Overcoming Strongholds | Pastor Brandon Beals | Venture Church

Hi, and welcome to Venture Church Online. My name is

Kelsey and I'm our online campus pastor. We're so glad

that you're joining us. Drop a comment below of where

you're streaming from. We love to interact with you. We

hope that you enjoy today's service.

I'm the lead pastor of the church. If you're new,

I'd love the opportunity to meet you. I'll be hanging

out in the lobby after the service. Please come up

introduce yourself to me. I'd love to say hi to you.

I'd love the opportunity to shake your hand. As Pastor

Morgan mentioned, we have lots of chaotic construction going on

around this building, and we're doing this because we want

to invest in the next generation. It's expanding our kids ministry,

our youth ministry, our adult classrooms. Obviously there's a balcony

and our auditorium, and we are doing We started a

couple of weeks ago our final push to raise all

the rest of the money we need to finish God's House.

Our goal has.

Been to raise nine hundred thousand dollars want to pop

up the thermometer. As of today, pretty awesome. We're up

to one hundred and sixteen thousand dollars has been given

in just a couple of weeks, So thank you again

for your generosity. I got saved when I was in

high school and started going to a private Christian high

school in Seattle. Now, whenever our school didn't offer the

opportunity to do sports that you normally want to do

at a high school, we were allowed to participate in

sports at the high school in the district where we lived.

So I wrestled and played football at Bafel High School,

and many friends were doing sports at other schools too,

but specifically today I want to talk about wrestling. Wrestling

practice at Bafel High School was horrible. It was terrible.

I had friends that were wrestling at schools all over.

In fact, my best friend wrestled at Edmund's Woodway High School,

and oftentimes our wrestling room wasn't available till seven at night.

So I would go to my friend's wrestling practice at

Edmund's wood Way and then I would go to my

wrestling practice at seven. And his practice was easy. It

was in an air conditioned room. It was an hour

and fifteen minutes of light cardio. But my wrestling practice

was basically in a hot yoga studio, and it was

three hours long. I was thinking about it before the service.

Even practice would start right on time and our coach

would hit a buzzer and we were to skip rope

for fifteen minutes straight. So how we started practice and

then he would blow a horn, and every time he

blew a horn, we had to do a double. So,

if you ever wonder why I'm so good at jumping rope,

two years fifteen minutes a day of skipping rope, but

our practices were terrible. It was all about cardio and

then the drills. We would drill the same moves over

and over and over and over again.

Until we were board stiff of them.

We would ask our coaches why our practices were so

terrible and why we had to drill the same moves

over and over again, And this is how they always responded.

They said, we don't ever want you in a match

in a tournament, asking yourself, have I practiced enough? We

don't ever want you in a setting where you are

wondering what you're supposed to do next when your opponent

tries to perform a move. You have learned the counter

move so well, it's natural reflex. It's funny, it's mean.

We'll say it's only been thirty years since I was

in high school, but even right now, I remember every

wrestling move I knew in high school, and they were

so drilled inside of me that they're just natural reflexes.

I know how to take people down. I know how

to do throws, I know how to do reversals, I

know how to do crazy pins, all kinds of things

like that because it was drilled into me. Then, in

addition to that, the coach said, I never wanted you

to face an opponent and wonder am I in good

enough shape? You're never going to ask have I practiced enough?

We have had planned for the last six months to

begin a series today called break Free.

In the series, we are.

Going to focus on strongholds that people have in their

life that they need to break free of. I don't

think it is an accident, based upon what has been

going on in our world over the last ten days,

that God has us teaching a series that talks about

how we overcome evil in our life. What is the

response that we as Christians should have to the evil

that we encounter in our life.

You are going to have.

Strongholds, and I want you to understand this. Sometimes what

you're going through.

Is spiritual.

Now, I am all for counseling, I am all for therapy,

I am all for recovery programs, but sometimes what you

are experiencing, what is happening around you in the world,

that this takes a spiritual solution. So what is the stronghold.

