Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the critical nature of the spiritual battle every believer faces, urging the congregation to recognize their responsibility in fighting against the enemy's attempts to reclaim what has been devoted to God. He highlights the importance of being active in this battle rather than passive, as the enemy seeks to destroy families and churches by sowing discord and temptation. Beach draws from Luke 22, where Jesus warns Peter of Satan's desire to sift him, stressing that leaders bear a significant responsibility for those they influence. He calls for a commitment to God's will, reminding listeners that true devotion to God requires vigilance and action against the forces of darkness. Ultimately, the sermon encourages believers to align their hearts and wills with God's purpose, relying on the Holy Spirit for strength and guidance.

Father, thank you so much for the Holy Spirit, and thank you Lord for the wonderful grace that is available to us Lord, and thank you Lord for the unchanging truth that you are, that you are in your person, that you are Lord, that we can always find consistency in you Lord, and matter of fact anywhere else we look we will not find consistency, we will not find reliability, we will not find that which does not change, and so thank you Lord that today you are calling us to turn our eyes and our hearts to you and your word, so that we have that which is reliable and consistent. We pray God that your word will speak to us, and that your word will put to flight the enemy, and that your word will give us wisdom today, and that we will be encouraged and strengthened by your word oh God, I pray in the name of Jesus, Amen. Today the Lord has put on my heart a number of things, and I'm going to look to him for the help to communicate them. We are all in a very, very real and very life and death battle, and often times we forget about the life and death battle that we are in, and today we are going to look into the word of God, in order to understand the nature of this life and death battle. This is going to be part two, from a carry over from last week's message regarding the will of God. You can open your Bibles to Luke chapter 22, if you would please, and we are going to look at several scriptures, and understand a little bit of the nature of this battle that we are in. Every single one of us right now are in a battle, a spiritual battle, and it is very important for us to recognize this battle, recognize what it's all about, and then be equipped by God to fight in this battle. Let me say this from the very beginning, God does not call us to passivity. There is a passivity that is in the world, that is slipping into Christendom, that is deadly. And I'm praying that God will shake us and deliver us from passivity, in any and every area of our life today. We must recognize that we are in a war, and that we are equipped by God to fight in this war, and that we are going to be held responsible by God. The enemy is not going to give up the fight that he's engaged in, and he is going to find great spoil in the hearts and lives and families, where the responsibility to fight with spiritual weapons has been given up. The enemy will come in and destroy. Alright? So, let's begin to look into the Word of God. In Luke chapter 22, beginning in verse number 31, the context is Jesus had just begun to eat the Passover with his disciples, right before he was handed over to the evil rulers and crucified. This is something that Jesus said he longed to do with his disciples, because in doing so, he was engaging in the last Passover, before it was fulfilled by himself. He was the Passover and is the Passover, and this is why he longed to do it, because it was the last Passover that the disciples would eat, as a sign of what Christ would do. And now let's begin in verse number 31. Colette briefly read this, and we're going to look into it a lot more deeply now. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold. Now, whenever the Lord mentions something twice, in John chapter 3, he says, Verily, verily, I say unto you. Here, Steve, he says, Simon, Simon. And so when he says something twice, it's because he wants us to listen. There is emphasis here. And so God is in our midst, by the Holy Spirit, and he is saying, Simon, Simon, he's saying to every single person here, your name twice, for emphasis. Pay attention. This is what the Lord is saying. Pay attention to this all-important statement. Simon, Simon. Behold. Listen. Look. Satan has desired you. Now, listen carefully. Jesus addresses Simon twice. Then he says, Satan has desired you. Now, the Greek language is plural there. And so he wasn't only referring to Simon. But he picked Simon out because Simon was the recognized leader of the bunch. Every single father here, listen. Every single husband here, listen. Listen. Your name is being mentioned. God is saying to you, individually. You remember in the book of Revelation, seven times, seven times, God speaks to the angel of the church. Now, there's many interpretations which we're not going to get into. But if you take it for the face value of what it is, the angel is singular. It is a messenger. Unto the angel of the church. Unto the angel of the church. God holds people responsible for other people. Fathers are held responsible for children. Husbands are held responsible for wives. Pastors are held responsible for congregations and churches. Peter, Simon, you are recognized as a leader. I'm going to speak to you. Satan has desire to sift you all. He has desire to sift you. And he has desire to sift those that you're influencing. Those that you are leading. Those that you have spiritual oversight of. Did you know that we are our brother's keeper? Did you know that? Did you know that you have responsibility for somebody? Somebody. One day when we stand before the Lord, you are going to be held responsible