Train My Hands For War - Part 1

Is there a way to put my stuff up there? I did.

Okay, guys. So today we start with the series, Train My Hands for War. It's from Psalm 144, verse 1, where it says,

Psalms 144:1

I trained my fingers for battle and my hands for war. We kind of ended last week with the stewarding the harvest, part two.

And now we said we'd start with this idea of training our hands for war. And so I just want to pray because this is not how we think.

And so my prayer is that we begin to think like this. Yeah? So let me just pray.

Father, the reason I'm praying and I don't normally pray before we start is because sometimes mind shifts require tremendous help from You.

And so part of our prayer is that we humble our minds before You because we have set ways of thinking.

And actually that's legalistic because this is how we've taught thus far. And now we've got to shift our thinking.

So we break any legalistic patterns in how we think of You, conceive You, perceive You, sorry. And so that's one.

Second, Father, we want to open our minds to be able to picture, imagine from scripture and by the Holy Spirit who You really are in the context of this teaching.

And then thirdly, Holy Spirit, can You enlighten our hearts so that we understand why this is so critical to our work in Richmond?

So open our eyes, open our understanding that we may behold wondrous things in Your Word and then help us to practice them.

Put them, one of the hardest things to do is apply what we learn in daily life, individually and corporately.

Could You please help us with that too? These are the things I ask for.

We're talking about training our fingers for battle and our hands for war and the church is ill-equipped and so equip us, Holy Spirit.

Now is the time, in Jesus' name, amen.

Yeah, so train my hands for war. So some of these statements I've made before.

Throughout scripture, throughout scripture, the kingdom of God always implies warfare.

The kingdom implies warfare.

And so you and I may have to wrap our heads around that statement that the kingdom cannot exist without warfare till everything is complete and we move into the new heavens and the new earth.

As long as that hasn't happened, the kingdom of God always implies warfare and the kingdom of God cannot advance without spiritual warfare.

So the kingdom of Christ cannot advance in Richmond except through spiritual conflict.

Will not advance.

So if you have any questions about just those two statements, feel free to ask.

Because we have to wrestle with this. If this is not how we think, then this series is kind of built on shallow ground.

Because we have to get past this.

There's never been a time in the history of the Bible where God's kingdom did not imply warfare.

It was always like that right from the start.

As soon as the fall happened or even before the fall, there was a counterfeit kingdom led by Satan who wanted to sit where God sits.

Before Zion existed, Satan already wanted to sit in Zion.

So, any? Yes. Go ahead.

Yeah, when we talk about spiritual warfare, we are always talking about life and land.

Yeah, life and land. Both are contested.

One of the things that's contested is land. The other thing that's contested is life.

There will always be a battle for life and land. Always.

And whenever we say land, it's inhabited land and therefore people.

So life and land will always be contested. It's been that way throughout the Old Testament.

And it will be that way till the new heaven and earth come.

So, is there any struggle with these two statements?

If there's no struggle with the first statement, how about the second statement?

And are we willing to accept it or wrestle with it till it gets so deeply embedded in us

that the kingdom of Christ cannot advance enrichment of that, for that matter, anywhere except through spiritual conflict?

It's not possible. Here's the thing, guys.

All other religions and the rest of the earth that does not have an allegiance to Christ knows this.

We're the only ones who pretend that this is not important.

All other practitioners of every other religion know this.

So, any struggle with this? No?

So, it's just a corporate thing?

Is it mostly thought?

Both. Both. It's both corporate and individual and we'll talk about that shortly.

That it exists on both levels.

And this is the scary part. When this is sanitized, when this is sterilized, when this is theologized,

that is why it is so difficult to advance into certain places.

Take any Old Testament story, take Ephesus, take New Testament stories, take the book of Revelation,

take the letters written by Christ to the different churches, and this thing keeps coming up constantly.

You don't need Greek and Hebrew to interpret it.

You don't need to go to a region like Andre and Tuni to interpret this.

Okay. So, we are saying that given the fact that we've been asked to move into this city,

we're supposed to do everything God desires in Richmond, and that's why we moved here.

We are saying that it is not possible for us to advance in Richmond except through spiritual conflict.

And I look forward to the opportunity because Richmond has a highway called the Highway of Heaven

that has every known religion practiced in the world here.

It's like the pride of the city to have a highway that is so ecumenical and pluralistic and accommodating.

And into that city, we've been sent to advance the cause of Christ.

And it's a wonderful thing because what it means is souls get saved, lives get set free.

Isn't there anything better than that?

Okay. So, I've said this before again, so I'll just go through it.

Okay. So, I've said this before again, so I'll gloss over it quickly.

In the Old Testament, all conflict between kingdoms was between...