A stronghold is something that anyone who's ever fought an

addiction understands. A stronghold is someone who's ever struggled with

pride or lust, struggles with habitual sin understands. A stronghold

is anyone who has been bound with anxiety or depress understands.

It can be a belief or a thought pattern that

imprisons people in their own fears and doubts. A stronghold

can manifest itself in negative thought patterns, unresolved trauma, or sin.

A stronghold, in its total strength can keep an individual

from experiencing God's fullness in their life. Church, I want

you to understand that recognizing these strongholds is the first

step to freedom. Today, I want us to look at

Ephesians chapter six, verse ten. For some of you that

have been at church before This is a familiar passage.

Starting mid October, we're going to begin a series through

the Book of Ephesians, so this is going to be

taught through a again. But sometimes being taught through the

same passage in a different way is important because repetition

is the key to retention. And this is the teaching

I want you to have woven into the fabric of

your life. I want you to understand these principles inside

and out, so that when the moment comes that you

need to access what God is teaching us here.

You don't have to.

Ask yourself have I practiced enough? But it becomes reflex

for you in your life. Sesians, chapter six, verse ten.

These are the words of Paul to the church in Ephesus.

He said, finally, be strong in the Lord and in

his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God,

so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

I want to ask you.

You want to buy your heads, close your eyes, repeat

this prayer after me. Everyone, say, Dear Jesus, speak to

my heart, change my life in Jesus' name.

Amen, allow me to get.

Very spiritual with you. This is what I see happening

in our world. You have to understand first off, your

nature as a follower of Jesus. You need to understand

your nature as a Christian. So as a Christian, you are,

by your nature, a fighter. You have the spirit of

Christ inside of you.

People ask me all the time, Peb.

Why is your social media handle fight Pastor? And I

always give them this cliche response.

I say, that's because I.

Serve the ultimate fighter and Jesus is the ultimate fighter.

Now, people that.

Don't have a lot of church background, it offends them

because they think Jesus is a pacifist.

And I always tell them.

Jesus fought death, hell, and the grave and live to

tell the world about it. Jesus is the ultimate fighter.

You have the spirit of Christ inside of you, which

means you have the spirit of a fighter inside of you.

So if you buy your nature are a fighter. All

you want to do is fight. And if you who

are not fighting who you are supposed to fight, you

will fight who you're not supposed to fight.

Because you can't help it.

When someone posts something online that irritates you. You're a fighter.

If you're not fighting who you're supposed to fight, you

think You're supposed to fight that keyboard warrior who lives

in his parents' basement at thirty years old. You know

that's true. You are supposed to be fighting the enemy

of your soul.

You're supposed to be fighting for the broken. You're supposed

to be fighting for the hurting.

You and I are supposed to be fighting for those

who cannot fight for themselves. You and I are created

to fight, and when we aren't fighting who were supposed

to be fighting, oftentimes we end up fighting each other.

While you and I have been fighting each other failing

to recognize who is our true enemy, there is a

massive spiritual battle going on. One of the things that

I'm super thankful I'm thankful for getting saved at a wild, crazy,

charismatic church. Oh there's many things I'm not thankful about it,

but one of the things that I'm thankful for is

from the moment I.

Got saved, I knew that there was a world.

That I could not see happening around me. That while

you and I are just going through our daily life,

there is a legion of demons prowling this earth, fighting

legion of angels on a regular basis. If we could

have our eye open, you would see that there is

a war in the heavenlies going on right now over

your soul, over your friends souls, over your kids souls.

There is a war in the heavenlyes over their lives.

You see, whether you or I like it or not.

Just as we celebrate there being a heaven, there is

a hell. Just as there is a Jesus who loves you,

there is an enemy of your soul who hates you.

Just as there is a savior who forgives your sin,

there is a deceiver whose soul aim is to keep.

You bound in it.

