Welcome to all our campuses, Rancho, Upland, West Covina, San Dimas, one church in four locations.

So glad to have you and to all those who are joining us online as well.

We're going to be in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10 to 18.

Ephesians 6, verse 10 to 18. I have experienced some interesting things in my life.

In 1988, I witnessed...

A pastor while I was in Uganda casted a demon from my sister's friend.

And this was just the weirdest thing I'd ever experienced as a young eight-year-old person watching my sister's friend being possessed by this thing.

And she had the sweetest voice and she was talking like a man.

I don't want to get out and all this crazy stuff.

It was just so weird.

Her eyes were like cat eyes.

It was just crazy.

But this helped explain the night.

experiences that I was having as a child.

I hadn't realized that as a child, the nice struggles I was having were demonic attacks on me.

Every night, I would either see something or sense something while I was awake, and it was very, very frightening.

In all this, though, I learned as a child that there was an evil power.

I knew there was a spiritual force that was intent on destroying me.

And then when I came to America, I was stunned by how many...

Christians that I interacted with lived as though the devil did not exist.

Fast forward, 2018 Newsweek reported that pagan and witchcraft practices had increased with millennials turning to astrology and tarot cards.

Then move over to October 30th, 2022, NBC reported that witchcraft, which includes Wicca, paganism, folk magic, and other new age traditions is one of the fastest growing species.

spiritual paths in America.

Focus on the Family says, the influence of pop culture has made witches and witchcraft appealing today.

Growing up on Harry Potter books and movies has further opened the door for teens to experience both curiosity and familiarity with witchcraft.

Now, I don't think the author of Harry Potter, that was Harry Kent, but I think that this has, in fact, generations that read Harry Potter books seem to be more interested.

in witchcraft.

Pastor Jeff reminded us last week that more Christians buy Eastern-inspired self-help books.

40% believe in psychics.

29% believe in reincarnation.

26% believe in astrology.

I also just found out that a popular artist that I guarantee, if you have a youth, they are listening to.

This person, her name is Sabrina Carpenter.

I'm told her songs are very catchy, so I decided I am not going to listen to them.

But I looked up the lyrics and they're absolutely very, very bad.

1 John 5 tells us the world is under the sway of the evil one.

It is moving away from God.

And many times we Christians are caught in this flow.

And therefore we jump to our, this is how we jump to Ephesians 6 verse 10 to 18.

Paul says this, Finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might.

Put on the full armor of God so that you'll be able to stand firm, underline that, against the schemes of the devil.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against powers, against world forces of this darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.

Therefore, take on or put on the full armor of God so that you'll be able to resist on the day of evil.

Having done everything to stand firm, underline that, And then he says again, verse 14, stand firm, underline that, therefore having belted your waist with truth or putting the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one and take on the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is...

The word of God.

With every prayer and request, pray at all times in the spirit.

And with this in view, be alert with all perseverance and every request for all the saints.

A lot of verses here.

Let's break it down.

Number one, you need to be aware that there's a cosmic struggle.

And I get a lot of this information from a theologian named R.K. Hughes who breaks it down like this.

That this struggle, A, is supernatural.

So if you're taking notes, number one, you need to be aware that there's a cosmic struggle.

And A, under that, is this struggle is supernatural.

Verse 12 says it's against principalities.

It's against powers and authorities.

It is against world forces or rulers of darkness.

It's against spiritual forces, demonic forces all around us.

They are strategically positioned in the world's culture, both secular and ecclesiastical, so as to best spread their cancer.

B, the struggle is personal.

The word for struggle indicates hand-to-hand combat.

And the root idea here is swaying back and forth while locked in a mortal battle.

Sweat against sweat, breath against breath.

Now, I have become...

a little involved in Krav Maga.

I didn't want to kind of share this, but it is going to be a great illustration, I think.

And Krav Maga is Israeli martial arts.

And I've just really enjoyed it.

It's helped me get healthy, helped me with my mental health, if you want to call it that way.

And so today I want to do an illustration of what Krav Maga is like and what Paul means when he talks about hand-to-hand battle or combat.

I've invited my friend, Romero, who's going to help illustrate this, okay?

So...

The goal of this particular exercise is who is in control, right?

So we put our hands to each other and we start trying to figure out who can get control over the other person.

And that is what Satan does.

He wants to control you all the time and you have to decide who is going to be in control.

