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.
Let's get into the word this morning.
Last, not last week, but the week before, we started a series
that we're going to continue on when we do communion.
We're not going to receive Communion this morning.
We're doing that once a month and we're going to receive,
we're going to continue on a series on the blood of Christ
and how the the different facets of the blood and how we can
appreciate that. We talked about how why the
father appreciates the blood, how we can utilize it in our own
life and then use it against the enemy.
And we're going to look more at that and in the coming weeks.
But I want to reach back and reach into another series we
started. I love doing series.
The problem is, and I stumble into something else, I want to
preach on and so I want to reach back into our spiritual warfare
one. And what I want to talk about
this morning is I want to give a little bit of explanation, a
spiritual explanation for the predicament we find ourself in
as a nation. Anybody wonder if humanity is
losing its mind? Where my phone is talking to me,
it said it's still on it. I don't know how that happened
but anyway I've you know, we when we even when we were in
London, we went through Kensington Palace and there was
a gala, something I was not interested in.
It was a fashion gala. So we went through there and
there's all these pictures of men in dresses and and their
bravery for being their their sincere self and it was just
heartbreaking. There's this.
There's been a legitimization of troubled thinking.
And so we need to understand how we got here now, probably 6-8
months ago, sometime the last 10 years.
We talked, we did a series called The Strange New World,
and it was. I shamelessly lifted the title
from a book by Carl Truman talking about the sociological
and psychological underpinnings of the crisis we're in, the
moral crisis we're in. How did we get here this
morning? I don't want to deal so much
with the sociological and psychological underpinnings or
the tracks that we let. Let us here.
I want to look at the spiritual tracks because we're dealing
with a level of darkness and a level of confusion that we have
not known as a nation. It's unprecedented in the
history of our nation. It's not unprecedented in human
history because there have been many nations that have reached
this point. And the sad fact is it was the
twilight of their existence. And I I'm still holding on.
I'm still praying. I'm asking God to deliver this
nation, and I'm believing God for that.
But in order for us to contend for the survival of this nation,
we've got to understand that the situation that we're in, we've
got to really have a grasp of what we're dealing with.
And so I want to talk about the spiritual backdrop.
And so in order to do so, I'm going to reach back into
something we talked about. Matter of fact, I looked it up
on my phone during worship. I know I peaked wasn't on
Facebook. I looked at our podcast in April
16th. We talked about this.
We talked about the three entrances of evil into human
history. And so I'm going to just do a
little bit of review. If you really want to get into
this, you can go back to that podcast, the one we didn't deal
with so much as the one we're going to deal with this morning.
But we talked about the three entrances of evil into human
history. The fact is that Second Temple
Judaism, which was around the time of the Inner Testamental
period and on 2nd Temple Judaism, had a theology of three
entrances of evil into human history.
The reason that's relevant to you and I is not because we're
we're, you know, we buy off on everything that was taught in
Second Temple Judaism. We need to, it needs to shore up
with the word of God. But the reason it's relevant is
it was the world view of the biblical authors of it today.
It was the backdrop. It was the the, the, the
theological backdrop that they were writing from.
And there's things in Scripture we simply will not understand
unless we understand where they were coming from, because they
were speaking into a world that viewed 3 entrances of evil.
What I mean by that is this they, you know, common to
evangelicalism. Of course they recognized the
fall of man in Genesis chapter 3.
And so that was the first entrance of evil, the fall of
man. Man fell into sin, and that
introduced the human nature to sin.
That opened man's heart to sin. That was internal evil.
That was that obscured man's understanding.
Man became fallen. That was the first entrance.
But they also viewed Genesis Chapter 6 as another entrance of
evil, and some Jewish authors even considered that a greater
travesty than the first one. We're not going to debate that
this morning, but we need to understand that they also viewed
Genesis Chapter 6, where it says that the sons of God entered the
daughters of men, that the watchers entered the the the
daughters of men. They found them beautiful and
they they brought forth children who were the giants of old, the
Nephilim. And we're not going to get into
all of that except to say this, that the early, the early church
recognized that as where the demonic realm came from, these
hybrid beings. Now I was taught in Bible school
that those sons of God were simply the sons of Seth and they
went into the daughters of of, of Abel and and so of of yeah of
Cain rather. And that they produce these
children. And that is not what the text is
saying. We we, we want to kind of
wrestle with that because it seems so weird to us that we
want to kind of just massage it so it'll reduce the supernatural
element to that story so that we can be comfortable with it.
But the fact is it was talking about the Watchers, these
angelic creatures going into the daughters of men.
Virtually all of ancient culture had some form of this story.
Let me just pause there and point out something Don
Richardson, anybody ever read anything but Don Richardson?
He wrote the book Peace Child, Eternity in Their Hearts.
Don Richardson was a missionary, phenomenally brilliant man, but
he was also also an anthropology.
She wrote a book called Eternity in Their Hearts, and one of the
things he talked about is that the farther you get back into
human history, the more you will see the threads of scripture
embedded into those cultures. And the whole book was based on
this. This was the idea.
The first half of the book was a world prepared for the gospel,
and the second-half of the book was a gospel prepared for the
world. What he was talking about it.
And when he said a world prepared for the gospel, he was
talking about how there was already, there was already truth
embedded there. There were remnants of the
biblical story. All these, all these cultures of
the Fertile Crescent, you know where civilization started and
you know where where we read about these, these nations in
the Old Testament, All of them had a theology of a flood.
They all had a theology of the Watchers entering into the
daughters of men. And more and more of that
material has been discovered even in the last century.
And so there as you study, as you get back to the earlier
remnants of human culture, you begin to see the threads of
Genesis one through 12, because they were, there was oral
history that was still tying them to those situations.
So I say all that to simply say this.
The first entrance of evil was where man fell.
His nature fell, he became corrupt and he needed salvation.
