Lion on a Leash - Unsettling Times | Unshakable Faith

Let me think you back to 1942.

We're in the Philippines.

The Japanese have basically triumphed in the Philippines.

The American troops have to very quickly evacuate under General Wainwright.

There's a bataan death march.

The Philippines are not in, I don't think, part of his initial orders.

But he has a promise to keep But during the time that he uh that that were the Filipinos were on their own, a number of Filipino army guys became guerrilla fighters and continued to fight. and attacked the Japanese wherever they could.

They uh said the only thing that kept him going was the hope of his return, General MacArthur's return.

In December of 1944, my uncle, for whom I get my middle name, was in the Battle of Leyte Gulf In the Philippines.

One day, as you know, there's one of the most famous World War II newsreels there is Douglas MacArthur, you may have seen him striding out of the wake, out of the out of the waves, and coming ashore, keeping his promise And during that period of time, there were people fighting for the cause he represented because of the promise of his return.

Do I have to tell you why I'm telling you that story?

We are those guerrilla fighters as they were in David's day, knowing who the rightful king is.

And determined to do whatever it takes to have him crowned king in as many people's hearts as possible before he returns.

What keeps us going?

Is it Jesus said, I shall return, for if I go, I will return.

And you know he will keep his promise And one day, in what is now called MacArthur Boulevard in Manila, General MacArthur triumphantly came into the city And in the retinue behind him, American soldiers, but the fighters from the Philippine Army Who had been fighting for that cause against all odds for the past two years.

And I believe one day, if you will be a kingdom of heaven person in this next volume of your life, That you too shall march in triumph with the King of Kings when the whole world knows that he is king.

And whether they have chosen him or not, they will have no choice to bow in his name.

However, oh, and by the way, you know who really knows all that?

Is our enemy.

Oh yeah, he's quite he's quite aware of it But in the meantime, while we are fighting this uh guerrilla action, realize that uh our enemy is trying to make the most of the time he knows he has.

He doesn't know how much it is, but he can read the Bible and he can read the signs.

And so you and I, by the fact that we have chosen to follow King Jesus, are, whether we know it or not, in a war.

We are now in this war that's raged for centuries between two kingdoms.

And they're both mentioned in Colossians 1, 13 and 14, where it says, he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and placed us in the kingdom of the Son he loves.

There's the two kingdoms.

Actually, you might see there are three The scripture obviously just talks specifically about those two, but there's also just sort of the kingdom of earth, just you know, the the world we live in.

Two of those will die.

Two of those kingdoms have an expiration date.

The kingdom of earth has an expiration date The kingdom of darkness has an expiration date.

One of those kingdoms is forever.

It is the one with the king we serve.

You can see that Matthew in the verses are tried at the top of your notes alludes to this violent clash From the days of John the Baptist until now, since the Messiah was announced, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing.

This is war.

And forceful men, I think, referencing the kingdom of darkness Lay hold of it.

There's this clash.

Gotta stop it.

Gotta limit.

Gotta limit how much the kingdom of heaven can do.

The Prince of Darkness is powerless to stop or delay the final outcome.

But his demons, did you know, we know from actually from Matthew that his demons know and believe their fate They know it's a lost cause.

It's just a very intriguing little phrase in Matthew 8.

29.

So he is casting out these demons.

And they say, what do you want with us, Son of God?

They shouted.

Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?

They know They know what their future is.

In the meantime, isn't that interesting?

We know there's an appointment in time and we know what's going to happen to us But in the meantime, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but it is against the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

And so as your notes say, until their inevitable defeat, the forces of darkness are fully mobilized to do all they can to slow the advance. of Jesus' kingdom and to capture or to ruin as many lives as possible.

You know, you hear people talking about the sudden fall of Afghanistan.

And what was so shocking was in a very short order, the Taliban captured one provincial capital after another before they got to Kabul.

In in sometimes only days in between, they would go from one to another and they were in this surge taking provincial capitals.

I wonder if we are watching in our time the spiritual equivalent of that then our enemy seems to be seizing control of various cultural capitals within our world And it just seems like there's been such a sudden change that none of us recognizes the country or the world we live in, or the times we're living in.

So what do we do?

Well, thankfully, Matthew, way back 2,000 years ago, what he records Gives us uh actionable intel on both the enemy's battle plan We've got we've got we've got a report back on that, and we're gonna just so you know what to look for, and some of you are about to experience it within the next 24 to 48 hours And we also have the King's Victory Plan.

So we're going to take a look at that.

And I'll tell you, this last passion, our spiritual ancestors.

The first believers, the most powerful generation of Christians to ever live on this planet, I believe.

They understood this war.

They understood this passion.

They lived this passion.

