Book of Esther - Part 21

Well, good to see everyone. Good day in the house of the Lord. Let's turn to the book of Esther chapter seven and verse five.

All right, let's have a word of prayer and we'll begin. Lord, we thank you for this time to come together and worship you, learn of you, study the word together and to praise you.

And Lord, we ask you to bind and rebuke the enemy, the devil and the demons, send them away from this place that we might study for a while in secret.

And Lord, we ask you to teach each of us what we need to learn about spiritual warfare today through this passage and to bless each family here with the peace that comes through having the proper armor.

And Lord, even when we don't have days of peace, at least we're equipped to deal with it.

And Lord, we just ask you to make each of us to be the salt and the light that we're supposed to be in this generation, we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, well, we're going through the book of Esther. I want you to read this with me and then we'll, we're going to use this as a launching pad,

I guess, to go out and study what this portion of Esther is picturing.

The Bible tells us that the Old Testament is given to us as in samples. That means examples and types.

And so all of the stories, the historical stories in the

Old Testament are word pictures of spiritual truth. So let's look at this one. Then the King Ahasuerus, who happened to have been the king of the whole world in his day, the secular historians call him

Artaxerxes, so you've probably heard of that king when you studied in school. This is the same one.

And he answered and said unto Esther the queen, who is he and where is he that durst presume in his heart to do this?

Esther has just revealed to the king that there is this man named Haman who wanted to kill her, not really her father, but the man who raised her, the one she saw as her father,

Mordecai was his name, a Jewish man. And the king does not at this point know that Esther is a

Jew. She never revealed it to him because her father asked her not to, so she obeyed him. And she says this man wants to kill my father,

Mordecai, and kill all the entire nation of the Jews, all of the

Jewish people that are mixed among your nation. Of course, since he was the king of practically the whole world, that meant that Haman wanted to destroy all the

Jewish people in the world. And Haman was inspired by the devil, but the same devil who inspired

Hitler to attempt to do the same thing during World War II. And it indicates to us pretty clearly in the scripture that that same devil will put it in the minds of the world leaders to try to destroy the

Jews and the Christians in the end times. So we battle not against flesh and blood. It's not

Haman that the battle was with, but we battle against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places.

And the thing is though, Haman in this story is a type or a picture of Satan. King Ahasuerus is a type or a picture of the father,

God the father, and Queen Esther, or I should say of Jesus Christ, and Queen Esther is a picture of the bride of Christ, which is you, the church.

So we have all this pictured here. Now what has happened is that the bride has just announced to the king that there's a person who wants to kill me.

Now I want you to see what this is picturing. And as soon as she announces to the king, there is a person who wants to kill me, the king says, who is he and where is he?

And I'll deal with it. Now that's exactly what your king does, Jesus Christ. When the enemy comes at you, whether it be through himself, through demons, or a demon or more than one demons, or through the world system, or through your own flesh, those are the three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

However he attacks you, if you will go to the Lord and just say, look, there's one who wants to kill me right now, whether it be physically or spiritually, doesn't matter.

Just say, he is after me right now. And you know what the Lord Jesus will say? He'll say, who is this and where is he?

Leave it up to me, I'll take care of it. Just tell me who it is and where is he and what's he doing to you, I'll take care of it. All of that is pictured in verse five.

It's quite beautiful, actually. And verse six says, and Esther said, the adversary, the enemy.

You see, that's exactly who Satan is called in the Bible. The adversary, the devil. His name is the adversary.

So she says, the adversary, the enemy, is this wicked Haman, and then Haman was afraid.

See, that's exactly what Satan will, the exact response Satan will have if you understand this and understand how to utilize it.

There's nowhere in the Bible where it says, turn your back on Satan and run from him. There are places that say, run from the temptations of the flesh.

You see, it's interesting we have three enemies, but the way you approach them are different and if you get those confused, you won't win.

For example, the flesh, if you think you can just stand up to that and resist it, you're gonna lose, because you can't.

It's too strong for you, besides that, you're surrounded by it, right? We live in the flesh. We live in this body.

So the Bible never says just to try to be strong and stand up to the flesh. What it says is, flee youthful lust.

It means when you'd like to flee the situations that might cause you to sin, because you're weak in the flesh.

