SEP 1 2023 | Spiritual Warfare Workshop S1E1

Sea Change Church · Spiritual Warfare Workshop Ep 1 · September 1, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Amen. Alright, well, hey everyone. Welcome to the Holy Spirit course. I do every summer this year, we are leaning into spiritual warfare. And the reason being is because I did a big series on Paul's third missionary journey, and I just could not go as deep as I, as I would like to have with all the different questions that those scriptures, especially, uh, 19 through 21 when Paul was in Ephesus, uh, dive into demon possess people fake, uh, you know, exorcist trying to use Jesus' name, they get beat up by a demon.

Like it's just a, it's a lot, it's a lot of ground to cover on a Sunday morning. And so we're gonna be, uh, looking at Ephesians, um, and this Paul's missionary journey, uh, and then also, um, juxtaposing it against the book of Ephesians. You might be familiar with, uh, a certain, uh, chapter, uh, called Ephesians six. And it talks about spiritual warfare. We're gonna talk about that.

But it also talks about the armor of God. And as I started reading through Ephesians today, um, along with knowing what we've just learned in the book of Acts with pollen, Ephesians, that it was a place where Artemis dwell, uh, we believe that was actually Satan himself. They say that Artemis fell from heaven. If you remember, Demetrius was the, um, craftsman who was very upset because his whole business fell apart. And the, the entire trade in the area fell apart because of Paul's success in teaching the word of God. And people said, we don't need these idols anymore.

And so that all happened in Ephesus. And, uh, it's not surprising when Paul writes a letter back to the Ephesians, he talks about spiritual warfare, because that is what was going on there. We believe that Satan lived there. We can talk, we're gonna talk about territory. We're gonna talk about where can Satan live in one place?

Can he live in nine places? Um, how many angels are there? How many demons are there? Does Satan have unlimited resources or is he limited? Uh, we'll get into some more of those things as we look into it. Uh, but right now we're gonna start today with, um, Ephesians 1913 through 20. This is the text we're gonna, uh, be in. And there's a lot that comes up in this.

We're not gonna go verse by verse through this, but we're setting it up as an archetype to kind of open up some questions that we can dive into and to give you, uh, some insight into how the spiritual world works. Uh, chapter 19 verse, uh, 13 through 20 might recognize this. We were there for three weeks. Yes, Original 19, Excuse me, it's Acts 19. Um, I already, you know, I fixed that once in my notes, my other part, some of the notes, but that was a mistake. Sorry about that. But I did have the title.

It was Journey through Ephesians, uh, journey through Ephesus. And that's what happened. But thank you. That's act. So cross that out. I'll fix the notes on that. Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon possessed. Let's stop right there because we've gone over this for three weeks.

I'm not gonna read the entire passage straight through. Gonna, uh, stop and look at that. What's interesting, it looks like they were having some success in driving out demons. They were going around driving out demons, right? How were these non-Christians driving out demons? Well, we know we have an old covenant, and Satan is bound to the old covenant, like he's built bound to the new covenant.

But there was a shift after Jesus died on the cross, right? So Paul, when he drives out demons, he's no longer referring to the God of Abraham, although it is the God of Abraham. And you can refer to the God of Abraham that still works. But because of Jesus' death on the cross, we have a new access to new tools, to the Holy Spirit as we'll talk about and new ways, and to encounter, uh, and, and new levels of authority. So how can people who are not Christians, they were Jews who were going around, cast out demons because they were doing it in the name of God.

They were doing it in the power and the authority of the old covenant. Uh, the power of God still had power. The mosaic power still had, you know, power. The word of God had power and they had authority, but things had shifted. And because of that shift, they all of a sudden were coming against some obstacles. Obviously, it was not working all the time.

They weren't having the success that Paul was having. Paul was dealing with different tools, uh, then they were dealing with, we're gonna talk about those tools in week three. But they started trying to use these tools. And Satan eventually, or the, the demon, I don't believe it was Satan himself, but this, this, this high demon, they got into a, they picked a fight with a demon who was no longer, um, uh, obeying them because they didn't have that authority. The covenant had changed.

Uh, it was still same. Jesus had fulfilled it, but things had changed on the playing field. And so hopefully that makes sense why they were able to do that. We'll talk about authority in, um, week, uh, two, as we go and talk about understanding the Holy Spirit, angels, Satan and demons. Let's continue on. They would say in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out. Seven sons of Skiba, a Jewish chief priest was doing this. So once again, a chief priest, high priest in the church, in the synagogue one day, the evil spirit answered them, Jesus, I know and I know about Paul, but who are you?

And he was que that demon in that moment was questioning the authority upon which they were standing. Now, God could still honor the name of Jesus, but they were not under the covering of Jesus because they didn't believe in Jesus. And so they were using a weapon that they were not equipped or authorized to use. It was a counterfeit weapon. Satan loves counterfeits.

We'll talk a little bit about counterfeit, uh, um, the things that Satan tries to counterfeit the things of God to fool and deceive us. But this is what is happening here. Then the man who had set the evil, um, then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran outta the house.

I always found that funny, naked and bleeding. Does Satan have the power to change a light bulb? Can he do physical things, is what I'm asking. Um, can he affect our physical bodies? Next week, we're gonna dive into that, but it appears that he used a human agent to, to affect his will. And that is how Satan works a lot. He uses human agents. Uh, Satan, uh, has some authority. We know that he has authority over things.

What does he have authority over it? We're gonna look into that next week. But when we partner with, when, when individuals partner with Satan, he has the authority that they have, and he can use their agreement with him and then allow perhaps his supernatural strength, his supernatural wisdom, which is supernatural. He's smarter than any of us.

He knows more than any of us. He's been around a lot longer than any of us. He has these tools that he can use, but they are limited. But when a believer is in agreement with the enemy, then the enemy can step in and use his supernatural power because there is permissions being given. We'll go more into permissions at, uh, on another week.

It says he gives such a beam. When this verse 17, when this became known to the Jews and the Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear in the name of Jesus, the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Why did this affect the Greeks? What did this have to do with Greeks? There was a heavy demonic trade that was happening in Ephesus.

We know that there was this temple. There was like Nick said, when he spoke, there was human trafficking going on. There was prostitution, there was spells that were being cast. There was a temple of Artemis. Artemis was a Greek God. I was just reading, um, confessions of St. Augustine, which is a great audible read. And he talks about how in the, when he lived, I think it was the first sec, second century, third century, forgive my, uh, my Augustine, uh, dates.

But he said he would talk about the people that would go worship the demon of Osirus. And when he talked about Artemis Osirus, these other, um, false gods, he just called 'em demons. This is what Augustine called them. And so, and I believe that that's actually true. That that oftentimes demons, because they're trying to deceive you, will like, they like to be seen as gods.

We know that they are not gods and they will take the form or the identity of something else. Demons are big into identity. Uh, and having false identities and trying to rob and steal your identity, identity is something we will come across in the, in these three weeks. Um, the, so the, the Greeks understood that there was, they probably knew who this demon possessed person was.

