War V - God’s Original Plan for Man: Dominion over the Earth - War: Satan, Demons & the Fourth Dimension

Time now for the road with teacher people.

But no, but the reality is this that men and women, we've been given authority as a co-viceroy with the Lord, and we've been given a garden.

You that are single, you have a garden.

That garden is not only your body, but that garden is also the job that you have.

You men and you women that have jobs, that's your garden.

And you are to tend it, you are to keep it, you are to take charge of that in a loving, servant, kind, gentle way, but we bring chaos out of disorder.

We bring order out of chaos.

We come in and as we move as believers in Christ, we've been given that power and authority.

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 Harleman Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80920.

On this edition of the road, we'll continue this exciting study on spiritual warfare.

Here now with today's message is Pastor Steve.

So over the last few weeks, we've been looking at this series on war.

And in war part one, we talked about the battle in the heavenlies with Lucifer being a guardian angel.

And as a guardian angel, we know in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, he ruled in the heavenlies as kind of a cosmic worship leader.

As a cosmic worship leader.

And then somewhere in ages past, maybe billions of years ago, we don't know, there was a war that took place in the heart, starting off a spontaneous generation in the heart of Lucifer, and he rebelled against God.

In Isaiah 14, 12 through 14, he said that I will be like God, I will make myself like the Most High God.

And so in Revelation 12, we're giving this indication of a war that happened.

And so if you recall, we looked at Genesis 1, 1 and Genesis 1.2, and we talked about a gap between those two verses where when God comes to create for that, what I believe for the second time, when he comes to create, he comes to a place, the earth is chaotic because Satan has been cast to the earth.

And as he's been cast to the earth, he's been given the earth, and we don't know how long he had the earth, but he has the earth during this period of time, and he rules over the earth in chaos.

Okay?

You understand that?

So that's what we see.

Then turn in your Bibles.

I want to show you a cryptic passage, Jeremiah chapter 4.

Jeremiah 4 · chapter mention

Jeremiah chapter 4, verse 23.

Jeremiah 4:23

Jeremiah 4 23.

Very cryptic passage.

Doesn't make sense unless we look at it from the perspective of a war in the heavenlies.

But look at Jeremiah 4.23.

Really interesting passage.

I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form and void.

Those are the exact same words found in Genesis 1, 2.

And the heavens they had no light.

Pretty interesting, no light.

Can you imagine that upon the earth?

And it's interesting that geologists have found that there are traces, listen, there's traces of glaciers all over the earth.

Not just North and South Pole, but all over the earth, there are traces of glaciers, and they believe that the mark, listen, the mark of the great ice cap is found in the center of equatorial Africa.

Now, how could that have happened?

There was no light.

I believe there was a battle in the heavenlies.

Satan was cast down to the earth.

The earth was destroyed.

And Jeremiah, probably not even knowing what he's prophetically saying here, he's just writing down as the spirit gives him information, I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form and void.

Same verse as Genesis 1, 2.

In the heavens they had no light.

I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth.

He's seeing something in the spirit.

I beheld, and indeed there was no man, so man hadn't been created yet.

All the birds of the heavens had fled because they hadn't been created yet.

I beheld, and indeed the fruitful lamb was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the Lord by his fierce anger.

So Haley, the great astronomer who we know the comet's named after, studying the north and south poles, realizing that they're off by a slight degree, that our earth is not equally perfect north and south, but it's off by a degree.

He did his research on to calculate the volume, listen, the volume, mass, and weight of the ocean to what kind of an impact could have hit the earth that would take the globe off by a couple degrees.

And he came to the conclusion that it was a comet.

He said it was a comet.

I think we might know something a little different.

But that something catastrophic hit the earth, knocking the earth, the globe, the earth, the physical earth, off its axis slightly by a few degrees, to such a degree that it would have sent the oceans whirling around the globe and sending land masses forward.

So something happened.

And geologists have shown this to be true.

Even Haley trying to understand what happened, maybe through a comet.

So Satan is cast to the earth.

He controls the earth.

Maybe for millions of years, he makes it nothing.

Men and women, this is really important.