Thank you, Romero.

Appreciate that.

That, my friend, is what you call the struggle that Paul is talking about.

It's hand to hand, breath to breath.

It's close.

Who is going to control your life and how are you going to stand?

It is against the individual Christian.

The struggle, see, is futile if fought in or by your flesh.

No human power can fight against this kind of enemy that we face.

No human power can do that.

The devil has schemes that he has been honing and perfecting for thousands of years.

Therefore, he knows our human behavior extremely well.

And he's a master manipulator.

He's after Michael. He's after Jennifer. He's after Heather.

He's after Mike.

He's after, you gotta just put your name in there.

He's after you.

And this struggle, says R.K.

Hughes, this struggle is too much for the 20th century one-dimensional materialist.

And indeed, for many who think themselves Christian. Our enemy is subtle and he's powerful, okay?

So number two.

Okay, first the struggle, it's a cosmic struggle.

You have to be aware, you need to be aware there's a cosmic struggle.

Number two, there will be an evil day.

In other words, it is a given that Satan is going to attack every Christian.

It is not if, it is when.

And sometimes it's clear, but sometimes, like we've said, it's very subtle.

The principalities, the powers, the rulers, the spiritual powers will launch an attack on you.

It is evident.

And these attacks come, number one, as physical attacks.

Yes, Satan will attack us physically.

There's very many examples in the Bible for that, but I'll give you one personal one.

One of my sisters was having lots of miscarriages after she got married, and they couldn't figure out why.

But one time, my family, especially one of my brothers, was praying for her.

God revealed at one point in the dream that my sister, as she was walking at a certain particular...

Function, family function that one of my aunts had picked up dust from one of her footprints and put in a bag and done and done some weird and put spells on my sister.

And my sister was having miscarriages.

I'm not saying every miscarriage is like that.

I'm just saying for this particular instant, that is what happened.

And so when my family got together and they prayed and fasted, my sister is able to have children.

Yes, there are physical attacks on your body sometimes.

Also intellectual attacks.

Those who are stuck in a worldview that opposes God.

There are relational attacks.

You see families breaking and friendships breaking all the time.

You see emotional attacks from Satan.

Jealousy, anger, and bitterness.

Identity attacks.

Satan attacks who we really are.

And this is a big thing in our culture today.

This is what Paul calls the flaming arrows in verse 16.

Flaming arrows will inevitably come your way.

Some you will see and some...

might catch you off guard.

And if you're not ready for this inevitable attack, there's a high possibility that you're going to struggle.

to defend yourself.

Your faith will be shaken.

You might walk away from your faith.

You might fall into temptation.

You'll cause damage to yourself and to those around you.

So there's a cosmic struggle.

It is inevitable.

There will be an evil day.

Number three, Paul tells us in Ephesians 6 to stand or to stand firm.

And since this is personal, he's talking to the Christian, not just the whole church.

He's talking to one person, you.

He says he commands you to stand firm.

In verses 11, 13 to 14, he says that word three times and includes the word resist.

What does that mean?

Stand firm, resist, both words in the original language mean to stand against an enemy, to endure, to stand fast.

Paul is using military language and is implying that you are a soldier and there is an enemy.

trying to eliminate you.

In Krav Maga, we ask this question, what's the worst place you can be?

Our sensei says it's on the ground.

You don't want to get on the ground because you don't know what is going to happen on the ground.

Yes, I know some people love BBJ or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but I don't think even people who practice that want to be on the ground.

I don't want to get on the ground at all.

I want to do everything I can to stay standing and to end the situation as quickly as possible and hopefully go away.

So how do you stand firm as a Christian against principalities, against rulers, against authorities, against spiritual forces that come against you?

This is what Paul tells us.

This is what we can learn from Paul.

One, stand firm with the right allegiance, okay?

And I know this is going to be a little bit different from probably what you're expecting.

I'm not really going to talk about the whole armor of God.

This is different, okay?

So pay attention.

Stand firm with the right allegiance.

Ephesians 6.10 says this, Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might.

In other words, be made strong in the Lord.

You need to find your strength in Him.

In order to be able to stand firm, the source of your strength has to come from God.

God has to be Lord over your life, not just your Savior.

Paul used the name Lord or title Lord, which denotes Master.

In this verse, Paul is saying God owns everything.

He runs the show.

He's the master of the universe.

