In this sermon, the speaker shares various experiences and encounters with spiritual forces of darkness. He emphasizes the importance of prayer and rebuking these forces in the name of the Lord. The speaker also discusses the concept of being made alive in Christ and the power of God's mercy and love. He recounts a personal experience with a demonized missionary and the impact it had on his understanding of spiritual warfare. The sermon concludes with a reminder that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and soundness of mind.

We wanted to talk today on the believer's legal position in Christ. This will be more of a heavier Bible study than what we've normally done. We've had a lot more fun in our sessions. And this one will be a little more, you know, just in the Scriptures because this position in Christ is so important. If I don't know who I am and I'm not sure where I'm standing and the authority I have, then I can be pushed around by the forces of darkness in a way that they have no right to do it. And just saying words doesn't do it. Although I have to say that God is gracious and God does a lot of neat things for us. Look at Ephesians. And I told you my experience with the demonized missionary and how it blew me away. And I started reading and I heard that Moody Bible Institute had a course on how to counsel people with demons. And I thought, boy, I better take that course. I went to the president of our mission and I said, if I don't learn how to deal with the demonic, I will resign as the counselor of the mission. But it's not fair. There are missionaries, now that I see they're having problems in this dimension and the counselor can't deal with them. It's not right. And so you better pray that I find out how to deal with this or I'm through because I just can't stand not to be able to help somebody. And there's got to be a way. Just because I don't know doesn't mean there isn't a way. So we went up to Moody and took this course by Fred Dickinson, the head theologian at Moody. He's been there 26 years. And he played tapes of demons talking out of people. Now, I could have brought those tapes to you. I could have brought demons talking out of missionaries, demons talking out of their kids. In fact, I took one tape of a missionary's son, 26 years of age, a Tennessee Temple student with demons talking out of him to Moody because they wanted me to... I was teaching power encounters at Moody. The powers of darkness and all of this. And so I took it up and I thought, well, before they had about 400 kids that would come to that class. And I thought, well, before I play it for the students, I ought to play it for five guys in the dorm. So I played it for five guys in the dorm and I freaked all five out. And I thought, well, what am I going to do here is I'm going to give the enemy glory. And these kids are going to walk out of here afraid. Now, there's a scripture in the verse, for God hath not given us what? Spirit. Now, that is a spirit that is not an attitude. I always read that as an attitude. God has not given me the attitude of fear. Now, that's not what it says, but that's how I interpret it. But then I took the rest of the verse and said it was a spirit. But his spirit gives what? Love, power, and soundness of mind. If it's a spirit at the last half of the verse, guess what? It's a spirit in the first half of the verse. And there is a spirit that causes fear. And here I was, with my stories, I was being used of God, I mean used of the enemy, to cause fear in people of the enemy. Now, tonight it might be a little bit fearful, but I'll tell you we need to understand this aspect because families are being terrorized sometimes for no reasons. And once they realize this whole issue, it clears up. But these poltergeist experiences can be, and the poltergeist, I mean I know they make movies, Poltergeist 1, 2, 3, and 4 or something. It's just spirits that are causing all kinds of strange things to happen in a location. Beds moving, dishes flying out of the cupboards, you know, all of these kinds of things. And they can be dealt with. In Ephesians, it says, and this is our victory verse, for today I love this verse. And it's Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20. You probably know the verse, but think of it in warfare. And it says, Now unto him that is able. You know, if God put a period there, that's all we need. He is what? He's able. I have a God that's able, and he's able to what? He's able to do. Isn't that neat? My God is able to do. And my God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that I could possibly ask or even imagine. According to the power, which is grace, you know, the desire and the power to live a godly life. According to that power, the Holy Spirit's power that lives within me. God is able. Well, I was listening, and I wanted to share with you. You don't have to be really skillful in this. After going to this course at Moody, and he played, Dr. Dickinson was playing tapes of Moody students that had demonic spirits. I've never spoken in any of the Bible colleges in America where Bible college students didn't come, and we prayed with them. Voices spoke out of them that knew that they were in the school and had given up that they ever could be free of what's going on. Always when I go to the Moody Missions Conference, I deal with seven or eight kids, and then I'd follow them up for a year by calling them on the phone, see how they're doing, sending material, and so on. But Dickinson played these tapes, and one of the tapes was a girl I had as a student when I was teaching at Calvary Bible College. I don't know, something about hearing demons talk, it just creeped me out. And it ruined the rest of that class, the rest of the week, after I listened to these demons talking out of these Moody students that he had taped. So on the way