Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.
Come on, turn to somebody, give them a high five, tell them wake up, shake up, God's moving
in the house.
Amen.
Yeah, listen, you should have got blessed already through worship, a word that already
came, God is good.
Listen, we are thrilled to be back.
For those of you who don't know, the missions team went to Guatemala this week and got back
at about 12.05 this morning and some of them are in the house.
Praise God.
Yes.
And yeah, come on, give them a hand.
And 10 people went down.
It was an incredible week that took place.
The orphanage is amazing, the work they're doing with the children there.
And the team went above and beyond in representing this church.
And each one of you who have given, not only did a roof get tore off and tore down or replaced.
And let me tell you something, there weren't just termites in this roof.
There were spiders, brother.
And I mean a lot of spiders, you know, and it seemed just muscled through.
They tore off a roof, put a new roof on, man, rewired the same building completely, painted
another building, put a chain link fence up.
It was an amazing week and we got to play with a whole bunch of kids.
That was incredible.
I ate with them, spent time together with them.
And Castle Shalom is doing an amazing job with these kids as God stepping them through
coming out of difficult circumstances and they are thriving.
So it was an amazing week.
And I know that was just a short snippet, but next week we didn't have time.
We got home around midnight.
We're going to try to put a slideshow together too late.
Right.
So now seriously, we're just waiting till next week.
But we want to bring you just some pictures and talk about it just for a few minutes next
week.
But maybe, just maybe we'll be going next year.
You might want to start praying about that.
Even now, I believe God works way ahead of time.
Amen.
He does.
He starts to move our hearts and lives.
So thank you for that.
Thank you for giving to the youth big time.
People have been responding and we're going to get all these kids to Winterfest.
So God's on the move.
We're getting ready to move.
Right.
So we've got a shift taking place that got preached about, Bishop Hughes last week preached
an amazing word about shift.
I've heard comment after comment of people who have that word just came and just ministered
to people's hearts.
So it's good to be in God's house.
How many of you know it's good every morning?
Amen.
I want to do something real quick before I start in the message.
There have been after report after report, even though we've been away, about people
that have been sick.
And there are a lot of people out sick this morning with flus, all kinds of things in
the hospital.
And we need to just take a moment and pray because I believe God moves.
Amen.
You do that right now.
Just extend your hand towards heaven.
Lord, we come before you grateful and thankful for your move this morning.
But God, right now there are those that are home that are sick.
God, there is the flu, the cold.
God, just all kinds of sickness taking place.
Lord, we speak against that sickness.
God, we ask you to come in, move upon them, bring them to a place of healing that they
might get back to life.
And God, they might get back to worshiping you and lifting up your name.
And we just give you praise in Jesus name.
Everybody say together.
Amen.
The effective fervent prayer of the righteous avails much.
Amen.
We need to pray.
Well, listen, I'm going to ask you a question this morning.
And I asked myself this question this week.
If there was a scale to measure the level of threat that you were to the kingdom of
darkness, where do you think you would land on that scale?
If there was somehow this scale that you could measure how much threat you pose to the enemy,
where would you land on that scale?
If you were the one that was going to come up against darkness in the name of Jesus,
how dangerous really are you?
What's the power behind your spiritual punch?
What would the number be?
And I know I'm kind of saying something or asking you questions arbitrary.
So I thought, you know, and trust me, you can look this up.
You're not going to find a scale.
So I made one up.
You may know when you don't have something, you just make it up yourself.
I made this up actually a long time ago and kind of revisit it.
And here's the scale.
And I want you, I want you to just ask yourself, where would I land?
Where would I fall in this scale?
Right?
Now, here's what it is.
It's one through five.
Say one through five.
One through five.
Number one is harmless.
Say harmless.
All right.
Number two, if you were up against hell and the enemy, were you, are you a troublemaker
for all of the kingdom of darkness?
Number three, are you actually considered a threat?
Right?
Number four, would they call code red if you got near the enemy?
Right?
And then number five, are you armed and dangerous?
Are you armed and dangerous?
I want you just to take a moment.
Ask yourself, what part of the scale would you land on?
