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The Book of Revelation is known as the Apocalypse in Greek, which is a word that means something

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which is concealed that's being unveiled.

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The Book of Revelation uses very strange symbolism.

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However, the symbolism in Revelation is interpreted predominantly in the Old Testament.

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In other words, the symbols are found originally in the Old Testament that the Apocalypse uses.

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Chapter 12 of Revelation deals with a time frame which is the middle of the tribulation

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period and it talks about a dragon with seven heads and ten horns.

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Now the word dragon there, now remember this is coming from the 1611 King James translation

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of the Bible, is actually a Greek word that means a serpent.

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It actually can translate into, I saw a seven headed serpent.

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Now in symbolism, a serpent, everyone, if I were to say to Christians, what is a serpent

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representing a needle, they know going back to Genesis 3, the serpent represents Satan

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and it represents him throughout scripture.

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Now when we look at that, the serpent has seven heads.

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Now this is a really bizarre looking picture.

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However, in the early days in what we call Mesopotamia, Ur of Caladis, Saudi Arabia,

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those countries, let's say four to five thousand years ago, there were frescoes found of a

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serpent with different heads, like seven heads and different, a many headed serpent.

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So sometimes the imagery that John used by revelation of the Holy Spirit is found in

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ancient empires.

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So the people of his day would have had a little bit of an understanding of what he's

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talking about, but we today have to interpret it because we don't use those particular symbols.

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Satan had in the Bible, from Genesis all the way into the time of the New Testament, six

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major empires and every one of these empires in some way affected either the Jewish people

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or the Jewish people and Israel as a nation or the city of Jerusalem or the temple or

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many times a combination of all of those.

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Now if we go through and I think most Bible scholars would agree with me on what I'm about

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to say, that if we look at the heads of the serpent, the empires that affected Israel,

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the Jews in Jerusalem, we start first of all with Egypt and then after Egypt, we come into

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the Old Testament to the kingdom of Assyria and then after the Assyrians, we come into

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the time of the Babylonians.

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After the Babylonians came the Medes and the Persians, after the Medes and Persians came

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the Greeks, after the Greeks came the Romans.

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So those are your six major empires of Bible prophecy.

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In Revelation, however, it says there's a seventh head that will continue a short space.

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Now in John's day, when he wrote that vision about 95 to 100 AD according to Rick Renner,

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the Greek scholar, when John wrote that, the seventh empire did not exist, but it was going

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to come out of one of the previous empires of prophecy.

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And the seventh empire, of course, many have said is the common market, the EU of Europe,

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and believe it's a global government that's about to form that that's the one that we're

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coming into or that is possibly here.

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And it could be connected to the EU, the division of the East and West, according to Daniel

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Tude.

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I don't want to get too complicated here.

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We're trying to make it as simple as possible.

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And so there is a seventh empire and then out of those seven world empires, including

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the last one coming in our day and time, will come in Revelation chapter 17.

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You read 17 and 18, you'll see this together.

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An eighth empire that rules for 42 months, which is the empire of the Antichrist.

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So there's your seven heads.

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Now when it comes to the 10 horns, those 10 horns are also found in Daniel 2, which are

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the 10 toes at the end of days on the image of that metallic image that Nebuchadnezzar

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had that dream about.

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Those are 10 kings.

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Then later in Daniel 7 and 8, there is 10 horns that he sees, which again are 10 last

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day kingdoms.

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And John picks up on it later in the book of Revelation where he talks about the dragon

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now has 10 horns.

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So these 10 kings are five kings from the Eastern part of the world, five from the Western,

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East and West.

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That's how it's going to be divided up.

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And it is today really.

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You have China, who's really almost like the red dragon, you might say, that's in the East.

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You have, of course, the United States, which is a Western empire.

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The United States still is an empire in my opinion.

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So it's going to be divided between East and West, but there'll be 10 of them at the end

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of days.

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So if we look at the book of Revelation chapter 12, what John is seeing is John is seeing

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a vision of Satan who has had Prince spirits or chief demon spirits.

