SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_01: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_01: I want to start, before I start into this next message on the cosmic war, I want to go for a second on a kind of a sociological, cultural, missiological bent.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so one of my degrees is in missiology.
SPEAKER_01: And when we look at Jesus coming 2,000 years ago into a, well, we now call it the Middle East, the geopolitical area called the Middle East, but it was Israel at the time, he came doing four things.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did basically four things all the time.
SPEAKER_01: He preached the kingdom of God everywhere he went.
SPEAKER_01: He healed the sick everywhere he went, and he cast out demons wherever he went.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when you look at the response of the religious community, especially the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as Jesus came into a village, that's what he did.
SPEAKER_01: He preached the kingdom, he'd healed the sick, he cast out their demons.
SPEAKER_01: There is no place anywhere in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John where there was a, where there was an apologetic back to Jesus against the fact that demons exist.
SPEAKER_01: They all believed that demons exist.
SPEAKER_01: They all believed that there was an interaction between the demonic cosmic world and the three-dimensional world.
SPEAKER_01: So whether you call it the fourth, fifth, or sixth dimension, doesn't matter to me, but there is this cosmic world.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we've been talking about for the last six weeks.
SPEAKER_01: This idea that there's divine beings, there's a divine counsel of God that was broken up partly with the Tower of Babel.
SPEAKER_01: So with the Tower of Babel, divine counsel, spirits were given nations that they rule over.
SPEAKER_01: And then two weeks ago, we look at Daniel chapter 10, and we see that as Daniel fasted and prayed for 21 days, not even knowing what he'd entered into, he just wanted revelation about a vision and a dream that he had had, he encounters this divine being.
SPEAKER_01: We might call it an angel.
SPEAKER_01: So this angel comes to him, this spirit being, and says, Look, I've been trying to reach you since the day that you began to pray, but the prince of Persia hindered me.
SPEAKER_01: There's these demonic spirits that are over nations of the world, and men and women, when you pray, you are, you have no idea.
SPEAKER_01: We have no idea the impact we're having in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Even Daniel didn't know the impact.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he would he would have no idea what was happening up in the fifth or sixth dimension of a heavenly cosmic rim if this angelic spirit hadn't told him and given him that permission.
SPEAKER_01: Well, even when he leaves, he said, I've now got to go and contend with the Prince of Greece, right?
SPEAKER_01: So, why do I say that?
SPEAKER_01: I say that because there's a biblical worldview that the West is largely missing.
SPEAKER_01: So, especially since the Enlightenment, there has been a scientific worldview which has been built on this idea, and if you jot this down if you're a note taker, a Western excluded middle.
SPEAKER_01: I call it the Western excluded middle.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a cosmic world out here of Satan, demons, God, and we as believers believe in that.
SPEAKER_01: Virtually two-thirds of the world believes in that.
SPEAKER_01: But the difference is the two-thirds world, you go to anywhere in Korea, you go to anywhere in South America, you go to anywhere in Southeast Asia, they believe that that world interacts with the three-dimensional world.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if someone's sick, the first place many of those people go to is a demon's causing that.
SPEAKER_01: Or it's a curse, or it's an omen, or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you can imagine a box right here is our three-dimensional world, and here's a box up here that's the fourth-dimensional or fifth-dimensional world, and you just overlap them, that's where the world, that's where most people live.
SPEAKER_01: Except in the West.
SPEAKER_01: In the West, Western Europe, as well as the United States of America, have an enlightened scientific worldview based on facts, based on, you know, I'll believe it if you can show it to me, kind of a show-me mentality, which is good.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that's bad.
SPEAKER_01: Don't hear me say that's bad.
SPEAKER_01: Because we have we have the pharmaceuticals that we have that are good, we have the antibiotics that we have that are good, because someone in a scientific lab thought that way.
SPEAKER_01: But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
SPEAKER_01: Because that world of the cosmic rim and our world of the three-dimensional realm, there's a they don't overlap.