home, we're driving from Chicago back to St. Louis. My wife says, let's talk about the class. I said, I'm not going to talk about it. She said, what do you mean? I said, I'm not going to do this. There is no way that anybody in their right mind would ever do anything like this. I am not doing it. We can just forget about it. I mean, I was wiped out, and I thought, I'm not going to get involved in this stuff. Leave it to Dickinson. I'll send every missionary to Dickinson, you know. So we come back, and I am defeated. I am discouraged, and I am in the pits. And I get a call Sunday from this guy, and I said, oh, I knew he was in New York. And I said, oh, great, we're talking, talking. And he said, well, I'll see you Monday. I said, what do you mean you'll see me Monday? He said, well, I'm in Warrington. I said, you're in Warrington? You're supposed to be in New York. He was one of our workers in New York. He said, yeah, I came out. He said, I'm really struggling. And I just had a funny feeling that I really didn't want to see him. He shows up Monday, and he sits there, and he's talking to me, and I've got a checklist on my mind. These are the symptoms of the demonized, and I'm checking them off. And he gets through talking to me, and I'm going, oh, I can't believe this. You don't have a right to be here. And I know that this guy's problems have the dimension of the demonic. And I know what to do, but I don't want to. I didn't know. I thought, I can't. Now, what can I do? Can I send him out of here knowing that regular counseling isn't going to help him? He's already gone through regular counseling. It didn't help him. Or do I need to deal with him? So I called home. I told my wife, I said, you won't believe this. There's some demonized guy sitting in front of me, and would you come with me? I'm just too afraid to do this by myself. And she said, oh, Jim, I can't. I've got clothes, and no one knows where, a washing machine or someplace. She's like, I just can't come. Well, there was a girl that took the course who's also working in New York City, and this gal had been, well, got her master's degree in parapsychology. And in the college, she had, they had the whole class leave their bodies and float around in this class. So she left her body, and she was flying around, and she ended up from, she went to an Ivy League college, and she ended up down in Florida at a college. The reason she knew, because she wondered where she was. She looked around, she saw the sign in the university, then she looked pictures later on, it was where she was. She'd never been there. And when she landed, she was, she didn't know where she was, but somehow she landed in a flower. And she looked down the flower, and it had thorns sticking out of it. And she realized it must be a rose, that somehow she's in a rose. And she thought, what would happen? All these students were walking by. She said, what would happen? This is all going on in her mind there. If they would cut the flower, would she die? And it frightened her. And when she saw the thorns, guess who she thought of? She'd heard a bit, somebody who wore a crown of thorns. And so when the teacher called them all back in their bodies, they're all telling where they went. And this girl is frightened. And she began to find about the one who wore the crown of thorns. And now she's a missionary. And I called her in to be with me. So she took the course with us. So this fellow is sitting there, and I am so nervous that literally, I mean, this is about what I did. Lord Jesus, this guy's full of demons. Would you please tell him to go? And I said, would you guys please go? And they all left. I feel good. Well, that wasn't so bad. I wish they were all that easy. But God just honored me. I tried. I was so frightened. And after the guy left, the girl turned to me. She said, Mr. Logan, I really hate to tell you this, but she says, if you're not more assertive, you're not going to make it in this. But the more I know who I am, the more assertive I can be, can't I? The more I know, wait a minute, you have no right to do this. I don't have to live like this. I don't have to be under this or whatever. And I'm just standing against this, and we stand. So if you have that chart, this is the first chart they ever made on a computer at CEF. So they got one, and the guy was playing with it. I mean, we had the chart, and he was able to put this together with the computer. I was amazed. Although there's some lines on there that should have been blanked off. It's page 29, if you want to look at that. Because if we can walk someone through this mentally, they've taken this chart to Africa, and it has turned Africans around. Instead of living in fear of the demonic, they're now standing against it. So we're talking about Christian leaders. You know, it's like two worlds. There's the Christian world and the spirit world, and the two don't mix. And now they're mixing them. And it's been a real blessing. This chart, we do have one that's blank that we usually give out and have people fill it out. If you give someone a chart that's all filled out, often they don't listen. But if you give them a blank chart and they have to do the writing and putting the verses down, they listen. So listen, will you? I'm going to be looking. But this is positional truth that we need to know and that God's talking about my position with these things. We didn't use this verse. It's one of my favorite verses. But Luke 9.23, as you see, we want to talk about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the first two overlap. There's no way you could talk about one without talking about the other. There's very few verses that just talk about one without the other one. But we want to emphasize two. But what's interesting, we said when Satan fell out of heaven that his philosophy of living is creature-centered. And when