The Art Of War: The Art Of Preparation

Start Chapter six, if you need a Bible, please raise your hand.

One of the ushers will be more than happy to bless you with one.

Once you received that Bible, would you turn along with us to the book of Ephesians and we're going to start in the sixth chapter.

We're going to go to the 10th verse.

And so we have been, we have been teaching on the art of war.

And so the first principle we talked about was if you know your enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of 100 battles.

And so the next one is relied not on the likelihood of your enemy not coming to attack, but on your readiness to receive him.

I think oftentimes people, you know, they think somehow through their prayer life, if I could say it that way, that somehow Satan will leave them alone or, or they think that they'll pray things like, you know, say, just leave me alone and you'll never be able to attack me again.

And they just have things that really are unscriptural.

Uh, how many of you know that many are the afflictions of the righteous and as long as we are in this world, we are not of this world, but we are in fact in this world and as long as you were in this world, you will deal with the onslaught of attacks that come through, a host of demonic forces, uh, which includes Satan himself.

And it is a challenge sometimes because, you know, even as a preacher, a, how many of you know, sometimes I preach things I've experienced and then sometimes I experienced things I preach and so no one is exempt.

I don't care how spiritual a person thinks they are.

A, no one is exempt from the attack.

And so it is not that I tried to find ways to see if he will not come, but I focus my time readiness to receive him when he does.

And so this is why a, let's go to Ephesians, Ephesians chapter six, verse 10.

If you have never studied the book of Ephesians a, you should.

There are, there are three concepts, uh, that are predominant in the book of Ephesians.

The book of Ephesians is considered to be the blueprint of Christian maturity.

If you want to know how to grow up in your Christianity, if you want to learn how to walk in your Christianity, Ephesians is certainly the book that will help you to do that.

And there are three prevailing themes, uh, within the book of Ephesians.

It is sit, walk, and stand.

Sit is where you are positionally in Christ.

Walk is how you live your life for Christ and stand is how you resist or how you warfare in Christ.

Does that make sense?

And so it covers these three general themes, although there are six, there are six chapters, but it covers these three general themes, and it helps you to understand how to battle, uh, in the realm of the spirit, if I could say it that way.

So many people, uh, you know, they're, they're always saying, well, could you pray for me and pray to God would give me direction and pray to God would help me through these attacks and pray to God.

Uh, you know, there's a challenge with some of that because some of the challenges you're living through, you create it.

You can't listen in, and I know this gets a little difficult, um, but it's still true anyway.

You can't live in sin and then be upset at the consequence that comes from it.

Are you understanding what I'm saying?

Uh, you know, God looks at how you live.

God looks at the things that you are doing and more importantly, it isn't God that is so much punishing you as it is Satan seeks opportunity against you.

And as Satan seeks opportunity against you, how many, you know, uh, the things that you find yourself caught up in can become the avenues by which entrance has gained into your life.

And so this is where Ephesians chapter six, Paul says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

Now you know, if I was dealing with you and how many of you understand Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus and he's a giving them things that he wants them to understand.

He's trying to teach them some things through this letter and he's writing this letter to them.

How many of you know when he wrote the letter, there was no chapter one through six chapters, one through six became something that we have done in order to study and able to reference

different pieces and portions, but this is all one big letter and he is helping them to understand, these are the things I want you to know.

These are the things I want you to discern.

These are the things I want to equip you with.

And he says, this is the final thing that I want to tell you.

How many of you know that's pretty important?

In other words, if I'm talking to you and I say, okay, and finally this one thing here.

This is the last thing I need to tell you.

He says, to be strong,

how

and the power of WHO's my God's mind?

He says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to with stand in the evil day, having done all to stand, stand therefore having your loins girt about with the truth, having a breastplate of righteousness, your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace above all, taking the shield of faith with which you are able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer, supplication in the spirit, watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints and for me.

That utterance may be given out to me.

That I may open my mouth boldly and make known the mystery of the Gospel.

For which I am an ambassador in bonds.

There an I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.

He says, for you to put on the whole armor of God, and he says that because you are wrestling, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.

Now, if you were here last week, you notice you and notice how this is a repetition of the same theme that is equals talking about where he's dealing with people, the prince, he's dealing with King, which is the the, the ruler, so to speak, the demonic nature that functions in the world, and then he speaking to the land or the territories in which they operate and they control.

