War IX - Can a Christian be Demon Possessed - War: Satan, Demons & the Fourth Dimension

It's time now for the rope with Pastor Teacher Steve Hope.

So, can a Christian be demon-possessed?

What do you think?

Fifteen times in the New Testament, in the King James Version, the word demon hyphen possessed is used and twice as many references in the New Testament deal with something demonic, where it says, it doesn't say demon-possessed, but it says possessed of a demon or an unclean spirit.

Welcome to another edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Steve is the head pastor of the Road in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

It's our vision to make whole-hearted disciples of Jesus Christ and to see you grow in the grace and knowledge of his love.

If you're in the area, we welcome you to come out and join us for our Saturday night service beginning at 6 p.m.

We meet at Chapel Hills Church, located at 2025 Parliament Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80920.

On this edition of The Road, Pastor Steve will be continuing his series on spiritual warfare.

Today, he'll be dealing with the controversial topic: Can a Christian be demon-possessed?

It's an eye-opening message that you don't want to miss.

So if you have your Bibles handy, make sure that you're ready to turn some pages as we'll be looking at several passages that deal with our topic today.

We'll begin this sermon in Matthew chapter 4 and verse 24.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Here now is Pastor Teacher Steve Holt with today's message.

So tonight we're looking at one of the most controversial questions, controversial theological issues in Christianity.

Can a Christian be demon-possessed?

And um, I love this topic because um I believe it's really shrouded in mystery and theologically misunderstood by much of the evangelical church.

As I've shared over these weeks dealing with war and spiritual warfare, I believe there's these two extremes.

One is kind of this demon behind every bush mentality, and then there's this other extreme that demons are not behind any bushes because you're saved.

That I want to debunk both each time I speak, but tonight I want to talk about this controversial question of whether Christians can be demon-possessed or not.

Let me start by saying this.

I don't believe that in our struggles and in our battles with the flesh and the world and the devil, in any cases, probably anyone in this room at least, that you actually deal with the devil.

I don't think you deal with the devil.

What you deal with and what is scripturally uh synonymous with the devil are demons.

And demons are those angels that rebelled with Satan and were kicked out of heaven and now are upon the earth.

This is their home, this is where they live.

They're the foot soldiers of Satan.

They do his bidding.

All that they do is a reflection of the strategic nature, which I talked about, and the characteristics of Satan.

So though you may not be dealing with Satan per se, because he can only be at one place at one time.

He's a created being, he's a fallen archangel, he's a fallen worship leader.

We've talked about this all in the past.

Demons get their power, they get their direction, it appears, from Satan.

So Satan is the chief architect of the temptations that you deal with.

So can a Christian be demon-possessed?

What do you think?

Fifteen times in the New Testament, in the King James Version, the word demon, hyphen possessed is used, and twice as many references in the New Testament deal with something demonic, where it says, it doesn't say demon-possessed, but it says possessed of a demon or an unclean spirit.

Matthew 4.24, typical example of the 15 references to demon possession, verse 24, then his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all sick, I think this is interesting.

They brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics and paralytics, and he healed them.

The reason this is interesting to we that study the New Testament a lot in relation to spiritual warfare is how many times the association of those that are sick, those that are epileptic, those that are paralytic actually are demon-possessed.

But it's interesting that there's a differentiation in this particular verse of all of that.

But yet in other passages, there is an association with someone who is sick as actually having a demon.

Possession in the English implies ownership.

So here's the answer.

The answer to my question is yes and no.

Can a Christian be demon-possessed?

The answer is yes and no.

Because the problem is actually the word used in the old 1600s King James Bible, which has been associated as well as transcribed in other versions.

Like if you go on the Logos Bible, if you look at some of the other study Bibles that are on the internet and you put in demon possessed, you're gonna see how the different versions articulate that particular word.

But most use possession, and that comes from, I believe, the 1600 version with the King James Bible.

We use the New King James Bible here.

The word though in the Greek is daimonosomai.

When we think possession, I think of the bank possessed my car because I didn't make my payments.

I have possessions, I own them.

