Ten Principles of Warfare — Shane Idleman

Nehemiah Rebuilds Jerusalem's Walls

I've been in Nehemiah, as you know, and we're in chapter three. And I'm actually not gonna read all of the different families and the leaders. What they did is different families would rise up and build the gates and the walls of Jerusalem.

And I think we have a slide up there of the gate area. Here's what happened. They wanted to rebuild the Jerusalem, the temple, and they wanted to rebuild the wall around it as well. So the wall was in disarray, and the building itself was in disarray.

So they actually rebuilt the temple first. That was Ezra and Zerubbabel. And then Nehemiah came many years later, and you see how they started to reconstruct the wall around Jerusalem and all the gates.

If we had time, it's interesting to go through the different gates. But, and I think, I believe, is the sheep gate up there? Oh, yeah, that's, I believe that's where they think that Jesus came in to the city as the Passover lamb, as that final Passover.

It's interesting if you study the gates and what they did. So that's what the families are doing. Different families would go build the water gate, and then there'd be another family on the horse gate, and then another family on the east gate, another family on the fountain gate.

And you couldn't just go, hey, Bill, what are you doing over there? I mean, this is, you know, some of these gates are a long ways away, so they'd have trumpets in the middle, different things, because the officials that were there do not like the Jews, and they're gonna try to stop them from rebuilding that wall.

And it parallels a lot of what we go through today. That's why the title is 10 Principles of Warfare. Actually, 10 Principles of Spiritual Warfare is what should be there, because I don't think we're doing Navy SEAL training tonight, right?

We're not getting ready for warfare overall. This is spiritual warfare, believe it or not. So chapter three is the families and the leaders, and then we go to chapter four, verse one, chapter four. So I'm gonna just talk about 10 Principles of Spiritual Warfare.

You know there's an enemy, correct? In case you don't know that, the Bible talks about there's an enemy of our soul that goes about to kill, to steal, and to destroy. How does he primarily do that, right?

Here's where he's coming from. You're not gonna get up and go, I can't find my car keys, and the enemy took them, right, and hit them somewhere else. And maybe, I don't know about that. But we know it happens up here.

The battle's waged up here. He attacks, he assaults our mind, so that's what has to be fortified first and foremost. But the first principle I wanna share with you, many years of ministry, talking to different people, I narrowed these down to the top 10.

And Sunday, I'm actually going to talk about demonology. You know what that is? The study of demons. So it has not been a very fulfilling week. It's been a, you know, because you're studying that, you start to, the devil will start to mess with you in certain areas, and you, anytime I'm studying on something, or gonna prepare to preach on it, then I usually have to experience a little bit of it.

But on one hand, we don't give the demonic realm too much credit, right? I mean, we're not gonna be worried about them. God is sovereign. But we are encouraged to know about their ways. The reason is because when you're forewarned, you can be forearmed.

If we know an enemy's coming, we can take precaution. For example, they said, hey, somebody's coming here, they're upset tonight, they're gonna come out through the parking lot. Okay, well, we're gonna have some undercover, you know what, meet them out in the parking lot, to stop that.

So that's why the Bible talks about the enemy and how he moves, so we can be prepared. So chapter four. So the first principle is this, defending against the enemy. We have to defend against the enemy, but here's how.

Principle One: Defending Against Taunting and Discouragement

But so it happened, when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, Sanballat is not a fan of Nehemiah, he's his enemy, and he was furious and very indignant, and he mocked the Jews. And he spoke before his brethren and the army of Samaria and said, what are these feeble Jews doing?

Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifice? Will they complete it in a day? Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish? Stones that are burned? Now, Tobiah, the Ammonite, was beside him, and he said, whatever they build, if even a fox goes on it, he will break down their stone wall.

Have you ever been doing something and you hear those taunting voices? What are you doing? Why are you doing that? That's not gonna work. That's not gonna last. That's not gonna make it. Remember I've shared before how many people told me you can't start a church on a Saturday?

