Confronting the Powers | Pastor Dwain Wolfe

All right, praise the Lord. They're not exaggerating. Uh in you're going

to but guess what, they don't have property taxes. Yeah, so maybe

I could put up with a pothole or two. I don't know. Maybe

I don't know, but yeah, some of those drives are pretty crazy.

Bless them, Bless them, Bless them, and shower goodness on the amen

sought. Are we thank you for your word today and just see overflow of

holy spirit upon us and the way you help us. And it's the illumination

of your word to us and over us and then threw us in Jesus' name,

everybody said on week two of the Avengers, and this is all about

preparing the way of the Lord. Right. So, and I think somewhat

in mind that we don't maybe we need to realize, I want to say

it that way. We need to realize. And part of what I feel

like is important for me to deposit is just how important it is to to

get the garden ready, for the garden to be shifted right, for thee

to get the garden ready. So not just my garden, but I'm talking

about you know, the cultural garden. Right. So a lot of times

what happens to prepare the way for the Lord. The Lord is the living

Word. To prepare the way for the word of the Lord, the presence

of the Lord, the truth of the Lord, the ministry of the Lord,

the wisdom from above. There needs to be a shift that takes place

that gets the garden ready. Anybody got in a garden at home, garden

box you ever had, you never had a garden of any kind. So

therefore today I'm kind of talking a little bit more about the spirit of the

avenger. That Jesus came not to be avenged on mankind. Jesus came as

Father's avengement on the enemy who had taken mankind captive, and that Father's animosity,

in Father's ultimate expression, is not with us. It's not with mankind.

It's with the demonic realm that is and has been holding mankind in captivity

and reeking harm in mankind. Yes, so just thinking like this week we

had we had some movement this week if you were aware, if you were

watching the news, we had some movement this week kind of interesting in the

Ivy League schools where you watching some of that, and so we had some

some uncleanness come out into the open right before Congress, remember that, And

interestingly enough it was exposed. But interestingly enough it was emboldened, right.

So it was emboldened at Harvard, So it was emboldened at these Ivy schools,

and it was unapologetically spoken of. Right. But maybe we saw a

little bit of a movement there, like all at once. Now we see

presidents of universities either fired or resigning, and we're seeing millions, maybe hundreds

of millions of dollars of funding removed, as this unclean agenda has been exposed,

and there's a lot of unclean stuff tied to it, right, And

what I want to present to you was that this week, what you saw

happen was actually the result of spiritual warfare, not just wisdom and truth.

What you saw this week was the result of hundreds of thousands of Christians praying

and making proclamations against the enemy and against see Harvard, Princeton, Yale.

These were biblical schools, These started as Bible institutions. These were the foundation

of our nation. These Ivy League schools were the foundational schools of our nation.

And some of our greatest theologians were actually presidents of those schools. So

This is a reclaiming of ground that belonged to God. So it's not over

ya, But I just want you to see. What I want you to

see is that. And even dating back, you know, six months ago

with Roe v. Wade, Roe v. Wade was overturned on a national

level, it was turned over to the States. And I want you to

see, even dating back to that, that was it wasn't just the culmination

of wisdom and truth. It was the culmination of years since nineteen seventy three

of Christians praying and actually bringing down a deity by the name of Mullik.

So a deity was bound up and brought down, and it manifested in various

ways. And there's always a fullness of time thing that has to happen.

So the fullness of time means that the words spoken and that the rebuke and

the command and the authority of the believers has to rise to a level of

maturity to where it brings things to pass, where judges are removed and judges

are placed in, and mindsets are changed, and leadership has changed. Truth

begins to make an impact and people begin to hear truth and things begin to

shift. And then this one begins to shift. That begins to shift,

and the next thing, you know, then we have a decision. But

the decision underneath, and the backdrop of that is a lot of prayer,

a lot of warfare, a lot of rebuke, a lot of truth,

a lot of a lot of compassion, a lot of wise ministry, a

lot of there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes happening, and then all

once we have something that takes place, but it's the result of a lot

of background, and a lot of that background the most I mean where it

begins as we make room for the Lord, as we prepare for his coming,

as we prepare for his influence, as we prepare for his glory,

as we prepare for his presence. A lot of it starts, as we

mentioned last week, in the realm of warfare. It starts in the realm

of us confronting the enemy. And we're kind of, you know, even

as much as New Horizon has spoken on this kind of thing, we even

we hear as a people, we tend to be warfare adverse. What I

mean by that is, we don't necessarily see it as super important. We

don't see it as as connected to the main thing We don't see it as

daily important. We don't see it as something that really will move things forward.