The battles in the Old Testament were fought over one simple thing.

Since Genesis 3, Satan knows that the seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head.

Therefore, the intent of the serpent throughout the Old Testament was very simple.

Can I destroy the seed of the woman?

If I destroy the seed of the woman, my head will not be crushed.

It was very simple.

Therefore, the intent to destroy Israel did not come from some racial hatred.

It came from a far deeper reason.

If the seed of the woman is to crush my head, I must destroy the seed of the woman and the woman if possible

so that the seed is not born.

Because if the seed is born, serpent's head will be crushed.

So, that was every Old Testament battle was simply about that.

That is, trying to get rid of Jesus, trying to get rid of Moses, trying to get rid of fledgling Israel

when Joseph was sent to Egypt.

It's this constant story of trying to destroy the seed of the woman.

But then the seed of the woman is born in Christ and he rises from the dead

and now he's seated in the heavenlies and now it shifts.

Now the reason for battle is simply this.

The seed of the woman has grown into a man-child, Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

The seed of the woman has grown into a man-child as in he's grown into the one new man called the church

which now proclaims the message of the Messiah.

And therefore, the conflict is between the serpent and the man-child.

And the reason I use the word man-child is because it's used in Revelation 12.

That's why I'm using it.

Or call it the one new man.

Regardless, the intent is can I now destroy the church?

And he knows it's a losing battle but he'll still try it.

Because he also knows that Christ said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.

It was spoken loudly, it was heard.

He also knows, like we talked about last week in Luke 10, that I saw Satan falling like lightning.

In a prophetic vision he sees that.

So he knows the end but his battle is now against the man-child.

Any questions on that?

You take questions every couple of lines so that this is established beyond reasonable doubt in your head.

Any questions?

Cool.

So we must understand that part of our being made in the image of God, not all of it.

There are different aspects to being made in the image of God.

But part of being made in the image of God is that the creation of man was in the image of the warrior king.

The creation of man was in the image of the warrior king.

In fact, it's amplified in the first command that God gives Adam.

That's a command given by a warrior king to someone, one person, Adam and Eve,

or given to Adam saying, listen, this is what I want to do.

Straight off the bat, Genesis chapter 1, it is go forth, which is a moving forward and advancing,

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

multiply as in populating, replenish as in restoring,

and then the final word which is so warrior-like, so militant, which is subdue.

This lies at the heart of what we are supposed to do.

The very first command amplifies this.

If there's anything here you think, I'm arriving at by some kind of acrobatics or contortion

and trying to tie words together, challenge me on it.

Right off the bat, right in the beginning, there is this attitude.

And that then later on becomes the militant mission of the Great Commission.

Where the Great Commission is basically go forth, multiply, go forth, replenish as in restore,

multiply, subdue. It's the same thing.

All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

Therefore, go. Multiply into every nation.

Teach them to observe the things that I have taught you.

Baptize them into the kingdom, into the church.

And lo, I'll be with you.

And so then, our attitude over the next few weeks should be this attitude that says

that it is through warfare that we can spread shalom to God's entire creation in Richmond.

It is through warfare that we are able to spread God's shalom, his wholeness, his wellness, his peace.

The welfare of the very citizens of Richmond depends on warfare, spiritual warfare.

We talked about this last week. Go ahead, Meera.

Yeah. Why is it still on if he's already defeated?

The victory is sealed. The future is known.

But you have an active enemy that still wants to fight till he's undone in Revelation 20,

where with a blast of his nostrils, Jesus completely annihilates Satan and all demonic forms and all demonic followers.

But till then, it is an enemy that knows his defeat, but is still active.

You're saying he's defeated.

The way I phrased it last week was, at the cross, Satan's authority was stripped, but his power was not diminished.

At the cross, Satan's authority was stripped, but his power was not diminished.

Which is why Jesus in Luke 10 says, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy,

and you shall step upon serpents and scorpions, and no harm or hurt by any means shall come to you.

So his authority has been stripped. He no longer holds the position that he used to, but his power hasn't diminished.

In fact, the scriptures say that he rages knowing that his time is short.

That he knows his time is short.

The scriptures also say, had he known that his defeat was so certain,

he would not have even crucified Christ because he didn't know the cross would be such a victory.

He's a finite being who can be destroyed with the snap of a finger,

because the blast of a nostril is the same as the snap of a finger.

Point being, that is how easy it is for God to remove him.

But here's the thing, guys. The contest is not between God and the devil.

The contest is between the devil and man.

Christ came down as man, in flesh, 1 John.

Jesus Christ came down in the flesh to do what? To destroy the works of the devil.

The first Adam failed. The last Adam succeeds.

