Climbing the Mountain of God Stop Eight Warfare Part 2

Welcome to episode 160, In the Beginning Was the Word. Amen.

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.

Welcome to episode 160. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we are up going up the mountain. We're heading from point A to point B, and we are on stop number 8 on the mountain, which is warfare. And this is our second episode talking about warfare, and we've talked about it for a while when we did the armor of God. So this is more of a refresher if you will, but it's also very important, I believe, when we talk about our Christian journey through life or our Christian walk, that warfare is very important. I think we get too many people that are getting too wrapped around the axle about fighting, and I think mostly, if you look back on Ephesians, what we do is we put the armor on and the battle is the Lord's. And we have to remember that we're building God's kingdom, We're not building our own personal kingdom. So when we start battling, we need to know who we're fighting. And again, we've talked about this multiple times, but there we have three enemies: Satan and all of his demons or imps, the world system, and your flesh. So the things that we are battling when we talk about warfare, we're talking about walking in the power of God that has been given to you, that is sitting on the inside of you. And we need to figure out how to pull all that power. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. We need to learn how to take that power that's on the inside and bring it outside. And that is learned behavior, that is exercising faith, that's using all these other things that we've talked about going up the mountain. And that's why I put it at 8, is because when we start getting into the battle, you know, we don't put babies on the front line. And I know people would probably argue that if you put an 18-year-old on the front line, that's kind of a baby. And I would agree with that, but you have to at least be at a mature age or the age to where you're considered an adult. And so I believe that as you work your way up this Christian walk, you have to have some years under you in your Christian walk before God's going to call you into a battle. Now, that don't mean that life's not going to be difficult, because it is. It is a difficult walk when you're going— saved or unsaved, this world is cruel. But I want to go to John 16:33. These things I've spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. Jesus was talking to his disciples before he went to the cross. This was after the Lord's Supper. We'd already booted out the traitor Judas Iscariot, had already busted out of there. And because I talk a lot about personal responsibility, I want you to see that we talked about this in a previous episode earlier in this trek up the mountain, but I want you to see in Luke 22:31, and the Lord said, Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. And when you have returned to me, Strengthen your brethren. But he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death. Then he said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know me. And I want— I put this in the warfare. I really wasn't going to talk about this, but God showed me this passage and it was like, you know, I've already talked about this. Satan asked God to allow him to sift Peter, and God said, go ahead. I don't see where he gave him permission, but he didn't deny him, and God could do whatever God wanted to do. I think this is a lesson that in warfare you're going to have to strengthen yourself, you're going to have to strengthen your faith, and sometimes your faith is put under fire. Remember we talked about turning up the heat and then pounding us?— and that's how we build and get stronger and get our strength up— that if you're going to start putting something on the fire and you're going to start heating your life up, that's how God grows people. And I know this sounds kind of brutal and non-loving, but God wants your faith to be resilient. God wants your faith to be strong. And in order to do that, you have to be tested, and you've got to get the impurities out. And he was talking more You know, in those— the Psalmist or the Proverbs was talking about how you would get the impurities out. If you ever looked at silver or gold, what they do is they melt it and the impurities come to the top. And I'm told— now I don't know this, but I'm told that when the person doing the melting of the gold or the silver— it's called dross— and they let it— it lets it come up to the top and then they skim it off of the top. All of the nasty, gnarly stuff that's inside this nugget of gold. They just purify it, and they do it with melting and with heat, and then they skim the top of it off. So when you start looking at the gold, they say that the person doing all of this and trying to purify this gold, when they see their reflection in the gold or in the silver— and I, again, I'm talking out of school a little bit, but this is appropriate— that when God can see the reflection of his Son in you, then he's gonna turn the heat back down and he's got some of those impurities out. Again, this is not a line most people wanna stand in. This is not a line, "Well, why are so many bad things happening to me?" Bad things are happening to everybody. We're talking about a fallen world. We've got a punk out there whose only job is to steal, kill, and destroy. And most of the church— none of the world, I don't think, even believes in Satan. You know, they'll laugh about it and they'll be satanic or Satanist, and some very few probably even have an idea of what they're doing. Most of them are just caught up in some kind of demonic whatever. We are fighting against all of these demons and hosts that we can't see. So we