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: Now we're on this series called The Cosmic War, and I've got a lot to cover today.
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, so much to cover that I decided to make it a part one and a part two on this particular passage.
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, don't miss it because if you miss this series, if you miss one, you need to catch up because I'm building a panoramic view of scripture built on building blocks of the fourth dimension.
SPEAKER_01: And so because of that, I want to just quickly rehearse where we've been, and that is in the first message, I talked about the war in the heavenlies.
SPEAKER_01: I talked about the gap theory, and I talked about that, I believe there's possibly millions of years gap between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1.2.
SPEAKER_01: That is not saying that I don't believe in the literal creation of what we might call a young earth theory.
SPEAKER_01: I still believe in that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying that even before God came to create the heavens and the earth, as we see it today, there was a war in times before that.
SPEAKER_01: It could have been five minutes, it could have been five million years, I don't know, and I'm not gonna act like I know.
SPEAKER_01: But I shared those passages with you and why we believe that.
SPEAKER_01: And then last week we talked about Lucifer, and we talked about the origin of Lucifer, the origin of sin, and him being driven out of heaven because of two wills, and I talked about a declaration of independence.
SPEAKER_01: And what I said was that any personal declaration of independence is the beginning of all sin.
SPEAKER_01: It's when you start saying, my will be done instead of God's will be done, that's the beginning of sin.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna talk about this as we move along, that that's actually foundational for how demons begin to affect your life.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't believe Christians can be demon-possessed, and I'll talk about the difference between demonization and demon possession later.
SPEAKER_01: We're not at that point yet.
SPEAKER_01: But um, I do believe in demon possession, and I do believe in demonization.
SPEAKER_01: And I do believe Christians can be demonized.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean they're demon-possessed.
SPEAKER_01: And so we'll talk about that when it's the right time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm still building a case right now.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to look up and I want you to see Colossians 1.
SPEAKER_01: Don't turn there, because I'm gonna have you guys turning all over the place today, but I wanted to just put this up on the PowerPoint.
SPEAKER_01: He, Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
SPEAKER_01: For by him all things were created that are in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_01: So you already see the dualism, heaven and earth, visible and invisible, dualism again, the visible and the invisible.
SPEAKER_01: And then I have taken a little bit of grammatical freedom here and put a colon for invisible to make it more clear, because this is what it means, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the point God created thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers before he created man.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll explain that in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: What I mean by that, I'll show you the passage that supports that from Job.
SPEAKER_01: But that he has a heavenly family.
SPEAKER_01: He actually has a heavenly, divine family, which I'm gonna call the divine counsel of God, that are in the heavenly realm that are activated.
SPEAKER_01: There's a purpose for their hierarchy, and there's a purpose, they actually have job descriptions, and they're activated on your behalf through prayer, through prayer and declarations.
SPEAKER_01: And this is so important for us to understand that I felt like I can't do justice to the passage of Daniel chapter 10, which we're gonna go into in a few minutes, without doing it next week, also.
SPEAKER_01: So this is all just a setup for that.
SPEAKER_01: So the Bible and science agree that there are many dimensions or unseen worlds.
SPEAKER_01: Dimensions are simply the different facets of what we perceive to be reality.
SPEAKER_01: We are immediately aware of the three dimensions that surround us, those that define the length, width, and depth of all objects in our universe.
SPEAKER_01: Beyond these three dimensions, scientists believe that there may be many more.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the theoretical framework of super string theory posits that the universe exists in ten different dimensions.
SPEAKER_01: These different aspects govern the universe, the fundamental forces of nature and all the elementary particles contained within, all created by God.
SPEAKER_01: Remember what I read in Colossians 1, that God's over all of that.
SPEAKER_01: The super string theory, scientists speak of the fifth and sixth dimensions being other worlds that exist.
SPEAKER_01: Basonic string theory suggests 26 dimensions.
SPEAKER_01: So even science, men and women, is proving that there's an unseen world of thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul called them.
SPEAKER_01: Paul called them thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers.
SPEAKER_01: Those in the scientific community would call them in the super string theory and the basonic string theory dimensions.
