Sermon
7 Signs You Are Under Spiritual Attack_ and How God Tells You to Fight Back (No Ads)
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Welcome back to the Bible Stories. You may notice there
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are no ads on this video because YouTube has demonetized
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our channel. To support us, you can scan the first
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QR code to donate directly. Thank you for helping us
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keep these Bible Stories going. There are seasons in the
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Christian life when nothing on the surface has changed, and
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yet everything inside you feels heavier. You find yourself irritable
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with people you love, anxious for reasons you cannot name,
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tired in a way that sleep does not fix you.
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Wonder if you are losing your faith, or losing your mind,
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or simply failing at being a Christian. But what if
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some of what you're feeling is not weakness at all?
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What if it is rezis distance, Not the resistance of
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God turning away from you, but the resistance of an
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enemy who does not want you to draw closer to him.
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The Bible takes this enemy seriously, and so should we.
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It does not describe a cartoon devil with a pitchfork.
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It describes a real, unseen opponent with a strategy. One
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who has been studying human beings since the Garden Scripture
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says it plainly, For our struggle is not against flesh
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and blood, but against the rulers, against to the authorities,
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against the powers of this dark world, and against the
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spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. That single
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verse rearranges how we understand our struggles. The co worker
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is not the real problem. The argument with your spouse
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is not the whole story. The cloud over your weak
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may have a source you cannot see. There is a
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fight happening, and you are in it, whether you want
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it to be or not. Now a word of caution
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before we go further, because this is where people often
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go wrong. Not every hard day is a spiritual attack.
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Sometimes we are simply tired. Sometimes we reap what we
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have sown. Sometimes God himself is doing slow, painful work
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in us to make us more like Jesus. We are
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not going to see a demon behind every inconvenience. That
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kind of fear is its own trap. But we are
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also not going to pretend the enemy is not there,
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because pretending is exactly what he prefers. So let us
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look honestly at how scripture describes the way this enemy works.
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As we walk through these signs, do not read them
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as a checklist to frighten. You read them as a
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way to recognize what may be happening so that you
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can respond the way God actually tells you to respond,
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Because the goal here is not fear. The goal is freedom.
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The first sign a sudden pull toward sin. The most
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ancient weapon the enemy owns is temptation, and the Bible
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shows it from the very first pages. In Eden, the
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serpent did not begin with a command. He began with
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a conversation. Now the serpent was more crafty than any
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of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He
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said to the woman, did God really say you must
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not eat from any tree in the garden? Notice how
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it started not with a push, but with a question.
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The enemy rarely kicks down the front door. He leans
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in and whispers, and the whisper is almost always aimed
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at what God said. He twists, it softens, It makes
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obedience sound smaller and sin sound reasonable. One sign of
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spiritual attack is a temptation that arrives suddenly and burns
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hotter than the situation deserves. An old habit you thought
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was behind you suddenly feels alive again. A door you
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had shut is somehow open. The pull toward anger, toward lust,
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toward bitterness, toward that old escape comes with a strange urgency,
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as if something is pressing. This does not remove your responsibility.
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You still choose, but it does help you understand the timing.
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The enemy loves to strike right after a spiritual high,
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right when you have decided to take God. More seriously,
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consider when the Tempter came to Jesus. It was not
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in a moment of weakness or failure. It came right
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after the glory of his baptism, when the heavens had
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opened and the Father had spoken his pleasure over his son.
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From that mountaintop, Jesus was led into the wilderness, and there,
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hungry and worn, after forty days, he was met by
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the tempter. Watch how the enemy worked. Even then he
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came offering short cuts. Turn these stones to bread, Throw
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yourself down and let the angels catch you. Bow to me,
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and all the kingdoms of the world are yours. Every
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offer was a way to reach a good end by
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the wrong road, a way to avoid the cross, and
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Jesus answered each one, not with a clever argument, but
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with scripture, with the simple words. It is written, if
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the sinless son of God was approached this way, you
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should not be shocked when it happens to you. Temptation
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that suddenly intensifies is not proof that you are wicked.