have to learn to use our faith. We have to learn to use our hearts. The eyes of our heart, the eyes, the ears of our heart. We have to learn to listen, we have to learn to see without being able to see with our eyes. And I know that sounds kind of convoluted, but that's the truth. We have to, by faith, know that the punk's out there and he's only coming to steal, kill, and destroy. And how do we know that? We know that because that's what the word of God says. And if the word of God says it It's the truth. And if you don't know the truth, you can't be made free. Soapbox moment number 752. We have got to be in the word of God. And as we go up this mountain, we never set our sword down. We never set the Bible down. We never stop reading. We never stop wondering and meditating and pondering what does God mean. We never stop asking the Holy Spirit for guidance and help. And comfort. He is there. He's never going to leave us nor forsake us. So we have got the Helper there. We have got to use that power. And I want to take us to a very popular scripture in the Old Testament, and it was from the minor prophet Zechariah, and 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. We are gonna defeat the enemy, we are gonna defeat the world, we are gonna defeat our flesh by the Spirit of the Lord. And again, that's why I said we have to be endued with power. And that is, I have got to say as my testimony, the only reason that I am able to stand against some of the garbage going on in my life and some of the garbage going on in my family and anybody The key is to know where you are and who you are in Christ. And then if you know that you are in the body of Christ and that nothing can come against you that is not sanctioned— I mean, now you can allow it, and again, that we're going to get into that when we dive deeper into this warfare thing. We're going to take these each little stop probably for a week or whatever. We're going to get involved in this journey up of the mountain, but we are in a battle and we need to learn to use the power that we have inside of us. We have been given power from on high and we got to learn to destroy the works of the enemy with love and grace and peace and patience and gentleness and kindness and self-control. We need to learn to destroy the enemy's works by loving on people. I know there's still people that are doing the Jericho March, and you know, you've got to have— until you see it in the word of God 2 or 3 times, then you might could have a, a Jericho March and say that, hey, that's something God wants us to do. It was just God's way of showing Joshua, hey, I'm in charge of this thing. You just do what I tell you to do. And things are going to happen. We are going to— he was showing Joshua, hey, I am the Lord and I'm for you. If you'll follow my word, you will be victorious. And the Holy Spirit is telling us that today, that if we will get into the word of God, we will be victorious. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. You have got to know the truth. You've got to know Jesus. You've got to know the word. You've got to be able to use it as a sword. You got to be able to plant it as a seed. You have to grow the truth inside of you. The words that I speak are spirit and they are life. If you want to come alive in the body of Christ, you get into the word of God. You learn how to do the word of God. You learn what the word of God says, and then you pull that sword out when Satan comes and tempts you. And Satan comes and says, hey, I don't understand why it's so hard. Why has it got to be so difficult? Really? Let's go to Matthew 7 one more time. Matthew 7:13-14. Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Narrow and difficult is the gate. Why would you think that life is going to be easy and a piece of cake? If life is easy and a piece of cake, you just might be on the wide road. But if you've had struggles, if you've struggled in your Christian walk, well then maybe you're on the right path based on Matthew 7:13-14. And I'm not looking for difficult and hard, but when I see it and when it comes and visits the house, I don't say, oh, why is this so difficult? Why does God hate me? What have I done? Why am I Why is God punishing me? None of that. This life is difficult. Take comfort in the fact that it's a battle, and it's a battle to the death. And we're gonna get to that in the next stop. We're gonna talk about finishing this walk and finishing this race. But right now, I want you to understand that Jesus loves you, that God— Father God loves you, that he sent his Son to reconcile man and God back together, that Satan blew up in the Garden of Eden where he had Eve bite the fruit, and then Adam standing right there. I'm not going to go back into all of that, but he's standing right there and she handed the fruit after he watched her bite it and her spirit man die. Adam followed Eve instead of the word of God. So Satan's a punk, he's a deceiver, he's still got the same thing. He comes against the word of God, and we're going to use the word of God to destroy him and the spirit of God. And that's the warfare and the love of God. Love God Love God and love people. That is the Cliff Notes for the Law and the Prophets. Love God, love people. Well, that's enough for right now. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you, Holy Spirit, for never leaving us nor forsaking us. And I thank you that you were ready for Satan's rebellion and that you had a plan. And God, I thank you for that plan, and I thank you that you sent your Son Jesus. Thank you for coming. And living the perfect life and dying a death for me and for this listener. And God, we thank you, we love you, and 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 on the next episode.

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