HS | Spiritual Warfare Pt. 1 | Zack Jernigan

Date: March 11, 2026
Series: Spiritual Warfare
Passage: Ephesians 6
Preacher: Pastor Zack Jernigan

Transcript

Hey good evening, my name is Zack, I'm the student pastor here at Idlewild and we're starting a series tonight called Spiritual Warfare. And we're going to be looking at a lot of different passages of scripture, but I want to invite you—before we start talking too much, before I tell you a little bit about this—I want to get straight into scripture and then I want to pray tonight more than any other night, perhaps all year long. I think we need God's word, somebody say Amen? And we need to pray, somebody say Amen?

And so if you've got your Bibles, go to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. You might wonder, why are we talking about this? Why are we talking about angels and demons, and why are we talking about spiritual warfare? This seems like the hocus pocus parts of the Bible, this seems like the parts that are a little far-fetched. You might think, I love Jesus, I believe in Jesus, I like that part, but do we really need to go full send into the creepy parts of the Bible, into the spooky parts of the Bible? And I think that we do.

Look at Ephesians chapter 6, starting in verse 10. He's been explaining to them the armor of God, he says right at the beginning, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 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 firm."

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the truth of your word. We thank you for the truth that we see in scripture and in everyday life, that the enemy we battle against has been defeated. Lord, you have conquered sin, death, the devil. You are victorious, and because of that victory, we don't have to be afraid. God, we know that the battle is already won, and so our job is just to stand. God, I pray that you would help us to stand firm tonight and every day. Lord, I pray as we open your scriptures you would bind the enemy, I pray that you would scatter the enemy's plans, I pray that your word would go out freely. Lord, I pray that there'd be nothing, heavenly or earthly, that would stop us from hearing or understanding your scriptures. Lord, I pray that you would grapple with us tonight if necessary. God, I pray that you would reveal yourself, light up the darkest parts of our hearts or our lives or anything in our ministry that does not come from you. Lord, I pray that any spirit not of you would be forced to flee this room. Not because we have authority, but because you have authority. And so it is in the name that is above all names, the perfect name, the name of Jesus, your son, whom you sent to die on the cross, whom you raised from the grave. It is in his name that we pray, and everybody said, Amen.

Why are we talking about angels and demons? Why are we talking about spiritual warfare and prayer and all of these kind of things? Well, because these verses that we just read, it makes it very, very clear that we don't battle or wrestle, it says in verse 12, against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil. And again, I recognize this is maybe the spookier sounding part of the Bible, but if we believe John 3:16, we have to believe Ephesians 6. If we believe that Jesus came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross in our place, and rose from the grave, we gotta take the whole book.

And so we're going to lean into this, but I'll tell you another reason we get so many questions about spiritual warfare. I've talked to people who have been in church their entire lives and they say, why didn't we talk about this more? Why don't we do this more often? And I'm going to answer that for us. I want us to go look at 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 3 and 5. This is kind of reinforcing some of the same ideas from Ephesians 6, but with a little bit different focus. Similar language that he says to the church in Corinth, he says, "For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ."

I think there are a lot of people who are well-intentioned followers of Jesus who say, "Zack, we shouldn't be talking about this. Zack, this is a little bit outside of our area of expertise. Leave that to God. Let's just worship Jesus, let's just love God and not get too caught up in the details." Well, Paul says here that we are wrestling not against flesh and blood but against the cosmic forces of evil. He says we're being given weapons of warfare that are not of the flesh but they're divine, and their purpose, verse 4, is to destroy strongholds. And when you see terms like strongholds, or hosts, or cosmic powers, or authorities, or things like that what we saw in verse 6, when you see some of those terms, that's not just talking about like a physical fortress where there's a governor or a king or somebody like that. He's talking very, very clearly about heavenly hosts, angels, and demons.

So my goal tonight is to get us started in the series. It's going to be three, honestly maybe four weeks, and there's a reason that we don't do this kind of series every year, all year long. There's a reason it's not a 10-week series. But my goal is to get us started. This is kind of like a primer, an introduction to spiritual warfare, and then I want us to think about it in these terms: We want to see what are angels and demons? What is their purpose? And what is our response? What do I do with the knowledge that we see here in God's word? How does that apply to me?

And so, again, some people, I think well-intentioned, think, "why do we need to talk about this?" Well, because we've been given these weapons. Why would God give us particular weapons, ways to combat the enemy, if we weren't supposed to use them? But there's a danger. You don't want to be more focused on angels and demons than you should, and you don't want to be totally disengaged either. There's a quote from C.S. Lewis that sums this up so well. He said this: "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight."