And so the contest has never been between God and man.

I remember sharing this just two weeks ago.

I drew a small dot on a huge wall, and I was explaining to the church there that this small dot is the devil and that huge wall is God.

There is no contest.

When there's a fly that sits on your shoulder, you do not say, come out, I'll show you.

You just flick it. That's how simple it is.

But the contest is between man and the devil, because man's vice regency was handed over to the enemy,

and through man, through Christ, and through the new man called the church, we get it back,

which is why it says the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.

The one new man.

The original man is called Adam.

Yeah, is what we are supposed to live on.

To be clean territory.

Lives and land. Yeah.

And so it's very easy at this point to say this is dominion theology, and people may have complaints against dominion theology.

We are not going the route of dominion theology.

We're not saying that man should have all the high positions that Christians should occupy the seven mountains.

We're not saying anything of that sort.

We're just sticking to scripture saying every time there is a word kingdom, it implies warfare.

So we're not talking about dominion theology here.

So do not take this and connect it to dominion theology, which is something completely different.

So through warfare, we can spread the shalom that belongs to God.

Is it me or is it something else?

Me?

No, it's not me.

Yes.

See guys, the thing is the serpent thinks like this too.

The serpent thinks like this too.

He spreads darkness through rage, ritual and spiritual war.

He does this too.

Through darkness, through rage, through spiritual war.

That's exactly how it happens.

Is that a hint to something else?

Or it wants to get changed?

No, I'm saying that the first part of what you said is true.

The second part is when someone came and preached the gospel to you and to me, suddenly we got delivered from darkness to light.

The battle was won.

When they said that Don and Kezia will have a child that has a heart problem,

there was healing and suddenly the kingdom of God won over the kingdom of darkness.

When we give out these 10 bags or 100 bags and people receive it and they're blessed in the name of Jesus Christ, light advances.

The kingdom of God is constantly advancing.

In China alone, every day, 20 to 22,000 people are being born again, every day.

And every time someone gets born again, death suffers another blow and life begins to prosper.

In that song, it says, what's it?

Hell has lost another one.

So surprisingly, the kingdom is advancing brilliantly.

It's just that it can do better and it can do better in our midst.

Wouldn't it be great if the pace that things are happening in Richmond increases four times tomorrow?

Wouldn't that be good?

So can we get to a place where we say this is enough?

No.

Because I think the difference between the number of people that are born and the number of people that die is still about 26,000 every day.

I want to bridge that gap.

So the kingdom is advancing.

It cannot be stopped.

It cannot be stopped.

What Christ began can never be stopped again.

This thing will keep advancing.

And yet there will be people who defy it.

The strange thing in the book of Revelation is after all that God does, there are still people shaking their fists at God, defying him, saying, who the heck do you think you are?

Strange.

The free will that God has given man is one of the most dangerous gifts you can give.

Can I have?

It wasn't.

No?

It wasn't the wire.

It wasn't the wire.

So what was it?

Anus.

You realize we are having a conversation.

I've said so many things.

And now I need new tape.

If you wanted to be on video, there were other ways, Jonathan.

So there are certain things like this too.

I could tell you such horror stories, man.

But when you're teaching on a topic like this, I don't want to use anecdotal evidence.

Right now in a country in the Far East, this is one of the critical times where there's so much activity happening.

We were in Indonesia.

Some of the things we saw there were horrible in terms of what they do.

You're having fun, eh?

Okay.

So what if we began to think along the lines of we are a warrior kingdom?

Guys, this is not something where tomorrow I'll give all the men here swords and all the women here spears and...

Sen, can it happen?

Okay.

We're not going to give out swords and stuff like that tomorrow and go ra-ra and gaga and stuff like that.

But for what we need to do in Richmond, we have a warrior kingdom composed of citizens who are united to the warrior king.

Think like that.

We are a warrior kingdom that is united to the warrior king through faith.

Begin to think like that.

Don't worry.

We'll repeat this so many times that it'll become normal.

And so warfare must shape our proclamation, our outreach.

It must shape it.

Because right from the beginning in the garden, kingdom warfare rages over this thing.

Just think of this, guys.

Just focus on this.

From the garden onwards, the kingdom has always been about one simple thing.

Will humans be identified with the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light?

Will humans be identified?

Will humans be identified?

Thanks, Sen.

Will humans be identified with the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of God?

Will believers in Richmond, will believers in Richmond, will believers in Richmond realize, will you realize that you are engaged in a cosmic custody battle?

Will they follow the father, as in your father, or will they follow an imposter who is the father of lies and who is the father of lies and who is the father of lies?

And who is one who holds sway over the sons of disobedience?

Ephesians 2.2.