But I guess they didn't tell God that. You know, the discouraging voices, and that's when we started, some of you don't know. We got a building and we started having church on Saturday night, and right when we started, people would say that.

They'd say, you can't do that, it's not gonna work. Nobody does that. Well, I don't know, there's a building and that's what we're doing, so we'll just trust in God. But it messes with your mind, doesn't it?

When you hear discouraging things and discouragement and people are challenging what you're doing, challenging everything you've stood for. So keep this in mind, taunting and discouragement is always a tactic of the enemy.

Why? Because it drains enthusiasm and it kills our motivation. Those are two things you must have in spiritual battle, are they not? I need to be enthusiastic and I need to be motivated. If you take those two away from me, that's why a lot of people don't come to church.

If you think about it, true. They're not enthusiastic, they're not motivated. Well, here I go, I guess I'll do it. I mean, that's what people do, right? We go to church, but I won't do anything for God, or we won't do many things for God if the enemy comes and takes that enthusiasm away and he comes and takes that motivation away from us.

So here's the key, you have to learn to encourage yourself in the Lord. It's wonderful to get encouraged by other people, but if I just solely relied on that, I would be in trouble. So would you. We have to, the Bible says encourage yourself in the Lord.

You get into his word, you get into worship, even when you don't feel like it. Did everybody feel like coming tonight? Mm-hmm, oh, no. I don't think so, especially Wednesday night, right? I mean, it's, oh, okay.

You've gotta encourage yourself in the Lord and say, regardless of how I feel, I'm going to move forward in this. And I've found that often discouragement is a testing ground. When I get discouraged and disappointed, I lack enthusiasm, am I gonna still continue?

Am I still gonna prevail in something? Am I still gonna, okay, God, no matter what you told me to do, I'm still going to do it, even though I'm discouraged. So without discouragement, the enemy would have a hard time stopping us.

So that's where he's primarily gonna go after you. Have you ever been praying for a family member, say, a child, and then you get very discouraged? Do you keep praying just as hard? Or what about a job opportunity?

What about a career? What about doing something for God? Here, this happens all the time. Welcome to my world, okay? You get fired up about something to do for God, right? Oh, man, this feels great. I can feel the Lord moving.

This is gonna be wonderful. And then two weeks into it, you're ready to quit. Bible study's a great example. You start, people start, oh, there's Shane, 25 people showed up, and oh, that's wonderful. And I'm like, okay, that's great, encouraging.

And make sure you stay encouraged, because in three months from now, there might be five. Well, Shane, that's discouraging, but I like to prepare people as well. It might not happen, but God wants to see often, are you just as faithful with the five as the 25?

A job opportunity, I've committed a job, and it's going great, and then now the money's not there. Do you ever try to go to work when you're discouraged and not motivated? How does that feel? So the enemy will often use discouragement.

How? You're not gonna get better. You're not gonna see this through. You're not gonna see the light at the end of the tunnel. Discouragement and discouragement and discouragement. That's the number one way he attacks us spiritually, is through discouragement and killing our motivation.

This also happens in other areas of life. Have you seen couples? You know what, I'm gonna work on my marriage, one says, and the spouse says, okay, I'm gonna work on my marriage, too, we're motivated, we're gonna make this work, and then what happens?

Discouragement, I knew you'd never change. I knew this would happen again, and now they're discouraged, and they're not motivated. It affects more than you think. Discouragement and a lack of motivation.

It takes the fuel away from the fire. If the Holy Spirit is a fire in your heart, a burning fire, like Jeremiah said, his word is in my heart like a burning fire, if the enemy can throw water on that fire and discourage you and stop you from doing God's work, that's the number one tactic I believe that he uses in our lives, is to discourage us.

This is why I believe a lot of people don't come to church consistently, as well. They're discouraged, they're not motivated. I mean, church is very motivating when you're motivated. Have you ever been like, I can't wait to get to church?

Some people can't relate to that. I've been through seasons. Now, because of the Sunday morning, 6 .30 a .m., I can tell you, as God is my witness, I am excited to get to church. I'm actually disappointed it's only Wednesday.

