Deliverance Ministry Part I

[Music]h[Music]hello and welcome my name is PastorConrad Vine and I'd like to welcome youtoday to the first of a three-partseries on Deliverance MinistryDeliverance Ministry is an importanttopic um because it deals with thereality of the struggle between Christand Satan as experienced in the lives ofpeople today that this uh strugglebetween Christ and Satan is not just atheological concept or Motif it playsout in the lives of people around theworld today it is my privilege and joyto serve as the president of AFMAdventist Frontier missions you can readmore about us at AFM online.org and wesend missionaries to serve amongunreached people groups all across the1040 Mission window and whenmissionaries arrive in another countrythe gospel they Proclaim must be thepower of God to set people free from thepower of Satan now the gospel is notjust an ethos or a philosophy of livingit is the power of God to deliver and toset free and to bring about newness oflife so what I'm going to be sharingwith you today are some of the insightsthat we've learned as missionaries as amissionary team about the reality of thestruggle between good and evil in thisthree-part Series in the first part I'mgoing to be sharing with you a broadoverview of of uh Deliverance Ministryuh in the the second of our three-partseries we're going to be looking whatthe Old Testament and the New Testamentand the the apostles in the early churchwhat they teach us about DeliveranceMinistry the biblical basis for thiskind of ministry and in the third partI'm going to be looking at um thePractical ingredients what doesDeliverance Ministry look like inpractice from an Adventist perspectiveif you want to learn more about this weput together a manual an Adventistapproach to Deliverance Ministry you candownload it for free online it's thewebsite we established it is called setfree in Christ that's one word setree inchrist.org download the manual foryourself and you will see uh wealth ofmaterial on the topic of DeliveranceMinistry including many many sayingsfrom the spirit of Prophecy that alsodeal with this question but as we beginI recognize that many of you may befacing attack from Satan um as I speakin camp meetings or in churches peoplewill come up to me at the end of aservice and they'll say Pastor they sayI have a problem and I say oh yes andthey say well I can't talk about it inpublic because people will think I'mcrazy but I I have a shadow in my lifeand then I kind of have a sense ofwhat's going to be happening shortlythereafter and so even among umprofessed Adventists they they sensethey're under attack from Satan but theydon't know what to do about it and it'ssomething we never talk about in ourchurches because we're veryuncomfortable with this reality becausewe're not dealing with with a matter ofdiet or or heating or Lighting in thechurch we're dealing with spiritualforces who are infinitely more power fulthan we are and can destroy us just likethat and so as we begin I'd like toinvite you to Bow your heads with me andwe're going to consecrate this segmentand this series to our Heavenly Fatherdear heavenly father we want to thankyou today for your mercy to us father wewant to thank you that Jesus has neverlost a battle with Satan that he isinfinitely more powerful and wiser andmore loving than Satan ever could bethat he is our savior and our Lord and Ithank you Father that Jesus is not justthe Lamb of God who takes away the sinof the world but he is also the lion ofthe tribe of Judah who can overwhelm theroaring lion who goes around seekingwhom he may devour I pray Lord as we gothrough this series today particularlyfor those who are watching this onlineor at home I pray that your angels willwatch round about each one of us thatyou will protect our children our lovedones our homes our properties ourbusinesses our possessions I ask thatSatan will not be allowed to runinterference and to interrupt as wespare share this time togetherI pray father that your spirit be theonly spirit that dwells within the wallsand hearts of those who are watchingthis program today I pray you'll bringany Spirit not of your kingdom intojudgment as I preach and you'll drivethem from the lives of those who arewatching this this three-part seriesthat they may lead lead lives of joy andpeace knowing that Jesus has set themfree from the attacks of Satan andfather as I stand humbly before thiscamera before this congregation today Iask that you will speak through me andfor me you will speak at times despiteme and you'll speak around me and thatall I do will draw people closer toJesus Christ as their lord and saviorthank you Father for hearing this prayerbecause I pray in the name of Jesus ourlord and savioramen so when we in the west we look wediscuss the question of DeliveranceMinistry uh people think that you'rekind of strange to be talking about thistopic um you know in popular culture inAmerica today and much of the West uhthere is a cultic imagery absolutelyeverywhere if you go into a majorbookstore and you look at um the sectionon spirituality you'll see rows and rowsand rows on books covering all kinds oftopics some of them are kind of softcoreult some of them are hardcore ulticactivities if you watch some Hollywoodmovies or listen to the music beingpumped out these days a lot of it hasgot occultic imagery or themesinterwoven in the stories and withinmusic itself and yet um in our in ourWestern version of Christianity manymore and more Western theologian arekind of downplaying the concept of Satanthat Satan and demons are just figmentsof a priv primitive imagination andwe've moved beyond that now that there'sno such thing as of Satan or no suchthing as demons these are just um theseare just imaginations of a diseased mindand that what we are really trying todeal with is psychological issues ratherthan sins and certainly Satan does notexist anymore that when the writers ofthe Old Testament or the New Testamentwrote uh they were reflecting theprimitive worldview of their time and ofcourse there are no such things asdemons or of Satan himself and yet it isprofoundly ironic it is so ironic thatwhereas much of Western Christendom ismoving away from the idea of a literalpersonal real malevolent devil calledSatan or Lucifer while we are movingaway from that understanding tragicallymuch of the West is moving directlytowards Satan through its popularculture and we are seeing the impact inour Western society today uh we'reseeing young people with inexplicablebehaviors we're seeing mobs in thestreets with what anthropologists wouldcall 100 years ago hysteria and hysteriafrom an anthropological perspective iswhen a crowd of people is beinginfluenced by Fallen Angels or demonsand so this is an important topic for ustoday and it is particularly importantfor followers of Jesuswhy because it is a misconception tobelieve that just because things areright with you they seem to be goingwell in lifeit is biblically um it is it doesn'tfollow biblically that everything isright with God likewise just becausethings have seem to be going bad in lifedoes not mean that God has abandoned youor turned his back on you we also knowthat as Christians Satan was wroth withthe woman that is the