The word in the Greek means, listen, influenced by.

The actual word means influenced by, but in the 17th century they translated it possession, and it has stayed with many of the translations today.

So here's why I say yes and no.

Because yes, we can be demon-possessed, even as believers, if we truly take the Greek meaning of what the verses mean, demon-influenced.

As believers, we can be influenced by demons, gang, and I'm gonna explain why in just a moment.

But listen, I don't believe we can be demon-possessed in the modern vernacular of a demon or demons having ownership of a Christian.

And here's why.

In Matthew 12, 43, we read a very interesting passage where Jesus is explaining the work and the ways of demons.

He says, this when an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and he finds none.

Verse 44.

Then he says, I'll return to my house from which I came, and it's speaking of a person.

And when he comes, he finds it empty, empty, keyword empty, swept and put in order.

Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of the man is worse than the first, so shall it be also with this wicked generation.

I don't believe when you give your life to Christ that you have an empty house anymore.

The Spirit of God comes to live in you, gang.

The Spirit of God comes to dwell in you.

Now you may not be walking very closely with the Lord.

You may not know about worship, you may not know about prayer.

That's what, quite frankly, the whole heart advance is gonna be about.

My thesis that you're gonna hear again and again at the whole heart advance is until you grow with such a passion for the delight and the desire of God, you will always have a delight and a desire for sin.

Unless the passions of your heart are greater toward the desire and delight of the things of the kingdom and the things of the Lord, and you're filling your house, i.e.

your heart, with the things of the Lord, you will go back to lust.

You will go back to anger, you will go back to those ways.

And so when we receive Christ, we receive the Spirit of God.

Romans 6, 7, and 8 makes it very clear that you're not God's if you don't have the Spirit.

And if you put your faith in Christ, you have the Spirit of God.

You're not an empty house.

You're not an empty house.

You have the Spirit of God.

So no demon from hell who inhabits this earth can own you.

You can resist the devil.

Every believer can resist the devil.

Now, if you're here tonight and you don't know if you have a personal, intimate, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ, you're unsure of your salvation, you might not be saved.

You can be owned by demons if you give access, that much access to your life.

They can come into your house, and in this case, in our example, even layers of seven demons building not only a foothold, but a stronghold.

Examples.

There's many in scripture, but I'll just give you two for sake of time.

Peter.

Peter believes in Jesus.

And uh and yet he begins to dissuade Jesus against the plan that he has to go to Calvary.

And Jesus says to Peter, get behind me, Satan.

We know in Acts chapter 5, the early church, I believe probably Ananias and Sapphira were believers, but they lied to the Holy Spirit.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

They lied to Peter, they lied to the church, and Peter's response was, Peter, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie?

All of our references to the demonic and issues of the demonic in the New Testament are related to the epistles.

So we have examples of Jesus dealing with the demonic in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

As I mentioned, there's 15 times where the word demon hyphen possessed is used, but then there's uh I think something like over 40 dealing with him casting out demons.

It would appear even that over half of Jesus' ministry was dealing with the demonic.

But then we get into the epistles, and for you that don't know that term, those are the letters.

Those are letters written to the churches.

So the letters uh in the New Testament are written to believers.

And almost every letter deals with the demonic.

So if Christians couldn't be demon-influenced, if Christians could not be influenced by demons, why would there be literally dozens and dozens of references to the demonic written to believers?

So we can be influenced, gang.

And so James 4, 7, write down James 4-7, it's a really key passage.

Says, therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

That would be one to memorize.

Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

So, men and women, we resist the devil by first submitting to God.

So we submit to the ways of God with our heart, soul, mind.

We submit to him.

You're submitted to God by being here tonight.

You're submitting to God when you get up in the morning and you open God's word and you read it and you pray it back into your heart and you pray it back to the Lord.

You're submitting to God when you worship.

When Isaac was home from UNO this summer, I said, give me the 25, in your opinion.

I mean, he's he's 20, so he's got a better opinion on this than me.

But I said, in your opinion, what are the top 25 worship songs right now?

And I want you to make me, you know, I want you to make me a time with the Lord list.