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Often it is proof that you are headed somewhere the
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enemy does not want you to go. The second sign
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a heaviness you cannot explain. The Bible describes our enemy
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with a sound. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy,
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the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for
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someone to devour. Think about what a roar is meant
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to do. A lion does not roar while it hunts
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in silence. It roars to freeze its prey, to flood
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the body with fear, so the animal stops moving and
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gives up before the lion ever arrives. The raw is
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the strategy, and many believers know that raw without ever
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calling it by name. It comes as a sudden, crushing discouragement,
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a sense that your faith is pointless, that God has
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moved on, that nothing you do matters. It is a
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heaviness that does not match your circumstances. You can have
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a roof over your head and people who love you,
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and still feel a darkness pressing down, telling you to quit,
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to stop praying, to stop trying, to stop hoping. Care
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here because real depression and grief and exhaustion are also
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true and deserve compassion and sometimes real help from others.
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We are not going to spiritualize everything, but there is
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a kind of despair that wants you to abandon God,
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specifically that always grows louder when you reach for him.
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That voice is worth questioning. When the heaviness pushes you
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away from prayer rather than into it, you have reason
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to wonder where it is coming from. Remember, the lion
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roars because it cannot simply take you. The roar is
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loud precisely because it is trying to do what strength
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alone cannot. The third sign accusation that never lets up.
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In a vision in the Book of Revelation, John hears
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a voice in heaven describe the enemy with one of
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his oldest job titles. He is called the accuser of
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our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God
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day and night, day and night. That is the enemy's
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tireless occupation. He accuses, and one of the clearest signs
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of spiritual attack is a flood of accusation that simply
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will not lift. There is a difference, and it matters
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more than almost anything in this whole subject. When God
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convicts you of sin, he is specific, and he always
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points you toward repentance and restoration. His correction stings, but
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it leads somewhere good. It says, here is what is wrong.
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Bring it to me. I will forgive you. Come home.
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The enemy's accusation is different. It is vague and endless
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and hopeless. It does not say you did a wrong thing.
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It says you are a wrong thing. It does not
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lead you to grace. It buries you in shame and
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whispers that you are beyond it. There is a scene
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in the Book of Zechariah that shows exactly how God
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responds to this. The prophet is given a vision of Joshua,
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the high priest, standing before the Angel of the Lord,
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and there beside him stands Satan, ready to accuse him.
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Joshua is dressed in filthy clothes, a picture of guilt
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and shame, the very thing the accuser is pointing at.
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And then God speak He rebukes the accuser. He orders
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the filthy clothes taken away, and he says to Joshua, see,
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I have taken away your sin, and he clothes him
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in clean, rich garment. That is the whole battle in
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one picture. The enemy points at your filth. God answers
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by clothing you in righteousness that is not your own.
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If you find yourself trapped in a loop of condemnation,
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replaying old failures, God has already forgiven feeling worthless and
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disqualified and too far gone, recognize the voice that is
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not the spirit who calls you a child of God.
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That is the accuser, doing the one thing he does
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day and night, lingering hopeless condemnation is not the verdict
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of heaven. It is the fingerprint of the enemy. The
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fourth sign confusion about what is true. Go back to
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the garden one more time. Because the first attack on
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humanity was not aimed at our behavior, It was aimed
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at our understanding. Did God really say the target was
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the truth itself? The enemy is described by Jesus as
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a liar and the father of lies. His native language
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is deception. So one of the signs that you are
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under attack is a strange fog settling over things that
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used to be clear. Suddenly you're not sure what you believe.
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Promises from God that once anchored you now feel uncertain.