church and wentoff to make war with the remnant of herchildren he's making war with you he'smaking war with me and if you don'trealize it well well praise God youdon't realize it yet but I'm here totell you today Satan is making war onyou he wants to discourage you he wantsto depress you he wants you toexperience divorce and depression andall the diseases this world has to offerin order that he might separate you fromyour savior Jesus Christ and put you inthe Lost column rather than the savedcolumn for eternity so it is a fatalmisconception to assume that God'speople are not subject to the attacks ofSatan now I'm just going to go through acouple of examples now of well-knownpeople in the Bible who were faced withattack by Satan and how they respondresponded to it the first of those isperhaps the most famous story in theBible of this kind of experience that isthe story of Job of course job he didn'tknow the story at the beginning butprobably knew it at the end of his ofhis life that there was a Heavenlycounsil and Satan asked permission toattack job as a test of his faith of Godand God allowed Satan to attack job soSatan did attack job but it was alwayswithin strict parameters that wereplaced there by God job was neverpossessed as such but he did experiencedemonization that is harassment he washarassed by Satan who destroyed hischildren his possessions who brought himun um unwise friends it broke hisrelationship with his wife he had boilsand pain within his own body and he losthis social reputation and honor withinhis uh honor driven Society job had aterrible experience and the turningpoint in job's life came in Job chapter42 and: 10 it says there that the Lordrestored the fortunes of job when jobprayed for his friends see when jobceased focusing on his own problems andstarted to intercede for his friends andwas primarily concerned with theirwell-being and their salvation ratherthan his well-being and his salvationthat was the turning point in job's lifewhen the attacks from Satan graduallyended and God fully restored job and allthat he'd had before uh Satan hadattacked him in the New Testament um wefind some other famous examples we findthe story of pet and in Matthew chapter16 there's a very famous dialogue andthis is the turning point of the Gospelin Matthew and Jesus has been saying tothe disciples who do men say that I amand the disciples say oh some say thatyou are Elijah some say that you areJohn the Baptist come back from the deadsome say that you're one of the prophetsor there is a prophet walking in Israelthese days and then Jesus turns to thedisciples and says but who do you saythat I am that is perhaps the mostimportant question I or you will everhave to answer who do you say that JesusChrist is is and your answer to that onequestion is the fulcrum upon whicheverything else in life uh upon whicheverything else bounces around whicheverything else revolves and floatsaround and later in the dialogue Jesusbegins to teach his disciples that he'sgoing to go to Jerusalem that he's goingto be handed over to the Gentiles he'sgoing to be tortured he's going to becrucified and put to death and uh heteaches this repeatedly in the gospelthe that the imperfect sense in Matthew16 indicates that Jesus didn't just saythis once twice or Thrice but he wasteaching it repeatedly that this is whatis going to happen to me in Jerusalemand Peter if you turn in your Bibles toMatthew 16 Peter is very upset aboutthis he doesn't believe that Jesus couldpossibly be going to Jerusalem and therehe's going to die and it says there inin Matthew 16 ver 22 it says Peter tookJesus aside and began to rebuke himsaying God forbid it Lord this mustnever happen to you now if you take thetime and you look through the thesynoptic gospels that is Matthew Markand Luke you'll discover that every timethe English uses the verb to rebuke itis whenever Jesus rebukes it is alwaysand exclusively when Jesus is speakingto a demon Jesus speaks to humans but herebukes demons and so Jesus is rebukinguh demons when when we use this verbepim is the Greek verb and so when Peterhears Jesus saying this and it says thatPeter rebuked Jesus the implication isthat Peter is suggesting that Jesus isspeaking under satanic influence that'sthe implication of what Peter is sayingthat the idea that Jesus has to go toJerusalem and die for my sins and yoursins this is a satanic idea and Jesusyou don't don't need to be saying thisand Jesus turns it around and he turnsback to Peter in verse 23 and it saysbut Jesus turned and said to Peter getthee behind mewho Satan he doesn't say get get theebehind me Peter he says get thee behindme Satan so in the story of job you havewhat we consider demonic harassment thatis attacks from Satan from the outsidein the story of Peter you don't haveharassment but you have oppression anoppression takes place where you allowSatan to take control of your facultiesin a certain part of your being and inthis case here it happens because Peterhas been listening to Jesus repeatedlysaying that he's got to go to Jerusalemand he's going to be handed over andtortured and crucified and is going todie and andPeter um plainly contradicts theteaching of Jesus Jesus says he's goingto die Peter says no way Peter saysJesus says I'm going to go to Jerusalembe handed over and Peter says no way andwhen a disciple of Jesus contradicts theplain teachings of Jesus that discipleis however unwitting they may beallowing Satan to speak through them atat that moment this is what we calloppression in the west today in myexperience the most common form ofOppression has to do with pornographyand lust and uh the incidence ofChristian men and increasingly women whoare basically addicted to pornography isfrighteningly high 50 60 70% of youngadults are regularly consumingpornography these days and uh oldermarried people as well are very highrates of porn consumption and when yougo down that path then then you start tolose control in the sexual areas of yourlife and and people do things and theysay I don't know what came over me youknow I don't know what I was thinking ofI couldn't help myself but I just had todo it I don't know what I was thinkingof when people use those expressionsit's an indication that they were notactually in control of themselves at thetime but they have so hardened theirconscience and given Satan permission tocontrol that aspect of their being thatone sliver of their full reality that ofthat who they are as a human being thatnow they are experiencing oppression andso if job experienced harassment andPeter experienced um um oppression wealso have Judas and in in Judas if youturn to John chapter 6 in your BiblesJohn chapter 6 this is the a very famouspassage where Jesus is talking about thefact that um you know that he is thebread of life that came down from heavenand whoever reats of his of this breadthat is his flesh will live forever ifyou unless you drink the flesh eat theflesh for the son of man and drink hisblood you you will not have eternal lifeand many of his disciples they turn backthis is a hard saying of Jesus they nolonger want to listen to Jesus speakingand so they turn back and Jesus um saysto the 12 who are still with him inverse 67 he said do you also wish to