Just as there is a Jesus who wants you to

have a healthy marriage, there is an enemy that wants

to destroy your marriage. Just as there is a Jesus

who wants you to live a life of radical generosity

and contagious unity, there is an enemy who wants you

to be stingy and quarrelsome. Just as there is a

Jesus who wants to deliver you out of the mess

of your life, there is an enemy who wants to

lock you deeper into it. So Paul said, be strong

in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on

the full armor of God. So that you can stand

against the devil's schemes. If I only taught that verse,

there's two things you should learn.

Number one, we'll learn the goal.

The goal is that you and I as followers of Jesus,

that we can stand when.

The world is raging around us.

We stand that when all of hell comes against us,

we stand.

That is the goal.

That we would learn how to stand in a world

that opposes what we stand for. Then the second thing

we learned from this verse is we learn the devil

has schemes. If you didn't learn anything in the last

ten days, I hope you will stop denying that there

is a devil and there's a hell, and that he

has schemes. I don't want to just focus today on

the Charlie Kirks thing. That is terrible. What happened to

Charlie Kirk is evil, it's horrible, it's wrong. But I

want you to look at everything that's happened over the

last ten days that we know of, Like we also

know that there was an innocent girl riding the subway

and is brutally murdered on a subway.

Evil, wrong, horrible.

We know that while all this is going on, there

was another school shooting in Colorado. Now I feel so

bad for you parents, because we believe as parents that

when we release our kids to school, school should be

the one place where we don't have to worry about

our kids. It should be the one place that is safe.

But the devil has even robbed that. And I want

to make a statement right now, quote me, tweet this.

I don't care. The Bible is so clear on murder.

Murder is wrong, period, No but about it. People that

are trying to explain away, justify, blame it on mental illness,

blame it on hateful words that were said, trying to

justify someone taking the life of someone else is because

those people are influenced by evil. That's the only reason

why you'd believe that. The only reason that you would

ever believe murder, even a hint of justification, can happen,

is because you do not understand that there is a

war in the heavenlys and there is an evil presence

that is trying to get you to believe in accept evil.

And when you add it, yes, murder's wrong. But I

preached the sermon years ago when the George Floyd thing happened.

I said, don't be a buttthead. Stop saying butt this

is wrong. Black. If you say that you are being

influenced by evil, murder is murder, and it's wrong.

By the way, I'm not saying that you were evil

for saying that.

I'm just being honest and saying you are being influenced

by evil. So Paul told the church in ephesis, put

on the former of God so that you can take

your stand against the devil's schemes. Then he says verse twelve,

this is the big one Church, catch it. He says,

our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Church. If

you are a follower of Jesus, you're a fighter. You

can't help it. You just want to fight because the

nature and spirit of a fighter.

Resides inside of you.

When you find yourself fighting flesh and blood, you are

not fighting who you're supposed to fight. Because our struggle

is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,

against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world,

and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

We are not supposed to fight people.

We are supposed to step back, have perspective and know

Sometimes people are influenced by evil, and instead of fighting

the person, I fight the evil that influences them. The

amount of people over the last week that have called

me and said, man, I got all these friends. They're

posting this on social media. They're talking to me about this.

They're saying this, and I want to respond with this.

I say, you know, you should respond rah them. Stop

seeing what they say. Sometimes people that are influenced by

the enemy say things that you and I aren't gonna

agree with. But whenever you try to fight someone who's

influenced by the enemy, you are not fighting what is

actually influencing them.

Instead of trying.

To rebuke the person, rebuke the devourer who's trying to

destroy their lives. I gotta be honest. I lead a

conservative church. You can't have my personality and not kick

people off. So the church gets.

Bad reviews all the time.

And every time the church gets a bad review, there's

some loving, sweet person in the church wants to notify

me that there was a bad review. First off, thanks

for pointing out that someone doesn't like me. And I

always respond that whatever I mean, this is the world

that we live in now. I stand for the things

of Jesus. I stand for righteousness. I believe God's word

is the inherentive word of God, which means I am

the most countercultural person that lives, which means in a

culture that does not agree with my worldview, they're gonna

get mad at me when I don't compromise it. So

somebody was trolling me on Twitter, and I did what

any good Christian would do, typed out a response to him,

and then I deleted the response and blocked him. Therefore,

Verse thirteen put on the fularmer of God, so that

when the day of evil comes, you may be able

to stand your ground and after everything you have done

to stand.