SPEAKER_01: That's the exclude, that's the Western excluded middle.
SPEAKER_01: So some of you, for example, have addictions and you have issues in your life that you're seeing a therapist about, and that's great.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need a therapist.
SPEAKER_01: That's super great.
SPEAKER_01: I love therapy.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: Therapy's good.
SPEAKER_01: I need therapy from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Ask my wife, you know.
SPEAKER_01: But so that so counseling, therapy, methadone treatments, all that's nothing wrong with that, per se.
SPEAKER_01: As far as it will take you.
SPEAKER_01: But we have this excluded middle in our thinking, men and women, sometimes, where it's actually demons, it's actually darkness.
SPEAKER_01: There's actually a curse on your life that goes back three or four generations, you know nothing about because you don't think that way.
SPEAKER_01: You don't think, well, I got saved, you know, and I'm saved, and so I'm set free from all that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, technically that's true.
SPEAKER_01: Experientially, it may not be.
SPEAKER_01: Because you have to retroactively every day put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I read that somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you we have to retroactively put on the armor.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not putting on the armor, if you're not retroactively and proactively and intentionally putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, you are subject to the God of this age who is working all around you and it's happening.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you that are more spiritually inclined, you know what I'm talking about because you've walked in some houses, you've walked in some rooms, you know there's demons there.
SPEAKER_01: You can feel the darkness because you're accustomed to the light.
SPEAKER_01: But some of you are so accustomed to the darkness, it's so familiar to you that you don't even know that you could be set free tomorrow if you trusted God in a new way.
SPEAKER_01: So, what I want to talk about today is I'm still on the nations, this aspect of God possessing the nations.
SPEAKER_01: And then next week I want to talk about Christus Victor.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about the victory we have in Christ and what exactly happened at the cross.
SPEAKER_01: What happened at the resurrection?
SPEAKER_01: Literally, what happened in the darkness, what happened in the demonic world.
SPEAKER_01: But today, would you turn to Psalm 2 with me?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm calling this possessing God's possession.
SPEAKER_01: A Psalm 2 counsel requires a Joel to church.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's very interesting that the devil took Jesus up to the temple, we believe it's a temple, and looked out, and here's what Jesus, this is what, this is what Jesus was spoken to by Satan.
SPEAKER_01: He said this I will give you all the power and the glory of these kingdoms.
SPEAKER_01: All of it has been given to me, and I give it to anyone I please.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what's interesting is that Jesus doesn't refute what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, in his response, is assuming that what Satan said is true.
SPEAKER_01: That he rules over the nations.
SPEAKER_01: Since the Tower of Babel, Genesis 11, when the dispersion of the nations occurred, 70 nations, the table of nations, which is in Genesis 10.
SPEAKER_01: Divine counsel, demonic spirits were given those nations.
SPEAKER_01: Well, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: God then begins a maneuver to take back what's his.
SPEAKER_01: And he's in this move of an historical precedent that was set on a whole new level at Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about next week.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to get into it this week a lot.
SPEAKER_01: But there was a new work begun that you're a part of of God beginning to possess his possession of the nations and take back.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus said, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's a new revolution occurring, new thing happening.
SPEAKER_01: Well, in this interaction with Satan, Satan, ruling over the rebelled divine counsel of demons, has been given the nations at Babel.
SPEAKER_01: This is why I believe so strongly in the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we did the Lord's Prayer today.
SPEAKER_01: It's because the Lord's prayer is a spiritual warfare prayer.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, everything in the Lord's prayer is exactly the opposite of what Satan and demons want to do in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And so as the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, as the enemy comes for you to have unforgiveness towards your neighbor, as the enemy comes for you to become just kind of a selfish believer that just lives your life in your own little world and cares about nobody else, you start to pray the Lord's prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And you mean it.
SPEAKER_01: Just say, well, Lord, I don't believe what Steve said, but he said I should pray the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It's a stupid prayer.
