All right, praise the Lord. They're not exaggerating. Uh in you're going
to but guess what, they don't have property taxes. Yeah, so maybe
I could put up with a pothole or two. I don't know. Maybe
I don't know, but yeah, some of those drives are pretty crazy.
Bless them, Bless them, Bless them, and shower goodness on the amen
sought. Are we thank you for your word today and just see overflow of
holy spirit upon us and the way you help us. And it's the illumination
of your word to us and over us and then threw us in Jesus' name,
everybody said on week two of the Avengers, and this is all about
preparing the way of the Lord. Right. So, and I think somewhat
in mind that we don't maybe we need to realize, I want to say
it that way. We need to realize. And part of what I feel
like is important for me to deposit is just how important it is to to
get the garden ready, for the garden to be shifted right, for thee
to get the garden ready. So not just my garden, but I'm talking
about you know, the cultural garden. Right. So a lot of times
what happens to prepare the way for the Lord. The Lord is the living
Word. To prepare the way for the word of the Lord, the presence
of the Lord, the truth of the Lord, the ministry of the Lord,
the wisdom from above. There needs to be a shift that takes place
that gets the garden ready. Anybody got in a garden at home, garden
box you ever had, you never had a garden of any kind. So
therefore today I'm kind of talking a little bit more about the spirit of the
avenger. That Jesus came not to be avenged on mankind. Jesus came as
Father's avengement on the enemy who had taken mankind captive, and that Father's animosity,
in Father's ultimate expression, is not with us. It's not with mankind.
It's with the demonic realm that is and has been holding mankind in captivity
and reeking harm in mankind. Yes, so just thinking like this week we
had we had some movement this week if you were aware, if you were
watching the news, we had some movement this week kind of interesting in the
Ivy League schools where you watching some of that, and so we had some
some uncleanness come out into the open right before Congress, remember that, And
interestingly enough it was exposed. But interestingly enough it was emboldened, right.
So it was emboldened at Harvard, So it was emboldened at these Ivy schools,
and it was unapologetically spoken of. Right. But maybe we saw a
little bit of a movement there, like all at once. Now we see
presidents of universities either fired or resigning, and we're seeing millions, maybe hundreds
of millions of dollars of funding removed, as this unclean agenda has been exposed,
and there's a lot of unclean stuff tied to it, right, And
what I want to present to you was that this week, what you saw
happen was actually the result of spiritual warfare, not just wisdom and truth.
What you saw this week was the result of hundreds of thousands of Christians praying
and making proclamations against the enemy and against see Harvard, Princeton, Yale.
These were biblical schools, These started as Bible institutions. These were the foundation
of our nation. These Ivy League schools were the foundational schools of our nation.
And some of our greatest theologians were actually presidents of those schools. So
This is a reclaiming of ground that belonged to God. So it's not over
ya, But I just want you to see. What I want you to
see is that. And even dating back, you know, six months ago
with Roe v. Wade, Roe v. Wade was overturned on a national
level, it was turned over to the States. And I want you to
see, even dating back to that, that was it wasn't just the culmination
of wisdom and truth. It was the culmination of years since nineteen seventy three
of Christians praying and actually bringing down a deity by the name of Mullik.
So a deity was bound up and brought down, and it manifested in various
ways. And there's always a fullness of time thing that has to happen.
So the fullness of time means that the words spoken and that the rebuke and
the command and the authority of the believers has to rise to a level of
maturity to where it brings things to pass, where judges are removed and judges
are placed in, and mindsets are changed, and leadership has changed. Truth
begins to make an impact and people begin to hear truth and things begin to
shift. And then this one begins to shift. That begins to shift,
and the next thing, you know, then we have a decision. But
the decision underneath, and the backdrop of that is a lot of prayer,
a lot of warfare, a lot of rebuke, a lot of truth,
a lot of a lot of compassion, a lot of wise ministry, a
lot of there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes happening, and then all
once we have something that takes place, but it's the result of a lot
of background, and a lot of that background the most I mean where it
begins as we make room for the Lord, as we prepare for his coming,
as we prepare for his influence, as we prepare for his glory,
as we prepare for his presence. A lot of it starts, as we
mentioned last week, in the realm of warfare. It starts in the realm
of us confronting the enemy. And we're kind of, you know, even
as much as New Horizon has spoken on this kind of thing, we even
we hear as a people, we tend to be warfare adverse. What I
mean by that is, we don't necessarily see it as super important. We
don't see it as as connected to the main thing We don't see it as
daily important. We don't see it as something that really will move things forward.