And so I think, I agree with C.S. Lewis. I think if you were to be hyper-focused and obsessed with the study of angels and demons, and you read 17 different books about it, and you spent all your time thinking about it, I don't think that's healthy. But at the same time, if you are blind to the spiritual war that is waging around us, then I think that is very, very unwise. On one hand, we should not obsess over it. I don't know if you've noticed this, but the Bible does not give us a comprehensive manual about angels and demons. Every so often you'll find a verse in scripture, like one in Daniel that I don't think we'll get to tonight, but there's one passage in Daniel where Daniel is praying, and then an angel comes to rescue him, to encourage him, to uplift him. And he says, "Sorry I'm late, I was delayed for two weeks by the Prince of Persia." That's the name of a demon. "But now I'm here." And it's like, "Hold on, what? What did you say? Back up. Can you tell me more?" But the Bible doesn't tell us more. There's these little periphery explanations that are just dropped here and there, and so we don't have a full chapter or a comprehensive book dedicated to giving us a clean, detailed profile of what angels are like or how they operate. Scripture touches on angels and demons, but it doesn't give us a deep dive the way it does with so many other topics, like evangelism—we know we're supposed to go out and share the gospel with all people everywhere, all the time. Marriage—it's covered very, very clearly, comprehensively, in detail in the Bible, right? We know what the Bible says about marriage. We don't have too many gray areas or places where we're misunderstanding that. But angels and demons don't get their whole book. They don't get a dedicated chapter. And so we kind of piece these things together.

And so the reason I say that is because we need to make sure that we don't major on something that the Bible minors on. We don't need to spend 10, 20 weeks talking about this because the Bible doesn't spend that amount of time. I've been here three years, just about, and there's a reason that in 150 Wednesdays, we're going to spend three or four weeks on this. And it matters, it's the inspired word of God, we want to make sure that we don't neglect any part of God's word, somebody say Amen? We're not trying to avoid the parts that are tricky or hard to understand. But this is the first time that we're able to do it, and I don't know that this is something we're going to do every single year.

On the other hand, we cannot ignore it. Because there's an attitude among many, many Christians—maybe some of you, if you're totally honest—that would say, "Man, if I study spiritual warfare, they might come after me. Like, they might try to get me. They might say, oh no, she's studying this, she's looking into our secrets, or he's reading how we operate, and we gotta get 'em." And I don't think that makes very much sense. Imagine a boxer who's going up in a fight, or a UFC fighter. He's doing some MMA and they know who they're going to fight in three months. But they say, "Hey, I don't want to study my opponent. I don't want to know their tricks, I don't want to know their tendencies or their styles or their gives or their tells. I don't want to know anything, because that might give them the advantage." What? No. That'd be the opposite of what they'd want to do. They want to know what their opponent is like. They don't quite want to obsess over their opponent, but they want to know the tricks and details and how to beat them. If you came in saying, "I don't want to study my opponent," a boxer with that attitude would end up bloodied, beaten, and lying on their back. They would not win. But as followers of Jesus, sometimes we're like, "I don't know, if we start talking about it, if we mention it, they'll hear us, they'll come get us." No. With that thinking, it almost sounds like we imagine the devil has more power to attack us than Jesus has to defend us. Is that true? No. As followers of Jesus, we know otherwise. And if we press on that just a little bit, we'll say, "Yeah, you're right, that doesn't make so much sense."

So here's what I want to do. I want to tell you first what angels are like. Check this out. Angels—if I could sum up a lot of what we're going to say tonight—angels are personal, unseen, created beings. They're not ghosts, they're not human spirits. They're not human, and they are not God. They worship Him, they carry His messages, and minister to His people.

I know that's a mouthful. You might be like, "what is going on here, that's so many words, that's not really tweetable, Zack." But here's the idea. This is going to be a little bit more teachy, and then we'll get preachy. We're going to inform our minds and then we're going to ask God to change our hearts. Somebody say Amen? We're going to say, here's what's going on, now here's what we do with that.

For now, I'm describing angels as they were created at the very beginning of time. And in a moment I'll start describing demons, which were angels who decided to rebel against God. At the beginning of creation, it says in Colossians chapter 1, verse 16—throw this up here. Colossians 1:16: "For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things [somebody say all—all things] were created through Jesus and for Jesus." That is very, very clear. And so angels, when they were created at the beginning of time, were all the same. They were created by God. And I'm going to describe how they started, how many of them still act now, but then I'll describe how demons are different.

So I said they're real. Angels and demons are real. Angels are referenced 108 times in the Old Testament and 165 times in the New Testament. They're described from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible. They are inescapable. You might be like, "but they're weird." I know. Some of them have a whole bunch of eyes and multiple arms and multiple wings, and you're like, "what's going on here? It's weird." I understand. But it's in the Bible. Is it a metaphor? We don't get any inference or suggestion or clue that they might be a metaphor. They're described very, very literally. They have different jobs, responsibilities, but they are very, very real.

And then I said they're created. Colossians 1 makes that very clear. And then I want to camp out on this for a second. They're not ghosts. A lot of our ideas or misunderstandings about angels and demons started in the Renaissance era or medieval times. And this is a time when many people were not literate, they couldn't read, so they would draw paintings, they would do all kinds of different illustrations, and people got their ideas about what angels and demons are like and how they operate through myths, through stories. Not from the Bible. The Bible does not describe cute babies with blond curly hair lying on a cloud up in heaven or shooting people with their arrows to make them fall in love. That's not something that we see in the Bible. But that's the way you see angels displayed in a cartoon. You might see a demon in a cartoon that looks like an angry looking red devil with horns and a pitchfork. And it's very, very clear that's the bad guy. The most dangerous thing about angels, rather about demons, is that they don't always look or sound like the bad guy. They can be very convincing. Satan himself at the beginning of creation was the angel of light; he was the most beautiful creation, most beautiful creature that God had designed or created.

