I want you to take a Bible this morning. Let's open it together to 1 Samuel chapter 28. We're going to be continuing in our study of the life of the great man of God, David. 1 Samuel 28, and if you didn't bring a Bible this morning, we have a copy of the Bible that we would like to let you borrow right on the back of the seat in front of you. We're going to be on page 212, page 212 in our copy of the Bible, or 1 Samuel 28 in your copy. Now, I'm going to name some movies, and I want you to think about what they all have in common. You ready?
It won't be hard, believe me. Here we go. Rosemary's Baby, Poltergeist, Carrie, The Amityville Horror, Devil's Advocate, The Witches of Eastwick, The Exorcist. Now, with the exception of Rosemary's Baby, which I saw in college before I was a Christian, I have not seen any of these other movies personally, but I know, and you know too, that what all of these movies have in common is they all deal with the issue of the devil and demons and the occult. What we want to talk about today is whether or not the devil and the occult is just a subject, a topic for making scary movies, or is there something more here? Is there a greater reality here that you and I as Christians in the 20th century need to take stock of, be aware of, and plan our lives in light of? And so the reason we're going to talk about this is because in the chapter that we have for today, we find that King Saul actually comes into contact with a woman who has demonic connections, and so it precipitates the whole question of, hey, is this real? Is there anything to this? And if there is, how do you and I as Christians protect and insulate our lives against being affected negatively by these kinds of forces?
So that's what we're going to talk about. Let's begin right here in 1 Samuel 28. Remember now, David for years has been chased around by King Saul, but all of a sudden now, Saul has a much bigger problem on his hands, and we're going to look in verse 1 and see. Verse 1, in those days, the Philistines gathered their forces to fight against Israel. Verse 4, and the Philistines assembled and came and set up camp at Shunem, while Saul gathered all the Israelites and set up camp at Mount Gilboa.
Now, if you don't know much about Israelite geography, this means absolutely nothing to you, but if you can picture the land of Israel in your mind and picture up north where the Sea of Galilee is, way inland at the very eastern extreme of the land of Israel, Mount Gilboa is almost all the way to the Sea of Galilee. And so what happened is these Philistines who were living in the south, down in the Gaza Strip area, had actually made an incursion into Israel all the way to the north, almost to the Sea of Galilee. Now, that's an incredibly deep incursion of an enemy into your land, and what this tells us is this was a very serious invasion.
The very existence of Israel was threatened by the Philistines being that deeply into the land. Verse 5, and so Saul, when he saw the size of the Philistine army on the other hill, he was afraid. He was terrified.
Why? Because he was so outnumbered, he knew on the human level he didn't have a chance to win. So he inquired of the Lord. He sent up one of those 9-1-1 prayers, but the Lord did not answer him in any way. Verse 7, so Saul, in his desperation to get some spiritual message of some kind, said to his attendants, find me a woman who is a medium so that I may go and inquire of her, and they said there's one in Endor, just a couple of miles away.
Now, a medium, in our modern terminology, we would use a word like a psychic, a clairvoyant, a soothsayer, a channeler. This was a woman who had touch with the demonic world. Now, verse 8, and Saul disguised himself, put on other clothes, and at night he went to see her. And he said to her, consult a spirit for me and bring up the person that I name. And the woman said to him, wait a minute, you know what King Saul has done.
He's cut off all the mediums and all the spirit just from the land. Are you an undercover agent? Why are you doing this? I'm going to help you and I'm going to end up being killed for it. And Saul swore to her and said, nothing will happen bad to you. And so the woman asked, verse 11, well, who do you want me to bring up? And he said, I want Samuel. Now, Samuel the great prophet was dead, but Samuel had been Saul's mentor, he had been Saul's friend, and Saul was desperate to hear something from God. And since God wouldn't answer him, he thought, well, maybe Samuel could tell me something. Well, when the woman saw Samuel, verse 12, she cried out at the top of her voice, the Bible says, and said to Saul, why have you deceived me? I know who you are now, you're Saul. And the king said, don't be afraid, tell me what you see. And she said, I see a spirit coming up out of the ground.
