The Church Today Asleep & in Bondage #4 — Milton Green

Prayer, Spiritual Focus, and Taking Thoughts Captive

Oh, we need the presence of the Lord. We need him, don't we? I'd say we already have him, don't you? I want to ask you something. How many had scripture going through your mind this morning? Will you hold up your hands?

All right. Now, I want to pray for the rest of you. Father in Jesus name. No, let me just, it's my time. Thank you, Father. In Jesus name, I want to pray for everyone here right now, Lord, that didn't have scripture going through their mind this morning after they woke up, Lord, that they will in the morning, and I pray that each one here every morning, I take every thought captive, they'll not let anything interfere in their mind.

No important thing of the day or anything to come in when you're bringing the scripture to their mind. And Lord, I ask you to do this in Jesus name, and I thank you for the hundreds in Jesus name that you've already done this far this morning, and we thank you, and that's grace, and that's you, Lord.

And we want to praise your name and thank you for that. Now, let me ask you something. Are you the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus? Do you always try up in the name of Jesus? You're saying that like you mean it.

I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, blessed with all spiritual blessings, in heavenly places, in Jesus. I'm a new creation. Old things have passed away. All things have become new. As Jesus Christ is in the world, so am I.

I'm born again. I'm kept by the power of God. I'm redeemed by the blood. I'm born again by the Word of God. I'm complete in Jesus. I'm complete in Jesus. My sins are nailed to the cross. I'm sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, and right now in Jesus name, I'm seated in the heavenly places, at the right hand throne of God, in Christ Jesus.

I'm in covenant with Jesus. Jesus is in me, and I in Him. My weapons are mighty in God, to tearing down strongholds, casting down imaginations, speculation, and all these thoughts that exalt themselves against this covenant that I've made with God Almighty in Christ Jesus.

And I bring every thought captive into obedience to the covenant, because I'm a image and a likeness of God. Because God is my heavenly Father, Jesus Christ is my Lord, and I'm a product of His love. I have love.

I have joy. I have peace. I have long suffering. I have goodness. I have gentleness, meekness, temperance, faith. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Everyone here right now that's feeling tiredness on you and fatigue, I want you to hold up your hand right now in Jesus name.

I want you to leave your hand up right now and tell the Lord we're going before the throne. He's going to remove that from you in Jesus name right now. And now Lord Jesus, follow me, the ones with your hand up.

And now Lord Jesus, I stand in your word that I'm strengthened in all power by your might. And now in Jesus name, Lord, from your throne I receive grace, the word, and the blood. And now in the name of Jesus, I remove in Jesus name all the works of tiredness.

I remove all fatigue. I remove all exhaustion. I remove all weakness, heaviness. In Jesus name, my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. I possess the land. I receive the finished works of Calvary. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm free.

I'm strong in the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Jesus Christ is my Lord. I'm free in the name of Jesus. I am strong in the Jesus name. I'm not tired in the name of Jesus. I'm not going to be tired in Jesus name.

Because I draw strength from your throne now. Now the ones of you that were that feel that that strength has come to you right now, I want you just to raise up your hand. Alright, now when we get through, I'm going to ask the ones that didn't.

Let's go. Is anyone having pain right now? An ache? Okay. All things are under the feet of Jesus. Alright, now all of you just follow me now. All things are under the feet of Jesus.

All things are under the feet of Jesus.

He's given me the head of all things. To the church. The body. Which I'm a part of. The fullness of Him. That filleth all in all. The Son of God has destroyed the works of darkness. He's disarmed them and made a public display of them.

And He's given me authority in His covenant name and this covenant word. So in the name of Jesus I address myself to all the powers of darkness and from the throne of God the throne of grace I receive the Word.

I receive the Blood and now in the name of Jesus I remove all oppression in Jesus name. I remove all heaviness. I bind up all words all curses all strongholds in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and I remove them in Jesus name all the works of ache and pain.

I remove now in the name of Jesus with the Word and the Blood because the Word of the Lord is life to me and health to all my whole flesh. I proclaim my freedom in the name of Jesus. I remove with the Word and the Blood all the works of sleepiness unbelief.