Okay the second entrance of evil produced an external evil in the
form of these evil entities that entice men.
And so, and literally there there was, they defied nature.
Jude talks about this where they left their assigned role and
went into the daughters of men. Some of the early church writers
talked about how literally it it corrupted all of nature because
they crossed those lines. And so that is where the early
church fathers, and you can see this in many of the writings,
men like origin and so forth. They wrote about how the the
demonic realm came from these hybrid beings.
And so they were the disembodied spirits of these nephalum that
were released into the atmosphere through the flood.
And so they were looking. Matter of fact, the some of the
early church writings, they talk about things like this, that
hungering they could not eat, thirsting they could not drink.
So they looked for a human body to possess to satiate their
desires and so they would experience it through occupying
a human human body. And so demonic possession is a
very real thing and we are living in a spiritual war.
Rather, you are comfortable with that or not does not matter.
The fact is you are in a spiritual war and you're better
off realizing it than just avoiding it because it's an
uncomfortable reality. So we have the internal reality
or the internal fall of man in Genesis 3, the external entrance
of evil. So now we're dealing with these
entities that are enticing us in Genesis 6.
And then they also looked at a third entrance of evil.
Now Deuteronomy 32, the final song of Moses, where Moses is,
he's giving his final address. It's called the Song of Moses,
and he's giving his final address to the children of
Israel. He's going to retire.
He's going to heaven. He's turning it over to his, his
spiritual son, Joshua. So he gives this final address
and he mentions this obscure little verse that is interesting
but has often been overlooked. And he said that God divided the
nations according to the number of the sons of God, but Israel
he kept for himself. Some translations will translate
that according to the sons of Israel.
The problem is virtually all scholars agree that this was
Speaking of the Tower of Babel, that God was divorcing himself
from the nations at the Tower of Babel and it says, but Israeli
kept for himself. What did he do?
The very next chapter after Genesis 11 at Babel where man
rebelled and God told him to go and have it the earth.
They didn't. So what does God do?
He raises up the very next chapter, Genesis 12, Abram, and
he says I'm going to bless you so that you can be a blessing to
all the nations of the earth. I will be your God, and through
that you'll be an example to the rest of humanity.
We'll win back the nations. There's been a lot of writing on
this in theological circles and there's been discovery of
ancient texts and stuff, and but I have, I've been living for
Jesus for 40 years. This year I was two when I got
saved. No, just kidding.
I've been. I'm 58 now.
I got saved. I I came back to the Lord when I
was 18 years old. I was a homeless alcoholic, got
radically saved, had a radical encounter with Jesus.
And I've been pursuing the Lord, and I've been a man of the book
for 40 years, and I've been asking the Lord a lot of
questions about some of these things, because there's a very
practical reason I want to know. I believe much of spiritual
hunger is simply curiosity. There's this, there's this
desire to understand that God has placed within us, and if
we'll come to him and cry out, God will give us understanding.
But there are levels of knowledge.
There's there's ask, seek, knock, you ask.
There's James, Chapter one, level wisdom.
Ask and you shall receive. If any man lacks wisdom, let him
ask and the Lord will give liberty and the upbraid.
If not, that's that's the that low level you just all you got
to do is ask. It's yours for the take and it's
in reserve. If you ask, God will give it to
you. But then there is Seek and you
shall find. That's Proverbs Chapter 2, Level
Wisdom. There is wisdom that is hidden.
It says seek for wisdom. Search for it as hidden
treasure, and if you seek for it then you will find it.
You will find the knowledge of God.
So there is some wisdom that is not just for the asking.
There's a seeking. It's a process rather than an
event, and it's hidden precisely because of its value.
You following me? So there are certain things that
God will withhold from you until you're ready for it.
And it's actually the seeking. The process of seeking is what
qualifies you, or matures you or grows you up so that you can
qualify the steward that wisdom. Once you have it, God is a good
Father. He will never give you wisdom
you cannot handle, so he'll withhold it from you.
Just like if you're a good parent, there are certain things
you don't talk about with your 4 year old that you'll talk with
your 14 year old, and certain things you won't talk to your 14
year old that you'll discuss with your 24 year old.
Because we have to mature in order to handle some of that
understanding. One of the travesties of this
generation is having to go through is there being exposed
to explicit material that they are not able to process And it
it bends them, it corrupts them. I remember as a six year old
little boy finding pornography out in the woods and I still
remember that feeling. I felt this.
I just felt shame come over me. There was there was a
fascination. I knew it was forbidden, and I
felt the shame. And I remember walking in the
door to my house and seeing my mom and not wanting to catch
your eye because I felt like there's something defiled about
me. I was exposed to things I wasn't
ready to process yet. So God's a good father.
He will always withhold from us wisdom and understanding until
we're qualified to steward that we've reached a level of
maturity. The enemy is exactly the
opposite. He loves to give you forbidden
knowledge. That's what literally the cult
is. It's forbidden knowledge.
Matter of fact, the early church fathers wrote about that.
These watchers that went into the daughters of men, the other
thing they did is they brought forbidden knowledge to man about
war, sensuality, and and and so forth.
And so it was to corrupt mankind.
And so we're not only dealing with our own fallen nature as
human beings, we're dealing with this external enticement.
So God places these. So let me deal with that.
The last one, the last type of wisdom.
So keep on this little track. The last type of wisdom is knock
and the door shall be opened to you.
Ephesians chapter two and three talks about this, the hidden
wisdom of God, and it talks about how it's hidden.
I love this phrase within God himself.
The vault in which this treasured wisdom is hidden is
the heart of God. The occult cannot touch that
matter of fact. It says it's unsearchable wisdom
hidden within God Himself. The word unsearchable literally
means no tracks. You can look at it and you don't
see it. You can't trace it until God
gives you Revelation. And so one of the ways in which
God stewards his Kingdom is revealing and concealing,
revealing and concealing mysteries and revelation is just
another way of saying it. Revelation is a present day
reality. I'm not talking about seeing
things that are not in the word. God can show you things.