What does he look like? Saul said. Well, he looks like an old man wearing a robe, the woman said. And then Saul knew, verse 14, that it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face on the ground.
You say, Lon, wait a minute, time. Was this really Samuel? I mean, you really think that Samuel came back right into this room and appeared to this medium and to Saul?
Yeah, I do. I mean, it's pretty obvious that this lady was not just running some scam with somebody behind the curtain pulling wires, right? And even though she expected a demon, there's no doubt that she expected some demonic thing to show up. The real McCoy, Samuel, actually shows up, and it scared her so bad that the Bible says she cried out at the top of her voice. She shrieked out, the Bible said.
She went, ah! Now, friends, listen, if you scare somebody who's used to working with demons all the time, you've done something, right? And this woman was terrified when Samuel showed up. Well, look at the conversation that ensues between Samuel and Saul, verse 15. And Samuel said to Saul, why have you disturbed me?
Why did you bring me up? And Saul said, look, I'm in great distress, Samuel. The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has turned away from me. He no longer answers me, so I have called on you to tell me what to do. Samuel said, why do you call on me now that the Lord has turned away from you and become your enemy? I mean, if God is your enemy, what do you think I can do for you, huh?
What do you expect me to do? Verse 17, the Lord has done what he predicted through me. Remember when the Lord said that he would tear the kingdom out of your hands and he would give it to one of your neighbors, to David? Because you didn't obey the Lord, the Lord has done this to you today. He says, hey, you know, you are disconnected with God. You are out of step with God, Saul. That's why God's not answering you. And what puts you out of step with God is that you have established a steady habit of disobeying God.
It started all the way back with those Amalekites a few chapters ago. And he says, and even now you're disobeying God. Here you are talking to a psychic, to a clairvoyant in direct defiance of what God says in the Bible where he said, throw them out of the land the way you started off.
And he said, what do you want me to do for you? You need to repent. You need to get right with God. You need to seek God's forgiveness. You need to turn around and get reconnected with God.
I can't help you. He said, but I'll tell you what, I do have a message for you, verse 19. Here's my message. The Lord will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, Saul, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. You'll be dead. The Lord will also hand over the army of Israel to the Philistines, and they'll be in full retreat by this time tomorrow. And friends, as we're going to read a little bit later, it's exactly what happened. Samuel told Saul the exact truth.
By this time on the following day, Saul would be dead, Jonathan would be dead, his other sons would be dead, and the army of Israel would be in total, absolute retreat. Samuel told him the truth. Now that's the end of our passage for today, but I want to stop and ask the really important question. And the really important question is, so what? Now friends, listen, you may think this has nothing to do with your lives today. You may say, Lon, I never even met Samuel. What does this have to do with me?
Absolutely nothing. No, but I don't think so at all. You see, it's pretty obvious from this story that this woman that Saul met has some direct contact with demons and with the demonic world. And yet if you go out today into our modern day America and you tell somebody you believe in the devil, what are they going to think of you? You know, Time magazine did a survey not too long ago as part of an article entitled Angels Among Us. And in this survey they asked, do you believe in the existence of fallen angels and devils? Of the American survey, 49% said yes.
But the interesting thing is 45% said no. We don't believe there's any demons, any devil, nothing like this in the world. And what that means is if you go to your office or you in your neighborhood or you're talking to your relatives and you tell them that you believe in the devil and you believe in demonic forces, one out of every two of those people is going to look at you like you've totally lost your mind. These people in our world today, particularly in the United States, think that all this devil thing went out with the dinosaurs, that this is prehistoric, that all this kind of talk is is just a bunch of propaganda that religious hucksters spin out to take advantage of unsuspecting old ladies and people with no college degrees, but that smart people, educated people, sophisticated people know that this stuff is just a bunch of nonsense and they want nothing to do with it. And yet, in the article in Time magazine, it's interesting, Time magazine wrote and said that when we look at the evil of the Nazi Holocaust, when we look at the unbelievable evil of the purges of Joseph Stalin, when we look at the evil of the genocides that are going on in parts of Africa today, when we look at the evil in people like Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer, Time says we are hard-pressed not to recognize that there is some kind of supra-human evil present in the world today. It's hard-pressed, Time says, to think that all of this evil can come just from people being nasty to other people. The evil is so unbelievable that it's hard not to believe that there's some evil force driving it beyond just people.