And that is defying the darkness.

Understanding what is darkness and when you know that that's what it is, you defy it.

They constantly were challenging the forces of darkness with the advance of the gospel all through that first generation.

Those involved in this study should expect an enemy effort to snatch this seed and take back the ground that Jesus gains.

Actually, in one of the parables, the seed and the sower in Matthew, Jesus said, the enemy comes immediately. to snatch away the seed.

So when you get back, if there is conflict, if there is frustration, if there is temptation , Just be aware.

Say, well, I know who this is.

I know what this is.

For the seed snatcher has come.

Again, back during World War II, General Rommel was in North Africa, and the German forces had uh taken control of North Africa, but General Eisenhower was on the way And they knew he was about to land.

And he would establish a beachhead.

And from there would go to take back North Africa.

And Rommel gave these orders.

He said, we must stop Eisenhower in the first 48 hours.

Or we will not stop him.

We must stop him before he secures his beachhead.

Clearly they failed.

I can hear the enemy saying that about gains in your life.

Gotta stop it quick, or we won't stop it.

Don't be afraid of this.

This isn't something to be afraid of.

Just to be aware of.

What's it say in 1 Peter?

Be Sober and vigilant, be aware of your enemy prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour, right?

But he is a lion on a leash.

And guess who holds the leash?

Yeah, King Jesus says that far, but no farther.

So let's take a look real quick and and blow through the uh some of the uh enemy strategy here.

We're gonna go to a very revealing example here. to see some of the enemy's battle plan in chapter 17.

This is the day heaven came down on a mountaintop.

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.

And uh and uh led them up a high mountain by themselves.

There he was transfigured before them.

His face shone like the sun.

His clothes became as white as the light.

Just then freaked me out.

There appeared before them Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus.

I'd have loved to heard that conversation.

Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it's good for us to be here.

I love this mountaintop.

This is so, this is Warrior Leadership Summit.

This is so, this is the president's retreat.

This is so cool.

Could we put up three shelters How about we we preserve this experience?

Can we can we keep having this experience?

We need to build something we could have we could stay in here.

How about we build three shelters?

We'll each get one.

One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and maybe we could stay in yours.

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is my son.

Remember the baptism?

Same thing.

Beginning and end of his public ministry, basically.

This is very close to the crucifixion.

This is my son whom I love, with him I am well pleased.

Listen to him.

This is not about the experience.

This is not about the spiritual high.

This is not about the environment, the mountaintop.

This is about my son.

He's at the top of the mountain.

He's at the bottom of the mountain.

Listen to him.

When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground, terrified.

But Jesus came, I think, times when we're afraid, he does this and touches us.

Get up, he said.

It's one of the most common commands in the book of Matthew.

Get up.

Don't be afraid.

And when they looked up, I love these words.

This would be a good wall plaque to put in your office They saw no one except Jesus.

When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him, Lord, have mercy on my son.

He has seizures, is suffering greatly.

He often what in the world falls into the fire and into the water But but I brought him to your disciples and they could not heal him.

It's a demon-possessed boy.

And suddenly we have a power encounter at the bottom of the mountain, essentially, with the work of Satan Here we go.

Right after they've had heaven on the mountain, they got hell at the bottom.

That's kind of how it works sometimes.

You get a touch from God followed by a torpedo from the enemy.

Now if you know it's coming, you know who it is, you can take your stand.

Here's the battle plan.

Let's go over to Matthew 3, and we're going to learn a lot right here.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.

At that moment heaven was open.

He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove alighting on him.

You want to know what the spiritual high was for Jesus?

This was it.

This was his highlight.

I mean you got the Trinity reunited briefly at his baptism.

The Father speaks.

The Holy Spirit comes down.

The Son is there.

All Jesus wanted was the father's pleasure anyway.

This is my son whom I love with whom I am well pleased.

Then Jesus was led by the devil into the wilderness.

Is that what it says?

Oh no, it good.

If your Bible says that, get another one.

No, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, oh, to be tempted by the devil.

Whose idea was the wilderness?

It was God's idea.

Whose opportunity was it?

The devil's opportunity.

All right.

After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

Notice, at his weakest point The tempter came to him, said, if you are the Son of God, what had the Father just said at the baptism?

This is my son What does the devil say?

If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

Jesus answered, say the three words with me.

Yeah, Doug talked a lot about this.

It is written Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.

If , we know again, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down For it is written, he will command his angels concerning you.

They'll lift you up in their hands, so you will not strike your foot against the stone.

Jesus answered, It is also written, do not put the Lord your guide to the test.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

All this I'll give you.

All you gotta do is bow down and worship me.

Jesus said to him, away from me, Satan.

