Dr. Michael Yousaf with insight into the invisible war surrounding us. as he introduces this Leading the Way audio episode. Every moment of every day. There are unseen battles being fought over your head.
Satan wants to keep us in ignorance about Him and about the Word of God. And yet the angels of light Often work to fight off his attack on the children of the living God. in that unseen spiritual battle. Psalm 91.11 says, He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Get ready to explore the mission of Satan and his demons.
with Dr. Michael Yousaf. You see, when you're familiar with the devil's mission and his tactics, You'll be better equipped to wage war, to gain victory in the spiritual battles you face in life. This episode of Leading the Way is part of Dr. Michael Youssef's intriguing series called.
Winning the Invisible War.
So listen with me as Dr. Michael Youssef begins today's teaching time. I want to give you very quickly, very quickly, it won't take very long, five things that you need to know about the angelic realm and about angels. I'm going to explain how Satan stole that structure, the command structure, and copied it. But I'm going to start with engines.
I like to go for the real thing first. First of all, angels have individual personalities.
Some of the high ups in the chain of commands in the angelic realm. Have names. Like Gabriel. And Michael. Angels not only have individual personalities.
But they have their own intellect, they have their own feelings, and they have Free will. And that is why one-third of them chose to follow Satan. They have different functions, they serve different functions, but primarily they are to excuse the will of God. They implement the plan of God in the lives of those who have submitted their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Secondly, Angels live forever.
The same Gabriel, who appear to Daniel. Four hundred years later, he appeared to Mary. The Virgin Mary. They are not bound by human time or space. Why?
Because angels in the angelic realm Do not get depleted by death. And Jesus tells us. When somebody came to him and asked him the question about marriage in heaven, and so he said, Marriage, you know, in heaven there's no marriage, he said, we'll be like angels.
So people took the idea was that when we die, we become angels. That's not what he's talking about at all. When Jesus said, like angels, meaning that we're not going to have physical limitations, we're not going to have limitation of time or space. Or death. That we too will live forever.
The third thing you need to know about angels is that they have bodies. They're not like ours. But it has a form. A physical form. Daniel in 8.15.
He said, And behold, there stood before me one. having the appearance Don't miss that, that's an important word, the appearance of a man. The appearance Not a man, not like us, but appearance. Why? Because these Celestial bodies.
are totally unlike us. It is different kind of a body. It is designed for different kind of rules. and it works according to different realms. But like our bodies, they have a form, they have a likeness, they have weight and they're capable of much more.
You see, we see the Lord. Jesus Was closed with such a body after the resurrection. And you notice he was in Galilee and then he's in Jerusalem within seconds. He's different places elsewhere. Celestial bodies.
also travel great distance with lightning speed. Daniel describes the angel in Daniel chapter 10, verse 6. He said, his body, like Charisolite. His face like lightning. His eyes like flaming torches.
His arms and legs like a gleam of brandish bronze. and his voice like the sound of multitudes. The fourth thing you need to know about Angel. is that they were created first. Before the earth Before the earth was created, before humanity was created, God created the angels first.
Then the earth. Look at Colossians chapter 1 verse 16. By him Oh. things were created. that are in heaven first.
Then on earth, Those who say that if I cannot see it, it does not exist. are going to have egg all over the face. When God finally unveiled the invisible world to everyone to see. Again, Colossians 16. Notice the words there.
He defines the angelic hierarchy. The thrones first. The highest. Dominions? Second.
Principalities Third. Powers Fourth.
Now these are ranking Order. Powers Are those angelic foot soldiers. that they come and to minister and protect the believers.
Now, I'm going to come back to those four ranks because it's important to explain to you how Satan copied those same four ranks. At the top, you notice the throne, that is the throne of God. And he uses them He uses his command, his chain of command. Two. Execute his will.
to administer his universe. He does so by these ranking angels. And that is why the Bible often refers to the Lord God as the Lord of hosts. There is untold million numbers of them. We don't know.
It could be in the billions or trillions. He is the commander-in-chief of countless angelic beings. At his word. the whole army of angels move with power and great glory. At his command, vast numbers of angelic beings obey.
Why do you think when Pontius Pilate thought that he has power over Jesus, he said, No, you don't. I can call on my Father and He can send me legions of angels and deliver me. But I came for this. I came for the cross. I could have asked the father to send Yanjir to deliver, but no.
I am not doing this because I came to die for sinners. And we get intimidated. Batini weeny brain politician. And our Lord is the Lord of hosts. He's the commander of all the hosts, Lord of hosts.
Beloved, listen to me. Our God is a God of power and might. Don't you ever forget that. Our God is the God who commands all of these trillions of angelic ranks and they move. Our God uses this chain of command.