And then from that early morning worship, I love the two services after that. I love, love, I look forward to church. I honestly do. I couldn't say that many years ago. That's why we would come maybe every other week, right?

I've talked about this before. Oh, kids have a sniffly nose. We can't go. I don't feel too good. My back's out. We'll just stay home. Before Dale Earnhardt, before his dad died, NASCAR and football, and I could find everything else because I wasn't motivated.

So you see how much motivation plays a role in enthusiasm, so be careful, because there's where he's going to go after you more often than not. And that's why you have to strengthen yourself in the Lord.

You have to believe the promises of God. You have to know the promises of God. Promises like this, faithful in the little things, and I will make you ruler over many. Be faithful in the small things. Persevere, persevere means do it in spite of how you feel.

So there's so many times, and when you start to strengthen yourself in the Lord, you start to feel encouraged and you get back on track. So here's Nehemiah's response to their discouragement. Sanballat and Tobias are gonna harass him the whole time.

Have you ever had people harass you the whole time you're trying to do something? Whether it's at work, it's like, oh Lord, take this person away this week, and a year later, they're still at your work.

And in church, it happens, right? Anybody harass or ruffle your feathers and it doesn't get fixed overnight, and it's a continual dripping. Hear that, is somebody gonna fix that shower dripping? You know, it's just a constant drip.

So sometimes God doesn't take that person away or that situation away immediately. We have to go through that challenge. So here's his response. You have to have spiritual defense as well. Spiritually speaking, here's what he did.

Hear, oh our God, for we are despised. Turn their reproach on their own heads and give them as plunder to the land of captivity. Do not cover their iniquity and do not let their sin be blotted out from before you, for they have provoked you to anger before the builders.

Principle Two: Taking the Battle Directly to God

So Nehemiah went directly to God, not Facebook. Directly to God, not gonna text them. He goes directly to God, God, you fight this battle. And there's a lot of strength in that. Here's why, because you're going to God and you're saying, God, you take care of this.

You called me to build your wall. In my case, I'd say you called us to plant this church. This is your church, I truly believe that. That God did this and when I'm gone, when you're gone, there's other people gonna be stewarding it.

So Lord, you go take care of them. You take care of them, you take care of that gossip and that backbiter and that slander, that person who's causing division. Lord, you take care of them. That's why when the devil was rebuked, they said the Lord rebuke you, Satan.

I don't know if you're in a position to rebuke the devil. I hear people do that sometimes, that's okay. But you might want to tell God, hey, can you handle this? Can you handle this? Because then you get out of the way and God will handle it.

But many times we take it into our own hands, don't we? We'll send off that mean email. We'll handle this on Facebook. We'll handle this a different way. And my sister's here tonight, I saw you back there, and she's handling our Twitter.

She's doing Twitter for us now and Instagram. And I said, no matter what people say, don't listen. Don't respond, just block them. Right, let God handle them. We don't need to go answering comments and getting upset and going back at people and yell, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you should hear the crud that's out there. Pages this long. But I just say, God, you rebuke them, you handle this. Of course they're upset, of course they're upset. Remember, if you're going in the same direction of the enemy, you're not gonna run into him.

That you will ruffle feathers when you're doing things for God. You don't try to do that, but you will ruffle feathers, right? I might ruffle some feathers this weekend. Check out the Antelope Valley Press newspaper on Saturday and Sunday.

I wrote an article challenging these assembly bills and asking the Antelope Valley Union High School District if anybody's gonna step up and stop this here locally. I could, well, no, don't clap. We don't know how it's gonna, we don't have, I actually know the person who orders the curriculum for the high schools, and I'm about this close to calling.

Right, but I know it's not gonna go in a healthy direction. So, Lord, you have to handle this. You, Lord, you take care of it. What do you want me to do? I'll be the mouthpiece, but you show me, Lord, in gentleness and humility.