For it is written, the worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

And the devil left.

There's no battle.

There's no resistance.

Get out of here.

He gets out of there.

And angels came and attended Jesus.

All right, um let's do a little uh what do we learn from this?

Here's the battle plan of the devil.

Exploit your wilderness.

He will do his darndest to exploit your wilderness When you are going through a dry time , a blah time, a depressing time, well, I tell you, the enemies had a lot to work with during two years of pandemic, hasn't he?

A lonely time.

Look at when he comes after Jesus.

Jesus is tired.

Jesus has an intense need after 40 days of not eating.

He's alone.

Heaven is silent.

At the baptism, he hears the voice of his father.

The only voice he's hearing here is the voice of the devil.

That's not the dove coming down, that's vultures circling.

So he goes from this glorious time to this uh time of um of great weakness.

Well first of all what do we know the wilderness is part of God's plan and the spirit took him into the wilderness it is part of God's plan Why?

Ask any athlete who's serious about being strong, making the team, you don't go in and always bench the same bench press Your goal is always to increase your bench press.

If you're gonna really be a champion, you gotta be you gotta Get stronger.

You know how you get stronger?

By lifting something you never lifted before.

How does God make warriors out of us from wimps Well, we gotta have something heavier than we've ever lifted before.

So we learn to depend on his strength, and it makes us stronger in God's weight room.

That's why we need wilderness Is the wilderness fun?

No.

Is it hard?

Yes.

Is it worth it?

Yes.

My friend has a shirt that he tried getting off of him.

It says, I've been to the wilderness.

Well, what what that means is Jim was part of a program for two weeks that was grueling.

I mean, imagine.

Carrying heavy backpack up steep climbs several days, running long, long stretches, miles, intense exercise, Soloing with nothing, you're not given anything to survive on.

Just gotta live off the land if you can In fact, the very last day, after all of that, whatever's left of them, they're like, hey, it's our last day.

You gotta run one last five miles.

And your mentor, your coach, is at the end waiting to welcome you to success.

Yes, Jim, was it fun?

No.

Was it hard?

Yes.

Was it worth it?

Yes, you should look at the back of his shirt The front says, I've been to the wilderness.

The back says, I can handle anything.

You know what?

It's good to know when the devil is trying to exploit your wilderness that God , it's God's idea for you to be there.

And You're this is just the enemy's opportunity.

Can I just suggest to you that while he's in the wilderness there , you know what the three temptations were if I could summarize them?

First of all, with satisfaction.

Satisfy a very intense need you have.

Just do it sinfully.

That's the nature of many temptations, isn't it?

Satisfy an appetite.

Second temptation has to do, I think, with um uh significance.

You know, here , everybody will see at the top of the temple and you throw yourself down and that'll make you somebody to everybody.

And the desire for significance is a temptation devil can really exploit.

The last one It's shortcuts.

Jesus, don't you don't need to do this cross thing Skip it.

I'll give you the kingdoms without that.

All you gotta do is bow down.

That's a lot easier than dying on a cross.

He's trying to give us he's trying to give us a shortcut.

We're like, well, maybe I could have it, I I gotta compromise a little bit, but I could have what I'm after Shortcuts, satisfaction, significance, things the devil exploits in the wilderness.

And notice this, part of his strategy is to sow doubt About what God has said.

You know what God has said to you here.

You can almost be sure that in some way The devil is going to try to get you to call it into question.

Notice, he says, if you are who God just said you are.

He's going to do that with you.

He has done it with all of us.

Look at your notes.

God says is.

The enemy says if.

This is the way it is.

The enemy says, well, if it is, what's the first words we ever hear out of the enemy's mouth in Genesis?

Did God say You sure God said that?

And Jesus says, it is written.

Here, read this.

Read this, Satan.

It is written.

So when he says if, you say it is written.

If I can add, shut up.

Not you.

The other thing he'll do, another one of his battle plans, is to attack your identity.

Now that you know who you are in Christ, all of us here have lies in our head from when we were kids, when we were in school.

All these lies about who we are and what we're worth.

Those lies are still there.

But they have now been, in a sense, superseded by the truth of who you are in Christ Son or daughter of God, blood-bought purchase of the Son of God.

Jesus, personal representative to people.

Oh yeah.

A prince or princess in God's family.

But the devil will call all that into question.

Think about Simba coming back and Lion King.

Or not Simba Simba's dad, whatever his name was, Mr.

Lion, came back and he remember he said, Simba!

Remember who you are.

I should say R.

Well God is going, my son, my daughter, remember who you are.

You are not the lies that you used to believe.

If he can get you to question your identity, he's got you very vulnerable.

The old lies he used to defeat you when you before you knew him like you do now.