goaway that is you are the 12 Who Remainare you going to abandon me as well andPeter says Lord to whom can we go youhave the words of eternal life we havecome to believe and know that you arethe Holy One of God and Jesus answeredthem in verse 17 did I not Choose Youthe 12 and then he says yet one of youis adevil now literally he says yet into oneof you is a diabos we get the wordsdiabolical from that the literal meaningis a devil and so at the start of hisministry Jesus affirms that of the 12disciples one of them Judas into Judasis a devil there is a demon living in inin Judas so you might say that if Jexperienced harassment and pizzaexperienced oppression temporary controlby Satan of an aspect of your being thenJudas experiences possession by ademon and uh it's interesting to notethat none of the other disciples pickedup on this you see for three and a halfyears Judas was the treasurer and weknow that this was a very deliberateChoice by the disciples because of the12 disciples one of them Matthew was atax collector he was an IRS agent inmodern pance we worked for CanadaRevenue or UK customs and excise he wasa tax author he worked for the taxauthorities which means he was good withfigures so the fact that Judas was thetreasurer and not ma uh Matthew tells usthat Judas was held in high esteem andpeople praised his financial managementskills we also know that Judas waspretty good with the finance because thedisciples argued all the time about whowas the greatest in the kingdom of Godbut nobody suspected in three and a halfyears that Judas was was um embezzlingmoney we know later in John's gospelthat that Peter that Judas would takemoney from the common purse and spend iton himself and in three and a half yearsnobody suspected that and if anybody hadhad an arguments about who's thegreatest in the kingdom of God theywould have said well Judas you're notthe greatest because you embezzle moneyyou're a thief but there was no recordthat was ever said and even at the LastSupper Judas is carrying the disciplescommon purse so we know Judas is abrilliant FinancialManager he's also possessed by a demonand nobody understood nobody picked upon this this might tell us today that umjust as Peter was an apostle or apreacher or an evangelist who isoperating temporarily under sataniccontrol so also we find that you mightbe a conference or division Treasurerand you may also be acting under demonicinfluence um I'm not saying that ourconference treasurers are but I'm sayingthere is that always that possibilitythat just because you are a a paidemployee or servant of the body ofChrist does not mean that you you areimmune from the attacks of Satansomething we all need to be careful andparticularly pastors and preachers andevangelists and uh Servants of the ofthe body of Christ and the final exampleI want to dwell on you for a few minuteshere is the example of Paul now Paul wasperhaps the greatest Apostle ever tolive and he had a brilliant education hewas educated in in Jerusalem at theFeats of gel the first one of thegreatest teachers of the first century awell-known teacher you know as brilliantin his Herer as I Stein was in the 20thcentury a well-known scholar that hereceived a world-class education he camefrom a proud Jewish Family his name wasSaul because he was of The Tribe ofBenjamin and Benjamin the the mostfamous benjaminite was Saul he was thefirst king of Israel so his family havenamed him after King Saul the mostfamous benjaminite they're famous oftheir tribal Heritage he's proud of hisJewish Heritage he's advanced in JudaismBeyond many others his own age so he's ahe's a rising star in Judaism he's morezealous for the traditions of the eldersand those Traditions are the preciselythe Traditions that Jesus rejectscompletely um uh you know you you youset aside the Commandments of God inMark 7 for the teachings of men and sowhereas Jesus was zealous for theCommandments of God Paul was zealous andkilled for the teachings of the Jewsthat you find today um in in in in thetalmud that's the collection of thetraditions of the Jews the oral Torahyou can still read it to this day soPaul had many reasons to be proud proudand in 2 Corinthians 11 and 2Corinthians 12 he's discussing his lifeas an apostle and he discusses the factthat he's been Shipwrecked he's beenbeaten he's been imprisoned he's beenstoned he's been flogged in danger fromenemies and friends alive and I can tellyou the job description of a Frontlinemission is not much different these daysand then in in chapter 12 of 2Corinthians he says I know a person inverse two in Christ who 14 years ago wascaught up to the third heaven whether inthe body or out of the body I do notknow etc etc I was caught up intoParadise or what that person was caughtup into paradise and heard things thatare not to be told that no mortal ispermitted to speak you see um in Jewishmysticism marava means a chariot likethe Elijah went to heaven on a fieryChariot and so the the marava mysticismwas the how did you come into thepresence of God and the Jews beli thatthere were seven heavens and betweeneach Heaven There was a gate guarded byangels and you had a scroll with SevenSeals on it and to get through each ofthe seven Gates you broke a scroll andthere was a password there and uh so theJews belied that to come into thepresence of God you had to have a scrollwith Seven Seals and you had to workyour way up through the seven Heavens tocome into the seventh heaven which wasthe dwelling place of God now from aChristian perspective the whole thing isreversed is it not because in Revelation4 and 5 there is also a scroll withSeven Seals on it and no one is worthyto receive the scroll except the lambthat was slain from the foundation ofthe world that is Jesus Christ and hebreaks the seals that means he comes hebreaks into human history and itconcludes with his second coming thephysical and personal arrival of God onplanet Earth at the second coming ofJesus Christ and so the Jews used themystics used this the scroll to comeinto the presence of God in in the Bookof Revelation chapters 4 5 6 and 7 TheScroll is used to represent the breakinginto human history of God himself in theperson of Jesus Christ and uh Paul talksabout that these um these Mystics theywould often go on a trip they would takewhat we might consider hallucinogenicdrugs they would fast they would takemind-bending drugs like the Beatlestaking LSD in India when they went thereand they'd go on a trip and they'd tryand come into the presence of God andthere are well documented trips byJewish rabbis and Mystics who tried thetrip some of them came back okay some ofthem came back and died some of themcame back and went crazy some of themcame back and committed suicide based onwhat they'd seen and Paul is talkinghere autobiographically and he's sayingthathe was caught up into the third heavenand he received Revelations that he'snot permitted to speak about that meansGod has given Paul unique Revelationsabout who God is and about the Plan ofSalvation And so in verse 7 he says evenconsidering the exceptional character ofthe revelations therefore he says tokeep me from being too proud that is Iwas the one who received theseRevelations and to stop me from beingtoo proud he