Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing, a biblical faith-filled vision for your life. Every poison needs a unique antidote. Every pox needs a specific solution. Every pandemic needs a distinctive vaccine. But you have a medicine available that works wonders no matter the malady.
a joyful heart. Amidst the troubles of the times, I bless you this day to have a merry heart. May your heart be light and your laughter be hearty. May your meditations be delightful and your contemplations hopeful. Go ahead.
Drink deep of the joy of the Spirit. There's no fine print. A joyful heart is good medicine, and it has no harmful side effects. That's today's blessing. That's the gospel.
Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. We don't need to live in a stress or a fear mode because of the reality. of Of spiritual warfare. But we instead need to live with an awareness of it. And A sense of authority in Christ so that we.
are living victoriously. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I am Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in our series, Empowered, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina.
If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860.
More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Pastor Alan Wright. Life's not A Hallmark movie, and as a Christian, what happens is that you're in a spiritual battle. You're in a fight.
And it is not a fight that goes away as long as we're here on this earth. And it seems like that the part of the battle is to just acknowledge that we are in the spiritual fight. that the demonic is real. that we need to have on our whole armor. and that we're in it.
I watched the Baylor Bears play their first basketball game last week. They were playing UTRGV. That's what is said on the screen. They're playing UTRGV. I had to Google it.
It's the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. I didn't know there was such a thing. Baylor, I'm sure, thought this is going to be the easiest game that we've ever had and that we ever will have. It's going to be a scrimmage to us. And so they went out at the beginning of the game, and they just didn't even hardly play defense, and they were just trying to shoot up threes.
They weren't playing any of their offensive plays. And next thing you know, UTRGV was up 9-0 over the Baylor Bears, and Coach Drew calls a timeout, and they still didn't get their act together. And next thing you know, they're down by 12. And he called another timeout. And I bet what he said to them was something like: guys, we have to try.
They don't just hand it to you. I think this is part of what it means to mature in the Christian life is to realize that though you are put, as we'll be seeing in a moment, in this position of great power and authority, that You are in this battle. And it means it's every day put on the armor of God, and it means to understand that. This whole demonic realm, it is real. that you're going to face sometimes head-on.
People always ask me, so well, can a Christian have a demon? I don't have time to go into all of the different, on the one hand, this, on the other hand, that. But the long answer, short, is yes, they can. but not be possessed. In fact, The language in the New Testament is never of possession.
That was really kind of an unfortunate translation of the Greek word in the Old King James Version. Possession implies ownership. And that word demon possession is never used, not for Christians or non-Christians. In Greek, the word diamonitsimai It's used 13 times and It just means something like indwelt. Or It's like you could say attach to The real languages has a demon.
But not possession, certainly not for a Christian. But if I were to point you to a reason why, I would say that biblically there's a place in which, yeah, a Christian could. Have a demon is in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 27. Paul says, Give no opportunity to the devil. And the word for opportunity here It suggests an inhabited space.
It's the Greek word topos, and it's used a number of places in the New Testament, like in Luke chapter 2, verse 7, where Mary laid the baby Jesus in a manger because there was no place, no topos. in the end. It has a kind of a spatial thought to it. But I don't want to get too distracted by that. Whether or not a Christian.
Can be afflicted by a demon, have a demon attached to them, have been dwelt by a demon, have a demon. The more important thing is, what do we do about it? And we, as believers, we need to know our authority and our power in the mighty name of Jesus. And here's the third thing, therefore, that you learn from this story about these disciples coming back, celebrating that even the demons were subject to them, and that is that. All Christians, not just the spiritually elite, the 12, but all of them have this incredible authority that's delegated to them, and they're just, they're shocked by it.
It is a powerful thing to be used by God in any way for a transformation of somebody's life. They come back not thinking, oh boy, now we're followers of Jesus and it's a Hallmark movie, but they do come back. Though it's not easy, they come back victorious.
So what I want you to see is that To understand your authority over the evil realm. And to understand that there's a spiritual battle is to hold these two things together. It means that you can be both facing difficult things in the Christian life. but that you can also know that you are victorious in a Christian life. It was reminding me of the time that years ago Bennett was playing on a high school golf team was Coached by George Niehart in our church, and they had made it to a national event in Springfield, Missouri.
They're going to go play a really nice golf course over several days, and our team was really good. They had a chance to win the thing. And I was out there and they got out on the first day. And our guys just played awful. Bennett, I think, was playing in the number one slot, our son.