Demons cannot create.

Satan cannot create, but they can imitate.

Don't miss that.

They can't create, but they can imitate.

Given the earth, cast to the earth, Revelation 12, 10.

Couldn't do anything with it except destroy it.

And so in Genesis 1, 2, God begins to create out of a chaotic state.

God begins to move again.

God begins to listen, unscramble eggs.

You know God unscrambles eggs?

God is really good at coming into chaos and bringing order.

He can do that in your life.

I don't care where you've been, I don't care if your family of origin or what you've smoked or what you've injected or what your background is or what people have done to you and the emotional trauma that's come with it, God can come and bring order out of chaos.

That's what he did.

And he started with the earth.

So in six, I believe I'm a young earth guy.

I believe in six literal days, he takes a chaotic void.

The wilderness is literally what it means in the Hebrew.

He took this wilderness of the earth where all there is is darkness over the face of the earth, and he starts to create something that is good.

It's good, it's good, it's good, and it's beautiful.

And he can do that in your life too.

That's what God does.

That is God's MO He takes chaos and he brings order.

And so on the sixth day, he begins to create his most magnificent creation.

I love what the scriptures say for by him all things were created.

They're in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist.

The Bible also says, all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.

In him was life.

Don't miss that.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it.

Latin is fiat lux.

Fiat lux.

There was light.

And so God begins to move on that first day of creation.

And we might call it, if any of you come out of a drama artistic background, there's a scene shift.

There's a scene shift.

And so if you can imagine this place being pitch dark, and then suddenly light shines, and the scenes shift, and God begins to create.

And on the sixth day, God creates man, a new ruler.

Don't miss this.

A new ruler upon the earth, a co-regent, a co-viceroy over the earth.

God begins to invade satanic territory and create a creation that's never been created before.

So before this, angels had been created.

Seraphim had been created.

Cherubim had been created for the fourth-dimensional world.

And then God begins to create light and he begins to create oceans and he begins to create order through the animals and he begins to create plants and trees.

But now on the sixth day, he creates a co-conspirator, a co-viceroy, a co-ambassador created in the image of God.

The image of God.

Completely different than anything he's created before.

So turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 2, verse 7.

Genesis 2:7

And I feel like in our study of demonic and the study of spiritual warfare, it's really important that we go back to the origins of our creation and what we were created originally to be and to do.

Genesis 2, 7.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

So nowhere else, anywhere of any of the creation of God, is the breath of God breathed into a living being like man.

The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden.

Might circle Eden, that's an important word.

And there he put the man whom he had for him.

Eden means delight.

God prepared man for delight.

Don't miss that.

God has prepared each one of you for delight.

He wants you to delight.

And he gave him a garden that was his delight.

Because in the intimacy and the relationship that he wants us to have with him, he wanted it to be beautiful.

He wanted it to be a delight.

He breathed life into man, that you would experience life.

So Jesus said, I came that you might have life, and then it might be more abundantly, that our lives would be full and meaningful.

I remember when I first read that so many years ago as someone who was seeking God, trying to find God, I read John 10, 10.

And it said, I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly, and I wanted that.

If you want life, it's only found in Christ.

And so Christ came to be our delight.

Christ came to give us a garden, to have a garden that would be our delight.

We were created for intimacy with him.

He breathed his life into us, church.

We have his Holy Spirit.

That spirit cries out heart to heart for the Lord in delight.

We're gonna have a men's a men's retreat.

We're calling it the whole heart advance in the fall.

It's a spiritual boot camp.

We will be training you men in three days together to delight in the Lord, to break through fortresses of shame, to break through pride, to break through what we're gonna read about today that gets in the way of men becoming worshipers and warriors.

And women too.

But it's men that's the target here.

Listen, capacity and ability constitute accountability and responsibility.

Let me say that again.

Capacity and ability constitute accountability and responsibility.

We were not created by God to just exist and survive, but to dwell and overcome.

Many of you are undercomers.

You're undercomers.

Praise God, you're here, but the reality is your life has been just an existence of Christianity as you've known it, and God wants so much more for us.