So think like this when you walk around from tomorrow on.

Hey, I need something else.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the question is, every time you meet someone in Richmond, the question is, will they follow the father, as in your father, or will they follow an imposter who is the father of lies and who holds sway over the sons of disobedience?

It is impossible without spiritual conflict or spiritual warfare to set anyone from the kingdom of darkness free into the kingdom of light.

I didn't say this.

Jesus said it.

Ephesians chapter one talks about it.

He says, what happened to you?

What happened to you was simple.

You got transferred from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of the sun.

Ephesians 1.13, I think.

Acts 26, verse 17 and 18.

Acts 26:17

Therefore, stand upon your feet, Paul, because I'm sending you.

I'm sending you where?

I'm sending you so that you can set people free from the power of Satan into the power of God, from the power of darkness into the power of light.

It's impossible to do, guys.

It is impossible to do.

Your words release God's power.

Your words release the activity of the Holy Spirit into people's lives because they're here and they see.

The Bible says that the veil is not removed or the darkness is not removed till words of light enter.

That's what you're doing.

But it is impossible.

None of us came out of the dominion of darkness except through spiritual warfare fought on our behalf by someone.

There's nobody here who wasn't prayed for.

This is a crazy thing.

I need some more volume, Jeremy.

This is the crazy thing.

There is not a person in this room that said that can say I stumbled upon Christianity and decided to accept it.

There were people praying.

Some were people who didn't know your face, but were praying for you because you lived in a certain locality.

Some were aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers.

Some were pastors praying for you.

That's the only way you got born again.

You were prayed out and into.

And if it was done once, it can be done again.

Where if you're caught in a bondage, prayer works.

Part of the spiritual warfare that we engage in happens through prayer.

This is why prayer then becomes an important weapon in the setting free of people.

Because sin is highly enticing.

People love sin.

Nobody goes into porn except because it gives you pleasure.

Why else would they go into porn?

Nobody.

In the life of a believer, sin is as active because we still have flesh.

And so when we begin to satisfy the appetite of the flesh, that's when we walk away from God.

It is possible to crucify the flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit who resides in us because he puts us in love with God and that then helps you overcome sin.

The only way to overcome sin is to be in love with God.

And that's the only way to overcome sin.

And that's the only way to overcome sin is to be in love with God.

Because he puts us in love with God and that then helps you overcome sin.

The only way to overcome sin is by falling in love with something else more than sin.

There's no other way.

So there is a cosmic custody battle going on.

And Christ is both warrior king and the prince of peace.

Christ is both warrior king and the prince of peace.

Which is why there's not going to be any new heaven and earth till the war is done.

The book of Revelation, read it.

Chapters 20 and 21 happened after chapters 12 to 19.

That is vicious war.

And that war is not just spiritual, it is also physical.

You think 350 little girls being kidnapped or little boys and girls being kidnapped in Nigeria is just a physical thing?

You don't think it's spiritual?

You think that in war when babies and men and women are raped and ravaged, that's a physical thing?

That's not a spiritual thing?

You think the depravity that takes over human beings like you and I, that's a spiritual thing only?

That's a physical thing only?

Look at our own lives.

There are people sitting here who have done depraved things.

Sometimes under the influence of drugs, sometimes under the influence of rape.

Right here sitting in the room.

Thank God our shame is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.

But how did that happen?

Did you ever imagine when you were growing up that you would end up doing the things you did?

I didn't.

It's crazy.

And then there are ordinary people like you and I who now belong to Christ, who have with our words and our hearts that are being made pure every day.

We then play a part in setting someone free.

Someone set me free guys.

They prayed for me for years.

And then they came and spoke and they were rejected.

They were laughed at.

I threw things at them, but they kept at it till one day it changed.

It's amazing.

God uses the weak things of the world, weak things of the world to break the hold of the strong.

And so here are some simple truths that we and then we'll go to patterns.

I know it's it feels late, but it's not.

Yeah.

It's only it's only 10 to 8.

We started at 610.

Okay.

The church's warfare is one Christo centric as in.

It focuses on Christ.

The focus is on Christ the warrior king.

By the way, Christ the warrior king is not some term that I created.

There's enough reference to Christ the warrior king right from Deuteronomy to Revelation 19.

And so to be Christo centric is to be centered on Christ in this warfare.

But the focus is on Christ the warrior king, not on powers and principalities,

which is what happens when we take anecdotes because the attention goes to powers and principalities, which is why I'm avoiding it.

Two, the church's warfare is by bringing down the stronghold of heaven, bringing down the stronghold of heaven,

which then shatters enemy strongholds.

It's downwards.

We're not fighting something upwards.