You are who your king says you are.

You are who your king says you are.

At 1 Peter 2. 9, here's who he says you are.

A chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession.

And all of that so you can declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness, there's the two kingdoms, into his wonderful light.

Another battle plan of the devils, we have to go to Revelation 12 to find.

Look at this.

I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now how.

Now have come the salvation and power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah.

For the accuser, here we go of our brothers and sisters who accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down.

That's what devil means.

It literally means accuser.

Accusation.

Accusation is another part of his battle plan to keep the kingdom of heaven from advancing in you.

We won't go to the verses, but you remember in in Job, that's what he did when the devil goes into heaven and talks and says, look, uh, Job, you know, Job if he wasn't rich and he wasn't Everything was going his way, he wouldn't be honoring you.

He's right there with God accusing Job of really wasn't true.

And uh Zechariah 3. 1, we won't look it up, but you can see there again, the accuser is there.

Right, you don't have to write it down, it's in your notes.

God never remembers your sin.

The devil never forgets it.

We know from Hebrews 812, I will remember your sins no more.

Gone.

Depths of the sea, as far as east is from the west, gone.

But the devil comes along and says, you failure, you You thought you could change.

This is all you will ever be When Lisa was a senior in high school, how many of you are proud and would love to show pictures of you in junior high?

How many of you have ever been to a junior high class reunion?

You never will, I don't think.

Because nobody really wants to remember I mean, if you didn't believe in purgatory, you might when you were in junior high or middle school.

And uh it's interesting, Lisa, who's always been beautiful to her dad.

But she was a uh like most of us in junior high, what you call a a catter, a catterfly or a butter pillar.

You know, you're sort of a caterpillar on your way to becoming a butterfly, but you know, you got a wing over here and fuzz over here.

And she didn't have either of those, but Um, but she didn't have thick glasses and she had her uh you know all the metal in her mouth, you know, the orthodontist had done his thing, still had her big smile.

And her hair was kind of kinky and pulled back and always my princess, but you know.

Oh, the the butterfly had not been born yet.

And um so now we're in this it now we're in senior and the seniors just got their senior pictures She's in French class.

The teacher's a little late.

The girls decide to get their pictures out of their wallet and start looking at them.

Since they just got their senior pictures.

Lisa's senior picture, beautiful.

I mean uh you know big smile no metalwork and gorgeous hair and and uh uh you know contacts you just look at her beautiful self And um but next to that picture they put her junior high picture.

And they are laughing it up And um the teeth and Leisha's laughing with him.

The teacher comes in.

She's like, what's going on?

She comes over, she starts laughing.

As well.

And I don't even know if this is right because I didn't take French, but I think she said something like , La miracle.

The miracle.

Do you know why Lisa could laugh at that?

Because she could look at that picture and say, that was me.

But that's not me anymore And when the accuser comes to you, you say that was me, but that's not me anymore I am a new creation in Christ.

Thwart his battle plan.

Infiltrate is another one of his bat one of his plans.

Matthew 13 is an example.

Parable, Kingdom of Heaven.

It's like a man sowed good seed in this field, but while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came Sowed seeds among the wheat and went away.

When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

And later when the servants go, well, we better pull those weeds up, he said, no, no, no, no, you can't pull those weeds up because they look exactly like.

You'll pull up wheat too.

You're gonna have to wait till the harvest time.

And then it'll be clear, and we'll get rid of the weeds at that point.

When Jesus explains this, it's very obvious that he in essence is saying, sitting in church on a Sunday morning.

Maybe wheat and weeds, and we can't pick out which is which.

Shame on us if we try.

But the devil sows counterfeit among the real. infiltrating to weaken and dilute the body of Christ.

It's one of his strategies And we know from the passage in Matthew 7, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name?

And we drove out demons.

We performed many miracles.

These are four of the most chilling words in the Bible.

I never knew you.

I never knew you.

Away from me.

These are people who actually uh they're not just backbenchers.

I mean they're seem to be all in and they know to say Lord twice.

Lord, Lord.

But they have somehow, in the midst of Christianity, missed Christ.

That 's always a danger.

That's why Corinthians says to check yourselves, examine yourself to see whether you are really in the faith Knowing the words is not knowing the Lord.

They're not the same thing.

So um Be aware that infiltrate is is part of it.

One last battle plan is to exploit overconfidence He exploits overconfidence.

Matthew 26.

Peter replied, even if all fall away on account of you.

I never will.

Truly I'll tell you this very night, before the rooster crows, tomorrow morning at sunrise.

You'll disown me not once.

You're going to disown me three times.

But Peter declared, even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.

And all the other disciples, they're like, oh, this sounds good.