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Now what's a Prince spirit?

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It's known in the New Testament, Ephesians 6 and 12 as a principality.

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It is a high ranking spirit directly under Satan that rules over a nation or a kingdom.

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And we know that from Daniel 10, when the angel Gabriel is revealing to Daniel that

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there was a Prince of the kingdom of Greece and a Prince of the kingdom of Persia.

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And Gabriel was in the middle battling both of these.

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And he revealed that to Daniel.

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So in other words, there has been a Prince over Egypt.

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And when I talk about an earthly man, we're talking about a demonic power with great authority.

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Then there was one over Assyria.

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Then there was one over, of course, Babylon.

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Then it was one over media Persia and Greece.

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That's in Daniel 10.

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There also was one over the Roman empire.

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And there are the, this is what I want to make clear to people.

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These same Prince spirits have never been bound.

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These same Prince spirits of previous empires are still on the earth today and still working

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to control governments.

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For example, to pass legislation against God, against God's people and so many other things.

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And so that's what we, what the scripture alludes to in Revelation 12 on the seven heads

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of the dragon and the 10 horns.

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The spirit behind each of those empires had a particular emphasis that, or let me say

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this assignment in that empire.

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And I'm just going to give you a few here because it would take a little longer than

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probably the time we have.

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If we go, for example, to the, the, the, the Egyptian empire, it was an empire that tried

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to put people in bondage and people into slavery.

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And Paul in Romans talks about the spirit of bondage.

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Now the spirit of bondage is something that binds a person to causes them to be attached

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to a sin they can't get free from without the help of the Lord.

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But you see this spirit of slavery and the spirit of bondage because you see it today

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in the form of addiction, which is a bondage pornography, which is a bondage.

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People becoming these evil people that sex traffic people, putting them in bondage.

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You see that spirit.

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Now, when you come to Assyria or the Assyrian empire, what did it do?

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It divided the nation of Israel.

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It took 10 tribes captive.

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And of course, Judah and Benjamin remained in the land up until the Babylon captivity.

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So when you talk about the Prince spirit over Assyria, without a doubt, it is a spirit of

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division.

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Have you ever seen the United States probably the only other time would be during the civil

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war, more divided over everything, over the climate, over the economy, over religion,

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over race.

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It's like this.

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It's just like 50% are this way, 50% are the other way.

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And they don't get along with each other at all, which is a terrible thing.

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And so the spirit of division is seen through the Prince spirit that controlled the Assyrian

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empire.

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And when you go to the time of the Babylonian captivity, if you look at what Babylon did,

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the Babylonians were an empire that you remember that Daniel, of course, is placed in alliance

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then the three Hebrew boys are placed in the fiery furnace.

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So what they attempt to do, the Babylonian empire, of course, took the Jewish people

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into bondage.

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They took them into slavery, but they were in complete and total control of the minds

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and the hearts of the people.

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And it was an area full of idolatry.

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Now I'm going to jump ahead here and tell you the media Persian empire passed laws against

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praying.

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Daniel was arrested for praying because you could not break the Persian laws.

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Now we see all these laws being passed.

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If we go back to June several years ago about the same sex marriage, that was a law that

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was passed.

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Of course, abortion was overturned on a national level.

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It's not in the control of the state, but see, that was a law that was passed.

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So what happened is in the media Persian empire, laws were passed against things that dealt

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with righteous living and righteousness.

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And we see that in America right now.

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And if we go on into the Grecian empire, it was philosophy, it was humanism, it was secularism.

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We see that in the United States, not just the United States, but the world.

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And then the one empire, and this is the one I want to focus on because the Roman empire

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patterns are all over America from the architecture in Washington.

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They had an eagle as their emblem.

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And we have an eagle in all of our military plus over the White House.

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The emblem of the White House, of course, is the eagle, the president.

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They had a Senate, we had a Senate, they had a Capitol Hill, we have a Capitol Hill.

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They raised taxes and bankrupt the country.

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We're doing the same thing.