Remember that's the goal.

I mean. Paul didn't say if the day of evil comes,

He said, when it comes, you and I cannot live

in some euphoric Disneyland dream that thinks everything is gonna

be awesome all the time. Evil will come, But your

response to evil is decided by how you practice when

the day of evil comes. You can't throw your hands

up and say do I know the Bible enough? You

can't say have I prayed enough? Man?

I really wish I'd gone to church more.

When the day of evil comes, it's going to come

the goal is that you can stand. And then Paul says,

and then after everything, you and I we're still standing.

So you don't need to fear any of this evil.

That's the coolest thing about this You don't need to

be afraid of it.

You don't need to be.

You only need to be aware of it and on

your guard with it, and having prepared everything, take your stand.

The coolest thing about the Bible when you study it,

you will find out really quickly that Jesus, in his

word has already taught us how we are to respond

when evil comes. And he's also told us how we

practice for the day when evil comes. And that is

what Paul is trying to help the church in Ephesis with.

So he's using an analogy and he talks about putting

on the full armor of God. Now this was two

thousand years ago. This was in Ephesus, which at that

time was in the region of Asia Minor, which was

under Roman rule. And when you are living in a

city or region under Roman rule, you know what you're

used to seeing Roman soldiers everywhere. Their armor alone struck

fear into the minds of people. Their armor was meant

to be a deterrent against anti Roman behavior. So Paul

uses what everyone understood. He uses this analogy about putting

on the full armor of God. Now again in twenty

twenty five, we might use a different metaphor, but I

want to use Paul's metaphor. And I have some liturgy.

What does the word liturgy mean? A lot of our

teenagers are here. What does it mean? It means something

that you do continue continuously, over and over and over again.

So every day I get up, I pray two things.

I pray the psalm that says test search my heart,

O God, test and know my anxious thoughts, and see

if there's any wickedness in me, and if there is,

lead me in the way of everlasting. That is me

praying Lord, I need you to examine me. I've probably

done a bunch of dumb things in the last twenty

four hours that I need to repent of. That I'm

not even aware that I need to repent of. So

it's just me saying Jesus, forgive me for all my

sins because I don't know what today holds. Because when

I stand before you, I don't want to ask. Have

I trained enough? So make sure that my heart is right,

and I'm ready to meet you at any moment. Second

thing I pray is I put on the full armor

of God because I know the devil has schemes, and

when the devil, the day of evil comes, I don't

want to ask did I remember to pray that today?

Did I read my Bible enough this week? When the

day of evil comes? I wanted to be reflex and

how I respond, because it is so drilled into my heart,

how I am supposed to respond when someone trolls me

on Twitter, when someone protests me, when someone goes at me.

I want to know how I'm supposed to respond. So

Paul describes putting on the full armor of God. That's

what I want to teach you today.

Are you guys still with me?

Are you mad at me? You probably already heard me

say I wouldn't care if you were Verse fourteen. It's

the stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled

around your waist. What does this mean? So every day

I put on the belt of truth. And that is

because all the enemy does is lie. All the enemy

does is use other people to lie to me about me.

They question my motives, They say, you only care that

you lead a megachurch. Your church, it's all about money.

Every time I come to your church. The only thing

you're ever talking about is money. You know.

I hear stuff like that all the time.

That the troll on Twitter said, I went to one

of your worship nights. It was a cultish prayer of

healing night. I don't believe the lies that come from

someone influenced by evil man. I believe what Jesus says

about me. You know what Jesus says about me. He

thinks I'm awesome. Teenagers, you go back to high school,

you're gonna have people. They're gonna talk smack about you.

They're gonna gossip about you. Just remember he thinks you're awesome.

Believe what he says. You know what he says.

He says, I am more than a conqueror. He says,

I am forgiven. He says, I'm loved. He says, if

I have faith, it's small as a mustard seed. I

could say to this mountain, move from here to there,

and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for me.