I remove all doubt in the name of Jesus. I remove all the works of heresy, traditions legalism. I remove all the works of darkness from me and this building now in the name of Jesus. I hold up the Word and the Blood as a hedge in Jesus name and I proclaim I receive the finished works of Calvary and I proclaim my freedom now in Jesus name and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I speak peace Lord we just boast in your holy presence. Thank you Lord for your presence. Lord, we thank you Lord for the grace, we don't understand everything you're doing Lord, but we're getting in on it and we just want to tell you that we love you.

We receive this Word that you sent to heal us and this Word is performing its work in us Lord, and Lord we want to praise you and give you all the glory and honor and praise. We want to walk in a manner worthy of you to please you and bear fruit for you and increase in the knowledge of this Word.

Lord I ask your blessings on all these that have come here to want to receive the Bread of God, to receive your Word. I pray that you'll enlighten their understanding that you'll give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you quicken this Word as it works in them Lord, and each one of our hearts to be turned totally to the Lordship of Jesus.

Lord, to bring honor and glory to you because we want to boast in you Lord Jesus, and in Jesus name. Lord, I ask for the anointing. I give you my will, that your will will prevail through me because we and only you will receive all the glory and honor here Lord and Lord I just want to praise you because we count these things done because we believe in faith, and now in the name of Jesus Lord, I speak your blessings, peace, grace, love healing deliverance over this congregation in Jesus name praise the Lord.

Amen. We be seated please. Covenant has been a new thing that I have, the Lord has led me to be sharing in the teaching and so I'm going to be on more familiar ground tonight, I just won't tell you that because where I'm starting tonight is where I usually start in seminars, as a matter of fact I learned something here.

I wish I had started here on the first night but the Lord to work all that out. I want to ask you something. Has this been real good news what you've been seeing about covenant? Alright let me ask you something else.

Do you think the powers of darkness may have been prevailing to hide truth and covenant from us over the years? Do you think there's a good strong possibility that there's been very much darkness around the church since the first century.

Do you believe that through the grace of God and God only and His sovereign choice to do so that He is enlightening us, the body not one person, not two people not any big shots but I'm telling you what, He's moving in hearts, see some of the things you hear here this week, you'll say well I already knew Him in here, you already knew Him there because Jesus said that no one comes to me unless the Father draws Him and so what what the Lord would use me to just confirm what He's already put in your heart, it's all Him isn't it.

The Mystery of Godliness and the Counterfeit of Iniquity

Alright now folks there is a war against the covenant isn't it, there really is and I want you to know that these these forces are speaking to you and against you and the Lord each and every day these schemes are going on.

There is a mystery of godliness and coming against this mystery the godliness is a mystery of iniquity and one is Christ and one is the Antichrist. Everything I want you to know, this is something you have to understand and this has been lost from the church the fact that everything that God is, Satan has the counterfeit of and you're going to see this very clearly tonight and you make sure that it's not taken away from you because you're warned to be sober which means serious.

You're also warned to be on the alert all the time and you cannot take every thought captive unless you keep your mind on the Lord. I want you to know that you can work and do anything and keep your mind on the Lord.

Alright now there is a spirit there is a spirit of Christ which is the Holy Spirit that wants to make an expression through you of God. God wants you and he created you to be in the likeness and image of him.

Now this is what he first did with Adam and Adam fell, Adam became earthly, if you remember in the first chapter he made Adam in the likeness and we make him in our likeness and our image. Right. And since that time there is a process to bring mankind back into the image and the likeness of God, who caused Adam to fall.

Adam got tested. Didn't he. You're being tested. You're aware of that. Alright now the opposite of the spirit of God is the spirit of Satan or another way to say it is his demons and they do not have a body and they move they control this whole world system.

You got to understand this. I want you to understand clearly that everyone out there in this world that have not made Jesus Christ Lord are in the image and likeness of Satan. They walk, talk and act like Satan.

And you're going to see this in the world system tonight and tomorrow night and you're going to have an understanding about it but this spirit of Satan these demons are looking for ways to enter into the trees of the field which we all are in this world and they want to come in to be an expression of Satan, in other words they want everyone in this world to be in the image and likeness of Satan.