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You feel pulled in a dozen directions, double minded, unable
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to make a decision, second guessing your faith and your
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salvation and your worth all at once. Scripture even warns
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that the enemy can come disguised as something beautiful, masquerading
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as an angel of light. That means not every appealing
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voice is a safe one. Sometimes the most dangerous lie
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is the one that flatters you, the one that tells
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you that you do not really need to forgive, that
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you deserve your bitterness, that grace is for everyone but you,
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or that you alone are uniquely beyond help. Confusion is
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one of his favorite weapons, because a confused believer is
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a paralyzed believer. If he can fog your mind, he
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does not need to defeat you. He only needs to
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keep you spinning in place, unsure of the God you
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already know. When clarity drains away and doubt floods in
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without reason, do not assume your faith is failing. Ask
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where the fog is coming from. The fifth sign fear
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that grips and will not release. There is a kind
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of fear that is healthy, the kind that keeps you
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from stepping into the road. But there is another kind
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that has no clear source and no off switch, a
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fear that wakes you at three in the morning, with
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your heart pounding over things that have not happened and
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may never happen. The Bible knows this enemy uses fear
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as a chain. Paul reminded a young, frightened pastor named
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Timothy of something every believer needs to hear in the dark.
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He wrote that the spirit God gave us does not
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make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self discipline.
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Read that slowly, the spirit of fear, the kind that
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controls you and shrinks you and freezes you, does not
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come from God. God's presence brings power and love and
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a sound, steady mind. The enemy brings the opposite. So
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when you feel gripped by a dread that has no name,
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when anxiety wraps around your chest and tells you that
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God is far away and disaster is certain, you are
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feeling something the enemy specializes in. He cannot read your future,
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but he can flood your imagination with terrible versions of it.
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He cannot separate you from God, but he can make
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you feel separated, and for many people the feeling is
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enough to make them stop praying, stop serving, stop living.
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This is the lion's roar again, dressed in different clothes.
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Fear that isolates you and drives you away from the
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very God who could comfort you is worth holding up
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to the light. The presence of fear is not the
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absence of God. Often it is the sign that the
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enemy is afraid of what you would do if you
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were not afraid. The sixth sign division and broken relationships.
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The enemy is a divider. The very word for him
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in scripture carries the idea of a slanderer, one who
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throws accusations between people to drive them apart. And one
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of the most overlooked signs of spiritual attack shows up
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not inside you, but between you and the people you love.
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Paul gave a strikingly practical warning about this. In the
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middle of teaching about honest speech and not letting anger fester,
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he added a line that should make every Christian pause.
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He said, do not give the devil a foothold. The
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picture is of a small crack, a tiny gap of
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unresolved anger or unforgiveness that the enemy uses as a
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place to stand and pry the whole thing open. This
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is why a season of spiritual attack so often comes
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with sudden, sharp conflict. Marriages that were fine irrupt over nothing.
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Friendships in the church grow cold over a misunderstanding that
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should have been small. Bitterness takes root and will not
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let go. Words come out of your mouth that surprise
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even you. None of this removes human responsibility, because we
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are still the ones who choose to forgive or to
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hold the grudge. But it should make you wonder when
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the conflict feels strangely intense, strangely persistent, strangely well aimed
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at exactly the relationships that hold you up. The enemy
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knows that an isolated believer is a vulnerable one. There
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is a detail in the Armorge that most people miss.
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The shield the Roman soldier carried was made to lock
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together with the shields of the men beside him, forming
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a wall. The fight in Ephesians is never pictured as
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one lonely warrior. It is a line of believers standing together.
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So when something keeps trying to pull you out of
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that line, away from your church, away from your friends,
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away from the people who pray for you. Take it seriously.
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Division is not just a personal failure. It is often
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a strategy. The seventh sign, a pull away from God himself.
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The final sign, gathers up all the others because it
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is the goal behind every one of them. The enemy
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wants distance. He wants to pull you away from prayer,
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away from the Word, away from worship, away from the
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people of God. Everything else is in service of this.