He just wasn't on his game at all. He wasn't accurate. He was missing his putts. It just wasn't good. The number two guy normally played great.
He hit his first ball into another fairway, and then he shanked his second shot. All our guys were just uptight, and they had terrible scores that day. And I loved that night at dinner listening to George Niehart, Coach Niehart, gave him a little talk. And he said, guys. We do this sport because it's fun.
And I never want to pressure you. Because That just makes you more nervous. And we've come out here to enjoy this, and we've had a great season. We've had a great time. And I want you to really get out there tomorrow and have fun.
But I have noticed that you have a lot more fun when you play better than you did today. And I always thought that was a great line. Because That's the tension. It's like we don't need to live in a stress or a fear mode because of the reality. Of spiritual warfare.
But we instead need to live with an awareness of it. And A sense of authority in Christ so that we are living victoriously. That's the picture you get from this. Yes, a spiritual battle. but absolutely spiritually victorious.
Jesus says this, verse 18. He said to them, I saw Satan. fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I've given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. This is an incredible statement, should be underlined in your Bible, sealed in your heart.
Jesus says to them and to every ordinary follower of Jesus, I have given you authority. To tread on serpents and scorpions, that's just a symbol. for demons. And over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
So, serpents and scorpions, just common imagery of the symbol of demons, not literally. This is one of the most misunderstood crazy that anybody pick up a snake and think that's what they're supposed to be doing. Of course not. No, in the beginning, Satan was pictured as a serpent in the garden. And this is a prevalent Old Testament image as well.
But he's saying that you are the head, not the tail. That when it comes to this spiritual realm, you have the authority. We learned about this a couple weeks ago. There's no comparison between light and darkness. Light is an energy and a power force that is pictured as God's first words, and God Himself is like light.
And all of hell is just. Operating under the shadows, it's like the absence of light. And you, child of God, have been escorted into, brought into the kingdom of light of His beloved Son, Colossians 1 says.
So you're the light of the world. And so there's no comparison between light and darkness, and you're walking in the light.
Next week, we'll take a deeper dive into what this means when he says, I've given you authority. I want to look at this word authority. But A little sneak preview: the word for power in the New Testament, dunamis. Which has been the subject of what we've been talking about in these past weeks, dunamis like dynamite. But the word for authority is different.
Exusia. And it comes from that Greek prefix xex that means out of. And usia, which means being or substance. Power, dunamis, is like Something that comes from God and the power of God comes upon you, or the power of God fills you in moments of ministry. It's beautiful.
Exusia. Means out of one's being.
So Authority is something that is flowing from Who you are. Who God has declared you to be. Authority Is to say that the 72 and you are Jesus's ambassadors, delegates. that it is like you've been given what we call power of attorney. You've been authorized.
to act on behalf of another in their name. To cash their check, to pay their bill. It's not your resource. but you've been legally aligned with the authorizer, so it's as good as if they were doing it themselves. This is really what we mean by ministering or praying in the name of Jesus.
When you say in Jesus' name, amen, it's not like you're just tagging on the proper ending of a prayer. Instead, Think of it. You are praying and ministering in the name as the delegated authority of Jesus and appropriating all of that authority that Jesus has given you. Jesus says that there's something he saw. He said to them, verse 18: I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
And I just love this verse. I wonder what he saw. He's probably not here talking about when Satan was originally thrown out of heaven at the original rebellion of Lucifer. Instead, I think he's Seeing more than that. He may be seeing into all that the cross is going to accomplish.
He certainly sees the final destiny of Satan, but I love what Sam Storms has said. Sam who By the way, if you want to pursue this more, his book on spiritual warfare is one of the most thorough and absolutely best you get: Sam Storms. But he says there are seven stages to Satan's defeat. The first is the incarnation of God. at the first Christmas.
in human flesh. You may recall That There were all these efforts that seemed like were happening to kill the baby Jesus. It's pictured, I think, in Revelation chapter 12, where it's like there's a dragon trying to consume the. the male son of this woman. But Satan doesn't succeed.
despite King Herod's efforts. And so That's the first defeat of Satan. couldn't kill Jesus before his time. And the second stage of Satan's defeat was when Jesus resisted Satan's temptations in the wilderness. He was hungry, he had been fasting, he was tired, and he was vulnerable, and yet the Son of God.