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to pray his prayer.
SPEAKER_01: I did that when I was an episcopal.
SPEAKER_01: I did that when I was a Catholic.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna say prayer, religiously prayer.
SPEAKER_01: But he says, if I ask you to believe it, you can change my heart.
SPEAKER_01: You start believing what you pray in the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It's the opposite of what Satan is up to.
SPEAKER_01: So now, let's go to Psalm 2, because in Psalm 2, God is advising leaders.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever's an ex-president of the United States, if I was to ask, you can have one minute with the president, I'd say, Mr.
SPEAKER_01: President, I'm gonna read to you Psalm 2.
SPEAKER_01: It's God's counsel to you as President of the United States.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing?
SPEAKER_01: The kings of the earth they set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.
SPEAKER_01: You see, that's the natural inclination of all of us in relation to Christ, is to say, don't tell me what to do, don't put any boundaries on my life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm free.
SPEAKER_01: This is the land of the free.
SPEAKER_01: I'm free.
SPEAKER_01: Don't tell me that there's rules, don't tell me that there's any kind of laws that I should follow.
SPEAKER_01: When Hitler came into power, he had an agenda.
SPEAKER_01: And the first agenda is we've got to get the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: We gotta get this archaic book out.
SPEAKER_01: And so he began to gradually push that out.
SPEAKER_01: He began to use Romans 13 to subjugate the pastors to do whatever he said, because you're supposed to submit to government.
SPEAKER_01: And so he used that.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Luther, and he quoted Martin Luther.
SPEAKER_01: Luther said, You're supposed to submit to government.
SPEAKER_01: Because Martin Luther was definitely a German.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was he was about order, and if you know anything about the peasant war, that's where he was quoting from, what was happening with the peasant war.
SPEAKER_01: So then what he began to do is subjugate the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: So the the the most recent research from the Washington Museum of the Holocaust is that 70% of all Jews in Europe were exterminated by the Nazis.
SPEAKER_01: 70%.
SPEAKER_01: So the the old statistics were around 8 million, it's now like 20 million.
SPEAKER_01: Unreal.
SPEAKER_01: 42,142 death camps all across Europe have been found.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's an extreme.
SPEAKER_01: But church, that's that's what governments do.
SPEAKER_01: Under the guise of the enemy, they rage against God.
SPEAKER_01: They rage against God.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Aaron, you know this to be true in District 20, as one of our representatives there on the school board.
SPEAKER_01: Satanic temple shows up, you know, get everybody all riled up.
SPEAKER_01: And the Satanic Temple, they love me, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: I'm one of their favorite people.
SPEAKER_01: Um and so they rage because we have standards of morality.
SPEAKER_01: We have standards that we believe in.
SPEAKER_01: So this is nothing new.
SPEAKER_01: This is this rage that comes forth.
SPEAKER_01: But aren't you excited about verse 1b?
SPEAKER_01: Vain thing.
SPEAKER_01: They plot a vain thing.
SPEAKER_01: God's on the move.
SPEAKER_01: And the vanity of vanities is that it will not work.
SPEAKER_01: It might have its time in the sun for a brief time, but the truth seekers and the kingdom of God and the church, we win.
SPEAKER_01: We keep pushing forward.
SPEAKER_01: We we get hit back.
SPEAKER_01: It's always two steps forward and one step back.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you in this room, including myself, from time to time, focus too much on the one step back.
SPEAKER_01: But then there's two steps forward.
SPEAKER_01: And then God moves.
SPEAKER_01: God is on the move.
SPEAKER_01: And look what he says next.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: He who sits in the heavens laughs.
SPEAKER_01: God laughing.
SPEAKER_01: Big belly laugh.
SPEAKER_01: Like, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: You guys, I'm gonna win this thing.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord shall hold them in derision, then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure.
SPEAKER_01: Yet I have set my king.
