Defense Against Darkness by Pastor Josh Schwartz

Creation Fellowship

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And I know that we're recording, and so that's already going, but it threw my screen off just a bit.

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So, okay. I'm Terry Camerizell, and I'm here with Creation Fellowship Santee.

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We're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account, as told in Genesis, is a true depiction of how

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God created the world and all life in just six days, about 6 ,000 years ago.

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We've been meeting on this online format since May of 2020, and we've been blessed by a wide range of speakers, authors, scientists, pastors, all sorts of people who love the

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Lord and have a message to share. Most of our topics have been creation science -themed, but we also cover topics that are other parts of the

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Bible and then also current events. You can find links to most of our past presentations by going to tinyurl .com

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forward slash cfsarchives. That's C like creation,

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F like fellowship, S like Santee. You can also email us at creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com

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so that you get on our mailing list. We promise not to spam you, but we will send you emails to all of our upcoming speakers.

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Tonight, we are a little off topic, but also we are combining other theology with current events.

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We're blessed to have Pastor Josh Schwartz with us this evening.

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Josh represents both Mark Henry Ministries and also Olive Tree Ministries. He has served in Minnesota, California, and Colorado.

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He has a deep love for the Lord, the word, and the church. He weaves apologetics and a biblical worldview in light of current events.

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As believers, we must not live with our heads down. We must faithfully follow Jesus. That's his motto.

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Tonight, we could call this one another consequences of evolutionary thinking in some ways.

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We know that in Genesis, we read about the fall of man and the first sin. We see the consequences of that all over the world.

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Pastor Josh is going to share with us some insights as to how we can defend ourselves against Satan.

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Go ahead. Well, good evening. As Tammy said,

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I am Pastor Josh. I am so grateful to be here. I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to share this time with you all whenever and wherever you're listening from.

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And really what I've titled this evening's message as is a defense against the darkness.

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So in that, I'm going to pull up my screen really quick and get a PowerPoint going so that we can start rolling through this material.

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I've got a lot to cover and a little bit of time. And so looking forward to being in this together.

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A little bit about me as a whole is I am the husband of Missy.

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I've been married for about 15 years now. I've got two sons, Zeke and Eli, who are 12 and 10, and they keep me very, very busy.

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We just recently moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to start working for both

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Mark Henry Ministries and Olive Tree Ministries. And I also serve as an associate pastor at Revive Church in Minneapolis.

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Myself and Missy, we both grew up in western Colorado. I love golf.

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My boys love golf. We love being outdoors. Anything hunting, fishing, hiking related is just a blessing to be in God's creation where we can clearly see the handiwork of our

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Lord. What I do for work primarily is pastoral in nature.

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As I mentioned, I work as an associate pastor at Revive Church in Minneapolis. I teach.

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I do care. I pray for the congregation. I spend time with individuals in all kinds of different formats, pastoring, loving and teaching them.

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And at Olive Tree Ministries, I wear many different hats. Primarily, I am a pastor.

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I answer theological questions. I deal with counsel and care, but I also do consulting.

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I am in charge of what we are calling the pastor's huddle. Pastor's huddle is a three -day intensive training put on by Olive Tree Ministries and Mark Henry Ministries for pastors all over the

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U .S. to come and to learn how to use a consistent literal, grammatical and historical hermeneutic in the way that they approach the scriptures.

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We've had two so far. We had one in the fall of this year and in the spring of this year, 2023.

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We covered the books of Daniel and Revelation, and we're looking to do another one in the early summer of 2024.

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So if you're a pastor and listening to this, please reach out to me at Josh at OliveTreeViews .org

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if you're interested in the pastor's huddle, or simply go to our website, OliveTreeViews .org,

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and find the pastor's huddle there. That's enough about me, but let's dive into our topic this evening, a defense against darkness.

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And really what I want to do is give an overview or an introduction to and an explanation of truly this exponentially growing darkness that we feel in our world today.

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What I want to do is open up with scripture, because I think it's important to look at the scriptures.

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So first and foremost, I want us to open up to 1 Peter 5. In 1 Peter 5, we are given a call to a defense against our ever -present darkness in this world.

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Peter begins by saying in 1 Peter 5, 6, The same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

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And then he concludes this section by this, in verses 10, 11, saying, And after you have suffered a little while, the

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God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

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To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

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Let me pray for us, and we'll dive right into the topic at hand. Father, we ask that you would be honored and glorified, and that you would fill our hearts and our minds with your word, your truth, so that we will have a correct understanding and a correct perspective when we approach evil and darkness.

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It is nothing to be dabbled with. Evil, demonic forces are real, and they want to destroy us.

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So we have a battle at hand. So Father, help us to see that, and help us to flee from anything that might even be considered a bit of dabbling with darkness, we pray in Jesus' name.

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Amen. Well, to start off, I want to help everyone understand that there is darkness in this world because there are primarily, and entirely, only two kingdoms.

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There are just two kingdoms in this world, the kingdom of good versus the kingdom of evil.

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The kingdom of good versus the kingdom of evil. And we see this very clearly in the

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Scriptures. This evening, we'll look specifically at Colossians 1 and Romans chapter 6.

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In Colossians 1, Paul clearly lays out that we've been rescued by Jesus from the kingdom of darkness and been transferred into the kingdom of light of God's beloved

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Son, Jesus. Just look here with what Paul says in Colossians chapter 1, verses 9 through 14.