So it doesn't say to resist that, it says to run from it. Run as fast as you can in the other direction from any situation in your life that could put you in a compromising situation.

Does that make sense? That's the approach to the flesh. We're not really studying the flesh today, we're studying the devil.

And the devil, the Bible says the opposite. It says, do not turn your back, because you don't have any armor. Check out

Ephesians chapter six and see if there's any armor listed that's for your back. The shield is in front of you.

The breastplate is in front of you. The sword is held in front of you.

So you don't turn your back on Satan, you turn to him and you look him square in the face and you say,

Lord, he's bothering me. And the Lord says, who is he and where is he?

I'll take care of it. And at that moment, the Bible says Satan trembles. Now, do you believe that?

You have to believe it, the word says it. So just believe it. And if you act on that in faith, you'll be surprised how it will free up peace in your family.

Jesus, our King, is just saying, who is it that's bothering you? Tell me where he is, let me deal with it. And then the very next verse says, and Satan trembled,

Haman trembled. Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. So you put the king and the queen together as one, and Satan can't handle that.

You take the queen by herself, he can handle that. Satan can handle that. Satan can handle you and me, you know what

I'm saying? Don't ever think, oh, I rebuke you, Satan. You've heard people like, there's certain religious groups that talk like that, it's ridiculous.

You're not gonna rebuke Satan. You know, I remember the man in the Bible that tried that once and the demon jumped right on top of him tore his clothes off and beat the crud out of him, almost killed him.

They said, you know what the demon said to that man? He said, look, Peter and Paul, we don't know who you are, and then they tore him up.

Don't try that. What you do is you go to your king, and you say, there's someone bothering me here.

This demon is bothering me, this devil is bothering me. Would you please take care of that?

And then that's how that is handled. So this is the story that we're in.

Now that we took a kind of a launching pad there and we're into a study, rather brief study, probably not more than three

Sundays, study of Lucifer. The one, the adversary that is pictured here by Esther.

And you're laughing at me because it's already been three Sundays, but that's okay, it doesn't matter. The adversary, the enemy.

Well, we know in first Peter chapter five that that is the title of Satan. It says be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour.

So we talked about that a little bit last time, we'll continue. Last time we talked about that his name is adversary. In the

Greek language it means against that which is right. And then it mentions his second title here in that same verse in first Peter five eight.

And then it calls him the devil. The Greek word for devil is slanderer. Now you know what it is to slander someone.

It means to say that they are something they're not. You're doing a character assassination. You see what

I'm saying? That's what slandering is. It's saying lies about another person to bring that person down.

That is his name, the devil. He's always trying to cause us to bring other people down by putting thoughts in our minds.

He's always trying to cause division and he does it through slandering. So think about that.

When you have a thought about your brother and sister, you might wanna go to the brother and sister and ask them because the devil is probably slandering them in your mind.

Now think about that. That is his name. That's what he does. Have you ever had that happen? Of course, everyone in here has.

Tell you what, you take any relationship where you have a leader, like you take the home where the husband's the leader and the wife is then the leader of the children.

As you go up that chain of command, if you don't have very good communication, what will happen, or like if there's time that passes before communication or just being together, then what happens is the devil begins to slander against the leader.

He'll tell the kids things in their mind where they won't get along with the mom. He'll tell the wife things about the husband that aren't true and stuff like that.

Now you go into business situation, you have to have a leader in business. And usually, well, if it's a company like ours, everybody loves each other.

I mean, it's a fantastic company over at New Venture. And we all love each other, but I will promise you, even in that environment, if time goes by where the leader can't be there because he's doing something else for whatever reason, not that this is happening now, it's not, so it's a good time to talk about it.

But I mean, if time goes by, the enemy will come and put in the follower's mind that the leader has a problem with me for whatever reason.

I don't even think they like me anymore. Stuff like that, who knows what it'll be. It's just bizarre stuff he'll put in your mind about that leader is not even true.

And if you go to the leader and just ask him, he'll say, oh, that's not true. Sorry I made you feel that way, man, I've just been busy. Something like that, and then it goes away.

How many of you ever experienced that? Isn't that the strange, in your marriage it's that way. If you just communicate, you say, oh man, that's not what

I meant. I know I said that, that's weird. I can't believe I said that, but I sure didn't mean it, and I don't feel that way in my heart towards you.