Revelation is starting with a conclusion and then backfilling
it with the word. God can speak to you things you
don't know but he will back it with his word.
Or he can show you in his word and leads you to a conclusion.
Study is you. You reason until you come to a
conclusion. Scripture revelation is you get
an insight and then you backfill it with scripture but you better
wed it to scripture. So when when non charismatics
criticize the charismatic movement, we use language like
revelation that Paul himself used matter of fact, he's
referred to the Spirit of God as the spirit of wisdom and
revelation. We're to pray for those things.
We're not talking about extra biblical revelation.
We're talking about God showing us things in His Word we would
have never seen without His help.
And I would propose to you, there are things that Paul wrote
he didn't understand. He got a flash of revelation,
saw one facet, wrote it down. He's like, wow, that was
amazing. But there are other facets to
that thing Paul himself didn't understand.
And so the spirit of wisdom and revelation will lead us along,
to grow us up in God. Knowledge has a purpose.
Knowledge, wisdom, and revelation isn't just so that we
can feel smart, sit around and talk theology, talk theory.
Knowledge is actually the way that God grows you up first.
Peter says Grace and peace be unto you through your knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the conduit or the avenue
through which grace comes to you.
And grace is the substance of the Christian life.
You're saved by grace. You walk, but you never outgrow
your need for grace. The substance of the apostle
Paul's calling, he said. Surely you have heard of the
grace of God upon me that made me an apostle.
The substance what God slapped on him to make him an apostle
was grace. But the avenue through which
grace makes it to us and impacts our heart is knowledge.
So you can't grow without knowledge.
If you're not growing in your understanding, you ain't
growing. That's bad grammar, but good
preaching. Okay, If you are not growing in
your knowledge, you aren't growing.
Period. Now that's a safeguard.
You can grow in your knowledge and not grow spiritually.
There are a lot of very well informed infants in the church
today. They talk theory, but they're
not walking it out. But you cannot grow spiritually
without growing in your knowledge.
And So what the Lord will do is He will birth questions in your
heart to entice you and to keep bringing you along.
And your hunger will actually lead you into breakthrough and
revelation in the things of God. But it's always going to tie
back into the book, and so God wants to give us understanding.
I say all that to say. I've been asking the Lord about
some of this for 40 years now, and I am convinced that some of
what we're talking about this morning is essential for the
Church of Jesus Christ to understand in this hour.
Why? Because there were three
separate episodes that created three separate problems and that
have three separate solutions. In one sense, of course, the
cross of Christ dealt with all of it.
But the way in which we apply the cross is different for the
internal fallenness of the human nature.
I don't cast that out. I've got to discipline myself.
I have the new birth. My nature is now born again.
But that old nature wants to rear head.
So what do I do? I've got to renew my mind.
I've got to get healed in my emotions.
Some of you struggle with the old man, not because your heart
is longing for those things, but because of your own woundedness.
You have a vulnerability for the enemy to push on those things.
That creates A longing for the old anesthesia of that
dysfunctional, sinful behavior. And so until you get healed, you
live on the precipice of temptation.
I felt that. Let's let's just camp out there
for a minute first. Peter, Chapter 4.
Peter says as he says Christ suffered in his body, arm
yourself also with the same attitude because he who suffered
in his body is done with sin. Everybody say this.
That is a huge statement. He's saying that if you suffer
in your body, you are done with sin.
That's that is an astounding proposition.
So let's unpack that. He says Christ suffered in his
body. Arm yourself also with the same
attitude Jesus had an attitude, a mindset, an approach to sin.
That is, if we adopt it, it will be an armor of defense against
temptation. It will actually defend you, he
said. Arm yourself with the same
attitude. It will become an armor, a
shield against the temptation of the enemy.
Jesus had a mindset against evil.
Then he goes on to say that astounding thing.
He who suffers and his body is done with sin.
What he's saying is this. All sin is flight from pain in
one form or another. You either have something you
don't want, you're willing to step outside of the will of God
to get it, or you do have something you don't want and
you're willing to step out of the side of the will of God to
get rid of it. But if we adopt the mindset of
Christ and we embrace pain, it is actually the pathway to
deliverance. And so often we're saying, God,
if you would just deliver me, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't feel this pain and I wouldn't be so tempted.
No, it's doesn't work like that. You embrace the pain and say if
I've got to live this way the rest of my life, I'm going to
maintain my fidelity to Jesus. And I'm telling you, that is the
first step in your deliverance because you will learn to
overcome those things. And so a lot of people, it's not
just present pain, it's pain from their past.
The enemy will push on to entice them into evil.
And so we've got to be so careful.
So that's how we deal with that first fall, okay.
We deal with the pain from our past.
We renew our mind. We discipline ourself.
You don't cast that out. If it was, I'd be signing up for
a Deliverance session this afternoon.
Hallelujah. It's it's not an event.
It's a process to deal with that.
For the demonic. You don't discipline a demon.
I've got. I'm being afflicted.
I'm being oppressed. I'm being driven by a spirit.
I'm going to discipline my No, that's not the answer.
You cast that thing out and let me just let me just camp out
here for a second. The the whole concept of demon
possession in the body of Christ it we have unfortunate
misunderstandings because of our English translations.
The Greek does not say demon possessed.
A better translation would simply be demonized.
In other words, influenced by a demon We want to split hairs and
kind of because we're uncomfortable.
Demon possessed no demon. Oppressed, compressed,
suppressed, impressed. Oh, you know, we we want to have
all these terms. The Bible doesn't use any of
that. It simply means that you are
influenced at some level by a demonic entity and you can close
that door so they don't have any ground to push on.
