Authority of a Believer

Well, hello everybody and welcome to I think week number seven in our series titled me as God sees me.

We’ve been talking for weeks now, talking about what, what God says about us.

And I’ve been trying to encourage us to build our identity in ourselves based on what God says about us and how God thinks of us and what God designed and planned and purposed for us to be each as individuals, as the body of Christ and really as all humanity and that we were created in his image.

We studied story after story and scripture after scripture of descriptions and really from the beginning, from Genesis all the way to revelation, there are examples of God’s thoughts towards you, God’s plans for us specifically.

And then when Jesus comes along in the new covenant, he starts giving new ways for us to live and new ways for us to think and giving us a way that he designed us to live.

And then he dies, goes to heaven, and then his disciples like Paul and Peter and John write different letters and write notes and write comments there, the teachings to say, this is the way God designed us.

This is the way that God created us.

So we spend our life and we spend our energy trying to see ourselves the way God sees us believing what God says.

So it all sounds nice and good.

We got a great plan.

The problem is the ourselves, our own selfish behavior, our own flesh.

The problem is the world around us and the culture that we live in.

Most of that’s not helping us to live the way God sees us.

And finally, the devil himself, just the demonic forces, the enemy.

Bible says that Satan comes to steal, kill and to destroy.

Now, luckily, the book of James says that we can resist the devil and then he must flee.

Luckily, the Bible says that he gave us an armor that we can put on to stand against the attacks, the wiles of the devil.

I think the King James says that we can we can win, that we can walk by faith, that we can live this life.

But it means that there’s a struggle.

And so we’ve spent the most of the last six weeks talking about, come on, let’s see what God says.

Let’s believe what God says.

Let’s acknowledge what God says.

Let’s get it in our hearts.

And I feel like right now we’re in this transition of saying, OK, I see what the word says.

And so, by the way, if you’ve missed it online or here in the room, if you’ve missed any of these weeks, I feel like this train’s kind of going 100 miles an hour.

So you might want to go back and watch a couple of those videos and catch some of these scriptures.

Or, you know, all of our notes are always online as well.

So you can read the scriptures and read the notes that I teach from right from here.

So you can look back at some of those and see kind of, OK, what has gotten us to here?

But if we believe these scriptures and we acknowledge that, OK, God, well, it’s how do we get them in us?

How do we really get it in us and start believing it?

And then this transition ultimately is to now how do we walk it out?

How do we walk in the authority of the believer?

How do we walk as children of the Most High God who have been adopted and loved?

How do we walk with the confidence and the hope and the trust in God?

How do we walk by faith?

It’s easy to say it.

How do we walk that out?

It’s easy to trust in the Lord that he’s got, you know, he’s leading us and his word is a lamp to our feet and his word is a light for our path.

But how do we walk that out?

How do we really live that out?

So that’s what we want to spend probably up until Father’s Day talking about how to walk it out.

Well, today, to bring the word and help us to walk it out, how to live and walk in the authority of the believer.

Is one way of saying it is our own Pastor Ray Frederick.

So will you give Pastor Ray a big hand clap?

Come on, Pastor Ray, bring the word.

Bring the word.

Amen.

Thank you, Pastor Frank.

Hey, it’s good to see all of you.

I am excited to be here today.

Today, you’re going to learn a little bit about me because if you don’t know this, I am a thinker.

And so and I am a thinker about scripture.

And so for me, it’s all about getting in and trying to figure out, oh, wait a minute, how does this work and why does it work this way?

So I’ve got good news.

Do you have you all have a notepad and pen?

Everybody got something?

OK, well, I’ve done some of your thinking for you.

And so I’m going to I’m going to share some of those thoughts today.

If you’ll open your Bibles, let’s go to the book of Luke chapter four.

That’s where we’re going to begin.

And as I said, I’ve got a lot of thoughts that I’m going to be sharing.

In fact, I’m going to be sharing a lot of thoughts before I get to the text.