You choose and they come in and you receive either this word right here which performs its work in you. This is seed, you know this is seed right here is the land in your heart and I'll get into more of that later on but the mystery of godliness is this the mystery of godliness is a process where God is manifested in the flesh.

The mystery of iniquity is the opposite is a process where Satan is manifested in the flesh. Now we're going to first look at the mystery of godliness and I want you to, I have to quote some scripture because I don't have time, they're just little parts, you wait till I tell you to turn the scripture before you turn because I'm going to make reference to them, they're on your notes.

Does everyone have these lists of scripture here? I tell you what when it comes break time you won't have to have it now but when we come back at break time we'll pass these out, we'll have everyone to hold up your hands that haven't got this list of scripture we will pass it to you then because you'll have a list of every scripture we're going to use, but in 1 Timothy 3 it tells us that great is the mystery of godliness and see when the time came for Jesus to redeem men from the curse of sin it became necessary for the Lord to lay aside his heavenly glory and become a man, didn't he?

And then he took on our name in covenant, he became known as son of man, you see Christ did descend from the throne he laid aside his crown and robes, he arrayed himself in a garment of a servant and by doing so he subjected himself as a servant, didn't he?

And so he took on the earthly and in us making covenant with him we took on the heavenly, now we know in 1 Corinthians 15 which is part of your note, Jesus was the second Adam he came back to reverse the order of where the first Adam is veiled.

Now we'll get into that later on in 2 Corinthians 5 we know that he's the firstborn of all creation, we know that we are a new creation, right? In Christ Jesus, he is the firstborn of that new creation that's a holy people that's a covenant people separated from the world into righteousness and that's the way we're supposed to be today, so we also know in 1 Timothy 2 that when Jesus returned to heaven, he returned with a glorified flesh body, is that correct?

And watched him descend into heaven for there is one God mediator between God and men the man is Jesus Christ and so now we see that everything, I want you to remember this, always remember this, everything that is godliness, there is a counterfeit, see like a form of godliness here's godliness, a form of godliness is not godliness it's a counterfeit it's perversion.

Alright now I just want to give you an example of what's taking place in this world in the mystery of iniquity and the mystery of godliness and the opposite they are, so you'll have an understanding about it see Christ came in his father's name, the antichrist come in the name of Satan.

Alright and Christ humbles himself in this world the antichrist exalts himself, see that's what the world does out there, they exalt their self. Christ is despised in this world. The antichrist is admired in this world and the ways of antichrist.

Christ does the father's will the antichrist does Satan's will, Christ came to save, the antichrist came to destroy. Christ is the true vine and the antichrist is the vine of the world, see there is a difference the counterfeit, Jesus is the truth, the antichrist is a lie.

Christ is the holy one. The antichrist is the lawless one or the one of sin. Christ is the son of God. The antichrist is the son of perdition or Satan Christ. The mystery of godliness is manifested in the flesh.

So now let me just tell you what's been going on over the years is the fact that Satan saw they couldn't stamp out the church by violence and persecution because the more he did the more it grew. So he changed his tactics and today and right now he's seducing the church to conform to the world his hope that there will be a gospel and there is of social service or take the place of the gospel of grace and then it will divert and pervert all the attention of the church.

Personal Testimony of Bondage, Deliverance, and Grace

Now as a new Christian well let me just share something with you. We're not in image building of anything except the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we've already decided that we don't have to be anything because we aren't anything.

Okay. The only way you become important is to have God to have Jesus. So let me just clearly tell you something. Just a little testimony about myself and about grace. When I was just a small boy and I started in school I saw that I was a little quicker than some of the children and something happened in my life.

The other children became quicker and I became slower. I was a very demonized little boy and these bad manners got worse. For instance I live next door to a jail. I was paid sometime to curse people. Was a little five year old boy locked in a cell bullpen with other prisoners.

Just a joke. You know a little boy just paid I mean encouraged to fight other little boys and things like this. So you kind of know who's in control of that kind of atmosphere and I could go on and on.