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So there's about 20 parallels of the Roman empire that America has right now.

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Now here's the big one, and this is the one I want everybody to understand.

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If you look at the Roman empire, they were tolerant of any kind of a sin.

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They were very tolerant of pornography.

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You know, I say pornography, let me explain that because the brothels had pictures in

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them, paintings, they didn't have print, but they had paintings, they had naked statues.

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They were very tolerant of that.

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They were tolerant of men with men and women with women relationships.

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They were even tolerant.

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And I have a message I'm going to preach on this in one of our meetings, but I did some

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research which really shocked me, but the emperors had young boys, teenagers and under

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that they were having relations with.

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That was in the Roman empire.

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I mean, they were, okay, here's the key.

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Romans were tolerant of every God except the Christian God.

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All right, now here's why, real quick, four reasons why, if I can remember these.

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Number one, the Christians wanted a day of rest and the Romans worked seven days a week

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and that was a problem.

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The Christians had what was called a love feast, which was a feast for the poor people

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in the church.

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And the Romans started a rumor that it was a sexual feast and the Christians got very,

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very persecuted over that.

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The Christians believed in another kingdom and Rome was supposed to be the only kingdom

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you believed in and you honored them.

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The Romans believed, I'm sorry, the Christians believed there was another king, which was

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Jesus and there was only supposed to be one king who was the emperor of Rome that you

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honored and worshiped.

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So the Christians were in the eyes of the Roman government, very negative people, very

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distrusting people, people that were spreading confusion in the empire.

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So they went out to persecute Christians.

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Now here's what I was going to say.

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The spirit of the Roman empire is summed up in one word, tolerance.

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So today, what do we hear?

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If you say, I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, you are intolerant.

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If you were to say, I believe in the life of a child that an infant should live, you

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are intolerant.

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If you go against today's culture, especially in North America, and there's of course places

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in Europe that do the same thing, they will tag you as a phobic of some kind.

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There's about 17 kinds of phobics that are in the earth according to the left or what

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we call the extreme liberals.

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And so suddenly you're labeled with a phobia.

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You were labeled as intolerant and they use all kinds of names to degrade you and to down

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you to suppress your speech.

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So in the Roman empire, they would persecute Christians to have them shut up.

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I know Paul one time was arrested and he said, you just arrested a Roman citizen and they

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freaked out.

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They said, oh my, we're in trouble.

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We can't do this.

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So they told him to go out the back door quietly.

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And Paul said, you didn't arrest me quietly and I'm not leaving quietly.

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And I think that's how Christians need to be.

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We don't need to start a confrontation, but when we are attacked for our faith because

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we're called intolerant, we need to stand up and say, you know what?

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First of all, there's freedom of speech.

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Second of all, we have the right to freedom of religion in our country.

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You have a freedom to not be religious at all.

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You got the freedom to be an atheist if you want, but you have no right to attack my belief

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just because you don't believe in it.

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And so the spirit of tolerance is overwhelming the United States to the point that this culture

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that we now have, you can't say what the Lord gives you.

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You can't preach what the Lord gives you without fear of repercussion.

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And of course the internet is used as a weapon.

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There's so many people that weaponize the internet.

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And I just want to encourage people that if you're going to, as a Christian, listen to,

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you know, maybe it's a YouTube video or listen to the internet or teaching, get people who

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are in the word who love God, that have relationship.

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Do not pay attention or listen to these individuals who are trying to make a name for themselves

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by putting pictures of 20 preachers and calling them heretics.

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Let me tell you, let me expose it.

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Listen, humans are not a watchdog for the kingdom.

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The Holy Spirit is the watcher of the kingdom.

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People are not to judge other Christians by their opinion or standard.

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It is God that's the judge.

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And yet people defile this, they defile their spirit.

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Paul talks about roots of bitterness that defile many.

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And to defile in Greek means to stain a white garment, to put stains on a garment.

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Well, nobody's going to go out.

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If you're a minister, you're wearing a white shirt to business.