for somebody. Somebody. Now, Simon, Simon. God addresses those who are leading. Every aspect of divine order is going to be held accountable before God. And the account will be given on what did we do with the stewardship. What did we do with the responsibility that God gave us in the sphere of authority and the sphere of divine order that we're walking in. What did we do with it? Mothers are accountable before God regarding their children. Husbands are accountable before God regarding their wives. Wives are accountable to God in relation to their husbands. Now, specifically, we're looking at the words of Jesus regarding the desire of Satan. Now, when the Bible says, actually, let's just move on. Let's just first finish this before we begin to dissect this and pick it apart. Remember, accountability before God. I am praying that we will be stricken with a sense as never before of the divine accountability that is resting upon us as brothers and sisters in Christ and in this specific sphere of living that we are engaged in. We must be reawakened to the accountability that we all will face before God one day. Paul said that we shall all stand before the behemoth seat of Christ, the judgment seat of Christ, and shall give an account of what we have done, whether it's good or whether it's bad. That means, not only are we going to give an account of what we did, but we're going to give an account of our stewardship of what we were entrusted with. Every single father will stand before God one day and God will say, give me an account. Give me an explanation of how you modeled me before your wife. How you modeled me before your children. Did you teach your children my statutes? Did you teach them my ways? How did you model yourself before them? Every brother will be held accountable before God in relation to how he conducted himself with other brothers, those that God has brought into your life. Brothers and sisters, we have to learn that God is going to hold us accountable. And the enemy, the enemy prays upon the ignorance of this truth and gets in and works havoc. He prays upon the ignorance of this truth. So, Simon, Simon, God addresses the leader. Peter was the leader. He was the spokesperson. Satan has desire to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee. Now, the Greek here is not plural. So Peter, first of all, Jesus addresses Peter and tells him Satan desires to sift everyone. But then he personalizes it and says, but I have prayed for you, singular Peter. I prayed for you, singular Peter. That your faith would not fail. And when you are converted or when you are turned around, strengthen your brethren. Now, let's look at this strategy of Satan and let us ask the Holy Spirit of God to open up our heart, to open up our mind and to see what is happening so that we can respond to the call of God's Spirit and be equipped with what we need in order to fight this battle. Because we are on the winning side, brothers and sisters. We're on the winning side, but in order to participate in the victory of the victor, we must be equipped. And that's what the Lord wants to do this morning. Satan has desired. Now, this word desire is the only place it's used in the New Testament. And it is a lot more intense than simply a desire, a casual desire. A study of the etymology of this word suggests that this word actually means Satan was demanding. Listen carefully. Satan was demanding from God to take back what was his own at one time. Simon, Simon, every leader, every person of responsibility, whether it's a pastor who has responsibility over an entire group of people, whether it's a husband who has responsibility over his family, a wife, brothers and sisters, you're responsible for the friends in your life. Here's what God is saying. Everyone who bears responsibility be alerted and be alarmed because Satan as a roaring lion has come to me and has demanded that he take back what he lost to reclaim it for himself. One of the chief responsibilities of bearing responsibility in the house of God and in a family is that the leader claims that God, that God has the rights in the family. The husband stands up and says God has the rights in this family. The preacher, the elders, the pastors stand in the midst of the assembly and they declare the rights of God in the assembly. They declare the headship of Christ. They preach and teach the word of God requiring that we give him the place of lordship, the place of Peter, Peter, the place of responsibility, of spiritual responsibility is that what we do as spiritually responsible people is we devote ourselves and those that we have spiritual responsibility over to the Lord. We devote them to the Lord. Every one of our children and I can say this pretty clearly here, every one of our children at birth were devoted to the Lord, weren't they? That's what the father and the mother does. That's what the pastor and the church does. Everything about our lives is devoted to the Lord. Every one of our children is devoted to the Lord. As was Samuel at his birth. And the nature of the spiritual warfare, brothers and sisters, that we are engaged in and that is going to be intensified more and more as the day of the Lord approaches and as the Lord is making ready a bride to be caught up to meet Him, more and more this spiritual battle that is going to intensify in the church and in the families of the church is Satan is going to begin to growl louder and louder and he's going to demand that he take back what once was his but has been devoted to the Lord. This is the nature of the war that we are in as a people. This is the nature of the war that the church is in as a body at large. Satan is coming in at all directions and his intent is to defile and contaminate the devotion, the setting apart that we engaged in by the power of God's Spirit in our own lives and in the lives of everyone that we know and that we have spiritual influence