says a thorn was given mein the flesh we're familiar with thisyes the thorn In the Flesh a thorn wasgiven me in the flesh a messenger ofSatan to torment me to keep me frombeing tooproud and we ask ourselves what was thisThorn In the Flesh well some people sayhe had bad eyesight because Paul didn'twrite his own letters uh sometimes theend of his letters he writes a postcripthe says I Paul write this greeting withmy own hands so we know that Paul had asecretary or someone like Luke wouldwrite out his letters for him physicallyuh we also know that Paul Paul was not agood public speaker the Church ofCorinth says so they say well as forPaul he writes these powerful and mightyletters but he's not a good publicspeaker he doesn't compare with Apollosor some of the super orators and andapostles in the early church so Paul hadbad eyesight um he he may he struggledwith his writing skills um he wasn't agood speaker but the text actually tellsus what The Thorn In the Flesh was takeanother look at the text it says a thornwas given me in the flesh a messenger ofSatan two meme and that word messenger in the Greekis anglos from where we get the wordAngel so to say this literally a thornin the flesh was given me an angel ofSatan to torment me now in the NewTestament the word angel can mean anangel it can mean a demon it can mean uma physical messenger like you may be amessenger of God you're an Angelos totoo a a messenger of of God as anindividual and so but taken literallywhat Paul says here that an angel ofSatan was allowed to torment me so wemight conclude from this that Paul umjust as with job one of the threerighteous individuals of the of the OldTestament do job Daniel and Noah are thethree righteous individuals in the OldTestament that we find in the NewTestament Paul maybe the greatest of theApostles that God allowed a an angel ofSatan to torment him and Paul pleadedthree times that God would remove thisangel of Satan and God says no whybecause Paul you need to minister in thestrength of Jesus Christ I don't wantyou ministering in the Brilliance ofyour education or your Jewish Heritageor your your time with chamali the firstor the fact that you had an encounterwith Jesus on the road to Damascus theseare all causes for Pride now when youare weak Paul then I'm going to bestrong through you when you recognizeyour dependence upon me Paul then God isgoing to manifest his glory throughoutyour ministry and so God allowed anangel of Satan to torment Paul he wasnot facing oppression he was not facingpossession like Judas this is an exampleof harassment just as job faced in theOld Testament so we look at these OldTestament characters and New Testamentcharacters and we realize that that umGod's people can indeed be attacked bySatan and you as you're watching thisprogram today you yourself or withinyour family you may realize that you areunder attack from Satan one way oranother so how do we defend ourselvesfrom this well the first thing we'd sayis that we are to pray daily fordeliverance from Satan in the Lord'sPrayer Jesus teaches us in Matthew 6 andverse3 he says uh and Deliver Us fromEvil and we're very familiar with thiswe prayed it many times in church or inour private devotions but that's notquite what Jesus says he doesn't sayDeliver Us from Evil for instance arainy day on my wedding or Deliver Usfrom Evil such as um hitting a deer onmy way home from work and having $1,000deductible for the repairs on my on mycar that's not what Jesus is talkingabout no what Jesus he says somethingvery specific he says and Deliver Usfrom hos which means from the evilone and so Jesus teaches us to pray toour Heavenly Father asks we are to askour heavenly father to Deliver Us fromthe attacks of the evil one that is fromSatan himself and how often are we to dothat well just in the previous verse wesay and give us this day our breadsufficient for today that's a literaltranslation we normally say and give usthis day our daily bread now if we areto pray every day for bread for food forphysical nourishment and we are to weare commanded to pray this prayer on adaily basis because we want to eat on adaily basis therefore logically we areto ask our heavenly father on a dailybasis for him to set us free from theattacks of Satan because we're underdaily attack from Satan and God knowsthat Satan is attacking God's childrennot just once in the blue moon or onceonce a year or so we're under dailyattack fromSatan and often times as Christians wego through our lives and we don't we'rewe're we our eyes are closed to thisreality we don't realize that that Satanis around us and his demons are tryingto destroy us and that if you have animportant event uh something for thebody of Christ let's say you're going todo an Evangelistic series or you want togive somebody a phone call and encourageencourage them after the loss of a childin a tragic Road accident that you say Imust give that person a call then Satanwill fill your life with a million andone things so that you never get roundto making that phone call Satan putsroadblocks in your way all the time tostop you from being a blessing to thebody of Christ and so Jesus commands ushe teaches us to pray for deliverancefrom the evil one that evil one inRevelation 12 and first people 5 is thedevil he is the ancient Serpent of Edenhe is the dragon the deceiver of thewhole world the roaring lion seekingwhom he may devour together with hisFallen Angels now we can cooperate withGod in this process when we say DeliverUs from Evil we can cooperate with Godby cleaning up our lives now what do Imean by this in the book of Acts chapter19 the gospel comes to Ephesus in theministry of the Apostle Paul and theresponse of the new Believers is to taketheir books of magic and I'm not goingto use that as an image for their booksof magic to to take their books or theirScrolls of magic which were worth anabsolute fortune and if you go toancient Ephesus today there's a there'sa huge facade it's three stories T threestories high of the ancient theater ofof Ephesus it was a magnificent buildingand they took those books of magic andthey put them in the streets and theyburnt them they physically destroyedthem they would have no part they didnot sell them they did not give them totheir neighbors they destroyed themSatan was going to have no avenues forentry into their livesand if we can cooperate with God in thisprocess of delivering us from theattacks of Satan by cleaning up ourlives essentially I I may ask you mayput it this way is there something inyour life today as you're watching thisprogram is there something in your lifetoday that you cannot give as a holysacrifice to a holyGod if the holy spirit is speaking toyou as you're listening to my words herethere is something in your life rightnow that you cannot give as a holysacrifice to a holy God then I want tochallenge you to get rid of that fromyour life if there is something in yourhome or in your lifestyle or in yourheart or an attitude that you arenurturing that you know is inconsistentwith the principles of the kingdom ofGod that is an Avenue for Satan to enteryour life if you go to uh Washington DCas many tourists do many tourists theygo to the mall they go to the LincolnMemorial and there's the