Time.
Your life.
Here's when you loved my home, here's when you loved my home.
Here's in you my life, here's in you, Lord my strength.
Here's in you, Lord my hope.
Here's in you, Lord, in you.
Here's in you, I will praise you with all of my life.
I will praise you with all of my strength.
Here's in you, Lord my hope.
We're done with our lives, we've fallen apart.
Is anybody here play a sport right now?
Is anybody ever played a sport before?
Have you ever been part of a team before then?
Was it a solo sport?
Not very many of those in high school anymore.
I mean what's a solo sport?
Cross country?
Consoerto?
Yeah, that's consoerto.
Consoerto is a solo sport.
If you're part of a team, that means you're working together for a common goal.
In our church, the acronym TEAM stands for Together Empowering a Ministry.
That's what it stands for.
And our church does its ministry through teams.
So for example, when we come in here to worship, the praise team or the music team leaves our worship.
Hey.
All right, good girl.
All right, so it stands for Together Empowering a Ministry and the music team works together to help us use music to worship God.
And not only that, but there are members of the team that teach others how to play music.
Folks will come and do specials and things, that kind of thing.
And then we have another other team.
In the room right now, we have our...
RJ is around here somewhere.
Okay, so RJ is right here.
RJ is our youth team leader.
So RJ works with the teenagers and his team then works together to empower that ministry.
And they were teenagers working, then do various things through that ministry.
We have the preschool nursery team.
It runs the preschool nursery.
It runs the God's Kids team that runs the Reading Age children and they transition when their parents and the leaders think it's right.
So we don't do like grades.
Like you go, oh, you're kidding.
I just kicked out of here, right?
It's not like that.
We transition when the parents think they're ready and when the teachers think they're ready.
So we are kind of reading eight children up through sixth grade.
And then we have a Christian Games team.
Christian Games team does card games, board games, role-playing games, board games, every kind of games.
And they play games for fellowship and then they reach people with the gospel who are playing games in the community.
And that kind of thing.
They do video games too.
I shouldn't forget that.
So, and I have a name them all.
The Arts and Crafts team is Josh in here.
Josh behind me.
Yes.
The Arts and Crafts team.
And we wouldn't want to forget that Arts and Crafts night is every other Friday night from six to eight.
And it is this coming Friday.
So are we doing anything special this Friday, Josh?
I think we're working on games for the upcoming fall.
All right.
So haul a lot of fun, which is October 31st from six to eight.
The Arts and Crafts team will be coming up with games ideas and decoration ideas, not Halloween games.
Because this is an alternative to trick or treat.
Right.
This one we do as a safe alternative to trick or treat so kids can come and play games and be in a safe, less safe place.
And so we do a lot of fun down the hallway.
So we'll need games to fill the whole hallway and decorations.
And they'll be working on that six to eight on Friday.
And if you don't want to work on that, Josh will be perfectly content to have you paint or color or draw or cut out things, whatever you'd like to do.
And that's Arts and Crafts.
And so there are war.
If you're interested in getting involved in a team, you don't have to be a member of the church to be part of one of those teams.
You just have to be willing to work together to empower that ministry.
There are prayer warriors, for example, who don't do anything else with the ministry, but just pray for the needs of that ministry.
Once you say, like, I don't want to work with teenagers because teenagers make me afraid.
And you say, no, that wouldn't be true.
But it is for some people.
Right.
And so I want to work with teenagers, but I can pray for them.
And so then you get a whole R&J and say, I can pray for your teenagers, what's going on?
And you can be a prayer warrior for the team.
So that's what that's like.
That's how our church is organized.
And the only ministries that we do that are not through teams are the whole church.
Everybody together, all involved.
So we do our block parties, outreaches, working with communities, with pantry, things like that.
And everybody can help with that.
So that's teams at New Heights, together empowering a ministry.
If you remember that the next time I ask it, which will probably be next Tuesday night, I may have a treat for a young person who can remember that acronym next week.
We're going to pray together.
We have one more song and then the children's and children's leaders will be released to go their lessons.
And then one more song after that.
And then we go to the word.
We have a special lesson material this evening.
Kind of be cool.
I think God's really working in it.
So I'm excited about it.
All right.
So let's pray together.
Would you pray with me?
In the bow of our heads.
I'm talking to God.
You can do it in your head.
You can do that loud.
Follow along with me.
However you want to do it.
Father in heaven, this is your Tuesday night.
This is your lesson.
This is your music.
These are your teams.
This is your church.
This is your body.
This is your body that came out of my mother 53 plus years ago.
And that's Chris's body.
And that's our big body.
That's Solar's body.
But Lord, it all belongs to you.
And we give it all back to you right now.
You use this UCFIT.
Help us to worship you.
Help us have a little fun together.
Help us to work in the kingdom of God.
And advance your will upon earth the best we can to be whatever we can be part of.
We pray you're where we've done here.
As it is in Jesus' name.
And all God's people said Amen.
Thank you very much.
You can stand or you can sit, but you're surely going to want to sing.
Here we go.
For the light of your love is shining.
Here in the midst of the dawn is shining.
Jesus' blood of the one, shine upon us.
That was free by the truth, do not bring us.
Shine on, be in your light.
Now bring us, shine on me, shine on me.
Shine, here's a shine, fill this lake with the fall of glory,
with spirit flames that our hearts on fire.
The river call, the donations from grace and mercy,
stand for the world, for you have been in line.
Lord, I come to you, have some presence from the shadows
and to your rails.
By the power of the answer, your brightness,
search, be shiny, consume all my garment,
shine on me, shine on me.
Shine, here's a shine, fill this land with the fall of glory,
with spirit flames that our hearts on fire.
The river call, the donations from grace and mercy,
stand for the world, for you have been in line.
As the dear presence pours, the water so much so magnificently.
You are the one of my heart, desire is as long to worship me.
