By Pastor Michael Frisbee
This article is an adaptation of a sermon I did several months ago, and it was based on a sermon that Pastor Jerry Vines presented some 20 years ago, back when the leaders of our churches were occasionally still preaching about spiritual warfare. We need a restoration of this area of preaching and instruction from the pulpit.
Whether you know it or not, if you are a born again Christian, you are in a spiritual war. More than likely, you have been kept in the dark about this war, since many churches have fallen away from teaching and preaching this gospel truth. However, if you spend any time reading the New Testament, studying Christ’s teachings and ministry, as well as the teachings and ministry of the Apostle Paul, you can’t but help know and understand that the war is real.
The moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, give Him and the Holy Spirit the throne in our spirit and heart, we paint a target on our back that Satan and his demonic minions seek out, with possible fatal results. Such knowledge is scary, even horrifying is it not? Do not fear, do not fret, for there is an awesome Truth that goes with it, and that is when Christ died on that Cross to pay for our sins, He rose again three days later. When He did that, HE HAD THE ULTIMATE VICTORY OVER SATAN AND ALL WHO FOLLOW HIM!
Jesus Christ has the ULTIMATE authority over all things of Heaven and Earth – God, Our Heavenly Father, gave Him that authority. That includes Satan and His minions. He had that Authority before He went to the Cross, and was evident in the multitude of times He cast out the demonic from people. He even passed this authority to His disciples and apostles, and ultimately to us – the people that made that conscious choice to accept Him as the Son of God, believe He died for our sins, and accepted His gift of Salvation.
However, Christians are still struggling, facing demonic oppression, obsession, falling for their lies whispered in their ears, deceiving Christians through New Age and Occult doctrines. The Scriptures teach that the war has already been won. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ has already won the victory for us. We have to wrap our minds and faith around that and never let it be forgotten. The demonic will try to not take it away, but try to make us forget that fact.
Turn to Romans 8 and I want to read these verses to remind ourselves that the victory has already been won in Jesus Christ. This great concluding passage in Romans 8 and when you look at the 37th verse it says: "Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him (Jesus) that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." We are more than conquerors. We are super conquerors through Him. That means we have the victory in Jesus Christ over the principalities and the powers. In your mind connect that with Ephesians 6 where it tells us very specifically that we are wrestling not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.
Take a look at Revelation 12 and read another verse about this matter of the victory already being won and how we claim that victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 10 and 11-"And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ. For the accuser of our brethren (Satan) is cast down which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto the death."
Now look up Matthew 12 - they accuse Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons. Replying to the accusation that he was a demon possessed individual, Jesus responds in verse 24 and 25 - "every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation." Jesus is saying the accusation is illogical. "If satan casts out satan he is divided against himself. How then shall his kingdom stand?" Verse 29 - look at the little parable Jesus gives. "How can one enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods except he first bind the strong man and then he will spoil his house." If you will just connect this in your mind. The one entering into the house is Jesus.
The strong man's house is the Satan and his kingdom. So, Jesus is saying, “What I'm going to do is I am going to enter the strong man's house. I'm going to invade the kingdom of Satan. I'll bind the strong man, I'll spoil his house.” When did Jesus invade Satan on his own turf and get the victory? Colossians 2:15 - "And having spoiled principalities and powers he made a show of those principalities and powers openly triumphing over them in it." (referring to the cross). When Jesus died on the cross, Jesus Christ entered the strong man's house. Before Jesus went to the cross, Jesus said this is your hour and the power of darkness. The Satan thought he had Jesus. So, when Jesus died on that cross and shed His precious blood, not only did Jesus pay for our sins, but the Bible also says He won the victory over the powers of evil. The victory has already been won. The invasion has already taken place. We are just involved in a few skirmishes along the way now and it won't be long until we will have V Day and the victory will be totally realized. "They overcame him by the blood of the lamb."
So, when we come to Ephesians 6 -- this passage on spiritual warfare, there are 3 pieces in the puzzle that show us how to win the war. First of all you have to analyze the enemy. We've done that in Ephesians 6:10, 11, and 12. Then you have to utilize the weapon. Vs 13, 14 through 17. Analyze your enemy. Learn everything you can about how Satan operates. Daily utilize that army weaponry.