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He says, and so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

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Now remember, in the first half of this chapter, Colossians chapter 1, Paul is praising

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God for the faith of the believers, the saints at Colossae. And now he's telling them in verses 9 and following that he's praying for them, he cares for them.

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Verse 10 says this, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might for all endurance when patience with joy.

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Now, that should be our prayer for ourselves. That should be our prayer for one another, that we would be fully pleasing to the

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Lord, that we'd walk in a manner that's worthy to Him, that we'd be increasing in our knowledge of God.

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This is what's known theologically as the sanctification process. As we have been saved, we're positionally sanctified, justified.

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And as we live in this life, we are progressively, day by day, moment by moment, sanctified or made holy, conformed more closely to the image of Christ.

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Now look what Paul says there in verse 12. He says he's giving thanks to the

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Father who has done what? Qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

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He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved

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Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So do you see the dichotomy there?

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Paul has built a dichotomy. There's a kingdom of light, and there's the kingdom of darkness.

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We all once lived in the kingdom of darkness, but through the blood of Jesus and our faith in His completed work on the cross, we are now transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved

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Son, the kingdom of light. And I've got two words highlighted here on the screen, the word qualified and delivered.

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These are the two things that Jesus has done for us. He has qualified you through your faith in Him to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

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In essence, that means He has given you eternal life by His atoning sacrifice.

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And number two, He's delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved

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Son. Jesus qualifies us, and He delivers us. He is the only way that we can be transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, because there are only two kingdoms.

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And Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can come to the Father but through Him. It's that simple.

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Paul, again, works through this in the book of Romans, chapter 6.

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Now, I don't have this on the screen for you, so if you have your Bible, I'd encourage you to turn there. Romans, chapter 6,

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Paul builds another dichotomy. He does a very great job helping us to understand really physically and spiritually what salvation has done for us.

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He begins this way in saying, in Romans 6, 4, he says,

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For if we, believers, have been united with Him, that is, united with Christ in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

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So this talks about a future glorification, a future eternal hope of heaven.

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Just as Jesus resurrected, so also will we resurrect from the dead when

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Jesus returns, and we will be transferred to the eternal state, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing to look forward to.

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Verse 6, We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

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For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.

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We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over Him.

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Christ, as we're told in the book of Hebrews, died once for all. He doesn't have to be crucified again and again and again.

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He died once for all sacrifice to bring justification and salvation for those who would believe.

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Verse 11, So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus, because we still live in a world with two kingdoms, a kingdom of evil and a kingdom of good, a kingdom of light and a kingdom of darkness.

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We've been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of light, so we no longer live like the old self lived.

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Paul explains this in Colossians chapter 3. Now, he says here in verse 12 of Romans 6, he says,

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Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

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For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law, but under grace.

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There's two kingdoms, and we have to make a volitional decision to die to the old kingdom of darkness and live in the new kingdom of light.

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And when he tells us there in verses 12 through 14 that we are to use our instruments for righteousness instead of unrighteousness, that means our bodies, our hands, our feet, our words, our mind.

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That means our talents and our spiritual gifts are to be used for good and not for evil, because the evil was what we used to do, and we no longer are to live that way, because there's only two kingdoms, the kingdom of good and the kingdom of evil.

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But we still live in a fallen, broken world. Now we have to realize this, and this is the beautiful thing.

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Jesus is the rescuer, and evil only enslaves and destroys, and that's what we're going to see here in this next section before us.

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In the next section, we're going to see that we're given an overview of who

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Satan is and who his minions, his underlings, the demons are.

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Now who's Satan? Well, Satan is alive, he's well, and he's continually destroying what

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God created to be good. Satan is alive and well, and he's continually destroying what

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God created to be good. Friends, there are so many in the world today that want to deny the existence of Satan.

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That is a scheme of Satan. It's good for him, for people to think, well, he doesn't exist.

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He's just a mythical creature. He's just a legend, because then they deny him, and then they don't attribute to him the things that he is doing, the evil that he does in this world, and they ignore him.

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And he goes on his merry way, distracting, deluding, deceiving, and destroying.

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We, as followers of Jesus, must take God at his word and understand that we all do have a specific adversary, the

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God of this world. His name is Satan. He's the deceiver and the destroyer.

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He's our enemy. That's who Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter 6, that we're not battling against flesh and blood, but we're battling against the spiritual forces in this world.

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And Satan is the head of that, and he uses his demons as his minions to do evil things.

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So we are in a battle, friends. We are in a spiritual battle, day in and day out.

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Are we going to honor God and take him at his word, or are we not? Are we going to be deceived?

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So who is Satan? Well, let's dig into this a little bit. Satan, he has a personality.

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He shows intelligence. He shows intellect. He shows emotions. We see this in Genesis 3 and 2

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Corinthians 11. We see this in Luke chapter 22, and we see this in Revelation chapter 12 and verse 17.

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We'll look at the book of Revelation in a little while, but suffice it to say there that when

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Satan is cast out of heaven, he's greatly angered. So he has emotions.

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He has a will, a volition. He desires to be God. He desires to be worshiped.

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He will do whatever he can to deceive, distract, delude, and destroy those who are in Christ Jesus.

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We also see here on the screen that Satan is a created being, and we must keep this in mind.

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I think oftentimes we are deceived in thinking that Satan is an equal to God.

