I would like to begin by reading a couple of key Scriptures. We read them last week, and I would like to read them again this morning.
2 Timothy 2:3-4:
Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please Him who enrolled him as a soldier.
Chosen to be a soldier.
2 Timothy 4:6-7:
For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come.
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.
Paul’s departure was at hand, and he said, “I have fought the good fight.”
1 Timothy 6:12:
Fight the good fight of the faith.
Fight the good fight of faith.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Lord, as we come this morning, it is on my heart that we truly be awakened. Lord Jesus, that we are indeed soldiers—soldiers in Your army—with a commission, a charge, to subdue and to bring into subjection all things; to have dominion, that Thy will might be done on this earth as it is in heaven.
Lord, raise us up to be good soldiers, to fight the good fight of faith. Lord, only Your Holy Spirit can touch our hearts in such a way that we find ourselves truly soldiers in Jesus Christ.
Lord, we ask that You anoint this morning, that we might truly speak and hear Your word. Otherwise, it will just be flesh trying to encourage flesh. Lord, may Your Spirit move. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, actually, there has been a key word on my heart throughout this series, and it has been the word passion. You know that the word passion comes from the Latin word “to suffer.”
What it really means is that when you have a passion for something, it has gripped your soul. It has gripped your heart, and you give yourself totally and completely to it, even willing to suffer and, if need be, to die because it is worth it. The passion—oh, may the Lord give us a passion.
The first message was on the key message, a passion for Christ. Without a passion for Christ, all these other passions I mention will be futile. It takes a real passion for Christ Himself in your life.
There must be a passion to finish the course. We know that we have all been set on a course. We have been called according to purpose, that we might be conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ; that we might be so matured that we can become overcomers.
That part of the manchild will be raptured to the throne and initiate the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He will come back and take the kingdoms of this world to Himself and set up His millennial reign on this earth.
It is essential that we have a passion not only for Christ, but to finish the course—a passion to overcome. And, brothers and sisters, that involves a passion to fight the good fight, to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Last time, we talked about the nature of this fight, of this warfare we are in. I mentioned that it really began in eternity past with Lucifer.
Lucifer was the highest archangel underneath Jesus Christ, probably the leader in worship and in charge, probably, of this universe in which we live and the earth on which we live.
One day, he began to consider himself—to become self-aware. He began to become dissatisfied with the place that he had. He had many gifts, and he began to consider himself. Pride arose in his heart, and he felt like he should have the place of Jesus Christ, that he should have deity, of which, of course, he was not.
He rebelled against God. In his rebellion, he convinced a third of the angels—and there are multitudes of those that we cannot number. A third of the angels were cast out of the mountain of God, as it says in Ezekiel and Isaiah.
He was cast to the earth, and the earth became void, dark, and in chaos. We believe that was because he was here in the atmosphere, and it began to affect the creation that God had made. But God had a plan.
On the sixth day, He created man. He told Adam—let us read this. I think if we do not grasp this, we are missing the heart of the issue.
Genesis 1:28 is God’s charge to Adam:
And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it;
and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
We have done a good job of replenishing the earth. But to subdue it and have dominion over every living thing—that we have failed at. Adam failed at.
The enemy had taken dominion of this earth, and God raised up Adam to recover this world for Jesus Christ. In the charge He gave to Adam, He took the dominion of Satan and gave it to Adam. He said, “Satan is no longer to have dominion. Adam is to have dominion.”
Of course, immediately there was warfare. Satan entered the garden. He deceived Eve and brought Adam into disobedience to God, and therefore Adam failed.
If you look at the conversation with Eve and Adam, Eve was kind of blaming God, and Adam blamed his wife, Eve. In other words, they too became self-centered—self-aware and self-concerned.
They were deceived into thinking that they would be like God and could live their lives for themselves. Self-centeredness, brothers and sisters, is the poison of the enemy—the poison that has poisoned human nature from the beginning.
Self-centeredness and pride. Brothers and sisters, how dangerous that poison is. So great is it that it has affected humanity down through the ages. All born out of Adam, which we are, have this poison in us.
The word of God is very clear that we are actually born in sin. That is Psalm 51:5. Brothers and sisters, we discover that when we are born, we are born into the kingdom of darkness. We are born under the authority of our enemy, Satan.
