In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of having our spiritual eyes opened to see what is happening in our lives, the world, and our churches. He highlights the need for revival and returning to our first love. The preacher also discusses the concept of spiritual warfare and shares a story about a pastor who overcame a habit by reclaiming ground given to Satan. He encourages pastors to attend minister seminars on spiritual warfare. The sermon concludes with a warning to watch out for errors built on personality rather than the Word of God.

Well, we welcome you again to O'Neill's Wings. It's good to be back with you today. Well, I confess, I was wound up last week. I was hot for revival. And God had been working me over and He's continuing to work me over. The lessons that He's teaching is taking me deeper. You know, my two pastor friends that are up here in this part of the country, and I'm up in western Nebraska right now, this area of Wyoming and Nebraska and South Dakota, God's been hovering, the Holy Spirit has been hovering over this area, brooding and wanting to work in power. And since 1985, He has done some very significant things. And the Spirit of God is speaking to our land today, saying it's time. We're going to be judged as a nation if we don't repent, if we don't turn from our wicked ways. The coldness of the church. We hold the keys to revival. It's not the political. As much as the political needs help, the church needs help too. You know, I was up in Rapid City the other day, up at a pro-life rally. I never went to one of those. Beverly LaHaye was the first speaker, and it come on down the line, and there were a lot of noted speakers, and the last one was Frankie Schaefer. And he said something. I mean, he said a lot. But he said something that just really jolted me. And he shared on how abortion and how historically those that have killed people and had that license to and the power to, he shared about how that all came about and how it all resulted and what the ends were. And he shared about over in Germany with the Nazi and exterminations of the Jews. Do you know that the ultimate end of the abortion movement, to have the right to kill babies, will be that you will lose the right of choice. It's not pro-choice. We will either choose to do what God says, or we will lose our choice. And you may someday may not have the choice of whether or not your second baby lives, like over in China. You will lose that right. We are in dangerous times. Well, this program is to encourage you for revival. To encourage us to bow before God, to pray, to see God work in our land. I've been trying to go through Colossians a little bit, and last week I didn't even get in at all. And I might just skim over a few things, but before we do, I want to share with you a little bit on how we need to pray. We need to establish the priority of praying. And there's a little booklet out called the Life Purpose Booklet, and I've shared some with you on warfare, spiritual warfare and things. But in this booklet, it tells us how that Satan is a hinderer of the saints. And I was looking at 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 18, at something that Paul said. He said, Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I, Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us. But Satan hindered us. Has Satan been hindering you? Now, I know what it's like to be hindered by Satan, to experience his tactics. I believe that God wanted me to get in on the ten weeks up in Alliance, Nebraska, where the revival was going on and God was doing it. They wasn't choosing to go ten weeks. They'd only set it up for eight days. But I was hindered. And I only got in on the last day, and I needed to get in on that. My two preacher buddies that were in on that, when I got up here and I met them, those men were not the same. I mean, they were so different. And they had such a perceptive spirit about them that they didn't have before, that anything that wasn't right in me, they could detect it. And with love, they've come back to me, and I've just got ate up. I have been rebuked. I have been beat down. The Holy Spirit has revealed things through my friends about my life and things that I say. And the Spirit of God has just done a work over me. And I said last week, it's humbling, and I don't like telling you that I've had these things in my life. But friend, the fact is, we can slip back. And no matter how much you've grown in Christ, you can always go back. Paul had that fear of the castaway. There is the hindering power of Satan. Satan is a hinderer. And it's our responsibility to determine what is most important and to choose the things that are excellent. Little soft choices cost us. Just a little slip up in our prayer time one day will cost you. Fervent prayer for the salvation of non-believers and for the strengthening of Christians damages Satan's kingdom. He doesn't like it. And so if you're going to be a damager of his kingdom, he is going to try all he can to hinder you from engaging in prayer. Are you praying for revival? Are you praying for your pastor? Are you praying for your lost loved ones and relatives? If you're not praying, then he's got you, and you need to take that ground