But anyway, we’re going to talk about the authority of the believer.

Did you know you have authority?

Well, here’s it.

Did you know that you’re only operating in part of the authority that you have?

We’re so excited about that one.

So what I’m hoping to do, every single one of us, myself included, we walk to a certain degree in the power of God, in the authority of God.

But there’s some out there that we haven’t experienced.

There’s some out there that we don’t know about.

And so my goal today, at whatever level you are, that you will get something that you can use that will take you to the next step or the next level in your use of God’s authority.

So the title is the authority of the believer.

Authority is defined this way.

It’s a designated right to rule combined with the power to act.

It’s not good enough just to have authority.

You have to have the power to back up the authority that you have.

How many of you from Great Britain?

I know my friend Barry, I think is here.

There he is.

OK.

In Great Britain, they have a king.

Remember, his name is Charles.

But the problem is Charles has authority, but he doesn’t have the power to rule.

He doesn’t make the laws.

He doesn’t enforce the laws that has been delegated to Parliament.

So he has authority, but no power to do much with it.

In the kingdom of God, we have to have both.

We have to have the authority and we have to have the power to back it up, if you will.

Now, doctor, doctor, I called him Dr. Frank.

Well, there you go.

I don’t know if that was a prophecy or, you know, something we apparently not.

The boss has said, no, no, that’s not if the wife says no, it is.

The answer is no, we don’t go anywhere.

And all the men said, amen.

Amen.

We’ve been talking about and we’ve been stressing the importance of believing who God says we are.

It is foundational to the discussion that we want to have today.

Do you remember Isaiah 53 one?

Well, I do, but you might not.

But Isaiah 53 one says this.

Who has believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

Isaiah 53 one when Scripture, particularly in the book of Isaiah, when he talks about the arm of the Lord, he’s talking about God’s strength.

And what he’s telling us here is that if you have believe God’s report, the strength of God is going to be shown to you.

If you believe God’s report, God’s power is going to follow up with that.

There’s that connection between what we believe and seeing the power of God in action.

It’s important to believe and to see ourselves as God says it, because it provides the strength and confidence to act.

That’s one of the main things that’s really important to know about, you know, what God says about you.

If you believe, because God says great things about you.

If you believe what God says about you, it will give you confidence and that will give you strength to act on the authority that God has given you.

Authority is meaningless without the strength and without the confidence to act.

Here’s a couple of questions for you.

Why do people remain silent when they have the authority to speak?

You ever been in a situation like that and something comes up and the person who has the authority is in the room, but they don’t say a word.

How about this one?

Why do people hesitate in crisis when they have the authority to act?

Boy, you can watch it every day on television right now in our colleges all across the country.

We have presidents who have authority and actually they have power to back it up, but they are tentative and they’re not, they don’t want to make a decision.

Listen, if there’s any leaders in the room, we have to make decisions.

If you have the authority and you have the power, then we have to act.

Now, I shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to say it anyway.

I think some of the presidents in our colleges, I think they’re educated beyond their ability to lead.

Leaders have to lead.

We have to take action.

So, acting on authority brings power to bear to correct problems.

Okay, if you found Luke chapter four yet, surely you have, but Luke chapter four, let’s pick it up with verse 18.

Now, what we’re going to find here is God’s purpose for authority is to bring freedom.

See, often we like having authority, but what is the authority for?

God’s authority is to bring freedom.

Let’s take a look at that.

Luke chapter four, verses 18 and 19.

We’re going to read it out of the English Standard Version, ESV.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

In scripture, it’s known as the year of Jubilee.

You can find that in Leviticus chapter 25.

So you can go look that up.

But the problem is this or the issue is this.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because.

Because he has given us the responsibility to set people free, God’s authority is first to benefit others, not our personal power or not our position.

How about this thought?

God anointing or God’s authority, God’s anointing on you with the Holy Spirit is because he cares for the people that you know.

Now, remember, we’re talking about when Jesus reads this, he said the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he’s anointed me to do all these things to set people free.