We don't really see it as maybe a source of a victory or an
answer. But you'd never plant a garden full of weeds. You'd never plant
a garden full of weeds. And there's you know, there's biblical truth here.
Not only would you not plant a garden full of weeds, but you
also you were taught mom Tatsya that when you pull the weed, you don't
want to break the weed and just get the manifestation. Don't break the weed
and get the manifestation, get the dirt, kind of loosen up a little
bit, and get the root, because if you don't get the root,
it may come back. And this is all biblical. This is all biblical.
This is these are biblical metaphors. This is God helping us to see
that the fruit of a thing has something behind that there's always something deeper behind
what is seen. And even in our own lives, we don't want to
just work on the fruit of what's troubling us or what we're addicted to or
drawn to, or what we've made an idol of, or what we used
to do or what seems to speak condemning thoughts over us or what fears torment
us. We don't want to just work on the fruit of that. We
want to go to the root of that, right And you know, so
this is you know, this is all I just I want to stir you
up a little bit more about kind of how important this is, because like
like we saw and it was really brought to our attention this week, our
schools and universities have been taken over by the demonic realm. Our government to
a degree, all all three bodies of leadership in the government have been taken
over by the demonic realm to a large degree. Our media has been taken
over by the demonic realm. Be it our movies. We pump out more
porn. United States of America pumps out more porn than any nation in the
world. We are perverting and spreading the Goddess of Ishtar. It's a spiritual
deity, It's a true spiritual deity. We are spreading the hortoms of pornography
and prostitution and uncleanness across the globe like like no place ELPs, like nobody
is. And so you know, what do we do about? What do
we do about some of this stuff, right, our education system. I
mentioned that our schools, you know, I mean, so we could just
sports sports are messed up? Right? How many how many men won women's
competitions this week? Hello? Somebody? Right? I mean, it's just
it's crazy stuff. But we're not hopeless in this stuff. We're not hopeless
in this stuff. If and as we focus not just on the fruit,
but as we focus on the route, we realize that Ephesian six ten through
eighteen is true, right, and let's read it. Let's dive into a
few verses here. Yeah, I think it's interesting as well. I'll just
I'll mention this. I think, you know, spirits, the unclean realm
is so emboldened right now and out in full manifestation that I don't know if
we have to be super discerning. I joked with you last week a little
bit, and I joked after the sermon mark four, mark five. You
know, it's where Jesus is found to be crossing over in a boat to
the other side of the lake, and when he gets there, there's a
naked guy with a couple of chains hanging on him running around the beach streaming.
And we could be amazed that Jesus immediately starts rebuking the demonic realm and
telling the demonic realm to leave him alone. We could be amazed at that,
but maybe we don't need to be. And I don't mean that in
a dishonoring way, but I think it's a little obvious, right. I
mean, you pull up to a spot and somebody with some chains and they're
naked is running around streaming. Are they normal? Is normal? Here?
Yeah? I mean you don't need a goosebump from the Holy Spirit, you
don't need a breakthrough, you don't need a prayer meeting, you don't need
to feel led. It's fairly obvious. This person is demonized, this person
is harmed and taken captive by something, and you are fully able to bring
help to them. And I think that it's kind of that way right now
in culture. And for us to not be moved, and for us to
not move, we're gonna have to have some mighty hearty blinders on, right.
I mean, we're gonna because opportunity is everywhere for us to be engaged
in setting atmospheres free. Yeah. Ephesian six' ten through eighteen. And
I feel like it's so important to say this that if you have been a
Christian five minutes or you've been a Christian five hundred years, you're okay.
This is okay for you. Like if you know how to get angry or
frustrated, and if you can discern if a dog's chasing you and barking and
you'd like to rebuke it, you can discern what the enemy is. And
not only that, not only can you discern the enemy, but your rebuke
five minutes into the Lord is just as powerful as my rebuke sixty years into
the Lord. Right, I mean, your rebuke is just as powerful.
So don't let anything get on you, as I talked this morning, that
would disqualify you, that would quinch you, that would tell you that you
weren't capable or able, or that you weren't because all of our I'm going
to read it at the moment, all of our strength and all of our
authority and everything is in the Lord. It's all in the Lord. It's
all in the Lord. But yet still we're called to rise up into it.