Every day of our life we ought to by faith put on the whole armor of God. Every day we ought to equip ourselves with everything God has provided for us spiritually to do war with the forces of Satan. We analyze our enemy. We utilize our weaponry, we realize our victory. I think the key is in verse 18 - "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit." You know how we get the victory against the spiritual forces that come up against us day by day. The victory is won in prayer. That's where you get the victory.
Prayer is communication. You can't win a battle without communication. Communication is vital to victory, to success. Same thing is true in war. If you can cut off an army's communication system you will cripple that army. The same thing is true in the realm of the Spirit. If Satan can keep us from praying he'll always get the victory. If Satan can get us involved in a lot of other things and get us to neglect prayer then Satan is going to win. Rev Mark and I are involved in a ministry called Spiritual Warriors Network. Within it is our team of prayer warriors. Some of you have committed yourself to be a prayer warrior. The selection of that particular name for the ministry was not accidental. Understand that prayer is the weapon of victory that enables us to win over the principalities and the powers. I think this is why, having gone through all of those pieces of armor, Paul now comes to the climax of the whole matter and shows us that we realize victory over Satan by the ministry of prayer.
The above is just the beginning of the sermon – the rest of it covers the many applications and such of prayer and the four “alls” that Paul writes of. If you are interested – you can read the rest at: http://paranormalchristian.blogspot.com/2012/04/winning-invisible-war-ephesians-610-24.html
This will be my final article here at Eye on the Paranormal. My leaving does not involve any issues between Kirby and I. I support Kirby and his work, wish him every possible success in all his endeavors. My leaving has to do with my faith, and that I feel the message I need to present is watered down when included among the articles presented by non Christians. I launched a blog to parallel my show, The Paranormal Christian. It will have my articles, as well as articles from my co-host, Reverend Mark Hunnemann, and occasional contributions by fellow Christian guest contributors.
God bless each and every one of you.
11 comments:
Pastor, what do you think about the alarming amount of groups within FB that are promoting everything from Necromancy to hydromancy,scrying and every other type of spiritual communication divination you can imagine? I am seeing an alarming interest developing and one in particular seems to be drawing a lot of new comers something called ITC Instrumental Trans-Communication (I.T.C)
http://www.facebook.com/groups/325343774167534/
Actually - ITC isn't all that new - it's been around a few decades, actually was the precursor to EVP's.
The growth of all these Occultic and New Age beliefs and groups that are catering to feeding people their demonic doctrines certainly do alarm me, even terrifies me.
Many of these people have no clue the dangers they are placing themselves into spiritually and eternally.
Even more troublesome are the number of Christians, whom are not getting the proper biblical teachings from their churches anymore due to many churches and their leaders turning a blind eye to all of this.
I recently helped a client, a Christian, that got involved in something called "Christian Reiki", even became a master reiki teacher, and began to have a number of oppressive things occur, shadow people, etc in the home.
After a while, clients were complaining of their health issues resurfacing even worse, feeling drained even after sessions, experiencing alleged paranormal activity, etc.
He finally put 2 and 2 together, stopped practicing reiki, rebuked it and came to me for help in dealing with what turned into a nasty demonic attachment.
I have been seeing more and more paranormal investigators experiencing attacks and attachments. Usually they are obsessed with active EVP collection and analysis.
Something Rev Hunnemann and I have been trying to inform and educate investigators is the direct parallels doing active EVP's are to doing a Ouija session. Equipment is different, process of quetions and drawing out the spirit, to make contact with the spirit. As ITC regains popularity, it will only deepen that, much like ghost boxes and their equivalents are.
If people would simply spend time truly reading their Bibles, spending time in prayer asking for wisdom and knowledge, to have the Holy Spirit and God to reveal the truth to them, they will see that the only spiritual beings there are to make connection with is demons. Angels are their, but they will not make direct contact with us, only intercede for us in accordance to God's Will.
Human ghosts simply do not exist here on earth to be found or recorded. They are either in Heaven, or Hell. If you think about it logically, God is omnipotent, loving, but just. He would not leave an innocent deserving of Heaven to remain trapped here on earth, nor would He allow someone deserving of Hell to escape that.
We must remember that demons are fallen angels. They seek to draw us away from God's Word and hide the fact that Christ defeated them, their time is short. They can't attack God, Christ, or the Holy Spirit directly, so they will take out their anger on us.