Yep, I'm in too, Jesus.

To the death, to the death Hmm.

Or until a 12-year-old girl asks you, didn't I see you with him?

I love what Jesus says to Peter, recorded in Luke's gospel, when he says, and he really calls it out in Luke 22 when he says Simon Simon.

Interesting when Jesus says it twice, like Martha, Martha, Simon, Simon, Ron, Ron.

Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat.

But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.

And when you have turned back, notice he he's acknowledging he's going to turn away.

When you have turned back.

Strengthen your brothers.

Let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall Overpromising God overconfidence about your ability to stand strong is underestimating sin and overestimating you.

Remain humble before God, realizing that it is Him through you that has to stand against it.

Do you know during Jesus' prayer in John 17, the real Lord's Prayer?

There's one request for his disciples as he's talking to the Father in this intimate pre-suffering and crucifixion prayer that he repeats twice in the prayer.

Protect them from the evil one.

Twice, Jesus prays.

In a matter of two minutes.

Protect them from the evil one.

Protect them from the evil one.

Beware overconfidence.

Now here's here's I said the devil's a lion on a leash When the at the end of the temptation in the wilderness, Jesus says, that's it, we're done here You've been allowed to go this far.

Get out of here.

Good that he knows how far you can be tested.

He knows when to say get out of here.

But you need to be saying it too.

I know who this is.

It's worked before.

It's not working now.

Get out of here.

In Jesus' name, get out of here It's a little different example, but just before WLS, two years ago, days before Warrior Leadership Summit, Doug was driving back from Branson.

And um there was a sudden uh uh obstacle issue in the in the highway, and he had to make a sharp turn.

That vehicle ended up rolling four times and landing on its roof dug inside.

If you saw the pictures, you'd say no one survived that.

Because that roof is flat as a pancake.

There was, however, a little two-inch space just above Doug's head Brad raced to the scene only to find Doug up and walking around.

A motorist that we think possibly by his fast disappearance may have been an angel had come immediately afterwards and broken the window, got him out from behind the bag, cut his seatbelt off of him.

And amazingly, God spared our son that day.

We got a note from Cragan Ladonna Smith and Ladonna summed up her take on it.

She said, today, Jesus said to the devil, this far.

But no farther.

In that particular instance.

If that was an attempt to take out a servant of God right before, amazing, three days later he was leading worship the first night of Warrior Leadership Summit.

But I will say that there are boundaries for the enemy.

Know that.

And know that you take your stand against the devil's schemes.

I take this time to go through them so you'll take your stand against them.

They've already succeeded too many times.

We got to get to the Jesus victory plan.

It won't take us long.

I should give him equal time, but we can do this pretty quick.

Your king's victory plan.

Thanks be to God who always leads us as captives in Christ's triumphal procession. and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.

I call this defiant resistance.

What does it say?

Does anybody ever quote the verse after he prowls around like a roaring lion?

Why do they stop there?

Next two words, resist him!

Duh!

This is all about his offense.

How about our defense?

Resist him.

This is fascinating.

James 4.

7.

Resist the devil and he will run away from you.

You say, well then why does he win so many times?

Because we cooperate with him.

And we don't we don't say, no, I know this is, I'm not going there again.

You resist him.

He's not used to resistance.

He's used to cooperation.

And because he pushes the buttons, it always worked.

You know your buttons.

He knows your buttons.

He's like, this always gets her to change her attitude.

This always gets him angry This always gets him back to that website.

Whatever.

Resist him.

How many Texans are here?

If they had to fly United Airlines, they probably had to go, but I know we have Texans.

If there were Texans, we'd know.

Well, there's a place called the Alamo.

Yes, hello back there.

And you know the enemy wanted them to surrender after having attacked a couple times?

Sent that communication to William Travis, who is now in command in the because of Bowie 's illness And it looked like it was surrender or die, and it did turn out to be that way.

Here's what he wrote back.

To General San Ano.

The enemy has demanded surrender.

Otherwise We are to be put to the sword if the fort is taken.

I guess this was a actually a communique.

I have answered the demand with a cannon shot Oh, I love that.

I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls.

I shall never surrender or retreat.

That's a good thing to say to your enemy.

You answer his push with your pushback.

A cannon shot's a really good idea.

What kind of cannon shot?

Here we go.

Here's the answer.

Verbalize God's truth.

Verbalize God's truth.

You know Matthew when Jesus kept saying it is written, it is written, it is written, and he quotes that verse. man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

The word for word there, the usual word in the New Testament, is Lagos.

It's not there.

The Greek word there is rhéma.

And rhéma means the spoken word.

It is the spoken word.

And that's what Jesus did.

He out loud, quoted the scripture out loud to the devil.