Do you consider yourself armed and dangerous to the kingdom of darkness?
Where would you be in the fight?
Would you somehow be on hell's most wanted list?
I pictured this in my head.
Now, I don't think there's any light poles there because I don't think there's any light
in hell, but somewhere along the way, would they have your post up and say, just stay
away from this one?
Right?
Whoever you are, your picture was there.
Just stay away from this.
And would you show up on a poster somewhere?
Would even begin to shutter when you got near because of the power of God and Jesus in your
life?
Or would you be a zero on the scale?
I know it doesn't even have a zero, right?
Would you be less than a one or a one?
Or would you be a code red?
Where would you land?
And while I generally don't run around looking for a fight, right?
I think it's a legit question to ask ourself.
Where would I?
I think it's a biblical question to ask ourself.
Am I armed and dangerous to the kingdom of darkness?
Or am I harmless and just quietly sitting by the side?
So I want you to turn the person beside you.
Let's ask them this morning, are you armed and dangerous?
Are you?
And I mean that in the spiritual sense, okay?
I don't want anybody pulling anything out this morning.
All right.
Are you armed and dangerous in the spiritual sense?
If you got your Bibles this morning in your notepads, you can begin to turn to Ephesians
chapter six.
We're going to go to verse 10.
Ephesians chapter six, verse 10.
And I tell you, you know, I started telling you this.
You bring the word of God with you because it's a sword, right?
And you bring the notebook because your memory is not that good.
And God might speak something to you, right?
So get your Bibles, get your notebooks, go to Ephesians chapter six, verse 10.
I'm going to say a quick prayer over our ears.
Lord, we thank you for this day.
Lord, we pray that we have ears to hear and got hearts that are open.
And Lord, God, your words already gone forth, Lord, through music and spoken.
And Lord, we just want some more.
So Lord, help us this morning as we look into your word and we give you praise and glory
in Jesus name and amen and amen.
Ephesians six, 10 says this.
Finally, my brother, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil.
Wiles means plants, all right?
Plots, schemes of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against rules of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly
places.
First thing I want to do this morning is I want to put us on notice.
If you're following Jesus, if you are saved, if you're full of life, if you're what we
used to call a blood bought Christian, you don't hear that term used a lot anymore, but
blood bought meant by the blood of Jesus Christ.
You have been cleansed, you've been made whole, you are purchased by Jesus Christ and brought
to life.
If that's you, you need to know that you are currently in the middle of a war, a war with
hell itself.
And I should know this is a Jesus follower.
I should be living in this kind of reality.
You know, I should be on some kind of high alert as I know.
I should be keenly aware of what's taking place, that there is actually a spiritual
fight going on, that there is a skirmish that is taking place between two kingdoms, even
though you can't see it with your physical eye, right?
That I have an enemy and his name is actually Satan, right?
He is Lucifer and he's got an ongoing plan to take me out, to take you out, to take your
family out, right?
That he and those who have fallen with him, the word of God says a third of the angels
fell with him.
They're actively working and perpetrating evil on every front in human existence.
It's true.
It's real.
We very, very, we very, very much have an enemy about us.
Right?
I know that's not super cool, right?
I know it's like, whoa, kind of thing.
But why is it so important to be aware of this?
Let me give you two reasons this morning.
First one is this, because four out of 10 believers, followers of Jesus, don't believe
that they have a physical enemy.
They don't believe in Satan.
This is statistically true.
Four out of 10.
They don't believe that Satan is a created being, right, who is in direct opposition
to God.
They don't.
They believe that the third of the angels of heaven followed him in a rebellion and
were really literally cast out of heaven and joined forces together to disseminate evil
upon the earth.
They don't believe it.
They simply choose not to believe.
They don't take the Bible physically.
They take it figuratively and they think it's just a concept, right?
They do not believe that evil exists.
They believe it's just simply a force, some kind of evil force floating around out there
that's against us.
And they don't even believe that there's a source for the evil.
They don't believe it.
They believe that evil is really this perpetual, immoral mindset, series of thoughts, right,
that bring treacherous things or even dangerous or immoral things into our lives.
