pass and all of our glories like the flowers of the field and the grass withers and the flowers fall but not God's word. God's word stands forever. You may be seated. We have everything we need in the Word of God and the the name of Jesus and the blood of Jesus and the good news of Jesus. We have everything we need to defend ourselves against evil and to defeat evil. Now we talked about spiritual warfare for several weeks several months ago and you can go back and refresh yourself. This is going to be a little bit of a refresher course for those who were here but it's just a reminder because we don't think of our world this way. We think very simplistically, very materialistically, what I can see is all there is and if you believe that if that is the way you function then you're going to have a hard time understanding most of the evil that goes on in the world and you're basically rejecting two-thirds of the New Testament. Every time we read about what Jesus has done is placed in this conflict in the air of him against principalities and powers and everything that would name themselves against Jesus and that's just part of what is going on. What God is doing is he is reclaiming this world from Satan. The first John chapter three says the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of Satan. It's kind of like for some of us I don't know this is kind of like your goofy brother. If you're going to have a family you've got to have him too and you might be a little bit ashamed of this part of our theology. We don't want to talk about demons and Satan and evil but it's real and it's there and it's he would Satan would love for you not to believe in him but he's there and so I want to remind you of who he is what he does and how we defend ourselves against him. The first thing I want you to see is that he uses separation and conflict you know the old saying divide and conquer is actually not necessary all you have to do is divide and you've conquered and that's all Satan has to do is get us separated so that we start throwing stones at each other and he can win the war and you can just sit back and watch us fight each other and we see this you're going to have to go back and read the whole text sorry these texts are long I can't read the whole things but right before chapter 16 in the end of of chapter 15 we see Paul and Barnabas come to this huge public fight and it's probably over several things we know that Paul is very disappointed that Barnabas went over to the circumcision crowd and Galatians and it says here in the text that they were arguing over whether or not to bring John Mark with them they were their first missionary journey they brought this young man named Mark he wrote the book of Mark and he was very young and he got scared and he ran home he just said this is too much I'm home second going home so they're about to go back and and Barnabas says let's bring him with us and Paul says no one's striking her out and they come to this public fight which had to have been embarrassing for years wherever Paul would go where's Barnabas we liked him he was the encourager you're a rougher on the edges and you had to recount this argument despite this separation and this you know how this common that is in the church today I grew up in a little bitty town that was kind of dominated by a very legalistic denomination
and in that town and the the the Dresden church there was a preacher who noticed that a lot of the men were smoking and so they preached a whole sermon on the evils of smoking what he did know or maybe he did know this maybe it was being very brave but the wealthiest man in my home county owned a tobacco farm stokers tobacco and so he immediately left the church built his own church and then every company that he had stuck in if you didn't come to his church you got fired and so we had two churches in town now smoking and not smoking and um you know it showed it showed all the children everybody in the town was really important in the church and division and conflict into the day the second thing we see here is a possession and power verses 16 to 17 they meet a slave girl who has a spirit of divination who who tells fortunes this word they use for her it's an interesting word it's a Greek word you're going to laugh when you hear it it's called it's basically the word ventriloquist and I mean that when she was possessed she began speaking words that weren't her own and oftentimes her predictions came true and and it was this very face-to-face confrontation with evil and Paul has to cast that out cast out that spirit of divination by the name of Jesus and we see that always creeping around the edges of life this week I read a book by Corey Tinboom called Concert Enemies this little booklet if you're interested in this I recommend it and she tells the stories about how at the end of World War II especially in Germany where she was um people were lost you didn't have cell phones didn't have phones a lot times and millions of people were wondering you know is my father coming home and my husband died in the war is he in a prison camp in Russia what where is he and many of the wints of fortune tellers to find out and and what she found out she went around as a traveling evangelist with many of them were tormented by Satan and I didn't even know it and one of the girls is young girl she was struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts and and just evil thoughts that would come from nowhere and Corey asked her did you have you ever visited a fortune tellers there's have you done something that would have allowed Satan into your heart would allowed evil into your life and and she said well yeah but it was kind of a joke I didn't really believe it and Corey used this example she said some kids were playing soldier and wandered into Nazi territory do you think their soldiers would have let them go you think they looked at the soldiers and went hey this is just a joke they would have just let them go that's not what evil does but the good I mean it and it's just real now as it was ever the third thing we see in Satan's toolbox here is greed and notice why people get mad we can verse 19 when her owners saw their hope of gain was gone they seized Paul and dragged him into the marketplace they didn't care that you know they didn't care about Jesus they didn't care about the gospel they weren't particularly trying to stop the gospel they cared about one thing and one thing only and that was they were about to lose their source of income same thing happens a few chapters later in Ephesus Paul's preaching on Ephesus he stays there for three years builds up the church makes up with Barnabas by the way while he's there and and while he's there there's this massive revival it's so big that all the sorcerers of fortune tellers and magicians bring their books to the town square and burn them and and everybody's happy and there's just it's the churches growing and then one of the silversmiths guy named Demetrius goes wait a minute you mean nobody's gonna come to our town and buy our idols anymore we're not gonna make any money and he gathers together all the other silversmiths and goes guys you know we make our money selling idols this guy needs to be destroyed and start a riot incredibly violent riot it's just great it's just pure old fashioned abyss the love of money that Satan's tool that's not fair we all love money and sure we know things like you know the love of money is the root of all evil but Paul didn't mean that did he did still as evil now as it wasn't then I was reading the New York Times yesterday morning and I saw an article about mothers young moms they just wanted their kids to be influencers and who what kind of good mother wouldn't want your child to be an influencer and so while their girls were very young they started putting their pictures on Instagram and Snapchat and you know Facebook I don't know whatever they are and and these men would start emailing them and DMing them and ask for more pictures of their daughters and send them money just for pictures and their swimsuits or in their leotard just pictures and these moms realized that they were feeding this perversion and but they they said over and over throughout the article I don't know what I can do I can't just stop and the people in the comments just ripped them like yeah you can you just stop they were getting paid they were getting up making a lot of money
it's good old-fashioned greed what will we do for money and then you have the final tool we see of Satan is the power of the air just the course of the world like a verses 20 and 21 when they brought them to the magistrates they said these men are Jews and they are disturbing our city they advocate customs that are not lawful for us what are the customs worship one God worship the creator of heaven and earth alone don't worship all the idols you see Caesar had had kind of kept struck a bargain with the Jews I won't destroy you I won't force you I won't force you to bow down to me I won't force you to to pray the prayers to Caesar and call me Lord if you will basically not proselytize and they were pretty much happy with that and this guy's going oh but but it's our custom and we know he's really motivated by money but it's our custom to worship all these idols that's just not our way and that's what the apostle Paul refers to in Ephesians 2 as just the way of the world the prince of the power of the air the course of the we're just going with the flow and Satan directs the flow he directs the flow there's a great article in the Atlantic a few months ago that misunderstood reason why millions of stop going to church and he author talks about how all of his friends he's from Nebraska you know just real liberal stronghold of Nebraska and he talks all of his friends he grew up with going to church none of them go none of them and it's not because they went to college and got taught atheism and it's not because of the just you know the controversy in the church and the scandals in the church it's because well they moved and they had new jobs and they worked a lot and their kids got involved in sports and were very busy and they just didn't have time for church it just wasn't their way of life their way of life did not include church is that's the reason people are leaving it's just the normal way of the world it's the normal way of the world that's the that's the deception that Satan gives us but the good news and that's all very discouraging but we've got 10 more minutes so we can pull out of here the good news is that our enemy is defeated I don't want you to be discouraged because Satan has already been defeated I want you to notice what Paul does not do when he's battling this demon this possessed this girl he doesn't pull