So what's going on everybody?

Hey everybody.

We are here today to talk about spiritual warfare.

That's right, that's what it is.

We're doing episode two.

We're gonna get you further into it.

Last time we talked we kind of.

Introduced the topic like what is it?

Hopefully you've caught up on that and you're with us at this point.

You're like, alright, ready to dive in a little deeper.

That's what we're doing today.

And today's topic is understanding the enemy.

Understanding enemy, yes.

I'm Derek.

And I'm Matt.

And welcome to the Truth Respons.

Yeah, so I'm gonna pray today.

Yeah, you are.

Father, thank you for another opportunity to be on here and speaking with my buddy Derek here as we try to tackle such a hard topic.

Well, Lord, we know that this can be scary and we know that this can be confusing.

And Lord, we just want to try to help make it as simple as possible and find encouragement through the things that are dark.

Help us to discuss this and wield off the attacks that may come for us who speak it and those who listen to it as we try to just navigate this forward in faithfulness to you.

Guide our conversation and all of our lives forward to make us all better reflections of you.

In Jesus name.

Amen.

All right, so day two.

Week two.

Yeah, Week two.

So episode two.

Episode two.

Yeah.

Phantom Enemy.

And every Star wars fan rejoices.

Yay.

Okay, so when you hear the phrase spiritual enemy, what comes to mind?

What comes to mind?

Spiritual enemy.

Spiritual evil.

That's what word comes to mind.

Evil.

You want to expound on that a little bit?

Expound?

Spiritual enemy.

Not just like.

Well, I mean, so remember last week I talked about the fact that the first time I really experienced any kind of spiritual war or came to the idea of spiritual warfare was when I was really young.

And to me it was simple.

So basically one of the things we're going to talk about today is our enemy.

Right?

Right.

And our ultimate enemy is Satan.

First time that was talked about to me, taught in a Sunday school class, I just kind of viewed it as simply as good versus evil.

Since then, of course, I would expound by saying that it's beyond.

It's our enemy is against our creator and therefore against creation itself because it is beloved by the Creator.

So it is there to go against it and ruin it and to try to undo what God has done.

And that is how it attacks.

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, so that's it in a nutshell.

Ish Ish.

In a nutshell, yeah.

All right, so who is the enemy, you said?

Satan.

Satan.

What do we know about him?

Well, he goes by many names.

He has, you know, the name Satan, the devil, Lucifer, the prince of this.

World, Son of the morning, Son of.

The morning, the deceiver, the tempter, there's lots of things.

But who he is.

So according to what we know, he was obviously created by God.

He's one of the angels to worship him, basically what it was, and to serve him.

Satan's pride got in his way.

He started to feel prideful that he was great in his own self and therefore rebelled against God.

And when he did so, a third of the angels fell with him.

He was able to rally about a third of them to himself.

Good news folks is for those who, doing the math, if a third fell, that means 2/3 didn't fall.

And that's a 2 to 1 ratio in our favor.

So that's good news.

That's true.

So something to keep in mind, they're still outnumbered two to one.

So.

Yeah.

So who.

So he fell and then he has been against creation from the get go.

We get introduced to him.

The first time he's not mentioned by name.

The first time we are introduced to him in scripture is the serpent.

And he takes the form of a serpent, in which case he starts with his ultimate attack.

And that is to try to get us to doubt God and God's word.

And so that's why he comes at eve in the very interesting tactic that he does when he.

I mean, it's the first things I doubt.

Did God really say he wants us to doubt what God's word is, what he said, to doubt his promises, to doubt God's character, to doubt creation itself.

When someone says they don't believe in God, that's a win for him.

For someone to say that they're not sure if they can trust a God like that, that's a win for him.

If someone says that they doubt the Bible, that's a win for him.

Anytime he can get us to doubt God, God's character, God's word, he's winning.

That's what he thinks.

That's a win in the battle for him.

He's not going to win the war, we know that.

But that's how he battles.

That's how he comes at us in an ultimate form.

And so for him to be able to introduce that doubt into the world and then to almost then try to inflate our egos in a similar way as he Must have done.

I'm assuming this is conjecture at this point, but assuming he would have done the same thing for the third of the angels that fell with him.

But the tactic he then used is then to not only make us doubt God, but then to say, well, you can be on the same level as God, and so our prideful selves are born.

And since then, it's a big mixture of that.

It's a mixture of putting ourselves first and trying to doubt the one that should be first.

Once that's been introduced in the world, it's continuously trying to kind of.

It's almost like talking in our ear, trying to continue to coax us into places or to do those things, to doubt, to inflate ourselves, to put ourselves first above God, put other things before God, to worship anything but God, and then therefore cause the destruction.

You see, the world and some of the biggest problems it has start from things of that nature.

Yeah, for sure.

Some other things that he's been called is deceiver and accuser.

Yep.

Oh.

Cause he loves to point out that we're not perfect.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

That's another thing.

Especially since.

So he wants us to feel guilty that we can't be with God, but he wants us to feel hopeless in that guilt.

Right.

He doesn't want us to feel redeemable.

That's one of the things he'll attack a Christian with, is to point out that we have sinned and were flawed before, and he'll try to use that.

Well, you were this.

You are this.

Yeah.

You know, and how could you deserve these things?

The kind of things that it's just so negative and is meant to be such a burden on us?

When God says you can be lifted from it and be free of it, the devil goes.

I mean, that's pretty bad.

You don't really think that you.

And so it's.

Yeah, he might have forgiven it the first time.

Yeah.

But I mean, he wants you to doubt the depths of God's grace.

You know, it's far greater than we can imagine.

Yeah, for sure.

So which of these descriptions has kind of shaped your understanding of the enemy the most?

What is.

Like when you think of our enemy, what descriptor do you think of?

Besides evil?

Oh, yeah, besides evil.

Like, what descriptor do you ascribe to the enemy the most?

Like, that could be, like, how you've dealt with it the most, you know, how you've been attacked the most, you know, that sort of thing.

I mean, I would say, I mean, deceiver Is a pretty solid one.

Solid all the way around.

I mean, he wants to deceive us into thinking more of ourselves, more of other things, less of God deceiving us in our personal images of ourselves and the things that we should be upset about versus the things we should be depressed about against the things that we could be happy about.

All these kind of things.