Some kind of force that's out there.
And to even muddy the water a little bit more, they believe that he, that God is the source
for good, but there is no source for evil, right?
And it's true.
This idea pervades all through Christian circles.
They've talked about this.
They've surveyed this.
They refuse to believe, which amazes me because here's what the Bible says.
If you go into 1 John chapter three, verse seven, it says this little children, let no
one deceive you.
He who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous.
He who sins is of the devil for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
It did not just say an evil force, right?
It names him the devil.
For this purpose, the son of man was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.
Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.
He showed up as God wrapped in flesh to take the enemy out.
He died on a cross.
He was buried in a tomb.
He rose three days later, not just to bring us grace, but to take the enemy of our lives
out, right?
To come and offer salvation because Jesus came to destroy, say destroy.
That's what it says.
The works of the devil.
He came to destroy it, not to just destroy some concept or idea, but the source.
If you're going to take something out, right?
You don't know.
You don't just go after the symptom.
You go after the source.
You come after the source of something that's taking place.
Ephesians 6 12 says, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts, beings,
right?
Of wickedness in heavenly places.
We've got an enemy and we've got an enemy and we need to get, you know, when I started
off with that skill, we got to get to a place where we're armed and dangerous.
We got to realize that we're in the middle of a war.
There's a skirmish taking place.
You know, we just got back from Guatemala.
I can tell you the skirmish is live and well there in that society.
You know, we sat and played with young children who were victims of the sin and the enemy's
work in that area.
And we watched God's restorative work in their lives, which is amazing to see, but it is
real.
And by virtue of who you are, by virtue of just God's being part of God's creation, you
have an enemy.
Genesis 1 26 tells this, this, and it said, God said, let us make man in our own image.
Say I'm made in his image.
I'm made in his image.
According to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of
the air, over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps
on the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created a male and female.
He created them and God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth
and subdue it.
Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living
thing that moves on the earth.
You are a reflection of God.
You are a reflection of God who God set on this earth and gave authority and dominion
to.
So you got to understand when Satan came to Adam and Eve, he wasn't banished from heaven,
banished from God's presence and he thought, you know, there's Adam and Eve, I think I'll
just go mess with them today, right?
Got nothing else going on.
I think I'll just slide over and you know, maybe tempt Eve for a little bit and see what
she does and then tempt Adam.
He was there.
He wasn't just bored as he was running around.
He's an enemy of God.
He came to take them out.
He came to grab a hold of the authority that God gave them.
God set them in the garden and said, Adam and Eve, this is yours.
This earth is yours.
Have dominion over this.
He wanted the authority.
He wanted to grab it and he wanted to take out the sons and the daughter of God, right?
That's what he wanted.
There is a fight.
There's a fight.
There's a war going on for souls because for no other reason, because you are a reflection
of God and who he is.
You and your family, your children, your relatives, your neighbors, your friends, they're a reflection
of the God.
And for that reason alone and many others, you're in a fight.
It's just one of the reasons.
Two is this.
You need to be aware that you're in a fight because how many know that if you wander into
a battle zone unaware that there's a war taking place, how long do you think you're going
to survive?
I want you to get a picture in your mind, right?
If you're unaware of the battle that's taking place and the fight that's going on and it's
about to occur and all hell breaks loose, you got a problem.
Amen?
It's true.
So I want you to kind of do something this morning.
I want you to picture something.
I want you to pretend that there's a mountain over on this side and there's a mountain over
in this side and there's a big old beautiful field right down in the middle of the two
mountains right down in the valley.
And I want you to pretend that you're standing on the edge of that.
And here's what you don't know.
You don't know that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of light is up in the trees and
and hidden up in this mountain and the kingdom of darkness and Satan and the enemy are over
here and there's this big old valley down there and you're looking at the valley and
you're not completely aware of what's going on and you think to yourself, you know, looks
like a great place to have a picnic.
That looks awesome.
Right?
So you go pick you go pack a picnic basket and you get your favorite P&J, right?
PB&J sandwich.
I don't know what your favorite jelly is.