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I mean, you spill coffee or grape juice on it, you're not going to go out in public with

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it.

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But there are people who have defiled themselves by listening to lies and rumors and innuendos

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and slander.

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And they don't even know the facts.

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They just feel like if it's, you know, if it's on social media, it must be true.

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And I want to encourage people to be sure and understand that this spirit of tolerance

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is attacking us, to silence us, because if we go against the cultural grain of today,

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and that's the spirit that I think that we are dealing with most in America, is to silence

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a true voice that is giving the Word of God, that is just saying, this is what the scripture

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says, this is what thus saith the Lord says.

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And I want to make people aware of that, because one thing the enemy does not like is when

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you expose his behind the scenes agents.

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When they get exposed and whatever method the enemy is using, he doesn't like that,

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because then people become aware and they become more discerning of what they hear and

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what they're dealing with.

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But my point is that the spirits, the Prince spirits, not just the lower level spirits,

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like Malik was, as you know, was a idol worshiper, they offered children to.

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Well, that is similar to offering a child, and we say offering, we know that medical

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terminology does not use that word, they use the word abortion, but it's the same spirit

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behind it from a different perspective.

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And so these are national spirits, but they're the lesser ones in the sense of these that

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control the empires of the seven empires are the strongest.

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And these are the ones that if you trace it back, people are going to have to deal with,

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you know, in the last days, when we talk about a dragon, we're usually thinking then of some

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big, scary, very obvious monster that we're battling with.

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And so we can talk about those things in the, you know, the macro context, but in the in

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the context of our own lives, you know, you think about things like drug addiction or

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pornography addiction, or, you know, who knows what it is, alcoholism or just unfaithfulness

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in different areas or discipline problems, whatever it is, it's some big dragon that

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you're battling with that you're fighting with.

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Those things always start out very small.

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And when they start, they very rarely seem to us to be the dragons that they ultimately

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become.

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So I told the story in the book of a newspaper article that I read about in a British newspaper,

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where a guy bought a rock Python, he ironically named him tiny, this Python grew to be something

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like I forget what it was like 14 feet long or something started out as a little tiny

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snake he could probably hold in one hand that he bought from the pet shop.

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This Python grows to 14 feet long, and then ends up killing the guy in his sleep.

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And I thought it was a bit of an interesting analogy that so very often the things that

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end up killing people in the end, our pets, that they have raised since they were very

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young.

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And they, they could have when those things were young, and when those things were small,

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and when those things didn't have a lot of power over those people, they could have shut

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the door quickly, they could have dealt with those things, they could have repented, they

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could have cut them out of their lives in a very aggressive way.

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But instead, they said, Oh, this is not a very big deal, this is a small sin.

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And so they they were very lenient with it, they coddled it, they didn't pay much attention

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to it.

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But over time, those things begin to grow and they grow in such a way like your kids,

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you know, your kids, they're born and you turn around one day and they're 18 years old

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and they're six feet tall.

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And you say, Well, when did that happen?

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Well, it happened one day at a time.

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It happened in very small, slow incremental steps.

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So slow, in fact, that very often you didn't even notice it happening until you look back

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and you go, what in the world is this?

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And so for a lot of people, even for believers, the big dragons that they fight start out

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as small eggs.

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So if you have a big dragon in your life, it may require a serious battle.

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But what I was trying to talk about in that chapter about killing your pet dragon is what

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about those things that are not dragons yet?

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They're not big, daunting, overwhelming, insurmountable obstacles yet.

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They might be in 20 years, but today they're small.

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Today they're in that egg form and you could actually destroy them and you can get them

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out.

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You could repent of them.

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You could be delivered of them very quickly and very easily if you would take care of

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business today.

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But if you wait and you let this thing drag out, you could be dealing with something that

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could destroy your life and the lives of people that you love in the end.

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You know, the Holy Spirit, unlike us, he knows the future and he knows the things that are

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in our lives that are going to become problems for us down the road.

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And I really do believe that because of that, he is there convicting us and warning us and

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giving us the tools that we need to be able to free ourselves from those kind of bondages.