He might've been a Greek, he might've been a, a gen, um, he might've been a Gentile or a Greek, or he might've been a Jew. But nonetheless, this was a money making business. The amount of money that surrounded Ephesus, whether it be the slave trade, the prostitution trade, um, the, um, you know, casting out of demons, the, the, uh, asking demons to, to imbue you and to come into your life. Some people do that. Uh, they would say, Hey, if you want a fertility, you know, we will pray a blessing.

And you would invite the spirit of fertility to come into your body. A lot of people have demons because they've asked them in, and this was a financial trade. You would pay, you would give homage, you would do these things. Um, I had someone say that was interesting though at the time, uh, the Temple of Artemis was doing a lot of good things as well.

And Satan will do that. Sometimes it'll look really good, but yet it'll have evil intention. So it said in the temp, in, in Ephesus, there was hardly a person that lived on the streets homeless, because you could always go spend the night in the temple of Artemis and they would feed you. And they did all these different things to, um, while this other trade was going on.

And so the Greeks probably knew this person. And when they heard that and they knew these sons of s ski, but imagine seven, you know, um, Jewish men probably in full regalia walking around, you pay them and they, they exercise a demon and it works. And you start getting a little street cred, right? You're the one that can cast out the demons.

You can do all that until one day you get in above your head, uh, and then they get a beating and they are running outta the city. Imagine them running out, beaten and naked. Uh, that's gonna cause a ru that's gonna cause a ruckus. And there was a power encounter that happened. Satan loves power encounters. And one of the, the things you'll see with Jesus, Jesus didn't do a lot of power encounters. I mean, he did, but he didn't spend four hours casting out a demon as people were delivered and yelling on the ground. And the whole thing.

Usually it was like that because he knew his authority, he walked in his authority and he didn't need to have a seven hour deliverance session. And you'll see that with Paul as well. And so, um, I believe that, you know, in, in, in, if we know our authority oftentimes, and the person is willing to be delivered, we can immediately see a person, uh, come to freedom. Whether it be from addiction or different things like that.

Not always, but, but, um, often. And so we see that, and that's why the, they mentioned the Greeks there in verse 18. Many of those who believe now came openly confessed their evil deeds. So the result was when they saw this power encounter that people came and confessed their sins. And confessions of sin, as we're gonna, as we're gonna talk about, is one of the most powerful weapons of spiritual warfare. To confess your sin, as long as you have unconfessed sin, you have territory in your life that Satan can go before the throne of God and claim as his own. They say, you're under the Holy Spirit, but I have the Holy Spirit. Yes you do.

I'm not saying you're possessed. I'm just saying if you have areas in your life of unconfessed sin, then the enemy can go before God like he did with Job. Read the interaction with Job. We're not gonna get into Job, but go back and read through Job. Remember Satan, he, God says, where you at? He says, I've been wandering around the Earth like he does. Right?

And Peter tells us, he wanders around looking for what someone he can devour. And it says that he comes before God and God, you know, says what mischief you've been up to. And he, and that the devil says, have you considered, or, or God says to the, the devil, thanks a lot, God. Right? Have you considered my servant job? And he is like, yeah, I've considered him hedge of protection around him.

Why was there a hedge of protection around him? The devil can only attack if God allows, which is what happened with Job or if you allow it. So why does God allow us to be attacked? Why does God allow these things? I don't know. His benevolence knows why. But devil cannot just attack you. He has no authority to just attack you unless God allows it or you allow it. And sometimes you don't even know you're allowing it.

And that's why what we're talking about tonight, of awareness, of surveying your life, of looking at all the different areas in which the enemy can attack you spiritually is so important. He wants you unaware, walking with perhaps you have a, a brokenness or a hurt or a lie, or an unbelief or something that you don't even understand and know that's where he does his best work, right?

And he wants to work in the darkness and in the deception. And then he can go before God and say, and let's just use one. Let's say a person has a, let's say they're dishonest in the finances. Satan can go then according to what we see in Job. And he can go before God and say, Hey, there's this person and I'm going to attack them. Or he can just attack.

I don't know if he has to go to God every single time, uh, that we don't have a scripture of that. But we do have a reference for that with Job. But if you are dishonest in your finances, then he can attack your finances. Why? 'cause you're in agreement with him. You're in full agreement. This is why I, I'm, I'm personally terrified to cheat on things like taxes, real estate, papers, any of it. Because I don't want the, the whatever advantage I might get, it is gonna be leveraged into my disadvantage.

And so there's a hedge of protection that comes when you have no agreements with the enemy. Breaking agreements, breaking contracts. Perhaps you have thought for your whole life, you know, I'm a no good dirty loser because your dad called you a no good dirty loser. And you've just taken that on so deep that you don't even, you don't think that it's just there. You don't even know it's there.

But the devil knows it's there 'cause he can see it on you because he can discern the spirits, because he sees things that you don't even see. And so he will come in with his lies and his and his, uh, um, uh, deceptions, and he'll lean into that. He's gonna lean into that. And this is why confession is so important. So I said, confession to sin.

And we see that here in this scripture. People confess their sins and the devil loses territory, or the Greek word. Remember the Greek word CITAs? That's right. CITAs. We'll look at CITAs. That's in your notes. We just finish up here. It says, many of those believed and openly confess to evil deeds a number openly. That's the key word, circle. Openly, wanna live openly.

Other than some, perhaps some private things that are just intimate, private things that are wholly but intimate. There should be nothing in your life that people can't look at. You know, your Instagram feed will, if you have an Instagram feed, the algorithm will give you what you want. And I, the other day, I just gave my phone to my wife. And because I had an Instagram, I don't listen to, I don't do a lot of scrolling.

And she was watching my feed and I was, she's like, you have a great, I love your feed. I wish your feed was my hers, like gardening and everything. And mine's all these funny jokes and stuff like this, surfing or whatever it was. But I realized after I gave it to her, I'm not afraid to give my wife my feed. I'm not afraid she could look at my phone records, she could open my computer, the church could open my computer. Um, you know, I would be terrified if I was looking at things on my computer. And then, you know, you're searching for somebody and someone's looking over your shoulder and you're trying to find something together, but the word you type in kind of matches maybe what you're not looking for.

And then it shows up and someone sees that woo exposed, you know, live your life in such a way that everyone can see it. You know, people say, what about all these privacy concerns? You know, that, uh, so what, for me, I mean, granted, I understand the legal issues of all that, but if people see my life, great, let 'em give glory. The God it says.

But openly can. Are you living your life openly or is there a little bit of secrecy, a little bit of darkness, a little bit of secrecy in the marriage, a little bit of secrecy in the things you do and the things that you hold. And, and I talked, there's a difference between wisdom and intimacy. I gave that a few weeks back. And secrecy, secrecy is trying to hide something that you don't want to have exposed.

Using wisdom, you don't share every intimate thing. That's just wisdom. So, but that word openly is key. So, so mark that in your mind when you're doing spiritual warfare, the more open, the more a child of the light that you are, the more you walk in the light, not in the darkness, the more power you're gonna have, the more cratos you're gonna have. It says a openly, a number of who practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. Satan lost ground there. It's a territorial thing.