SPEAKER_01: I've set my king on my holy hill of Zion.
SPEAKER_01: The Messiah's coming.
SPEAKER_01: He's prophesying that there's a day coming when Jesus is gonna come, that the Messiah is gonna come, that there's gonna be a Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: And three days later there's gonna be a resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: I'm setting up my kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And we're on the other side of that.
SPEAKER_01: We're seeing his kingdom move forward.
SPEAKER_01: So keep your finger in Psalm 2 and then go to Psalm 110.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 110 is a companion to Psalm 2.
SPEAKER_01: Look at Psalm 10, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 10, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord said to my Lord, by the way, let me before I read it.
SPEAKER_01: This is the most quoted Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: This is the most quoted Old Testament verse in all of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: So this was this is quoted seven or eight times in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord said to my Lord, and this is, and Peter uses this at Pentecost.
SPEAKER_01: So when the Holy Spirit fell, Peter quotes from this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, Sit at my right hand.
SPEAKER_01: So God, so Jesus comes, he's sitting at the right hand with the Father after he's raised from the dead, till, until I make your enemies your footstool.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, everybody look at me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is working through the church.
SPEAKER_01: You're the church.
SPEAKER_01: Big sea church.
SPEAKER_01: Small sea church.
SPEAKER_01: Big sea church is the church worldwide.
SPEAKER_01: Small sea church is you and me in the road.
SPEAKER_01: We are making the enemies of God his footstool.
SPEAKER_01: You are making progress.
SPEAKER_01: We are pushing back darkness, and in so doing, Jesus is not going to leave the throne.
SPEAKER_01: He's not going to come back until he has made his enemies his footstool.
SPEAKER_01: And so I tell you, this is the most exciting time in history to be alive.
SPEAKER_01: God is really on the move.
SPEAKER_01: And God is doing stuff that we have no idea.
SPEAKER_01: We have no idea what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: But he is setting forth his king on his holy hill of Zion.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he says here.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you get discouraged, and we do, and you look at things and it looks really hopeless, or you feel really negative, you've been just really into some really good negative news and stuff, you know, open the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Just open it to Psalm 2, open it to Psalm 110, and renew your mind.
SPEAKER_01: God is actually making the enemies of God his footstool.
SPEAKER_01: So I got a footstool with my favorite chair in my office at home, and I put my dirty, grimy feet on that footstool sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: I come in from the fire pit, I try to wipe them off, but sometimes I don't get it all off, and I just stick it on the footstool.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Lord's doing.
SPEAKER_01: He's making the enemies of God his footstool through us.
SPEAKER_01: It's through you.
SPEAKER_01: Alright.
SPEAKER_01: Back to Psalm 2.
SPEAKER_01: He continues, verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: I will declare the decree.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord has said to me, You are my son, today I've begotten you.
SPEAKER_01: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession, possessing the possession of God.
SPEAKER_01: You shall break them with a rod of iron, you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.
SPEAKER_01: Now go right back, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Go right back to Psalm 110.
SPEAKER_01: Look what Psalm 110 says.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 110 says, verse 2, the Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion to rule in the midst of your enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: Hear what he's saying?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, look, you guys, ask of me, what is it you want me to do?
SPEAKER_01: I now am taking back the nations.
SPEAKER_01: I'm reversing the Tower of Babel.
SPEAKER_01: Pentecost is Tower of Babel reversed.
SPEAKER_01: We'll look at that next week.
SPEAKER_01: So the dispossession of the nations going out with the divine counsel, then Holy Spirit falls in Acts chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: And what does he do?
SPEAKER_01: Instead of it being dispossessed and there being separation, he takes the separated nations and he brings them together through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: God's uniting the nations.
SPEAKER_01: God's uniting you and me.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, well, what about my family?
SPEAKER_01: My family's really a mess.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, you had Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01: I always ask people, how was Thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: Because everybody's, you know, got all your stuff going on, right?