Put on the belt of truth. Don't believe the lies

of the evil one. Believe what Jesus says about you.

The only way you'll know what he says about you,

if you're reading what he says about you, if you're

memorizing what he says about you. So then let's go

on and of verse fourteen, it says, stand firm with

the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the

breastplate of righteousness in place. So then you put on

the breastplate of righteousness. What is a breastplate? Guard guards

your heart? Did you know that one of the number

one things the enemy is trying to destroy in our

world today is your heart. He's trying to draw your

affections from the direction they should go into the wrong direction.

Husbands and wives, you know what the enemy is going.

To try to do.

Your affection should be towards your spouse. He's going to

try to draw your affections in another place. Your affection

should be towards him. But the enemy is going to

try to destroy your heart because he knows that our

hearts are the key to our relationships with Jesus. At

the end of the service, some of you that don't

know Jesus, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to give

your heart to Jesus.

But just as Jesus.

Wants your heart.

There is an enemy that wants to keep your heart

from Jesus.

So you put on the breathtplate of righteousness to guard

your heart, so that your affections will beat towards Jesus.

Be careful who you give your heart to.

Verse fifteen. He then says, and with your feet fitted

firmly with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of Peace.

Then talks about our feet, talks about our fat foundation.

He says, having your feet fitted firmly.

With the Gospel of Peace.

One of the things that I hated about wrestling practice.

I mean, we're varsity wrestlers, we are state wrestlers.

We outstate champs.

In our wrestling room, he would spend fifteen minutes of

every practice working on our stances. We learned this when

we were eight. So why did he have us work

on this? Because he knew you can know everything else,

but if you don't have your foundation right, you're gonna

lose that. Everything boils down to your foundation. Mine in

your foundation is set on the Gospel of Peace. It

is a piece that passes all understanding. What does that mean?

It's gonna be a piece that doesn't make sense. The

world is falling and utter chaos around you. You have peace.

We had all of our life and all of our volunteers.

We pray before every service, every single week, and that

was what we prayed. We prayed that you'd come here

today in this place would be peaceful, it'd be like

peace in the midst of the storm, that this place

would be a refuge. By the ways, that's the way

your homes should be for your kids. Your home should

be a place of peace. Your home should be a refuge.

How do you make this place a place of peace?

God's word firmly in your heart, God's word in your mind.

God's word provides comfort. God's word provides peace in the

midst of the storm. No matter what we're dealing with,

what we're going through, God's word gives us peace.

I don't think it is an accident.

That on the day that Charlie Kirk was murdered, he

posted on his Twitter about God being his refuge. I

don't think that's an accident. That is someone that when

the day of evil came, didn't have to pause and

think did I practice enough? Man? I really wish I

had been going to church for the last six months.

Don't let that be you.

Let's keep moving on. He's still with me. Verse sixteen.

In addition to all of this, take up the shield

of faith. So again, if you've ever seen images of

wars that involve Roman soldiers, you see them with their

Roman shields, and you know that the enemy fires darts

at them, or tarts arrows. It's been a long, long week,

and whenever a battle begins, the archers light their arrows

on fire and they rain down fire on the enemy.

We've all seen those images by now, and you know

that what they do is the soldiers will hold up

their shields, and if they hold their shield in the

right place, the arrows don't penetrate the shield and they're

able to withstand the onslaught. So that is the imagery

that Paul is using. But then he explains who's shooting

the arrows. He says, take up the shield of faith,

with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of

the evil one. You know, he's constantly shooting arrows at you,

constantly me, he's trying to burn your life to the ground.

He wants to burn your marriage to the ground. He

wants to burn your kids to the ground. Take up

the shield of faith, and there's a promise. If you

take up the shield of faith, you extinguish these arrows

that come from the enemy. So every day I take

up the shield of faith, and I.

Call this the I wills.

I speak in faith what I will do, and like,

if you ever see me do this, I am like

marching around pointing at the ground. Sometimes I start shouting

and I'm saying, ah, if.

