get long and laborious tonight. You can look them up if you want, but even as you see these verses just some of these names jump out at you. How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! 13 You said in your heart, — now he's going to say "I will" five times and I want you to catch this; you may want to circle it each time — ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God – 2nd time — I will set my throne on high; — 3rd time — I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; — 4th time — 14

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;

— 5th time — I will make myself like the Most High.’ — ISAIAH 14:12-14

And it's in that I will and it's in the very thing that is a part of his rising up and saying I want to be God, I want to replace God; it's that very thing that he then comes to tempt us with. If he comes to seed and the beginning of sin on our part, the core of it being pride—you think of the core or the seed of that temptation there in Genesis 3 when the serpent comes to Eve he says this: You'll not die if you eat of this fruit. For God knows when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.1 Here's the deal: The struggle that probably most of us have in our lives wherever we're at is that we aspire to be God. We want to be the god of our own lives. We want to control it, and Satan just keeps coming at us from this angle just as he did with Eve. He fell sometime after the seventh day of creation. You may remember in Genesis 1:312 God looks at what He had created and He sees it as good—[inaudible] it's still good. And in Genesis 3:1 we read these words: "Now the serpent was more crafty"—so something happens between 1:31 and 3:1 when a number of the angels and the devil himself rebel against God, so that's when Satan falls from Heaven. There's one other verse that I believe is extremely helpful. I did not print it out for you tonight because it's so long. If you want to turn there in your Bible, it's Ezekiel 28, verses 12-19. If you just want to follow along on the screen, you can do that also. 12

“Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God:

1

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” – GENESIS 3:4-5 2 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. – GENESIS 1:31

–2–

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 And then He's going to speak we believe of Satan: “You were the signet of perfection, — now He's describing him; in Heaven he's a created being — full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13

You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created

— you may want to circle those three words, "you were created" — they were prepared. 14

You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.

15

You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.

16

In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;

— here it is — so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. — here's the words we spoke of a moment ago — 17

Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.

18

By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries; so I brought fire out from your midst; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you.

19

All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.” — EZEKIEL 28:12-19

And what He's done there is He's taken the whole history from the time he's created; so the time ultimately that we'll mention here tonight where he's absolutely finally destroyed. If you again just glance over those two pages of notes tonight, one of the things that you'll pick up on this next page that you're going to see is you're going to see his limitations. One of the things that I want us to know tonight when we get to know and be aware of our enemy, is his limitations and specifically what he is not and I believe these things are important. –3–

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 He is not omnipresent. I think sometimes we just sort of assume that. So the chances of Satan being here tonight are pretty slim. He has better places to be than here tonight. There's probably a bigger fish to fry than us tonight because he can only be in one place. Because he is a created being, remember when I read those verses a moment ago I highlighted that there in Ezekiel 28:13; God says I created you. He is within the limits and bounds of time because of creation, so he's not outside of time like God is. The thing we have to be careful of tonight, I really want to set it as a foundational thought as we begin here tonight, be careful not to make God and Satan equal. God is infinite; Satan is not. Again, we've watched movies, read books, thought through this in our own heads, seen the power of Satan, heard people talk about the power of Satan, and there is within us a little bit of a tendency to just sort of see Satan and God as equals duking it out. That's not the case. It's important for us to understand that and know that and think about that here tonight. He is also not omniscient. God knows everything; Satan does not. Something I think about once in a while—he can't necessarily read my mind, he doesn't necessarily know what I am thinking. He doesn't necessarily know everything that's going on, why it's going on, where it's going on, and how it's going to go on. BUT something I've thought a lot about also is the fact that he's been around since creation and he's studied human nature. And if you've been going through these Old Testament books with us, you start realizing that the way they behaved then and the problems they had then aren't much different than the way we behave now and the problems that we have now. Have you noticed that? So if he watches people he knows how we're going to respond. My guess is he's studied us. He knows our personality types. He knows the types of decisions that are made. He can watch those things and see how we behave, see how we respond, how we think, and then based on how those things happen I have a feeling he knows exactly the play to play with us to get his way. Important piece to remember: Even though he's not omniscient, he's pretty smart. He's also not omnipotent. Because God exists, again, outside of the barriers of space and time outside of creation, God cannot be overthrown by Satan. Again, that's this thought process that they're equals going to battle. Not at all. Not at all. And Satan doesn't get to do anything—we'll talk about this here in as second—that God does not allow. He does have—he's not omnipotent—but he does have at his disposal demons. You'll remember a third of the angels fell with him—we'll talk about that here in a few moments—so he has a lot of fallen angels at his disposal that he can command and that he can dispatch. Satan is malicious. He hates God. He hates you. He has no good intents. But he definitely has a limited power and it's important for us to capture that tonight. He is not sovereign. This is awesome. You know this but it's important to grasp. He has to ask permission before he does anything. Angels and demons are under God's authority. So let's think about Job. I think you have this in your notes tonight, Job chapter 1, verses 9-12: 9

Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. — JOB 1:9-12

So evidently Satan has access to God and Satan will actually come and ask permission before he lays a hand on a person, and he can only go as far as what God will allow. Remember those verses, no temptation has overcome you but what is common to man and God will not allow you to have more than

–4–

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 what you are able and will also give you a way of escape?3 And then He allows those things. In that we learn dependence on God. We learn to gain our strength from God. We need to turn our eyes to Him and at the end He gives us a way out. Even here he says, regarding Job, I'll give him a way out. By the way, you saw in that verse—I'll just make little comments of things I've been thinking about as I've been studying this—it talks about Satan that recognizes in verse 10: 10

Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? — JOB 1:10

It appears that God, I'm going to emphasize that word, GOD—I don't know if it's for everyone but for certain it was this one, maybe it's all of His children—has put a hedge around us, a hedge of protection. You've heard many people pray a hedge of protection around someone or an activity or an evening or something like that. This is the only place where we see such a thing. We don't ever see any command where it says pray a hedge of protection around a person. It says there is a hedge of protection. Now there are places that tell us to resist Satan and pray for protection, but this idea of a hedge, this is something that God placed around him and it's the only place I believe we see it here in Scripture. Luke chapter 22:31: 31

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, — LUKE 22:31

Again, God is sovereign, not Satan. God is sovereign over all of nature, over nations, over life, over death, over disease—God is sovereign over all. I was talking in the back before I came out here tonight, one of the things that I'm excited about this weekend's message in Ezra—and I'll give you the answers since you were able to come early and all those watching on video came early—this weekend we're going to see some pretty cool things happen through the king at that time, a man by the name of Cyrus. We're going to see some pretty cool things happen at the hand of Ezra. But at the end of the book one of the things that is just going to pop out at us after we read a whole bunch of Scriptures that yeah, Cyrus was cool but he didn't do anything that God didn't make just happen through him even though he was used by God to do the good things. And Ezra did some great things but they weren't done because Ezra was great, and Ezra says it over and over: God, you are great. You are great. You are great. And there is this reminder that God is sovereign. And that's this thing here where while Satan will do his thing, he doesn't get the privilege to do them outside of the purview of God. It's all about God. And this is a story about God and we talked about that wrestling of making sure we know our enemy and making sure that we do recognize and see him through the right glasses, to never so over-emphasize the enemy. I think sometimes I hear people praying to Satan and telling Satan what to do and where to go and how to do it. The Bible never tells us to pray to Satan. We have to get to this place where we recognize no, it's all about God and He is the righteous one. He is the holy one. He is the sovereign of creation. And He is the one with power. Is Satan strong? Yes. Do we have to be aware? Do we have to watch out? Yes, and we're going to keep on talking about that. Satan is not self-existent and we've pressed this a whole bunch because it just continues to nail down this whole thing. He is created by God. He is a created being and is lost and there is nothing that Satan can do to mess up the eternal purposes of God. He will try, but he doesn't win. What God wants 3

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. – 1 CORINTHIANS 10:13

–5–

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 ultimately in His eternal plan and His eternal purposes cannot be messed up or ruined by Satan, although he will try. In your notes we see here: What does Satan do? Again, wow, as I was studying this my question was how do I limit this and bring it down because there are so many Scriptures throughout the Bible where it will say Satan did this, Satan did this, and so you just sort of get an idea of all the horrific things that Satan does and you could really make a much deeper study out of it. But the thing that I thought to myself—what are some of the things that probably we've run into, some of the major things that we need to know about? The first one is this: Satan hinders the believer. First Thessalonians 2:18 Paul says: 18

because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. — 1 THESSALONIANS 2:18

Hmmm. So evidently I could have planned, I could have a direction that I am trying to go in that is hindered by Satan; so he hinders believers. We've talked about this already tonight, but he does have his own angels. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that a third of the angels fell with Satan. Probably the best place to grasp that is in Revelation chapter 12, verse 4: 4

Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. — REVELATION 12:4 (NIV)

Matthew 25:41: 41

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. — MATTHEW 25:41 (NIV)

So we know that he has his angels. We're told that the appearance, and I think this is important to sort of put our arms around because we see a lot of depictions of Satan and the uglier the depiction the more Satan is happy with that depiction, but 2nd Corinthians chapter 11, verses 13-14, refers to Satan as the angel of light. Remember, Satan is always going to be the great counterfeiter. Satan's always going to be the one trying to come dressed as the good guy. The last thing he's doing to do is come to you and go, "I'm really ugly. I want to ruin your life." He's like, "I'm really beautiful and I want to take care of your life." I was thinking about that this week. Satan would rather have you so blessed, so comfortable, so happy, and do all sorts of things to make you feel like you've got the good life that you don't need God. He would rather make you your own god. Listen carefully when anyone is promising you to reach some sort of god-like status because that attracts us, to reach some sort of perfection on your own, to meet some sort of need in yourself that you're not having met through God. He's coming to you as the angel of light. Listen to these words, 2 Corinthians 11:13-14: 13

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. — 2 CORINTHIANS 11:13-14

Church, we don't talk a lot about false teachings and false doctrines and false teachers. Boy, if I want to light a firestorm in this room Sunday morning, I can just come in here and start naming off false teachers. Because what Paul says here in this verse is many of these false teachers are coming with all sorts of brands of religion that feel good and sound good and make me feel good and make me feel like I

–6–

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 can do it and I'm a good guy and I'm all right. And he says hey, you know what; Satan's coming, too, disguised as an angel of light telling you that you, too, can be God. C. S. Lewis, you're familiar with that name, writes the Screwtape Letters and you have the elder demon speaking to a younger demon giving advice on how to deceive people; you've probably run across this. This is what he says: I do not think you will have much difficulty in keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that “devils” are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that . . . he therefore cannot believe in you.4 Remember, Satan is being very, very crafty. He is a master of deception. He is a master counterfeiter. He's going to counterfeit things of God. He's going to counterfeit—one of the things he counterfeits is the Trinity. So I mean, it's just a crazy amount of things that goes on there. One of the things he's very much involved in is creating false doctrine. There's a really good chance that if he's busy doing something tonight, he's trying to create a world system, a doctrine, a teaching, a mindset, a marketing campaign, a false system of belief that would win over hearts and minds of unsuspecting people thinking that they're getting the real deal and not. He creates false doctrine. First Timothy 4:1-2 says this: Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, — you can be like God — — 1 TIMOTHY 4:1-2