You should do the same thing.

Yep.

Verbalize God's truth.

Do what Jesus did.

The enemy pushes the old buttons.

He's expecting sin to come out, and instead scripture comes out.

You just fired your cannon shot.

I love that.

Take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

Give him scripture and give it to him out loud.

I don't know if he needs to hear it or you need to hear it, but that's the way to do it.

And beware what I call the Bible drift.

There's a lot of Bible drift going on among God's people these days, and it is written as not the final answer Do you know when we start to drift away from stay with the authority of Scripture is when God's truth is inconvenient.

When and I will tell you a lot of times what God says is counterintuitive, it's counterculture, and it's expensive.

It's hard.

The easy road would be to compromise.

I've told my family, when the averse gets a face, the face usually wins.

What I mean by that is Yeah, you're very clear on your conviction until it's your son or daughter , your friend When the verse gets a face, you're like, well, maybe the verse doesn't say that after all.

That's Bible drift.

And your strength against enemy attack is to stick with it as written.

When it's unpopular.

And I just want to say increasingly For you to be a kingdom of heaven Christian, you're going to be lonelier with God's people For their values are more their culture than their Christ.

So when it gets unpopular and expensive, well maybe I can help you with a quick little quote here from uh C.

S.

Lewis, um fairly intelligent fellow, when the whole world is running toward a cliff.

He who is running in the opposite direction appears to be the one who has lost his mind.

It's the people running for the cliff who've lost their mind.

But they're all going that way.

You're the one saying, I'm not going that way.

So it may look like you've lost your mind.

They're gonna be gone and you're gonna still be here.

So um Stick with it is written.

You will never be an enemy casualty if you will land in the one place he cannot touch.

God 's word is the final word.

Case closed.

Another part of the victory plan is to neutralize the enemy.

To neutralize him.

I was told by a police officer friend of mine that when there's a hostage situation, the first step, this is going to make sense, pretty obvious. is to neutralize the hostage taker.

You've got to find some way to immobilize or neutralize the one who's holding the hostages.

That's true spiritually.

Look at what we hear in Matthew 12, 29.

How can anyone enter a strong man's house, the enemy, and carry off his possessions, which happen to be people you know?

He's having his way with them.

Unless he first ties up the strong man.

Then after he has immobilized the hostage taker.

You can go in and take his hostages away from him.

Then he can plunder his house.

Matthew 18, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Prayer makes chains that bind him And prayer breaks the chains of his prisoners.

And as we fight against him in prayer, We can pray for chains to be broken and for chains to be made to neutralize the enemy.

Lord bind him in this situation.

He's had his way long enough.

Here's another victory plan.

Reject friendly fire.

Oh my goodness, is there a lot of that right now?

Christians forming their firing squads in a circle.

Ready, aim, fire!

At each other.

Check your social media.

You'll see it there today.

Over real eternal things.

Not No, we can't afford friendly fire.

Matthew 12.

When they accuse him of casting out demons in the power of Satan, he says, every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined.

City, household divided against itself will not stand.

If Satan drives out Satan, he's divided against himself.

How then can his kingdom stand?

Satan will never allow his kingdom to be divided So, if we can, I hate to say it, learn anything from him, it is don't allow God's kingdom to be divided.

Make a commitment, you will not shoot your own.

Save all your ammo for the real enemy.

Your brothers and sisters are not the enemy.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood.

In the last Star Wars movie, for now , as they are going up against the Emperor's massive forces , And old Lando Cal Razian from the first Star Wars movie shows up again, and he's talking to one of the new fighters.

Jedi fighters and uh and he's he's being asked about the early days and they at Lando was asked, how in the world did such a small little group of Jedi fighters Ever beat the Empire years ago?

And he gives a very short and simple answer.

He says, we had each other.

The devil knows if we have each other, we're a whole lot more unbeatable.

Don't you allow things to be broken.

If it's in your power to fix or prevent brokenness, fight the battle there.

Then hit him with what he can't stand.

Hit the devil with what he can't stand.

Two things he can't stand.

He's out of here with these.

Revelation 12, 11.

They triumphed over him.

By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

Here's the two things he cannot stand.

Jesus cross.

And your hope story.

What Jesus did on the cross, and what Jesus has done for you.

Can't stand it.

Can't stand against it.

Napoleon had conquered a lot of Europe.

Except for one place It was the British Isles.

And the story is told that he was gathered with all of his generals around a huge table with a map that filled the whole table.

And there was a big red spot in the middle of that map.

And it was Britain.

And in anger and frustration, Napoleon was said to have said that day, If it weren't for that red spot, I could have it all.

Well, I don't know if there are meanings in hell like that.