Let us look at Ephesians 2:1-5. Once again, it is important to understand our condition.
And you did He make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins,
wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience;
among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
That is your condition before you accept Christ. That is your condition when you are born. You are dead toward God, unable to really commune with Him, and you are dead in sin.
In times past, you walked according to the course of the world. You were under the dominion of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air—that is Satan—the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.
God’s wrath rests upon us from birth. The sentence of death is upon us. But, brothers and sisters, God did not execute His wrath upon us when we were born. He is merciful and longsuffering, desiring all to come unto Jesus Christ and His salvation.
But God, being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us,
even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved).
It is purely by the grace of God. He extends His love to you through Jesus Christ. In accepting Christ, brothers and sisters, you are delivered. Not only are you justified, no longer under the sentence of death, but your sins have been forgiven in Christ.
Hallelujah, brothers and sisters, you are delivered from the kingdom of darkness—the kingdom of Satan, into which you were born—into the kingdom of God.
Let us read it. I want you to read it; I want you to see it. Colossians 1:13:
Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
Through Christ, we have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of His Son. Today, we ought to be shouting hallelujah. We are no longer under the kingdom of darkness. We are no longer in that prison.
I could not help but think of the Holocaust, how the Jewish people were put into these death camps. Most of us, I think, have seen the horrors of those death camps—the horrors they went through. Some lasted through those horrors, and some were finally released.
Brothers and sisters, whenever you hear the testimony of any who were in the Holocaust, you see how grateful they are for their deliverance, how grateful they are that they were saved out of that prison camp.
When you were born, you were born into a prison camp. It is a little different from the Nazi prison death camps. It is different in this way: in the beginning, Satan, the enemy, uses the pleasures of sin and the pleasures of this world to seduce you, to get you to come into agreement with him, to get you on his side and willing to serve him.
In the beginning, it is pleasure. But in the end, it is death. It is like a poison in your system. It is like taking drugs, and eventually the drugs not only destroy your body, but they destroy your soul.
That is what the pleasures of sin will do. That is what the pleasures of the world offered to you will do. It enslaves you and eventually destroys your soul. Eventually, you will be in his camp—Satan’s camp—forever with him.
It will no longer be pleasures. From the little we get out of the word of God, it will be quite tragic to have to live through eternity in the kingdom of darkness.
But, brothers and sisters, you have been given a great opportunity to accept Jesus Christ and be delivered out of the kingdom of darkness. Praise God, probably most everybody in this room has.
But this morning, the burden on my heart is this: How much do we really appreciate the fact that we have been delivered out of the kingdom of darkness? May the Lord show us the great privilege that is given to us.
As I said last week, the moment you accept Jesus Christ, you enter into warfare. As long as you are in Satan’s camp, you are not really in warfare. But once you accept Jesus Christ, you immediately become his enemy—Satan’s enemy. You become his target.
But, brothers and sisters, on the positive side, you become a soldier of Jesus Christ. This is not optional.
Unfortunately, in the Christian world today, we hear little about this. But you are a soldier. You are not a civilian in the church. There is no such thing as a civilian. You are a soldier, and all are engaged in this warfare.
The army of God is His church. The warrior in Ephesians 6, which most of us have read about, is really the corporate warrior—the church, the army of God. But you are an individual soldier called into the army to serve Him and serve the supreme leader, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, we need to know that the enemy has organized this world into the kingdom of darkness. We need to be very clear about this. It is completely organized. The word for it is cosmos.
Everything is under his authority: politically—that is not hard to believe, is it? Economically—and we see how the world’s economies are now shaking, and how they are being used in this day. Socially, it affects our social life and our education.
We can see even in our educational system the work of the enemy. I say today that, unfortunately, education is no longer used to train us and educate us, but to indoctrinate us. That is what is happening to our children in our schools today.
They are beginning to be indoctrinated into the high order of government, and whatever the government deems politically correct is what will be taught in the schools.
I mentioned last time that, in Fairfax County, the Department of Education forced the county to include transgender education in its school curriculum. They were unwilling, and they were told, “Okay, we will just take all your federal funding.” So it became a moot cause.
