Transcript of SPIRITUAL WARFARE: Understanding Satan’s True Identity and How To Defeat Him | Live Free with Josh Howerton

The sign of the move of Spirit of God is not emotion, it's rearranged priorities.

The best place for you to be in the midst of spiritual warfare is to remain clothed in Christ.

Things that we love most about God are the things that Adam and Eve did not know about God before they sinned.

Well, hey, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Pointe Church in Dallas, Texas, but the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, Church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Pointe. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Erazo, and today I am here surrounded by great men.

I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham coming to you from Lake Pointe Church in Dallas, Texas.

That's from Carlos speaking French last week.

I was going to—

Oh yeah, that's all right.

I was remembering something cochon that he said last week.

Cochon, oui.

Is that pig?

That's it.

That's it. Wait. Okay, let's see. Je sais pas comment on dit le free.

Bro, how the heck did I know you for like 8 years and didn't know you spoke French?

That's because nobody speaks French here in Texas, bro. Like literally nobody. It's more Spanish is the thing.

But is this racist? Are you allowed to do that?

No, it's not racist at all. It's okay. No.

No, right?

It's okay, you have my blessing now. Listen, listen, for French people as well as people from El Salvador, receive my pardon. That's a joke.

Pardon?

That's a joke.

All right, let's go.

Hey, today we're going to be talking about— we're going to be rapid firing the meaning of each of the piece— each piece of the armor of God.

Yes, we are.

We're going to be addressing spiritual warfare, demonology, and the divine counsel in the Bible. We're going to be reacting to this super mega viral video of, uh, Katherine Crick on a book signing tour where she, uh, is seen signing some books and there's people shaking, crying, convulsing, and more.

Let's talk deliverance ministry.

We're going to be answering some common questions around spiritual warfare. Uh, can the enemy read your mind? Pastor Josh, I want to know about that.

Uh, thoughts on, uh, I'm looking forward to answering that.

It's going to be fun. And if we have time, we will see, because there's quite a bit. Uh, Pastor Josh will be explaining to us the spiritual warfare that is being used to destroy a Christian nation.

Oh my, we just had to get it juicy. That's a good title right there. It's going to be fun, man.

Hey, uh, We just wrapped up the 4th week of At the Movies.

Boom!

It was amazing.

Hundreds of people making a decision to give their life to Jesus.

Thousands, honestly, thousands.

Yes, yes, it was great. Uh, we love, uh, you know, just anytime we see people take that step of faith and publicly say, man, I'm ready to give my life to Jesus, is, uh, it's amazing.

It was. I, I never seen anything like it. Honestly, dude, we, we were talking about this last week. We were on a little exec team retreat.

Wait, wait, you know what? Look at me. I'm the captain. I just wanna do that joke.

You're the captain now.

Look at me.

I'm the captain now.

I'm the captain now.

We're just looking around, everything going on. We're like, dude, we ain't this good.

We ain't this good. That's not going up.

We ain't this good, man. Glory to God. That's it. I think, yeah, nevermind. We'll talk about that later. It was stupid.

We, if you are here and maybe, 'cause At the Movies was an in-person experience. So if you were not able to be a part of it, guess what? This coming week we are starting a new sermon series called Fight the Good Fight.

Fight the good fight. 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy is going to be great. That will be online and in person.

If you were ever— now, this is your moment. If you're going to come hang, we're going to go verse by verse. I think it's 13 weeks. 2 Timothy, actually it's either 9 or 13. I'm thinking of two different series. I'm planning the 2027 preaching calendar right now. So I think it's 13 weeks in Galatians next year. Ooh, that's spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Okay. But it's going to be awesome. If you're ever going to come in, let's study the Bible together. It's going to be great.

Hey, bro, we were just at Sean Ryan's hanging out.

Dude, that was nuts.

It was super fun. Shout out to Sean Ryan.

He was a very kind and gracious host.

I bet you your thing will come out like very soon, if not—

Oh no, they said they do it on a delay. Okay. Yeah.

What'd you think about it? What was your experience?

Y'all, straight, man, you know this. I walked out and I was like, ah, that was about a 6.5 out of 10. Not Sean, me.

That's right.

I'll tell you what. What was tough for me is my big thing going in was I just want to get to the cross. That's my— I was like, I want to get to the cross. I got to the cross. So I'm like, okay, we did that. But dude, you kind of walk in and it's like, you got no idea what that dude's going to ask you.

He doesn't tell you ahead of time.

What he'll do is he kind of was gracious and gave it, hey, we may go here, here, and here. We may, but just be ready. So honestly, it was probably the 3 nights leading up to it. I didn't sleep hardly at all because I'm going, well, this is like a final exam. Exam on everything, on literally anything that anyone could ask, and millions of people will see it.

Yeah, only millions of people.

That's right. That's right. So I finished, and then, dude, you'll see it when it comes out. There was— I wanted to get up front. I was like, hey dude, I want to get a bunch of people who don't know a ton about the Bible. I want them to fall in love with the Bible and know the Bible's true. So I had this thing. I was like, dude, I want to do this little thing. And I got this number wrong. You remember that? Yes. Yeah, dude, like right out of the gate, it was like I had memorized this number and I got it right. So it was like right out of the— you'll see right out of the gate, I'm like faceplant.

But hey, man, I thought you did great. Hey, man, it was a great convo. Honestly, it was a great convo too. Sean was great. His team was very hospitable. So shout out to them as well. And you did a thing after the interview.

So this part wasn't a 6 out of 10. So afterwards, Sean took us all back there and he gave me the gummy bears. He did not give me the cig. You take what you get.

That's hilarious.

But he took me back there. He got a little shooting range back there. And so we were shooting. Now, first of all, let me just say, Sean, former Navy SEAL, is going to outshoot me every single time except once. And it was the time that mattered. So we did this thing. We were shooting skeet. Yep. And it was Sean's idea. He was like, hey, let's do a little friendly wager. And it was like one of those little skeet shooter thingamajigs. And it was like, shoot 2 of them. And he was like, whoever does better wins. And the loser, the loser had to take their dominant hand and put it on their hip. Look a little zesty. And then take a rock and throw it with their off hand. Okay, so we do it and I'm 100% sure I'm gonna lose. This was the outcome right here. I got him. Shooter ready.

I got him.

I got him on. This is the only thing I got him on.

Yeah!

Yes! Look at him. He was awesome, dude.

He was shocked that you beat him.

Well, he also upped the speed on the skeet shoot on that one.

But still. Okay.

But still.

Maybe he was very gracious that night.

Yeah. The little over-under rifle was good to me that time. But it was good, man. It'll come out soon.

Excited for that. Hey, if you are joining and you're part of the Live Free Nation and you're ever in the DFW area, Come hang out, come say hi. We got a gift for you as well. Every single week we do a giveaway. So go on YouTube or Spotify if you want one of these really cool hats. Just comment hats and we will be picking some winners. You can also go to livefree.shop or text the word hat to 20411. We got— we're working on some really cool merch coming soon.

Dude, I'm excited about it.

Right? You're actually wearing one.

This is like my favorite hat.

That's right. And by the way, boom, to clarify, boom, that verse is correct.

Is correct. Yes, it is. It's correct.

That's right.

This is correct, man.

Hey, if you're on YouTube also, thanks for subscribing and liking all the things. To download the Lake Pointe app to find our daily Bible reading plan, the weekly sermon, plus an early release of the Live Free podcast, plus the discipleship guide, you can text the word UP to 20411.

Wait, wait, before you ask, are you gonna ask your question now? 'Cause you always ask.

Just a second.

Yeah.

Well, you finished. No, no, no, no.

I was gonna say, or you can go to Apple or Google Play, but go ahead.

No, no, no. Okay. Okay. Before you do this, I wanna call back to one thing from last week's episode. Okay. So last week's episode, first of all, that episode, there's a lot of people watch that episode.

Yeah.

It's an important topic.

Yeah. So last week, if you missed this, last week's episode was a deep dive Can a Christian lose their salvation? Basically the concept of what is called eternal security. I don't know what the—

Perseverance of the saints.

Yeah. But what's the opposite view? Eternal security. Is there a name for it?

Eternal insecurity, I guess.

Actually, I like that. We just coined that. Eternal security. Actually, that's accurate.

That's actually really good.

Eternal security.

It's not wrong because you're insecure all the time about whether you're going to make it or not.

Come on. Eternal security versus eternal insecurity.

All right.

Now, but we got a little blowed up in some of the comments and I want to address what is arguably the main objection to what we said last week. Okay. So here's what a lot of people did is they listened to that episode. They were like, hey, that's fine. Everything y'all are saying. And this is what they did. And it's easy to answer. They went, but what about Judas? Judas was with Jesus. It calls him a disciple of Jesus. And then Jesus clearly says that he was, quote, a son of perdition. It would've been better if he'd never been born. Very clear. Judas ends up in hell. So the objection, if you go read the comments, by the way, we actually look at those, try to be helpful. The objection was, hey, what about Judas? Let me do something real quick that is really important. And dude, honestly, this little thing is one of the most terrifying things in the entire Bible. Okay? And everybody misses this. If you're asking, what about Judas? If you go back to Matthew 26, the Gospel of Matthew is the only gospel that records this. You got this time where all the disciples are hanging out with Jesus, his last supper.

