So let's go to a text in the Bible in the book of Revelations chapter 12 verse 11.
And I would like very much even though we may have a slightly different versions that
we are reading together, you know, Revelations 12, 11, and it's the Word of God that we read.
Let's read it. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the
word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death. Let's do it again,
because this is a proclamation. Okay, this is the first headline on the other side of eternity.
You see, this is the Lord proclaiming the final result of the Super Bowl, you know, and he is like
reading the newspaper on a Saturday night, but reading there the Monday morning headlines.
You know, you already know what happens Sunday. And when he says, when it says day, it means you
and me. When he says him, it means Satan. And he says that you and I defeated Satan. And then it
gives us the formula to do that. So let's read it with a lot of conviction and feeling. And they
overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony,
and they did not love their life even to death. Look at the three elements that we have in this
verse. It says that Satan was defeated, number one, by the blood of the Lamb. This is what our Lord
Jesus did at Calvary. He shed his blood and that was a first blow. But the second one is the word
of our testimony. Whose testimony? Yours and mine. What kind of message we preach? Not only
the testimony of our conversion, but also the testimony of our preaching. And then there is a
third element, you know, which should be added to the shed blood of Jesus into the word of our
testimony and is our willingness to die if necessary. They love not their lives unto death.
So I want to make a foundational statement. The Christian life is a struggle.
It's a struggle. That's biblical teaching. We struggle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities and power. It's a struggle. And what does a struggle mean?
Well, when you have answered the question, how are you doing with, well, I'm struggling. What do
you mean? I'm still in the game, but I'm falling behind. There's one moment that I'm on top and
the next moment I'm under. And unfortunately, you know, Satan has been successful in infiltrating
the church and having the church teach us that the Christian life is totally devoid of struggles.
But we struggle. Now we know what the outcome is, but before we get the crown, we have to fight.
We have to have a warfare mentality and there are moments when we are hit and there are moments
when we hit back. I have made Psalm 19, the Psalm from 1992. You know, it begins with the universe,
the heavens, you know, and then it ends with a human heart. And it says, let the meditation of my heart
and the speech of my mouth be pleasant before thee, O Lord. And then it closes, O Lord, my rock
on firm enough for me to make that statement. And what is the next word? And my redeemer.
So that anytime I fail, there is grace available, you know, to punch me up together and put me back
on the rock to make the statement again, that the meditation of my heart, you know, and the words of
my mouth are going to be pleasing to the Lord. So that's my rock. I stand on it, but then I failed.
Then he's my redeemer. And then he puts me back together in shape to stand on the rock.
So foundation statement number one, the Christian walk is a struggle, is a spiritual warfare against
not a system, but against the one behind the system, Satan himself.
Now, when in a state of war, you can live it. When your country is at war and there is total
mobilization, you can be a deserter, which means you switch lines and you go to the enemy.
You can be a POW or you can be a Marine. Those are the only choices we have. There are no other
choices. We either switch sides and we fight on the enemy side. Most of us will say, no way,
I'll never do that. But unfortunately, a big segment of the church are POWs.
And many, many churches are nothing more than a collection of glorified POW camps
with people trying to last until their commander comes back to rescue them. You know, they are
hanging in there to see what will happen because I cannot endure this. I cannot overcome sin.
I cannot lead anybody to the Lord. I'm so broken inside. There is no joy. Lord, come soon.
And we have even developed a theology to fit that mold, just to make absolutely sure that
every dispensation, including the dispensation of grace ends in failure because it responds to a
POW mentality. We have to say everything is going to get from worse to worse, even the church.
In my hometown, there is a church that when they give a report to the congregation once a year,
if there was a decrease in membership, they say we have good news. The Lord is here.
We used to be 120, but praise God, we are 92, but we are good.
Now, General Patton told a bunch of new recruits in Europe, you know, General Patton,
the colorful commander. He said, I'm sure some jerk back in Washington told you that the secret
to win the war is to die for your country. He said, I'm sure you will die for your country.
The secret to win the war is to die for your country. That is a lie. The secret to win the
war is to make the enemy die for his country. And this is also true in a spiritual warfare.
I believe that there are moments when we are down and almost out, you know, when we are hanging in
there and we have to lose gracefully. But if we are going to preach the gospel to every creature,
we have to begin to win, so to speak, spiritually gracefully, you know, with godliness, with
radiance, with transparency, but we have to win. And that's why I want to say again, our foundational
verse, Revelation 12, 11, we defeated him through the blood of the lamb already shed through the
word of our testimony. That's our choice, depending on our walk of holiness and because we are willing
to fight. I intend to cover four different subjects. The first one today is a subject of a spiritual
warfare in general. It's a spiritual warfare, a new fad. Who was a spiritual warfare 20 years ago,
50 years ago? It is a new thing. And I would like for all of us to examine the sacred records
according to Luke dealing with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I will submit to you that
on the cross something happened and they are Jesus and Satan fought it off all the way to the end.
And when we understand what happened at the cross, we are bail ourselves of the most powerful weapon
in the struggle against the principalities and power that control the darkness of this world.
Have you ever thought, how can it be that when Jesus died in what appears to be his moment of
greatest defeat, and I'm using these words carefully in what appears to be his greatest defeat,
his enemies represented by the Roman centurion and by the crowd went away repentant
and convinced that he was divine and his friends who spent three years with him went away discouraged
and locked themselves up behind locked doors. Have you ever addressed that question in your Bible studies?
How can it be that in what appears to be his defeat, his enemies go away convinced
and his friends go away defeated? And I think the law foresaw that when in John 8 to 28,
after having a very spicy hot discussion argument with some of his adversaries, he told them,
Jesus therefore said, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he
and I do nothing on my own initiative but I speak these things as the Father taught me.
And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, but I always do the things that are
pleasing to him. This is a prophecy that I hope I'll be able to show in the course of our
presentation today that was fulfilled at Calvary. The Lord Jesus said, when you lift me up,
then you will know. Now we have interpreted that in a broader context, meaning well,
once Jesus is lifted up, the generations that will come to believe in him will know that the
Father sent him. But Jesus is saying this to people that eventually crucify him. He says,
then you will know and then then puts the timeframe around the cross.
So let's examine what happened on the cross and why is it that his adversaries were the way
convinced and his enemies and his friends were in a way doubting. But before I get into that,
let me bring some closure to the question, is spiritual warfare a new fad? No. The Bible
opens with spiritual warfare. God created the beautiful world. Satan infiltrated the world.
He conspired, he deceived, and he took over the stewardship of the world. Genesis three and six,
the Bible opens with spiritual warfare. There is an entire book, the book of Job,
dedicated to a spiritual warfare, the struggle between men, between good and evil,
with men as a trophy that either one is trying to get. The New Testament begins with spiritual
warfare. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Satan made his move. And what did he try to do? Kill
Jesus. And what did he do through Herod? He had every child under two years of age slaughtered
because he wanted to kill. Now try to picture the first Christmas. Every baby that came into this
world was property of the prince of the air, Satan. Every person living under the sun was property
of Satan, right? I mean, there was no one here that Satan did not control. The Bible says that
we were like the rest, children of wrath. Then in that first Christmas, someone is born over whom
Satan has no control. Now picture how Satan might have felt. And the only way you have to illustrate
it is to picture yourself taking, you know, a sun tan, you know, by a swimming pool, relax, and
then a tiny red ant begins to climb over your legs. Now it's on your leg, which is your property,
but there is an ant there. You don't control it. Something is out of control. So you get up quickly.
What is going on? Satan knew that something went wrong because there was somebody moving
in his kingdom without reporting to central headquarters. And he was trying to get out of
his kingdom. And it took him quite some time, you know, in base on the command that Herod gave to
those that went to do the slaughter. I think it's safe to speculate that it took him two years to
find out that in Bethlehem something has happened. And then the Lord spoke to Joseph and say, okay,
Joseph, things are getting tough here. Take baby Jesus and go where? To Egypt. I mean, that was
the last place what Satan would look for Jesus to kill him. That will be like looking for President
Bush in Baghdad during the Gulf War. Nobody will think of that, you know, that the savior of Israel
will be in hiding in Egypt. And then when finally the day comes for Jesus to come back, he doesn't
go back to Judea, where probably there were a couple of demons on assignment watching, you know,
whether he will show up or not. But he went to Nazareth because can anything good come from there?