How many know strawberry?
Right?
All right.
Come on.
Yeah.
Amen.
All right.
You know, you get you make your jelly's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches up.
You get yourself some tea.
You get a little blankie, right?
Your favorite blankie that you lay on the ground and you just wander out there and there's
a little baby shade tree out in the middle and you think that's perfect right there.
And you plop yourself down and you sit down.
You begin to munch on a sandwich and all of the sudden, all of the sudden, rockets begin
to sail over the top of your head.
All of the sudden, there's bullets flying around you.
All of the sudden, you begin to hear war cries and there you sit with your picnic basket.
No weapon, no armor, no battle plan.
All right.
You wandered into the middle of a battlefield.
How many know that's a problem?
That's a difficult place to be in.
Right?
How many know picnic basket isn't going to get it done?
You're probably not going to stop the war with your peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Right?
It sounds ridiculous.
It sounds crazy, but so many Christians live like that.
They block out that there's any enemy that's out around them.
There's any war that's taking place and they just grab the picnic basket and go sit down
in the middle of the field, in the middle of the battle zone.
And they don't know that they're in the middle of a fight.
They're in the middle of a war.
But my son, my son turned 16 years old.
I got him a gift and it was something that I had planned for a while.
And I bought him a sword.
All right.
It was awesome.
All right.
I bought him this sword and it was a real sword.
Now I didn't sharpen it, but it was very pointy.
But I got this sword and I didn't want to buy him a sword just to buy him a sword.
But I had some words inscribed on it.
Some Greek words and it was Ammonia and I always mess that up.
Right?
Ammonia, diathetop and rama.
Three words and I butchered the pronouncement terribly with that because they're up there
right now.
But here's what they mean.
And the meaning is more important.
Forget my vocabulary, Greek vocabulary.
I defend, I destroy, and now word from God.
Why would I get my 16 year old son a sword and I put on it, I defend, I destroy, and
now word from God.
Here's what I wanted him to remember as he began to slide into manhood.
I wanted him to understand that he was the one day that he would be the keeper of his
home.
He would lead and head up his household.
One day he would have to even at 16 years old, he would have to realize that he's in
the middle of a battle and in the middle of the battle, it would be his responsibility
right to defend.
It would be his responsibility to go against the enemy and he would need a now word from
God.
He would need a rama word from God.
He would need to hear from God all along the way.
He would need the instructions from the general on what was next.
And I wanted him to understand, I wanted him to get that deep in his spirit.
Something that he could put up, even if he, and I don't know where he has it now, probably
tucked away somewhere, but even if he looks at it once in a while, he understands it.
It's his role, it's his job.
He's in the middle of a war and the enemy wants him.
He wants his family.
He wants his wife.
We're hoping for children right now.
We're praying that in.
I keep speaking twins over them right now.
Come on, pray with me.
All right.
But I wanted him to know.
I wanted him to know.
I wanted him to remember we're a war church for a war.
There's a war taking place.
There's a war taking place in Carlisle.
There are people getting taken out every day all around us.
We're getting ready to move when we slide down into this new spot and even where we're
at right now, right?
We're not, we're keeping this one too.
Then we're going to have two locations.
There are people dying around us.
The enemy is taking them out.
We need to be armed and dangerous.
One's not going to cut it, right?
Two on a scale is not going to cut it.
We got to be armed and dangerous and we got to armor up.
Ephesians 6 13 says this, therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able
to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand, stand therefore having girded
your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having feet shod with
the preparation of the gospel of peace.
Above all, taking the shield of faith which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts
of the wicked one.
Take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God praying
always all prayer and supplication in the spirit.
That's a whole other subject, right?
Being watchful to this end and with all perseverance and supplication for the saints.
You got to armor up.
You got to get ready for the battle.
You can't go out there with a picnic basket.
You got to get truth in your life, right?
That's what you gird your waist with.
You got to get a breastplate of righteousness to cover your heart.
That's what a breastplate does.
It covers your vital organs, right?
You got to be prepared with the feet shot with the gospel.
Everywhere you go, you're carrying the gospel.