He wants to train us.

Verse 15.

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden.

Underline this, you're using your iPad, a lot of you are, you know, highlight it to tend and keep it.

Don't miss that.

How many times have we heard, man, I gotta work and I gotta toil, you know, it's it's it's because of sin, you know.

No, no.

Before sin came, Adam is given power and authority to tend and keep the garden.

Work is godly, work is good, hard work is more godly.

Not being a workaholic, but I mean sometimes you need to be a workaholic.

I mean, there's seasons, there's just seasons in our lives.

You work hard.

Men and women, we work hard.

Anyone a parent around here?

Okay, that's hard work.

Some of you that have adopted, that's hard work.

So he gave them the garden to tend it and keep it.

That's godly, that's good.

That's being a co-viceroy over the garden.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat it, you shall surely die.

So there so there were limits to it, freedom over it, but man was originally made, listen, for authority and dominion.

Man is given rulership over the earth, rulership over all creation, rulership over the garden as God's viceroy.

So this is a direct assault on Lucifer, who's now Satan.

This is a direct assault upon his territory.

And men and women, I'm gonna tell you this is absolutely the truth, that in our jobs and in our work and in marriage and in family and in parenting and in church planting and in building a company, it's all the same.

You have to come in with the power and authority that you've been given naturally and originally by Christ, or the darkness will take over.

It will.

I mean, seriously, everything in life is work, everything in life is a battle because the original mandate is that if we don't take authority over our garden, the garden will take authority over us.

And so the first command given to man is Genesis 1.28.

So look at Genesis 1.28.

It's the first command in Scripture.

It's the original mandate upon humankind.

Then God blessed them and he said to them, Be fruitful and multiply.

Fill the earth and subdue it.

Fill the earth and subdue it.

Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Folks, you have been given God-ordained, spirit-filled, word-rooted authority over the earth.

It is our original mandate.

Paul Bilheimer writes this man was originally made for authority.

He was created and fashioned for dominion.

When he came fresh from the hand of God, he was given rulership over the earth, kingship over his life, and control and mastery over its forces.

That's what Ephesians 6 is saying.

Ephesians 6, 10 through 18 is speaking from a spiritual warfare perspective, but what Paul is saying to the church at Ephesus, you are in a wrestling match.

You are in a battle against principalities and powers.

Psalm 8, Psalm 8 we read this.

You have put all things under his feet.

Now, church, when we look at our lives, men, you that are married, your garden is primarily, first of all, your relationship with your wife and your family.

So being fruitful and multiplying is speaking of procreation, but as you can tell from the context in Genesis 1.28 and following, he's talking about all something greater than just the intimacy of the sexual relationship in children, but it's that too.

So let us not forget that.

Okay.

So I mean, if you want to have a political block in the next 25 years and win some elections and have a lot of kids and then train them up in how you want them to vote, I'm telling you.

I mean, it's happening all over the world.

But no, but the reality is this that men and women, we've been given authority as a co-viceroy with the Lord, and we've been given a garden.

You that are single, you have a garden.

That garden is not only your body, but that garden is also the job that you have.

You men and you women that have jobs, that's your garden.

And you are to tend it, you are to keep it, you are to take charge of that in a loving, servant, kind, gentle, loving way, but we bring chaos out of disorder.

We bring order out of chaos.

We come in, and as we move, as believers in Christ, we've been given that power and authority.

Original plan of God.

So go back to chapter 2, verse 18.

And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone.

I will make him a helper, comparable to him.

Verse 19.

Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he could call them.

And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.

Verse 20.

So Adam gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the air and to every beast of the field.

So God gave us this authority over animals.

He gave us authority over the garden.

He gave us authority over the earth.

A bona fide grant as co-regents and co-viceroys over the earth.

Listen, to display his love and power.

That we would display his love and his power.

We're supposed to have dominion over all creation.

Jesus gives this indication of this original plan upon humankind tells the story, a parable.

And he says, A man was given talents, and he gave his talents because the king was going to leave to go to a far country.

And he gave five, and he gave two, and he gave one.

And so to one he gave five, to one he gave two, and to one he gave one, and then he came back.

