The Battle in the Heavenlies When We Pray - The Cosmic War: Satan, Demons, and the Kingdom of God

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

Well, you guys, I want to just thank you so much, especially Pastor Brian, for praying for Liz and I last week.

We got sick, got some kind of a virus.

And immediately, and I mean literally, immediately, Capital I, when you guys pray for us, we felt this surge of healing and strength come over us, and we were we were good.

So something about all of you guys praying, lifting your hands to us, just uh healed us.

And it really is important that you hear that because it relates to the message today.

Because today I want to talk about the power of prayer and how when you pray, when you declare, when you say things, actually in the cosmic realm, it activates divine beings.

It actually activates sons of God to come down and answer our prayers.

It's really, really amazing.

And so I was talking about the cosmic war, and I wanted to just quickly, really quickly, go through what we've covered so far.

And that is, I've talked about the divine counsel of God.

That there's a divine council of Elohim, divine beings, angelic powers, hierarchies of powers in the heavenly realm that are activated and affect and impact this earth oftentimes by the actions of men and women just like us.

And we look at Psalm 82 and we talked about that.

And I shared about the Tower of Babel very briefly, how with the Tower of Babel God broke up the nations, nations were created, and principalities and powers were assigned to nations.

And don't turn there because it's gonna come up on your screen, but in Psalm 32, we see an example of this, which we did not cover the last time.

But when the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.

For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the place of his inheritance.

So what God did in times immemorial, Tower of Babel, saw the rebellion of the people.

Already Satan, as we've already discovered, had been driven to the earth in his rebellion against God.

He assigned divine beings to be over nations that became evil, that had evil machinations within their heart.

But listen, he took a portion of people called Israel and he made them his own.

I'm gonna jump out on a limb, and it's a theological limb that it's not one that I can openly defend, except from this perspective, to say that I believe God put the founding of America into the hearts of the Puritans and the pilgrims because he was apportioning a people called Americans.

That there's a special place in God's heart for the United States of America.

And that that was placed within him.

And that's why we're celebrating Thanksgiving, is because we're thankful for what God's done and our inheritance.

And this is Veterans Day, and if you're a veteran or you're serving in our military right now, would you stand?

Would you stand right now?

And we thank you.

We thank you.

Because we would not be half the nation that we are if it wasn't for men and women who are willing to give up a portion of their career, give up a portion of their life to potentially be in harm's way to defend our freedom.

And so our nation is unique, and I believe, in God's eyes, and that he formed it with a vision that he gave the Puritans and He gave the pilgrims that became the manifestation of what we now have as our Constitution.

It's under attack right now.

But these boundaries, these national principalities and powers were given from the heavenly rim into the nations of our world.

And in our passage that we started a couple weeks ago, we talked about Daniel, Daniel seeking God.

Turn in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 10, at one of the most confusing, obscure, strange passages in the Bible.

Daniel 10 · chapter mention

And I believe that when we're done here, it'll be even more clear if it wasn't clear before.

Maybe it'll be clearer if it was clear before.

But I believe that we see a picture here of what happens when we pray.

We see a picture here of what happens when we fast and pray.

And we see how it affects even the destiny of a nation.

And you may not know this, but in times past in America, during times of national turmoil, presidents and leaders called for days of fasting and prayer.

And the reason they did that is because still the vestiges of our Judeo-Christian heritage was a part of that.

I don't know if you know that in the early 1950s, when we adopted in God We Trust, that was Eisenhower's response to communism.

Because communism was known as an atheistic political entity, and he wanted to make a statement, and Congress wanted to make a statement that we're a nation that we believe is under God.

And so here in verse 1, we've already covered this, but I'll quickly run through it again.

Daniel is seeking God for clarity of an obscure vision that he had that has to do with the future of Israel.

And he's been seeking God for 21 days.

In the third year of Osiris, king of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel, whose name was called Beshazzar.