Okay? You guys remember this? Yes. And Jesus tells the disciples, he's like, hey, heads up, 'One of you is going to betray me.' All right. Now, as soon as that happens, Peter did what Peter does, and Peter's like, 'Nobody's talking. This would be a wonderful time for me to talk.' And so he essentially goes, 'Hey,' essentially goes, 'Not going to happen.' Well, then what it says is Jesus goes, 'Whichever one of you puts his hand into this bread,' does this little thing, 'that's the one that's going to betray me.' Now, here's what they did. As soon as Jesus goes, 'One of you is going to betray me,' It says that they all start going around the table and all the apostles start saying, watch this, I'm going to read it to you. It says all the apostles, one by one, they start saying, "Is it I, Lord?" So 11 out of 11 of these dudes, "Is it I, Lord? Is it I, Lord? Is it I, Lord?" 11 around the table. Then if you look real close, and you got to look real close, everybody skips right over this. When it gets to Judas, He's the only guy that says something different.

And Judas says, is it I, Rabbi? Uh, he's the only one. Okay. What the Bible's showing you is that even though he was visibly a follower of Jesus, everybody else submitted to Jesus as Lord. And Judas was just like, I love him as a good teacher. So here's the big idea. You can't lose your salvation., but you can fake it. Yes. That's what Judas is showing. So when you see somebody like Judas, we know exactly what happened. In fact, literally a Bible verse, 1 John 2:19, is about people like Judas.

Yes.

They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would've remained with us. But their going out showed they did not belong to us. Yes. Can't lose your salvation. You can fake it.

I tell people before we jump into the sermon, two phrases that help me, they should also really lead to making sure we examine ourselves like, hey, am I truly in the faith? And by the way, this is a biblical command that we get in the New Testament, that there is a difference between proximity to Jesus and intimacy with Jesus. Judas had proximity to, but not true intimacy with, because those who truly knew Jesus, he was their Lord and not just their rabbi.

That's right.

The other thing is that there's a difference between profession of faith and possession of faith. People make professions of faith all the time, but then walk away. But if you have the true possession of faith, you're never going to lose that because Ephesians 2 actually says your faith itself was a gift from God. It's by grace and you cannot lose it.

That's great, Paul. Yep. Amen.

Man, week 4 of At the Movies. Hey, look at me. Look at me. I'm the captain now. I like it. Captain Phillips was the movie. Pastor Josh, I have a question for you.

I will allow it.

Why did it make it to the sermon?

A whole lot. Okay. So really what this is, again, we don't preach movies, we use movies to illustrate biblical truths. This whole sermon, it was really about, honestly, it's setting up Fight the Good Fight. So this was the whole deal. It was Fight the Good Fight, man. So really the primary thrust of this sermon was Ephesians 6, put on the whole armor of God, take your stand against the devil's schemes. And we're going to deep dive that here in a second. Most people have no idea what this passage means, where it came from. And dude, Listen, I was today years old when I learned a bunch of stuff about this passage. So let me do this real quick. Number one, the whole passage obviously is talking about putting on the armor of God. Honestly, baseline assumption, I think all of it, if you listen to Live Free, you get this baseline assumption. You are in a war. It's not like a war. It's not, hey man, it's spiritual, but it's not actual. You are actually in a war. There's a reason we say all the time, birthmark of believer is a bullseye. So when you become a Christian, you did not just gain God as your Father, you gained hell as your enemy.

So the second you get on Team Jesus, birthmark of a believer is a bullseye. And that is why, like last week, Carlos making fun of me because all my sermon series, they have fight language in them. That's because every New Testament epistle, Carlos, I was commending you for it. Thank you.

I was saying the internet didn't like it.

Well, the internet. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah, well, in general.

All right, so you got that. You got that. I'll give you one here on this.

Okay.

I heard a Bible teacher say this lately, and this is, This is free right here. So when I preached on the calling of Moses, this is really interesting. When I preached on the calling of Moses and it was talking about how Moses is so resistant in Exodus 2 and 3 to that call. And dude, this guy, I'm not going to say who it was, this guy was pointing out that, and this is true, I got a buddy named Ryan Visconti, a pastor over there in Phoenix. Ryan was, I think he did a tour in Iraq, I think military.

Okay.

Been shot at and done some shotting. Ryan will tell you, he actually did on this podcast, Ryan will tell you being a pastor is more stressful for him than it was being in combat in Iraq. And I asked him about that and this is what he explained. And it all dovetails back to Moses and armor of God and all this stuff. So he said the dynamics there, and part of the reason why he thinks Moses was so reluctant to sign up to be a general in God's little army is Ryan's point was essentially, hey man, when you become a general in a physical battle, you get to leave your family back on the homestead. And dude, this'll sober you up real quick that part of the theory of why Moses may have been so reluctant to be like, you know what? I want to lead the nation of Israel against demonic forces in Egypt. And you do ministry for a little bit and you start to see this and everybody's got scars and stories. When you become a general in a spiritual battle and you become a pastor or a minister, you don't get to leave your family on the homestead.

You have to bring them to the front line. And there was a little— this guy was making the theory that may have been partly why Moses was like, please, no, Lord. Please. No, Lord. I thought that was interesting.

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Part of the reason, let me move on. Part of the reason we need this Ephesians 6 passage, we're going to read it here in a second, is what it's doing right here is it's acknowledging the reality that God has created one reality in two realms. We're going to talk about where did Satan come from, demonology, spiritual warfare, what that does mean and doesn't mean here in a second. But what you have is you have a seen realm, see, taste, touch, feel, and then you have an unseen realm. Now the difference between us and demons, and this is why this passage does what it does, is that you and me, we only see and have visibility into the seen realm. Demons both see and manifest into both the seen realm and the unseen realm. So both are one reality, two realms. We are aware of one primarily. They're aware of and operating in two. Now, I'll give you something that I had never ever learned or heard of before about this passage. This was really fun. Okay, so if you go into Ephesians, It is very clear in the book of Ephesians, Paul is writing Ephesians in a prison cell.

Okay. I'm going to read you a couple passages. Ephesians 3:1, for this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Ephesians 4:1, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord. The biggie is Ephesians 6:20, for which I am an ambassador in chains.

Okay.

Now this is really awesome. Okay. Now we know where he's imprisoned. This is almost certainly Paul's first imprisonment in Rome, not the second one where he gets his head cut off, the first one. So Acts 28 specifically tells us about the— all this is going to lead to armor of God. It tells us about this imprisonment. I'm going to read it to you. This is awesome, dude. You know where I'm going with this.

This is awesome.

Okay. So Acts 28:16, Paul says, and when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself Listen, with the soldier who guarded him. Bro, check this out. Why is Paul writing about the armor of God? He's looking at a dude in armor. He's literally looking at a guy decked out in armor when he writes the passage about the armor of God. I never put that together in my whole life. Okay, that's awesome. Now when he does this, we know from the Greek that's used here, he's not just talking about generic random armor. The Greek word is panoplia, from what I understand. Well, you Show that, Trinity. So here's some that— this is in a museum in Greece. This is part of the actual armor that a dude standing in front of Paul would've been wearing when he wrote this. There's a little reenactment. This is the full thing. Go ahead and show that next one. This is a full thing, little reenactment deal. So it's like the language isn't just generic armor. It's like somebody saying, hey man, that guy's wearing a— I don't know, a flak vest from this year. It's very specific.

That's what's going on. Couple other things real quick, and then I'm going to ask you some questions, Paul. Very interesting. People do not realize most of this passage Paul is drawing on Isaiah.

Yes, he is.

Dude, I didn't know that.

Isaiah 59 and Isaiah 11. Yes.

Okay, so here's where you get— there's actually more than that. Yeah, more than that. Okay. There's 3. So I've heard Bible commentators talk about how Isaiah is the Romans of the Old Testament. I've always thought that interesting. So check this out, dude. So breastplate and helmet, actually, let's go ahead and somebody got the passage.

I got it right here.

Okay. Read the passage real quick. That way they'll know what I'm talking about when I do the Isaiah thing.

Isaiah 59:17.

No, no. Read the Ephesians passage.

Oh yeah. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 11. That we as believers must put on all of God's armor so that we will be able to stand firm against the strategies of the devil.

Can you read the specific, uh, I've got it.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Okay.

Now check this out. So I didn't know this honestly until I started studying this passage this week. So you have all this, a lot of this is drawn from Isaiah. You have the breastplate and the helmet. Isaiah 59:17, he, God, put on righteousness as his breastplate and the helmet of salvation on his head. He put on the garments of vengeance. That's kind of hardcore. And wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak. Belt, Isaiah 11:5, righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. And then shoes, Isaiah 52:7. I'm coming back to this. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, your God reigns. So it's really interesting. The big idea is you prick Paul and he just bleeds Bible. This dude was a Bible guy.

That's great.

Okay. Now I'll say a couple other things real quick. Verse 14, it gives this little command, stand firm then. Bible commentators, I really wish I could have got this in. Bible commentators have pointed out that It says stand firm. One of the reasons it says this, Roman armor did not protect your back. So it's essentially like, hey man, you stand firm. If you run, you're vulnerable. So he's saying, don't break ranks, don't retreat, stand firm. So there's a whole thing I could do here. We don't got time to do this. Let's keep rolling. But what you're going to notice is, Man, over and over you get this command that Christian— we're supposed to be the guys who everything else around us is changing. There's pressure from every side. We ain't moving. I'm not moving, man. I got my feet planted firmly on the word of God.

Stand firm.

Stand firm. Stand firm. Everything around me can change. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord stands forever. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Yeah. It's kind of a little weird thing. I've kind of watched my life and especially some of my closest friends from high school, there came a point where they were like, I'm out on Josh. And it was usually over some conviction, a biblical conviction that I had. And honestly, man, when I look, I'm like, hey dude, I didn't move. You moved. I didn't move. And I would just gently, like, remind every Christian, hey man, you're gonna have that happen to you sometimes. Man, stand firm. Yeah, stand firm.

It's really good. You sure?

Yeah.