It's the exact same a principal because he's speaking about spiritual warfare and one of the challenges that we have to have as a believer and as the Church of God, we have got to know that everything is not natural.

You don't wrestle against flesh and blood.

In other words, you know, there have been times where I've walked into a store and people are just as mean to me and I'm like, why?

Why am I being treated like this?

I've watched him with other people.

They're just as nice there, smile and they're happy and they see me and they're treating me like, and, and, and the sad part is that oftentimes what many of you do not, there was

a story of a Christian missionary who was a overseas and uh, they would go and help in this particular village.

And so as they would leave and come back, leave and come back.

And finally one of the leaders in the village said, could you possibly leave some people here to stay instead of coming and going?

And they said, why is that?

It's a, well, every time you leave there's, there's a group of Shaman and and witches and stuff.

They come down out of the mountains.

As soon as you leave they come down and they harass us.

And then when you are on your way back, the moment they spot you, they take off.

And so this person asked them, they said, well, how do they know anything about us?

They said, they're afraid of you.

And he said, why?

They say, you have a blood stain in the center of your forehead that they can't explain.

They can see blood on you and they don't know in an unnatural.

It's not there, but in the realm of the spirit, it's there.

Do you understand demons?

No true believers.

You are marked by God, so just because you may not have a understanding or discernment about who you are in Christ does not mean demons.

Don't know who you are

and if you are blindly unaware of these types of things in your life, you will experience stuff and be wondering, what is it?

What did I do wrong?

What's wrong with me?

What's going on here and now and never having realized you are marked by the blood of Jesus and they see it in the realm of the spirit and your very presence can agitate certain people.

This is why sometimes you have had friends in your life that before you got saved, they were very good friends.

After you got saved, all the sudden they seem to not be able to stand being around you.

Why?

Because it's the Christ in you.

It's the hope of glory that will bring agitation to those devils, and so when people are functioning and used to operating in a demonic way, the devil's around them get agitated when you show up and everything was okay.

When y'all was backing it up into club together, everything was okay when you were throwing back drinks together, everything was okay when he was watching football on Sunday instead of going to church on Sunday and everything was wonderful until you made a stand and said, I'm going to live for God, and the moment you made any type of decision towards God, you now have to understand, you have set yourself against

a whole host.

Great.

Oh, demonic beings and entities.

Yep, Yep, Yep.

Because let me help you.

Everything isn't safe.

Yeah.

Satan is only one entity and he can only be at one place at a time.

He's not gone.

Are you?

Are you understanding?

So therefore you are dealing with a host of bad behaviors.

I've, you know, sometimes people say, well, you know, my, my mother had diabetes and my grandma had diabetes and so I'm going to have to have diabetes, and I'm like, why?

Well, it's hereditary.

Are you sure?

Are you sure it's hereditary or, or did your Momma get learn how to cook from your Grandmama and did your mama now teach you how to cook?

Right?

And that 400 pounds of Lard that you make your food with, but yeah, we're going to put that on the devil.

Come on y'all.

You know it's true anyways, and so oftentimes if you're beat the Bush long enough, Satan comes slithering out, but the truth of the matter is much of what we give him credit for, he doesn't deserve it.

We, we tend to think that somehow he is more powerful than our God.

This is why he says you wrestled not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.

Because see, when you begin to understand that it's not the person that you need to punch in the nose.

It's Satan.

That you need to give a black eye too, because sometimes working through people and situations and circumstances is in fact demonic entities and forces that are trying to mess with you.

See if you are a believer, if you are a born again believer, you cannot have demonic Satan, demons on the inside of you.

God will not share his presence with anybody else, so therefore if you are a believer, possession is not possible because possession is not possible.

Then demons have to apply what is called, oh, oppression or get you into depression, which is all the same type of stuff.

Just pushing down on you to keep you a subjected to their influence.

You don't believe me.

What happens when you know girls date and boy and and they become intimate with each other and they have sex and then all the sudden they decide this is not going to work or one decides that and

for whatever reason the other one can't let it go.

Let's see.

Let's introduce a whole nother fact.