The message was true, but the appointed time was long, and he understood the message and had understanding of the vision.

Verse 2.

In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks.

I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all till three whole weeks were fulfilled.

This is where we get the idea of how many have heard of a Daniel fast?

This is where this comes from.

This Daniel fast of, and I just came off 21 days of fast, uh, the Daniel fast myself, and you don't put any seasoning on your food.

You I would only have a slight meal once a day.

And let me tell you, no seasoning on your food is worse than just straight fasting.

It's horrible.

And so you don't really notice how much notice how much you love seasoning until you don't have any.

So three full weeks, he he's in this fast of no pleasant food.

And I guess if you truly want to get technical here, you shouldn't take a bath or a shower or use any ointments on your body whatsoever if you're a true Daniel fast.

And um, I think the reason we don't do that is because you wouldn't have any friends for three weeks.

But he's in this fast, he's asking God for wisdom, and something's about to happen.

Verse 4.

Now on the 24th day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river that is the Tigris, I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a certain man clothed in linen, whose waist was girded with the gold of Uphas, his body like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished bronze in color, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude.

So, all through scripture, when you have this kind of a description, which there's many in scripture, it is of a divine being.

It's a divine being coming from the cosmic rim into our three-dimensional world.

A powerful angel, as it were.

So, number one, we talked about this a few weeks ago.

Divine beings are activated through our actions on earth.

Now, we're talking about nations of the world.

We're talking about rulers impacted by divine beings.

But where we're going is as we come to after Thanksgiving, I'm gonna start bringing it down to your individual life and how divine beings can be activated through your prayers, through your crying out to God for something.

And this is one man.

Daniel is no different than any of us in a human sense.

He's very different from most of us in the passion within him.

This guy's got a fire, man.

He's fired up.

He's fired up for Israel.

Now think about Daniel.

He's got it made, you guys.

I mean, he's in the courts of Nebuchadnezzar, he's in the courts of Darius, he's in the courts now of Cyrus.

I mean, he's got it made, and yet he's passionate about his nation.

He cares about Israel, and he's willing to give up 21 days of his life to fast and pray for a vision to understand when he's in comfort.

He's 84 years old at this point.

He's 84 years old, and he still cares about Israel.

He's probably never gonna see, which he never did.

He never will see Israel again.

He'll never see it.

It would be like a, you know, a communist regime coming in, taking over America, and then you being a young person were selected by that ruler, that prime minister, that premier, that chancellor to be in his court.

You've got it made, and yet you care so much about America being raised up again that you fast and you pray and you cry out to God.

And so this divine being is activated through this fire in Daniel's heart.

And there's a principle here, men and women, that when we pray, when we see God, when we're serious with God, I don't get it all, it's a mystery to me, but it activates divine beings that come on your behalf.

Angelic spirits, supreme beings, Elohim, as it were, a council of God, released from the council of God to come down and rescue and to speak and to move.

You guys prayed for Liz and I, and the moment the prayers were heard, because we were watching you on the screen, something touched us, maybe it was a divine being, came down into Black Forest, into our place, touched us, we were healed immediately.

Isn't that powerful to think that when you come up here and you're praying for people that need healing, that there may be an angel that comes down because of your the genuineness and sincerity of your heart, you're seeking him, and when you're praying for that person, there is going to be energy release that heals them.

So we think about God and him answering prayer, but I'm telling you this scripture and many others, and we'll look at another one, something happens even with divine beings being actionable because of our actions on the earth.

Verse 10 suddenly a hand touched me which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands.

What a description.

So, so if you've ever wanted to be in the presence of an angel, you might want to read this verse a few times and reconsider.

I mean, he's he's trembling under this divine being.

It's so effervescent, luminescent, and powerful.

And he said to me, Oh Daniel, man, greatly beloved.

Church, think about that.

You're greatly beloved.

And when you cry out to God, you're never more beloved to God than when you cry out to God.