So he's definitely a deceiver.

Yeah.

And therefore, that counts all the lies as well.

I mean, it all wrapped up into one kind of word there.

Yeah, no, that's.

That's good.

That's good.

That's kind of where I'm at with it, too.

Liar, deceiver.

You know, it's how things kicked off.

That's how things end.

Yeah, well, things end with the accuser, but you know what I mean.

When I was going through.

After I went through some hard time and I was going through some counseling, it was one of the things that we had to attack first.

I think I might have brought this up last week, but it was.

Write out a list of all the things that you think because of this.

This.

You know what I mean?

What you went through.

And then we attacked each one with the truth.

And then there's just truths that you have to put in front of everything.

Obviously, there is a God.

He loves you.

He really does.

He's for your good.

He's not out for your bad.

He can be trusted.

You know, his word can be trusted.

You know, those things are paramount, and we get distracted from that a lot.

And so you got to re.

Establish the best truths in your life in order to build a foundation that you can defeat other things.

That's good.

So you talked about.

I mean, this is deception, right?

This is the deceiver, the.

The liar.

And you talked a little bit about Genesis in the garden and how he started that off.

What are some other ways that he gets us?

More specifically?

The things.

The subtle things.

What are the subtle things we know, the blatant things that come to us, like the doubt, the shame, the guilt.

What are the things that throw us off?

Okay, So I think before we can get into that, I think one of the things that we have to talk about.

I don't know if this is in order and how we want to do things today or not, but I think we need to talk about the difference between how our enemy speaks to us and how God speaks to us.

So God, when he is trying to speak to us, whether it's if you can hear his voice audibly or when he sends us messages through the different ways that he does.

I mean, he's God.

He can do so much more than we can even imagine and orchestrate things to his will and to our good.

But when he is trying to speak to us, he is.

Well, he's straightforward, he is usually encouraging, but also kind of matter of fact.

But there's a softness, there's a guidingness.

It's like the perfect kind of father voice of just wanting to guide us forward and tell us the way to go.

And in that there's not really any room for doubt.

It's actually just like I said, it's straightforward.

Doesn't feel like it's trying to tempt you.

It is matter of fact, like I said.

So if you're, if those are the kind of things you're feeling or you feel like you're being told, the things that you're hearing, the things that you're perceiving, there's a good chance that's coming from a good place.

Our enemy, on the other hand, speaks very similarly to the way that he spoke to Eve at the beginning.

He speaks as if he's trying to make us question things.

But also what he'll do is he'll try to speak as if he's us.

So he will speak to us in a manner of trying to doubt or.

And oftentimes it's a new question.

Sure, yeah.

Doesn't that just make you mad?

Doesn't that just frustrate you?

Aren't you just so over that, man?

Isn't that person just so.

And then just the kind of questions, man, how can God do that?

How can.

And then it's the questioning of things that he's continuously doing.

He started with a question and he's continuing to that when he's, when he and his workers, when they're trying to tempt you, it is coming usually in the form of a question.

Sure.

Also, he is there to mimic and mock God.

Oh yeah.

In the midst of it.

So we depict, I say we society depicts Satan as the pitchfork wielding giant horned red guy.

Right.

That is just the epitome of disgusting and horrifying.

Right.

But Second Corinthians 11:14 says, and no wonder, even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

He doesn't, he doesn't show up like that.

One of my favorite depictions of Satan in the movies is Viggo Mortensen plays Satan in the first prophecy movie.

And he's just got this like sweet, just the sweet sounding voice, right?

Until he gets to a point where it Just it lures the person in and then it snaps.

Right.

And so it's so good.

If you haven't seen the prophecy movies, not biblical, but a great rendition of Satan.

Viggo Mortensen's in it for a short time, but truly, truly a great depiction, in my opinion of Satan.

I think there is something to that.

Yeah, I like it.

But I mean, going back to what I saying, if you want to think about his character, look at.

I was just bringing up the temptation of Jesus in Luke 4.

I mean, he tempts Jesus with a question as well.

If.

If you're the son of God.

If.

Well, if you do this, you know, there's ifs in his.

In the way he attacks, even when he uses scripture for when he goes to say, you know, tempt Jesus and try to battle him with scripture, which is like going to the author and saying, did you really write this?

Right.

Well, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written.

You know, he's always tempting us in that way.

He's such a clever fox in trying to get into our heads.

Because, like, I think there was a movie that.

I'll point this out.

I think I talked to you about this before.

I don't know if we've ever done it on the podcast, but there's a movie called Interview with God.

Okay, totally recommend it.

It's worth a watch.

It's really cool once you get it front to back.

Don't want to give too much away right now, but one of the things that the guy who plays God, when he brings up the devil to God, the character, he says the devil's overrated.

And the guy was kind of thrown by that.

He says he only really has as much power as you give him.

You know, God is omniscient.

Devil's not.

God has full authority in this world.

The devil doesn't.

He doesn't have the authority God has.

He doesn't even have the authority that Jesus had.

So when he comes to us, he has to come to us in attempting.

He's got to get his way in there.

You know, it's like.

It's like you remember all the.

This is kind of a stretch, but you'll see where I'm going.

You remember the, you know, the whole.

Some of the vampire lore, they can't come in your house unless you invite them.

It's kind of a similar way.

He's trying to get you to let him in and play for a while.

And you know what I mean?

He wants you to entertain what he has to say.

He doesn't want you to ignore him.

He doesn't want you to.

Then go.

I'm not gonna listen to you.

I'm gonna start worshiping Jesus.

Because then he's got no place with you.

It says, you know, when you quote scripture and you speak Jesus, the devil flees.

He can't get to you.

Yeah.

But if you start entertaining what he's saying, oh, then you've given him room to play, and he will play.

Well, I know I've talked about the Screwtape letters before on the podcast.

Right.

And it's the little things, right, that can snowball.

It's not just the, like, little things.

It's like, one of the suggestions that this greater demon tells this lesser demon in this series of letters called the screwtape letters by C.S.

lewis is that don't try to argue philosophy with him or his religious beliefs.

Whenever the conversation comes up, remind him that he's hungry.

Yeah.

Aren't you hungry right now?

Can't you wait?

Yeah, can't you wait for that?