SPEAKER_01: And the family and all that.
SPEAKER_01: But God wants to bring things together if you'll ask of him.
SPEAKER_01: He's actually challenging us to ask him to possess what he already possesses.
SPEAKER_01: He already possesses the kingdoms of the world.
SPEAKER_01: He already possesses those around us.
SPEAKER_01: Will you believe that he will possess it?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, if you just knew how messed up my life is.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's messed up in this room.
SPEAKER_01: We're all messed up in some way.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, at what point do we decide our messed upness isn't so messy that I can't start believing God in a new way for miracles to happen in my life?
SPEAKER_01: And if you can't do that, then you're missing out because He said he's inviting us for miracles.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I tried that three years ago, or I tried that 33 years ago, or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, try again.
SPEAKER_01: That you got to fight, you got to battle.
SPEAKER_01: Does everybody know the Christian life is not summiting a peak?
SPEAKER_01: There's 58 14ers in Colorado.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you in this room, that's one of your goals, is to summit those.
SPEAKER_01: And I just think that's fantastic and cool.
SPEAKER_01: But the Christian life has largely been kind of assumed to be like getting to a peak or a mountaintop experience.
SPEAKER_01: It's not going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_01: You know what the Christian life is like?
SPEAKER_01: The Christian life is more like a boxing match.
SPEAKER_01: And you go in and you get pummeled.
SPEAKER_01: And you get knocked down and you get back up again.
SPEAKER_01: And you go back to your corner with some blood stained allies and you work on all the cuts and all your messed up things in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And you go back in that ring against the devil, and you begin to become the hunter instead of the hunted.
SPEAKER_01: God wants you wholehearted.
SPEAKER_01: So, Psalm 2 doesn't work without Joel 2.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta superimpose Joel 2 on it.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles to Joel 2, and that's that's one of the minor prophets.
SPEAKER_01: That's near the end of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Joel, book of Joel.
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you a second to find that.
SPEAKER_01: Joel, you guys that have your phones, you just put in Joel.
SPEAKER_01: Boom, you got it.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's not fair.
SPEAKER_01: It's not right.
SPEAKER_01: So it's a Psalm 2 counsel to become a Joel II church.
SPEAKER_01: And there in Joel 2, this is where, guys, you realize that Joel 2 is where Peter quote, this is where he quotes from at Pentecost.
SPEAKER_01: So if you turned over to verse 28.
SPEAKER_01: So in verse 28, Peter, led by the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost, that's where he quotes.
SPEAKER_01: He quotes, Shall come to pass afterward that I'll pour out my spirit on flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, you young men shall see visions.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: What I want to look at, though, is I want to look at Joel 2, verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: Joel 2, verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: So before that, here's the challenge for each one of us in this room, the counsel of God as we go into the new year.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm jumping ahead a little bit to the new year because I'm fired up about the new year.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Now therefore, says the Lord, verse 12, turn to me with all of your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.
SPEAKER_01: So rend your heart and not your garments.
SPEAKER_01: Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.
SPEAKER_01: And he relents from doing harm.
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
SPEAKER_01: Only God knows.
SPEAKER_01: If he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him.
SPEAKER_01: A grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, here's the here's the here's the Joel to church.
SPEAKER_01: And again, I'm going to say this on two fronts.
SPEAKER_01: One is the church.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, in this case, it's the road.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: But in another sense, you're the church.
SPEAKER_01: We're the church.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a capital C church, the road church, the universal church, the worldwide church, but then there's also you.
SPEAKER_01: You're the church.
SPEAKER_01: So this is for us.
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying, be wholehearted.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, look, come after me with not half-hearted devotion.
SPEAKER_01: Come after me with all of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Go after him with everything you've got.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone of this room loves those movies.
SPEAKER_01: We love those movies.
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, we go to the theater.
SPEAKER_01: We go to the movie theater because we want to see somebody who's wholehearted.