Okay, well, I was gonna say, uh, one thing I learned this week, you know, based on what you're saying, that we are in a real spiritual war. We have a real enemy, uh, that is really against you and me. Uh, Ephesus was actually known for practicing magic, the occult, uh, you know, divination, amulets, very superstitious. Not little stitches, but Superstitious. That's right. Not, uh, and it's interestingly enough, there was actually a thing called the Ephesian letters at the time, which was known in the Greek world, and it was basically mystical words that people used to try to protect themselves spiritually from evil spirits. And so when you start reading Ephesians, you start noticing this pattern where Paul is actually addressing this in multiple chapters. So he starts his letter by saying, hey, by the way, I am aware that you guys believe in all these different spirits. And so he starts in Ephesians 1, hey, Christ is over all rulers. And authorities, all power and dominion, and every single name that is, uh, Jesus, Jesus's name is above every single name, not only in the present age but also in the ones to come. Uh, and then what happened is, if for Christians that eventually, uh, surrender their life to Christ, they realize, hey, uh, witchcraft, the occult, magic, that's not our thing.

And so the book of Acts actually says that a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in sight of all. So now these people are asking, well, before we had all these spirits to protect us from the evil spirits. So what do we do now? And then Paul writes Ephesians chapter 6, and he says, oh, this is how you protect yourself now. You put on the armor of God.

Bro, that's great.

So, and so that— this, I love it because it gives the context of like the, the spirituality behind in the city. Paul's like, wait, actually, it's now that you're, you're not doing the magic stuff anymore, let me give you something that's actually going to protect you and stand firm.

Well, so, so they would speak these words to protect themselves. The Ephesians would.

That's right.

That's interesting because when it talks about the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, the word is not logos there. It's rhema, which is usually a word that is spoken.

Spoken. That's right, bro. That's very interesting.

I've never thought about that.

I needed this podcast before I wrote the sermon.

Real quick, the other thought I had is there's that idea here of standing firm, which is the idea of maybe you're being attacked. But you got to remember also, I love that idea when pointed out that the armor's in the front, not the back. Because you also get the idea, if it's a fight where Jesus talks about how, I'm going to establish my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Gates don't march on you. You march on gates.

That's right.

That's right.

So it's also the idea of, man, you're in a battle and the battle is not just that the enemy's coming after us, man, we are called to do damage to the kingdom of darkness for the kingdom of God.

That's right.

And march on darkness in this world and take it for the kingdom. So I just love that picture of, it's like, man, if I'm marching on something, my front has to be towards it because it's not just coming at me, I'm coming at it.

Yep. That's right.

Love it.

All right, let me say one last thing and then let's rapid fire because there's a lot of misunderstanding around this stuff. Here's what I want to do. Let's rapid fire what does each piece mean? And then what does it mean to put it on? Okay. The only other thing I wish I'd gotten in is essentially there's a forgotten armor piece. People always stop at verse 17 and it's like, but the whole thing builds to verses 18 through 20. So he's going, hey man, you need to— he's going, hey, put on the belt of truth, the helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, sword of the Spirit. And then people stop after the foot thing. They're like, okay, that's it. He stopped talking about armor. But dude, the very next verses, it's like the forgotten piece of armor. Here's what it says. So he goes straight from there and he says, and pray in the Spirit. By the way, for our charismatic brothers and sisters, many people interpret that as praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues, 1 Corinthians 14, on all occasions.

We did an episode of that, by the way.

Yeah, we did.

Shout out. We'll put that in the notes.

There you go.

That's great. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer. By the way, whenever we get to answering, can Satan read your mind? I'm going to come back to this.

Okay.

This is going to be fun. Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert, always keeping on prayer for all the Lord's— praying for all the Lord's people. Pray for me also that whenever I speak, words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel. Listen to this, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray I may declare it fearlessly as I should. By the way, if you want to pray for your pastor, pray that for your pastor.

One of my favorite verses.

Paul's like, hey man, you want to know how to pray for me? Pray for me that I have boldness and no fear. I live with no fear of man. I live in the fear of God. Paul's like, pray that. And so it's like, hey man, pray, basically put on all the stuff, but then prayer's the thing that gives it all power.

There you go. Wow.

It's the forgotten armor piece. Yeah.

That's great.

Now, do you guys want to rapid fire what each of these mean? Yeah, let's do it. It's like, honestly, each one could be a sermon. So here, I'm going to do it. ChatGPT Paul Sy. Can we do that?

Let's do it.

All right, Paul. Yeah, let's go rapid fire. Come on. We're going to go Armor of God. ChatGPT Paul Sy, what is the belt of truth?

I would say that is the truth of God, the ultimate source of which is in the word of God. John 17:17 says, your word is truth. Think of it like this. If Satan is called the father of lies and one of the main ways he's going to attack us is with lies, then we must be people who know the truth. Believe the truth, love the truth, speak the truth, and live the truth.

Why is it called a belt?

Belt is the idea of it holds everything together.

That's it, dude.

It holds everything together. The specific belt it's talking about in the Roman piece of armor is the piece that would've held the entire thing together.

It also covered your groin. I'm just going to—

That is an important thing as well.

That's actually a thing.

It actually—

Do you have that photo?

Pull that back up.

Pull that back up for real. I'm not joking at all. That's that belt. I'm not going to. But so basically, if you don't want to get kicked in the groin, you better have your Bible open, spiritually speaking.

Say that one more time because people need to hear it.

You don't want to get kicked in the groin, spiritually speaking, you need to have your Bible open. That's what Paul's saying.

Okay, that's great.

That one's better than you just did.

That's great.

Does not want to be associated with me. Okay, uh, Chachi Paul C, what is the breastplate of righteousness and why is it called a breastplate?

Yeah, I would actually say this is two things. This is the righteousness given through faith in Christ to us from outside of us. And it is also the practice of living rightly day by day. It's a both/and, not an either/or. So the idea of the righteousness of God, first is what he gives to us. 2 Corinthians talks about how God made him, Jesus, who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God in him. He never sinned, we have. He lived a perfect life, we didn't. He then went to the cross and even though he didn't deserve to die, he did die so that we could be considered and counted righteous even though we're not.

That's right.

It's our only way of salvation. So the righteousness of God is a way of saying, hey, even though I don't live rightly all the time, much of the time in God's eyes, I am perfect because he sees me through the lens of his son, Jesus Christ.

Yeah.

But it's also the idea of, man, I am also called to live rightly. It talks about that in Ephesians, is that if I have the righteousness of God, if I'm in Christ, man, my life should be changing. In terms of why it protects us, like, think about the breastplate protects some of your most vital organs. So where this matters in a spiritual fight is oftentimes what will happen is Satan will come in and say, oh, you pathetic person. God hates you. Oh, you've sinned too much for God to forgive you. I've got to remember that my standing with God does not depend on what I did that day, but what Jesus Christ did one day 2,000 years ago. Yeah.

Amen, bro.

That's—

yeah. I'll point this out. So what Paul's talking about is people historically, they'll differentiate between practical righteousness and imputed righteousness. And this is really, really important. Both of them, like is what I'm trying to teach my kids, both of them protect you. Yes. Okay. So you walking practically, there's a reason the book of Proverbs says, "Whoever walks in integrity walks securely." The other proverb that I think about constantly, that righteousness functions like a rear guard. So it's like, hey dude, if I'm walking in a righteous way in my life with integrity, I don't constantly got to look back and go, man, is somebody going to snipe me for something that I did years ago they found out about? I don't got any skeletons in my closet. So it protects you that way. And then the impute— this is a little, I love this little sermon illustration, imputed righteousness. So it's like our righteousness righteousness sucks like filthy rags. Your righteousness is terrible. It's not acceptable. Jesus' righteousness is perfect. I just want to point this out. I find this funny. Pull that up, Trinity. Every Roman breastplate is like some chiseled jacked dude. It's like, I don't look like that.

No dad bod armor?

No, not so much. Yeah, they don't make the beer belly gut breastplate. Every breastplate is like, chiseled pecs, 8-pack abs. And in other words, honestly, it's kind of a good illustration. It's like my righteousness, terrible. I'm getting covered in the perfection. I'm getting covered in somebody else's perfection that they earned and that I didn't.

That's good.

They worked for that. I didn't. I didn't work to do this. Don't look like that. I didn't do that work. Jesus did a whole bunch of work that looks perfect. And that's kind of Can I say this? It's kind of gay for me to— that looks perfect. That sounds kind of— it's a little zesty to say that. Take that down.

In shape physique.

There you go. An in shape physique.

There you go. I'm going to just call that respect.

Respect.

Respect. Put respect on that.

Moving on. But Jesus' righteousness is perfect, and I'm covered in something that's perfect that I didn't earn or achieve. And honestly, I think it's like an actually great illustration of what theologians have historically called imputed righteousness.

And because of that, now, because that's true, because that's true, you live in obedience.

You live your life differently. That's right.

Keep that puff.

Chetji Paul C. Come on. What is the shield of faith and why is it called a shield?

Ooh, that's a good question. Well, think of it this way. Actually, can we put that, the picture of the shield back up there?

You can put anything you want up.

I would love to. Let's put a picture of that.

That's the press play. Paul over here.

Yeah, brother.

I believe they called this like a scutis or something like that. And so it was a big old, big old shield. And so if you can imagine, talks about flaming—

They called it a what?

A scutis.

Hey bro, we don't swear in this podcast. We don't do that.

We can say gay, but not skoupilón.

Oh, skoupilón. Sorry, I just cussed in ancient Greek.

Oh, wow.

That was for you.

That was for you.