Let's say they're being abused, but for some reason they cannot,

right?

I just don't understand.

I love him.

You're being oppressed,

right?

See, this is where obsession comes in.

You can become obsessed with something because of the demonic nature of how things are mixed into relationships.

Alright, are you?

Are you all here?

And so now all the sudden you're like, girl, he beats you all day long.

I know, but I could change him.

Really?

Let me just let me just put this out there.

Yeah,

if God hasn't changed him, you are not going to change her.

And and the reality is that people think that people will change and let me explain something to you.

Can people change?

Of course they can, but when you begin to realize you are working with demonic things, you are more careful who you lay with because you're laying with more than just that person.

Are you?

Oh my gosh.

So what becomes important for us to then begin to realize is Paul is speaking of two different worlds, and the beautiful thing about God is God will allow you to conceptualize him in whatever way you want to.

So you can't argue my conception of God because what I believe God to be is based on not what education I've matriculated into my life, but my experiences in my faith and belief system concerning God.

She may have a different belief system.

She may have a different belief system.

They may have a different level of trusted concerning God or their conception of God may be different than mine.

There's could be bigger than mine.

There's could be smaller than mine, but it can very much be different.

And the truth of the matter is there is nothing that you can say or educate me to have to begin to diminish what I believe God can do.

And if that is true, if I am able to have my own conceptualization of who God is, then what business is it of a one talent Christian to try to tell a five talent Christian what God is able to do and not able to do.

Because whatever you function in and wherever your fears are, whatever your lack is, whatever your disbelief is, you cannot project that upon me and assume that I'm going to take on what it is you refuse to walk in, so then that means we can have very different positions and God then very real to me in a certain way and his level of providing for me could be different than it is for you.

If that is true, if that is true, then God cannot be recognized.

He can only be revealed because then in recognition would mean you'd have to have something already to to say or to see or to understand before you could then believe in.

Trust God, if it is in fact true that God can do more than you could ask or think.

If God is capable to whatever level you come up to, God can always go one step beyond you.

Then that means wherever it is that you think ahead to your fastest moment, God will be sitting there waiting on you, and if that is true, that how dare we begin to not realize that there's way more at work than what your little brain can comprehend so that if God has to be revealed to me and I have to seek after him and at the moment where I seek in revelation comes together, then I, I, I began to grow in my understanding of him.

I don't care how much you chase after God.

If you are not walking in revelation, you will never get it, but one thing I can tell you, you will never get it.

If you are not chasing after

good.

See, so many people want to develop in the things of God, but they don't want to chase God.

They don't want to go after God.

They don't want to seek him first and his kingdom and see his righteousness.

They want to seek their own self, their own things, and they want to try to figure out how can I make God deal with what revelation of him that I have?

The truth of the matter is, God will never fall to your level of revelation, but I can tell you this, what your manifestation will never exceed your revelation, so then we have to begin to realize that he's saying we wrestle not against flesh and blood.

He's helping us to to recognize that there are two different worlds in operation.

Let me help you to see that while you walk in one world, you actually operate out of another, or I'll say it this way, you can be a victim of a world that you are not paying attention to.

Wondering why things happened the way they do.

Wonder why things don't seem like you want them to be.

All the these different functions that are happening in this world and you're wondering where's it coming from?

And he's saying, listen, we don't wrestle with flesh and blood.

What does that mean?

He didn't say, we don't rustle, period.

He said, we don't wrestle with flesh and blood.

What do we wrestle

with?

Principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in high places.

Here, your finger.

I'm going to show you something.

Let's go to A.

Hallelujah.

Where are we going, Lord.

Second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse one, keep your finger here because we're coming back.

2 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

They're saying.

Then he says, it's not expedient for me doubtless to glory.

I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.

In other words, it's not helpful for us to brag.

He said, I'm going to talk to you about some visions and revelations that have come.

He says, I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell whether out of the body.

I cannot tell God no with such a one caught up to the third heaven.

I knew such a man, whether in the body, out of the body.

I cannot tell God knew how he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

He says, I know a man.

He says, let me talk to you about.

He says, I'm not going to get into Gloria and all that.

He says, let me tell you about some revelations.

Let me tell you about some visions and things that have happened.

He said, I know a man.