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Listen to how Jesus described what the enemy is after
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the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
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That is the whole agenda in one sentence, to steal
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what God has given you, to kill what God is
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growing in you, to destroy the life God means for
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you to have. And the same verse holds the contrast
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that changes everything, because Jesus immediately says of himself, I
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have come that they may have life, and have it
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to the full. So one of the surest signs of
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attack is a quiet, steady drift. Prayer feels like a chore,
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so you do it less. The Bible feels dry, so
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you open it less. Church feels like effort, so you
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go less. Nothing dramatic announces it. You simply find yourself
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further from God than you were a few months ago,
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and you are not sure how you got there. The
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apostle Paul once wrote to a church he loved that
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he had tried again and again to come to them,
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but in his words, Satan blocked his way. The enemy hinders.
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He puts up obstacles, drains your energy for the things
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that matter most, and makes the good road feel impossibly uphill.
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When you notice that everything spiritual has become heavy and
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everything else has become easy, pay attention that drift is
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not random, It is direction, and it is pointing you
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away from the only one who can actually help you.
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Before we go further, we need a word of wisdom,
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because this is where sincere believers can stumble in two
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opposite directions. Some people refuse to believe the enemy is
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real at all, and so they never recognize his hand,
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even when it is plain. But others see him everywhere,
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blaming a demon for every flat tire and every bad mood,
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living in a low fear that keeps them anxious and tired.
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Neither one is the way of Christ. Not every struggle
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on this list is automatically an attack. Sometimes you are
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simply human and need rest. Sometimes the heaviness is your
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own body telling you that you have not slept or
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eaten or stopped in weeks. Sometimes the conflict in your
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home is just the ordinary friction of two flawed people
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who both need to say sorry, and sometimes painful as
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it is, God himself is at work in the hard season,
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pruning you, deepening you, teaching you to lean on Him
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in ways that comfort never could. So how do you
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tell the difference. You do not have to figure it
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out alone, and you do not have to label every
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feeling perfectly. The response is largely the same no matter
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the source. You draw near to God, you bring it
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into the light. You ask him for wisdom, and scripture
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promises that the God who gives wisdom gives it generously
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and without finding fault. The point of recognizing the enemy
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is never to live afraid of him. It is to
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stop being fooled by him, so that you can run
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to the God who is stronger. Step back and look
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at these seven signs together, and a single pattern comes
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into focus. Temptation, heaviness, accusation, confusion, fear, division, and drift
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are not seven separate problems. They are seven roads to
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the same destination. Every one of them is trying to
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move you in the same direction, away from God and
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away from his people, and to convince you to fight
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your battles alone in the dark. That tells you something
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crucial about the enemy. He is not as strong as
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he is loud. If he could simply destroy you, he
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would not need to whisper, to lie, to roar, to
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discuss himself, to pry at the cracks. All of that effort,
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all of that strategy, reveals a weakness he is desperate
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to hide. He works by deception because he cannot win
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by force. And here is the detail that the Gospel
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hangs on. He is already a defeated enemy. The cross
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was not a setback for him. That he later recovered
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from the cross was his undoing. Scripture says of Jesus
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that having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a
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public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Disarmed,
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the weapons were stripped away, the victory is already won.
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This is why the Bible never tells the believer to
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go out and defeat the devil. It tells you to stand.
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You are not fighting for a victory that is still
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in doubt. You are standing in a victory that Jesus
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already secured. That changes everything about how you fight, which
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is exactly what we turn to now, because recognizing the
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attack is only half of what God gives you. The
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other half is the answer. When the Bible finally lays
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out how to respond to all of this, it does
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not hand you a spell to recite or a formula
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to perform. It hands you armor. Put on the full
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armor of God, Paul writes, so that you can take
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your stand against the devil's schemes, and then he describes
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peace by piece what that armor actually is. Pay close attention,
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because every piece of it is something you already have
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in Christ. The belt is truth, the very thing the
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enemy attacks with his lies. The breastplate is righteousness, not
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your own performance, but the right standing. Jesus gave you
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the perfect answer to the accuser. Your feet are fitted
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with the Gospel of Peace, so that you stand and
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on solid ground when fear tries to sweep you off
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your feet. Then comes the shield. Paul's readers would have
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pictured the great Roman shield, the tall one shaped like
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a door that could cover a soldier's whole body before
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a battle where the enemy used flaming arrows, soldiers would
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soak the leather covering of those shields in water, so
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that when the burning arrows struck, they were swallowed and
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put out with a hiss. That is the picture Paul
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reaches for. He says, take up the shield of faith,
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with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of
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the evil one, every burning thought, every fiery lie, every
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accusation that lands like a spark. Faith catches it and
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puts it out. Faith does not mean you feel strong.