I have faith as small as a mustards seat.

I say things like, we will raise nine hundred thousand

dollars by the end of the year. I refuse to

be consumed with doubt and fear over nine hundred thousand dollars.

We will do this, just like I refuse to live

in fear. Instead, you you say that I wills. Then finally,

verse seventeen, take up the helmet of salvation. What is

a helmet guard guards your head? What's in your head?

Your brain? In other words, the helmet of salvation guards

your mind. There are some of you you come to

church every single week and you still wonder if you're saved.

Put on the helmet of salvation that will guard your mind.

There is a battle in the world today for your mind.

The devil does not want you thinking with a clear mind,

so he shouts lies at you. He tries to get

you to do something that will not make you think right.

That's why he wants you to smoke weed, because in

the end he knows you won't be able to think right.

You don't have the full faculty of.

Your mind when you're high. And if that doesn't work,

he tries narcotics. If that doesn't work, he wants you

to think it's okay to get drunk. Now, I'm not

somebody who preaches against alcohol. I don't have an issue

if you drink in moderation, but I have an issue

if you get drunk, because when people get drunk, they

do things that are stupid. You know how many times

people have come to my office and the appointment starts

with I.

Drank too much.

Because you don't have you're not in your right mind,

because the.

Devil wants your mind.

Paul Sitt in Romans, he said, don't conform to the

pattern of this world. The world thinks differently than you.

They think people on Facebook they think differently than you.

People on Instagram, Twitter, they think differently than you. Your neighbors.

They think differently than you. Why do you care? Don't

conform to the pattern of this world, but instead be

transformed by the renewing of your mind. I want my

mind clear and sharp and on the things of God.

Now, I just want to know God's word.

I want God's word in my heart. I do this

thing called Pastor's Huddle, where I mentor a group of

guys for a year. And the guys in Pastor's Huddle

will tell you that Brandon just constantly quotes scripture.

He can't tell you what the reference is.

I don't memorize that, but he's quoting scripture left and right.

Why do I do that? Because that's what my mind

dwells on. I want to be transformed by the renewing

of my mind because I know the enemy is trying

to He's a battle for my eyes, a battle for

what my mouth says, a battle for what my ears here.

I want to watch what I see. I want to

be careful what I listen to. I want to be

careful what I think. Have you noticed everything so far

is all about protecting yourself in battle. He hasn't given

us the fun stuff yet, Like, how do we fight

I know how to protect myself. How do I fight?

Then he ends this whole discourse by explaining what our

weapons are. He says, put on the helmet of salvation.

And then the sword of the Spirit, which is the

Word of God. So what is your sword? So you

got a picture you carry a sword as the follower

of Jesus is some of you only carry a wimpy, pansy,

flimsy sword because your sword comes from God's word. When

you recite God's word, you got to picture a sword

cutting through the air. Principalities fall, strongholds fall, evil flees

when the word of God is proclaimed. I always tell

our staff that it is not our persuasive words as

communicators that change or impact anyone's life. What changes people's

lives is when we teach the word of God. Because

God's word, when it penetrates your heart, it transforms you

from the inside out.

It changes you.

You take up the sword or to the spirit, which

is the word. Demons flee at the word, Devils run

at the word of God. And then Paul said, and

the last thing you need to do pray. Pray in

the spirit. And he says, but also I want you

to pray for me, Pray that I'll preach God's word

with boldness, Pray that I will be fearless.

In fact, he talks about being fearless twice.

Be fearless when the day of evil comes. You don't

want to ask have I practiced enough? I don't know

if I know how to deal with this.

I don't know if I know the right moves, how.

To counter this move. You don't want to go into

any battle, any fight. Your practice isn't good enough. All

week long, people texting me, minister, friends texting me. In fact,

I got multiple texts yesterday saying, Brandon, are you gonna

go there on Sunday? Are you gonna go there? Like?

Am I gonna talk about what happened to Charlie Kirk

and call sin and evil? Sin and evil? Am I

gonna talk about what happened to the Ukrainian gal on

the subway? Am I gonna talk about the school?