And so this morning, we don't have a prayer room at the whole household, we have a prayer tree.

We don't have a war room, we have a war tree.

So, so a few weeks ago, Liz and I, because we love to be outside so much, there's these bushes, and I don't even know what they are.

We have locust trees all around them, but this bush is, it makes this canopy.

And so we we made this thing, we made an altar, and we got candles hanging from it, and we go in there and we pray together and we pray separately under this tree daily.

So today I went and I took what Isaac had given me and I put the music on and I worshiped.

I was submitting to God.

And when you look here, that's why the order is this way.

When you submit to God, you have strength to resist the devil.

But if you let resisting the devil become your focus before you're submitted to God, guess what happens?

You become religious.

You do, like it's a little formula.

No, you resist the devil because you're submitted to God, because your love for God is greater than your love for the world.

Because the love of the world is all around us, it's it's influencing us all the time.

And so when we learn to submit to God and we worship Him and we take time in His Word, you don't want the devil's influence anymore.

And as you start to resist the devil, the word promises he'll flee from you.

And so that's written to believers.

That's James writing to believers.

And so, men and women, listen up.

Lawlessness will increase in the latter days, and many hearts will grow cold.

That's why we're going into Joel in the fall, that's why we're going in the book of Revelation in the fall.

Because I want to prepare you for the last days, because the last days are upon us.

Well, yeah, are you making some prediction about the coming of Christ?

No, I just know it's my last days.

I know it's your last day, you know.

So and it might be the last days, but I do know it's the last days.

Small T, but it might be capital T, last days.

Bottom line is as we look at what's happening in our world today, as we look at what's happening as we lead up to this next election, as we see what's happening with ISIS, with what we see in the Middle East right now, you've got to be a moron, not to agree that prophetic scriptures are being fulfilled before our very eyes.

So we're preparing our hearts.

And the way we prepare hearts is not to predict dates or, you know, look at the next prophetic news or listen to Hal Lindsay every day.

The way in which we prepare ourselves is we become whole-hearted, advancing disciples in our walk with God so that we're ready to do the things of the Lord in our last days.

We're not getting any younger.

I want to finish well, I want to win the race that's before us.

So now look at Ephesians 4.

This is where I do want you to turn to Ephesians 4, because this is a real seminal passage to everything tonight.

Ephesians 4, 26.

Ephesians 4, 26 and 27.

And over the years, as I've taught on this area of spiritual warfare, this is really, this really is a seminal passage.

Um, this is key to understanding the influence, daimosomi, of the demonic.

Be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.

That's interesting, it's talking about anger here.

But verse 27 is this cryptic little verse.

Nor give place to the devil.

Give place to the devil comes from the Greek word topos, give place, which means give an opportunity to the devil.

It's the same word used for a stirrup on a saddle.

So for someone to get up on a horse and put their foot in the stirrup to ride the horse is topos.

It's the Greek word.

He's saying that even as a believer written to the Ephesian church, you can give a foothold, you can give a stirrup, you can give an opportunity to demons.

Like rats feeding on food left behind on the floor, demons need something to feed on.

Listen, what's an idol?

I'm gonna talk about idolatry in a moment as it relates to my experience in Asia all those years with the Butadon.

I'll explain that in a moment.

But an idol, in my opinion, is anything that steals your heart away.

An idol is anything that steals your heart away.

So when I speak of idolatry, I'm not talking about a fat guy down in, you know, Yokohama, Japan, that's metallic and rusting, and people come and lay their flowers and their cakes.

Idol is anything that steals your heart away.

And anything that can steal your heart away has the potential to be a foothold for the enemy.

So I don't want to overemphasize it, but I don't want to underemphasize it.

If you're not filling your house, if you're not filling your heart with delighting in God and desiring God and passionately going after God, you will fill your heart with idols that will steal your passion and your love away.

Young people hear me loud and clear.

That you, as you're forming, you're growing in your faith, you're in the high school system, you're in the middle school system.

God wants you as a young person to be that generation of whole-hearted worshipers and whole-hearted warriors learning to delight in him.