Our God is a God of order. And whenever you see disorder, you know that Satan is behind it. Remember also that our God is not a communist. Our God does not operate on equality. Our God is not Marxist.
He has Chain of command. Everybody. has a different role. To play. Fifthly.
Angels have a specific task. Each have a specific task. There are no two angels alike. And the Na two angels' jobs are alike. Each angel Has his own task and mission.
to protect and preserve and minister To the elect of God. Until Our time is done. And as we know from the story of Lazarus and the rich man, The angels were courteous all the way to the presence of Jesus in glory.
Now beloved, listen to me. Every moment of every day. There are unseen battles being fought over your head. Satan wants to keep us in ignorance about him and about the word of God. And yet the angels of light Often work to fight off his attack on the children of the living God.
In that unseen spiritual battle. Psalm 91:11 says, He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. I don't know about you. That thrills me. That thrills me.
That thrills me. I was born nobody. And yet God assigns mighty angels. To look after me. How about that?
How about that? It couldn't be something greater. He assigned them. to counter my foolishness and my ignorance. He assigned them to steer me around the traps that the enemy has been setting up for each one of us all the time.
Look carefully through the scripture. And you see, God deliberately were showing us examples. Of how these angels work, so that we be encouraged, that we would be comforted, that we would live in faith and power and strength. In Acts chapter 5 verse 19, Angel comes and opens the door of the prison and the disciples come out. In Acts 12, 7, Herod imprisoned Peter and Jesus not only imprisoned him behind iron doors, he put extra commands, he put extra heavy protection guard around him.
But the angel comes in and said, hey Peter, get up, let's get out of here. And he walks through straight through all the guards and all the gates and the iron gates. You see When Satan, as you've been telling you in this series, in the last two messages, When Satan tried to topple God, He got thrown out of heaven. He took one-third. of the angelic beings with him.
You say, well how come? How come could he really deceive that many? We don't know a huge number. One third. One third of the energy.
How could he do this? How could he deceive them? In Revelation 13, 3 and 4, John gives us a picturesque language to describe this. He said the great dragon's tail swept down one-third of the stars of heaven. and cast them to the earth.
Question? How did Satan persuade so many angels, one-third of them? Lucifer offered them all kinds of incentives. He probably offered him promotions and bonuses, a company jet. and a free skiing trip in São Moritz.
Every rank would have been offered an opportunity or a reward commiserate with their rank. Himirat, please. Satan does this with millions of people now. Satan's modus operande is to offer you the world and pay you with trash. It promises you the best.
and he pays you with the worst He promises you pleasure. And he pays you with pain. He promises you profits. And he pays you with losses. He promises you Life!
And he pays you with the currency of death. He's doing that every single day. Nothing's changed. Nothing changed. He deceived this third of the angelic beings.
He continued to deceive people around the world. Countless millions of people. throughout the world today still fall for that same old lie. Again and again and again. That's how he persuaded one-third of the angelic beings to follow him.
But there are three things. that you must know about Satan's Stolen. Stealing This command structure from the angelic realm. about this hierarchical structure of heaven. Three things, only three things you need to know.
First of all, These enemy's forces Still retain They're God-given power. When Lucifer was thrown out of heaven, He set up his kingdom And a government system here on earth As he saw being done in heaven. Don't forget, he was Lucifer, the angel of light who served the throne of God. He was right there. in the presence of God.
He observed closely what's going on in heaven and he copied those ranks of heaven. And that is why Ephesians 6:12 Ephesians 6.12, mark it down, write it down, read it every day. Read it every day. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. But against the principalities, against the powers.
And against the rulers of darkness in this age, against the spiritual hosts of the wickedness in the heavenly places. meaning in the atmospheric places, not in heaven, but in the atmospheric places.
Now compare This passage. describing Thus four ranks To the heavenly ranks that I already shared with you a few minutes ago. Fourfold. They are fourfold. It's not by accident.
It's not by accident. They vary in title. But the substance is the same. Four levels of demonic leadership And Satan is on the top of the pyramid. He's on the top of the pen.
Don't miss what I'm going to tell you, okay? Don't miss what I'm going to tell you. Satan may have lost his innocence when he fell. But he did not lose his intelligence. These fallen angels have their own distinct personalities and characteristics.
These are immortal and not limited by time and space. The difference is this. They worship Lucifer. instead of God. Second thing, second thing you need to know.
about your enemy's hierarchical structure. Satan has an assigned agent on your case. Satan cannot be everywhere at once. He cannot be at your house and in my house all at the same time. No.
So what does he do? He uses his demons. But there was only one exception. One exception. when Satan showed up in person.
I think some of you already got this.
Some already know where that was. When he tempted Jesus in the wilderness. He could not leave that to one of his underlings. He had to do that because he want to stop Jesus from going to the cross at any cost.