Jesus went out and called people, what did he call them from? Creature-centeredness. I mean, that was his message. And look at Luke 9.23. If any. That's any. That's exactly what he meant. If any will come after me. If any man or woman will come after me. If you desire to follow me, you must do what? Deny yourself. You cannot be creature-centered and follow me. You're going to have to be Christ-centered. And you've got to make a choice. And the problem is when I want to be a Christian and be creature-centered, I have all kinds of difficulties. When I want to decide what I will do and what I won't do and so on. I was teaching spiritual dating for a long time. And I was teaching in this Christian high school about 300 kids. And we were teaching how to design spiritual dates and how dating could be either dating on a physical level or a spiritual level and what's the responsibility of the fellow and the responsibility of the girl and just a lot of things on spiritual dating. And when I got through teaching, this guy turned to a girl sitting next to her and he says, What does that old guy know about dating? And she said, That old guy is my father. So I'd see this guy at that school every now and again and I said, I'm her father. He said, Oh, Mr. Logan, please. I'll tell you, you get young people the two things they don't want you to touch and they don't want the Lord to touch or anybody is music and dating. Right? And that's wiping them out. They want to hold on to that. And boy, what I hold on to, what's going to happen? I'm going to lose it. But boy, that's what I give to him. You know, I'm going to keep. Remember, there was a missionary that said something about that, an outstanding fellow. And so he says, Take up his cross daily and follow me. There is two crosses mentioned in the scripture. His cross and then which other cross? My cross. I need to understand that. Galatians 2.20 I am crucified with Christ. I am crucified. I need the identification doctrines. There is his cross. He died. But I also need to what? I also need to die. And I need to die how often? Daily. Daily. You know, ladies, there was a real disservice done to you. They're called pantyhose. But there was a little, because this doesn't work as well, this illustration, but there was a little brethren lady that every day when she got on and her nylons weren't hooked together and she put on one sock and she'd say, dead to self. And she put on the other sock and she'd say, alive to Christ. You know, and I don't know, but somehow we need to do that. Somehow we need some kind of reminder because every day I need to make that choice. Who's going to run the show today? And I need to make a constant choice because Jesus said this is to be done how often? Daily. If I'm going to follow him every day I have to make a conscious commitment to die to me and be sensitive to him. Every day he asks me to do that if I really want to follow him. And once I start doing this you'd be amazed how alive you come to yourself. Do you know that one of the sources of struggles is anger. I want to ask if anybody here has ever gotten angry. There may be one or two of you that are alone from another mission. But you know, have you ever seen a dead man get angry? Ever? And you'll find that when you get angry usually you're holding on to rights. What do they have a right to do that? I can't believe it. Who do they think they are? Rights. Most all your anger you can trace down to rights you're still holding on to. And you know something? Dead men have no rights. Except if he's a Catholic and he has the last right. That's all. No rights. And when I get angry it's letting me know I'm very, very much alive. And maybe an area of my life that I need to turn over to the control of the Spirit of God. And we don't just do it once, do we? It's not a one-time thing. I wish it was. Somehow I wish Christianity was a one-time deal. I remember one time in Bible school I can't remember who it was McGee I think it was said, tell them to come forward and I'll shoot them. Get them all dedicated and shoot them at the author. Otherwise we'd go out and we'd have to struggle and struggle and that's the way life is. But if we could learn why we're struggling instead of just struggling why are we struggling? Is it something in the flesh? Is it the system I'm living in? Or is it the forces of darkness? Or is it a combination of the whole bunch that I'm dealing with? Hebrews 2, 14 and 15 is a verse I love to use when we're counseling someone with problems. And tomorrow all day we will spend the whole day on how to help someone in this whole area. We've gone across America and we've talked to pastors and there's some pastors here that were in Atlanta when we were in Atlanta sharing. And we're going to go through in detail how do you help somebody that comes to you and says I'm really hurting there's something radically wrong. How can we take them through simple steps and help them to the freedom that Jesus said a man could be free. How could they have that freedom in their life? And we'll do that in the morning and evening. In the book of Hebrews chapter 2 I love to use this verse. The enemy does not like this verse. He would give anything if somehow it had been left out. For as much then as children are partakers of flesh and blood he, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, also himself likewise took part of the same that through death. Who's death? Jesus' death on the cross. What did he do? He destroyed him. They have the power of death that is the devil. And deliver them who through the fear of their death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Isn't that beautiful? See there were two things judged at the cross. Sin and who else? Satan. The sin question was dealt with as Jesus died on the cross and the Satan question was dealt with when Jesus died at the