Yeah, I knew you would know what that was referring to. So here it talks about flaming arrows and darts. And so back in Roman times, the enemy would often fling from that flame. They would shoot flaming arrows. And if you saw that coming to you, that would scare you to death. And if it's just you and that flaming dart, you're not going to survive unless you remember, oh, wait a second, I have a shield that I can hide behind. So these were actually usually about the height of the person and they would get together and shield them against the darts coming their way. So I believe what means in terms of the shield of faith is the idea of I'm having faith in what? In the promises of God against whatever is coming against me. And so even when I am tempted to disbelieve, if I remember God has said he will never leave me nor forsake me, he said that he will give me a way out of every temptation, is when stuff is coming at me, I believe what? In the promises of what God has said to me.

Amen.

Anything I leave out that you wanted to put in there?

Yes. That's really strong. It was really interesting in looking at this. I didn't know this. So those little Roman shields, they had— this is really interesting. They had leather, they had thin leather covers. So I was looking at this this week in prep and that what they would do is— so it says, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. So I didn't know this. They would soak the leather. Do you know that? They would soak the leather so that— yeah, we're going to show this here in a second. So that when the flaming arrows, like if it had oil or something, it would extinguish when it— So Paul, he's calling this military imagery and he's like, hey man, that's what it's like when you believe the promises of God. It's like they can't take root and any flame spread. That kind of vibe. I'll also say this, this is an interesting potential illusion. So you'll see this guy in the movie Gladiator or whatever.

Oh yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So that's called a, I'll get this wrong, a testudo formation.

Great movie, by the way.

Great movie. Movie. Not the second one. Second one was not a good movie.

The second one is awful. But okay.

To studio formation. And I'll just point this out. You'll see that in movies and stuff. I'll point this out, dude. So that formation only works if you're surrounded by a band of brothers. So I will point this out, man. If you're all by yourself with that shield, you still got 3 sides the enemy can get you at. But when that, it's like I'm covered on every single side. So what is kind of like one, I think one potential implication of this is, hey man, just you, that ain't enough. You need a band of brothers to surround yourself with that you're going to cover your blind sides.

It's good.

I think it's there.

All right.

That's great.

Chad G. Paul C. Yeah. Helmet of salvation. What is it? Why is it called a helmet? Ooh.

I like to think of this way. I mean, obviously salvation is what God has given us through his son, Jesus Christ. But why is it a helmet? What does it protect? It protects your mind, your brain. So I like to think of it like this. To me, this is so much really goes back to what we were talking last week is the assurance of salvation.

Mm-hmm.

Because for me, one of the greatest ways that Satan will attack is despair, condemnation, lies about my identity and my self-worth. He comes through my mind. And so often what I have to claim is I have to say, no, no, no, Christ has saved me. I am his child. There's nothing that can separate me from the love of Christ. The end of Romans says, Romans 8:1, starting at the very beginning of Romans 8:1, it says, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so I believe the reason it's a helmet is it protects your mind specifically. That's saying, when all else fails and we're having that despair, go back to what God has done for you in Christ Jesus.

Amen. Right, man. Uh, just to add to what you're saying, Paul, uh, Bible constantly says, hey, renew your mind. Uh, that's Romans 12. Set your mind on things above. That's Colossians 3. Take captive every thought. That's 2 Corinthians 10. Think about what is true, what is excellent, what is pure, what is noble. Again, you make a decision to, to renew your mind, to fill your with the word of God, with what is true to combat the lies of the enemy. Let's keep going.

Can I click on something here? Yeah. Okay. I didn't know if I was going to do this, but I think now's the moment. So it's really interesting, the helmet thing, and it's like, hey, that protects your mind. So I didn't know if we were going to have time to mess with this, but it feels important. Let's just go ahead and do it. It's our podcast.

We can always take a break if you want.

Thank you, Carlos.

You're welcome.

So there's this little, if you go back to, I think it's 1 Corinthians where it talks about, hey man, we have divine power to tear down strongholds. So what the New Testament is alluding to is there's, hey, there's sin. Ah man, if you start looking at your life, this starts to make a whole lot of things make sense. There's sin. And then it goes, but there's also a thing that is actually a demonic stronghold. And it differentiates between these things. Now let's go a layer deeper on this thing. If you start to look at your life and a normal Christian is like, hey man, well, how do I know if it's a sin or a stronghold? Hey man, you have been given everything you need in Christ Jesus to defeat sin. So here's how you know. If you have tried and tried and tried to get out of a sin and you can't, you're not dealing with a sin anymore. You're dealing with a stronghold. Okay? Now to what Paul's saying, the helmet of salvation, he's going, hey man, this protects your mind. There's a lot that has to go on in the mind. Let me do this real quick.

I heard this a while ago from— there's a dude, this guy's a baller. 60% of this came from a pastor named Otha Turnbow. This guy's a baller.

What a great name.

I know, strong name, dude. Yeah. But it's like what he did is he went, hey man, let me give you this quick teaching on demons and strongholds. And it's A, biblical and crazy practical. And all of a sudden you're like, holy Moses, that explains a lot. Okay, so this is killer. Okay, check this out. So one, He goes, an open door is how a demon gets in. And it's frequently through sin. You give yourself over and over to sin and you're opening a door for demonic influence. But he said, number two, a stronghold is how a demon stays in. And he points this out. You said this earlier. He's like, hey man, Satan is the father of lies. So how does Satan's minions work? What they do is they're going to get in your mind and they're going to rearrange the furniture of their mind and start to change the mental pathways and change how you think. That is why Romans 12:2, when it's like, hey man, do you know how you're going to get set free and be transformed in the image of Jesus? Listen close to what it says. If you're new to the Bible, it says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Mind.

Yeah.

Okay. So the stronghold happens when you sin, demon gets in, but now the stronghold, the demon stays in and its influence stays in by starting to rearrange how you think about stuff. And you're not thinking about what you think about.

Okay.

Then he goes, number 2, demons have to be cast out. And we're going to probably talk about what that means and what that doesn't mean. Deliverance ministry stuff here in a second. Demons must be cast out. Strongholds must be torn down. This is really good. Okay. 2 Corinthians 10:4, the weapons of our warfare are not physical, but have divine power to tear down strongholds.

Wow.

And then watch this. It says how, It says, "We destroy arguments. We take every thought captive." So it's alluding to the fact strongholds in your life is when they start rewiring through lies, the thinking of your brain. And you're, man, evil things look like good and good things look like evil. That's what that is. Okay. Now, number 3, demons are cast out quickly. Strongholds are broken over time. And dude, this right here, bro, this will mess people up. So he pointed this out, John 8:31, if you listen to the word, continue in my word. If you continue in my word, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And it used that word. It's pointing out, hey man, it's going to take some time steeping your mind in the truth of the scriptures, getting yourself surrounded by a band of brothers who are saying true things to you and stigmatizing evil things around you instead of people who are like a band of evil brothers. That are actually encouraging you towards evil things and stigmatizing good things, hey, it's going to take some time, brother.

Yes.

You're going to need to continue in the word to rewire your thinking is what he's doing. So I might just say it like this. If it took 5 years and terrible friends to build the stronghold, it's going to take longer than 5 minutes and godly friends to tear down the stronghold.

Yes.

All right. Now, last one, number 4, the name of Jesus casts out demons. The word of God breaks strongholds.

Okay.

Say it one more time.

Yep. The name of Jesus casts out demons. The word of God breaks down strongholds. So Jeremiah 23:29, I love this so much. Is not my word like a fire, like a hammer breaking rocks into pieces? I love it so much. Wow. Okay. So here's the point is it's saying, hey man, the second you give your life to Jesus, Jesus, like he's your kinsman redeemer, the Bible says. He has paid your price. He sets you free. But then, amen, you got to soak your mind in the scriptures. That's going to change your attitudes, your friendship circles, your understandings of things. And that's how it's like the old— if you don't do that, if you don't soak your mind in new things, that's how the old you comes back. And the big idea is, He says, if you cast a spirit of deception out without replacing it with the spirit of truth, it's just going to come back and it'll bring 7 more spirits with it. And it'll be the last state will be worse than the first.

That's right.

So he's talking about, hey man, helmet of salvation. This is something that protects your mind. All that. How does that play into spiritual warfare? That's how.

That's right. That's great.

That's great. Now that wasn't so rapid fire, so let's keep going. Okay, rapid fire. Let's finish this guy.

And we got the shoes and we got the sword.

ChatGPT, what is the sword of the spirit?— and why is it called a sword?

Well, this is kind of cheating because it literally says it in the text. It's the Word of God. It's the Word of God. It's the one offensive weapon we have. And actually, the sword that would've been used by Romans was a short sword. So it was close combat kind of a thing. And the idea— get really— so much of this ties together. If going back to the idea that one of the main ways that Satan comes at us is with lies, we have to have the truth. The truth is found in the Word of God. You literally see Jesus doing this with Satan in hand-to-hand combat in the desert, in the wilderness. Satan comes at him with 3 temptations, and what is the the first move always that Jesus does. He says, he quotes the word of God.

It is written.

It is written.

It is written.

And going back to that, it was funny 'cause I was saving it for this segment, but then you brought up what you brought up earlier and I made that connection between they would speak these things in protection. And here the word is rhema, which is the idea of a word that is spoken. Jesus speaks those words out loud. I'm not saying you have to, but I will say there's been times in my life where I've been faced with temptation and if I have a verse in my mind for that temptation, I just say it and I keep saying it until the temptation goes away. So I think that is actually just one word of instruction to people as temptations from the enemy is coming at you, fight back. That's right. A sword is used to fight.

That's right.

Fight back. And so one of the best encouragements I'd give to people, I think I first heard this from John Piper. He talks about just having some verses for different temptations that you particularly struggle with and memorizing them.

Didn't he have an app called Fighter Verses? I used that right after college. They're great.

Yeah. Fighter Verses.