When they calculated the value of the scrolls came to 50,000. I think it was like, I forgot how many millions of dollars that was, but it was, uh, I think it was 50 years a drop Ma is one year salary. So the 50,000 dogma in this way, the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in cratos. Week one, we're gonna survey the battlefield. That's what we're doing here. Week one.

We're gonna survey the battlefield. You're gonna walk outta here with, uh, some tools at the end to look at your life and say, where are the areas that Satan might attack me? A lot of believers aren't even aware of all the different places Satan wants to attack. Where can he attack? Where can he not attack? So week one is surveying the battle loop. You're gonna take a survey this week.

Number two is understanding. This is week two, understanding God, the Holy Spirit angels, Satan and demons. What is their power? What power do they not have? What can they do? Where are they from? How do they exist? How do they, how do they take authority? How do they lose authority? And then week three is gonna be releasing the power We're gonna be looking at Ephesians six. It's a great book, Ephesians six, once again, speaking right to these Ephesians where this happened, we want to be a people who walk in that authority and in that power. Alright, here's the introduction to key elements of spiritual warfare.

The first thing is to recognize the existence of spiritual forces. Um, there are so many believers in the western world as we become very scientific, which is actually kind of funny because scientific movements always move back to paganism, which you see happening right now. There's massive amounts of paganism. As I was studying through Ephesus. It's, you know, we're so knowledgeable, you know, but then you have all this witchcraft happening. I told you that we have over, um, 2 million witches, uh, in America now that's gone up from 8,000 in 1991 in a survey that is, um, a half million more than we have Presbyterians in the country. So, uh, there's a huge movement of witchcraft. Um, a lot of androgyny that happens with identity and things like that is usually tied to paganism nature worship. Um, while we are called to be, uh, care, to care for God's creation, that's the primary calling that God gave us. And we're, we should be conservationists, right?

God has told us to conserve the earth and to care for it and tend it. I'm not, we're not gonna give that up, but we're also not gonna worship nature. You know, where nature becomes more important than human beings. And so part of paganism is nature worship. And you're seeing a high rise in, in, in, um, environmental nature, worship, where rivers are being given, um, human rights. Maybe you saw that up in California.

I think it was the Kern River was given. They're trying to vote human rights in for the Kern River and things like that. So you're seeing this paganism all throughout our society, while at the same time saying, we believe in science. We believe in science, but paganism is coming at the same time. And Satan wants to come in and cause deception in the society, and we're gonna have to learn as believers how to live in a pagan culture.

In the six hundreds, Pope Gregory sent believers into England to commandeer, pagan society. In, in confessions, he said, Hey, there's all, you know, they came, the priest came back to Pope Gregory and said, Pope Gregory, there's all these temples that people have built. Should we tear 'em down? He says, no, no, don't just tear, tear the temples down.

It's hard to build a good temple. He says, just clear it out now. And he goes, and let's turn it into a church. And so he started using it. They said, well, there's all these pagan festivals like this one for, for, you know, at the same time of Easter. He goes, well, let's go and make it Christian so that, you know, and people have always said, well, hey, it was a, you know, that c Easter has its roots in Paganism? No. It, what what Pope Gregory did was come in and take Karitas.

He took something that was theirs and then all of a sudden made it, made it a something for believers. And so you see that there, these books that had magic and, and were having people were binding and, and, um, doing different, um, um, uh, incantations and things of that nature. They burned those up and Satan lost territory. So, uh, those are the three weeks we're gonna see. So recognize, so in Ephesians six, this, this verse and this chapter, which you might wanna read, I would encourage you if you can read it for these next three weeks.

We're together every day. Read Ephesians six. Just let it seep. Let's word of God, let it seep. See, Ephesians six 12 is just one little procope out of, um, Ephesians six. But it says, our struggle is what? It's not against flesh and blood, but it's against the rulers and against the authorities, and against the powers of this dark world. Dark is key there.

And against the spiritual forces of what evil in the heavenly realms, we focus as believers, especially as the church has become more political on individuals. Oh, if I could just get this person out of office, oh, if we could just get this person to do this, oh my, my, my neighbor, if I could just get my neighbor or my, whoever you have conflict with and all the conflicts in the world, and you see this, you know, you people think about Putin or Hitler or whoever it is.

What Paul says is that's not where your battle is. The battle is in the heavenly realms. I think we need to organize and make sure that we use the freedoms we have to do things like voting in these nature. But when we spend 95% of our time talking about politics and voting, and maybe 5% of our time actually praying that God would make a spiritual move in the heavens where he shifts something in the heavens, that's where we need to live. And that's the perspective that Paul calls us to.

We need to be spiritual people. We need to be a people that see things and, and fight battle, spiritual battle. So when you have a conflict at work, it's not so much figuring out how to deal with that person. Although the Holy Spirit, if you pray, will counsel you how to do that. That's part of spiritual warfare. But it's fascinating about it.

It's using tools of, of, of God's word. It's using meditation and silence and attacking these things with the powerful tools that God has given us. It'll go on to say, for the weapons of our warfare are not the same as the weapons of this world, but they are, but they are mighty and they are powerful, which means your weapons of manipulation, your, uh, weapons of persistence, not perseverance, persistence or whatever it would be, are weaker then God's weapons.

And we want to see those weapons used against the enemy because when we win in the spiritual battle, you see breakthrough and open doors on the physical plane. And so the first thing that I want to ask you in your hearts is, how often are you taking things to the spiritual level? And you don't wanna be so heavenly minded, you're a no earthly good.

We live in a practical world, but we want to see our battles. This is a spiritual battle. And we're gonna identify those with that said, I put as as part B, as, uh, letter B, be aware of the enemy, but avoid a fascination with darkness. Uh, there was a big movement in the early nineties with a, a great book called This Present Darkness. Really? It was a, it was, I went back and re-read it. I liked it a lot more in the, in the nineties than I liked it now when I re-read it. Um, but it really opened people's eyes up to the spiritual world.

But it also kind of got a little bit of a fascination going. And the church will jump on these bandwagons, and sometimes they're movements of God. We've gotta be careful that everything is not a demon around the next corner. Jesus did not have a fascination with darkness. Jesus did not, was not going around. Where's the, he wasn't the sons of Skiva.

Where's the next demon person that I can make my name with? Where can I make a little more cash by casting out a demon? Jesus just walked in authority. Jesus walked in power. Jesus walked in presence. Jesus walked in the word of God. He knew the word of God. He was, according to John one, the word of God. Jesus just walked in authority and identity.

And with that darkness parted in front of him, you see, that's what we're called to do. We're not, I don't think that we're supposed to go looking for darkness everywhere. I don't think we're always looking for the enemy. The, the, the enemy loves a show. He loves a power encounter. I was here at the church, uh, about five years ago.

I gotta make sure I don't tell too many stories. Uh, and, um, a gentleman came forward and I was at the front. And, um, you were praying for people. And I see my, you know, my team around him and they're praying and he's just weeping. And oh, you know, the, the devil's after me. And ah, and my team wasn't really equipped because I was at a, a church called The Vineyard, which did a lot of teaching on how to, how to deal with this and these type of things. Um, my team was doing the best they could. They had hands out and they're praying, and they, they kind of didn't know what to do.