SPEAKER_01: So, as I've said so many times before, and in my new book that I'm working on, science is actually catching up with kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Science is actually coming.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about real science, not fake science.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about real science where I can't remember who said it, but someone once said the greatest danger in all scientific theory is having a little understanding of science.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you have a little bit of understanding of science, you tend to latch on to things that are actually not scientifically true.
SPEAKER_01: But when you go deeper, you're finding that science, both in the medical realm, physics, and especially quantum physics, supports these dimensions of something happening that we cannot see that has a cause and effect.
SPEAKER_01: So what I'm introducing you to over these weeks is the worldview of Jesus, the worldview of the Sumerians, the worldview of the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason that's important is because the American worldview, our scientific theory worldview is not the same.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm trying to dial it in as one who's lived in Asia for 10 years, where I was exposed to more of the two-thirds world worldview, and then back to America where I'm back to a scientific worldview, which is great, to the limitations that it has.
SPEAKER_01: And in my opinion, you're you're at the best place if you have a Western worldview scientifically, but you have an Asian or two-thirds world or biblical worldview spiritually, because they work well together.
SPEAKER_01: So, for Jesus, so let's just start with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus comes upon someone who is blind, or Jesus comes upon someone who can't hear, or Jesus comes upon someone who's having what we might call an epileptic fit, and he doesn't say, you need to go to the pharmacy and pick up some drugs.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say, Have you seen your pediatrician lately?
SPEAKER_01: No, Jesus immediately, in his worldview, biblical worldview, all through scripture, was this is demonic.
SPEAKER_01: There's a spiritual reason behind, again, cause and effect, this person being blind, this person not being able to hear, this person having an epileptic fit.
SPEAKER_01: So you and I, in a Western worldview, think, what's the drug I need for this?
SPEAKER_01: Who's the doctor I need to see for this?
SPEAKER_01: When actually, in many cases, if we believe in a biblical worldview, demons are behind much of your sickness.
SPEAKER_01: Demons are behind much of your problems that you're experiencing.
SPEAKER_01: But you don't go to that.
SPEAKER_01: So God gives us freedom.
SPEAKER_01: He gives us total freedom to go and inoculate ourselves from the real power source of the kingdom of God by drugging up on everything.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I'm not against drugs.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not against 5% of the drugs.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Most drugs you shouldn't be taking, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_01: I'll just tell you that right now.
SPEAKER_01: And that's based not just in my viewpoint, that's based also in my experience of all the years that I've been alive.
SPEAKER_01: Is that most of the cause and effects, not most of it is demonic, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying that much of it is way more complex than that.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So if I were to draw concentric circles, you've got a physical side of you, you have a spiritual side of you, you have a mental side of you, you have an emotional side of you, you have a stressed-out side of you, okay?
SPEAKER_01: All of those coelate into being you.
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times what you're struggling with with headaches and the stuff you're struggling with with cancer, the stuff you're struggling with, issues related to hearing or related to stomach ailments, let's just go through the whole list, is related to something else in there.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need a drug, you need to look at your whole lifestyle.
SPEAKER_01: So when I say, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you, it's the healthiest way to live.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the more kingdom you are, the more physically and emotionally and mentally stable you're going to become.
SPEAKER_01: And so the scientific community is discovering this.
SPEAKER_01: Great book.
SPEAKER_01: I won't go into it here, but I talked about it when we did our uh health conference called Who Gets Sick?
SPEAKER_01: Um, Blair Justice, Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Blair Justice wrote that.
SPEAKER_01: Gosh, that was 30 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: And that was a groundbreaking book for me when I read it, because he ties everything into the emotions and the spirituality.
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if he's a believer.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he's a believer, but it was it was it was fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes what you need is less drugs and more Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And what you need is less visits to the hospital and more visits to your Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so not against hospitals, not against doctors.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not, if you break your arm, you definitely need somebody to set the arm, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So don't hear me saying 100%.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_01: I'm challenging your thinking.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what this is about.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're doing this, because I want you to understand that even in the scientific and the quantum physics theory side of things, they also acknowledge there's a spiritual realm that has a cause and effect.
SPEAKER_01: And so for Jesus, he recognized a demon was causing this illness and he cast it out.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you could see, this is important, you could see the cause, but you couldn't see the effect.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you could see the effect, but you couldn't see the cause.