And so that just even that it was, like, one of the first letters that I read, it was just, like, mind blowing because I never thought about it that way.

And the fact that even just these little subtle things that have nothing to do with sin is what is used to distract and pull us away from our real goals.

I get a kick out of how Satan is portrayed even in media, in the different forms.

You brought up the one from Constantine, which was awesome.

Constantine.

Wasn't that it?

No, prophecy.

Prophecy.

Oh, prophecy.

No, the prophecy movie.

The Constantine movie.

I didn't talk about Constantine, but Constantine.

That was really good.

So anyway, what was interesting is that.

So there's a show by name, it's on Netflix.

Not that you need to go watch it, but it's called Lucifer.

Yeah, I don't endorse it.

All right, so.

So there was a comic book series off of Vertigo comics, which is what Green Arrow came from, which, you know, was all taken by dc, and so I was interested to see what they did with it.

So I watched a little bit of it just to see what was going on.

And it gets to a point where it's entertaining to a degree.

Like, even for someone who has studied scripture as much as I have, there's little subtle hints that they're nodding to scripture, and that's the part I think I enjoyed.

But then the show takes a turn to some very.

At first, it starts subtly Luciferian stuff, and then it starts to grow over time.

To the point.

And they try to do it very subtly, whether they intend to or not, whether it was their intention or not, the show does slowly and subtly become a little more Luciferian.

Where.

And just so you understand, what I'm saying is Luciferians want to say that, you know, Lucifer was the good guy and God's the bad guy.

And eventually they're trying to try to make Lucifer the ultimate hero in that show, however.

So, yeah, you don't need to watch it.

But what was interesting about that, the one reason I brought it up and I wanted to point out.

So in their depiction of him, you know, he's got these abilities, but his number one ability that's used in the show, he's helping this detective solve these crimes, but his weapon is he looks at them in the eyes and he asks them a question.

And I was like, really?

It's a question in that show.

It was, what do you desire?

But I'm like, of course it's a question he's got to ask.

And it's just kind of wild how that works sometimes.

I don't even know.

I don't want to claim that it's completely on purpose because I don't know that.

But what I can tell you is that I think whether they know it or not, whether the writers and the people producing these kinds of shows, whether they know it or not, they are being influenced.

Like I said, the subtle changes if you watch it.

And I only went so far to was, no, I'm not going any further with this.

But it's the subtle stuff that you're seeing and the things that, unless they really were intentional, it would be hard to do.

Well, then you got the opposite extreme.

Right.

Where they make him out to be something silly like Little Nicky.

Oh, yeah, right.

Where it's just some, ah, the devil, you know, and.

Well, it's downplaying him.

Right.

You know, and it's funny because, like, that's one of the things that, like, we don't even realize we do as a society.

Not only do we downplay the devil sometimes and to a degree, like I said before, I mean, he only has as much power, but, like, we can't disregard him and ignore him altogether because that's what he wants us.

He doesn't want us to think about his.

What he's doing at all.

Yeah.

So that's part of it.

But the other thing that we do is we also downplay hell.

Yeah.

You know, hell's a reality and it's.

Not just a big barbecue like some.

People, hell is a reality that Jesus spoke of more than he spoke of heaven.

He was very, very serious about hell.

Yeah.

And the fact that he talked about it that much should give us alarm for it.

But that's the thing our society plays it off to now.

At one point you just say hell was almost a swear word.

Now it's like it's the lesser.

It's not that big a deal.

People say things like, you know, what the hell?

And, you know, and that's okay for some people.

Right.

And he also will be like, you know, saying stupid things like, it's hot as hell, it's cold as hell.

And people are like, you don't understand.

Like, you're, you're, you're, you're downplaying things.

You're making it so normalized that people kind of disregard it altogether, you know?

And then you hear people in shows, TV shows and other people that kind of start to adapt this in their lives.

When the idea of going to hell comes up, they make it a joke.

Oh, yeah, I'll be there with all my friends.

Right.

It's not.

You really don't understand what you're talking about anymore.

Right.

You're not understanding the realities here.

This isn't a cartoon.

This isn't a.

Oh, it's just gonna be hot and, you know.

No, this is gonna.

It's an existence absolute best case scenario.

Right?

Best case scenario.

Hell is going to be like Life here with 0 of anything good.

So no hope, no love, no patience, no kindness, no gentleness.

No, I mean, that's best case scenario, right?

Like, of what we're talking about here is all good things removed.

Yeah.

Because God is good.

And so therefore the app, it's a life without God.

It's a life without good.

And people can really.

It's hard for us to fathom that.

And the reason it is is because yes, things on this earth do get dark.

Things in this world.

Sometimes People can live lives that are hard and dark, but even then them, there's light in those darknesses.

Right.

We're talking about zero Good.

Yeah.

Jesus told the story of Lazarus and the rich man or whatever, right?

Yeah.

Where he gives this glimpse of like, this guy went to hell because he missed the boat and he's begging for, you know, somebody to tell his family and friends, you know, that there's a better way not to end up like him.

Which, I mean, in all honesty, has been played out throughout all kinds of stuff in media, like even in A Christmas Carol.

I mean, that's what the whole thing's about.

Right.

Like, is the fact that, you know, Scrooge.

These guys have died in the past, and Scrooge is on the same track.

And, you know, they want to warn him.

They want to warn him.

Yeah.

But he's like, nope, can't do that.

And so that's.

That's.

That is our job while we're here to be doing that.

But it's.

It's not a joke.

Like, it's somewhere that if you end up, you don't want to be there.

I mean.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

I mean, and in that story, the guy first starts out, but, hey, can you get a Lazarus?

Can he just touch my tongue?

He's looking for any.

Any kind of comfort.

Yeah.

That he can get because he's without.

That's incredible.

Oh, yeah.

And, yeah, he wants to give that warning.

But that's the.

Sometimes I came up.

I said something many years ago, many, many years ago, and I've been saying it a lot to different people at different times when this stuff comes up.

I said, but the hard truth is that once your ultimate, once your final answer is locked in, it's locked in.

And, wow, you don't want to make the wrong decision.

The funny thing is, we also are deceived with how much time we have to make such a decision, when in reality, tomorrow is never promised for any of us to any capacity.

Yeah, absolutely.

To think that we have, oh, I have time to make that decision.