But they're not ghosts. Legends and myths portray them that way, but they're actually always described as masculine. I don't know if you've noticed that in scripture. It's not to say that they have a sex or a gender, but angels as they're described, as they present themselves, are described as masculine. John 20 is up on the screen. This is where Mary goes to visit Jesus's tomb. And she's weeping because she sees that the tomb is empty. It says, "Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept, she stooped to look inside the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting there with the body of Jesus, one at the head and one at the feet." Some of the other gospels describe them like two young boys, maybe like teenage boys. And it's not to say that angels are perpetually teenage. I'll talk about that in just a little bit. They are unseen, or you could think about it as another way, in disguise. You might be like, "are they secret agents?" It's not exactly, but Hebrews chapter 13 says, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers." Make sure you're friendly to everybody, somebody say Amen? "Because you don't know how sometimes you've entertained angels and you didn't know it." You've been talking to an angel before, maybe, possibly. I don't know that the Bible is saying every single person ever at some point does encounter an angel. I don't know if that's what the Bible is saying. But the Bible says, hey, you need to be very careful how you interact with people that you don't know, strangers, everyday Joes, because sometimes you entertain angels unawares.

And when they present themselves in one form or fashion, you gotta understand that that is a spiritual being that is allowing itself to be seen in a certain way. And I'll talk about how that relates to demons in just a moment. When your grandmother passes, I don't say this to be insensitive or mean, but when your grandmother passes, she does not come back to haunt you as a ghost. That's not a thing. That might be in a movie, that might come from Hollywood, but that doesn't come from the Bible. We're going to go back to the Creator of all things, from whom all things come. We're going to ask God, who created angels, because I said at the very beginning, they're created. They're not always existing like God, like Jesus is. But when your grandma passes, she's not coming back to haunt you as a ghost. If you see what looks like a zombified Abraham Lincoln in your house when you come home and you're like, "Zack, I'm telling you, it was a demon, it was a spirit, I could see it, it was transparent, it looked just like I seen in the movies." It doesn't matter what you've seen, that was not Abraham Lincoln coming back from the dead to haunt you. When we die, we have an eternal soul, but the Bible does not say that we come back and we are apparitions or spirits or ghosts. Again, Hollywood, not real, not biblical.

So another question to ask is, well, why are they unseen? Why is it that we don't see angels and demons everywhere all the time? Number one, because God has designed us to be people of faith. In fact, Jesus kind of accosted people in the gospels. He said, "The only reason you believe is because you've seen me do these miracles. You just want another sign, you just want another miracle. And if I didn't give you signs and miracles, you wouldn't believe. You don't actually have faith in me." We see in Hebrews as well that faith is the evidence, the hope in things that you can't see. It's the things that you can't see but you're waiting to be revealed in heaven as well. And so one of the reasons I believe that the angels and demons are not evident all the time everywhere is because if they were, it wouldn't take very much faith to believe in God. It wouldn't take very much faith to believe in God at all.

Another reason is because in Colossians chapter 2—I think it's verse 15 or 16, we don't have time to look at it—in Colossians chapter 2, he says, hey, don't let anybody accuse you of angel worship, which suggests it's kind of random. It's one of those things, like, "Hold on, that seems random, why did you sprinkle that in there, Paul? Why did you tell them to be careful that people don't think they're worshipping angels?" Because obviously, some people did worship angels. Some people thought that Jesus was actually an angel. In Hebrews, Jesus is explained as somebody who is so much better than Moses, so much better than all of the other prophets who came before, and so much better than angels. It's like, it seems like people had a hard time worshipping angels. And the reason that they struggled with that is because every time you saw one of these angelic beings in the Bible, Lot, Abraham's nephew, sees an angel, and he gets down on his face and he worships the angel. And you're like, "Hey, you're not supposed to worship anybody but God, don't do that." But the Bible says that God created us in His image, but He created the angels a little bit higher than us. They're a little bit more beautiful, they're a little bit more majestic, they're a little bit more holy than us. I believe that's in Psalms, we'll get there in just a little bit. But the idea is like when you see an angel in its true form, it looks angelic, it looks magnificent. And so that's one of the reasons that we don't see angels walking around left and right.

But this is where we're different. Genesis chapter 1, put it on the screen. Genesis 1, verse 26 and 27 explicitly say that we are made in the image of God. God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them. It does not say that about angels. Sometimes we get the idea like, like I said, angels present themselves in a human form, they're very often messengers, like they delivered the news to Mary, Jesus's mother. Said, "Hey, you're going to give birth to a son, the Messiah, you're going to name him Immanuel, which means God with us." They present themselves as messengers, but that doesn't mean that they're created in the image of God like we are. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 3, this is wild. It says, "Do you not know that we will judge angels one day?" 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 3. Paul is trying to bust up some fights and some disagreements because they were judging each other, they were bickering, and they couldn't settle each other's disagreements. He says, "Hey, you need to get your act together, do you not know that one day we will judge angels?" So we get the idea that in our current form, we are sinful, we are fallen, we've broken God's laws, we are imperfect. Because of that, we're fallen, but it seems like one day when we come to know Jesus and follow him and believe him and he's redeemed us, made us into the image of his son, made us glorified like his son Jesus, that we're actually going to be above angels, and we will judge angels.