So you could read this as be strong in your master.

In other words, the problem is that many of us confess Jesus as a savior, but not as Lord.

Yeah, you will get in heaven, but does God own your thoughts?

Does God own your time?

Does God own your wealth?

Does God own your talents or does Satan have a foothold in those things?

See, your life on earth will not be as fruitful as it's supposed to be because God is not your Lord.

He's only your Savior.

Yes, you get to heaven, but you don't have victory in this life.

Jesus should be the Lord over your whole life.

And if you need to be delivered from the stronghold of materialism, for example, on how the world thinks about wealth, then what do you do?

You start tithing.

Because tithing and being generous tells God that you know who's responsible for making you wealthy, who's responsible for giving the things that you need in your life.

Because it says where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

If you give of your first fruits, you're going to have the power to resist the urge to just buy random things all the time.

Because you're giving to God.

The things of God are in.

front of you all the time.

Generosity and tithing will help you resist the enemy.

If you need to be delivered from the stronghold of lust, let God own your thoughts.

We spend plenty of time just watching ridiculous shows that don't even, some of them are really bad.

You're on social media, YouTube, television shows, podcasts, really bad music.

We spend hours watching movies.

But when it comes to reading the Bible and prayer, Five minutes, eight minutes, seven minutes, two times a week, once a week.

To resist the devil, guys, to resist bad thoughts, God has to own your mind.

If you want to resist the devil, you have to evaluate everything that places itself above God in your life.

If you need purpose in your life, you need to submit to God's...

plan for your life.

You cannot be a Christian and adhere to karma and evolution theories about life.

You can't do that.

Because possession is about ownership.

Who owns you?

Jesus becoming Lord in your life requires submission.

God must have the right to own you if he's going to strengthen you.

And when the day of evil comes, the strength you need to stand against Satan can only be supernatural.

Because you can't do it on your own.

And God gives it to you when you submit to his Lordship.

When the Holy Spirit is in full control of your life.

In other words, you have to have the right relationship with God to have access to his power.

Paul prays in Ephesians 3 that you and I would be strengthened with the power through his spirit in our inner being.

The power comes from the Holy Spirit and it strengthens us in our inner being.

So you stand firm with the right allegiance.

Number two, you stand firm with truth.

Ephesians chapter 6 verse 14, it says, stand firm therefore having belted your waist with truth or having put on the belt of truth.

Paul is using the imaginary soldier, the imagery of a soldier or Roman soldier who he has been likely chained to, to give this picture of readiness for battle for the Ephesians.

See, the whole armor is vital to standing up against principalities and authorities and spiritual attacks.

Now, I cannot, we don't have time to go through the whole armor.

That is like two, three sermons in itself.

But it is important to note that Paul mentions truth first.

And when a soldier tightened his belt, he was ready for battle.

The belt held everything in place, including the tunic.

It firmly fixed the sword in place so that without it, He'll be powerless in battle.

It is like when I used to play rugby and I was about to get on the field.

You check, make sure your pants are tight, that everything is in tight and you've got your mouth guard and you check your shirt, you pull up your socks, you tighten everything.

That is what Paul meant.

In other words, without truth, the whole armor will not work.

You will not understand salvation.

You will not understand God's word.

You don't understand what the shield of faith is supposed to be and how effective it's supposed to be.

And when the day of evil comes, you will not be able to stand.

So if you want to stand firm when you are in a spiritual battle, you have to believe there's objective spiritual truth in Jesus and in his scriptures.

Truth about God, truth about ourselves, truth about our history, truth about our future.

If you want to stand against crippling anxiety and identity and crisis and sexual identity and identity struggles and lies and doubts, lust and greed.

If you want to stand against secularism and materialism and against witchcraft, you have to understand and submit yourself to biblical truth.

I've met people who struggle with inferiority complex and always feeling less than.

And Satan has a stronghold on their mind about.

who they really think they are.

And this usually stems from a lack of parental love and acceptance.

So to stand against that lie that you are less than and you're not loved, you have to look at the cross first because on it God displayed his love for you more than any human will ever do or ever did.

So who is God and what has he done?

What does he declare over you, says John Thompson.

In John chapter 8, Jesus gives Satan a very perfect title.

He's called Satan the father of lies.

He's the chief architect or architect, whichever you come from England or whatever, I don't know, architect, architect of every falsehood.