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He's not. He is part of God's creation, and thus he is subject to God.

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That's why it says there that the devil is God's devil, and, friend, that's good news because he is not more powerful than God.

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He is submissive to the will of God, and his end will be in destruction, as we'll see in a moment.

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Yet Ezekiel chapter 28 gives us a glimpse into the character of Satan, this fallen angel of angels.

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And there are many different opinions on what's going on there in Ezekiel chapter 28.

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I think the best way to take this is that Ezekiel is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he's specifically talking about the king of Tyre.

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But he's also alluding to and giving us insight about Satan and his character.

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So if you have your Bibles, turn there to Ezekiel chapter 28 with me, and let's see exactly what

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Ezekiel says about this king of Tyre and, consequentially, Satan himself.

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Ezekiel 28 verse 11 says this, Now I'd encourage you, as you're reading your

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Bibles, every time that you hear the words or read the words, thus says the Lord God, underline it and then pay attention to what comes next.

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He says this, On the day that you were created, they were prepared.

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You were an anointed guardian cherub, I placed you. You were on the holy mountain of God.

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In the midst of the stones of fire, you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.

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

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So I cast you as a profaned thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you,

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O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty.

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You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground.

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I exposed you before kings to the feast their eyes on you. By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade, you profaned your sanctuaries.

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So I brought fire out from your midst. It consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you.

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All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you. You have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.

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Now, he is to write this to the king of Tyre, but there are some characteristics in here that are not human.

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And that's why I would think that the best interpretation of this is we're writing it to a human king who symbolizes

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Satan in the here and now. He's a satanic figure, but it gives us an unparalleled explanation of who

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Satan is in his character as a whole. He's a created being. Multiple times there, it says that he was created.

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Verse 12 tells us that Satan, he was unmatched in wisdom and beauty.

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He was clothed with precious jewels and gold. He was very beautiful in his appearance.

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Unmatched. Verse 13 tells us that he's unmatched in his habitation. He lived on God's holy mountain.

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He was there in the Garden of Eden. We know this. Genesis tells us that. Verse 13 also tells us that he was unmatched in his covering.

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He was, like I said, covered in gold and precious jewels. He's unmatched, verse 14, in his function.

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He is an anointed guardian cherub. He was placed by God on the mountain of God.

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He had a specific role before his fall that God intentionally placed him in.

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Unmatched by anyone else. And verse 15 tells us that he was unmatched in his perfection.

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Verse 15 says, you were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created.

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I mean, just think about that. And think about the pride that that builds up in a created being.

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The pride that swells and overwhelms. No wonder

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Satan was cast from heaven because of his pride, desiring to be worshipped like God.

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Because this is who he is. He's a created being. Yet he's still subject to God's will.

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We see this in the book of Job. Satan's prowling over the earth, looking for someone to devour.

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And God says, hey, have you considered my servant Job, this righteous, blameless man? And God gives him permission, authority to afflict

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Job just to not kill him. And Satan's hope is that Job would show his unrighteousness.

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And that he would, like his wife tells him to do, curse God and die. But we know that that's not what Job did. He sat in his suffering.

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He lamented in his suffering. He felt emotions in the midst of suffering. But he never blasphemed

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God. Why? Because he was righteous and God knew it. And Satan had to hold to God's word and could not destroy him.

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Even though he wanted to and he surely tried. But Satan is submissive to the will of God.

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Because this is not a chess match with two equal players on each end of the board. Where God is straining to counter any moves that Satan makes.

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No, that is an incorrect view of Satan. That is poor theology. God is the

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God of all creation. Satan is a created being. And God rules over him. And we know that he will have eventual destruction.

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We also have to recognize that in Satan being subject to God, he's not comparable to God.

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You cannot compare them. They are two separate and unequal entities. Satan is not omniscient.

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He is not omnipotent. He is not omnipresent. That means he's not all powerful.

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He's not all -knowing. And he's not everywhere always as God is. He is subject to God.

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He is created by God. He is our great adversary. He is not

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God's equal. That is the great deception that he and his minions bring forth, though, that God and Satan are equal.

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I mean, you see it even depicted in art. As I was serving in Colorado as a youth pastor,

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I had a very well -intentioned mom give me a Christmas gift.

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And it was a picture of Jesus and Satan in boxing form facing off against one another.

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And the intention there was too cute, was too candid, because, again,

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God and Satan are not equals. Jesus is God, and thus he is not equal to Satan, a fallen angel, his adversary.

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We see a great argument that Jesus is greater than the angels in the book of Hebrews chapter 1.

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He is not an angel. He is the God -man. He is fully man, yet fully God and perfect in all his character.

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That's who Jesus is. He is not equal with Satan either, because Satan is created.

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We must keep that in mind. I've nailed that numerous times through this, because it is something that we must keep in mind.

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When we're afflicted, when we are oppressed by demons and this darkness, we know that God is in control.

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And as Peter tells us, we submit to God and we persevere in the midst of suffering to the glory of God, because he's the one who holds us.

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And we are being sanctified by God. Now, once we understand that he's created, that he is volitional, we also have to understand that he has a character.

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And beautifully, the scriptures tell us, they give us different titles, different names of Satan, our adversary.

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And the names that they use to describe him reveal who he truly is.

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So he's Satan, which means he's our adversary. He's the devil.

