Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of
Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.
I hope the following message challenges and courages and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.
We are going to jump back into our series on spiritual warfare
and the battle we're living in understanding evil.
And so I want you to turn with me to Psalm 82.
Psalm 82, we're going to look back at that one now.
Just a little bit of review just for those who weren't here for
our other installments, kind of give you a little back store.
And where we're at here, we talked about that the the Second
Temple Jewish theologians had a theology that looked at 3
entrances of evil rather than just one.
As modern evangelicals, we recognized the one entrance of
evil and that was the fall of Adam and Eve in Eden and that's
where man, man's nature became fallen and we understand that.
But the Jewish people also had two other episodes or entrances
of evil within their theology. One of them we're somewhat
familiar with and that is the. So Genesis 3 is the one that
we're understand. We understand we're Adam and Eve
sinned. But Genesis 6, it says we're the
sons of God, entered into the daughters of men.
And out of these this union came the Nephilim, the giants of old.
And so there's different theologies on that.
There's what I was taught was that was the sons of Seth going
into the sons of of of Abel or of Cain rather.
And and that was, you know, and so they they de mythologize it
and just kind of take the supernatural out of it.
But the early church believe that was where demons came from,
that demons were the disembodied spirit of this this half breed
race, and that these sons of God actually were.
They were Watchers. And we see the Watchers show up
in the book of Daniel. If you remember, Dan or
Nebuchadnezzar has a dream in this, this angelic creature that
he refers to as a Watcher comes to him and pronounces judgment
on him. There's several episodes in
there. And so throughout Scripture we
see this term, the sons of God. The the first chapter of the
book of Job where it says the sons of God gathered and the
Satan in the Hebrew, it says the Satan was among them.
And the Lord says to the Satan, where have you been?
He said, I've been going to and fro throughout the earth.
And so this Son, these sons of God, were these angelic or these
these supernatural creatures, They were not human beings.
We see this show up in a number of passages.
And so then we have the third entrance of evil that we often
don't talk about, and that is the rebellion of these creatures
known as Elohim. Now let me just, let me just
pause there, or sons of God or these ruling spirits.
Now we're going to look at that and give you a little
background. I want to, I want to root this
in Scripture because this is important for us to understand.
In order for us to function and fulfill our purpose.
We want to study the whole scriptures.
Amen. We want to know what the Bible
says on these subjects and so we're going to look at that.
But the the, the I was taught all in Bible school that Elohim
was a title for God. How many of you just had been
taught that? That's that's what I was always
taught. But if you look at the
scriptures, you find out that this term, Elohim is used of a
number of different types of beings in scripture.
Even Samuel when when the witch of Endor called him forth.
Now there there's a problem passage.
You know, we're not going to get into that.
Whether that was Samuel or whether it wasn't, we're not
going there. As much as I'm being pulled,
we're not going there. But the fact is he was, he was
called an Elohim. So an Elohim, The Elohim is a
title of a of spiritual residence or a type of being.
It's not. It's not a class in the sense of
God being the only Elohim. I was taught that, and so I was
always intrigued by Psalm chapter 8.
If you've been around here more than five years, you know that's
one of my favorite passages. What is man that thou art
mindful of him, the Son of man, that thou would visit him.
You put glory and honour you. You made him a little lower than
the the New Testament says angels, but the Old Testament
says Elohim like, well, what's the deal?
Which one's right? Uh, huh.
And it's because of our misinterpretation of this verse
Elohim or this concept of Elohim.
So there are beings that's a class of being.
It's a spiritual entity. And so there are classes of
beings, types of spiritual beings that we need to be aware
of and scripture, God put it in there for a reason.
I was telling Kathy I I was on this Facebook group that deals
with a certain subject and so they were they were all excited
that this one pastor of this large church was preaching on
the subject. Guy has about 15,000 people in
his church. I thought, I wonder how he dealt
with this. I listened to it and I told
Kathy I was so irritated because he was like apologizing that the
Bible's actually supernatural. And he was saying could it be
that when people struggle with addictions and and there's
things bad things are happening. Could it be that it's not just
happen chance that possibly there are intelligent evil
beings coming into play And I'm like yeah, and we we dance
around that stuff because it's we're uncomfortable around here.
We're just weird. We're not uncomfortable with it.
But we need to understand these things because we Paul said, you
wrestle not with flesh and blood.
Your real battle is not flesh and blood, but with against
principalities and powers, rulers of this dark age over
this present darkness, authorities and powers, You're
engaging them whether you know it or not.