cross. Now, turn to the Gospel of Luke I think. I have to see if I can... Yes, it is in Luke. Luke 22. Interesting statement as I was reading and trying to see everything the Bible said about spiritual warfare and the enemy, his defeat and so on. And that is the Garden of Gethsemane experience. Jesus was in the garden. He was praying. This chapter is full of satanic stuff. Just working of the enemy. You have in verse 2 Satan entering Judas. And you know what it says in John? He went out and it was night. You know it is always night for those the enemy has entered. They live in night. They live in a constant darkness. And then verse 31 the Lord said Simon, Simon you can put your name in there. Satan has desired to have you. You know he desires to have all of you? And your children? That he may sift you as wheat. That is not too comforting. Coming from the mouth of the Lord Jesus. What does the next verse say? Underline those buts. I have prayed for you. What is he doing today? Who is he praying for? Why? Because the enemy is still sifting. That is still what he is about. He said, I pray for you that your faith in the sifting will not fail. Has yours ever failed in the sifting? Mine has. There are times because God does not tell me what he is about. He did not ask my permission. And I am struggling with what he is doing. I do not understand it. And I am one that wants to understand everything that God is going to do. And I want him to tell me about it before he does it. I do not like surprises. And I can be sifted. When thou art converted, strengthen the brethren. Then you have Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. There is a real thought there that he was not just wrestling the idea of the cross. He was wrestling the very forces of darkness there as he was praying. And then we come to verse 53. And that is where we are moving. There is a lot of enemy involvement in this chapter. The enemy is really moving and working in the lives of different people here. And Jesus is there and they come to get him. And when they come to get him, Jesus said, Why are you coming after me like I was a thief? When I was with you daily in the temple, you did not come and get me. Why are you coming at night like I was a common thief? And so he looked to the religious rulers which we know wanted him destroyed. And he said, When I was with you daily in the temple, you stretched forth no hands against me. This is your hour. Now, what did he mean by that? He said, This is what you have been waiting for. You have come to destroy me. You have come to silence me. You have come to put me away. This is your hour. And then there is another simple little statement. It is amazing. It is an awesome statement. And it says, When darkness reigns. In the King James or in the Greek, you will find it a little better. And he says, In this, the power of darkness. It is not only the religious rulers that wanted him put away, but he was messing up the spirit world. And they wanted him put away. And so there were two groups that wanted Jesus out of the way. The religious people and the demonic world. Look at the book of Corinthians. There is something here that is... And you say, Where? I do not know. It is on the outer page. It is 1 Corinthians 2. Very interesting statement. When you see that one and this one and understanding the death of Christ. We can start in verse 6. Or we can start anywhere, I guess. How be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect. Yet not the wisdom of this world, nor the princess of this world. Now who are the princess of this world? They are demons. Literally demons. That come to not. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. Even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Which none of the princes or demons of this world knew. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. See, had they known that when Jesus was dying on the cross it was going to be all over for them, they would have done everything to encourage them to get off of it. But they did not realize that. You know the book of Ephesians tells us that demons go to church services and are watching the church to try to figure out what is going to happen spiritually. It says that in Ephesians. They are watching. Listening. They missed this one. Look at Colossians. Excuse me. Let's go to Colossians 2. This is another awesome passage in dealing and coming against the forces of darkness. They hate this passage. There are certain passages in the word of God that are agitating because of the truth that is there. It is their coffin nails. If you believe this and if you understand this it is all over for them. They can no longer harass you. When you realize who you are. Christ was crucified. You were crucified. Christ is not just a dead Christ. Christ is resurrected. You have that in Romans 6. He has been resurrected. He is not just dead but he is resurrected. Here we have the positional truth. We skipped Romans 6. We want to go to Colossians 2 here. You can go back and study these in detail. In Colossians 2 I am a real spiritual man. When I am reading something in the Bible that I don't understand I do what all spiritual people do. I skip it. I skipped this for years. It just didn't make sense. In the King James it is so difficult. I didn't know what it was. I thought someday when I get time I will probably look it up and figure out what it is saying. I jumped over these three verses. It just didn't somehow get your attention. I just jumped it. I didn't look at it until finally I realized it was dealing with spiritual warfare. I thought I have to go back on what in the world is this saying. Colossians 2 says that you being dead in your sins, verse 13, and the uncircumcision of your flesh have they quickened together with him having forgiven you all transgressions. He is talking here about the death of Christ. In the cross of Christ all my transgressions were dealt with. The second thing he dealt with in his death, he blotted out the handwriting of the ordinance that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way by nailing it to his cross. You realize we are reading just one sentence although it is three verses. He said he took all of the washings and all of that. That was nailed to the cross and that was dealt with at the cross. Now he switches gears and talks about the spirit world. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly triumphing over them in it. In it what is it? The cross is what he is talking about here. There were three things that happened to the spirit world when Jesus died on the cross. In the garden he said this is your hour. In Corinthians it says they were a part of crucifying him. There was a battle fought on the cross that you and I did not see. There were others attacking the Lord Jesus beside the people on the ground that were having a heyday because he was dying, the one who was casting spirits out of people, the one who was messing up their world. He was dying and they were rejoicing. But what they didn't realize, three things was happening to them as his life came from his body. The first thing is he spoiled them. This is terminology used of a general conquering another army. These are the three things, the three things he did to the spirit world when he died are the three things any general in the Old Testament did when he won a war. The first word is spoiled. Spoiled means to take away the weaponry. To take away the weapons. When one army would conquer another army, what would they do? They would take away all the weapons. So they took away the weapons from the forces of darkness. They were depowered. The second thing is he made a show of them openly. Literally that means he put them on open display. And what they would do is that they would strip these men either naked or strip them to their underwear. You see it on pottery and all that. They would often tie their hands behind them to the neck of the man behind them. And they would parade them back through the very areas in which they held the people in bondage. And said, you no longer need to fear the Babylonians. You no longer need to fear the Chaldeans. You no longer need to fear these people. They have been what? Conquered. Your allegiance is no longer to the defeated, conquered one. Your allegiance is to the one on the horse who is leading the parade. The one who is leading the triumphant parade. When the Roman and this they understood. When the Roman generals would go back to Rome, they would always take a token of the army that was defeated to proceed them into Rome in the triumphant parade. There are theologians who believe very strongly that Jesus took a token of defeated demons into heaven so that there could be great rejoicing over the defeat of the spirit world at the cross. They get that out of Ephesians. I'm not a theologian, but I can give you the numbers of some. You can call them up and talk to them. But I thought that was interesting as they said they really feel that that took place. And great rejoicing in heaven as the victorious one came in who was not only victorious over sin and victorious over death. He was victorious over who? The evil one. And he was defeated. So you and I are facing an enemy who has no power over us. Isn't that awesome? Don't you think we need to know that? We need to know that. We don't need to fear an enemy who hasn't got a gun. But he wants me to fear him. And he do all kinds of things to get me to fear him. Because he wants me he's a real deceiver. He wants me to believe that he's able to do what he can't do. So I'll be defeated and allow him to do what he has no right to do. I'm going to talk about giving ground tomorrow. How do believers give ground to a defeated enemy? So all of a sudden they become defeated. And how to take that ground? That's the issue really is ground. I always said in Ephesians, don't give ground to Satan. Don't do it. Some scriptures call it a beachhead. Don't give Satan a beachhead in your life. You know who he wants a beachhead for? He wants to get in there and he wants to begin to control. More and more and more. And scripture says don't do that. So how do we identify ground? How do we take it back? I'll be all day tomorrow. How do we deal? How do we deal with personally in our own life if we feel the enemy's got a grip on me? How do I release that grip so I can have the full freedom that I have in Christ? And how to help someone else that is maybe so defeated they just don't have the objectivity. And you need to sit with them and help them to come to freedom in Christ also. Every believer should be able to help a brother believer, a sister believer to be free. Right? It should be the work of the body, not the work of a sinner. Right? That's what the body's supposed to do. We're supposed to encourage and help one another. So, this Colossian thing when I got ahold of it just thrilled me when I saw that. I could just see Christ. Now, look at Ephesians 2, 1 through 5. There's a book on Ephesians. I would like to recommend it to you. It just really kills me to recommend you the book. First of all, because I lost mine. Of all the books to lose, I lost that one. Where I lost it, I don't know. But, there was a professor at Talbot Seminary who did not believe the spirit world was real. And so, he went to Scotland to get his Ph.D. at the Ed somebody, university there, whatever. Someplace over there. And while he was there, he decided to write his paper on Ephesians. And he wanted to write on Ephesians how it correlated or correlated the New Age. And so he did. And it's been published in a book. It's called Ephesians Magic Power or something like that. I think it's in the biography in the back. He came back to Neal Anderson, who teaches at