I can enjoy myself now and then the way I feel like I want to enjoy myself.

And then maybe I'll go to God later.

And not even just for whether you believe or not, but to the Christian out there who's like, someday I'll lead a Bible study.

Someday I'll join a discipleship group.

Someday I'll like, yeah, tomorrow is not promised.

And you even having the feeling of that might be God calling you to do that.

Now, it's interesting that sometimes we don't realize that we have different levels, obviously, but sometimes we don't realize that we've developed a contempt for God.

Well, yeah, I mean, he's there, but I'm going to do my thing right now.

Oh, yeah.

I could work on that part of my life right now.

And look, we're all busy.

We're all guilty.

Everybody's got something.

They're like, I don't want to work on that right now.

But God's saying, bring it all to me, man.

There's nothing you need to hide.

There's nothing you need to wait on what's interesting is that the people that I've talked to, so many people that thought that way at one point or another with different subjects in their lives.

One of the things that I think is really interesting is how many people thought that their life was going to be more fun, better, more exciting away from God.

Like, well, I thought that my life would.

Becoming Christian, going and starting to follow God was going to mean that the party's over kind of thing.

And then they come and they realize that it's good here and they're like, you know, I just don't.

The appeal changes for that old life.

It doesn't seem as nice anymore.

Yeah.

They see the shallowness, the hollowness and wow, the difference it can make.

You know, it's like that taste and see.

Whereas what is it the chosen says, Come and see.

Come and see.

That's from the calling of Nathaniel.

Yeah, come and see.

Yeah, you think that, but wait until you see.

Right.

And all of the.

I'm sure it's always been this way, right.

Like, I'm sure that past generations have said that about the past generations said that about the past generations that, you know, but it's so boring, you know, or, you know, they.

All they do is sing slow songs and you know, like they're whatever.

Like for one, there's.

There's some deception for you.

Like, not all churches are the same because there's a bunch of different types of people out there.

Right.

So.

But I want to hit on the fact that not only does.

Does he try to.

To get that edge in on.

On each of us individually, but like the churches themselves, like, we have spent a very long time fighting each other.

Yeah.

You know, Jesus gave us a forewarning that this was going to happen in different ways.

One of the ways he did it is in his parables.

Sure.

So for instance, you have the yeast, the parable of the yeast in the dough.

Right.

So that one is very interesting.

And it's easy for people to miss.

Is really easy for people to miss.

It's also, you got the parable of the mustard seed.

And it's really easy to miss, you see, because I'll give you the seed first, but in order to give you that, I got to get you back to the parable.

He says right before that, right before that, he gives you the parable of the sower.

And there's different seeds thrown along the path.

Well, the first kind of seed is thrown on hard ground and what happens?

The birds come and take it away.

Right.

Birds in the Parables aren't good.

That is our enemy.

He goes and tells the parable of the mustard seed.

And he says, yep, the mustard seed.

And it's going to.

Once it's planted, it takes over the whole garden.

It grows big and it has branches.

And what comes and goes into the branches?

The birds.

They come and rest in its branches.

God's telling you, yeah, it's going to grow.

Your faith is going to grow.

The church is going to grow and the birds are going to come and they're going to get right in there.

Then he tells you about the parable of the yeast.

And he says, yeah, it's like somebody took just a tiny bit of yeast and he started working into dough.

And so soon the yeast was throughout the whole dough.

Yeah, the yeast is not good.

In the Bible yeast, we usually were told in different places of the Old Testament, take the yeast out, don't use yeast.

Right.

Yeast, when used as a teaching tool, is not a positive thing.

Right.

In this case, hopefully they would have gotten it when he taught it.

And people nowadays, they have no idea.

It blows over the mind.

But the fact that the yeast is woven into the dough of the kingdom, into the church, into the Catholic, and I mean that small C corporate church around the world, not Roman Catholic.

I mean, like the whole church, it's woven into us.

The enemy's been attacking us from outside and in the inside almost from the beginning.

I mean, and not to even to mention the whole.

Wolves in sheep's clothing.

Absolutely.

I mean, that one's pretty on the nose, but it's there.

Jesus was telling us about it ahead of time in a way so that those who had ears to hear, those who had understanding, could understand.

Look, man, these things are going to happen and it's going to come inside the church itself.

It's going to come into the body of believers.

And what's sad about that is now when we look at church history, we see so many times, and you can look at some of the worst stuff, like in medieval history, but like, there's times where it has caused so many problems, where we're fighting over the ways that we worship, we're fighting over the things that we do in order to do our services or to come together as congregations.

We put roadblocks in the way from one another.

You got to do this.

You give us checklists, you give us motions to go through.

You give us all kinds of things.

You know, the evil One has given us all these kinds of things.

And it starts muddling up the water, making it murky and now we're just trying to see what's what.

And each bunny wants to criticize the other and it's caused problems.

And what's interesting about that is that in a place where we're supposed to be encouragers, where the people that do come and see are supposed to see how great it really is, sometimes that gets messed up.

And it's because humans that have been able, that the enemy has been able to manipulate and deceive have come in and caused issues to where when people do come and see, they're not seeing.

Wow, there's what they're supposed to.

And let me, let me.

There's a lot of obvious clashes and obvious things that are out there that you can figure out yourself.

But I want to speak to anyone who is in church leadership or has church leadership like this.

Are you exclusive when it comes to doing things with other churches?

Are you unwilling to work with other churches?

And if you're not even the church that reaches out to try to do things with other churches, you fall into this category like going as far as, like, if you're not trying to do things with other local churches, you are being influenced to not do so.

A lot of churches will even throw out things like, you know, here, you know, trying to sign up to come to our church or wording things like my church or, you know, whatever.

I mean, it goes.

It's beyond even the church leadership.

I mean, if you're going to a church and you're thinking to yourself, my church is better than their church, that's something that you need to start to look into yourself.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a bad thing to love the church family you're in.

Absolutely, absolutely.

But if you're starting to look the way I raise my kids.

I might have said this before in a different episode, but for those who haven't never heard me say this, when I look at my kids and I see them looking to judge other people, I say, you never look in your neighbor's bowl unless you're making sure they have enough.

Yep.

You're not looking to see if they've got more.

You don't start to compare each other like that.

You know, here's the question you're asking, are they chasing Jesus?