By applying the Word of God, resisted every one of the devil's temptations. The third stage was when Jesus cast out demons from those who had come under the demonic oppression. He did it over and over. And he said, If you see me casting out Demons, by the finger of God, you'll know that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And the fourth stage was when Jesus disarmed and humiliated the demonic host by his suffering on the cross for sinners.
The Bible describes this as Jesus, through His shed blood and the sacrifice that He made, that He made a public spectacle of all of these. Heavenly Supernatural beings that were opposed to God. And the fifth stage is when Jesus brings people, men and women, into saving faith Himself. And they are snatched away from the clutches of the devil. The sixth stage, Storm says, is when we, by God's sustaining strength and our own grace and the armor that He gives us, that we learn to resist Satan.
And then the seventh and final stage, of course, is that one day God will throw him into the lake of fire and he'll have no power whatsoever left.
So here's what you need to know, child of God. Satan and all the powers of hell. have no power over you as a child of God because they have no accusation left to make over you. This is why Jesus says, Nevertheless, verse 20: Do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice. That your names are written in heaven.
He wasn't saying, oh, you should not be excited about the fact that the demons were subject to you. He's not saying, oh, it's unimportant to heal people, it's unimportant to help. He wasn't saying, he was just saying, as exciting as that is, As invigorating and enthralling it is to see that kind of power. There's something more wonderful, and that is that your names are written in heaven. That there is an indelible ledger, there is a Lamb's book of life, there is a place where your name has been written and it cannot be erased.
This is the thing you should be most excited about is being proven out by the fact that I gave you this authority. The devil's name is Satan because it means adversary or accuser. It's not really a proper name. It just, the devil is the accuser or the adversary. And he's like a prosecutor pictured in the scripture where he's bringing accusations against people, saying this person deserves to suffer.
This person deserves to be cursed. This person deserves that I would be able to inflict pain upon them. Because, as if reminding the Lord of his own words that the wages of sin is death. If God's holy and a righteous judge, then sin must be punished.
So that's what the accuser is saying. Alan has sinned, therefore, he shouldn't be blessed, he should be punished. And when we listen to that accusation, Apart from the gospel, it has this terrible weight upon us. where we feel that shame and we feel that condemnation because we know we have failed. We know that we have failed over and over, and if we see ourselves and we see as if Satan is in that courtroom and we don't have the gospel, we'll feel burdened and we'll feel defeated.
That's why Jesus wanted those 72 and every one of us to see this with Him. He's inviting us into his vision. I saw Satan fall like lightning. Your names are etched. into the book of life.
For the Christian, There is no legal ground for hell's accusations because In Christ, justice has been served. Through the cross, God made him who knew no sin to become our sin, so that we who had sinned so much would be reckoned as the very righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. It means that for the Christian, the prosecutor's case is thrown out of court. It means that the whole case is dismissed. You see what I'm saying?
It means you're not in a big conversation with the devil or any demon. It means instead that the more that you know who you are and what God has done for you in Jesus Christ, you don't even get into that. You just recognize your standing. That's what exusia is. That's what authority is.
Alan Wright, our good news message, Power Over Evil, from the series Empowered. Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back joining me in the studio, sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Do you ever feel stuck? Stuck in old fears, old failures, old patterns, or the feeling that you're never quite measuring up?
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You'll discover that the power of God isn't something you have to earn or achieve. Jesus has already paid the price. Through the Holy Spirit, you can receive freedom from guilt and shame, victory over strongholds, and confidence to walk in the fullness of God's promises. You are qualified because of Christ, and God wants to clothe you with power from on high. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries.
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five four four forty eight sixty Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back here now in the studio with Pastor Alan. And the teaching today is power over evil. And if you look around the world, if you watch probably even just two and a half minutes of the news headlines today, you'll come away saying, Flord Come quickly. Evil is prevalent.
One of the things you learn from watching Jesus send out the 72, and they came back going, even the demons were subject to us in your name. One of the things you learn. And this might be the most important. is that they were ordinary Christians. And they They weren't apostles.
I think that's part of the reason we see that early on. And this is the picture of the Christian life. It's not. An easy life. But it is a life that in the realm of the Spirit.
We are the head, not the tail. And So it's very important that we take up that authority. And learn to walk it out. And I'd like every Christian to learn to Take up the name of Jesus and Know when to take their stand against the enemy. That's what we're learning about: it's power over evil.
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