out his magic wand and enter into a spell contest with him like something from Harry Potter he doesn't match wizard to wizard to warlock to warlock he just simply says in the name of Jesus I've demand that you come out because Jesus is already one he's already one and in our enemy is defeated and the only way that he can get any kind of possession over people the only way he can exert power is if you're seeking him out I love what the Cory ten boom says in her book she says that Christians just forget the the power of the resources they have in the blood of Christ in the name of Christ and she says the blood of Christ it's homes for our sin so Satan has no power over us and it's always been the blood all right his blood pays our debt his blood frees us from captivity his blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness Hebrew says indeed in the book of Hebrews chapter nine says indeed under the law almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins in Hebrews in in verse 26 says he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world but as it is he has appeared once and for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified it's the blood of Christ that frees us that perfects us or complete and Satan has no hold in us and evil has no hold in us there's nothing he can hold over our heads there's no debt that we don't have paid and we have the resurrection of Christ when once Jesus went into the grave he was able to get his arms around death and he destroyed it and Satan was this arm you see death one way to think about it the biblical accurate way to think about it is that death and sin are the weapons of Satan they are how he enslaves us and destroys us and Jesus has destroyed both his blood is a toned for sin and his resurrection is destroyed death so now that the evil one has no weaponry he is a defeated enemy he is disarmed Colossians 2 15 Jesus has disarmed the rulers and authorities that what stood over us so we don't have to be afraid we don't live in fear we don't have to live in deception we don't have to live under this way of the world that we're so afraid of for different we're going to lose out or we're afraid that if our children are different they're going to lose out we can stand firmly in Christ because he's defeated the world he's defeated death and so he leaves us with our weapons what does he give us to protect ourselves the first new thing he's given us is the application of the good good news he gives us the application of the good news look at this there's incredible story you have Paul and Silas in prison singing hymns praying as you do it midnight and all of a sudden their shackles come off and the jaylor comes running in and it's terrified he knows what happened to the jaylor who let Peter go and so he he knows this is about to happen to him and Paul says no it's a coat we're here nobody's left and that's even stranger to him and he just cries out what must I do to be saved and Paul conquers evil with just the good news of Christ he conquers evil believe in the name of Jesus and you'll be saved you and your household and the good news frees them from their chains literally freeze this this jaylor from his enslavement to Roman way of thinking and they rejoice along with his entire household that he believed in God we see the good news applied to unbelievers we see if you look at the long story we see good news applied to the relationships Paul remember how just Adam and he was not to bring Mark so Adam and he would split up with his best friend so adamant to bring scandal on the church with division and and the very thing that Jesus told them not to do that's not where the story ends and second Timothy the last letter that Paul writes he ends it with these words he's in chapter four he's telling Timothy just Timothy I'm lonely everybody's abandoned me please calm please bring my coat I'm cold please get here before winter and please bring Mark he's very useful to me in the ministry the gospel heals our relationships heals heals us he the gospel heals us I know that you would never be so callous or so dark to have ever reached out to evil or curse God but I have and sometimes I think it's very wise for us to do what Corey Tim Boom says to do go back to those times and close those doors and ask Jesus to forgive those moments those prayers those that unbelief that darkness asking to close those doors and apply his blood to those and use the name of Jesus and finally use prayer and worship when we pray when we worship we are unleashing of a power that the powers of evil cannot stand in front of cannot stand what upon the Silas do to escape from prison they were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them I mean they're actually singing loud enough to be heard that's crazy that's scary like karaoke praise in the Lord and letting his spirit do the work for them those are the weapons that we have and those are the weapons that evil cannot stand against please pray with me father and heaven we we're just so thankful that you have defeated his present darkness and that you have equipped us to protect ourselves from all forms of evil and father we claim the blood of Christ and the resurrection of Christ and we take great joy in knowing that our champion is defeated death forever and ever and there's nothing more that we should fear in Jesus perfect and powerful name we pray amen