The problem is that the enemy has been hidden for years, I think. Some of us older ones remember when prayer was taken out of school. When I went to school, every day we said the Lord’s Prayer and did the Pledge of Allegiance. Whether our heart was in it or not, we did it.
That was taken from us many years ago. Then, of course, we have had the issue of abortion for many years now. Millions and millions—I think they estimate seventy million children—have been aborted since that case came to the Supreme Court.
The point is that the enemy’s darkness is now coming to light. We are seeing more and more. It is very disturbing to me, but it should not be, because the word of God is very clear that this is what is going to happen. In the end, all of his works of darkness will come to light, and in the end all of his works will be judged.
The enemy had the world under his cosmos, his kingdom. And Christ entered this kingdom. Christ entered this world.
At Calvary’s cross, He had victory over sin, death, and the enemy. In so doing, He set the captive free. Those who have accepted Jesus have been set free. The captive has been set free from the kingdom of darkness.
Now the Lord is using those—you and me—to set up His kingdom on this earth, to stand for God’s will upon this earth. God is building His kingdom now.
I am not talking about building it by trying to get Christians elected to office. I am talking about building it by going the way of the cross, by allowing the Lord to work in your life, to be conformed to the image of Christ, and by standing for God’s will against the evils we see of the enemy—as the church of God, as soldiers of Jesus Christ.
In this foreign territory, the Lord has come and is setting up His kingdom. The church is kind of like a beachhead in the enemy’s territory. From that beachhead, He will grow until He eventually conquers, takes it back for Himself, and rules as King in the millennial kingdom.
We are here to rule for God, to be kings and priests, and to take up the charge that Adam lost: to take dominion and subdue all things to the feet of Jesus. That is what we are called to be, brothers and sisters.
In some sense, we have to say how far short we have fallen as the church in bringing all things to the feet of Jesus.
The enemy is going to resist all opposition, particularly the church and you as an individual, because you carry the testimony of Jesus. He will resist. That is the nature of his kingdom.
As he resists, his kingdom becomes manifest, just as I mentioned. The closer we get to the end, the more the darkness that has been there all the time will be revealed. We will have to stand against that darkness.
But thank God, God is using this resistance to mature you and me, to transform you and me into the image of Christ, and to mature His church.
In this last day, we know that the church in general has failed. But God is looking for overcomers—those who become true soldiers, overcomers in Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, overcomers will become the manchild. Out of all this resistance, God is bringing forth a manchild. Out of all the travail that this evil causes, God is bringing forth a manchild. That is the positive side.
When the number of overcomers is complete, the manchild will be manifest. He will be raptured directly to the throne. From there, they will escort Christ back to the clouds, and then eventually to the earth.
When that happens, toward the end of the great tribulation, there will be the last great battle of Armageddon, where the enemy will be made subject to Jesus Christ. The nations will be judged. The church will come under the judgment seat of Christ.
In the end, there will be the millennium period, with Israel as the chief nation, all under the government and headship of Christ and the overcomers for a thousand years.
That is what you have been called to as a soldier of Jesus Christ.
Now, as a soldier, when you first became a soldier, you were still a baby. So the Lord shows you His love, His mercy, and His grace. Frankly, things seem to just fall in place, do they not? You are just blessed.
You are blessed in everything, and the blessings of God are so great. He draws you in love to Himself because He has to strengthen this soldier. He strengthens the soldier through His love.
That increases your faith as you begin to see the love of Christ in your life, the forgiveness of sins. You even experience something of His victory in your life. Then you really begin to enter into what I call the first stage of combat.
What is this first stage? All that the Lord Jesus has blessed you with and taught you about His work on Calvary and who He is, He begins to work out in your life. He does this through trials and temptations.
The purpose of trials is to strengthen your faith. As a quick example, remember Abraham. He left not knowing where he was going. That was faith. But he was not completely obedient because he took his family with him, which he was not supposed to do.
In the end, the supreme trial of faith was when God asked him to take his son to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him there unto God. Abraham obeyed completely. His faith was mighty; his faith was strong.
So the Lord brings these trials into our lives, these challenges, that He might strengthen our faith. The word of God says He does not bring the trial until He has already worked in you the faith needed to go through it. Then He brings about the actual trial to demonstrate that faith in you.