Because discipline won't take you a bit about this far.

But delight can take you into discipline.

I have a son, Samuel.

You guys know Samuel.

I've never once in Samuel's life, and he's 18 now, ever told him he needs to discipline himself and play the piano.

He plays the piano, I don't know, hours a day.

Okay, hours a day.

I never had to discipline Isaac to play baseball.

He just always played baseball.

I didn't have to discipline Anna to write music, and she just wrote music.

So part of this is what delights your heart, and if God becomes the delight of your heart, discipline will take care of itself.

And so fill your house with delight.

So, how does a demon get a foothold?

How can a person be demonized?

Turn in your Bibles to Galatians 5.

For you that are new to the road, by the way, I'm normally chapter by chapter, verse by verse, but we're in this series on war, so I'm kind of jumping around.

Um I felt it was necessary for us to go through this series, and then we're gonna get into Joel and Revelation.

Galatians 5, 16 gives the fruit of the flesh.

And it's kind of a negative uh list here.

I mean, it's not like the kind of list you want to spend a lot of time on, but this is, you know, this is key to understanding how demons work.

They're always looking for this in our lives, and all of us in this room struggle with these.

I say then, walk in the spirit, you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Verse 17.

For the flesh lust against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.

So there's this war going on, you guys.

There's a war between the flesh and the spirit, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

So, you know, you can have your mind set on, you know, doing the right thing, but the flesh is very, very powerful.

Verse 18.

But if you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law, verse 19.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery.

Guess what the guess what the Greek is for sorcery?

The Greek word here is far is where we get our word pharmaceutical.

So almost always, if you're involved in drugs, you're involved in the demonic.

Just so you know that.

Um, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelries, and the like.

Which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in times past, those who in the key in the operable word here is practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So let me just say this.

Let me just stop there because I'm gonna got two parts of this.

One part is if this is your practice, any of these here is a practice of your life, it's habitually in your life, you're probably not saved.

Get saved tonight.

Come to know Jesus.

Come to Christ during worship.

Come up.

Let us pray for you.

Get saved because you're not saved.

If you're involved in this kind of activity and there's no sense of conviction about it or against it or within your heart, it's because you don't have the Holy Spirit yet.

Well, let's get saved tonight.

Now, I'll say this to now shift to the other side, and that is every one of us struggles with this.

Okay, all of us struggle with this.

So the reality is that we can go through times where some of this is true in our life, and what I'm saying is that's how we get demons.

That's how the influence of demons starts.

So if you can imagine my fingers here representing fleshly sins like jealousy and anger and gossip and lust, and we ask God to forgive us for some stuff we've been involved in and there's no activity, and then we're struggling here with jealousy and envy, and we confess that to the Lord, or we go to that person and we make it right.

End of discussion, you're forgiven.

You got the Holy Spirit, for you're forgiven in Christ, past, present, and future sin.

But if you continue, listen, listen, you continue to indulge that area, you continually go back to it.

Even as a believer, there are demonic spirits of lust, there are demonic spirits of jealousy, there's demonic spirits of anger, and I don't understand it all.

It's kind of a mystery to me, even, about how this works.

But at some point, this spirit looks for a foothold and locks in on that area.

And why is that important?

Here's why it's important because sometimes they can begin to build a stronghold.

That's the passage we read in the Antiphonal reading.

Strongholds.

Rarely, I'll just tell you this, rarely in my experience have I cast out one demon.

Recently, a few weeks ago, with a young couple, I cast out a dozen demons out of that couple.

And they were set free, man.

It was really cool.

It was fun.

I like casting out demons, they're really cool.

They're not really that smart and they're not really that strong.

They're just, they're, these were like low-level gremlins or something, you know, and just get them out of here.

But this couple's really been set free.

So so they they build stuff up.

So this is why it's so important that we keep short accounts with the Lord.

That's why it's important to spend time with the Lord every day.

And when you miss a day, then don't worry about it.

Get going the next day.

You know, it's kind of like working out.

You know, start somewhere.

I'm an old guy, and I still think I'm a young guy.