And some of the biggest lies today are, follow your heart.

I don't know where that leads you.

We can see what has happened to our society today.

Your truth is important.

You have your own truth.

And then there is no such thing as truth.

How could both those statements exist in our society?

But they do.

You see how he is the father of lies and how he's deceived our whole society?

No wonder we have skyrocketing anxiety and depression in the Western world.

We have higher suicide rates than ever before.

There has been a rise of witchcraft and the occult and depression.

And even Christians think some of these things are okay.

That you have your own truth.

and there is no such thing as truth and follow your heart we've fallen into this these lies of the enemy in order to stand against possession by spiritual forces and worldly beliefs the truth about god ourselves our history and our future has to be foundational And some of you will have no victory over darkness because you've removed the belt of truth that's supposed to hold all things together.

Biblical truth resists the power of Satan's lies.

See, resisting the devil, standing firm against spiritual forces means accepting biblical definitions for words.

You have to accept, hey, marriage is between a man and a woman as defined by God.

An unborn baby is made in the image of God, that God made us male and female in His image.

We're not furries and we're not, I don't know what other things are there, but you're a human being created by God, fearfully and wonderfully made.

You have to accept that the biblical definition of sin is that God has a standard and that we have failed.

See, effective Christian warriors are bound.

with God's truth.

I'm going to repeat that.

Effective Christian warriors are bound with God's truth.

Here's the point.

If you want to stand against the enemy, truthful character, along with knowledge and submission to truth, holds one together when the battle comes, when there is a fight.

Guys, the day of evil is coming.

It's inevitable.

And you've got to stand firm.

Are you ready for battle?

As a Christian, do you have truth?

Do you know the truth?

Do you believe what God says?

Number three, stand firm with power through prayer.

If you want to stand firm against our spiritual enemy, you have to be a prayer warrior.

There is no way about it.

Out of it.

There's no way out about it.

Paul says in Ephesians 6, verse 18, with every prayer and request, Pray at all times in the spirit and with this in view, be alert with all perseverance.

Praying reminds us that the battle is spiritual and our victory and freedom is incumbent on your prayer life, on my prayer life.

So he says, pray at all times.

The best way to stand is always to be in prayer.

The best way to resist is to always be in prayer.

Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5, he says, pray without ceasing.

He repeats that in Colossians 4 and verse 2.

Devote yourselves to prayer and be watchful in it.

Barnard did a research in 2020 and he said 69% of Americans pray weekly.

Weekly.

Once a week.

Just let that sink in.

We pray weekly.

Then he says, Paul continues and says, pray in the spirit.

And for that explanation, I'm going to read you a lengthy scripture.

But it's from 1 Corinthians 2, 11 to 15.

Paul says this, if you want to understand what it means to pray in the spirit.

He says this, for who among people knows the thoughts of a person except the spirit of the person that is in him?

So also the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God.

Now we have not received the spirit of the world.

but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.

We also speak these things not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

But a natural person does not accept these things, the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually dissonant.

But the one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet himself is discerned by no one.

What's Paul saying here?

You know your very thoughts.

God has his thoughts and the Spirit of God knows his very thoughts.

When you start praying in the Spirit, boom, the Spirit of God starts talking to your spirit.

That's what it means.

So when you pray, you want to access the Spirit of God who's already in you as a Christian.

So you don't want to just pray like, like with no thought to what you're doing.

You want to ask God.

Spirit of God, please lead me in this prayer.

So you're praying the thoughts of God.

Without prayer, you are useless in battle because you need spiritual energy.

You need power, and that's the Holy Spirit.

That's what you need.

And Paul continues and says, be alert, keep awake.

All he's quoting Jesus in Mark's gospel.

Soldiers cannot be asleep.

If you are praying without ceasing, your spiritual eyes are going to be opened to the...

past personal attacks that the enemy has.

So how do you stand against the devil in this personal battle?

By having allegiance to God, not only as your Savior, but as your Lord.

by knowing and understanding truth and through consistent or being devoted to prayer in the spirit.

What happens when you don't resist?

For this, I'm going to go back a few centuries to an Old Testament character named King Saul.

And this is an amazing story.

King Saul is anointed as king over Israel.

And the Bible says the spirit of the Lord comes upon him.

And it starts off really, really good.

But somewhere along the way, things go bad.

And I'm going to just take you through the steps of what happens when you don't resist.