Then there are temptations. The Lord does not tempt us, but He allows the enemy to tempt us. What is this about? When you find yourself in temptations, usually it is over one thing at a time—sometimes maybe a few.
When you find yourself being tempted with something, that means the Lord is after something in your life. He is trying to deal with something of the flesh. The temptation brings the issue forth. It brings the issue out.
The Lord says, “You have got to deal with it under the victory of Christ. You have got to give yourself to Me. You have got to allow My victory to take place in this area of your life.” Therefore, you come more and more into the character of Christ through these temptations.
We do not pray for trials and temptations. We do not need to do that. The Holy Spirit works that all out. God does not tempt us, but He does allow the hand of the enemy to do it at times. Yet His purpose is for good.
His purpose is to make you aware that there is an issue in your life that you have got to deal with. If we allow Him to deal with it, we will come through in triumph, coming more and more into the image of Christ.
In the first stage of this warfare, as a soldier of Jesus Christ, it is mostly a battle between the flesh and the Spirit. Your flesh, your old ego, the old “I,” is trying to war against the Spirit in your life.
It is an internal battle. Frankly, it is a battle that goes on until we die, because the flesh is always with us, though it is under the sentence of death.
This battle is similar to the Amalekites. Remember, when Israel was in the desert, right before they came to the promised land, they were attacked by the Amalekites. The Amalekites, brothers and sisters, always represent the flesh in us—the old man that wants to do things himself, that wants to take control and make it through.
The Amalekites struck Israel unaware. Joshua did go out to fight the battle, there is no doubt about that, but it was fought in quite a different way.
If you remember, Moses went up on top of the mountain, and Aaron and Hur were with him. As long as he held up the rod of God’s authority in the air, Joshua and Israel prevailed.
But when his arms grew tired and he began to drop that rod of authority, what happened? They began to lose the battle. It went on all day, and finally Aaron and Hur had to hold up the arms of Moses. They had victory because the rod of authority was held up.
So really, in this battle between flesh and blood, you need to have faith in God. You need to have faith in Christ’s victory on Calvary’s cross. That is the rod of your authority: Christ and His victory over the enemy. You have to stand in faith in this battle.
Let us look at Galatians 5:16-18:
But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would.
But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Some versions say, “the desires of the flesh.” I like that. Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the desires of the flesh. The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. In other words, they are at war with each other.
Brothers and sisters, what is the matter in this warfare? It is the flesh and the Spirit. What is walking in the Spirit? As you read this Scripture out of Galatians, the emphasis is on being led by the Spirit.
I read an illustration that I thought was a great illustration. The Spirit is like the locomotive of a train. All the power rests in the Spirit. You are like one of the cars attached to the locomotive.
All you have to do is follow the locomotive. All the power rests in the locomotive. You have no power of your own. All you need to do is stay hooked up.
All you need to do is stay hooked up. That means hooked to Christ—living your life actively involved with Christ as a part of your daily life. It means getting up with Him, going on with Him, and submitting to Him. It means making Christ an active part of your life. You are hooked up to Christ.
Brothers and sisters, the flesh cannot fight flesh. In other words, your old ego, the old “I”—let us look at Galatians 2:20. That will help.
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
That old “I,” the ego, the self-man, the self-centered one, has been crucified. In other words, he is under the sentence of death. Though he will be with you until the end, he is under God’s sentence of death, and he will eventually go.
Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. The life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. I live by faith. The new “I” lives by faith; the old “I” lives by self-power and self-provision.
Let me go back to my illustration. We are a little different than a train car. We are like a train car that also has its own little motor. We are hooked up to the locomotive, but we have our own little motor.
The problem is that it is self-centered. It will never submit to Christ. Do you know that? Your old “I,” no matter how much you want it to cooperate, never will. It will never be submissive. It will never be obedient. It simply does not want to.
It does not want to live by faith. It wants to live by self-strength. That is what that little motor is in you. You do not want to stay on the rails by any means; you are ready to jump track.
That is our struggle. We are hooked to the locomotive, the Spirit. If we just keep our engine off, then we will be hooked to the locomotive, and wherever the locomotive leads, we will follow.
That is the secret of walking in the Spirit.
