Imitating Jesus while God was a Man here He cast out demons and gave you the authority to do the ...

Welcome to episode 196, 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.

Welcome to episode 196. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I am continuing up the mountain. I actually— I'm on stop 4 on the mountain of God, and we are still imitating Jesus. And we talked about last— we finished the last episode talking about how magnified his word over his name, and at the name of Jesus all of these things are gonna happen. And you can read Mark 16, and let's start at 15. And he said to them, go in all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents, and that if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. And since we're talking about how Jesus— what did Jesus do? And we're imitating Jesus. Jesus cast out demons. He gave us the authority here in Mark to use his name, and it says, in my name these signs will follow those who believe. If you are a believer in Jesus, if you are a follower of Jesus, if you are a disciple of Jesus, You have all of this power wrapped up into one promise. And in his name, he has given you the spiritual authority to use the name of Jesus to do all kinds of wonderful things in the spirit. And if spiritual things make you uncomfortable, then you're in the wrong book, because this is a spiritual book. That Jesus says, the words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. He said, he is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. These are spiritual truths. We are dealing with spirits in the spirit realm. You can call them popsicle sticks if you want, but the Bible calls them demons. So we have got to call demons demons. We're not going to fall back and retreat from what the Bible says. And if you're a little bit uncomfortable, I understand. Because the world— I mean, I'm telling you that the world system— we got 3 enemies. One of them's the punk, one of them's the world system, and one of them is your flesh. And I promise you, Satan or the demons don't want you understanding this concept that you have more power than they do. Now, they are very deceptive, they are very intelligent. I'm not talking about some stupid, dumb as a box of rocks demon. I'm talking about an intellectually I know superior to me because that's not saying a lot, but intellectually superior being who sees things from a spiritual perspective and don't want nothing to do with the name of Jesus. What the spirit— if you can't see that the spirit realm is trying to drive everybody into this physical realm with fear, with deception, with disease, with all of this stuff, it is just obvious to me that the spirit of this world is trying to, and hurting people into a direction. If you've ever wondered what is going on and you see all this, I don't think Satan has any desire to mess with me. I don't think he gives two wits end about me or you or any person in particular. I think he wants the world domination and to massively move herds of people, and he does this with deceiving spirits. If most of Christianity, over 50% of Christianity, does not even believe in demons or the spirit realm, then what do you think non-Christians believe? It's laughable to think that this guy has this open door to where he can just do anything he wants and then just point at us as being freaky or stupid. And that's the way he works. That's his modus operandi. If you're a frequent flyer here, you know I love that word, and I can't even tell you why. That's how Satan rolls. He, he's going to deceive us. He is going to make sure that we do not try to fight him in the spirit realm, because if we are submitted to God, if you submit yourself to God, then you can resist the devil and he will flee. That is James 4:7. And we do every morning. If you've gotten my 5 prayers, every morning you will see that I present myself to God a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is my reasonable service. That is Romans 12:1. Every morning I crawl up on God's altar and I present myself to him. So I have fully committed to following Jesus. I have fully submitted to God's authority and lordship. And I can then, with that, and I humbly go before God, then I can go talk to Father God just like he's my real dad. Like you, I'm talking to you right now. I talk to God just like I talk to you. He is Father God. He's Abba Father. I have a personal relationship with his Son Jesus. And so I have a personal relationship with the Ancient of Days. And I just love that name. The Ancient of Days. That is so cool. I can go into his presence and I can thank him and I can tell him how wonderful he is. And then I can say, oh, by the way, I— then I bring my grocery list of things that I want or need and all that. And he probably, he probably rolls his eyes. I don't know because I can't—