Fourteen years ago, those caught up into the third heaven.

He said, when I was caught up in the third heaven, I was in paradise.

I was in the Throne Room of God.

He said, Nah, I heard things in that throne that I cannot even tell you.

He said, I wish it could, but it can.

You ain't ready.

He said, now if you understand being caught up to a third heaven, then the natural proclivity would be to understand there has to be a second heaven and the first heaven.

Right?

Okay, so then what I want you to know is the first heaven is the atmosphere.

It's the sky where planes and birds fly around.

The second heaven is the realm of demonic activity, which is in Ephesians.

Let's go back to Ephesians six, verse 12.

So that's where we wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rules of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness where this is the high places that he's talking about.

If you remember a Jacob's ladder, he said the angels were ascending and descending upon, sent, sending messages, communicating, sending messages back to the throne.

They were descent.

Where were they going?

They were going from the first heaven through the second heaven into the third heaven, and then bringing messages from the throne, from the third heaven through the second Tevin into the first heaven.

Well, remember they were held up.

They were fighting.

They were warring.

What were they warring against demonic spirits, demonic entities, spiritual wickedness in high places.

So then if you begin to recognize that, then where do you think that went?

The only differences.

You now have the holy ghost on the inside of you and you now have the hotline from you to God.

But there are still three types of angels in the world.

The first type of angels are you're warring angels, of which Michael is the head of not this Michael, although he is a warning where we can be, but he's not.

Then there is the messenger angels of which Gabriel, and then there are the worshiping angels, which the head of those angels was Satan.

He led worship for God.

This is why people on the worship team out to be very careful,

right?

Because there is a absolute pole or draw to forget that it is God working through you and begin to focus on self, and that's exactly what costs Satan to fault.

So then wickedness in high places.

Remember Jesus said, I beheld Satan fall from heaven like lightning.

Where do you fall from?

The highest place?

He doesn't have access to the throne room anymore.

All he can work in as the first and second heaven.

That's where he fell from.

Does that make sense?

I don't want to keep beating this to death, but I need you to understand it because it's extremely important that you recognize we are still in that are you understand what I'm saying?

And so when he says, wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, he's in telling us that if you want to function, you could be saved and not be saved.

Okay?

So let's say you and I, we went to the store and we met at the mall and so we parked right next to each other.

It's raining.

And so I get out of my car, I put my umbrella up and I watch you get out of your car and you don't have an umbrella.

And so now you are soaking wet as we walk to the mall, then you to me and say, well, I thought I was saved you.

You are, but you have no umbrella.

Well let me say it this way.

You refuse to put on.

Wow.

So then as a believer, this is what Paul is saying.

He's saying, the moment you were saved, yes, you're saved, but you still have to put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day having done all to stand, stand.

Therefore, now the word withstand is antihistamine.

It's a military term.

It means to stand against a, it's where we get anti-histamines from.

That's what Andy Histamine does.

Uh, when you take an allergy medication that's anti Histamine, what it does is it stands against the receptors in your body that caused the allergic response and it fights it back so that you don't have it.

So then antihistamine to withstand then begins to.

He starts to help you to see that there are ways that you can fight and you have to understand what this armor is for.

And so he lists out a take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand the evil day having done all to stand, do what stand having.

Now.

Here's how you stand having your loins girt about with the truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace above all taking the shield of faith were with you were able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

And this is where we're going to focus today and take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

And he says, take the helmet of salvation.

The helmet of salvation becomes critically important because it is the substratum of all the rest.

And if we are going to stand, then we must understand why the helmet of salvation become so significant.

And so what I want you to look at very quickly, we're going to do a scripture run real quick.

I'm going to give you a bunch of them.

We just go ahead and because I want you to understand something before we can go on.

And so it says Matthew One 21, Matthew 1:21 and she shall bring forth a son.

Matthew 1:21

They shall call his name, for he shall save his people from their sins.

We understand salvation to be saved.

So you know that if you are a believer in Christ, you are in fact safe.

That word saved.

It's Sozo and it is translated in various routes of that particular word, but in its very essence, it means that you have the life of God and so to be saved means you are removed from the death and the doom and gloom and destruction that was waiting for you.

And you are now a translated into the Kingdom of light, right?

