You have to run to God when you're in the midst of the evil day because you're now engaged in spiritual warfare. And when that happens, Dr. Tony Evans says earthly help is no help at all.
And if it's hell out to get you, you don't need more people, you need more heaven. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Some of the situations we face in life seem insurmountable, and for good reason, they are without God. Today, we'll take a look at how petitioning the Lord is the only way we can overcome the evil one once He set His sights on us. Let's look at Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10 through 18 as we join Dr. Evans in this classic message on prayer and spiritual warfare. Paul is writing, and he concludes his treaties to the church at Ephesus to talk to them about the battleground of life. We call it spiritual warfare.
But he's not just talking about any kind of battle. He describes this one specifically by calling it the evil day. The evil day. The evil day is when all hell breaks loose on you. The evil day is when you are overwhelmed.
Yes, life has its normal ups and downs, but that's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about when you are under major attack, when your world is being shattered, your dreams are being destroyed, your hopes are being dimmed. He calls that the evil day. The day when hell is after you and your name has come up. He says when that day comes, you're going to need the strength of the Lord, verse 10.
Normal stuff is not going to work, and playing church, sure enough, won't work. He says on that day, you're going to need the supernatural. And so he goes into these verses leading up to the subject of prayer to tell us how to approach this time in your life, in my life. Now I want to make sure that I'm not wasting my time on this sermon. So does anybody here know what I'm talking about when I talk about an evil day? An evil day when you're under massive spiritual assault. So Paul wants you to know if you want to address in the time of your attack the visible and physical, you need to do it from the perspective of the invisible and spiritual.
He gives you the term that he uses throughout the book of Ephesians of heavenly places. He says the first thing I want you to understand is that you wrestle not against flesh and blood. In other words, people aren't the source of your problem. They may be the conduit for your problem, but they're not the source of your problem. For we Christians wrestle not against flesh and blood, but principalities and powers and world forces that are located in heavenly places or the spiritual realm. So if you address the resource without addressing the source, all you've done is created a delay for it to come back up again. Because you've not gotten to the root of the problem.
We're just addressing the fruit of the problem. He first of all wants to set the stage by saying, on the evil day when you're in this season of attack, I want you to stand firm, which means to hold your ground in the Lord. He says be strong in the Lord, to hold your spiritual ground. It is easy to be swayed and moved off of center when you're suffering. It is easy to be swayed and moved off of the source of your hope when you're going through it and you see no exit sign.
It is easy to be moved. But he says during those times, when you are under assault and your world is being stripped from right underneath you, he calls it the evil day. He says during that time I want you to grab more tightly your faith, don't loosen it up. Stand firm.
Now let me explain why this is so important. The evil day is principalities, powers, and world forces. This means you are under attack. This means that this attack is coming from the devil and demons. It is unfortunate that far too many Christians have lost sight of demons. Demons are angels that went rogue.
Demons are the spiritual mafia that attacks us in the spiritual that brings about our pain in the physical. And the Bible has an answer to demons. The answer to demons are angels.
So here's how this works. The Bible declares every Christian has been assigned an angel. And the job of the angel is to look after the well-being of the believer. So every Christian has an angel that is assigned to you by God. One of the jobs of your angel is to throw a wart the demonic attack that is coming against you because angels know how to fight angels. And so when the demonic angel comes to bring pain and anguish and defeat in your world and in your life, you have an angel. The Bible says when we pray, we engage God, the Holy Spirit, who activates the angel assigned to you to deal with the demonic oppression that is coming against you.
But he tells you something else and it's the key. He says pray in the Spirit. Verse 18. Don't just pray, meaning don't just have conversation, but he says I want you to pray in the Spirit.
Questions, what does that mean? The Bible talks about the role of the Spirit is to deliver the mind of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 9 and 10, but just as it is written, things which I have not seen and ereth not heard and which has not been entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him. For to us God revealed them.
He's not talking about heaven, he's talking about earth. To us God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
The reason why you must pray in the Spirit is because the Spirit will do a Google search for you. And because the Spirit has all information available to him, he can give you things I have not seen. He can deliver things ere have not heard. He can show you stuff that's never even entered into the heart or the imagination of man. See, when you're in the evil day, that means folk can't help you. When you're in the evil day, they have limitations that they can do for you. And you need something that I have not seen, ere have not heard, and the imagination is not conceived of.
You need the supernatural to enter into the natural. And guess what the Holy Spirit does? He Googles, because God knows more than anybody you know. He Googles, God, we have this problem. They don't know anybody who can help them.
No long-term help. God, what's in our system that man does not have that you can make available to them? You better be able to pray in the Spirit. Now, being in the Spirit is opposed in Scripture to being in the flesh. To be in the Spirit, let me start with the participle in. He wants you to be in the Spirit. He doesn't want you visiting the Spirit.