And he's racing there, you know, kind of incognito, you know, growing to maturity until finally the
day comes when he goes to the synagogue and there he reads the prophecy and he says, today, this
scripture is being fulfilled before your very eyes. And what was Jesus promising them? To heal the sick,
to open the eyes of the blind, to heal the broken hearted. And what did the people try to do?
Do you remember what they tried to do? They tried to kill him. Now you don't kill somebody who comes
with good news. So I think it's sound speculation to say that Satan agitated them to kill him,
but they couldn't kill the Lord Jesus. And I never understood fully what Jesus said to John the
Baptist until I began to get some insights into spiritual warfare. I always sympathize with John
the Baptist. If I were John the Baptist and Jesus came to me to be baptized, I would say, no way,
no way I can baptize the son of God. I can baptize him in a baptism of repentance. He's a holy one.
Never made sense to me. Quite honestly, I have been in the ministry quite a few years
until I understood what happened. Here you have John the Baptist baptizing people that are the
property of Satan before he dunks them. And after they come up, let me imagine for a moment, a couple
demons, they are, you know, with a computer printout and they say, Oh, there comes 17 dash HB. Okay.
Sinner going down, dry, sin and going down, wet, sin and coming up, check, check. Okay. So they are
checking everybody's property of Satan, you know? So what, uh, well, John the Baptist was running
as far as Satan is concerned is a sinner's car wash. You know, sinners came in, they were washing,
they came out. Then Jesus comes in and because John's baptism was a baptism for repentance,
Jesus goes under and when he comes up, the father says, this is my son, my beloved son, in whom I am
well pleased. What does that mean? He is sinless. He doesn't show up on your computer printout.
God threw his hat in the ring and he said, go ahead, Satan, make my day. From that moment on,
you see a tremendous increase in demonic activity in the gospels. In fact, somebody took the work
of taking all the references in the Bible to Jesus, earthly ministry, and they came to the
conclusion that between 30 and 40% of every verse dealing with Jesus, earthly ministry has to do
with spiritual warfare, casting out demons or rebuking the devil or dealing with the works of
the devil. Why was it that Jesus will command the demons not to speak? Why is it that Jesus will
tell those that he healed, keep it quiet, don't make a big fuss about it? Well, historically,
we used to explain that away by saying he didn't want cheap publicity, but I think an answer meant
to you by way of a speculation that probably what Jesus was trying to avoid was Satan showing his
strategy to crown him King of the Jews. You see, because if Jesus were to become the King of the
Jews, then he will be one of the many Kings on this earth reporting to him. And I never understood
what appears to be Jesus' lack of courtesy on Palm Sunday until I saw it in a context of spiritual
warfare. He is walking into Jerusalem with the whole town welcoming him, people taking off their
clothes and putting them on the ground and Jesus walking over them and, you know, Hosanna, blessed
is the one that comes in the name of the Lord. It's like if the whole nation was ready to welcome him,
but that was not the welcome that Jesus wanted because to Jesus, he was not ready to welcome
him because to Jesus Calvary was the goal. And what does he do? He insults the religious establishment.
He overturns the tables. He lashes at them. He humiliates them publicly. And in so doing causes
the anger. This is my own conclusion, the anger that the religious establishment felt from that
moment on caused Satan to lose control over them from their own was a roller coaster,
crucify him, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. And then finally he comes to Calvary.
And look what happens. Let's go to the story according to Luke chapter 23.
And Luke chapter 23 verse 44. And it was now about the sixth hour and darkness fell over the whole
land until the ninth hour. The sun being obscured and the veil of the temple was torn in two.
And Jesus crying out loud said, father into thy hands I commit my spirit.
And having said this, he breathed his last. Now, when the centurion saw what had happened,
he began praising God saying, certainly this man was innocent. And all the multitudes who came
together for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened, began to return beating their
breast. And all his acquaintances and the women who accompanied him from Galilee were
standing at the distance, seeing these things. Keep your rival open if you please, because we want to
take a second look at this. Here we have the Lord Jesus being crucified. We have a Roman centurion
who executed the crucifixion. He's the one that made sure that the crucifixion was executed
properly. There you have the crowd around the cross, the very same crowd that say crucify him.
And there you have his friends, except that there is a variable when it comes to his friends.
What is the variable? The variable is that his friends were at a distance. They were at a
distance. They were at a distance, which means they were not in close proximity to the cross,
but at the distance. And what happens there? Well, all of a sudden, the Roman centurion
praises God. And then you have the multitude that went away beating their breast. They are the ones
who asked for Jesus to be crucified. And they are the ones saying, what a terrible thing we have done.
And there is no reference to what happened to his friends and acquaintances, but we know from other
passages that they were in fear, locked behind doors. What caused that change?
That was quite a change, wasn't it? In Latin America, favorite sport is soccer.
You know, the most dangerous profession in Latin America is to be a referee in a Super Bowl game.
You know, when you have 120,000 fans packing in stadium and playing Super Bowl, any call you make,
you're going to have 60,000 people angry at you. And that's the only way to get the
people angry at you. That's why the main stadium where soccer Super Bowls are played have a moat
around the field, moat, M-O-A-T, barbed wire, you know, about 10, 12 feet high, police dogs on the
inside, tear gas canisters and soldiers, water cannons, and a helipad to bring in and out the
referee. It's a very dangerous thing. And when a crowd gets out of control, you don't just say,
okay, gang, time is up, go back, be sensible now. When they get out of control, they are out of
control and they burn the stadium and they burn the businesses and they do terrible things to even
to women and children. Now here we have something worse than that because that crowd was agitated
by demons and they change. And here you have a Roman centurion, okay, you don't rise to the rank
of Roman centurion by organizing potlucks, you get to the rank of Roman centurion by killing people
and making sure that you train people well in the terrible profession of killing.
So this is not the kind of guy that you won't call in on you for your daughter's hand.
You know, this is a rowdy bunch and he's praising God. So let's go back to the text to see what is
it that caused them to change like that. Well, look at verse 47, when the centurion saw what had
happened. So we already know from the text, this is not a speculation that what caused the change
in the centurion is what? What he saw. Now we go to verse 48, it says that the multitudes that came
together for this spectacle when they observed what had happened. So what changed them? What they saw.
What they saw, right? So we already know that. Now the question is, what did they see?
But to compound that question, what could they have seen if for three hours there was no light on the
earth? When you woke up this morning, which way did you direct your eyes to? To a source of light
in the room. Now the Bible tells us this is not a speculation that there was darkness over the
over the earth for three hours. So we know that they changed based on what they saw.
But we wonder how can they have seen if there was darkness for so long? That was Super Bowl Sunday
for Satan also. And he has been trying to discourage Jesus. The joy of the Lord is what?
A strength. Heaviness of heart is what? A weakness. The night before he was able to bring so much
heaviness of heart on Jesus that he felt that his soul was weak even to the point of death.
And now as Jesus was dying there, I think it's perfectly safe to assume, and I hope I'll be able
to prove from the scriptures now, that Satan and his demons were all around the cross. Now most
now my speculation is that that concentration of darkness has to do with demons on two counts.
What is my experience in Latin America? Every time we deal with heavy, heavy witchcraft,
for we have to deal with a coven of witches or we move into a home that is dedicated to the
practice of witchcraft. No matter how many lights are on, there's always a gloominess about that.
Almost a gloominess. I remember leading to the Lord somebody who was an individual that was totally
demonized and totally given to witchcraft. And I walk into the house and I was surrounded by
paraphernalia used for witchcraft. I had quite a few people praying for me before I went in.
And then, you know, the meeting was very difficult, very heavy dialogue, but eventually he received
Jesus in his heart. And when he did, he says, there is light, there is light in my house.