And so the same spirit has been anointed or has been on us to set the people we know free.

The spirit of the Lord upon me is not for me.

And I kind of get some of the residual of it.

But the spirit of the Lord is for me to do something to help you.

And the spirit of the Lord is upon you to help someone that I won’t meet.

I won’t see they run in your circles, but they don’t run in mine.

So God has infiltrated us everywhere we go.

And he’s given us the anointing of the Holy Spirit so we can make a difference in the lives of other people.

That’s what we are called to do.

Now, many people believe that Jesus did miracles to prove he was the son of God.

No, he did it because he cared.

You know, there’s even a few denominations that believe that.

But remember how many times in Scripture where Jesus is there and it says, and he had compassion on them and he healed their sick.

See, God has anointed us not for what we can do.

God anointed Jesus, not for himself.

He he sent that anointing of the Holy Spirit to make a difference in the lives of other people.

See, God is not self-centered and selfish and he doesn’t want us to be the same.

So he gave us a gift that can really only be used to help someone else to use in someone else’s life.

Wow, that’s exciting.

Well, you missed a good place to shout.

God now has delegated that authority to us.

So remember, we read, and you know, if you just read Luke chapter four, you might come to the conclusion, well, OK, well, he did that for Jesus.

And actually, you know, there’s a lot of Christian people that actually believe that.

Well, you know, he did that for Jesus, did that for the apostles.

But when the last apostle died, they kind of all went away.

That’s not the God that I know.

That’s not the God that you know.

The God that you and I know is the God that still wants to help people today.

And the same power of the Holy Spirit that they use back in what we call Bible times is still Bible times today.

And that power is available to you.

That power is available to me to help other people.

Thank you.

I’ll say it again.

All right, let’s read Matthew 28, I’ll get too far off course here.

OK, Matthew 28, verses 18 to 20 in ESV, all authority in heaven and earth.

How much is that?

You mean not 60 percent?

Well, how about how much?

No, thank you.

How about 75 percent?

No, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me.

OK, let’s find out what is going to happen with that.

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

Go, therefore, there’s a transfer here that’s taking place.

So he says, I have received all authority.

Now I want you to go.

Therefore, therefore means because of the authority he has, we have a right to go.

And if we go on and read it a little bit farther, it says, and I will be with you till the very end.

Well, how is he going to be with us?

Because he’s in heaven.

He sent the Holy Spirit to anoint us.

And so that Holy Spirit is with us to do the works that Jesus did.

Now, you know, if we read if we just read Matthew 28, well, we’ll get the idea.

Well, you know, he doesn’t really say about, you know, using the gifts of the spirit.

He doesn’t say about speaking in tongues.

He doesn’t say all these different things, but he does say it in Mark chapter 16.

Now, we’re not going to turn there, but let me just give you a little laundry list of what he says.

He says you will cast out demons.

You will speak with tongues.

You lay hands on a sick and they shall recover.

If you’ll eat your mother-in-law’s food, you it will not harm you.

And that what you know, maybe, excuse me.

No, I think it says if you drink anything deadly, it won’t harm you.

I’m sorry.

I just, but you get the idea, but here’s the point.

Authority is given to set others free, resist evil, protect and nurture those in our care, accomplish God’s purposes in our life and proclaim to the world.

Their debt of sin is forgiven.

That is the purpose of authority.

All right, let’s go to second Corinthians chapter 10.

How much time do I got?

Okay.

I’m, I’m still on course here.

Good.

Yeah, we got all afternoon.

I know.

Second Corinthians chapter 10 will identify the battlefield where the authority is to be used.

Second Corinthians chapter 10.

I’m going to, we’re going to read it this time in the new King James chapter 10, verses three to five.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Who is the enemy and where is the fight?

Though we walk in the flesh, our war is not with the foot.

People are not your enemy.

People are not my enemy.

Do you remember in Ephesians chapter six, it says, we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, rulers of darkness in high places, et cetera.