So that is just a fly-by introduction to what angels were and are, unless they've rebelled against God. This is what the Bible tells us about demons. Demons, on the screen, are unseen fallen angels. They rebelled against God. They're not fictional, and they're not abstract forces of evil. They tempt, deceive, and accuse humanity. They oppose God's plan and purpose in every way. In every single way. You might be like, "Zack, I'm not that big of a deal, I'm not that special, why would a demon want to bother me? Why would the devil care who I am or what I want to do with my life?" It's not so much that it's about you, but it's about the person who loves you and created you and made you in his image. See, the devil and the demons hate God. They hate God. And yet God loves us, and God created us in his image. We are walking, talking embarrassments to the devil. And so the devil and demons hate us in the same way.

What's their strategy? There's an author, a Baptist pastor, professor, and preacher named Carl Payne, who said this about their strategy: He said demons have two agendas. Phase one is to keep you out of heaven at all costs. They want to keep you out of heaven. They do not want you to be saved, they don't want you to believe in Jesus, but if that fails, you're already saved, then phase two is to keep you so preoccupied, distracted, and defeated that you never feel qualified or have time to help anyone else get there. Some of you, if you're totally honest, you know Jesus, you have a relationship with him, you've been saved, but if you were completely honest, phase two is 100% successful in your life. Because you know Jesus, but the last five, seven years that you've supposedly known him, you have not helped anyone else get to heaven. You've not led anyone else to Christ. Maybe that's because you're preoccupied. Maybe that's because you're distracted. Maybe it's because you feel defeated, like you can't beat sin, and who the heck are you to try to tell others how they can know Jesus. Maybe you don't feel qualified, maybe you don't feel like you have time. None of those things are true.

The New Testament authors, I think what's pretty spectacular is when you read the Bible, go through the book of Acts, read the different letters that Paul wrote in the New Testament especially. The New Testament authors make it very, very clear that angels and demons were just normal. Demons and demonic activity was just a regular part of life. There's a passage in Acts where Paul is going out and preaching, and it says so casually, it says, "Yeah, a demonized woman came out and followed Paul along all throughout the city, all throughout the streets, and was shouting and mocking him and being obnoxious and annoying. And so Jesus—rather Paul just got annoyed and snapped and said, 'Hey, come out of her right now,' and he cast the demon out just like that." But it doesn't say, "Hey, this crazy thing happened, you won't believe it. Nobody had ever seen this before. It was actually very common." People understood, yeah, some people are demon-possessed. Some people got demons.

And so nobody writes about it like it's shocking news. And I think that's very important for us to understand. That should inform our expectations for today. The Bible describes angels and demons as normal, and there's no point in scripture where it says, "Hey by the way, don't worry, you can totally relax, calm down, take a vacation, let your guard down, because all the demons are going to leave you alone in about 2000 years." We don't see that anywhere in scripture. We don't see that. Now, we do see that demonic activity in Jesus's time was concentrated and dramatic for a specific reason: because the Son of God left heaven and came to earth, so yeah, things got a little crazy. Yeah, they were worked up just a little bit. And so I don't know how many different times Jesus cast a demon out, but it seems to be a recurring thing. By the time that Paul is writing his letters, you might be like, "Why don't I see a demon every time? Why don't I have tons and tons of neighbors who are foaming at the mouth and screaming and shouting like I saw in The Exorcist?" Well, because even by the time Paul's writing his letters, the language shifts. See, demonic influence is mostly referenced in Paul's letters through lies, through false teaching, through accusations, through patterns of sin. It seems like the devil changes his strategy and says, "Hey, let's be a little bit more subtle. Let's not draw too much attention. Maybe people will let their guard down. Let's sneak in the back door instead of trying to kick down the front door."

And I think there are a lot of people, maybe some of us in the room tonight. You have allowed the enemy to come right in the back door. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 11 puts it this way: it says, "Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil." It doesn't give this picture that if you're a follower of Jesus, you better be careful because there's this enormous demonic-looking monster that's just going to come and overpower you or swallow you whole. That's not the picture that we see. But he says, "You gotta be careful against the schemes of the devil." He describes the enemy working in this way, like sending fiery darts. He says you gotta have—I don't have this on the screen, but keep up the shield of faith in verse 16 of Ephesians 6, and you can use that to extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. The way the enemy works so often is he tosses this flaming dart over your walls, and it hits the ground, it takes effect, but then it starts to spread. That fire spreads. One bad idea lands in your heart, in your mind, and it takes root, and then it just does absolute chaos and damage to your life. Those are the schemes of the devil. That's why in 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 8, he says, "Listen, be sober-minded, be watchful, because your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour."