Please forgive me, and it just goes away. But if you don't do the communication, it turns into another thing the

Bible talks about, which is called bitterness. And bitterness is a terrible thing in the heart and soul, because you get bitter towards a person because you didn't work it out.

That's one reason the Lord says, don't go to sleep at night without working it out. If you have a problem with another

Christian, especially if it's your spouse, you have a problem, that's fine, have at it.

I wouldn't raise the voice too much in a marriage. I don't believe in that. You don't need to raise your voice and holler at each other, but you can disagree, that's fine.

But before you go to sleep, kiss and make up. Get it right. And if you're not the guilty party, go ahead and apologize anyway.

Make up something you did do wrong and apologize, and then the guilty party will apologize and kiss and make up, and that's the fun part.

That's how it works. That's why I always apologize first in our marriage. So, I'm kidding.

That's not why. I usually do apologize first, but that's not why. So it works in all the business relationships, church relationships, home.

If you know the enemy, and you know that your battle is not with that person, we battle not against flesh and blood, then you can attack the right enemy, and here's the keys to how you do it.

You just go to Jesus, and you say, enemy's picking on me. Well, what's his name, where is he?

It's pretty much that simple. And then make sure you're walking with Jesus. All right?

Helps if the other person does, too. Now, it says, goes on and says in that same passage, he is a roaring lion.

What does that mean? I'll tell you what it means. He's a slaughterer. He is a destroyer of nations.

He is the destroyer of families. He's the destroyer of homes. He's the destroyer of churches. He's the destroyer of institutions, and it says in Scripture he's the destroyer of nations.

All you have to do is look at every nation. Talked about it in Sunday school this morning. Jeffrey was talking about nations, and Satan is the destroyer.

One of his purposes is to tear nations down where they go away. Good nations that are founded on good things.

And he eliminates them through his wiles. And if you go to 1

Corinthians chapter 10, where we were last Sunday, we talked about all that passage down through verse one through 10, but let me just pick it up at verse 10.

So please turn now with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 10. Whoops, I don't think

I said that right. Yeah, I did. Chapter 10, verse 10. Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer.

And I just pull that out of that passage because I want you to get the title here. Satan, one of Satan's titles is the destroyer.

Now all these things happened unto them. Who is them? That's any of these

Old Testament saints that we read these historical stories about. Why did these things happen to them?

And it gives you the answer in the next phrase. For examples. That's just an old

English word for examples. And they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the age are come.

That's us. We're in the end times. We're in the end of this church age. It's almost over.

And so every story in the Old Testament is written for us as examples.

How? A physical example to teach a spiritual truth. If you will look at the stories and spiritualize them, you will gain from that.

You have to be careful and make sure you get the types right and make sure each person in the story is representing the right thing.

And that's where the Holy Spirit comes in and also the other scriptures. You have to hold everything up against every other scripture.

It all has to fit. But it's amazing what it will teach us if we look at these Old Testament stories that were given as examples for those of us who are in the end of time.

Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. So that means none of us can think we're so strong that we're just gonna be okay because the enemy is strong and he will attack.

He'll find your weakest moment. I believe sincerely that the scripture indicates that he has a huge hierarchy of fallen angels and there is at least one or more assigned to you and watches you all the time.

Now, that'll freak you out, won't it? He knows your weaknesses of the flesh.

These know your weakness. Your weakness is different than mine, I guarantee you. We all have them, but they're all different.

And it's their job to figure it out and report it right up the chain of command to Satan. And it's their job to then bring that back down and use your weakness to create division and problems and trouble for other people.

Now, how do you like the way that feels? Does that feel good that you are a problem for other people?

That's their job is to make you be a problem for other people of God and for the kingdom or the church or the organization, whatever the deal is.

And so you have got to never be so prideful that you think that you can't fall or you can't create a problem.

It's always the other person. See, if you're that way, then that's a weakness he'll use.

It's amazing. But listen, he's had lots of thousands of years to work on us. Satan doesn't really need new tactics.

He just needs a new generation to pick on. They don't know what's going on. The younger generation don't have a clue because they don't understand spiritual warfare yet.

So he just does the same stuff to them that he did to us. Sad, isn't it? How many of you older guys like me would want to go back and relive anything?