But I became more and more a tormented person by the time I managed to get into high school I couldn't even study. I absolutely could not concentrate as I grew older when you're tormented like this and this is what you see in the world out here I turned to drinking because there had to be some kind of escape from the torment I was in.

I did not turn to Jesus because from what I had seen as a little boy there's nothing. I didn't even know anything. I went to church and didn't even know anything about Jesus. I didn't understand about Jesus.

But later on there were drugs. I was involved in drugs when it wasn't even popular to be involved in drugs because it was an escape it's just the devil and Satan. I acted like Satan. He had control of my life and I came to a place as you will grow worse that I had to have help and I went to a veterans mental hospital and I went there for six months and I look back over my life and it's hard for me to even think back there because it's like thinking about another person because it really was.

But in this hospital I knew I was a hurting, hurting person and I knew something if life is like this why was I ever even born and you cannot relate to this unless you've ever been into a place and many of you most of you to some degree have.

And I came to a place after six months and my trust was in a man who sat across the desk from me at the end of six months in this hospital and this man was going to give me all the answers to my life because I poured my heart and I told him things I've never told anyone in my life because I was told to do that and see let me just remind you right then, right now that my problem was not mental, my problem was spiritual.

This man never could help me not like we were in the process of me getting help but in the mean time you know what the church would tell me Jesus can't help you, go to the nut house and you know the drugs and whatever and you stay there, Jesus can't help you so we came down to this day where I sat across the desk from him and I'm not only sitting in my chair, I'm leaning forward because I poured out for six months I want the answer to all of this wreck and hurt and understanding that why my life is like it's been, I could have inferiority, inferiority would come over me just like you would take hot syrup and pour it over the head of someone and it would just run right down in my shoes and when it was to happen I would wish I was anywhere dead and it had always been there and then this guilt and condemnation for being so different would come over me and I was just tormented to pieces by demons.

This man leaned across this desk at me and he told me, he says Milt, when you first came here and you shared some of the things in your life, I bothered I bothered to call to your home territory to see if these things are true, quite frankly Milt, I thought you were lying and I found that they were very true now he says Milt, and here I'm leaning a little more forward, here comes the answer you need a religious experience but he said you can't have one now there's my answer six months I need, the only hope he tells me, the only thing that can help me but I can't have one and he turns around and he says you can't have faith.

Well I didn't know anything about the religious experience but if it's any kind of help for me do you know who I was talking to? I was talking to a demon, what do you think happened to me when I turned and walked away from that desk and left that place?

Do you think I became better? No, I had put my trust in a man and he had blocked me off of those words from the Lord from turning there, so I became a very hostile a very tormented man that became more tormented.

I went to and later on there was another there was another veterans hospital there was another mental hospital well I went back to that town in North Little Rock Arkansas later on and there was in this church in this Baptist church I was in there there was a psychiatrist who had been saved and she began bringing the patients, I mean she was just excited about Jesus she began bringing the patients and this one patient that I was seeing and Jim Hilton was with me that day and this lady had been left in a mental institution since day one, she had never really been able to function, I mean she was just out of hospital, she was under psychiatric care at the time and immediately when she sat down the first thing she said, I've already told God I'm going to kill myself.

I said honey don't say that, don't talk that way and of course I knew who was talking to her and I just began loving her and talking to her and soon she said the same thing again I've already told God I'm going to kill myself and so I just began to love her and then just the spirit of love was just in this room and see I could relate a lot more than anyone around knew to this lady here because the Lord had already done something in my life and I began watching the Lord as I was talking to her I watched the spirit of God and I began to see, watching Him setting her free right there sitting in front of me and the Lord spoke to me and He asked me told me and Jim to get out of the room, He wanted to love her and I told her, I said the Lord wants us to leave this room you've never known how much the Lord loves you and He's wanting to love you right now but He wants us outside this door and I'm not going to come back in this door because the Lord wants to love you and see the spirit of God was already on her pitiful lady so anyway Jim and I walked outside and pretty soon she came to the door so happy, the Lord had just been loving her and she saw the reality of God's love and we talked a little more and then she just became freer and freer as we sat there and talked and pretty soon her mind was just like that, just as quick as it could be we didn't even get to lay hands on her.

