It's not by might nor power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. That's Zechariah four six, and this is destined for victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. Coming up next, an important message about the battle between the flesh and the spirit. Before we get things started, though, I want to share a conversation I once had with Pastor Paul. I spoke with him about the power and the benefits of partnership.
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Now, if you can't become a monthly partner, but would like to send a generous gift today, we'll send you as a thank you our latest booklet, called "Before Qualified." That's called "Before Qualified," and you can look for more information online at PastorPaul.net. I came to tell you how you gonna walk in victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Spirit of the Lord wants to empower you. It is not by might. It is not by power.
It is by my Spirit, says the Lord. Walking in victory means walking by the Spirit. But how do you do it? What does that look like in everyday life? Part of the answer comes your way next as we return to the story of Gideon on today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd.
As you follow along, you'll be reminded that in order to have authority over the devil, you have to let God have authority over you.
Now, here's today's Destined for Victory message: Taking Authority Over Our Enemies. I came to tell you how you gonna walk in victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Spirit of the Lord wants to empower you. Wants to empower me. It is not by might.
It is not by power. It is by my Spirit, says the Lord. And so the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and now you got to put this in context. Gideon was acting like a wimp when we saw him earlier in the chapter, but now here he is under the influence of the spirit. The spirit came on him, and Gideon said, "I don't care who's in that valley gathering against us.
We gonna get ready to throw down." And he blew the trumpet. Under the anointing of the Spirit, it's time for you to get your trumpet and let the Holy Spirit have His way and lead you in the victory. Time for you to say, "All right, devil, we're going to throw down. All right, flesh, we're going to crucify you. All right, world, we're going to have victory over you.
I'm not putting up with this nonsense anymore." Time for you to get your fight on.
Some of y'all used to fight in the world. All you got to do is learn to fight the right enemy now. You already got fight in you.
Some of you all—all you need to do is learn how to fight spiritual warfare. You are—you are a fighter from your heart.
Some of y'all look like you still got fight in you. I can just look at your face. You know, some of y'all used to rather fight than eat, and others of you were not fighters by nature. Like getting no problem when the Holy Spirit comes, He'll bring the spirit of warfare. He'll come in and tell you you don't have to put up with this.
We're not going to live this way. We're not going to let this go down like this. Get your war face on. It's time to throw down. Gideon has the spirit of the Lord coming upon him.
I want to let you know that is the key to your victory and to mine. It is the spirit of the Lord. Gideon goes before the Lord. You see, beginning in verse thirty-six, and he says, "Lord, if you will use me to save Israel as you promised, then I just need to make sure." Gideon didn't want to jump out there in presumption and assume that he was to be the general.
Now he should have been seen all along. God is raising him up to be the one who actually leads this. But he just wants to make extra sure.
So look at what Gideon did. I placed a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said, and that is what happened. Gideon rose up the next morning, squeezed the fleece, wrung out the dew, a bowlful of water. Then Gideon said to God, "See, this a man who's still learning how how to walk in authority.
He got to get his bearings, and so do some of us." And so look at him, verse thirty nine.
Now he ought to know by the fact that God honored the first part of this that God is with him. But no, he needs double sure. Then Gideon said to God, "Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece.
This time, make the fleece dry, and the ground around it covered with dew." That night the Lord did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
Now Gideon knows that God has raised him up to lead Israel, and the spirit of the Lord has come upon him, and he's ready to fight.
Now let me tell you something: you and I don't have a whole lot of time to be doing a bunch of fleecing. That's why I bothered to read that to you. I need you to know that's old covenant. This is a man who doesn't know who he is in Christ. He doesn't have the assurance.
He doesn't have the better covenant. You and I operate in. You and I operate under a covenant where God said, "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and my spirit alone is going to show you the way to victory." Don't be bothering God with a bunch of crazy fleeces. You got to learn to be controlled by the Word and the Spirit. That's the way God leads us.
That's the way God speaks to us. That's the way God leads us into victory. Don't get into this spooky, superstitious Christianity, Lord. If you really love me, I want you to let my phone ring in three minutes. That's not biblical Christianity.
Biblical Christianity is I know He loves me. Because he sent his son to die for me, I know he loves me. Because he has come into my heart by his spirit, establishing a personal relationship with me. What can separate me from the love of God? Nothing and nobody.
I don't need my phone to ring. I know God loves me. You need to walk in the Word, walk in the Spirit. None of this superstitious stuff, Lord. If it's really you telling me to join that church, then I want you to have somebody call me today, and they ask me what church do I go to.
I'm telling you what I've heard Christians say. That's foolishness. You know how you know you're supposed to join the church because the Bible says you should not forsake the assembling of yourself together with other believers, and you need to do it all the more as you see the day of the Lord's return approaching. You need to commit and connect to a local church. The early church formed local congregations.
That's how you have your New Testament. You wouldn't have a word from God except that there was the church at Galatia, identifiable members. I go to the church at Galatia. Paul wrote us a letter. Here are our leaders.
Here are our workers. This is who we are. Church at Ephesus. Church at Colossi. Church at Rome.
