The Origin, Nature, and Tactics of Satan and His Demons | Rev. Michael Fredericks

So, what Christians believe is our

series.

Let me start with this. Have you ever

had one of those weeks

or maybe longer than a week? You don't

even need the question. Is a Yes, I know

where you're going with this. Where

everything just is off. Everything is

just going wrong.

>> Tensions in relationships.

You're irritable, uncharacteristically

discouraged. temptation feels stronger

than usual. Maybe you're in conflict

with people out out of nowhere. Uh you

feel unusually defeated.

You start believing lies about yourself

that you know aren't true.

And you can't quite explain why

everything feels heavier than it should.

Anyone relate to that?

>> Yeah, you have those times. Maybe more

than a week, maybe a season.

Well, what if there's more going on than

what you can see with your eyes?

>> As Christians, we believe that the world

is more than material.

We believe there is a spiritual realm, a

spiritual dimension. And in that

spiritual realm are spiritual enemies.

Now, on Sundays lately, we've been

spending a lot of time in the first part

of the book of Genesis because so much

theology finds its foundation in

Genesis. And in the story of Adam and

Eve in the garden,

there's this serpent,

a serpent who tempts Eve, a serpent who

clearly has an evil agenda and

manipulates Adam and Eve into

disobedience.

Who is this serpent?

Well, the book of Revelation gives us a

clue. And back at Christmas, I preached

on this from Revelation 12. Remember I

talked about the dragon?

Revelation 12:9 says, "The great dragon

Revelation 12:9

was thrown down, that ancient serpent,

who is called the devil and Satan, the

deceiver of the whole world. He was

thrown down to the earth and his angels

were thrown down with him."

this ancient serpent from way back in

the Garden of Eden. That is the devil

aka Satan. And that's what we are

dealing with today in the message and

our part five of our series. We're

talking about our unseen enemy.

What Christians believe about Satan and

his demons.

Who is Satan? Where did he come from?

What does he do? What about those

demons? Is all that stuff real? What

does the Bible say?

>> So, let's just take a minute and pray

because I think we need extra prayer for

this one.

>> All right, let's just pray for a second.

Father, the devil likes to be ignored.

And so today, as we bring them up and

expose him to the light, we pray your

protection over us and as a church and

myself as a pastor, Lord, that your Holy

Spirit would be so present in this place

that he has no opportunity at all to

gain a foothold.

So be with us now as we broach this

topic in Christ's name. Amen.

All right, let me let me be honest. This

is one of those topics where

non-believers hear us talking about this

and they say those Christians are crazy,

right?

And I get why they feel that way because

this is a weird topic. It's weird stuff.

And it doesn't help that sometimes

Christians really overplay the devil

card, right? Some people think there's a

demon behind every bush, right? You've

heard that saying before, right? I've

got a headache. Oh, it must be a demon.

Right? Or I had a bad dream. Oh, the

demons are after me. Or I didn't agree.

I don't agree with that preacher. He's

demonic. Uh or I stubbed my toe. Demon.

Right? I mean,

relax. Okay? Take it easy. Not

everything bad in the world is the

result of demons. There's no biblical

justification for that way of thinking.

At the same time, I think we can swing

too far in the other direction

and and I am guilty more often than not

of being closer to that category where I

just don't think all that much about the

spiritual forces of darkness at work in

the world. But the problem with that,

the problem with ignoring Satan and his

demons is twofold.

one, you'll have to ignore huge sections

of the Bible because Jesus spoke a lot

about this. It this is everywhere in the

scriptures, particularly in the ministry

of Christ. Uh he spoke with Satan. He

interacted with demons. A big part of

his ministry involved casting out

demons. In 1 John 3:8, it says, "The son

1 John 3:8

of God came to destroy the works of the

devil."

So like the core of his mission has to

do with the forces, the evil forces of

hell.

So if you follow Jesus, you can't ignore

this topic.

But the second problem with ignoring the

devil is that that's exactly what he

wants.

Right? There's a famous movie, I

actually haven't seen it, but uh it's

The Usual Suspects. And there's a famous

line in the usual suspects says, "The

greatest trick the devil ever pulled was

convincing the world he didn't exist."

Satan is winning when he's able to

influence us subtly and secretly to

deceive and distract and divide without

us even realizing he's doing it. So if

you are ignoring Satan, he's quite happy

about that.