You're better off knowing it. Ignorance is not bliss in this
scenario. And so we need to understand
these things. And so there's this other
rebellion that took place in Scripture that we see alluded to
in Psalm 82, and it's really the Old Testament backdrop for what
the New Testament refers to as principalities and powers.
And so we need to understand this because all three of these
entrances are these episodes of evil, These three falls, if you
will. Each one of them involves
different entities and also requires of us a different
response. Not going to get into this other
than to say the first one, I can't rebuke my flesh.
I yeah, I was born in sin because of our great, great
grandma and Grand Pappy's Adam and Eve, their sin.
And we were born into sin. And we've got to contend with
that nature. We have a new nature, but it at
times it wants to rear its head. We talked about that.
How to deal with that? You know, as much as I want to
deal, begin to deal with it again, it's because it's so
important. We just need to know.
You can't rebuke that. You got to deal with it.
You've got to be discipled. You got to mature.
You got to deal with your woundedness, you got to renew
your mind, you got to heal your emotions so that that old nature
doesn't have an Ave. to manifest itself.
You don't rebuke it. You don't cast it out.
You discipline your new man, your your spiritual man is going
to manifest in your physical man.
And it comes through the conduit of your soul.
And that's where the problem is. So you got to Discipleship
happens in the soul. So deal with it.
OK, so we got to. If we don't understand that,
then we're trying to, you know, cast out our own character.
Ain't going to work. Number two, you don't counsel a
demon. The 2nd fall resulted in demons.
You don't sit and counsel a demon.
I've tried. Seriously.
Try to have a conversation with the demon.
Don't work. It's matter of fact.
It's highly irritating. I don't have conversations with
demons when I when I'm dealing with someone with a demonic
issue, I don't ask for information from a demon.
They, you know, they're they're liars from the beginning.
I don't, I don't ask for information.
And so we just deal with what we do is we tell that thing to be
quiet so we can get information from the individual needing
deliverance. And so we deal with that so that
we can get them free. So this needs to be cast out.
You don't discipline a demon. You don't counsel a demon.
You don't try to disciple a demon.
Some of you have tried. Some of you lights.
Oh, that's been the problem. Yes.
So OK, the third one, this third entrance of evil.
Now we're dealing with a different level of evil when we
talk about Ephesians Chapter 6, Principalities and Powers,
Rulers of this Dark Age Cosmo Crators is what the Greek is
good. That's not one Cosmos creators
it, it means rulers, world rulers, they have a world reach
that are overseeing this present darkness, this skotoast that we
talked about the last couple we or two weeks ago about this
darkness that darkens the mind. So people can't see the truth
and they're groping about and they can't connect the dots
between their actions and the consequences.
We're seeing that on the Evening News every night.
It's all over. TikTok.
You want to see some confusion and some skotoes Get on
Facebook. There's some skotoes going on
out there. People don't connect their
actions with the consequences, and they're wanting to be
relieved of the consequences while they caught all the
actions. And so though you know there
there's a lot of darkness, but what's going on is there is
these operatives, these rogue entities in the spiritual realm
that need that, that we're contending with, Paul says we
wrestle with, but we don't cast them out.
In fact, you'll never see Jesus addressing these principalities
and powers. He cast out devils, and one of
the reasons is because they had not yet been unseated, Jesus
unseated them at the cross. They have been defeated.
However, we need to understand although they've been defeated,
they need to be unseated. We need to we need to remove
them. We need to contend and we need
to remove them from their place. The the the the victory of Jesus
is a legal victory, but there's still a lot of cleanup to do.
A lot of times preachers, including this one, will use
this. This illustration there was in
World War 2. There was D-Day and we had to
establish a presence on the the coastline of France.
We had to once again put our feet on that continent and begin
to move in. And the Germans knew and the
Allied forces knew. Once we got a beachhead,
essentially the war was over. However, the bloodiest battles
were fought afterwards, because even though they knew it was all
of there's no way that they could keep hold of this thing.
There would. They fought tooth and nail to
keep the little that they had, and it's a very similar
situation. If you see this in the book of
Joshua, Joshua Moses has died. God says, OK, Joshua, it's time
to quit grieving your spiritual father.
I've got job for you to do. You're going to go into the
promised Land and he tells them everywhere you put your foot is
yours, man, that's a good word. Glory.
However, we've got to understand what that word meant.
It is yours legally. It's yours, potentially, but
it's not yet yours, actually. You've got to go and take what
has already been given to you, and it's a picture of our
spiritual reality. And if we don't understand that,
we can fall into what I call charismatic bravado, slinging
hash, making, you know, big sweeping statements.