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He's Diabolos. He's a slanderer. We see him in Genesis chapter 3 as a serpent.

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He's crafty. He's cunning. We see that he's the great red dragon in the book of Revelation.

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He's a ferocious attacker who just wants to kill and destroy.

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We're also told that he's the accuser of the brethren. He's our tempter. You feel that?

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He's the ruler of this world, the God of this world.

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This is a fallen, broken, evil world because of the fall of mankind in Genesis chapter 3.

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And Satan is ruling and reigning, having a heyday in the here and now. He's also the tempter.

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He tempts us to sin. Remember what James tells us? It is never

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God. When we are tempted to do evil, it is never God who is tempting us. It is our own desires.

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They are birthed out of our broken human heart, used by Satan to help us to flee from what

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God expects of us, what God desires of us as holiness and righteousness. And we fall and we sin.

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Now, is it sinful to be tempted? No. Jesus himself was tempted. But it's sinful to give in to the temptation.

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Jesus didn't give in to that. That's why he is perfect and sinless. So Satan's character shows who he is, reveals who he is.

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He has personality. He's a created being. He's a serpent. He's crafty.

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He's cunning. But with all of this, we know that Satan has an end.

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And his end is ultimately destruction. That he fights like a cornered beast.

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And that is the end of the book of Revelation. Next, again, if you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Revelation chapter 20. Revelation chapter 20 is where we get a very important discourse eschatologically.

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I am pre -millennial and pre -tribulational. That means that I believe that Jesus will rapture his church before the tribulation begins.

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And I also believe that Jesus will physically, literally return to earth before the beginning of the millennial kingdom.

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And I also believe that there will be a literal, physical 1 ,000 -year kingdom after Jesus' return.

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Where he will rule and reign. And we will worship him and we will serve him even in the midst of that.

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And we get a glimpse of that in Revelation chapter 20. We see that specifically in verses 1 -6.

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There are multiple different times that the word millennium is used there. Which means 1 ,000 years.

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And from there we see in Revelation 20 verses 7 and following.

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What's going to happen at the end of that millennial reign of Jesus physically on earth.

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Verse 7 says this. And when the 1 ,000 years are ended. To me, again, that's evidence that they had to have begun.

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And they had to have existed literally and physically or else God would have made it known. It says this.

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That's Jerusalem. But, I would circle that.

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Fire came down from heaven and consumed them. At the beginning of the millennial reign of Jesus.

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Satan is bound and he's thrown into the abyss for those 1 ,000 years. So he cannot deceive the nations any longer.

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But after those 1 ,000 years are ended. He gets released from prison as verse 7 tells us. And he comes out to deceive again.

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But his deception is short -lived. And it is brought to great destruction at the end of verse 9.

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Fire will come down from heaven by God himself. And consume the armies and consume the adversaries.

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Verse 10 says this. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were.

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And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. He will be brought to eternal punishment in the lake of fire.

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He knows his end. He knows his time is running out. But he fights in the here and now then as a cornered beast.

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He is an evil, evil being. The ruler of this world who truly exists.

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And has the ultimate goal of destroying everything that God created and was very good.

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Even you and me, folks. So do not be deceived with the world's lies that Satan is just a myth.

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Or a legendary creature. Or a figment of someone's imagination. That is not the case.

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Now that we understand that there is an adversary. That there is Satan. Let's ask the question of what are demons?

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Well, demons are fallen angels. In essence, they are underlings or minions of Satan.

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Satan is their ruler. They obey him. And they deceive the same way that he does.

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And we see in Revelation chapter 12, verses 1 -9.

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A cosmic scene. A heavenly scene. And we are told there, specifically in the midst of that, verse 4.

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That his 12, that ancient dragon, Satan himself, swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.

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Now, if you turn back with me to Revelation chapter 9 and verse 1.

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One of the trumpet judgments, the fifth trumpet, specifically. Is a judgment where John sees a star fallen from heaven to earth and given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.

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I believe that this is Satan who comes down, who is given the key to the bottomless pit.

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So that he can open up the pit so that those demon -like locusts or locust -like demons, excuse me.

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Can come out and bring havoc upon the world in the tribulation period.

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So if he is described as a star fallen from heaven. Then also

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I think it's not too far of a jump to understand that when

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Satan is cast out of heaven here. He sweeps down a third of the stars of heaven to the earth.

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And we see that those stars are his fallen angels. Now I think that we have to keep in mind though.

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Though it seems that Satan is winning in the here and now. He only got a third. That means that there's two -thirds of all the angels who are not fallen.

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Who love the Lord, who serve the Lord, who are ministering spirits as the book of Hebrews tells us.

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That are to serve those who are in Christ Jesus. So we've got demons.

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They're fallen angels cast out of heaven with Satan as their head.

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And what do they do? Well they're very similar to the evil one, to Satan himself. They have evidence of personality.

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Again they have intelligence. They know who Jesus is. Read the gospel.

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Specifically the gospel of Mark. A demon -possessed man comes into a synagogue.

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And the demon has a conversation with Jesus. And calls him by name, Jesus the

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Holy One of God. They knew who he is. They have intelligence. They have an intellect. James tells us in James 2 .19.

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That even the demons believe and they shudder. They believe in what? The existence of God.

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And they shudder. Why do they shudder? Because they fear him. They know that God is all -powerful.

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And they are to be submissive to him. And he allows them to rule and reign in this broken world.

