Here's in you, Lord, my strength.
Here's in you, Lord, my hope.
Here's in you, Lord, in you, Lord, 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, Lord, in you, my life.
God my strength Here's with you God my hope
Here's with you God in you It's in you my life
Here's with you God my strength Here's with you God my hope
I will praise you with all of my strength, with all of my life, with all of my strength.
Is anybody here playing a sport right now?
Has anybody ever played a sport before?
Okay, have you ever been part of a team before then?
Was it a solo sport?
Probably many of those in high school, what's a solo sport?
Cross country? Kana-sorta?
Yeah, that's kana-sorta.
Kana-sorta is a solo sport.
So 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 leads our worship.
Hey.
You okay?
You want to sit next to the friends?
Okay.
Alright, good girl.
Alright, 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, and folks will come and do specials and things, that kind of thing.
And then we have another other team.
So in the room right now, we have our...
I lost him.
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 the teenagers work together to do various things through that ministry.
We have a preschool nursery team.
RJ runs a preschool nursery department.
The God's Kids team that runs the reading age children.
And they transition when their parents and the leaders think it's ready.
So we don't do like grades.
Like you go, oh your kindergarten is kicked out of here.
It's not like that.
We transition when the parents think they're ready and when the teachers think they're ready.
And so we have kind of reading age children up through sixth grade.
And then we have a Christian games team.
The Christian games team does card games, board games, role playing games, board games.
Every kind of games that 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.
Alright.
And I haven't named them all.
The arts and crafts team.
Is Josh in here?
Behind you.
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 6 to 8.
And it is this coming Friday.
So are we doing anything special this Friday Josh?
We're working on games for the upcoming fall season.
Alright so Hall of a Lot of Fun which is October 31st from 6 to 8.
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.
This one we do as a safe alternative to trick or treat.
So kids can come and play games and be in a safe, blessed place.
And so we do Hall of 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 6 to 8 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 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.
Unless 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.
That is for some people.
Right. And so I want to work with teenagers, but I can pray for them.
And so then you'd get a hold of RJ and say, I can pray for your team.
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 community, things like that.
And everybody can help with that.
OK, 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.
So let's pray together.
Would you pray with me?
Yes.
In the bow our heads.
Talk 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.
Use it as you see fit.
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 the earth the best we can to be whatever we can be part of.
We pray you're worthy done here as it is in heaven in Jesus name.
And all God's people say Amen.
Amen.
Thank you very much.
You can stand or you can sit.
But you're surely going to want to sing.
Here we go.
The light of your life is shining in the midst of the dawn is shining Jesus light of the world shine upon us let us breathe by the shield you now bring us shine on me shine on me shine Jesus shine
fill this land with the power of glory with spirit things that our hearts are fine
the river flow the nations with grace and mercy stand on your word for your love and your life
Lord I come to you awesome presence from the shadows into your radiance by the blood I may answer your brightness search me try me consume all my darkness shine on me shine on me shine Jesus shine
fill this land with the power of glory with spirit things that our hearts are fine
the river flow the nations with grace and mercy stand on your word for your love and your life
as the dear presence pours the waters for my soul on your body you are known on my heart desire and I long to worship you
you are known on my strength my shield to you alone may my spirit heal
you alone are my heart desire and I long to worship you you are my friend and you are my brother even though I am
need the paper though okay so this is our agenda for the remainder of our time together what happened I missed it all right anyway this is our
general for the remainder of our time together we're going to have a lesson on evil spirits and demons this is part one so we will not get through everything today
I'm going to ask you to trust me a little bit in that if we start getting into next week's topic too heavily I'm going to redirect us okay 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 the 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 it is this 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 it 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 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 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 die emon 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 die emon all right and the devil's 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 devil's even in the New Testament so it always carries through okay and the word there is I can't really think of the Hebrew word right this thing just slipped 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 rated made it die emon okay the next line there is
evil spirits so two two lines evil and one blank spirits and the other you you can capitalize the spirits if you want I never do because I'm just partial that 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 Pan-Eros which is evil and then Pnuma
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
akathartos 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 this a little bit but since I don't really care what they think
this is what 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 readable 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 watch sci-fi movies or whatever the demon
or like a big clawed beastie thing or whatever like that and I'm not saying they can't look like that but they probably wouldn't normally look like that it would look like something much more seductive or 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 to follow that big arrow down you can put same or if you're a big spelling person you can put interchangeable okay and I 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 daimone yes according to the Bible he's a daimone is he an evil spirit Old 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 possible like that there is a whole bunch of doctrine about how he fell
