Ten Doors That Let The Serpent In Part 1

Watch movies ghosts plasma energy, there is a reality check. Ghosts are very real.

Today the facts on haunted houses, ghosts, familiar spirits, and other forms of demonic influence and why Christians must summon them all like play from the Moody Church in Chicago. This is wanting to win with Dr. Erwin Sir was clear teaching sauce make it across the finish line.

We're in a series on God's devil master loser you say there are 10 doors shut. Tell us about Dave in a moment I'm going to answer your question, but first of all I want to remind our listeners today is Valentine's Day, and even though we always think of it in romantic terms, and we should. The fact is that it is an opportunity to remind ourselves that we should bless someone today. We should reach out to those who have needs tell someone. Words of encouragement.

Pray for them and let them know that really the essence of the Christian life ultimately is love. Now it is a tough love at times, but let us use this day to remind ourselves that we have the opportunity to encourage and to touch the lives of others. But now Dave back to your question. The answer is yes, ghosts are absolutely real. Satan is real and that you asked the question about the doors that allow Satan into our lives there about 10 of them and in my book, entitled God's devil. The incredible story of how Satan's rebellion serves God's purposes, I have a chapter with all of the 10 doors listed number one is rebellion, which is as the sin of witchcraft. I'm thinking also of number two. It has to do with anger. Paul says let the sun not go down upon your wrath. Do not give place to the devil so there's another example of how Satan wants to use our emotional lives to entrap us for a gift of any amount. This book can be yours.

Here's what you do you go to RTW offer.com. Thank you. By the way, for supporting this ministry or if you prefer you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 join us now as we consider from the Scriptures. Once again, the reality of Satan and the triumph of Christ over him here in Chicago there was a con artist who work like this.

He came to a client and said I want to deal give me a few hundred dollars.

And after you've done that I will return all the money with a great increase and so the con artist did that and the client bought the deal and gave them some money and weeks later, the con artist returned with the money and with a generous increase. It weeks later, the con artist showed up again.

This broker said if you give me some money will be able to invest it and it will end up being very very valuable again, and that's exactly what happened. This went on for a time until the amount that the client kept getting him was greater and greater until finally, the client gave them $50,000.

That was the last time they met. There are some things that scam operators will tell you number one.

Never lose sight of your long-term goals your long-term goal is the enslavement of your client.

Don't ever lose sight of it. Number two. Do all that you can to develop confidence so that the client will not fear you, if possible, do not arouse suspicion, use attractive date but keep the hook well hidden show what you have to show that high. What you have to hide have as many lures as there are interests among the masses. Different strokes for different folks know the Bible teaches that we have guardian angels.

I believe that I believe Matthew 18, where Jesus Christ says or is at 19, where Jesus Christ talks about little children having angels, eases their angel says behold the face of my father is in heaven. And because Satan is the great imitator. It is my suspicion, though I can't prove it biblically that what he really does is he imitates what God does and he assigns to us specific spirits whose sole responsibility it is to observe us to watch us to look at us to know what is happening to try to make maximum use of any opportunity they might have, to cause trouble, and to cause us to stumble into sin. What I like to do. First of all, today's to give you some of the stages of demonic control. Some of the stages of demonic enslavement. First of all, at the lowest level we could say there is temptation. Temptation means that we are presented with an opportunity to sin, because remember, as we learned last time is always Satan's desire to make sin look good to us on a there was a couple eating together, and they're having breakfast, probably some bagels, maybe even some cream cheese and they said to one another. You know what we would like to appear is spiritual because their people in the church who are selling their property and are giving it to the church and are considered to be heroes. Let's sell our property and give the money to the church to but we will withhold the sum of the price and give the impression that were getting it all because we want to be spiritual to kind of 1/2 lie. Well, you know the story and ask chapter 5. They did it and later on, God is sent to Peter to them and said that these words, why have Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost.

Listen carefully what Satan does is he puts ideas into our minds that we think are our own.

We think that they are our own. Because you see, if we thought for a moment that they came from Satan. We be terrified. Can you imagine Ananias and Sapphire having breakfast eating their bagel had demonic spirit appearance say sell your land, then part of it to the church but whole part of it back. They have been terrified, but he didn't do that. He put it in their minds and they weren't afraid of that idea because they thought it was holy and totally there's I believe that is Christian. Satan cannot read our thoughts.

There is protection but it does appear as if he can drop ideas into our minds and certainly in the case of the unsaved.

He has more opportunity.

In fact, Jesus said that when the word of God is preached it is snatched out of the mind and when the disciples asked an explanation. You remember what he said. He said it is Satan that comes and snatches the word of God out of their minds.

People have difficulty memorizing Scripture they can memorize some of the cup batting averages. Admittedly, the numbers may not be that high, but they can memorize some of those things but one thing they cannot do and that is they can remember Scripture because there's the battle of the mind. Satan comes and snatches it out of the mind.