First, insecurity takes a foothold.

We're going to look at what insecurity does first, okay?

This is just an example, insecurity, okay?

It takes a foothold in Saul's life.

In 1 Samuel 13, the prophet Samuel was delayed.

Saul was facing a battle with the Philistines, and Samuel was supposed to come and perform an offering to the Lord.

before battle, but he was delayed.

So Saul decided to do what only priests were commanded to do by the law.

And he offered sacrifices.

In verse 9, he says this.

So Saul said, bring me burnt offerings and peace offerings.

And he offered burnt offerings.

But as soon as he finished offering the burnt offerings, behold, Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him and greet him.

He was happy.

Yay, you're here, Samuel.

But Samuel said, what have you done?

And Saul said, Hey, since I saw that the people were scattering from me and that you did not come at the appointed time and the Philistines were assembled at Michmash, I thought, now the Philistines will come against me at Gilgal, but I have not asked for the favor from God or from the Lord.

So I worked up courage and I offered burnt offerings.

But Samuel said to Saul, you have acted foolishly.

So Saul saw his men scattering and he said, you know what?

I'm going to do this on my own.

Fear led to disobedience.

See, when there was another battle that comes up along the way, okay, in 1 Samuel 15, and this time he's facing the Amalekites.

And God had said to the Israelites, you've got to annihilate these guys because this is my judgment upon them for killing their children under fire.

They were sacrificing their children.

And God wasn't happy with this.

And so God expected Saul.

to do what he had commanded him to do, but he did not.

This is what happens.

Samuel found Saul and was very upset and he said in 1 Samuel 15 verse 19, why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?

Instead, you loudly rushed upon the spoils and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

When Saul said to Samuel, I did obey the voice of the Lord, for I went on a mission on which the Lord sent me and I brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and I've completely destroyed the Amalekites.

He didn't completely destroy them.

But the people took some of the spoils, the sheep and the oxen, and the choicest of things designated for destruction, to sacrifice them to the Lord your God.

Underline that.

Samuel said, Does the Lord have much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.

And then he continues and says, for rebellion is reprehensible as the sin of divination or witchcraft.

Okay, then next step, disobedience leads to lack of repentance.

Saul did not repent, by the way, after he's been reprimanded.

He asked for forgiveness because he did not want to look bad.

Watch this, chapter 15, verse 30.

Then Saul said, I have sinned, but please honor me now before the elders of my people.

before Israel and go back with me that I may worship, listen to this, the Lord your God.

Okay.

His repentance was not genuine.

He just wanted to look good with the people.

Okay.

That is very, that is not good.

He was a very insecure guy.

What else did you notice that I asked you to notice?

He said, the Lord your God.

Saul has allegiance problems.

He calls God Samuel's God, not his God.

There was no relationship that he had with God.

Number four, a lack of repentance leads to oppression and the occult.

Because King Saul does not deal with his insecurities and his fears, he opens himself up to oppression.

In fact, in 1 Samuel 16 and 18, there's a phrase in there that says, an evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul or rushed on Saul.

You have to see this from the writer's perspective.

He's saying this evil spirit was associated with the Lord because the writer could not conceive a very important event happening without God allowing it.

He's simply saying God allowed an evil spirit to torment Saul.

Okay, so allowed it by his behaviors So in both 16 and 18 the soul starts to act like a maniac like he was psycho dual personality He has many episodes and cannot seem to function What does this sound like people it?

I think this sounds like a lot of people in our mental institutions Well, I know listen to me carefully while I know that many people who suffer from mental illness have medical conditions this Scriptures tell us there could be spiritual oppression that is causing mental illness.

And all the people need or the person needs is for God to come and break through and deliver them.

That is very important.

I know some are medical, but I know that some mental illness is caused by oppression from demons.

That's what this scripture tells us.

Okay.

Then oppression led to the occult.

Okay.

Saul continues in a downward spiral.

His insecurity leads to jealousy.

to anger and bitterness towards David, even his own son.

He ends up so far as consulting a witch in chapter 28 of 1 Samuel.

He's facing the Philistines again.

And now he's afraid.

Notice the pattern.

Every time he faces an enemy, something sets in.

He is afraid.

He is insecure.

So he tells his servants, okay, find me a woman in verse 7 who is a medium.

So I may go to her and inquire of her.

And he does this, and it has very bad ramifications for his family, even for his godly son, Jonathan, who was David's best friend.