We're fighting downwards just because of what Ephesians 1, 23 to 25 in Ephesians 2, 4 to 6 says.

The church's warfare is corporate.

It's corporate.

As in, we're supposed to learn it as a community.

And if we don't learn it, we're supposed to learn it as a community.

And if we don't, we'll have to then begin to raise something called deliverance ministry,

which wasn't what Jesus actually taught in Mark chapter 16.

Mark 16 · chapter mention

He didn't want a deliverance ministry.

He wanted all believers to be able to handle things that required handling.

It is corporate.

It is corporate.

It's to learn as a community what it means to war.

Abraham had 318 people in his household, and all 318 were trained men in war.

The Gadites, the Gadites were guys who knew how to fight with both left hand and right hand

and knew how to scale the mountains with ease.

Judah was a tribe that was always on the forefront of war.

They were picked for that.

There's a whole community operating like that.

And then the church's warfare is personal in that spirits are persons without flesh and blood

or body, sorry.

Spirits are persons.

Spirits are personal beings, and spirits do attack persons.

And so it's not either or.

It's both.

And finally, the church has to understand that personal holiness is required to win in the battlefield of the mind.

The reason Jesus had the kind of authority he had, and this goes back to Mira's question,

why is it that we can't conclude all that is happening faster?

Because one of the things Jesus said is that the Prince of Darkness is coming, but he has nothing in me.

Why?

Because he was fully submitted to Christ.

The greater your submission to Christ, the greater things around you submit to you.

Remember this.

The greater your submission to Christ, the greater things around you submit to you.

There was no question of any demon saying no to Jesus, because a man who is completely yielded to God,

will always exert complete authority over everything else.

Any questions on any of these five points?

We have to think like this, guys, and we'll repeat it and repeat it and repeat it.

Most of the things that we have learned in this church has been through repetition.

Go ahead.

The last one.

Yeah, so when Jesus went to meet the centurion, the centurion said, Jesus, you are someone under authority.

If you say to this person, go, he'll go, because I know how it works, because I'm under authority and I exert authority.

The principle to be drawn out from the story is my exertion of authority is directly proportional to my submission to authority.

My exertion of authority is directly proportional to my submission to authority.

To the extent that I'm submitted to the authority above me, to that extent, I will exert authority over the people below me.

And so the same principle applies in the spiritual realm.

So as I'm submitted to the Holy Spirit, who is the most dangerous spirit in the universe,

as I submit to the Holy Spirit, so I'm able to exert authority over the spiritual realm.

So it's not that authority hasn't been given to us, because Jesus said, I've given you authority.

It is a question of whether we submit to the authority structures that God has ordained.

And to that extent, victory is tremendous.

Any other questions?

Yep.

We have to learn as a community to do things.

Yeah, learning as a community to embrace spiritual warfare is to understand things like this

and then learn how to put it into practice in our individual lives.

And then in Richmond, what does it look like?

What if it wasn't a few select individuals, because now all 100 or 110 that I hear have the ability to operate like that?

So it's learning and applying, learning and applying in small bits and increase.

Because we're dealing with an invisible being that has quite a lot of power, more power than you and I.

The only reason we are able to thrive against this being is because we have someone in us who is the definition of power.

And power would not exist if he did not exist.

So it's a question of learning. And how do you learn this as a community?

You only learn it by going and fighting with a bear, then the lion, then this and that, and slowly.

And we go, let's see if we can apply this and try this out.

This is almost never done as an individual.

I'm not saying it's never done, it's almost never done.

Any other questions?

Okay, so let's see some patterns.

First pattern, and we're just borrowing patterns by looking at the story of the Bible from the beginning.

And we'll go until maybe Deuteronomy.

First act of warfare, the first act of warfare.

Do you know what it was after the fall?

What was the first act of warfare?

Pardon?

Sen?

Do you know what the first act of warfare was?

And this is important because it gives us a glimpse into warfare that we as a church and I as a pastor don't fully understand.

That is, the first act of warfare was the setting up of warrior angels outside the Garden of Eden.

Angels with fiery sword, moving in every direction so that Eden can never be accessed again because of man's rebellion.

It talks about warring angels, it doesn't talk about some sweet little thing with a Cupid's arrow.

It was fierce, yeah?

And so the first act of warfare is God setting up warrior angels.

We're just looking at patterns that we can expect as we begin to apply these principles and engage Richmond this way.

Is God setting up warrior angels?

It is impossible to engage to any degree in actual spiritual warfare to take life and land without recognizing,

not necessarily seeing, but without recognizing the active role of angels.

Here's the thing, guys.

Most other religions, and I'm not naming them, but most other religions have a good grasp of this.

