Sharon Hungerford Returns

This is Robbie Dilmore from The Christian Car Guy and Kingdom Pursuit where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

If not for God with Mike Zwick. Today I have my very special friend Sharon Hungerford, who I know her. She comes to the Bible study that we have on Saturdays. And she's grown into a personal friend. She's big on Aliyah, getting the Jewish people back to Israel.

She is a huge supporter of Israel. And she's also really, really experienced in what we know as spiritual warfare. We've also got Stu Epperson, the owner of the Truth Network. We've got him right here. And Stu is actually going to be, he's got to run here in a little bit. But Stu, what can you tell us about spiritual warfare? Well, you know, it's a broad topic.

I love it. You know, we just got through studying the book of Acts where Paul is in house arrest, chained to a soldier. And during that two year period that's talked about in Acts chapter 28 verses 30 and 31, Paul, God through the inspirational spirit and through the pen of Paul gave us the book of Ephesians.

Also Colossians, also Philippians, also Philemon. But the book of Ephesians, he describes the spiritual warfare, which I know will come up with Sister Hungerford here briefly here in a little bit. So I'm not going to steal your thunder. But just this idea of take on the whole armor of God. There is a very real sense where we are to arm ourselves daily for war.

And he says it over and over again. He says we wrestle not against flesh and blood. But there's this unseen battle. He gives two or three strata level of spiritual warfare, of spiritual enemies that we're attacking that are attacking us all the time. Kingdoms and principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world.

If you look in that in the Greek there are different levels. And so they're very organized. The enemy is very organized. The enemy has a plan. The enemy has a plan and the enemy basically wants believers to shut up about the gospel. So he will attack you and say you're not worthy to share the gospel.

He'll hit you with your past, at which point we should always bring up his future, but we rarely do because we get so depressed and bummed. But we have to realize that 2.5 billion people on planet earth don't have Jesus and don't have the gospel, have never heard the gospel. So when you have 2.5 billion who've never heard the gospel, that's not my problem. But the enemy wants me to be so lost in my, as a Christian, in my problem, so narcissistic and so in the struggle, and so he doesn't want me to focus on my neighbor who doesn't have Jesus at all, who's on his way to a burning hell.

So we're here to share the good news. That's why this program, If Not For God, is so important because you make Jesus the star, the truth network. We bring Christ into the center. So there Paul is, chained to a Roman soldier, riding things like the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation.

He's looking at his bright shining sword, leaning against the wall there. The soldier, whoever he was, Julius or Clavicus or whatever the guy's name was, he's looking at his sword, he's looking at his shield, he's looking at his breastplate, and he's writing to us this amazing gift of Ephesians 6 and the armor of Almighty God. And it's Ephesians 6, 12 through 13. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. And so when you're talking about this, Stuart, it kind of reminds me that how can we be ready to win a battle if we don't even know that there's a battle to be won? Or that we don't even know that there's a battle to be fought? Because there's many people out there and people who call themselves Christians who don't even believe in the devil, don't even believe. And it's like, I mean, if you don't even know it's because the devil, he's trying to beat you. And you have to realize the good news is, though, is that it says in Scripture that greater is he that is within you than he that is within the world.

That's exactly right. And, you know, the key to the whole text, by the way, Ephesians 6, it's not each faculty and all those are very important, and it's not that prayer thing. By the way, another piece of armor that I hope you'll get into is in verse 19 and 20. No one talks about that, you know. What good is a Lamborghini with no gas in it, right?

What good is a nice, brilliant suit of armor without a knight inside of it to fight, right? Prayer is the fuel that drives that car, right? Prayer is everything and connects us to God. So that's something you're going to get into, I know.

But here's what's fascinating. The most key, three key, most important words in the whole passage of Ephesians 6 in spiritual warfare are in verse 10. In the Lord.

Those three words. In the Lord. Read verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

And Sharon, we were talking about this a little bit before. You know, you've said you've seen some supernatural stories of where, you know, you've seen the demonic and then the Lord overcome it and stuff like that. But you said that sometimes people just focus on the demonic.

And especially if you see this Hollywood is really big into that, the sensationalism. And then they may forget the part that God is greater. And you said two thirds of the angels did not fall. Right.