Church at Thessalonica. Church in Laodicea. Church in Smyrna. On and There were identifiable believers with leaders and with assignments and responsibilities and visions from God, and you need to be part of a 21st century local church. Don't need your phone to ring.
Join the church. I'm already joined to Christ.
Now I'm going to join a local expression of His universal body. Quit this foolishness. I go where the Spirit leads me. I just get up on Sunday morning, and he tells me which church to go to, and that's where I go. Just as mixed up as a barrel of fish hooks.
That's why you're spiritually crazy now. You don't have a pastor who can look you in your face and say, "Are you on crack or something?" You need people identifiable, brothers and sisters, who walk with you in small groups in ministry organizations, who can talk to you, who can reprove you and rebuke you. You need pastors to submit to. You need to be in alignment with what God is doing in a local body. Don't make it spooky and spiritual.
Quit putting out fleeces. That's Old Testament. We have a better covenant. We know who we are in Christ. I don't need phones ringing.
Oh yeah! Every now and then, God has done stuff like that. I'm not saying He's never done that for anybody. Sure, there have been times when He'll do that, but that's not generally speaking. That is not the way God deals with His people.
Under this covenant, He's given you His Spirit. There is no better guarantee than the Holy Spirit Himself, and He's in your life. But now, Gideon is ready. To lead Israel into victory, and it's time for you to get ready to go into victory. You've lived under defeat long enough.
It's time for you to move into victory. And how you going to do it? By operating under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Now, if you're saved, the Holy Spirit is already in you because He's the one who came into your life, establishing a relationship between you and God.
So you say.
So then, what's this business about being filled or baptized?
Some people use that term with the Holy Spirit. What's this infilling stuff about? It means the Spirit who is in you now. He becomes your power source. See, you got to understand.
He lives in you, and He has regenerated you and made you a child of God. But you are not going to automatically have power. You have to yield to, and you have to call on God and say, "Lord, I yield to You. I get my flesh out of the way. I get my mind out of the way.
I want Your power to come upon me." See, you have the Spirit.
Now, the question is, does the Spirit have you? If you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit. You don't have to get. I'm praying to get the Holy Spirit. You already got Him.
What you need to be praying now is that He gets you. Oh, this is good, that He gets you, because you're used to operating. By your old identity, and you're used to operating by your own ingenuity, and you're used to doing what you think is right, and you're used to having flesh power and will power. I'm a person who's just always, when I make up my mind, I just get things done. Welcome to spiritual warfare.
You can make up your mind all you want now. You cannot get things done spiritually speaking, except by the power of the Holy Spirit. Your willpower isn't going to get you to victory. I'm talking about. You got to learn to live under the influence.
There's a world of difference when a follower of Christ lives under the influence versus when they don't. Don't believe me? Ask Peter. Night before Jesus was betrayed, Peter was bragging about his willpower, wasn't he? Luke chapter 22.
If all the rest of these folk forsake you, Lord, I got your back. You pick some folk. I don't even know why you picked them. These people aren't going to go down with you. But Peter said, "But I'm your boy, though.
I got you. When they come, we going to go back to back. We just going to fight them off, just me and you." Jesus said, "Simon, Simon." He was still bragging. They had to call him a second time. He said, "Satan has asked for permission." In the heavenly realms, to shake violently, shake your life, like wheat being sifted.
The sifting of wheat in ancient time. You know we have sophisticated sifters now. In ancient time, it was a violent shaking. And Jesus said, Satan desires to violently shake up your life. He said, Jesus said to Peter, "But I prayed for you, and he didn't pray that he wouldn't be shaken." In fact, Jesus knew the shake up is going to be good because you need to be shaken loose from your self confidence.
He said, "But I prayed that your faith would not fail." You're listening to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard. We're only about halfway through today's message, so stay with us. One of the things we love to do for friends and partners like you is to pray for you when you're in need.
So, if you have a prayer request, please visit PastorPaul.net, click Contact in the main menu of our homepage, and share it with us. Our ministry team is always happy to lift you up in prayer. And of course, when you stop by our website, remember that's where you can listen to any of our recent messages on demand, Pastor. Paul.net. Have you ever had your faith in Christ shaken?
If so, you're in good company. A familiar story comes your way next, and the rest of today's message, taking authority over our enemies.
Some of you have been shaken. I've been shaken. But oh, if you are a true child of God, of everything that fell off of you during your time of shaking, your faith was still intact. You knew God is still at work in my life. Oh, this is bad, but God is not finished with me yet.
And He said, "Peter, I prayed that your faith wouldn't fail." He said, "And when you are converted, I love that He used that term." Cause, see, we love matching up our definitions with terms.
Now, converted.
Now, Peter was already a follower for almost three years.
So, why would Jesus call it a conversion as if he's just becoming a follower? Because conversion doesn't just mean when you started the journey. Conversion sometimes means when you get it. Do you know?
Sometimes it takes you years to get it about something in your life. Oh, I've been walking with him for some time, but Lord, I get it now. Converted, change of mind, change of heart. Oh, I see. He said, and when you're converted, Peter, your job is to strengthen your brothers.
Your job is to strengthen your brothers.