The level of temptation is a second level and that is we could call it by number of different names, obsession or oppression of stronghold couple of weeks ago I was at a conference and a couple made an appointment to see me fine Christian couple reared some real nice Christian kids and now they have a grandchild who is one year old and this dear Christian woman who never had a problem like this with her own children now can't be left alone with the baby because she has these horrid thoughts, gruesome thoughts of wanting to kill the child with a knife just just awful awful thoughts Christian woman do you think that those are her thoughts, this grandmother who loves her little baby so dearly. These are really her thoughts is a woman. Now those thoughts are injected by Satan.

And yet when you when you try to analyze you wish that you could always find out the exact reason the cause and I asked all of the right questions was never really able to uncover the real source Satan takes advantage of all kinds of things. He is not a gentleman at all, and therefore does not play by the rules but you see, once you begin to identify and you begin to say you know these thoughts are really not my thoughts. They are injected by an evil spirit. You can deal with it much more easily. Once you understand its source obsessions.

I've had people tell me that they are in church, singing a song and suddenly some of the most blasphemous thoughts that one could even imagine just voiced themselves upon the mind, and some of you who have various addictions. You know the word obsession and its meaning.

Then, third, of course you have actual invasion. This is demonic invasion demonic possession as it is cold in the New Testament. Many examples of that. Perhaps the clearest is found in Mark chapter 5 and that we will not turn to it. It is a passage that you should read and think about. Here's a man who is among the tombs and he is there and he's cutting himself is trying to commit suicide. He is in despair.

I he lives alone and he doesn't want people around him. He wants to live in isolation and Jesus Christ cast legions of spirits from him and set him free.

Interestingly, member the spirit said let us go into something let us go into the pigs and Jesus allowed them to go into the pigs and does it not say that 3000 of them ran and drowned themselves in the lake. Is that what happened to those demonic spirits after the pigs drowned love and they were free to roam. Trying to figure out where to go next.

Getting instructions where they could do more mischief and and some of them might even return to the graveyard where the man was. Maybe he had a familiar spirit that expression is used in the Old Testament when it comes to s�ances you want to talk to the dead you talk to a witch who has a familiar spirit. The word familiar means a spirit that was especially familiar with the person who has died and therefore can take on those characteristics noses history and that's why there is so much deception when it comes to talking with the dead.

Nobody talks with the dead. They talk to spirits who impersonate the dead, and a familiar spirit is one who knew the dead and sometimes those spirits may return to the point of death, and therefore you have haunted houses.

Just the other day my daughter was telling us that in her school there.

Someone who says well you know there's this woman who died to many, many years ago and she still lives in our house and as she shows up, but she is a kind nice woman when I was in the Banff Alberta a number of years ago and saw the stairs of the hotel I was in was haunted. They said that there were two rooms in the Calgary Herald had just run an article on that topic. And as we were in this dining room area where a young woman was giving us a tour of this beautiful hotel in Banff I noticed that there was a stairwell of marble staircase with potted plants on every one of the stairs. You couldn't go up the staircase so I asked and she said, well, a young woman was married here many years ago fell down the stairs on her wedding day hit her head and died here, and her spirit lives here and she said you can talk to the people who work here in the restaurant in the bottom of the hotel and they will tell you that they frequently see her.

She comes back. So I said to this young woman I said I would like to give you a biblical interpretation of this data and I said, first of all I want you to know that this young lady who died here has never been back. She's gone to where ever, but it is not she who returns number two. There are familiar spirits, evil spirits, demons, actually.

Who knew her, or perhaps even possessed her and that they sometimes harbor in the area of where the person lived. Hell never forget. I mean she was a little surprised at this explanation. She looked at me a little bit incredulous and said I don't like the word demon. I prefer the word ghost. You know, like Casper, you know, the friendly ghost. I want you to know today. Just for the sake of the record, there are no friendly ghost. There are no friendly ghost ghosts. There are haunted houses. There are poltergeists you read the stories of dishes breaking some of you have had experiences like that. There are demons in the world and they are very real. One story from a couple that use to attend Moody church many years ago, one of the people in the family who happened to be. I believe this ladies father a very ungodly man who clearly was into the occult and demonism. He died know what happens to those spirits when a man who is inhabited by spirits dies will they need to go somewhere else. They began to attack the family and to make a very long and interesting story short, they actually had to put to death in their family. Both the cat and the dog who went absolutely berserk after the death because evidently spirits came and even inhabited those animals and that sometimes happens as proven in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Mark would like to do today. You'll notice the sermon topic is I believe 10 doors that let the serpent in that could be misinterpreted. So let me give you a couple of explanations number one when we go through these 10 doors.

I don't want to give the impression that to. If you open this door you are possessed. I simply mean that this is the way in which Satan gets a foothold.

