In episode 56 of the "No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe" podcast, host Greg Ryan continues his series on spiritual warfare, focusing on the theme of surrender as the gateway to true spiritual power. He shares a personal testimony of how God broke him in a Pep Boys store, likening his impulsive nature to the Apostle Peter’s "fire‑aim‑shoot" attitude. Greg connects surrender to the intertwined virtues of meekness, brokenness, and humility, arguing that one cannot be truly meek or broken without humility. He uses the biblical account of Gideon (Judges 7) – the breaking of pitchers and the lighting of torches – as a vivid metaphor for a believer’s broken vessel containing the Holy Spirit’s fire. He then returns to Ephesians 6, indicating that the armor of God will be unpacked over several weeks, beginning with the concept of "standing" after humility is cultivated. Greg urges listeners to pray a specific prayer asking God to break them, warning that such prayer should be taken seriously. He emphasizes that the Holy Spirit’s fire terrifies Satan, and that a broken, humble heart allows God’s power to flow, causing spiritual enemies to turn on each other. The episode ends with a promise to explore humility in the next session.
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Welcome to episode 56. You know how it starts.
John 1:1, 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 56. I'm continuing with the spiritual warfare, and I'm working my way to the armor of God. That's in the title. But right now we're talking about— and I'm continuing on the surrender— that got the word that God gave me was surrender. And I've just got done giving you my testimony on my brokenness, on how God broke me in Pep Boys of all places. I don't suggest it, but you know, God's going to break you where God's going to break you, I guess, if you, if you pray that prayer. And I did. So we all know that, um, I'm, I'm a little bit off, for lack of a better word. I, I don't, uh, I don't wait around. I guess I guess you can kind of see, I guess the longer we spend time with each other, that you can see that when I say that I'm more like Peter, you know, Peter always, he would, he would take one, he would always put his foot in his mouth, and when he opened his mouth again, he would pull that foot out and then put his other foot in. So Peter was always in the ready, fire, aim. Peter was always kind of doing or jumping in. He got out the boat, you know, if you read the Bible much, you'll, you'll see that Peter's always the one that opens his mouth, he's, you know, he's Peter's Peter. So I, I have— I can appreciate or relate to the Apostle Peter. Not that I am as strong as he is in the Lord or anything like that, but just his personality. It's just— he just— he's the one who's going to get out of the— I'm not saying that I'd have got out of the boat, but I, I did, I did make a declaration that I was going to walk on water, so there's that. Well, that's a whole nother rabbit, and I'm not going to chase that today. We're going to talk about— we're going to continue with the meekness and the brokenness, but we're going to stand— we're going to walk through to humility and humbling yourself. And all of it, it all kind of goes together. You know, you can't really— you can't really be meek and you can't really be broken without being humble. So I guess it's just the big wrapper on this is being humble or humility. And we're going to finish up with Gideon. And I didn't read that part where Gideon had broken the vessel, but if you remember, they were all camped, you know, the Midianites were all camped. And, and it's in Judges, Judges 7:16. Then he divided the 300 men into 3 companies, and he put a trumpet into every man's hand with empty pitchers and torches inside the pitchers. And he said to them, look at me and do likewise. Watch And when I come to the edge of the camp, you shall do as I do. 18:6 When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp, and say, The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. 18:7 So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the mid— middle watch, just as they had posted the watch, and they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers. That were in their hands. Then the 3 companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers. They held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands and for blowing, and they cried, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" And every man stood in his place all around the camp, and the whole army ran and cried out and fled. When the 300 blew the trumpets, the Lord set every man's sword against his companion throughout the whole camp. Now with that picture in your mind, let's go back to Ephesians 6, and we're going to start again at 10, where it starts talking about where we have started on the armor of God. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore. And I'm going to stop right there because we're going to talk about now, if you with the picture of Gideon in your mind and the broken pots and the meekness and the humbling yourself— God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. If you will humble yourself before God and you will pray the prayer of being broken and you will be meek, which we've talked in a different episode, all of these characteristics will help you. And when you go to stand, then that, you know, we're going to talk in the next episode. And then I think we're going to next week, we're going to get in, actually going to get into the, to the armor of God. Maybe, maybe not. It may, this may be a 3-week training. Because as I'm looking at all of the stuff that I want to teach on this particular lesson, I don't know that I'm going to start putting the armor on yet because I've, I've seen a couple other things in here that we need to touch on. The, the thing I want to have you kind of picture in your mind is your broken vessel with the torch inside of you. And, and the torch, that, that fire— John the Baptist said in Matthew 3:11, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Now I want you to picture the fire. Now the Holy Spirit is the fire, and that is what—
when—
if we're broken, I want us— you know, when we, we talked about, or I've talked about You know, I've always said Satan, I call him the punk. But Satan, if I'm shaking my fist at Satan, he's not scared of me. But the fire of God, the Holy Spirit, he is terrified. He is a sissy. He's a big punk. He is defeated. Father God would crush him. He would put his— if you put your finger, your index finger and thumb together, Father God could go pfft, and Satan would be done. We're not worried about Satan if you fight him in the right place. He is very good at what he does, and we're going to talk about that next week. But we are right now, we're talking about this fire that's inside of you. And if you can picture the Gideon when he broke those pots and they're holding the torches, that's what in the spirit realm— I don't know what it looks like in the spirit realm, but when you are, when you are meek and when you have are broken and God is able to flow through you the enemy cannot stand, and they will start destroying each other. And that's what I want to encourage you. I want to encourage you to, you know, maybe think about— and I'm telling you, it's, it's dangerous. Don't pray that prayer that I talked about in a previous episode just haphazardly, because God will— that is a prayer that God will answer. And if you've ever wondered, you know, does God answer prayer, go ahead and pray God, use me. God, break me. God, send me. Go ahead and pray that for a month or two and see what happens. God is a God of truth, and that is the truth. God wants you in a position— he wants you to repent, he wants you to be humble, and he wants you in a position to receive his grace. And humility, we're going to talk about that in the next episode. Humility is what I think in order to conduct the power of God. I believe it starts there. Well, that's enough. I was long on the last episode. I feel myself wanting to ramble on in this one, and I'm going to cut this one off here. I'm going to— and I'm going to pick up in the next episode. We're going to talk about being humble before the Lord, and we're going to talk about humility. And so I will— I'll bring that instead of starting to talk about it here. I'm gonna bring that in the next episode. Thanks for being a part of this, and I look forward to talking to you tomorrow.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