how he fell from the heavens and became what he is and 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 daimone 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 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 we're going to get into that in a little bit more
as we 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 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 daimone right okay all right so here we go now we're down into the bottom section 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 I've got to go through fairly quickly here
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 with somebody look up Ephesians 612 and somebody look up James 219 even if we overlap it's okay all right so Ephesians 612 and James 219 the middle one is going to be Ephesians 612 the one on the right is going to be James 219 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 gonna get there I should have marked it probably okay so and in Matthew 12 27 28 over on the left under they are real this is what it says and if I this is Jesus is 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 you don't need the rest of it to know demons are real all right Jesus was going to talk about doing it if it wasn't real so Matthew 12 27 to 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 28 then over under they are enemies who has Ephesians 612 RJ nice and loud
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 or 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 2 19 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 gonna give you the next three references that you don't already have filled in and and then a couple people can grab them so they can be spotted we're gonna read first John 4 1
they can be stopped Luke 10 17 yep 10 17 and they can be I chose this word intentionally deported which is Matthew 12 43 to 45
does anybody have first John 4 1 if not I do okay RG go
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 and that would reference was first John 4 1
okay so we're gonna 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 you put a reference under there
yeah distracted what you're looking up the what happened okay so they are enemies Nicole do you have a reference there say it again Ephesians 6 12 nothing remind me I think you don't like tootsie rolls right 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 because that's a 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 lights so you know 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 are not the
things don't stop them but they can be stopped okay does anybody have Luke 10 17 20 take yep the 72 returned 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 they are not
they are not theologically trained many of them were fishermen there was a tax collector there and actually by you broaden the time you broadened 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 82 reference there we're not gonna 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 get saved 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 into you 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 they 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 you know this is gonna 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 first John 2 15 and I am going to read that to you real quick it says
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
Justin shut the door they're going to play games apparently okay anyway there are 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
Satan you could say that's mine Satan you could say is in control of the world right arguably now we're in any of 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 come in
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 all right 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 reference is Matthew 12 43 to 45 did somebody look it up at least you got it all right nice and loud in the back back there
now the spirit comes out of a person that 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 and put in order and it goes and brings along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself and they come in and live there and the last condition of that person becomes worse than the first that is today and it will also be with its evil generation okay so we know that remember Matt remember Solomon
8 even people who don't know the Lord could have victory ever known 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 you can do it through
counsel you can do it through study you can do it through psychology you can do it through volunteering you can do it through medication in so many ways that people can get help to overcome what we're talking about but 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 and 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 first down for four I apologize for that so that black references says first John 215 you can cross that out and write first John for four I think my mind just got stuck on the previous reference when I was making this first John four four okay and it 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 and who is in you 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 safe but now what we 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 positive
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 quit for three days oh I didn't quit I quit quit for a month oh I didn't quit oh I stopped doing that years ago now I'm doing it again 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 etc. can also be summoned the reference there is mark 720.
720.
2-0.
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 fornications 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 proceed 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 her today because of whatever blah blah you literally made him comfortable.
Pull up a chair let me get you coke right you've invited that evil spirit and one in doing that 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 eyes pride of life we still have those struggles we still do bad things.
When 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 alright 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 2 19.
They can be spotted first John for one and by the way two and three 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 82 Luke 10 17 and that actually you know what the bottom one there should be first John for for also you can just cross off the 215 and put for for.