And whereby you are so we understand it in a traditional sense.

So let me show you something else.

A Matthew 14, 29.

Matthew Fourteen, 29.

And he said, come.

And when Peter was come out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.

Keep me on.

But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink.

He cried saying, Lord, save me.

Now, this is not salvation in the traditional sense of what we know it to be, but it's the exact same word.

What Peter was saying was saved me or to deliver me or to rescue me.

Let's go to a jude one.

Five Jude One.

Five.

I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed them that believed not same word, meaning deliverance to physically deliver.

Second Timothy Eighteen, second timothy four, 18 and Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and we'll preserve me until unto his heavenly kingdom.

To whom?

The glory forever and ever.

Amen.

That word preserve.

It sews Soza.

It means safety.

It means to keep me, to guard me.

It's the exact same word for salvation.

Keep going.

Let's go to luke eight, 36, luke eight, 36 through their same, and those who've seen it, told the people how the demon possessed man had been.

Had he been, he been.

What?

Healed?

Some translations say cured.

Guess what?

That word healed or cured is

saved Sozo.

So then we see that this word means salvation.

It means to be rescued.

It means deliverance.

It means to be kept safe.

It means to be exercised of demons.

Let's go one more place.

Matthew nine.

Matthew Nine, 20 and behold, a woman which was diseased with an issue of blood 12 years, came behind him and touched the hem of his garment.

Keep going.

Twenty one

for she said within herself, if I may, but touch his garment, I shall be Sozo.

Verse Twenty Two.

But Jesus turned about and when he saw her, he said, daughter, be of good comfort.

Thy Faith has made Thee Soza.

And a woman was made Sozo, so then the reason why I took you through these, and I know this is almost like a Bible college lesson, if you will, but it became extremely important for you to to to see some of these things for us to go to the next stage of understanding because one of the keys to this scripture is something that alluded me for awhile and then one day it hit me as to why this was so important and exactly what he was telling us

to do.

See, the nature of salvation has to move beyond the ethereal and into reality for you.

There's an a theorial concept of salvation and it's if I believe on Jesus, I am now right with God and I can make it into heaven.

And that seems to be the very basic or the very rudimentary understanding of what it is to be saved.

And yet that is true.

It is not the extent of what it means to be saved.

Because as I've just taken you down the list of things that occur in salvation, I have the right to be set free from all demonic oppression.

I have the right

to be healed in my physical body.

I have the right to be rescued when I'm in the midst of a bad situation.

I have the right to be transformed into the Kingdom of light and function from that place and not have to suffer through this life.

So there are things that are inherent in your salvation that I think are not necessarily always clear because most people think that in order for me to get delivered, I have to do something else.

In order to find that deliverance.

And one of my struggles with deliverance ministries, do I believe people need to get delivered?

Yes, some people do, but when you develop an entire ministry to get people delivered and you call yourself a person who can break generational curses and buying generational curses, let me explain something to you.

Cursed has everything that hangeth on a tree, and so if Jesus hung on the cross for me, then he took all curses and nailed them to the cross.

I don't need you to put your hands on me to get a generational curse out of my life.

Jesus has already paid the price.

Therefore I have the ability to walk in that freedom regardless of whether you are anointed or appointed or not, because it comes a part of my package.

So then if I'm trying to bring the nature of salvation from an ethereal concept, then oftentimes my experience with God can be my greatest blessing or my greatest curse because to function with God from my conceptualization of God.

When it's challenged with life, it's either going to push me or it's going to sink me.

Wish I had somebody that understands what I'm saying because it's the moment when I come into my situation and I come in with a revelation hopefully of who my God is, but when the situation doesn't seem to change the way that I would like it to, then my situation begins to chop my revelation and then I sink back to what it used to be as opposed to allowing my revelation to hold the line.

So now, because people say, oh, well, you know, you don't understand the devil is a lie.

Yeah, he is a lie.

But there are people that have been going through for so long that they're like, when you say the devil is a lie, they're like, well, you're not lying this time because there was a moment where he was alive but as begins to throw things.

So then what has to happen is, uh, if you have,

uh, let's say for example, you are on a plane, airplane and a snake gets loose in that plane.

What do you do?

Does anybody know?