And one of those things is that woundedness that the enemy,
inner healing and deliverance often go hand in hand.
And those of you that have experienced new levels of
freedom in the last couple months know that to be the case,
that the enemy will push on that old woundedness and he'll green
a foothold. And we've got to be willing to
deal with the pain. And as we get inner healing,
often we find the deliverance soon after that.
But there is another level of evil and it is not internal.
It's not some external entity that we're dealing with.
And there are times where there's there, there's those
thoughts, those that battle and and let me just go back here for
a second, this thing. A lot of times what believers do
is they own the thoughts of the enemy.
The enemy will talk to you in your own voice.
And if you don't discern, if you don't understand from the word
that you are born again, your nature is different.
You will actually step off the place of victory and try to
fight for victory rather than from it.
And that is a whole different deal.
And so you've got to learn to discern and you've got to know
who you are. Your identity being established
in your identity is one of the primary acts of war that will
give you victory. It this, this is a spiritual
weapon when you know who you are and the enemy begins to entice
you. There are times where I I've
been in a situation where all of a sudden I've had some crazy
thought and I've got check my heart and say, okay, what's
going on in the room because that is not who I am.
And often your discernment is discerning what's in the room.
And if you don't understand it, you own it and you're you're
over there repenting and fighting for victory that you
already had. And the enemy has has stripped
you of your authority, and rather than being able to deal
with what's in the room, you're over here trying to deal with
something that's not even in your heart.
And so as we understand who we are in Christ, we know our
identity. Then we can begin to realize,
oh, that's my Spidey sense. Well, okay, we'll call it that.
But that's that's discernment. There's something going on in
the room and we can deal with this.
So we have that. This third one, Genesis 32, Paul
Moses says this Psalm 82. We talked about this a number of
months ago, but it is let's turn there real quick because it
gives us insight into what what's really going on in this
regard, this third entrance of evil that the early church
believed in and we need to believe in.
OK, Psalm 82. Listen to this Psalm 82, verse
one. God has taken his place in the
divine council in the midst of the gods.
He holds judgment. Anybody familiar with John
Piper? Anybody in here?
John Piper, conservative Baptist theologian, phenomenal man of
God's phenomenal scholar. I, I, I want to let you know he
believes this says the same thing.
I don't believe in he, he this is not some, you know,
aberration some kind of weird fringe belief.
This is you can you can Google it.
And John Piper believes it means the same thing.
So he he in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.
How long till now? This.
So it says see this is a Psalm of ASAP.
ASAP was a prophet that functioned under King David.
It says that he was a prophet. He was a song leader.
He was also the flag bearer and a gatekeeper.
Boy that'll preach won't have time to get into that.
But those things go hand in hand.
And he was a prophet that would also prophesy with instruments
of music. And that interesting, we touched
that this morning, by the way, that last song.
And there are things that ASAP breaks into.
He has a revelation of things that he could not have known had
God not downloaded this to him. God showed this to him.
So he says, God has taken his place in the divine counsel.
In the midst of the gods he holds judgment.
This is God speaking to these members of the divine council.
How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the
wicked? He's rebuking them.
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless.
Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of
the wicked. They have neither knowledge nor
understanding. They walk about in darkness.
All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
So God is addressing these entities.
Now listen to verse six. I said this is a I believe this
is a ASAP. Now speaking, I said you are
God's. No, that doesn't change the fact
that this is God's word, this is scripture.
This is authoritative revelation.
But I think it matters that this is now from Asap's perspective,
he said. I said you are God's sons of the
most High. All of you nevertheless, like
men, you shall die and fall like any Prince.
Verse 8. Arise, oh God, judge the earth,
for you shall inherit all the nations.
That last verse is a very, very important part of this passage.
What does he say? You shall inherit all the
nations we know. In Deuteronomy 32, God delegated
the nations, all the nations except Israel, to these sons of
God. We see them show up in the book
of Job. There's a number of passages,
the book of Job, it says the sons of God convened before God
and God looks at in in the Hebrew.
It's thus Satan and said, where you been?
What what you been up to? And he said, I've been going
through all the earth and evaluating the the affairs of
many said have you considered Job?
And that kind of launches us out from the book, but it's Speaking
of the same sons of God. Scholars all agree those are
angelic or even divine creatures, not divine in the
sense that they are uncreated. They are created beings living
in the spiritual realm There. It's a hierarchical structure in
the spiritual realm. So we see these sons of God.
God delegates the nations to them.
And Deuteronomy 32, it reveals it to us.
But by Psalm 82, God's rebuking them and saying you have used
your administration, your delegated authority, contrary to
what I intended, you are going to die like the sons of men.
And then what does he say? ASAP says you will inherit the
nation. Speaking to God.
So God said, I'm going back after the nation's.
The Great Commission going into all the nations is tied to this
divine council worldview, and we really cannot understand it
correctly unless we understand that that God is going after the
nations, he told Abraham. I'm going to bless you, make you
into a great nation, and then you will bless the nations of
the earth. We see in Colossians.
God strips these beings, these sons of God, of their of their
authority, of their rulership. This is what the what the Old
Testament calls the divine counsel, the sons of God, these,
these beings the New Testament refers to as principalities.
One of the reasons I'd asked the Lord this for years.
I'd said, God, what's the deal with these principalities?
How did they access that level of authority in the earth?
Where could they step into that type of authority?
And my theology, what I had been loosely taught, nice, surmised
and kind of tried to connect some dots at that.
Well, you know, the earth had been given to man, that's clear.
And that. So then man, when he fell into
sin, delegated his authority to these spirits, and now they rule
in the heavenly realms. But that's not the case.
Colossians listen to Colossians chapter one.
