In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of resisting Satan and not giving him any ground in our lives. He quotes James 4:7 and explains that giving ground to Satan is a serious matter because it goes against the blood of Christ that has redeemed us. The preacher also highlights the need for revival in churches, as many have given ground to Satan and are unable to live godly lives while being friends with the world. He references Colossians and other Bible verses to remind the audience that God has delivered us from the power of darkness and we have victory through Christ Jesus. The sermon concludes with a warning about the danger of not reclaiming the ground given to Satan, as it can lead to a worse state than before.

Well, it's good to be back with you again today on Eagle's Wings. I trust you had a good week witnessing for the Lord, praying, seeing how you could be used by the Lord to help others. You know, last week we got off on spiritual warfare, and I was talking to a pastor in a southern church, and he was sharing about how a certain man had been in the church while he'd been there before the pastor came, but how this one certain man had become the pastor's main focus because of all the trouble this man gave him, and actually had become his focus of concern, and all the things the man had done, and the things that the man had said to him. And as he shared these things, of course, one, I wondered about the pastor's own spirit, if he wasn't becoming bitter. But then also I thought about this, how true it is so many times we focus on a person or a thing, a circumstance, when actually the thing behind it is what we should be focusing on, the power of Satan working through that person or that thing. And we are diverted, our energies are diverted from getting to the source, the root. And so I've taken a little time last week and a little bit today, we're going through a little study in Colossians, of how God has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. We need to understand that greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Christ Jesus our Lord. We're more than conquerors through him that loved us. So let's be careful we don't get off on things of lesser importance. We ended up last week talking about deception and how we can deceive ourselves. The Bible says if any man among you seem to be religious, and of course this pastor and this deacon in the church seem to fit the case, if any man seem to be religious and bridless not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Now my friend, let me say something. If it's vain, it doesn't have much worth to it. Matter of fact, it has no worth. And you might even wonder if the man is saved. Me and our churches would give evidence of being in this category, because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. The mouth will be the tattletale on your soul. The mouth will be the tattletale of the garbage that's in your mind. And when we set ourselves up to criticize and attack, especially God's leaders, we're lining ourselves up for trouble. Now, we can deceive ourselves. Also we can be deceived by others. We need to be careful. You know, the brilliant believers were really to be praised as being more noble than others. And Paul praised them because that when they heard something, they searched the scriptures to see whether those things were so. When we get something that's supposed to be scripture, we need to search the scriptures and see if it really is so. Somebody can say something, and we need to search the scriptures to see if it is biblical. And we need to continually be open to being reprimanded, to being corrected, to being rebuked if we have something that's wrong in our lives. Our spirits should be receptive to the word and receptive to the spirits changing us. I know many have changed their ideas, their theologies. As they grew up, they were given things, but then when they got into the scriptures, they came to see that they were wrong in their thinking. And probably one of the most damnable doctrines that's been accepted by many in our land is the doctrine of salvation by works. You can't save yourself, according to the scriptures, by anything that you do from yourself. You're joining a church, being baptized, helping out in charities. Those are all fine. And if you are saved, you need to be a part of a Bible-believing church if possible where you're at. And if you're saved, you need to follow the Lord in believer's baptism. But those don't save you. The blood of Jesus Christ saves us, in whom we have redemption through his blood. Redemption, my friend, released from the power and penalty of sin is through the blood of Jesus Christ. Be careful that you're not deceived by others. Paul said, let no man deceive you with vain words, Ephesians 5.6. 2 John 7, for many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, 2 Timothy 3.13. And actually, the Bible teaches us as we go into the last age, the deceptive lies of Satan are going to be the strongest. They're going to be powerful, and many are going to accept the lie. The Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 2, I just flipped over here, talking about Satan, how with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. Be careful that you're not deceived by others. We can be deceived by Satan. One of his names is Deceiver, and he began, of course, with Adam and Eve in the garden. The woman being deceived, the scripture says, was in the transgression, 1 Timothy 2.14. 2 Corinthians 11, 13-14, for such are false apostles. Sad to say, there are many that pose themselves as preachers of the gospel, but actually they are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ, and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. A lot of pockets have been lined with these liars. And the great dragon, talking about in the future, Revelation 12-9, was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, Revelation 20-10. He may have fun for a season, but his designation is a lake of fire and brimstone. I showed you this also, that Satan's goal in deception is to gain ground for control. Many join organizations thinking that there's nothing wrong with it, but if they get tied in with an organization that is definitely occultic or satanic related, and its source is from the devil, then Satan is from the power of Satan. And they get involved with that, they have given ground to Satan in their life, and if they're in a church, they have given ground to Satan also in that