Let's encourage them in how they're chasing Jesus.

So I had a very kingdom minded mentor and it was really easy for me to adapt into myself and I believe wholeheartedly into that.

If we're going to if the kingdom of God is going to continue to have a great presence in this world, there needs to be an ecumenical, meaning a unity amongst us approach to move the mission forward.

And that sometimes means that we might go with a Pentecostal church and do something.

We might get with a Baptist church and do something.

Who knows if there could be Christian church, is definitely a Protestant church.

We could get with the Catholic church and do something.

And there would be something beautiful about doing that.

When you can take aside the differences but focus on the most thing, most important things.

I come from what's called the Stone Campbell movement and it is.

They were very kingdom minded people.

They started Bible studies with people from different denominations and kind of the idea that it's not about those barriers, those walls, it's about Jesus.

And so what they say and what you would learn is that in essentials, it's unity.

We want the essentials, the thing that unifies us.

Non essentials, liberty and in all things, love.

That's what we would say in essentials, unity.

In non essentials, liberty and in all things, love.

And one of the things that people lose sight of is that some of the things that we fight about are not the things that are needed.

Look, could they talk about it as discussed?

Yeah, I talk about it as primary and secondary doctrines.

Exactly.

That's a good way of putting it too.

But what's essential above anything is Jesus.

And helping people to understand and embrace Jesus, to enter in a relationship with Jesus is paramount.

And if we're all.

And knowing who he is.

Right.

That's important that he is God and we acknowledge that as well.

Yeah, that's essentially it.

Right.

If.

If the church that this other person or this other church that you're trying to do things with believes that Jesus is God, that he died for you and through him is the only way that we can be reconciled with God the Father, then you guys can work together.

Everything else, there's some other things, but everything else you can, you can have conversations about and work around.

Whereas like that is the essential to be able to work with each other on.

Right.

So moving on.

Right.

I'm gonna move on a little bit from the division and the disunity and all of that.

How about when it comes to lies about our identity, that's really big in culture right now.

Identity is.

Well, not.

Okay, so confusion around identity is big right now.

Okay.

The number one confusion about identity though starts with forgetting that we're in the image of God.

We are created.

First off, created is important.

Created in the image of God created.

And most importantly for the Christian is that we are his, he loves us, we are his, and he has redeemed us.

So all those other things that can get in the way of all that, our ultimate identity is that we are created in his image and he loves us and we are his.

That is our ultimate identity.

Outside of that, you can look at the scriptures.

You know, he made them male and female.

Okay.

He made it pretty simple.

He didn't make it complicated.

You know, he established how we're supposed to be in relationship with one another.

Whether it is a platonic relationship or romantic relationships, those things are in place.

But a lot of the problems what we have start to stem when you start to not believe those truths.

Well, and I even want to go as far as to, like, like, we have this idea that our background, the color of our skin, the country we're from matters.

Yeah.

And in, in.

In your, in your community, the culture matters a little bit, right.

To the, to the believer.

But the church's culture is what matters.

Right.

I think that.

I think that we, we get confused that we, we didn't.

We think that we didn't join Jesus's culture.

Right.

And Jesus culture is.

I don't, I don't.

I don't see this, this guy who's.

Who or this lady who's at this.

Well, right.

When they're passing through.

This lady is just a lady.

She's a human woman that is in desperate need of what I can provide.

He doesn't see where she's from.

She doesn't say, you know, this is.

This person isn't worth my time, you know, because she's from Samaria.

Right.

So she, he sees her and who she was.

Yeah, I mean, he.

I mean, he does see.

I mean, he knows everything about her.

He knows.

I mean, what I'm saying is, the.

Thing is that his focal point doesn't play into.

Is ultimately they.

He loves her.

Right.

And he wants.

The redemption of her is the most important.

Right.

When it comes to her, it's that he loves her and he wants her to be okay, safe, ultimately free from her sin, free from everything that comes with it.

That was the most important.

It's also when you look at the guy that was lowered through the roof from his friends, the paralegic, and the first thing he says is, your friends, sins are forgiven.

Obviously, he probably thought, hey, I want to walk.

And his friends, who have probably been carrying him around everywhere because that's the only way he got around, were probably Thinking, yeah, we kind of wanted him to walk.

But the most important thing he could do for that man right off the bat was say, your sins are forgiven.

That was huge.

And then just to show how serious he was and that he had the power to do things like that, he told him to get up and walk.

But he dealt with the most important thing first.

Right, but you got a great point there.

So ultimately, no matter what, you can recognize different people, where people have come from, their heritage.

You can recognize those in struggle, those who are not in so much a struggle.

It's not terrible to recognize these things.

It's just being observant.

But the ultimate thing we should put before anything is that we're all.

Every single one of them is made in the image of God.

And God wants, loves every one of them.

He doesn't love them more than you.

He doesn't love them less than you.

And he desires to be with them just as much as he desires to be with you.

And we should have that kind of love with him then, especially those who have embraced God's love, to then be able to take it and want to push it forward, you know, not push it in like a bowel thumping kind of way, but to help it go forward to that person.

We should have that compassion.

We've received God's compassion.

We should then be able to look on our brothers and sisters and our neighbors and everybody around us with that same compassion.

We now know we've tasted and seen, that it's good, it's sweet, it's great for us, and we should want that same thing for every single one of them, foremost before anything else.

Yeah, 100%.

But instead, that's how our enemy wants us to take those other things and use them first.

And I mean, it's a prideful thing.

Once again, it stems from that where, well, is that nation greater or lesser than me?

And can I be prideful about it or should I feel bad about it?

And if I feel bad about it, should I somehow attack it so that I feel better about it?

Let's get it more on an everyday person level.

I want to get it down to that.

Not just the nation, but like we're talking, like, now that I'm a Christian, I'll be a Christian in my culture.

Yeah, that's still not where you're supposed to be.

You're supposed to be a part of the Christian culture, which is the Jesus culture.

Right.

And not to be conflated with, I think that's a band, the praise band.

But anyways, but not that.

But being a part of this Jesus thing, we are all to be recognized by our fruit.

Right?

That's what Jesus said.

They will know you by your fruit.

By your love, by your fruit.

Yeah, right.

Same thing.

Yeah.

So.