They can mimic angels of light, animals, even the loved ones that have passed.
Get in the Word of God, give yourself over to Christ and accept Him and His gift of salvation, and turn your face away from the paranormal. There is nothing but danger and death there.
Thank you for that clarification Pastor and I would like to address a couple of things I had no idea was happening, first the Christian reiki, found this http://www.christianreiki.org/ I’m glad you alerted me to the incorporation of reiki to divination as I would not have thought about this being included. They are convincing at the website I linked above, they write about a young girl who struggled with her Christian faith and joining the reiki (club?) and decided to go ahead and join knowing her parents would not approve and the writer continues to pitch the warm and fuzzy to the audience of how innocent this practice is. This writer obviously played upon the weakness displayed by the young woman in deciding against Christianity and her parent’s knowledge of knowing this is wrong, I’m betting a common occurrence within many of these types of places.
Second, I can understand how Ouija and EVP along with ITC are all interconnected and all are extremely dangerous to your wellbeing and to that of your soul. You are correct about the occult with this one, this particular group I observed is led by a man from Australia who promotes this type of Scrying into a pan of water and takes photographs of whatever comes through, some of the images are disturbing enough to realize he has made contact with demons, there is no other word for what they are, the frightening part comes from the amount of people he has recruited to do as he does mostly lonely housewives he gives lots of attention to (in this particular group) they scry into water all day and constantly photograph it and post for praise and approval, they formally ask for ‘good’ spirits to come to them and insist they use “sage” burning to protect themselves. That has to be the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard, to think a demon could be banished with sage. Can you please tell them this is just nonsense? I think so many are lured with a false sense of security concerning such ideas. Last but not least the fact you state human spirits are either in heaven or hell and not among the living is one of the best pieces of advice, I hope more will realize there are no child spirits left looking for their ‘mommy’ there are no souls in need of being ‘crossed over into the light’ and that is not a human talent or skill to do if there was.
Thank you for that clarification
This description and photo are the ones I spoke of and it fits you description of draining a person
http://i46.tinypic.com/w04bag.jpg
Rev Mark and I have discussed the use of sage and such by pagan and wiccan investigators, believing it would dispel evil spirits or energy.
One really disturbing trend that I am seeing is Christians light on their knowledge of the Bible and getting tied up in the paranormal, is the use of frankincense and myrrh as a way to ward off the demonic/evil spirits, etc. This silly belief stems from the fact these were gifts given to our Lord when He was born.
In that same vein of logic, gold dust should dispel the demonic too (LOL).
There are only two things that have been used in the Bible regarding Christs ministry. Oil and Salt.
But if you truly read about His ministry, and that of the disciples and apostles, NONE of them used anything (especially holy water - a papal creation about 1000 years after Christ) to cast out demons.
They simply used the Authority of Jesus Christ and commanded them out. No discussions with it, no pleading with it, no seeking out of it's name, etc.
There in ONE exception, when Christ was confronted by a man that was possessed with hundreds if not thousands of demons. They called themselves Legion, for they were many. They begged to not be sent into nothingness, so Christ cast them out and into a herd of pigs nearby. The animals went crazy and committed hog-icide.
The man was delivered up, wanted to follow Christ back across the sea, but Christ told him to go home and show his family and friends the transformation, and whom had done it. The man went home, and later preached throughout the region the wonders and message of who Christ was, the Son of God.
Pastor, thank you for taking the time to answer and talk with me, surely you will be missed and I believe maybe you should rethink leaving as I believe as Jesus did and those who are in need of God most are the lost and destitute and the most confused I have learned more from you in this blog than searching anything paranormal and even just one must make difference?.. Maybe you should stay?
I appreciate that - but I believe my focus needs to be elsewhere.
My articles can be found at and will be posted here:
http://paranormalchristian.blogspot.com
and information on our shows will be found at:
http://www.theparanormalchristian.com
Ok Pastor I will look and go there for you from here on out, Thank you so much for the links,
God Bless you in your endeavors and keep you safe always
that's some evil creepy stuff going on in that photo
http://i46.tinypic.com/w04bag.jpg
I want to clarify that statement about this
http://i46.tinypic.com/w04bag.jpg
I mean there is some faking crap and extremely ridicules claims
A very impressive article. Well prepared. Very motivating!! Set off on to way
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