You alone are my strength, my shield, to you alone may my spirit heal.
You alone are my heart, desire is as long to worship me.
You alone are my strength, my shield, to you alone may my spirit heal.
Trust me a little bit in that if we start getting into next week's topic too heavily,
I'm going to redirect us.
So that we can, because we need to be able to cover what we're going to talk about today
with relative completeness.
We don't want to leave big holes.
So everybody will have the information that they need.
So the worksheet that's coming around to you, we will do first.
So I'll just go through the worksheet and I will give you what goes in a blank
and talk about it a little bit and you can fill it in.
If you're not a worksheet person, you want to fill it in, you want to take notes in your own book,
whatever this is just for your ease of use and to follow my logic.
And yes, I did make this in case you can tell.
Okay? So, and we do post these online and I'm not embarrassed by that at all.
So that doesn't bother me even a bit.
Once we've completed the worksheet, the remainder of the time together,
we will have a panel of three individuals who will sit before you of which I will be one.
You will be allowed to ask any questions that you want of those individuals.
Now, there will be a disclaimer in that we don't have any experts in the house.
Nobody's an expert here.
Okay? So we'll cover that when the time comes.
But that, we've got three people that the Lord led me to that have some experience in this department.
Probably we all do and you may even have some things to share that nobody else has.
And that's okay and if we need to do that, we will.
But so here we go.
All right?
So if you're at the top of your worksheet, you will see that we're talking about three different terms.
One of the first questions that comes up when I'm dealing with people talking about evil spirits and demons and so on,
is what do the terms mean or how did they all connect?
All right?
So on the very top two lines there, the first term is demons slash devils.
The two blanks are demons and devils.
Okay? So the word demon comes from the Greek and it comes from daimon.
All right?
And so there is no other English word that comes from that word.
So they just transliterated it to demon.
So when you see demon in your New Testament, the Greek word there is always daimon.
All right?
And the devils word is really the old, kind of comes from the Old Testament word.
But if you have a King James Bible, you'll see they always use the word devils even in the New Testament.
So it always carries through.
Okay?
And the word there is, and I can't really think of the Hebrew word right this.
I'm going to just slide right out of my head.
But anyway, it's a very simple word and it really translates devils.
And the Hebrew word translates into English devils well, whereas the Greek word for demons really didn't have a corresponding word in English.
So they just translated it and made it daimon.
Okay?
The next line there is evil spirits.
So two lines, evil and one blank spirits and the other.
You can capitalize the spirits if you want.
I never do because I'm just partial.
I think there is only one capital spirit in the entire universe and that's God's Holy Spirit.
So I never capitalize spirits unless I do it by accident, I suppose.
I never intentionally do that.
So evil spirits, when you see the term evil spirits in the New Testament, 99% of the time it is two actual words.
It is evil and spirit.
Okay?
Or spirits.
So it's paneras, which is evil and then numa, which is spirit or wind or breath.
So it's literal translated evil spirits.
And then you have unclean spirits, unclean spirits.
And the term there is basically it's a spirit that goes against God's purposes or cannot be used by God's.
And it's akka tarktos, which basically just means they're unclean or worthless, bad.
All right?
So for our purposes, as we're talking about it, and I think if you were a demon or an evil spirit,
you might chape against us a little bit, but since I don't really care what they think, this is the bottom line.
For our purposes, all of those terms mean the same thing.
And there are texts, and we could go there and read them, but we're not going to do that because we have a limited amount of time,
where in the same sentence, like someone will be speaking and they'll call it a demon,
and then in the same sentence they'll refer to it as an evil spirit.
Okay?
So the terms are pretty interchangeable.
So you could call...
So like you have this vision in your mind, you watched sci-fi movies or whatever,
a demon or like a big clawed beastie thing or whatever like that.
And I'm not saying they can look like that, but they probably wouldn't normally look like that.
It would look like something much more seductive or much more tricky, you manipulate that kind of thing.
Okay?
So whatever they look like, that's irrelevant.
We're talking about what they are and what we need to do about what they are.
And so for our purposes, if you go follow that big arrow down,
you can put same or if you're a big spelling person, you can put interchangeable.
Okay?
And when I tried to spell interchangeable, I couldn't spell it.
So I just put same because I couldn't figure out whether it was an E in the middle
and I didn't have Josh at that time to ask.
Josh is my spelling guru.
So same.
All right?
So to be clear, we are not going to be talking about Satan.
Okay?
Now is Satan a diamond?
Yes.
According to the Bible, he's a diamond.
Is he an evil spirit or a testament devil?
Yes.
According to the Bible, he is one of those.
All right?
And we kind of get the idea from the Bible.
And I want to stray on to this kind of get the idea that he's kind of a higher ranking one
or maybe the most, you know, was very powerful or possibly like that.
There is a whole bunch of doctrine about how he fell.
I've got it.
How he fell from the heavens and became what he is and blah, blah, blah.
And a lot of that is not really supported well in scripture.
Okay?
So we're not going to deal with that as we're talking about this class of thing that is a demon evil spirit, unclean spirit, devil, whatever.
We're not really going to talk about him.
We will talk about him a little bit more next week.
But we're, if you want to get engaged in a lot of study on him, that is a whole topic all by itself as he is an individual.
Okay?
Odds are praise God, none of us will ever meet him.
You're more likely to run into his schemes than him personally because he's just one person.
He's going to be in one place at one time.
He's not like God.
He can be everywhere at once, that kind of thing.
So he's not a human.
When I say a person, don't get confused.
He's not a human.
He's a diamond.
Right?
Okay.
All right.
So here we go.
Now we're down into the bottom section and you'll notice that there are three arrows because they're all the same.
All of these things down below all apply to all of them.
All right?
We've got to go through fairly quickly here, but we're going to do the scripture.
You'll notice it says on the left hand side there, it says they are real.