But no, I mean, but seriously, like, they will recognize who you are by that versus these other things.

So we need to be taking on that as a part of our culture.

Has that ever happened to you?

What?

Has anybody ever called you out on being a Christian and you never said anything about it?

Sure.

I had that first time it happened to me.

It was after that period of my life when I did come back to God, and when I did, I want Jesus in my life, fully accepting him, was trying to embrace him with everything I had.

I was working, driving a truck, and I went to a customer's house, and I was just being nice, you know, trying to be just, you know, nice and, you know, personable and all that stuff.

But I don't know what I did.

As I was trying to think about it afterward, I'm like, what did I say do that made her say this?

But she just stopped me.

It was this elder lady, and she stopped me and goes, you're a Christian.

I mean, I wasn't wearing a cross or anything.

I was like, yeah, yes, I am.

She goes, I could tell.

I was like, I mean, cool.

But I've even had the extent of, like, conversations where, you know, somebody's like, just ripping Christians apart and then will turn to me and be like, not you.

You actually.

You actually walk with what your faith believes.

And I'm like, whoo.

That's not only is that, like, deep and really encouraging, believe it or not, but it's like.

It's like people are watching too.

Well, you know, I was talking with the middle schoolers, actually.

We.

The idea got brought up.

A question came about, I think, in our last session, about using the Lord's name in vain.

I think they thought the question was going to go one way.

When they were talking about saying it as a cuss word.

I said, well, yeah, you should watch what comes from your mouth and definitely watch how you use the word.

But I said, we need to think about this a bit deeper.

I said, as a Christian, we need to think about the fact that once we take on that moniker, that we're a Christian, that we follow Christ, that we believe in Yahweh, and therefore, through Christ, we are his people.

We need to act like it.

We need to be recognized as such.

Because when you take on that name and you don't represent well.

That's taking his name in vain.

And that is a big bombshell to some people because they're like.

They've never thought it that way.

For them, it was simple.

Try not to say the GD or something like that.

And look, man, if it was that simple.

But it's deeper.

It's such a bigger meaning.

Like, you need to go out and you need to represent well.

I mean, the nation of Israel bore his name.

They wrestle with God and they didn't represent well.

It was almost destroyed a bunch of times based on that.

And we're dispersed because of it.

Yeah.

So we gotta figure.

You know, I said it many times years ago, I came up with this thing.

I said, really?

I said, it's like every day, once you come to Christ, it's like every day you wake up and you put on a uniform and it's invisible to most until you're using it.

And what it is, is you're putting on uniform says Christ, and you now are going out into the world, whether you realized it or not, dressed to be a representative, an ambassador, if you will, for our God.

You're the only Bible that some people might ever read.

You're the only preacher they might ever hear.

You're the only church service they'll ever be attended to.

Well, and that's really interesting because you know who an army represents based on their armor.

Absolutely.

And it's great.

This is going to lead into the rest of the series too.

Absolutely.

But.

But you have recognized who you're fighting for based on your armor.

So putting it on is super important.

Not putting it on does more than just allow you to be attacked.

Right.

But you are just not representing at all.

No.

So that's important, too.

So I want to mention a couple other things as we move to the next part, which I think is really important.

So he also is trying to teach us things that are not true.

Right.

He's all about the false teachings and distorting the truth, which we will probably dive a little bit more into later on in the series with the armor.

Probably the last week of the armor, for sure.

Yeah.

Or the belt.

Belt of truth.

Yes.

But also the word of God.

Well, it's gonna be a theme through it.

It's gonna be throughout it all.

But there's a lot of overlap.

For sure.

I want to mention that he's after breaking relationships.

Right.

Like, look at our country right now.

And the fact that a lot of division families don't even have dads represented in them.

Right.

So broken families, broken relationships.

Dividing.

Dividing is the best way to conquer.

Right.

I mean, Jesus said, you know, what is it a nation against itself can't stand.

Right.

Yeah.

People divided amongst themselves can't stand.

That is not just for a country.

Yeah.

That is for a household.

Right.

That is for every kind of relationships that we have.

You see it in politics.

What's amazing, like what can be done these past.

I'm going to say since 2000, maybe before, but I know it's gotten real bad since the election of 2016.

Yeah.

2020, this past election, in 2024.

I mean, the division that you've been.

It's palpable.

Yeah.

It's.

You can't ignore it.

How bad politically the division has been trying to.

Not only that, but I think the normal, everyday person is just so tired of it.

I think at this point it doesn't.

Matter what side of political aisle you're on.

We're just tired of hearing about the division that they're trying to push on us.

You know, I think that everybody is starting to get tired of it.

And if you're not, it's all a bunch of bs, like, just so you know, like, seriously, like, like it's all, it's all just to get all of us to fall in line and stay pushed down.

And I'm not saying that because I think that, you know, the government is evil.

I'm saying that because it's, it's clear, it's been made clear that nobody's out for us as the American citizens.

They're not here for us, but Jesus is.

Jesus is here for all of humanity.

And so one of the things that I want to talk about just in this quick transition before we wrap up is I want to talk about the fact that Jesus is.

Is the one we should focus on.

Not the devil, Right?

Absolutely.

So not it.

We should not be trying to learn about Satan and what his tactics are as much as learn about Jesus and what his tactics are because.

Hang on, hang on.

So the counterfeiter, right.

The person who spots counterfeiting doesn't study the fake bills, studies the real ones.

Studies the real ones.

Because when a fake one comes by, they know immediately that it's not real.

Right.

And so it's similar when it comes to the enemy versus knowing who Jesus is.

If you don't have the focus and the grip on who Jesus is, you're gonna be deceived.

But if your soul focus is on who Jesus is, the devil is not going to be able to easily deceive you, right?

And it doesn't matter how much you've studied who Satan is and his tactics, if you don't know Jesus, you're gonna miss it.

You're gonna be deceived.

And so even.

Even Adam and Eve walked in the garden with God, right?

And they were deceived.

So knowing Jesus is vital to.

To having the discernment, which is where I want to go, that we need to have to test that.

Right?

To test the truth in that.

So what.

What would you say is the Holy Spirit's role in discerning the lies from truth?

Well, Jesus told us.

Jesus said that the helper was coming to not only remind us of the things of God and help us to understand it, but then teach us.

So the Holy Spirit is our ultimate guide.