Somebody said screen, that's not going to help you.

Let me tell you what you do.

You go higher.

The reason why eagles put their nests so high up in the mountains is because snakes can not live at high altitudes.

That's right.

So if a snake, once the eat and Eagle, it's pretty much unheard of.

But uh, but an Eagle Kenny the snake.

Why?

Because what an eagle will do is it'll swoop down and grab the snake

and then take it up into the atmosphere, to a place where the snake cannot exist or live.

And it literally implodes on the inside because of the pressure of being so hot.

Oh my God.

So then what you have to realize is that the war has to be taken to a different place because if you try to fight the snake on the ground, snakes on the ground have every ability to be quick to strike.

But once you take a snake off the ground and you take them up into the Scott, he cannot exist in a place where you can exist.

So you've got to take the battle to the place where you will win it every single time because no snake can live.

So if you were in a plane, what do you do?

Go higher

because you'll kill it.

You don't scream.

So then watch this.

So then snakes operate in one plane and an eagle operates.

The snake cannot function where the ego, but the ego can function.

And the key to the success of their exchange is to change the battlefield.

Because when we fight in a place where you can't fight,

same.

Oh my goodness, I'm glad you know what I love about y'all know I love about y'all.

Y'All allow me to get there because some, you know, some churches you just lose people because they're not used to sound line upon line teaching.

So I just, I loved that about John[inaudible].

You[inaudible] you let me get there because we're about to get there.

And so if revelation becomes rooted in my experiences only then what has now happened is I have shifted my experience with God to my natural understanding.

Yeah.

And if I shift to the natural, and I'll give you a great example.

When people say to me, pastor, you don't understand, I live on a fixed income.

My first question is who fixed it

you did with your mouth?

Because I.

I don't know why checks can't come in the mail,

right?

I don't know why I care packages.

That might be one of your streams of income

and it may be somewhat set.

I don't want use the term fixed, but in my life, if I only had to depend on one thing,

come on.

See?

Naturally what'll happen is you will start to live out of your natural experience and so God does not function in the area of your sensory perceptions.

You know the Bible says, no man has ever seen God or touched God.

You can't put your hand.

I have never put my hands physically on God.

You can't smell God.

I don't know what kind of Cologne he wears.

I don't know what kind of soap he uses.

I don't know anything about God terms of those types of sensory things, and so if I live my life sensorily and sensually, then I will always seek to validate what I believe about God through the experiences of my life and if my life doesn't necessarily line up, then I will struggle with trying to have a revelation of God that exceeds what my mind can conceive.

The moment I get past the idea that he does not work in a central world, he does not work according to my sensory things.

He does not walk with me in a way that is only based on what I can see because I walk by faith and by sight so therefore I may not see anything that God is doing.

I may not even be able to discern that he's doing a thing, but if I have faith in the revelation of who God really is, that my expectation is always set at a place on a bulk.

Then I look to the hills to where my help comes from and I know that, hey, I may walk through the Valley of the shadow of death.

I fear no evil for God is with me so that I may feel the shadow of death.

I may feel all the situations I'm going to

through,

but I don't operate out of

because my revelation cannot be deduced.

It cannot be matriculated, it cannot be educated.

It cannot be, uh, something that I can fathom and reasonably process to come up with an answer because some people are so smart, they are too smart for their own good.

Your trying to smart God.

Watch what he says.

Ephesians six,

first of all,

wrestled not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Notice what he says.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood.

We wrestle against.

He just did a battle ground shift.

That's right.

He said, let me explain to you.

You don't wrestle with flesh and blood.

You wrestle with principalities and powers because if you want to get down here, Russell, with this snake in the flesh and blood, you're going to lose.

He said, well, what I want you to understand is shift your thinking to understand I cannot battle you and the natural,

so therefore I am not living my life thinking you're not going to come.

Wow,

but I put my nest so high up in the mountains.

Then if you did come

when I see you coming, I'm going to grab you and take you into a place where the battle ground shifts that you can't fight me up there because I wrestled not against flesh and blood, but I wrestle against principalities and powers.

So I began to recognize who I am.

Watch this.

You Ready?

I said all that.

Okay?

Literally 45 minutes, 57 seconds to share this thing with you.

You Ready?