They know how to deploy angels and they know how to connect with them, they know how to work with them.

We don't need to do that because we are not told to communicate with angels, we are only told to communicate with God.

We've got to stop being at a disadvantage because of our ignorance.

Ignorance is only bliss to the enemy.

And so that's the first bit.

Next.

What's a final victory?

If that's the first act of warfare, what's the final victory?

The final victory is seen in Revelation 19 and 20, and that is when the serpent's head is crushed.

This is why, if you've seen any battles between a mongoose and a serpent, you will find that the mongoose always goes for the serpent's head.

It never goes for the tail, never goes for the body.

It's not interested, it goes after the head.

Because if you can crush the head, it can write all at once, it's pointless.

And so we have to be aware of the final victory.

Why does Satan rage?

Satan rages because he knows what is going to happen.

And what does he want to hide?

He wants to hide from believers that this is going to happen.

These are not things taught in Bible college, man.

Because everything there will be sterilized, sanitized, theologized.

So the final victory will come through the head-crushing conflict.

Next one.

Whenever you start something like this, these are patterns.

Whenever you start something like this, there's always an escalation of evil.

Jesus' birth, or Jesus' arrival onto the earth, was not a peaceful arrival.

Instead, it was a violent escalation of the warfare between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

Whenever something like this happens, in any situation where you begin to start this, know that there's a violent escalation,

sometimes against the locality, sometimes against the people that try to go down this road.

And how do you deal with violent escalations?

You go to Luke 10, you go to scriptures.

All battles are fought with the Word, because Jesus fought it with the Word, too.

You understand that you do have authority over all the power of the enemy,

and no harm by any means, no hurt by any means should come to you as you trample over Serpents and scorpions.

But violent escalation is not a sign of a lessening of authority.

It is a sign that you have just prodded the hornet's nest.

It doesn't have to happen, but we're just looking at patterns that often happen.

Next one.

God provides signs to encourage you.

Signs to encourage you.

I will see signs that will encourage our advancement into Richmond.

You will see it if you're looking for it.

Next one.

I was going to say this after worship.

Delivered to deliver.

God wants a people that can muster a ragtag but well-trained army

to go and fight five kings and set Lot free.

He always uses a church or a person.

A deliverer is always chosen to lead the charge, to defeat the enemy, to plunder their possessions.

And if that deliverer is this church, then so be it.

And may other churches in Richmond join.

It's a net.

A small net catches few fish.

Larger nets catch more fish.

It's a net.

It must be spread.

Any questions before we go on?

Maybe do three or four points and stop.

Any questions?

Okay.

Think of this then.

Do you believe that the gods of Egypt were real?

They had all kinds of gods.

There's the sun god Ra.

There's the Ammon, which was the ram.

There was Isis, which is the cow.

There's the Nile, which is the river.

There's Hecate, which is the god of fertility.

Are these real gods or are they not?

Are they real gods?

How do you scripturally, what would you say about these gods?

Paul said they're not really gods.

He says this in 1 Corinthians.

He talks about, in 2 Corinthians, he talks about it.

And he says these are not really gods, but these are demons.

He says that.

They are no gods.

There's only one god and he is Christ.

These are not really gods, but these are demons that people worship as gods.

Okay.

So here's the question again.

Did Egypt have gods?

No, in one sense, and yet, on the other hand, there were powers that were being worshiped.

Pharaoh was one of the gods.

He was worshiped.

Okay.

Now we go to the, you've heard this before, but it's just to bring home a point.

What were the plagues about?

The plagues were about the dethroning of Egyptian gods.

Ra, the sun, was blotted out of the sky.

Pharaoh was a divine god and his son was killed.

Hecate was the god of fertility.

It went out of control.

Amon and Moab and Amon and Isis and gods that controlled cattle all died.

The Nile, which was like the Ganges in India, suddenly turned bloody red.

Things began to putrefy.

What happened with the plagues was a cosmic battle between Yahweh and the gods of Egypt.

So here's another question.

What do you think present day gods other than Christ are?

And therefore, do you believe that there is a cosmic conflict between Yahweh today

and the gods of other nations?

And therefore, do you need a Moses to step up?

And what if that Moses is not a person but a people?

Or the whole Exodus story is Old Testament and those things no longer exist?

But then why do we have problems like Diana of Artemis in the Book of Acts?

Why does Jesus talk about Satan's throne is here in Pergamum?

So either we are in the same situation as before, only it's packaged differently.

All those stories are of the past and they no longer belong in today's life.

Can't be, can't be both.

It's one or the other.

The names change, so you may not have the produced history but its veux happened in time.

One of the things...

for this reason, another person I used to refer to is Thomas Lang.