Jeffersonmonument or whatever it's called thenthere's the Washington Monument then youwalk up till you come to the Congressand you go behind the Congress and youcome to the Supreme Court then you comedown Pennsylvania Avenue come to theWhite House and on the way you may stopoff at the Smithsonian Air and sciencemuseum or the Holocaust Museum and soforth that is where most tourists gowithin Washington DC and if you're atourist and you walk around that part ofWashington you'll say wow a Washingtonis such a clean City there is no trashanywhere it's orderly and clean andregular and regulated what a wonderfulplace to live but if you go just onemile from the mall you'll come to somevery rundown dirty areas where everyhuman sin is on open and fulldisplay and in our own lives forinstance if you go to church on a weeklybasis we have that portion of our lifethat we like to show to other peoplelike this is who I am look how clean Iam look how nice my shirt is today lookhow moral and upstanding I am as a cCitizen and a member of thiscommunity that's the moral part of ourlives but the reality is all of us havethose hidden back streets those alleysthose those those darkened Pathwayswhere there is all kinds of trashfestering and it's in that trash thatthe rats theyfeast and so the people of Ephesus theyrecognize that there were to be no backalleys in their lives they couldn'tprofess Christ in public but read TheBacks books of magic in private theyburnt those books ofmagic and so no matter how beautifulyour life may appear on a Sabbathmorning or when you go to church Churchuh the chances are that there are someback alleys in your life and God isinviting you today to clean up thoseback alleys actually to get rid of themto take them out of your life so ifthere is something in your life todaythat you cannot give as a holy sacrificeto a holy God or to challenge you todayto get rid of it to put it away fromyour life because as long as you havethat that those those back alleys inyour lives those unconsecrated parts ofyour life you are giving space for Satanto into your life those are entry pointsfor Satan it could be violent videogames Godless entertainment choicesonline pornography vengeful bigotedhate-filled or racist thinking addictivesubstances Pride spiritualself-sufficiency materialism gossipslander uh you may bring back trinketsfrom overseas statues of Buddha orwooden face masks from a trip to Haitior Africa and you do not realize thatthose face marks have been devoted tothe worship of a certain spirit and whenyou bring bring that into your homeyou're bringing that Spirit into yourhome as well truly whatever in your lifecannot be offered as a living sacrificeof praise to a holy God I want to inviteyou to challenge you today to put asidefrom your life whatever the holy spiritis convicting you right now as you hearme speaking these words secondly in theNew Testament so firstly we pray fordeliverance from the attacks of Satanand we cooperate with God by cleaning upour lives secondly we we're invited tostand firm in the armor of God God weare to put on the armor of God in theNew Testament we find that Christ hasalready defeated Satan in Ephesians 119-23 that every conversion todaydemonstrates Christ's power Ephesians2:6 and the existence of the body ofChrist today is a living proof andtestament to the church that the powerof Satan can be broken and it has beenbroken and one day it will be broken forall time we find in the scriptures thatum that though he is a defeated foeSatan is still dangerous and we arecalled to resist him and he will fle andhe will flee from us in the Book ofJames then we next verse says draw nearto God and He will draw near to you sowe can resist the devil we can resisthis Temptations we can resist his liesand as we turn our back on Satan if it'sSatan is there as we turn away fromSatan we're turning towards God animportant part of Deliverance Ministryis the recognition and this is importantto say for the Western Christians outthere is that many people have the ideathat this is Satan's kingdom overhere then they say that the kingdom ofGod is over here and in the middle herethere's this kind of secular a religiousneutral zone and many people say I wantto be set free from the attacks of Satanover here but I don't want to live inthe kingdom of God over here I want tolive a pretty much secular amoral umGodless life in the middle here and uhso when people say I want to be set freefrom the attacks of Satan um you have toask them well do you want to acceptJesus as your lord and savior because ifyou do not want to accept Jesus as yourlord and savior then it would not be agood thing for me to work with you toset you free from the attacks of Satannow why do I say this because in Matthewchapter 12 and verse 43 Matthew 12 and:43 it says there when the uncleanspirits have gone out of a person itwanders through wless regions lookingfor a resting place but it finds nonethen it says I will come to my housefrom which I came when it comes it findsit empty swept and put in order then itgoes and brings along seven otherSpirits more evil than itself and theyenter and live there and the last stateof that person is worse than the firstMatthew 12:43 through 45 so what Jesusis teaching us here is that if somebodywants to be set free from the attacks ofSatan um you cannot just say I'd like aa an empty life my house swept cleanthat is I'm not going to fill my lifewith the Holy Spirit I don't want to bea part of God's kingdom over here Idon't want to be filled with the HolySpirit I want to live a secular umamoral life without any moral compassJesus is saying that if that if somethat person is set free from the attacksof Satan the demon that was cast outgoes looking for another place to liveand when it cannot find it and it comesback and it finds its original body orDwelling Place empty and it goes andfinds seven other demons more wickedthan itself so there is a hierarchy ofevil among the demons implicit in thatverse and and together those demons theycome and dwell in that person so hislatter condition is worse than the firstcondition so ethically speaking ifsomebody comes and says I want to be setfree from the attacks of Satan I have toask you as a minister of the Gospel wellare you willing to accept Jesus as Lordand not just to savior yes you wantJesus to save you from the attacks ofSatan but are you willing to live underthe lordship of Jesus Christ because ifyou are not we can work with you to setyou free from the attacks of Satan butyour latter condition will be worse thanthe first if you do not fill your lifewith the Holy Spirit and so in thewritings of Paul we have we have we'recommanded uh to put on the whole armorof God Ephesians chapter 6 is a veryfamous passage that we battle notagainst flesh and blood but against thespiritual forces of evil and theHeavenly Realms and so forth and soforth so in the context of spiritualwarfare the Apostle Paul says don't justcome out of the kingdom of Satan andkind of live a neutral secularhumanistic life without any recognitionof God he said you ought to put on thearmor of God put on the whole armor ofGod not just a portion of the armor ofGod you ought to put on the whole armorof God and uh so he says there