Listen to what it says. See if I I've got this written
down somewhere here. Colossians chapter one, It says
Colossians one verse 16. For by him Speaking of Christ,
all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether Thrones or dominions or rulers or
authorities. All things were created through
him and for Him. So God created these positions,
these Thrones, these The structure of the spiritual realm
was created by God to glorify Him and serve His purposes.
But through the fall, these positions were corrupted, and
what we now consider spiritual warfare is dealing with these
entities. And we need to understand that
what we're getting into is what's called a biblical
cosmology. How does the cosmos work?
How does God govern his creation?
The very idea of a Kingdom, the Kingdom of heaven is not a
place. It's it's not a realm, it's
rule. The Spanish word that we
translate Kingdom is Reno, am I right?
Reno? It's it.
It gives us the idea of the English word to reign, and that
is the Kingdom of God is his authoritative right to rule.
There it is unarguable, unchallengeable.
No one voted in, him voted him in, and no one's going to vote
him out. He is.
He has all authority. Why?
Because he is the author. He created it, and then he
authorizes people with authority to rule in layers of delegated
authority. There is a hierarchy to the
spiritual realm and if we don't understand this, see an
oversimplistic cosmology will cause you to run into problems
in your walk with Jesus. Especially when we begin to talk
about the mission and extending the Kingdom of God.
When we want to go into regions, we want to go into nations.
As I've learned this, When I get into a nation, when I've come
there to minister, I go out on the balcony because there's a
balcony on the hotel. And I'll stand out there and I
will just begin to declare I'm here on assignment from King
Jesus. He's come to take this nation
back, and I come under his authority, under his protection,
and I come here with the charigma, the authoritative
message from the Kingdom of God, because that is our mission to
extend the Kingdom. But if we don't understand that,
we think we're just kind of trying to talk people into
believing in Jesus. What I'm saying is this.
There is an internal fallenness that man struggles with, but
there is an external darkness that man resides in, and we've
got to contend with that and deal with that.
So men's eyes can be open to their hearts are enlightened,
and they can be saved. That's why prayer and evangelism
go hand in hand. Because if we don't win the
battle in the Spirit, we don't win the battle for the souls of
men because they're left groping around in darkness.
The gospel doesn't make sense. The the Bible uses this
terminology. They are darkened in their
understanding. In fact, Ephesians 4 and Romans
One both use this terminology. Romans One deals with with it on
a corporate level and atmospheric level, which is what
we're talking about this morning.
Ephesians 4 deals with it on an individual level.
Turn with me to Ephesians 4. Look at this.
This is this is a troubling passage but it's something we
need to understand and we can rescue men and women from this.
I I read this years ago as I began to understand this
passage, I thought been there, done that.
I remember walking away from Jesus and I walked right down
this pathway. What Paul is going to do if you
begin to look in verse, look at verse 17, Paul is going to, he's
going to start at the end and he's going to reverse engineer.
How did man end up in this terrible dilemma?
And he's going to reverse engineer it and find out the
root cause of this thing called the darkening of the
understanding. I would propose to you that you
could, you could put the title over this whole passage, the
process of the darkening of the understanding or the process of
the hardening of the heart, because they're one and the
same. Listen to what he says here,
verse 17. Now this I say and testify in
the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do.
Now hold there for a second. Understand.
Paul would not warn us against this if it was not possible for
us as a believer to do so. He's not going to say, you know,
don't don't go out and create your own universe because you
can't do that. He doesn't warn you.
He doesn't say Dave, be careful. Don't be a movie star.
Ain't going to happen, Okay. He warns me about things that
are a danger for me, not an impossibility.
So yeah, enough said. Verse 17.
Now this I say in testifying the Lord that you must no longer
walk as the Gentiles do. What does it say in the futility
of their minds? Romans 1 uses that same language
as the futility of their thinking.
There are three phrases in Romans 1 where he's talking
about how God gave them over to a depraved mind.
Remember that where they knew God but refused to worship him
as God, and so God gave them over to a depraved mind and they
became inflamed with lust. The next stage is they became
inflamed. Men became inflamed with lust
for one another, and women would lay with women, which was
unnatural, Paul says. So both of these passages talk
about the futility of the thinking, the darkening of the
understanding, and they being given over to sensuality.
That is what we are dealing with as a culture, and it's not just
in the United States. This is a global thing that
we're dealing with, and God always answers fire with fire.
Worldwide revival has already begun.
But we need to fuel it with our intercession and with
understanding so we can engage. So what does Paul say?
He says they are darkened in their understanding and
alienated from the life of God. So that's the end result.
Darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of
God. Listen to that.
Darkened in their understanding, their mind is not enlightened.
Which is the the converse idea that Scripture talks about, That
our minds would be enlightened, that the Spirit would give us
light. The 2nd Corinthians.
That the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Christ Jesus would be shed abroad in their hearts, and all
of a sudden we'd see. We're not darkened.
We're not groping about in the dark, not understanding that we
we can't connect the dots. I don't understand cause and
effect. I'm doing these things and I'm.
I'm, I'm complaining about my sore back while I jump out
windows and break the law of gravity.
And I don't connect the two. Well, don't jump out.
A second story window and your back won't hurt.
But I don't understand that. I can't connect the dots between
cause and effect. It's like that's the darkening
of the understanding. We we can't see.
We're imprisoned by our darkened understanding.
That's the end result. But he says this because of or
the cause of, which is what? The ignorance that is in them.
So there's ignorance. There's things that they don't
know. Okay.
But then he says this. That is due to what?
The hardening of their heart. So he goes back to the root.
The root causes. This man hardens his heart.
The hardening of the heart is a very specific idea in scripture.
Psalm or Proverbs 28, verse 14. It juxtaposes the hardening of
the heart over against the fear of the Lord.
It shows it that those are two opposite responses.
When you're confronted on something, when you see the
truth and it's an uncomfortable truth, and it's going to demand
something of you, it's going to demand change, you have one of
two choices. You're out of fork in the road.
