Spiritual Warfare Part 1Introduction

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Beth Yeshua Messianic Congregation

I have Taught Many Times

About the very real possibility of our being in the Great Tribulation and NOT being “pre-trib” raptured out before it happens.

If that is the Case:

Revelation 9:1-11 Says demons in the form of hellish locusts will be released out of the pit during the Tribulation.

This means that we, as Believers in Yeshua will Have to Deal With Them

Even more than we do in this day!

Most of Us and Many Pastors (Including Myself)

Are sadly unequipped to deal with them!

Hell's Spells

How to identify, take captive, and

dispel the weapons of darkness [Paperback]

Publisher: Charisma House (September 4, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 1616389435 ISBN-13: 978-1616389437

Jim Raley in his book, Hell’s Spells Writes:

“One of the most misunderstood subjects in the whole of Christian theology and teaching is the subject of spiritual warfare. Oftentimes when topics like this are discussed, well, it can have a tendency to get a little weird. People can get strange, leaders can get strange, and church gatherings can get strange. So then, many times, rather than taking these important topics head-on, Bible preachers and teachers will avoid them all together.

“When this occurs, we do great harm to those within the body of Christ who desperately need to be empowered, impacted, and prepared for spiritual battle. Hell’s spells are in full effect when the church ignores the reality of spiritual warfare. We will never win a war we refuse to acknowledge.”

First: We Must Believe in the Spiritual Realm

He goes on to write: “The first key to victory in spiritual warfare is this: you must believe in the spirit realm. You must believe that this realm is real and tangible. The spirit realm is not some made-up fairy tale that lives only in the minds of children and the superstitious, but it is real. In other words, you must believe that what you see isn’t all there is. You must believe and acknowledge that there is more.”

Second: We Must Remember that Satan is NOT God!

He writes: “Satan is not a wicked god who is the evil version of Jehovah God. He wants you to think he is, but don’t give him that kind of credit. He is not God at all; he is a fallen angel. Satan is a created being. God, on the other hand, was never created; he is the Creator. He has always been and will always be. He is all powerful and has no limitations. That’s one of the things that make Him God.

“In contrast, Satan is not all powerful, and he has limitations. There is tremendous advantage gained by the believer who recognizes and exploits the weaknesses of the devil.“Be confident and courageous as you gain understanding; all of heaven is on your side!”

It Only Takes ONE Angel

To place Satan into the Bottomless Pit for 1,000 years – Revelation 20: 1 Next I saw an angel coming down from heaven, who had the key to the Abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan [the Adversary], and chained him up for a thousand years. 3 He threw him into the Abyss, locked it and sealed it over him; so that he could not deceive the nations any more until the thousand years were over…

Third: Yeshua Gave Us, as His Believers, Authority over Demons!

Matthew 10:8 - "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." I think it's interesting how Yeshua didn't tell us to pray and ask God to heal the sick, He told US to heal the sick!

Luke 9:1

Notice in that He not only gave His disciples authority over all devils, but also to cure diseases: "Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases."

Luke 10:17

"And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name."

Understanding Spiritual Authority

A solid understanding of spiritual authority is vital to build your faith when casting out demons, healing the sick, and exercising your authority over the powers of darkness.When we have been given authority to cast out demons, but instead we pray that God brings the demon out instead, we are basically asking God to do something that He gave US the tools to do ourselves!

Yeshua told US to cast out demons! Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us to ask God to cast out demons!Authority doesn't beg; authority doesn't ask; authority commands! We are not told to ask God to cast out demons, we are told to do it ourselves! We are not told to beg demons to come out, we are told to CAST them out! Authority is exercised through our spoken word.

Our Lives don’t match what we read in God’s Word!

Our Problem is this:

Even though the Bible claims we have great power over evil, the way most of us actually live is much different. We tend to avoid confrontations with the demonic as though they are more powerful than us!

Kind of Like the 10 Spies Numbers 13:27-33

They looked at the inhabitants of the land as though the enemy was more

powerful than they were.

However, in God we are more powerful than the Enemy!

Sha’ul in Ephesians 6:10 wrote:

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.”

Satan is NOT Afraid of Our Power!

Satan never has been and never will be defeated, detoured, or made afraid because of our power. The only power Satan fears is the power of God, and the only name that makes him tremble is the name of Yeshua (Jesus).

Satan Fears Us

Only when we are depending on the Lord. When we try to operate in our own strength, that is when we get into trouble.

God Doesn’t Need Numbers to Win

He wants believers in Him with a Biblical Faith (Hebrews 11 Series) to join with Him to fight against the enemy!

Think of Gideon – Judges 6

To fight against the Midianites: army whittled down from 32,000 to 10,000 to 300.