So balance on this topic is really

important

that we're not scared. We're not fixated

on it, but also not ignoring it, not

living as if the demonic world is make

believe.

CS Lewis, uh, the great author of many

things, including the Screw Tape

Letters, which is an interesting, um,

book that portrays a a fictional

conversation between two demons. uh in

his in the preface of his book he writes

there are two equal and opposite errors

into which our race being humans can

fall about devils. One is to disbelieve

in their existence. The other is to

believe and to feel an excessive and

unhealthy interest in them.

Amen. So, at the end of this message,

I'm going to give you a a good way to

think about the reality of the demonic

that will help you find that right

balance.

But first, let's see what the Bible can

tell us about who Satan is, what demons

are, and so on. If we're going to stand

against our enemy, we need to know our

enemy.

So, let's start with his name. We call

him Satan because the word used to

describe him in the Old Testament is

Satan. The Hebrew word Satan. In the New

Testament, a similar word is used. It's

a it's a transliteration of the Hebrew

um which means it's not translated. It's

just they take the Hebrew and they make

a new word uh in the Greek. And the word

is Satanis. Uh he's also called

Diabolas.

Uh all of these words mean uh accuser,

adversary,

the images of a of a prosecuting

attorney attacking you, uh accusing you

of things, tearing you down on the

witness stand, making you feel like

trash.

Uh Diabolo specifically means false

accuser or slanderer.

Interestingly, I think in contrast,

the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is

is there's a word to describe him that

is pariclete, which means advocate or

counselor,

the one who stands up for us against our

accuser. So, if if the devil is like a

prosecuting attorney who's ripping into

us and trying to tear us down, the Holy

Spirit is like the defense attorney

who's defending us, standing for truth.

Isn't that cool? Um,

what are some other names and titles

that are used for the devil or for

Satan? Uh, these are some that we find

in the New Testament. The evil one in

Matthew 13. John 12, the ruler of this

world. In 2 Corinthians, the god of this

age. Ephesians 2, the prince of the

power of the air. Matthew 4, tempter.

Mark 3, be elabub. You've heard that

before. Beub right in the

Bohemian Rap City. Got any Queen fans?

All right. Beub literally means Lord of

the Flies. You ever read that book, Lord

of the Flies? Yeah, that's literally

what Beelub means. It's a title for

Satan. Um, Matthew 13:39,

Matthew 13:39

the enemy. In 2 Corinthians, bile

meaning worthless. Revelation 12, which

we read, deceiver and great dragon. And

in John 8, he's called the father of

lies and murderer.

So I think that paints a pretty clear

picture of him. Um there's some language

there that of of him being a prince and

a ruler and a god which tells us that he

has influence and power

and then other language that's calls him

the deceiver, the father of lies and so

on which implies that he is wicked, he's

evil.

So I think we can get a sense there just

from his titles that are used. Now, a

question that a lot of people wonder as

they dig into this is, well, where did

Satan come from? Where did he come from?

What's his origin story?

Well, to be to be honest, the Bible is

not 100% clear on this.

Uh, we do know a few things. We know

that God alone is eternal, that God

created everything.

And so we can say with certainty that

Satan did not coexist with God into

eternity past. He is not equal to God.

Um he has he must have been created by

God. Part of God's original good design.

And even though the scriptures are again

not super clear, what's generally been

accepted by the church is the idea that

Satan began as an angel.

Probably a a powerful and beautiful

angel. He started great. And like human

beings, God gave the angels free will.

And this angel became proud and envious

and used his free will to choose to

reject God's will. and God's purposes

and to follow his own agenda in pursuit

of his own glory and in doing so

rebelled against God leading to his

banishment from heaven and his descent

into evil.

So that is basically the story. Uh I

know it sounds like the plot of a fairy

tale but it is probably the best

understanding we can come to through the

scriptures about the origin of Satan

with the limited information that we

have. We do have a few places in

scripture we can look to for guidance on

this. One passage is Isaiah 14.