This lady got up. Well we were just rejoicing and we walked out and first thing the staff member of the church who knew this lady she looked he looked at her and I remember his mouth just falling open to his chin what he was seeing and what he was watching as she talked and the joy that he saw in her face.

She's totally a different person. This lady walked right past him she went out on the parking lot there out the back door there and we walked out with her and at that time that psychiatrist drove on to the parking lot she got out of her car and she saw her and she took a run to this psychiatrist and right before she got to her she left the ground and landed right around her neck and her legs around her hips.

This is the truth in Jesus name. And I thought about over there in Acts that man that was in front of the church that Peter came by and healed it began leaping and praising the Lord and finally she got down from that woman and she got a hold of her shoulder and began jumping up and down and praising God and so joyful and so happy.

Now see you can't, I could relate to that a lot better than many of you could but to know that to torment at this woman, I mean she wishes she was dead all her life. You know something before the week I was casting the demons out of the psychiatrist and I went in and I didn't think anything about it and I went in the motel room and said Lord how sweet he is and that's how he'll come and just show you and show you things.

And he said now Mel I want to just show you what's happened to your life grace. You remember when you was in this town before North Little Rock, Arkansas in this hospital and then Lord let these series of things happen to show me that Jesus through me came back and helped the psychiatrist.

Are you seeing what I'm telling you? So it's an interesting thing that someone with a such a broken life that I come to a place where I was dying I'd make a mockery of God because it was controlled by Satan.

I remember as a steel rigger foreman that how I would think this was smart now let's sing our song and I would have them to sing when we all get to heaven. And then later on when I came to a place of death and dying where I was crawling around on the floor with saliva running off of my mouth see I was no longer that 220 pounds of romping stomping hell I was not there's no one tough okay and no tough folks that someone who'd made a mockery of God that God came into a place where I was death.

See I was not only zero but I was less than zero in his grace to give me life and to heal me. And one night this happened and Jesus became Lord of my life. And the next day I was a totally different person and to believe that you could walk out of such a world of despair and step into another world.

And for these 43 years I had never really I had seen form but I hadn't seen this and I wanted everyone to have what the Lord had given me and a short time thereafter with just a grateful and a thankful heart.

I remember sitting in a service where they sang when we all get to heaven and that was my undoing because I remember singing it when I was in darkness and it humbled me before the Lord. So I'm here to tell you folks as I stand before you that I'm someone who has received grace.

It's an interesting thing that the Lord would take someone whose life had been broken and torn apart and everything that got around me happened to it too my family, my children. I couldn't be anything but a tool of the Satan so that the Lord began immediately to show me the powers of darkness and they continued over the years just to beat my ears off as I continued to learn about but that was my part.

So you got a part you're in school and the Lord teaches you where you are. This was my school and the Lord had me in it and immediately I wanted to help God out get rid of all the demons and doing many things.

I wanted to help God out and I just had to come to the end of all these things which I did and then the Lord put me in a place where he could do something through me. I used to go to lay revivals. I would go with church members out to tell people about Jesus.

See I want you to remember that for three years I couldn't even care on a conversation I'll say a couple of sentences and my mind was somewhere else because the brain cells had been destroyed through drugs, drinking and through being on the heart and lung machine longer than anyone survived it at the Erlanger hospital in Chattanooga and the Word the Word began restoring my mind.

You remember I couldn't even get out of school. God's Word it's life and it's health and God's Word began restoring my mind began restoring me and then the Lord began a series of things which I won't get into.