But it's interesting that when Daniel cries out to God and the answer comes, this angelic spirit comes down, the first thing out of his mouth is he knows his name.

You know God knows your name.

You look at your background, some of you were orphans and you were adopted.

Some of you have been through horrendous stuff in your background.

Your name is special to God.

Nobody else may care about your name, but God cares about your name.

And you may think it was a big you're a big mistake on this earth.

I'm telling you, you're not only not a big mistake, God's got a plan and a purpose for your life.

And when he comes, he comes and he calls you by name.

And he's got a plan for you.

And he says, oh Daniel.

Oh, Daniel, greatly beloved.

Not just beloved, but greatly beloved.

Each one of you in this room are greatly beloved by God.

There is a destiny on your life.

Understand the words that I speak to you.

Stand upright, he says.

He says, Look, you're all mourning and you're weeping and you're fasting and praying.

It's almost like he has to say, because he's probably fallen on his face because of the divine being.

And he says, Understand the words that I speak to you.

Get up and stand up.

So Daniel does, and he says, For I have now been sent to you.

I have now been sent to you.

And while he was speaking this word to me, I stood up trembling.

Number two, divine beings are under the jurisdiction of God.

This divine being was sent by God.

God sends angels.

That's what angel means, makos.

That's what it means in the Hebrew.

The idea of a divine being being sent out is where we get the word angel.

So angel is one, a divine being being sent out by God.

And so this divine being, this angelic presence, comes and is responding to Daniel's prayer.

And the reason this is important is we study this whole aspect of the cosmic wars.

I don't want anyone to leave with the impression that I'm talking about polytheism or many gods.

I'm not.

I'm talking about one true God ruling over smaller gods.

I'm just quoting scripture, many gods, mighty ones, Elohim, small E, not the capital E, Elohim of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Holy Trinity.

So Psalm 89, don't need to turn there, it's going to come up on the screen, is a great description of what I'm talking about.

And the heavens will praise your wonders, O Lord, Yahweh.

Lord is Yahweh.

Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the Holy Ones, Elohim.

For who in the heavens can be compared to the Lord Yahweh?

In other words, it's a rhetorical question.

No one can be, no beings can be.

Who among the sons of God, Elohim, can be likened to the Lord Yahweh?

God is greatly to be feared in the counsel of the Holy Ones, the Elohim, and to be held in reverence by all those around him.

Michael Heiser writes, God's divine counsel is an assembly in the heavens, not on earth.

This is precisely what we'd expect if we understand the Elohim to be divine beings.

So whether you call them angels or divine beings, I'm using divine beings because not everything is an angel in the divine beings.

There's seraphim, there's cherubim, there's demons.

And so fallen angels are demons.

We'll get to that.

That's coming up later, but we're going to get a little aspect of it today.

So as Daniel's crying out to God, God releases a divine being down to speak to him.

Verse 12.

Then he said to me, Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words.

Number three, when we pray and seek God, our prayers are heard and understood in the unseen world.

Isn't that amazing?

That when you pray from the very first day, even though the answer has not come.

Anybody here have unanswered prayer right now?

Like everybody in the room.

Like we all have unanswered prayer, right?

And so, but from the first day that Daniel sought the Lord, this angelic being said, I heard your prayer.

I heard what was on your heart.

And every time you pray and you sincerely come before the Lord, God hears that prayer.

That's amazing to me.

I mean, that just gets me fired up.

I just love teaching because I learn way more than you guys do.

Because I only give you a little bit of what I'm learning, you know, but I can tell you that is what that's what you paid for to be here.

This is what it's about.

That when you pray from the very first day, angelic beings are actionable.

They're actually activated into action because of you.

You're a little lower than the angels of Scripture say, and yet God has created each one of us in the image of God.

Now here's a great argument for you, and we'll, I'm not going to cover it today.

Are angels created in the image of God?

Okay, what if I said yes?