And when he came back, the one who'd been given five, what had he done?

He had doubled it.

So he had doubled it to five more.

And he says, Man, enter into the kingdom.

You've been fruitful.

And he and he blesses him.

The actual words are Well done, good and faithful servant.

You are faithful over a few things.

I will make you ruler over many things.

Same thing with the two.

But with the one in his fear, he dug a hole and he's condemned.

So, church, the Lord wants us to enter into the joy of his mastery in our lives by multiplication and increase of what he's given us.

I believe he wants us to double and triple what he's given us through the power and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and to enter into joy.

So it is a joy in the power of the Spirit to have dominion.

The original plan of God for men.

Verse 20.

But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place.

Then the rib which the Lord God had made from man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man.

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, they shall become one flesh.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.

Godly companionship.

The original plan of God's dominion was for man and woman to be together.

It's not more spiritual to be single, it's not more spiritual to be married.

Be where God wants you to be.

But in that, God, in his original plan, meant for men and women to come together in marriage.

That's the Supreme Court decision.

That is the Supreme Court decision of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Now, our sub-supreme court is having some struggles with this.

But the Supreme Court has decided, and Jesus officiated at the first marriage.

It's his idea.

I love doing weddings because when it's under God's order, it's just so much fun.

I've never done one that's not under God's order.

So I don't know what those other weddings are like.

But God officiated at the first wedding.

God thought it up.

God created men to marry women.

And it's right here.

And in so doing, it's because what does it say?

The context is they were naked and not ashamed.

Marriage, under God's anointing and his power and his beauty, has the capacity to break the power of shame.

I believe it's the biggest core issue with most men is shame.

The reason we pose, the reason we posture, the reason we have so many insecurities is usually because of shame.

And so Jesus, officiating over the first wedding, created us in the beauty of that to be a blessing and to multiply and to take dominion.

Now, it gets dirty.

Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

That's all a setup for Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Because in Genesis 3, everything goes awry.

So remember Satan's over the earth, been given the earth, Revelation 12.

God begins to create man and woman over the earth.

And so he begins to move.

I'm going to call this a transference of title to rule.

A transference of title to rule.

You that have sold homes, there's a point where you sign off the title to someone else.

If you've resigned from a company or maybe something you've built and you resign, you transfer title to the new president, to the new director.

And when you do that, your authority changes.

I've talked to guys that have been in intelligence, high-level intelligence, with some of our presidents.

And they have access to information.

And then a new president comes in, and it's pretty weird, but everything is handed over to the new administration, and you don't know anything.

You knew everything, you know, the day before the inauguration, and then you don't know anything.

And you have no privy to that information anymore because it's a new administration.

And so we're about to see an administration change that occurs in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field.

Now, this is weird because it would appear at this point that this serpent is not crawling on his belly because we know later that the curse upon him is to crawl on his belly.

So evidently this serpent kind of is walking around or something, or can stand up, I mean, like a cobra.

I mean, I don't know.

But it's not on its belly, and it's cunning.

And it's probably fairly beautiful because of some other references that come later.

But don't forget this, 2 Corinthians 2.11, jot that down.

2 Corinthians 2.11, it's really important.

Because it says, Paul writing to the Corinthians says, Satan should take advantage of you, but we are not ignorant of his devices.

We're not ignorant of his schemes.

And he says, lest Satan should take advantage of you because you are not ignorant of his schemes.

Well, guess what?

Eve is very ignorant of his schemes.

She doesn't even know there's a serpent.

She doesn't even know there's Satan.

She's just been created.

And I'm telling you, folks, many of you and many of us in the church, probably less so here, because of the way we do our teaching and we talk about it so much about light and darkness, we talk about warfare.

But I think most believers today are ignorant of his schemes.

And starting next week, we're going to actually look literally at what those schemes are.

And we're going to talk about how demons work in our personal lives.

And this has all been a setup for that.

A serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Now we know what he actually said, and we're going to cover that in a second.

But he he goes after something that is the roaring lion's strategy over man.

This is the rubric over it all, questioning God.