It is a spiritual battle that we’re in, not a battle against other people.

Unfortunately, we can all easily be drawn into debate and conflict with people.

Have you ever found that happen?

Have you ever seen that happen to people?

You know, social media has become a platform for personal grievances.

Now in Christian circles, it has become Pharisee central.

That’s where all the Pharisees get together and complain and gripe online about what’s wrong with other Christians.

Now, it is not wrong to question some doctrine, but don’t make it personal.

You don’t go after people because we are not wrestling with flesh and blood.

We are standing against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness in very high places.

That’s who our enemy is.

You know, in the book of Isaiah, God spent a whole chapter talking about that.

Isaiah chapter 58, Israel is complaining, saying, God, we fast and we pray and we do all these terrible things.

And you’re not answering our prayer.

And God says, that’s because you fast to quarrel and to fight.

He says, again, read the entire chapter, Isaiah 58, read that sometime.

The entire chapter is about that.

And he says, the fast that I have chosen is to loose the bonds of wickedness, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke.

That’s what God said our role is and it should be.

The weapons are mighty.

Weapons of our warfare are mighty in God to pull down spiritual strongholds.

Remember, we’re in a spiritual fight here, folks.

OK, we’re not fighting against the Presbyterians.

We’re not fighting against the Baptists.

We’re not fighting against ourselves.

The battle is spiritual.

The battle is against a different enemy.

And we always have to always have to remember that.

Strongholds are patterns of thought and behavior built over time.

They’re built by taking a thought and meditating on repeatedly until the thing grows up.

And pretty soon it has a strong hold on you.

That’s why it’s called a stronghold.

Strongholds can be the doorway to addiction.

You know, a recent problem we have in our society is gambling addiction.

It didn’t used to be a problem because gambling used to be illegal, but now it is a problem.

A couple of years ago, I had a guy that I knew.

He gave me a call and he said, you’re not going to believe what happened.

He said, I was looking at my bank stuff and all the records seemed to be off and something’s wrong here.

He went to the bank and he found out that his wife had drawn out $30,000 and gone and gambled it all away.

That is a stronghold.

All addictive behavior starts with a thought that is developed until the point it consumes your life.

Did you know this?

Strongholds are Satan’s counter to meditating the scriptures.

Meditating God’s word or the scriptures gives God a stronghold on your life.

Remember in Psalms 1, it says, The man that is blessed is the man that meditates the word of God day and night.

He will be like a tree that’s planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither.

And whatever he does will prosper.

See, God set this stuff up and he said, if you will meditate on my word, you will build a stronghold where I have a stronghold on your life.

We have a choice.

We can meditate on God’s word and give God a stronghold on our life.

Or we can open the door to the devil and let him have a stronghold in our life.

The choice is going to be ours.

Only spiritual weapons can tear down Satan’s strongholds.

They’re like a fortified city.

If you get around people that are in a stronghold, you’ll know what we’re talking about.

You know, counseling can be beneficial.

I’ve done actually a lot of counseling over the years.

But here’s one of the things I found.

Just talking to people doesn’t solve the problem.

Sometimes there is a huge spiritual issue at stake and it may be only by prayer, may come out only by fasting.

It may be using God’s weapons to break down that stronghold.

Now, here’s the thought.

After 40 years of counseling, I have found logic only works on people who are in their right mind.

Let that sink in just for a little bit.

Because have you ever tried to convince a crazy person that they are crazy?

I don’t advise it.

You don’t do it.

They will always get agitated.

So years ago, Pastor Frank, Pastor Bill and myself, we were all pastors on a staff in Seattle.

And we had this one guy that came in fairly regularly.

He wasn’t in the services that much, but he would come into the office and he believed he was Gabriel the archangel.

And so now 90% of the time I would get those calls.

I’m kind of good at handling that kind of thing because I relate to crazy people, I guess.

But anyway, so they would come in and he’d come in and they would call me and I’d walk down to the office and I’d go get the guy, bring him back to my office.