SPEAKER_01: How many movies have you gone to, man?
SPEAKER_01: I love that movie because the act, I mean, that character is so half-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I love that guy because he's just such a wimp.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I really dig that person because right when the things were all about to happen, they ran away.
SPEAKER_01: No, we long for that.
SPEAKER_01: Every one of you in this room want to be whole-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: You are born to be wholehearted disciples of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You're the happiest when you're whole-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
SPEAKER_01: You're the weakest when you're half-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason is, is you got one foot in Jesus and you got one foot in the world.
SPEAKER_01: You got one foot in loving your neighbors yourself, you got another one and just loving you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's done it.
SPEAKER_01: We all have those days.
SPEAKER_01: The challenge of Joel is to turn to God with all of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: What about that?
SPEAKER_01: What about turning to God with all of your heart?
SPEAKER_01: With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, this is serious stuff.
SPEAKER_01: It's so serious to Joel, it's so serious to God that turning to God also includes tremendous sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And in this case, he's talking about fasting.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus comes back with his disciples who've been trying to cast out this demon out of this young boy.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about this a little tiny bit two weeks ago, and he cast out the demon.
SPEAKER_01: They said, Well, why couldn't we do it?
SPEAKER_01: Every demon we've had up to this point we could cast out.
SPEAKER_01: Why couldn't we cast this one?
SPEAKER_01: Some of these kind don't come out except through fasting and prayer.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, many women, there are some stuff in your life right now you've never seen a breakthrough.
SPEAKER_01: You've wanted a breakthrough, you've longed for a breakthrough, you thought it'd be really cool to have a breakthrough, but you've never seen a breakthrough.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, if I were to sit here and interview you right now and say, do you think God's big enough to give you a breakthrough?
SPEAKER_01: You'd say yes.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you don't come to the road and say no, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So you say yes, alright?
SPEAKER_01: But but then the question is, what do I do?
SPEAKER_01: What's the next step?
SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, God's calling us to fast and pray over a period of time for a particular issue, and I don't get it.
SPEAKER_01: I'll just, you know, I just gave you that summation, really quick look at Daniel chapter 10, where for 21 days he's crying out to God for revelation.
SPEAKER_01: And if you weren't with us a couple weeks ago, it's Daniel chapter 10.
SPEAKER_01: You can look it up.
SPEAKER_01: But in Daniel chapter 10, Daniel's crying out to God, and then the angel comes on the 21st day.
SPEAKER_01: And he brings him the revelation that he wants.
SPEAKER_01: But he had to fast and pray.
SPEAKER_01: He had to seek God that way.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes there's things in our life that we think, and again, I'm telling you, it's the it is the Western excluded middle.
SPEAKER_01: That's the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: What I love about Koreans.
SPEAKER_01: Do we have any people from Korean extraction in here?
SPEAKER_01: There we are.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Koreans pray.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: They pray because they don't think about it.
SPEAKER_01: They just pray because it's in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: That's most of the world.
SPEAKER_01: You go into Nepal, India, South America, parts of the world, they pray because, well, it's Pastor Steve, it's in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we do it.
SPEAKER_01: But you get with Westerners, and we're like, well, it doesn't, I don't really understand prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's and that's why we have all the devotional books on prayer come from the West.
SPEAKER_01: It's a devotional time.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, God, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: And yet Jesus makes prayer out to be actually asking and receiving.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, ask, plead, cry out, and I will answer you from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: I will show you things, mighty things that you cannot see unless you pray.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to read books on prayer, read them from Koreans and Chinese.
SPEAKER_01: Those folks know how to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And they see answers.
SPEAKER_01: I remember one time I was at the prayer mountain of Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Cho Yungi in Seoul, Korea.
SPEAKER_01: This would be 1983.
SPEAKER_01: I was out there and I went to their prayer mountain.
SPEAKER_01: I'm at their prayer mountain.