What happened? We also see it in the case of some demonic manifestation that they give the
impression that they project darkness. But I want to bring to parallel that a passage in the Bible,
in Revelation chapter 9, we are told that the fifth angel sounded and I saw a star from heaven,
which had fallen to the earth and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him.
And he opened the bottomless pit and what came out of it? Smoke went up out of the pit,
out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were darkened,
darkened by the smoke of the pit. And out of the smoke came forth locust upon the earth and power
was given them as the scorpions of the earth have power. Here we have a biblical instance in which
the bottomless pit was open and something came out of there that obscured the light of the sun.
Now, some theologians will tell us that that means one thing, others may tell us that they
made something different, but the fact remains that something came out of hell that obscured
the sun. But I would like to draw your attention to Colossians chapter 2. And here in Colossians
chapter 2, we are told in verse 14, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting
of decrees against us and which was hostile to us. And he took it out of the way and nailed it
to the cross. And having these on the rulers and authorities, he made the public spectacle of them,
having triumph over them at the cross. Here you have in verse 15, a reference to having
this arm, the rulers and principalities. Who are the rulers and principalities here?
Demonic powers. Now, what was the weapon that they had? What was the weapon?
Verse 14, in terms of what the weapon was, what was the weapon? It was a certificate of debt
was a certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was contrary to us.
That was the weapon that these demons were wielding at Jesus. Now, this is no speculation.
It says that this happened at the cross. And Jesus took that act, that decree away from them.
That's verse 14. In verse 15 says, and when he did that, he disarmed them. And I submit to you
that what happened at Calvary is something like this. Satan was bringing heaviness of heart upon
Jesus. Satan was going over that act and saying, look at all the sins. Look at Peter, look at John,
look at all the people that were on your team. They are here. They belong to us. You are dying
in vain. I mean, they are sinners. You represent the holy God. There is no way. But like quarterbacks
in football, Satan had one blind spot, one that he could never understand because there is nothing
in his circuitry up here to understand that. And that blind spot is called grace. And in a given
moment, and this is what Colossians says, Jesus grabbed that decree. And on the last second of
the game, he is slated between him and the cross. And he says, it is done. And he paid for it.
Satan never expected that to happen because he doesn't understand grace. You know, it's like for
us trying to understand Martian language. You know, people in Mars, I don't know what they talk.
So this was like a team that is ahead by five points in football. And they are trying to run
the clock down. And it's just a matter of time before the clock goes out and they win. But
somehow the other team grabs the ball and somebody runs the length of the field and scores a touchdown.
Six points, time out, no more time on the clock. It work against them on the speculation.
Colossians too tells us that's what Jesus did. He took the weapon away from them,
away from them, but he didn't stop there. Look at verse 15. What did he do after he took the weapon
away? He made a public spectacle of them. What do you need to have a public spectacle? You need two
things. You need a spectacle. And what is the second thing you need? Public. Now where are the
demons part of the public where the principalities and authority part of the public? No, they were
part of the show. So who was the public then? And then by inference, I submit to you by inference
that it was the Roman Centurion and the crowd having seen what they saw, having observed these
things. They said these men is righteous. And Jesus' prophecy from Matthew from John 8 28 was
fulfilled. When you lift me up, then you will see that I came from the father.
This is a very, very important principle in spiritual warfare because when we preach
about the shed blood of Jesus, the word of our testimony has to reflect what actually happened
in Calvary. That's why Colossians chapter two puts us right there. Calvary. That's when Jesus
took the decrease away. That's when Jesus made the public spectacle of him. That's when he puts them
to shame. When I came to the Lord at age 13, I was very excited about it. And being a preacher,
I was set aside for the ministry at age 14. So I have been preaching the gospel for 42 years,
going into my 43rd year. When I began to preach the gospel, practically every Easter I'm preaching,
I'm preaching because preachers on Easter is spiritual super bowl week for us. We preach
about what happened there. But through the years, until I understood this passage,
I go to have difficulty Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I will preach on Thursday, Friday and
Saturday on the technicality of the death of Jesus, but I will wait for Sunday morning.
When he rose, yes, he rose indeed. That was a day of victory. But in the meantime,
I will go to that story that Satan was celebrating his victory, which has no biblical basis,
but many preachers, including myself until recently. And Satan was celebrating his victory
in the pit of hell when Jesus showed up and he said, give me the keys of Hades and health
and took it away and so forth. But that didn't happen in hell. In Colossians two, it says it
happened here at the cross. So when I learned that I say, okay, what does it mean to preach Christ
and him crucified? And with that in mind, we go for a final point to first Corinthians chapter one.
Here in first Corinthians chapter one, you have Paul making an incredible statement,
one that I had great difficulty because of my Catholic background understanding. He says,
first Corinthians chapter one, verse 22, for indeed Jews ask for signs and Greek search for wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified to Jews, a stumbling block into the Gentiles foolishness,
but to those who are the call, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
of God. So Paul is saying, when I preach, I preach Christ and him how crucified. What does he mean by
that? Behind the massive, massive, massive number of people coming to the Lord in Argentina
is the principle I'm about to initiate. When you preach Christ crucified, you preach it, not only
to the people, but you preach it primarily to the principalities and power.
You preach the manifold grace of God to the rulers over that particular region.
In the old days, we used to tell people that didn't know Jesus, what a great life we have in Jesus.
We would tell them, oh, you should be like us. We have no fear of death. We have this, we have that.
But if we would have had our eyes open, we would have seen that we were talking to people
through the barbed wire of a POW camp. And even if people chose, they couldn't come out
because they weren't held captive there. If we would have looked more closely, we would have seen
that they were blind because if the gospel is hidden, it's hidden among those who the God of
this world has blinded, says the Bible. So it's not enough to tell the people about Jesus,
we have to set them free. We have to bind the guards and those that are guarding over them.
We have to bring them under authority so that the people can run for the gate.
When you try to analyze the dynamic church growth in the church of Omar Cabaret, that has
over a hundred thousand members, or Hector Hemanic, that has a hundred and fifty thousand,
this is the biblical principle. When they preach, they tell the people about Jesus,
but primarily they preach Jesus and him crucified to the principalities in power.
Now, how does that work? I'll get into greater detail tomorrow night when we talk about the
power of prayer. But let me say this to make the point tonight. Satan is a liar and a cheater.
Lord Jesus Christ already shed his blood and he paid the price for everybody on this planet
to be safe. Cannot be added to it. So the property has come out of escrow. We have the deed of trust
in our hands, but there are squatters in the property. They don't want to move out.
Now we can read it to them, but they won't move. They don't want to move out.
Now we can read it to them, but they won't move. They are not gentlemen. So we have to go there
and serve an eviction notice. We have to tell them we have authority from the court
to evict you and throw you out. And this is what we mean by Christ and him crucified.
Pastors come together, they pray and they fast for several days. And before a major crusade,
they proclaim the grace of God to the principalities and powers. And they remind them that they have no
right over the souls of those people because Jesus shed his blood for them. And they begin to preach
the word of their testimony, you know, what they believe. And then they go and they do a spiritual
warfare. And when you give an invitation, many, many times people run forward to receive Jesus
the way a campy will run when the gate is blown open by a stick of dynamite.
I submit to you that the fact that Christ crucified means two things, the power of God
and the wisdom of God, that the sequence is important. I believe that the sequence is as
divine inspired as the words in the scripture. And could it be that here in the West,
we have altered the equation. We preach the wisdom of God so that people will learn who God is.
And having received him intellectually, they will begin to be trained in discipleship classes
to experience the power of his resurrection. And it takes forever. That's why our churches
are packed with people that don't tithe. They lie, they cheat, they watch terrible programs on
television, they read the Playboy magazine, they do incredible things, they cheat on a number of
things. And they say, well, I'm still working out my salvation, you know, I'm safe, but
I'm struggling with this. Whereas in Argentina, you can see homosexuals that came to the Lord,
and in that moment they were changed. And then when their mind was blank, finally, you know,
from all the circuitry that the devil had there, that was thrown away. And they begin to be taught
the wisdom of God. They don't have to cope with it, they overcome it. They get married,
they get married, they have children, they have happy homes. And when you say what is,
and you ask them, what is the key to that such a tremendous change in the US and in the West,
it will take a thousand five hundred and forty three hours of counseling just to get somebody
near where you are. Have you undergone counseling? No, not at all. What is it?
