Spiritual Warfare: Satan VS. Your Focus & Calling

🙏 Scripture Focus: Ephesians 6:10–18 (AMP)
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Transcript

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Good morning and welcome back to Free with Marissa B. Today we're going on to the enemy strategies, strategy number two. Now, this is Satan versus your focus. Okay, so Satan disguises himself and manipulates your perspective, so you end up losing focus, desire, and you doubt. So you start to doubt what God told you. Now I'm gonna go into some biblical examples of this because you guys know the Bible is true, and you have to read everything in the Bible, you have to point all the wisdom and revelation that the Lord gives you back to his word so that you can not be deceived. So here's the first biblical example. We see this in the garden in the Garden of Eden with Eve, right? Satan says, Oh, did God really say? Um he says stuff like God just doesn't want you to have the knowledge he has. Okay, so Satan lies and plants doubts, he manipulates and he plays on your own ego and feeds your own pride. That's example number one in the Bible. Now, example number two, I put down in the desert with Jesus, right? Satan uses scripture to Jesus, the Son of God, and he twists it. He will use portions of scriptures and leave out the rest. Now, if you remember, Satan quotes Psalms 91, 10 through 11 on the second temptation of Jesus in the desert, right? And let me just read that to you, okay? Psalm 91, 11 through 12. It says, For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Now, Satan is enticing Jesus to call upon the angels to jump off of this temple and to have the angels protect him. But what does Jesus say? Remember, Jesus responds with scripture himself, and Jesus responds utilizing Deuteronomy 6.16, and he says, It is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. But here's the thing about Satan: he'll use scripture to twist your thoughts, but he'll only use a portion of scripture. If you continue to read Psalm 91, verse 13 literally says that you will tread on the lion and the cobra, you will trample the great lion and the serpent. Okay, who is Satan depicted as in the Bible? He's always depicted as a serpent or a little lion. Remember, the Bible says be of sober mind because the enemy prowls around like a lion, looking for those to devour. Remember, Satan is always trying to pretend like he's God. So God is the lion of Judah, Jesus is the lion of Judah, and Satan wants to pretend like he's a lion. So he's prowling around like a lion, looking for those to devour. But what does Psalm 91 verse 13 say? It says that you, you who call upon the name of Jesus and Jesus Christ Himself, you who have Jesus Christ inside of you, the Spirit of God, you will trample on the cobra, you will tread on the lion. And then verse 14 says, Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him. So it's really convenient how Satan leaves out that portion of scripture, but he does quote scripture to Jesus, and this is why we have to know the word of God, because Satan will use religious spirits, he'll use your pride because the more you start reading the Bible, the more you start having knowledge and wisdom from the Lord, ego and pride is lurking right there because it's very easy to give in and agree to pride, and this is why I talked about false humility in my last video. Because you can Satan can convince you that you're being humble, you're doing what is right according to the will of God because it's in the Bible, but he's conveniently leaving out a lot of scripture that also counteracts some of the thoughts you may have. For example, I used to, I went through a season where I was learning the Bible, I was reading all these ancient contexts and books: the book of Enoch, the Book of the Giants, the Apocrypha, the original one. I and I was gaining all this knowledge, and and the Lord was opening my eyes and giving me all this wisdom and revelation. And insidiously, I started having secret pride, but it was false humility because I would be like, Oh, well, I have to go rebuke that person because they're living in sin, and the Bible says this. Well, that's good. We should rebuke people, we should correct brothers and sisters because the Bible tells us to do so. But was I doing that in a place of love, or was I doing that in a place of false righteousness, false humility, and judgment? Now there is righteous judgment, but righteous judgment is always paired with the humble heart, a heart that really is just saying, Hey, I don't want my brother or my sister to live in this deception because the Bible says if we continue to live in sin, we're not going to heaven. And hold up right there, my righteous believers, okay, I realize and I understand that it is not by our works that we get to heaven, it is only by what Jesus Christ did on the cross. But the Bible says in Hebrews and many other books that we have to walk out our salvation with Christ. Meaning, if we are habitually living in sin and we're okay with that sin, and the Bible's very clear it is a sin, then we are not serving the Lord, we are serving ourselves. And this is where it's very insidious because a lot of believers are walking around in deception, living in their sin, and they're like, oh well, grace, you know, grace, grace, grace, God forgives me, God forgives me. And the reality is, is God has so much grace, but he expects us to repent. He expects us to turn away from our sins. And God is so gracious that he will not just take you out, he will not just allow you to die in your sin if you really have a heart that is looking to serve him. If you are alive right now and you're struggling with habitual sin, this is God's grace to you. The fact that you're even seeing this video, because you have to repent, brother or sister. The time is so near. And the Bible says that Jesus is gonna come like a thief in the night. And he, if you're not right with him, if you have unrepented sins, you're not going in the catching up with the church. You will stay here for the tribulation. And yes, some people will be saved in the tribulation, but the tribulation is gonna be when God removes the advocate, the Holy Spirit, from the earth, and all of evil will just be running rampant on earth. You are going to suffer more than any period of history of time. It's going to be scary. The book of Revelation says the four angels that are chained at the bottom of Euphrates, they will be released and they will kill one-third of the people and they will