You got to decide, Will I fear the Lord and enter into the
wisdom and bend my neck and say, God, you're smarter than me.
I, I, I, I my mind says I don't want this, but I know you know
what I really want. And I've learned by experience
when I go after something that you tell me I don't want and I
say, Oh yes, I do, that it isn't very long.
I'm crying out saying, God, I don't want it, will you deliver
me from it. So we walk in the fear of the
Lord, and that's the beginning of wisdom and wisdom.
And Scripture is living for the long term.
It's living according to the consequences, this living
looking down the road aways and saying, oh, if I do this today,
this will happen tomorrow. And this is the thing I want to
happen. So I'm going to do this today,
and this is the thing I don't want to have happen tomorrow.
So I'm not going to do this today.
That's the fear of the Lord. Foolishness is the opposite.
It's eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
I don't, I mean not even be alive tomorrow to suffer the bad
consequences or enjoy the good consequences of good behavior.
So I'm just going to indulge in the moment, the fool says in his
heart, there is no God. He doesn't act according to a
God that's overseeing all of history and weighing and
balancing the scales of human behavior.
So we just throw caution to the wind and we bring stuff.
We bring tragedy on our own lives because we're fools.
Fools. Just look at the moment I want
this. Now the flip side is the
hardening of the heart. So if if we're going to be wise
and walk in the fear of Lord, then we we begin to make
decisions based on the longterm consequences.
And I'll tell you that is the life of blessing.
You pay the price now for repeating benefits in the
future. You do the hard things now,
knowing that there's going to be a snowball.
I'm telling you, I've walked with Jesus for many decades now,
and I'm telling you God is good and if you will follow him,
blessing will chase you down. Doesn't mean that life's a
better roses. But I'm telling you what a bad
day in Jesus is better than the best day without him.
And if you will go after, there is a snowball effect of blessing
that will chase you down because it's the blessed life, because
his principles work, his reign is good.
The alternative is you harden your heart.
What does hardening of the heart mean?
The hardening of the heart. See What does Paul say here in
Ephesians 4? He says they harden their heart,
which results in ignorance, which then results in the
darkening of the understanding. There's a progression, or rather
a digression here. The hardening of the heart is I
don't want this truth. This is an uncomfortable truth.
I don't want to hear this. I know what I want.
Don't give me counsel. To the contrary, I want this
thing. And you can.
God will honor your decision, CS Lewis said.
He said eternity will end with two types of people.
Those who said God your will be done, and those to whom God says
your will be done. God will honor our decision and
those who do not fear him will make bad decisions.
So we walk in the fear of the Lord and we won't harden our
heart. But the hardening of the heart
is saying, I don't want that truth.
I don't want that principle. I don't want to hear it.
See, we think we can isolate our disobedience.
I'm just going to. I'm going to isolate it.
I'm just going to say no to this one thing.
I'm going to stay surrendered in all other areas.
It doesn't work that way. You can't contain that
rebellion. It'll begin to leak into every
other place. When you resist him in one
truth. What happens in resisting the
truth? You began to lose truth.
With the lose the truth you once had, Ignorance steps in
hardening of the heart is to ignore the rebuke.
Ignorance is a step beyond now. I no longer have truth.
I'm ignorant. I I I don't understand things.
I can't connect the dots. I remember when I walked away
from God and I I got, I went deep into sin.
I became a very demonized young man, and I remember people
coming up and witnessing to me, and I knew the truth.
In fact, I would tell people about the gospel and they'd
laugh at me. Yeah, you're going to.
You're going to be a preacher someday.
I would talk to them about the Gospels, real, But it was like I
couldn't grasp it. I could tell you the data, the
facts, but it had no impact on my heart.
It was like it would, if I tried to grasp.
It was like smoke. It would just disappear.
I was in bondage. My understanding was darkened.
I was ignorant, so harden your heart.
Ignore ignorance. Ignore Ignorance sets in.
And then the final phases. They're darkened under the
standing and separated from the life of God. the OR alienated is
the way. The ESV says.
The darkening of the understanding is to lose the
moral faculty to receive any more revelation.
It's not that you just lost what you once have.
You've lost the ability to gain it back because your
understanding is darkened and the only hope for that person is
the mercy of God. And somebody praying that they
would come into that, the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Christ Jesus would be shed abroad in their
heart and they would the God. It's Paul says this in 2nd
Corinthians 4. It's a beautiful passage.
The God who says let there be light would say over them, let
there be light and the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Christ. It's like the fog, the the, the,
the, the smog over the life, the moral clouds.
All of a sudden the sunburst comes through and it burns off
the clouds, and all of a sudden they're standing an open day and
they see and they understand. I remember distinctly a season
in my life where all of a sudden I began to understand the
gospel. I began to come under
conviction. I began to respond to the fear
of the Lord because I was so convinced God is real.
I still don't want to serve him, but I don't want to violate them
at that level because I know he sees everything and I'm going to
get a spanking. That is not the thinking of a
Sinner. That is not the thinking of a
person that's going to continue. It was because there was a group
of ladies at First Church of the Open Bible in Ottumwa, IA that
were contending for my soul. Years later, I ran into a little
lady in a mall and she she pulled me aside and she said,
Dave, I've never told you this. She and she told me the the
approximate date is when I was living on the street.
She said one night at at church. We're having a just a time at
the altar and she said that had such a burden for you, she said.
I just began to cry out to God for you.
I laid at the altar just weeping for your soul.
That's the only reason I'm saved today, because God had somebody
he could get to pray for me and lift that darkness.
So there is this darkness that comes on people that we bring on
ourself. That's the individual darkness
of Ephesians 4. But there is a corporate
darkness that literally settles on a society, on a culture and
on nations. Turn with me to Ephesians
Chapter 6. Very quickly and we're going to
wrap this up. And this is important for us to
understand for a number of reasons.