Now, I mean, I know there's some moments like with my kids when they were babies or whatever stage, I'd like to live like a moment of that.

I'm not talking about that. How many of you like to have to go back and be there and live there to start from there again?

Is there anybody? No. Now, you young people that might think that's interesting that here I'm a 57 -year -old dude and I don't want to go back and be 20.

I think it's good God makes it that way though, isn't it? Because we'd be sad all the time. But I don't want to. Listen, there's lessons you guys got to learn that I've already learned and I don't have to learn them again.

And I remember what I went through to learn it and I don't want to ever go through it again. I'm not trying to discourage you and it won't matter because you're resilient.

Young people are resilient. You think you're bulletproof anyway, right? And nothing can happen to you.

So that's good that you feel that way because then you would be miserable all the time. So God's got this worked out where it works.

He's got us older people not wanting to be young again and he's got you not wanting to be old, so it's cool.

It's cool. But the thing is, I'm telling you, the battles are terrible to go through but when you come out on the other side, you are stronger every single time and that's what

God's design in it is and that's why he created Lucifer. Do you think it surprised

God when Lucifer fell? You see, Lucifer was known as the son of the morning. He was not the devil when he was created.

He was the archangel. He's created with instruments in his hand. He had three of them. I'll save that in a minute because it's a later point but the point is he was created with the purpose of guarding the holiness of God.

He was the closest angel to God and he fell and hates God now and hates Jesus more than anybody and hates you because you love

Jesus and Jesus loves you so he hates you as a byproduct and that's who he is. Do you think any of that surprised

God? No, it was all part of his plan. Lucifer is just a servant of God. He happens to be a servant who hates the job.

He hates God. He hates it. He'll never give God any glory for anything but he follows him, does everything God wants him to do.

He just doesn't know it. Isn't that interesting? Did you know there are humans like that too? They're called the non -elect.

Lost people who never end up getting saved, they're still serving God. They're putting groceries on the shelf for you to eat.

You're God's children. Everything you need is there and half the time it's the non -elect putting it there for you. You can't tell me,

I mean, they grow the vegetables, they run the cattle, they create software that works and cool gadgets like smartphones, all that stuff.

A lot of those people are not God's children. Some of them are but they're certainly not all are, are they? And yet they're all serving the

Lord, making his history come out exactly like he has it planned out. So everyone serves the

Lord. The Bible even says in the end time, at the end of even this age, that every knee shall bow, including

Lucifer. He shall bow down to Jesus Christ. You think he'll like it? Nope, but he won't have a choice.

You know why? Because it's the same one that said, well, who is it and where is he? And he will tremble when he bows down, but he will bow down.

And beyond that, it's gonna be worse stuff than that that happens to him and we'll get to that. So here we see him called the destroyer.

He wants to divide, he wants to cause division and destroy relationships, to destroy organizations, homes and families and churches and governments, countries.

So here, these things are interesting to take a look at when we look at the nature of this one called

Lucifer. Wherefore, let him that thinketh he stand take heed lest he fall.

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful who will not suffer or allow you to be tempted above that which you are able, but with the temptation will also make a way to escape and you may be able to bear it.

Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee idolatry. So you can, it's kind of weird to think, but there is no temptation that you cannot escape because God just said so, so you don't ever have to sin, how's that?

So why don't we just have a New Year's resolution? We better not do that because then we might want to party between now and 1st of January, I don't know.

But like, what if you just had a New Year's resolution, you said, okay, look, I'm gonna believe that verse and I'm just not gonna sin this year.

Do you think that could happen? That's the problem, you don't think it could happen, but it could.

I remember my mentor, Dr. Freeman, saying in front of huge churches, he'd get excited and start raising his voice a little bit.

Show me in the Bible where it says you have to sin or that you can't go long seasons of time with no sin.

Show me where it says that. And then he'd take his glasses off and say, but you probably won't. He didn't want glasses, he didn't wear glasses, but he, well, he wore sunglasses most of the time, but he would just look down and say, but you probably won't.

Do you see the truth of it, though? There's power in that verse, you don't have to sin. And listen, we live in moments anyway, isn't that true?

