Christian Podcast: How to use the Word of God to defeat evil

Greg Ryan identifies three enemies believers face: the world system, the flesh, and Satan. He argues Scripture is the only effective weapon, citing John 8:31-32 and other passages. Ryan teaches practical disciplines like presenting yourself daily as a living sacrifice and visualizing a protective hedge around your home and business.
Welcome to episode 260.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, if you've ever wondered, I don't know if you're just now getting on to this podcast or if you've been a frequent flyer or a fanatic for quite some time, you may have wondered, I don't know that I've done a great job of explaining why I start each podcast off the same way. And I want to do that right here because I think it's important for us to get a pattern or for us to get some kind of consistency. And I don't know when I came to the conclusion— it was back a while ago— that I decided that I was going to start my podcast the same way the Apostle Paul started all of his epistles. And it was, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I was thinking about it this morning, what does this world need more than grace and peace right now? And so looking back, I think that that was one of those God moments when the Holy Spirit said, hey, why don't you start the podcast like this? So that's why I'm doing it. I know you may get tired of hearing it, but you know, I just don't get tired of saying it. So until I start getting tired of saying it, we're going to have grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In every episode, I want to bring the word of God to you as best I can And that's where I want to segue into this week's teaching. It's probably going to go a little bit because I started praying about what would be the best thing for you to hear while you're working out or while you're driving or while you're watching on YouTube, however you're consuming this podcast or this episode. I want to just remind you of the 3 enemies that you and I both have, and it is the punk It is the world system or the worldview, and it is your flesh. And when I say flesh, I just mean the 5 senses— that when what we see, what we hear, what we taste, what we smell, what we feel. And I don't know if I've got all 5 of them, but you know the 5 senses. What I want to concentrate on is the punk and how he uses the other 2 enemies against us. And the guy is slippery, the guy's slimy, he's— we hate him. We are told to hate evil, and it don't get any more evil than the punk. He comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. So his only three jobs are to steal, to kill, and to destroy. And so we've got to kick him out of our lives. And there's going to be a lot of scripture in this episode because I just want to set the foundation that the only real way that we're going to defeat evil is with the truth. And Jesus told his disciples that if you abide in my word, you are a disciple indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And that is John 8, I think it's 31 and 32. But we have got to stay in the word of God, and we have just got to abide in it. And then it kicks in, uh, John 15, where Jesus says that I am the vine and you are the branches. We've got to be in Jesus in order to get nourished, in order to, in order to defeat the enemy. And that's the world, our flesh, and Satan. And I'm going to keep saying that because I think it's important that we know who and what we're fighting. And I don't mean that we get up every morning and we got to fight it. I believe that by using the word of God— and that's why I want to bring out a lot of scripture, and I've talked about a lot about these scriptures in the past, and I'm going to talk about them now. But Romans 12:1 is one of my favorite scriptures. And what I do every morning— I want to encourage you, if you're not doing this, I want to encourage you to get involved with this scripture. And this is presenting yourself to Father God, or to God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. You get and present yourself a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable which is your out-of-the-ordinary service? No, reasonable service. Your reasonable service. If you are going to be a child of the King, and Jesus is the King of Kings, which means you and I are a king, and if we are going to be a king, we need to submit to the King of Kings. And by doing that, what it does is it kind of— I think it just kind of refocuses me on whose kingdom I am the king of, and I am the king of God's kingdom and not of this world, but the world to come. And I don't want to get chasing that rabbit, but I want you to start every day— if I could jump up and down, I want you in the Bible, I want you in the word of God. Give us this day our daily bread. We are to get fed daily, but I want you to present yourself to God. And that has changed my life. I've talked about this numerous times. When I present myself a living sacrifice to God, it then kicks in James 4:7, which says, submit yourself to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. And when we start resisting— and I want to go back to Job. And if you're on the YouTubes, I'm going to put all of these scriptures up so that you can read them. So if I've messed them up, you can read them the way they're supposed to be read in the New King James. But I want to go to Job 1:10. We talked about this, and I kind of want to pull together those other episodes, and I want to bring them into this teaching. Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. That was Satan talking to God. And I want you to kind of picture— I, I need you to picture around your house when you present yourself and you've become a child of the King, nothing happens to you without God's knowledge, and I believe his approval. If, if when you become his child, just like the perfect father— if you've ever protected your kids or your wife or your family from evil or from harm. Father God is the perfect Father, so you know that he protects you all the time. But sometimes— and I'm going to put the little caveat out there because that's what we're going to talk about as we move on in these next episodes— but I just want you to picture that you have a hedge around your house, around your home, maybe even around your business. Wherever you go to lay down to eat and to have your family time That's home. And so I believe that you can put a hedge or ask God to put that hedge around you. I anointed my doors and windows, my computer. I walked around the four corners of my land and I've told Satan, I said, you are not allowed to even fly over from heaven to hell. If I just picture, and I understand that I'm weird, But I picture all of the stuff that I quote own. Now it's all God, God made it, but he gave this property to me. And so I'm taking ownership of it while I'm here on earth. And what I do is from the top of heaven to the bottom of hell, I have just taken my piece of ground and I have commanded it to be protected from evil. And I don't care how you picture it, I don't care what you gotta do to do it, But I pray that you would put a hedge around the things that you own. And so with that in mind, if you presented yourself a living