inEphesians chapter 6 and verse 11 he saysput on the whole armor of God so thatyou may be able to stand against the Wsof the devil very interesting passagehere Paul does not say put on the armorof God so that you may Advance againstthe attacks of the devil he says so thatyou can stand against the attacks of thedevil now some some people argue inDeliverance Ministry that you shouldhave an aggressive approach that whenSatan attacks you should go forth andyou should go and name and claim it youshould going do a a prayer walk around acity and you're going to cast out demonsfrom under every Rock and behind everybehind every car or bush that's not whatPaul says he says you would have put onthe whole armor of God so he's speakingto infantry here and he says so that youmay be able to stand and uh if you areinfantry and you are commanded to standthat means that essentially you are in adefensive posture he says in Ephesians6:13 therefore take up the whole armorof God so that you may be able to standon that evil day that is evil will comeknocking at your door whether you likeit or not whether you want it or notwhether you deserve it or not whetherit's Justified or not evil will comeknocking at my door and at yourdoor so are you going to stand and theonly way to stand when evil comesknocking at your door is to put on thewhole armor of God and you're not to golooking for trouble you're you're tostand with the shield of faith and thebreastplates of righteousness and thehelmet of salvation GED about with abelt of truth because truth holdseverything together and on your feet youyou have the the Readiness to share thegospel you're an active witness forJesus and the only offensive armor thatyou have is the sword of the spiritwe'll come back to that in a moment Paulgoes on to say in Ephesians6:13 and having done everything to standfirmand verse 14 he starts out by starts outby saying stand therefore so three timesin this passage Paul says you are tostand you're not to goforward no you are to stand that meansdon't go looking for trouble becausetrouble will come looking for you if youare a follower of Jesus Satan has you inhis sights he's coming for you and he'scoming for me he's coming for yourfamily and he's coming for my familyhe's coming for your loved ones and he'scoming for my loved ones he's coming foryour business and everything that'simportant to you he's coming for yourhealth and your body and your hope andyour happiness so we are to stand firmwith the armor of God and we are armedwith the sword of the spirit which isthe word of Godnow there are two words for word in theGreek that are commonly used the mostcommonly used one is logos logos in thebeginning in AR in hos in the beginningwas the logos and the logos was with Godand the logos was God John 1 verse one avery very famous beginning to theprologue of John the first 18 verses ofthat gospel and you could spend the restof your life just studying those F thosefirst 18 verses of John Jesus is thelogos to Theo he is the word of God butuh then we say that this printed Biblethis is also the word of God and inEnglish we don't distinguish betweenlogos or any other kind of word we saythis is the word of God preaching is theact of proclaiming the the living lawThe Living Word by the spoken word fromthe written word um but Paul is nottalking about this here he uses anotherword for word of God and he uses theword Rama he doesn't use the word logosand it's a subtle but importantdistinction because the word RMA itmeans the spokenutterance it means that you speak theword of God you know it's like the thewife who says to a husband after 20years of marriage husband do you love meand he says to her well honey I told youwhen we got married 20 years ago that Iloved you and if anything changes I'lllet you know well technically that maybe intellectually true but that's notwhat his wife needs to hear it's notwhat he needs to hear either and so weneed to hear the spoken word it's anaffirmation it builds trust it nurtureslove it cherishes that which is good andtrue and Noble in our lives and Paulsays you are to use the word of God thatis the spoken word of God now why isthis important well I'm a sinnerand the question arises can you getanything 100% true out of someone who is100%sinful no you can't even if you are 99%true and 1% um false you cannot speak100% truth out of that which isinherently flawed and so uh the words Ispeak because they're coming from aflawed individual are inherently flawedI try and speak as truthfully as I canbut I can never speak the absoluteabsolute absolute truth the only words Iknow that you know that any of us hasaccess to that are absolutely true arefound in the word of God because Godinspired them and God is true and God ishe does not lie and in him there is noShadow or darkness and so the only wordsthat you and I know are absolutely trueare the word of God and that is why whenSatan came to attack Jesus in TheShowdown in the wilderness in thebeginning of Matthew's gospel Jesusresponded by quoting the word of Godthis is important because in DeliveranceMinistry we're not talking about powerDeliverance Ministry is really a truthencounter rather than a power encounteryou don't imagine that that casting outdemons this isn't a matter of power it'sa matter of truth and the reason I arguethis is because Satan's weapons arebased on falsehoods every temptation tosin is a lie every temptation isbasically this if you do this this willbe the good outcome for you if you dothat this will be the good outcome foryou and it's always a lie and you don'trespond to lies with Force you youcontract lies with truth the antidote topoison is is is is another antidote youdon't respond with more poison to theoriginal poison itself and so um when weencounter people who are experiencingdemonization the antidote to the lies ofSatan is the truth of the word of Godand so we respond to the attacks ofSatan by quoting scripture and so forinstance in my Bible here maybe youcannot see it but I I have a list oftexts here that I include these that arethese are texts that deal with theauthority of Jesus over demons the factthat Satan is one day going to bedestroyed that his fate is certain thatthe demons tremble because they knowtheir fate the Dem Devils tremblebecause they know there is a one God andthey know there is a time of judgmentand that Jesus can bring them intojudgment even now before the finaljudgment and they tremble because ofthat and so I keep in my in my Bibleverses that deal with the sovereigntyand the authority of the Risen LordJesus Christ because demons do not wantto hear those passages spoken to them sowe we we partner with God by Art prayingDeliver Us from Evil uh from the attacksof Satan and we clean up our lives wepartner with God by standing firm byputting on the armor of God everymorning putting on the armor of Godtoday I will have faith Lord give me thefaith to get through today Lord todayI'm going sh my sh my feet with theReadiness to share the gospel I'm goingto leave my home today with a glowtracked with the steps to Christ with aDesire of Ages Lord give me somebody Ican share this with today I'm going toI'm going to put around my lifesomething called truth I'm going to lookfor that which