Had a nice seat for him.

You go ahead and sit right here, Gabriel, and sit down.

And I grab a notepad, I grab a pen and I sit down and tell me the revelation you got today.

And he’d run it all down and I’d be writing stuff.

Then at the end, I say, thank you very much.

I will see that Pastor Treat hears about this.

And then I threw it away.

But I walked him back to the car and he drove off happy as a clam, however happy clams are, because somebody listened to him and didn’t try to tell him he was crazy.

But now the 10% of the time that I wasn’t there, we had another pastor who is not in this room.

So you don’t know him.

It’s not one of the big three here, but it was another guy who thought his mission in life is to convince Gabriel that he is not the archangel.

And it never went over well.

And one time they almost came to blows over it.

Here’s a thought, counseling, excuse me, let’s see, if a stronghold has become their reality, they are impervious to logic.

So don’t talk to crazy people and trying to convince them that they need to come out of that crazy world.

When you’re dealing with crazy people, you can only go into their world.

They cannot come into your world.

It’s going to be, it takes spiritual warfare to break people out of that.

It’s interesting.

It was probably about a year since the last time I saw Gabriel.

I got a call from Western State Mental Hospital in Steilacoom, Washington.

And they said, we have a guy here that says you can verify that he’s Gabriel the archangel.

And I said, yeah, that’s him.

They said, OK, thank you.

True story.

It is the truth.

We are in, it’s a big joke about that, but the point is really this.

We are in a spiritual battle for the lives of people.

The people that you know that always reject the gospel, you know what?

They’re in a spiritual war.

You have to go to battle to see those people saved.

You know, but we have the weapons that can do that.

So let’s take a look.

Let’s go and take a look at some of the weapons that we have.

I’m going to start with the first one, and let me preface it by saying this, in my opinion, I think this is one of the foundation or is the foundational spiritual principle of authority.

But again, I will allow you to think differently if you have a good argument.

OK, and not by argument in terms of you want to debate with me.

But if you have another way of looking at it and you have a pretty substantial scripture to back you up, I’ll say, OK, you can believe that.

And I kind of think of this way and we’re fine.

But I will tell you what I think is the foundation, the core for our spiritual authority.

And that is the righteousness of God.

I believe it’s the core belief that gives us confidence to act on the authority that God has given us.

Let’s go to Second Corinthians, chapter five and verse twenty one and for a second there.

And then I’ll make some more comment on that.

Second Corinthians, chapter five and verse twenty one in the ESV says this.

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin.

Now, let me break that down.

For our sake, he being God made him being Jesus to be sin and other translations say for us.

But he knew no sin.

God made Jesus who was perfect to be sin for us for a reason.

And that reason follows so that in him we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Second Corinthians, chapter five is is a great chapter.

But if you if you want to know some of the most important scriptures or verses in the New Testament so you can kind of put them on the wall and talk about them, memorize them, all of that.

Second Corinthians, chapter five verses 17 to 21 is one of the premier New Testament and I’ll say premier total biblical scriptures that you can go with.

It tells you so much about God and the redemption he has given us.

Seventeen says, if any man be in Christ, he’s a new creature.

Old things have passed away.

All things have become new.

And then it moves on and says we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

Then it says that we are ambassadors for Christ.

And then the high point of the entire conversation says we have been made the righteousness of God in him.

He’s moving.

He’s progressing to the apex.

He’s progressing to the very most important things he wants to say.

Jesus’ sacrifice was great, but it was most important for us that you and I become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

If you have a concept of that, if you can understand that, if you can just get a glimpse of it, we’ve become a more, I want to say, a better new creation.

We’ve become better at being a witness for God.

We’ve become a better ambassador.

If we get that concept that I consider the foundation, that is what I am standing on this morning, that the righteousness of God dwells in me.

And I have that because of that.

I will be a better pastor to you because I understand that.

OK, now, let’s look at it from this standpoint.