Well, let me tell you very simple, the power of God. Something touched me. I don't know what it is,
but one moment I was dead and then I was alive. So many times, some of us act like the Pharisees
when we see a miracle. Give me the credentials of the one who did this. How can this be? Is he a
sinner or not? And the blind man says, listen, I don't know. One thing I know, I was blind
and now I see. I don't have the wisdom to explain it, but I have the power, the proof of the power
to tell you that something happened to me. And you know, since I have modified my approach,
going to a city and doing many things that I'll be sharing with you through these sessions,
but especially on that first night, this is the message that I preach with the backing of all
the pastors and the backing of thousands of prayer intercessors. I say, I'm here to proclaim
that Jesus Christ died for this city. I'm here to serve an eviction notice in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ himself to all of you with circles, liars and cheaters, demons of deceit. We are going
to lift up Jesus Christ high. And when we do that, the Bible says he will attract many to himself.
So could it be that we have inverted the order that we want people to learn about Jesus before
as a precondition to understand his power? You don't understand power.
You experience power. Atomic power cannot be understood nor it has to be understood by an
entire population before you drop a bomb on it. Whether they know what an atom is or not,
it's going to do the trick because it has intrinsic intrinsic value in it. And the power of God
operates to produce something so that the wisdom of God can take root.
Look at your own life today in the mirror of the word of God.
The Bible says that we are in a struggle.
If your adversary has a driver's license and a social security number,
you have singled out the wrong suspect. Your enemies and my enemies are not people that
wear skin on their bodies. There's only one enemy that you and I have, Satan and his demons.
People are not coming to the Lord, not because of a social system, not because of an economic
system. Those systems are the work of the devil. But the master puppeteer is the one that we are
after. Accept the fact that you have the incredible privilege of being a soldier for Jesus.
When you're a soldier, sometimes you fire, other times you're fired on. Sometimes you wound the
enemy, sometimes you are wounded. And begin to live on the edge of being pressed on every side,
knowing that you'll never be crushed. Begin to live on that edge where you're going to be persecuted,
but never forsaken. Begin to live with the tension that you're going to be struck down,
but not destroyed. Because before the gladiator could cut the throat of the one that went under,
he had to look to the one in authority. And if he went like this, he cut the throat. If he went
like that, he couldn't do it. And before Satan can do that to you, he has to check with God.
And God will never go like this on you and me. He always go like that. The worst enemy for any
ministry, for any visionary, for any pastor is the comfort zone. It's when we don't live on that edge
of being struck down and spare. And then we get up with a new dimension of grace every morning
and we go for it and we score and then we score again. But we never lose the game because we live
on that edge. How do I apply this to your finances, to your time, to your family,
to the meditations of your heart, to the saying of your mouth, and then finally to those relatives
of yours that are not walking with Jesus today. Why is it that they are not walking with Jesus
if we have promises that God will give us a household? Why is it that God wishes that everyone
come to repentance, that they haven't come to repentance yet? There is only one explanation.
The enemy has them. I challenge you to make a list of 20 people that you are in touch with
who are not believers and begin to pray for them every day, actively, and proclaim the fact,
the word of your testimony, that Jesus died for them and that Satan has no right to their souls
because that act of the decrease was then individual, was collected, everybody's name was on it,
and begin to pray for them. But serving eviction notices on the powers that control them,
you will be surprised how soon many of them, if not all of them, will come to the Lord Jesus Christ
because he will be preaching Christ and him crucified. The power of God first, the wisdom of God second.
So many times we are trying to teach dead people things that they cannot hear because they are dead.
But when we begin to preach the power of God and people experience that power, they do what Paul says.
I was commissioned to open their eyes so that they will turn from darkness to light and from the
dominion of Satan to God and find forgiveness of sins and find out what their inheritance is among the safe.
Power first, wisdom second. Let's pray.
Father God, we thank you so much that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross.
We thank you so much that he shed his blood once and for all for the sin of all mankind.
And we thank you that when he took that certificate of decrease away from Satan
and he nailed it to the cross, it became inaccessible to Satan forever. Never again
he can claim us because he shed blood of Jesus. Father, I pray now that all of us
will receive the power through the Holy Spirit to realize that we are at war.
And we will develop a warfare mentality to use our energy, our time, our money, our contacts,
everything to inflict damage on the enemy, even if it cost us our lives.
Father God, I pray for any area in the mind of any one of us that the enemy has captured
and that is keeping us from walking into the fullness of your power and from craving after
your wisdom. And Father, for those areas that the enemy has conquered, we submit them to the
Lordship of Jesus Christ and we rebuke the forces of evil and we proclaim that the Lord Jesus is
my Lord and my Savior and everything I am and everything I have belongs to him.
And him alone and having submitted to you, Father, we resist the devil
and we confess what the Bible says that he shall flee from us.
Father, bring our relatives to you, bring our neighbors, bring our friends and bring our cities
because Jesus died for them once and for all. In Jesus name, we pray, praising you and worshiping
you. Amen.
Amen.
Remember last night, our main text with Revelation 12.11.
When it comes to spiritual warfare, you know, we have to understand two things.
That we are left on this earth to be perfected by the work of the Holy Spirit,
as we learn and apply biblical principles, for the purpose of extending the Kingdom of God.
So that the normal state of affairs between the Church and Satan is warfare.
There is no other thing that is normal but warfare.
Now in warfare, you can have one of three status.
You can be a deserter, which means you leave your camp and you join the enemy's camp.
You can be a POW, a prisoner of war, or you can be a marine.
But you are always at war, always at war.
Now, let's read again, like we did last night, Revelation 12-11.
As we review quickly what we shared yesterday, as an introduction to what I'll share today,
how prayer works in the context of spiritual warfare.
Let's all read out loud Revelation 12-11.
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony,
and they did not love their life even to death.
I want to challenge you to read it in the first person of the Pluto.
And we overcame Satan. Let's call him by his proper name, Satan.
Okay? So that we transfer the whole verse to the first person of the plural pronoun.
Okay? And we overcame Satan because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of our testimony
and because we did not love our lives even to death.
What is this verse telling you today?
What it's telling you is implying warfare, okay?
Because this is Monday morning when the headlines tell you who won the Super Bowl.
So it says that we won the Super Bowl.
But here is not the football game, here is warfare.
So what this implies is warfare between us and Satan.
But what are the elements that give us the victory?
The blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, and our willingness to fight.
And I want to make a foundational statement as we open tonight.
Successful, victorious, spiritual warfare depends entirely on an understanding of the atonement of Jesus Christ.
And if we do not understand the atonement, we are not conducting amphibious landing, but just parades.
And the difference between a parade and an amphibious landing is that in a parade you show the weapons,
you brag about it, but they are not loaded and they can not do any harm.
Why is the atonement so central?
Let's go back to Revelation 12-11.
What is the first element?
The blood of the Lamb.
And what follows?
Based on our understanding of what the shedding of blood of Jesus means comes our testimony.
And based on the boldness of that testimony comes the level of engagement.
So what I tried to highlight last night is that there is a supernatural invisible dimension to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ
that affects the principalities and powers.
And that when we preach Christ and Him crucified, we preach it not only to the captives,
but I dare say, primarily to the principalities and power.
Because they are the ones that need to be reminded.
And unless we understand the atonement, and unless we understand that it was at that point that Jesus took the weapons away
and made the public spectacle of them, you know, unless we understand that when we are quoting verses
regarding the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we are making inroads for the Kingdom of God,
spiritual warfare will never mean a thing to us.
So understanding the atonement is basic to spiritual warfare.
Tonight, I want to address the issue of how prayers play a key role in extending the Kingdom of God and leading people to Jesus Christ.
And this again goes back to the atonement.
Because when Satan lost at Calvary, he did what any football fan will do the next day after his team lost the Super Bowl.
They will downplay the other team's victory.