You know what's interesting? I don't know how many preachers I've heard point this out. If you ever watch like a National Geographic or a Disney biography of lions hunting in Africa, for example, when lions are roaring, they're not actually hunting. When they're hunting, they're real sneaky and they're real quiet. The roar is just a flex. When a lion is actually—like belting it out, like at the beginning, what's that movie production, is it MGM Studios, that's the little animated lion and it roars real loud. Like when you hear that sound in Africa out in the bush, that's just the lion saying, "Hey, I just gotta make sure everybody remembers I'm the boss, I'm the king. Mess around and find out." But when a lion is actually trying to kill something, when it's actually creeping up and trying to capture someone, a lion is quiet. And very often we're like, "I don't hear any of the schemes of the devil, I don't see a big red horned devil chasing me in the back streets. I'm probably fine." No, the devil is much more sneaky than that.

The real danger is that silent stalk from the enemy. The most common weapon that we see the enemy use against Christians today are not these dramatic possessions like I said you've seen in clips of The Exorcist or something like that. By the way, please don't watch those movies. By the way, can I get off on a soapbox real quick? I will watch movies about serial killers sometimes. I will watch movies about slashers, about policemen who are going after abductors and bringing them to justice. I don't mind blood, I don't mind gore. When there's a story, particularly when it's redemptive and there's actually some value here, that's not so bad. But please, as your youth pastor, do not participate with demons. Do not look for demons as entertainment. Because some of the stuff that you're watching on the screen, and you're like, "Oh it's so funny, oh I'm scared, I got jumped, oh I'm kind of nervous walking back to my car." That is real. Don't play with that. Paranormal Activity, just stay away from it.

You might say, "Zack, are you living in fear?" No, I'm just not being stupid. The most common weapons that we see the enemy use against Christians today are not these dramatic over-the-top things, particularly here in the United States where so many people are already convinced that there's nothing after this life. Why would the enemy want to change our minds and say, "Actually there is something, actually you should start looking into this." No. Very often the accusations that the enemy is lobbing over the fence are, "You're not good enough, God doesn't listen to you, nothing's going to change, he doesn't love you, how could you, you're so filthy." That voice sounds very often like your own thoughts. And it tears you down and it convicts you, it condemns you.

I listened to one pastor who was saying that he talked to someone from his church who came to him and said, "Hey, um, I don't understand some of the words that I'm hearing in my head. The Bible says that I'm not sanctified, it keeps saying you're not sanctified. What does sanctified mean? I keep hearing that thought, I keep hearing this idea in my head, sounds like my own thought, but I don't know what that word means." He said, "Friend, I don't think that's your thought. I think that sounds like the accusation of the enemy. Why would you be thinking on repeat something that you don't even understand, a word that you don't even have as a part of your regular vocabulary?"

So here's what I want to do. I want to show you what I think we see in the Bible as three phases of demonic influence in people's lives. And I don't say this to try to wow you with some interesting facts, I want us to be on guard because like I said, I think very often we love stories about Jonah and we like the stories about Jesus feeding the 5000 and we even like that he came back from the dead. But our guard is not up when it comes to these parts of the Bible.

The first phase of demonic influence in somebody's life is this: phase one is oppression. You can think about it this way, oppression is external spiritual harassment. It's real, it's annoying, and it's entirely normal in the life of a growing Christian. Talk about those fiery arrows from Ephesians 6:16. Those are arrows that you are called to extinguish with the shield of faith, not arrows of your own. One thing that I just want to make very, very clear, all throughout scripture the pattern that we see is we stand against the enemy, we resist the enemy, but we do not vanquish the enemy. Jesus already did that. Somebody say Amen? He disarmed the rulers and authorities and he put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. Colossians chapter 2. Like the enemy is already defeated. What we are experiencing right now, even oppression as I'm talking about it, these are the death throes of an enemy that has already been defeated and is just trying to take down as many people as he possibly can.

But oppression is something that the enemy can do to a believer or a non-believer, somebody who doesn't know Jesus or somebody who does know Jesus. And these are external harassments. These are things like everything is going wrong in your life. And I'm not trying to say, "Oh goodness, I stubbed my toe, it was the devil, he's out to get me." Don't be dramatic, don't try to assign more power to the devil than he actually has. But when it seems like your car won't start, and then your sister's in the hospital, and then the house is being foreclosed on, and then there's a flat tire, and then all of your friends are fighting at church, and people who are normally really reasonable are at each other's throats, like when it's one thing after another after another after another, particularly when you've just decided recently to go and serve God or there's a new initiative where you want to go and make his name known, the enemy is going to attack you. People joke every once in a while, they're like, "Oh man, the sound system's not working tonight, the devil's in the sound system." Maybe, probably not, probably not. But it's those kind of progression sorts of things. Again, I'm not saying that we need to freak out and be like, "Oh no, it's the devil, every single time something mildly goes wrong." But that's what oppression looks like.