I was recently talking to someone about a church situation that they're involved in in a church, and they just have one problem after another, and we were talking about the issue of you know, is this demonic attack?

Is this something that's just bad strategy?

And the answer was yes to all of it.

But the reality was that as we delved down in this kind of interview that we were having, you saw the questions.

Questioning the destiny of the church, questioning the destiny of the pastor, questioning the, you know, why are we here and why did we spend money on this?

And question, question, question.

And all of you that are married in this room, you know this is true, that most of your squabbles and issues between husband and wife are questioning the motives of the other, right?

Well, you said, but you know, I know what you really meant.

I didn't mean that at all.

It was it was bad casserole from the night before.

From you, woman.

But we question things.

And so over the rubric of it all is Satan creates questions.

Questions.

He causes you to become duplicious about the promises and the love of God.

So here's the first point.

I believe all of our struggles in spiritual warfare hinge on these three things here tonight.

Number one, he said to the woman, has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of garden?

He only said one tree.

So here it is.

First and foremost, Satan wants us to question the goodness and the love of God.

You see, Satan knows that when a believer is walking in intimacy with Christ, he can't get in there.

If he can cause you to question God's life and the presence of the Holy Spirit, that he can begin to take us down a road of slavery that's deadly.

We put out this bookmark, our PB and J bookmark, every semester.

This is our current one.

And this is what we wrote at the very beginning of the bookmark.

It's on every bookmark.

The vision of the road is to build wholehearted disciples of Jesus.

We do this by nurturing our heart through an intimate relationship with Christ.

An intimate relationship with Christ.

So what the enemy does is he comes and he causes us to question the delight and the beauty and listen, the freedom that we have in Christ.

That was my dilemma.

That was your dilemma before you came to know our.

I mean, how many of you thought if I accept Christ, I'm going to have to become a missionary to Africa?

If I come to know Christ, forget it.

I won't have any parties and I won't have any friends, there'll be nothing, it won't be fun anymore.

You liars, you know you did, you know.

I mean, we do.

I mean, I've witnessed to people over the years, and that's usually what it is.

It's usually some kind of a moral question that it's not going to be fun anymore, or I'm not going to be able to do these things anymore.

And so it's all limiting because what the enemy does is he causes us at the core to question that God really loves us and he really wants us to experience his delight and his joy in our lives.

So C.S.

Lewis, in his masterful work called Weight of Glory, said this.

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

We're half-hearted creatures fooling around and about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

We are far too easily pleased.

And so when we look at those that have given themselves over to only ambition and only sex and only drugs and only drunkenness, they're half-hearted.

But what is it in the movies?

I watch enough movies.

They're the rock stars.

They're the guys that are, they're really free.

You know, and the person who's kind of got some character, they're like, they're sort of the stuck up ones that they're just so, got so many inhibitions.

But the real free one is the one who just rips her clothes off and jumps in the lake.

You know, like, oh, I want to be like that.

Be free.

No, be stupid.

Right?

I mean, I don't watch a ton of movies, but I watch enough to know they've got this.

It's always true.

It's like the one who's the rebellious one is the cool one.

And the one that actually plays by the rules is an idiot.

Because that's always the demonic plan, is to say that's where the fun is.

And if you really follow Christ, it's going to be boring.

And you know, you can't date girls that eat, drink, or chew.

You know?

I know.

I remember thinking it.

My wife eats and she drinks, but she doesn't chew.

But the reality is, is where do where does freedom really lie?

Christ said, the Bible says, it was for freedom that Christ set us free.

Therefore, no longer take on a yoke of bondage.

And so that's exactly the way the enemy comes today and its way he comes to Eve.

And he says, Look, you can't eat from any tree in the garden.

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden.

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die.

Okay, verse four, second strategy.

The serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.

Number two, so first, questioning God's goodness and love.

Number two, questioning God's word.

Questioning what God has actually said.

Questioning the word.

Because if you question God's word, what are you questioning?

You're questioning the consequences of sin.

So our movies and our art seem to indicate that if we'll just be free and go do anything we want, wherever we want, with whoever we want, that's freedom.