Yeah. We need to get John Piper on the pod. We should so do that.

That, uh, you know, I love the original JP, the OG JP. Yeah, that's great.

Shout out Pakluta.

That's right.

Go ahead.

I love that Jesus modeled this. And so, you know, just to make it really practical, like, I do this all the time. I literally have like go-to verses that I'll, uh, out loud I'll speak in, uh, to remind myself and to preach the gospel to myself, um, and to combat the lies. And I've heard it said before too that the 3 most significant words that are spoken about you in light of eternity is It is finished. That's what Jesus said about you at the cross. The 3 most significant words that you and I can use in this context of spiritual realms is, it is written. Boom. So this— we are as Christians, we are meant to follow Jesus, be like Jesus, and say, hey, anytime you're facing something, fear, anxiety, whatever it is, it is written. The word of God is a sword. And, uh, the word of God was not given to Christians to defeat the enemy. It was given to Christians to remind the enemy that he's already defeated.

Ah, bro, that's great.

It's so good.

It's great, dude. So, and so you're not, you're not trying to fight a battle that you need to Jesus won the battle and now we get to live in light of that truth.

Come on, man.

That's good.

All right, let's go. Last one. Feet fitted with a readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Oh, I love that. What are the shoes, Paul?

Yeah, I would, again, in the same way that the breastplate was two things simultaneously, I would argue the same thing here. One, and this is the easy one, is I would say it clearly refers to proclaiming the gospel. You read the text earlier from the Old Testament of the idea of how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. Paul in Romans used this specifically for people who are preaching the gospel. "So obviously a big point of this is, man, again, we're not only called to defend ourselves against the enemy, we're called to take ground against the enemy." That's right.

That's right.

"We're called to do damage to the kingdom of darkness. And that happens as we bring the gospel to people, we invite our one-mores to church, all the things. But I also think that how we do this, remember it uses the word peace. In Ephesians 2, it talks about how God had brought down a dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles and made peace between them." Amen. "So I do think this is about proclaiming our peace with God if we place our faith in Jesus.". But I also think this is also about then keeping the peace of God in the community of God. Because if you're going to have your band of brothers keeping together with those shields, you got to have unity to do that.

That's great.

Can I ask one more thing?

I don't want to move on from you.

No, no, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm not moving on.

All right, good.

But maybe you got something to add on.

So this is honestly the one that is like, I think people got to get. Yeah. Maybe they misunderstand the most. So the analogy I like to use when I preach this, is having the right shoes makes a big deal. It was like, it's that guy that was training, he trained his whole life for the NFL Combine and then he showed up and somebody handed him Crocs. It's like, that ain't going to go very well. So when it talks about these shoes, there's a specific type of shoes called a caligae. So show that first one. So that's an actual recovered Roman caligae, if I'm pronouncing it right. This, go to this next one. By the way, some dude makes these for $100. That can be yours, Carlos.

That's great.

Amen.

We need a Live Free version of that.

Nah, it's like if Crocs and Chacos had a baby.

That's what you get. It looks very Portland to me.

That's hilarious.

I'm out. So this is a Roman Caligae, and it's like 7 jokes just ran right through my head, and I'm not using any of them. But honestly, this is like— come back.

I'm back with you.

Come back to me.

He lived in Portland.

I didn't live in Portland, but I know—

He lived everywhere, bro.

I've been to Portland multiple times.

Come on, he's from Washington.

My brain went places.

He's been everywhere. Go ahead. Except for, you know, except for Nazareth.

You guys are the People's Republic of Washington. That's where he moved from.

Yeah.

All right, so this is one of my favorite. Dude, I love this so much. So this right here is where we get the word evangelist. So can I do the little thing? I love this little thing.

Yes, please.

All right, so this is where we get the word evangelist. Evangelist. So when you read in your gospels, you're listening to this and you're new to Christianity, you're like, what does evangelism mean? What does evangelist mean? Is honestly one of the coolest words in the whole Bible. So originally evangelist, military term in keeping with this military term. So what you would have happen in ancient Roman little tribal warfare era is let's say you got a little village, and they hear about an army that's coming against them, and I'm going to use some very intentional language, that wants to steal, kill, destroy, and enslave them. Well, what they would do is they'd gather all the men of the city and they'd send them off, listen real close, to go fight a battle on their behalf. And they would know that the results of that battle, either victory or defeat, would be, listen, listen, listen, lesson imputed to them. And if the men who fought on their behalf were victorious, then they would know, man, life, freedom, and peace. Wonderful. And if the men who fought on their behalf failed and were defeated, then steal, kill, destroy, and enslave.

They would know that. So they sent a whole army off. And then you just got to imagine you're sitting there with all your family and you're sitting there every single day, Did he win?

Did Dad win?

Seriously, you're wondering that. Did Dad win? And then you're wondering what's going to happen to us? Are we going to be slaves forever and all our stuff taken away, or is victory going to happen on our behalf and then we get life, life eternal?

You're wondering the whole time.

So then whenever the military was successful and they defeated the enemy, They would take one dude, usually the fastest dude, and they would send that guy back to start running. He would just start trucking towards home. And that guy's name in this old military terminology, guess what he was called? An evangelist. Because literally what he was doing, it comes from the word evangelion, which means good news. So they told this guy, Go back, run as fast as you can, and listen, proclaim the good news. Victory has been accomplished on your behalf. Our victory is going to be imputed to you. Instead of steal, kill, destroy by the enemy, all of us get life and freedom and abundant life. And so this dude will be running. Just think about it. This dude's running, running, running. So then everybody down in a little city, every single day, what they would've woken up and done is they would've just looked up towards the horizon at the top of the mountain or the hill, wherever the army went off. And every day they would've just been waiting for a little silhouette to appear. They're waiting for the evangelist. And then think about this, it's going to go back to this passage.

And then one day this one dude crests the top of the hill. And as soon as he gets up there, he's looking down on the little village and he starts yelling like, "It's finished. Victory is accomplished. Imputed victory on your behalf. No slavery, no death, abundant life forever. All the dads are coming home." And that guy was called an evangelist. His message was called a gospel, an evangelion, a good news. And guess what? What everyone would've seen is as soon as that dude came up over the horizon, they would've been going, man, how beautiful the feet of an evangelist who brings good news. That's our calling. That's what that passage means right there, dude.

That's amazing.

Wow.

So good.

It's awesome.

Bible's amazing.

So, you know, we've gone through the whole thing. You mentioned prayer in addition to all of that as well. But it's interesting, you get the belt of truth, you got the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace. Like, you got all these things. Um, every piece of the armor actually points to Jesus himself. Like, if you think about it, we have a verse for each one of these things. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is our righteousness. Jesus is our peace. Jesus is the object and perfecter of our faith. Jesus is our salvation. And Jesus is the Word made flesh. And so in some sense, what Paul is saying here to the Ephesians is the same thing he says in Romans 13:14. Basically, he's saying, hey, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. The best place for you to be in the midst of spiritual warfare is to remain clothed in Christ, bro.

As the kids would say, that's fire. That's fire right there. Just—

I'm not gonna top that. I mean, just as a practical thing, even to put that in just in your daily life, is, man, if I was the enemy and I had a God who was way stronger than me, my greatest tactic would be to get your eyes off him. That's right. And so in this passage, there is something you have to do. You're called to put these things on, and yet to your point, you're putting on things that have already been given to you and done for you. That's right. And so you just got to remember when you're being attacked or even when you failed and he's trying to put condemnation, he's trying to get you to focus on you and then on him as the enemy. You got to get your eyes off of yourself, off of your enemy, and on the one who is stronger than your enemy.

Hebrews, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Robert Murray M'Cheyne quote, hashtag deep cut for everyone. Look at your sin, take 10 looks at Christ. It's all the things. Okay, let me fire this off real quick. Let's theology nerd real quick. Paul, shout you, Paul C, because what this is talking about is specifically talking about spiritual warfare. It specifically says— somebody read that. Where is it? Read the verse where it talks about we're taking our stand against the devil's schemes. And it uses essentially demonic language.

Starting verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

All right, Paul, do this real quick. Yeah, because a lot of people have this question.

Well, hey guys, as you know, Lake Pointe Church is a movement for all people to know Christ, live free, and change the world for God's glory. But here's the thing, movements by definition move, and so So if you're not moving, then the question is, are you really being a part of the movement? In fact, somebody once said that too many churches are like football games, 22 people on the field in desperate need of rest, being watched by thousands of people in the stands in desperate need of exercise. Hey, listen, we refuse to be a church like that. And so if you call Lake Pointe Church your home church, and if you have not yet joined a serve team, I want to invite you to take your next step right now. Text the word SERVE to 20411 and we'll help you find your spot where you can serve in person or online on whichever serve team you are being called to serve. Hey, thank you for being obedient to God's calling in your life, and let's keep doing this together.

Here, here's your, um, this is not fair, uh, Jeopardy, and you got to do it as fast as you can. So Jeopardy question, uh, give us a demonology theology. Where did Satan come from? A lot of people are like, well, I've kind of heard that Satan used to be in heaven and now he's not. Does the Bible actually say that? Where do people get it? So where did Satan come from? Where does the Bible say that that happened? And why did God create Satan? Just answer that in about 10 seconds. That's a joke. I'm just joking. Go ahead.

Especially that last one, the why did God create Satan? No, I'll give you 3 kind of points that just build on one another. I won't spend barely any time on this first one. First off, God is an infinite spiritual being with a capital B. So he is an infinite spiritual being with a capital B. Before that, God created the physical realm. He created a spiritual realm with finite spiritual beings. So we have to remember that God is the infinite creator. Even angels are creations. And so while they're more powerful than us, honestly, we have more in common with angels than angels do with God, because he is the creator who's infinite. They are finite creations. That makes sense. Yeah.