This is the passage that where the title

Lucifer is used and people think of that

as being maybe his angelic name. Um so

that's passage has been traditionally

used as a part of piecing together the

origin story of Satan. Uh I don't think

I'm not convinced that that passage is

actually talking about the devil. It's

not clear. It could be, but I I'm not

convinced of that. Um, another is

Ezekiel 28 11-19. This one's a little

stronger than Isaiah 14, but it's still

a bit of a stretch to assume it's

referencing Satan's story. So, those

aren't crystal clear, but maybe a little

more clear is some words of Jesus in

Luke 10. Um, this is a uh he says this

right after the 72 uh disciples of Jesus

that he sent out on a missions trip. uh

they come back and they report to Jesus

about the things that happened and the

things that they they did and says when

the 72 disciples returned they joyfully

reported to him Lord even the demons

obey us when we use your name

and Jesus says yes he told them I saw

Satan fall from heaven like lightning

now it's not clear again it's not clear

right none of this is really clear but

it's not clear if Jesus means yeah when

you guys were out fighting against

demons, I could see Satan falling in the

in that present tense. I could see him

losing spiritual battles or if he means

yes and I was there. I tell you what, I

was there way back in prehistory when

Satan fell from heaven in the ancient

past.

So, we don't know. But either way, the

image of of Satan falling from heaven

is probably the closest we can come to

understanding how he came about. That at

one point he was glorious and good. He

was part of God's good original design

for the universe, for all of creation.

And he fell from heaven. He fell from

glory.

Now, the origin of demons, those minions

of Satan, is another question to which

answers are not abundantly clear, how

they came about.

There have been two main views in

Christian history about the origin of

demons. The fallen angels view and the

Nephilim view. This is going to get

weird, folks. Okay, so the first view

became the dominant one in the church,

especially in the West. And it says that

demons are simply fallen angels like

Satan.

This view sees passages like Revelation

12 where the dragon is thrown down and

his angels with him. It says as

describing a a cosmic rebellion. Demons

then are angels just like Satan was

created good who fell through pride and

now oppose God and his people. In

Matthew 25, Jesus refers to the devil

and his angels.

So this became the the prominent view in

in the church uh when St. Augustine

strongly argued for this position and he

was very influential and uh and from

that point on most of Christianity has

followed his lead.

But there is another view and this one

not too many people know about I don't

think although I'm hearing more about it

these days and this goes back to uh it's

actually it predates the fallen angels

view. goes back to early Jewish

tradition, pre-Christ

and uh and some early church fathers,

and it connects demons to Genesis

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, right before the story of the

flood. If you've read this, you probably

scratched your head a little bit when

you read this. It says this in Genesis

6, the sons of God saw that the

daughters of man were attractive, and

they took as their wives any they chose.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those

days and also afterward when the sons of

God came into the daughters of man and

they bore children to them. These were

the mighty men who were of old, the

mighty men of renown.

So many Jewish interpreters before and

around the time of Jesus understood the

sons of God in this story to be

referring to angels,

fallen angels who procreated with human

women, creating these special species of

human called Nephilim,

who were the mighty men and giants and

things of that time period. Um, now that

sounds weird. There's a book called

First Enoch, which is not in the Bible,

but it's an ancient ancient text, um,

that ex expands on this story. It really

emphasizes this story. And, you know,

you might think, well, okay, I don't

know what to make of that, but the New

Testament actually lends some

credibility to uh this story, to the

angels uh sleeping with women

interpretation of Genesis 6. uh the

short book of Jude in the New Testament

right before the book of Revelation uh

references actually it quotes first

Enoch at one point which is interesting.

Um but in Jude 6 it say it refers to the

angels who did not stay within their own

position of authority but left their

proper dwelling and interpreters over

the years have understood that to be

making reference to this thing from

Genesis 6 where angels slept with women

and out came the Nephilim and second

Peter. Similarly, God did not spare

angels when they sinned, the words of

Peter there.

Um, so early Christians like Justin

Martyr and Irenaeus connected those

passages to the story of Genesis 6 and

added, so here's where the demon thing

comes into play. um and added as the

book of Enoch

suggests that demons then could be the

disembodied spirits of dead Nephilim.

What? Yeah, this is a this is a this is

a legitimate theory that has been taught

over the years. Um demons could be the

disembodied spirits of dead Nephilim.

Now, that there is a theological rabbit

hole that you can go down sometime when

you're looking for a couple hours to

kill on a Saturday morning or something

and explore that. It sounds weird. So,

which is right? Which is right? Well,

faithful Christians have held both

views. I don't know which one is right,

but let's just say we don't really know

clearly how we got the devil and his

demons. But we can say this, I think

quite confidently that the devil is a

created spiritual being who is opposed

to God and is the leader of other evil

spirits called demons who join him in

that work. We can say that with

confidence. The origin story is a little

muddier.