back. Now, we can be more than conquerors, the scripture says, and we can be more than conquerors if we'll turn Satan's temptations into signals for prayer. Now, in this little booklet, Life Purpose booklet, on this article on the discipline related to fervent prayer, establishing priorities, I want to just share with you a few thoughts, and then I want to close up with maybe a story, and then take a little time on Colossians. But a man who is experiencing continual defeat in his moral life, or a Christian, a man that is continually being defeated has given ground to Satan. And there was one man that was continually being defeated, and he was asked to pray for the salvation of one who would significantly damage Satan's kingdom if he were to become a Christian. And you know what? He began doing this. And he found that he had an amazing decrease in temptation. Maybe this is the key that you need to get victory in your life over that besetting sin. And his prayer was resisting Satan, and Satan was fleeing as God promised. And also, in this article, it shares about a certain psychologist began using the weapon of prayer with several of his patients. And he reported, quote, I am having success in counseling people to overcome hysterical fear episodes by the prayer targets procedure. And he said, It's powerful. It's powerful. And I think I might have shared with you one man down in a southern state that was praying over his area and using the prayer principles that we've shared with you and was seeing God work mightily over his area. A father of some children found that this weapon was effective in achieving harmony in his family. And boy, if you've got a lot of children like I do, you need all the help you can get. It can get pretty wild sometimes. But sometimes we have disharmony in our family because Satan is hindering. And someone said whenever our children began to quarrel, they would pray that God would give them witnessing opportunities at work. And he said, I found that when they did this, when I did this, I was able to share the gospel with people who had been very unreceptive until that time. Now that we have memorized Romans 12, they said we not only use this weapon when tempted, but we also try to be instant in prayer. And by the way, up here in this area where we've seen God work mightily, and the Spirit of God is directing me to just stay up here, and I don't know how long we'll stay. This is the way we work. We go where God directs us, and if we can help that in a church or that area, and the Spirit of God directs us, we'll stay there a year or however long. And he's directing us to stay up here now. And I've had to die in flesh because these winters get pretty cold, and I'm a southern boy. I mean, I was raised way down in Louisiana where it was cold when it got down into the upper 30s, and we froze. But the Spirit of God is saying, stay up here. Stay where it's hot, spiritually, and work. Well, are you being hindered? The potential for victory in the Christian life is affirmed in the warfare prayer of the Ephesians. I wanted to share with you Ephesians 1, 15 through 23. This is a powerful passage of Scripture. Get your Bible and follow along with me. We're going to read it. And just look at what God says in Ephesians 1, 15 through 23. You can experience victory. Get a hold of the Word and pray the promises. Use the promises. He said, Wherefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Are you praying like that for your friends? Are you praying like that for your parents, for your loved ones, for your pastor, that God will give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him? And Paul also went on to say he's praying that the eyes of your understanding, being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling and what the riches of His glory, of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. Boy, that's powerful. That the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. Are your eyes open? Do you see what's going on in your life? Do you see what's going on in this world? Do you see what's going on in your church? Do you see Jesus working in your life? When you get up in the morning, you say, Lord, You've got me today. You just leave me and I'm going to watch. I'm going to pray and I'm going to believe You to work. Give me opportunities. Give me a sensitive spirit. And Paul went on to say, Far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under His feet and gave Him to be the head of all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. He's the head. And I was reading back in Ephesians 1, 15 through 23 and some of those verses there. Talking about Christ being the head, I was looking at Colossians 2. Colossians 2, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. And let's just go over there. If you have your Bibles, Paul said, For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, for them that let us see it, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh. You see, a lot of places where his letters went, he never went himself. Just like the Word of God can go all over the place, all over the world, but Jesus Himself has never went there in the flesh like He did on the earth. He just stayed in a small area on this earth