I've never heard somebody say that before.

That's good. It's a thing. So before he created the physical realm, he created a spiritual realm. You see this in a few places. Colossians 1:16, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. So you kind of see a parallel.

One reality, two realms. That's what we're talking about.

Exactly. Exactly what you said earlier. But listen, they use some of the same language that is used here in Ephesians. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. This is why many people believe that Genesis 1:1, when it says he began He created the heavens and the earth. Many people believe the heavens is the spiritual realm there because there was no light or stars at that point. Really? So many people believe that. I've never heard that before. Also, you get like the Book of Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" Going back to creation.

Wait, wait, are you going to talk about the Elohim and the Divine Council here? Do we want to do this?

Do we have time or we should save it for another time? Because it's a really complicated thing.

We could probably do a whole episode on that.

I'll at least throw, you know, I'll throw a bone in just a second, because I was about to get there.

So when you read the word Elohim, it can mean 3 different things. Oh, I see what you do there. All right, you keep going. So here's what we're talking about for people who are listening. This is a little bit of a deep cut. There's a Bible scholar named Michael Heiser. Heiser. Oh, there's no N?

No.

Just Heiser? Yeah. Okay. He wrote a book called The Unseen Realm. There's a lot of controversy around the book. His theory is that, well, it's actually just true. There are times in the Bible where the word Elohim, this is just a fact, refers to both God and angels. Yeah.

There's places where it's God and there's places where it's angelic beings. Yeah, for sure.

So Elohim, and sometimes that gets translated sons of God, things like that. And so there's a whole thing that he has about the divine council and that what happened at the Tower of Babel was actually God dividing the world between fallen angels that they have different realms they oversee. It's kind of where we get a theology of territorial spirits and that kind of stuff. So I just— okay, we may get—

we have to come back there another time. But anyway, so you got like, yeah, so you've got this idea that he created an unseen realm with these finite spiritual beings. These beings are— we often refer to them as angels, but in the Bible they're called seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominion, rulers, authorities, powers, hosts, sons of God even sometimes. And you get the four living creatures. So they have different names. We often put on there the title of of angel. At some point in time, some of these spiritual beings rebelled against God, and they were led first by Satan.

Okay, now what's your— what's your Bible verse?

Yeah, I was gonna say, I was about to go— we see this in a few different places. Uh, I'm only going to read Ezekiel 28, although I might throw one in there from Isaiah at the end of the Isaiah passage, just because there's this interesting, cool little detail. But in Ezekiel 28, this is actually originally talking about a king, but it says things that would never be said about a human king.

Exactly.

So it says this.

So wait, can I set this up real quick? Yeah, please do. So here's what Paul's getting ready to do. This is a Bible nerd thing. He's going to read, it's called dual fulfillment.

Dual fulfillment or sensus plenior. It's the idea that there's a meaning, but there's also a fuller meaning that this points to.

Yes. So yeah. So dual fulfillment or sensus plenior, that's what I was looking for, is that there's a near fulfillment and then there's essentially one reality, two realms. Realms. There's a seen realm fulfillment here in this passage. And then, hey, there's a second layer to this where something— it's referring to something that happened in the unseen realm. That's what you're going for.

It's almost like using an analogy. If I look through a rifle, but that doesn't have a telescope, but more like open sights, I'm looking at the sight, but actually I'm looking past it to something bigger. Does that make sense?

And so this passage is frequently— yes, This is one of the main 3 that I'm aware of that people go, that's describing the initial fall of Satan.

Exactly. So it says, you were the signet of perfection. This is Ezekiel 28:12-16, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Listen to this. You were in Eden, the garden of God. It wouldn't make sense if he's talking about a human king because people had been kicked out of Eden at that point. And you were an anointed guardian cherub.

Wait, you also—

Oh, what did I miss?

It wouldn't say about— I don't think it would say about a fallen pagan king. You were the signet of perfection.

Yeah.

No, no.

So what we're doing is we're listing reasons why people think this passage is referring to the fall of Satan, because he originally starts as a wonderful, powerful angel. Yeah.

You were an anointed guardian cherub. Where that matters is that when Adam and Eve are kicked out, what does God do? He puts a cherubim to guard the garden. So another allusion there. You were there a place. You were on the holy mountain of God. Again, wouldn't be something that you would say to a king. In the midst of stones of fire, you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created. Again, not something you would say about a human being. Till unrighteousness was found in you. In the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned. So I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub. So then there's another reference, Isaiah 14. I won't read the whole thing, but this is where you get the idea of how you are falling from heaven, O day star, son of dawn. That's in Latin, Lucifer. That's where you get the idea of Lucifer being his name. But then what's interesting is in verse 14, it says this: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

This would have been Satan, Lucifer speaking. I will make myself like the Most High. Well, why is that interesting? It's interesting because what is the thing that Satan in the garden tempts Adam and Eve with? You will become like God.

Wow.

So he's duplicating his original sin to them and let it be their original sin. So yeah, so those are a few passages that would point— there's more. Any others that you want me to go to?

Read the Revelation passage about a third of angels. Do you read that as referring to that initial moment?

Yeah, you're refer— I had this listed in case you wanted to get to it. Revelation 12:7-9, in case people want to go over. He's ready. And, and read this.

He had it ready, he means he just knows it in his mind. That's what he means.

Um, because it says here, the great ancient dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan. And then just before that, it talks about a third of the stars.

Revelation 12, where is that?

Yeah, Revelation 12. And then a few verses earlier talks about how a third of the stars— stars are often synonyms for 4, angels.

C.S. Lewis thought that stars were angels. That's a whole different podcast.

I think we've done some stuff on that before. We talked about it. Yeah, we've done some stuff on that. Some people will say this is future. I'm inclined to think that this is past. I really am. Or what about you? Same.

Yeah. Yeah, same thing.

There's just some things there that it's just like, ah, I feel like this is talking about the past. It could be also a future fulfillment, but it feels past to me. It feels past.

Yeah, that's how I do it.

There's a theory, I think I think it's— would it be, Paul, would it be gap theory that says that, uh, some people would say, how, for, you know, what you just described happened between Genesis chapter 1, verse 1 and verse 2. And so, you know, that's also— that's the minority view.

Yeah.

You agree with that?

Yeah. Oh, we didn't get to why did God create Satan. Yeah.

So Paul, why did God create Satan?

Okay, so we have to remember a few things. First, we have to remember that Satan was originally good. Oftentimes when people ask this question, the assumption is why would God create such a awful being.

He didn't.

He didn't. He didn't do that. He was originally good. And there's this C.S. Lewis quote that's so good. I'm just going to read the whole thing because I think this captures it so well. He was asked, why did God make a creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong? And his response was, the better stuff a creature is made of, the cleverer and stronger and freer it is, then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. A cow cannot be very good or very A dog can be both better and worse. A child, both better and worse still. An ordinary man, still more so. A man of genius, still more so. In other words, a genius can do more good, but also way more harm. And then he said, a superhuman spirit, best or worst of all. Wow. So we have to remember that God didn't make him evil. He became evil. But then the follow-up question would be, well, why didn't God just smite him dead? Like, and God knew he was going to do it. So why would he do it?

But some of this we're not given insight into. But here is what I do like to give as an answer to this question. It's very similar to the same thing of why would God know that evil was going to come and then create? I'll take you guys through the sequence of questions. I'll keep it as brief as I can though. Is it better to know more of someone or less of someone?

Depends who, right?

Yeah. Well, let's say it's a good person. It's more. Yeah, more. Okay. And then I often then will ask, and we'll do this briefly, hey, so what are some of your favorite things about God? When I have more time to walk through this and people will throw some different things, but Eventually people get around to things like, "Oh, his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness of how he died for our sins." And then I'll point out, "Huh, that's interesting because those are things that Adam and Eve did not know in their sinlessness that you know in your sinfulness." The very things that we love most about God are the things we wouldn't have known if God in his plan had not been allowed Satan to fall and then for Adam and Eve to fall.

Oh man. Okay. And that, I mean, that's Romans 9.

Yeah.

And so what if God desiring to show his power and make his wrath known, prepared beforehand, one of the hardest verses in the entire New Testament to deal with, prepared beforehand vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.

Yes.

That's Romans 9.

Yes.

In other words, and that's what you just said is the logic of Romans 9.

Exactly.

You would not know the grace of God unless there had been some people who were examples of the wrath of God. Yes, I've never applied that to Satan. That's fantastic.

Yeah, so it's just that, again, we're not given a complete picture, but I just think that— and that's actually, I got a lot of that logic from Jonathan Edwards in a thing he wrote way back when.

Of course you did, you know, because that's what you— he reads Jonathan Edwards before going to bed.

You know what, Carlos, it's a great read.

I believe you. I'm sure he's a brilliant guy.

But that I just would like to point out again, just to keep kind of get all that down. I think the things that we love most about God are the things that Adam and Eve did not know about God before they sinned. It doesn't mean that God made them sin. It means that that's why God would allow all those things to happen, so that we could know the depths of his grace and mercy that we wouldn't have known otherwise.

That's great, man. That's great.

I love that, uh, you know, we, we think it's a little funny, but you definitely read Jonathan Edwards before going to bed. Well, it's probably true.

I may or may not have his collected works in my office.

Of course you do. Which is, which is, by the way, he's, uh, Dewey's brilliant.

So if you do, that's actually a lot of people would say Jonathan Edwards is the greatest mind America has ever produced. That's right. Uh, one of the first presidents of Princeton University, now university, one of the first. That dude, I, I read, uh, there's 3 volumes, collected work of Jonathan Edwards. I read the first half of the first volume.