And they will say, well, you know, our quarterback had a cold and the umpire did a lousy job, but just wait next year, you know.
And that's exactly what Satan does with the atonement.
He tries to play it down.
Whereby some people believe consciously or subconsciously that Jesus died just for a few and not for the entire world.
And from that assumption, we develop very sophisticated, well, quote unquote, documented doctrines that lead us to believe that God already took care of that,
that he already chose a few and only those few are going to be saved.
So don't bother about it because God knows what he's doing.
That's why one of my favorite verses in the scriptures in Second Peter three nine,
but he says that God wishes that no one should perish.
But how many come to repentance?
All come to repentance.
So every time my wife and I land in a city, I cannot help it.
You know, as I drive around, as I walk, I said, Lord,
I asked my host usually how many people live here?
And when they say, well, one million, half a million, seven hundred thousand, immediately, Second Peter three nine flashes in my mind.
Seven hundred thousand people for whom Jesus died.
And then I begin to wonder what will it take to reach this city?
A couple of friends of ours took Ruth and I to San Francisco.
And we spend there an evening having dinner on one of these restaurants, you know,
that move around and you get a view of the city.
What a spiritual thrill that was, because after one hour, you know, excellent food, I had a complete view of the city.
I was able to pray for every angle and the three hundred and sixty degree angle.
And I went home just chewing on and say, Lord, what will it take to reach six hundred and thirty eight thousand San Francisco to Jesus?
So I want to challenge you to think about your family.
Think about your neighbors and think about your city.
Christ died for everybody.
And Christ wants everybody to come to repentance.
Everybody. That's why when we read in the Bible in Matthew twenty eight,
that we must go to the entire world and tell everybody, you know, about Jesus and make disciples.
Is that a suggestion? No. What is that? A command.
It's a command. Now, a command is different than a suggestion in the sense that there is a penalty attached to it.
And if you don't obey it, you pay for it.
If I say one of my children, would you mind doing this or that?
They know it's an option. But when I call them by their name and their middle name and I say so and so, would you do this right now?
They know that it's a command that has a penalty attached to it.
You do it or do something.
Now, the Lord Jesus has told you and me that we are to go to the entire world.
And here comes the understanding of the atonement. Who did Christ die for? Did he die for the entire world?
If he did, then we must go to the entire world.
And then when we read that, the question comes, how can we do it? How can we do it? It's impossible.
And then we try to do what children do and they don't want to do what we tell them to do.
They say, oh, is that what you meant? I thought you just wanted me to wash the windows of the car.
I never understood you want me to vacuum it, you know, and clean it on the inside.
And oh, no, I'm so sorry. That was my understanding.
So that we begin to chip away at the command so that we say we are preaching the gospel as the Lord gives us grace.
And as the Lord opens doors and in the measure that he leads us to the chosen ones, you know, we'll do it.
And then we are just chipping away from it.
So that leads us to a foundational question. And it's this.
If we are to evangelize the entire world in the same fashion in which the early church evangelized the most powerful empire of its time,
why is it that there is so little power demonstrated in the gospel today?
Because when you read the Book of Acts, you see 11 men that were commissioned in the last chapter of Matthew to preach the gospel all over the world.
And then you see this place of power, power encounters all over until, you know, in a couple of centuries, the gospel has reached even the emperor, even the emperor.
So the question is, why so little power demonstrated in the gospel today?
And a parallel question is, why so little impact on an increasingly godless society?
The early church conquer over hostile governments, overcame persecution, endured martyrdom, defeated pagan religions and overcame deep prejudices.
Do you realize that the early church had no money, no television equipment, no printing presses, nothing.
And they overcame all that.
Let me ask you this question, and this is a very probing one.
Must we face the world today with less than what the first century Christians had?
Must we?
As you go to Moscow or Chicago or San Francisco or New York, and you are going to preach the gospel to everybody there,
must you face the task at hand with less than what the early church had?
Has the promise given in Matthew 28, 18 through 20 failed?
What about Mark 16 and 20?
And they went out and they preach everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word that they preach by the signs that follow.
Now was that a one time shot? And that's it?
It's a very, very, very probing, probing question.
Why is there such a gap between the early church and the church in America today?
Why?
It seems to us that the early church knew something that we have forgotten.
In Acts chapter one, verse eight, they are told that you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
And that's exactly what happened.
I challenge you tonight to read the book of Acts of one city.
You know, there is something that you get out of a book of the Bible.
When you sit down and you read it until you are done, do that.
And you're going to see that the book of Acts is basically the record of ordinary men and you with extraordinary power from on high who literally turned the world upside down.
The book of Acts is a book of power and prayer, prayer on the part of men, power in response to those prayers coming from God.
Prayer and power, prayer and power.
If you want to do an outline of the book of Acts, if you are given an assignment to do an outline, you just go to one prayer and then there are a couple of chapters explaining the outworking of that prayer until you get to another prayer.
And then in another section and so forth is prayer in power, prayer in power, prayer in power.
The only explanation, the only explanation that theologians and social scientists can give for the incredible success of the early church is God's power in response to believe in prayer on the part of his people.
There is no other explanation.
There was no money.
There was no political status.
There was no special training.
What was it?
It was prayer.
Has the gospel lost its power today?
No, a thousand times.
No, then what is wrong?
These are the questions that the church in Argentina began to ask itself before the revival broke out.
And we began to observe in Argentina that generally speaking, our prayers were not much more effective than the prayers of the Oriental religions.
We will have seminary professors and denominational leaders who have never seen a miracle or a power encounter or a dramatic answer to prayer.
We also found out that our meetings, except for the purity of doctrine, were not much different than the meetings of the Mormon church or the Jehovah's Witnesses.
It was just a meeting.
But the saddest statement came when we realized that our elders meetings were no better than the meetings of the Board of Directors of IBM or Hewlett Packard.
Because success always hinged on the availability of money, personnel, and effort that went into it.
We came to the conclusion that if the Board of Elders of many of our churches were replaced by good, well-meaning men from the world, they could run the church because there was no difference.
We came to the conclusion that our church was a prayerless church, and as such, it was a powerless church.
And you know what was a tragedy coming out of this? This led us to develop a theology of powerlessness.
A theology designed to explain why God will not do what he said he will do no matter what.
In my hometown, there was a church that at the annual meeting when the membership decreased, the presiding elder smiled and he said, I have good news for you, brethren.
God is purifying the flock. We used to be 128, but this year, praise God, we are down to 92 that are fully committed.
We developed this theology that was looking for excuses for God, where brand new believers will come to us with sparks in their eyes saying,
Pastor, let me tell you the Bible verse that I found. Look, it's a promise that me and my household shall be saved.
And I'm claiming my relative for Christ. And we will say, wait a moment, young men, let me explain to you what it means.
And by the time we were through explaining what it meant, it no longer meant what it meant when it was first written in the first century.
We were like lawyers just putting qualifiers all over so that God will not be embarrassed.
You know, can you imagine what happens if we pray for something that never comes to happen?
What was the problem? The problem basically was ignorance.
We have become ignorant of the power available to us through prayer.
And by being ignorant of that power, we have conceded a key weapon to Satan.
Because in Second Corinthians, two eleven, we are told that Satan takes advantage of us through what?
Through what? Through ignorance.
Anything that you ignore in the scriptures, Satan says this is fair game.
I can take it any time I go. And this is why some Christians are not living in full victory today,
because they are ignorant of the access that they have to God and the power available to prayer.
So in that context, I want to read with you a passage in Exodus, Chapter one.
Here in Exodus, Chapter one, if you would like to tell in your Bible so you can hear me read it from up here.
We have the story of the people of Israel as they were enslaved while they were in Egypt.
So here you have Egypt, you have Pharaoh, and you have Israel.
And I want to look at this passage the way the fathers of the church used to look at using typology.
In some circles nowadays, people throw away the Old Testament.
They say this is the law, it's done for today, just leave it there and they just focus on the new.
Now besides not agreeing with it, I think they are ignoring a big chunk of the history of the church,
especially the first two hundred years when the scriptures of the New Testament were not as available as they are today,
when the fathers of the church preach from the Old Testament, drawing parallels between the people of Israel and the church,
between Egypt and the world, and between Pharaoh and Satan.