But the reality is not showing up in our life we lay claim to
things that we're not really walking in.
And the fact is, Jesus has won the victory, But it's ours to go
in and register this victory. We've got to take the ground
that he won. And a lot of this goes back to a
true understanding of what Kingdom is.
We think of Kingdom as a place, as a geographic location.
That is not how the Bible uses this term.
The Greek word is Basilia and what it really means is the
King's right to rule. I've, I've talked about this
recently where, you know, in Spanish if Hoal was here, he'd
say you're right, Pastor. In Spanish the the word we
translate Kingdom is Reno reign, the reign of God.
And it's a better translation. It's a more vivid translation
than what we use, really. The the word Kingdom means
King's dominion. That's it's a compound word
Kingdom and so the Kingdom of God when it comes, it's God
bringing his dominion. But we have to follow through.
So what Jesus did on the cross is purchased the legal right for
us to go in and take what is ours.
But the the enemy exercises squatters rights and we have to
unseat him. And there is a wrestling match
that takes place. And if we don't understand that
then we live in this, we can get into some weird cosmology.
So let's look. So what I want to look at this
morning is I want to look at how do we deal with principalities
and powers. And we may not get through this
all today. We might have to extend our
series into the future, and it won't be next week, but but I
want to. I want to look at this because
this is an important distinction.
We're not dealing with it when we're talking about
principalities and powers. We're not talking about low
level demons. These these disembodied spirits
of the nephalum, these rogue entities on the earth that were
that were that that early church looked at them as sentenced to
the earth. We're looking at these rulers in
the spiritual realm. Where did they come from?
By how did they come to their position?
And how do we deal with them now that they've rebelled?
Those are the questions we need to understand, because you don't
deal with them the same way. Jude says that Michael himself
told the principality. The Lord rebuke you.
He didn't just go in there and say I rebuke you.
He said the Lord rebuke you it. Michael's got some mojo.
I mean that. He's one bad dude.
OK, so we need that. We need to pause there and
realize that we don't just sling hash, that We need to understand
our role so that we can deal with these entities the way God
would intend. OK, Did we pray?
Because I really feel the need to pray, Father.
Lord, I ask that you would instruct us this morning, Lord,
that you would teach us, Lord, expand our understanding.
And Lord, we want to be a people.
We want to be a house that is firmly anchored in your book.
And so, Lord, I ask for the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in this room this morning that your teaching would fall like
rain. Lord, I ask that even now, Lord,
that there would be verses that would come to people's minds and
they would begin to take notes that they would chase down
later, that you would speak to them.
Things that either I forgot to say or I don't even know yet,
but you're going to show them. And Lord, we ask that you would
teach us as a people, as a house, so that we can fulfill
your purpose in Jesus name. Amen.
Let's get into this passage, Psalm 82, verse one, who I'm
reading out of the ESV and you could read it out of a bunch of
different translations. It's essentially the same thing.
So I didn't choose one because it's got my pet interpretation
verse. One God has taken his place in
the Divine Counsel COUNCIL. It's a body, an administrative
or governing body, a counsel Okay.
And it will go into a Hebrew word study on that in a moment.
In the midst of the gods, little G he holds judgment.
Now depending on what translation you read, some
translations will have the little quotes.
Gods, you know, as if you know, kind of to to call into
question, you know, like this is a, we're just talking about, you
know, kind of what other people call gods, But that God doesn't
call gods. The word is gods.
It's elohim. So God the Elohim has taken his
place in the divine council. In the midst of the elohim, he
holds judgment. But in the Hebrew, it's very
clear. The first one is a distinct, A
singular. The second one is plural.
And so we we use that terminology and we get nervous
with it because we we automatically assign a set of
ideas to this term God. But it's it's not talking about
uncreated beings, it's talking about created beings.
That's why the Old Testament calls God the Most High God.
If there were no other little G gods, that wouldn't be much of A
compliment, would it? You say Dave Olson is the most
handsome 58 year old guy on the platform?
Well, that's not much of A compliment.
I'm the only guy up here, you know.
That's not saying anything when we say that God is the most high
God in comparison to what these other little G gods, they're
created beings, but God bestowed upon them a high level of
authority and honor in his created order.
OK, hang with me here. I know this.
You think, Pastor, He's a heretic.
Now that's hearing a word in the midst of the gods.
He holds judgments, holds judgment.
And now we're going to hear what the Lord says.
Now let me just pause there. If you go back up, all virtual,
all translations, because it is part of the scripture, It says
this is a Psalm of Asaf. It's a Psalm of Asaf.