What else can we know? Well, we know

that there's things that they can do and

things that they cannot do. We know that

they have free will, but we also know

that there's limits to that. They cannot

overtake God's authority. God has final

say. They have great knowledge, but

there's limits to that. They're not

omnisient like God is. They're not all

knowing. They have great power, but

there's limits to that. They're not

omnipotent. They're not all powerful

like God is. And there are myriads of

them, but there's a limit because not

one of them is omnipresent or everywhere

at the same time as God is. So we don't

need to be afraid, folks, because Satan

and his demons are not equal to God,

right? It's not like sometimes we

imagine this dichotomy of of of God and

the devil and they're equal and they're

fighting and we hope that God wins or

like you know the light versus the dark

and and we just hope that in the end the

light wins. No, that's not what we

believe as Christians. They are not

equal. Satan is uh he's he's on a leash,

okay? And there will be a time when his

time is over.

Now, what are Satan and his demons doing

in the meantime before that time comes

when God says enough is enough? What are

they doing or what are they trying to

do? Well, Satan hates God, but he has no

power to attack God. So, he attacks us,

those who bear his image. He hates us in

in instead of God in in God's place. So,

so his tactics are designed to attack

us.

And I say I'll say there's four Ds.

Satan's playing 4 D chess. All right?

And the four the first D of Satan's

tactics is deception.

In and we go back to the garden, right,

in Genesis 3. His original tactic was

deception. Did God really say that you

can't eat from that fruit? Did God

really say, "Come on, really?" Right? to

raise doubts, to deceive us, to try to

uh cause us to question God's authority.

He still works like that. Uh, as we've

already identified, he's called the

father of lies. In John 8, in 2

Corinthians 11, it says that the devil

disguises himself as an angel of light.

He disguises himself as an angel of

light. In other words, he's he's trying

to convince people that his way is the

good way. He tempts us in ways that seem

appealing. Right? Have you noticed that

the things that we're tempted to do are

things that Well, that would be fun,

wouldn't it? To do that thing.

That would be enjoyable. I think I'd

like that.

>> Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

>> Yeah. And the Yeah. And the scars.

So deception is still one of his main

tactics. Distraction is another great

tactic.

He wants to distract you from

Sorry.

Oh, right. Sorry, got distracted there.

Um, he wants to distract you from Jesus.

He wants to distract you from the truth.

He wants to distract you from the gospel

and from the kingdom of God and his

mission.

He wants you to give your li life to

other priorities and activities that

demand your attention. He wants to waste

your time. Time is precious and Satan

wants you to waste it. These are tactics

of Satan and his demons. Uh I think

about the parable of the sewer which has

been preached here many times over the

last few years and some of the seeds in

that story fall on the the footpath and

birds come along and eat up that seed

take root. They don't have a chance to

take root. The birds come and eat them

up. And it says in when Jesus is

explaining this parable, he says, he

says, "Some seeds fall on the foot path

and then the evil one comes and snatches

away the seed that was planted in their

hearts."

Yes, this is distraction. This is him

coming and not letting God's word and

God's truth get a foundation in our

lives because we're too distracted.

Division is another of Satan's tactics.

When we allow anger and hatred to divide

us, the Bible tells us we are giving

Satan a foothold in our lives. In

Ephesians 4, it says, "In your anger, do

not sin. Do not let the sun go down

while you are still angry and do not

give the devil a foothold."

Do not give the devil a foothold in your

anger.

He wants to divide us. He wants to pit

us against each other. Husbands against

wives, kids against parents, race

against race, ideology against ideology,

party against party.

We live in very divisive times,

very polarized

times, and Satan is pleased with that.

He especially seeks to divide the

church, to weaken our impact.

Let's get wise to these tactics.

Um, this June, Julia and I are

celebrating 20 years of marriage. 20

years.

>> I assume that applause is for her.

>> Good job, Julia. You did it.

Um, I remember early in our in our

marriage, uh, there were some very

difficult times. I think a lot of people

can relate to that that when you're

starting out, especially when you're

young, you know, we we got married

young. I was 21 and she was 22. Yeah.

And um,

>> you know, we were still growing up,

right? We grew up together and still

trying to understand each other. And I

remember having someone say to us at

some point and because there was, you

know, conflict and that sort of stuff

and not not understanding each other,

someone said to us, "The real enemy in

your marriage is not your spouse.

It's Satan."