But the scriptures say if we follow that, it's bondage.

So if we can question the consequences of sin by questioning God's word, the enemy wins.

And that's why men and women, over the years to come, it's already begun, but we are going to see an assault on the Bible over the next five, 10, 15 years, maybe like never before.

And it won't be that, oh, the Bible is bad.

You'll never hear that, because there's enough people in this country who know that won't go very far.

But what they'll say is, hey, we've got a new translation.

A couple verses have been taken out of the new translation.

We got the Queen James Bible.

And you guys know that's true.

There is a Queen James Bible.

It's been out since 2012.

Takes out and reframes all of the passages that have to do with homosexuality.

Well, we're going to have stuff that has to do with immorality.

We're going to have stuff that has to do with sexuality.

We're going to have to have stuff that's going to be changed that has to do with gender.

It's going to happen.

And so the two, guess the two, anybody want to take a strong guess?

The two books of the Bible that are the most assaulted historically over the last hundred years.

Genesis and revelation.

Genesis and Revelation.

That's right.

Because Genesis deals with origins and revelation deals with destiny.

So men and women, stay close to God's word.

Verse 5, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will, listen, be like God, knowing good and evil.

Thirdly, questioning our authority and power.

Questioning our authority and power over us.

We can be like God.

That's not what God wants.

God wanted us to be his representatives on the earth.

God wants us to be his ambassadors on the earth.

God want us to be his co-regents on the earth, working in relationship and intimacy with him.

But what Satan says is you can be like God.

You can have the power and authority of God.

Remember what he when he fell with the spontaneous generation of sin in his heart in Isaiah 14, he said, I will ascend into heaven.

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the further sides of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will be like the Most High, Isaiah 14, 14.

I was with Dave Eubanks a couple of days ago.

Dave Eubanks is the founder of the Free Burma Rangers.

Many of you men were here when we had the prayer breakfast for men with Victor Marks, and he talked about being in Burma.

We supported him in his trip to Burma working with the Free Burmese Rangers.

Give you background on them.

You can Google them, go on their Facebook and go on their website called Free Burma Rangers.

Rambo 4, done by Sylvester Stallone, was based on the Free Burma Rangers.

Sylvester Stallone stayed in Dave Eubanks' home when he was making the movie.

So he I was at Victor's house a few nights ago and Dave was there.

We were just talking about what's happening.

And what they do is he was born and raised a missionary in Thailand.

And so while working in Thailand, he then went uh to college and we found out we were at Fuller Seminary at the same time together.

We never crossed paths that we know of.

But um after college, he went to seminary and then went special, he was with special forces with the army as a medic.

And when he was back uh visiting his parents in Thailand, the Burmese army had come in to a village in Burma and in a firefight had basically wiped out the entire village.

And um one of the missionaries that was in Burma came out and saw a framed picture of Dave with his uniform on and said, That's what we need.

We need men like this to go in and deal with the situation in Burma.

And so Dave said, Okay, I'm in.

And so he quit SF and he became a missionary, and for the last 20 years they've been going in and doing this stuff.

So, anyway, we're having a fascinating discussion about what's happening in Burma.

And what they do is they go in clandestine into the jungle, and they go into villages that are being ravaged or have been ravaged by the Burmese army, and they go in and they just pray for healing, they bring medical stuff in there and they banage the wounded, and sometimes they have to enter into firefights themselves, but they go in to help people.

So there Dave's like number one on the most wanted list by the Burmese army because of what they do.

So I asked him the question so what's going on spiritually in Burma because the carnage and the way in which the Burmese army is treating all these tribes is just it's horrible.

He says it's demonic.

And so we started talking about how, and I believe this is true, that dictatorships are always demonic.

And here's why.

Because a dictator can't hold power without supernatural power.

You can't control, you can't, I mean, if you're a dictator, then everybody's after you too.

And and not we're not talking about dictators that are in there for a year or two.

We're talking about a dictator that controls over years a nation, there's demonic power.

So we started talking about Connie.

And you guys may know about Connie, you may have seen Redemption, which was done in the series on 24, I think it was like season five, where Jack Bauer goes into Africa.