They are.

Just hold that one, and in a few weeks I'll answer it.

But you're created in the image of God.

You've been put on this earth as a co-viceroy, as a co-prime minister, as a co-chancelor over a territory that when you pray, Lord, I pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done on my territory as it is in heaven.

And then you conclude that prayer, thine be the glory, thine be the power, thine be the kingdom.

We're supposed to mean it.

And so here, Daniel, he gets it.

He's crying out to God for 21 days.

A divine being is activated, comes down because of his words.

That's what it says.

Your words were heard, and I've come because of your words.

So, men and women, what are your words when you pray?

Oh, Lord, I just it's really hard down here.

Um that guy's really bad.

And I know I'm supposed to forgive him.

I mean, I don't know what you pray, but I know how I pray, and it's not that distant sometimes from what I just said.

And so it's like it's almost like God's like, what do you want, man?

I mean, what's going on down there?

Like, you're really confused.

And yet, when Jesus talks about prayer, he's not confused.

Every time Jesus talks about prayer, he's saying, Ask of me and I'll give you what you want.

Ask of me and I'll get you what you want.

Here's what he says: Ask and it'll be given to you.

Seek, and you will find.

Knock, and the door will be open to you.

For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be open.

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone.

Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake.

If you then, and he's very realistic, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, Christmas is coming.

And people don't like Christmas.

Christmas trees.

A pagan holiday.

Don't ask for any appointments with me during the season about Christmas.

Okay?

And you can, if you don't believe in Christmas trees and Christmas, that is fine.

I want you to know total grace to you.

I totally get it.

I know history and all that, but I'm a missiologist.

That's the problem.

I'm a missiologist, and as a missiologist, one of my degrees in missiology is that what Christianity does is it comes in and it Christianizes paganism.

To me, that's super smart.

Okay?

So some of you may disagree and go, well, yeah, we're celebrating this pagan holiday and all that.

That's fine.

Just don't haunt me with your stuff because I hear it every year.

And I've got this, we've got this decorated.

Melody did a beautiful job on this decoration up here.

It's awesome.

The women had it.

I said, let's keep it.

I love it.

So I like stuff like that.

So I'm not going to listen to you.

Just want you to know that.

It doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong or anything like that.

I'm just telling you, I've got better things to do, okay?

Okay.

If you then Though you're evil, know how to give good gifts to your children.

How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?

Now Jesus talks about asking and seeking and knocking like all the time when he associates it with prayer.

He talks about a poor widow who has no options in the justice system, and she goes to an unjust judge and he correlates that with prayer.

And we could go through dozens of situations like that.

So God wants you praying.

Men and women, God, the things that are on your heart, that you know are of the Lord, when you start to pray about those things from the first day your words are heard in heaven.

The problem for all of us is we quit too early.

We don't fight for what we know to be right.

You want your daughter to get saved?

You keep crying out to God.

That is God's will that that person gets saved.

You want to hold your marriage together?

Now you can't determine what that other person's gonna do, but at least as much as you can on your part, you cry out to God for that marriage to be held together.

Verse 13.

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia, now it's getting interesting.

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia, a demon, that's a demonic principality, withstood me 21 days.

And behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.

So it's actually plural.

There's a prince of Persia, there's kings of Persia.

I believe that the prince is probably over the kings, and the kings and the prince are over the national leader.

Okay.

So it appears that it could be Cyrus.

So Cyrus is the leader, but he's being infiltrated by demonic principalities and powers that are influencing the decisions that he makes.

Now that's still true today.

When you see what's happening in the Middle East, there are still, there's still a prince of Persia, a seated, not unseated, but a seated prince of Persia, with probably kings of Persia under this divine being that are still ruling in many of the affairs that are happening in the Middle East right now.

It's demonic, it's a cosmic war.

Then he says, I have been left alone there with the kings of Persia.

Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people, meaning Israel, in the latter days.