is true I'm going tofocus on the life of Jesus because he isabsolutely true and everything else inmy life today is going to be judged inthe life of the life and teachings ofJesus Christ to know whether it's trueor not and so with this intentionalityof putting on the armor of God God wealso carry with us the sword of thespirit which is the spoken word of Godwe speak God's truth into the lies ofSatan then thirdly we humble ourselvesbefore God in prayer and fasting in Actschapter 17 Jesus says ma Matthew chapter17 Jesus says to the disciples who couldnot cast out a demon he says but thiskind that is this kind of demon onlycomes out through prayer and fasting andso uh prayer and fasting they gotogether for a variety of reasonsum I'm sure like me you lead a very busylife that you know from the moment youget up to the moment you go to bed everyminute is counted for if you havechildren and you have to get them toschool and you have to leave home by7:30 your morning routine is down tolike 30 seconds that if anything goeswrong it causes immense stress in yourfamily or at least it does in my familyat least I'm not sure how it is for yourfamily but our families are such finelytuned instruments that it's hard to getpeople ready on time every day forschool or for church or whatever thecase may beand so our lives are very busy butprayer and fasting go together for avariety of reasons one is you youprobably spend about an hour to twohours every day in preparing food eatingfood washing up the dishes after foodand then feeling slightly heavy-headedand slightly sleepy well if you didn'teat during the day you would suddenlycreate a minimum of one to two hoursthat would previous previously spentdealing with food and now you can spendthose in prayer so just out of nowhereyou create time to pray secondly we praybecause to pray uh to fast is really anact of humility before God if my peoplewho are called by my by my name theythey turn their face towards me and theyhumble themselves and that word toHumble yourselves really means to fastin 2 Chronicles 7 verse 14 and so whenwe fast we are humbling ourselves beforeGod fasting is an is a physicalexpression of an attitude that says GodI'm in a battle I'm in a struggle andthe Victory is not going to come in MyOwn Strength the victory is only goingto come in your strength and the theglory will not come to me but the gloryis going to come to you as my heavenlyfather and so when we fast we'rehumbling ourselves before God and sayingGod I do not have the answers I do notknow what to do here but I'm I'm fastingsaying Lord let may you be glorified inthis situation whatever you do you aresovereign you can do and so fasting andprayer they go um hand in hand and sowhat do we then Proclaim from thescriptures we've seen that uh job andPeter and Judas and Pete and Paul allexperienced demonic attack of variouskind we see that we can respond to theattacks of Satan by praying The Lord'sPrayer Deliver Us from the evil one on adaily basis and we can cooperate withGod by cleaning up our lives um startingtoday we can cooperate with God bystanding firm and by putting on thearmor of God and speaking the words ofscripture into lives into our own livesinto the lives of those around us and wecan also spend time in prayer andfasting asking God to fight the battlesfor us that we cannot fight forourselves so then what do we Proclaimoverall from scripture I'm going to talknow a bit about the great controversytheme that God has given ad Adventistand it's a it's a powerful um it's apowerful metan narrative within whicheverything else makes sense you see thescriptures teach that behind the scenesof Earthly Affairs there are invisibleSupernatural forces for good and evilengaged in a cosmic War Warfare for theEternal Allegiance and control of everyhuman being Ephesians 612 the scriptrures teach the existence of a literalpersonal devil once called LuciferIsaiah 14:12 but now named Satan who wasonce the highest ranked to mostbeautiful angel in heaven Ezekiel 28and: 15 the scriptures teach that Satanexperienced a moral fall because ofPride and took a third of all the HolyAngels with him into Rebellion againstGod in war in heaven Revelation 12:4 andthat at the conclusion of that first warin heaven Satan was literally andphysically ejected from Heaven comingdown to planet Earth Earth and woe tothe Earth and those who dwell hereRevelation 12 7-9 the scriptures teachthat Satan and his Fallen Angels calleddemons continue to This Day in 2020 and2021 in waging ruthless war against thekingdom of God and all that is good andworthwhile in our universe Revelation12113-17 the scriptures teach that duringEarth's final days Satan will send forththree demonic spirits who will deludeand control the overwhelming majority ofthe powers and Nations and inhabitantsof our world to fight against GodAlmighty in the final struggle betweengood and evil and they will persecuteGod's faithful people the scripturesteach that Satan will bring about anoverwhelming delusion at the end of timeto deceive if very possible the veryelect of God and those who do not lovethe truth 2 Thessalonians 2 9-10 noticethat Paul does not say that those whoare deceived are those who merely knowthe truth no those who survive thatdelusion are those who love the truth soyou have to not just know the truth herebut you have to love the truth in yourheart if you are to survive the finaldelusion the scripture teaches that inthe first Christmas Story the arrival ofthe kingdom of God set up a directconfrontation with the kingdom of Satanand the forces of Darkness have neverbeen able to extinguish the light of theworld john: 15 the scripture teachesthat the reason Son of God appeared wasto destroy the devil's work 1 John 38and in his first sermon at Nazareth inLuke 4 Jesus declared that he had cometo quote Proclaim release to thecaptives end quote that is Jesus came todeliver the Satan the victims of SatanIC harassment and and possession thescriptures teach that while our struggleis not against our enemies of flesh andblood but it is against the rulers theauthorities the cosmic powers of thispresent Darkness against the spiritualforces of the Heavenly Realms Ephesians6:12 those rulers and authorities thatis Fallen Angels when you do a wordstudy that that is what it means thosefallen angels can never separate us fromthe love of God and I say amen and amento that why because Paul goes on to sayfor I am convinced Romans 8:38 at thatneither death nor life nor angels norrulers that is fallen angels nor thingspresent nor things to come nor powersthat means demons nor height nor depthnor anything else in all creation willbe able to separate us from love of Godin Christ Jesus our lord the scripturesteach have said this before that JesusChrist has never lost an encounter withSatan or one of his Fallen Angels Christtriumphed in the first Heavenly war andSatan was cast out of Heaven Christtriumphs over Satan the Wilderness andSatan was driven from his s Christtriumphs over Satan while he was onEarth setting free his captives and whenJesus comes again oh Glorious Day Satanand his demons will be destroyed onceand for all and Satan will be cast intoLake of Fire to be eternally destroyedRevelation 20 and verse 10 