We don't really see it as maybe a source of a victory or an

answer. But you'd never plant a garden full of weeds. You'd never plant

a garden full of weeds. And there's you know, there's biblical truth here.

Not only would you not plant a garden full of weeds, but you

also you were taught mom Tatsya that when you pull the weed, you don't

want to break the weed and just get the manifestation. Don't break the weed

and get the manifestation, get the dirt, kind of loosen up a little

bit, and get the root, because if you don't get the root,

it may come back. And this is all biblical. This is all biblical.

This is these are biblical metaphors. This is God helping us to see

that the fruit of a thing has something behind that there's always something deeper behind

what is seen. And even in our own lives, we don't want to

just work on the fruit of what's troubling us or what we're addicted to or

drawn to, or what we've made an idol of, or what we used

to do or what seems to speak condemning thoughts over us or what fears torment

us. We don't want to just work on the fruit of that. We

want to go to the root of that, right And you know, so

this is you know, this is all I just I want to stir you

up a little bit more about kind of how important this is, because like

like we saw and it was really brought to our attention this week, our

schools and universities have been taken over by the demonic realm. Our government to

a degree, all all three bodies of leadership in the government have been taken

over by the demonic realm to a large degree. Our media has been taken

over by the demonic realm. Be it our movies. We pump out more

porn. United States of America pumps out more porn than any nation in the

world. We are perverting and spreading the Goddess of Ishtar. It's a spiritual

deity, It's a true spiritual deity. We are spreading the hortoms of pornography

and prostitution and uncleanness across the globe like like no place ELPs, like nobody

is. And so you know, what do we do about? What do

we do about some of this stuff, right, our education system. I

mentioned that our schools, you know, I mean, so we could just

sports sports are messed up? Right? How many how many men won women's

competitions this week? Hello? Somebody? Right? I mean, it's just

it's crazy stuff. But we're not hopeless in this stuff. We're not hopeless

in this stuff. If and as we focus not just on the fruit,

but as we focus on the route, we realize that Ephesian six ten through

eighteen is true, right, and let's read it. Let's dive into a

few verses here. Yeah, I think it's interesting as well. I'll just

I'll mention this. I think, you know, spirits, the unclean realm

is so emboldened right now and out in full manifestation that I don't know if

we have to be super discerning. I joked with you last week a little

bit, and I joked after the sermon mark four, mark five. You

know, it's where Jesus is found to be crossing over in a boat to

the other side of the lake, and when he gets there, there's a

naked guy with a couple of chains hanging on him running around the beach streaming.

And we could be amazed that Jesus immediately starts rebuking the demonic realm and

telling the demonic realm to leave him alone. We could be amazed at that,

but maybe we don't need to be. And I don't mean that in

a dishonoring way, but I think it's a little obvious, right. I

mean, you pull up to a spot and somebody with some chains and they're

naked is running around streaming. Are they normal? Is normal? Here?

Yeah? I mean you don't need a goosebump from the Holy Spirit, you

don't need a breakthrough, you don't need a prayer meeting, you don't need

to feel led. It's fairly obvious. This person is demonized, this person

is harmed and taken captive by something, and you are fully able to bring

help to them. And I think that it's kind of that way right now

in culture. And for us to not be moved, and for us to

not move, we're gonna have to have some mighty hearty blinders on, right.

I mean, we're gonna because opportunity is everywhere for us to be engaged

in setting atmospheres free. Yeah. Ephesian six' ten through eighteen. And

I feel like it's so important to say this that if you have been a

Christian five minutes or you've been a Christian five hundred years, you're okay.

This is okay for you. Like if you know how to get angry or

frustrated, and if you can discern if a dog's chasing you and barking and

you'd like to rebuke it, you can discern what the enemy is. And

not only that, not only can you discern the enemy, but your rebuke

five minutes into the Lord is just as powerful as my rebuke sixty years into

the Lord. Right, I mean, your rebuke is just as powerful.

So don't let anything get on you, as I talked this morning, that

would disqualify you, that would quinch you, that would tell you that you

weren't capable or able, or that you weren't because all of our I'm going

to read it at the moment, all of our strength and all of our

authority and everything is in the Lord. It's all in the Lord. It's

all in the Lord. But yet still we're called to rise up into it.