sacrifice and then you put a hedge around your house, then that peace of God, that grace and peace, will start abiding with you and on you. And I've had people comment when they come to my house how peaceful and how nice it is. And it's not because that it's all that wonderful or nice, and it's, you know, it's just a regular house because I'm just a regular guy. But it's nothing fancy pants or anything like that. It's just a ranch house. It's a nice house. I mean, I love the house. It's a 1980 home. It's not any of the brand new bells and whistles, but it really doesn't matter. But when people walk into our house, they feel, I believe, the peace of God. It really has nothing— it had— the only thing it has to do with me is that I applied the word of God to my house. And I just want to encourage you to do the same thing. I want you to find some scriptures, and I want you to just bind up— we got to get aggressive against this enemy because he's not letting up. He's not going to let up. And if you've read Job, he, he's not going to— he's going to pile on. And so what we've got to do is we've got to kick him out of the places that we own and the places that we know for sure that we're supposed to be in and the arenas that we're supposed to fight in. And that's another area that I need to talk to you about is where we fight the punk. And I know we've had this discussion before if you've listened to me for a long time. We are going to fight Satan in the spirit realm, and the only reason that we're going to fight Satan in the spirit realm is because that's where Father God is, and that's where Jesus is, and that's where the Holy Spirit is operating. And so that's where we want to drag the battle. We do not want to— and I want to re-emphasize, you do not want to fight Satan or his imp or any demon for that matter. It doesn't matter what you call them or what it is. You don't want to fight him in the physical realm with your eyes and with your ears and with your smell and taste and feel. You don't want to go there because he's going to just whip your butt and he's going to drag and mop the floor with you. You don't want to be Satan's mop. And so what we want to do is we want to, in the spirit, we want to bring These spiritual truths, the words that I speak, they are spirit and they are life. That's what Jesus said, and that's what we want to do. We want to speak the word of God to our enemy because he hates Jesus, he hates God, he hates you because you are a child of God. You are one of God's creations. Whether you've accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior or not, Satan hates you. He wants you dead and in hell with him. He sure does not want you in heaven with Father God for eternity. So the battle is for your soul and mine, and we are to fight like our lives depend on it. And I really honestly believe that it does. I believe that you can get to heaven a whole lot quicker by not applying the word of God to your life. If you want to just get the hell beat out of you, for lack of a better expression, then just don't read your Bible. Just don't do anything that I'm talking about or the word talks about. I want you to think about the Holy Spirit, and I'm going to go to this scripture. And I'm feeling like I'm getting a little bit long-winded, and I apologize. I've got a lot to say, but I made me some notes, and normally I'm not reading notes. I'm— I've gone over what I'm going to say, but I want you to think about John 14:12. And we gotta go there. I wanna make sure that you're aware of this scripture and that we get it exactly right. New King James Version, of course, 'cause that's the one I have in front of me right now. John 14:12, most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also, and greater works than these he will do because I go to my Father. And I want you to hear most assuredly. Other translations say truly, truly, or hey, I'm telling, this is no joke. This is a true statement. The works that I do, you will do also. And I'm telling you, when I meditated on this, and I've talked about how the Holy Spirit stops me, the Holy Spirit stopped me on this verse and I stayed on it for months. And I'm telling you, this changed my life, this one scripture, because it's where I figured out that I wasn't doing hardly anything that God did when he was walking here on earth. It's humbling, it's sobering, it's a lot. When you start reading John 14:12 with the idea that Jesus was talking to you and I, he wasn't just talking to his 12 disciples. If you abide in his word, you are his disciple. So he's saying, he who believes in me, he, I say to you, he who believes in me, if you believe in Jesus, the works that he does, you will do also, and greater works than these you will do because I go to my Father. And I've got to remind you of a scripture, and it goes, this goes hand in glove. John 16:7, this is Jesus talking to his disciples, and he says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. And I don't think anyone's going to argue that Jesus is not sitting at the right hand of the Father. And Father God said, hey Jesus, take a seat here until I make your enemies your footstool. And I just believe that's happened, and I believe you and I are here to to pound Satan into a footstool. To me, that is, there's no other thing that I wanna do is just pound him and make him flee and make him be at Jesus' feet, groveling, and a footstool. And the last thing that I want, and I'm gonna take an Old Testament, and I know that we've talked about this before, and it's Zechariah, It's Zechariah 4:6. So he answered and said to me, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. And this is how things are gonna get done. And this is why I wanna talk to you about this arena that we're pulling Satan in. He's a punk, he needs to be defeated. He needs to have his teeth kicked out every single day. Maybe they'll grow back, maybe they won't. But he needs— we need to kick him in the teeth. And we don't need to let— he's not going to let up on you, so why are we going to let up on him? And that's what I want you to get fired up. I want you to start getting angry at evil. And we're going to figure out that it's us versus them, but the them is not anything you can see. And I know that may get a little freaky, spiritual, whatever, but it's the truth. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. There's spirits out there. They're not all wonderful. Some of them are evil. Some of them are good and working as messengers for God. And we need to get the good ones on our side, and we need to kick the bad ones back to hell where they belong. Well, that's enough for right now. Let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you, Jesus, that you gave us your name. Not only did you give us the word, but you said we could use your name like a power of attorney. And I pray in Jesus' name that this message, this word from you and the Holy Spirit, will get into this believer, into this listener. And I pray that you would just continue to lead and guide and direct them. Lord, we thank you, we love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www. Www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com
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