But this whole thing started with insecurity.

And I'm going to take you back, 1 Samuel 10, 13.

People are looking for Saul to crown him as king, and the Bible says, behold, he's hiding himself among the baggage.

He was hiding when people were trying to find him.

In fact, perfect Samuel called it out.

in chapter 15 verse 17 where he says so samuel said is it not true that you are insignificant in your own eyes oh so even though saul is anointed of god he allowed a foothold of insecurity to live to rule his life the demon was in too deep so saul did not have allegiance to god at all Saul did not accept the truth of God concerning who God was, who Saul was, that he was anointed, a child of God, and that Israel had a mission.

And Saul was not a praying man.

And so when the day of evil came, he could not resist.

I want to give you more examples so you don't think it's just about Old Testament people.

There's a band named Hawk Nelson.

This was a popular Christian band from the 2000s.

And they were nominated for a Grammy in 2009 and they had a popular song named Diamonds.

He's making diamonds out of dust or something like that.

The lead vocalist Jonathan Steingard recently deconstructed and lost his faith like many worship leaders are doing so.

As I listened to his story on the Unbelievable podcast with Justin Briley, that the journey to deconstruction started when he went to Uganda, where I was born.

all right he goes to western uganda as a videographer and he saw a group of people a tribe of people being displaced so that they can make room for the gorillas to thrive so they can have more money for tourism he said those this particular tribe had no land to survive and mostly their children died before the age of five confronted with his suffering he said i did not know what to do with that i had always believed that god was so personal then he said I've read everything there is that apologetics has to say about suffering.

Okay, but in that moment, and I still take myself back to that place, those answers feel deeply dissatisfying.

And that was a linchpin.

I felt like a very big part of my belief was yanked from under me through that experience.

When he saw the suffering, he could not believe that God was a personal God.

He could not believe that God cared for these people.

It was a mess for him.

Because of this experience, he took the belt of truth off that God had made a perfect world and that we messed it up, not God, and that Jesus showed us how personal God was by entering our suffering.

And once...

Jonathan took that belt of truth off.

The fiery darts of the enemy of doubt and lies came from Satan.

And they subdued him.

They subdued the truth of God's love for him and his people.

Jonathan allowed a foothold and he did not resist it.

Now look where he is.

He's lost.

The demon is into deep and he needs deliverance.

In fact, when I shared this story with Pastor Jeff, he said, the fact that he was facing evil right there, should have told him something.

So what happens when you don't resist?

Your loyalty to God is attacked.

Did God say, remember that?

Satan came to Eve.

You start to untie the belt of truth.

You start to doubt general and specific truth about God, yourself, your history, and your future.

Then you're finally in a place where Satan has you.

Anxious, lost, confused, lukewarm, deconverted, addicted, maybe divorced.

Peter or in the occult.

All right, lots of stuff here.

So how do we apply all this?

How do we apply what Paul commanded us to do in his letter?

Number one, cement your allegiance.

Paul tells the Christian to be strong in the Lord, be strengthened by the Lord.

When the day of evil comes, so you can stand.

Being strong in the Lord is only possible if God is your master.

Literally, that's it.

You've got to be following your rabbi, Jesus.

God warned the Israelites, if you go back to the Old Testament, that if they followed other gods, they would never be able to fight their enemies.

The strength to stand against the Philistines, the Amalekites, the Amorites, the Midianites, and the other ites was only possible if they turned their heart towards God.

God.

That's the only way they would fight their enemies.

So if you want to stand against lust, greed, sexual immorality, depression, witchcraft, deconversion, pornography, bitterness, homosexuality, and if you want to fight for your identity, for your purity, for your sanity, for your purpose, your strength will only come from God.

And so like Elijah told the Israelites in 1 Kings 18, I'm going to ask you this question as well.

How long will you struggle with two choices?

How long will you waver, some versions say, between two opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow Him.

If Baal be God, follow Him.

But the people did not answer Him so much as a word.

I saw this on some of your eyes last weekend.

I'm telling you.

If the Lord is God, follow Him.

If politics is God, then follow it.

If homosexuality is God, then follow it.

But you've got to decide who is your God.

You've got to make a decision.

If the Lord is your God, then the strength of His might will be at your disposal against evil and against temptation.

For this, I go, last time I preached, I did not talk about the Lion King.