And like you would be angry at a German shepherd chasing you or anything

you know, nipping at you, we're called to be angry over what the

enemy's doing to people and to our culture and to our institutions. And we're

called to say no more, and get out of my schools, and get

out of my government, and get out of my community, and get out

of my family, and get off of my friends and leave them alone no

more. And there needs to be a little righteous indignation that we allow to

come up in us and wake us up right. It's like we need a

shot of spiritual adrenaline, and it's available if we will just realize that this

is our place, that we really are the avengers of God. We are

who he's using by the Holy Spirit to confront darkness and to see it overturned,

and not just confront the fruit of darkness, because that can be futile,

but to confront the root of darkness as we bring wisdom and truth to

the fruit of darkness. And then it brings a shift. Ephesian six tens

through eighteen. Finally, and so he's ending he's written a big old letter

to the Ephesus Church. That's why he says finally, by the way,

because this is a six chapter long letter, Finally, be strong in the

Lord and in the power of his might, in his mighty power. Put

on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to take

your stand against the devil's schemes. You notice, so that you will be

able to take your stand against the devil's schemes. And notice the inference is

this is an ongoing stance like we never aren't. That's not good English,

but we we never aren't to take a stance against the enemy's schemes. This

is an aggressive stance. This is an offensive stance. This is what you

are empowered for. This is what you are enabled for. And it doesn't

you know whatever you've been taught in religion. Welcome to new horizon. We're

going to help you grow and understand that your victories are completely married to your

aggression. Your victories are completely married to your aggression. And many believers do

not have heaven coming in their lives, and they aren't seeing victories in their

own personal lives or their family, or their personal space or the areas where

they have influence geographically or revelationally because they aren't taking and aggressive stance, but

on the full armor of God. So you can take your stand against the

devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against

the rulers, against the authorities. And he kind of said that because you

know, you have to understand the shift right now. The shift is that

in the Old Testament, they didn't deal with the demonic realm, and they

weren't enabled to deal with the demonic realm. The demonic realm was animating the

people, around the Israeli people, around the Jewish people, and so all

of these nations are led and animated by the demonic realm. But they didn't

approach, nor did they have the power, the authority, the righteousness,

or the discernment to approach those nations to deliver those nations from that which was

unclean. But when Jesus triumphed over Satan and sent the Holy Spirit to live

in us, the warfare shifted from against people and tribes and tongues. It

shifted from against the people to against the demons that moved in the people and

animated the people. So we're no longer called the fight. People were called

to fight the demonic realm that moves the people. And that's part of why

Paul is making this argument super clear, is that he's talking to people that

would understand the history, and they would understand where they once came from,

and they would understand the warfare that was common between tribes or people. But

now there's a shift, and he says, your warfare is not with flesh

and blood. It's no longer with flesh and blood from now on, because

your spirit empowered, your spirit discerning, your spirit has the authority of Jesus.

Now your warfare shifts to confront the spirit realm. You go after the

root of a thing, not the fruit of a thing, the root of

a thing. And I should say it like, not just the fruit of

the thing, because we also approach the fruit of the unclean realm with wisdom

and truth. We're showing up with wisdom and truth, but we're also engaged

in the spiritual battle. That makes sense. Jumping down a little bit further

in this passage, take up the shield of faith verse sixteen, with which

you can extinguish the eros of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation

and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, the

sword of the Spirit. We have offensive weapons. And part of what I

wanted to get to you today was just how important it is that we are

addressing the demonic realm as a part of our It's really a part of your

prayer life. You'll notice in Matthew sixteen nineteen he gives us the keys to

the Kingdom of Heaven. If you want to put it up, you can.

He gives us the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven to bind and to

loose. And like, what I want you to see is that this is

not like, oh yeah, the enemy came against me on Friday, so

I needed to do some binding. Oh yeah, this was going on somebody

and our family got sick on Monday, so I needed to do some binding.

So that's that isn't the inference. The inference isn't that we engage in

binding the demonic realm when the demonic realm attacks us. That isn't the inference.

The inference is that we are confronting, we are binding, we are

going after, we are naming the demonic realm every single day, every single

day, every single day, every single day. And fact is, I

would guess that the reason you were bothered on Thursday over something is because you

had not been doing something Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so Thursday came

and because you hadn't been confronting something and you hadn't been just combined as a

part of your prayer. It's really a natural part of your prayer. It's

a natural part of the Lord's prayer. Give us this day our daily bread.