Talbot, has the double Ph.D. Neal said, he said, Neal, do you realize that demons are real? And this guy, in studying, he's done the most fantastic book on Ephesians that you've ever, ever read. It's heavy reading. It's only that thick. And half of it is annotated notes. I think it's probably 170 pages of text that you will read three pages and have to stop and say, I can't believe this. And he goes, do you know the word power is used in Ephesians more than any other book? I mean, it's just awesome. But the book costs $40. Well, send out a prayer letter. Haven't you guys got any faith? I want a book. Give to my book fund. But I'll tell you, it's an awesome, awesome book. It's written by Clinton Arnold and it's published by Cambridge Press in England. So that's why it's so expensive. It's a tragedy. But I'll tell you, we recommend it to pastors and all the pastors who've bought it and read it and said, I've never read a book on Ephesians. That has opened my eyes. It opened his eyes. I mean, here's a man who sat down to write a book that didn't believe the spirit world was real. And before he got through the book, you know the man knows it's real. And he also is teaching at Talbot Seminary and he has at least one PhD or whatever they get. You know, someone asked me, well, how many degrees do you have? I said, I was burnt bad once. Ephesians chapter 2. He says, And you have been made alive. See, we're not just crucified with Christ. We're what? We've been made alive. And you have been made alive who were dead and trespassed in sin. Where in times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that works where? In all of the children of disobedience. See, we're in a spiritual battle. Whatever you go to share Christ. Oh, I didn't share this with you. I got to share this with you. Now look at our time. This is awesome. When we share principalities and powers and so on, I mean, there's so many things I could tell you, but this is so neat. Our people in the inner city work in Philadelphia were, have you ever worked with inner city kids? I mean, these kids aren't hyperactive. Hyperactive kids would be neat kids to teach. I mean, these kids are unbelievable. They are just and you have rooms full of them. You know, they've all been sexually abused and you know, none of them were born and they were withdrawn from drugs, babies and all that. And you get all these kids. No one loves them. They don't know who their dad is. Some of them are kids living on the street. They're in clubs. And you're trying to share the gospel with them. You know, sharing the gospel with just plain old kids is not easy. Whenever you get the invitation, what happens? You ever notice when you give an invitation to children, how they all wiggle and everything just, well, these kids, you know, I couldn't teach inner city kids because I'd keep telling them to shut up and listen. And I'd spend all my time shaking and bopping heads. You know, it's just, I don't like people that don't listen when I'm talking. You know. And what they did, as the teacher would teach, and you can, this couple's at Warrington right now running our educational program. The husband would stand in the back as she was teaching the children and once a child would get, I mean, these kids, you know, hit each other and they swear. It's horrible. Soon as something like that would happen, he'd pray against it and it would stop. And he had discipline in the classroom that the inner city people that were there could not believe and they did it by prayer not with their mouth. As he prayed against the powers that were holding these, what it says here, the children of disobedience, he prayed against that when he saw it and they had discipline and order in the classroom. We trained a bunch of kids, teenagers, that go out and do our summer missionary program and the one kid's at Trinity and he and his partner would go out and when one shared the gospel the other prayed against the forces of darkness. And they saw more kids save that year and both those guys had been summer missionaries for six years. As one got involved in actively praying while the other one cheered. I shared this with, did I tell you about the navigators who was in this group? I told you about the navigators? And these navigators thought they'd try it out so they went into Warrington looking for someone to try it out on. Did I tell you that? Okay. I don't recommend this, but you know navigators, these guys are, I mean I love the navigators. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be a Christian. They're the ones that sought me out and shared Christ with me and discipled me. But these guys are nuts and they thought, well the only place anybody in this town's going to be in the bar so let's go to the bars and witness. So they drove up to this bar and they went in and they looked around. Here was a guy sitting at a table and he had tattoos all over his arm and hair down his back and they said, he's the guy. If this thing works, it's going to work. We're going to try it out. So one's going to witness and the other's going to talk and they sit down. Hey guy, you know you're going to hell? We'll come talk to you about it. I don't know what they did, but anyway. One sat down and the other prayed. And of course they'd never thought through what all you'd pray about. So he's talking to this guy about Christ and while the guy was praying, and of course this guy didn't realize, this guy would put his beer aside and lean forward. And then the kid would run out of stuff to say and he'd look up at the TV at the game. And this guy would sit back and start to argue. Uh-oh. So he'd pray again and this guy would lean forward. And they couldn't believe it. It was just when they prayed against the forces he was listening. When they stopped praying, the forces of darkness was blinding his mind. They said, it was awesome Logan, it was awesome. Let me tell you, I think you ought to go out by twos. One share, one pray. Against and to the Lord. Rebuking and to the Lord. Among whom we also had our lifestyle in times past in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others. But God, not nathies, but gods, but God who is rich in mercy and His great love when He loved us, even when we were dead in sin. He made us alive in Christ. Isn't that beautiful? He made us alive in Christ. Now here comes to me the best passage in all the Bible on spiritual warfare. The thing I love the most. If you came for counseling, I would always teach you this passage. Always. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're a seminary professor or whatever. We go through this passage. Do you fully understand? And this is it. Ephesians chapter 1. Beautiful. It's Paul's prayer for the church. It's awesome. Verse 15. After I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and love to all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. Now remember the people at Ephesus were paralleling the New Age. They were casting demons out of people at Ephesus at Artemeus. You knew that, didn't you? If you didn't know it, get his book and you'll know it. And read it about what they were doing. And this was the religion that was in Ephesus and Colossae and everything. He studied the religion. And when you read it, you're going, man, it's just the New Age rebirth. I mean, we just got Ephesus rebirth today in the New Age movement. The philosophies and the tenets of that are exactly like the New Age. And they were casting out spirits. And so Paul was writing to people coming out of a demonic worship. Coming out of immorality. You notice that you knew that if you worshiped Diana, you had sex with one of the thousand prostitutes at the temple there. So they had sex, religion, and demonic all wrapped together in a package that was sweeping the world. And Paul is praying for these people because they're coming out of such terrible darkness. And he's praying that this darkness, that they'll come clear out of the darkness. There's nothing worse than just sort of coming out of the darkness, right? Walking half in the darkness and half in the light. And Paul wanted them all in the light. Totally in the light. Putting off the former works of darkness. Putting the whole thing behind them. And that's not easy. Is it? It's not easy when you've been raised your whole life in darkness to just throw it all off. It's difficult. We've been taught in our wrong thinking and all of that. The wrong programming in our mind. And this is what he prayed. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. He's saying that you might have wisdom in your knowledge of Him. And literally there, in another translation, it's, I am praying that you will have wisdom so you can know Him better. You need to know Him better. If you're going to stand in the great darkness there at Ephesus and all of that occultic stuff, you're going to have to know Him better. That the eyes of your understanding will be enlightened. See, we've got, that's the work of the Holy Spirit. He's got to open my eyes so I can see. And when I'm dealing with the spirit world, unless God allows me to see it, I just don't see it. I have got to see it. God, you've got to give me eyes of understanding that I might really be able to evaluate what is going on here. Because I can't see that world. I don't see into that world. But I'm dealing with it constantly. Give me an understanding spirit. Open my eyes that I might see this. That I might know what is the hope of His calling. And the riches of His glory and His inheritance in the saints. Do you know what it means to be a believer? Do you know what God has for you? Do you know your full inheritance? That's what He's praying. Are you standing in your full birthright? Do you know who you are? And He said, I'm praying that the Spirit of God will reveal that to you because you're living in a very terrible place. And you're going to have to know this if you're going to make it. And He said, what is the exceeding greatness of His power? Those are those words. Exceeding greatness of His power. God's power is awesome. But when He puts those words, you can't put a period. You need to understand the power of God in your life. And the fullness of God's power working through you to its ultimate greatness. To us were to believe according to the working of His mighty power. He said, the power I am talking about is demonstrated. This power is available to you to live the Christian life. And I'm going to tell you how God demonstrated the power I'm talking about that's yours. First of all, the power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. Now one man walked out of the church and said, Jim Logan said, Christians ought to be raising the dead. That's not what I said, okay? Don't walk out of here and say that. He's saying here the power that gave life to a dead man is the power that God has given to me to live the Christian life. If you were a Christian and we went to a funeral and it was your friend and I said he's dead, do something, what would you say? It's too late. I can't do anything. It's only God that can put life in a dead body. But that's awesome power because that is a hopeless situation. Absolutely hopeless. If God doesn't do something, what? Nothing is going to happen. So here you have this hopeless situation. The second thing He says that demonstrates the power He says that's working in us is when He set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places. How much power does it take to lift a man off the earth and take him into the third heaven? Now that's the kind of power that is yours right now to live this day. That's the power He's talking about. That's yours. That same power, that exceeding great power is your power for