But that'll be challenged, people will be upset at these things. But that's how you handle it spiritually, because how do we, we come from old school, don't we? We used to handle things like this. Or if you're a woman, maybe not, maybe you're slapping people, or how do, you know how we handle it.

The louder you got, whoever won the battle, you'd fight, you'd argue. You can't do that in spiritual warfare, because no matter how loud you get, the devil doesn't care. Anytime I say, listen, this is too much, there's situations right here at the church I could tell you about.

There's people wanting to cause some division here. And I just say, Lord, I'm out of the way, you handle this. You handle this. I'll pull the trigger when it's time to pull the trigger, but you handle this.

You show me what to do. I'm gonna get out of the way, and God, you take care of this. God's not gonna say, why, Shane, why are you doing that? I can't handle this one. Why are you doing that? Because he's, now there's something different if you're timid and fearful, and God's telling you to do something.

I'm not talking about that. That's usually not my problem. I mean, I'm not, that's, mine's the other problem, right? You know, I have to put on the brake. Some of you need to put on the gas and confront and love.

So I just give it over to the Lord because some things are just too big. Have you ever been in a situation that there's some things going on right now, and I'm like, I don't even know how to handle it.

I don't know what to do exactly. I don't have the policy book on this one, so Lord, show us. And I've noticed throughout the years, it's amazing. I'll get the call, I'll get the text, or I'll get an email, and the problem has been dealt with.

I'm like, hmm, wasn't that interesting. I didn't have to do anything. We've had people in the past, I know maybe you don't believe it, but the church like this, you draw on a lot of different people, conservatives, charismatics, different things, and I'll pray, Lord, this person is not healthy for this church.

I don't know what to do. I'm gonna keep trying and praying with them, but at some point, I'm gonna have to ask them to leave, say, for example. And wouldn't you know it, they decide to leave on their own.

Or a situation, marriage issues that we're gonna have to confront, or somebody being involved in ministry, it's happened before, and they come, and there's alcohol on their breath. And I want to, hey, I need to talk to you about this.

And lo and behold, they repent, and they change, or they decide to leave. And God, and when you give it to him and let him, now, please understand, as people stumble, I'm not gonna get, okay, somebody, I prayed with somebody in the prayer room once recently who was drinking, and they still had stuff in their purse.

I said, listen, I'll pray for you, you need to get help. We can help you, here's how. We'd love to help you. And that's our hardest to help. But you have to use the spiritual discernment. You have to often get out of the way and let God do it.

Because if you try to do it in your own strength, that's what the enemy's looking for. So basically, in a nutshell, that shouldn't have been that long of a point, but Nehemiah, what we can learn from Nehemiah is he went directly to God.

And he went directly to God, said, Lord, you handle this. Man, when you tell God, listen, they're abusing your people. They're lying to your people, they're false prophets, they're hurting your people, they're hurting the church.

I can feel it during a service when there's disunity. Did you know that? It affects the service, it affects our worship, it affects my message sometimes. I can feel when a certain spirit is in the room that comes in with somebody and they're just sitting there, they're just upset, and I'm like, you don't even know, but I'm just praying, Lord, just rebuke that person.

Because they're not, rebuke whatever they brought in here. I'm not gonna deal with this, I'm gonna preach. You have to let God do that. And it happens, it happens often. I know, this is an interesting subject because spiritual warfare is real.

And charismatic Pentecostal churches has actually given it a bad name because people get weird about it. But the other side is, to be too conservative, you don't talk about it at all. I believe that people can come into the church with a certain type of spirit, a controlling, a manipulating spirit, a power, authority spirit, and not possessed, but they have this, they're not united with the body.

And if you're not united, I can sometimes sense that. So can you. Have you ever talked with people and you're like, there's just something not right with this person. You know, it's just not, not there, not there, and I'm not feeling it.

And how can you be united in the things of God unless you are united through the Holy Spirit? So spiritual warfare's real. However, you don't need to be worried about it. It's not like, ah, the demons are gonna overpower God and take Shane down.