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We also have to recognize that demons are immoral by nature. That means that they are unclean.

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They are evil. They want to bring forth destruction. They want to deface the image of God in man.

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And time allowing, I will dive into the book of Mark chapter 5. And we see that exactly with the garrison demoniac.

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He is nearly mutilated to the point of death.

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As he is possessed by a legion of demons. Because that's what they want to do. Destroy and deface the image of God in man.

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And they have power. Demons have power. They have supernatural strength to wrench chains apart.

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They have supernatural intelligence. They know the spiritual realm. And they have supernatural presence.

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Now, we have to understand, they are not omnipresent. Just like Satan is not omnipresent. Only God is omnipresent.

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But they are large and organized in number. So it feels as though they are omnipresent.

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They are an army that's greatly organized. And they have the ability to possess.

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That's go into an unbeliever. And they have the ability to oppress. That's demonize.

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Afflict the believer. Now, believer, because you have the spirit of God dwelling in you.

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The Holy Spirit, who is deep within you. Leading you, guiding you, directing you and teaching you.

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You cannot be possessed by a demon. A demon cannot go into you and possess you.

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You have God's spirit within you. But he can surely oppress you. There could be great power that demons have even over a believer.

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Especially if you are dabbling in the demonic. So let's just give a quick overview of Satan and demons.

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It's fourfold. They want to deceive. They want to distract. They want to delude.

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And they want to destroy. Deception is they want to lead people away from truth or reality.

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Distraction is they want to bring diversions from what truly matters. Honoring, glorifying, worshiping

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God. Serving God. They want to delude. That is mislead, excuse me.

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Fool or dilute. And they want to destroy. That is obliterate, annihilate, and bring to an unrecognizable end.

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So we've come to the conclusion that Satan is real. That demons are real. And they want to deceive, distract, delude, and destroy.

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I think it's very wise for believers specifically, but anyone in general, not to dabble with the demonic.

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Friends, we must not dabble with the demonic.

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So how must we respond? Well, we saw first off in 1 Peter chapter 5 that we are to humble ourselves before God because we have an adversary.

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But what else must we do? Well, we see in James chapter 4 verses 1 through 10 for context.

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Simply put, we are commanded by God's word by the half -brother of Jesus, James, to do what?

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Verse 7, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

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Submit to God, humble yourselves, and resist the devil. What does resist mean here?

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Well, resist simply means to actively oppose the evil one.

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Actively oppose. Actively stand against the devil. That's pretty simple.

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In word, it's very hard in action because he's so deceptive in his nature and in his character.

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But when we see something that doesn't measure up to what the word of God says, that means it's probably demonic, it's probably deluded, and we ought to flee from it, and we ought to resist it and stand against it, not submit to it and fall into its snare.

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As again, we're told in 1 Peter chapter 5, he says, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.

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That is a beautiful thing. Do you know the same Jesus who had compassion on the lost while he was here, literally on earth 2 ,000 years ago to where he fed people, he created bread and fish as he broke it to feed multitudes of people because he had compassion on them?

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Now that you are in Christ, he has a deep, loving care for you, even deeper than an unbeliever.

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Verse 8 tells us this, Be sober -minded, be watchful, your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

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That's his character. He wants to devour you. He wants to devour me. He wants to destroy us.

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He wants to distract us. He wants to deceive us. Again, we're told, same word here, resist him.

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But here, Peter gives us a bit of an explanation. Firm in your faith. What does that mean?

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Well, simply put, he wants us to understand that we are in Christ Jesus, we've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, the kingdom of his beloved son, and so we have a rescuer.

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We have an escape. We have an advocate in Christ.

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So we resist him. We stand firm in our faith, and we know reality is this. Our brothers around the world are facing the same kinds of suffering.

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Why? Because Satan is the ruler of this world, and his minions are all around, looking to deceive, distract, delude, and destroy.

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Believer, what we must do is take this God at his word and be sober -minded and watchful, knowing that there is evil out there that wants to destroy us.

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And we must not dabble in the demonic. Satan and his schemes are not to be fooled with.

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They're not to be played with. So let's dive into some really applicational topics here in this second third of this evening.

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What are some satanic influences in the culture? What are some satanic influences in the culture?

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Here's a whole list of them, and this is just the beginning of a list. These are some big names in our culture.

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The occult, the New Age movement, the apostasy of the church, transgenderism, the rise of technology, yoga, and the

44:25

Enneagram. There's many more that we could put on there, but I think that these eight sections really need to be dealt with.

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And time's not going to allow me to deal with all of them, but I will give, as best as I can, an overview of how these are culturally normative yet demonic strongholds.

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And if we believe everything that the scriptures have told us beforehand, we must not dabble in any of these things, because they are deeply dangerous and deceptive.

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First and foremost, Satanism. Well, there's two forms of Satanism. There's old Satanism from the church of Satan, and there's neo -Satanism from the temple of Satan.

45:08

And there's an important distinction to make there. The church of Satan really truly does worship

45:14

Satan, and they do Satanic sacrifices.

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They do all kinds of horrific things with a deep desire to honor and worship

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Satan himself. That's dangerous. That's disgusting. Where we used to live in Colorado, you could drive five minutes in any direction and be in the middle of nowhere.