And that's exactly what I want to do today as I try to present for you and to you what is Satan's scheme to debilitate our prayers.
Let's read the Word of God, Exodus chapter one, verses five through and on.
Verse six.
And Joseph died and all his brothers and all that generation.
But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty so that the land was filled with them.
Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.
And he said to his people, pay attention, this is a key verse, behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we come.
Let us deal cleverly with them, lest they multiply.
And in the event of war, they also join themselves to those who hate us and fight against us and depart from the land.
So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor.
And they built for Pharaohs, storage cities, python and ramses.
But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiply and the more they spread out so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.
And the Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously.
And they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and all kinds of labor in the field, all the labors which they rigorously imposed on them.
Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Cypher and the other was named Pua.
And he said, when you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them up on the birth stool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death.
But if it is a daughter, then she shall live.
Keep in mind as we walk through this passage, and if you have it there, just keep it open,
that I'm presenting to you an analogy where Pharaoh represents Satan, Egypt is the world, and the church is represented by the people of Israel.
Now, look at Pharaoh's greatest fear in verse nine.
What is his greatest fear?
Not that the children of Israel are mightier, but that the children of Israel discover that they are mightier than him.
Why is he so afraid?
Because if they find out that they are mightier, they will join those that hate him and depart from the land of captivity.
And I submit to you today that Satan's greatest fear is that the church and you and I as part of that church,
discover that in Christ we are mightier than Satan and all the demons.
This is why he has protected this skin through the years.
So much so, because every time the church rose up and fought, won.
Not once the church has been defeated, but somehow the church is no longer fighting.
Why is that?
Satan knows that we are mightier than him.
This is a fact established by God and proclaimed by the Scriptures.
The problem is that the church only knows that intellectually, but not in practice.
It's okay to talk about the power of God, but please don't try to exercise it.
It's okay to teach people that our God is a mighty God and he's the Lord of hosts,
but don't get any warfare going on around here because order in silence and quietness is what pleases God the most.
Without realizing that we are telling the winning team don't play anymore.
So this is why he came up with a plan.
And Pharaoh's plan is identical to Satan's.
Number one, to deceive them.
Number two, to dominate them.
And number three, to destroy them.
I hope I'm not doing anything out of order by asking you to say it with me out loud.
Okay, step number one, to deceive them.
Step number two, to dominate them.
Step number three, to destroy them.
So let's go again together to deceive them, to dominate them and to destroy them.
This is exactly Satan's plan for the church today and for you and me.
Look at verse 10.
Step number one, he deceived them.
He says, let us deal with them cleverly.
Why was there a need for Pharaoh to deal with Israel cleverly?
Why do you think there was a need?
Very simple.
Israel was not made up of slaves.
They were free people.
The land of Goshen was entrusted to them.
They were there like princes.
They worked that land.
That land was made available to them.
Whether they own it or not, I don't think they own it because Pharaoh owned all the land,
but they were not slaves.
But Pharaoh was saying, let's make sure that they don't realize that they are not slaves.
Israel was a free nation.
The land of Goshen was entrusted to them.
Israel was free, but Israel was enslaved.
How was it that Pharaoh, without having any right, was able to enslave Israel?
How was he able to do it?
Through ignorance.
Look at verse 6.
And Joseph had died, and all his brothers, and all that generation,
and the succeeding generations began to lose sight of their rights.
They began to lose sight of the clear understanding of who they were.
So I'm sure you know that some young kids have said, but daddy, I heard great grandpa tell us that we are free.
Shh, don't rock the boat.
Don't rock the boat.
Don't get involved into warfare.
Just play along.
Go with the flow.
Don't do any big noises.
They were enslaved because they were ignorant.
We discovered in Argentina, and I pray it will happen in America,
that the reason why our church is so powerless is because the generation that heard these promises from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the generation that rather chose to be born alive and eaten by lions than deny one word, although their stand they have died,
and through the years, succeeding generations have been chipping away on the revelation that God gave us.
And that's why Satan can move in and enslave us today.
He can enslave us and take away from us things because we no longer dare to rise up and fight.
Somebody have told us that it's better to endure than to fight.
Somebody have told us that certain things happen to everybody, so you just be patient.
Heaven will be perfect, but down here, things like that happen.
Now I'm getting to a clear distinction between what God allows to happen and what Satan brings about into our lives.
But this deception is what provides the foundation for the second step.
He deceived them.
Now, verse 11, he dominated them.
How did he dominate them? By appointing taskmasters over them.
What is a taskmaster?
A taskmaster is somebody who is very rigorous, very severe, and he tells you what to do when he chooses.
And usually he tells you to do something you don't want to do.
Deception always breeds domination.
Satan is always trying to dominate God's people.
If he can, he will, verse 11, afflict them with burdens.
Verse 13, make them serve with rigor.
Verse 14, make their lives bitter with hard bondage.
And this word rigor means that he broke their spirit through suffering that they could not endure.
It means that the suffering was so rigorous that some people couldn't take it.
And this is why we are told in Ezekiel chapter 20, verse 8, in Joshua 22, 14, that many Israelites intermarried with Egyptians because they couldn't take it anymore.
But to me, the saddest statement is at the end of verse 11.
At the end of verse 11, the people of God build up cities of storage for the enemy of the people of God.
What a sad statement.
And do you know that this is exactly what we do nowadays when we fail to recognize the promises given to us and live up to them?
Many people tell me, Ed, we hear about the revival in Argentina. We better get a thousand Bible teachers urgently down there.
You know, they need to be taught. If they are not taught, we have a big problem.
I agree.
Except that every major doctrine of demons that has damaged the church was never hatched in a revival, but was always hatched in seminaries long after the glory of God has departed.
The thought of the death of God, liberation theology, situational ethics as it applies to the scriptures, liberal thinking.
That was not hatched by new babies in Christ trying to learn something.
It was hatched by people that couldn't understand why life was so hard and why a loving God will allow so much suffering that they came up with the doctrine that became a city of storage for the enemy.
And this is why we don't realize the devastating impact that the GI Bill has had on the church in America.
When all that federal money was made available to Bible schools and seminaries for soldiers coming back from the front.
And then Bible schools and seminars began to scramble in the last last 60 years or so to upgrade quote unquote their curriculums so that they will qualify for federal money.
And you don't upgrade the biblical curriculum because that does not appeal to the bureaucrats in Washington.
You don't upgrade faith and science and wonders and godliness and righteousness.
They label that legalistic. So what do you do?
You bring the social sciences in. You bring psychology in. Freudian psychology. You bring that.
So now you look respectable. Now you can apply for money.
Now people can come, you know, from the battlefield and sign up for your school and get a degree.
And today we have deviated so much from the biblical pattern of apprenticeship when it comes to the ministry that no church will entertain an application unless the student has a degree from a prestigious seminar.
And many, many times and I'm not against seminar and pray thankful to God for my years in seminary.
But we want what we don't realize that there are strongholds in the minds of many of those graduates that amount to cities of storage doubts about the inerrancy of the scriptures.
Doubts about the deity of Jesus Christ. Doubts about the virgin birth of Jesus.
Doubts about the atonement. Who taught them that?
We did it. We did it to ourselves. We build cities of storage.
And this happens basically because when Christians fail to distinguish between a trial from God and a burden from Satan, they always develop bitterness.
And sometimes that bitterness translates into wrong theology.
You see, a trial from God and a burden from the devil are very similar on the surface.
It's like having surgery and being a star in a black in a dark alley.
In both cases, a foreign object cuts up your flesh. There is bleeding. There is pain.
They are very similar, except that you undergo surgery to get better.
And somebody is a stabbing you to make you weaker and dominate you.
And if what you are going through today is driving you away from the Lord, that is not a trial from God,
because the trials that God sent us has as their purpose that we will found ourselves lacking nothing.
But so many people today have been forced by a faulty understanding of the scriptures because they have been deceived and dominated.