And so I'm always like failing at my workouts because it lasts for like a week, and then I'm like, I'm not doing that anymore.

I'm too sore, you know.

And I'm like, I'm really thinking I'm cool, and I'm like, not, you know, I was.

I was pretty cool, you know.

I'm not anymore.

But what I've learned, I was telling on the phone with my dad today, who's who's 83, and we're talking about kind of our routines, what we do, and I was saying, you know, you kind of have to lower the bar like way down when you get to be an old guy, you know, kind of an old fat guy and everything.

And so you, you know, you got to find something you can be consistent.

So I say, look, if it's one chapter a day, if it's a half a chapter, it's one verse, start somewhere.

And just do it.

Because you'll get hooked.

God'll get you.

Because you'll start loving it.

If you'll just do it, it'll do it.

So that's so this that's that's how they get a foothold.

So let me give you 12 most common ways of demonization.

12, the 12 most common ways I see in relation to demonization.

Number one, indulging in a particular sin for a prolonged period of time.

Willfully choosing to indulge in a fleshly area.

So that's kind of what I was talking about here with the illustration I gave.

So you're willingly indulging in a fleshly area.

Now, the problem is that it's all covered with shame.

You see, the problem is it's covered in shame.

So we don't want to talk about it.

We don't want anybody to know.

Because the definition of shame, according to Brene Brown, is anything that I do that if you knew about, you wouldn't want to have a relationship and you wouldn't want to be in connection with me anymore.

So we, men and women, have shame areas.

We don't want anybody to know, and that just plays right into the enemy's hands.

Because as even as Brene Brown says in her work on vulnerability and shame, until you're vulnerable and open, you can't get free.

So the more open we are about it here at the road, the more free people we're gonna have running around.

I like free people, and so vulnerability is key to that.

Number two, addiction to something of the flesh.

The word for drugs or pharmaceutical comes from the root word for sorcery.

Anything we've allowed to control our minds, our hearts, and our bodies could be demon influence.

Doesn't mean it always is, but it could be.

Number three, sexual sins, adultery, pornography.

Men know what I'm talking about in the in the fleshly desire for this kind of stuff.

If we're not walking in the spirit and desiring God more than our flesh and taking our thoughts captive to Christ, we can get in big trouble here.

So sexual sins, adultery, pornography.

Number four, anything that controls our emotions, anger, jealousy, violence, and envy.

Again, the heart emotions can be left open to a foothold.

So we have to be renewing our emotions and our thoughts.

Number five, and this is a biggie.

Unforgiveness and hatred towards someone is huge and a stronghold being built up in our hearts.

It's so difficult to deal.

The reason I think unforgiveness and hatred is so difficult is because we feel like we're justified in it.

Right?

See, unforgiveness and anger is so demonic because we feel like we're justified in having it because of what that person did to us.

Number six, involvement in the occult, false religions, satanic rituals, and spirit channeling almost always involve the demonic.

So, as I shared in that story a couple weeks ago about the Navy captain, he had invited the spirit of Ansel Adams into his life.

So, so he became an award-winning photographer through channeling a spirit of Ansel Adams.

So he didn't know anything about cameras, but the spirits would speak to him.

And it was such a high-level spirit, I could not get it out.

I couldn't get it out.

He actually cast a demon out of his life a few weeks later when his will was more engaged.

But he was channeling spirits.

Some of you, if you've been involved in Ouija boards, if you've been involved in tarot cards, if you've been involved in any kind of superstitious activity, if you're watching certain TV shows that that lend themselves to that, be extremely careful because that is often where a stronghold gets developed.

Number seven, having an altar to worship an idol in the home.

Paul reminds the Corinthians that sacrificing to idols is the same as sacrificing to demons.

1 Corinthians 10, Paul writes, What am I saying then?

That an idol is anything?

Or what is offered to idols is anything?

Rather, that the things with the Gentile sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.

I believe that's the reason the Japanese church has always been so weak.

The Japanese church has historically been very, very weak because they can't give up the Butsidon.

And the But Sudan is the family altar associated with Buddhism and the reverence and worship of ancestors.