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Literally, we were surrounded by thousands of acres of public land. And I've heard stories of people driving out on these dirt roads to nowhere, which is a beautiful thing to do, and seeing red pentagrams on rocks.

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Now, I'm doubting that they used paint. I'll just let your mind think about that.

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Red pentagrams and circles in the dirt and rock formations.

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There were pictographs and rock writing from the ancient

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Fremont Indians in the area as well. And I don't know if you've ever seen some of those.

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Some of them, you know, they depict elk and sheep and cows or horses. But the ones that we were near, they depicted what looked to me quite demonic things.

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If you're interested in seeing what that might look like, Google the Carrot Man site in Rangeley, Colorado, just to see.

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And you think for yourself, is that a representation of a human? Or is that a representation of a demonic force?

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And I would land obviously on the latter. There is Satanism that abounded there. The occult is another area where we ought not to dabble.

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The occult, a quick Barna study recently has shown that 73 % of young people have dabbled in the occult.

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They engaged in at least one type of psychic or witchcraft related activity.

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Think about that. 73 % of young people. That's scary.

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This is pervasive, friends. Satan has a grip of our culture and of our world.

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We must not dabble in the demonic. The New Age movement is really best understood through what's known as syncretism.

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Syncretism is defined as an amalgamation of different religious practices and cultures or schools of thought to synchronize them into one religious teaching or to create a new, better teaching.

47:58

The New Age movement, simply put, is this. It's a syncretism of western secular humanism, evolution, eastern mysticism, and the world of the occult all put together and creating a movement, a religion, a spirituality, if you will.

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All driven by demonic forces to distract, delude, deceive, and ultimately destroy.

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Talk to anyone who has dabbled in the New Age or dabbled in the occult about what seemed like safe, easy, simple things to walk into and turned dark, evil, demonic.

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Related to the New Age movement are things that are very popular in our culture. Crystals, palm reading, fortune telling, candles, magic.

48:59

I was a youth pastor here in Minneapolis a number of years ago, and we had a student who was loosely affiliated to the youth group.

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His family had come to church, they left, and he kept coming every once in a while when he would skateboard by on a

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Wednesday night and we'd be out playing games. Well, we'd hear from him probably once every six or eight weeks, and out of nowhere,

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I got a text from him and he said, Pastor Josh, I need to meet with you immediately. Okay, Caleb, no big deal.

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Come on over. Let's work this out. So he comes over, he's distraught, and he has a friend with him.

49:36

Her name was Precious. And they were dating, and she was experiencing some very demonic things.

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She was experiencing demonic sleep paralysis to the point that she was, she explained it as being held down in her bed, unable to move and speak, to the point where she defecated on her bed because she just was trying to get away so much that she couldn't.

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And they wanted to know why, what was going on. Well, as I was working through it with them, it turns out that a friend of hers gave her a magic candle.

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And that candle was sitting in her room. Friends, it doesn't take much of a foothold for Satan to grab a stronghold and be invited into something simple.

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It can be a candle, it can be a computer, it can be an idol that you don't even know is an idol.

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There are stories of people, I have friends who went to the Caribbean for an anniversary trip and brought home some decorative masks, not knowing that they were relics, that they were idols, and understanding that after I had spoken to them about it, what do they do?

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They remove that from their house, just in case Satan could use that as a foothold to bring the demonic into their believing home.

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Dream catchers are a very popular thing in our culture. They are demonic.

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They are gateways for demons to come into us, into our lives, into our homes.

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Nothing to be dabbled with. Remember what happened in Acts chapter 16? Paul is there in Philippi, and he is being pestered, for lack of better terms, by a fortune -telling girl who was possessed by demons.

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He cast the demon out of her, and then he gets thrown into the inner jail there in Philippi because he cast the demon out of the girl that they were making money off of.

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Fortune -telling is not something to be dabbled with. It is demonic, clearly, and scriptural.

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Now, we've really seen a lot of movement towards the Ouija board lately.

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This is nothing to be dabbled with. I've heard plenty of people who give plenty of explanation and experiences with this to where it is downright evil.

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My stepdad grew up in what he would call a haunted house.

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I would call it a house that was afflicted by demons. And it turns out, as they were working through the basement, they found a

52:29

Ouija board. And his mother, growing up Catholic, knew that that was not something that she wanted in her house, praise the

52:36

Lord. And so they decided to take it out and destroy it. And how were they going to destroy it? They wanted to set it on fire.

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He said as he watched as a child that thing burn in their backyard, it turned all kinds of different colors, made all kinds of different shrieks and shrills and noises that were just unexplainable in his mind until he realized that demons were real.

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These are things we ought not dabble with, friends. This isn't just for fun.

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I recently heard that they are bringing back a Ouija board disguised as something even better as the

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Holy Spirit board. Friends, it is not a gimmick. It is demonic.

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Flee from it. Now, remember, the

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Israelites, as they are to enter the promised land, are commanded to cast out the pagan nations that inhabited the promised land before them, the

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Canaanites and the other ites there. Why? Because they had demonic pagan practices that worshiped evil, and God was not going to tolerate that with his people.

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And we see the consequences of them not casting those demons out, not casting those nations out.

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They dealt major consequences all throughout the Old Testament. And many of the

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Israelites married their daughters off to the Gentiles and worshiped as the

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Gentiles did. And ultimately God brought great, strict judgment on his people because of that.