Asaf was an interesting dude. Asaf was.
It says in Second Chronicles 28 or 29 rather 30, that he was a
seer, that he prophesied under the direction of King David and
first Chronicles 25 two some believe him to be the grandson
of the prophet Samuel, which is interesting, this generational
influence that came down through his life.
He was among three musicians who led the prophetic intercessory
worship of the Tabernacle of David.
If you really want to learn about ASAP, talk to Rick Irwood.
He's got some fascinating I've I've called Rick on this several
times. It's just fascinating because
Rick is, you know, very similar. This Psalm is an example of
material that simply would not have been possible to know
without a revelatory encounter from God.
Because listen, what it's saying.
Saying that God gathered this council of these spiritual
beings and he sat down, He convened these beings and he
rebukes him. He he calls, he calls them to
order, and he begins to rebuke them for not fulfilling their
role. How did a soft know that
happened? ASAP had a revelatory encounter
in which the Lord allowed him to see.
Matter of fact, in the Old Testament you see this phrase
show up Psalm. I want to say it's Psalm 28.
Let me see if I wrote that down. Psalm 28 or not.
Psalm Jeremiah 28. I don't know where it's at.
I'll. I'll look it up in a minute
here. But Jeremiah 28 uses this phrase
and there's several other places where it talks about he who has
stood in the council of the Lord and the word is COU&CIL, not
SEL. Now the fact is, sometimes those
will be translated interchangeably by some because
they're uncomfortable with council and they are very
related because you go into his counsel to get his counsel the
where you get the info as you get into the meeting.
And this is relevant to you and I, because although in the New
Testament this was closed and a prophet was one who had said
stood in the council of the Lord, some scholars believe, and
I I, I think they're probably right, that one of the criteria
to be a prophet, a legit prophet in the Old Testament, would be
one who stood in the council. You look in Isaiah.
When Isaiah was called, that was a divine council scene.
And Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up in his train, filled
the temple, it rocked him to his toenails and shook him to his
teeth. And he was called to be a
prophet from then on. But he had this encounter in the
council and so ASAP, and it says he is a prophet, he's a seer.
He was brought into this this scenario where he has this
vision of what's really going on, and it's God the Creator,
the Most High. God gathers this counsel and he
rebukes them for what they didn't they were not doing, and
he assigned them. So what does he say?
How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the
wicked? Seela, think about that.
He says Give justice. Give justice to the weak and the
fatherless. Maintain the right of the
afflicted in the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy.
Deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
And then in verse five it shifts gears.
And I believe it's a reference to these weak and needy,
destitute people in need of deliverance, he says.
They, Speaking of the weak and needy, have neither knowledge or
understanding. They walk about in darkness.
All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
So let's back up for a minute. The rebuke gives us an
indication of their responsibility.
What he rebukes them for not doing the is the flip side of
what he assigned them to do. This was their role.
It was an administrative governing role.
Now what does that have to do with us?
Well, there's there's a lot of things that has to do with us,
but among them, let me just pull up something here.
I'm so sorry. Oh, here it is.
OK, here's here's a couple things.
This worldview was prevalent in the ancient world.
OK? This was no mythology, mind you.
It was the oral history of those to whom God had revealed how he
rules. This was clearly the view of not
only the Hebrew writers of the Old Testament, but was all but
also of the surrounding nations, of the ancient people.
And so you see this, this worldview and many of the
ancient writings of these, the the surrounding culture around
the Hebrew people. But it wasn't some mythology
that they adopted. This was by revelation that God
gave to his people. Now why is this important?
Number one, It helps us understand mysterious or problem
passages in the Old Testament like this one, Psalm 82, which
for years I just read over and thought, well, that's weird,
let's move on. So what is this divine counsel?
Why would God even need one? Well, the answer is he doesn't,
any more than he needs you or I, any more than he needs angels.
I remember talking to a, an old pastor one time, a an elderly
pastor about angels and he said, well, I don't, I don't think
that's what angels do. He said why would God need
angels? I don't think he does, but we
can't ignore the fact that he uses them #2.
It grants us insight into how he rules.
God delegates authority is foundational to his Kingdom.
Now if we don't have that as a backdrop, then there's going to
be a lot of things we misunderstand and and it
inevitably pulls us into a theological category called
cosmology. The cosmology is how the cosmos
works, and your cosmology will have a controlling effect on how
you live your Christian life. Those with the an overly
simplistic cosmology will find themselves coming up against not
only some problem passages, but insufficient in there.
There, there's two forms of an overly simplistic cosmology.