In Galatians 5:24, it says those in Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. I want to say this: the decisive battle was won by Christ on the cross. You have been crucified with Christ. That is a decisive battle. The capital, so to speak, in your life has been taken.
But the enemy is like guerrilla warfare. He does not want to give up arms, and he does not want to lay his weapons down. But if we continue to walk in the Spirit—just stay hooked up to that locomotive, not firing up our own little engines—we will find daily, more and more, that we fulfill the desires of the Spirit and not the desires of the flesh.
Well, how do you stay attached to this locomotive? That becomes the key thing. How do you stay attached?
One brother said—and I like this—“You stay attached by keeping your heart happy in Christ, satisfied in Christ, joyful in Christ.”
Daily, get up and say, “Lord, I just need to take a few moments to meditate on You, to meditate in Your word, because that is where I find Christ.” You meditate on His word and begin to say, “Lord, I just need to see You this morning before I go off.” He will speak to you.
A few minutes of meditation does wonders in keeping you hooked up to Christ, to keep a happy heart in Christ. I like that.
Through the day, just meditate on the Lord a little bit now and then. I like something my wife is doing. She has a little chart of about five Scriptures on it, and she memorizes those Scriptures throughout the day whenever she gets a chance.
She is a housewife. She will pick up that chart and read it, meditate on that Scripture for the day. That is keeping yourself happy in Christ, because you see more and more the joy of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, as we do these things, our desires for the things of the flesh will dwindle, but our love for Christ will increase. That is how we stay attached to the locomotive.
Remember the picture: it is the Spirit that leads. You have your own little engine; unfortunately, it is still there. But do not turn it on. Stay hooked up to Christ. Keep your life occupied in Him, and you will discover the joy of the Lord.
What does the word say about the joy of the Lord? It is our strength.
So, brothers and sisters, our initial warfare and battle is with the flesh and the Spirit, but it is really the Spirit. You cannot defeat your flesh. The flesh cannot defeat itself because it is always rebellious, always unsubmissive.
No matter how much the flesh may think it wants to serve God, it really does not. So you cannot allow the use of your flesh. You need to stay hooked up. You need to find your happiness in Christ.
I think a lot of discouragement that we come into in our Christian life is because we have just not really hooked up. We try to find our satisfaction and happiness in other things, and it does not work. Unfortunately, it leaves us empty.
You can only find true happiness, true joy, in the Lord Jesus Christ. It does not mean you cannot enjoy things—you can—but allow the Lord to bring the things you enjoy into your life.
I think this might be helpful with this matter of the flesh and the Spirit. The second stage of spiritual life is a little different.
In this stage, you are dispossessing the enemy and taking possession of the land. The land is Jesus Christ.
The illustration, of course, would be the nation of Israel. When they left the desert, crossed the river, and entered the land, they came up against Jericho, did they not? They had to dispossess the enemy in order to possess the land. Those two things went together.
Brothers and sisters, in our possessing Christ, you are going to be in warfare. It is through the dispossessing of the enemy that we are strengthened in faith and strengthened in the image of Christ and His victory. It is through warfare.
Jericho—Joshua, I am sure, was thinking, “All right now, how am I going to attack this city? I have these forces. There is a formidable wall up there to deal with. How in the world am I going to break through that wall or get over that wall?”
Then, all of a sudden, this man shows up. Joshua said, “Who are You? Are You for me or against me?” He was in battle.
The Lord Jesus—it was the Lord—said, “No. I am not for you or against you. I am captain of the host. I am in charge.” We need to know who is in charge in this battle. It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Immediately Joshua submitted to Him, and the Lord gave him the battle plan. It was quite an awesome battle plan. Joshua was not going to storm the wall. They were going to walk around the wall one time each day and, on the seventh day, seven times.
Then they were going to blow the trumpet at the end and shout, and the wall would fall down. What a strange way to fight a war, really. But it is a battle of faith, and we need to remember that.
In this battle of dispossessing the enemy and possessing Christ, it is a matter of faith. The enemy has been defeated. That is where our faith has to rest.
Whatever situation you are coming into, the enemy has been defeated. You can stand in the victory of Christ. But at the same time, you need to possess what the Lord has for you in Christ in that situation. The two go together.