for His 33 years of ministry on this earth. But Paul had conflict for Christians. I have conflict for this area of the country where we're at right here, in this area of southwestern Missouri. God wants to work in power. He wants to work in your church, in your life. And I have a conflict for you. I'm praying for you. I'm praying that God will open up your ears to hear. I'm afraid that you're not concerned. I'm afraid that you're listening today and you're not concerned for your soul, that you're lost. If you died, you'd go to a real hell. You hope to go to a real heaven when you die, but you just shut your mind that there is also a real hell. Let me tell you, my friend, the same Jesus that offers heaven to you is the same Jesus that warned over and over and over again about a burning, fiery hell. It's real. Just as real as life is. Birth and death are real. Paul had conflict for them. For as many as have not seen my face in the flesh. He wanted the preeminence of Christ to be in their life. Verse 2, he said that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love and into all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ. You know, the mystery was the church. It wasn't seen in the Old Testament. In Colossians 1, and where was it, about 26, it talked about the mystery, even the mystery which had been hid from the ages, from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints. What is this mystery? It was Christ in you, Christ in us. And this was the church when Christ went back to heaven. The Holy Spirit came back down and indwelled us, and last week we talked about how we can grieve the Holy Spirit, shared with you seven sins against the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit of God wants to work in our lives, and Paul was praying for them. He wanted the preeminence of Christ to be in their lives. He had concern for them. I have concern for you. I'm praying and asking God to give me wisdom whether or not I should even continue this program. I'm not in a popularity contest. I'm not in a money-making business. I just take what God gives me. I'm not begging off of you, except I'm begging you to pray for revival. Pray for God to work in our land. I have a burden for our land. I love this land. I gave four years of my life, back in the Vietnam War, from 66 to 70, for this land. Four years of my prime life, from 20 to 24, for this land. But I see our land slipping. Pray for our country. Pray for our president. We're in a crisis. We've got more than an oil crisis. We've got a moral crisis. We don't love God. Paul was praying for these Christians. In verse 3, he said, "...in whom," he's talking about Christ, "...in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Jesus is all you need. Is He all you want? He's all your church needs. You don't need to go out and get a big fancy loan to build your building. You need Jesus. Go to Him. Why do we go to the world for things? Why do we have to steal or connive in our own personal lives? We hold back from giving to God because we don't believe He's going to meet our needs. In Christ is all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I'm trying to teach my children about Jesus, that they'll learn to know Him. And if you'll get into the Bible, you'll find out you can learn more about science and math and a lot of those practical things just from the Word of God. It's all there. You can study and see. He was praying for them that they would see the treasure that there is in Jesus. We have in our hands the greatest treasure in Jesus. I just wonder if you really have them. If you're satisfied with Jesus and He's all you need, how come you're spending so much time on this pleasure or this thing over here or that little project and it's just eating up your time? Maybe even destroying your family, your private life, your personal life? Do you know Him? Christ is the wisdom of God. Are you wise? Do you have the wisdom of God? Are you really wise? You know, there's some dangers. We really need to watch out for things. In verse 4 of Colossians 2, Paul said, And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. Actually, he shares five errors to watch out for. Watch out for that which is built on personality and not the Word of God. Any man, he said, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. Beguile actually means to victimize. The church has been victimized today by Satan and satanically oriented men that have bled off the resources of missions for their own personal empires, have bled off through their personalities building programs around their personalities. And when the personality leaves, the program fizzles, building things around themselves and not Jesus Christ. They've been enticed. Enticed means to sweet talk. In verse 5, he says, For though I be absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the Spirit, joying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. Boy, it just thrills me to see a saint that's hanging in there. You may have everything being shot out from under you, but they're hanging in there. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. Walk in Christ. Are you walking in Christ? Are you encouraged by the Word of God? Are you living in victory? He talks about their state there in verse 5, For though I be absent in you in the flesh, yet I am with you, joying and beholding your order. You know, that's a term for shoulder to shoulder. They were standing together. I'm concerned about maybe your church. Are you shoulder to shoulder in there? Are you working together? Pulling together? So many pastors are just broken because they're people. He's in a band-aid situation, always trying to patch up this problem and that problem, and he doesn't have time for prayer and the ministry of the Word. Talking about them being shoulder to shoulder. And he wanted them to, in verse 6, that they would continue on, As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. Walk like a man. Let Christ be a natural part of your day, he's saying. And then in verse 7, he talks about being rooted, to be rooted like a tree. You know, palm trees can really take winds, and their roots are really strange. They've just got these little old roots that go down like in a ball. They don't go down long like oak trees, but just like a big ball of roots. There's a verse that says in Isaiah 37-31, Take root downward and bear fruit upward. So many have been trying to produce the fruit without the root. You're so interested in doing when you need to be interested in being. Let God make you, and then you'll be what God wants you to be, and then you'll do what you need to do. Theodore Epp has a good series on that. I did a series some years ago on Moses, and I was studying under Theodore Epp on that. Really good. Let God just be thorough, would you? Let Him purge you. Let Him cleanse you. So verse 7, Rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Now I wanted to talk to you, I took you down through this, to get you down to verse 8. You know? Verse 7, He's talking about a building, being rooted and built up in Him, and by your faith, you'll be established. You know, Jesus rebuked the disciples one time for their little faith. He said, oh, you have little faith? Out in a boat, a little storm going to sink them, sink their ship, and you think your ship is going to sink, and that's it? Oh, you have little faith? If you let a little storm shake you, it only means your view of God is He's just a little God. Just a little God. I think we need to beware of the peril of small faith. And then also, I wanted to talk to you about this. Beware, verse 8, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. And actually, I think he gives about four perils here. Here's the, he talks about the peril of rationalism. You know, I've been having some defeat in my mind lately. Trying to think things out. I, logically trying to figure things out. And being defeated. Almost like being in a fog. And this is where my two preacher buddies up here, they got a hold of me. I was trying to work this thing out in my mind. And they got a hold of me and really shook me like a dog would shake a rag dog. Because I wasn't going by faith. I was trying to figure it out rationally. Trying to logically figure it out. You know, Peter had that problem. When Jesus came up to him and said, I'm going to cross. I'm going to die. I'm going to be killed and buried. And I'm going to raise again. Peter jumped in there and said, not so Lord. Rationally it didn't make sense. Logically it didn't make sense. And Peter wasn't going to let it go. And then he said, I'm going to get thee behind me, Satan. Satan got in there. And Satan will get into your life. He'll get into my life. If we try to work through rationally, trying to figure things out. Then you jump over to in the garden when they were coming to get Jesus. And then he was operating on emotion. Jumped up and chopped off a guy's ear. Emotional response. And Satan will work through your emotions. And then he just had a tough time. He just had a tough time in that area. His logic got him in trouble. He was emotional. And then of course he denied Jesus, which is the ultimate result of operating by logic and emotion in the Christian life. Denied him there when Christ was on trial. And then Jesus came back to him after his resurrection and said, Peter, do you love me? Three times. And you know the story. You know what Jesus was after? He was after his will. You see, when Jesus gets your will, when He breaks you and He has your will, He has your love. Love comes through the will. You thinking about leaving your mate, divorcing your wife, divorcing your husband? Why? Why? Well, you need to look at your love. We love by the will. You love by the emotion it won't last. You love by the rationale, the intellect, and it won't last. But if your will is involved, it will stick. It will stick. You're a rotten person if you don't have love that comes from the will. Peter, do you love me? Follow me. Feed my sheep. Follow me. You just follow me. Don't worry about John. You say, what about this man, Lord? Don't worry about him. You just follow me. You just follow me. We need to be warned against rationalism, the tradition of men. We need to watch out for the rudiments of the world. Notice, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. And I'm going to be very blunt with you. The church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ today, has fallen for Satan's philosophy and