Some people think that God micromanages every little detail
of human existence and in the cosmos.
Anybody got a word for that? Someone want to yell it out?
Yeah, Sovereignty. Or Yeah, it's under the the
heading of Calvinism that interprets sovereignty as God.
What's it Micromanaging? Everything.
Like everything that happens has been not only allowed by God but
intentionally orchestrated by him so that everything that
happens is God's will and God's will always happens.
Well, if that's the cosmology you buy into, that is going to
undermined if nothing else, your prayer life.
Because you're going to be hard pressed to really get yourself
up early and stay in the prayer closet when you think your
prayers really don't matter because God's will is going to
happen every anyway. Everything that happens is God's
will and God's will always happen.
So why am I praying other than to get intimate with God and I
can do that later is what my mind would think anyway, as I'm
saddled with the responsibility that I've got to enforce his
purposes in the earth As a Co Regent, As one who rules and
reigns with him. As a God who exerts his rule
through layers of delegates. God delegates to delegates.
There are layers of rulers just like.
And when God adopts this language of it ain't of Kingdom
when he's speaking to an ancient people, when an ancient king who
had, you know, outlying areas, he hears that one went into
rebellion. He didn't say, well doggone it,
get my horse, I'm going to go over and take care of that.
The king didn't go out and do that himself.
He ruled over delegates and he would send a general or a vassal
ruler to go and bring that Kingdom back into subjection to
him. And we see the same thing in
Scripture, that there are layers of delegates, including you.
God's will is done through you. Furthermore, God's will is done
through delegates who are imperfect.
You know, touched by an Angel. Had it right that sometimes
angels mess up. I don't think they look like
Monica, but you know, they they they might, I don't know.
But you know sometimes they mess up.
There are layers of delegates that some of which have
rebelled. And so when we pray, if you see
Daniel praying to God in heaven goes on the original Daniel fast
the 21 day fast Daniel's praying for 21 day and all of a sudden
an Angel breaks through on the 21st day as Halo's bent his, you
know, his wings are ruffled. He's.
He said, man, I took off the day he started praying, he said.
But I had to fight the Prince of Persia.
Who's the Prince of Persia? It's what we're talking about.
And God didn't just show up to Daniel in person, All right,
Daniel, when you started praying, I wanted you.
I felt like you needed to lose a little weight.
So I waited till the 21st day. You're looking good, by the way,
son. But anyways, here's what you
were asking. That's not what happened.
He sent an Angel, a delegate, to fight through the opposition in
the spiritual realm. The reticence or the resistance
was not in the heart of God, the Angel said.
I was sent the moment you started fast, and that day I was
on my way. God was more than willing.
The resistance was not in the heart of God.
It was in the resistance in the heavenly realms, fighting
through a Prince of Persia, a principality, one of these rogue
entities that had rebelled against God.
And Daniel had to keep praying until the thing broke through.
And Daniel didn't get to day five and say, man, I'm really
hungry, must not be God's will. Again, the resistance was not in
the heart of God. And if we don't understand these
things, if we don't take the word serious, if we are like
that pastor that say, could it be that there's an evil entity
that has intelligence? Duh.
It's in the word and we need to understand what these things,
what's going on. And so there are these, there,
there is these principalities in the heavenly realms that are
resisting. So then that the question, the
obvious question to me is how did they get there?
Who made them boss? Who put them over regions?
Because the implication of the word principality.
It's like where we get the word municipality.
It's a pality, is a geographically distinct area.
That's why the Prince of Persia was called the Prince of Persia.
It's not the Prince of that. Vaguely that area of the earth.
It had a distinct name assigned to a distinct Kingdom.
There was there's geographic boundary lines to the spiritual
realm, just as there are geographic boundary lines
distinct to the physical realm. And there are ruling spirits
that try to exert rule from literal Thrones in the heavenly
realm. Now, Colossians speaks to this.
Let's let's pause for a moment and go to Colossians.
Matter of fact, let me look it up here because I don't want to
have to close that. Look at Colossians chapter one.
You know what? I bet it will change my It'll
change what I'm reading on my laptop if I open it in that,
won't it? Wonderful technology.
Thank you, Jesus. OK, Colossians chapter one.
And this is an interesting This is really the resume of Jesus.
OK, Paul's giving us his rundown.
If, like, if you're going to give your resume, this is what
Paul is doing for Jesus. He's going to tell him.
Look at I'm in the Amplified. Can't read that it'll take us
all day. You know they do.
Some people have called the Amplified the female version.