So I'm not gonna sit here and say you're gonna go the next week without sinning. I mean, I'm not that foolish or that I'm going to, but what

I can tell you is the moment you're living in right now, you don't have to sin. Because even if a temptation came to you in this moment,

God says every single one of them that comes, I myself, now who's I there, that's God, God himself has provided an escape from that so you don't have to do it.

Is that amazing, that's powerful. So in each moment, you can avoid sin by knowing that truth.

And the more moments you put together, the longer seasons you can go without sin. First Peter chapter five verse nine gives us a little further insight into this one that is known as the lion, as the adversary, as the devil, the slanderer and the destroyer.

First Peter five nine says how to deal with that enemy. We discussed it already a few moments ago, but here it is in the scripture, it says, whom resist steadfast in the faith.

That is the method for dealing with that battle. When your battle is with the devil, the method is to withstand, to stand steadfast, resist steadfast.

The word resist in the Greek language means to stand against. So when

Satan is attacking you, you don't turn and try to run from it, you turn towards him and you lean into him. Isn't that interesting?

But there's a key to how to do that. And you go back into Esther chapter seven, and I want to remind you because here's what it says in verse six.

Then Haman was afraid before or standing against the king and the queen.

The key word there is the word and. All right, so when you lean into Satan, you don't ever do it by yourself.

You have the king, you're the queen, you're like the bride of Christ if you're part of the church and Jesus is the groom, the king, you're the queen, he's the king.

You want to make sure Jesus is right there. And then hand in hand with him, you lean into the devil, you resist steadfast.

Now if resist means to stand against or to oppose or to withstand, then the adverb there is the word steadfast.

It tells you how to resist. And it says steadfast in the faith. So you can't do it with your muscles, okay?

Sorry, guys. You can't do it with your wit, ladies, and your beauty. You just can't, that's not how you handle this one.

It is a spiritual battle and it's all about faith. And the word steadfast comes from a little

Greek word that means stiff or solid or stable, strong and sure.

So you remain very solid, almost rigid in your faith. That's the key.

Rigid in your faith. Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

Isn't that interesting that the Bible says that when you're attacked by Satan, it helps you to know that you're not the worst victim in the world.

Don't you think we have a little bit too much problem in the country nowadays with everybody feeling they're a victim?

Well, you gotta help with those guys on Wall Street. They're marching out there saying, look, we're angry because you bailed out the banks.

We got college loans and all this and now you need to bail us out. We're the victim, you need to give us some money.

Well, where does it make it right? I mean, if you think they shouldn't have given the money to the banks, why do you think that makes it right that they should give it to you?

Do two wrongs make a right? Where do you get that philosophy? I mean, it's just amazing the level of inability of young Americans, and most of them are college kids, by the way.

But the ability of young Americans are the inability to use logic.

Clear reasoning logic. They lack that ability now, and it's sad. Not all of you, but I'm just saying, as a nation.

As a nation, that's what we're putting out. And our young people, they're even taking a logic class.

Take one, study logic. It's a form of philosophy, study it. It'll change your life.

But God says, come, let us reason together. Well, you can't reason with people that just don't have any ground, a philosophical ground, and they don't even know why they're there.

They've been asking these guys out there, why are you here? And they give 15 different answers. Nobody even knows why they're there.

They're there because some liberal organization, a bunch of liberals got together and created the energy for it, and brought in some college kids who don't have philosophical groundwork, and they bring them in, they follow them around like sheep, and that's why they're there, but they don't know why they're there.

So they're just in the street, living there, creating slop, slop and anarchy. Give me something,

I'm a victim. Wow, what a strong nation we have created here. And so you look at this, and God tells you this.

Look, when you are attacked by the enemy, you need to understand that these same attacks, the very same thing that's happening to you, are accomplished in your brothers and sisters that are in the world all around you.

They're all being attacked. It's not just you. It's all part of God's plan, because the battle is what makes you stronger.

But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ, after that he lets you suffer for a little while, will make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

To him be glory, dominion forever and ever, amen. So who does that tell you the battle really belongs to?

It tells you right there, God's the one that's gonna bail you out. God is the one. I mean, why is it that Esther went to the king?

Why didn't she just go attack Haman and start slapping him around? Well, because Haman would have whipped her.