Are they still existing?

The names change, so you may not have reference to the King of Tyre and to the Prince of Persia in Daniel.

See, it's we who are struggling with the New Testament-Old Testament divide.

For someone living in the times when this was preached, they knew the story.

They knew how it worked. But in our westernized minds, it's like a divide.

When actually Jesus does refer to, in the Book of Acts, it's a regional power that we are talking about when he says,

look at Artemis, isn't she known for her fame throughout all of Turkey?

Hasn't she held sway over this land?

And these guys come to destroy the reputation of a regional power?

So the names change. Guys, remember something with evil.

Evil has existed since before the earth existed, because Satan was there right at the beginning.

Evil only knows how to dress up differently in different cultures, in different aeons, in different times.

It's the same.

The same things that the Canaanites dealt with is what we deal with now.

The same idols take on grotesque form.

The reason Sodom was destroyed was partly because of their sexual sin, and partly because they were lazy, they were rich, they were without compassion.

They treated each other cruelly when you read the rest of scriptures.

It's the same.

What am I trying to drive home here?

That if the gods of Egypt had to be dealt with before Israel could even exit the land,

why is it that we think that other gods that exist now will give a free pass to anybody who wants to exit,

except through spiritual conflict, where Yahweh takes on the gods of the land?

How does Yahweh take on the gods of the land, except through a display of it through his people?

There must be a distinction.

How do you know where to go to if there is no dividing line?

At one point you cross into Syria and you know it, or into White Rock and you know it.

There is a dividing line.

Goshen was the dividing line.

They saw in Goshen what they did not see in Egypt, and they knew these people and their god was different.

And so they ran for refuge to the god of Israel.

Please don't embrace this.

Please understand this.

This is what we are against.

It is no...

Distributing tracts does not get anyone out of the kingdom of darkness.

Any questions before... I'll end now.

Any questions?

Here's the thing, guys, that really troubles me.

People that have allegiance to other gods have no problem believing that their gods fight for them.

I've been to these places.

Every known religion, every part of the world have gone and seen it.

They believe that their gods will fight for them.

Why is it that we don't see it that way?

We come out of cultures that God rescued us out of, but now we begin to behave like rational creatures.

So what are you saying, Jacob?

Behave like irrational creatures?

No, behave like spiritual creatures.

We'll do the rest another time.

This is heavy enough.

One of the things that Israel does, and we'll end with that.

One of the things Israel does in Exodus 15 is Moses...

First Miriam goes and she grabs a tambourine.

One of the things I pray that we organize in this church is can we get a few more tambourines for...

like small tambourines that aren't too loud, yeah?

I watched a little video on Instagram or something where the drummer is playing and he sees a lady walking in with a tambourine.

And he says, lady in the second aisle coming with a tambourine, stop immediately, stop immediately.

Because if a tambourine is not played well, it can throw the entire thing off.

But I'd love to get little kids tambourines, small ones, yeah?

And if they get a little noisy, let them.

The drummer will manage and Tuni will manage.

One of the things that happens is Miriam grabs a tambourine and then they begin to sing Moses' song.

And Moses' song was a song of victory.

And the main refrain was very simple.

He has thrown the horse and the rider into the sea.

He has thrown the horse and the rider into the sea.

Come on guys, he has thrown the horse and the rider into the sea.

And they keep singing it.

And all of Israel, you're talking about 600,000 people suddenly bursting into, he has thrown the horse and the rider into the sea.

The shout of the king was in their midst.

They had just seen an amazing miracle.

You know what an amazing miracle is for you?

When someone who is caught in darkness and is bound for eternal death, eternal hell,

never seeing the light or the face of their God in darkness for eons and eons is set free.

He has thrown the horse and the rider into the sea.

And from it emerges a Jacob and from it emerges a Mirah.

From it emerges a Nellie.

And these people now begin to grab another tambourine and they start singing.

We see victories every day.

We are not waiting for some strange miracle.

We've had exoduses happening every day by thousands across the earth.

The kingdom is on plan.

But greater authority can be exerted.

We get an opportunity to try it out in real land, real time, real people.

So when we talk about praise, praise is part of a military celebration.

It's an essential part of what we do.

Sometimes I think to myself jumping around here is easy.

Most churches jump around now ever since Brandon Lake wrote praise.

But till then there was no jumping.

Brandon Lake taught us how to jump.

But if for a moment you remove that aspect of just the jumping and you go into praise,

you must understand that praise is a military weapon.

Israel celebrates the divine warrior's victory in the Exodus, rejoicing in God's deliverance.

Israel praises him as a man of war who used the waters of judgment to crush his enemy.

He's a man of war.