>> Yeah. And that is so helpful, I think,

right? Because if you're in conflict

with someone that you love, think for a

second, you know, where is this division

really coming from?

And it's amazing how quickly, it's

amazing how quickly you can start seeing

the person you love as the enemy when

the enemy, the real enemy is the unseen

enemy feeding the fire.

That applies to all sorts of

relationships. you division of are you

experiencing division in your workplace,

in your church, in your culture, in your

family, in your neighborhood, whatever

it might be. Remember who the real enemy

is. He's seeking to divide us.

Is when we are divided we are weak.

What's that saying? Uh united we stand,

divided we fall. Yeah.

And then the other thing I think that

well I know that the devil does is

demonization. What do I what do I mean

by that? I mean demon possession and

demon oppression.

Let's talk about demon possession. First

of all, we see plenty of examples of

this in the New Testament. People being

possessed, literally possessed by

demons.

Um, and we see Jesus, of course, very

involved in casting demons out of

people. And demon possession is not just

something that happened in the first

century in the New Testament. It's still

happening today. Uh when we were when

Hannah, Pastor Hannah and I were in um

Lebanon,

we were touring uh the grounds of this

amazing uh facility where they're doing

ministry and reaching out to the

community. And they as they were showing

us building by building, they said, "And

this building over here, this is the one

uh where we cast demons out of people."

And you know, of course, in our western

mind, we were like, "What?" Like, okay,

that's not that's not normal for us. Um

uh and I remember thinking man like

demon possession uh over in this part of

the world is not just an interesting

sermon topic right it's live it's live

it's lived reality

I think this is demonp possessed

yeah so it's still happening and I agree

with now I agree with those who say that

Christians cannot be demonp possessed.

So don't worry about this. Some people

go, "Oh, I'm going to be demonp

possessed." If you have the Holy Spirit

in you, right? You can't be

demonpossessed.

But anyone can be demon oppressed.

Oppressed.

This is sort of what I'm talking about

like at what I said at the start of the

message where we have these seasons

where it's just one thing after another

after another after another. Non-stop

problems. You're discouraged. You feel

defeated. You're overwhelmed. Maybe

addiction is re rearing its ugly head

again. Temptation is strong. Illness is

afflicting you. Everything that could go

wrong is going wrong.

I think it's possible in those moments

that you may be experiencing some form

of demonic oppression.

So, I think we need to be aware of that.

Call it what it is.

And what do we do? What do we do when

we're being attacked by the devil in any

of these ways with deceit, deception,

distraction, division, or even worse,

demonization of some sort? What do we

do? Well, absolutely we pray. I think

first of all, we need to be watchful. We

need to be aware. We need to pay

attention.

be aware of the spiritual realities

because as I said earlier, the the first

mistake is ignoring the devil. He's

happy if if we're ignoring him. So being

aware in First Peter 5'8 it says, "Be

sober minded. Be watchful. Your

adversary, the devil, prowls around like

a roaring lion seeking someone to

devour."

Or as the theologian Carl Bart said it,

and I like this. He said, "Satan and the

demonic are always at work in, with, and

under the things of our world like the

tentacles of an octopus."

So, be watchful. Be watchful.

And then be prepared.

Ephesians 6 says, "We do not wrestle

against Well, let me read it. I'm going

to read it from the from the whole I

want to read the whole passage.

Ephesians 6

uh

12 to

10 to 17. Thank you.

Says a final word. Be strong in the Lord

and in his mighty power. Put on all of

God's armor so that you will be able to

stand firm against all strategies of the

devil. For we are not fighting against

flesh and blood enemies, but against

evil rulers and authorities of the

unseen world, against mighty powers in

this dark world, and against evil

spirits in the heavenly places.

Therefore, put on every piece of God's

armor, so you will be able to resist the

enemy in the time of evil. And then

after the battle, you will still be

standing firm. Stand your ground,

putting on the belt of truth and the

body armor of God's righteousness. For

shoes, put on the peace that comes from

the good news so that you will be fully

prepared. In addition to all of these,

hold up the shield of faith to stop the

fiery arrows of the devil and put on

salvation as your helmet and take the

sword of the spirit which is the word of

God.

Right? And then he says, "Pray in the

spirit and at all times and on every

occasion stay alert and be persistent in

your prayers for all believers

everywhere." So you see the armor of

God, right? We've got to put on all of

God's armor. Every piece when you get up

in the morning and you head out into the

world and all that you will face, put on

the armor of God. Don't go into the

world unprotected.