BUT:Those 300 were UNIFIED in one purpose in the Lord AND alert!

Satan Knows that If he Can DIVIDE Us, he has little to fear from us!

As believers in God, even in small numbers, if we are UNIFIED in Him and in His power, then we will prevail over the enemy!

However, The Truth is:We Often fall to the wiles of the Adversary and DIVIDE over the littlest of things!This is because we aren’t fully submitted to God and are as a result, NOT UNIFIED!

Satan Can Use Good People to Try and Thwart God’s Purposes!

Matthew 16 – Kefa (Peter)

Believers are Invincible…

…in the face of evil only when they are in total submission to God and would rather suffer torture or loss or death than let evil win.

We Must Fear God

MORE than we fear the loss of our lives!

To do that, we must be God’s Slaves!

God’s Slaves

Being God’s slave is not remotely like being tricked and ensnared like sin’s slaves. Instead of forcibly submitting to a master who will destroy us, being God’s slave is voluntarily submitting to a master who, as Yeshua proved, would rather be tortured to death than see us harmed. God’s slaves are love slaves. At any instant we could rebel, but we choose instead to revel in God’s loving wisdom, and obey like a starving man saying yes to food.

Romans 6:16-22

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

. . . But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. . . . Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

We Have a Choice:

To be slaves of Sin (under Satan) or to be slaves of Righteousness (under God and Yeshua).

A Choice: As in the Beginning In the Garden

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any wild animal which ADONAI, God, had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You are not to eat from any tree in the garden'?" 2 The woman answered the serpent, "We may eat from the fruit of the trees of the garden, 3 but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, 'You are neither to eat from it nor touch it, or you will die.'" 4 The serpent said to the woman, "It is not true that you will surely die; 5 because God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Adam and Eve’s Choice:

Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it had a pleasing appearance and that the tree was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her; and he ate.

So, in Genesis 3

Satan is traditionally identified as the serpent who convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit; thus, Satan has often been depicted as a serpent.

HaSatanSatan (Hebrew: ן ט� ש� ,ha-Satan ה�"the opposer") is the leader of fallen angels and adversary to God, particularly in Abrahamic religions.

Traditional Christian Understanding

In traditional Christian understanding of the holy Hebrew scriptures, the Torah, Satan is a synonym for the Devil. For most Christians, he is believed to be an angel who rebelled against God—and also the one who spoke through the serpent and seduced Eve into disobeying God's command (Genesis 3). His ultimate goal is to lead people away from the love of God—to lead them to fallacies which God opposes.

The popularly held beliefs that Satan was once a prideful angel who eventually rebels against God, however, are not portrayed explicitly in the Bible and are mostly based on inference (e.g., Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14:12–17).

Ezekiel 2811 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

“The Anointed Cherub”

14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

“Lucifer”

From the Fourth Century “Lucifer” is sometimes used in Christian theology to refer to Satan, as a result of identifying the fallen "son of the dawn" of Isaiah 14:12 with the "accuser" of other passages in the Old Testament.

Isaiah 14:12

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!

Luke 10:18

And He said to them, "I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”

The Demons – Fallen Angels

The New Testament speaks of the operation of demons (devils) many times. So plainly there are demons who are not bound who do the work of Satan in the world.

One Third of the Angels Fell from Heaven

While there is no verse that says a "third of the angels fell from heaven," some verses, when put together, lead us to that conclusion. Sometime after their creation, and most certainly after the sixth day when everything was declared “very good” (Genesis 1:31), Satan rebelled and was cast out of heaven. “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12).

When Lucifer sinned, Yeshua said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18), and in the book of the Revelation Satan is seen as “a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth” (Revelation 9:1).

We are also told that one third of an “innumerable company of angels” (Hebrews 12:22) chose to rebel with him. John saw this great wonder in heaven, “…an enormous red dragon…His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth…the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him” (Revelation 12:3-9).

Since Satan is referred to as a star which fell or was cast down to earth, and Revelation 12:4 says a third of the stars were cast out with him, then the conclusion is that the stars in Revelation 12 refer to fallen angels, fully one third of the heavenly host.

These Fallen Angels are Those Whom Sha’ul Speaks:

Ephesians 6:12"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

It May Look as Though We’re Fighting the War Against People

But in Reality, we are fighting against the demonic!

Demonic Possession

How does a demon enter a person in the first place? In the story that took place in Mark 9, an innocent child was possessed. I'm certain that sin and involvement with the occult can result in a demon possession, but the bible does not tell us how a person becomes demon possessed or even why it happens.

One thing is for sure:

Some kind of portal has to open up to allow entry.

There are several theories…

…As to the why but the one fact that stands out is that the "demon" has a need to possess a body. The Scripture translated several instances of the word "an unclean spirit" as to mean devil or demon but the original text means "an unclean spirit".