But here we go.

The Lion King comes up right here.

Remember when Simba and Nala are in the elephant graveyard?

The hyenas are trying to eat them and they're laughing.

Ha ha ha ha!

You know, they're making all these kinds of fun, you know, and they want to eat them.

And of course, a faithful Zazu has run off to find Mufasa.

Okay.

And he's gone and little Simba tries to roar.

And nothing's coming out.

Nothing's coming out.

And then he finally tries one more roar and this time, oh, mighty Mufasa's roar comes out.

And he beats up the hyenas and they're scurrying all over the place.

That is what that means when you've got God behind you and you're facing this battle.

You've got the strength of God to fight off the hyenas that come your way.

Amen.

James 14 says, James 4, not 14, 4 says this, submit yourself to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Come close to God and he'll come close to you.

So when you're attacked by the enemy, what do you do?

You don't run away from God.

You run to God because that is where you're going to find the.

power to resist.

So have you fully submitted your life to God today?

Second, submit yourself to objective truth.

We saw earlier that truth holds all things together.

Truth allows your armor to stay intact so that when your enemy attacks, you're fully protected.

But it is not your truth.

You've got to accept the whole Bible as God's authority in your life.

You've got to accept What God says about himself, not your interpretation of it.

You've got to accept what he says about humans, that we're created in his image, male and female.

We've got to accept the definitions about life, about humans, about marriage, about God, about sin.

You have to accept that the Bible is God's revealed word, and we've got to submit to its authority.

We've got to reject syncretism that we talked about last week, this doctrine that you can believe both in Jesus and...

Everything else you want to believe in?

No, we can't do that.

Jesus and Buddhism don't mix.

Jesus and liberal theology don't mix.

Jesus and astrology don't mix.

Jesus and crystals do not mix.

You've got to watch what you listen to.

You've got to watch what you watch on television.

You've got to decide.

What your children are watching.

John Mark Homer tells us that we are constantly being formed.

The question is, who is forming you more?

The world or the word of God?

You know, Halloween is around the corner.

And I can't tell you how many times, fuck, this was one of my shocks when I came to America, is I find Christians dressing their kids up in ghosts and witches and their yards are like graveyards with scary characters and crazy things.

Foothold, people, foothold.

If you want to know more about what the Bible says, I wrote an article in 2020 that went pretty crazy wild, kind of viral.

I don't know what viral means.

I don't know what it means.

But it had 336 shares.

I was actually shocked because I didn't expect that.

I was just writing about an African's view on Halloween.

And if you want to do that, you can find it on Facebook.

There will be a link somewhere, maybe.

And if you want to understand what I think.

witches and Halloween and other stuff.

Go back and look at that.

But if you are a young adult, the Bible cannot be clear because this is where your problem is as young adults mostly.

Do not engage in divination, witchcraft, Christos.

It is engaging in Satanism.

Read your Bible, join a community group, deal your doubts in Christian community, not away from it.

So if you're at Rancho, if you're in Upland and Westco, What non-biblical doctrines or worldviews are you holding on to?

What saints are you praying to?

What rituals does your family rehearse that lean towards the occult?

Do you have any idols, crystals, tarot cards, charms, books that don't glorify God in your home?

What lies have you believed about God, about yourself, the world, and the future?

Today is freedom day, people.

You can give these things up to Jesus, and you can submit to God's loving truth for deliverance.

Number three and the last one is activate a never-ceasing prayer life.

How is your prayer life?

Really, how is your prayer life?

How is your prayer?

What are your prayer rhythms like?

Prayer reminds us that you are relying and that you need to rely on God to stand against your enemy.

Remember that your enemy is also spiritual.

Prayer is where you access the power that has been given to us by the Holy Spirit.

It's where we listen to God and learn to hear His voice.

God tells us to pray at all times.

And this is mimicking or following the practices of David and Daniel, who prayed three times a day.

In fact, early church fathers created routines of prayer around this, what we call a daily office, where you pray.

In fact, Pete Skisler has a book out that says, Day by Day, that talks about this idea of the daily office.

praying three times a day.

It's a really good habit because you stop and realize God is in control of everything.

You try to listen to the Spirit of God.

Being devoted in prayer and praying the Spirit makes you alert and aware of the enemy's attacks coming your way.

Otherwise, you don't do this.

Your open game is coming at you.

Pray as an individual.