Might have killed her. So she didn't. She just turned to the king and said, there he is right there. There's my adversary.

And at that moment, Haman began to shudder. Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12 says, "'How art thou fallen from heaven,

O Lucifer, "'son of the morning? "'How art thou cut down to the ground "'which didst weaken the nations?'

He is the destroyer of nations. He is the one who weakens the nations. You look at the country we live in now, and you see how weak and just paltry it really is.

There's been a person weakening it for years, and his name is Lucifer. Now, let me give you a fourth thing that he's called.

He is called the accuser. So let's turn to Revelation chapter 12, verse 10 for a minute. Revelation chapter 12, verse 10 gives him a new title.

So we start to learn his character by his names. He's known as the adversary. That means to stand against that which is right.

He's known as the devil, and that means the slanderer. He's known as the roaring lion, and that means the destroyer.

And now he's known as the accuser. In verse 10 of Revelation 12, it says, "'And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "'Now is come salvation and strength "'and the kingdom of our

God and the power of his Christ, "'for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, "'which accused them before our

God day and night.'" Now, you know, it's interesting that some people have said that can't happen anymore, but I find it interesting that that's written in the book of Revelation chapter 12, which is off in the future somewhere.

And it's still happening there, so why would we think it's not happening now?

And I know some scholars say it's because the cross changed that. Well, if you take the book of Revelation, the cross probably happened over 2 ,000 years in the past from when this was written.

And so apparently then, Lucifer is still the accuser of the brethren, and he can still do this before God day and night.

Now, let's look at something interesting. Keep your hand there, but turn to Job chapter one, verse one. And there was a man in the land of,

I started to say Oz, but it's Uz, whose name was

Job. And that man was perfect and upright and one that feared God and hated evil.

Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the

Lord. The Lord there means Jehovah. Jehovah, that is, in my view, Jesus Christ.

And Satan came also among them. Now, who are these sons of God? There's a lot of theological debate about that, but many commentators believe it means the angelic beings, those who

God created, and that they came before God, fellowship, for other purposes, who knows all the purposes, and Satan being one of God's creation, angelic being, came with them.

And there he was as well. And it says he came also. Now, that word also is interesting because it doesn't include him in the group of angels, but he came also with them.

So he is a fallen angel. And the Lord said unto Satan, where'd you come from?

It's almost like saying, why are you here? And then Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth.

So apparently he could go to other planets and other places in the universe. Isn't that interesting? And he says, and from walking up and down in the earth.

And the Lord said unto Satan, hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, perfect and upright man, one that fears

God and hates evil? And Satan answered the Lord and said, does Job fear

God for nothing? Now, what is he doing? He's slandering

Job. He's trying to put some doubt in Jesus Christ's mind about his servant

Job. He said, well, is he serving you for no reason? You're trying to say he's serving you because he's good.

Could it be he's serving you because you made him rich? You gave him a wonderful wife.

We know that if you know the book of Job, you know I'm being facetious. But you gave him some wonderful kids and he loves his children and all this land.

He's one of the wealthiest men in the world, if not the wealthy. No wonder he follows you. Now, what kind of line of attack is that?

He is accusing a man who hasn't done anything wrong. He's slandering and accusing him and trying to make

Trump up charges against this man in front of God Almighty. Has not thou put a hedge around him?

That woke you up. And about his house and about all that he has on every side,

I mean, you've given him your protection. Have you not blessed the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land?

He's wealthy. Have you put forth your hand now? He said, I'll tell you what, if you'll just touch him with your hand and take that stuff away, he will curse you to your face.

So what is the devil doing here? He's accusing. He's an accuser and a slanderer.

And we see that that is what he does. In fact, he's given that name in the Bible. Now, let's go back to Revelation 12, verse 10.

Let me show you how the scripture says, how do you deal with such a person as this? How do you deal with this?

Well, it says in Revelation 12, 10, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them from our

God day and night. First thing is to understand the position of Satan. He has been cast down.

I understand that by right of fiat or by right of battle, he won the lordship of this world because God had given that to man.

He gave that to Adam, did he not? And Satan caused Adam to sin. And when

Adam sinned, he took that right away from Adam. It's as if it was a battle,

Satan won, so he gets to have the land now. So he took the earth and he's called the little G, excuse me, he was called the little

G God of the earth. And what's interesting is that when Jesus died on the cross, Jesus defeated

Satan and took that back. Jesus being the second Adam, so now man holds that again.