Hey it wasn't me. I I I was just point I wasn't.
I don't agree with them. I'm just saying that some people
do I those they shouldn't. Those people.
Yeah. Thank you, John.
Thank you. John saved me.
OK, look at this. Look at verse 15.
Whoo. That is small.
He is the OK. This is Speaking of Jesus.
He is the image of the invisible God, the first born, overall
creation. For by him and through him all
things were created. Now listen to what he He
references what God created. And and just by the way, it's it
starts out with what he created and then what he redeemed.
So he's saying it's all twice his.
He was the author and then he was the Redeemer.
He created it and then it went. Those that to whom he had
delegated it rebelled. He won it back.
OK, so listen to what he says. He created all things, whether
things in heaven or on earth, visible and invisible.
He's talking about both realms, whether Thrones isn't that
interesting, or powers or rulers or authorities.
All things were created for him, by him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
And he is the head of the body of the church, the first born at
the beginning of first born from among the dead.
And he goes in to begin to talk about how he's redeemed it all
as well. But what he's talking about is
this. He's saying that there are
Thrones. Invisible, invisible.
He reiterates this and other passages that there are
spiritual Thrones. Matter of fact, in Daniel it
says that Daniel, I want to say it was Daniel that saw.
He saw a divine counsel scene and he said he saw Thrones,
plural. And then the the ancient of days
took his throne. So there are these other rulers.
The word throne literally means a seat of authority.
It's used the same way we think of it.
They are positions in the spiritual structure of the
universe that are positions of delegated authority, and the
person that occupies them can leverage them for their ends,
their value system. And so God created these
Thrones. He He, they were created by him
and they were created for him. God created a universe with
layers of authority. There is structure to the
spiritual realm. It's not just a bunch of angels
going around playing harps. And then we just pray to God
we're interacting with him, and then he just comes down and
answers our prayer it. This is the Kingdom and there
are layers of authority. There are angels that when we
pray, the Father hears our pray prayers and sends angels on
assignment to fulfill what we're praying, just like he did with
Daniel. And there's opposition in the
spiritual realm because some of these creatures, these entities,
have rebelled against the Most High, and although they've lost
their authority, some of them still occupy a position that
they need to be displaced through intercession and not
they. They may have lost their
authority, their authorization from heaven, but they retain the
trade secrets of the Kingdom. They understand things you and I
do not. And that's why we need to press
into the council CIL to receive the council SEL.
We need the Council of the Lord because they're dealing on a
plane that we don't understand and it's God's good pleasure to
teach them a lesson. Ephesians says to teach these
principalities and powers in heavenly places.
He's going to instruct them and teach them lessons through the
church. They're going to learn about
him. He I I look at it as he grabs
him by the nap of the neck and says you're going to watch this.
You're going to Sunday school today, watch what the church is
going to do. They they they're they they're
not as smart as you. They don't know what they you
do. You think they will deny me when
they go through trials, But look at my children this morning.
Look at that one. You know what she's going
through this week? But look at her worshiping and
look at this one over here. And he forces them to watch.
And through us they learn about God and they don't like it.
But it's also his good pleasure to overcome darkness through the
church. God's not doing it directly.
He does it through a praying church that will pray to him,
engage him, He'll send his angels.
We continue in prayer to overthrow evil.
And there's also the the, the, the ground level activity.
Now when we read Psalm 82 and what God is rebuking them on,
look at what it says. It's talking about unjust
systems that favor the powerful, the wealthy, the elite of
society, and misuse and abuse the weak, the destitute, and the
vulnerable. And God calls him to account.
So what happens is when we begin to talk about systemic evil that
finds its roots in the principalities and powers,
because just like the enemy came to Jesus in his temptation, you
remember that. And he offered him positions of
authority in the earth. He said if you'll bow down and
worship me, I will give you all the kingdoms of kingdoms of this
world. And Jesus didn't challenge him
and say you don't have authority to do that, did he?
He didn't question his authority, he just said no, I
won't. I'm not going to bow before him.
And in fact that offer, and it's always this way.
By the way, every temptation that you received from the enemy
at some level is actually an indication of your destiny.
That's why it's tempting he's poking on something you say,
Pastor. Well, what if I'm what if I'm
attracted to drugs? I'm tempted to drug you.
That's my destiny. No, the peace you are seeking
through those drugs is your destiny.
But the enemy is trying to lure you into a shortcut.
Well, Pastor, I'm. I'm.
I am tempted with pornography, and that is false intimacy.
But you were created to really connect with people, and you're
trying to get it through a shortcut.