To be in is an environmental term. That means it's how you're rolling. You're not just, see, you are in church. Right now, you're in the building called church. But you're going to leave church, so you will no longer be in church. So you're in church right now, because you're in this environment. But at the benediction, you're going to leave church, so you're no longer going to be in it. You will leave it, the physical location of church.
So this is a temporary experience. So you're actually visiting church, and you're in it for a limited period of time. But verse 18 says, all, all, all, all, all. So he does not want you visiting and exiting. He wants you operating in the realm of the Spirit. What is the realm of the Spirit? The realm of the Spirit is a spiritual mindset. In Romans chapter 8, verses 1 to 13, read it when you get home, he gives this extended discussion about the Spirit, and he says, when you have the Spirit, you have the mind of the Spirit. So this has to do with how you're thinking.
The mind is your thought. He wants you to think spiritually, not secularly. He wants you to think biblically, not worldly.
He wants you to think the mind of Christ, not the mind of man. What far too many Christians do is they switch from AM to FM. All of us in our cars have AM and FM, and those are two totally different frequencies. You push AM, you're going to hear one frequency.
You push FM, you're going to hear another frequency. Far too many of us as believers switch frequencies. In church, we're Holy Ghost frequent.
After church, we're world frequent. And we keep switching frequencies and wonder why we don't experience the power of prayer. God says, don't you switch me off, because when you switch me off, you won't get what Google's trying to pull up. That's why he says, be on the alert.
Why does he tell you to be on the alert? Because you don't want to miss it when it shows up. You don't want to miss God when he's moving. You don't want to miss God when he wants to show you something you've never thought of before, never heard before. You don't want to miss God when he wants to bring somebody in your life who you didn't expect who has an answer that you were looking for. So you better stay in contact with me so that I can reveal through your praying and activating this dress code so you're not walking around spiritually nude.
Because you put on Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is ruling so you're operating in the spirit, not in the flesh. Dr. Evans went on to share a story about how not to treat prayer. And we'll get to hear that when we return to more of this lesson in just a moment. Don't go away. Before we get back to our message, I want to let you know about a unique package we put together as a way of saying thank you when you make a donation to the alternative broadcast. It includes all 12 full-length messages from our teaching series on Igniting Kingdom Prayer, along with a powerful companion book, Kingdom Prayer, Touching Heaven to Change Earth. This special collection will take your prayer life to the next level so you can experience more of the intimate connection and two-way communication it's intended to provide. To find out more and to get this Kingdom Prayer package headed your way, just visit tonyevans.org or reach out to our resource center for some in-person help at 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that contact information for you after the second part of today's lesson.
Let's rejoin Dr. Evans now. You know, I drive on fumes. I wait till the last minute to get gas. Anybody like that here, you drive on, you wait. I mean, I wait till that thing pass red, that red line, it's got to go past the red line. Then I know I need gas.
But up until then, I'm going to drive that thing all the way. Far too many of us live on fumes, spiritually. Prayer is an afterthought or an emergency thought.
It's not a lifestyle of how we roll. So I want to show you again Galatians 5. Galatians 5 says this about the Spirit. Verse 16, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh, for the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.
He says there is a battle, and it's a battle between the Spirit and the flesh. Let me define the flesh. The flesh is the desire to please self independently of God. The flesh is the desire to please yourself as opposed to pleasing God. We all battle with the flesh, the desire, this is what I want. And God, I know you want this over here, but I don't want what you want, I want what I want. That is the craving of the flesh.
Now let me clarify something. Being in the Spirit is not necessarily an emotional experience. In other words, you don't always feel it. Just because you shout it, don't mean you in the Spirit. Just because you wave your hand in the air like you just don't care, don't mean you in the Spirit. Now you may be, but an emotional high does not automatically equal being in the Spirit. It means you're experiencing an emotional high. You get that at football games, baseball games, basketball games, concerts, you get emotional highs. Nothing wrong with an emotional high, but if that emotional high is not connected with the mind of Christ, it is purely emotionalism.
It is not spirituality. He says walk in the Spirit, so let's follow that. You're walking.
What are you doing? You're moving. You're moving.
So to be in the Spirit is not a passive thing. You are operating on what God says. You're acting like God is telling the truth.
You are moving. The euphemism of walking in the Bible means to live according to. So this is how you roll, because you're moving with the mind of Christ.
You're not just doing that on Sunday morning when it's church time. When you go to work, you're working with the mind of Christ. When you're being a husband or wife, you're doing that with the mind of Christ. When you are dealing with friends, you're doing that with the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ puts you in the realm of the Spirit, and when you're operating, when you're operating that way, he says it will overrule the flesh. Now, many times people will say, I'm praying, but nothing is happening.