Two thirds did not fall. Absolutely. And so we we do need to focus on what God is doing and his power and his mind and get our eyes off ourself. And, you know, is Jesus going to be the Lord of our life? He's the one that defeats these powers and principalities. Amen.

I'm going to use a name that that just to protect identities and everything. But I tell a quick story. Ellen was a missionary in a remote village in Africa, and she had just gotten there. And the witch doctor hated everything that she was about. And people were coming into her home getting saved. And she was there to support the planting of a church to train leaders to translate the Bible.

And the neighboring village has had a really rough set of people who their sole passion was to destroy Christians. And when they heard that she had moved in, they were they paid her a visit in the middle of the night one night. And they showed up to her house, five or six of them with rods and things. They were going to tear things. They were going to steal things clearly as much as good. And they were going to hurt, put a hurting on her and maybe even kill her. They showed up and there was a massive man standing in her doorway, holding a massive rod. And these men who were who were bent on in program to to terrorize people and create fear, they were scared for their life when they saw them. They took off. They came back the next night. Same time. That same dude is out there.

Huge man with a huge, huge rod. And they took off and they were they had fear. So they decided to play it nice. So the next day they they dressed up nicer and they had their you know, they minded their manners and they knocked on our door very gently and said, we need to talk to you. And she said, OK, well, good. Well, I want to talk to you about Jesus.

And and and she has them in. And they say, we have we were just happening happening in through town and we saw this massive man that was out there and we're just want to know who he is, who's he connected with, who what are you a part of, man? What is this all about? Well, she shared the whole gospel with him. And at the end of the gospel presentation, she said, I don't know who you're talking about. I don't know anyone that fits that description, but I do serve the Lord of hosts. That's right. And I am his child and no weapon that fashions against me shall prosper. That's right. So just a cool story about someone who, you know, believes in the armor of God and who, like our dear sister Hungerford here, is a prayer warrior and was not at all thrown off by these these gangs.

You know, one to kill her because she knew God would protect her. And he in that it's a great in that a great story. So it is it is and we actually had a Bible study this past weekend. It was really good.

It was we were celebrating my birthday. And I and Sharon said, well, Mike, are we going to do a chapter from the Bible today? And I was thinking, of course we are. You know, it's so but what I was looking at was it was Hebrews chapter four, verse 12. It says, For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. And I think some people are so afraid of the demonic. But but Sharon, you've actually faced the demonic face to face and you put on the full armor of God. Did you have a story about that?

Well, I've already shared one story where, you know, a foster child in my home took a knife and the demons were telling him to kill me. And and the Lord gave me a vision afterwards because he came like within five feet of me and started bowing and couldn't get any closer. And my husband had prayed that Lord be our shield, our rear guard, a wall of fire about us. And so we never really thought literally that he would be our shield.

But he stood. The Lord showed me a vision that with the nail scarred hand and literally as a shield in front of my body and that knife. And I just saw the wrath of Satan and that knife going into that scar. And it wasn't about me. It wasn't about this young man. It was about saying the hatred Satan had for Jesus and what he's done.

And so I also have other stories. A young lady who had gotten involved with a satanic cult. It wasn't her fault.

She was born adopted into it, of all things. And we were just learning about spiritual warfare. And so the demons were literally biting her and she was like laying on her couch and and we didn't know what to do. And so my husband pray and said, Lord, have your angels turn her over.

And we bind the demonic in Jesus name. And literally we saw and we didn't see the angels, but we saw the result of angels turning her over. She wasn't moving, trying to turn around. She wasn't I mean, she was like rotated and and then she stood up.

I mean, she didn't stand up, but she sat up and was acting like she was bound. And we went, this works. So excited. But it changed. Totally changed our prayer life completely. And you've done counseling. Yes. Yes. I work with a lot of people.

A lot. I mean, even as believers, we have strongholds in our life. People are willing to talk about strongholds, but they're not willing to talk about the demons that cause the strongholds. But most of us face demonic struggles and strongholds in our life.

And so, you know, we've been. You know, I've counseled for years and I hate Satan. I hate how he tries to destroy. He comes to kill, steal and destroy our life. John 10, 10. But Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. And so that there's two different Greek words for the word life in John 10, 10, 10, 11, 15 and 17. But the first is I came that you might have life.