He also perverts the Word of God. This takes us back to Genesis again to the work that the serpent did with Eve. Genesis 3:1: Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” — GENESIS 3:1

He's trying to take God's Word and put a question mark in your mind and mess with you. We see it in our time all the time. The political correct stuff that we're all supposed to mouth back out—"Oh, God wouldn't want that. God wouldn't want you to feel that way." And you go, "Oh yeah, good point. Yeah. No, I don't think God would." What we have to go back to and the only thing we have to go back to is the revealed Word of God. Experiences in this area that we're talking about tonight are many. I mean, probably if we started telling stories about stuff that we think we may have seen spiritually either in angels or demons, we could probably be here all night long. We could probably tell some tales that make the hairs stand up on our neck and some of them would be absolutely legit. But the thing that we've got to do for the course of this class and for that matter in our lives is just constantly say okay,

4

Lewis, C.S. (2002). The screwtape letters. (Letter 7; p. 139), The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. (Original work published 1942)

–7–

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 does my experience line up with the Word of God. Because again, Satan is going to do all sorts of things to mess with your head to lead you astray so you're chasing after all the wrong stuff. This one's important to talk about and we had mentioned it a moment ago: Satan accuses believers before God. This is why what we're going to get into in the next couple of weeks when we talk about our salvation and the atonement and what Jesus does at the right hand of the throne of God is so important, because when Satan comes before God what he's saying is, "Hey, let me tell you what Lee Wiggins just did, " and he's going to start going down that list. And Jesus looks up and says, "My blood was shed for that. Lee is forgiven." And I just go, "Thank you, Jesus." Revelation 12:10: 10

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. — REVELATION 12:10

You remember Romans 8—I'll mention it again a little later probably: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.5 But he's going up there and he keeps on pointing to me and keeps on— he's just on us! And when we live a life where we're—there's some of us in here that we're just constantly beat up over that kind of stuff—we have the classic guilt complex constantly, we're just given in to that. We need to be more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. We need to say no. "No. On the cross the blood was shed and I am forgiven, and I'm claiming that. I'm done. Jesus has forgiven me." Because Satan is going to do that to you. He's going to tell you look, look what you just did. Look how you just behaved. Look how you just responded. He's telling Jesus, so can that guy really be a Christian? Because if he can get you to question it often enough, guess what happens? You just walk away and you stop living like it and he can begin to separate you from the body of Christ. He can start separating you from brothers and sisters, and pretty soon he can get you separated long enough he can get you connected with the other wrong people, the people he wants you connected with, and then he knows you're not of any danger to him any longer. Very, very, very active. Here's his destiny in the Millennium. Revelation 20, verses 1-3, says this: Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, — there's that phrase again — who is the devil and Satan, — more words, names — and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. — REVELATION 20:1-3

I'll give you just a real quick view of history. We're now in the church age. God is moving and working through the church. There's coming here a moment we believe where God is going to take His church out of this earth, take us home to be with Him, and at that time I believe the tribulation will begin. 5

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, – ROMANS 8:1 (NIV)

–8–

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 There will be seven years of tribulation on this earth and at the end of that tribulation, that's what we just read about, Satan is going to be cast down. He's going to be thrown into the bottomless pit and it's going to be shut over him for a thousand years. During that thousand years Jesus is going to reign and rule here on earth and there's going to be a thousand years of peace here on this earth. At the end of that thousand years of peace, there's just this little moment where Satan again is released for a little while and then he is conquered one final time and he is cast into Hell for eternity. Listen to these words, Matthew chapter 25, verse 41: 41

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. — MATTHEW 25:41

Revelation 20, verse 10: 10

and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. — REVELATION 20:10

Here's what you need to write on your notes: He is defeated. By the way, does Satan run Hell? That's sort of this misconception that's always out there is Satan's down there in charge. I hear all these little jokes about well, you know, if so-and-so's not going to be in Heaven I'd rather go to Hell and party and stuff like that. Somehow Satan is throwing a big party in Hell and you want to hang out with those types. Satan does not run Hell. God runs Hell. Satan and his angels are as far away from Hell as possible except for the ones that were around at the time of the flood that got locked up there, and we talked about that last week. That's why they scream and go nuts when God even gets close to them. You'll remember when Jesus was just about ready to cast those demons out and they screamed don't, don't, don't, just throw us into those pigs, please.6 He wants to stay as far away from Hell. He knows that that's his destination. He knows he is headed there. He—listen to this—will be an eternal inmate, not the warden of Hell and he knows it, and he wants to take as many with him as possible. Matthew 25:41, I read it just a moment ago: 41

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared — that's indicating there's a preparer; that's how I know that God's prepared this place — for the devil and his angels. — MATTHEW 25:41

This place wasn't made for us, but we get to choose it if we don't want to spend eternity in Heaven. Satan's trying to take as many there with him as possible. We talked about this verse on Sunday. I love it. Colossians chapter 2, verse 15: 15