Now, this is just Jesus predicting what's going to happen. Peter still doesn't know how powerfully true these things are. That evening, but hours later. By early the next morning, by the time the rooster is crowing, Peter has denied knowing his Savior three times. You who have sinned badly, miserably, failed miserably, and the devil is telling you God is through with you.
That story is there. You can't sin worse than to deny the only Savior of the world. And Peter did it three times. I don't know him. Third time he cussed and said he didn't know him.
He said, "I bet y'all think I'm not a disciple now." Blankety blank. I don't know him. Jesus predicted it. Said it was going to lead to a violent shaking of your faith. And the result will be, you'll learn to quit putting trust in you, so you'll be now available for the Holy Spirit to do what He wanted to do.
Seven weeks after that weekend, fifty days after the resurrection, guess who the Holy Spirit chose to preach on Pentecost? Peter. The others forsook the Lord, but Peter not only forsook Him, He denied Him.
So God said, "I'ma show folks that I already knew who you were when I called you." See, we get shot. God doesn't get shot. You have never made God say, "Say what?" God has never looked at you in your worst moments in heaven and called Gabriel, "Say, come, come here." Do you? God knew who you were, and He told Peter, "I'm gonna use you to strengthen others." Church is built on the apostles, the foundation of the apostles, like Peter, people who had forsaken Jesus just seven weeks earlier, and now here they are on the day of Pentecost, along with the other of the 120, spilled. Out into the streets of Jerusalem, speaking the wondrous works of God, speaking in tongues they've never learned because the Spirit gave them utterance.
There's a world of difference when you live under the influence than when you don't. It's time for some of us to make up in our minds. I need to be under the influence.
Some of y'all are too sober. That's why you can't experience victory. You're too spiritually sober. The one type of getting high that is legitimate. Is getting high in the Holy Ghost, getting high in the Spirit.
Oh, that's what happened on Pentecost. They were so drunk in the Spirit that it mimicked being drunken with wine.
Now, being drunken with wine, we know has very negative connotation. But the fact that it mimicked it just shows you when you're under the influence of the Spirit, folks know there's something going on. Even if they don't know what it is, the people in Jerusalem mocked them and said, "These folks are full of wine." But when Peter started preaching, he said, "No, they're not drunk like you think they are." He said, "It's only nine o'clock in the morning. The beer taverns are not even open yet. They're not drunk on wine.
They didn't wake up early drinking wine." He said, "But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, that in the last days, saith God, I'll pour out my spirit upon all flesh.
Sons and daughters will prophesy. Old men'll dream dreams. Young men'll see visions. That's where we live now in the Holy Spirit dispensation. That's where you got to get before God and say, 'Fill it up, Lord.' You got to pull up to the bar of the Holy Spirit's anointing and say, 'Fill it up.
I need you like never before.' Fill." It'll overflow. How do you get drunk? You keep drinking. There's no mystery to it. How do you get drunk?
Keep drinking. That's all. No science to it. Keep drinking. In my neighborhood, growing up, we had people we called winos.
What made you a wino? That every time we saw you, you had a brown bag in your hand. I'm talking about growing up in my neighborhood.
Some of y'all can relate. You didn't grow up in the suburbs. Don't try to be cute.
Some of y'all grew up like me.
Sometimes sitting outside the church, sitting on the step, brown bag, and they held it toward the top because what was in the bag had a neck. Oh, come on, somebody. And every now and then they just pull it up and swig, and we call them winos because they were always sipping. I'm here to tell you, it's time for you to become a Holy Ghost sippin'. Just all through your day, sip, sip.
Getting ready to go to church, sip. Getting ready to go to work, sip. Getting ready to go to school, sip. Just all day, just drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking in the Holy Spirit, drinking in His power, drinking in His anointing, drinking in the ability to be in God what you can never be apart from Him. Everywhere you go, living under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
That was the difference. The spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and you can tell when somebody's under the influence, even of natural wine, of natural drink, because people talk differently, and they behave differently. Guess what? When you get under the influence of the Holy Spirit, you'll talk differently. Your speech will betray you.
There's certain things you only say when you're spirit filled. I was telling the men in men's fellowship. I was listening to a pastor preach, and he was just sharing some of his testimony, having gone through some hellacious experiences with church folk in his past. And he said, "I went through a season where they did me so wrong that I asked God to get them, and I knew the Bible said vengeance is mine, but I told God I want to be there to see the vengeance." He said, and the Holy Spirit told me, "No, the vengeance you want is not what I have in mind." Kyle said, "I'm not out to kill them because they did you wrong." He said, "The Lord told me I could pay them back by making, rather than killing them, by making them stay alive and watch me bless you anyhow." He said, "I don't have to kill folk to get vengeance. I can make them sit there and watch you dine at the table of my anointing." Thanks so much for being here with us for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd.
For more information about Destined for Victory or the latest resource available as you give generously today, please visit PastorPaul dot net. And so, because we are people called of God, because we are people of faith, we must learn that our God is going to lead us in ways that are very counterintuitive, because He wants to ensure that. Through your life and mine, he gets all of the glory. That's next time in our message. Taking only what God gives us, but until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in Christ.
You are destined for victory.