No, God's already in authority. God's in control. He allows them to move, and that's what we're gonna talk about Sunday. God willing, right? Unless he changes course on that. So here's what he did, though, because when you do something spiritually, you also have to do something physically.

Principle Three: Faith Requires Both Prayer and Work

Often. Here's what he did. Verse six. So we built the wall. He didn't say, okay, we're gonna stop. These guys are harassing us. I'm just gonna pray, and hopefully that wall will build itself. Okay, let's see.

Tomorrow morning, nope, there's no bricks. Nope, the concrete didn't make itself. Did they make concrete back then, Mike Mortar? Think so? I mean, the wall's not building itself, so they had to go and they had to build the wall.

So he said, we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half of its height. So they were working like a mason would, and they got the wall to, say, half its height. I don't know what the exact height of the wall of Jerusalem is around the whole city, but it's pretty tall.

And they built it to half of its height, and then he said something interesting. For the people had a mind to work. So you have to get a mind to work, because God blesses work. You need to know that. Maybe that is important for some of you to understand this evening, that God blesses hard work.

God loves work. He doesn't approve of laziness and slothfulness. In our society now, with the video games and the entertainment and the media and all this stuff, we've lost how to work hard. And God blesses hard work.

So the people had a mind to work. Young adults, if you can work, work hard. Get a job and work well. Work hard, and God will bless that. I think that's the only reason he blessed my dad, he's blessed my family, is because we knew what hard work was.

Oh my Lord, the kids have no idea today. No idea. I remember one time my dad dropped me off. He said, okay, I'll be back at lunch. We're gonna dig a septic tank by hand. Septic tank hole by hand. You know, it's seven feet deep, and okay, what do I do?

You start digging right here, throw the dirt out here on this plywood by hand. And just things like that. In Southern California, Edison, we would dig their utility trenches, and sometimes we'd have to go underneath a fire hydrant.

And he'd say, okay, start here, and I'll be back after lunch. What do you mean start here? Start here, dig down a tunnel underneath a fire hydrant? It's got a kicker block on the back with concrete, so you have to go around.

But anyway, it was just hard work. It made you appreciate things later on in life. So I think we miss that sometimes, that hard work. Tell your kids to go outside and mow weeds or hoe weeds for a while.

Let them get used to hard work. So anyway, Nehemiah spiritually and then physically, he also worked. And then the enemy became very angry, verse eight. So don't let your guard down is another principle.

Principle Four: Responding to Escalating Attacks and Confusion

And all of them conspire together to come and attack Jerusalem and create confusion. So here, Tobias and Samballot harassed him. The harassment didn't work. So here's what you have to remember. When the harassment doesn't work, the enemy doesn't usually go, oh, shucks.

That didn't work. He's gonna increase the heat. And if you want these sermon notes, they'll be underneath the sermon video on the website this week once we post it. But the enemy became even angrier, and the devil does that.

He turns up the heat sometimes. Have you ever quit something like an addiction and then comes back a stronger addiction for something else? Or he'll start to, oh, that was hard to go through, and now here comes a whirlwind of problems.

And sometimes just life. I'm not the type of person who says the devil's behind every boulder. And I actually tell people sometimes, hey, listen, you're putting too much, the devil's doing this, the demons are doing this.

No, no, sometimes it's just life. Sometimes it's just, life is hard. Our flesh is not happy sometimes. And we get angry. And it's not the devil making you angry. Something else you have to remember. People say the devil made me do it.

No. As a believer, the devil doesn't make you do anything. He can't make you do anything. He can influence you. But the excuse, and we hear that in hyper-Pentecostal churches, the devil made me do it.

What was that, Flip Wilson? Remember him, older folks? What he used to say? Yes, exactly. The devil made me do it. And it's a good way to get out of things, I guess. But that's not true. But he will often do this.

He'll start small, you'll overcome that, and here comes a larger attack, a more heavy-handed attack. All of them conspire together. Tobiah and Samballot's friends were gonna come against Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem and create confusion.