While I'm doing this one, if somebody has a Bible available, would somebody look up Ephesians 6-12 and somebody look up James 2-19?
Even if we overlap, it's okay.
All right.
So Ephesians 6-12 and James 2-19.
The middle one is going to be Ephesians 6-12.
The one on the right is going to be James 2-19.
I would give you those again in a second if you need them.
Okay?
And then Matthew 12 is the text for the one on the left.
Matthew 12, 27, and 28.
I'm going to get there.
I should have marked it properly.
Okay.
So in Matthew 12, 27, 28, over on the left under, they are real.
This is what it says.
And if I, this is Jesus' speaking, he says,
If I, by Beelzebub, who was a daimone, cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?
Consequently, they shall be your judges.
But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, capital S, Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.
So if you can safely assume that Jesus is saying,
If I cast out demons this way, then we don't need the rest of it to know demons are real.
All right.
Jesus wasn't going to talk about doing it if it wasn't real.
So Matthew 12, 27, and 28.
There are dozens of other texts I could have chosen there.
I picked one from the mouth of the Son of God on purpose because we know that.
Right.
So it's Matthew 12, 27, and 28.
Then over under, they are enemies who has Ephesians 6, 12.
RJ, nice and loud.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world.
And against the spiritual forces of this dark man, against spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly place.
Okay.
So you can like people will argue that that breaks down a demonic structure and like that and that those things, those other terms there.
But surely you heard the spiritual forces of wickedness, right?
So they're definitely in there.
So they are enemies.
That's clear.
Which is also problematic because at times they for people who are lost, especially are people who are Christians who aren't living their faith.
They can look kind of friendly or enticing and people don't realize that they're enemies, but they're clearly enemies.
They're enemies of God as well as being enemies of us.
Okay.
And then over on the right says they are evil.
They are evil.
Who has James 219 Tony Tate.
You believe that there is one God.
Good.
Even the demons believe that and show.
Okay.
So the demons and God both real.
Right.
The demons, enemies of God.
We got that in the middle and now we realize the demons knowing that they are enemies of God.
They believe in God and they shudder.
They're fearful.
They are evil.
Yeah.
If you're not evil, you have nothing to fear from God.
Right.
And some people who are evil don't fear God, but but they are wise enough in that sense to do so.
Okay.
So I'm going to give you the next three references that you don't already have filled in and and then couple people can grab them.
So they can be spotted.
We're going to read 1 John 4 1.
They can be stopped.
Luke 1017.
Yep.
1017.
And they can be, I chose this word intentionally, deported, which is Matthew 12 43 to 45.
Does anybody have 1 John 4 1?
If not, I do.
Okay.
So we're going to read 1 John 4 3.
Okay.
So without getting into how or more of it right there, it is clear that you can tell one spirit from another.
That is possible.
It was written to Christians.
I would submit to you that a lost person may not be able to tell, but a saved person in Christ can tell.
These spirits can be spotted.
Now reference was 1 John 4 1.
Okay.
So we're going to pause step aside for a minute before we read the next one.
If somebody's getting Luke 10 17 and Matthew 12 43 solo, what do you have?
What reference do you have under?
They are enemies.
Did you put a reference under there?
Yeah.
Distracted.
Well, you're looking up the, what happened?
Okay.
So they are enemies.
Nicole, do you have a reference there?
Sadian.
Phesians 6 12.
Now remind me, I think you don't like to see roles, right?
Okay.
Coming back there.
You'd have had that if solo hadn't interfered.
Okay.
All right.
So they can be spotted.
Okay.
Now we're moving over to the middle.
They can be stopped.
Now this is comforting.
Has provided comfort for me many times in my walk as a Christian.
Cause I said real, real quick before we read this text, understand they are spiritual beings.
They can go through walls.
They can disappear in one place and appear in another cages.
Don't stop them locks.
Don't stop them lightness.
The light.
So I can put up a light outside.
So somebody won't do drug deals on your corner anymore.
That doesn't stop them.
Right.
Those are not the, those things don't stop them, but they can be stopped.
Okay.
Does anybody have Luke 10 17.
Tony take it.
Yep.
The 72 return with joy and said Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.
Right.
So these are ordinary men.
They are not pastors.
They are not deacons.
They are not theologically trained.
Many of them were fishermen.
There was a tax collector there and actually by you broaden the time you brought it out to get to the 72.
Right.
So there was a lot of people from a lot of common walks of life.
And the only thing they really had going for them was the fact that they were following Jesus and they were correcting or stopping the demons, the diamonds in Jesus's name.
That's still true today.
Okay.
So they can be stopped.
Now you'll notice that I've already given you the Psalm 8 2 reference there.
We're not going to go there and read that right this second.
You can read it later.
But I'll tell you what it says paraphrasing.
Okay.
What it says that from the womb, people have the ability to make the enemy cease.
Now that's unsaved people.
We don't get saved as babies.
We get saved later when we grow up, right?
When you can believe, you can save when you can believe.
But from the womb, we have it.
And that's Old Testament reference.
So it's pre-Holy Spirit.
You don't have the Holy Spirit until you get saved, right?
So you can stop it.
So obviously there's a reason why people don't do that or they only do it for a short period of time.
And it's because these diamonds, demons, devils, evil spirits, whatever term you want to use, they're enticing, they're manipulative, they're deceptive, they look good.
They'll come to you in sheep's clothing dressed as a lollipop, if that's what it takes to get your attention, right?
And so people don't stop them because they don't understand, first of all, they may not accept that they're real, or they may not understand that they're enemies, or that they're evil, and they think, oh, this is working out.
This is going to work out somehow good for me.
And so they don't stop them, but they could stop them.
Now they wouldn't be able to stop them permanently necessarily, as we'll see in a moment, okay?
There's also a reference there, 1 John 2.15, and I am going to read that to you real quick.