But what's interesting about the devil is he was pictured so beautifully by King Saul in the Old Testament.

God took the throne away from Saul and gave it to David, but Saul kept sitting on it for a long period of time.

He usurped authority that was no longer his. And Satan is doing that today. So the first thing you can realize,

Satan's position is not so lofty as Satan thinks it is. Are you, you see what I'm saying?

He has been cast down. And look at verse 11, we get some more information. So the first point is in your heart and mind, by faith you understand that Satan is really not the

God of this world anymore. He's just usurping that, he has no right. So now listen, he may have more power over the world system that's wicked and evil, but you take your home, gentlemen, let me talk to the gentleman for a minute.

You take your home, he has no right over your home because you are born again, your wife's born again, your children are born again, and that house belongs to God, your own body belongs to God.

It's, he lives in it, it's his temple. There's nothing about you and your family that belongs to Satan at all.

He has no right there, he has no position there, he's not the God of that home. He has no right there.

So you understand he has been cast down, so remind him of that. Now don't do it yourself, just pray and say,

Lord Jesus, would you please remind the enemy of that he's cast down, he's not over my home.

Please bind him and rebuke him and send him away from this house right now. And don't send him to the Brother David's house.

Send him away from everybody that's in our church, away, just send him over somewhere, send him to Iran, that'd be a good place.

Please do that, that's how you pray. So there you're using this information that he's cast down, he's not the

Lord, so he can't have lordship over you, and you tell him that, but you let Jesus tell him that, but you ask

Jesus, look, there he is. Jesus says, who is he and where he is? You say, there he is right there. Jesus, would you please tell him to go away?

And he will go away. Listen, works every time. It works every time. So there's the first step, now look at the second.

And they overcame him. Now as we go out into the future and we see Lord showing

Apostle John some things happening down on the earth during the tribulation period, when Satan is killing every

Jew and every Christian he can find. And he accuses them, he brings accusations into the minds of the leaders of the world to think they're bad, just like Haman did to Ahasuerus and made him convince him that the

Jews were bad when they really weren't. They're going to be doing that against you, and probably already are here on the earth.

The accuser is doing this, so how do they deal with that? Well, here's how you'll deal with it. And they overcame him, who?

The accuser. They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their own testimony.

Now that's two powerful things. The blood of the lamb is the most powerful because you can't touch it.

They can't touch it. So you claim the blood of Jesus. Listen, you want to freak out a demon and get him out of your house?

Just say, look, Lord, would you remind this demon or these demons that are bothering us tonight, would you remind them that this house is just covered by the blood of Jesus?

Say it out loud, is it just covered? The blood of Jesus is all over me, my wife, my kids, my house.

By faith, we have applied the blood of Jesus to our whole lives. Remind him of that, and he'll flee.

So you claim the blood of Jesus. They overcame him by the blood of the lamb, and secondly, by the word of their own testimony.

Let me tell you what helps a whole lot. Live a holy life. Stop sinning. Stop being so stinking worldly.

Get involved with drinking alcohol and all the stuff the world does. Listen, I know Paul said all things are lawful for me, but he didn't mean stuff that's sinful is lawful.

You see, you say alcohol's not sinful. Yeah, it is. I know about that, I didn't get saved until I was 24.

Ask my wife about that, she had no compassion on me when I'd wake up with a hangover. No compassion, she'd say, well,

I'm leaving. She'd go out, because she never touched the stuff one time in her whole life. Because her daddy died at the age of 36 of alcoholism.

Charlotte's never touched, she does not know what anything like that tastes like. So you think she had compassion on me when

I, uh -oh, my mom's in here, I just realized that. But I would wake up, I would wake up drunk with the worst headache you can imagine, and I want her to mother me.

I said, oh, I just feel terrible. She said, see ya, it's pretty outside, I'm gone. Get over and stop doing it.

That's kind of what she told me. Now, you know, we've come to the place in the church today where every preacher, and I can understand it, because I used to be a fundamental independent

Baptist, okay, so I understand what legalism is. So what I did, I'm gonna say this publicly,

I made the mistake of sliding all the way over to this side and saying the Bible doesn't say you can't drink.