See I think it's important for me to relate this to you because I want you to know the Jesus in me. I want you to know the grace of Jesus in me. I want to boast in Jesus and this is what I'm doing, I'm not drawing any attention to myself and you know it but to uh, I know that one of the first people I ever led to the Lord was a Satan worshiper in the jail first time I ever witnessed someone in jail a Satan worshiper, he tried to kill himself three times and the last time they took him to the doctor he had no pulse, he didn't have any pulse or blood pressure cursed the doctor but I watched this man just in a simple, just two or three scriptures, whatever I watched him transform before my eyes and God just chose to do that, just to work with me you know God can work with you, it never was us and if God chooses to, He can make you look pretty good in your carton right there, and if your carton wants to enjoy this and glory, anyway He'll just sit you down, which He's done to me several times but anyway I began learning about the enemy and then I came to a place in 1980 folks where I just came to the end of a lot of things because I used to say and my wife used to say it, used to make chills run over when I'd say it, I'd say God, I love God so much, I'd say God you do everything to me you want to do you do it whether I like it or not just to please you you do it, that's why I just love the Lord and I continually say that and He began doing it and the chips began to fly and the flesh began to fall and I could talk a lot about that but anyway when it seemed like there was just a thread between the Lord and me and in that thread He let remove and then, see that got me up, and then when He reached down and got me to show me it never was me, I had such a zeal for the Lord to do things to get His approval.

I always wanted God's approval and I was going to do it through works and things and the Lord just let me just teaching me to come to a rest and so in 1980 I was invited to come to a revival at Jim Hilton.

I was there to preach just a four day meeting in Graceland Baptist Church in the greater Louisville area, it's the largest Baptist Church in the greater Louisville area it's the largest southern Baptist Church in Indiana and I was asked to come up there just to go witness, I took a Baptist pastor and a Methodist pastor with me and went up there just to go out and witness the revival had already been in about his sixth week probably and during this time there that I was only to spend three days there became a situation of a man who was demonized and I had never ever ever ever ever the farthest thing from my mind that anything would ever be dealt with in a church with demons because see I had seen some things dealing with demons but I had I saw some error and perversion in it and so it became a lonely place from what I did know because I've always been very much afraid of error and I hope you do I think that's one of the first things I encouraged you the first day I was here but anyway I saw that the man who was trying to deal with this person had good intentions but I knew that the Lord had put something in my heart but you know the Holy Spirit doesn't behave himself unseemly, you don't just run in front of the Lord's one that works these things out and I was all ready to leave town this was our third day and as this person began to deal with this and I knew if the Lord didn't remove this person from this situation that I would go ahead and return to Cleveland.

This fellow all of a sudden had a headache that he just didn't need to sit down but he was laid out and I knew the reason for that because I knew what was in my heart and so I told him when this happened I said I believe the Lord wants to use me with this person right here.

We moved to another location this pastor had about ten members in his staff and we moved to this new location and I began casting demons out of this church member. Now what I know now, what took me you know for eleven hours I dealt with this person in five minutes I could do what took eleven hours but see I was walking in what light I had but for eleven hours and I wouldn't let him take him to a restroom and I wouldn't go myself until those demons were gone and I want you to know that the glory of God came in that place and that pastor and staff now I want you to know this pastor taught in Southern Seminary as a matter of fact he's been teaching there this summer by the way let me just say it Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville across the river and as I was dealing this was an intense thing because like I tell you went through a lot of things you just walk where you are you don't get boxed in to anybody's experiences and things and that's where I was.

I just walked in what light I had that's how you get more light. But it was such an intense thing where I was. I heard such crying and brokenness and I absolutely had to let this go and I had to turn around and I looked back and that pastor had a hand up in such brokenness that I saw in this man's face and weeping and crying because let me tell you what he was seeing.

He was looking back through the years of his ministry when he had been dealing with all those people and what in reality he had done. He saw that he had been dealing with the symptoms rather than the source and it broke his heart.

On the Sunday morning he came before this congregation he actually bent double over the altar repenting and said I haven't led you in and told you the whole counsel of God and he repented. And he I'm not going to get into some other things all right now instead of staying three days at Graceland Baptist Church I stayed there for three months and all I did as this revival continued over four months all I did was cast demons day and night.

I was church members. I started with the staff of the church. I went to probably six or seven churches next year I mean pretty soon you know I already knew that people who were walking in the walls had a demon problem but I had never comprehended anything that I run into there see I was finding out from the demons.

I found out I learned how they got ground. I found out what they'd been doing in them and it always drove me back to here. You can't walk and experience this folks. But I saw something I'd never heard of before.