So even Christians won't give that up because the church has not stayed strong in that.

Now in China, they've been strong on this.

In Indonesia, they've been strong on this, and they've got a very vibrant, dynamic, growing church.

But it's clear in 1 Corinthians, as Paul was dealing with the demonic, that just by giving fruit and by giving to an idol, meat meat sacrifice to an idol, was actually giving it to a demon.

And he's saying you're actually in fellowship with demons when you do that.

Now there's a bootsudon in America.

We have a bootsudan here.

It's called the TV set.

The TV set is the American bootsudan.

So many of us worship there for hours each day, even if it's Fox News, you know, or it's CNN or whatever you worship at, you know.

But be careful because anything you give your heart to has the potential to be an issue.

Number eight, being dedicated to pagan gods, false gods in a temple.

I one time was baptizing a guy in a hot tub, and we were the way this was working was we had so many to baptize that you just interviewed each one when they came up.

I didn't know him personally, but we would just talk.

So we're sitting there in the water, and this guy was heavy into Mormonism, and he shared with me that when he was baptized, he was actually baptized at the temple in Salt Lake City.

That's the big one, you know?

And I don't know if the silk PJs and everything.

And um, he did that, and he said he he literally felt something come into him.

And he's telling me that.

I'm like, and I'd only done like maybe 10 baptisms at that point.

And I'm like, oh, oh no.

And I nearly drowned the guy because I mean I didn't know, you know, he's like, oh, I took him down, and then this demon manifested, and he started screaming and hollering underwater, so I pulled him up and he's gasping for breath.

And I guess he said later that he was set free through baptism and everything.

But he had picked up a demon through a Mormon temple baptism.

So he'd been dedicated to a false god.

Number nine, I hate this part.

This part I don't like, but demons don't play fair.

They will use anything to build a stronghold.

Rape, incest, and injustice done to someone can also bring upon them a demon.

So it doesn't seem fair.

There's a sin of commission, which is what I've been talking about, but now there's a sin of omission.

You didn't do anything, it was done to you.

And I don't understand all that.

But I do know that in some in many cases, for many here, some of you have been through incest, you've been through rape.

It's it stuff has been done to you.

And I want to say that as we move forward, the importance of you getting that, confessing that to a trustworthy person and getting prayer.

Because there could be issues, what I would call a familiar spirit that has been a part of your life since that time that God wants to set you free from.

Number 10, shame and condemnation.

Usually in childhood, often from a person in authority or peers who made fun of you, bullied you, said things that demean and abuse you.

Number 11, a religious spirit.

Even supposedly Christians who use the law, legalisms to control people can be demonized.

And then number 12, and lastly, this is one that I never hear anybody teach on this.

I mean, I know it's been taught, I'm just saying I haven't heard anybody teach on it.

And it's the seduction of riches.

I mean, it's really not maybe cool to talk about this because we have such a seduction toward riches in America, and we kind of see it as the American way.

But here's what Paul says to Timothy.

First Timothy six.

And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

That's pretty heavy, guys.

I mean, that's um 1 Timothy 6, 8 through 10.

And for some of you guys, you know, I mean it can be women too, but I mean, for some of us men, you know, that lust for materialism, that lust for security, that lust to do anything you can to, you know, make sure everything's taken care of financially can actually lead you into destruction and drown you in a lifestyle of lusting after stuff and material stuff.

So be careful with it.

I pray that everything you have is God's.

I know one thing my parents, remember, you guys, I don't know if you're some of you aren't old enough to remember, but there was a guy that was real popular years ago, he's one of my popular authors that I liked a lot with named Richard Foster, and he wrote a book called Celebration of Discipline, but then he wrote a book called The Freedom of Simplicity.

The freedom of simplicity.

And one of the things he said was every believer should give away something they really love every year.

Just give it away.

Just to break the power of the lust of materialism.

Just give it give stuff away, you know.

And so he tells the story about this guy coming in.

He had this really beautiful lamp that he had gotten in this foreign country, and the guy just said so much about how cool it looked, everything.

And he said, You can have it.