Phase two is what some biblical scholars call demonization. Demonization is a greater degree of demonic control, but it's still not ownership. I think a lot of times we talk about oppression and then the next one, which is possession, we haven't gotten there yet. But I think very often we miss out on the fact that there is a biblical precedent for people who are saved, they have correct theology, they know Jesus, they are redeemed, they're going to heaven, they're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but they are still allowing the enemy to have a significant foothold in their life. They are still allowing the enemy to operate in their house, so to speak. Think about it this way, there's a writer I told I quoted him once already, Carl Payne, who wrote a book called Spiritual Warfare. And in that book he said this, he said demonization is kind of like this: It's like the Christian owns the house because God bought it, but there's a foolish owner who's renting out rooms to the enemy. God owns the house, you're in control, you're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but you are renting out rooms, and that tenant can cause serious damage in areas that you've not surrendered to him. They don't own the property, and they can be evicted, but this is an instance where you give the enemy a foothold, where you give the enemy your porch, or the guest bedroom, and now he's just kind of looming in the shadows. And he's not just being annoying, this is not just spiritual harassment, there is a spirit of control in your life. And if you're like, "I don't think that's a thing, Zack, I don't think that can happen to Christians," yes it can, Paul said it in 2 Corinthians 11. Look at it on the screen, verse 1: he says, to some of these Christians, and by the way, think it says 11 on the screen, I believe this is actually chapter 10. "I wish that you would bear with me a little foolishness. Just a little foolishness, do bear with me, for I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband." He's saying, "I introduced you to Jesus, you are married, you are, you are saved, you have a relationship with Jesus, that picture of marriage, and I presented you as a pure virgin to Christ. Pure meaning like they get it, they're saved, they've been redeemed, they've been washed, cleansed. But I am afraid that just as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept even a different gospel from the one that you accepted, you put up with it readily enough." He said, "You guys are falling for some stupid tricks from the enemy. You are saved, you have a relationship with Jesus, you're pure, you've been betrothed to one husband in those first couple verses, but I'm concerned that you're being deceived by the enemy. I'm concerned that you are renting out a room to the enemy. You're still saved, but gosh, you're so stupid. You're falling for it."

These were spiritual children of God. They were definitely Christian. They were pure in a sense, they were sincere, and yet Paul is concerned that they're being deceived by the devil. The most common open door if you would, to letting the enemy into your house very often is unconfessed sin. Unconfessed sin. Sin that you you have not surrendered to God. You're like, "I feel a little bit bad about it, but I don't really feel bad about it. I've given God my eyes, I've given God my ears, but I've not given God my mouth. I've given God purity, I don't look at pornography anymore, I don't do that. I've given God my ears, like I used to listen to some really bad music, I used to listen to some terrible things that just they were trickling into my heart, it was not good for me. And so I've given God my eyes and my ears, but I've not given God my mouth. I still gossip all the time. I've been corrected about it, I've been confronted, people have sat me down and said, 'You're gossiping, that doesn't honor the Lord, when are you going to stop?' You're lying, why are you lying to me, it's really obvious. It's like you can't help but lie." Very often people can't help but lie. Because they have not surrendered it to God, because they've not confessed it to God, they are allowing the enemy to set up camp and just stay right there with their mouth.

Look at Ephesians chapter 4, verse 26 and 27. Here's a perfect example of this. He says, "Be angry and do not sin." And here's what you got to be very careful of: "Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Because if you do," verse 27, "you're going to give an opportunity to the devil." Other translations actually say "foothold." It's like a fight, when you are fighting or grappling with somebody, when you're in combat. It's all about your footwork. If you slip, if you fall, if you go down, it is over. And so he's saying you got to have a firm stance, and when you allow the sun to go down on your anger, when you allow that anger to rule in your heart and to set up camp and to get comfortable and to stay, and to change the way you're thinking, you allow the enemy to get that upper hand. You allow him to you, you crack the door open and you said, "Who's there?" and you've allowed him to just shove his foot in the door, and now he's in your home.

That's demonization. And my prayer for you, some of you tonight, is that you would at least be willing to ask, "God, is it possible that I've allowed the enemy to have a foothold in my life? Is it possible? I think I'm a pretty good Christian, I go to church all the time, but is it possible that I have been asleep at the wheel, that the enemy has set up camp in my house?" I want you to ask the Lord that question.

The phase three is the most extreme, it's possession. Possession is total domination and control. This is the exorcist, this is paranormal activity, this is the really hocus pocus scary stuff that some people are foolish enough to try to be entertained by. I'll be honest, very often, if you talk to missionaries who serve in some more remote parts of the world, possession and demonization looks more like people frothing at the mouth. It looks like them twisting, it looks like they're vomiting uncontrollably, it looks like they're shouting all kinds of obscenities and cursing God, like somebody who might have Tourette's. But it's not Tourette's, it's not a human disorder, it's not just an ailment, it's a demon that is controlling their body in every way shape and form. You very often see that in other parts of the world where they already acknowledge life after this one. Where they already say, "Yeah, we get it, there are spirits, there's good spirits, bad spirits, I got a thousand gods as statues in my home." Some Buddhist homes would say, "Yeah, I'll take Jesus, sure, I don't mind adding Jesus, I'm going to add him right here next to Shiva, next to all of my other gods." But in parts of the world like that, the enemy doesn't need to hide. The enemy doesn't need to be sneaky. And here's what I'm actually noticing sometimes in the last 20 years of the United States, I see the enemy out more often than I used to. I think the enemy is not hiding the way that he used to.