It's our ultimate teacher.

It's the thing that if, like, as you continue to study Scripture and as you continue to chase God, even if you think I can't remember it all, the Holy Spirit will help you remember things and understand things in a way that you may never have been able to without Him.

So, yeah, that.

I think the ultimate role is to help us to see things better.

I think since we brought that up, I want to.

I think the thing that hits it right on the head of what you were saying, I need to not do that is it comes from Romans, and I want to read it instead of just doing it from memory, because romans what?

Verses 1 and 2, chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.

It's just.

I think it hits this if you.

From what you were talking about, about, you know, keeping your eyes on Jesus, what this says, it says, therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true worship.

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.

If you want to be able to discern between what is good and what is not good, continue to renew your mind in God and in his things, which means His Word and His will.

If you're continuously renewing your mind in God, and that goes beyond church, church is good.

Don't stop going to church.

But you need to.

It's not just about going to church.

It's continuing to saturate yourself and renew even the things you think you know.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Going back to the basics is really important, but it's simple things, too.

It's Nothing that's.

It's nothing that's hard.

Like that's the thing is none of it is hard.

We're talking about staying in Scripture.

Right.

It doesn't mean you have to read a book of scripture a day.

Right.

But a chapter, a couple of verses.

Get in scripture.

Right.

Like just be regularly in scripture.

Yeah, right.

Because that's important.

Healthy accountability is important.

Yeah.

I can't say this enough.

It changes lives when you are in accountability with other believers.

My personal preference is men holding men accountable, women holding women accountable.

That could be argued as whether or not it's the best way to do it or not.

But my personal opinion is that that is the best way to have accountability because you're able to be a little bit more open with all of the conversations.

And women don't know what guys go through.

Right.

And guys don't know what women go through.

So accountability is so important.

Yeah.

And let's just try to make it just maybe a step easier to understand.

I mean, as practical as we can get it, we want to remember that we are invited to be into a relationship with God.

And if you are in a relationship with a friend or a loved one of any kind, you know the things you're gonna do for that relationship.

Especially when it's new.

Especially when it's new.

Think about when you first met the girl you liked, the boy that you liked.

Think about when you first found that friend.

You're like, I think this person's gonna be my best friend.

Think about the things that you did.

You invest time in it, you want to spend time with them, you ask questions, you're getting to know them, you care about them.

You put their needs oftentimes before your own.

These are things.

Think about the positive things that you do when you're trying to nurture and grow a relationship.

It's very much the same thing as you're trying to do with God here.

You're invited into him and the thing is that he will pour back into you as well.

This isn't a one sided thing in either way and it's not meant to be.

God's not just to pour into us and we're going to eventually get better.

We got to put in some other time ourselves.

We've got to put ourselves out there and be willing to go, hey, how are you doing today, God?

You know, God, thank you for this.

And hey, could you teach me a little bit more?

Sometimes spending a little bit of time in his word or going to that Bible study, is that's I mean, it counts.

Worshiping, whether it is corporate, in church with everybody else, or even if you're in your car just singing to the Lord at the top of your lungs and who cares if anybody sees you do it?

Yeah.

Spend that time with God, let him know your heart.

I mean, that's what it's about.

You know, you and I hit it off right away when we met.

Started like instantly, hey, what are you into?

We did a lot.

And you know, it's about.

But even though we still, you know, you pointed out one of the things you need in a relationship like this.

Just a friendship.

Hey, I need to know that, you know, we're cool and we need time to spend together and we need to plan things.

Okay.

These are important.

And communication is important if you're communicating with God.

I said it in a sermon a while back.

And the two biggest ways that we communicate with God, number one is you read your Bible.

That is the number one way that God's going to communicate to us.

That is his word and his word to us.

So that means the number one way you can hear from God is to read his Scripture.

The number two way is to pray.

That's how the number one way we talk to God is prayer.

Talk to him, receive from him, read your scriptures, pray to God.

If you're doing that a lot, then that is a relationship that is working and communicating.

There's a lot of growth that can happen there.

Agreed.

But we cannot forget it's not lone wolf.

Oh, no, you're not staying there.

Does not stay there.

Yeah, that's.

That was something else when.

I know last week I talked about the angel that came to Daniel and strengthened him.

And then I pointed out with that is that, you know, where we go and the places we put ourselves into have the ability to weaken us or strengthen us.

Yeah.

That being said, I remember when I preached on it, I said, I brought up what my dad said.

My dad said, growing up, son, you'll never get beat up in a dirty biker bar if you never go to a dirty biker bar.

So if you're going into these bad places, there's more chances that you're going to have something bad happen if you go into positive places, church, Bible study groups, more chances for positive things to happen.

But that being said, were meant to be in relationship not just with God, but with each other.

If you are trying to go about your faith by yourself, you are left prone with no protection.

And I've heard people do it over the years, they try to come to me.

Oh, you know what?

You really.

It's just.

My faith is just between me and God.

It's a personal thing.

I don't need to go to church.

I've even had this one girl try to tell me I was in seminary at the time.

She came to me.

She's like, you know, you don't really need to do that.

You don't need a church.

Not.

My faith is a private thing.

I just do it that way.

And then I listened to a couple of things she said afterward.

I'm like, I think you do.

I think you didn't say it to her.

When I was thinking to myself, you really.

What's crazy about that is that you can put on every bit of the armor.

Yeah.

100% of the armor.

And you can wear that armor of God every day, and yet you are still gonna get flanked.

You are still gonna get hit because your back and sides are wide open.

Yeah.

And so it is as important to be in community with one another as it is to put on your armor every day.

Absolutely.

It's kind of like, we're gonna probably talk about this, Martin, when we talk about the shield in our armor.

Absolutely.

But I want you to think about, like, Vikings, they would create a shield wall standing together with their shields out front, and it created a wall of protection in front of them.

Think about when you're trying to use just your shield.

Yeah.

Some protection.

Imagine being surrounded by shields.

Nobody can stab you in the back if your back is covered.

Yeah.

And so need people to have your six.

Right.

Right.

There is no such thing as lone wolf Christianity.

You are called into relationship with God and others in the midst of that sin.

And Jesus displayed it for us, you know?

Yeah.

There was times he spent time with him and the Father.

Right.