And like you would be angry at a German shepherd chasing you or anything
you know, nipping at you, we're called to be angry over what the
enemy's doing to people and to our culture and to our institutions. And we're
called to say no more, and get out of my schools, and get
out of my government, and get out of my community, and get out
of my family, and get off of my friends and leave them alone no
more. And there needs to be a little righteous indignation that we allow to
come up in us and wake us up right. It's like we need a
shot of spiritual adrenaline, and it's available if we will just realize that this
is our place, that we really are the avengers of God. We are
who he's using by the Holy Spirit to confront darkness and to see it overturned,
and not just confront the fruit of darkness, because that can be futile,
but to confront the root of darkness as we bring wisdom and truth to
the fruit of darkness. And then it brings a shift. Ephesian six tens
through eighteen. Finally, and so he's ending he's written a big old letter
to the Ephesus Church. That's why he says finally, by the way,
because this is a six chapter long letter, Finally, be strong in the
Lord and in the power of his might, in his mighty power. Put
on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to take
your stand against the devil's schemes. You notice, so that you will be
able to take your stand against the devil's schemes. And notice the inference is
this is an ongoing stance like we never aren't. That's not good English,
but we we never aren't to take a stance against the enemy's schemes. This
is an aggressive stance. This is an offensive stance. This is what you
are empowered for. This is what you are enabled for. And it doesn't
you know whatever you've been taught in religion. Welcome to new horizon. We're
going to help you grow and understand that your victories are completely married to your
aggression. Your victories are completely married to your aggression. And many believers do
not have heaven coming in their lives, and they aren't seeing victories in their
own personal lives or their family, or their personal space or the areas where
they have influence geographically or revelationally because they aren't taking and aggressive stance, but
on the full armor of God. So you can take your stand against the
devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against
the rulers, against the authorities. And he kind of said that because you
know, you have to understand the shift right now. The shift is that
in the Old Testament, they didn't deal with the demonic realm, and they
weren't enabled to deal with the demonic realm. The demonic realm was animating the
people, around the Israeli people, around the Jewish people, and so all
of these nations are led and animated by the demonic realm. But they didn't
approach, nor did they have the power, the authority, the righteousness,
or the discernment to approach those nations to deliver those nations from that which was
unclean. But when Jesus triumphed over Satan and sent the Holy Spirit to live
in us, the warfare shifted from against people and tribes and tongues. It
shifted from against the people to against the demons that moved in the people and
animated the people. So we're no longer called the fight. People were called
to fight the demonic realm that moves the people. And that's part of why
Paul is making this argument super clear, is that he's talking to people that
would understand the history, and they would understand where they once came from,
and they would understand the warfare that was common between tribes or people. But
now there's a shift, and he says, your warfare is not with flesh
and blood. It's no longer with flesh and blood from now on, because
your spirit empowered, your spirit discerning, your spirit has the authority of Jesus.
Now your warfare shifts to confront the spirit realm. You go after the
root of a thing, not the fruit of a thing, the root of
a thing. And I should say it like, not just the fruit of
the thing, because we also approach the fruit of the unclean realm with wisdom
and truth. We're showing up with wisdom and truth, but we're also engaged
in the spiritual battle. That makes sense. Jumping down a little bit further
in this passage, take up the shield of faith verse sixteen, with which
you can extinguish the eros of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, the
sword of the Spirit. We have offensive weapons. And part of what I
wanted to get to you today was just how important it is that we are
addressing the demonic realm as a part of our It's really a part of your
prayer life. You'll notice in Matthew sixteen nineteen he gives us the keys to
the Kingdom of Heaven. If you want to put it up, you can.
He gives us the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven to bind and to
loose. And like, what I want you to see is that this is
not like, oh yeah, the enemy came against me on Friday, so
I needed to do some binding. Oh yeah, this was going on somebody
and our family got sick on Monday, so I needed to do some binding.
So that's that isn't the inference. The inference isn't that we engage in
binding the demonic realm when the demonic realm attacks us. That isn't the inference.
The inference is that we are confronting, we are binding, we are
going after, we are naming the demonic realm every single day, every single
day, every single day, every single day. And fact is, I
would guess that the reason you were bothered on Thursday over something is because you
had not been doing something Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so Thursday came
and because you hadn't been confronting something and you hadn't been just combined as a
part of your prayer. It's really a natural part of your prayer. It's
a natural part of the Lord's prayer. Give us this day our daily bread.