It's so good back in the day, and then I finished.

All right, let's keep going.

We got some, uh, we submitted, uh, some people submitted IG questions, uh, regarding spiritual warfare, demonology and stuff. We got a couple that we want to ask, and so here's So first one, Pastor Josh and Pastor Paul, can the enemy read our minds and know our thoughts?

I say no. I say no. And so first of all, what I like to say is we speak confidently where the Bible speaks confidently, and then we remain silent where the Bible remains silent. So this is implication. It is not clear application of a verse of the Bible. So the reason I say that is where people get confused, both God and Satan are spirits. That does not mean they possess all the same qualities. God is omniscient. Satan is not. God is the only omniscient. By the way, omni means all, scient is a Latin suffix that just means science or knowledge of. So omniscient just means all-knowing. So the only person that the Bible refers to as omniscient is God. It does not refer to Satan that way. Now, if I am going to stand on a verse, and bro, this is a really interesting verse, this gets into divine counsel stuff. So what Heiser does that we were talking about earlier, if we're going to theology nerd out real quick is he essentially says that God created the world, and this is all, it's kind of conjecture and implication, is that there was a divine council of quote unquote Elohim, a group of spirits that God was like, hey, we together, you're going to be essentially spiritual vice regents, and we together are going to rule and reign over creation.

And that originally, his kind of theory is that Satan was one of those Elohim that was part of God's divine council that got kicked out of heaven after the rebellion. Now I will say, dude, one of the passages that lends really strong credence to that, it's Job 1 and 2.

Oh yeah.

So Job 1 and 2, if you go read this, people skim past this. Job 1 and 2. One, you have Satan himself in the throne room of God. Number two, apparently allowed to consult with the King of Heaven in the same way that, I don't know, a prince would be able to consult with a king in an actual realm. And Satan comes and he's like, so here's, let's go back original question. Does Satan know our thoughts? Can he read our minds? If I'm doing a verse, my verse I'm going to go to is Job 1 and 2. Satan asked God permission. It is clear that he is only working with what he can see and observe about Job. And it's very clear in Job, God knew things about Job's thoughts and motives that Satan didn't, which is why the next 50 chapters proved that God was right about Job and Satan was wrong.

That's good.

So if I'm going to stand on a verse, I'm going to go, man, Job seems to very clearly imply Satan did not know the thoughts and intents of Job's heart. I will say this, dude, you can take this stuff too far. This right here is why there are people who write about this kind of stuff who they will— and I don't even know if I agree with them, actually. I do the opposite of this in my own personal prayer life, they'll say that, hey man, actually in some ways it's safer to pray silently. Or they'll say, if you're a person who believes in a prayer language, that man, that the prayer language, praying in the spirit, Ephesians 6, that actually that's one way that you communicate directly with God that does not make Satan aware of these things. The caution I would give is, hey man, again, the Bible doesn't tell us these things and you can start thinking like a human about divine things and you know, tease out implications that aren't there, but I find it interesting.

That's great.

Yeah, I think sometimes in addition to Job 1 and 2, I'll throw in 1 Kings 8:39 where it says, "You," speaking of God, "alone know the human heart." It says "alone." You alone. And the idea at that time, the heart was not just emotions for them. That was the center of their whole being, which included their thoughts. I like to think of it like this: Satan is like a master mentalist. A mentalist, if you're not familiar with that, those are almost like magicians, but specifically they do body language and some psychology and even mental suggestion to try to read what you're thinking and then even put thoughts into there. So I think like, or maybe even a better one is like Satan's like a master poker player. It's like he can look at your tells, he can look at like kind of what you're doing and he can read you. But to your point, he doesn't know your mind, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't know how to manipulate you.

That's right. Yeah. That's why the Bible says he's crafty. He's, uh, he's got methods or schemes. Uh, he's experienced, he's deceptive. And you look at it in Genesis, uh, Uh, in Genesis 3, when he tempts Eve, he doesn't read her mind, but he just deceives her.

That's good. That's good.

Um, okay, so here in just a second, there's a video that I want to show, and this is a video that went extremely viral. It is, uh, and I'm not super familiar with this person, so Josh, maybe you are. So we're gonna talk about—

I did a little digging. Um, I don't know enough to like comment confidently. I do know that she's like involved in, uh, in what's called, frequently called deliverance ministry. I actually want to give some cautions about that real quick here in We'll talk about that. Um, I'll say this, based on what I read and what I saw here, enough to make me nervous. Yeah, I'm not running out to grab any books.

This is, uh, Katherine Crick, and the video will show her in a book signing where you will see people shaking, crying, convulsing. And obviously when you put a video like this on social media, it'll just go viral. And so it went super, super viral. Uh, Trini, if you want to play it, let's check it out. Every curse must be broken off of their life in Jesus' name.

The way the animation is pacing your life so far.

She—

didn't she originally post this? I think so, yeah.

I think we're good.

Yeah, that's long.

Yeah, I think we're good. Okay, so here's what I want to do. I want to ask, man, whenever— it's not so much about her or her ministry, but really when people see stuff like this on social media, when people see, or in person, if you ever are, you know, in a Pentecostal church or, you know, AOG, how should you think biblically about it?

Yeah. Well, let me give a caution. First of all, if you come from a background like mine, it's kind of like I came from Bible, Bible, Bible church, and that's been awesome for me. And it was kind of the functional trinity was God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Bible kind of thing. So then it's like, so I will give a caution, man. If you come from a background like mine, you can see any claimed manifestation of the Spirit and just walk in with a cynicism. And I just want to say, You better watch yourself. You better watch yourself. Paul specifically warns against, hey man, do not quench the Spirit. And one of the things that will "quench the Spirit" are attitudes of cynicism towards anything that might be the Spirit. So let me give a caution before I do say some things that make me super nervous about this. That's the caution. The other caution, dude, I'll point this out. And actually, can you read that Jonathan Edwards thing here in a second? A second.

Yeah, he's got the quote, but I can give the background.

Marlos has the Jonathan.

I mean, I didn't read the book or anything.

I can give the historical background.

But I got the quote.

So the caution is when you go read Acts 2, outpouring of the Holy Spirit, it says that there were two groups of people there. There were people the Spirit was poured out on, and then a second group of people said, but some mocked. You will see any, literally anytime there is an outpouring of the Spirit, you're going to see two people. There are people who get to experience him and there are people who will mock. Mock him. So I will point that out. I will also point out, man, I'm sorry, you are not going to be able to just open your Bible and say anybody that falls down or shakes, that's definitely not of the Spirit. I'm sorry, dude, you can't say it. You go to— now these are things, but I'm giving some cautions. I'm also going to give some warnings. Okay? But you got when the Spirit of God falls on Sinai, it specifically says that people, quote, I think it's fell down as dead. You have 1 Kings 8 when the glory of God descends on the consecrated temple. The priest, it says, quote, could not stand to minister. At the Transfiguration, it says that when the glory of God descends, Jesus transfigured.

It says that they, quote, fell on their face. Matthew 28, the guards trembled and became like dead men. So dude, I will just say this, man. There's part of me because of my background that just wants to look at anything like that and be like, Y'all are nuts and quit being weird. And actually, I do think there's a little bit where you just need to say, hey, y'all quit being weird. And we got Bible verses for quit being weird. I'll get to that in a second. But I want to warn with honestly fear and trembling in my heart, don't you dare let yourself become a person who walks toward any claimed move of the Spirit with cynicism. Some of the best dudes I've known that are like capital B Bible guys, they have had encounters with the Spirit that are simply not neatly explainable. I was at a, I don't know if any of you guys were there. It was at a Strategic Launch Network gathering. It was 3 years ago when John Tyson preached on prayer and repentance. And dude, that room was wall-to-wall 80 alpha dudes, the kind of guys who will just parachute into a city that hates Christianity, rub 2 sticks together and start a church.

The kind of guys that are okay with a few Scars. I don't know how to explain it. John Tyson started preaching and during the entire sermon, it was just, you heard it. It was just like from one end of the room to the other, very slowly over there, people started weeping.

Wow.

And then all across the room, and I'm not joking, by the end of that sermon, I just slid out of my chair onto my knees and I'm praying through tears. Prayers of repentance. So anyway, you can't just go, it looks weird, I'm out. Now, before I give some warnings, do you guys want to toss that Edwards thing in here and give some context? That kind of thing has happened before and has not been something people felt good about.

Yeah, I was literally about to say, so a little context, all the Jonathan Edwards joking aside, is that literally he describes this, and for people who don't know the history of this. He was writing during the mid-1700s. So we're talking almost 300 years ago now.

First Great Awakening, right? But it was right before the Revolutionary War. Yeah.

And he's not coming from what we would consider a charismatic context.

Ah, this dude's from— president of Princeton. Yeah.

And so he would literally read his sermons word for word in an almost monotone voice. I mean, so it's not a very charismatic context, but what happens is revival breaks out in his church in the surrounding area. And so actually he writes a book where he describes a lot of the different signs of it. And some of it was that people would shriek, or people would convulse. And so he wrote a whole book basically trying to discern between, hey, what if this is legitimate and what's illegitimate?

Was that Religious Affections?

Yeah.

Religious Affections is a way basically, how do we sort out which from which? And he does not say that shrieking or shaking is a sign that it's not legitimate. For him, the big sign that it's legitimate is what happens in the aftermath.

Bingo.

So it's not, did you shake? It's that your priorities get shaken and rearranged. That's it, dude. That's the big thing. And so I say that just for context to, hey, if you see this, this might be new to you. You, but it's not new. And so then I think he actually gives some quotes and some things that you may even—

let me just add to what you're saying. Let me just read the quote. This is Jonathan Edwards. He says, quote, a work is not to be judged of by any effects, by any effects on the bodies of men, such as tears, trembling, groans, loud outcries, agonies of body, or the failing of bodily strength.