What is an Unclean spirit?

I believe it to be a spirit being bound to some kind of sin state which causes it to be "unclean".

Summary of Demon Traits:1. It is a spirit being bound by sin.2. It desires to occupy a body.3. It resists the will of God.4. It causes suicidal tendencies.5. It is opposed to God.6. It is powerful.7. It can reenter a host body after it has left.8. It has to obey God.9. It is evil.

Fortunately, We Have Two-Thirds on God’s (Our) Side!

If the one-third number is in fact accurate, what assurance that is! This means that two thirds of the angels are still on God's side, and for followers of Messiah, they are on our side as well.

And Remember: It Only Takes ONE Angel

To place Satan into the Bottomless Pit for 1,000 years – Revelation 20: 1 Next I saw an angel coming down from heaven, who had the key to the Abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan [the Adversary], and chained him up for a thousand years. 3 He threw him into the Abyss, locked it and sealed it over him; so that he could not deceive the nations any more until the thousand years were over…

Thankfully, Not ALL the one-third of the Demons Cast Down with Lucifer

are Released (some are bound):

Luke 8:31 the demons who possessed the man at Gadarenes and begged the Messiah not to send them "into the deep."

That is where a part of the fallen angels who rebelled against God are presently chained or kept. It is the same place that Satan will be bound in Revelation 20:1-3 during the Millennium call the bottomless pit.

Satan in The Book of JobIn the Book of Job, ha-Satan is a member of the Divine Council, "the sons of God" who are subservient to God. Ha-Satan, in this capacity, is many times translated as "the prosecutor", and is charged by God to tempt humans and to report back to God all who go against His decrees. At the beginning of the book, Job is a good person "who feared God and turned away from evil" (Job 1:1), and has therefore been rewarded by God.

When the Divine Council meets, God informs ha-Satan about Job's blameless, morally upright character. Between Job 1:9–10 and 2:4–5, ha-Satan merely points out that God has given Job everything that a man could want, so of course Job would be loyal to God; if all Job has been given, even his health, were to be taken away from him, however, his faith would collapse. God therefore grants ha-Satan the chance to test Job.

Due to this, it has been interpreted that ha-Satan is under God's control and cannot act without God's permission. This is further shown in the epilogue of Job in which God is speaking to Job, ha-Satan is absent from these dialogues.

"For Job, for [Job's] friends, and for the narrator, it is ultimately the Lord himself who is responsible for Job's suffering; as the Lord says to the 'satan', 'You have incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.'" (Job 2:3)

In Judaism, Satan is a term used since its earliest biblical contexts, to refer to a human opponent.

Occasionally, the term has been used to suggest evil influence opposing human beings, as in the Jewish exegesis of 1 Kings 22:22.

1 Kings 22:2

22 Adonai asked, ‘How?’ and he answered, ‘I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’ Adonai said, ‘You will succeed in enticing him. Go, and do it.’

1 Samuel 16:14

In the Old Testament we are told that "an evil spirit from the Lord troubled" Saul.

Thus, Satan is personified as a character in three different places of the TaNaKh, serving as an accuser (Zechariah 3:1-2), a seducer (1 Chronicles 21:1), or as a heavenly persecutor who is "among the sons of God" (Job 2:1). In any case, Satan is always subordinate to the power of God, having a role in the divine plan.

In the B’rit Chadasha (Newer Testament) Writings

Other terms identified with Satan include "the prince of this world" in the Book of John 12:31, 14:30; "the prince of the power of the air" also called Meririm, and "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" in the Book of Ephesians 2:2; and "the god of this world" in 2 Corinthians 4:4.

In The Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation twice refers to "the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan," (12:9, 20:2). The Book of Revelation also refers to "the deceiver," from which is derived the common epithet "the great deceiver.”

The End of Time and Satan

The Book of Revelation says that all demons will be bound in the pit during the Millennium (1,000 year reign of Yeshua) at the end of the Great Tribulation.

The bound angels will be brought out of the Tartarus as 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 state.So, part of the host of fallen angels reside in the Tartarus for a time, but it seems they all will be released at Satan's final rebellion at the end of the Millennium.

Tartarus

In classic mythology, It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the underworld. Plato (c. 400 BC) wrote that souls were judged after death and those who received punishment were sent to Tartarus.

Great White Throne Judgment - Revelation 20:1-3

At the End of the Millennium, Satan and all fallen angels (devils or demons) will be cast into Gehenna at the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20:10.

This Means That God Wins!

We MUST remember that in spiritual warfare, God wins!

Satan is Allowed permission to test us, but in the end – God wins!

God is more powerful than Satan and his minions!