I have a grandfather who's not even a believer, does not follow Jesus, but when he spent time in a certain country in the Caribbean, he said, "I don't know what happens after this world, I don't know what happens when people die, but I know that when I was walking down the streets, I met witch doctors and I saw dead people who came back to life and were walking up and down the street. I'm confident of that." He says, "I can't explain it, I've never seen anything like that here, but I know what I saw." A true Christian cannot be fully completely and absolutely controlled by a demon because the Holy Spirit already lives there. It says in 1 Corinthians, "Listen, you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, he lives in you, he dwells in you." Those are already occupied, a true follower of Jesus who's been forgiven of their sins, washed by the blood of Jesus, cannot be possessed. That can be those first two phases.

But total domination and control only happens for somebody who does not know Jesus. And it only happens when somebody has let the enemy in. And that is very often a progression, that is a slow fade, bitterness, fear, habitual unconfessed sins are the most common entry points. It's not just a seance or some sort of witchcraft or some sort of ritual that will let the devil sneak in. It's not just like you watched one Harry Potter movie and now the devil's out to get you and he's got control. I'm sorry, I had to say it. I think the enemy would love it if that's how you thought that the enemy could get a foothold in your life. I think the devil would love it if you thought that Gandalf was the biggest threat to your spiritual security. Everybody knows Gandalf's the Christian wizard anyways.

Again, if you're a follower of Jesus, this should not terrify you, it should motivate you though. Even if you're not a follower of Jesus yet, it should motivate you to keep short accounts with God, to confess your sins. Confessing your sins is not just a Catholic thing. I'll be very honest, as somebody who grew up in a Baptist church, when I hear people talk about confessing their sins to a pastor or to confess their sins publicly to another brother or sister in Christ, the tradition that I grew up with said, "Ah, isn't that a Catholic thing? I don't think we have to do that, Jesus already forgave us of all of our sins." Yes, but we're confessing our sins again to the Lord and saying, "Hey, I've sinned against you God, I've wandered, please forgive me, keep short accounts with God."

So here's what we're going to do. We're running out of time, we're so late, we still need to get to our discussion groups tonight, but here's where I have to bring this home. What is our job? What do I do with this? Spiritual warfare is fighting the good fight of faith, 1 Timothy chapter 6 says very clearly. And Hebrews chapter 4 says that we need to use the word of God when we fight. It says the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, able to divide the soul and spirit, able to divide joints and marrow. Spiritual warfare is not, however, just a gift. It's not a bunch of dramatic ceremonies, it's not charismatic personalities. Spiritual warfare is not something that only certain people have. So when you look at Romans chapter 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, you see Paul lists most people count nine spiritual gifts, like speaking in tongues, like healing, like all of these different gifts. Exorcism is not mentioned there. Exorcism is not listed as a spiritual gift. It is not something for super elite priests only to do. Spiritual warfare is something that every follower of Jesus is called to do, every Christian is called to resist the devil. It's not a specialist's job, but it's very, very clear.

I need to make something very clear: the power that we have to resist the enemy or to stand firm is not ours. Power over sin, the world, and the devil comes only through the blood of Jesus. It is only under the authority of the name of Jesus. There's no special prayer, there's no formula, there's no level of spiritual attainment that you get to be a level 10 Christian and now you cast out demons. No. It says every victory we have comes from Jesus. And that victory has already been won. But it's our responsibility to stand in it and to walk in it. Colossians chapter 2 verse 15 says he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. He embarrassed the devil. He obliterated the devil. So here's five points for you, you're thinking what do I do? Here's what you need to do: You need to change the way you interpret the accusing voice. When you hear those thoughts, "You're not good enough, you're good for nothing, you always mess up, you're never going to be clean, why would God forgive you," you need to understand that is not from God. The spirit convicts specifically to move you forward, the accuser tears you down and wants to pull you back.

Second thing you need to do is this: change how you handle sin. Do not let sin linger. If there's a pattern of your life, you think, "Yeah three camps ago, four D-Now weekends ago, five years ago on a Sunday morning at church I confessed that at the altar, I prayed, I gave it to the Lord, but I've never been free from it. It is still an habitual daily or even weekly sin that I commit, that I struggle with." There is actually no evidence that God has freed me from that. I think you need to do whatever is necessary. Throw your phone in the trash can if necessary. Confess it, stand up in the middle of your small group Sunday morning and tell your whole group and say, "I'm begging you, I'm pleading with you, help me be free of this. God help me, you help me." Change the way that you handle your sin. Don't let it linger because that can give a foothold for the enemy. Number three, change the way you pray. Pray specifically and confidently. It's important for you to understand the devil cannot hear your thoughts. The devil is not omniscient, he is not omnipresent, he's not like God. The devil cannot hear you, the enemy has been watching and paying attention to humans for at least a few thousand years, he's picked up a few things, a few habits and patterns, so he knows how we think, he knows how we act. But when you're praying, you're not praying to against the devil, you're praying to Jesus. Ask God to contend against what is contending against you. Your prayers are not bouncing off the ceiling, God hears you even when you don't realize it.