It says, yeah, first time, do not love the world nor the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
And so there are, shut the door, Dustin, shut the door.
They're going to play games, apparently.
Okay, anyway, there are these demons, these evil spirits, whatever, these are all working within the world system, arguably.
Don't want to get on Satan again, but arguably, they are, that Satan, you could say, that's mine.
And you could say, is in control of the world, arguably.
Now, I don't want to name that doctrine, right?
But the bottom line is, he's got a lot of rank and authority, and if you choose his way, you choose the world.
That's why it says, if you become a friend of the world, you become an enemy with God, because if you choose that route, you will be messing with God's enemies.
That's where they work, okay?
Now we're over to, can be deported, and I chose that in a particular reason, right?
Because we are part of the kingdom of God.
If you are a Christian, you are part of the kingdom of God, and under can be deported, the references Matthew 12, 43 to 45.
Did somebody look it up? At least you got it.
Alright, nice and loud.
In the back, back there.
Now, when the untamed spirit comes out of a person, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and does not find it.
And it says, I will return to my house from which I came, and when it comes, it finds its unoccupied, swept, and put in order.
And it goes and brings along with it seven other spirits, and will wicked them itself, and they come in and live there.
And the last condition of that person becomes worse than the first, that is to say, also be with this evil generation.
Okay, so we know that, remember, remember Psalm 8, even people who don't know the Lord could have victory.
They never know anybody who didn't know Jesus, but they gave up a horrible habit that was dominating their life.
It's all made.
They have the ability to make something cease.
Yeah, absolutely.
Right?
So they can do it.
People can do it.
They can do it through counseling, through study, through psychology, through volunteering, through medication, in so many ways that people can get help to overcome what we're talking about.
Then they get cleaned up and they get to be okay, and then they have no way of keeping that from coming back, or worse.
Right?
And according to what we just read, they look at like, they go wandering in the wilderness, and then they come, they decide to come back, and they find the house all neatly arranged, and boom, they move back in and bring seven more wicked spirits in the way of that person is worse in the end than before.
Okay?
These spirits that we're talking about can be topped.
I think that reference is wrong.
Let me double check myself real quick.
Yes, it's supposed to be 1st John 4-4.
I apologize for that.
The lack of references says 1st John 2-15, you can cross that out, and write 1st John 4-4.
I think my mind just got stuck on the previous reference when I was making this.
1st John 4-4.
Okay?
And that says, you are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, and who is in the world, these spiritual forces of wickedness.
Right?
That's what he's talking about.
So we're safe, if you will.
We can top them, we can stop them, we can deport them.
In fact, we can deport them even before we're saved, but now where we're at right now, to this point, is we can deport them, but then when they try to come back, we don't really have a defense, except possibly to deport them again, and then that becomes a constant battle.
Back and forth, I'm trying to quit, I'm trying to quit.
I quit.
I quit for three days.
Oh, I didn't quit.
I quit for a month.
Oh, I didn't quit.
Oh, I stopped doing that years ago, and now I'm doing it again.
Plus, I stopped doing these other things.
Right?
And so it becomes a constant battle to deport the evil spirit if you don't have a way of stopping them from coming back.
Okay?
So unfortunately, these evil spirits, et cetera, can also be summoned.
The reference there is Mark 720.
720.
20.
Mark 720.
Okay?
And it says, and he was saying, this is Jesus speaking, that which precedes out of the man.
That is what defiles the man.
And I'll go on to 21.
From within, out of the heart of men, precede the evil thoughts, fornication, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality.
You get the idea, right?
And 23 says, all these evil things precede from within and defile the man.
So the bottom line is, if you will engage in an activity that God would consider wickedness, you are literally inviting evil spirits to come and take part.
Does that make sense?
So there's one in your house and you get on the phone and lie to your mother, you can't come help you today because of whatever blah blah blah.
You literally made him comfortable.
Pull up a chair, let me get you a Coke, right?
You've invited that evil spirit in doing that.
Now that should not have come out of your heart.
If your heart is following Jesus, you don't want to do things like that.
But we still do, because we have the flesh, with less little flesh, less the eye pride of life.
We still have those struggles.
We still do bad things.
And we do, we are essentially summoning them, making them feel comfortable and that kind of thing.
And that's what will make us unclean.
It will not make you unsaved.
If you're saved, you're saved.
Right?
We're not talking about losing your salvation.
We're talking about who you're hanging out with.
Okay.
So, all right.
So let's go back up to the top for a second.
I'm going to run through these in case anybody has lost on the references.
So they are real.
That was Matthew 12, 27 to 28.
They are enemies.
Ephesians 6, 12.
They are evil.
James 219.
They can be spotted.
1 John 4, 1.
And by the way, 2 and 3 there will give you like the exact how to spot them.
It gives you the parameters to look for.
We'll talk about that probably in our panel time.
They can be stopped.
There's three references there.
Psalm 8, 2, Luke 10, 17.
And that actually, you know what?
The bottom one there should be 1 John 4, 4 also.
So you can just cross off to 2, 15 and put 4, 4.
They can be deported.
So we can kick them out.
However, keeping them away is another problem.
Also, they can be summoned.
That's how far we are.
The reference under they can be deported was Matthew 12, 43 to 45.
The reference under they can be topped was 1 John 4, 4.
They can be summoned was Mark 7, 20.
And now they can be stored.
Now this where they can be stored is another telling of the Jesus talking about the wandering spirit from Matthew 12, 43 to 45.
But it's over in Luke.
So this reference under stored is Luke 11, 24 to 26.
And it's going to sound very similar to what Alicia read.
When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest and not finding any.
It says, I will return to my house from which I came.
And when it comes, it finds it's swept and put in order.
Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself.
And they go in and live there.
And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.
I submit to you a couple of things applied there.
One, evil spirits can live in people.
That is possible.
Not saved people about that separately in a second.