And then the guy was like, No way! You know, he's so happy.

And Richard Foster's like so mad, you know, and he's supposed to be setting him free.

But it did set him free eventually, you know.

So when when you realize that, you know, it's you're not taking it with you, even my tundra's not gonna be in the tomb with me, you know.

Um we were talking about that today, Al, so many people, I might be, I'm really starting to meddle now, okay?

But some of you guys are like way too into your trucks.

I'm sorry.

You know, I see your trucks and I look down the sides and there's not a scratch on them.

And I'm like, why do you have that thing?

I mean, seriously, man.

If you don't have some dents and some scratches on your truck, then why don't you just go get a little Volkswagen or something like that?

Because trucks are supposed to, I mean, they're supposed to go places.

They're supposed to, you're supposed to put lumber in there, dead elk, you know, stuff like that goes in your truck.

And I've got a really nice scratch running all the way from the front to the back on the right side.

And you look at that and you go, whoa, he's got this nasty scratch running, but on the other side it looks so clean.

I've got an answer to all our scratch problems.

Get one side bashed in and then let your insurance pay for it.

So one time, this is no light.

I was in my camera, not my truck, but I was driving my, and I had this, I had this crunched-in quarter panel, and I'm thinking, I gotta get this thing fixed, and ah, it's gonna cost da-da-da, and this is what I, you know, that's what I'm gonna have to put down on it, and all that, and all that.

And my rates are, I mean, it's kind of a you know, it's a joke, isn't it?

You pay for most of the work done, you know, based on based on the deal, whatever it's 500 or 1,000 you've got on the thing, and then your rates go up for doing it.

So you paid for it already, and then you're gonna get slammed again.

So I'm driving down and I see this old guy.

This was uh Burgess and Black Forest years ago.

And I see this old guy, and he looks like he's 150 years old.

And he's coming along and he's moving toward the intersection.

I just knew the guy's not gonna stop.

And it's totally red, and I'm sitting there, and it just occurred to me he can come across this thing, and if he hits my quarter panel, then it's his fault.

The whole thing's free.

I mean, I know that's bad to think that way, but I did think that way.

And then, and this is not this is not good.

I'm just saying it's not good.

This is the flesh, okay?

But this dude is going like 50 or 60 miles an hour on an F-250 coming the other way, and I can just see the whole thing happening.

And I'm and it's weird, but I'm thinking, hit me.

Hit me.

And he did.

God answered my prayer.

So the old guy comes across, boom, he gets hit by the other guy.

That guy comes in, slams into my quarter pound, and got the whole thing done.

Nobody was hurt.

Nobody was hurt.

All right, three things real quick.

How do we resist?

How do we fight?

Number one, pull down strongholds.

Number one, pull down strongholds.

2 Corinthians 10, we read it earlier.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

So, first of all, it says that we have to pull down strongholds.

So that usually means we need someone to pray with us.

So in the coming weeks, and as we begin to worship the Lord, as we come to the end of worship, I want to have all of the shepherds and stewards up here, and we want to pray with you guys.

But um, I believe in some cases we need intensive prayer, and so we're talking about in the weeks ahead having some opportunities for people to get prayer over these areas of their life.

And I don't want to minimize that.

That's a big deal, pulling down strongholds.

And then it says, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Number two, renewing your mind, renewing your heart.

You're believing a lie.

Somehow we're believing a lie.

And I'm gonna unpack this later in a couple weeks because there's so much to this, it's believing of a lie.

There's a wound, there's a tear in our hearts.

Gordon Dowby, in his great book on the healing of the masculine soul, written way back in the 80s, he said that there's a tear in men's hearts, and demons flood into that tear.

So the renewing of our mind is the renewing of our heart, and the renewing of our heart is what I said earlier about starting to have a life of opening God's word.

I would say this.

Maybe start with Romans 6, 7, and 8.

Great place to start.

Start on Romans 6, 7, and 8 and read a verse and then pray it back to the Lord.

Read a verse and pray it back to the Lord.

It's a great way to renew your heart.

And then thirdly, put on the armor of God and stand.

You've been listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

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