But he had his inner three.

He had his 12, and then he had the people that he preached to.

So that tells you that.

Yeah.

Is faith personal?

Absolutely.

100% it is.

But then it is immediately communal.

Immediately communal.

You're supposed to have people to share this with.

Yeah, 100%.

All right.

So one thing we haven't talked about yet, we should probably mention, is that as.

As real as the enemy is, he's been defeated.

Oh, well, yeah.

He loses at least.

But I mean, but that's important.

Right.

Like, that's.

That's why we don't have to fear.

Right.

That's why we don't have to obsess over this enemy that's out there, is the fact that he's already been beaten.

It doesn't mean he's not influential.

But he lost, Right?

Like his head has been crushed.

Yeah.

And so that.

That is the biggest hope we can have when it comes to the enemy, is that he already knows he's lost.

Yeah.

I love people that go, you know what?

I've read the back of the book and we win.

Yeah.

It's like, you know when you're in school and you're like, all the answers are in the back.

And actually, I'll tell you what for sure, speaking of the back of the book, this is.

People sometimes ask, why is the book of Revelation so difficult?

Right.

Why is it so scary?

Why is it so difficult?

And it's funny how many people really are scared of the book and avoid it.

But let me ask you a question.

This is for anyone listening, it's kind of rhetorical, but if you had a book about your demise and your defeat, would you want people understanding and reading it?

I don't think so.

I had a really great conversation with a lady who I hold near and dear in our church about Revelation and that very thing.

The fact that she was talking about how it was like a struggle to get into it at first.

And we've had our conversations on it, and I think it's important.

I really do.

And I think there's a lot we can learn from it, but it's not necessarily, in my opinion, meant to be deciphered entirely.

Literally, anyways.

Which I know that this guy right here loves it.

Well, I mean, it does come with a blessing.

It does.

You're right.

For those that can understand, it's got a built in blessing.

So the enemy's real, but he lost.

He's already done.

You don't even.

He's still fighting.

He already lost.

He's trying.

He's just trying to get the last, last few that he can.

Right.

And just the awareness of being aware of his strategies and the fact that he is coming for you and his intentions is not for us to have fear, but for us to get ready.

Right.

Which is what this whole series is all about, is the fact that.

All right, next we're shifting into the idea that brain.

We're going to start shifting into the armor, right?

And we're going to start talking about what it looks like to be prepared for the enemy to attack us.

Right?

So the awareness of his strategy and the fact that he exists and that he is after us is important for knowing to be prepared, not for us to be in fear.

So if you guys have gotten any freaked out over the fact that Satan is out to get you, have no fear.

Our God is way bigger.

And remember they are numbered two to one.

Yeah.

Plus and that's just the angels.

That's just the angels.

That's not even counting the fact that God is a whole power.

Right.

The creator of everything is on his own side.

So there's that too.

So next week we're going to be talking about the belt of truth.

Yeah.

So excited about that.

Getting right into the armor.

It's our first defense.

So any last thoughts that you have, wrap up thoughts.

Any last thoughts?

The Bible tells us to, to be aware because the devil is going around like a roaring lion looking to devour someone.

And that's true obviously.

But you are not alone.

You are not alone.

God is there.

The Holy Spirit is within us and it is fighting for us.

These forces, like I said, they are outnumbered two to one.

The hope we know that we, we win, we win and we will win.

We got to keep our eyes on the prize and not on the, not on, not on the distractions.

Keep your eyes on Jesus at all times and you'll be alright.

Yeah, the last thing I got too is that the enemy is not people.

Now he works through people.

Yeah, right.

He talks people into doing stuff and saying things and be in certain ways.

But the person that is saying and doing and being that way to you is not your enemy.

No, that is not your enemy.

Yeah, yeah.

And an added layer, a little something that could be debated and could go on for an hour.

But we're not going to, I'm throwing it in at the end is, you know, scripture says to pray for your enemy.

Oh yeah.

So pray for your enemy.

So that I'll leave you with that little tidbit.

Here's the reflection question for this week.

Where do you sense you need greater discernment and recognizing spiritual opposition?

So basically where, where do you think that you need better discernment recognizing where the devil's getting you?

Yeah.

Where's your cracks?

Where's the pieces that, that are.

How's he getting in?

How's he, how's he getting to you?

So that's your reflection question this week.

Like always, like subscribe.

We appreciate you.

Hopefully, hopefully we will get some more good questions.

I got one or two so far and it's only been posted.

Well, we're recording today and this is when episode one technically came out.

Yeah, so.

And I've already got a couple, so that's great.

Keep them coming.

So we will have a little bit of Q and A for our Q and A day at the end of all of this.

Just wanted to remind you that Patreon.

You can join us there.

The truth response.

There's already.

You said your mom got her.

She got her sticker, right?

Yeah, I know one other guy got.

His shirt was being shipped.

So different tiers get different stuff.

And check it out.

It's.

It's cool.

Yeah, we're enjoying it.

We've got an episode of the Rabbit Hole that is being edited.

Yes.

It's an edit right now.

It's an edit right now.

Be launched soon.

It's.

They're long, they're big.

It's a big deal, and we recorded too many videos, and this guy is probably hating me for it, but it is what it is.

I wouldn't call it hatred, Derek.

It's more of healthy dislike.

Just irritation.

Irritation.

Oh, it's okay.

It's fine.

Well, in all fairness, like, it was huge.

So, like, the file sizes was nuts.

Yeah.

I was not expecting it to be as big as it was.

I was like, why are there so many files?

So.

Yeah, yeah, it's so.

But it's coming.

It is coming.

We've been talking about it.

The second episode of the Rabbit Hole is coming.

And spoiler alert, I'm actually gonna put it out to everybody and not just on Patreon this time.

I'm gonna get one more little hook in there.

You know, he's gone.

Baiting you.

Baiting you a little bit.

And.

And seeing.

Seeing who will bite onto that hook.

So thanks for joining us today, and God bless.

Hey, thanks for joining us.

Make sure to subscribe and give us a like on itunes and Spotify so.

That you will never miss a show.

And while you're at it, check out.

Our Facebook and Instagram pages and make.

Sure you tell your friends about this show.

You don't want them to miss out on the truth because.

Because we are all about the truth here.

Thanks for joining us this week, and God bless.