But in people who do not know Jesus, evil spirits can live inside them.
And they could be canceled and kicked out deported.
If the person figures out that's the best thing to do and they get them out.
But then there's nothing to keep them out.
So then he leaves, he comes back and he brings a whole bunch of worse evil spirits with him.
And then the last one is, and this is the most important one I think to get this point and then we'll go to the panel after a little summary,
is they can be declined.
That's Luke 10 21 to 23 is the first reference.
At that very time, he rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit and said,
Now this is Jesus speaking, I praise the Father, Lord of heaven and earth about its height, these things from the wise and intelligent and just reveal them to babes.
For thus it was well pleasing in thy sight, all things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows who the son is except the father and who the father is except the son,
and anyone to whom the son wills to reveal him.
And turning to the disciples, he said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see.
For I say to you that many prophets and kings wish to see the things which you see and did not see them and to hear the things which you hear and did not hear them.
We are not unaware.
There's an old saying that says, poor warned is poor armed.
Even before you came in here, even before I said they are real, you already knew they were real.
And everybody does.
Okay, so even people who are lost, there's no God, they know, right?
They already know.
We already know that they can be rebuked.
We already know that they can be kicked out and so on.
And back in when we read Luke 10 17, which is a little bit before this,
or on the page, I'll say the seven D returned, which you're always saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in their name, in your name.
Satan then Jesus says, I was watching and Satan fell from the heaven like lightning.
Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and know that that is a reference to the evil spirits right there.
And over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall injure you.
You hear that?
We can say no.
As Christians, we can say no.
We can say we're not going to let this happen.
And there's Ephesians 6 16 is our final reference.
Ephesians 6 16.
Okay, now, earlier in this same passage, we were talking about how we're not against people, right?
We're against principalities, powers, spiritual forces, wickedness, right?
And then in 16, in addition to all taking up the shield of faith, which which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one.
I was I read on the internet that somebody put that that this describes Satan is throwing flaming arrows.
I think we know better.
It's figurative language, right?
It's talking about the way he comes after us.
If we can stop his plans, by the way, who carries out his plans, the demons, evil spirits, etc.
And so if you can believe and have faith in that moment, you can rebuke them and they cannot come back.
There's a passage of scripture that talks about the strong man.
And basically, if a strong man guards the house, no one can enter and steal what's inside, right?
Let's see if I can find that real quick.
And we have the ultimate strong man in the Holy Spirit.
Or else who can enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods except he first bind the strong man.
And then he will spoil the house except who would bind the Holy Spirit of God.
And the answer is no one.
You have the Holy Spirit of God in you, your set.
He that is not with me.
I love this because people get confused about the transition here, but if you think of it in the context of the lesson that we're studying right now, it works perfectly.
It says, he that is not with me is against me.
And he that gather, if not with me, scatter abroad.
Jesus is saying, if you'll stick with me, you'll be alright.
Okay?
So they're real, they're enemies, they're evil, they can be spotted, they can be stopped, they can be deported.
In fact, you can even do that if you're not a Christian, you just don't have a way of keeping them at bay.
You can't keep them away.
They can be topped, greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.
They can be summoned by our choices.
When you end up indulging wicked choices, you're making them feel comfortable and say, come on, hang out with me.
Right?
They can be stored, not just one, because if you manage to kick one out because it's bothering you,
when he comes back, it's going to bring seven more, even more evil and wicked with him.
Right?
And then they can be declined.
So you can say no.
Alright?
One thing I want to cover real quick, and then we're going to go to the panel portion.
Okay?
And so it is this.
And first down, four, where it says, test the spirits.
Okay?
This is a spirit that is of the Spirit of God.
It recognizes who Jesus is that he came in the flesh, dotted across, and rose again.
If you're in this room right now, and you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,
you need to understand, you're never going to be saved from evil spirits and demons.
They literally have a purpose.
They want to work God's plan, what is God's plan, to have a proper relationship with everybody.
You know, God wants to have a relationship with you.
He wants to spend eternity with you.
He wants you to spend eternity with him.
He wants to come and live in you and you to abide in him.
That's what he wants.
So you never be safe unless you have the strong man that is the Holy Spirit of God,
that he protects you permanently.
Right?
And then things bounce off.
But also, there is still your mind, and you will always have your ears open as long as you're alive and can hear,
and your eyes open as long as you're alive and can see, and your flesh still touches things,
and it feels good or it feels bad.
Okay?
Because of that, thoughts come into your head.
You can't stop that.
There's scientific studies that if you go into a sound deprivation chamber,
like at like 23 hours, you literally start to go nuts.
Human beings have constant stuff coming at them, and you need that.
And so, that's part of who we are.
It's how we interact with the world.
And so, you're always going to have thoughts coming into your head.
Some of those thoughts are not going to be of God, and you need to learn how to sort them.
Okay?
And once you learn, if something comes into your head,
if your heart belongs to Jesus, something comes into your head that doesn't fit,
your heart has the strength to say,
no, thank you.
Right?
Leave me alone.
I don't want to think that.
I don't want to respond to that thought.
I don't want to do that.
Right?
And you can even do that in and for other people.
And we're going to talk a little bit more about that, but not right now.
Okay?
So, at this time, I'm going to ask Perry and Tony Tate are going to be our panel.
And so, one of you on each side over here, and I'll go in the middle.
RJ is going to emcee for us, which means he has questions that he can ask.
If no one asks any questions, then he has questions that have been prepared,
like the crib sheets or whatever I call it.
So, I have to read this statement in advance, because this is going out to all over the world,
and there are people all over the world who know a lot better on these topics,
maybe even than us in this room.
And so, it says this, we are men.
We are not better men.
We are not better equipped men.
We are not more able to deal with evil spirits and demons.
As you will see by the time we're done with this topic these two Tuesday nights,
Jesus Christ and his presence in a willing, born-again Christian is everything necessary
to have victory over evil spirits and demons in this present life, and of course, for eternity.