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 first John for for they can be summoned was Mark 720 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 its 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 date 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.
Okay, not saved people about that separately in a second okay but in people who do not know Jesus evil spirits can live inside them and they could be canceled and checked out deported.
If the person figures out that's the best thing to do and they get him out but then there's nothing to keep them out right.
So, then they, he leaves he comes back and he brings a whole bunch of worse evil spirits with him.
Okay, and then the last one is, and this is the most important one I think for to get this point and then we'll go to the panel.
After a little summary is they can be declined.
And it's Luke 10, 21 to 23 is the first reference, Luke 10, 21 to 23.
At that very time he rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit and said, now this is Jesus speaking, I praise the oh father Lord of heaven and earth about its hide these things from the wise and intelligent and just reveal them to babes yes father for thus it was well pleasing in
my sight all things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows who the son is except the father 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.
And 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 forewarned is forearmed.
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 as no God they know.
Right. They already know.
We already know that they can be reviewed. We already know that they can be kicked out and so on.
In fact, in when we read the 1017 which is a little bit before this, or on the page I'll say the 17 returned with joy saying Lord even the demons are subject 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 hear that we can say no as Christians, we can say no.
We can say we're not gonna we're not gonna let this happen.
And there's Ephesians 616 is our final reference.
Ephesians 616.
Okay, now, earlier in this same passage we were talking about how we're, we're not against people. Right, we're against principalities of powers spiritual forces of 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. 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.
Basically, if a strong man guards the house, no one can enter and steal what's inside right.
And we have the ultimate strong man in the Holy Spirit.
You can enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods except you first buying 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, you're 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 gathereth not with me scatter abroad.
Jesus is saying, if you'll stick with me, you'll be alright.
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.
They can be stored, not just one, because if you manage to keep one out because it's bothering you and he comes back, he's going to bring seven more, even more evil and wicked with him.
And then they can be declined. So you can say no.
So that's one thing I want to cover real quick and then we're going to go to the panel portion.
And so it is this. In 1 John 4 where it says, test the spirits.
This is a spirit that is of the Spirit of God. It recognizes who Jesus is that he came in the flesh, died on the cross, and rose again.
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'll never be saved unless you have the strong man that is the Holy Spirit of God that he protects you permanently.
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.
Because of that thoughts come into your head. You can't stop that. There's scientific studies. If you go into a sound deprivation chamber, 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.
And once you learn, if something comes into your head, if your heart belongs to Jesus, if something comes into your head that doesn't fit, your heart has the strength to say,
No thank you. 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.
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.
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 MC 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 you've got the crib sheets or whatever I'm going to 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.
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 mediate and so if you have a question and you think you need something,
they can ask the question and direct it to one of us and if nobody asks any questions, then he has questions he can ask.
You can sit over here because you're going to have that microphone.
Okay, sorry. I'm wearing a microphone. We're ready. Who's got a question?
Jeremiah. RJ. Jeremiah has a question.
Say that last part. If a person is not. Okay. You want to direct it to one of us.
How would you repel a demon if the person is not a power? I can answer. In the name of Jesus, you lay hands on me and you pray over me 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 the same person.
You have the authority of the Holy Spirit to drive that Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit out of the person. They call it exorcism, whatever you want to call it. And it's real. It really does.
God, Jesus said that we could do greater things than him, you know, and through the Holy Spirit, when he says it to us.
So we're embodied with the Holy Spirit and 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 could say to a mountain moving in a movement, we have the faith of a mustard seed. So to drive out a spirit is nothing.
If you have the Holy Spirit reside in you, but some of them are stubborn.
And so we have to find, 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, to save them.
As far as believing is concerned. Yeah, so I would add to that, I agree, 100% of everything I said, I would add to that, that the individual who might have the demon or might be dealing with the demon, because there's demon possession, which means the 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 a demon can do to a Christian is oppress 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 spirit in my house and pretty sure it's like dead life and she got something no night for him just slamming cupboard getting a refrigerator. I'm sitting in my chair watching TV and his cold spot comes across the room from where she used to sit.