And the enemy will always try to give you the very thing God has
called you to, promising it through a shortcut.
And when you get it, you don't, you're not qualified to steward
it because you took the shortcut.
And in actuality, the journey is what qualifies you to steward
it. And so God doesn't take you
through a shortcut. He awakens it within you, a
vision, a sense of destiny, a desire.
And if you will walk with him, he will fulfill all the desires
of your heart. But it's going to be through a
process and he did the same with Jesus, he says to him, he says,
I will give you all the kingdoms of this world.
It's evident from these this scripture in Psalm 82 that these
principalities, they they occupy an administrative governing role
in the world. And this at least some of them
are favoring the powerful elites that will bow to them and.
They will worship these people, will worship them, and in trade
then they'll give them those positions of power and
authority. And God is rebuking them.
And so and engaging powers and authorities in the spiritual
realm. Prayer is essential.
We see that with Daniel that we're enlisting the powers of
heaven to come and engage in battle.
Gabriel is on his way and Michael has to come and help him
is what it was Gabriel that and Michael came to help him.
Michael the Archangel, Archangel, Archae.
ARCHE is the Greek word that we translate principalities.
So Michael is a principality. He is the Prince of Israel.
Just as there was a Prince of Persia, he is the Prince Angel
for Israel. That's still loyal to God, but
there are there's a battle going on in the spiritual realm, and
your prayer really does matter in this regard, but so does your
activity on the earth. Because one of the ways we can
overcome principalities and powers is work for justice on
the earth. When unjust corrupt people get
in power, they fuel the demonic in the spiritual realm, and you
see it from this passage. And the enemy loves to get
wicked people into power. Corrupt people.
When the wicked rule, the people Groan proverb says.
But when the righteous rule, the people rejoice.
So we've got to in our nation. We are very fortunate.
One of the one of the most spiritual things you can do is
cast your vote in an election. We can vote for righteousness.
We can vote for godly ends. But we can also work on the
ground level. A number of years ago when I'm
going to keep your Bible here, John, a number of years ago when
Jamie Galloway came here the first time.
Jamie's a prophet travels the world.
Great young guy. He's not so young anymore.
But when we first met him he was and Jamie he came and he when he
came he said I have never spoken in Iowa.
I've been longing to speak in Iowa.
He said I had a dream many years ago about the Twelves and he
said it was about a revival coming to Iowa that was 12 times
greater than what we've seen. And he kept saying this, he kept
saying 12/12/12 and he was talking about all these twelves
in his dream. And so after he was done, I
didn't know Jamie at the time, he we we were hosting a
conference. So I went up and and I said,
Jamie, do you do you know what our address is?
He said no. And I said it's 1212 NW 36th St.
He said that's not a coincidence.
He said you need to get ready. I said, well what does that
mean? And he quoted me that obscure
passage in Matthew where he says, if you bought you, you
drive off the strong man and and you sweep the house clean, and
the enemy comes back and looks at the house and it's swept
clean, set in order but uninhabited, It will bring seven
of its friends. It'll be worse in the end than
in the beginning, he said. There's not only an individual
application of that, there's a regional application of that
principle that in revival the enemy is displaced.
And the Lord spoke to me and this was the idea of what he
said, he said. You can actually cut people of
influence off from the influence of the enemy through loving
them. Well, if you can win their
heart, then they will respond to you rather than to those
principalities and powers. Love is an act of spiritual war.
Honoring people, serving them well, keeping our attitude
right. I I OK, I got a confession.
I like to drive fast. I've always loved muscle cars.
I love to watch shows about muscle cars.
You know, I've. I you know, when I was about 14,
I wanted a ZL1. You know what that is, guys?
ZL1. It's an aluminum block, 427
Chevrolet. It's aluminum, so it's
lightweight and it is. It's like 700 horse stock, if I
remember right. It was amazing.
God never gave me one. That was a desire of my heart.
But he's never given me that desire and I would dare say it's
because my maturity level has not warranted that entrustment.
OK, but even though I like to drive, I, I, I When I drive
around this town, I try to really be careful and smile and
give people the right away. The other day I had my Heartland
Worship Collection T-shirt on. And of you.
It's going to happen to you. You, you know, people know you
from church. Listen, we've got to love.
Well, I would never intentionally be a jerk, OK?
But I'm capable of doing it unintentionally.
And I need to be very careful that we had someone come up to
me one time and say my sister waited on you and your children
at a restaurant. Your wife and your children are
there and they just kind of let it hang in the air.
And I'm thinking did something happen?