The one and only reason this is the three people who have been chosen for this particular panel
is because as pastor of New Heights, I prayed about tonight,
and the lesson series I was led to use this format, and the Lord seemed to me to be leading to this assortment of people.
I really don't know exactly where we'll go from here, but I know God is leading us there.
So, at this time, RJ is going to conmediate, and so if you have a question,
and you think you need something to make an answer, ask the question,
you can direct it to one of us, and if nobody asks any questions, then he has questions he can ask.
You're going to sit over here because you're going to have that microphone.
Okay. Sorry.
I'm wearing a microphone.
Okay.
We're ready. Who's got a question?
One more.
Jeremiah. RJ, Jeremiah, Jefferson.
I'm wondering how would you repellent human if said not a follower?
Is it that last part?
If said not a follower.
If a person is not?
If someone is not a follower, how would you repellent human?
Okay.
You want to direct it to one of us, and for the third?
No.
No matter what.
How would you repellent human if the person is not a follower? I can answer.
I can answer.
Okay.
Do you have any questions?
I'm not going to repeat the name of Jesus.
You may as well pray over them, and some of the demons won't come out, right?
You have to actually fast and pray continuously to drive it out.
By the power of the Holy spirit that resides in a saved person,
you have the authority of the Holy spirit to drive that,
to drive that out of the Holy spirit, out of the spirit, out of the person.
They call it exercism, whatever you want to call it.
said that we could do greater things than him, you know, and through the Holy Spirit.
When he sends it to us, so we're embodied with the Holy Spirit and the living inside
of us reside in us and we're walking out our faith and we're strong and we have that faith.
The important thing is to have that faith and that belief. We can say to a mountain,
move and then to move if we have the faith to a mustard seed. So to drive out of spirit is nothing.
If you have the Holy Spirit reside in you, but some of them are stubborn
and so we have to find out when we find ourselves in that situation, you're going to have to fast
and pray and it's always best to come in more than one person to do that and save them.
Yeah, so I would add to that. I agree. I would add to that that the individual who might have the demon
or might be dealing with the demon because everybody so there's demon possession, which means
a demon goes and lives in the person. There's demon oppression, which means the person is being
affected by the demon, but not necessarily in them. And that's about all that's about the
worst thing that even you can do to a Christian to suppress you. It cannot possess you because
you're possessed by the Holy Spirit. Okay, so the person who's being either oppressed or
possessed is also part. If they don't want that demon to go, even if you manage to cast the demon
out, it's just going to come back stronger. In fact, I share a brief story where we got called on
the phone, New Heights got called on the phone and was asked to go and deal with basically this guy
thought he was being haunted by his dead wife and he said there's a demon spirit in my house and
pretty sure it's my dead wife and she got up seven mil and night before him. She's playing a cover,
getting a refrigerator. I'm sitting in my chair watching TV and this cold spot comes across the
room from where she used to sit. I said, well, okay, we'll come and talk to you. And I went
talk to my share of the gospel and he did not want to accept Jesus. He did not want to become a
Christian. And I said, well, we can do it. And actually it was a brother to a mental and myself
went for the first time. So we can do it. So we prayed and we passed out to the other one a second
or are they okay? If you want to go find out what his question is now, so you're ready.
Anyway, then we did. So we prayed and we read the Spirit and it went away for about two weeks.
For about two weeks, he had no trouble. And then after it came back, he said, well, it's back
and it's worse than ever. Now let's do this and it's worse than ever. So I went back to him and I
said, and the second time I went back, he was he was claiming to be Muslim. So the second time I
went back to Perry, I remember he sat in his guy's living room and Perry especially, Monk Ron,
and he didn't know anything about the problem. And he admitted eventually he wasn't a Muslim. He
just used not as an excuse not to become a Christian, which is a lot by the way, case anybody
didn't realize that. Anyway, and so then I showed him again. And he did not accept Christ, but he
was definitely closer. And so we prayed and reviewed the experience in the house and and he went away.
About 10 days later, he had a man come and lived with him. He had upstairs bedroom office
living room and man came and lived with him. And that man was a Christian. And then he lived there
for about two months and the quote unquote evil spirit never came back into the spirit of his
wife. He said never came back. And during that time, and then the guy went on vacation and when
he came back, he was going to move out. And the night that he went on vacation, the evil spirit
was back in his house and it was worse than ever. He said he couldn't sleep and he felt it hovered
over the bed and all the while. And so we went again and let him to accept Jesus Christ as the
Lord and Savior, which he did to you. And we reviewed people's spirit. We never met the evil spirit.
We never sensed it felt that Eric. I mean, I've sensed it maybe it felt weird.
It was a place. But anyway, so then we we were afraid of you and it fled. He called me about
seven months later and he said he had never, never felt a problem again. I was engaged with
a woman and she was a Christian woman. And he wanted to donate money to the church to pay for
the exorcism. And I declined. And I said, no, I said, you want to do it? I said, don't do it
through me. I don't want nothing to do with that. So you come to church and put an offering for
a prayer or something. I don't want to get paid for fighting demons. And so he never,
that he never had a problem after that, after he professed Christ. He never came to New Heights
either. They never were able to baptize him. I don't know what actually happened. But
they were due to get married and he was both of them were progressing Christians.
So we were able to do it for him, but they kept coming back and it kept getting worse.
So the man that you said of the human, does it? How do you repell it? If it's not a
follower. So in Christ, any Christian believer, any Christian believer can just say cast out or
or send out or drive out or whatever it is can do that. But as a person that's not a believer,
like yes, they can repell these things, they can entertain them, a lot of things. And I always
say this. So if you would think about this is that everybody has different relationships. We
talk about demons and evil spirits. You know, it's what people think their opinions and religions.