And I was like, of course?

And they said, well what if people get mad? I

don't really care, Like, I just want to preach God's word,

in the truth of God's word, with courage, boldness and fearlessly.

And in the end, this is God's church. This is

God's house. And I'm gonna tell you this. If I've

said things that have bothered you, is it possible that's

the enemy shouting at you. All I've really done is

exegete an entire passage of scripture.

How many of you grew up in.

The eighties, anybody in the eighties? People? All right, good

gen xers. In the eighties. There's a cartoon called Bugs Bunny.

He grew up in the eighties. You remember Bugs Bunny.

But you remember those Bugs Bunny cartoons because whenever Bugs

Bunny had a choice to make, he had a decision,

and the decision was controversial, he'd have a little evil

Bugs Bunny demon that would pop up on his left shoulder,

and that demon would try to convince him to do

everything wrong, and he would shout at him, just do it,

no one will care, who cares, go for it. And

then he would have on his right shoulder a little

angelic bugs Money pop up, talking like a metrosexual. It's

true he did, saying no, you shouldn't do that. It's wrong. Well,

the enemy's shouting and the good guy is whispering. So

Bugs Bunny usually did what was wrong. You realize that

the enemy shouts at you, He shouts at you, but the.

Holy Spirit whispers to you.

When that day comes, the decision comes, the day of

evil comes. You just want to, out of reflex, boot

the demon like I rebuke you. In Jesus' name, I

want to ask everyone to buy your heads, close your eyes.

You have weapons, you have armor, the guarantee you victory

no matter what you face. I do want to tell

you that only a fool would go into battle without

their armor on. And I don't think it's very wise

to go into battle not knowing what your weapons are.

But today, the number one thing I care about is

are you right with Jesus? When things like what are

going on in our world happen and it makes this

pause and we wonder, We think about eternity, we think

about what could happen?

Are you right with Jesus? There are some of you.

You were here today and you never gone to church before,

You've never asked Jesus to be your lord and savior.

Well, today's your day.

I'm going to count to three, and when I say three,

I want you to raise your hand. But there are

some of you. You've gone to church, you've prayed, prayers.

But honestly, you know you're far from God. But if

you want to say today, I want to leave this

place knowing I am right with Jesus. When I say three,

I want you to raise your hand. Here I go one, two, three,

raise your hand. Now come on, raise it up. Hands

up everywhere else?

Can?

I ask everybody to stand up on your feet. Those

of you that raise your hands, we have a card

for you. It says I said yes to Jesus. Click

the QR code takes you to our website and it

walks through next steps for you and what we suggest

you do next. But the very first thing you need

to do is to ask Jesus to forgive you and

invite him into your life and adventure. We're family, so

we do this together. So I want to ask everyone

here to buy your heads, close your eyes, and I

want to invite you to repeat this prayer after me.

But for those of you that raise your hands, know

that you leave this place no, your sins are forgiven

and you are right with Jesus. So I when everyone

to repeat after me, Everyone say, dear Jesus, I stand

before you today. I admit I've messed up. I've made mistakes.

But today I ask you to forgive me. I invite

you to come into my life and to change me.

I choose from this day forward to serve you with

my life. Thank you for forgiving me and for saving me.

In Jesus' name.

Amen, Hey, can we thank Pastor Brandon for that message

this morning? Before you leave here today, I want to

just give you a couple words of instruction. Remind yourself

to go back to our next steps that you can

find on the app for our twenty one days of

pray and fasting. Each day there's a direction of prayer

for you that you can go to and have you

lead as we as a church go through that together.

If you're interested in taking a tour through the building,

you can go to the info table. Somebody will meet

you there. But we're so thankful to have you here

at Venture Church this morning. God bless you. We'll see

you next week.

Thank you again for joining us. If you enjoy today's service,

go ahead and subscribe to our channel so you can

see future messages. If you'd like to learn more about

Venture Church, you can pick your linkos in our bio.

We hope to see you again.