I said, Well, okay, we'll, we'll come and talk to you. And I went talk to my share of the gospel. He did not want to accept Jesus. He did not want to become a Christian.
I said, Well, we can do it. And actually, it was a brother, Tim Mitchell and myself went for first time so we can do it. So we prayed we passed out.
One second, or are they okay? So you want to go find out what's question is now. So you're ready.
Anyway, then we did. So we prayed and we're really experienced 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. It's worse than ever. Now it's doing 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. And so the second time I went back, I said Perry.
I remember we sat in his guy's living room and and Perry questioning him on the Quran. And he didn't know anything about the Quran. And he admitted eventually he was a Muslim and he just used that as an excuse not to become a Christian, which is a lot, by the way, in case anybody didn't realize that.
Anyway, and so then I shared the gospel with him again. And he did not accept Christ, but he was definitely closer.
And so we prayed and we experienced in the house and and he went away. About 10 days later, he had a man come and live with him. He had an upstairs bedroom office and man came and lived with him.
And that man was Christian. And then he lived there for about two months. And the quote unquote evil spirit never came back.
The spirit of his wife 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. I was doing all kinds of things. He said he couldn't sleep and he felt it hover over his bed.
And so we went again and let him accept Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior, which he did do. And we were the evil spirit. We never met the evil spirit. We never sensed it, felt it or sensed it.
Maybe it felt weird. Anyway, so then we prayed to him and it fled. He called me about seven months later and he said he had never, never felt a problem again.
He was engaged to a woman and she was a Christian woman and he wanted to donate money to the church and 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 ocknock play or something. I don't want to get paid for fighting demons.
And so 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 it kept coming back and it kept getting worse.
So I'm going to add to that because you said a demon does it, how do you repel it if it's not a follower? So in Christ, any Christian believer, any Christian believer can say cast out 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 repel demons, they can entertain them, a lot of things. And I would 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 attacked since I was an early age. I get attacked every day and God tells me that that's the way I see it.
I think I don't I know people that really can see evil spirits can and I don't see it. God is coming with being said and I'll go, OK, by faith, I trust you. I'm going to go do that. And so like everybody has 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.
Because following 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, I'll 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 dragon 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 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 the first thing he has to simplify is to simplify the first question was you said that the evil spirit was his ex-part forever. How would he know that that's his ex-part? Or can a spirit be like a dead person?
So biblically speaking, there are no such things as ghosts. People talk about ghosts all the time. The Bible says absent 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 is 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, blah blah blah. But you can clearly see in that text that that was not him. It was something representing. So demons will do that, play that game to try to get people to listen.
I'm curious, when I was younger, I saw my grandma in turn one of my mouth, which she had been there a long time. I ended up trying to look her in the driver's seat and realized that it was her. How was that possible?
Sure. So, I mean, there's a couple different ways. I've got to get that could have been a vision. I see it didn't look like a real person. So, but it also could have been a demon. It's nothing I would want to mess with.
Yeah, I'm not trying to get on that tangent but I thought you'd have to get to prophecy for a while so it's possible your dreams for telling you things you need to start a dream journal, start keeping track, because you're gonna find out that it connects with things that are going on.
Okay.
Yeah, so you're talking about the Trinity. All right. And so I actually I think Chris did a pretty good job explaining this the other day, more talk. 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've heard that way. That doesn't make him just one thing right we're, we're heart, mind, soul or more than one thing.
So God is a Trinity he's one person is 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 sun, and it's 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.
And then God the sun came to earth. The Trinity is a whole other topic. And it's kind of a new topic, but essentially it's something you have to accept on faith. There's God the father, God the son, God the most pure and they're all one person.
Right.
It does. Yes. So maybe or maybe Tuesday night.
I have a great material I can send you I think I'm pretty good for you to ask me anytime I love answers questions. Yeah, it's fun stuff. I love talking about stuff.
demons and evil spirits we've got like five minutes max.