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It means you trust what God has said more than
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what the arrow tells you. On top of that comes
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the helmet of south, guarding the mind, the very place
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where the battle is fought, where the fog and the
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fear and the lies all aim. And finally, there is
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the one weapon in the list, the sword, which is
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the Word of God, the same weapon Jesus used in
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the wilderness when he answered every temptation with the words
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it is written. Look at what this armor really is.
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It is not seven new techniques. It is Christ himself worn.
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It is his truth, his righteousness, his peace, his salvation,
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his word, taken up and put on the way you
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fight back is not by becoming a spiritual warrior in
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your own strength. It is by clothing yourself in what
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Jesus already is and already did. Now Here, the simplest
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instruction Scripture gives the one that pulls the whole battle
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down to where you can actually live it. Submit, omit yourselves,
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then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee
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from you. There is an order in that verse, and
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the order is everything. First, submit to God, then resist
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the devil. We so often try to do it backward.
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We try to fight the enemy with all our energy
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while keeping God at arm's length, and we wonder why
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we feel exhausted and defeated. But the strength to resist
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does not come from gritting your teeth. It comes from
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drawing near to the one who has already won. You
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resist the enemy by running toward God, not by staring
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at the darkness. And notice the promise attached. He will
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flee from you, not He might not if you say
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the right words in the right order. When a believer
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who belongs to God turns and stands firm in faith,
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the enemy runs. That is not because you are powerful.
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It is because the the one you belong to is
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the same truth is written elsewhere in words. You should
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carry with you. The one who is in you, John says,
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is greater than the one who is in the world.
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The spirit of the Living God dwells inside every believer,
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and he is greater, not equal to the enemy greater.
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This is also why the enemy cannot own you. He
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can harass a child of God, he can oppress, pressure, accuse,
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and wear down, but he cannot possess what the spirit
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of God already fills. The house is occupied, the deed
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is signed in the blood of Jesus. The most the
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enemy can do is rattle the windows of a home
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he will never own. If you want to know which
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weapon the enemy fears most, watch where he tries hardest
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to keep you away. He does not mind a busy Christian,
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He minds a praying one. The battlefield, Paul tells us,
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is largely the mind. The weapons we fight with are
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not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they
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have divine power to demolish strongholds. And those strongholds, he
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goes on to say, are arguments and thoughts and lofty
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ideas raised up against the knowledge of God. Then comes
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the instruction we take captive every thought to make it
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obedient to Christ. That is the daily work of fighting back,
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not shouting at the air, but catching the lie as
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it lands and dragging it into the light of what
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God has said. When the thought comes that you are worthless,
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you answer it with what God calls you. When the
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thought comes that God has abandoned you, you answer it
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with his promise that he never will. You do not
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have to win an argument with the enemy. You only
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have to stand on the truth and refuse to move.
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And all of it is soaked in prayer. The Armor
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passage ends not with a weapon, but with prayer, with
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the instruction to pray in the spirit on all occasions,
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to stay alert, to keep praying for one another. Prayer
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is not the thing you do after you have run
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out of other options. It is the air the whole
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battle is breathed in. There is a tender picture of
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this in the Gospels. Jesus turned to Peter, who was
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about to face the worst night of his life, and said, Simon, Simon,
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Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat.