And probably because I didn't do enough good training with them. And I had walked up and it was just a commotion. And there was people in the back and knew people looking what's going on up there. And there was this big thing going on and what the devil wanted. And the, and the young man was demonized. Um, what the young, what the devil wanted was a, was a power encounter in front of a lot of people.

And cause a commotion. He wants to cause an issue. He wants people to go, that church is weird. What happened up there? And remember, I went up to the young man and I just said to my team, I just said, you know, Hey, I just one second, let me just let me, I said, Hey, what's your name? Oh, the devil's coming to give you, ah, I said, Hey, what, what's your name? Okay, this is my name. Oh, great. Hey, how, how are you doing today? Yeah, what's, ah, and I, you know, I said, well, you eat a peace, just peace on you.

Why don't you sit down, let's talk. And then like, he sat down and I said, you know, I'm just gonna pray for you. And I just, basically, it was deescalation. Um, but what the devil wants is a power encounter. And what he wants is a bunch of Christians that are focusing on the devil, right? We're not gonna focus on the devil, but we are gonna be aware.

We're not gonna let him fool us. And then we're just gonna do what Jesus does, like an ice breaker through the Arctic Sea. We're gonna walk in light and as we walk in truth, and we're gonna take territory, and we're gonna break up the ice until the spring comes and sets us free. So the first, those are the first things that I wanna say. We're, we're gonna avoid a fascination with darkness.

And I don't want you to be in after this class. Like, you know, I'm attacking darkness. I'm looking for darkness. No, you're just gonna bring light. That's what you're gonna do. You're gonna put light on the situations of your life, and then you're gonna take God's authority and you're gonna go peace peacefully forward. Uh, we saw in Paul's ministry that Paul's ministry was a masterclass in spiritual warfare. If you look read, go back and read from chapter 16, even through the entire, from 16 all the way through 21, I think are the three missionary journeys.

You'll just keep seeing a leading of the Holy Spirit. It's, it's a great read. I mean, I've just, it feels like a book to me now as I've been going through it. I was really sad to, to end it. Uh, 'cause I feel like I'm on this, this journey with, uh, with Paul and his friends. But he just keeps, he's seeking the spirit. Sometimes he has a dream.

Sometimes people tell him something. Sometimes he's just going out on faith. He's, he's walking though in authority. And so this is a masterclass, but there's two key words in this passage that I want to focus on is key words with the idea of surveying the territory today of your lives. First word is dunamis. And so dunamis was a, uh, a word that means power in the Greek. And, um, if you let me see, the demon possessed man, the man, the evil spirit came out, became known to the, I did not circle my dunamis word there. Um, but the word dunamis in this passage, when it was speaking of the, of, of the, that they were, they were invoking the name of Jesus over demon zest people.

That word dunamis means the, um, uh, power for performing miracles. And when we think of miracles and God's power, we often think about, uh, raising from the dead. Um, someone getting healed. Um, someone getting a a, a demon coming. You think of those type of, of power encounters. I think those are important. When anyone ever receives Christ and they get saved from eternal hell, dunamis has happened. But so is raita. CITAs is this word here at the end.

And I, and in verse 20, it says in verse 20, in this way, the word of the Lord did what? It spread widely. And it grew in power. And that dominion, that's dominion. And this is a really, really important word because dominion is a kingdom principle that comes out of Matthew Chapter six. Lord, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You're thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so cratos power means making, taking territory in your marriage that makes your marriage look more like heaven than it looks like hell. It is bringing kingdom characteristics, kingdom culture, kingdom living into your business, into all areas of your life, into your health decisions. It is just taking control. It is taking dominion.

That's the word. And it's not you taking dominion. It's you working as an em, emissary of God who takes dominion. So when you go into that place, it says, wherever you put your feet, it says it'll, you can claim it as yours. This is what the, what God said to the Jews. Often wherever you go, once you put your feet on the land, you claim it, but it's claimed as Gods.

And so you become someone wherever you go, you're taking territory. I'll tell you what I want. I want more cratos. I want more ra toss in my wife's heart. That doesn't mean I want to control her. That's not the what karitas means. It means that I'm living way as a husband that opens up her heart to a relationship with me, to more of a relationship with God, to more peace, to more power, to more care, to the things of God.

When I'm on campus at La Jolla High School, I want to act in such a way that I bring Cro toss. One of the things that's hard for me is when I go to these basketball games, I'm very competitive. You gotta be real careful when I'm cheering against other teams, because you can lose some cro toss real quick, uh, with San Diego High school parents. You know what I mean?

And it's been cool that, um, I've, I've got along really well with, um, you know, most of the parents from their schools, when they come, I'll meet 'em at the away game. And then when they come, I'll have, um, drinks and uh, 'cause I work with the, uh, high school for the basketball team, and I'll hand out drinks to all the opposing parents and they'll say hi to me.

And I'm friends with all the coaches. And that is, that's trying to develop something more than my daughter's team winning. It's trying to take raita in people's hearts. And so those are the two words a lot of us wanna work at. Walk in power. We want the power of God, right? You want to see the, you know, the fig tree cursed or, you know, whatever the things that Jesus could do, you could do greater things than me.

But what we want more than that is we want a city of La Jolla to have more people that are professing believers. We want the divorce rate to go down. We want the crime rate to go down. There is a, I don't know if it's still true, but four, five years ago, there, there, I think it's on Trulio. Trulia is a real estate website.

May maybe some of you have seen it. And if you, it'll show the heat map for, for crime. And there's a really bible believing church. The Lutheran church down here on the corner, they have the, we follow Jesus things up all the time. So there was a green, there was a, there's a green square from our church corner to their church corner.

And the two blocks where no crime had happened, every other place was like semi green, a little bit yellow. Now call it coincidence, I don't know, but I know that we're a Bible preaching church. They're a Bible preaching church. And we've been praying, we pray regularly on Tuesday. We did it again today for safety in the neighborhood and in the area.

I believe that's crop tossed. I believe that you see cities that are falling apart. We have cities in our nation right now where Satan is taking ground and they're, um, they're basically hellholes and you see them and you can watch them. And then other cities, God uses the influence of believers in kingdom godly principles. I believe that he did it with America at one point.

And so this is what I'm talking about. It's walking in that and taking cro toss. So tonight, as you survey your life, what I want to see you do is be able to look at these different areas. We're gonna go through 'em quickly and say, okay, am I experiencing attack here? Am I experiencing some resistance here, uh, in my life? So those are the two words, and those are the what we want to see happen.

Satan does the majority of his work in darkness and deception. That is until he gets a stronghold, once he controls a city, once he controls a marriage, once he controls an individual, he's not working in darkness no more. He is just doing what he wants. He's just playing, having a good time. Remember another scripture that says that, you know, the devil don't give the devil what a foothold.

The devil will turn every foothold if he can into a stronghold. You imagine a castle wall. I love going to castles. That's what my things. And they would take oil and they would put oil on the walls of the castle sometimes, or tar where they would, then they would set the wall on fire so that people could not climb up the wall and breach the wall. Now, in the deepest part of a castle is a place that sometimes they have a second wall and they have a moat and all these different things.