Oh that means I'm praying every day. That means I'm engaged in prayer

every day. Give us this day our daily bread. Lead us not into

temptation, deliver us from evil. Prayers with regard to darkness, evil,

the influence of the enemy. This is like common stuff, and it's really

a part of our daily expression before the Lord. And it doesn't mean,

it doesn't mean that you are bad, sinful, lowly a low life week

of faith if you're engaged in confronting the demonic realm. And this is actually,

you know, thinking about the demonic realm, How do we keep demons

bound? Is it a one and done many for you? It was the

one and done. Hasn't been that way for me. The spirit realm is

very fluid, and we don't even know exactly where demons go. What we

know is in Matthew twelve, Jesus said, when a spirit goes, he

says, first, you can't plunder you can't plunder a house and therefore reap

what the enemy's been building up. You can't reap what the enemy's been building

up unless you bind the strong man. So you have to bind the strong

man before you can reap. And this is the picture of this was in

the Old Testament in a very physical way. A very microphone's acting up in

a very it usually means that we have a frequency problem. Could be an

ambulance going by or an angel flying fast. I don't know that you think

it's batteries, really, okay, So with Israel, this was a very

very a very clear, vivid picture that when they went into the Promised Land,

they were going against these seven unclean nations, and these nations were filled

with idolatry, and they were demonized nations, and they were to drive them

out. And it's a picture of now what we do in the spirit realm,

in the New Testament life is where to drive the enemy out. And

whatever we don't drive out becomes a problem. Whatever we don't confront becomes a

bit of a problem. And so you know, even with us and this

is this is you and me, we'll just make this us. This is

my house. Uh, we need to make sure that we're getting the crowd

out of us right. And since we don't know where demons go, we

just know Jesus said Matthew twelve. They go to the dry places. That

means they go where there's no anointing and there's no word present, there's no

anointing and word present, there's no Holy Spirit present. That's where they go.

Those are called dry places. Dry places are where Holy Spirit is not

moving. But we don't know where they go exactly. We do know though,

that they come back and they caught they could, they could. This

was this was supposed to be a really big bold marker. That's why I

bought it. They could come back through things that are happening in culture,

right, So they could come back and bug us because we got exposed to

something in culture where for sure, these spirits are working, be it Mullik,

or be it Bael, or be it ishtar okay, And we could

just name a whole bunch of these whatever, and it could be that we

know them by it could be that we know them by their characteristic pride.

So when we get around those influences, sometimes we're influenced or tested in something

that we got free of So the big thing is that we're getting free,

right, that's the big thing. But then also to recognize that we have

the power to bring freedom to other influences, like the church. Did you

know if you are at church, or you're around at church people, or

you're with the church people and you sense fruit that is not good, you

can assume there's a root that's not good. We don't want to assume that

just because it's church there's no demonic influence. That's a bad assumption. Whatever

is true on a micro level with me is also true on a macro level.

If it's true in government that there's unclean influence and it's going to be

manifested in the fruit. If it's true in education that if there's unclean influence.

Right, So this is where this is where, and it's become so

obvious. We don't need a holy spirit download. You're a fruit inspector if

you're discerning with just common discernment things that are not of God, the influence

of pride or the love of money, or sensuality and sexual uncleanness or this

one here, this is all about, you know, the sacrifice of children.

Bael is represented by the bowl, which is now epitomized in our stock

market, interconnected to an unclean spirit that brings prosperity and blessing. But most

you know, most of this stuff, we just recognize it by the fruit,

and we can conclude that by the fruit, there's a root system attached

to it. And having done that, the calling that every one of us

have is to begin to confront it. If there's bad fruit in my family,

I have the grace, the power of the anointing to begin to tell

it to leave my family alone. That easy, you that's producing this fruit

and my family, leave my family alone. And I'm telling you, that's

how some of these battles are getting one right now. These battles are not

getting one, be it on a national level, or a state level,

or a community level. These battles are not getting one just because people are

showing up with wisdom and truth. Because wisdom and truth can just perpetuate a

great argument and a great conflict and a great fight. But when we show

up first in the spirit realm and we begin to confront what's moving it,

what's motivating it, what's driving it, and we begin to declare that that

has to go, and that particular thing has to and wherever you have geographical

influence, wherever you have geographical influence, and wherever you have a revelation,

you have the authority to dismiss that presence and that darkness out of that thing.