It's based on what's happening in Uganda right now.

Connie has been going in and stealing, kidnapping kids, and turning them into boy soldiers now for 15 years.

And uh and that that that story's about that.

That's demonic.

So in the discussion, we started talking about Stalin, Amin, Pol Pot, Hitler.

You realize that Hitler and Stalin killed 120 million people, just those two?

I mean, that's infathomable from a natural perspective, that you could be that callous and that cruel.

But what most people are not aware of is the fact that the Nazi Party, which was the National Socialist Worker German Party, was the offspring of the German secret societies of the Order of the Oriental Templars, the Thule Society, and the Vreel Society.

Stalin's daughter, speaking of her father, Sevlena Aluyeva, said that a terrible demon had possession of her father in her writings.

She wrote, quote, Berea, the Soviet Minister of Interior, seemed to have had a diabolical link with our family.

Berea was frightening.

He had a wicked demon.

A terrible demon had taken possession of my father's soul through Berea.

The secretary of the Communist International Party allied himself with Stalin in the struggle with Troitsky and others in the 1920s, after Lenin died, wrote the following about Stalin.

He is not a man, he is a demon.

Stalin Kaganovich, brother-in-law of Joseph Stalin, wrote the following in his diary.

I started to understand how Stalin managed to make himself out to be a god.

He did not have a single human characteristic.

Even when he exhibited some emotions, they did not seem to belong to him.

So the third temptation to Eve, and then later to Adam.

Is a lust for power because remember what I said?

Satan can't create, he can only imitate.

Men and women, you are beings created godlike.

We are created godlike.

Created in the image of God.

To wield power and authority over darkness.

If you're having struggles with their with your kids, you have got to fast and pray sometimes.

If you're having struggle in your company with stuff going on that's weird, sometimes you're gonna have to fast and pray.

You've got to fight that thing.

And so what he does is he comes to Eve and he says, Oh, you can be like God.

So what he does is he takes this beautiful thing of the power of the Spirit that hasn't come yet.

And next week we're gonna talk about Jesus being the perfect man who enters into and gives us new power, restored power that's been stolen away.

And so what he does right now is he uses drugs, he uses mind-altering hallucinogents in our life to experience power and authority over things, to manipulate and to destroy the people.

But this is what Jesus says in John 10.

Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

All whoever came before me are thieves and robbers.

But the sheep did not hear them.

I am the door.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and he will go in and out and find pasture.

The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy.

I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly.

I am the good shepherd.

And the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.

So Christ came as the perfect man to rule and have authority over the earth.

That if we would accept him, if we would let him come into our lives as the door, entering in to guide us as a sheep, that we could hear his voice and walk in intimacy with him, we might have that restored authority and the restored power over all creation, albeit with love and grace and kindness and goodness.

And the darkness would flee.

And church, you've been given that authority.

And you've been given that a power.

But you've got to believe it.

You gotta believe it.

And so whether it's as a mechanic or a politician or a doctor or a lawyer or a landscape artist or a foreman of a company or an entrepreneur, whatever you call it, God's called you through the work and the ministry and the power of the Holy Spirit to take back that territory.

If you're a school teacher, when you stand before those kids, God's given you those kids to change their lives.

If you're a coach, God's given you that team to change those kids' lives in some way.

That is your original mandate.

Believe it and trust God for it.

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

We pray that you've been blessed by the message today.

Our hope is to make whole-hearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

And that's why we teach the Word of God verse by verse, scripture by scripture, and precept upon precept.

We're excited about all the things God is doing in the lives of our faithful listeners.

We understand that there are many trials and tribulations in this world, and we'd love to be able to pray for you as you encounter difficult times.

Please drop us a note and let us know how we can pray for you.

Write us at The Road, PLO Box 88485, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80908.

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Again, the address is The Road.

PO Box 88485 Colorado Springs, Colorado 80908.

If you're in the area, please stop on by and join us at The Road for our Saturday night service at 6 p.m.

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Thanks again for tuning in today.

And be sure to catch us again next time for another edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Hope.