Pray as a family, especially when your kids are young.

Pray as a married couple.

Pray as a single parent.

Here's the challenges they have for us this week.

I want to ask everyone who goes one and all their church home to commit yourself to seven days of prayer.

Morning, lunch, evening.

Maybe you can only do two times.

Okay, at least twice a day.

Set your calendar on your clock.

Do your devotional time and then pray another time.

And whether you're at school, it doesn't matter.

Find two times a day, three times a day where you can step away and pray.

And ask yourself, ask God to do this for you.

Reveal to me any area of my life that needs deliverance.

That should be your prayer for seven days.

God, please reveal to me any area of my life that needs deliverance.

And pray that when Pastor Jeff finishes off this series, you know what you're going to be praying about.

God said, if my people were called by my name, will humble, keyword, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways.

Then I will hear from heaven and I'll forgive their sin and I'll heal their land.

That's a promise.

So as we end, I want to tell you a story.

And some of you have already heard this.

I come from a background.

My family comes from, we have royal blood in us and yeah, very bougie.

And that comes with religious obligations.

My uncles and aunts on my dad's side were highly engaged in witchcraft.

And...

As I've told you, I was having bad, vivid dreams and night experiences as a child.

As I got older, I learned about our history and continued even then, sometimes to have some of these very vivid, weird dreams and experiences.

The demon was in too deep in my family.

In fact, recently I went back to Uganda.

I had not been able to attend my dad's wedding.

When I went to the place where my dad was buried, I found that the grave had been tampered with.

And I asked my big brother what happened.

And he said that someone had come and tried to dig the grave out so they can take the skull out of my dad's grave so they could do whatever they wanted to do with it.

It's serious stuff, guys.

This is not a joke, okay?

It is very serious.

And so, Deepon was into Deep.

But this...

is what my family has done.

All 23 of us, okay, or so, 20-something of us.

This is what we have done for ourselves as siblings and for even some of our cousins and even for our children.

This is what we've done.

We have stood against the enemy.

Number one, we've changed allegiance.

Our heritage is no longer worshipping the spirits of our sisters.

We have denounced them.

The Lord is our God.

We have submitted to God's truth about who we are, who Jesus is, what Jesus means to us.

We have submitted to God's word as authority for us and for our children.

Our families are praying families.

If you go back to Uganda, man, and we get together, my family, we all grab guitars and we'll be singing worship songs and we pray.

It's crazy, man, when I get back home and we all get together and we just have guitars and we're singing.

It's fantastic.

And we're continually singing.

standing against any new attacks on our families.

Pretty amazing.

And that can also be for you.

As we end today, what we learned from Paul and what can we learn a little bit from Krav Maga.

I'm going to invite my friend Romero up again and we're going to show you that the battle that you have against the enemy is a cosmic battle.

Satan is trying to control your life.

It's sweat to sweat, breath to breath.

who is controlling what.

And when the evil day comes, Satan is going to hit you hard with lies about who you are, insecurity, worry, doubt, and all those things.

But you can resist the enemy by your allegiance to God, by through truth and through prayer.

And that is my prayer for all of us today, that we will stand against the enemy with those three things.

Let us pray.

God, we thank you so, so much for Paul and for his knowledge of you and of the cosmic struggle that we have.

God, we pray today for anyone who is facing any difficult battle against the enemy, that these three truths today will help them, help them be able to stand against the enemy.

In Jesus'name we pray and everybody said, Amen.

Well, we just heard an incredible word from Pastor Michael.

If you would like to connect with us after hearing that message, a great place to go is oneandall.church.com.

You can let us know how can we be praying for you.

We would love to come alongside you as you are working through what you just heard from Pastor Michael in our Deliverance Series.

And I want to let you know about a resource that we have just for this series.

Pastor Drew has a video up called Book Talk that he's done for the last couple.

series that we've gone through.

This one goes through some books, some really great resources on the topic of deliverance.

So maybe you're coming away from these last few messages with some questions, some things you're interested in learning more about.

Pastor Drew gives some really good books, some resources that were even used by our pastors when they're prepping for the messages in this deliverance series.

So it's a great place to go to just get some more background knowledge if this is a topic that you need to learn more about.

And as we all grow together, we're going to be continuing our Deliverance series for one more week.

So make sure you tune in next week to hear that.

And we'll go as we always do with one hope, one life in Christ.