I think it is really interesting. I cannot go into it too much—boy, this message will go on forever—but it is important to know that they did not immediately attack Jericho. What did they do? They marched around it.
They had the ram’s horns blowing, and the ark was in front. The ram’s horns announced the presence of the ark in front of the enemy. That did two things: it frightened the enemy, and it encouraged the nation of Israel.
Faith began to rise in their hearts. On the seventh day, after they had marched seven times, the faith was there. All they had to do was shout, and the walls came down. It is faith. It is a battle of faith.
The enemy cannot win. Thank God, he can win over us, but he cannot win over Christ. That is why it is Christ’s victory that we have to announce, not ours.
The church is called to bring the victory of Christ to bear upon the situations in this world’s cosmos that we deal with. That is what we try to do on Wednesday nights.
Brothers and sisters, it is corporate prayer: to stand against the enemy, to possess God’s will in all these situations on the earth for our Lord Jesus Christ, and to bring them to His footstool.
In these battles, we experience what has already been won in Christ. Let me say it again: in these battles, what we really experience in this warfare is what has already been won in Christ.
Remember, before they went into Jericho, the Lord said, “I have given it to you.” It was already there, but they still had to possess it.
Brothers and sisters, this is the way we regain dominion that God has charged us with as soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Let us look at 2 Corinthians 10:4-6:
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds,
casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God,
and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, fleshly. The old man, the old will, cannot do it. But these weapons are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.
There are strongholds in this nation. There are strongholds in our lives, are there not? You sense the strongholds. But He says the weapons are mighty. They are spiritual weapons, and they can pull down strongholds.
Casting down imaginations—brothers and sisters, how often through the years have I run into situations where a brother or sister had an issue, and we came to find out it was an imagination.
They thought that was the way it was, or they thought that was the way another brother or sister had offended them, and in fact they had not. It was an imagination the enemy had put into the mind of a brother or sister. I have had it happen to me.
These imaginations can only be pulled down in prayer. Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
Our minds are such a battlefield. Brothers and sisters, we have to be aware of this: to pull down everything that is against Christ.
I have always said, if you get offended at somebody, what you need to do is ask the Lord, “Lord, why am I offended? What in me is offended?”
Sometimes you can absolutely be right in what the charge is. But many times, when we are offended, there was no intention on the other party’s part to offend us. We find out that it is something of our flesh that is offended—not the Spirit, but our flesh. We have to allow the Lord to deal with that.
Anyway, there is the pulling down of imaginations and strongholds. I think we have some imaginations in this world system that man can control all things, that man can fix the problems of this world. That is an imagination.
I recently heard that there is a book being promoted now—I cannot remember the name of it. Basically, it says equality means everybody is the same. Of course, that is not what equality really means, but that is what they are saying.
For everybody to be the same, they say we have to break down the family structure and take that out of the way, because some families are better off than others, some teach their children this, and some teach their children that. They say it is discriminatory.
So they say we need to take away privilege and let the government teach our children. Let the government decide what is right and wrong. That is where we are headed, unfortunately. Political correctness—I have told you—it is a new religion in this nation. Maybe it is not that new, but it is a religion coming to the fore.
Brothers and sisters, let us look at Ephesians 6:12:
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
That is what is really running our government. That is what is really running this world. There is a spirit of Persia, which is current Iran. In the book of Daniel, it talks about the prince of Persia resisting Gabriel, the angel, when he was trying to get a message to Daniel. It slowed him down for three weeks.
There are real spiritual powers out there trying to rule over this world—lords of darkness. That is what we are against as the church. There is a prince over America, and we see his activities even today.
Brothers and sisters, in this warfare you will be attacked as individuals. But you need to approach all prayer as the prayer of the church, standing on the ground of the church, the army of God.
If the enemy can get you off to yourself, he will pick you off. We need each other in prayer. Why? There is something special about being gathered together in corporate prayer.
The Lord says, “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” Not only am I in you; I am in your midst. You have the power of His presence in your midst as you gather corporately to pray.
Not only that, but the Lord was very emphatic. He said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” standing for God’s will on this earth.
The church is here to rule and carry out the will of Christ on this earth. That is what our charge is.
The enemy, as I have already said, has organized this whole world—politically, economically, socially, educationally, everything—into his own system to fight Christ and all who stand with Christ. That is our resistance. It is the kingdom of darkness coming out.