Read.

Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand an evil day having done all to stand when?

When?

When.

Okay,

I have a struggle.

If I'm in war and you're not telling me to attack, you're telling me to stand.

When I was a kid, we used to play this game called King of the hill

and so you would run up on the top of the hill and then you know, people try to pull you off and then if they pulled you down and they would run up and they're king of the hill, and so what you have to recognize

is if salvation means deliverance, healing, safety, protection.

If it means all those things,

then you are not one who sits at the bottom of the hill fighting to attack to get up the hill, but you are in fact the one who is at the top of the hill and when he's telling you to stand, he's saying you don't have to go take you all ready so that when you stand against the wiles of the devil and his schemes and his plans, you are literally putting him down saying, you can't

come up here.

I'm holding the ground that I was given.

I'm not asking you to set me free.

I am set free.

I'm not asking you to heal my body.

I am healed.

I am not asking you to rescue me.

Rescue and so when I stand, I'm standing there for having my loins girt about with the truth, the breastplate of righteousness, and all these things belong to me because I already have what it is all wall.

So when you come against me, Satan, you are not coming against a defeated foe.

I already am the king of the hill.

So when I said I am standing against all the attack that comes, that's why he said stand.

And if you notice every weapon where everything that he says is all defensive except for the sword of the spirit.

Helmet of salvation, feet Shod, preparation of the Gospel piece, loins girt about breastplate.

Shield, the only offensive weapon, the sword.

Why?

What is the helmet to protect your hand?

Everywhere you go in life, you will go head first.

When you were born,

most of you,

there's a few of y'all stubborn and tried to come the other way, but most of y'all, you're supposed to come headfirst.

You have been going everywhere in your life from that point forward head first.

So then the helmet of salvation means what?

You better know that the same faith that got you safe is the same faith that'll get you healed.

It's the same faith that'll get you delivered.

It's the same thing that'll set you up for all success.

It's the same faith.

The moment you got safe when you put on a helmet of salvation, when Satan says you're going to drown, what are you talking about?

I'm on top of the hill already.

I am the head and not the tail.

I'm above and not beneath.

Are you kidding me?

When

the problem is, if you don't have your helmet of salvation on, you'll begin to believe everything.

Next thing you know, you'll be down here.

Wonder why you getting whooped.

He didn't tell you attack and take.

He told you to hold antihistamine.

To stand against.

The battle is already won.

The victory is already yours, so that's why I said having done all to stand,

because if you begin to think Satan will try to twist you into believing you gotta fight to prosper.

You got to fight to get healed.

You got to fight to have salvation.

You've got to fight to be rescued.

You got to fight to be delivered, and the truth of the matter is, the moment you confess Jesus,

that's why he's telling you.

After you've done all the stand, he say, get down there with them.

Yeah,

that's why I said we don't wrestle with flesh and blood.

We wrestle with principalities in not flesh and blood in so then condition that I may find myself in.

I will never have the victory until I stopped getting focused on the condition and really begin to realize what in fact is my position because if I have a position, then he says to stand, and after you've done all you can to hold your position, stand some more.

Stop letting the snake pull you as an eagle down.

I'll walk in the store.

Somebody's got a problem with me.

I got plenty of money.

I will spend it somewhere else.

You ain't hurting my feelings.

I ain't mad at you.

You keep on with your demonic self.

Yeah,

and and the truth be told, if you manifest in front of me, you're going to get delivered.

See?

Because if you start getting offended, listen, one of the biggest challenges of facebook is facebook has given him any idiot with a keyboard, a voice,

and

let me tell you something.

There's a lot of people that hate anything concerning God and I and I don't understand how you can have so much hatred towards something you don't believe exists.

That's like, listen y'all.

That's like this for me.

This is like this.

Some grown person talking about, I can't wait for Santa Claus.

Come.

That's good.

Oh, show awaiting on the Easter bunny.

Ain't nobody going on.

I'm not going to go in there and be like, I can't believe you're a hater in that edit, edit, edit, and you're this and that.

Why?

I know what the deal is, right?

Don't you?

So why do I need to refute what?

I don't think it should help you to see some of the things that are happening in this world.

So I'm going to struggles that are happening in this world.

That's why I said you wrestled not against flesh and blood.