For the vision refers to many days yet to come.

We're gonna look at Daniel.

We're gonna study Daniel in 2024.

Probably more like February or March, we're gonna get into the book of Daniel.

Then again, verse 18, then again, the one having the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me.

And he said, O man, greatly beloved, fear not.

Peace be to you.

Be strong.

Yes, be strong.

When I was reading this this week, you guys, I was just thinking about what happened to us when you guys prayed.

So we were weak.

We were sick.

You know, we we felt that virus.

You guys stood when Brian asked you to.

You prayed for us, and I don't know if not a cosmic being, an angelic principality, came down into Black Forest and touched us.

I don't know.

Came and touched us, boom, we were strengthened.

I mean, start thinking about this.

Think about this practically.

This is a very, very practical passage.

It's not just for history, it's for now.

That when we start to pray, God could come and you're praying for a leader.

You're praying for a world leader, you're praying for our mayor, you're praying for your daughter, you're praying for your son, you're praying for yourself.

And you keep crying out to God, it activates this cosmic rim, and who knows who's actually doing the touching.

When people come up here to get prayer and you're praying for them, and suddenly they get better, and you go, yes, I got one.

And you pull out your pocket knife and make a little notch on your belt.

No, I'm only kidding on that part.

I don't know what do you get all this?

I don't get all this.

I'm just telling you what it says.

So the cosmic beings seemed to be enacted through our prayers.

Verse 20.

Then he said, Do you know why I've come to you?

So I think Daniel's like really confused right now.

He's like, whoa.

Because as far as we know, this is the only time this happened in Daniel's life at this level.

Okay?

So one time he's 84 years old here.

He's 84 years old here.

And now I must return, I must return to fight with the prince of Persia.

And then I have gone forth.

Indeed, the prince of Greece will come, but I will tell you what is noted in the scripture of truth.

Hmm.

What is that?

I actually don't think that's the Bible.

Because even in the book of Daniel, it says the books, books, plural, shall be open in the latter days.

So there might be a scripture of truth.

There may be a book of service.

There may be a book of martyrs.

I mean, I don't know.

But there's these books that are going to be open in the latter days that we're going to see.

And they're, and I think none of us will miss our reward.

And you may say, well, Steve, I'm a nobody, and I've never done anything significant in my life, but I do pray a lot.

Well, maybe there's a scripture of truth that's open for those who prayed a lot.

That you actually activated divine beings that affected America because you committed yourself to prayer.

We don't know sometimes those things.

Well, in this case, Daniel gets a glimpse into a prince of Persia, a prince of Greece, that are fighting with this archangel.

But I'll tell you what is noted in the scripture of truth: no one upholds me against these except Michael, your prince.

So Michael is known in the second and third century as the archangel, the guardian angel over Israel.

So he says, your prince, speaking of him as a Jew.

So Michael obviously is very high up.

He has to be enacted through the prayers of Daniel to come and battle with the prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece.

Number four.

Number four.

There are evil, divine beings that work behind the scenes over nations.

They oppose God and his kingdom.

So there's different levels, men and women.

We see this in Revelation 12, where we looked at several weeks ago, in which a war broke out in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail.

So Michael's this high-level archangel, guardian angel over Israel.

This angel, this divine being that talks to Daniel, isn't strong enough to pull down the prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece.

He can't do it.

He's trying, he can't do it.

Michael is then released by God, who comes into the foray, comes into the battle scene, and releases this angel who's been fighting to get down to Daniel to give him an answer to his prayers.

So here's what we pick up from this: it was hierarchies.

Ephesians 6 says principalities and powers.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the cosmic or the heavenly realm.

That's what Paul says.

So Paul takes this idea of divine beings and hierarchies of angels and demonic spirits and principalities and powers into the New Testament and says, look, that's your battle.

You think it's political, you think it's economic.

And it is partly that, for sure.