I don't know if I believe in that. Like for me, I still don't believe in demons. I get attacked
all the time. Like I don't have a reason to believe in demons. But I was a taxist. I was an early age.
I get attacked every day. And God tells me that that's the way I see it. Like I don't,
I know people that literally can see evil spirits can and I don't see it. God is telling
us being said and I'll go, okay, by faith, I trust you, I'm going to go do that. And so
like everybody has different relationships. But when it comes down to God's relationship to us,
what he's shown us, what he has taught us is that that's why we have the ability through the Holy
Spirit to drive out demons. So as a follower in Christ, any of us can drive out evil spirits or
begin to show people that evil spirits are not here. Truth can trump false love can trump hate,
darkness, light can be trumped by darkness, all this stuff begin to show that God is here through
every born again, believer. So I really think like when we're also doing that, and I don't get into a
big tangent about just say a quick verse, Jesus is talking to a Phoenician woman, her daughter is
possessed by a demon. And this is Jesus, this isn't a Christian, a Christian could do it differently.
But this is Jesus on the scene. He is God and only God. And he comes in there and she says,
there's a drenn of this demon out. And he says, I'm only here for the children, the dogs. But
he was just being insane. Like I've come for them. Well, she's like, well, I'm like a little dog.
Could you help me out? I don't get in the verses. But the idea is that she's wanting to believe that
God can do this. And she's believing that God can help her. So Jesus does cast it out of her.
So the idea is that every demon experience, everything we go through, it should draw us
either back to God or draw us that there is a God and that is Jesus.
So for me, I have to simplify it.
All right, I got to make that a thought from you.
To simplify the first question was, you said that, you said the evil spirit was his ex-part.
Or how would he know that that's his ex-part? Or can a spirit be like a dead person?
Yeah. So biblically speaking, there are no such things as ghosts.
But people talk about ghosts all the time. The Bible says absent with the body, from the body
present with the Lord. So if you think you're dealing with the ghost of your uncle, you're dealing
with an evil spirit. Even if, I mean, you could stretch your mind and say if by some chance,
an evil, a dead person was a ghost, you'd expect it to be evil in any case.
But the Bible says there is no such thing as ghosts. There are only one instance anywhere in the Bible
where quote unquote ghosts were ever dealt with. And it was when Saul summoned up the ghost of
Samuel or whatever, and it was done through a witch, but you can clearly see in that text that
was not him, right? It was something representing. So demons will play that game to try to get people
to listen.
So I mean, there's a couple of different ways. I've see God could have been a vision,
right? I assume it didn't look like a real person. So, but it also could have been an
evil. It's nothing I would want to mess with. I don't know for sure. I wouldn't play with it.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to get on that tangent, but I thought you had to get to prophecy
for a while. So it's possible your dreams are telling you things. You need to start a dream journal
or keep track because you're going to find out that it connects with things that are going on.
Okay.
Yeah. So you're talking about the Trinity, right? And so I actually, I think Chris did a pretty good
job explaining this the other day. But yeah, so we have a belief that a person is one thing,
right? So when I look at Josh, I see his flesh. That's what I see. You know, I talked to Josh,
I hear his personality. I observed in that way. That doesn't make him just one thing, right? We're
heart, mind, soul, we're more than one thing. God is a Trinity. He's one person. He's one person.
But because he's God, he can be everywhere at once, right? And then he chose to become a man,
which we call God the Son. And this is kind of a separate personality, if you will, right? He
chose to become a man and live in the flesh and then die for sin. That's something to do. So they
were all three present in heaven, already, and then God the Son came to earth. The Trinity is a
whole other topic. And it's kind of a deep topic. But essentially, it's something you have to accept
on faith. There's God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and they're all one person.
Right. It does. Yes. So maybe or maybe it's Tuesday night. I have a great material I can send you.
I think I'm going to try to do it. Feel free to ask me anytime I love me and some questions. Yeah,
that's fun stuff. I love talking about stuff. Even the evil spirits, we've got like five minutes max.
Fair enough. Fair enough. I should point out to ask this much, but I was wondering about the
week you ordered. So what does it exactly do? It's inviting demons. That's exactly what it's doing.
You're calling on demons. Like you said in the handout, you can call on them. They'll come.
They'll be happy to come. Check out with you, all that stuff. But once you invite them, be aware
because they're going to hang out. They're going to be chill and they're going to torment you
beyond belief. You invite them in. Yeah. I know a young lady who actually was, and I don't know
her personally. Now she's a friend of mine on Facebook, but I haven't talked to her over a decade,
but she was possessed by a demon while at a birthday party while playing with a weekend
board. Now, I also know people that say they play with them and nothing ever happened.
But the bottom line is it is inviting in the old spirit. I'm going to share on the personal level
the way we all think about this. Let's say you're a football player, baseball player, basketball
player, which is a football player. You're in the game and you decide to put on a baseball glove.
You've got a baseball bat. You're not going to be in the game very long. Because it's very sad
because some things are near to our heart. We've seen visions. We've seen ghosts. We've seen things
that might be surreal. In our soul, it is surreal. But when you get into the game, when
they're distractions, they're keeping you from what you really can do, who you really are,
who God is. Because all it is is because the honest truth is no matter if you love something or not,
if you don't keep your focus on something, it's when things go, you slip. So it's always keeping
your focus. Anybody who even says that evil spirits are like familiar spirits. Because
they're familiar, they're familiar. But they're like an angel of light. They're disguised. They look
like something that looks great to you and stuff like that. And they've been doing it for years.
If you even think about it, it wasn't a demon, but it was definitely Satan that said, look at that
apple again. What's that look like? And everybody would know that I wouldn't want to eat an apple,
but if it looked like a video game or a cartoon or something, they would like, oh man,
just let me get my hands on it for a second. Can I eat this thing? It's like, that would have got
my attention. So what they do is they draw attention for you to go get it. So the Ouija board's all
that stuff. It seems cool, but you're just drawing attention to what they really want to do is get
a hold of you and your life. So how would spirits be stronger, not as strong, and also in any
way? In scripture, what we have first of all, they are definitely stronger than others.