But if Satan ever gathers his demons together around his world map, there is a hill outside the city of Jerusalem that is a red spot by the blood of Jesus.

And he says if it weren't for that red spot, I could have it all.

He can't.

Because that red spot's no going anywhere.

So when Satan comes and his growl you hear his growl, you answer with the name of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, spoken out loud Name of Jesus, blood of Jesus, and a little of what he's done for you.

And he covers his ears and can't stand either of those.

So hit him with what he can't stand.

And then take back what he stole Take back what he stole.

Matthew 12, 29.

You carry off his possessions.

It don't belong to him anyway.

Did you know that every time you bring someone to Jesus?

You take back a soul that Satan stole and that Jesus paid the ransom for.

Boy, I'll tell you what.

You w you wanna you want to stand in victory over the evil one.

The greatest damage you can do to him is take a life away from him.

That's why he'll do everything in his power to keep you shut up about Jesus.

He wants to keep his captives and you defy him by taking them away.

They don't belong to him.

He didn't make them, he didn't pay for them.

Jesus did.

So um that's the battle plan.

You can't be passive in this battle And just say, I hope I make it.

You have to be aggressive, intentional, and you have to be passionate about waging this war.

And in the midst of Jesus' darkest hours, just about to be arrested, just about to be Tortured almost to death and nailed to across.

Do you know what he was talking about?

the conquering king.

This is Matthew 24.

Right before his darkest hours.

And he talks about the earth's darkest hours.

And the heavenly bodies will be shaken.

Let's go on.

And then will appear.

This is right before the worst stuff ever was going to happen to him.

But he said, let's look past that, man.

Let's not get stuck on that.

Let's walk past it.

The sign of the Son of Man in heaven and all the peoples of the earth are going to see me coming.

On clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

I love that.

Have you ever been to one of these things?

They do them like church groups love to do this.

Karen and I went to one.

Everybody brings something, some object.

Usually get it out of the attic, you know, or the basement.

And um and you there's if you buy, there's only a small amount. dollar amount our OEW team often will do it at a at our Christmas party at our winter break retreat and um uh and and the way the rules work is they're all wrapped and so you don't know what they are and all put in the center The first person goes out there, picks one of them, unwraps it, and you see what they got.

Now starts the battle.

Well, when it's our people, uh, it's brass knuckles, no doubt about it.

But what what what happens from that point on is You draw a number, and when your number comes up, you have a choice.

You can either take a wrapped gift and open it.

Or you could take the wrap gift, keep it wrapped, and trade for one you would rather have that's already been opened.

Well, there was this hand-carved lampstand that night.

And it was a, I mean the battle who got who's going to end up with that is unbelievable.

People go get a wrap diff.

They're like, wait, where's that land?

It's like uh I want you to forget where this thing is.

And I mean it was just it was a bunch of my friends, so that's part of the problem.

And so it's going back and forth very brutally and it's like you guys are Christians, remember that now, and um Beatitudes.

And and so It was uh but there was only one person who didn't get caught up in this mayhem.

It was the person who opened the first gift Well see, one of the the other rule is whoever opens the first gift, they didn't have a chance to trade.

So they get the final trade.

So the lady who opened the first gift is sitting there in the midst of all this competition in mayhem going, I know how this is going to end.

And she went home with the lampstand, sure enough.

Makes all the difference in the world when you can say, I know how this is going to end.

You ever been to a scary movie?

And you went back a second time?

Why?

The first time you screamed.

Second time you watched everybody else Because first time you went, ah!

Second time you watch everybody else, you like, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, and you watch everybody else lose and you laugh Because you know how it's going to end.

And therein is our great source of strength.

Remember the guerrilla fighters in the Philippines?

Our hope was this was the was the the sh certainty of his return.

And so as we come bring this home The glorious prophecy of Daniel, hundreds of years before Jesus was born.

Look at this.

If this is your king, you need to know this.

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man. coming with the clouds of heaven.

He approached the ancient of days and was led into his presence.

He was given authority, exusia.

He was given glory.

He was given sovereign power.

All nations and peoples of every language. worshipped him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away.

And his kingdom, unlike all others, is one that will never be destroyed.

In a world that is increasingly troubling and getting ever darker, you and I are a living embodiment. of what King Jesus can do in a life.

Don't ever settle for less than that.

Again.

You serve to enthrone the rightful king in people's hearts that you know until that day when all creation will bow before him And because Jesus is king, because all authority resides in him, and you are his You can live fearlessly.

You can live boldly.

You can take risks.

You can live confidently.

You can live passionately.

No reserves No retreat.

No regrets.

For Zechariah 14, 9 prophesies that in that day there will be only one name And the name is Jesus.