over. And this is why the enemy comes in and works havoc in families and works havoc with children and works havoc in the church. What is he doing? He's challenging. He wants back. He's the God of this world. The enemy hates it and despises every time some soul is devoted to God because the main issue, the main battle in the world is this. Who are you and I going to worship? It is in God's heart. It has been in God's heart from the very beginning to create man, angels who will obey Him, who will honor His will. And the whole birth of sin in the heart of Lucifer was about rebellion. Lucifer said, it is not God's will that is supreme. It is my will. It is not God's will that is supreme. It is my will. And that's the nature of the battle going on right now. And so anything that comes into our lives or into our children's lives or into the church that is challenging the fundamental issue of whose will are we serving? Anything that comes into challenge that has been sent from hell. This leaven, Paul said, cometh not from Him that calleth you. Satan has desired, has demanded to take back what was once his. That he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you. Jesus Christ not only prayed for Peter but is praying for each and every one of us. And notice what the context of this prayer is. Jesus is praying for us because Satan has desired us. He wants to reclaim. Listen, I'm not talking and the word of God is not talking about some horrible apostasy where we turn our back on God and curse His name. No, that's possible. And we run the other way and we engage in Satanism. I'm not talking about that. One area of our life, one little area in our life that we keep for ourselves is a stronghold that the enemy uses and now what he's done is he's taken that which has been wholly devoted to the Lord and he's got a foothold in it and now he's got a little bit in there. He's defiling that which has been set aside by God. You remember last week we looked at spirit, soul, and body. And Paul prayed in 1 Thessalonians 5 that your whole spirit, your whole soul, and your whole body would be preserved blameless before the coming of the Lord. Everything, everything about us, the spirit which is made up of worship, intuition, and conscience, the soul, will, mind, and emotion, and the body, the senses, all of these areas of our being because of Calvary, because of the death of Christ, because of the atonement, once belonged to the devil, once was his property. The Bible says we were sold to sin. The God of this world mastered us. We sold our soul to him but because of Calvary, Christ brought us back to God. We've been redeemed. And therefore, every part of our being is to be devoted to God. Every part. And so when the enemy comes, he comes to try and regain an area of our life that has been devoted to God so that God's will is not occurring in that area, but the devil's will. And this is how he comes and corrupts and pollutes and inevitably destroys the testimony of Jesus Christ. And when we approach this subject in a state of passivity, it makes it even worse. We can't be passive about this. We have to recognize this war going on. And we have to bow before the Lord and encourage one another in this mighty battle that we're in so that we are equipped with the proper weapons of warfare so that we can resist the attempt of the enemy and not only resist it, but in the areas of our lives where the enemy has come in and has successfully taken captive certain areas of our life. We must be equipped by the power of God in prayer to take it back in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now before we go on, let's think about this. Have you seen in your life and in the lives of those that you are responsible for, have you not seen this very thing, this battle go on? Have we not seen this battle go on over our lives and over the lives of others? Perhaps some of us have even been overcome. And there's areas in our life that are not serving the will of God anymore but the will of Satan. What shall we do? What shall we do? Verse 33, And he said to the Lord, I am ready to go with you both into prison and to death. And he said, I tell you, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before you have denied me three times that you even know me. Whose will are we obeying? Whose will are we pursuing after? In Hebrews chapter 10, remember as you're turning to Hebrews chapter 10, remember Satan desired Peter because Peter was no longer serving the will of Satan. But he had been apprehended by Jesus Christ in order to be a person in whom there was delight in the will of God. It's all about the will of God or the will of Satan. It's all about the will of God as seen in the person of Jesus Christ or the will of Satan as seen in a rebellious heart. Don't ever think, brothers and sisters, there's neutral ground. You're either serving God or you're serving the devil. It's not, well, you know, we hear a lot from kids nowadays. I just want to do my own thing. No, you don't do your own thing. You either do God's thing or you do the devil's thing. It's not your own thing. You're either serving God or you're serving Satan. And so the battle right now, the battle of the ages, the battle that Peter was alerted to by the Lord Jesus Christ is the battle of whose will we're serving. Whose will are we serving? Whose will is our family serving? Whose will are we aligning ourselves to day by day, week by week, month by month? Whose will? Hebrews chapter 10, verse 4, For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he says, Sacrifice and offering you did not will, but a body you have prepared me. And burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. Then said I, this is Jesus talking, the reason why Jesus is so amazing, and the reason why Jesus brings such pleasure to His Father in heaven, and the reason why Jesus is so sacred and holy and blessed and worshipped in heaven and despised