deceit, and is going by the tradition of men and the rudiments of the world by the biggest sense today. We are carrying on without carrying what the Holy Spirit wants. And let me tell you, I think the Spirit of God is doing something different in the church today. And we better be looking and watching and paying attention, or we'll get left behind. You know, we have two big views of operating churches today. One is we build big savings and we really go by the way the world does. And we've got our money and we'll get in big debt. We want to do big things. And then the other is we go by faith. Those two views. We go the way the world works, or we go by faith. And if you try to compromise and go by faith and go by the world, it just doesn't work. You get a little mud in your water and you've got muddy water. But we have the philosophy of the world so saturating our church operations today. And we need revival from that. We need to go back. We've left our first love. And verse 9 says, Paul said, For in Him, in Jesus, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And you are complete in Him which is the head of all principality and power. He's saying, Jesus is all you need. Jesus is God. Are you satisfied with Him? You know, complete is a nautical term. Are you ready for the voyage of life? In Christ you have all you need. Are you equipped with Christ? I want to close up today with a little story about a pastor and how he conquered a habit by reclaiming ground given to Satan. And I've been sharing with you over the last few weeks about spiritual warfare. Well, this pastor heard some material on spiritual warfare at an all-day minister seminar. And these minister seminars are carried on around the country. And you can get in on one of these, pastor, and let me encourage you if you haven't. But here's the report that he sent back. He said, The teaching that I received on how to engage in effective spiritual warfare was a real eye-opener to me. He said, I was raised in a non-Christian home where there was immorality, drinking, and violence. In 1961, at the age of 26, I became a Christian, but I didn't grow for about 10 years. And then in 70, I began to grow spiritually and went into mission work. And it was while training for missions that I received God's call to be a pastor. And then after further training, he went on to say, I began serving as a pastor in 84. And during all these years, there was one sin of thought and deed that had plagued me. This sin had a hold on me. I confessed it over and over, but I had no victory. And the night of the minister seminar, God prompted me to take back the ground that I had given to Satan on this matter of sin. And it reminded me of the very first time I was involved in this sin. I was approximately 7 years old. By the way, the Spirit of God could be speaking to you right now to remind you of the first time you started on your habit. Now listen. He said, I went through the steps that I had learned on reclaiming surrendered ground and felt a great relief. And that night, I could not sleep, so I prayed and the Lord began to remind me of other specific instances. And when I committed the sin, and for each failure, I went through the steps of reclaiming surrendered ground. And finally, I went to sleep, since in great peace. The next day, God continued to deal with me and He caused me to realize that I had given ground to Satan piece by piece for about 50 years. And the Lord led me step by step through all of those years so I could take back all of that ground. And I felt even more peace and joy and cleansing than the night before. And the day since then, the Lord has reminded me of other instances of failure. And each time I've taken back the ground, the truth of 1 John 1-9 came alive to me. I confessed all the sins that God brought to my mind and had confidence that He was faithful and just to forgive me of the sins that I could not remember. I can now honestly say that I have not committed this sin in thought or deed in two weeks. The first two week period in my whole life that I can say that. Are you free? Go back. Get that ground back. Confess it to God where you did it the first time and get victory. Here's the steps that He took and we're going to have to close up. He said He revoked the past consent for this sin. An important part of confession, let me remind you, is recognizing that we have sinned against the holy law of God. And two, He reproved the works of darkness. A further aspect of confession is agreeing with God about that nature and fruit of sin. And three, He removed the provision for the flesh. Confession, let me tell you, friend, also involves turning from that sin and not making any more provision for it. And fourth, He rested in God's forgiveness. God will forgive you. One of the greatest needs we have is forgiveness. Well, it's been good to be with you today. I trust that God will use us to encourage you. If you haven't trusted Christ as your Savior, please do. You need Him. He died for you. He loves you. Just reach out to Him. Ask Him to come into your life to forgive you of your sin and to save you. Until next time, if God wills it, I'll be back with you and share. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my friend.