The deepest part of a castle oftentimes is a place called the Keep. It's where the king could go hide for a while until hopefully reinforcements came and saved him. Imagine demonic possession of the enemy getting a foothold over the wall, over the moat into the city causing pillaging, plundering, and eventually getting into the keep and claiming it as his own.

That's what demonic possession would be. Satan wants to work, walk in secrecy and darkness. He wants secrecy in your life. He wants to walk in darkness, and he wants to deceive you. And so one of the reasons we have to keep our, uh, to keep walking in the light, John three 19 says, this is the judgment that light has come into the world.

But men love their darkness rather than the light for their deeds are evil. Is there any darkness you love? Great question. If you're gonna walk, if you're gonna have spiritual warfare, if you're gonna walk in victory, you better get good at asking yourself difficult questions. Questions that are uncomfortable. Do I really want to have intimacy with the Holy Spirit?

Do I really want to get rid of this addiction? Do I really, what do I really want? Do I really want to know Jesus? Do I really wanna walk in the light or is there a little, do I like a little bit of darkness? Gotta keep a little bit from me, right? And then John 8 44 B, when he, the devil lies, he speaks his native language for he is a liar. And the father of lies, he is lying to you constantly.

He's catastrophizing your future. He's lying about your children. He's lying about who you are. He's lying about the future of this nation. He's lying about the future of the world. He's lying about God. He is a liar. I believe that he still thinks he can win and beat Jesus. I met a demonic guy here on in La Jolla not long ago. I think it was La Jolla.

And, um, yeah, it was, and it's a guy I gave my jacket to remember. And then, uh, if you remember that story, and then he needed pants. And I'm like, well, I don't think I'm gonna go that far. Um, yeah. And uh, he, I said, I believe in Jesus. He goes, I believe in the devil. I said, I said, I believe in the devil too. He goes, but I believe in the devil. And I said, well, I believe in the devil. You know, the devil lost. He goes, no, he didn't.

Devil's gonna win. I believe that if Satan is a liar, you know how people lie. They can't believe. I think Satan still thinks he's gonna win. I I I I believe he is such a liar. He thinks he's gonna somehow pull it out in the ninth inning. You know what I mean? Some sucker punch to Jesus in the last minute. You were dealing with an enemy that is so deceived that he just, he doesn't know the truth. He can't know the truth.

And so when he speaks to you, his native tongue is one that is a liar. Listening to a song today, a girl, you probably maybe saw her on Instagram or a meme, she, she's yelling out like, Janice Joplin, the devil is a liar. And God is my provider. And it's, you know, we have to identify. So the one thing, you might wanna write it down, the devil is a liar. Lies are deception, lies are darkness.

He wants to rob, steal and destroy. I was disappointed this when I was, I was on my vacation, but halfway through the vacation, I just started getting all these thoughts, oh, this is gonna go wrong. You know, this is gonna go wrong. This is, no one's ever gonna come back to your church. You know, like, it's my church anyways, which is when everything revolves around around me, right? You're, you're living in these false identities that no one else cares about it but you.

And it's all based on you. And I remember I got home and we had this picture of this walk on the beach, and the, and the kids had a great time. And I realized that entire walk, I was just battling anxiety about if the church is gonna fail, about if, if I'm gonna do good enough, if what? And it's all tied into like, rejection and all these other things. I thought I need to, I need to battle that. I need to go against that.

And I allowed the devil to steal probably, you know, my daughter's 21 now, I don't know how many more family trips we're having like that. One of the last family walks in that nature on a vacation, which is very intimate, special time. It's like bedtime with your kids when you tuck 'em in. There's only so many. I let 'em steal it with a bunch of lies and a bunch of deception.

And this is why when we talk about the Holy Spirit, next week we're gonna talk about a plan so that you can start asking the Holy Spirit, show me where I'm being deceived. He'll do it. I got about a 36 hour window with the Holy Spirit where he turns around and gives me the answer. So not long ago, I was, I was, a few weeks ago, I had some anxiety that came over me. And I said, God, where's this coming from?

It's came outta nowhere. I don't even know why it's here. And the word guilt came across in a song, and I felt freedom lift me. And I thought, what am I guilty about? And all of a sudden I started dealing, looking at guilt. And I was just free. And I realized that I have guilt for this and this and this, and it's just a lie that I wasn't in touch with.

But the Holy Spirit let me know. So we'll look at asking the Holy Spirit, but let me just tell you this. If you don't, as you go through this survey that we're gonna hit, the Holy Spirit is gonna ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you. That's his job. That's what he do. He reveals to you. He will tell you this is the issue. This is the issue. But we never slow down long enough. But ask oftentimes.

And so he does his work and, and then that's his like, um, native tongue. Now this is very practical. We're gonna, we're gonna move away from, from the scriptural and we're gonna look, there's some scripture. We're gonna look at the practical. And here are some key areas in which Satan may attempt to take authority and dominion and rob your cratos from you.

Okay? And as I went through this list, I'm like, well, I hadn't been thinking about that. Oh, that area. That's an area that he can come in. So first one is this faith and belief. Satan tries to sow doubt and disbelief into the Christian mind. Casting uncertainty on the foundations of God's truth of Christianity, and challenging their faith in God. Does God really exist?

Does he really love you? Did he come on? Did he really rage from the dead? Was this, is this earth created by God? He, that's a major area that where faith needs to be employed. Faith will never be proven. You can't, faith doesn't pencil out. We get that. We're in a faith community. Uh, and so we are, we are, um, uh, one way that he wants to come in and he wants to hit your faith.

And so using the scripture in week three, we're gonna talk about that. Um, but using the scripture to build your faith. And then it also says, if you have little faith, ask for what do you ask for? Faith. It's a tool. Jesus says, I ask for faith. You want more faith? He's, it, it isn't like he's like stingy with it. Like, ask for more faith.

Ask for more faith in your marriage. You know, the devil lies to me. Then you ask for faith. God's gonna, he's gonna put you, he's gonna put you in the vice grip. He's gonna, he's gonna just gonna start, put you in the wine press, uh, you know, and you're just gonna have suffering. So don't ask for faith 'cause he's just a liar. What if God just said, I'm gonna give you faith and some goodness on top of that, I'm gonna give you a bunch of blessing and some faith.

Why do I always have to go to like, oh, if I pray for that, you know, he's gonna gimme this really hard time. I'm only gonna develop that through the war. He is gonna, you know, gimme this really hard thing. Those are lies of the enemy about your thought life. That's number two. The enemy often targets a believer's thought life by planting negative thoughts, fears, temptations to direct the mind away from God's truth towards sinful or destructive patterns of thinking. And sometimes, I gotta tell you what, this is where battle really happens.

'cause I've gone 72 hours of I'm just, I'm, I got a thought. You ever get a thought in your head, something, it's coming back, it's coming back, it's coming back. It's a worry, it's a fear. I'm reading the scripture, I'm praying in tongues. I'm doing all this. I'm having people pray for me. And it's just on and on. I'm like, God, when are you gonna release me from this? And then all of a sudden I'll be like, and just go, I get a, I get a certain scripture or somebody gives me a word.