SPEAKER_01: So you can see the effect of demons, but you couldn't see the cause coming from demons.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm hoping that 10 weeks from now, your eyes are a little more opened to the reality of a biblical, Christian, uh, Old Testament, New Testament worldview that will even challenge some of our just science solidly kind of Western, dualistic, scientific, medical worldview.
SPEAKER_01: So now turn to uh Psalm 82.
SPEAKER_01: So turn to Psalm 82, and I'm gonna call this series, this message today, the Divine Council Activated Over Nations.
SPEAKER_01: The Divine Council activated over nations, and I'm gonna have to talk really fast to get through just part one, and we'll do more next week.
SPEAKER_01: God stands in the divine assembly or congregation of the mighty.
SPEAKER_01: He judges among the gods, plural.
SPEAKER_01: In my spirit-filled study by mighty is mighty ones, assembly or the congregation of the mighty ones.
SPEAKER_01: And if you look up at the PowerPoint, I've put in a little bit of Hebrew.
SPEAKER_01: So God, Elohim, stands in the assembly or the congregation of the mighty ones.
SPEAKER_01: He judges among the gods, Elohim again.
SPEAKER_01: Elohim occurs twice in our verse.
SPEAKER_01: Other than the covenant name Yahweh, Elohim is the most common word in the Old Testament for God.
SPEAKER_01: The first use of the word works fine.
SPEAKER_01: It's singular and describes the one true God or Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: But it's the second use of the word, translated plural, that may surprise some of us.
SPEAKER_01: The singular God of the universe stands in a congregation of gods or divine beings as part of an assembly, a pantheon of spiritual beings or small G gods.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this was the way people thought in biblical times.
SPEAKER_01: You couldn't find any self-respecting Jew, you couldn't find anybody from any of the lands of Babylon or Persia who did not believe that there was a pantheon of gods.
SPEAKER_01: And you see it all through scripture.
SPEAKER_01: This is going to open your eyes to a lot of passages in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's what I want you to understand.
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe in a pantheon of capital G gods that are all equal.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about Yahweh, the one true God, Elohim, capital E, in the phonetic spelling of the Hebrew, Elohim, as the one true God over a pantheon of divine beings.
SPEAKER_01: But what I'm telling you is the way the translators translated it was small g gods.
SPEAKER_01: Michael Heiser writes, God's divine council is an assembly in the heavens, not on earth.
SPEAKER_01: This is precisely what we'd expect if we understand the Elohim to be divine beings.
SPEAKER_01: There's no reference in Scripture to a council of human beings serving Yahweh in the skies, Jews or otherwise.
SPEAKER_01: So the rest of the passage, if you're gonna come back to, we're gonna, do you guys, if you have those little dividers, those little strings that are on your Bible, I don't know what you call them, little things you put for chapter heading, you know, you can you can save.
SPEAKER_01: What do you call that?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you call that.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, that little string thing that you have that's usually red, purple, black, whatever, put that in Psalm 82, because we're gonna dance around to a few passages and we're gonna come back to Psalm 82.
SPEAKER_01: So, one of the most controversial, if not the most controversial passages in all of Scripture is Genesis 6.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 6, 1 through 4, don't go there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put it up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: Um that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: If you follow me, if you'll just get really confused, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But Genesis 6, 1 through 4 is about the Nephilim.
SPEAKER_01: How many have heard of the Nephilim or the Nephilim?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Now this is important, and I'll cover the Nephilim later.
SPEAKER_01: Way too much to cover on that right now, but I'm just I'm gonna scratch the surface of it because I'm talking about the divine counsel of God.
SPEAKER_01: So in Genesis 6, we read, Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God, Ben Elohim, saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Yet his day shall be one hundred and twenty years.
SPEAKER_01: There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God, Ben Elohim, came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.
SPEAKER_01: Those were the mighty men who were of old and men of renown.
SPEAKER_01: So what's interesting about this passage is that it appears that the divine counsel of God, that some of those gods, as it were, these divine beings, mated with the daughters of men and had a progeny of giants in the land.
SPEAKER_01: And this this leads credence to why when Joshua was taking the promised land, I'll show you in scripture, he chose certain tribes to go after that had giants.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Even Caleb, who's like in his 80s, 90s at this point, says, give me Hebron.
SPEAKER_01: I want Hebron because there's giants.
SPEAKER_01: I'll take on the giants.