Well, you know what? God's been trying to tell us that for centuries, that there is a supra-human evil force operating in our world today. And I want to take a few moments to summarize for you what the Bible has to say about this. The Bible declares that there is a supernatural being named Satan. The word Satan in Hebrew means adversary, and that this being is primarily the adversary of Almighty God. In fact, the mission statement of Satan is summed up in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, where it says that his goal is to oppose and exalt himself against everything that has to do with God. Now, in this regard, Satan is also the adversary of every Christian, because if we claim to love God and worship God and serve God and honor God, the God he hates so much, then Satan becomes your adversary and my adversary as a Christian too. Now, Satan is a finite being, my friends.
He can only be at one place at one time. But the way he extends his influence worldwide, the Bible says, is that he also has with him a host of henchmen called demons, and together the devil and his demons have a two-fold goal in our world. Goal number one is to get every human being alive to stay unconnected with God, out of relationship with God, and end up in a place the Bible calls hell.
That is their number one goal. You know, when I used to hear the word sin, or sinner, before I was a Christian, you know what I thought of? I thought of people like Jeffrey Dahmer. I thought of people like Charles Manson.
I thought of people who did horrible things like kill people and murder people and rape people and kidnap people. That, to me, was sin. But you know, when you look in the Bible, you find that the essence of sin in the Bible has nothing to do with all these horrible acts. Listen to what the Bible says lies at the core of sin. Isaiah 53, verse 6, All of us like sheep have gone astray.
Each one of us, listen, each one of us has turned to his or her own way. See, as far as God's concerned, my friends, the essence of sin is making up your mind as a human being that you're going to go your own way. That's what happened in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve. The tree was incidental. The issue was they made up their mind they were going to go their own way, not God's way.
And people have been doing it ever since. And Satan knows if he can keep people doing that their whole life, two things happen to them. One, they never get a relationship with God, because God doesn't connect in relationship with people who are determined to go their own way. And number two, if he can get us to go out of this life unconnected with God, we go to a place where we're separated from God for all eternity, a place called hell. That is his number one goal, is to bring every human being in the world to hell. To be with him.
He wants company. And there's a battle going on for the soul of every human being alive on this planet. If you're here today and you've never trusted Jesus Christ in a personal way, there is a battle going on today for your soul between Satan and his forces and Almighty God. And the reason that we're here as a church is to help you make the decisions that will cause Satan to lose that battle, will cause God to win that battle for your soul, will enable you to make a U-turn in your life and to be united and connected with God and to make heaven your eternal home, not hell. That's what we're doing here.
That's what we're all about. Now, if you make that decision and you become a Christian and you trust what Jesus did for you on the cross and Satan loses the battle for your soul, then there's a secondary goal that he and all of his henchmen have. And their secondary goal is, once you become a Christian, to do everything in their power to nullify your effectiveness as a Christian for Jesus Christ. To get you to fall into sin. To get you to live inconsistently. To get you to act hypocritically. To get you to disgrace Jesus Christ and everything that has to do with God by the way you live. To completely nullify your effectiveness and use you as a tool to get other people to say all that Christianity stuff is just a bunch of nonsense. Look at the way that person lives. And they claim to be a Christian.
That's their secondary goal. And it's important that we as Christians understand that Satan and his henchmen are absolutely ruthless when it comes to pursuing these two goals. 1 Peter 5 verse 8 says that we should be alert for our enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Now this language is incredibly strong. Enemy, lion, prowl, devour.