You know, have you ever had that? Someone just says something or you get a truth from God. And all of a sudden the P it's just like taking a, you know, a shower of peace, of God's truth and love, but we've gotta expose ourself to it. And so exposing ourself to those weapons. But your thought line, let's say really you want to shepherd your thoughts, not just the negative thoughts, but thoughts against people that you are uncharitable in your heart. Like, be really aware. Thoughts are so important in Romans 12, two. It says, don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by what the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is. That which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Good thoughts. This is one of the deceptions of Satan. He'll have churches that are all based on good thoughts, you know, but he won't give you the, the Jesus, you know, death on the cross and the blood of Christ and all that. It's just positivity church, right? But it's God's stuff. And it works if Satan can use some of God's stuff, but take a little bit of the truth out or not give you the full truth. It's, it's somewhat true, but it's not completely true.

And we know that God lives completely in truth. So how's your thought life? What are the things you're thinking of? Do you have the ability to stop a thought? But sometimes we take pleasure in thoughts, right? Like, temptation is pleasurable, which is weird, right? You get a thought and you just want to, you want to do that thing, or whatever it is. Maybe it's taking vengeance on somebody.

Maybe it's a sexual sin, maybe it's a physical sin of some other nature. Or it's like, uh, you know, whatever it would be. And as you think about it, we ruminate on it. And before it actually becomes an action that thought, it actually starts to feed us. It actually is something that actually feels good. And it takes, um, perseverance. Not only perseverance, but it takes discipline to stop a thought.

And Satan will keep coming back. But it says resist the devil. And what, man, there was so many years, I just gave up so easy. I mean, resisting the devil, or you resist for, for like four hours, then it's like, oh, I did a good job. I deserve that reward. Remember when I was trying to get sober, you know, oh, sober for three days, that was pretty good. Now I can go get high as a reward. You know what I mean?

Um, you reward yourself with sin because you, you know, you did something good for God. Thought life, really important. Uh, number three is identity in Christ. He's gonna attack your identity, your Christian understanding of who you are as a beloved child of God. He may use guilt, shame, I'm gonna say rejection comparison to make believers question their worth and their value. That's why the word of God is so important.

It will affirm to you over and over and memorizing the word of God. Actually, when you memorize, you know, you're creating neural pathways. You're making roads in your mind of God's word to memorize the word of God. Lesson what I did when I was on my vacation, I haven't done this for a while, but I went and got a journal and I began to write out Romans chapter eight, great, great chapter. I just wrote it out as beautifully as I could, wrote it out and kept writing it. And then just, you know, begin to write the Bible. Begin to write the Bible by hand.

That actually creates things and pathways in your head. But what do we do? It's hard. So we just don't resist reading. The word of God is resistance. Prayer is resistance. Putting up a bull, work against the, the attacks of the enemy. And the, this is what Ephesians six we'll talk about with the armor of God that we'll get into relationship with God.

The devil strives to disrupt the intimacy between a Christian and God through distractions. Busyness, unconfessed sin. His goal is to create distance and hinder effective communication with the creator. Eight. It's interesting, the world we live in right now, where there are social networks have made us the least sociable people in the history of humankind.

I was looking today, we're looking, we're still trying to, you can pray for us. We're trying to start a preschool. We were looking at a site today and it's looking pretty good actually. Um, and one of the things that I'm excited about, about our preschool is it is going to be a zero technology preschool. Uh, and I want to have a school.

I'd like actually like to see us take it all the way to high school. You know, you've heard of High Tech High, we're no tech high. Um, I get it. That was cool 20 years ago. I get it, I get it. Computers, yay, whatever. Um, but the distractions, you know, that we have and the, the Instagram and the Doom scrolling, we're just scrolling and scrolling because it's just a distraction because you're just trying to get away from whatever you're doing. Satan, he wants to, that's, that's time time's precious.

You might think you got a lot more time. It doesn't matter if you're 14 years old, you ain't got a lot more time compared to, you know, how long you know this earth has existed or how long God's we run. We all have a short amount of time. You don't know. We could all go tomorrow. He wants to rob steal and destroy. If you're a dad, he wants to make sure that you're busy. You take that, take that work call when it's time to read your kid a book. Take that work call.

It's important. You're providing for the family. You know, he wants to rob, he wants to take away like a date night. He wants to take away a conversation where you actually listen to somebody because you're so impatient. You gotta get to that next thing that you're getting to, uh, that's all attack. And you don't even know what's happening. Oftentimes, you don't even know what's happening. He's like, Satan walks away with all your time. He went, he stole all your time.

He walks away. He's so happy he got all your time. You don't even know it got stolen. You're, you're doing your thing. You're just wasting it. I'm not saying we don't relax. I'm not saying we don't spend time with God or, you know, whatever it is, but he steals. We don't, we're not even aware it. So we're gonna survey that.

You're gonna look at your time and say, you know, where, where could Satan possibly be stealing from that in my, my relationship with God, spiritual discipline. Satan attempts to undermine spiritual practices such as prayer, Bible study, worship fellowship. He may cause apathy or busyness to keep believers from engaging with these vital activities. Probably, you know, I heard someone say, I think it was, uh, forgot the excuse, excuse me, forgetting, but I know, I know the quote. Little prayer, little power, much prayer, much power.

And there's probably a few things we can do that are more valuable than prayer. To make prayer a habit, to make prayer. Something that draws you. You'll find that if you can break through, prayer will begin to call you to it. You'll be in prayer and you'll be to a place which I was just for the first time in so long on vacation. I said, I'm gonna lean into prayer.

And I got to the place where I, we were, I knew we had to go at a certain time and I found myself like just longing to stay longer. It's been a long time since that's happened. But Satan wants, he wants to move, he wants to remove your prayer time, wants to, he wants to, um, take those things. Your relationship with God, spiritual disciplines, family and relationships. This is big. The enemy.

Enemy may target relationships causing conflicts, divisions, and strife among family members, friends and fellow believers. He seems to weaken the bonds of love and unity. Um, so family and relationships, there's a lot of tools that we can talk through that we'll talk about. Week three, morality and integrity. Satan tempts Christians to compromise their moral values and engage in sinful behavior.

He seeks to exploit weaknesses and lead believers away from the righteous living. So your morality, your integrity, how's your integrity? He just, he's gonna, he's gonna convince you. He's gonna rationalize with you why the thing you know you shouldn't do, you should do because there's some benefit. Or in the end, it'll work out a way.

If it needs to be rationalized, it's not holiness. I'll just guarantee you that. Holiness never needs to be rationalized, ever. Holiness never needs to make an excuse for itself. It never needs to give you a reason. But because holiness doesn't do that, holiness just walks in authority and in integrity. Um, and then the, the, um, next one will be purpose in calling The enemy may try to confuse or discourage Christians regarding their purpose and calling in their life aims to thwart God's plans by creating uncertainty and confusion.