on earth is because Jesus came and He did nothing but the will of His Father in heaven. He loved God's will. He said that the will of God was His meat. He lived on the will of God. He was born to do the will of God. And that's why He was despised by devils and hated by evil men and crucified. Because He had a heart that loved the will of God. That sought to do the will of God and every single time there are those who are devoting themselves to the will of God and they're devoting others by prayer, by virtue of their spiritual authority to the will of God. The enemy roars like a lion and he wants to take back. He wants to take back what has been devoted to God. Because ultimately what has been devoted to God is dedicated to the will of God. Brothers and sisters, don't be alarmed at the war, at the war going on in your lives. Don't be alarmed at the acceleration of this war in 2008. Don't be alarmed at the feelings that you might experience, the sudden bursts of emotions and thoughts that would, if you embrace them, lead you down a road of discouragement and paralysis. Don't be alarmed. It is nothing but the enemy trying to come in order to undo that devotion, to undo that dedication. And if you have any kind of spiritual influence over people, the first thing the devil wants to do in your life is make your faith shipwrecked because once your faith goes shipwrecked, what happens to the ones you're influencing? They're scattered. Sometimes people say, well, that's not really true. The Lord knows. He'll take care of everyone. Sometimes we have infant understanding of spiritual things. If I had eight children and they were all nine years and under, and I just decided to leave them to themselves and say, well, the Lord will take care of them, what would happen to those children? Disaster. We know that when Colette and I sometimes leave for one hour and we get five phone calls in one hour because we have to referee feuds. We have to referee on the phone. We have to judge. We have to exert spiritual discernment. No, that is not right. No, this is how you handle it. That is absolutely unacceptable. I'll deal with that when I come home. Why can't we just hang the phone up and say, let's just pray and ask God to deal with it. Well, when we negate our responsibility in the sphere of life that God has called us to under the mistaken notion that, well, God will take care of it, but we don't offer ourselves to God because it may be that God is going to take care of it through us, then we are just as foolish. We're acting just as foolishly. So, it says here in Hebrews chapter 10, Then he said, Lo, I come in the volume of the book, verse 7, I've come to do thy will, O God. Above, when he says sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings, thou wouldst not, neither hast pleasure in them which are offered by the law. Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He takes away the first in order to establish the second. And, of course, it's talking about I've come to do thy will. Christ came to be an offering of sin so that mankind can have a clean slate and those that come to God in repentance and embrace Jesus Christ and receive the power of the Holy Spirit and the new birth, the regenerating power of grace, in them God establishes a new law, a new will. It is in them that God says, I will write my laws upon their heart and they will live their lives seeking to do my will. What an eruption, what a disturbance in the kingdom of darkness when there's a people on the earth who are not devoted to do his will, not devoted to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, not devoted to the pursuit of things, not devoted to material things, not devoted to their own personal agendas, but they are devoted to God through Jesus Christ and their life is a growing testimony of being lived by the law of love, doing the will of God, seeking to know the will of God and demonstrating that will. What a testimony. Verse number 9, And he said, Lo, I've come to do thy will. He takes away the first to establish the second. By the which will? That is the will of Christ in offering himself as an atonement for sin. By that will, we are sanctified. There's that word sanctified. What's that mean? Set apart. By the will of Christ, we have been sanctified, that is, we have been devoted to whose will? God's will. Brothers and sisters, this is where the battle is right now. The battle is God's will. People claim they follow the Lord and it's not His will they're after. People claim Christianity and it's not His will they're after. There is no other Christianity other than that which embraces the will of God in the person of Jesus Christ and the Word of God. Every high priest stands daily ministering and offering, oftentimes, the same sacrifice. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, henceforth expecting his enemies to be his footstool. And by one offering, he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. Wherefore, the Holy Ghost says, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. Watch this. I will put my laws into where? Their hearts. That's the Holy Spirit in the believer. That's the Holy Spirit imparting into the believer. Remember last week? We had the heart, the Holy Spirit and the Word of God puts the law of God in our desires. Puts the law of God in our heart. So we want the will of God. This is the covenant I'll make. I'll put my laws in their heart and in their minds while I write them. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you. You and everyone you're influencing right now has been desired, Satan wants it for him. He wants it for his will. Everyone. But Christ is praying that our faith would not fail. He's praying that our faith would not fail. What that means is that he's praying that in the midst of this battle though we may fail and falter ultimately we will be rescued from the will of the devil and the will of the flesh and the will of our own rebellious heart and we will align ourselves with the will of God. Now we're going to close by connecting this to what was taught last week so that we can understand how is the Holy Spirit listen, how is the Holy Spirit going to rescue us from this horrible, horrible desire that Satan has to sift us like wheat or to take back the devotion of our lives and the lives of our family and church from God to himself. How is he going to how is he going to rescue us from this? Okay. Remember last week Proverbs chapter 4 Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23 Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. We're not going to go into it again because last week we did you can listen to the tape if you want. But what I want to mention is we broke this scripture apart verse word by word and we discovered that the last part of this verse for out of it, out of the heart guard it and keep it for out of the heart are the issues of life and we learned the word issue issues it literally means in the Old Testament it's used as a word to describe the exits to cities the exits to cities and so we are to guard our heart we're to keep our heart we're to do it with all diligence because from within the heart there are exits exits and we learned that the heart is the center of our immaterial being the heart is the center place where the spirit and the soul are united so we are to guard diligently our heart because out of it are exits and what comes out listen carefully what comes out of those exits will determine what our will is aligned to listen carefully what comes out of those exits will determine what our will is aligned to because ultimately what comes out of the heart merges with our will comes down comes down and merges with our will and becomes the fuel the stuff that our will aligns itself to and so in the scriptures were taught that we are to embrace the word of God we are to embrace the words of Jesus we are to embrace the teachings of the apostles and we are to embrace and follow the movements and the motions and the desires of the Holy Spirit because those things are put in our heart by the Holy Spirit and as the word of God is hidden in our heart then the heart awakens to the will of God the heart awakens to the will of God through the word of God and through the spirit of God working in the heart from there is produced desire the knowledge of the will of God and as that exits the heart keep your heart because out of it are the issues the exits of life and it also says the exits of death so out of it comes a knowledge of the will of God and then as that is produced in our heart our will aligns itself to the will of God and then we are committed by the power of the Holy Spirit to will the will of God and what we ultimately will to do that we do we do what we will to do on the other hand the heart because of inbred sin which is the law of sin and death which is in the flesh produces all manner of desires we don't even have time to make a list of all the desires that inbred sin produces those desires if the heart is not guarded if the heart is not kept diligently will start to come out and as those things come out of the heart then the will will align itself to those things and the will will be devoted to fulfilling the lust of the flesh the desires of sin which are rooted in rebellion against God and so ultimately the will will fulfill the will will devote itself either to the will of God or the will of Satan which is seen in self centered human desires that come out and are given a place of acceptance in our life Jesus Christ came to deliver us from the will of flesh so that we can be people devoted to the will of God but Satan's purpose is to take our lives and to take our families and to take our churches one church many places and to to battle with all the different ways that he comes through emotions and feelings and Ephesians 6 we gotta put on the armor of God because the enemy is fighting and his purpose is to take the heart that has been devoted to the will of God because of Jesus Christ that has been set apart for him and to take the people all the people that are under the influence of hearts that have spiritual authority or spiritual oversight whether it's the family or whether it's the church whether it's friends to take the heart and the people and to take them back I want it back I want that heart back I want that spirit I want that soul I want the lives of everyone that this heart has been begging God for I want it because I want all these people to serve their own human sinful desires not the will of God so that's the battle we're in right now right now what's the answer what's the answer what's the answer anybody what's the answer Jesus we've been saying that for years Jesus what's the answer what is God saying to us as families what is he saying to us as a church what is he saying to us through his word what is he saying to us in response to this unbelievable revelation of God's word that Satan is prowling in our homes and in our families and he is laying hold of a request to God to take back what's been devoted to God what will we do what does God want us to do what does God's word say huh let's just bow our hearts in a word of prayer and we'll close the tape off and then we'll pick up for a few minutes on this let's just discuss it together Father thank you for your word and I pray God that this word will bring forth the fruit that you desire and with it Lord will bring forth an awakening in our lives as never before that we might be aware of this and that we might learn how to fight using the weapons of our warfare which are not carnal but mighty through God Lord please help us in the name of Jesus so that you can have the place of sovereign rights in our lives and we can keep believing you for those rights in the lives of everyone that we have spiritual influence with we pray in Jesus name Amen