But the reality is there's something deeper behind that, that's just a manifestation of a work that's happening behind the scenes.

And the quicker we as a church of the body of Christ could understand this, the quicker we can start to see revival come.

Because when we start to get serious about fasting and prayer, when we get serious about crying out to God for things, and we believe that our prayers are being heard from the first day forward, they're being heard.

That God activates angelic principalities and powers on our behalf for the things that we cry out to him about that are in his will, we could take over the earth.

We could have a kingdom of God revolution in El Paso County.

That's why I'm calling in 2024.

2024, our theme is bring it on.

Okay, that's the theme for 2024.

Bring it on 2024.

December 31st is New Year's Eve.

I'm calling for a time of worship and prayer on New Year's Eve, 6 30 to 8 30.

We made it that so that you can bring your kids.

We'll watch your kids, we'll take care of your kids.

And we want everybody to come, if you can.

I mean, I know you have uh some of you have New Year's Eve stuff you like to do, and that's fine.

But if you feel led to come, it's gonna be 6 30 to 8 30.

That's Sunday night.

It's a Sunday night.

And then in 2024, we're gonna make Mondays, 52 weeks, 52 Mondays, a day of fasting and prayer for Kingdom of God revolution.

Every Monday.

Now, Liz and I have been doing fasting and prayer.

Yeah, you can clap.

Not very many of you are clapping.

I noticed that.

I get it, I know.

I like to eat too.

A little bit of a test, though, right?

Out of 168 hours in a week, that you could give up, say, 24 because you love our nation.

Because if you don't, don't do it, because then it's just religion.

It's just stupid.

But if you care, and I think most of you do, you say, well, I can't fast, well then just miss breakfast.

I don't know.

Don't drink coffee.

No peppermint mochus for you.

Okay.

I mean, everybody's gonna be different.

Don't feel any legalism or any pressure.

I want you to be so excited and fired up and joyful about it.

Okay, so that's that's a little of a quick announcement that's gonna come more as we get closer.

Okay, so here's number five.

Number five is this prayer with fasting activates powers who fight on God's behalf.

Prayer with fasting activates powers who fight on God's behalf.

I don't get it.

And I don't need to get it, but it works.

There's something about prayer with fasting, and maybe it's because of our hunger for God that we give up hunger for food for hunger for God, that God hears our prayers in a very unique and special way.

We see this in Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

Then they brought him, meaning this child to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.

So he asked his father, How long has this been happening to him?

And he said, Since childhood.

And often he has been thrown both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.

But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.

And Jesus said to him, If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

So he asked him a question back Do you believe that God will do anything if you believe?

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

What a beautiful response.

How many of you would say that's true, a lot of things in your life?

Like, I want to believe, but I've got this unbelief.

You know, my new book that I'm working on is called Fearful Courage.

Because you really don't need courage unless you're fearful.

And then you break through with courage, even though you're fearful.

Well, it's the same thing with belief.

Every time we believe something, there's an element out there like of unbelief.

So if he said, well, you it didn't happen because you didn't believe.

Well, it might not be because you didn't believe, it might be because you quit too early.

And so this guy, he is not going to let his child away from Jesus or from his disciples.

When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter into him no more.

Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him.

And he became as one dead, so that many said, He is dead.

But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

And when he had come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out?

I mean, we've cast out so many demons before, Lord.

Why couldn't we cast this one out?

And Jesus said, This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.

So what's he saying?

He's saying that there are spirits that are so powerful, so strong, that just regular prayer is not gonna cast them out.

That just regularly believing God is not gonna get the job done.

There are spirits over some of you that are so strong because they've been there for so long that unless someone fasts and pray, or unless you fast and pray, you're not gonna get set free.

It's not gonna happen in your life.

So God calls us to put on his armor and to come into fasting and prayer.

And I want to conclude with my blog.

I'm gonna read my blog that I sent out this week because I believe it relates to America and the cosmic war over America.