They say, you know, God allowed divorce to come into my life, and I'm sure he will teach me a few good lessons about that.
And they thank God for a messy divorce.
And then people will say, my son is all messed up, you know, in drugs and sleeping with the different women every Saturday.
God allowed this trial to come in. Well, he knows why. And I just praise him and wait for the good lesson to come.
That is like banging your head against the wall to see how good it feels when you stop.
You can find that out before doing it.
I mean, God does not use divorce or drug addiction.
I mean, he has grace and mercy available to deal with the consequences.
But when Satan begins to take away your children and your money and you are driven into debt and misery and you don't know what is happening,
the time comes to stand up and fight and say no and find out what principles you are violating, what truth you have forgotten,
what wisdom you are lacking, but don't let the enemy take it away from you and thank God.
Because what that does to the Christians that do that is that Christian, even though thanking God with his lips,
he's bitter because God allowed this terrible thing to happen to me.
This is why it's so important to study the scriptures, to memorize the scripture, to send the scriptures back to God, to study, to apply.
Because unless we know what our rights are, Satan is already out there like a vacuum cleaner sucking in everything that we don't hold on to.
And so here we have a very, very sad case where people were given trials and burdens, but they were told these are not trials.
These are these are not burdens. These are trials. You should carry them graciously.
So he deceived them. He dominated them. And now we move on to verse 16.
He destroyed them. Actually, he began to destroy them.
How did he do that? Very cleverly. He told the midwives, don't kill all the babies, because if we do that, we'll have a problem in our hands.
Just kill the boys and tell the mothers, you know, boys are so rowdy, so difficult, you know, if there is a war, they can get killed.
So they're going to die anyway. But just try again. Have a baby girl next time.
And 15, 20 years down the road, she will bring the boy home, except that 15, 20 years down the road, there will be no boy to bring home because they were all being killed.
Satan cannot take away our salvation. Therefore, he will try to destroy our fruitfulness for God.
The reason why boys were being killed is very simple. Boys grow up to become soldiers.
And isn't it interesting that every promise that we question today, every gift of the spirit that we say is no longer in operation, every scriptural emphasis.
All of them have to do with spiritual warfare.
It's like if Satan has killed all the boys and just left the girls.
Just wait for heaven, wait for the Lord's return. A faulty understanding of the atonement.
Since he cannot take away our salvation, his aim is to turn us into a spiritual eunuchs.
This is why I quote General Patton last night when he told a bunch of recruits, I'm sure some silly official in Washington told you that the secret to win the war is to die for your country.
That's a lie. General Patton said the secret to win the war is to make the enemy die for his country.
Satan is doing everything in his power to destroy individual Christians through immorality, pornography and selfishness.
Churches through divisions, pastors through slanders, youth through a worldly spirit.
Movies, drugs, heavy metal rock and roll and so forth. And that's because Satan comes on to steal, to kill and to destroy.
Now here we have a picture of deception, domination and destruction. But here comes the good news.
What looked like a standing in despair and hopelessness was turned into an all out victory by something that happened at the end of chapter two.
And what happened at the end of chapter two, verses 23 to 25? The people of Israel cry out to God.
They cry out to God. Do you realize that the book of Exodus would have been a two chapter book at this pace?
But because of that prayer on the last minute of the game or what appeared to be the game, the last two minutes,
they have to add 38 chapters to explain the answer to that prayer.
Deception, domination, destruction and now comes divine deliverance. What is it that turned the picture around? Prayer.
Did they have an army? No. Did they have money? No. Did they have allies? No. Did they have a political influence? No.
But in answer to prayer, the power of Pharaoh was broken. The strong man was bound. God's power was fully released.
And listen to this. Two million slaves walk away free after plundering the Egyptians for their wealth.
What was Israel's only weapon? Quite honestly now, what was it? Prayer. What was the early church's only weapon? Prayer.
What is your only weapon? Prayer. But what kind of prayer?
To some people prayer is a chore. It's like going to the shopping list. It's a one way street. It's not enjoyable at all.
Why is that? Because of a faulty understanding of the atonement of Jesus Christ.
It's very difficult for us to spend one hour in prayer because what we define as prayer is not always what the Bible defines as prayer.
It's like trying to swim in your bathtub. How long can you enjoy it? You know if you put the head down your knees goes up.
You know if you put the knees down your head sticks out. You know if you try to do like this you hit your elbows against the side.
So what do you do? You come in and out as quickly as possible. Right? Take a shower.
And they'll say, Lord, good morning. Okay, great day. Praise God. Read the sermon. Off we go.
Well, he already knows everything. He already knows everything. He's in charge. He's in control. So let God do it.
God, you know that I believe in your sovereignty. Whatever you're going to do you're going to do. Good day.
But that is not so. That is not so.
Power and prayer is available to us today.
We notice that some significant events in the Bible happened after prayer took place.
Pentecost was promised by our Lord, but they were together in one accord as a precondition.
Matthew 18, 18 to 20. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you release on earth will be released on heaven.
Now, some people question the use of that particular passage in the context of spiritual warfare,
because they say it has to do with church discipline.
Well, if you're going to test something, you tested under the most difficult circumstances.
And if it works under those circumstances, you know it works in under easier circumstances.
For me, it's much easier to cast out demons than to discipline believers, because the demons obey.
Believers don't. So that's why I believe in Matthew 18.
The Lord Jesus says, but even in the case of discipline, you can bind it and father will bind it in heaven.
So, yes, the context is church discipline, but it has to do with spiritual warfare.
In Acts chapter four, we see great power released in answer to prayer.
The Bible says that heaven answers, but we must ask first. God opens the door, but we must knock.
Doesn't God know everything? Yes. Well, then why is it required that we pray?
Doesn't he know what we need? Yes.
And the reason is very, very simple.
There are certain things that God will not do no matter what, because he chose to limit himself.
It's a self-limitation that God imposed on himself.
First of all, God will never preach the gospel to anyone except through the church.
Look at the case of Cornelius, the Roman centurion.
He was so close to the kingdom of God that even before his conversion, he was praying and giving money.
Two of the things that are most difficult for believers, giving money to the church and praying, he was already doing it before being a believer.
He was leaning so much over the fence that if you sneeze behind him, he would just trip over and fall into the kingdom of God.
I mean, that was an easy pick. There couldn't be an easier one than Cornelius.
God sends an angel to see Cornelius and what all the angels can do, give him the name and address of a preacher.
And he goes to Peter and Peter leads him to the Lord. God will not preach the gospel.
Number three, God will not pray. Why is it that God has chosen to delegate these ministries to us?
And I want to give you 10 quick steps to that. I'll read them out loud.
The first one, and this has to go all the way back to the creation, to Genesis chapter one, two and three.
The world was made, number one, the world was made for man and he was appointed the master over the world.
Number two, when Adam, the master sin, he turned his dominion over to Satan.
Number three, from then on, Satan became the ruler of this world.
Efficience two, two, six, twelve and second Corinthians four, four.
Number four, since Adam transferred his legal dominion to Satan,
God has been obligated to recognize Satan's legal standing.
And this was done by Jesus Christ himself during the temptation.
When Satan said, look, all the kingdoms of the earth are mine. They were given to me by whom?
By God? No. By whom? By Adam.
And Satan said, I can give their glory to whoever I choose.
The Lord didn't challenge that. He challenged the other points, but not that one.
Because God has been in a sense obligated.
Number five, God is all powerful and he could blast Satan into oblation.
However, God's power does not operate aside from his.
From his character.
God's power is governed by moral law.
If God were to step into the earth and confront Satan,
he could be accused by Satan of being a trespasser.
He said, you gave Adam a blank check. He turned it over to me.
I own the place.
Number six, the government of the earth was delegated to man since he was lost by man.
It could only be legally recovered by another man.
Number seven, but since all men have sinned and are legally under Satan's dominion,
man's condition was hopeless.
Number nine, number eight, but God solved the problem through the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
he was not a fallen man coming from Adam and Satan had no claim on him.
He was God, but because he was one of the Virgin Mary,
he was a bona fide member of the human race.
Thus he became the second Adam.