in my—

with my spirit eyes, I can't really see what he's doing or saying., but I know he loves me, and I know he doesn't mind me coming in and giving him my grocery list, but I think he prefers me to worship him and thank him. Just like if you've got children, if they thank you just out of nowhere, they just out of the blue say, "Dad, I just wanna tell you thank you." I mean, that does something to you, and I guarantee you, we have the same, we are made in God's image, that does something to God when we thank him for just the things that he has given us. And it's a shame that I have to spend this much time talking about setting up the fact that we really are fighting demons, but I just need you to dump— remember we talked about a cup on a previous episode of the teachings, or whatever you think, and I don't care if it's right or wrong, I just need you to dump the cup out and I need you to start filling it with what the Bible says. And what the Bible says, and in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you will see that Jesus cast out demons. And we're gonna go to Matthew 8:28. When he had come to the other side, to the country of Gergesenes, I don't know, English is not my first language, there he met two demon-possessed men coming out of the tombs exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass by that way. And suddenly they cried out, saying, What have we to do with you, Jesus, you Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time? Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding. So the demons begged him, saying, If you cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said to them, Go. So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine, and suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea and perished in the water. Then those who kept them fled, and they went away into the city and told everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to depart from their region. There's a lot of moving parts in this story, but one of them that I want to concentrate on is that the demons knew who he was. And I want to go to another scripture where Paul's name was used by the sons of Sceva. And this is a fascinating scripture, and I want you to make sure that you have the authority to use the name of Jesus, because if not, what happened to the sons of Sceva to you if you try to use that name and you don't have the authority? Let's go to Acts 19:13. Then some of the ignorant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord over those who had evil spirits, saying, We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. Also there were 7 sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. This became known both to the Jews and the Greeks dwelling in Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. So I just want you to see what happens when you start casting demons out. There is a fear that falls upon people, and you see that when Jesus cast out all those demons into those swine. Is the people begged Jesus to leave. And I think that's why most people in the church don't want to deal with this, is because there is a reverence and there is a fear. If you're dealing with demonic stuff, I don't know that I've ever cast out a demon from anybody. I have bound up demons before and I have thrown them out of my house. I've had some stuff happen in my house and I've taken authority over stuff. It's the same power., and it's the same authority. If you are called to a deliverance ministry, you've probably seen active demonic possessions. I'm sure I have, but I have never been a part of throwing it out or binding it up or any of that stuff. So I'm not here to, I'm just here to say, hey, we have this power, we have this authority, and if we're to imitate what Jesus did, and I'll go ahead and take the most controversial one, up front. I mean, I just don't care if you want to bump off of this episode and this podcast. I mean, it's your, it's your freedom to do this. All I'm doing is reading the word of God, and I am not trying to parse it incorrectly. I am be— I'm going to be held accountable by the Holy Spirit, by Jesus and Father God for what I say. And so I am trying to bring this to you as clear and concise as I can. We have the power over demons. Every stinking demon, we have the power. Satan himself, we have the power over Satan, but we have to fight him in the spirit realm and with our spiritual weapons and authority. We have to be submitted, we have to be humble, and we have to use the name of Jesus in faith. We have to believe that he is the Son of God and that he has the power over everything. And at the name of Jesus— and, and I just need you to see the name of Jesus, how powerful that name is. At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow. Things on earth, things under the earth, things above the earth, every knee shall bow at the name of Jesus. And God has magnified his word above this name. So this is soapbox moment number 749. I don't know, I've lost count. There's a bunch. But we need to be in the Word of God. All of these things that I've just read are in the Word of God, and it's talking about the spiritual realm, and it's talking specifically about demons. And I believe if we see Jesus doing it, John 14:12, then we will do those works also. So we just have to just understand that we are going to be able to do this. I'm not going to go over— you can read your Bible and see all the other times that Jesus cast out demons and what was going on and how he did it. But this is a real thing, and I don't think you need to go looking for demons on every doorknob. I just want to remind you that it is a battle, and Ephesians 6:12 says that we are fighting principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Those are our 4 spiritual enemies, and we're not fighting flesh and blood. We're not to fight people that we can see. We've got to fight this unseen world. We got to do it by faith. We got to do it using the name of Jesus, and we need to do it on purpose. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for your name, Jesus. Thank you for coming and walking and taking all of the sin out of this world. Lord, we're not worried about sin anymore. We just need to get in your word and figure out what we are supposed to do to help build your kingdom. God, I pray that this listener would just dive into your word. Holy Spirit, help them to understand. Lead and guide and direct them. Be that lamp unto their feet and that light into their path. God, I thank you for doing that for me, and you are not a respecter of persons, so you will do it for this listener. 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.

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