This is strong language. But God uses it because he wants us to understand that this is not a game that Satan is playing for keeps. That he has no mercy, no compassion, no forbearance, no pity, no grace. When he's got you down he'll step on your face. When he's got the knife in your back he'll turn in as many times as he can and he'll get a thrill out of doing it.
Now we as human beings are not used to dealing with a creature like this. I mean even the worst human beings somewhere almost in every case there's a little bit of mercy, a little bit of compassion, a little bit of pity for somebody or something in there somewhere. I used to work with inmates here in Northern Virginia and Maryland when I was a young Christian going to the jails and I would teach Bible studies. And what I found is no matter how bad a crime had been committed by a man or a woman still they loved their mother. When their mother would come see them they had nice things to say about their mother.
They had a little warm spot for their mother somewhere down in there. No matter how awful their crimes had been we're used to dealing with human beings who somewhere have a little warm spot for someone. Satan doesn't. He doesn't love anybody. He doesn't love anything. And his unapologetic goal is to destroy you, to destroy your friends, to destroy your children, to destroy your grandchildren, to destroy everybody you love and to do it without mercy and to love doing it.
That is his goal and we need to understand that, who we're dealing with. You say, but Lon, where did such a beast come from? Why would God make somebody like this? Well the Bible tells us that God did not make Satan like this. The Bible tells us Isaiah chapter 14 that he was actually Satan was an angel when it all started off. A good angel. His name was Lucifer.
And Ezekiel 28 tells us that he was the most splendiferous angel in all of heaven. But that all the PR went to his head. He began believing his own press releases. He decided that he was tired of serving God. He was tired of being second banana. He wanted to be top banana. He decided to lead a coup in heaven against God. As Milton has him say in Paradise Lost, better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. And so the Bible says he enlisted other angels in this coup.
Well of course he didn't win. God won, threw him out of heaven and the Bible says Revelation 21 verse 10 that God created the lake of fire, a place of eternal torment, where the devil and all of his angels that went with him are going to be tormented forever and ever. They're going to be thrown in there at the end of the age. You say well that's good news.
Yeah it is, but I got some bad news. The bad news is that in the meantime, between now and the end of the age, Satan is not in the lake of fire. For reasons the Bible never explains, he's free and circulating here on the earth along with all of his buddies and causing trouble here in the meantime.
And you say well Lon, yeah that's the problem isn't it? We don't live at the end of the age right now. We live in the meantime where this guy's alive and doing things. So how do we protect ourselves against him?
How do we insulate our lives? Well I've got some principles I want to give you in closing, but let me first say that is the fastest course in demonology you will ever get. I gave you in six minutes what I had to take a whole seminary of school to learn, so now you don't need to go to school, you got it all. And wouldn't it have been great if we could, I mean why didn't my professor give it to us in six minutes and we could all go on home the rest of the semester? Well I think that's a good idea, but they didn't anyway. Alright here we go, back to these principles.
In fact I thought that was funny, but it's obviously that you all didn't. So anyway back to this. So we're back, five principles right? Five principles to how to protect ourselves in the meantime when we're trying to live in demon infested waters.
Alright you ready? You might want to write them down. Principle number one, don't panic. What I mean by that is after everything I've said about the enemy, it would be easy for us to feel very intimidated, very unnerved, very helpless, but the Bible reassures us over and over again that even though Satan's power is great, God's power is greater. 1 John 4, 4, greater is he who's in us as Christians, the Spirit of God, than he who's in the world. And it's interesting when you look in the Bible at every single encounter that Jesus had with demons, every one of them is the exact same thing. Demons don't come out and stand out and go, alright, come on, put them up, worldwide wrestling, here we go, you may beat me, but I'm going to put up a fight.