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So when a person coddles those pet dragons and raises those pet dragons, one thing that

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is also happening at the same time is that there is a certain refusal to obey the voice

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of the Holy Spirit and a hardening of the heart towards the Holy Spirit, which may even

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be a bigger problem than the dragon itself.

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Because if we quench the voice of the Holy Spirit and we harden our hearts, we come to

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a place where we become immune to his voice.

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When it comes to people like the boot camp students or others, I really think that the

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key is to learn to be submitted to the voice of the Holy Spirit on a day-to-day basis.

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This is kind of like it's the secret ingredient to the Christian life.

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This is what makes Christianity different from every religion in the world.

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All the religions are about, here's a book.

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This book tells you how you ought to be.

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Now you work really hard to make it happen.

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Christianity is different.

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The author of the book says, let me come live on the inside of you.

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And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to live through you.

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If you will yield to me, I will live through you in such a way that I'll fulfill everything

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on the page.

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And so the Christian life is not lived from the outside in.

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Christian life is lived from the inside out.

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So how do you teach someone to kill their pet dragons?

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You teach them to be submitted to and sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

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It's the ace up all of our sleeves.

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This is an interesting subject to get into because I have dealt with this a lot.

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I do see a lot of things out there that tend to sensationalize the issue of deliverance.

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For me, very often deliverance is quite a simple and undramatic experience.

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You can now.

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That doesn't mean that you can't make a show out of demonized situations.

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There are people when they have a demon, there are ways to get that thing to go crazy, to

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talk back.

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I don't like devils talking back to me.

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And I don't like to give them my platform or my microphone.

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My goal is to shut them up and get them out as quickly as possible.

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I think the caution, though, is that casting out devils and deliverance is exciting and

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it draws people's attention.

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You want to talk about this because it's going to get people to watch your social media channel

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or watch your video or whatever.

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But the reality is that if you dive into this area of deliverance without the first part

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that I talked about earlier, which is being submitted to God, you are actually setting

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yourself up for a very dangerous situation.

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Because again, I referenced the seven sons of Sceva.

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These were people who they knew the formula to cast out devils, but they didn't actually

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know the Lord.

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And so I think what in the back of the book here, this is kind of a little bit of a cheat

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code for the ones that haven't read it yet.

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But in the back of the book, I have a chapter that's called How to Cast Out Devils.

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And I give you basically a formula that works, a step-by-step instruction.

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Here's how you cast out a demon.

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And it works wonderfully.

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And it's actually the way that I would suggest, especially people that are just beginning

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in that kind of deliverance ministry.

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It's what I suggest that they use for many different reasons.

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But there's a reason that I put it at the end of the book instead of the beginning.

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I know it's the part a lot of people want to read.

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But I really felt like it was important that you got all this stuff first, because this

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is what shows you about how to submit yourself to God and to keep yourself internally aligned

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with Him.

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And that's what protects you.

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Because there will be people, according to the very words of Jesus, that will cast out

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devils and do wonderful works in the name of Jesus.

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And Jesus will look at them and say, who are you?

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Not only that, He'll say, depart from me.

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I never knew you.

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So just the ability to cast out devils shouldn't be what we are excited about and what's turning

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us on in spiritual matters.

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Jesus said, don't rejoice that the demons are subject to you.

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Rejoice that your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

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That's what I would say.

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Even though deliverance is very important, it is a part of the ministry of Jesus.

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It ought to be a part of all of our ministries as men and women of God and men and women

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of the Spirit.

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But at the beginning and first and foremost, there ought to be that internal alignment

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with the things of God and that submission to His will.

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It was not an accident.

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It is spiritual and it is part of an ancient war.

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We just saw a little part of that war, the last chapter of that war.

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But we are involved in a gigantic one and this goes with the Book of Revelation.

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This is what I saw when I saw the dragon, you know, when I saw it at Images of the Dragon.

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By the way, John, when I started writing the Dragon's Prophecy, it turned out it was 2024,

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it became the year of the dragon.