And this is going to make room for the Lord. I'm telling him.

We're going to see things shift. We're going to see things change.

God's going to be moving, doors are going to be opened up, and

we're going to see a greater opportunity for the work of the Gospel. Let's

stand this morning. Who gets more victory is an offensive team or a defensive

team? Ah, an offensive team is going to get more victories. I

would bet that most of your victories came because you needed to be defensive.

But that should show you the power that you have and the power that you

walk in. Now, I'm not saying that to make you feel bad or

bring condemnation to anybody. Same with me. It's the same with me most

all of the greatest victories I've had. You know, for for ten years,

probably ten years, we you know, we labored to get a building

here and fasting and prayer, raising money, working hard, winning souls.

City Council meetings, you know, doing everything you could possibly imagine, but

it seemed like everything it was against us. And so we're fasting and praying

constantly, and you know, the church is struggling difficulties and ups and downs.

Lots of resistance in the sphere realm no, lots of resistance in the

spirit room, manifested by the fruit of our inability to build and get a

building. And even after we bought the property here we bought the property,

it's all sorts of you know, the neighbors uh tried to steal our land,

the city shut down our our permits to build, and all this stuff's

going on. So I was friend one day and the Lord took me to

this really weird obscure passage in Isaiah about cursing Bayel. And he said to

me in prayer, it was like an audible. It was like I could

it was the Holy Spirit, but it was so weird. I'm like,

oh, okay, and it was. And he said, begin to proclaim

this passage over the church that bell bay L, b aa L, that

bay L, and there's another god in their name that's called Marduke. Obscure

passage. Just begin to declare that these are bound and cast off of your

church. Like, okay, all right, we'll go with that. So

I shared it with you know, some of the folks that we're here,

you know, in a part of the body, and so a few of

us, you know, we started doing this just daily, every day,

and we need to break through, right every day. We just started and

then it was just became a part of a proclamation. And you know it

wasn't, but I mean it was almost overnight we had breakthroughs all the ones.

I get an email from the city and they'd had a string of mayors

that had opposed us, and they'd been a part of the spiritual environment.

I get an email one day and they're like, the city's changing. The

form of government is no longer going to be mayor led. They're going to

let a city manager lead the city. We want you to come. We're

interviewing five city managers. We want you know, everybody in the city was

invited to come meet the city manager. I'm going late. If you got

to get kids, go ahead and get them, otherwise I'm going to get

in trouble. And so I go to this meeting and the Holy Spirit said,

by the way, have everybody in the church chart to pray for a

spirit filled city manager. So we start praying for the city, pray for

spiritfield the city manager. I meet one guy there who's a four square guy,

spirit filled. That's the guy the city hires. As soon as the

city hires him, he pulls up my file it's about two inches thick,

and he calls the church office and he says, hey, Pastor Dwayne,

I want you to come in and I want to meet with you. I'm

seeing everything the city has done to you to keep you from building your building.

We're going to change that immediately. Joe Simms goes in with me.

We go in and we sit down with the guy. He says, what

do we need to do the building to get that building built? And I

told him blah blah blah blah blah blah. He called up the engineers had

come into my office. Immediately, all the engineers come into his office.

He said, I want this change by tomorrow. We want this. Let's

get this thing change by tomorrow. All I did was begin to do.

I started addressing an obscure principality that at that time I knew nothing about,

and God shifted everything. We the body of Christ. God. God is

going to work through the body of Christ to shift education, to shift government,

to shift religion, to shift the media, to shift entertainment, the

shift sports, to shift everything. Everything's going to shift. As we partner

with Holy Spirit, with not only petition and prayer, but with the sword

of the Lord, with the sword of the Lord Father. We just thank

you that we we are hope filled, we are partnered with you. We

are discerning, and you are enabling us, and your grace is on us.

And as we see the fruit, we make note, we take note

of the root and we begin to address it. We thank you for your

authority to bring a shift to every area of culture, and that you've made

us partners with you. Jesus the Avenger, the one who is against the

demonic realm, and we'll see it to it that that realm is bound and

disempowered and continues in that state. As we walk by the word and walk

in faith. We give you the praise for it today in Jesus' name,

and everybody said, God, bless you. Charch Let's worship as we go