So he showed up. in person in the wilderness and perform those three temptations.
Now we often say Oh, Satan tempt me.
Well, Not quite. It's one of his Underlings is tempting us. One of his foot soldiers tempting us. For he himself does not perform the day-to-day operations any more than The CEO of Microsoft or any of these corporations answer the phone when you ra when you call. He leaves the routine temptations to his underlings.
Oh, they will try to harass us. Listen to me, believers. He will try to frustrate us. He would try to tempt us. He would try to oppress us.
And that is why our fight is not against what?
Now, I hate to tell you this. But it's true. These demons are conscientious. They are active. They deeply committed to their task.
All these demons do not just sign in at eight o'clock in the morning. Then they clock out at 4:30 in the afternoon. No, no, no, no. They're not lazy sitting back, getting their welfare check, and then go home. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
These demons are well disciplined. and they blindly were obedient soldiers to Satan. And that is why we must always, always be vigilant. Must be vigilant. Again, let me stop right here because I know as soon as you hear the word vigilant, you think that you're supposed to be sitting there.
And looking around, gritting your teeth. Oh, I've got to be vigilant. I've got to be vigilant. I've got to be. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That's not the Christian faith. Listen to me, I'm going to say more about that. In the next message, particularly from the very man I'm going to be quoting here in a minute. Because he knows what that vigilance means. But for now, I'll tell you this.
Vigilant means that you invite the Holy Spirit to come in and take residence every single day. You renew His presence in your life. And as the Holy Spirit comes in, He's going to make you alert. He's going to make you vigilant. He's going to be calling upon the angels to protect you.
The Holy Spirit will alert you when temptation comes. Vigilant is the alertness to the voice of the Holy Spirit when he says, now watch out for this, watch out for this. That's what vigilance means. Vigilance is not grieving and quenching of the Holy Spirit by disobedience, a life of disobedience, because when you grieve and quench the Holy Spirit, you will not be able to hear his voice. His voice will become so faint.
as you override The voice of the Holy Spirit. Again and again and again. That's what vigilant means. As I said, I'm going to say more about that in the next message specifically. Third and the last thing I want to tell you.
Is this. The enemy Within. The truth is There are many church people who allow Satan to use them. Yeah. allow Satan to use them.
It is the saddest thing in the world. When you see professing Christians fraternizing with the enemy. In a regular army, When a soldier fratonizes with the enemy, it's called treason. But how many professing Christians, whether it is deliberately or in ignorance, They serve the enemy's purpose. Think about this with me.
The chief apostle. The chief disciple. When Satan was trying to use him To stop the Lord Jesus from going to the cross, what did Jesus say to him in Matthew 16, 22 and 23? God bless you. Was Peter Satan?
No.
No, he's not. And that's why I'm going to tell you what he said. In his first epistles, chapter five, about being vigilant. He knew this, he understood this, he experienced this. Peter was not saying no, far from it.
But at that moment, What he said and did was serving Satan's purpose. Satan was using him to hinder the plan of salvation. No doubt Satan can use any of us, including your pastor. When we're not alert. When we're not alert.
He can use any of us. When we don't resist him, He can use any of us. when we don't flee from temptation. And that is why I've been saying this in the last two messages. Ignorance of Satan's operation.
or non-discerning. of the way he operates. and his designs. And his tricks are the biggest gateway. In the life of a Christian.
Now I want to leave you. with this. Yes, there millions of demons. But also remember, write it down, mark it. There are two angels.
For every demon who are deployed for the minister, according to the epistle to the Hebrews, to ministering to the saints. to ministering to the children of the living God. When you invite the Holy Spirit to strengthen you, on a daily basis, sometimes even moment by moment basis. When you ask the Holy Spirit to give you victory. He The Holy Spirit will send the angels and they will send the demon packing.
Psalm 118 verse 6. The Lord is on my side. I will not fear what can anyone do to me. Thank you for joining Dr. Michael Youssef.
For this episode of Leading the Way Audio. And if today's content inspired questions, You're invited to speak with a leading the way pastor or counselor. Start that conversation by filling out a short contact form at ltw. I've never made a secret of the fact that the cry of my heart is that I want to take as many people to heaven with me as I can. There are a lot of good things that needs to be done.
A lot of good deeds that can be done. But none. More important in my life than the great commission of Jesus Christ. It is my daily cry to God. to give me men and women, boys and girls, who discern the times we live in.
It is the cry of my heart that God will give me men and women who are willing to redeem the times in which we live. Men and women who recognize the urgency for salvation and the opportunities for reaching the lost men and women who walk with me through these open doors. Stand with Dr. Yousuf today by being a part of the Open Door Campaign. You can begin by speaking with a ministry representative at the Leading the Way Call Center.
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Michael Youset.