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We must take it seriously, friends. Well, we also have to understand that we're told in the

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New Testament that in the last days the church is going to apostatize. Why? Because there's going to be a desire for their ears to be tickled, a desire for them to listen to doctrines, that is, teachings of demons, that lawlessness will abound.

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I encourage you to read 1 Timothy chapter 4 and 2 Timothy chapter 3 and chapter 4 to work through what that apostatizing church is going to look like in the last days.

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And friends, we've been in the last days since Pentecost, since the beginning of the church age.

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And I like to explain it like this. Like I said earlier, I believe in a literal seven -year tribulation period.

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And I feel like we're getting closer and closer to it as I look at what's going on around this world and the evil that is waxing and waning even more and more.

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And what I like to think of is this. If you look at the tribulation as a time marker and you see it on the timeline of this world as a very tall

55:30

T and the sun setting across from it, the glory of God shining through it, if you will, that T from the tribulation period is going to cast a shadow on quite a large timeline of earth as we work our way towards the last days, the last days of the last days.

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And as that shadow is casting, the closer we get to the tribulation period, the darker it's going to get.

55:56

And I think we're experiencing that. I think we're starting to see more and more, especially from the generations before us, what was explained in 1

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Timothy and 2 Timothy. I encourage you to think about that, work through those things, study that out.

56:12

I also want to touch on three last things. Transgenderism, yoga, and the

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Enneagram. Now these might be sensitive topics for some of you. And they're sensitive topics for me.

56:29

Two out of the three have affected me in my personal life. But I'm going to tell you, they're demonic.

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Though culturally normative, they are demonic strongholds. Let's start with transgenderism.

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Transgenderism is a demonic deception that tries to deface the image of God in mankind, period.

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And we see this. In Genesis chapter 1, God creates them male and female.

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There is a binary. There's just two, male and female. Now we are being inundated with people who are non -binary or one of hundreds of different genders.

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Because why? God said it, and Satan doesn't like it.

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And Satan is going to try and destroy the image of God in man by hitting some pretty key biological factors.

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Sex and gender. Things that don't change. Just look in the animal kingdom. There is only male and female animals.

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I promise you this. Anything else is maybe an anomaly or a genetic mutation, but that is not as common as you would think.

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God created them male and female. There is evidence of that throughout the ages, period.

57:53

And Satan, he just likes to repackage or recapitulate his schemes.

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Do you realize that in the ancient Near Eastern religions, specifically in Mesopotamia, the

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Akkadians and the Sumerians, and even to an extent the Babylonians, they had a goddess named

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Ishtar. Ishtar was the goddess of war and sexuality.

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And there are specific instances, writings, archaeological writings that they have found that explain that Ishtar was a metamorphic goddess or a transmutational goddess.

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And that her followers would castrate themselves if male.

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And that they would front as non -binary with no gender.

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This isn't new, friends. Ecclesiastes tells us there is nothing new under the sun. This is demonically inspired, and it's a recapitulation of the schemes of Satan.

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Remember, in Genesis chapter 3, he just tempts the woman with the question, did God really say?

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Friends, in our culture today, we need to hear the hiss of the serpent.

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Another area that we experience a culturally normative demonic stronghold is the area of yoga.

59:23

Now, yoga, many people will say, well, it's just stretching. There's only so many poses that my body can do, and so I'm just stretching.

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It's for my physical good. There's, you know, many people who will say, well, there's such thing as Christian yoga.

59:38

It's okay to stretch and to move your body in these positions. Friends, it's not.

59:44

Why? Because even the yogis themselves say that yoga is

59:51

Hindu evangelism. Do you realize that the

59:57

Hindu religion teaches that all of us have what's known as the

01:00:03

Kundalini spirit dwelling within us at the base of our spine? And it's also known as the great white serpent of light.

01:00:12

Yeah, you heard that right. The great white serpent of light. Satan reveals himself as an angel of light.

01:00:22

Satan reveals himself as a serpent, and he wants to be great. That's demonic, friends.

01:00:28

The great white serpent of light, the Kundalini spirit, it is like a serpent in your midst.

01:00:36

And what you are to do as you do your different yoga poses in the Hindu religion, this is well documented, that you say your mantras, you do your poses.

01:00:47

And as you do your poses and the mantras, and you align your chakras, that serpent, that Kundalini spirit comes up your chakras, ultimately entering your mind to the point where you will reach mindless enlightenment.

01:01:04

Mindless enlightenment. Friends, we're called to be sober -minded, not mindless.

01:01:11

Yoga needs to be fled from. If you want to exercise, praise the

01:01:18

Lord. We're to be good stewards of our body. But I promise you, there are many different ways that you can be a good steward of your body that is not rooted in Hindu mysticism and satanic, demonic deception.

01:01:31

The last thing I want to touch on here is the Enneagram. And the Enneagram, I myself was duped by for a little while.

01:01:38

Because it just seems, it's just packaged like this personality test. Friends, it's not.

01:01:46

If you do a little bit of a deep dive into the origins of the Enneagram, what you'll find out is that the majority of it was written by what's known as automatic writing.

01:01:59

Automatic writing is where you put a pen in your hand, and you go as mindless as possible and you let a spirit or a spiritual being come in and write for you.

01:02:11

This has been a practice of the occult. This has been a practice of demonic worship throughout the ages.

01:02:17

And this is where the Enneagram comes from at its roots. It's not cute.