There's a cosmic war in the heavenlies and on earth for the future of our nation.

Mark my word.

2024 will be the most tumultuous and chaotic since the war between the states.

Not since the Civil War have we been so divided, confused, and unsure of ourselves.

This is all part of Satan's strategy to erode and destroy our nation from within.

America and the whole Western world are now living in a post-Christian era, with large numbers of those born after 1970 rejecting the Christian faith.

This means that we, as Jesus followers, will face increasing opposition to our Christian faith.

With the loss of a Judeo-Christian worldview, we are seeing an attack on democracy, the Constitution, and law and order, especially from Marxist ideology that now owns the Democratic Party, mainstream media, most tech companies, sports, education, the pharmaceutical industry, and increasingly all of the intelligence networks.

There is a Marxist militancy gradually taking over Western thought.

Once described by Pope Benedict XVI as a, quote, worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanistic ideologies that push dissenters to the margins of society.

Benedict called this manifestation, quote, the spiritual power of the Antichrist.

Because they fear truth and desire to re-educate our thinking, the elite political tech media structure in America is pushing for censorship of free speech, divisive causes over race relations, and new anti-scientific definitions of gender and sex.

They're promoting what I want to call soft totalitarianism.

This soft communism is gradually getting a foothold in America.

Demonic territorial spirits are behind the leaders in this rise of global Marxist socialism, and that is now infiltrating our land too.

With the loss of power and the gospel in the church, demons of sex, immorality, gender confusion, porn, and even human trafficking are released all over America.

One leading sex trafficking expert said to me a few weeks ago that America is, quote, the world leader in pornography and child sex trafficking.

The Western church of the mid-20th century embraced liberalism in the form of German higher criticism, which started as a trickle into the seminaries and became a stream into the mainline Protestant denominations.

In the latter part of the 20th century, its influence infiltrated the American evangelical church with the seeker-sensitive church movement.

Though different politically and theologically at the time, the common denominator was a focus more on accommodating the culture than confronting it.

And now, in the 21st century, we observe the progressive church that is so compromised biblically and theologically that even the definitions of heaven, hell, and substitutionary atonement are up for grabs.

Rob Dreyer writes, quote, we cannot hope to resist the coming soft totalitarianism if we do not have our spiritual lives in order.

Such was the Orthodox voice of the Russian dissident Nobel laureate and Orthodox Christian Alexander Solsenitsyn.

Solson publishing the Gulag Archipelago, exposing the deceit and lies of the Russian communist system.

On the eve of his forced exile from his beloved nation, his final message to the Russian people was an essay entitled, Live Not by Lies.

Solsenissen was not the only dissident to not only live not by lies under a communist government, but Czech playwright and future post-communist president Vaclav Havel coined a phrase, live by truth.

He realized that under the communist system, most people had learned to live by lies.

His challenges were for people to know and choose to live by truth.

Church, be courageous.

Live by truth.

The book you hold in your hand is the answer to the kingdom and the truth of our lives.

We must determine to line up our lives according to God's truth.

It takes courage to lean on the Bible as our foundation of truth.

It takes courage to stop letting culture dictate our decisions.

It takes courage to be skeptical of the information we're being fed from the mainstream media.

It takes continual courage to live by truth, teach our children truth, and be in deep community with other truth seekers.

We need each other.

So New Year's Eve.

December 31st.

This year, bring it on.

And the whole year you're gonna hear me talk about bring it on.

Bring it on.

I am fired up for Jesus and his kingdom revolution that's coming.

I want you to be, don't be fearful.

You have nothing to fear except the fear you create in your own mind because of a lack of faith.

And you keep coming here, and I will do my darn well best to build up your faith with the courage of the Holy Spirit.

Because we have the answer.

We have the truth that sets the captives free.

Just believe it and let's walk in it.

Thank you for listening to the Forn for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholtonline.org.

God bless a good question.