you see thethe scriptures teach the good news thatJesus Christ is the savior of mankindPhilippians 3:20 yes Jesus was the mostgifted teacher in human history but hedid not come he did not come simply toteach he came to save us from theattacks of Satan and it is preciselybecause the evil that you and I you andI experience today has a satanic originthat we cannot overcome it simplythrough better educ Christian educationthrough more nuanced parenting skillsthrough carefully worded resolutions ofour worldwide Church our greatest enemyin our world today is not ignorance andour greatest need is not Enlightenmentour greatest enemy in our world is notracism ter terrible though that is andour greatest need is not for socialharmony our greatest enemy today is notenvironmental degradation even thoughthat is a terrible reality and ourgreatest need is not environmentalregeneration our greatest enemy today isnot poverty and our greatest need is notEconomic Development and growth ourgreatest enemy today our greatestproblem is not having an iPhone 6 andour greatest need is not an iPhone 7 oran iPhone 10 no our greatest enemy todayis the problem of evil a personalmalevolent evil opponent his name isSatan and because our greatest problemour greatest enemy our greatest eviltoday is a personal malevolent evilbeing called Satan our greatest needyour greatest need and my greatest needis a personal a loving and an allpowerful Savior and his name is JesusChrist he is my savior and by God'sgrace he is your savior as well todaythe scriptures teach that our lovingpersonal all powerful Creator and SaviorJesus Jesus Christ is the same yesterdaytoday and tomorrow how he treated thepeople in the gospels is how he'll treatyou today his love for the Lost in thegospels reflects his love for you todayhis authority over disease in thegospels reflects his authority overdisease today his call to make disciplesand to make disciples and officiers ofmen 2,000 years ago applies to every oneof us here today and because Jesus hasbeen given all authority in Heaven andEarth therefore a wonderful news JesusJesus is able to save those who approachGod for all time through him since healways lives to make intercession forthem brothers and sisters as you watchthis program today the reality is isthat in the Bible there has been a falland the human race we as a human speciesare broken and wounded and evil in ourworld is bigger than any of us it isSupernatural in origin and Satan isbehind all evil in my life and in yourlife and our struggle is not justagainst the human for forces of evil orpolitical ideologies or that politicianor that politician or this one overthere but our struggle is against thespiritual forces of evil in the HeavenlyRealms and it is precisely because ofthe enormity of this vast evil that weneed an all powerful all loving allmerciful Creator and his name is JesusChrist and he came to be my savior andhe has come to be your savior as well inthe fullness of time the word of Godsays that God so loved the world that hesent his son Jesus Christ the one whoAnointed with the Holy Spirit and God'spower to free us from the Dominion ofthe devil acts 10:30 says 38 says Godanointed Jesus of Nazareth with the HolySpirit and with power and he went aboutdoing good and healing all who wereoppressed by the devil for God was withhim and so I want to challenge you todaywith a few takeaways from what I've beensharing with you in this first of ourthree-part series on DeliveranceMinistry today we've been talking aboutsome generalities I want you to reflecttoday is there anything in your lifetoday that you cannot give as aworshipful and a holy sacrifice to aliving God if there's something in yourlife today that you cannot give as aholy sacrifice to a holy God if the holyspirit is speaking to you right now Iwant to challenge you to take that thingin your life and put it away get rid ofit have no further part to do with ittake it physically out of the home askGod to remove it from your heart takeaway that source of Temptation if you'rean alcoholic put the alcohol out of thehome if you're an internet porn addicttake the internet out out of the homewhatever it is take it out of your lifedo not give Satan space to create havocin your life I want to challenge you notonly to get rid of things but to invitethe Holy Spirit to fill your heart andyour mind right now invite the HolySpirit to fill your life Jesus promisedthat if you seek you shall find if youknock the door shall be open to you andif you ask you shall receive thesethreefold promises of Jesus if you wantthe Holy Spirit in your life I inviteyou as I come to the end here to praywith me and invite the Holy Spirit tofill your heart and your home and yourHeth and everything around you thatSatan has no space to enter and I inviteyou to live a life of service to othersuh rather than thinking just aboutourselves which is the norm for all ofus myself included start asking how youcan be a blessing in your community inyour home and to your neighbors becauseit is in serving others that God will bepowerfully manifest through You DeliverUs from from Evil said Jesus we serve aheavenly father who has the authorityand the right and the desire to Ser toto deliver me and you from every attackof Satan please bow your heads with meand we will conclude with a word ofprayer dear heavenly father I want tothank you for the good news of SalvationI want to thank you that Jesus Christcame to this world to destroy the worksof the devil I want to thank you that hecame the first time to deal with sin andI thank you Father that Jesus is cominga second time to deliver those who arewaiting faithfully and patiently for HimFather for those who are watching thisprogram right now I ask that your holyspirit will fill their hearts and theirminds that you will bring into theircharacters a the Harvest of the fruit ofrighteousness of love and joy and peaceand long suffering and gentleness andself-control and you'll take away theworks of the flesh the anger and thebitterness and the argumentativeness anduh the rage and the disputation and allthe rest of it father Lord take thataway from us and fill our hearts withthe fruit of the Holy Spirit father forthose who are watching today I pray youanoint them with gifts that they can usefor the glory of your kingdom that theycan use those gifts to be a blessing intheir home and in their community andfather give them opportunities in thiscoming week Lord make help them receivea phone call or text or an email or arequest from someone that says pleasecould you help us with this and may itmatch their gifts and Lord I pray theywill have the courage and the time sayyes I will answer here am I Lord send meand I pray father that you will indeeddeliver every person watching thisprogram today from the attacks of Satanthat their lives rather than being umchapters and stories and stories offailure and pain and anguish that theirlives might be a hym of praise to Jesusthe one who loves us who's redeemed usfrom the power of this of Satan andwho's coming one day again to claim usfor our Heavenly Kingdom thank youFather for hearing and for answeringthis prayer because I pray in the nameof Jesus our lord and all powerfulsavior amen[Music][Music]