Shield of faith, man, you got to have faith.
That's the only thing that you got to defend yourself from the darts of the enemy, right?
You got to get how many know your faith is mobile like a shield.
You can throw that puppy up anywhere and block whatever's coming at you.
You got to make sure your head's covered.
You got to make sure you have the sword of the spirit praying in the spirit, praying
to God, right?
And be vigilant to the end.
We need to be armed up and dangerous in the kingdom of God, right?
And against the kingdom of darkness.
Hell should shudder when you walk down the street.
Hell should get nervous, right?
Men should flee when we walk down the street, not because of us, but because who's in us,
who walks with us, right?
You should be a Christian.
You should be a Christian ninja.
All right?
Come on.
A godly Navy SEAL, a spiritual green beret.
Man, listen, I've seen some little old ladies I would not mess with spiritually.
They will pray you in and out of anywhere they want to.
They had power.
My grandmother was like that.
She was frail.
She was sickly.
And man, spiritually, you did not want to mess with her.
You know, she did not show up to a gunfight with a knife.
She came with a spiritual bazooka, right?
To take me.
I'm serious.
She knew, right?
Be vigilant.
Be awake.
Be armed and dangerous.
We have an enemy.
And I can spend the rest of my time focusing on each weapon.
And we don't got enough time for that this morning.
Each piece and what it represents.
But I think I want to focus just on one little portion of that scripture as you look at it.
In that scripture, it says this, having done all to stand, stand.
So what's that part mean?
You know, what is that little phrase amongst all that weaponry for offense and defense,
right?
What does that mean?
It means that you got to do your part in standing against the enemy.
It means that you should have the right training.
You should have the right disciplines.
You should have the right practices.
Sometimes we get knocked on our spiritual backsides because we're unskilled, we're
unpracticed, right?
And we're untrained in what God's given us.
We have it all.
He's given it to us all.
But we're unskilled, we're unpracticed, and we're untrained in it.
And we got to be practiced.
We've got to be trained.
I remember years ago watching this special on TV.
And it was about this kid that was about nine years old.
And he was kind of a karate expert.
And this kid was amazing.
He was incredible.
He was trained.
He was skilled, man.
And he was practiced.
And he's like nine years old.
And he's whooping people that are twice his age.
He's got a room full of trophies from tournaments that he got into.
And nobody could go up against this kid because he was skilled, because he was practiced,
because he was trained.
It was not because of his size, because he was not large.
He just knew.
He was just practiced.
And as I thought about this, I began to think of a biblical example of this.
And I began to think of King David.
And Bishop Hughes preached a masterful sermon last week.
But he started to talk about David a little bit.
And you got to understand David was a shepherd boy.
He was one of eight sons.
He was a shepherd boy.
He was the youngest.
And his day was filled with going and watching the sheep.
And as I thought about him watching the sheep, you know, two scenarios could have taken place
right there.
As David went out to the sheep, now the sheep just go out and eat grass.
Now I'm not a sheep herder.
I know there's a whole bunch of other things you got to do with it.
I've read a book on that.
I got a book given to me about that.
But just in short, they got to go eat, right?
They got to go eat grass.
And their job is to get fat and make wool.
All right.
That's what they do.
And the shepherd moves them from place to place and protects them and keeps them there.
But David could have done one of two things, right?
He could have took a picnic basket.
He could have took his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
He could have taken his tea and he could have sat out on the hillside and watched the sheep,
right?
And he could have thrown wool.
But that's not what David did.
David had a sling and a stone.
And I can see him as a kid going out and watching the sheep, right?
And picking up a stone with his sling.
And how am I know he just start swinging that thing around and nail the first tree he could
find, right?
He probably even popped the sheep once in a while, right?
You know, just swinging that thing around and he throw one and then he do two and then
he do three.
And the longer he went, the better he got.
He missed the tree the first 50 times he slung a stone at it.
But number 51, he nails the tree and he keeps doing it and he keeps doing it and he keeps
doing it and he keeps getting skilled and he keeps getting practiced and he keeps training
and he keeps going and he keeps going and he nails the tree and then he aims at a big
old rock and he hits it, right?