And then you need to change what you fear. Do not fear the enemy, fear God. What you really should be afraid of is that sin that you've not surrendered to God. What you really should be afraid of is that thought process that you've not allowed the Holy Spirit to conform into your life. I was talking with a small group leader at a previous church where I used to serve, and it was a little bit concerning, they had some views that just did not match what we believe as Christians, they were a pretty big deal. And they came to talk to me and I said, "Oh goodness, I think I have to let this leader go, they're not going to be able to serve here anymore, this is so sad, I really like them, but there's this one thing, they just..." And the humility that they had to say, "Hey, I'm a pretty new Christian, I'm going to be honest, this one's hard for me to let go of. It was a political issue, it was really sensitive, a hot topic in our country." I said, "This one's hard for me to let go, but I'm asking the Lord to change my heart. I'm asking him to make me think the way that he thinks. And I want my heart to change." I thought, that's about the only thing you could have said that would allow me to let you stay as a leader. Praise God. Praise God. Have the humility to say, "I'm not afraid of the devil, I'm afraid of staying the way that I am. I'm afraid of not taking the next step in my faith and getting stagnant."

The last thing is this: change your posture. And as our worship team comes to lead us in a song of response, I want to encourage you that you are not a passive target. If you are a follower of Jesus, you're a child of God, you are a co-heir with Christ in God. You have the authority of Jesus, you have the stamp of the one true God on you, you have his mark. You've been declared righteous and holy. God's word says that he holds you in his hand and that nothing can take you out of his hand. Nothing can pluck you from his hand. You have the Holy Spirit living inside you, equipping you and encouraging you and inspiring you and giving you everything that you need to live a holy righteous life and to stand firm against the enemy that would love to seek you out, kill you and destroy you. And that's not arrogance. That's the identity that Jesus gave you when he died on the cross for your sin. If you would, bow your heads and close your eyes before we respond in worship. All of this is about Jesus. We're here to talk about angels, demons, some of us have questions about Ouija boards or witchcraft or Hollywood, whatever. But all of this is about Jesus. I have to confess to you, I know we have first-time guests here every single night, and even people who are here for the 100th time, I don't know the spiritual condition of your heart. I don't know if you have Jesus in you. Some of you, I can see fruit, I can see the kindness and the joy in your life, and I see, wow, you look like Jesus. But all of us can fake it. All of us can put on a show. And I don't know the spiritual condition of your heart. So I need to say this to everyone: If you do not have the spirit of Jesus living inside you, if you've not had your sins forgiven, if you've not surrendered your life to him, I don't have any hope for you when it comes to spiritual warfare, the topic of this series. I don't have any secrets, I don't have any tricks for you. I don't know how to tell you that you can be free from the enemy. I don't know how you can be set free from the sins or the thoughts that you have that keep you awake at night. I don't have any solutions for you except the blood of Jesus, which was shed on the cross of Calvary to forgive you of your sins. See, only Jesus, the true powerful Son of God could do this. He left heaven, he came to earth, he lived a perfect life, and then he died the death that you and I deserved to die on the cross. And when he did that, God the Father poured out all of his wrath and all of his anger that he has against sin and the rebellious spirit that is in all of our hearts, he poured all of that out on his Son, Jesus, and he treated Jesus the way that you deserve to be treated, so that he could treat you the way that Jesus deserves to be treated. So that when you come into his presence in heaven one day, he can say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant," he can say, "Come into heaven and experience the joy and rest that I have to offer you." He could put a crown of righteousness on your head. He could welcome you not as an enemy of God, but as one of his sons and daughters. If you do not know Jesus, I am begging and pleading with you, be reconciled to God. Give your life to Jesus. Call out to him and say, "Father, forgive me, I've sinned." If there's anyone here tonight who says, "I need that forgiveness, I want to begin a relationship with God," in just a moment you're going to have an opportunity to come forward. Some of our team will be here to receive you. We want to pray with you, we want to point you towards the hope that we have in Jesus. But there's another reason for you to come forward tonight. Because some of us, you are followers of Jesus, but as we've opened the scriptures tonight, and we've studied how the enemy works and how God has given us these promises, you see there are different ways in which you may have given the enemy a foothold in your life. And you feel stuck. You feel like you grew in your faith at one point, but it's just been stale. You remember growing in leaps and bounds closer and closer to Jesus, but somewhere you drew a line and you said, "You can have this part of my life, God, you can have this part of my life, but not that one." And that's where the enemy set up camp. That's where you've been stunted, and I want to beg with you as a brother in Christ, come forward and confess that to God. God's word says confess your sins to the Lord for forgiveness, but confess your sins to one another so you can have healing. That's what you do tonight. There'll be no judgment from people who walk down this aisle, there will be rejoicing. James says, "Cleanse your hands and purify your hearts." That's the invitation tonight. If you can come forward to take your first step or your next step with Jesus, the band is going to sing and lead us. Let's stand to our feet. Let's respond however the Lord leads.