torture the people. Satan will be running around this earth, not hiding anymore. He will be straight up in your face, torturing you. And this is why it's gonna be very hard to be saved during the tribulation. I don't want to stay for the tribulation. I don't want you to stay for the tribulation. I don't want my worst enemy to stay for the tribulation. It's going to be scary. We think life is bad now. Imagine if God is not holding back the evil on earth. Imagine how bad it's actually gonna be, how much you're actually gonna suffer. God doesn't want that for you. So if you have unrepented sin, confess it to the Lord and then confess it to a brother or sister. Because for me, when I had unrepented sin, I had to confess it to the Lord and He He forgives. But then I confessed it to people that I trusted that I knew would just pray for me and would correct me and would sharpen my iron and would say, Hey, you know what, Marissa, I love you so much, but you are right. What you're doing is a sin, and you gotta turn away. How can I help you turn away from that? I'm specifically talking about my addiction because that was really hard for me to quit. I was trapped and it was so hard for me to quit. And I'm telling you, if I didn't have multiple people praying for me, if I wasn't trying to do all the tools of psychology to quit and read the Bible and focus on Christ, I don't know if I would be sober right now. I don't know because I struggled with addiction problems for 13 years to substances, so it was really hard. But the Lord kept convicting me, kept convicting me. Hey, you have to turn away from this, hey, you have to turn away from this. My grace is sufficient for you. Point your eyes to me, set your eyes on things above, and I will set you free. Get deliverance from these demons, heal these traumas that keep resurfacing, that you just keep brushing under the rug, and you will be free from this addiction. So if you have unrepented sin, friend, but confess it to the Lord, confess it to a brother or sister, get Christian counseling, do whatever you need to do to be free from it, get deliverance from the demons, get deliverance from the trauma, get healing from the Lord because the time is near. Time is near, and you want to have oil in your lamp. Okay, now example number three: this is betrayal with Judas. So that's what I put down. Luke 22, right? One of Jesus' own apostles, one of Jesus' own followers who who saw and witnessed the hundreds and thousands of miracles that Jesus did, who saw people being raised from the dead, he literally betrayed Jesus Christ. And how did he betray Jesus Christ? Is because Satan enters him because he, Judas, the the apostle, allowed greed into his life. He made agreements with greed, and that gave Satan the legal grounds to enter him and use him to betray the Son of Man. Now, I don't know about you, but when I really think about the story of Judas, I'm like, man, that's all of us. That's all of us children of God. Like, we haven't even seen Jesus Christ with our own physical eyes, we only feel him. I mean, some of us have had the privilege of seeing him because Jesus does visit people and dreams and visions, but I've never seen Jesus with my eyes. I've felt him and I've heard him. Actually, I have seen the back of his head. I will tell you that in another video, though, because that actually was a really cool experience for me. But long story short, if even Jesus' own apostle, who saw him, witnessed him raising people from the dead, and all of the miracles Jesus did betrayed the Lord because of greed, then who are we to say that we're any better, that we can't be deceived, that we're not living in secret sin? And you know, right now is so imperative in the spirit, so imperative in life to get right with God, because everything in the book of Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Psalms that predicted the last days, the days right before the Lord's day when he comes, is happening. People are moving into the rocks and the caves to hide from the Lord all over the world. The elite have their bunkers made. The Bible says they will run into the rocks, they will try to hide from the judgment of the Lord, but they can't. They won't be able to hide from his judgment. And all the natural disasters, the persecution of the church, the antichrist, the mark of the beast, the stage is being set for all of it. It's all coming out. So if you're on the fence, Jesus or yourself, aka Satan, pick Jesus, friend, because Jesus wants to save you. He wants to redeem you, he wants to bring you up in the catching up of the church so that you are protected in heaven when all of this stuff goes down for the tribulation. Now, the fourth one, spreading false doctrines within the church. Okay, within the church, there are so many false doctrines. Why do you think Jesus Christ refers to seven churches in the book of Revelation? He doesn't refer to the unbeliever, he refers to the children of God, and he states all these things that he has against us. It's because Jesus is warning us in the last days, the spirit of deception and delusion will be so bad that it will take and deceive even the elect if we allow it. The elect are pastors, the elect are people evangelizing, preaching, worship leaders, elders. And Jesus says that it will deceive, the spirit of deception will deceive even them. And this is why he warns the seven churches, because he's trying to help us to not be deceived. Jesus is trying to show us the truth in his word so that we can make it in the rapture, the catching up of the church. And so I highly encourage you to study the book of Revelation. Study those seven churches. And if you find or relate to any of those negative things in those churches, get rid of it. Ask the Lord to redeem you, restore you, restore your soul, to remove deception from you, remove pride from you. You need to cast out pride, you need to cast out Jezebel, you need to cast out Leviathan, you need to cast out all the evil spirits that are literally running rampant right now in the name of Jesus. And you need to stand firm in the truth of God, and you need to gurge yourself. You need to be ready to fight the battle because if you're on earth, you're you're in the battle. It doesn't matter if you believe in God or not, you're in the battle of the spiritual war. Satan's whole goal is to destroy you because you were made in the image of God and God loves you. No matter what we do, God loves us, and he wants us to be saved, and he wants us to be children of God. He wants us to choose his