SPEAKER_01: So we believe that even Goliath was a progeny of the Nephilim, these giants.
SPEAKER_01: And some say that these the Nephilim are still on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: I don't personally believe that, but some people do.
SPEAKER_01: So when you study this stuff, it gets weird, man.
SPEAKER_01: I just tell you, there's a lot of weird theories out there.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, some have said that the Antichrist will be a Nephilim.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But the point here is that the Ben Elohim, so these sons of God, came and had the ability to actually cross over from this other dimension into our dimension.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe, how many of you would say that at some point in your life you may have pretty sure you met an angel?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, about half of you in the room.
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's I think that's typical.
SPEAKER_01: I think I think we're meeting angels more than we know.
SPEAKER_01: That you'll be in certain situations.
SPEAKER_01: I remember I was surfing in um the wedge, which is in Newport Beach, California.
SPEAKER_01: I was 21, 20 or 21, and I was surfing with the red flag.
SPEAKER_01: So it was a big storm, and I got I went over what we call going over the falls on my board.
SPEAKER_01: I hit this really great wave, and I went over the falls, got a little too too ahead of my people like in Colorado say, get ahead of your skis.
SPEAKER_01: I got ahead of my board and went over the top, and I smashed my head into the wedge, into the sand, and then just kept getting ripped and ripped and ripped by wave after wave.
SPEAKER_01: And I went down and up and down and up, and I was on my last.
SPEAKER_01: I was, this was the last, I was, it was over for me.
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna drown.
SPEAKER_01: And suddenly this guy, uh, I came up, it was a lull for about two seconds where there was, where I was about to get hit by another wave, and my board is busted in half.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's how bad I hit.
SPEAKER_01: This guy, I saw him, he saw me, and he threw his board and it skipped across this lull in the water.
SPEAKER_01: I grabbed it and I rode in.
SPEAKER_01: And then the guy came up and said, Are you okay?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, and he just took off.
SPEAKER_01: He walked away, took his board.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe that was an angel that saved my life.
SPEAKER_01: So, so this dimension, spirits come, these divine beings come, and they can be demonic.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, they can be of the dark one of evil, but they can also be good.
SPEAKER_01: So turn now to Job 38.
SPEAKER_01: So keep your marker in Psalm 82, go to Job 38.
SPEAKER_01: The scope of the sons of God.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying, let's start with the very, very beginning.
SPEAKER_01: So this is before or either when God is laying the foundations of the earth, this is before the creation of man.
SPEAKER_01: So Job 38, 4 through 7.
SPEAKER_01: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
SPEAKER_01: So he's speaking to Job.
SPEAKER_01: Tell me if you have understanding.
SPEAKER_01: Who determined its measurements?
SPEAKER_01: Surely you know.
SPEAKER_01: Or who stretched the line upon it?
SPEAKER_01: To what were its foundations fastened?
SPEAKER_01: Or who laid its cornerstone?
SPEAKER_01: When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
SPEAKER_01: So when God laid the foundations of the earth, the sons of God and the morning stars, which is parallelism in the Hebrew, they both mean the same thing, were shouting for joy.
SPEAKER_01: They're not humans, because man has not even been created yet.
SPEAKER_01: It would appear that the unseen invisible world has a hierarchy reflected in such terms as angels and demons and archangels, principalities and powers.
SPEAKER_01: Sons of God, again using the word Elohim, is speaking of divine beings, small d, who have responsibilities and job descriptions in the cosmic realm.
SPEAKER_01: The morning stars are being referred to as the sons of God.
SPEAKER_01: So I believe these sons of God, as we've already talked about, are the principalities and powers in the heavenly realm.
SPEAKER_01: So God has a family.
SPEAKER_01: God's got a divine family, and God's got a human family.
SPEAKER_01: So before humans were created, God had a council.
SPEAKER_01: He had an assembly of the sons of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in a sense, God has two families.
SPEAKER_01: He has a family made up of angels and archangels, and in part of that case, some that rebelled against him, which we talked about a little bit last week, but then he's got a human family, and we're creating the image of God, they're not creating the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: So we're his most special creation of all creation, and that's why these principalities, thrones, and powers hate us.
SPEAKER_01: Some of them do.
SPEAKER_01: They hate you, they they want you to.