One final step for each of us In Matthew 26, as we go as far as we can go in this book, this is what precedes the cross.

Your Jesus fell to his face to the ground And said, can we not do this, Father?

Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.

I wish you could read the Greek words here It is it is wrenching sorrow, overwhelming grief.

I can only imagine grieving the grief of the thoughts of bearing on him every abuse, every rape, every theft, every wound, every evil word, every hurtful word, every angry outburst, every sexual perversion.

It's Dr.

Luke, the doctor, who tells us that Jesus sweat drops of blood I believe if I'm name if I'm saying it right, the doctors call that hematidrosis.

It's when the capillary is near the skin In a moment of unbearable stress, it happens very seldom, burst, and you sweat blood Excruciating doesn't even begin to say it.

But isn't it interesting that our Jesus in his humanness struggles with God's will and actually took guys with him.

Who watched, well, they were asleep actually, but he they could have watched him And the end of that battle over what God wanted him to do was the beginning of our rescue.

Um, in some ways, in recent months, as I've been um Uh in my own battle with the Lord over some of the ways I think and do things.

Um Well maybe if I read you this, it'll express it best.

I didn't have a Gethsemane, believe me.

But I will say that the teaching of the lifestyle of the kingdom of heaven is so different from the way we are wired that somebody here must be having a struggle with some of it.

To truly live this way It's you can't just say, yeah, sure.

No problem.

It is problem.

It's a battle.

Um well here we go.

That's why I wrote in my journal Lord, it seems you have wrenched all control from my hands to give me the freedom of letting go and letting God.

I said, so I choose, hands off of all the things I wanted to control.

Hands empty.

To drop whatever has been in a hand that has stood between me and his full kingship.

I have mine, you have yours.

And then hands open now that they're both available for what he wants.

In essence, my Savior in Gethsemane. emptied his hands of what he wanted and opened his hands to the very expensive will of his father.

As God said to me, you're not in charge, Ron.

Put your name there.

So, in the room where I spend the most time at home.

I keep this in there now.

To remind me of a fresh and deeper surrender And it's been good since I raised the white flag.

So it might be you need to make a stop in the garden with Jesus And see if you're really ready to choose his will.

You gotta release yours first I could tell you where to order a white flag if you want one.

Would you pray with me?

Um I've said several times, saying amen to this is not that doesn't cut it.

You choose this.

It's not a cheap lifestyle.

It's costly.

It's not particularly easy But is it worth it?

Oh yeah.

So Are you willing to live driven by because there's some passion driving your life right now The kingdom passions are to live by the authority that decides outcomes.

Passionate to let your life be a light.

That they see your good deeds and want your Father.

It's living missionally, the mission for which your Savior came, to take as many people to heaven as you can with you.

I love the way that Doug said fresh obediences And it's living to say, I will not be governed by my fear anymore.

I may have fear, but it won't win.

It'll be faith in the one who has all authority over my outcomes.

And I'm going to defy the darkness when the devil pushes the buttons.

With the quote from Jim Elliott that Doug gave us, who said, a life cannot be surrendered at one time.

A lifetime has to be surrendered throughout a lifetime.

I'm suspecting just about everybody hears that, a time when you really surrendered to what God wanted.

You remember it, it was a camp or a retreat or a revival or in your room or a concert, whatever.

But you can't keep going on that.

Because your life gets bigger and it changes and there's new stuff.

So maybe you want to begin chapter one of volume two.

With a new surrender of the you you are now.

Kinda join Jesus there With your own white flag.

Thank you.

We don't have to have a white flag in our room.

But we really do need to have one in our heart.

We want to be not ordinary Christians Not just good compared to Perhaps a lot of other people's mediocrity.

But we really want to make him proud.

And we really want to make you know.

And we really want to make you attractive because of our lifestyle.

We fight for the true king.

We serve you, not the evil prince. keeps taking more capitals.

He will lose.

But he's won too many lives.

So I pray for my brothers and sisters, some who have knelt here, some in their hearts where they're seated.

And I would ask if you would show each one of us, including me, the next step.

We need to have an action step from you Uh call, text, forgive, burn, get rid of something.

Um Open our mouths.

Keep our mouth shut.

Pray you'd show us our next action step on the road. to a life that lights the darkness in every room it's in.

Beginning in our home Thank you, Lord, for um through uh societal outcast a despised tax collector, then new creation in Christ You've helped us see the higher road.

And for whatever we brought here that was breaking our heart, burdening our heart, darkening our heart We declare that Jesus has all authority over it.

And that changes everything.

Thank you for these dear friends, Lord.

And thank you for their investment of life, time, and treasure. in the work for which you died and the people who break your heart.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.