church. The Bible says in Ephesians 4-27, neither give place to the devil. And the actual probably meaning of giving place would mean in this context to give an opportunity to the devil. Can I share a little story with you about a girl that I read about, heard about in a booklet? And this girl from all outward appearances, she was 18 years old, was very happy, carefree, but inwardly, she was going through something else. She had thoughts of taking her own life continually, and she felt guilt. Every time she ate a meal, she felt guilty. Maybe you're going through something in your life, and you feel guilty about it. Well, she felt guilty every time she ate, and when she did eat, she just ate more than was necessary, and this overeating brought on more guilt, and after the meal, then she would just force herself to get rid of the food, and this only compounded her guilt. So she was living under a lot of guilt, and after years of this, after years of trying to overcome this devastating cycle, and feeling totally defeated, she finally began to have serious thoughts of suicide. And it would be easy maybe for us to attribute her compulsions to demons, and saying, well, boy, Satan's got a hold on her life. Or maybe saying, well, her forefathers, her parents, her grandparents, her great-great-grandparents, whatever, were involved in demonic activity, and she's picked up on this, and they're trying to destroy her. Well, that might be true, but many times we do not understand how we've given ground to Satan in our lives to work. Now, her mother had found freedom from her past by accepting personal responsibility for becoming in the sins of her forefathers, rather than claiming that she was just a victim of her circumstances. Her mother confessed her sins of the involvement that she had had in her parents, and how she had given ground in her life, and then she thanked God for the forgiveness which he offered through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the daughter, the daughter went through this struggle before she found the freedom by reclaiming the ground which she had given to Satan. Now, let me share with you how she did that, because it might help you evaluate your own life, and where you're at, and what you might need to do to gain back ground. First, she accepted personal responsibility for her thoughts and her own actions, and then she traced back her failures to a certain time in her life, in a certain area, when she had surrendered to Satan many, many years earlier. And her problem actually had begun when she had rebelled against her mother's authority. You know, a lot of us are rebellious, and the Bible says that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. A lot of us do not understand that by rebelling against the authority of those over us, say if you're a teenager, and you're just rebelling against what your parents are wanting you to do, you're giving ground to Satan, and it's a form of witchcraft. Well, she went back, and she saw this area where she had surrendered this area of her life to Satan, and her problem actually was rebelling against her mother's authority, and it came out like this. One day, her mother had told her to finish eating her food, and she decided that she wasn't going to do that. And so, that moment she accepted that thought from Satan, she began to rebel and go downhill. And so what she did was this. Since she couldn't get away with eating the food, she just forced herself to eat all she could, and then she would go and vomit it up. And that way she could have her own way, by not eating the food, appearing to eat the food to her mom. And so what started as an act of rebellion soon became though a habit. Now maybe the Spirit of God might prod you right now to think about something you're struggling with right now that is a habit in your life, and you haven't got victory over it. And you can go back, and maybe trace it back to a point of rebellion against authority. Some authority over you. Maybe it was God's direct authority in His Word, or a parent, or a teacher, or something, or maybe the law, whatever. But anyway, this habit had taken over, and what started just as an act of rebellion became an enslaving habit. And this habit prohibited her from thanking God for a meal even, and from enjoying food as she was supposed to. It imprisoned her, brought her into a state of constant guilt. And Satan wants to do that. He wants to destroy us. He wants to destroy our conscience. And the guilt came because she was in rebellion in this area of her life. And she was the one who decided when she would eat, and when she would not eat. And God warns us, remember, that rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft. That comes from 1 Samuel 15, 23. Witchcraft actually is exposing oneself to the realm and the power of Satan's control. And what I'm talking about is gaining ground back that Satan has been given. When the teenage girl acknowledged her sin of rebellion, claimed the forgiveness of Christ, put herself back under her parents' authority, there she regained the ground that she had given to Satan. And it was then that she was delivered from this devastating habit, and also the guilt. Now, ground must be taken before Satan's power will be broken in your life. You just can't know about it, but you've got to regain that ground. When a devil-possessed man was brought to Jesus, and Jesus taught his disciples some, he taught them some important truths that we're supposed to learn from about this area. One thing, in Matthew 12, 43 through 45, these verses talk about an unclean spirit. When it went out of a man, he says he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he says, I will return into my house from whence I came out. And when he has come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. And then he goeth, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. Now, this passage is a powerful passage. It emphasizes the urgency, the necessity of not only getting rid of the evil spirits, but reclaiming the ground that has been given to them. They'll come back. Many have had some kind of experience, maybe where they were temporarily given victory over a habit, an area in their life, and they were free, but then you see them back a few weeks later, a few months later, back into their old ways. Well, many times this is the case. They haven't regained the ground. There was just a little backing off by the power of Satan. Now, we need to revoke past consent. Giving ground to Satan