That's another plan of the enemy. Do you do very well in confusion? Or is it hard for us? Like, I don't know what to do. Honey, we've gotta make a decision. What are we gonna do here? I'm confused, I don't know how to handle this.

I'm confused. And it's very hard to fight when you're confused. When you're getting hit, what was that? And you're getting hit on this side. And the devil creates confusion. He'll do that in a church.

Something will happen, then something else will happen, then it's like we're just, and why? I think here's why, because in confusion, we often make hasty choices. We make quick, hasty, wrong choices when we're confused.

The best thing to do when we're confused is to step back, admit it to God, say, Lord, I'm confused here. I'm just gonna wait on you. You need to show me. You need to show me what to do. Because if I know me and I know my past record, I'm gonna get in trouble.

So would you show me what to do? So they became very angry and upset. Verse nine, nevertheless, Nehemiah says, nevertheless, we decide to quit building the wall and run back home. Is that what they said?

No, nevertheless, we made our prayer to God. See? And because of them, we set a watch against them day and night. I like Nehemiah. It's a picture of Nehemiah with a trial, you know, building a wall. He's got a trial, and in this hand, he's got a sword.

He's building a wall, and he says, you come from behind, you're getting it. That's how you fight. That's how you fight the enemy. I'm gonna work, but boy, you come after me, you're getting it. But we don't have a sword now.

We have the sword of the Spirit. Through fasting and prayer and worship, everything I talk about, that's the battle. That's actually how you go to battle, is with those things. Someday you'll get it, then you'll thank me.

Right, I don't just say it to say it. That's the battle, because we think, well, yeah, but I can just get through it on my own if I just grin and bear it. I don't know how you get through life grinning and bearing it, because it doesn't work.

So he put a watch up day and night. And then verse 10, then Judah said, that was one of the families building on the wall, the strength of the laborers is failing, and there is so much rubbish that we are not able to build the wall.

Okay, they're getting, remember, they had a mind to work, now what's happening? Yep, they're getting very discouraged. Hey, there's too much, have you ever been there? This sounds so familiar. Oh, forget it now, this is too much work.

This is too much work, I can't keep building. I can't keep building. I can't keep doing this. And this is a thing of spiritual warfare, we have to remember, sometimes it's not spiritual warfare, it's actually friendly fire.

Principle Five: Standing Firm When Pressure Intensifies

Have you heard of, you know what friendly fire is? It's a war term, where we accidentally shoot our own soldiers. You know, you have to know your coordinates, or else you're the target. The friendly fire, accidentally, when you have your coordination off, when you have your coordinates off, when you have the latitude, longitude, all these things are off, it can make the difference between getting the enemy and taking out Americans.

It's a very, very delicate thing. Same thing in spiritual warfare. Same thing in spiritual warfare. We have to watch this, because it's just a matter, we can start taking out each other. Friendly fire, do you know brother hurts brother, and sister hurts sister in the church more often than unbelievers?

Most of the problems that go on here are not between unbelievers, right? Shane, this unbeliever won't leave me alone. Well, that does happen, but it's usually friendly fire, right, gossip, complaining, backbiting, power struggles, jealousy, down-talking others, because when you down-talk others, you build yourself up, usually.

It's not good, it's not pretty. So friendly fire does happen often in the church, and it's part of spiritual warfare. The enemy will use it. How does the enemy use it? Because I believe he can plant seeds of division.

You know how those work. You ever get those thoughts? You're like, yeah, that's right. That's right, he didn't say hi to me. I bet he doesn't like me. I bet he doesn't like me. This part, it's sad, and I wish I could learn from it, but people, sometimes they've left the church, and they say, yeah, Pastor Shane didn't say hi to me.

Oh, it wasn't on purpose. I didn't see you, maybe, I don't know. But we get so offended. Who puts that thought in there? Listen, if I don't say hi to you, it's not because I'm mad at anybody. I just don't see sometimes.

I wanna say hi to everybody. But see, where's that thought come from? Well, they probably don't like me. They treated me. Why do they treat me like that? Why'd they give me the cold shoulder? Why didn't they reach out to me?