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It turns out there is a comet that comes sweeps by Earth every like 70 something years.

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Well, it was appointed for 2024.

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It's called the Devil's Comet or the Mother of Dragons Comet.

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So many things about the dragon.

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And the dragon is mentioned in Revelation 12 and onward and it's the dragon is at war

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with a woman.

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The woman has a crown of 12 stars.

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That's Israel, the 12 tribes.

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The woman gives birth to Messiah.

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That's only Israel.

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And so Revelation actually gives this.

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This is 2000 years ago and it's giving the war right then and it has a lot of revelations

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within it, including number one, he uses the word Greek word for persecuted.

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So it's not an accident that the Jewish people are more associated with that word than any

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other people.

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It's right there in Revelation.

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It says that the dragon has that word, kinsou, that's the Greek word for a rage, an antipathy,

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a hostility, a burning hatred for Israel.

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And this rage you see to this day in Hamas.

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You saw it with Hitler.

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It's never ending.

401
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You saw it on American campuses.

402
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It's all part of that.

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Now the thing about Revelation and Revelation 12 is that it focuses on the beginning of

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the age and the end of the age, when the woman gives birth to Messiah for a century to now,

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which at the end time.

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So it happens when Israel is back in the world.

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That's when it kicks in.

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That's when the focus of that, that Israel will become the focal point of this rage and

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it'll intensify.

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Well, that's what we're watching in the world.

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This opens up the door of all sorts of mysteries that we are watching right now.

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The last part of the book is going into what do we do and how do you, because there's the

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war is again, not just against Israel, it says he made the dragon war against the rest

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of her children who follow the ways of Messiah.

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So it's a war against every believer and it's a war against everyone who bears the image

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of God.

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The dragon has a war.

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Since you were conceived, the dragon has been warring against you.

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He's also going to keep you from God, to abuse you, to addict you, to defile you, to depress

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you, suppress you.

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That's it.

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So we recognize, because the same battle against Israel, same battle against we're all dealing

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with, the Bible gives a promise about how to overcome.

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In fact, that same prophecy of the dragon in Revelation 12 is the one that it says,

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but they overcame him by the dragon, by the blood and the lamb of the power.

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So we are guaranteed victory, but we have to fight.

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And the thing is that, and so the last parts of the book deal with that.

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And the thing is that there's actually a mystery, we won't be able to go into it, but there's

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a chapter called the mystery of the secret Israelis.

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And I'll just say this, it gives the key about how to overcome everything in the end days,

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because it's going to be more intense, but everything you're dealing with in your life.

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And the thing is, it's linked to that.

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I'll just say this, the secret Israeli is actually you, everyone listening who is born

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00:27:16,360 --> 00:27:21,160
again, you're a secret Israeli, according to the Hebrew of the Bible.

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And there's an incredible revelation about how to overcome.

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So God has called us to overcome, and just keep in mind, when you're looking at this

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whole picture and you're looking at what's happening in Israel, yes, Israel, the history

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of Israel bears witness to the enemy, but it also more bears witness to God.

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Because after all this, all this, we're getting a little taste of it.

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It's been going on for 4,000 years.

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The Pharaohs tried to destroy Israel, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, the

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Hitler, Russia, but you know what?

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The Pharaohs are gone, the Rome has fallen, Babylon is gone, Hitler's gone.

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All the terrorists are going to be gone.

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They're all gone, but the nation of Israel lives because the God of Israel lives and

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because Messiah of Israel lives.

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And if you are following him, you're going to live and you will have victory.

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If you fight the fight, you're going to, you're guaranteed victory.

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Your God lives and that's beyond all the things.

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And in Revelation, it says there is victory in the lamb.

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In the end, you got to drive in, you got a lamb, but amazingly, the lamb wins.

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So you're with the lamb, you're going to win, but you got to fight and you will be

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guaranteed that victory.

454
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:28,640
Slay your dragon.

455
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:52,480
You have the power or the blood of the lamb.