Oh that means I'm praying every day. That means I'm engaged in prayer
every day. Give us this day our daily bread. Lead us not into
temptation, deliver us from evil. Prayers with regard to darkness, evil,
the influence of the enemy. This is like common stuff, and it's really
a part of our daily expression before the Lord. And it doesn't mean,
it doesn't mean that you are bad, sinful, lowly a low life week
of faith if you're engaged in confronting the demonic realm. And this is actually,
you know, thinking about the demonic realm, How do we keep demons
bound? Is it a one and done many for you? It was the
one and done. Hasn't been that way for me. The spirit realm is
very fluid, and we don't even know exactly where demons go. What we
know is in Matthew twelve, Jesus said, when a spirit goes, he
says, first, you can't plunder you can't plunder a house and therefore reap
what the enemy's been building up. You can't reap what the enemy's been building
up unless you bind the strong man. So you have to bind the strong
man before you can reap. And this is the picture of this was in
the Old Testament in a very physical way. A very microphone's acting up in
a very it usually means that we have a frequency problem. Could be an
ambulance going by or an angel flying fast. I don't know that you think
it's batteries, really, okay, So with Israel, this was a very
very a very clear, vivid picture that when they went into the Promised Land,
they were going against these seven unclean nations, and these nations were filled
with idolatry, and they were demonized nations, and they were to drive them
out. And it's a picture of now what we do in the spirit realm,
in the New Testament life is where to drive the enemy out. And
whatever we don't drive out becomes a problem. Whatever we don't confront becomes a
bit of a problem. And so you know, even with us and this
is this is you and me, we'll just make this us. This is
my house. Uh, we need to make sure that we're getting the crowd
out of us right. And since we don't know where demons go, we
just know Jesus said Matthew twelve. They go to the dry places. That
means they go where there's no anointing and there's no word present, there's no
anointing and word present, there's no Holy Spirit present. That's where they go.
Those are called dry places. Dry places are where Holy Spirit is not
moving. But we don't know where they go exactly. We do know though,
that they come back and they caught they could, they could. This
was this was supposed to be a really big bold marker. That's why I
bought it. They could come back through things that are happening in culture,
right, So they could come back and bug us because we got exposed to
something in culture where for sure, these spirits are working, be it Mullik,
or be it Bael, or be it ishtar okay, And we could
just name a whole bunch of these whatever, and it could be that we
know them by it could be that we know them by their characteristic pride.
So when we get around those influences, sometimes we're influenced or tested in something
that we got free of So the big thing is that we're getting free,
right, that's the big thing. But then also to recognize that we have
the power to bring freedom to other influences, like the church. Did you
know if you are at church, or you're around at church people, or
you're with the church people and you sense fruit that is not good, you
can assume there's a root that's not good. We don't want to assume that
just because it's church there's no demonic influence. That's a bad assumption. Whatever
is true on a micro level with me is also true on a macro level.
If it's true in government that there's unclean influence and it's going to be
manifested in the fruit. If it's true in education that if there's unclean influence.
Right, So this is where this is where, and it's become so
obvious. We don't need a holy spirit download. You're a fruit inspector if
you're discerning with just common discernment things that are not of God, the influence
of pride or the love of money, or sensuality and sexual uncleanness or this
one here, this is all about, you know, the sacrifice of children.
Bael is represented by the bowl, which is now epitomized in our stock
market, interconnected to an unclean spirit that brings prosperity and blessing. But most
you know, most of this stuff, we just recognize it by the fruit,
and we can conclude that by the fruit, there's a root system attached
to it. And having done that, the calling that every one of us
have is to begin to confront it. If there's bad fruit in my family,
I have the grace, the power of the anointing to begin to tell
it to leave my family alone. That easy, you that's producing this fruit
and my family, leave my family alone. And I'm telling you, that's
how some of these battles are getting one right now. These battles are not
getting one, be it on a national level, or a state level,
or a community level. These battles are not getting one just because people are
showing up with wisdom and truth. Because wisdom and truth can just perpetuate a
great argument and a great conflict and a great fight. But when we show
up first in the spirit realm and we begin to confront what's moving it,
what's motivating it, what's driving it, and we begin to declare that that
has to go, and that particular thing has to and wherever you have geographical
influence, wherever you have geographical influence, and wherever you have a revelation,
you have the authority to dismiss that presence and that darkness out of that thing.