SPEAKER_01: Commit suicide.
SPEAKER_01: They want you to be destroyed because you're created in the image of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: You're created in the image of Elohim.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're uniquely created for that with a unique purpose on your life.
SPEAKER_01: Which is really important because that's important for understanding the activation over nations that I'm going to come to.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now back to Psalm 82.
SPEAKER_01: So go back to Psalm 82.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to notice a few things here.
SPEAKER_01: So all we did was look at verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: I want to read the whole thing, and I want you to note how both God and spirits are ruling over nations.
SPEAKER_01: So Psalm 82 is God admonishing the divine beings to rule over nations correctly.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, well, how did I mean how did that happen?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's because of the Tower of Babel.
SPEAKER_01: And we don't have time to go into the Tower of Babel, but this all relates back to the Tower of Babel and the division of languages, division of nations.
SPEAKER_01: And somehow, in time immemorial, God placed these divine beings over what we now call nations.
SPEAKER_01: I think at that time we might maybe refer to them as tribal or tribes.
SPEAKER_01: God stands in the congregation of the mighty or the mighty ones.
SPEAKER_01: He judges among the gods, Elohim.
SPEAKER_01: How long will you judge unjustly?
SPEAKER_01: Now that's an interesting phrase.
SPEAKER_01: So God, in his admonition here, is actually speaking to the divine beings that they judge.
SPEAKER_01: They have some kind of ability to judge and show partiality to the wicked.
SPEAKER_01: Defend the poor and fatherless.
SPEAKER_01: Do justice to the afflicted and needy.
SPEAKER_01: Deliver the poor and needy.
SPEAKER_01: Free them from the hand of the wicked.
SPEAKER_01: They do not know, nor do they understand.
SPEAKER_01: They walk about in darkness.
SPEAKER_01: All the foundations of the earth are unstable.
SPEAKER_01: So these divine beings can actually bring unstability to the earth, it appears.
SPEAKER_01: I said, You are God, Elohim.
SPEAKER_01: And all of your children of the Most High.
SPEAKER_01: But you shall die like men and fall like one of the princesses.
SPEAKER_01: So he's speaking totally here of Lucifer.
SPEAKER_01: Lucifer being cast out of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Arise, O God, and judge the earth, for you shall inherit all nations.
SPEAKER_01: Now, parenthetically, this is what I believe, and I'm gonna talk more about it next week.
SPEAKER_01: But parenthetically, I believe this.
SPEAKER_01: Arise, O God, and judge the earth is not that God is going to just sovereignly judge the earth in some random way.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna use people.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna use good men, he's gonna use good women who follow the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He always uses people to bring jurisdiction, which has already been given to us through the power and authority we have through the filling of the Holy Spirit to take back what the enemy has stolen.
SPEAKER_01: So all around us, so look at the darkness, it's the last days and everything.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, it is the last days.
SPEAKER_01: John said it.
SPEAKER_01: 2,000 years ago, it's the last days.
SPEAKER_01: It's the laster days than it was then.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: But is it the LD Capital?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that way.
SPEAKER_01: I just don't think that way.
SPEAKER_01: I think in terms of dominion.
SPEAKER_01: I think in terms of let's make an impact for the time that we have here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not working toward spending hours trying to figure out who the Antichrist is.
SPEAKER_01: I think it'll sort of be obvious.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I think what matters is what's right in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: Are you seeking God for your family?
SPEAKER_01: Are you crying out to God for our city?
SPEAKER_01: Are you crying out to God for your marriage?
SPEAKER_01: Are you working on those addictions in your life and getting those demons out?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's how we're supposed to live.
SPEAKER_01: He'll take care of all that other stuff.
SPEAKER_01: So, divine beings, it appears, rule and influence national leaders.
SPEAKER_01: These divine beings have jurisdiction over nations given by God.
SPEAKER_01: We can see the interactions of the unseen with the seen.
SPEAKER_01: With the unseen dimension and the three-dimensional in one of the most interesting passages in the Bible, and that's Daniel chapter 10.
SPEAKER_01: So turn to your Bibles to Daniel chapter 10, and I'm just gonna start into this because I had so much to cover, I thought, ah, I gotta wait, I gotta, I gotta break this down into another message.
SPEAKER_01: To do it justice.