This is the way in which he, he gets an obsession. This is one of the doorways that he uses to harass us. Secondly, some of these doorways are sins that shouldn't surprise you sins of the flesh. I've already told you that sometimes you can't tell the difference between the work of Satan in the work of the flesh because they converge because Satan exploits the works of the flesh and uses them for his own ends, and therefore we cannot always make that clear differentiation and we don't have to because the queue or whether the sin is of the flesh whether or not it is exploited by Satan is usually the same, and then finally, I want you to be aware of the fact as we go through here that we are not speaking as I mentioned about possession as much as we are talking about stronghold because of the length of time that we have together.

I'm going to basically list these today's message is not an expository message.

It is a topical message and for each one. I will give you a brief explanation and almost always a verse of Scripture to go along with it that you can jot down to think about and to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance number one rebellion rebellion. It says in first Samuel 15 verse 23 for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is like rebellion and idolatry is like is like occultism now. The context is a poor soul who disobeyed God, and those are the words of Samuel rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

The first sin ever committed was a sin of pride. It was a sin of rebellion when Lucifer says I will be like the most high. Now I know that everyone was listening to this message today, thanks to his self or herself.

Let's not mean is you're not rebellious, you wouldn't be listening to this message. If you were rebellious you think actually it just means being disobedient whenever we are disobedient whenever we know what God wants us to do and we don't do it and we in effect say God I know that you want a BC and D I'm going to do XYZ that is rebellion against God and the way there, lest there be in you and in me a root of rebellion that does not submit to the Lordship of Christ and the sovereignty of God, rebellion, rebellion, but you and I recognize extreme forms don't way. We know what it is like to have the minister to families and to people where there may be children that are that are very rebellious and and just antagonistic to any form of authority.

Watch it rebellion is as the sin of which craft, and the Satan will use it in your life. Secondly, there is anger Ephesians chapter 4 verse 27 it says when angry, do not sin. I do not give the devil an opportunity. Don't let the sun go down upon your wrath. When Rebecca and I were first married. We said that that we would never go to bed angry and I think we kept that rule. Although Rebecca was in a true that one summer we didn't go to bed for two weeks with Medicaid. I'm just joking. Now listen to me very carefully. There are some people who become violently angry at the smallest irritation.

They almost become different persons. They love to smash.

They love to break. They like to put a fist through a wall was eating with a young couple, one time, and noticed calendars in the oddest places asked for an explanation and they told me anger anger watch it watch those of you who just blow up and then you just become so violently angry, you could just do some very, very terrible things in your fit of anger, you could be a, a murderer in your anger. The Bible says do not give the devil a top boss. Don't give him an opportunity don't give him a place that's with the word top boss means place.

Don't give him a place to have his foot so to speak. Thirdly, and related to this is hatred and murder. Remember early on in this series of messages I quoted first John chapter 3 verse 12 regarding Cain and Abel and why didn't came to label John asks. Well, the answer is because he was of that evil one but evil one hatred and what did he have to be angry about. Well, just the fact that he was offering sacrifices that God was not receiving and God was receiving able sacrifice.

But God said to him, look all that you need to do is to offer your sacrifice like your brother is offering it and then you will also be accounted righteous, but he became angry and filleting with anger. I want to just kill him, just the satisfaction of seeing him dad is worth any consequence. That's what you think before you do it after you do it you have second thoughts watch that number four fear.

I'm thinking of, particularly here.

Irrational fears, irrational fear and paranoia such as the case of solvent. We spoke about briefly last time. Also in Luke chapter 22 I find this very interesting verse 31, where is Simon, Simon, Satan, have desired to have you, that he might sift you like wheat and Peter ends up being unable to witness for Christ and unable to identify himself with Jesus Christ as he is terrorized. He's afraid that if Jesus Christ goes to the cross, he may have to go to the cross and that, therefore, when a servant girl comes and says don't you belong to his company.

He denies it three times and ends up swearing and supplying but notice that the devil was involved irrational fears, sometimes even rational ones where there is an souls case this tremendous overwhelming sense of jealousy, the feeling that everybody is against you, the, the interpretation of events that make you fearful beyond all rationality and comprehension will my friend, this is Pastor Luther.

We certainly have a lot to learn from the Scriptures, don't we. And it's always a reminder of the fact that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the rulers of the darkness of this age.

Satan wants access to your mind. I'm thinking for example of Ananias and Sapphire who decided to lie and later on Peter said to them, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. Well, perhaps you've already heard me say how important it is for us to realize that that couple when they were discussing being deceitful.

They had no awareness that they were under Satan's power and yet look what happened in my book entitled God's devil. What I'd like to emphasize is the sovereignty of God in our war with Satan.

I believe that this book will be about tremendous blessing. It will help you to pray effectively for gift of any amount. It can be yours. And while you're going to find a pencil so that you can write this down. Let me say in advance that we are so deeply grateful for the way in which many of you support this ministry we stand together against the wiles of the devil while here's what you do go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com or if you prefer, call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us run into when 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614 running to win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. The Bible says Satan is like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

But he can't get in unless the door is open. Believers can either open the door or slam it shut. Next time I'm going to win more doors.

We must keep close beginning with door number four will focus on setting the deadbolts securely. This is Dave Alister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church