He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. 6

See MATTHEW 8:30-32

–9–

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 — COLOSSIANS 2:15

Jesus has won the victory. One of the things that we have fun laughing about is my wife likes sports more than I do and it just drives me nuts because she loves a losing team. The [Cleveland] Indians haven't won a World Series since 1948, and yet they keep on watching them every year and watch them lose and go through all sorts of stress watching them lose. Once in a while when I get to watch a game I just try to figure out who's going to win and I root for them. If I have to switch teams half way through, I will. [laughter] I'm just not going to lose any sleep over it. I'm just not going to be stressed over it. There's real stuff in life I don't know how it's going to end that I can be stressed over. I'm NOT going to be stressed over that game. What's so good about this is we know who's going to win. He [Jesus] has already won the victory and I want to be on the winning side. I like to win. And it's not fun watching my team lose every day so I know that in Christ we are victorious. Listen to Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14: 14

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. — HEBREWS 2:14-15

We touched on this on Sunday. I mean, there's just this huge fear that we have of death and we're slaves to it, and we're slaves to that fear. And Jesus has won the victory over that and slapped down Satan once and for all. So, I was hoping I could get to this quickly tonight and it looks like we might have because what I wanted to get to tonight is just the real practical end of this. Again, the spiritual world is all around us. You think about Jesus. Angels announced His birth. Jesus was tempted by the Devil. He was served by angels then again after His temptation. Scriptures tell us He could have called down legions of angels when He was on the cross; He chose not to. Angels were present at the tomb when it was rolled away, and they were present when He ascended into Heaven. So we're talking about here a very—they were very active and we get to see that when we read about the life of Jesus. I like this; I read this this week. Charles Spurgeon, a great London preacher in the 1800s, he awoke one night and said he felt his bed shaking. Thinking it was caused by a thunderstorm, he looked outside but saw no clouds in the sky. He said, "I woke up and looked, and there was Satan standing at the foot of my bed. Satan himself was shaking my bed." That sounds like a freaky thing to me. I'd have a fit if that was the case. Evidently that great preacher had a lot more going for him and he said I looked at him and said, "Oh, it's only you," and rolled over and went back to sleep. [laughter] Again, remembering in a very practical way that he is defeated. Peter speaks to a church that's under persecution in what was under huge spiritual attack in a country known as—in modern day it's Turkey, today a predominantly Muslim country—and he sends this church a letter and it went to many of the churches throughout the region. And he writes these words to them, 1st Peter chapter 5, verses 8-9. I wanted to talk about these verses tonight because I just think these verses are really helpful to us tonight, and I've underlined some of the words in your notes. 8

Be sober-minded; be watchful. — 1 PETER 5:8

– 10 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 I'll stop there and just quickly, again, this just goes back to Satan is real, demons are real, know that they exist, know that they have a horrific plan for your life, and don't take it lightly. Be sober-minded. Last summer I was with some of my friends from high school and they were sort of amused that I'm a preacher, so they asked me for preacher stories and all they wanted me to do was tell them stories of what I've seen in the demonic world. Have you ever come into contact with a demon? Have you ever seen a demon? Have you ever seen a demon-possessed person? What'd they do? What happened? Tell me about it. You know, for me when I read this, "Be sober-minded; be watchful," this isn't something to be messing with. It's something to take dead serious. But for a generation that's grown up watching movies about this kind of stuff, it's just funny. It's just ha-ha! It's just, "Oh, yeah, whatever." It's things stories are told of. It's meant to scare them and then it ends however it ends. Peter says hey gang, this is real stuff. This is a big deal. Be sober. Be mindful. Be watchful. Don't take this lightly. Then he says: Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, So we said this earlier, your first rule of engagement is know your enemy. He is real. And then it says he roars around like a lion. I picked this up today as I was reading:       

A lion's eyesight is five times better than that of a human. It can hear from a mile away. A roar can be heard from five miles away. It can go four days without drinking. It can run short distances at 50 mph and leap 36 feet—36 feet! The lion is the king of the jungle. They can hunt at any hour, but go after large prey after dark.7

And he says your adversary prowls around like a roaring lion, and it says: seeking someone to devour. — 1 PETER 5:8

Peter uses a metaphor here, I believe, that they understood that is true—powerful and seeks to devour— and is seeking to devour you, and your family, and your marriage, your home, your church, your business, you name it. He wants to devour. He wants to destroy. He knows his end is destruction; he wants to bring as much destruction as he can cause. I remind us, the stakes for this are very real. That's why the little conversation with my high school friends is not real funny to me because when I have come across these things I recognize that lives are being destroyed because Satan was allowed to have activity and presence in their lives and it is tearing them apart, their family apart, their world apart. There are gateways that allow Satan into your life. Hell was prepared for the Devil and his angels and he wants to take as many with them as possible. But these next words I think are important. A lot of people are probably going to talk to me about—it's just like, "Okay, so what do you do about this? How do you deal with Satan?" The next couple of words say resist him. I have to tell you that personally when I've dealt with what I believe to be Satan or his angels, this is one of the hardest commands to follow. I want to run and I say that in all sincerity. It strikes me as I don't belong here; I need to get out of here. I need to get as far away from here as possible. The verse says resist him. In fact, if you look in James chapter 4 it says: 7

7

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil,

Cool Facts. (2010). Retrieved April 10, 2015, from http://makemegenius.com/cool_facts.php?mId=54