SPEAKER_01: Daniel 10 is a really, really bizarre passage.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I hope that at the end of this time together, you'll realize the Bible's very bizarre.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And but you will not be intimidated by it or skip over it.
SPEAKER_01: Like in some of your study Bibles, you'll see stuff about the sons of God, and they make it sound like it's a well, there was this superstition, you know, back then of these divine beings.
SPEAKER_01: That's a bad, bad translation.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but actually, these are really divine beings, and they really do have supernatural power.
SPEAKER_01: But you have more power.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we're going with this.
SPEAKER_01: It's really exciting.
SPEAKER_01: How many in here would say you feel like that you have cast out a demon before?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Super.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna call on you next week.
SPEAKER_01: All of you that are in your kitchen eating warm soup and food.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you would think no?
SPEAKER_01: Um okay, I'm gonna call this the five truths, the five truths about the battle of cosmic divine beings.
SPEAKER_01: The five truths about the battle of cosmic divine beings.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm just gonna do the first two.
SPEAKER_01: I'm only gonna do two today, and then next week we'll cover the last three.
SPEAKER_01: And who knows, by next week there may be seven.
SPEAKER_01: But there's five truths today, right now, that I see.
SPEAKER_01: In the third year of Cyrus, the king of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel, whose name was called Beth Shazzar.
SPEAKER_01: The message was true, but the appointed time was long.
SPEAKER_01: And he understood the message and had understanding of the vision.
SPEAKER_01: In those days, I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks.
SPEAKER_01: I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all till three whole weeks were fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: So you can tell from this, he's very skinny and he stinks.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Um, but for three weeks he's been on his, what we now classically call a Daniel fast.
SPEAKER_01: And what I I make a difference, a distinction between that, a Daniel fast being one by which you're not eating tasty foods, uh, maybe not even eating meat or any out taking any alcohol or anything.
SPEAKER_01: That'd be a Daniel fast.
SPEAKER_01: That's where this comes from.
SPEAKER_01: So he's fasting and praying.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm gonna cover fasting and prayer and the power of prayer next week.
SPEAKER_01: But there's so much to be said here that I felt like, man, I've gotta I've gotta wait on this.
SPEAKER_01: But what is he mourning about?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, there's two perspectives on what he was mourning about.
SPEAKER_01: One is the idea that the first wave of exiles had returned to Jerusalem under Zarebabel, Ezra 1 and 2, and that not many Jews went.
SPEAKER_01: Not many went back, not many left Persia, not many left Babylon and went back, and he's mourning the fact that the Jews don't want to return to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Another aspect is that maybe Ezra was facing opposition to the rebuilding of the temple.
SPEAKER_01: And uh Daniel's 84 years old here.
SPEAKER_01: Daniel's 84 years old, he's fasting and praying, he's mourning about something.
SPEAKER_01: But those are the two theories that are out there.
SPEAKER_01: How many here have ever bred horses or dogs?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody breed any breeders in here?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, a few.
SPEAKER_01: So I don't breed dogs, but I buy bred dogs.
SPEAKER_01: And so whenever I hear people say, Man, my dog won't do this, my dog won't do that, I said, Well, is it is it one are you one of those search and rescue people?
SPEAKER_01: And you got him at the pound, and they go, Well, yeah, I just love my dog.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, That's a stupid dog.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can love that dog, but it's never gonna learn what you want it to learn because it's a dumb dog, okay?
SPEAKER_01: If you if you want a smart dog, get one that's been bred, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Pay the money.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have them for 10 or 12 years.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but some people like dumb dogs.
SPEAKER_01: That's it's cool, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I've ridden on dumb horses, let me just tell you.
SPEAKER_01: I've been thrown for more horses than I even want to talk about or think about.
SPEAKER_01: But my granddad was great with cattle, but he was lousy with horses.
SPEAKER_01: He just was.
SPEAKER_01: And so every time he put me on a horse, I knew I'm gonna get thrown again, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And I'd always have a horse that couldn't wait to get back to the barn, it would run and stop immediately at the fence.
SPEAKER_01: I'd fly into the poop in the mud, in the pen, and the horse would laugh.
SPEAKER_01: Um but but the reason I say that is the Jews are bred well.
SPEAKER_01: The Jews are bred well.