Never. If you look every time he meets demons, they are completely, completely intimidated. They acknowledge Jesus has dominion, they acknowledge Jesus has authority, they acknowledge he dominates them, and all they do is beg for the mercy that they don't show for anybody else. That's why the Bible tells us that we should resist the devil and he will flee from us because greater is the power in us than the power that's in him. And Job chapter 1 and chapter 2 tells us, if you read it, that God has actually set up a fence, a boundary, a hedge around the life of every Christian, and Satan is not allowed inside that boundary without direct permission of Almighty God. What that means is, friends, that Satan does not have free and unrestricted access to your life.
We are not at the mercy of Satan to do to us whatever he wants, but God sets the limits on what he can do. So principle number 1, don't despair, greater is he who is in you than is in the world. Principle number 2, learn to use God's weaponry in resisting Satan. I want you to turn with me to Ephesians chapter 6 in the New Testament. The letter that Paul wrote the Church of Ephesus, it's page 830 if you're using our copy of the Bible. Ephesians chapter 6, I wonder if you'd turn there with me, page 830. And the reason this point is so important is because of what we're told here in Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6, look with me at verse 12. Verse 12, Ephesians chapter 6. It says, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood.
The battle we're in is not a battle against all the human beings. It is a battle, verse 12, against rulers, authorities, powers, and spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. And since that's the foe we have, since we have a supernatural foe, we need supernatural weapons to fight him with.
Now it goes on to tell us in the end of the chapter what those weapons are. Most of them are defensive, but there are two offensive weapons that God gives us. Verse 17 says, verse 17, take the helmet of salvation, that's a defensive weapon, and the sword, whoa, there's an offensive weapon, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The first offensive weapon that God's given us is the Bible, the Word of God. Do you remember when Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness by the devil? And do you remember what he said in response to those temptations? He said to the devil, no, it is written, it is written, it is written.
He quoted scripture to him. James, remember we said, we've quoted James 4-7, resist the devil and he will flee from you. A lot of us try to resist the devil in our own energy and strength.
No, no, no, I will not, I will not, I will not eat that, no, no, I will not, I will not. And we lose, I lose that battle. That's not how you fight supernatural forces with human gut and willpower. You don't fight like that. You fight with the Word of God.
It is written, it is written, it is written. And it's interesting that two of those quotes are from Deuteronomy 6 and one is from Deuteronomy 8. Jesus obviously was meditating on the book of Deuteronomy as he was out there in the wilderness and that's why he had those scripture verses on the tips of his fingers ready to use them to defend himself. Friends, why do you think that we stress scripture memory, scripture study, being in the Word of God? Because one of the reasons is we know this is the greatest weapon God has given us to defend ourselves against the temptations of the enemy, to meet them not with human guts and willpower, but to meet them with it is written.
I'm not doing that because it is written. The other one is, verse 18, and pray in the Spirit. Prayer is the other offensive weapon that God has given us. Prayer is like kryptonite to the devil.
There's not a thing he can do about it and it strips him of his power. I remember this sweet elderly lady that years ago told me that she believed that the devil was getting her up in the middle of the night and not letting her sleep and giving her insomnia. I said, well, what do you do? She said, well, I pray. She said, because I figured that the devil would much rather have me sleep than pray. She said, and it works. Well, I don't know if it was the devil getting her up, and I don't know if he gets you up, but I'll tell you what.
If it is him, she's right. He'd much rather have you sleep than pray. In fact, he'd rather have you do anything than pray. And yet if we're going to move through this life and resist the devil the way we want and the way we need to, the weapons we have to use have to be supernatural weapons, and they are being men and women of the Word of God and men and women of prayer. That's how you protect your life.
Principle number three. As a Christian, do not become fixed, do not become focused, do not become obsessed with becoming an expert in the devil. I've met Christians who want to read everything the Bible says, and there isn't actually that much, and then want to read all these books about the occult and the devil, and they want to get a PhD in the devil. Friends, that is not at all the emphasis of the Bible. The emphasis of the Bible is Hebrews 12, too. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.