But one of the reasons is if we are going to deal with the
darkness, this present darkness that is pervading our nation,
God needs a people that understand what they walk in,
and we begin to penetrate this darkness with intercession.
God wants to send a sunburst that the sun, the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of his Son would burn
off the clouds, burn off the fog, and people would begin to
see. And there are times all
throughout human history where people talked about it was it
was not an internal thing. Like my testimony is where
people were praying for me as an individual and I began to see
and it was an atmospheric thing that they walked in the the
first Great Awakening in the United States before we were a
nation. The most prominent figure leader
of that that move was Jonathan Edwards, But they talked about
the God zone in the harbor of the Colonial America.
There was one ship. A famous story of ships would
come in from sea. Men out nine months at sea,
they're ready to get paid for nine months of Labor in one
paycheck. And they had just a few things
on their mind, and none of them were good.
They're going to go whine and women and they were going to go
blow their money and they would float into the harbor and there
was a place. They would cross the line into
the harbor and they would come under severe conviction and get
saved. There was one story of a ship
that was parked on what they called the God Zone.
There were men on one side of the ship that weren't over that
line, and they were cussing and fighting and punching it out.
And guys on the other side of the ship were literally on their
knees wailing, crying out to God for salvation.
There is such a thing as God coming down and crippling
darkness in a region, a geographical region, where the
eyes of men are enlightened. And it's not that they they
thought themselves into it. They stepped into it and all of
a sudden the God they didn't believe in, didn't want to
serve, simply happens to them and they're converted.
And that's what we need to pray for.
Listen to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10.
Finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his
might. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the
devil. We don't have time to get into
it, but I'm telling you the devil has a schematic, a pattern
by which he assaults the souls of men.
Paul said we are not ignorant of the devil's devices.
Sad to say that cannot be said over everyone.
There are people who are ignorant of the schematics of
the enemy. The Great War book called What
is it? The Art of War.
One of the principles is know your enemy and his strategies.
Don't be ignorant of the schematic of the enemy, he he'll
drop over your life and try to work verse 12.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against.
Now listen when he says the rulers against the against the
rulers against the authorities against the cosmic powers over
this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in
heavenly places. Now there's two views on this
passage. I wouldn't armor, I sell anybody
over it. But my loosely held view is this
is not Speaking of a hierarchical list of spiritual
entities. Now, I believe there is a
hierarchy of spiritual entities in the spiritual realm, and that
first one rulers is RK ARCHE. It's where we get the word
Archangel. It's the one they put in front
of the Angel RK It it means first commander ruler.
It implies that there is a hierarchy.
But some people will read this as okay, There's these
principalities, these rulers, and then there's authorities and
then there's cosmic powers. This is my loosely held opinion.
Okay. I I don't believe that's what
that's talking about. Let me let me read it to you
because we're running out of time.
You guys are taking way too long.
I am not convinced this description is necessarily
describing different entities. My estimation is that it is most
likely elaborating on the very various facets of these are
gays, principalities, #1, their legal standing authorities,
exucia. It means they're they're the
authority by which they function, their function power
over the they have power over this present darkness and their
nature of their evil, as well as defining the realm of their
functioning. And So what I mean by that is
this, that they are the spirits that function with authority.
Why? Because God created an
authoritative structure. He assigned the nations to them
and now in Psalm 82 he said, I'm going to strip you of your
authority. Colossians tells us God, Jesus
did that at the cross. He stripped them of their
authority. They no longer have authority,
but they still occupy those positions.
So what are you and I to do? We are to go in and we are to do
war. And these rogue rulers that are
exerting, squatting rights, we displace them through
intercession, through travail so that we can have victory over
this present darkness. We don't have time to get into
all these terms. Maybe we'll maybe we'll revisit
this next week. But let me just mention one
thing. This idea, this present.
Well, let me let me just Who'll give me 5 minutes?
510-5020 OK Rulers, Arcade, first K These are the meanings
of these words. I'm just going to read them real
quick. Rulers, Arcade, first beginning.
Chief ruler. This term is.
This is the term from which we derive.
Archangel seems to denote a position by design, a position
granted to rule authorities. Exusia, authority.
Freedom of choice, right permission.
The English term authority is an accurate translation from which
we get the English authorization, which is a
related concept to this Greek term.
It denotes the created order which is now been corrupted by
sin. The beings which function within
the parameters of this title leverage the created order for
their defiled ends. Cosmic powers is the next word.
Cosmo crater. That's really what it that's the
word literally means world, ruler, cosmos, orderly
arrangement and by implication creation.
Criteo dominion might to seize or retain the exercise.
Dominion over the cosmos with the implication of arrangement.
According to Kittles. It's a that's a one of many
people think it's the premier Greek handbook.
This compound word weds both ideas together referring to both
the force and comprehensiveness of their design.
Speaking of these rogue entities, now this is the one we
really want to look at this present darkness.
The Greek word is scotos. Shadow obscurity denotes the
absence of light and in turn, the ignorance of God.
It's a moral darkness. It is a pervading darkness
which, if not completely so, contains a strong moral element.
It obscures the ability to understand moral and even
psychological issues, veiling connections and cause of causes
and effects. It is the darkening of the
understanding on a corporate, societal and even atmospheric
level. The inclusion of this idea of
this present darkness denotes the immediacy, the murkiness
which we all contend with in this present age.
One of the common dynamics of revival, however, which has been
pointed out by many throughout history, is the atmospheric
clarity and cleanliness people experienced during seasons of
outpouring. You ever been in revival?
You go in and it's like the air is clear.
It's like, oh man, you feel that you open your Bible and it's
just alive because the darkness has lifted.