And this is going to make room for the Lord. I'm telling him.
We're going to see things shift. We're going to see things change.
God's going to be moving, doors are going to be opened up, and
we're going to see a greater opportunity for the work of the Gospel. Let's
stand this morning. Who gets more victory is an offensive team or a defensive
team? Ah, an offensive team is going to get more victories. I
would bet that most of your victories came because you needed to be defensive.
But that should show you the power that you have and the power that you
walk in. Now, I'm not saying that to make you feel bad or
bring condemnation to anybody. Same with me. It's the same with me most
all of the greatest victories I've had. You know, for for ten years,
probably ten years, we you know, we labored to get a building
here and fasting and prayer, raising money, working hard, winning souls.
City Council meetings, you know, doing everything you could possibly imagine, but
it seemed like everything it was against us. And so we're fasting and praying
constantly, and you know, the church is struggling difficulties and ups and downs.
Lots of resistance in the sphere realm no, lots of resistance in the
spirit room, manifested by the fruit of our inability to build and get a
building. And even after we bought the property here we bought the property,
it's all sorts of you know, the neighbors uh tried to steal our land,
the city shut down our our permits to build, and all this stuff's
going on. So I was friend one day and the Lord took me to
this really weird obscure passage in Isaiah about cursing Bayel. And he said to
me in prayer, it was like an audible. It was like I could
it was the Holy Spirit, but it was so weird. I'm like,
oh, okay, and it was. And he said, begin to proclaim
this passage over the church that bell bay L, b aa L, that
bay L, and there's another god in their name that's called Marduke. Obscure
passage. Just begin to declare that these are bound and cast off of your
church. Like, okay, all right, we'll go with that. So
I shared it with you know, some of the folks that we're here,
you know, in a part of the body, and so a few of
us, you know, we started doing this just daily, every day,
and we need to break through, right every day. We just started and
then it was just became a part of a proclamation. And you know it
wasn't, but I mean it was almost overnight we had breakthroughs all the ones.
I get an email from the city and they'd had a string of mayors
that had opposed us, and they'd been a part of the spiritual environment.
I get an email one day and they're like, the city's changing. The
form of government is no longer going to be mayor led. They're going to
let a city manager lead the city. We want you to come. We're
interviewing five city managers. We want you know, everybody in the city was
invited to come meet the city manager. I'm going late. If you got
to get kids, go ahead and get them, otherwise I'm going to get
in trouble. And so I go to this meeting and the Holy Spirit said,
by the way, have everybody in the church chart to pray for a
spirit filled city manager. So we start praying for the city, pray for
spiritfield the city manager. I meet one guy there who's a four square guy,
spirit filled. That's the guy the city hires. As soon as the
city hires him, he pulls up my file it's about two inches thick,
and he calls the church office and he says, hey, Pastor Dwayne,
I want you to come in and I want to meet with you. I'm
seeing everything the city has done to you to keep you from building your building.
We're going to change that immediately. Joe Simms goes in with me.
We go in and we sit down with the guy. He says, what
do we need to do the building to get that building built? And I
told him blah blah blah blah blah blah. He called up the engineers had
come into my office. Immediately, all the engineers come into his office.
He said, I want this change by tomorrow. We want this. Let's
get this thing change by tomorrow. All I did was begin to do.
I started addressing an obscure principality that at that time I knew nothing about,
and God shifted everything. We the body of Christ. God. God is
going to work through the body of Christ to shift education, to shift government,
to shift religion, to shift the media, to shift entertainment, the
shift sports, to shift everything. Everything's going to shift. As we partner
with Holy Spirit, with not only petition and prayer, but with the sword
of the Lord, with the sword of the Lord Father. We just thank
you that we we are hope filled, we are partnered with you. We
are discerning, and you are enabling us, and your grace is on us.
And as we see the fruit, we make note, we take note
of the root and we begin to address it. We thank you for your
authority to bring a shift to every area of culture, and that you've made
us partners with you. Jesus the Avenger, the one who is against the
demonic realm, and we'll see it to it that that realm is bound and
disempowered and continues in that state. As we walk by the word and walk
in faith. We give you the praise for it today in Jesus' name,
and everybody said, God, bless you. Charch Let's worship as we go