It's half the size of the tree.
Pretty soon he takes out a rabbit.
Maybe one of his brothers are going by, right?
Bam!
He's on the backside, you know, going by and he just keeps practicing and he keeps training.
And pretty soon, the Word of God says when he was young, right?
A lion and a bear come in.
It doesn't give full details, but David takes care of a lion.
He takes care of a bear.
I've got to think he's probably killing some rabbits and eating them for supper.
He is skilled.
Somehow this little boy with a sling becomes armed and dangerous.
And not long later on in his childhood, he goes and delivers lunch, the peanut butter
and jelly sandwich, which is due his brothers who are at the war.
They're at the front and a giant walks into a field and begins to mock God, his God.
And he doesn't back down.
He's already taken out a lion.
He's already taken out a bear.
He's walked that path of an enemy that's so much larger than he is, so much more powerful
than he is.
And he said, who is this uncircumcised Philistine?
And he goes out on that field and he puts a rock in that sling and he buries it in that
giant's head and he falls.
He dies.
You've got to be skilled.
You've got to be trained.
You've got to take what God's given you.
He's given you the armor.
He's given you the sword.
He's given you what you need.
But you've got to train with it.
You've got to get armed with it.
You've got to get to a place where you're skilled with what God has placed in your hands.
Because I know this about armor or even a sword.
If you're untrained with a sword, it looks cool, but you're going to probably die in
a fight.
You've got to be trained.
Amen.
It's true.
Worship team if you'd come.
You've got to understand this is sometimes, listen, I've come across some believers that
they couldn't beat their way out of a wet paper bag.
You know what I'm talking about?
Spiritually.
I mean, how many of you have ever been there?
Couldn't beat your way out of a wet paper bag spiritually?
It's true.
And sometimes it's because we're so unskilled in what God has given us.
We're so unskilled in placing the armor upon us and working with it.
One of the things that warriors do when they train is they train with the equipment that
they're going to use, whether that's a defensive type of equipment or an offensive type of
equipment.
They train with it.
If it's a gun, if it's anything that they're wearing, it almost becomes second nature to
them where you could blind them and they're able to get to whatever they need and do whatever
they have to do almost with their eyes closed because they train with it.
They're skilled.
That's what God meant when he says do everything.
When you're going to weapon up, when you're going to armor up, you've got to stand.
You've got to train.
I'm going to ask if you'd stand this morning.
Here's the deal.
I know this isn't one of those shouting services, but this is a serious thing you need to hear.
If you go out into the middle of that field with a picnic basket, you're saved.
You know Jesus is Lord and Savior of your life, but you are oblivious to the war that's
taking place.
You walk out there and you sit with a picnic basket and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
and you're sucking on your tea and you don't understand that there's a war taking place.
The enemy is going to trounce all over you.
He is going to beat you silly or worse.
We've got to be a people of God who will stand.
Who will put on the armor.
We will pick up the sword and we train.
We train.
We keep training.
Some of you, you know, in that LH3, 3 minutes with God, 3 people, you're training.
When you get with God, when you take and you spend some time with God, you're training.
He's pouring into you.
The Holy Spirit begins to instruct you.
He begins to teach you how to swing the sword.
It's the Word of God.
We don't wrestle against flesh and blood.
It's principalities, it's powers, it's rulers of darkness that we're coming up against.
It's real evil.
And when you get in your prayer closet, right, you begin to exercise.
You'll faith.
You're out in the world and something takes place.
Here's the thing with it.
You know, just like David with that sling, you've got to start out small, man.
You've got to see if you can hit a tree.
It might not be the big thing and it might not seem all that important, but you've got
to see if you can hit a tree.
And you'll faith that once you hit that tree, how many of your faith begins to build, right?
You hit it again and then you hit it again.
And then you go on to something smaller and the target gets smaller, but you get more
accurate at what you're doing.
And you, you can take out the enemy.
So many times we go after the giant and we haven't even hit the tree yet.
You got to train.
Thank you for tuning in to this message from Lifehouse Church.
And we'll see you next time.