And and then she said, she said, you know what she told me I'm
like what? She said your children were
tremendously well behaved and you taught you tip very well.
I was like Hallelujah cuz that that matters.
I didn't give her a tract that looked like a 20.
She'd get excited and open it up as you need to get right with
Jesus. You know, whoever thought that
would be a good idea. How insulting, unless you put a
50 in there, you know. But those we need to love people
well because we can produce an influence over their lives.
So we we are in a spiritual matter.
There are, there are spirits that operate within given
geographic regions. We'll pick up on this in the
future. We'll we'll get back into this
after, you know the next installment that I get up after
this next one and we're going to look at this.
But we need to understand that the these, the principalities
and powers, they operate in distinct geographic areas and
they have an administrative role in which they try to get their
people in power because they want to manifest their Kingdom
through them. And so we need to be engaged in
prayer, but we also need to love and serve.
Well, Chris Vallaton has this great phrase.
They've served the church that he's a part of his serve their
city so well. One time there was, they became
aware of a need in the city, they needed some type of police
equipment. I don't remember what it was
they committed as a church to give $500,000 to that one need
in the Police Department. And usually they didn't make
those things public, but they made it public because they
wanted to challenge the rest of the city.
Let's step up and help. They they used to tithe to the
city. I don't know if they still do.
They were trying to honor well and Chris said this.
He said the rights you gain by demanding your rights will be
kept by continuing to argue for your rights.
They'll be defended by you arguing form demanding.
But the rights, the access that is gained through honor, will be
guarded through favor. The people that you honored will
actually keep the door open for you because you've you, you've
gotten favor with them. And I'm not talking about being
manipulative. I'm talking about being
Christian. I'm talking about let's carry
ourselves in such a way that we exemplify Jesus in the Kingdom
that we love. Well, doesn't mean we need to
agree with people. I don't even agree with
everything I say. Okay, we don't need to agree
with everything. But what we do need to do is we
need to honor their person, the value of who they are, and their
position. Because God created a structure
and when people occupy those position, we honor the position
and we want to cut them off from that spiritual influence through
honor. So we'll pick up where we we
left off in the future here we're going to, we're going to
look more at this because it's very important for us to
understand when we're talking about principalities and powers
or this divine counsel world, the what what all this means.
Let me just read a couple more things and then go ahead and
stand. So, you know, I'm going to quit,
OK? It grants us insight into how he
rules. God delegates authority.
Authority is foundational to his Kingdom.
The the term, the biblical term Kingdom, or bassilia, is
absolutely nonsensical. If there's no such thing as
authority, that's what it is. It's God's right as the author.
He has authority, and he authorizes others to exercise
it, and when he does, it's a real thing.
It's a real force that drops upon them, and it would do you
well to honor what's on their life, even if you don't agree
with their person. Honor their position.
The cosmology. This cosmology protects us from
faulty conclusions which result in a dangerous resignation that
results in impotence on the one hand, and an arrogant Bravada
which lays claim to victory not yet achieved on the other. #3 It
explains evil. It lays the responsibility for
evil where it belongs. Furthermore, it reveals the
governmental administrative structure through which this
level of evil functions. When we begin to understand what
these principalities are, we begin to realize we we laid the
the the blame for evil at the feet of where it where it
belongs. God gets blamed for things that
he didn't do. He's got big shoulders.
He's very merciful, but it messes us up because we can
actually give cover to the enemy by attributing to God what he is
doing and if it's from the enemy we want to be at war against, it
#3 It explains okay. It reveals the governmental
administrative structure through which this level of evil
functions. And #4 it defines the battle,
understanding these ideas, it, and explaining the source of
evil. It clarifies the nature of our
struggle. It is not ultimately against
flesh and blood, but it rather against these ruling spirits.
So we'll talk next time about so how did they where, where, where
do we get that? They how, how did they get
assigned this position? And if they're assigned that
position, why would we fight against them?
So we'll look at that Okay. Father.
Lord, I ask that you would please make sense of what I've
talked about this morning, Lord, that you would continue to train
us, teach us. Lord, I ask that you would
instruct our hearts. I bless each one of these.
This morning, Lord. I I just.
Lord, we ask that you would help us to walk out with an awareness
of your presence. That we, when we step out this
door, that we are representatives of the Most High
God. Lord, help us to recognize it as
much as the principalities do in Jesus name.
Amen. Thanks for listening to our
podcast. If you'd like to help more
people hear this message, you can get the word out by
subscribing and sharing it on social media.
If you'd like to support the ministries of Heartland Church,
you can do so at Heartland Church, online.com/give.