Spiritual Warfare Part 2

Spiritual Warfare Part 2 Satan's evil workers be they impersonating believers, be they businessmen, or whatever are following Satan's methods which are kept secret by them. God's children are following wisdom, righteousness, love, faith and the Bible. These things are open and there is no power that can overcome them. There is no need for secrecy in the Lord. A false power requires secrecy because if other people discover the secrets the power can be rendered ineffective. Our power is driven by faith and love. Satan needs cooperation from victims to make his power work. The victim must sin. If satan could I'm sure he'd just instantly remove all the believers from the planet. He has nothing even resembling such power and we read nowhere of satan having any power to create even a thing as small as a paper clip. The evil workers go around deceiving people and being deceived themselves 2Tim.3:13 " But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." The pits, snares and stumbling blocks that these people set for others stumble and snare them. The more they deceive others, the more the demons can deceive them. Prov. 11:8 " The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead." Prov.28:10 " Whoso cause the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall himself fall into his own pit: but the upright shall have good things in possession." If you go through Psalms and Proverbs you shall find many passages dealing with this subject matter. Let me explain this as I see it. The evil workers of Satan go out and deceive and craftily use their sorceries on people, read Rev.18:23. These evil workers are deceiving those people and this gives the demons place to further deceive their own workers who worship them. Satan knows that the people that are worshipping him are on their way to the Lake of Fire. Satan destroys those who worship him as well if he can as well as those who do worship him. All mankind is a potential threat to satan. Satan is just nice to them on the surface so he can use them more freely. Look satan can't go to people up front and say I'm the devil. Worship me and serve me and you'll be burned in the Lake of Fire for all eternity. He must be more crafty about how he recruits into his ranks. So the more the evil workers deceive people, the more they get deceived by the demons. It appears to me that satan ultimately prefers to use idols to deceive the people. In the Old Testament this was his approach and in the tribulation he uses an image of the beast and even gets it empowered to speak. Read Rev. 13 the whole chapter. Satan does introduce idolatry into his false churches. 1Cor.3:17 "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

We need to clean up the translation a bit here. The word for temple is Strong's #3485 and it specifically means not just a temple but the holy place or holiest of holies in the temple. Let's look at 1Cor.3:16: " Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you." The spirit of God dwells in the believer similar to the way the Glory of God dwelled in the Temple of the Lord. The Glory of God was in the Holies of Holies. This is the analogy being used here. Since we contain the Spirit of God, we are a holy temple. The word the King James translates as defile is Strong's #5351 and it means to spoil, to ruin, to corrupt or to destroy, physically or morally. I feel it is these scriptures that stop the evil workers of satan from physically attacking believers, and of course don't forget you have an angel and God knows all. Now I started to realize that demon possessed people can tell you are a Christian on sight. I expect it is the demons that tell them. Now we need a scripture. Read Mark 3:11,12: " And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known." We also glean from this that unclean spirits have the capability of passing on information regarding a believer and you have the power to command them to not do this in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, think Luke 10:19,20. "Rejoice not that the demons are subject to you." Think about that. Believe it. Walk in it. Be on guard not to fall into the snare of telling the demons to do things that are evil. That is what the witches do. The demons seem to be able to determine that you are a believer through telephone contact as well. Since there were no telephones in the New Testament I am lacking a scripture for this. I do believe that if you are continually casting demons from a particular evil worker of Satan's after a while the demons will stop going into that person even if the person is asking them to. This I believe is a temporary situation until you hopefully become distracted enough to forget about that person. Brothers and sisters your power is great. The only defense the enemy has if he can't keep you in sin, is to bluff you out and make you think your power isn't working. Walk by faith not sight. You cast out a demon, it's out and that's all there is to it. Don't get dependent on noticeable responses for confirmation, this is walking by sight. Let's refer to passage Mk.11:23 - 24. This is a passage that creates a lot of fear in the satanists, especially the false believers. They seem to fear us speaking things they don't want to see come to pass. They will often terminate conversations with a believer when the believer is saying things they are uncomfortable with. They are afraid of repeating such things over and over by the believer.