Why haven't they emailed me? That's why it's probably some of you get emails from me. I'm like, how are you doing? I'm following, how are you doing? Because if the Lord put somebody on my heart, I try to email them because I wanna make sure the enemy doesn't come in there and say the church doesn't care about me.

Church doesn't care. But where do those thoughts sometimes come from? I think believers get upset at believers because right here. The enemy starts to plant thoughts. So we have to be careful in this area as well.

Even believers become discouraged. Verse 11, and our adversary said, they will neither know nor see anything till we come into their midst and kill them and cause the work to cease. So it was, when the Jews who dwelt near them came, they told us 10 times, for whatever you place, wherever you turn, they will be upon us.

Can you imagine this? They're trying to build this wall, and now here it comes, we're hearing it from all over. Wherever you turn, whatever gate you're at, whatever you turn, they're gonna be upon you.

You can't finish the sheep gate. You can't finish the water gate. They're gonna be all upon you. Oh my goodness, what are we gonna do? See, that often happens when God calls you to do something, you know what he's called you to do.

You know what he wants you to do. You don't have to just do what I'm doing, but you know in your place of business how you can benefit others. You know it, the enemy's gonna come in and you're gonna see, you're gonna get this feeling of just overwhelming, this isn't gonna work.

I'm being hit on too many different angles. I'm being hit on too many different sides. I'm about to cave in. Anyone said that, or just me? I can't handle this anymore. If I have one more thing happen, come on, let's get real Wednesday night.

Don't act like, oh, I've never heard that. I've never said that. Lord, if one more thing happens, I'm gonna fall apart. Oh, there's a lot, okay, good. See, if it's coming, he ramps it up a little bit.

And sometimes God will allow things to say, no, I am your trust, and I've noticed this. Maybe you haven't, but I've noticed this. It's often not until I get to the end of the rope that I cry out to more.

More, God, more, I need you more. I fully surrender everything. It's not until I get to the end of that rope that I was holding on. Then I finally cry out to God. So always remember, I remember that song, Brent, you sang it a while back.

This is how I go to, this is how I fight my battles. You know, this is how I fight my battles. You know, it's when I'm surrounded, I'm really surrounded by you. Although I'm surrounded, you feel like you're surrounded by the enemy, I'm really surrounded by you.

I remind myself, Lord, I'm surrounded by you. So when all of the world is falling apart, America's chaotic, California's lost its mind, you know, everything's falling apart, another thing happens, and when that happens at church, like, it's going good for a while, and then something happens, boom, something happens in children's ministry, something happens here, something happens, it's like, Lord, I can't take anymore.

Help, help, bring in the Navy SEALs. Lord, bring in the reinforcements. And that is very common in spiritual warfare, because, okay, I got this, and then a couple weeks later, oh, I got this, and forget it, now I'm giving up.

These people almost quit. Can you imagine a half-built wall with half the gates hanging on, they say, we've had enough. That's what the enemy's gonna often do, he's gonna ramp it up, ramp up the pressure.

That's why you can say, like David, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Paul said in the New Testament, I am hard-pressed on every side, but I'm not crushed.

I'm perplexed, but I'm not in despair. And I am persecuted, but I am not forsaken. And I am struck down, but I am not destroyed. That's how you have to look at spiritual warfare. You will be hard-pressed on every side.

Hard-pressed on every single side. I'll just give you an example of this. I'm telling you guys about, I've got a book coming out on fasting, feasting and fasting, and helping people physically. That thing has been a nightmare.

I mean, I'll be writing things for a couple hours, and it just disappears. We tried to upload it as a free e-book, and then it rejected the manuscript. Gotta go back to the editor, have her change all the fonts, have her change the spacing, and then I have to look it over again in case there's any errors.

Oh boy, that's fun. Reading it for the 15th time. And then they upload the wrong manuscript, the printer needs to see, I need to see blue line proofs, I have to sign off on everything before it's actually printed so they're not in trouble if there's an error.