SPEAKER_01: It's freezing collected.
SPEAKER_01: It's got to be like 100 degrees below zero.
SPEAKER_01: Really cold.
SPEAKER_01: No, but it was cold, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm there and it's a grout.
SPEAKER_01: They call them prayer grotto.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm at this prayer grotto and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I'm freezing.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, this is dumb.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna sit here in front of this prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So I went inside, and I got that there was a window from the sanctuary part, and I could look out.
SPEAKER_01: I see like two hours later, see this little granny come out, man.
SPEAKER_01: This little Korean lady's like this.
SPEAKER_01: And she looks beaming.
SPEAKER_01: She's being and I and I got there and it was closed and it was locked, and I was there, so she might have been there for days, for all I know.
SPEAKER_01: And I met Korean after Korean after Korean who told me stories of fasting and praying until all of their family got saved.
SPEAKER_01: And fasting and praying until their husband finally got saved, or their wife got saved, or they got broke this addiction.
SPEAKER_01: They just do it because they don't try to logically figure it out because they don't have an excluded middle.
SPEAKER_01: They know that here in this world we're called to turn to God with all of our heart, to rend our hearts, not our garments, to return to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He is so gracious that he's so merciful, he's gonna hear from heaven and he's gonna do a miracle in my life.
SPEAKER_01: You see why the excluded middle is so important?
SPEAKER_01: Don't begin.
SPEAKER_01: I'm hoping, I'm hoping that through our time together in this cosmic war, you'll begin to understand, and I'll begin to understand even you as I share, because I learned as much as you guys on this too, that the more I pray, the more I seek God, heaven comes down.
SPEAKER_01: Heaven does come down.
SPEAKER_01: So, first, turn to God with all of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: So, as we go into the new year, I want you to think about turning to God with all of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Half-hearted living is a bummer, man.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine going to an MMA fight half-hearted?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get your spiritual B-U-T-T kick.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, man, you're dead.
SPEAKER_01: Go whole-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually more fun to win anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 15, blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly.
SPEAKER_01: Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing babes, let the bridegroom grow out from his chamber and the bride from her dressing room.
SPEAKER_01: So, number two, we're calling a time of fasting and prayer every Monday, first Monday of every month, here at the road in 2024.
SPEAKER_01: So we're challenging us as a congregation that we would take Mondays to fast and pray.
SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is, don't before everybody freaks out, um, Sunday to Monday night.
SPEAKER_01: So in other words, have a Sunday dinner, and then you've got eight hours to sleep it off, and then just miss the next meal, you know, next two meals, and then uh eat again on Monday.
SPEAKER_01: But December 31st, shout this down if you haven't already.
SPEAKER_01: December 31st, which is a which is New Year's Eve night, which is a Sunday night.
SPEAKER_01: We're having a worship and prayer night here to start off the new year.
SPEAKER_01: 6:30 to 8:30.
SPEAKER_01: 6:30 to 8:30 in the sanctuary.
SPEAKER_01: Come set before us the Lord, we're gonna be wholehearted in our devotion to Him.
SPEAKER_01: Bring your kids.
SPEAKER_01: Love to have even some of the kids that can stay in their seat and or if they come up for worship, that's great.
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, they could enjoy that time if they're that age.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to have them here.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be great for them to model it for them and everything.
SPEAKER_01: But 6 through 8, 30, December 31st, here.
SPEAKER_01: And then that next Monday, which is January 1st, you say, Well, there's football games to watch.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do this, you can just start in February.
SPEAKER_01: But we're just encouraging you to make that your first fasting day for the new year as we seek the Lord together.
SPEAKER_01: Watch what God's gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: Possessing the possession, you're already his possession.
SPEAKER_01: But possess the person that he possessed at Calvary and be the whole-hearted man and the whole-hearted woman that you're called to be.
SPEAKER_01: That's the exciting adventure of the Kingdom of God revolutionary life.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.