Don't believe Christians are immune from witchcraft. This is not what the Bible teaches. Read Gal.3:1 " O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you?" I don't think Paul would speak figuratively or jokingly about such a serious matter as indicated by the use of the word bewitched. The word translated as bewitched is Strong's #940. It means to bring an evil on one by feigned praise or an evil eye, to charm or bewitch. The word was used to refer to leading others away into error by wicked arts. The translators seemed accurate in choosing the word bewitched. 1Pet.5:8 " Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." Satan is not exactly here described as harmless, but quite to the contrary dangerous. 1 Cor.5:5 " To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." The destruction of the flesh sounds terminal to me, death is what it is. When your flesh is destroyed you're dead. It is often heard in the phony churches that witches can't hurt you and curses put on you just come on them instead and so forth. Don't be deceived. If you are in sin, you have given place to the devil and he can be dangerous to the point of death. Sin leads to death. The good news is 1Jn.5:18: " We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not." The believer keeps himself. No sin and the devil is powerless and will flee. Now there is a scripture which is found in Prov. 26: " As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come." This lines up with no sin (causeless curse). There are other scriptures on this subject like Prov.28:10: " Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit: but the upright shall have good things in possession." The evil ones that set snares and traps for you shall fall by their own devices but it does you no good if you fall or stumble. So look for the false churches to be the snares and pits that the false believers themselves will be taken with. Do not rejoice when you see your enemy fall or stumble.

Prov. 24:17 - 18 " Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him." Rom.12:21" Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." There is no scripture that says believers are immune to the attacks of the devil when they are in sin. Without sins, yes, you are immune but we must also take martyrdom into account as well. If you sin, confess your sins and get forgiveness from the Lord in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The place given is removed (assuming you're no longer in sin) and you're fine again. We can really wage one powerful spiritual fight when we learn how to function correctly. Pray that the Lord would reveal to you any and all snares, traps, pits, and stumbling blocks set in your path and how to avoid them, and who is a party to these evil works in your life. Ask the Lord to show you how to make your ways pleasing to him. Ask the Lord to reveal all the camouflage of the enemy in your life. I believe the Lord will be quite willing to answers these prayers. It's up to you to receive and act on the answers. You see the devil is quite aware of how powerful the Christian in complete armor can be. The devil can't hold up in such a fight. What the devil has done over time is created ways of snaring believers when they are babes. Dig deep into your memory banks and you'll remember incidents where the false churches and false workers were snaring you into sin without you understanding what was going on. Your memory will bring to light some of the things satan's evil workers did to you while you were not really aware of what was going on. You see in the past when you were unaware their guard was down. By going through your memories you'll learn a lot. The Holy Spirit taught me much this way. The false churches tend to preach against drunkenness, adultery, fornication, violence, stealing, lying and practically ignore other sins. Sin is sin. They don't ever totally ignore these other sins. They read the scriptures concerning them to make sure you're not ignorant of these sins in which case it wouldn't be sin for you, but they don't expound upon or rebuke people for committing these sins, let alone rebuke them in front of the congregation. The whole world system you see today is designed to keep people, especially believers in some sort of sin. As you purge yourselves your eyes will become more and more open to how evil this present world system is and you'll clearly see why God will some day end the way this world operates. Let's go back to the subject of the telephone for a minute. You don't talk on the telephone to anyone you shouldn't be receiving into your house. Spiritually it 's the same thing. The demons can and will operate if you talk on the phone to someone you shouldn't be talking to. Let's go over some of the scriptures on this subject so we know who we can and cannot fellowship with but let's finish up with the telephone first. If a person to be avoided calls, you have options. The best and safest one is zero communication and just hang up when you know it's them. They may call back a bit but resist the devil and he will flee. Don't say anything and you're in the clear. When breaking fellowship with someone this is the best approach, a clean and total cut. You don't have to explain to false believers why you're terminating the fellowship. Just stop all the contact and