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But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith
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may not fail. Sit with that before Peter, ever knew
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the attack was coming. Jesus had already prayed for him,
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and the same Jesus scripture says, lives to intercede for you.
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Right now, you are not entering this battle. Someone notices
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you are already being prayed for by the one who
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has already won. There is one more piece of God's
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strategy that the enemy works hardest to hide from you,
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and it is the simplest of all. You were never
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meant to fight this by yourself. Remember that great Roman shield,
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it had another purpose beyond protecting one man. When soldiers
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stood shoulder to shoulder and locked their shields together, the
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line became a wall, and arrows that could pick off
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a lone man could not break a wall. That is
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the picture behind the whole Armor passage. Paul is not
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writing to one isolated warrior standing bravely in a field.
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He is writing to a church, to a people who
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stand together, who cover one another, who hold the line
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side by side. This is why the very last instruction
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in the passage is to keep on praying for all
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the Lord's people. The Armor ends not with a solo
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act of courage, but with believers praying for one another,
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and it explains so much about the way the enemy works.
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Look back over the seven signs and notice how many
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of them isolate you. The heaviness makes you withdraw, the
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shame makes you hide, The fear makes you pull inward.
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The division pushes people away. The drift carries you off alone,
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again and again. The strategy is to get you by yourself,
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away from the wall where the arrows can reach you.
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So one of the most powerful things you can do
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in a season of attack is the very thing the
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enemy is trying to prevent. Tell someone, Let a trusted
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believer pray over you, go back to the gathering of
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God's people, even when you do not feel like it,
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especially when you do not feel like it, ask for
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help and stop carrying it alone. There is no shame
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in needing the shield of the person next to you.
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That is not weakness. That is exactly how God designed
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the battle to be fought. Maybe you came to this
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worn down. Maybe you are the believer who has been
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carrying a heaviness for so long that you started to
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believe it was simply who you are now. Maybe you
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are afraid in the night, or trapped in a loop
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of accusation. You cannot silence or further from God than
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you ever meant to drift or fighting a battle in
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your own home that you do not understand. Maybe you
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are older, or alone, or both, and the loneliness itself
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has begun to feel like proof that no one is
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fighting for you. Hear this clearly. You are not crazy,
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and you are not failing, and you are not alone
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in this. The very fact that you are still reaching
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for God, still wanting him, even when prayer feels like nothing,
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is itself evidence that the enemy has not won. He
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fights hardest against the ones who are closest to breaking through.
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The resistance you feel may be the surest sign that
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you are headed in exactly the right direction, and you
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do not have to be strong enough. That was never
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the plan. The whole point of the armor is that
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the strength is God's and the standing is Christ's. You
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are simply asked to put it on. You are asked
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to draw near, to take the next thought captive, to
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whisper the next prayer, even when you do not feel
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like it, to refuse to fight this alone, to let
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people back into the line beside you. The lion roars,
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but a roar is not a bite The accuser speaks
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day and night, but his voice is not the verdict
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of heaven. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy,
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But Jesus came so that you would have life and
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have it to the full. So put on the armor,
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draw near to the God who is already near to you,
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stand on the truth, and refuse to move. The enemy
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is real, but he is defeated, and the one who
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lives inside you is greater. You were never meant to
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win this fight on your own. You were only ever
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meant to stand in the victory that Jesus already won,
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and to discover in the standing that you were being
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held the whole time. If this video helped you grow
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deeper in God's word, I want to personally invite you
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to be part of what we are building here. Every
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video on this channel takes many hours of study and
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careful research to make sure we bring you content that
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is faithful to scripture and worthy of your time. If
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you would like to support this mission and help us
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keep making these videos, you can find a link in
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the description below to give a one time gift or
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become a monthly supporter. Every gift, no matter the size,
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goes directly toward creating more content like this, and if
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you are not in a position to give right now,
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that is completely fine. The best thing you can do
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is subscribe, share this video with some one who needs
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to hear it, and keep studying God's word with us.
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Thank you for being here, and may God bless you richly.