It's Zoe life. It's life that emanates from God. It's about the very breath, the ruach of God.

And and then the next scripture says, I can't. Jesus is saying, I came and lay down my life. Well, that word is sukay, which means if we had an English word, it would be soul. So not only is it spirit, but what Jesus did, we talk about his death and how that paid for our sins. But he also lived every day where our soul is our mind, will and emotions.

We get the word psychology from the word sukay, which is the study of the mind, will and emotions. And so Jesus lived every day thinking God's thoughts and obeying and making decisions that were honoring to God. And so and then his emotions were lined up with the perfect will of God. And so what Jesus has done for us, he lived that life, that perfect life. So and what we were talking about, Sharon, was is John 10, 10. It says the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. And then he says, I am the good shepherd.

The shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. And you said spiritual warfare can happen anywhere, maybe even sometimes on the radio. Yes, I just had trouble with my thoughts and couldn't grasp the next thoughts. And actually, when we were in a prayer meeting in our home, my son was young and I had the same situation where I just lost my thoughts. And he said, I saw a demon on a bicycle stealing your words from you.

And so we can you know, a lot of times we just think we mess up or we forget. But actually, it can be the demonic coming against us. And I was telling you another story on the way when I was young, my father cursed God, cursed his name.

And I would just hear this barrage of cursing going off in my head. And I thought I must be an evil, wicked person because I knew I didn't feel that way about God. And then I learned that the demonic can just flit around you and put these thoughts and that's called a truth encounter. And so I, I had freedom. I got freedom and that and I could use the word deliverance by understanding the truth that the enemy was putting those thoughts in my head. Every thought that we have is not from ourselves. The enemy can put thoughts in, but we also can have thoughts from God. And so this is all ways of getting freedom. And I just keep looking at Truth Network. Yeah. And this radio station that's continually putting God's word and truth out there and just very grateful for you guys. Yeah.

Well, I, I love to have you on it. Matter of fact, it says in James 4 7, it says, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. And so I heard somebody explain it one time. They said that if, if the devil keeps on trying to come against you and come against you and you continually resist him and he realizes that he's not going to get anywhere with you.

He's going to take his time and energy and go somewhere else. Then I heard somebody else say, yeah, the devil will flee, but sometimes he'll also come back. And so we also have to be ready. And I love the verse and we were talking about this this morning. It's Proverbs 24 16. It says, for though a righteous man or woman may fall seven times, he still gets up, but the wicked stumble in bad times. And so you've had to fight spiritual warfare in your own life. Is that right?

Absolutely. Every day. I mean, I have, I've stepped on or over three copperheads. I mean, the enemy's been trying to take me out my entire life and just through sickness a couple of times. And certainly the young man that tried to stab me and, and so God hates me. I mean, God loves me, but Satan hates me and I'm glad he hates me. You know, I feel like I'm doing what God wants and I love to undo his kingdom. And so you were just talking about the resistance. That's another form of deliverance is when we resist the devil and he will flee. And when we do that, when we, I mean, it's all about faith and who God is.

So if we don't know who God is, how are we going to resist the devil? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and we were watching a little clip of Rocky 2 earlier this morning when we were on the way over here. And in that clip, it was, I think it was Apollo Creed and his dad was over there.

He had all of his managers over there as well. They were going to promote the next fight. And Apollo Creed said to his dad, he said, Dad, he said, do you think I won the fight? And his dad kind of got quiet and he said, he said, well, you won the decision.

He's like, yeah, he's. And then Apollo said, yeah, but I lost the fight. I didn't win. I won the decision according to the, but I, but I lost the fight. And he didn't, he wanted to, he wanted to fight Rocky again. And everybody was saying, no, you need to fight somebody else.