But be reminded: this is what has encouraged me lately, because I have been so discouraged at what I have seen. God is going to use all of this to mature you and me.
We need to be soldiers. We need to take up our place as soldiers if we are going to be matured in Christ and conformed to His image. We need to become true soldiers of Jesus Christ.
We cannot just sit in the chairs. We cannot be bystanders, onlookers. We are involved.
I thought about this matter of being in the army as a Christian. We are called to be on the front lines every day, not in the rear.
We are not a National Guard unit that occasionally gets called up. We are in the battle all the time and, frankly, on the front lines all the time, whether you realize it or not.
I am really praying in my own heart that we will become true soldiers of Jesus Christ. Really, Lord, teach us how to fight these battles by faith.
It is not against flesh and blood, brothers and sisters. I will say this again next week, but one of the greatest tricks of the enemy is to deceive you and me into thinking that our problem is my wife, my husband, my boss, or these circumstances. “If I did not have these circumstances, it would be all right.”
You know what he is doing? He is taking himself away from being the target. Instead of praying against the work of the enemy that is obvious in these cases and standing against his work in our family situation, our work situation, or other circumstances in our lives, we feel like we are fighting against people—flesh and blood.
When that happens, we have lost the battle. Just a reminder, because we all fall into that trap. He fights by deceit. He really does.
Brothers and sisters, we need to be really strong in Christ and not try to fight this in our flesh.
Can I end with this little story of the three pigs? There were three little pigs.
One went and bought straw and built a house out of straw. The wolf came along and said, “I am going to huff and puff and blow your house down.” The little pig said, “No, no—not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.” I do not know what that chinny chin chin thing is, but anyway, that is what he said.
The wolf huffed and puffed and blew the house down and, of course, ate the little pig.
The other little pig went out and bought sticks—gathered up sticks or bought them—and said, “That will be a pretty strong house.” So he built his house out of sticks.
The wolf came along and said, “I am going to eat you today,” or whatever he said. I cannot remember. It has been a long time, maybe fifty or sixty years. Anyway, he said, “I am going to huff and puff and blow your house down,” and he did. He ate the little pig.
The third pig was smart. He built his house out of bricks.
Now, I would like to say, let us convert this to stones, because we are living stones, built together as a house of God. In other words, if your house is built with Christ, your strength is in Christ. That is where your victory is.
You can always hide in Christ. He is your strong tower and your shield.
This little pig was smart, and he built his house out of bricks. The wolf came and made the same charge. He began to huff and puff and huff and puff. Finally, he became exhausted and just left because the pig was secure in that brick house.
But there is more to this story. The wolf said, “I can deceive this guy.” He said, “Look, tomorrow I heard there is a field of turnips. Tomorrow at four o’clock, I will come and get you, and we can both gather those turnips up.”
The pig said, “Okay.” So the wolf was getting him out of the house, right?
The little pig was a little smarter than the enemy thought. He got up at three, left at three o’clock, got the turnips, came back, and got into the house.
When the wolf showed up, he said, “Let us go. Let us go get some turnips.” The pig said, “I already got them. Already got them.” So he outsmarted him.
But that is the point of the enemy’s attack. Sometimes, brothers and sisters, there is the outright assault—the huffing and puffing and blowing. At other times, there is deception. We need to be aware of both.
May the Lord help us in this matter of being soldiers. I have hopefully just one more message on this matter. But today, more than anything else, I hope that we become aware of the warfare and that we are called as soldiers into this warfare.
Brothers and sisters, it is not just for our sakes. It is not just to save our own skin. It is for Christ’s sake, that He might eventually have that manchild that will be raptured to the throne and begin His return back to this earth. It takes overcomers.
Lord, we just come to Thee today. We thank You for Your love and Your mercy. Lord, I want to thank You that You not only saved me from hell, but You have delivered me from the kingdom of darkness and put me into Your kingdom.
Lord, we want to be trained as Your soldiers, that we might be overcomers. Lord, that we might be among those who could be part of that manchild, Lord, that can be raptured to escort You back.
Lord, we thank You today. We worship You. May Your will be done in our lives as You have determined in heaven. In Jesus’ name, amen.