Put on the armor, prayer,

the word of God, salvation. I mean,

that's step one, right? To be saved,

>> be filled with the Holy Spirit, and so

on.

>> They take it off, pastor.

>> Do who take what off?

>> I put on the full armor of God.

>> Well, I mean, I guess when you're

sleeping, you can't be mindful, but I

mean, whatever. Um, maybe you don't ever

take it off. That would be even better.

Sleep in the armor, too.

Um, okay. So, all of this, you know,

when we hear these these scriptures and

we talk like this, it can start to for

some of us anyway, make us a little bit

scared, a little bit nervous, like, ah,

maybe I shouldn't even bother go outside

uh because the world is so evil. Well,

here's another important point. Do not

be afraid. Do not be afraid.

If we could have a a a special pair of

of glasses to look into the spiritual

realm, what would we see?

Well, we may have an answer to that

question from a story found in 2 Kings

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6 in the time of the prophet

Elisha. Israel is surrounded in the

story by a huge army from a neighboring

country that was coming to attack them

and they were small in number. And

Elisha's servant comes to him terrified.

And this is what it says in 2 Kings

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6. When the servant of the man

of God got up early the next morning and

went outside, there were troops, horses,

and chariots everywhere. Oh sir, what

will we do now? The young man cried to

Elisha.

Don't be afraid, Elisha told him, for

there are more on our side than on

theirs.

And then Elisha prayed, "Oh Lord, open

his eyes and let him see."

And the Lord opened the young man's

eyes. And when he looked up, he saw that

the hillside around Elisha was filled

with horses and chariots of fire.

Can you imagine? He got to put on those

spiritual glasses for a moment and when

he looked, he could see the host of

heaven, the angel armies of God prepared

to fight for them.

God gave him a glimpse into the

spiritual realm. And Elisha says, "Hey

man,

chill out, man. Don't be afraid

for there are more on our side. When you

count the angels, there are more on our

side than on theirs." Or as the Apostle

John puts it in 1 John 4, greater is he

that is in you than he that is in the

world. Greater is the Holy Spirit that

dwells within you than any evil force of

hell that is in the world. So remember

the authority that we have in Christ. If

you are a Christian, use the authority

of Christ in you to rebuke Satan and his

demons in the name of Jesus. Remind him

that he's a loser.

Right? In Colossians 2:15, it says,

Colossians 2:15

"Jesus disarmed the spiritual rulers and

authorities. He shamed them publicly by

his victory over them on the cross."

He's already secured the victory.

And in Revelation, we can read about

God's plan for him. He's going to lose.

Yeah. The battle rages on today, but the

final outcome of the war has already

been decided. As Romans 16:20 says, "The

Romans 16:20

God of peace will soon crush Satan

underneath your feet." There's a song,

right? The God of peace will soon crush

Satan where God will crush him where?

underneath your feet. Yeah,

remember that.

>> We're gonna stamp him out with the power

of God in the end.

So, when Satan reminds you of your past,

you remind him of his future. We might

not be certain about Satan's origins,

but we are crystal clear on his destiny.

Okay, I promised you at the start that I

was going to um give you a good way to

think about how we should get this

balance right between awareness and

watchfulness and preparedness and also

not being afraid. And I think a good way

for us to think about that is that Satan

and his demons are like germs.

Germs.

They're nasty.

They're ugly.

They're everywhere.

and they seek our destruction.

But should we be afraid of germs?

Right? You don't panic about germs. Now,

some people have obsessivempulsive

disorder and they do panic about germs

and they're always washing their hands

and I and I get that that's a real issue

that people have, but we see that as a

problem, not as as as the right thing

that we we shouldn't have that mindset,

right? And you shouldn't have OCD. You

shouldn't be obsessive. You shouldn't

have obsessive compulsive demon disorder

either, right? Just like you don't

obsess about germs, you shouldn't obsess

about demons and and Satan. But also,

you don't ignore them, right? Remember

when COVID happened and we all learned

how to prevent ourselves from getting

sick, right? Wash your hands, take

precautions.

And so, look, if you're at for if you if

you are at war with the forces of hell,

as we are, yes, take precautions. Wash

your spiritual hands. Pay attention. Be

prepared. But do not be afraid.

Fix your eyes on Jesus and tell the

devil where to go.

>> Amen.