Strong is a weird word for this because we're talking about spirituals. We think strong like
pump and iron. But if you mean strong, more effective, the primary way of spirit is going to
be, an evil spirit can be more effective on you is if they can work in your area of preference.
So for example, if they're knowledgeable and successful in the area of pornography,
and you're playing with pornography, then that is going to be a really strong spirit to you.
It's going to be really strong. And if for example, if they're not, but they can handle it for a little
while, then later they're going to invite somebody who's really strong in that area. So that's the
first thing. The second thing is, the Bible, like he said, is quoting a particular passage, but
that you might have to use prayer and fasting to get some out where others will come out easily
when rebuked. And some actually pray and fast. And Jesus actually said this kind of comes out by
prayer and fasting. So if it's harder to get rid of, if that's what you mean by strong, then yes,
you know, then they can be like that because they're harder to get rid of. And it probably just has to
do with how people see that they get. And what was the second part? What was the second part?
And then physically, part of it. Yeah. So we only have one story in the Bible of physical harm and
that and they use a person. Well, yeah. So now let's be careful with Joe, great. We're staying away
from the topic of Satan. Okay, all right. So we don't have anything in the Bible that says demons
can cause you physical harm. They can make you sick. They can cause ailments. Absolutely mental
and physical ailments. Absolutely. And then when they're cast out, those those those ailments would
go away. And that's what happened. And then the disciples are casting out the spirits, people
heal. But the seven sons of Ski were casting out demons by Jesus's name. And the guy said, well,
you know, Paul, Jesus, I know, Paul, I know, but who are you? And then beat the snot out of them so
that they ran out of the ring in their underwear. I'll be done. And so the problem is, and I would,
I would remember, we mentioned, I mentioned earlier that people have to be willing to try to cast a
demon out of somebody and they're not willing to be careful. They might get mad. You know, and then
they can do bad things. So it's wise to not try to cast demons out of somebody unless they're willing.
Although you might need to if that's your only defense. You know, that's what some of you really
love. And then you get rid of the demon, you might go talk to them about Jesus, they might actually
go to hear you. Yeah, I think we were, but we'll do it again next week. I know some people might not
be able to be here, but we'll do it again next week. And we'll have a little bit more time at the end.
And next we're going to get into the hierarchy and the Satan part a little bit.
Yeah, there are no lasting physical protections against demons, period. Not salt, that's a joke.
Not sage, none of that. None of that. Now, let me ask you this. Based on what we've learned here,
somebody else answered the question. We'll put somebody else on spot. If a person thought salt
would work and they lay down salt and it worked, what happened? Okay. It could be, right? Because
then it can really get you later. So it could be like a repose, like a trick. But remember salt made?
From the womb, human beings have the ability to rebuke the enemy. That's what it said.
So for a moment in time, that person got up their courage, decided really that what they wanted,
and they backed that up with action, and they were able to stop that evil spirit demon for a period
of time. And then they thought it and it became an idol. So salt becomes something. So that salt
becomes the way instead of what God would do to a person. There you go. Real quick, I just want to
narrate something real quick. I thought Lord put his heart, especially since it's going live.
Everyone knows the song, My Frozen, Let It Go. It's very serious about the scriptures,
about how the word is used. If you said, let that go, then that song means whatever your
point in it, that's what you let go. But since it's called let it go, that means whatever it is,
you can let it go. So there's a verse, I can't say another word, but Jesus tells Peter, get behind
me. And it was an evil spirit, we'll talk about that. But the idea is that those words are very
critical. He said, get behind me. And when we say scripture, we need to go like, I would say word
for word. If you say it so fast, you won't understand. He said, get behind me. He's telling
that spirit that you need to get behind me. I am the place of authority. You're never going to be
in front of me. Get behind me. So the idea is everything that we go through, it's not supposed
to be in front of us. In the name of Jesus, it's supposed to be behind us because of who we are
in Christ, who God is already, the authority over all evil spirits, demons, and others.
Okay, so we're going to have to conclude our conversation at this point in time. We'll do
one more session of this next week. And it also gives you an opportunity to think about it. I
will give you this word of caution. Do not go out freaked out about demons and evil spirits.
Okay, don't do that. If you don't know that you're a Christian, except you described your Lord and
Savior today, and let Him accept you and start living for Jesus, and you'll be safe. And if you
do know that you're a Christian, then you have nothing to freak out about. Greater is he that is
in you than he that is in the world, and you're going to be okay. All right, there are snacks and
drinks in the cafeteria, and we're just leaving this room to go to fellowship. But we're going to pray.
Even though we're late, we're going to pray. God goes first. Okay, so here we go. We're praying.
Here we go. In the back. Here we go. Here we go. Father in heaven, we love you. We thank you. We
thank you that you open our eyes and make us aware of the spiritual realm. Lord, I know it's at the
end of my fingertips most of the time. I know what I hear and what I see. I'm grateful, Lord, that we
can see with regenerated hearts, be aware, make choices, and reviewed and put away those things
that would affect us on this level. God go with it. If there's somebody in this room who's walking
out right now not believing in Jesus Christ, not knowing that Jesus died across their sentence,
just pray to them, please, carry with them, please help them, please be patient with them,
and with us, because we sure screw something up. If they're hanging out with us, learning about
evil spirits and demons, and they don't know Jesus, and so we pray, Lord, that you be patient
with us. One of your words says that you are, and there's somebody that knows somebody that's
affected, knows somebody that needs to know about this material or this lesson or what God teaches
on this subject, and let us be bold and deliver that truth and stand up for you and fight the
real enemies. I would pray to you the same. Amen.