Remember in Ephesians chapter six, remember all the scriptures on the armor of God?

We’ll probably look at a couple of them here this morning.

But on the armor of God, remember one is the breastplate of righteousness.

Now, when the book of Ephesians was written, Rome pretty much ran the world.

I mean, they were in control of the then known world and their armies were, you know, they were incredible.

But they had weapons that they wore.

They had armor that they wore.

And one of the pieces of armor was called the breastplate.

And it covered the most sensitive, the most vital organs in the body.

And I got to thinking about that.

Why did Paul choose that, the breastplate of righteousness?

What does it protect in our life?

Just a thought there.

Let’s take a look at this.

If righteousness is part of our armor, what does it protect?

It serves a very important purpose.

Righteousness, in my opinion, protects our conscience, the conscience of the inner man.

Now, let’s talk about that for a little bit.

Hebrews chapter 10 says this.

Chapter 10, verse 14 says, by one sacrifice, he has perfected forever those that are sacrificed.

But verse 2 of chapter 10 says this, that when we have that sacrifice, it says, when we are once cleansed, we would no longer have any consciousness of sin.

Now, it doesn’t mean that you forget every sin.

I mean, I’ve forgotten a lot of mine, but there’s some that kind of stand out.

You know, you all have ones that stand out.

OK, I’ll tell you one of mine.

You got to know.

So when I was five years old, we lived next to the corner grocery store and the guy that ran the store was our neighbor.

And so one day, a friend of mine and another five year old, be careful, you get two five year olds together.

And so we went in there and because we were friends and we were neighbors, we had access to the whole, you know, the front and the back of the store.

So while he’s out front, we are taking cases of Mission Orange and we’re hauling them around the corner and we got caught.

I remember that one, but there’s a lot of others that I’ve forgotten.

But here is the point.

Righteousness.

Why is it important?

It’s not the issue is not that you forget all your sins.

Righteousness disables the guilt that comes with sin that prevents you from using God’s authority.

How many people do we talk to because, oh, pastor, I didn’t come to church because I did this and I just felt guilty and all of that.

Therein is the problem.

When you sin, don’t run from God, run to God, because he has made you the righteousness of God.

Remember in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 14, that by one sacrifice he has perfected forever those who are sanctified.

Your sin is not your problem, but your view on God’s righteousness might be God has made you the righteousness of God in Christ.

And righteousness disables the guilt.

You know, I still I still make mistakes, just ask my wife.

You can probably get a laundry list of those.

But but I don’t feel bad.

I don’t carry guilt.

And see, that’s the main point here.

Gentlemen, our friends here from Adult and Teen Challenge, how many of you time to time find yourself carrying guilt?

You know, that’s that’s kind of a common thing.

Now, I just picked on them.

But you know what?

I’d get the same raising of hands if I went over here this way and said the same thing to you.

The foundation is righteousness, the foundation of God’s authority that he wants to give you is the righteousness of God.

Now, you know, righteousness is a difficult concept for preachers to talk about and really explain what people understand.

So let me give you I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.

So let me give you some of my thoughts.

And it may be just different ways of looking at it.

And maybe it will maybe it will help you a little bit, get to get a clearer picture of it.

Righteousness is the inner verdict of not guilty that releases you from the outward offenses that you have committed.

So righteousness doesn’t ignore the sin, but it frees you.

You’re not guilty.

That’s what righteousness does.

Righteousness reminds you that your offenses have been paid for and are no longer on the books.

There is no warrant out for your arrest.

That’s good to know.

All right.

Now, listen to this very carefully.

Righteousness is the reminder that at the last judgment, when the deeds of all men and women are judged, you again will hear the verdict, not guilty.

They term that inaugurated eschatology.

And what it means is, you know, the verdict before the trial starts.

But Pastor Ray, I don’t understand.

If I’m saved, why do I have to stand?

Well, the scripture says you will stand before God for everything that you’ve done.

But here’s the issue.

God’s righteousness has preordained the verdict.