Well, let me explain. If you catch a fish, you pull the fish out the water, this is what that fish is going to be doing. Its mouth is going to be opening and closing, and its gills are going to be flexing. You know what that fish is trying to do?
Survive. But that fish is going to die. And the reason that fish is going to die is he's trying to do it in the wrong environment. He's doing the right thing in the wrong environment. And when you're doing the right thing, but you're doing it in the wrong environment, the right thing won't work. Or if we as humans went into the water and tried to breathe and started to inhale and exhale, you're doing the right thing, but you're doing it in the wrong environment. Many Christians pray they're doing the right thing, but they're doing it in the flesh. They're doing it in the wrong environment. And if you're doing the right thing in the wrong environment, the right thing won't work.
So just because you say your prayers in the morning, say grace at dinner, and say your bedtime prayer, that's the right thing. But the question is, have you been walking in the right environment? Because if you're not walking in the right environment, doing the right thing won't work.
And in fact, it can help kill you quicker. So he says, all, all, all, all, I want you to be consumed with being in my presence. Walking in the flesh, he says, will put you in a spiritual graveyard.
And here's how you know, because you're no longer having to force things. When you're in the Spirit, but the Bible calls the Spirit a wind, a wind, it blows. You know, you're at the airport, and you're walking to your gate, but then right next to you is a moving sidewalk. So when you're walking to your gate, but you're not on the moving sidewalk, it's all your human effort.
It's all your energy, your legs, your arms. But when you step on the moving sidewalk, you can still walk. You still walk, but you are gliding as you walk.
It ain't the same effort. Because you got something underneath you, pulling you along. The Bible says the Holy Spirit guides us, he pulls us. Now you can walk, you should walk, but you're walking on some power. You're walking on some undergirding. You're walking on some strength, because you're walking with the mind of the Spirit, consistent with the revelation and Word of God, so that he can override. And so you begin to flow in it, even though you still have to walk, and even though you may have a ways to go. He says, pray always in the Spirit, spiritually, because he's my only out.
He's my only out. And so we cry out to God and trust God. But you have your evil day, or you will. And if we make prayer a lifestyle, walking in the Spirit a lifestyle and not a visit, don't treat the Spirit like you treat church, don't just come for a visit. No, he says, you roll with me, and you stay in contact with me all day, every day, short, long, fast, slow. When we contact God, if the timing is wrong, he'll say slow. If the request is wrong, he'll say no.
If we are wrong, he'll say grow. But if the request is right, the time is right, and we are right, sooner or later, he'll say go. So I want this to be known as a house of prayer. Praise God for great music, praise God for preaching, all of that's critical to worship. But if we don't make contact with heaven, all we did was come to an event, a religious event. But if we as a church will cry out to God, and when God meets you in your evil day, however that happens, sometimes he takes you through it, sometimes he delivers you out of it, and sometimes he just gives you the strength to deal with it.
He does it in all kind of ways, but however he decides to do it, you'll know he's right there in the midst. He changes your perspective in the midst of your evil day. And you know, you can go a long way with a change of perspective. Dr. Tony Evans, wrapping up a powerful lesson from the archives on prayer and spiritual warfare. Now if you're ready for that change of perspective we just heard about, but you don't yet have a personal relationship with the Lord.
There's no better time than right now to start. Visit tonyevans.org and click on the link that says Jesus. There Tony has a short video that explains everything you need to know about what it means to be a Christian, and how to start a brand new lifelong journey with the Lord. That's tonyevans.org. Now today's message was just one of 12 lessons in the two volume series on Igniting Kingdom Prayer.
And as I mentioned earlier, they can all be yours as our thank you gift on CD or instantly downloadable MP3s, when you make a donation to help keep the alternative broadcast on this station. And as a special bonus, but only for a few more days now, we'll also include a copy of the companion book, Kingdom Prayer, Touching Heaven to Change Earth. Just visit tonyevans.org to make the arrangements, or if it's more convenient, call our 24 hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222, and let one of our team members assist with your request. Once again, that's 1-800-800-3222, or online at tonyevans.org. Now before I tell you about what's in store for tomorrow, I wanted to quickly mention that as of today, your kids can watch a brand new episode of Stories from the Storyteller. This popular animated series follows the Evans family as their everyday experiences are turned into opportunities to learn important truths from the Bible. In Camp Ready or Not, the Evans kids learn about the return of Christ and how we need to have a genuine relationship with Jesus so we can be ready at all times. You can find out more at tonyevanstv.com.
That's tonyevanstv.com. You know, we all face hard times in life, but when we're stopped in our tracks by a real crisis, it's easy to feel helpless and lose hope. Tomorrow, we'll dive into some solid biblical advice on how to cope in a crisis. I hope you'll join us.