Physical health. Can Satan attack your physical health? Well, if God allows it, yeah. Um, he can allow that sometimes, you know, a lot of times I think we allow it, and Satan just messes with the scraps. We allow it, we put ourselves in things. We don't take care of ourselves. We don't see caring for the temple of the Holy Spirit in a way that sometimes we allow that. Will Satan come in and have authority there? Do I know?

I can't say I know how he does that. I can't say that there's a Bible verse, but it makes sense to me that if, if I'm, you know, uh, you know, a 12 pack a day smoker, but at some point Satan come in and say, I'm gonna cause some havoc here. I don't know how he does it. I'm not saying for sure, but it makes sense to me. But there are instances in the Bible where there are physical ailments.

'cause Jesus said when he was, uh, I think I have that verse here. Oh, I said, I didn't put the verse, but it says He, he, he healed many people. I'll find the verse for next week. He healed many people and drove out demons, but it put the two together that the, the actual, because they had a demon, the physical sickness was tied to it.

And I have actually seen people that walk in a degree of constant sickness. I'm not saying someone has cancer or whatever, but it's like the next little sickness comes and then, oh, it's this little sickness and then this little thing. And it kind of seems like, man, that person's always sick, but they kind of have the attitude that goes along with it.

You know what I mean? They're kind of always dour, never walking in hope, never walking in truth. Um, so I don't wanna lay too much of a framework out for that, because I think you get into some murky territory. But what I do want to tell you to do is if you have physical things that are in, you know, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you how you might pray for it.

God does heal people. And whether the devil is attacking you in that or not, God still heals people and he wants to heal. And we want to be people that prey into healing. So, uh, that is another one. But we know that he can't attack physical, heal, uh, wellbeing. One of the ways Satan attacks me as in my sleep, um, and he will mess with your sleep, sleep is a blessing. Sleep and rest margins, uh, the, the boundary lines fall in pleasant places for the people that love God or know God or the righteous. Sleeping is sleep is a blessing.

Satan wants to disrupt your sleep. And we can do things in agreement. If I'm drinking four shots of espresso in a Red Bull at nine o'clock at night, um, I think you can mess with me if I'm, you know, I'm, I'm in the, the, I'm on Twitter looking at all these, you know, videos of, of riots in certain cities or whatever, filling my mind with stuff or murder TV shows before I go to bed.

Don't be surprised if Satan doesn't come in there and because you've opened your mind to it to come in there and be a part of that. Augustine talked a a lot about how people had a fascination in his time with the gladiators. He said he had a friend that was a believer, that had a fascination with going in and seeing the blood and the gore.

And that was a big thing. And how Christians could get attacked to the, or get attached to the violence. It's very easy today to get online and see all the things, oh, look what's happening. I'm just informing myself what's happening in Chicago. Look what happened at this riot here. Look at this person getting beat up there.

And it's the same thing. You just have a fascination with the things of dark. There's no reason for us to be looking at other things at those things. But he'll deceive you. You're just keeping yourself informed. You're just keeping your eyes, you know, I just, I just love a good murder mystery. And, you know, there's probably a place for some good drama. There's probably a place for that.

But the amount, if you look at the statistics right now, especially with, mostly with women who watch murder, uh, mysteries, or listen to murder podcasts and just fill their minds, like, don't be surprised why there's so much anxiety in the culture. Personally. I don't want to fill my mind with certain things, whether it be murder, whether it be pornography, whether it be lies, deception, darkness.

As I've began to enjoy Jesus more, I've enjoyed the theater less. Uh, and so Satan wants to come in and he wants to take that territory that you'll allow. And then the final one is church in community. Um, that he wants to, so sow discord amongst believers, um, and within churches. And he aims to, to hinder a collective impact of believers.

Unity is another form of power in Raita. If you and your children and your wife or your husband are in unity on decisions where you're going to move, uh, how you're gonna spend your money, where you're gonna pour your lives into. If you're in unity on those things, there's gonna be raita taken. You're gonna have impact in society.

You're gonna have impact with your neighbors, the more unity you have. This is why, um, when I got here, the Lord gave me a verse outta Zechariah. He said, you're gonna leave this church with a rod of unity and favor. Uh, and I thought, and he's done that so far. There's been incredible favor on this church, thank God, but favor on my life, which I'm aware of. I'm very thankful of that. Um, many, you know, many of you experienced that same type of favor, but there's been favor on our church. We've just had favor. God opens doors, things that we shouldn't get. Like we, they shouldn't allow us to put those doors there because this is a historical building.

But the Irving Gill people called us who built this building when we were going through the permitting process and said, we're doing a big Irving Gill movie, and, uh, can we come down to your church? And I'm like, yeah, by the way, can you write us a note that it's okay to put those doors there? And he said, yeah, as long as you keep that architectural feature, that's the Irving Gill feature right there.

That architectural feature on the top, boom, open door, you know, influence, just prayer. God just opens doors for us. All these different things, a lot of that has to do with unity. And so you see that unity there coming in for a landing. Now, uh, verse, uh, um, I wanna say that this week I want you to ask the Holy Spirit to guide you.

As you survey the territory of your land or the territory of your life, we want you to, um, ask the Holy Spirit where you might be having attack in these different areas of your life, to sit with the Holy Spirit and say, holy Spirit reveal to me where I'm, where I'm, where I'm experiencing, where it's actually spiritual attack. It's easy to say, oh, that's not spiritual attack, but where am I actually being attacked?

One of the things you're gonna see is spiritual attack often happens as, as a counter attack to something that you have done. There's two things that happened in this passage. Let's go back to the passage real quick. The first thing it says, some Jews, uh, who went around driving out evil spirits. Now, if you go back to, to when Paul first walks into verse, uh, one in, um, acts 19, Paul shows up, uh, I think it's 19 in verse one. And it says, he came to Ephesus for the first time and he found some believers.

And he asked them a question, do you know who whom is? You remember who? It was the Holy Spirit. That was the one that was actually when he was in Greece. Do you know the unknown God? He said, do you know the Holy Spirit? And they says, no, we don't know who the Holy Spirit is. They said we were baptizing the baptism of John the Baptist.

That's right, John the Baptist. And so he says, okay, well, we're gonna baptize you in the power of the Holy Spirit. So the first place to start when it comes to spiritual warfare is with the Holy Spirit. That is his role. He is a counselor. He's meant to tell you where the warfare is, the power of the Holy Spirit. We can call on the name of God the Father God. We do all that. You know, we use the name of Jesus.

But the tip of the spear in spiritual warfare, on the territorial plane of Earth is the Holy Spirit. And you see all this stuff that happened in Ephesus started the first time Paul walks into Ephesus. He brings the Holy Spirit with him, and he begins baptizing believers in the power of the Spirit. So these are people that believed that Jesus was coming, but they had left Jerusalem before Jesus had died. They were baptized by John, probably early in Jesus' ministry, and hadn't heard what had happened.

And he said, I'm gonna tell you arrested about Jesus, and now the Holy Spirit's gonna fall on you. So we wanna walk. You need to know the Holy Spirit. If you do not use the Holy Spirit, this is super key. If you do not employ the Holy Spirit when it comes to spiritual things, you will be under a, a spiritual attack many times.