You see how he describes himself in Isaiah 57.

The armor of God has been derived from what he wears.

He says, and then I wore a breastplate of righteousness.

I had the sword in my hand.

There was nobody else who could save Israel.

I stepped up.

I wrapped myself in a cloak of zeal and I went into battle.

Isaiah 57.

That's who he is, man.

He is the divine warrior king.

And there is no advancement of the kingdom without an idea of spiritual warfare.

And it's something a community learns.

Sure, you can have Moses stand on a hill and have Aaron and Her hold his hands up while Joshua fights.

But that is a few people who may have an understanding of certain strategic moves,

but it is a community that fights.

Deuteronomy 20.

I mean the book of Deuteronomy is the book of war.

They should teach that at West Point.

Deuteronomy 20 talks about when you go to war, it lists the whole thing of this is what you do at war.

This is how you don't do it.

This is what you do with the bell.

This is what you do with the stones.

This is what you do with the walls.

This is what you do with the trees.

Just amazing how God dedicates an entire book to war.

Okay, let's ask them to come up.

The ones who abruptly entered the last session of worship.

Let's ask them to come up.

And I pray God that we understand this.

I don't want to rara you with any words.

Try to grasp all that we've talked about and see if you can approach this time of praise differently.

See if you can.

Let the Spirit of God help you imagine.

Let the Spirit of God stir you up.

Let him do the work because we are entering this phase for the next three or four weeks at least.

And our battle as you know is not against flesh and blood, but my God it's against spiritual powers.

There was a power called legion, right, in the New Testament.

Kept a man bound.

He would be roaming the graveyard.

He would take stones and he would begin to cut himself.

They tried chaining him, but he had superhuman strength and he would break those chains.

I've seen it in real life.

I've seen a man throw five people off.

It's real.

I've seen young boys who are five or six years old go into a catatonic state as soon as you speak to them,

unable to bring them out of it.

Seeing grotesque religions of peace operated some of the most horrendous demonic powers that you can imagine.

One, they knew that Christ had the power to cast them into the abyss.

And they even start reasoning saying, but it's not time yet.

It's that scared.

When a thief begins to argue rationally, you know that he's really scared.

One of the things we need to understand is that we are not in charge of demonic traffic.

We don't have to tell them where to go and what to do.

It's very simple.

They always go into arid, deserted places.

And so Jesus wasn't going to change that either.

Because at the end of the day, whether they go into the pigs or whether the pigs jump off and where do they go?

They go back into dry and arid places.

That's what Jesus said.

So we're not in charge of demonic traffic.

So when we get to a place where we have to cast out demons,

don't send them to the corner of the room or into the abyss or into Abbotsford.

That's not ours.

Yeah.

So because now Derek lives close to them, we can't send them there.

Yeah.

Because they'll be chased out of that place too.

So we are not in charge of demonic traffic.

Yeah.

They were begging.

All we need to take from that story is that they were begging not to be sent to the abyss.

And one of the things they do when they because demons are personal beings, they like occupying flesh.

And therefore, that's what they wanted.

They were cast out of one.

They wanted to.

But it doesn't work.

Jesus said and in Isaiah, it says that they go to arid dry places and we don't need to find out where that is because we're not in charge of traffic.

But and so we don't drive them into certain places either.

We just cast them out.

Jesus just cast them out and he didn't tell them where to go.

It's so wonderful that we have scripture, right?

Just stick to the pattern.

The problem with dealing with any of this stuff is so much as anecdotal and we cannot build real principles on anecdotes.

So we just refuse to do that.

Yeah.

So, Father, we just thank you.

Help us learn Holy Spirit.

Help us stick to the word.

Help us not to back off from things that need to be said.

Help us not to sanitize things here, sterilize things here because of fear.

Help us not to exaggerate.

Help us not to build things on anecdotes.

Help us so that we have the sword of the spirit and the shield of faith and the armor of salvation and the helmet of salvation and shoes that are ready to go.

And because we are delivered to now speak deliverance to others and our loins girded with truth, the belt of truth and the wonderful sword of the spirit.

We thank you for all this.

Jesus, train us, oh God, train us.

We end with Psalm 144.

That was a Psalm written by David before he went to face Goliath.

And he said, Oh God, train my fingers for battle and my hands for war.

I pray your protection upon this church, Father.

I pray your protection upon this church.

I thank you that you cause your angels to encamp around those that trust in you.

Thank you that your banner is unfurled over this church.

I bring all these, your children and the flock that you have appointed me to.

I bring them under your protection, Holy Spirit.

Lord, I know and I'm fully persuaded that what I place in your hands, you will guard more fiercely than anybody else because they are yours.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Thank you.