– 11 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 — and then it says the promise — and he will flee from you. — JAMES 4:7

What's interesting is there are other Scriptures that say flee certain things. You've read them. Flee the appearance of evil. Flee youthful lust. Flee sexual immorality. Run from these things. I mean, if that sexual immorality is in front of you, you're supposed to just run, get as far as away as you can from it. But when it comes to Satan it says we're to resist Satan and not just bail. And so he's our roaring lion enemy and yet somehow when I hear that roar and I want to run, I'm supposed to somehow resist him and he'll flee from me. I'll talk to you in a minute how we might resist him. I think that will be important and Scripture talks about putting on the full armor of God so that we can do that, but just let me go after one more verse before we get there because I think it's an important verse. Ephesians 6:12: 12

For 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. — EPHESIANS 6:12 (NIV)

I hope that all of us stop a moment and think about that tonight. Most of the time when we are in an unhappy and unsettled state it's because someone hasn't treated us the way we had hoped they would. They haven't come through the way we expected they would have. They're doing something that we don't agree with. They're in opposition to us. They're fighting us. You know what I'm talking about and we could go on. And Paul wants us to know that that feels like it's a person that I'm face to face against and that I'm fighting that person, and he wants us to know that it is not flesh and blood. It's not people that we're fighting, but that there is an enemy that is messing up our relationships, is messing with family relationships, is messing with work relationships, is messing marital relationships, is messing with father and son relationships. I love that verse in Malachi where it says he will bring the father's heart back to the son and the son's heart back to the father.8 Again, a result of The Fall is that we keep on getting separated but it's not because of that person as much as it is a spiritual principality and power, ruler of the darkness—they're messing with us. And so that's why he says we're dealing "with the powers of the dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Again, we pop on those spiritual glasses and we go, "Uh-oh." "I thought it was my wife." "I thought it was my husband." "I thought it was my daughter." "I thought it was my best friend." Church, if we could just right now own that and just go yeah, I don't know how to necessarily maybe to fix that at the moment, but I've just got to step back for a moment and go yeah, there's more going on here. I think it will give you a little more grace towards those other folks even though it hurts like crazy. So, let me get to this: How to win against Satan. Ephesians 6:13 says: 13

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. — EPHESIANS 6:13 8

And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” – MALACHI 4:6

– 12 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 If you keep on reading there in Ephesians 6, you can go through the exact pieces of that armor9 and I think it would be a good study and worth your time. Our time is almost up tonight, but let me throw out a few things here that we can draw from on how to resist the Devil. 1. Pray. In battle communication is priority. We've got to stay in communication with the Commanding Officer, and when we step out of that communication we do not know what to do next. We don't know where to come up against the enemy. We don't know where to be, we don't know what to do, so be in communication with the Father. Jesus said in Luke 22:46, he says: 46

and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” — LUKE 22:46

1. Pray. Talk to God so that you won't enter into temptation. There's another passage that we didn't get to tonight that we didn't get to tonight where it says demons tempt us. If we look at some of the stuff that we're doing, demons are involved in temptation. 2. Confession of Sin. I think this is a really important one and I want to talk about this for a couple minutes. The lion always looks for the weaknesses of his prey and strikes there, and so what the lion's going to do is look for your place of weakness. He's going to look for sin in your life and then he just can't wait to run to God and tell God, and that's when you're sitting there just feeling beat up. Well, again, we go back to that Romans 8: There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. — ROMANS 8:1 (NIV)

But when you're not dealing with sin in your life, you're just feeling condemned constantly because your conscience is condemning you—when Jesus died to forgive you. So the Word of God teaches us to deal with your sin, confess it, and let the Holy Spirit—we've talked about the Holy Spirit—let the Holy Spirit, remember one of the things the Holy Spirit does? Convict you of sin. So we don't want Satan holding those sins against us. We don't want to give him anything. Here's why I think it's important. Our sins—the Bible never blames those sins on Satan. Oftentimes you'll hear people trying to cast out sins or call out sins or bind sins and oftentimes they're talking about the demon of immorality and the demon of lust and these kinds of things and so they're trying to bind those and cast those out. The fact of the matter is is we choose to sin. We have a sin nature. In fact, I would tell you that much of what we deal with on a daily basis is not demonic power. We have enough sin nature in us that we have not given over to the Holy Spirit of God that we allow that to well up within us. So it's important to recognize that this "Devil made me do it" mentality is a victim mentality that the Scripture never supports; you don't find that saying that, that the Devil made you do that. Our choice to not come to a place in our life where we're confessing our sins and getting it right with God—God always holds us accountable for that. And the focus in the Bible, if you've noticed, is always upon repentance and faith. You don't see anything that says go find someone to cast out your demon of anger, or find someone to rebuke your demon of fear. The Bible

9

13

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. – EPHESIANS 6:13-17 14

– 13 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 refers to these things as sin and calls us personally accountable to repent and come to God on those and to confess our sins. I remind us that all the way through the Old Testament so far in our journey, there's an ongoing reminder that we are to get rid of our idols. In the New Testament even John in his book says little children put away your idols.10 It just comes out of nowhere because it's one of those things that keeps on coming up in our life and Satan keeps on erecting those and those idols are there. It's those things, again, it goes back to what we started with; those things that take the place of God that make us feel like God that we are in control of something, and the truth of the matter is is it's all about worship. So do you remember Deuteronomy 32:17, we mentioned this a few weeks ago in one of the services: They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, — demons are not gods — to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. — idols are demons — — DEUTERONOMY 32:17

Matthew 4:10: 10

Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan!