But you will never experience spiritual warfare. 'cause warfare is when you fight back. You being under attack is not spiritual warfare. That's just you getting attacked. Spiritual warfare is when two armies collide. If Ukraine wouldn't have stood up against, uh, against Russia, there wouldn't be no war, right? It would've just rolled right in.

Everybody just got attacked. So the Holy Spirit, the first thing he is, he has the Holy Spirit. Then he starts getting to business, right? He starts doing all this work. Now we go back down here to this last verse, and I'm coming in for a landing. Um, when it says, um, verse 18, uh, verse 19, A number would practice sword read, uh, together, burned their scrolls publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to 50,000. Drop. By this way, the power of the word spread with karitas. And then after this happened, not long after Demetrius, you remember the, the craftsman who was making the idols.

He starts a riot in the city and they try to find Paul. They, they, they don't find Paul at the time, but he starts all this ruckus. Spiritual warfare and attack often happens when you take ground, the the enemy, he doesn't, I mean, he'll take whatever you give him, but warfare actually happens when you start taking ground.

And don't be surprised if there's pushback. I, I get afraid sometimes to take spiritual ground because I don't want the pushback. Just be honest with you. When you take spiritual ground, when you open schools, when you have events like the passion of the Christ, like we showed in, uh, the theater, when you have events like the snow event we did in the middle of the city, when you do something at the cross, at Easter, when you are out in the community, when you try to heal your marriage, when you ask forgiveness, you will start taking ground.

And the devil never wants to give his ground away because all spiritual warfare is territorial. All spiritual warfare is territorial, all of it. He wants territory. He's either allowed to be somewhere or he's not allowed to be somewhere. They were doing what with demons at the beginning of this. They were driving them out, which means they were somewhere.

So demons are always moving, right? We'll finish that with next week. But remember Jesus, when they don't have a place to attach to a place of agreement, then they go out. And what do they do? They wander and roam. Where? In dry and desolate places. They don't want to be in dry and desolate places. So they have to find a place.

They have no authority to be anywhere unless given authority by us or else they wander or to find somewhere where they have authority. And so the first thing is, I wanna encourage you, ask the Holy Spirit. You've gotta start with the spirit. If you're not intimate with the spirit, learning how to hear from the Spirit, asking of the Spirit.

And the best way to hear from the spirit is to ask of the spirit He real good at answering ask. He'd probably speak it anyways, but ask him a question. How should I do this? A lot of times, I, I had a, um, person I had to talk to recently and I said, holy Spirit, just gimme the way, gimme the plan. I had a really good way to talk to him, but I didn't think it was gonna work out so well. Uh, my wife said, you might want not do it that way. I began to ask the Holy Spirit.

And over a series of a, a couple days, God gave me a plan. It worked out great. It was awesome. So that's the final, that's the one. Um, and then so you might be experiencing these areas of your life. So this week you're gonna go away and you're going to take this little worksheet here, and you're gonna ask the Holy Spirit to say, God, where's my faith being attacked? Where do I not believe?

Where is my faith under assault? Where is their actual attack? Where the enemy is attacking me? What about my thoughts? God, where are my thoughts? Where are my thoughts? Holy Spirit, reveal my thoughts to me. Identity, relationship with God. Spiritual disciplines, family, moral integrity, finance, purpose, health, church and community. You need to survey the battlefield.

What did Paul do whenever he got into a city? He walked around, he walked around, he did pray. He did those other things. But he would walk around and he'd get a lay of the land. What's happening there? Oh, there's, oh, they got an unknown God here. Okay, that's a, that's a leverage point. I'll use that one. Okay? Temple of Artemis.

This is okay if he's an Ephesus Temple of Artemis. You got the librarian, Artemis, it's been there. Okay, you got this going on, that going on. He just took survey. Survey. Spiritual victory begins with survey. The devil wants you asleep. He wants you asleep in the light, just asleep, unaware. And he's just robbing, stealing plundering. You know, he's just taking things. He's taken things. That's what he wants to do.

He wants to, he has a big bag. He wants to break into your house. Says he is like a roaring lion looking for he can devour. If he can't devour, he'll just steal your stuff, steal your peace, steal your walks on your beach with the, you know, with your kids. Steal your hope, steal your future. He wants to steal it all. So we're gonna put him in the light. That's what this is gonna do.

This is gonna invite the Holy Spirit into your life and say, okay, where it is now, here's a little trick and then we're done. If you are experiencing discomfort in an area, thought, life, physical, um, any of these areas that you see here, discomfort spots oftentimes are where the enemy is working. You'll just see it and we just live with it. Sometimes we just live with it.

And we don't employ these weapons of our warfare to do those things. So this is week one. It is surveying the territory. You were walking into the city this week. You were walking into the city of your life. It's not called Ephesus, it's called your life. You're gonna walk around, you're gonna look at it, you're gonna look at your thoughts. You're gonna be aware of your thoughts.

You're gonna ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. You're gonna begin to speak to the Holy Spirit because spiritual warfare, without intimacy, with the Holy Spirit, is just gonna be you getting attacked. You're gonna ask the Holy Spirit. You're gonna write down things you think the Holy Spirit tells you. When a coincidence happens, you're gonna write down or remember that coincidence, oh, that's the exact same thing.

I have this word I'm working on right now for our church. It's a word for our church. Just one word. And I, I just, I feel like it's a word for our church, just, it's just this one word. And I was asking the Holy Spirit, if you, if this is the word for our church, this one word, you want me to focus on this word, you know, let me know.

And then the word show, I mean, it is, it's, it's a pretty archaic word. It's not a word you use much. And it just, today I was reading as I was studying for this, and the word showed up and I was like, whoa. Not maybe it's like when you're, we wanna buy a new car, right? You see the car everywhere you go. Maybe that's it. I'm just gonna, we're just gonna put one up.

We're gonna put a run on the board for God with that one. I'm not saying we won the game. I'm not saying I'm sure that that was the thing. We're just gonna put a run on the board. I'll give one more example. Uh, we were looking at this school, uh, site. It's up on Mount Soledad and, um, Chris Fromm, whose father passed away last week, he's our head elder. Um, he had Parkinson's and he had had a, uh, we had had this spot that we were looking at. He was living in, in, um, in Palm Desert at the time, really deep into Parkinson's.

And he woke up one night, uh, this is for our school site, and he woke up one night, he said, um, to his wife, Hey, there I was, had a dream. There's a, there's a school on the top of Mount Soledad at this particular location, and it's glowing green. I have no idea what the green part means. Um, but he had no, I mean, the guy has Parkinson's in Palm Desert and he has no idea that me and a few others are starting to think about a school.

And we've kind of found an area we want to have, and we wanna know where it's coincidence. I could, I could call it a coincidence. I could also just run off a cliff and say, we're gonna do that. That's God, I'm not gonna do that either. I need a few more runs on the board. Right? And those are starting to come in. But things like that, as things like that happen, begin, then begin to pray. So with that, that's your survey. Next week we're gonna be looking at God, the Holy Spirit, angels, demons.