The dominion of God come in, has come in and displaced this
present darkness. That's what we're contending
for. So it goes on, or I go on.
Many have pointed out throughout history the atmospheric clarity
and cleanliness people experienced during seasons of
outpouring. It is this very darkness, this
scotos, that is penetrated by the Spirit of God coming as a
spirit of truth, a spirit of wisdom and revelation, which
dispels lies and removes human justifications, melting them
like wax before the presence of the Lord.
All our justifications and our arguments that we hold on to for
what we do melt away, and we're stripped bare before the Lord,
and we know we have to deal with Him.
That's a good thing. If your armor of defense against
God still works, let me know. I'll be praying for you that God
will strip you naked revelation which dispels lies and removes
human justification, melting like wax for the presence the
Lord. This, the removal of this
present darkness is what is behind the concept of an open
heaven when applied geographically and
atmospherically. Then it says spiritual forces
and and heavenly places. I want to get into the Greek.
The term traces the activity, the spiritual entities defining
its source. It the the word evil defines the
moral nature and the motive behind this activity.
It denotes wickedness, twistedness, all with the
malicious intent defining the motive.
And it happens in the spiritual realm.
It defines the context or dimension out of which this evil
emanates and in which it operates.
And that, my friend, is what we're dealing with as a nation.
But we are the people of God, and the gospel contains the
power. To lift this present darkness.
And there is, Paul said, we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but we do wrestle with these principalities and powers.
We don't do it cavalierly and start rebuking them, but in
prayer, in travail, we begin to press.
Let me read you one more thing, Stan.
So you know I'm going to quit. Let me, let me just read you
this. One more thing.
Come on, pray for my computer. Okay here it is.
Our will in this realm of travail is essential.
We are displacing the enemy through stubborn determination.
We become like a bull that is pushing.
Consistent, stubborn pressure is brought against any opposition
until this will is accomplished. God's will is accomplished in
this situation. That's what that idea of
wrestling means. Those of you have wrestled, you
understand wrestling is one of the most exhausting sports
because the body itself is the weapon and you are using it to
bear pressure upon them until they give in.
And that's the idea that he has with us wrestling against these
principalities and powers. It is this that Paul is talking
about when he says we wrestle against principalities and
powers in high places. There is a wrestling, a
struggle, A showdown of wills. You've got to set your heart
towards this thing. I so appreciated what Pastor
Cara said this morning and I I turned to the young man standing
next to me and I he I asked him what he gave up and I said this
is what I was laying down this morning.
I feel like I have been distracted from by the cares of
this life and I want to give myself to this thing.
I want to give my whole heart. I received a call the other day.
I said would you get on the phone with Lou Engle.
I said sure. I thought it was going to be
like 50 pastors. It was Lou and his prophetic
sidekick in this, a prayer leader from across the state and
he said, can you mobilize people in Iowa for the elections?
So do you think you can call Iowa to a 21 day fast for the
elections? I believe God is calling us to
this, this showdown of wills. There needs to be something
within us that stands up and says not on my watch, not on my
watch. We're seeing this nation go to
hell in a handbasket and there needs to be something in us that
says not on my watch. This type of praying is a
contact sport wherein we come into direct contact with the
opposition. We feel his breath.
But this level of prayer is functioned in only by those who
have already achieved the internal surrender.
They are in no danger. They can say with Jesus He has
nothing in me. You've already laid it down.
To the extent you have something you're still holding on to is
the thing the enemy will come against.
If you're touchy, you will be touched.
The enemy has nothing in them. They are already.
They've already given their lives and surrender the threat
of giving it and the battle doesn't move them.
The enemy must acquiesce to this type of St. and this is the
great need of this hour. Praying Saints who love not
their lives and to the death. Let's pray, Father, we're asking
God that you would light our souls on fire.
Lord, we ask that you would take an A coal off the altar of
heaven and ignite our hearts. Lord, do what we cannot do for
ourselves. I feel like the Lord is asking
each of us this morning, individually and corporately.
Do I have your yes. Our yes doesn't mean we have the
capacity to carry it out on our own.
But we surrender our will and we say, Jesus, make me willing, do
whatever you have to do to get me where you need me to be.
What Pastor Cara shared this morning is a word from the Lord.
He's looking for a deeper surrender and future generations
look back at this generation. God is looking for a company of
people of whom it will be said, they laid their life down to
save a nation. They laid their life down to
shape history and to turn the corner.
Lord, we're asking God. She would touch us, light our
hearts on fire. And Father, we're asking that
you would instruct us, give us understanding for the
assignment, Teach us. We pray in Jesus name.
Before I let you go, I do apologize for going along, but
I'm sticking two weeks into one because Pastor Laura bumped me.
If you're here this morning and you're not right with God, this
is your opportunity. Jesus brought you here, and he's
here, standing before you. He's knocking on the door of
your heart. He wants you.
He's got a plan for your life, But it's going to take your
surrender. If you're here this morning and
you're saying I'm. I'm willing to step on the line.
I need Jesus. I need to surrender my life to
him. Just raise your hand right now.
You're saying I need to get right with God this morning.
So raise your hand high. Make sure I acknowledge it
before before you put it down. You need to get right with God
this morning. You're not walking with him and
you're saying I need that. I want that.
I'm willing to surrender my life.
Nobody can make that decision for you.
Often I know when I would sit in services and I felt that panic
and that my heart would beat and I just wanted to get out of
there. Don't give in to that.
Step over the line. If you need to get right with
God, just raise your hand right now.
We want to pray with you. All right, Father.
Lord, we thank you for your word and we thank you for what you're
doing in us. God, Lord, take us as your
people take us deeper. Jesus, this church, this
congregation. We as a corporate people are
yours to do with as you please. Spend us, Lord, Spend us, Lord.
Don't let us waste our life on silly temporal things.
Spend us well in Jesus name. Amen.
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