— here's an example of resisting — For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” — MATTHEW 4:10

3. Read Your Bible. Another way to resist Satan is read your Bible. The Word of God is the weapon against every attack. That's what you see Jesus continually doing. He's resisting Satan in those temptations; He's resisting him with Scripture. He didn't just take off. He kept on resisting him with Scripture. One of the ways I personally have done this is when I find that where sin begins is in our mind, in our thinking, and then what we do is we feed it. I picture it like this kettle of water on a stove boiling and when it starts splashing out you put a lid on it, but pretty soon the pressure in it gets too heavy and that lid bounces up a little bit more until you put a heavier lid on it. The problem is eventually you can't put a heavy enough lid on there and that thing blows. Well, what we often say is, "Well, you know what. Yeah, you know what. That was just a momentary lapse of judgment or a mistake"; that's how we rephrase a sin. What we fail to realize is that we've been dealing with temptation and we've been living this out in our brain for a very long time. When I sense these things heating up in my brain, rather than throwing a heavier lid on, one of the things that I've done is I'll just find a Scripture that I'm reading and I will repeat it in my mind every time that thought comes to my mind. I'll just repeat the Scripture because the Scripture is powerful and it renews your mind and it changes

10

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. – 1 JOHN 5:21

– 14 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 you. And it just drives me nuts how often I have to replay that Scripture because there it goes in my mind again; and so this is a way of resisting Satan and saying no. Jesus said in Matthew 4:4: 4

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” — MATTHEW 4:4

And let me wrap up with this: God wins every time. The spiritual realm is God-centered, not Satanor demon-centered. Please understand that in the world we live in today God is on the throne. He has not left the throne. He is on the throne at the center of the earth. I'll rephrase that: At the center of the universe. God is on His throne. Satan, demons, yeah, they're factors. They're playing in this whole big show that's going on, but let me tell you what, Satan is on a leash and he has a time limit attached to him right now. I was thinking about Paul today, the Apostle Paul, and in 2nd Timothy 4, verse 7, he says: 7

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. — 2 TIMOTHY 4:7

And I would just throw out to you tonight it is a battle. I think most of us think we're at peace time, it's sort of that war/peace analogy, but as we begin to think about and the temptations that come our way and the arrows that come our way and the sins that come our way and the stuff that we see and the stuff that is offered to us—it's a battle. Paul says at the end of that battle I fought a good fight, I finished the course. First John 4:4: 4

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them,

— get this, sear it in your brain — for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. — 1 JOHN 4:4

I'll stop. I didn't think I could make it through all that. I have two minutes; would you like to ask any questions? I did that on purpose. Wait, do we have a mike? Can we run a Mike over to Paul real quick because they always tell me when I don't do that that they can't hear it on the video and there are a lot of people watching these videos because a lot of people traveling and just can't be here. Paul: Pastor Lee, when we, you were talking at the end of the practicality, going back to your outline on what Satan does, could you give a modern-day example of how Satan would hinder us in our walk? And two, what would be some practical steps to get around him as he tries to hinder us? Lee:

Yeah, I would say one of the ways that he's trying to hinder us in our walk, and we talked about this earlier, there are three areas in which we deal with: the world, the flesh, and the Devil. And one of the things he's trying to do is create world systems around us that will cause us to just sort of walk away from God and just become part of the world. So one of the things that I see is the stuff that we watch on TV is very carefully crafted, I believe, by the prince in the power of the air to try to inculcate his thought processes into our heads and it happens very slowly and he takes us up that way. I personally believe—I don't have cable at my – 15 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 house as of last week. Every time I see my kids watching it I see a behavior change; I don't like it and I don't even think they're watching anything bad. I watch it pretty carefully when they watch it. I don't know, I think Satan is very involved in that. We could probably spend a whole lot of time—I mentioned the word earlier about gateway things—pornography is one of those gateway things that Satan is using to just get entrée into a life. What people are reading that suggests all sorts of stuff that other people are doing begins to infiltrate into my mind and cause me to do behaviors. So you really have to be looking at what we're watching, what we're reading, what impulses are coming into our life on a daily basis that are influencing us knowing that the prince of the power of air may not be personally coming to deal with me, but is setting up systems, world systems, to try to give to me and feed me exactly what he wants to say. I read something here recently; it said you know you think you have all sorts of options on the Internet. You think that you're getting news from all sorts of different areas but it said actually they're feeding it to you very carefully and very specifically to get you to think in a certain way. [groans] I think I'm better than that. I think I'm smarter than that, but I'm wondering. You see what I'm saying? And I think that's where we have to—that's why, if we're going to resist Satan, that's why I use things like spiritual things. That's why we talk about the armor of God and the spiritual weapons that we have because we're going to be tricked into this. Satan's a phenomenal counterfeiter and he's just going to slide us into it. And that's why Israel, what we've been reading in the last couple of weeks in these books, is so easily drawn to idols. I just keep on going, "How do you go and worship these other gods?" I just can't picture myself living in another country and all of a sudden bowing down every day to some golden thing in the corner of my bedroom. But it's amazing how quick Satan can pull us away from what is truth and begin to move us down a path. Yeah [points to someone in audience]. Where's that mike? Thanks, George. Man: As a believer, is there a time where you would have to encounter, well not—actually experience and actually have to deal with a demon or Satan like head on? Like can you count on that as a believer, like dealing with that head on? Like I know we do our daily stuff like our entertainment, you don't have to watch that, you know. I know James is the one that talks about being dragged away by our own sinful desires and being enticed, you know, but is there something, is there an instance where we have to actually deal with the Devil and not fear him? Because this is a scary world because it's, you know, from another dimension, so when I see it sometimes in my friends, when I see it sometimes in my family members and I know they're dealing with demons in their life, they're dealing with other things, and I'm like do I address it now or—I don't understand. Like do I tell them they have demons? I don't know. Lee:

Yeah, and you know what, I really struggle with that. I've been thinking about that myself as I've been studying this because the Scripture doesn't really ever tell—because I can only go as far as the Bible goes in answering your question—Scripture doesn't really tell me that it is my job to come to you and say, "Oh, you know, I bet you that problem you're having right now is spiritual warfare." "I bet you that problem is that Satan is messing with your kid." "I bet you that problem is the music your kid is listening to." "I bet you…" —Scripture doesn't tell me that I'm supposed to do that. It tells me that I am supposed to live a life where I continue to repent and believe in Him and call others to repent and believe in Him.

– 16 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 And that's one of the things as I was reading through, I was reading it through along those lenses. That's what I know for sure the Scripture says but I can tell you personally and I've done it with someone as recent as two weeks ago, there was something that just was bizarre. It just made no sense in their life and I just said, "Boy, I just wonder if you're under spiritual attack." But I don't think it's my thing to go start shouting some sort of words to cast it out, but rather to give them some instruction on how they might deal with that spiritual attack. And again, I believe the Scripture clearly states it. It's not quite as fancy and loud and wild and crazy, but when he talks about it again in James and here in 1st Peter resisting Satan, it is a good reminder to say wait a minute, be sober-minded, be alert. Is it possible that you're dealing with this you need to resist Satan right now? And boy, I tell you what, I think that's a huge thing. I think there's been some times where I've recognized that in my world and I go you know, could it be? I don't know. I mean, maybe it wasn't. I mean, I have no way of knowing and I think we need to be careful that we don't give way too much credit to Satan. I just see some people— everything is Satan and they're always talking to Satan and telling Satan to do stuff and I don't see that in my Bible. But what I do see is Peter saying there whoa, he is a formidable adversary. Call it for what it is, say it might be that, and I tell you what, I'm resisting it. I'm saying no and I'm going to God on that and I'm getting instruction. I'm getting in my Bible. I'm dealing with my sin, you know, and if you go through this— Man: I even looked at the story of Paul when he was walking to the village and, you know, Paul was preaching against all the other nations, other people, that were coming against the real God, and so when the woman was coming behind him and was saying these are the people of the Most High God and he turned around and said, you know, get behind me Satan, he totally dealt with it right then and there, you know, because she was a person, you know, she wasn't a believer. She was just trying to get at him, but you know, her mission was to do that and then he turned around and dealt with it. So I'm like is that how we're supposed to like, you know, do it? Not necessarily turn them away, but actually go to them out of love and say hey, I think there's some things that you should do differently. I just—sometimes I'm just afraid of that, you know? It's scary. Lee:

Yeah, that makes some sense. I think, you know, that's where we need to be in our Bible looking at the text and going okay, is that instructive to me right now or is the Scripture giving me an instance in what the apostles did? In that case, I mean, we saw kind of ramifications that had, so yeah, it's a big deal to take it dead seriously and say no, I'm not allowing that into my life and into my world and the world around me. I'm standing up for Jesus and speaking the name of Jesus. One thing I know for certain and we will get to this place where we're teaching in the Old Testament, one of the things we see is when worship occurs Satan hates it. I tell this to people all the time and I didn't add it to my notes tonight, but when we're calling out the name of Jesus, when we're speaking in the name of Jesus, when we're singing in the name of Jesus, the demons just flee. And we see that in quite a few of the things in the Old Testament, and so one of the things that I would say to you is I tell people all the time if you sense that, man, fill your world up with Jesus. I mean, start playing Bible out loud. We talked about some of these Bible apps, start playing it out loud. Satan can't stand that. He just hates the Word of God. I mean, he can't hang around for it. Start playing some Christian music. Satan can't hang around it. And again, that would go back to what I'm saying here in resisting Satan is start filling your world up with

– 17 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 the right things and saying no to the wrong things and just start bringing Jesus into everything because Jesus is the victory in all of this. I've kept you overtime. I'll take one more question if there is one. Right behind you there. Man: Does the Devil always come in disguise and then when you recognize him then he flees, is that what happens? Lee:

Yeah, and I think that's the hard part of all this. I do believe that he is the master disguise agent, he is the master imitator, and he is constantly coming in a way that at first glance you don't go "Oh, that's Satan." And that's one of the reasons why I think oftentimes his biggest activity in our life we're not even picking up on, so we think—I mean, you remember Paul had a thorn in the flesh. We don't ever hear that he cast that out. In fact, he asked God, he talked to God, he said God would you remove it, and God chose not to remove it.11 And so you know, you'd think that thorn in the flesh maybe that's Satan, but I think oftentimes Satan is coming after us in ways we don't even recognize. It may be when all of a sudden we win a million dollars, you know, and he's coming at us in ways that we think would, we would call blessings, and maybe they're not. So yeah, I think that's the biggest thing. And again, the thing I'll keep on really encouraging us is that if we're walking in the Spirit, we talked about the Holy Spirit, if we're really in the Word of God and if we're praying and we're handling all things through prayer and supplication, I think that's going to put us into this mode that we're going to be able to know, rightly divide the word of truth and know truth versus error and when Satan's messing with us. Because that's the other thing, we talk about wrestling with principalities and powers, immediately I think oftentimes we call people demons because of that. You've got a demon in you because you're being mean to me. So I think a lot of times there's a lot of just basic stuff that's part of our sin nature and other people's sin nature, Satan doesn't even need to get involved. So my fear is is that oftentimes in our world Satan hasn't even stepped in. I'm going to say this, one of the things I've noticed, every time I go overseas to do missions work I feel like I sense spiritual activity both in the positive and in the negative very clearly because I don't understand the language and I'm terrible with language. I don't even get it. So all I have there is just the other senses that I have in that moment and I have sensed spiritual demonic activity around me. When I come back here I don't sense it as much and I think it's because we're so used to what's going on here. It's like when I watch TV commercials I'm just terribly off-put and I talk to other people because I hear these sexual innuendos and stuff, and I talk to other people and they're like, "I don't hear that." That's because you listen to it all the time, and we live in this culture and we just accept everything in this culture as being good. I've been in some other places at night and going, "What is that sound?" And it isn't good what they tell me. One of the things I was told in one of the places that I was at was that oftentimes people will go to these witch doctors to be healed and they'll actually get healed, so Satan, one of the things that Satan does is he'll do miracles, he'll do stuff. I remember this missionary telling me, "And you know what happens? We see a lot of Christians going to those places, too, and Satan just gets a grip on their life for the rest of their lives." Now we don't believe that Christians can be possessed with Satan, but Satan is wanting to try to peel you off and wants to pull you over.

11

See 2 CORINTHIANS 12:7-9

– 18 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 So there are a lot of things that we don't recognize as spiritually wrong here in this world and I think the closer we walk with Jesus and the closer we get to the Spirit of God the more things will be uncomfortable to us and we'll see it. And what'll happen is when you see those things, when you feel those things and you say no to those things, the people around you are going to laugh at you and go, "You've gotta be kidding. You don't even know how to connect with unbelievers. That's so pathetic that you feel that way." One of the things God did with Israel and why God made some of the rules that He did, He set them apart so that they would not be infiltrated by the religions of the foreign lands. And some of the things He did was to keep them separate so that they could reflect the glory of God so that the world would see God Himself. And so it's not always a horrible thing when we step back and say, you know what, this is wrong. There are some things that I don't allow my kids to go do, places I don't allow them to be, because as I pray about it I sense something's not right. And some people are like, "Well, that's just not right. That's not fair." And some of you could tell me some stories of what happens when kids get involved in the occult and witchcraft and start playing with Ouija boards and start messing around with these things. When they start researching this stuff online and they allow, again, that entry into their lives. Okay, we're meddling now. I'm going to close with prayer. We're 15 minutes over, I apologize. I told you I wouldn't do that, but what I will do is stay as long as you want to talk about this tonight because this is heavy-duty stuff and I do hope that you take the time to just go wow, I wonder—I need to do a little analysis, just a little look through my world and see what's going on. We had a situation where we had an office complex in my previous church and every time I walked in there I said something's wrong in here. We prayed over the place and all sorts of stuff. I kept on asking my friends, I said—because like I said, we don't know, I just don't know, I just don't know, I mean something just doesn't feel right when I walk in here. I don't know if I'm right or wrong. And a friend of mine asked, "Who's in that office?" So I told him. I said, "Why, what are you going to tell me?" And he says, "Oh, your mission pastor's in that office. He says they always get stuff brought back. He said beg them to take it all out and throw it in a dumpster. All the goodies that they brought back from all over the world because oftentimes they get handed stuff very much on purpose." So you've got to prayer over this stuff and just say, "God, show me." It was weird. He cleaned out all that stuff out of his office and put it in a dumpster and it was like the—walked in the place and it was different. I don't want to get weird on you here tonight. I want to be really careful because I think if we're not careful we'll go beyond the Bible. But I also think that we need to pray carefully about what's in our world and what we have allowed in our world and what might be there and what might be bringing harm. And some of the things are things that I think are very normal in our Western society that we need to be very alert to them. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would calm and comfort each person in this room because of the shed blood of the cross at Calvary reminding us that you have won the victory, that you have won the battle. And I pray that you would wrap your arms of protection around each person in this room and I pray that you would give them strength to process these items that we've talked about tonight. If there's anything that they need to remove from their life or any resisting they need to begin doing, I pray that they'll do that. If there's any repentance that needs to take place, confession, – 19 –

2015-0408. Doctrine | Week 11 | Angels, Man + Sin 2 that they won't be afraid to do that, they'll just do it; that they'll talk to their loved ones about it, and Lord, that we'll just take this dead seriously. Thank you for Jesus. Thanks that we can go from here tonight knowing that there is victory in Jesus. It's in Your Name we pray. Amen.

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/123322371

UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED, SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS ARE FROM THE HOLY BIBLE, ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION (ESV). COPYRIGHT © 2001 BY CROSSWAY BIBLES, A DIVISION OF GOOD NEWS PUBLISHERS SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS MARKED (NIV) ARE TAKEN FROM THE NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV) HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® COPYRIGHT © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 BY BIBLICA, INC.® USED BY PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORLDWIDE. COPYRIGHT © 2015 – LEE WIGGINS – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

– 20 –