There are principalities and powers of work.

So when people come at you crazy, they ever tell you how pretty your eyes are

love you.

And let me tell you something.

When you respond that way, they really get mad.

But listen, I don't wrestle against flesh and blood.

My war is not with you.

The war in the battle is what's working behind you.

And so if I thought you knew better, you'd do better, but since you don't, then I don't even have anything to say to you.

I'm going to speak to the powers at work.

I'm going to speak to them.

Demons that are trying to figure out if I know who they are at all,

okay?

And many times if you don't shift the battle, you're gonna lose it.

And what he does, he gets you so flustered, so angry, so emotionally vested.

I listen.

So the first time you get angry,

right?

He's like, let's do something now to get them flustered.

And he sent her like, oh, get at me bro.

Come on.

One more.

One more or less than something else to just get them.

Get them angry.

Boy, eight.

And next thing you know your life.

And he's like, got them.

All I needed you to do was to get all my level to get into the war where I can fight best.

I am not concerned about whether he comes and does not come.

Uh, depends on the likelihood of that.

I depend on my readiness to receive him.

So what do I do?

I put everything as high up as I can.

I put my praise on high.

I put, I'm going to say something is going to lose.

Is gonna lose about half of you.

But since I'm 56 minutes into it, ubi.

See, the Bible says that when you put your money into the things of God, it translates into habits.

So if I don't want him to steal my money

right,

then I put it into the things of God that puts it where he can't see.

If I want him to not be able to touch my home, come on now.

Then I put it up so high.

If I don't want him to be able to get to my children, I put them up so high my warfare, my welfare.

See my praise, my prayer life, it all happens and if there's anything that happens to get in his domain, I can swoop.

Did you know that an eagle

can spot a fish in the water from a mile in the air and swooped down into the water?

Yeah.

This is why I love eagles because eagles can go into any terrain.

Yeah.

Okay.

Was the last time you saw a fish jump out of the water and fly up and grab an eagle was the last time you see a fish?

Jump on land, walk up and mess with a snake.

See, an eagle can go any territory he wants.

Right?

And did you know that the Bible says you shall mount up with wings.

See you have been equipped and don't even know it.

The Art of preparation.

You got to know I'm prepared

to meet him or whatever battle ground he wants.

I'm prepared.

Why?

Because I know that even if I got to come down, I'm going to take him back.

I'm going to make him fight.

You.

Not going to bait me down here because I know down here the weapons of my warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty through God and if I'm going operated that plane, I'm going to have to get up.

Cool.

Now I'm dealing with you out of my revelation of who God is, not out of the condition that I find myself, and Satan is all too quick to pull you into your senses.

Oh, you're healed.

You don't feel healed.

Do you?

I do feel he'll.

Oh, okay.

We'll take this.

How do you feel now?

Well, I believe in God for my prosperity and unbelieving God.

Listen, I, you know, one of the things that I think is a challenge for me is people talk about the Prosperity Gospel, so to speak, and I, and I have a problem with the idea that we don't chase after money and stuff more than we after God, but the contrary to that is that we're supposed to be poor and sick and I'm telling you I don't have any scripture to support that.

God's plan is that we have a full supply.

Now, does that mean everybody will be a millionaire?

Of course not.

It's according to what's working and you.

If you can believe God Ford, will he do it?

I believe he will, but most people can't stay around that long,

right?

To believe God to that level because the moment you say, I'm going to believe God for my finances, the first time the bill collector calls,

okay,

you owe us blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You want to get a bill collector?

Leave.

You alone preached Jesus.

I'm joking.

Yo,

I got it.

I got an idea for you.

You Ready?

You want, you really want to get a bill collector levy alone.

Pay Your bills.

I'm serious.

Be Honorable Concerning your bills and uh, there, there, there's no problem there is.

Here's what I'm trying to tell you.

So many people spend so much time trying to figure out how to get out of

paying something that if they just put their faith on the money, how they live.

Let's pray.

Pray to pray.

Father God, we thank you for today.

We are so grateful for the revelation light that you give us a.

It is amazing what you were doing in us through us and with us, and we're eternally grateful.

Father, for all that you're doing and and father, we thank you that you're helping us to understand how to shift the battleground.