So, yes, you will stand.

I will stand.

But the verdict is already in.

And the verdict is you’re not guilty.

I’m hoping that some of you may sleep a whole lot better tonight because of that thought.

God’s righteousness is your status as a member of God’s family and the protection for your inner man during life’s battles.

Not a claim of how good or holy your behavior has been.

It’s not about your behavior.

Righteousness is giving, getting credit for Jesus’ behavior, not your behavior.

Well, OK, that’s enough on that.

That’ll give you some things to think about.

And we’ll go from there.

What about faith?

OK, this is a second issue.

We all talk about faith.

But I want to let’s go to the book of Ephesians, chapter six.

And I want to talk about the shield of faith for just a moment.

Ephesians, chapter six and verse 16, I’m going to read out of the English Standard Version.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

Did you know that Satan can’t touch you?

He can only throw darts at you.

Did you ever did you ever catch that in reading that sometimes, you know, if you watch a lot of horror flicks, which I don’t recommend, you know, you know that the devil is going to reach out and touch you.

But he can’t do that.

Scripture says all he can do is throw darts at you.

And all your job is to take the shield of faith and knock the darts down.

You know, Joe Frazee, the devil throws a dart your way.

You just knock it down.

That right, Alice.

Hi, Alice.

Did you know the devil throws a dart at you?

Just knock that down.

You know, I don’t know.

It’s the Evelyn Bronwyn.

They’re probably here somewhere.

You know, the devil throws a dart at them.

They not only knock it down, but they use the name of Jesus, too.

They send him back where he came from.

You know what?

That’s the only person you can tell to go to hell.

I just threw that wasn’t in the notes, but I just threw that in so you can do that.

His main tool.

So here’s Satan’s main tool.

His main tool is deception to get you to destroy yourself so he can’t destroy you.

So that’s what that’s what we’re talking about here.

The devil actually can’t directly destroy you.

But if he can deceive you and get you into some kind of a stronghold, you’ll find he just turns you loose because you’re going to go destroy yourself.

And that’s what’s happening in our world.

And that’s why we need to have spiritual weapons and break the power of the devil over other people’s lives.

That’s why it’s not for us.

It’s for other people, because we can look around and we can logically see again.

They’re beyond logic now.

They cannot see it.

They’re in the middle of that stronghold.

But you can see it.

So you can pray.

They can’t pray for themselves.

They don’t know what they’re doing right now.

But you can because the anointing of the spirit of God is upon you to set people free.

Amen.

So the devil throws a dart and says, this is too big for you.

You can’t overcome.

You ever heard that thought in your mind?

You’re facing something like, oh, this is too big.

There’s no way I can deal with that.

You know, that’s usually the devil.

Deceptively, deceptively, what he does, he implies that you are alone with no God who can help you.

Do you remember in Daniel chapter three?

Daniel chapter three takes place in Babylon.

King Nebuchadnezzar, he raises up this idol, this huge statue.

And every time they played a certain amount of kind of music, they had to bow down to the statue.

Well, there were three young Hebrew men and they refused to bow down.

So they get dragged in before the king.

And the king says, look, if you don’t bow down, I’m going to throw you into the fiery furnace.

And who is that God that can deliver you from my hands?

And they said, we’re not going to bow down.

So the king has them bound up and throw them in the fire.

And all of a sudden, Nebuchadnezzar looks, he said, wait a minute, we threw three men in there.

But there’s four men in there that are unbound walking through the furnace.

And one of them looks like the son of God.

Nebuchadnezzar had a come to Jesus moment.

All of a sudden he comes up to the thing.

He says, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God.

Because their faith, their shield of faith protected them even when they literally were in the middle of a fire.

Wow, what a thought.

Faith is the currency of the kingdom.

Faith is how all transactions with God are consummated.

Faith, the just will live by faith.

All right, let’s take a look at another one.

Oh, I’m running out of time.

I’ve got several more, but we’re going to probably just cover one more.

We’ll see.