01:02:25

It's not cuddly. It's not just a personality test. It is dangerous, friends. And as followers of Jesus, we need not to be told what our personality type is.

01:02:35

Because we can justify our sinful tendencies enough on our own already. We need to allow

01:02:41

Jesus to transform us from the inside out. Because Jesus is the one who is in the business of transformation.

01:02:49

He's the one who takes our wicked, wretched, broken heart. When we place our faith in him, he does a heart transplant that only he can do and gives us a heart of flesh which can honor and serve and obey

01:03:02

God. Now, friends, I know I've gone through that quickly. And I would love to answer questions or work through other things.

01:03:11

But this is the main point. We must not dabble in the demonic.

01:03:19

Satan and his schemes are not to be fooled around with. Let me pray.

01:03:24

Father, please use this teaching for us to understand the reality of our adversary, the reality of his minions, and the reality of these culturally normative trends that haven't changed over the millennia but are still duping, still distracting, still deceiving even followers of Christ.

01:03:47

Father, help us to flee from mindless scrolling and actually do something that's profitable.

01:03:54

Help us to redeem our time for you. In your word, we pray. In Jesus' name.

01:04:01

Hey, Josh, were you going to play those videos or no? We'll go ahead and skip them.

01:04:08

We can share a link in the description where those videos came from, though. Okay. And that was a great prayer.

01:04:16

It gave me a big reminder. Good. Yeah, thank you.

01:04:23

That was a very good presentation. And you definitely covered a lot of stuff. And I think some people might be challenged, feeling challenged right now.

01:04:32

But that's a good thing. So I haven't seen a lot of questions come through, and I'm not sure that we have time for too many.

01:04:40

One person did ask on Facebook about why God created

01:04:47

Satan or allowed that situation, I guess. I mean, we know that originally

01:04:52

Satan was an angel. So why, if you could just kind of briefly, like, explain if you have a good answer for why he would have allowed that to be a part of our world.

01:05:07

Absolutely. I think that's one of those really hard questions that a lot of us work through.

01:05:13

And I think the best answer that I can give at this moment for that is because it's twofold.

01:05:20

Number one, God is sovereign over creation. His will is going to be accomplished. So this had to be part of his will.

01:05:26

But also, we have to recognize that God will be glorified in all things.

01:05:33

What's the chief in demand? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. So everything we do will bring either not bring glory to God or bring glory to God.

01:05:42

And him allowing Satan to fall from an angelic being to an angel of darkness and the great deceiver and accuser of the brothers will bring

01:05:54

God glory. And I think it helps us to understand that we are not just robotic beings.

01:06:00

Because if there was no adversary, we could easily be just robotic beings.

01:06:06

So God allows that evil in the world to, number one, give us a volitional opportunity to honor him and to glorify him, to follow him, and to glorify him through our obedience.

01:06:21

So hopefully that helps. I know it's a short answer, but I think in the grand scheme of things, that's why

01:06:28

Satan was allowed to fall and be the adversary of the holy one,

01:06:34

God. It was short, but I think it was very concise and profound.

01:06:40

So I think that did a good job. So yeah, our time, you know, we are kind of at that time anyway.

01:06:48

And like I said, we don't have a lot of questions. I think that's okay, because your presentation was very, very thorough and gave us a lot to think about.

01:06:57

So I think especially because of the sensitive topics of some of the things you went over, we'll go ahead and end our public time and let the people who are in Zoom ask some questions if they'd like to make it a little more personal and ask some questions off the public.

01:07:15

So before we do that, though, we'd really like to, one of the ways that we thank our speakers is just making sure that people know about their ministries and how to find them.

01:07:26

So please tell people again about the ministries that you represent and how people can get in touch with them.

01:07:33

Yeah, absolutely. I represent Mark Henry Ministries, and you can find

01:07:39

Mark Henry Ministries on YouTube, but also by going to MarkHenryMinistries .com.

01:07:46

I also represent Olive Tree Ministries. Again, you can find Olive Tree Ministries and Jan Markell on YouTube and Rumble and Facebook and Twitter and all kinds of other social media platforms.

01:07:58

But the best is to just go to OliveTreeViews .org. That's OliveTreeViews .org.

01:08:06

And then you can find me there if you have questions. My email is just Josh at Olive Tree Views and I would love to interact with you.

01:08:17

Okay, great. A lot of us are big fans of Jan Markell and we listen to her regular program every

01:08:23

Friday. She's such a blessing. I'm glad that we got to promote that too.

01:08:32

And just as a reminder, we are Creation Fellowship C &T and you can find out a list of our upcoming speakers.

01:08:40

We still have a few more for the rest of 2023 when we're working on our list for 2024.

01:08:47

But you can find those by typing in tinyurl .com forward slash

01:08:52

CF Santee. That's C like Creation, F like Fellowship. Santee is spelled

01:08:58

S -A -N -T -E -E. And next week, November 2nd, as controversial as some of the things that Pastor Josh shared tonight, next week is probably going to be one of our most controversial topics ever.

01:09:13

We've done it once before and found that to be true. We are going to speak about why the earth could not be flat.

01:09:23

So we are welcoming back one of our great friends, John Harris.

01:09:28

He's the director of Living Waters Europe. So he'll be getting up in the middle of the night for him to join us.

01:09:33

So we look forward to that. We invite you all to join us. And with that, we're going to go ahead and sign off.