Jeremiah.
I was wondering about the week he ordered.
Uh huh.
So what is it exactly.
It's inviting demons. Yeah, that's exactly what it's doing. You're calling on demons. Like you said in the handout, you can call them.
They'll come. They'll be happy to come check out with you all that stuff. Once you invite them, be aware, because they're getting ready to hang out.
If you're a chill and they're going to torment you beyond belief, you've invited 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 in
possessed by a demon while at a birthday party while playing with the Ouija board now not also know people that say they play with nothing ever happened.
But the bottom line is it is inviting in.
I'm going to share on personal level, the way we all think about this. Let's say you're a football player, baseball player, basketball player, which is both football player.
You're in the game, and you decide to put on a baseball glove. You got a baseball bat. You're not going to be in the game very long. So, and with because it's very sad because some things are near their heart. We've seen visions. We've seen ghosts.
We've seen things that you know that might be surreal and in our soul. It is surreal. But when you get into the game when their 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. They even says that evil spirits are they're like familiar spirits and I guess they don't say 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 wasn't a demon, but it was definitely Satan. It was said, look at that apple again.
What's that look like and everybody would know that I 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.
You know, 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 we do boards, all that stuff.
You know, it seems cool, but you're just drawing attention to what they really want to do is, you know, holy do in your life.
So how would spirits be stronger or not strong and also can they like actually physically harm you in any way?
So in scripture, what we have, first of all, they are definitely somewhere 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 like strong, like more effective, the primary way a spirit is going to be an evil spirit is going to 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, that you if they're not, but they can handle it for a little while, then later they're going to invite somebody that's really strong in that area.
So that's the first thing. The second thing is the Bible said, like he said, just 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 might use prayer and fasting. Jesus actually said this 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 are seated. They get, you know, the second part.
In a physical department. Yeah. So we only have one story in the Bible, physical harm and that and they don't use a person.
Well, yeah, but now let's be careful with Joe. We're staying away from the topic of Satan.
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 and then those those ailments would go away.
And that's what happened. The disciples are casting out evil spirits. People were healed.
But the seven sons of Sceva were casting out demons by Jesus's name.
And the guy said, you know, Jesus, I know, Paul, I know. But who are you? And then beat the snot out of them so that they ran out of their underwear.
So the problem is, and I would I would remember what 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.
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 somebody you really love.
And then you get rid of the demon, you might go talk to them about Jesus and they might actually go over here.
You're right. Probably the last one, right? Yeah, I think we were.
But we'll do it again next week. I know some of you 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.
We're going to get into the hierarchy and the safety part a little bit.
I know this substance called sage.
And I wonder if it would help or protect that place or anything.
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 answer the question. We'll put somebody else on the spot.
If a person thought salt would work and they laid down salt and it worked, what happened?
There was a evil spirit pointing into it.
Okay. It was very near and dear.
No, it could be, right? Because then it can really get you later.
So it could be like a repose, like a trick.
But remember Psalm 8?
From the womb, human beings have the ability to rebuke the enemy.
That's what it said.
From the womb.
So for a moment in time, that person got up their courage, decided really 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 caught it and it became an idol. So salt becomes something.
So now salt becomes the way.
Instead of what God would do to a person.
Real quick, I just want to narrate something real quick.
I thought the Lord put his heart as best as 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 you're pointing at, 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 it in the word, but Jesus tells Peter, get behind me.
And it was an evil spirit, we'll talk about that later.
But the idea is that those words are very critical.
He said, get behind me.
And when we say scripture, we need to go, 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 devils.
Okay, so we're going to have to conclude our conversation at this point in time.
We will do one more session of this next week.
And this will give 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, accept Jesus Christ as 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.
Alright?
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.
Get with me.
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 what'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 review 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 and crossed their sins,
Lord, then 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 would be patient with us.
I know your word says it, you are.
And if 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,
then let us be bold and deliver that truth and stand up for you
and fight the real enemies.
I will pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.