Number nine, the temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness was Satan first major defeat since the garland of Eden.
There is no other defeat with exception of the book of Job for Satan in the entire Bible
until the garden of Eden.
You see, number nine, that's a very important thing.
That temptation in the wilderness was the first major defeat.
And number ten, the cross and the resurrection completed and proclaimed the victory of Jesus Christ.
Then what happens? Jesus now fought with Satan and recovered the deed of trust.
Now he goes to his people and say, now the eleven of you, I want you to go to the entire world
while waiting in Jerusalem until power comes upon you, until the badge, the badge of the Holy Spirit comes.
And when I'm up there, I am going to deputize you.
You're going to be my deputies.
And you're going to go to all these property that I recover,
and you're going to confront the squatters that are there.
And you're going to tell them, get out of here or else.
And this is the key. This is the key.
Every time we pray, confronting the principalities in power on an issue over which there is clear biblical evidence
that they have no right to be in.
Listen carefully.
We provide the legal and moral framework for God to release his power.
If you ever watch somebody being evicted from a home, you usually get a 24 notice.
A nice looking fellow, clean fellow from the court, an officer from the court, comes through the back.
This man says, hello, Mr. Silvozzo. I'm an officer from the court and I have this message for you.
He doesn't fight. He doesn't kick the door.
He doesn't call your name. He just gives you a paper.
He says, be out of here tomorrow by noon or else.
Based on the gentleness of the guy, you don't move out.
At 12.01, the sheriff drives up with six deputies.
And what does he do? He throws everything out.
Because you defy an order from the court.
My friends, when you look at those children that the enemy has stolen from you,
God gave you your children, but now they are captive.
Captive in drug addiction and rebellion and anger and rock music and all that kind of garbage.
You have to ask God for patience and tolerance.
You already know what the enemy is doing.
You have to stand up and fight and say, in the name of the Lord Jesus,
I proclaim and I declare that the children are an inheritance from the Lord.
You fight back.
When you go to a city, now you have to be careful here that not three people try to tackle the city of a million.
Like in Calgary, Canada, we are working with a huge number of churches to tackle the entire city.
But when the day comes, when the whole city has been infiltrated with 7,000 prayer cells,
when every block has been walked, when every business has been prayed for,
when the church is united, when the enemy has no claim on us,
we are going to say in the name of the Lord Jesus, Satan, be gone from Calgary.
We serve an eviction notice.
And that provides God with a legal and moral justification.
Then you say, Ed, this is too easy, too easy.
Yes, it is.
For us, but not for Jesus.
It cost him his life.
Becoming a Christian was easy for you and me.
All we said was, I do.
But it cost Jesus a lot.
Let me use an illustration from World War II.
Perhaps you saw pictures and movies of Allied officers, captive in a POW camp,
starving to death, skinny, limping, guarded by double-breasted, well-fed German soldiers with machine guns,
towers, barbed wire, moats, machine guns.
Could they have ever walked free from there?
One of those POWs was General Wainwright.
General Wainwright was the only American general taken captive during World War II.
He was left in the Philippines by General Donald MacArthur.
The Japanese overrun Corregidor, took him captive to Mongolia, and kept him there.
Enough to talk your surrender, because Mongolia is so far removed.
The commander of that camp hid the news from General Wainwright,
so he behaved like a slave, like a prisoner, until an Allied airplane landed one day.
And an American sergeant got off the plane, and he walked up to the fence and saluted,
and said, General Wainwright, Japan has surrendered.
And with that piece of truth, General Wainwright, leaning on a cane,
made it all the way to the commander's office, kicked the door open,
and in a very frail voice, but not doubting what he said, he said,
My commander-in-chief has defeated your commander-in-chief.
I'm in charge here, now. And he took over.
Not on the basis of power, but on the basis of authority.
And this is what we have to understand when it comes to prayer.
It's not the fireworks, it's not the power,
it's not trying to match the magicians of Egypt blow by blow.
It's that quiet assurance of knowing who we are in Christ,
knowing that God gave us our children, that God gave us our marriage,
that God gave us our business, that God gave us our ministry,
that it was given by grace, and it cannot be taken away from us,
because it's a gift of grace.
And then confronting the powers that are taking that away from you and from me,
and saying, My commander-in-chief, the Lord Jesus Christ,
defeated your commander-in-chief, I'm in control here, now. Be gone.
Do they go away? You bet they do.
But sometimes it takes struggle.
And the struggle usually takes place because there is a dimension
of purification in spiritual warfare.
The Bible says, submit to God, resist the devil, and what will happen?
He will flee.
Submitting to God has to do with humbling ourselves and receiving His grace.
Right?
And many, many times the enemy will not flee because he knows he has something on us.
But as we confront him, as we engage him, we begin to submit,
and we submit, and we submit, until we are walking in so much holiness
that whatever we pray for is according to the will of God.
In anything we pray in the name of Jesus according to the will of God,
the Father does it, and at that point he flees from us.
Let me tell you this, and I close with this remark.
Spiritual warfare is the most powerful incentive for holiness
because you cannot live in sin and fight the devil.
He will remind you of that every time.
A pastor took a young man to a house where there was a witch,
and when they tried to rebuke the demons, the demons told the pastor
every sin that that young man was still committed.
There was instant holiness.
I mean, many, many times when physical attacks come, when our breathing stops,
you know, when things get a little bit messy, you immediately repent of anything.
You come under the mighty hand, and you resist the devil, and then he flees.
So how do we apply this?
Well, two things.
First, think of a POW camp in your own life.
What has the devil captured that he's still holding on in your own life?
What is it?
Find out. What is it?
Renounce sin that gave the devil an entrance.
Learn the biblical principles that you have not as much power as authority.
A policeman trying to flag my car down on the road doesn't have as much power as I do.
Behind the wheel of a car at 65 miles an hour,
a policeman standing on his own feet doesn't have any power.
But I stop, and I smile, and I say, what is it, officer?
And I give him my license, not on the basis of power, on the basis of authority.
So what area of your life has been violated that the enemy now establishes a POW camp?
Identify it.
Don't thank God for sin and misery or the consequences of sin.
But now go and serve an eviction notice,
and say I have renounced every jurisdiction that I have granted you.
And in the name of the Lord Jesus, I remind you that my commander in chief has defeated your commander in chief.
If the devil or his demons try to remind you of your past, kindly remind him of his future.
He will stop immediately.
And then, you see, we evangelicals use a misnomer.
We say praying against, and that robs people the wrong way.
We don't pray against demons.
We only pray to God, but we exercise authority against demons.
Cast them out.
Rebuke them. Send them out.
And the Bible says they shall flee.
Number two, think of an area bigger than your own life, your friends, your family, your church, whatever.
Where the enemy still has the upper hand and begin to exercise spiritual authority.
But I would like to close with a prayer.
Shall we?
Father God, we thank you so much for the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
It's a perfect sacrifice.
Nothing can be added to it.
Nothing can be taken away from it.
And Father, relying on that blood and knowing that you die for everyone on this planet
and that you wish that everyone come to repentance.
Now we pray for all of our unsafe relatives and neighbors and friends.
And in the name of the Lord Jesus, we proclaim before you and your angels
and before the enemy and his demons that Christ died for them.
And we rebuke the enemy as we lift up the Lord Jesus Christ high.
And Father, those areas in our lives where the enemy has established POW camps,
where rather than fighting, we have surrendered.
Today we discover, Father, that we are not to be dominated and destroyed.
We are to stand firm on the rock and fight and fight back in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
based on the authority delegated to us.
So we reclaim that ground of holiness and intimacy with you
and material blessings to the degree that our soul prospers.
And seal for the lost, yes, in the name of the Lord Jesus,
we pull down the strongholds and we proclaim the Lordship of Christ.
And now we say to all the forces of the enemy
that our Commander in Chief, the Lord Jesus Christ, who never lost and will never lose a battle,
has defeated once and for all your Commander in Chief.
And in his name, we command you to depart and be gone.
Thank you, Father. We worship you. We praise you.
We thank you for the freedom we have in Christ. Amen.
Amen.