communication. No mail communication, no phone communication, no personal communication. 1Cor.5:9 - 11 " I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat." This scripture passage concerns itself heavily with staying away from those calling themselves a believer who live incorrectly. We are given license to have contact with those people practicing such things as long as they are not calling themselves a brother. We don't participate in these evil works with these people, of course. We are to witness to them. Read the New Testament and see if you can find anyplace where the Apostles were closely fellowshipping with the ungodly and not witnessing to them. They didn't do such things. When you read the last two verses in the Book of Acts you read of Paul receiving all that came to him, but he was preaching and teaching the Gospel to them. Paul took spiritual control of the situation and preached the Gospel to these people. The evil workers of Satan that aren't false believers, will very quickly cut you off when you start preaching the Gospel to them. They'll often seem offended. The false believers of course can't do this, but you shouldn't be fellowshipping with them. Read about Paul on the ship to see Caesar in Acts 27. See how Paul got control over things. God gave him prophesies concerning the journey and Paul shared it with the crew. Paul's prophesies concerning them came true and then Paul had a good in to preach the Gospel. We don't read of Paul hanging around with the ungodly crew fraternizing and listening to their worldly stories, etc. Also remember Paul was in custody on that ship. In the next Chapter, Acts 28 we read of Paul shipwrecked on Melita. Paul again gets spiritual control of things early on. The show started with the snake biting Paul and progresses to Paul healing people. Everything was always the Gospel. Paul had good doctrine. In Acts 16 we can learn more about how Paul worked. He's preaching all over. He casts a demon out from a woman and her masters get upset and cause Paul and Silas to get whipped and put in prison. Now, that was a mistake for the devil. It doesn't break the spirit of Paul and Silas. They earned eternal rewards for the beating they took. At midnight there they are singing praises in jail. Boom, here comes an earthquake and all the doors get opened and everyone's bands get loosened. Now the jail is assumably destroyed or in need of a lot of repair, if it was indeed fixable. Everyone is set free of their bands. My what an unusual but convenient earthquake. Now we read of the jailer and his family getting saved. And we see the jailer feeding Paul and Silas and cleaning their wounds. You see here the devil tried to move on Paul and Silas in the absence of sin and took some big losses. Paul and Silas chalked up some eternal rewards and seemed fine. Acts 14:19. Here the evil ones tried to stone Paul thinking he was dead. What happens he gets up, preaches, teaches etc. Again another defeat for satan who tried to work in the absence of sin. He couldn't even kill Paul. Paul knew how to work with God and get control of the

circumstances but Paul worked out of love. He preached the gospel out of love. His love worked his faith. Gal.5:6 "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love." Rom.8:28 " And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose." Read it, believe it and walk in it. Let's go to 1Tim.6:3: " If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself." This passage is concerning itself with withdrawing from those who do not consent to the words of Jesus Christ and say they are believers. In 1Cor.5:9 - 11 Paul tells us we can keep company with those doing evil as long as they don't hold themselves out to be believers or else we'd need to go out of the world. The word used by the King James translators for keep company is Strong's # 4874. The meaning of the word is to mingle with or associate or have contact with. What Paul is saying is we of course need to witness to these people and we also need to be able to go a store and buy clothes, appliances, food, etc. This means we need to have interactions with these ungodly people but really super shun the person calling himself or herself a believer who is behaving incorrectly. Believers are not monks living in isolation somewhere. More scriptures to follow, read them all, don't be hasty, let the scriptures speak. 2Tim.3:1 - 5 " This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." Here again we are told to turn away from those showing such behavior who are holding themselves out as being believers which is indicated by the portion of the passage stating they have a form of godliness. This fits the false church. Tit.3:10 - 11 " A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself." A heretic is the word the King James translators used for the Greek word given the

number #141 by Strong's Concordance. The word Heretic means a person who holds opinions and beliefs contrary to scripture. You go to them once, twice and then reject them. Gal.5:19 - 21 has a workable summary of incorrect behavior: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Read Ps. 1:1 -6: " Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in season; and his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish." Math.10:29 - 31 " Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your father. But the very hairs of your head are numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." People don't just have bad things happen to them. Prov. 12:21 "There shall no evil happen to the just: but the wicked shall be filled with mischief." Remember you read about the time a crowd wanted to throw Jesus down a hill (Lk.4:30) to kill him, and he just walked through the crowd. This type of thing is mentioned elsewhere. Jesus had no sin, no evil happened to him. Remember it was God's will for his death and Jesus voluntarily submitted to it. Eph.4:27 " Neither give place to the devil." You see you have to chose whether or not you're going to give place to the devil. The entire series and much more on www.messianic.biz