This guy's a bum. This guy's, you know, you don't need to worry about this or that. But what, what his dad ended up coming up to him and he said, look, the real reason you don't want to fight this guy is because I've never seen you beat anybody like you beat this guy. He said, but the guy just kept coming back up and it kept coming back after you and kept coming back after you. And I feel like that's sort of the resiliency that we have to have as Christians is that we have to realize, yes, there is spiritual warfare. Yes, the devil's going to try to stop us from doing something great if we're doing something great. And I know you've been doing it for years and years, but greater is he that is within you than he that is within the world. So that when we keep on rising up, like Proverbs 24 16 says, I think the devil's kind of like that guy's dad where he's like, hey, don't mess with this guy.

He just keeps coming back, keeps coming back. And I feel like maybe sometimes we can kind of wear the devil out. But you had said another time, you said there was actually another lady who was actually a mental health worker and something about a snake. You said she was.

Well, we've counseled a lot of people and I don't want to give away any details at all. But there's a whole evil world of Satanism out there. And this woman probably didn't even know she had any demonic issues going on, but she ended up on the floor like a snake trying to hiss at us.

And, you know, she wasn't even aware. So I'm not saying that's true for most believers because Christ is in us. But, you know, a lot of that wouldn't happen to most believers. But when there's a cultic activity involved in people's lives, things can come in. And I've heard, I think we talked about this, that the devil cannot possess a Christian. He cannot physically. But he can certainly at least really mess with you. Have you seen that? Yes.

I mean, right. If you're a believer, you cannot be possessed by Satan because that would imply ownership. If you belong to Jesus, you're under his ownership. And but Christians can be harassed. And actually, I don't do deliverance with non-Christians because of the scripture that where Satan, once you sweep the house clean, Satan can come in and the demon will go and get seven more even stronger.

It's weak. Christians have issues in their life. And it to me, it comes under legal right.

What gives the enemy a legal right to harass you? It's unconfessed sin. Unconfessed sin is the problem. So if we confess our sins, not only individual sins, but corporate sins, which is another issue, but generational sins, particularly things that have gone back, if you looked up in your family history and somebody committed suicide for generations or somebody has gotten divorced for generations. And and those sins haven't been under, you know, confessed.

And First John one nine is if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. So that's our ticket. That's our key to getting free from all this stuff. The enemy might come and tempt us. But if we're resisting those temptations, we're set free.

Yeah. And it even says that it says, I tell you to not sin. But if you do sin that we and we all sin. But that if you do sin or you do something that you're not supposed to do, that he is faithful to forgive us.

But we have to humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness. Is that right? Absolutely. Absolutely.

So we've got and so we've got about three minutes left. But before we go, I do want to discuss this a little bit. You are a big supporter of Israel. And there is a lot of stuff in Israel right now that's going on.

There is. I mean, they are dealing with covid and the vaccines just like we are. But they also have what the incendiary balloons coming over from Gaza and burning up a lot of the land and especially crops. And then they've got Hezbollah in Lebanon. And Iran, of course, is the biggest problem who is inciting these other terrorist groups.

And so they've actually had a couple of rockets from Lebanon. So every front, it seems is. But what I do want to say, we're all in this situation where we're experiencing birth pains, but it's to purify the church. And so we are being purified and we need to stand up against the enemy. We do need to stand up. And the good news is, is that and we keep talking about this, but the good news is, is that when persecution comes, God's glory comes.

When persecution comes, we have a greater protection. And I like what you said about there's two thirds angels who did not fall. And then, you know, you've had many times in your life where you've you've stepped on snakes. I remember one time you said that you were actually dying and then Pastor Ron Harris prayed for you. And I was having a pancreatic attack, a gallstone in my gut stuck in that tube. But I was in the hospital and all I remember, I was out for five days. I don't remember five days, but Pastor Ron came and prayed.

And next thing I remember, I was being transferred to a different hospital, but I felt death being peeled off of me. And and it was after that prayer. You know, maybe maybe when we hear all of these good news stories about how the how Jesus overcomes the devil, maybe we really realize what Jesus was talking about in Matthew Chapter six, verse twenty three, twenty three and on where he tells us not to worry, not to worry, not to worry. God is going to take care of us. God is going to take care of us. We may be persecuted.

We may have tough times, but read the end of the book. He wins. He wins. And the Christians, we win with them.

We win with them. So but Sharon, we're so glad to have you on and we know we can check you out any time. But thank you for coming on and we hope to have you back again soon. OK, well, thank you for having me.

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