It does not say let us fix our eyes on Satan, the opposer and the enemy of our faith. And you know, someone was telling me that in trying to spot counterfeit money to the Treasury Department, that the agents that they train to spot counterfeit money, you'd think the way they train them to spot fraud money is that they'd give them example after example after example after example of counterfeit bills and have them study them and learn them. That's not how they do it at all. How they do it is they have them study real money so that they become such experts in the truth that error stands out all by itself.
You can spot error in a minute. And this is exactly what God tells us. God says, I don't want you having a PhD in Satan. I don't want you being an expert in the enemy. I want you being an expert in the Bible.
I want you to have a PhD in the character and the nature of God and who Jesus is. If you put truth well enough, folks, error will stand out all by itself. You don't need to study error. Principle number four, don't dabble in the diabolical. Even though everything I've said about God's power to protect us is true, still it deserves to be said that we dare not underestimate the harmful and maniacal power of Satan. And as I've already read, it says in James 4, resist the devil. Stay away from this stuff.
We've got no business dabbling in this stuff. Turn right back here in Ephesians chapter four, two chapters back if you would, and look at verse 27. It says in Ephesians 4 verse 27, do not give the devil a foothold in your life. And the way we do that is when we experiment with and when we dabble in things of the occult, we are opening our lives up and we are giving the devil a foothold in our life. Ouija boards and seances and tarot cards, fortune tellers going to see psychics, calling psychics on the telephone, having crystals read or people read our palm.
And here's the most modern thing, playing dungeons and dragons and all that nonsense. Friends, I'm telling you, these things give Satan a foothold, a beachhead in your life. And Satan is just like the Marines. Once he gets a beachhead, he's going to try to take the whole island.
The way you beat the Marines is you don't give them the beachhead, because once they got it, they're going to take that whole island. Satan's the same way, innocent looking things. Start off seeming like they're not a big deal to deal with the occult, but they create a foothold, which soon creates a stronghold, which soon means that Satan has his claws into some area of your life, and it's going to be all hell getting them out. You say, but Lon, aren't these things just bogus? I mean, all these things you just named, you know. I mean, they're just a bunch of bogus, fraudulent stuff. Well, I think a lot of them are.
For example, I'm sure you heard the news that the psychic hotline, Psychic Friends Network, you know, with Dion Ward, went bankrupt a lot long ago. What's curious to me is that they didn't see it coming. You know what I'm saying? Does that strike anybody else as strange?
Yeah, I mean, I think some of this stuff's pretty fraudulent and pretty stupid, but hey, listen now. There are some very dangerous spiritual things going on out there related to the occult that you and I dare not minimize, folks. I remember when I was a student at the University of North Carolina, before I was a Christian, I went to a party.
I'll never forget as long as I lived. There was a Ouija board there. I'd never seen one, never played with one, never messed with one.
I began playing with this Ouija board, and I'm telling you, that thing moved all by itself. I'm not crazy. I'm not stupid.
I'm not melodramatically driven. You know, I didn't make it up. I didn't create it. I didn't conjure it up. I didn't fool myself.
That thing moved by itself. It scared the living masa out of me, I got to tell you that. Scared me so bad that in a year since, if I even walk by a Ouija board, I get chills up and down my spine. I know what that thing did, and they sell these things in Toys R Us.
To your children, they sell them in there. If you're a parent, let me tell you something. This kind of stuff is not harmless. We need to guard our children's lives like a hawk from this kind of stuff, because many times later in life, problems that come from strongholds in people's lives started when they were children and innocently got involved in this stuff, and Satan got a foothold in their life, and they were never able to get it out. You say, but, Lon, what about all this New Age stuff?
I mean, I run into people all the time who say they talk to their psychic, and their psychic correctly predicted their job would change or they'd meet their mate. I mean, how do you explain that? Well, I want to say two things in response very quickly. Number one, remember that this whole New Age thing is just a sanitized version of the occult. That's all it is. It's the occult with new paint on the exterior. That's all it is.