And I've said that for many years, up until about a few weeks ago.

And I've now reexamined that, and now I'm coming right more back this way a little bit, and here's what I'm saying.

Nobody drinks for any reason other than intoxication, because it tastes like, well, I won't say what it tastes like.

It does not taste good. So you drink it to feel good, and that is called intoxication.

I will promise you I can share a scripture with you that says that's a sin. So now I gotcha, not you.

But Miss B, I gotcha. Only reason you drink that cough medicine is because of that alcohol in it.

All right, so that is a sin. The church needs to move away from that. We don't need to have our young people in cities like Dallas going out after Wednesday night prayer meeting and going drinking with their

Bible teacher. We don't need to have social drinking in the church. It's evil, okay?

Let's just say it. It's sinful, and it is a perfect example of the end times,

Laodicean, lukewarm church that does not love Jesus very much. That's what that's an example of.

You love the flesh. You love yourself. You want to feel good. You want to party. You want to be just like the world because you're weak in the flesh.

You are not a spiritual person. It's quite enough. I'll stop with that one now.

But I'm just telling you, look at this. You cannot defeat the enemy by the blood of Jesus and a worldly life.

That's not what it says. It says you defeat him by the blood of Jesus, and look what it says.

The blood of Jesus and the word of their testimony. The world can look at me and say, you know what, he's not like us.

He's not worldly. Can they look at you and say that? Or you kind of blend in a little bit more than you used to.

You see, that's the problem with swinging so far over onto the grace side that you just sort of say everything's okay, and I apologize for that because everything's not okay.

I don't think I've ever said it was, but you know what I'm saying. We can swing over and just kind of stop studying things and stop even talking about them, and sometimes we get weak there.

So I'm going to start talking about these things again. That's how they overcame him.

Now look at verse 12. Therefore rejoice ye heavens and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, for the devil has come down unto you having great wrath because he knows that he has but a short time.

There's another thing you can remind him of, but please ask Jesus to remind him of it. Don't try to do it yourself.

Just say, Lord, remind him that really his time is short. Send him away from this house.

Let me tell you what's happening. See, you don't know that this is real. Here's what's happening. When he comes into your house and you start praying like this and you get

Jesus by your side and you start talking like that, doesn't have to be out loud, but it's your house. You can talk out loud that way if you want to, and you say,

Lord, just remind him I think he's here tonight. Just remind him his time is short. That irritates him, and he'll just go find a house where they don't have a clue to talk like that.

He'll go find somebody to bother that doesn't know how to fight back. It's real. I mean, let me ask you gentlemen something.

Would you rather fight a guy that grew up under his mama's arm and doesn't know how to fight, or would you rather fight a guy that can fight back and hurt?

You might can beat him, but he gonna hurt you before you beat him. Which one would you rather fight? Give me the one with the soft hands.

Let me fight him, right? Satan is that way. He will not pick on you if you bring the

Lord into this and you begin to speak these things in your house. So he will leave, he'll go find a house where that stuff isn't happening.

There's plenty of them all around you. There's way more of them anyway. So use this to your advantage in your home, in your church, in your house.

I mean, in your office, every organization you're part of, use this spiritual warfare because it is amazing.

So he comes on down here and it says, and when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man -child.

You know how that is? That is the nation of Israel. Who's the man -child? Jesus. So when he was cast down, the first thing he began to attack was

Israel. Been doing it ever since, but guess what? Every one of you, when you got baptized into Christ, you became part of the

Abrahamic covenant. So you're part of his hatred as a Christian. So just understand he's after you and me too.

So you need to understand how to fight him. So he is the adversary, he is the slanderer, he is the destroyer, and he is the accuser, and we will continue next time, the

Lord willing. Let's stand and have prayer. Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the power of it. We thank you for the armor you give us in Ephesians chapter six. I pray that our families would review that information and use that each day, that we might have a very strong church and strong families, and that we could do our little part as a small group here to make our nation stronger.

And Lord, continue to prepare us, and especially our young people, for the days that come, for they shall be different and exciting, but also troublous and troublesome.

And so we just ask you to strengthen each young person here, cause them to be strong in the faith, and to love the word more, and to study more, and to walk with you, and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.