son Jesus Christ, and he wants us to have a relationship, an intimate relationship with him, so that he can lead us out of this deception because it is it is getting crazy. And so Satan spreads false doctrines within the church, and it says it in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 13. It says, For such men are counterfeit apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And it is no wonder because Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. So it is no great surprise if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, but their end will correspond with their deeds. Now, what is that saying? It's saying that there are people that are masquerading as children of God and are preaching the Bible, but they're preaching it incorrectly. They're preaching a soft gospel so that people will be deceived and people will grow weak in faith, or they'll go completely the opposite direction and they'll just run on lies because Satan can twist the Bible. Like, what did we learn about in the second example? He quotes scripture to Jesus Christ. So Satan knows scripture better than you, he knows scripture better than me, and he can twist scripture, feed our ego, feed our weaknesses, feed our own selfishness to justify living in sin. And we have to be so careful because I know that you know that there is a lot of false doctrines rising up in the church. People that are justifying sin, people that are allowing people to just live in sin and deception and saying, Oh, it's God's grace, you know, it's it's not by what you do, but what Jesus did for you, which is a half-truth. Yes, Jesus took all your sin, he took all of your shame, he nailed it to the cross, he took the death that you deserve, and he nailed it on the cross, and the work is finished. But we have to obey him, we have to follow what he tells us to do. And once again, that doesn't mean you have to be perfect, but it means that if God is saying, Hey, this is a sin, it needs to go, then you need to hear the voice of the Lord and you need to repent. You need to give it up, you need to make the decision in your heart, Lord, your ways are higher than my ways, and your thoughts are higher than my thoughts. Therefore, I will turn away from this sin, even if I don't understand it. Even if you don't understand why God is telling you to give something up. You have to be obedient children of God. We're supposed to be children, we're supposed to listen to our Father in heaven because he has a good plan for us. Now, Satan uses half truths, okay? We learned that in the last four examples I gave. He uses half truths, he appeals to your own desires, he questions God's authority and motives, he disguises himself as righteousness, as the angel of light, as harmless, and as desirable. These are his tactics against us to help or to make us lose our focus, lose our will, if if if that makes sense, to follow the Lord, because he'll take us on a path that leads to destruction, all the while we're thinking that we're being the righteousness of Christ or the righteousness of God through Christ, because we read the Bible, we pray, we do all these things. Well, friend, if you don't have a real relationship with Jesus Christ, if your your relationship is based off of, you know, just a routine or disciplines, but it's not based off of love, then ask the Lord to strengthen your love for him. Ask him to meet you in your place where you're at and to show you his will and his way and to correct your heart. Ask him to soften your heart, ask him to remove the deception from you, ask him to heal your soul, your soul, and restore your soul, ask him to deliver you from the enemy and pray that his will be done in your life on earth as it is in heaven. It's so important for us to memorize scripture and to write it on the tablet of our hearts because as you can tell, Satan will use scripture against you. He will feed your ego and your pride, he will feed your greed, he will feed your haughtiness, and you have to allow the Lord to do what the Lord does and remove those impurities from you. Ask the Lord to search your heart and remove all wickedness and all selfishness. Ask him to give you his desires, not your own desires, because our hearts are deceitful, and this is why the Bible says, do not lean on your own understanding. None of us are better than the other. Okay, I'm your brother. I'm your I'm sorry, I'm not your brother. I'm your sister in Christ, brother or sister, and I'm trying to help you because these are all things that the Lord taught me through very difficult seasons, and I'm a very stubborn person, so I had to be rebuked by the Lord many times before I listened. And that's his grace, though. The Lord, like a good father, punishes his children when we're living in disobedience because he wants us to straighten out and he wants us to live in true righteousness through Jesus Christ and to walk out our salvation so that we will make it in the catching up of the church. We will make it to heaven. He wants that for you, he wants that for me because he loves us and he desires us to have a close relationship with him. So that we have eyes to see and ears to hear, and softened hearts to receive his correction. Many people's hearts are growing hard and cold. And the Bible talks about in 2 Thessalonians there will be a great apostasy in the last days, right before the return of the Lord. Apostasy means there will be a huge falling away of the church. The church's heart will grow cold. And that's scary. I am no better than the greatest or or the worst person. And I truly just want to have a relationship with Jesus. I truly just want to speak about the things that He has taught me because I feel like a lot of us are struggling with similar things because it's all spiritual. All of these demons, all of these ancient principalities, they're returning and they're strong because child sacrifice is at an all-time high. Alexa off. Child sacrifice is at an all-time high. Pride is at an all-time high. Lovers of self is at an all-time high. Seek the will of the Lord. Ask him to remove the deception and the pride from you. Ask him to soften your heart so that you will receive his correctings, his rebukes. And that's it for strategy number two. I want to keep these teachings kind of short so that you can just listen to them in the car or you know when you're working out or on your walk. But strategy number two, remember, is Satan versus your focus. So I hope this helps you. God bless you, peace be with you, and I'll see you on the next video. Bye.