is sin. You need to just admit it. Many churches have given ground to Satan by allowing things to come in, and now they're realizing these things are destroying them. I heard about one young man. A church rebuked him for the music that he was listening to, and then some years later, he realizes, hey, this same church that's rebuked me for the music that I was listening to is playing the same stuff now. What do I do? Well, the church had given ground to Satan. Now, by confessing past sins, I think it's important for you and I to be specific in naming them. I don't think it works to say, God, forgive me of all my sins. We need to say, God, forgive me of my lust. God, forgive me of my anger. God, forgive me of my greed. God, forgive me of my fear. And then to focus in on where we actually, if we can, we need to go back to the beginning as far back as we can remember when we first began to do that. Go back to the beginning. Reconcile the past. Maybe sit down and write down everything you can about your sin, your failures, the things that you've done, the things that have happened to you that maybe turned you bitter or angry or whatever. But confess those sins and be specific. It's also important that we humble ourselves before God. Something about humility that just gives us the power of God to do His will. I've seen this many times. When I was willing to humble myself, God would just work in such power. You know why that is? It's because the Bible says that God resists the proud but giveth grace unto the humble. Do you know what is grace? You know, living by the grace of God, learning to fly on the eagle's wings, as I like to use the term, is a very rewarding experience to know that it is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. And just to sort of go as God leads you here and there. Things come along and you say, hey, I don't like this. This is bad. Okay, God, what are you going to do? I'm just going to yield it to you. My flesh is repulsed. I don't like this. But if you want me to have this, to go through this, to see this, to go there or that or whatever, then I'm going to ask you for your grace to do it. And we want to have this proud spirit. I'm not going to do that. I'm a Christian. But instead we humble ourself before God. You know, not only do we need to revoke our past conceding to Satan, but we need to reprove the works of darkness. We're to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Rather we are to reprove them for it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. Ephesians 5, 11 and 12. Reproving the works of darkness actually requires that we name sin as sin. Oh, so-and-so, they're not doing too good as a Christian. They have some worldly activities in their life. But if we was to come and say, oh, so-and-so, they're really slipping in the Lord. And maybe we shouldn't even be talking about them, but to say, instead of worldly activity, they have gone back to drinking. Or they've gone back to slander. Or they have gone back to this or that. Or better yet, let's just talk about ourself. I have gone back to slander. I have done this. Reproving the works of darkness then requires that we name sin as sin. It means using God's terms for sin rather than some psychological justification that we might want to throw out. I remember back when I was studying first in school, went off as a psychology major. I was going to be a psychologist. How I was taught by studying that to find a scapegoat for my problems. Find someone to blame it on. Oh, there it was. It was my great-great-grandpappy. He was a thief, so that's why I'm a thief. So he's the problem, not really me. That doesn't cut it. We've got to take the blame for our own sin. Always passing the buck's what started off in the garden. We've been trying to do that ever since. We need to take the blame for it. We need to remove any provision that you might have for sin in your life. We're to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. If you're going to be fighting a battle against Satan in your life and in this world, then you better not be feeding the fire on one hand. Saying, oh God, give me victory over lust. On the other hand, you're looking all over lust and all you can. You need to have a broken heart over it. God, oh God, I'm broke over this thing of lying. I exaggerate or I boast or whatever your sins are. I've got enough of my own. If you run out, I can probably give you some more ideas of things to confess. There's plenty of them. By the way, don't make provision for the flesh that's given ground to Satan. You automatically give it to him if you make provision to him. A man, one man had some central magazines hidden away for his own flesh and he didn't realize what Satan would do with that. How Satan would bind him in the area of lust and also he didn't know that somehow or another Satan has the power to give a thought to a teenager to go right to where the father's hidden that stuff and they'll find it. They'll find it. You've got something there. They'll find it. Be sure your sin will find you out. They'll go to a dresser drawer. They'll go look under the mattress. They'll find it and then you will be responsible for leading your children down the same way. If you watch something on TV that you wouldn't want your kids to watch and you make them go to bed, you better count on it. They're going to watch it somehow. You're going to be gone one day or one night and they're going to be destroyed by your making provision for the flesh. If we try to have our needs met by someone or something other than God, we're actually engaging in idolatry. It's a sensitive, sensitive walk with the Lord, a very simple, simple walk, but a sensitive walk to be clean and holy. We walk in the light as he is in the light. We have fellowship one with another. Now scripture is very clear that we need to keep ourselves from idolatry, from making provision for the flesh. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10, 19 through 20, what say I then that the idol is anything or that which is offered to idols is anything? Paul said, I say with things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God and I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. God doesn't want you to fellowship with devils. You're not going to have fellowship with him if you're fellowshipping with devils. By the way, speaking of idols, there was one Christian leader who had had a lot of experience in dealing with those that were under the control of Satan and this father explained how his young daughter all of a sudden just went out of control, totally out of control, threatening the life of her younger brother and the descriptions which were given to the leader of his daughter were frightening, perplexing. She had always been a very obedient girl, by the way, but she all of a sudden changed and the parents couldn't understand what was happening and so the leader asked him, do you have anything in your house that is pagan or religious, any kind of something that Satan might use and the father told him, well, a missionary had given him an old musical instrument which had been used by a heathen tribe and then the leader explained that throughout the world that evil music and demon worship go hand in hand and so the father was advised to get rid of the instrument and as soon as the father did, the girl's problem went away. We're to resist the devil and when we take these steps I've been talking about in our lives, when we take these steps, we'll be free. Submit yourselves therefore to God and resist the devil and he will flee from you. You can't invite him in and at the same time resist him. You have to shut the door and resist him. Now, giving ground to Satan is very serious, very serious because that ground has been bought by the blood of Christ. The verse here in James 4.7 that I quoted to you, the verses prior to this passage amplify the precise points of retaking the ground. You can go look at that and study it. They speak of spiritual warfare within us and of trying unsuccessfully to live a godly life while being friends with the world. It doesn't work. You can't be a friend of the world and a friend of God at the same time. Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy. No wonder we need revival in our churches. We have been given ground to Satan and I see all over the place, I move, I try to move very carefully, be very sensitive to this because those that work in revival ministry, a deep revival ministry where we see churches drastically changed and brought back on course, we come under attack. We come under a lot of attack because a lot of people do not want to change. They know that something is wrong, they are not happy, but they do not want to deal with the areas of sin in their life and in their church. And pastors, I run into these guys all over, are some of the most super sensitive guys. They need help, they are struggling, they are fixing to quit or whatever, but if you want to move in to the area that they have a problem with, watch out, they become a tiger. Now pastor, I'm for you, I love you. I was one of these tigers. I was a bitter, bitter pastor, but I didn't realize it. And if someone was to try to preach to me, boy, watch out. I've learned you can't preach to preachers, and I'm not really preaching. All you can do is share. Let God do what he wants to do. Is it worth it to hang on to your little old kingdom? Is it worth it? You know, Satan operates through an evil hierarchy of power. In Satan's kingdom, as in any other kingdom, there's ranks, there's those with greater power and they have rule over those with lesser power. And therefore, to conquer a lesser power, such as a demon, say, and fail to defeat the greater power of Satan or his principalities, will result in a recurrence of demonic activity. And let me just share these things with you. Jesus, before he ever dealt with evil spirits and demons, he successfully resisted Satan in the wilderness. Why do you think he spent so much time praying? His praying was preparing for the warfare the day before. Ephesians 6.12, we have a definition of Satan's kingdom, along with instructions on how we can war against it. And this material that I'm sharing with you, by the way, you can have this material. There's actually a seminar that goes on that you need to get into, if you haven't been exposed with it, that teaches the principles of spiritual warfare and a lot of other principles, too, that we need for our lives. And if you want to know about that, then you write me and I'll send you some information on it, how you can get plugged in with these seminars. This material is valuable, and we're sharing it with you, and others have it, too, because you need it. We're going into a new age, which is nothing more than the old age revived. The old Roman Empire is getting revived, and if this is the last move, then we'd better be ready. It's going to be a tough battle. I believe the Lord is coming soon. We have to continually believe that if we believe in the doctrine of the soon coming of the Lord, of the rapture. But we don't know how soon. It may be tomorrow, it could be next week, it could be next year, or the year after. But we do know that we have to keep fighting until then. Now, the Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And this is why in Colossians, and we're sort of hung up on a verse here and taking some time with you, Colossians 1.13 says that Christ has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. So we don't wrestle against flesh. We don't wrestle against, if you're a deacon in a church and you're having trouble with a preacher, you're not wrestling against a preacher, there's a spiritual warfare going on. Or you're a pastor and you've got somebody that's really a drag in the church and they're doing something. It's not that person. There's something behind it. There's principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6.12. Now, my time is about gone and I think I'll just close off with one quick story. I was with a pastor out in an eastern state some years ago. And when I went in there, the church was so full of strife and problems and bitterness against the pastor and everything that I suggested that we have the revival meetings over on some clean turf, another church. And he had such a gracious spirit, he wanted to see God work, that he agreed to that. And as a result of that, there was powerful meetings for help. Because he had this spirit of willing to be humbled and to submit himself. Let me encourage you to submit yourself to God. Don't be so resistive. If you've been stiff necked and like that, just back off. Learn to trust God to take care of areas. He can handle them a lot better than we can. Well, we want to be an encouragement to you. We want you to experience revival. We want you to learn to fly with eagle's wings, to learn to live by the grace of God. Until next time, I trust that God will richly bless you, my friend. And remember, Christ is all you need, but is he all you want?