SPEAKER_01: Jews, because of the purity of their religion and their commitment to God's word in most cases, and the and the festivals, things that they followed, tend to be smarter than you and me because they're bred well.
SPEAKER_01: So, what had happened in Babylon, Persia, at that time, was that they were successful.
SPEAKER_01: Everywhere the Jews go, by and large, they become very, very successful.
SPEAKER_01: So they had become successful, they didn't want to leave.
SPEAKER_01: They had built houses, they had built these beautiful palatial uh companies and stuff in Babylon, they didn't want to leave.
SPEAKER_01: So, so Daniel is mourning that.
SPEAKER_01: He's crying out to God, he's fasting and praying.
SPEAKER_01: Now, on the 24th day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, that is the tigress, I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a certain man clothed in linen.
SPEAKER_01: So he called him a certain man, but this is not a man, whose waist was girded with the gold of Uphas, his body was like bereal or barrel, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished bronze and color, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you saw the first movie of Raiders of the Lost Ark, there is this scene with the opening of the Ark of the Covenant that's that sounds, feels, and looks a lot like this, because I knew the pastor who was the consultant for Spielberg.
SPEAKER_01: And he told him, look at this passage.
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of what you want to picture this scene to be like.
SPEAKER_01: It was from this passage.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the first point.
SPEAKER_01: Here's my first point.
SPEAKER_01: We're only going to cover the first two.
SPEAKER_01: The divine council is made up of divine beings that are activated through our actions on earth.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to see the correlation between Daniel fasting and praying for 21 days and the activation of a divine being coming from another dimension into our dimension to answer his prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, when you pray, you activate heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Things start to happen in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: When you start to pray for that son or that daughter or for your marriage, something happens, man.
SPEAKER_01: I don't get it all.
SPEAKER_01: But but things start happening in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: You see how heavy that is?
SPEAKER_01: See how important and deep that is?
SPEAKER_01: That's why we got to do that next week.
SPEAKER_01: We'll cover that.
SPEAKER_01: But this divine being, either a pre-incarnate Christ or an archangel, comes down to deal with the prayers of Daniel.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands.
SPEAKER_01: And he said to me, O Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you and stand upright.
SPEAKER_01: For I, and this is the part I want you to underline or circle, for I have now been sent to you.
SPEAKER_01: I have been sent to you.
SPEAKER_01: While he was speaking this word to me, I stood up trembling.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, all divine beings are under the jurisdiction of God.
SPEAKER_01: All divine beings are under the jurisdiction of God, even demons, even Satan are under the jurisdiction of God.
SPEAKER_01: He says here, for I have now been sent to you.
SPEAKER_01: And now, next week, we're going to go into a lot more on the cosmic battle going on.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 89, we read this in the heavens will praise your wonders, O Lord Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: Your faithfulness also, the assembly of the holy ones, Elohim.
SPEAKER_01: For who in the heavens can be compared to the Lord Yahweh?
SPEAKER_01: Who among the sons of God, Elohim, can be likened to the Lord Yahweh?
SPEAKER_01: God is greatly to be feared in the counsel of the holy ones, the Elohim, and to be held in reverence by all those around him.
SPEAKER_01: God's over all of this.
SPEAKER_01: Let me close with Colossians 1.
SPEAKER_01: Don't turn there, it'll be up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: He, Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for by him all things were created that are in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him.
SPEAKER_01: I don't get it all, folks.
SPEAKER_01: I just know that through him and for him is activated by us.
SPEAKER_01: You have more power and authority than you know.
SPEAKER_01: That when you declare things, when you pray things, when you believe things and you walk in faith, I'm telling you, you're pushing back darkness over people's lives.
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to understand that because I want you to go into by next week, I hope you'll come away with this feeling like, man, when I pray, there's things being activated that bring the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And we are his, we have a stewardship on this earth to make a difference in our world.
SPEAKER_01: We're not Christians just studying the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: We study the Bible so that we can put the Bible into action in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Most evangelicals have massive heads.
SPEAKER_01: They look like an extraterrestrial.
SPEAKER_01: Massive heads.
SPEAKER_01: But tiny little hearts.
SPEAKER_01: I want a church where our heads and our hearts are on fire for God.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what the scriptures say, and that's the most exciting aspect of following Jesus.
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.