Christian life. Sitting at His right hand far above principalities and powers and might and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this world but also in the world to come, and hath put all these things under His feet and given Him to be head over all things to the church which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. What is Jesus doing in heaven today? What's His position there? He's what? He's seated. Is He seated because He's tired? Why seated? Because it's finished. It's done. What's done? The defeat of the spirit world is done, and He's seated at God's right hand. And it says principalities and powers. You ever heard of those? And might and dominion in every name that is named. Not only this world, but in the world to come is under His body. Is that what yours says? Well, if it's under His feet, it's under His body, isn't it? Why did God say under His feet? Why did He say it's under His head? Under His shoulders? Under His body? No, He said under His feet. There's a reason. A specific reason. Remember when a king conquered an army, he would take the highest ranking member, bring him out, lay him down on the ground, and take his foot and put it on his throat. You know what that showed? Total subjection to the one who won. And Jesus laid Satan on the ground and he put his foot on his throat. Then often they called for a sword and the head went. Isn't that a beautiful picture here? Here is Jesus sitting in heaven and the spirit world is what? Under His feet. And this chapter 2, verse 6 is an awesome verse for you. And He raised us up together. He talks about being saved. Raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Let me ask you a question. If you are now positionally seated with Christ, where is the spirit world in relationship to you? It's under my feet. Believe that. Believe that. You have power and authority over the spirit world. It's under your feet. That is my position. That's what this chart is all about. Not only have I been crucified with Christ, not only have I been raised with Christ, but I'm what? Seated with Him in the glories. And you can go on the rest of the chart because we're going to reign with Him and that's why the crown and so on. But let's look at in closing some tremendous verses. 1 Peter 3.22. I love this. Now when I teach somebody I don't use the chart. I just usually go to the verses and let the Lord lead me and just share the verses and let them visualize it. But people have taken this chart and the blank charts and have used it tremendously with nationals because they were able to draw and they give them something and they draw on the crosses and they do this and somehow by drawing it in and seeing that they have their cross and Jesus has His and He was resurrected and they're going to be in the resurrection and He's seated and they're seated and just somehow doing it, it clicks with them and they just have so much more willingness to stand against this. Ephesians 3.22. The Lord Jesus Christ who has gone to heaven is at the right hand of God and angels and authorities and powers have been made what? Subject to Him. Amen. Right? Amen. He's in heaven today and all the demonic world is subject to Him. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world and if the world shall be judged by you are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge what? Angels. Are you going to judge the angels that always do what's right? That always obey God? Is there any judgment there? No. The angels you and I are going to sit in judgment on are wicked fallen spirits. You and I are going to sit in judgment on the demonic world in eternity. Isn't that awesome? And you know what I do when I see a young person whose life is just totally under the control of the demonic world? I tell the young person, don't forget this one when you judge it in eternity. And I've had the demons groan. Don't forget them. Nearly wiped your life out. And one day you can sit in judgment on the spirit. Cast them. I like a verse. I like to read this to wicked spirits. They don't like it. Let burning coals fall upon them. Let them be cast into the fire, into the deep pits that they rise not up again. That's an awesome verse. And then the last verse we want to look at is Philippians chapter 2. And this is probably the most glorious verse of the spirit world in all of the Bible. And those that are doing our kind of work will tell you that this verse will bring tremendous agitation. And they will say, I will never do this. Never. And we say, yes you will. It's talking here, you know, where Jesus humbled himself, and he humbled himself, and he humbled himself, and he humbled himself. And he became even obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And the next verse says, wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee, what? All bow. Everyone. Of things in the heaven, of things in the earth, and of things under the earth, and every tongue, including every demonic spirit, but what? Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Now that's not salvation. We're not talking about salvation here. There's acknowledging he is who he said he was. He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Father, thank you that we are in Christ. And that you talk about that forty times in the book of Ephesians before you tell us about wrestling spiritual powers. In Christ. In Christ. In Christ. Father, I'm so thankful today that in Christ all the forces of darkness are under my feet. And Father, I can choose to live victoriously in Christ today. And that his power has been given to me. And today you will make me sufficient for every trial, every struggle, every phone call, every disappointment, that you will give me the grace, the power to choose, to make the right choice, that I might walk in victory this day. In Christ's name we pray and we praise him. Amen.