Watch out for this stuff. And the second thing I want to say to you is that as a Christian, I don't have to be able to explain every spiritual phenomenon that goes on in the world. God never called you and me to explain every spiritual thing that happens in our world. What God called us to do is compare those things to the Bible, and if they don't square with the Bible, to reject them, whether we can explain them or not. So don't let somebody intimidate you at work or somewhere else, and they're going, well, how do you explain this? The answer is, I don't know how to explain it, and I don't care whether I can explain it, but if it doesn't square with the Word of God, I reject it, and I stay away from it.
Now, principle number five, and we're done. If you find that Satan has gained a stronghold in your life, maybe he gained it before you were even a Christian, you opened yourself up to some things that you wish you had now, and there's a stronghold in your life, don't be afraid to come get some help. I got good news for you. Jesus said, if the Son of Man makes you free, you shall be free indeed. Jesus can free you and pull those claws of Satan out of your life if there's some stronghold there. You say, well, Lon, what's a stronghold? You keep talking about strongholds.
What do you mean? I mean some area of your life where you know it's wrong, you don't want to do it, you know you have no business doing it, but it's so powerful and so overwhelming that you feel completely helpless, and it carries you away time after time after time, and you do things that you're embarrassed about, you're ashamed of, but you can't seem to stop it. Many times that's because Satan has established a beachhead in that area of your life because you opened yourself up at some point in your life. You say, like what? Like pornography?
Like masturbation? Like lying and cursing and bitterness and rage and substance abuse and compulsive stealing? These are the kinds of things that often become strongholds in a person's life. Now they can be beaten by using the weaponry Jesus Christ has given us, and if you've got some of them in your life, don't just go on being ashamed and losing.
We can help you get to the place where you can win in that area of your life. We have a seminar called Freedom in Christ. It's not all about demons and that.
No, it isn't. It's about how to live in the power of God, but a small part of it does deal with this, and we will give you the practical help and guidance you need to pull those claws out of your life using the weapons that God has given you to do it. You can even get information and sign up today out in the lobby for that seminar.
We repeat it during the year, but don't just live in shame. Let us help you. There is help. Jesus can make you free.
Don't be afraid to come get help. Five principles of how to navigate demon-filled waters and survive. Principle number one, don't despair. Greater is he who's in you than the demons. Principle number two, use the weapons that God has given us. When we resist the devil, we've got to use the right weapons. Be a man of the Word and be a woman of prayer. Principle number three, don't focus on the enemy. Forget him. You know everything you need to know about him in the six minutes I just told you.
You don't need to know anything else. Your focus needs to be on Jesus Christ and the living God. Principle number four, don't dabble in the diabolical. There are claws out there waiting to close in on you. You've got no business being near any of this stuff.
Stay away from it. And principle number five and finally, if Satan does have a strong hold in your life, don't be afraid to come get some help. You know, I say, hey, Revelation 21, 10, even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Throw this sucker in the lake of fire and let get him as far away from us as possible. It's going to be a wonderful thing, but until that happens, these are the principles that if you'll follow them, God will use to help protect you and insulate you from being a casualty of war.
We don't want you to be a casualty of war. You don't have to be if you'll follow the principles I've given you this morning. Okay, let's pray together, shall we? Heavenly Father, thanks for talking to us today about this subject, a subject that many of the people in our world think is stupid, prehistoric, unsophisticated, uneducated, but God, we know that's exactly what Satan wants them to think because that gives him greater opportunity to expand his agenda in the world unopposed. I want to pray that you would remind us what you say and help us to believe that you know a lot more about what's going on in the universe than we do and that we need to take your word for what's going on, that there is an enemy and that we as Christians need to be sober, as the Bible says, we need to be vigilant and we need to be careful as we navigate demon-infested waters. And thanks for giving us these principles. Use them, I pray, to protect us and the people we love from being casualties of the enemy and change our life by what we've learned here today, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.