We’ll see how quickly I can do this.

The sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

And we’re not going to turn there, but you’ll find that in Ephesians chapter six, verse 16, excuse me, verse 17.

This is one of our most powerful weapons in our arsenal.

Jesus used the word of God during his temptation in the wilderness.

Just three words.

It is written and scripture says the devil left him for a more opportune time.

Yeah, I guess so.

There is a power developed by knowledge and understanding of scripture.

Listen to this thought.

This is one of my thoughts I picked up this week.

It is written is not a magical incantation.

It is a force that comes from the innermost being out of the abundance of our heart.

At age 12, Jesus astounded the scholars and leaders of the temple with his knowledge and understanding of scripture.

Make scripture your passion to pursue.

After using scripture to resist the temptation, after 40 days of prayer and fasting in the wilderness, scripture says that Jesus was at Luke chapter four, verse 14, says Jesus returned in the power of the spirit to Galilee.

Well, I do have time to say just a couple of things about one more point, and that is praying in the spirit with all prayer and supplication.

Two thoughts with this.

Number one, pray scriptures where the will of God is known.

You ever notice when a pastor has any of our leaders, whether they’re on the staff or they’re not on the staff, when pastor has people pray, you ever notice that people are referencing scripture, they’re quoting scripture, they’re reading scripture.

We use scripture as a base to believe.

If we know the will of God in a situation, pray the scriptures.

What is it?

Ephesians chapter five, verse 17.

It says, don’t be unwise.

Don’t don’t be, you know, lack understanding.

You need to know what the will of the Lord is, you know, and so know what God’s will is and pray the scriptures.

Now, in the context where we don’t know the will of God, there are situations where you and I are not going to know that.

That’s where we pray the spirit.

I don’t have time to go there, but Romans chapter eight, verses 26 and 27 says the spirit.

Likewise, helps our weakness that we don’t know how to pray as we are.

And it says that he will pray through us and he will pray the perfect will of God.

It’s one of the reasons why everybody should be filled with the spirit and pray in other tongues.

In fact, if you come tonight, we’re having a worship service tonight and you you’ll get prayed for tonight if you want to.

It’s one of the reasons because in life there are so many things that we don’t know, but the Holy Spirit does know.

He knows how to pray when you and I do not know how to pray.

And so on certain things that I can’t find it in scripture, and I know a lot of scripture.

If I can’t find it, then I turn to the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Spirit is going to help me pray the perfect will of God in those situations.

For some of you that are newly saved.

Now I’m an old timer.

I mean I got saved October 7th, 1956.

That means in October of this year, it will be 68 years.

I’ve learned some things along the way, even learned some things about how to pray.

But if you’ve been saved even for a day, even for a week, if you pray in the Holy Spirit, you can pray the perfect will of God just as well as I can.

So that that’s the God that we serve.

He wants to equip you even from the very beginning.

Wow.

Well, you know what?

I think I better be done here.

Let’s let’s pray.

I do have more things I could say, but I do want to take a second and pray.

Everything that I’ve said is for this purpose.

If you’ll just bow your head for just a moment.

I want to pray that God will just really open us up to the authority that he has.

You know, ask God, God, how would you like me to use this?

What would you have me do?

And let’s pray for that.

Father, we just come to you right now.

And Lord, we thank you that you have given us authority.

And Lord, we honor that authority because we recognize it’s not for us to use for our own glory, for our own good feeling or our own well-being.

But you have given us the the gift of the Holy Spirit.

You’ve anointed us with your spirit that we might touch the lives of other people.

So Father, I pray right now for every person that’s here.

Father, show them your gifts.

Show them your power.

Help them use it.

Teach them how to use the gifts that you’ve given.

Teach them how to walk with the Holy Spirit.

And Father, put on our hearts the people that we can use your anointing to minister to.

Father, show us people.

Bring to our mind right now the people that you want us to touch in our lives.

Father, we thank you.

We thank you for this in Jesus’ name.

Amen.