And then pause, let me pause. I just want to point out what you just read. Yeah, he's saying those things are neither signs of for sure positive or for sure negative. He's saying completely neutral.

Basically, don't, don't use that as a, as a standard, or don't judge it based on those things. And then I'm just going to paraphrase because it's not as neat, you know, and if I read it, only Chad G. Paulsey could understand it. And, you know, I'm trying to make sure that everybody understands it here. Uh, basically he says, judge instead by the lasting fruit. Does it exalt Jesus Christ? Does it produce hatred of sin and love of righteousness? Does it increase regard for scripture? Does it lead into truth? And does it increase love for God and people? Bodily effects alone prove nothing either way. Again, that's right? So that's the point. Uh, Galatians 5:22 says, but the fruit of the Spirit is shaking, trembling, falling, jumping, hyper— it doesn't say that. It does not say that. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. So good.

Um, the— so the big— man, you have put a bow on that thing. It's like the thing that we try to beat into the heads of the disciples of Lake Pointe. The sign of a move of the Spirit of God is not emotion. Anybody can get you emotion. Anybody can get you emotional. The wrong movie can get you emotional. The sign of the move of the Spirit of God is not emotion, it's rearranged priorities. That Bible calls that repentance.

And then, uh, can I just add one more thing? So just to echo what you said, PJ, you can do, uh, whenever you see something like that, because it's not going to be the last time you see a video like that, you can— it could be one of three things. It could be what you said, uh, and I, by the way, you're super Baptist, I was, grew up, uh, super Pentecostal, um, so when I see something like that, people on the floor, that's kind of normal, you know? Yeah, I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, that's another service, yeah. And now, are there abuses happening? Of course. Is every experience like that legit? Most likely not. But it's interesting too, because you also get to see, and I've had the opportunity to just be here in the US, but also outside of the US, that stuff you see often in Latin America, Africa, just places really outside of the US, because the US is Nazareth made. What's it, John Tyson?

Nazareth made. Mate, uh, no, wait, when you saw that stuff, like, looking back, did— do you feel like, actually, man, I think that was legit? Yeah.

I, and I'll say, you know, I can't speak for other people, but I'll say I've had some moments— and by the way, I'm a super analytical person.

Yeah.

Like, sometimes to a fault. And I feel like even God has confronted me on some of those things where, like, hey man, you're trying to overthink everything, uh, calm down. Um, I have had some experiences where, again, I just have been overwhelmed with emotion, not to the point where perhaps I'm, you know, shaking uncontrollably, or I've lost control of my body, but I am just on the floor weeping and just extremely overwhelmed. And so 3 ways, or 3 things that it could be whenever you see something like that. One, it could be a genuine work of the Holy Spirit. And, you know, uh, some people express it differently. And, and I'm not saying that— that I'm talking about that video. I'm saying generally speaking, you spoke about some verses, people fall to the ground all the time. There's a reason reason why all throughout scripture you hear fear and trembling. That's not an allegorical spiritual thing, like it's legitimate fear and trembling. Um, that's one. Two, it could just be an intense physical response to an emotionally overwhelming moment, but it's not necessarily a supernatural one. If you ever go to a Taylor Swift concert, which I'm not recommending, but if you ever see a video where there's people that are like mega fans, they're like, ah, there's like shaking and there's like an ah and a trembling and people do all sorts of crazy things.

There's, you know, maybe there's a supernatural thing not from the Holy Spirit there, but that's a different conversation. Uh, that's the number 2. It's just a natural response. Number 3, it could be a supernatural manifestation. Um, we would call that a demonic manifestation, not from the Holy Spirit. Uh, we see this in scripture, Mark chapter 1. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, be silent and come out of him. And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with loud voices, came out of him. The word convulsing is literally to shake violently. Um, I've— I have personally seen people convulsing or shaking violently, honestly, a little bit like some of those. I'm not saying that that's what's happening over there, um, because there, there's a demon there that is, and it's just consistent with what you see in scripture. Um, and so, and there's more examples there. Again, I've seen people pray for other people and then something happens and there's deliverance after, and there's a pattern learn. In scripture you see this: the presence of God shows up, Jesus confronts, the demon reacts, there's an involuntary manifestation, and then there's deliverance. That's, that's a good thing.

Deliverance is a good thing. Um, and then the last thing I would say is, uh, always test everything through scripture. 1 John chapter 4: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, that's good, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.

And how do you do that? The very next verse is like, hey man, the very next thing it says is that any spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not from. And what it's doing is he's saying, hey man, if that spirit is a Holy Spirit who is called the Spirit of Truth, then what you should expect is that person through whom that spirit is coming is a person who cares a lot about the truth of God's word. The reason that I will just, I'll gently say, dude, I don't know a ton about that girl, but the reason I will gently say, man, when I see that, I'm not feeling awesome about it is one, I'll just shoot you straight, dude. I don't feel good. I have never seen personally, and they may be out there, a quote unquote deliverance ministry. And she does. That's what she claims to be. I just warn you, man, I never seen one that made me feel awesome. I've never seen one. There's a few reasons for that. I think if you're a hammer, everything's a nail. Nail. And hey man, it's like not everything that's wrong with you is a demon.

There's a little old phrase, you can't cast out the flesh, but you can't disciple a demon. Well, hey man, we're probably going to need both. Okay. Two, when I see the deliverance ministry thing and it's becoming more and more of it, it's very sensational. It's very clicky. I will point this out. You've got 3 things that will get collapsed into one is, hey man, the Bible says what can drive you to some things. It might be your flesh, sinful nature, might be some thought patterns. We already talked about that. Might be a spirit. And dude, deliverance ministry, sometimes it just feels like it collapses. Literally, you're a hammer, everything's a nail, and everything is spirit. I'll also see some weird teachings. I'm like, hey dude, that just biblical. You'll just see stuff like a lot of emphasis on things like, oh, demons can get legal rights to you through— I'm like, ah, actually no. Actually, I'm pretty sure Jesus purchased our freedom at the cross and nobody else has a legal right on a Christian. Or you'll see an overemphasis on things like you're creating open doors and portals, some of that kind of stuff.

And honestly, man, it just kind of sometimes feels like a superstitious way way of overspiritualizing things where the book of James just says, hey, sin when it is fully grown begins to give birth to death. James doesn't say sin when it's allowed to grow becomes a demon portal. It doesn't say that. So my fear on what happens with some of this kind of stuff is, hey, we're interpreting emotional reactions as spiritual things. We may be interpreting moves of unholy spirits as moves of the Holy Spirit. And dude, honestly, there's a little victimization thing, I'll be honest, where what it can do, what the deliverance ministry emphasis can do to people is it creates an immediate expectation in people for something the Bible says is going to happen gradually. Dude, it's called the doctrine of progressive sanctification. Yes, man. I am being transformed, quote, from one degree of glory to the next for my entire life, beholding the face of Jesus Christ. That doesn't make it sound like everything in my life is going to be like power encounter, exorcism, you're free. So yeah, man, it's just that stuff makes me real nervous. Nervous. That's not what I like to see.

Can I add one quick thing to that? Of course.

Yeah.

Because even I've met people who've tried to do stuff like that and like, man, I prayed for this powerful encounter and to be released from my sin strongholds and it didn't work. And then they're like, oh, I must not have had enough faith. Or it was told them that. And I'm just kind of like, y'all—

That type just is, you need prayer and fasting. That's what you need for that one.

And it's just kind of like, I'll put it this way. Listen, have we heard stories? Have we heard stories here at Lake Point of people being set free from sinful patterns? Or for demonic oppression, actually instantaneously. Yes. And then I also tell people, for every one of those, I can name probably 50 to 100 more that the way they had to conquer that sin was one day at a time, tooth and nail, discipleship for the rest of their life. So, man, if you're out there and you're still struggling, don't feel like, oh, there must be something wrong, like, with my faith. Like, no, you know what? This is just part of what it means to be a Christian. Yeah, part of what it means to be a Christian.

Pastor Josh, we can shut her down here, or you can also share with us, uh, the spiritual warfare that is being used to destroy Christians.

Or we can take a break and come back and do it.

Let's shut her down here, and then we may come back to it. Let's see what we do.

Okay, sounds good. Well, uh, in that case, uh, Pastor Josh, would you pray for us?

I would love to. Father, I do pray that every person that's listening would be filled to great measure by an outpouring of your Spirit on their life. I pray that a spirit of sonship would wash over them, like maybe they're on a treadmill or lifting some weights or on a deer stand or in their car. And Lord, I pray that right now that a spirit of sonship would rise up within them and make them cry out, "Abba, Father." They would know the fatherhood of God. Father, I do pray that you would set us free from sin, death, and Satan. Father, I pray that we would immerse our minds in the truth of your word, that it would just dislodge every lie that the enemy has planted inside of us, and that you would conform us to the image of your son, Jesus Christ. For your glory and the good of people. In his name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Live Free, brother. Well, hey guys, quick heads up. While recording this week's Live Free podcast episode, we were planning to dive into a really important conversation. Pastor Josh wanted to talk about spiritual warfare on a macro level and how the enemy is actively at work and what that actually looks like in our culture today, including his attempts to undermine and destroy a nation that has been deeply influenced by Christianity. And what happened was that the conversation was so important and so in-depth that we simply ran out of time. So instead of rushing through it, we're giving it its own episode. This Wednesday, we're releasing that conversation, and I genuinely think it's one you do not wanna miss. So make sure you're subscribed on all the platforms, stay tuned, and we'll see you this Wednesday on the Live Free Podcast.