Welcome to Mars Hill. My name is Mark, one of the pastors here at the church. Jump right into teaching tonight. If you’re new, normally we go right through books of the Bible, and we’re deviating from the norm to do a topical series on the cross of Jesus Christ, the symbol of our faith, the centerpiece of human history and the most important event by the most important man who has ever lived.

Now, what led to this is I’ve got a couple books coming out in the spring. One of them is a theology book with Zondervan, and they asked me to write on this doctrine of the atonement. What did Christ do on the cross? And spent months reading, studying some 40-some books I read on this and spent nights just reading my Bible, praying and weeping. You know, it was just heartbreaking.

Felt compelled by God the Holy Spirit to share what I was learning with you, and so that will be our series. And it’s interesting because the cross of Jesus Christ is truly the crowning jewel of our faith. And like all jewels, the cross of Jesus has many different glorious and beautiful sides to it.

Last week we looked at one side, substitutionary atonement. Those that are raised in Presbyterian and Reform backgrounds, Lutheran backgrounds, they are more accustomed to substitutionary atonement. The Bible clearly teaches it. We dealt with it last week.

This week we will look at another side of that jewel that is more common among Charismatics and Pentecostals. That is Christus Victor. That is the victory of Jesus over Satan’s sin, death and demons. And at Mars Hill we love both sides because they’re in the Bible, and we, in fact, are Reformed and kind of Charismatic. Charismatic with a seatbelt is the way we like to describe it, and so that’s where we’re at.

So throughout the course of three months of study together, I’m going to try and show you all the different sides of this great jewel and the many, many things that Jesus did for us on the cross, and so this week we will look at Christus Victor, so it’s good to have you. And as we study Christ, our victorious, triumphant King, I’ll go ahead and open us up in prayer, and then we shall get right to work together.

Father God, thank you for an opportunity to study Scripture here together tonight in the least churched city in the country with a packed house, can’t even get everybody in.

God, it is my prayer as we study that the work of Jesus on the cross would be foremost in our minds. I pray against the enemy, his servants and their works and effects. I pray that people would be able to think clearly and we’d be able to study tonight without disruption or distraction.

I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would come and lead and guide and convict and instruct us, and it’s our prayer that when all is said and done, Lord Jesus, we’d have a profound love for you, a hatred of sin, and that, Lord Jesus, you would receive glory and honor and that we would receive comfort and joy and freedom.

And so we ask, Holy Spirit, that by your power and your might and your grace our time would be pleasing to our Lord and would be profitable to us, and we ask that in Jesus’ good name. Amen.

As we get into it tonight, we’re going to look at the conflict between Jesus Christ, our great God, and Satan. We’ll look at the theological doctrine of Christus Victor, the victory of Jesus over Satan and demons.

To open up, I need all of you in this sermon to see Jesus as a triumphant warrior and king. That’s one of the great images of him, for example, in the book of Revelation. I will need you to see Satan as an enemy that stands in strong opposition to Jesus Christ. I will need you to see sin as captivity and slavery, participation with Satan, who is your enemy. Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:26 that Satan has taken people captive to do his will. That’s a good definition of sin, Satan taking people captive to do his will to their own destruction.

And then I will also need you to see human history, including your own life, as a battleground in which this war between God and Satan is ongoing and that your soul and my soul and the eternal lives of others are much at stake in the middle of this great war.

Now as we launch in, some of you here may say Satan and demons, you already start freaking out. You went to the, you know, the freaky church and they said that, and then everything got crazy. Let me read a quote from C.S. Lewis that maybe will help guide our time. He says in his great book The Screwtape Letters, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and an unhealthy interest in them.”

Lewis rightly says there are two teams: all or nothing. Those who are on the nothing team say that demons don’t exist, that Satan isn’t real, that this is people with overactive imaginations, people that into a myth and fable and legend and folklore. On the other side there are those who are so obsessed with Satan and demons that they don’t think enough about Jesus. They think too much about Satan. And when they sin, they’re prone to blame Satan like Eve did in Genesis 3 and say the Devil made me do it and I’m a victim.

We wanna avoid those two extremes, that there are no such thing as Satan and demons or that everything is about Satan and demons. And we want a nice, biblical, robust centered theology that accurately deals with Satan and demons without obsessing over them.

But for those of you, too, who may be skeptical, that great line at the end of the movie “The Usual Suspects.” The greatest lie the Devil ever told is that he doesn’t exist. Some of you have lived under that line. I’m intending to rob you of that illusion today and to open your eyes and open your minds to the truth of what is really going on in this world.

And so as we get into the beginning, I’ll start where Scripture does. An eternity passed where there is one God. There only is one God – Father, Son and Spirit – and that God lives forever. God is all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing. God then decides to create angels. Angels are not equal to God. They’re not all-powerful. They’re not all-present. They’re not all-knowing. That’s important because as we get into the conflict between God and fallen angels, I don’t want you to see this as an equal conflict between God and Satan. Instead, I want you to see that God still rules and reigns and that Satan has declared rebellion, but he’s no way equal to God and neither are demons.

Nonetheless, God made angels, pure, holy and good. He made them to serve him on the earth and to do good for our lives. What happened in Heaven, though, is that rebellion broke out, that there was one angel in particular who was a leader of other angels. The Scripture says in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 became proud in his heart. He became arrogant. Today we would say that he had a high self-esteem.

And this is gonna be a shock to some of you, that the root of all demonic activity is pride. A euphemism for pride is self-esteem. One of the things I want you to see about Satan is that he is a master at marketing, and he will take words that are negative. He will spin them so they are positive, and today people think that the only way to have a good life is to have a high self-esteem. It’s the same sin that got Satan kicked out of Heaven. It’s the same sin that caused him to declare war on God. It’s the same sin that caused him to think that he was equal to God, and it’ll do the same thing in your life.

Satan doesn’t mind if you have a high self-esteem as long as you do evil and go to hell. And there are many people that have a high self-esteem for no apparent reason and will spend eternity in judgment under God because of their evil and all the while thinking that they’re a great person.

And so some of you that are here today when I talk about sin, you say I’m not a sinner. I’m a good person. I’m a nice person. Let me tell you this. The worst sin of all is pride. You, if your sin is pride, you are looking up the moral ladder at prostitutes and drug dealers and murderers and thieves. They are more morally advanced than you because pride is the worst sin. Self-esteem is pride. It is the reason that Satan declared war on God, and it’s the reason that some of us think that we’re too good and we’re too smart for God today.

William Bennett in his Book of Virtues, he has all the classic stories for children out of the Western canon of literature, and he talks about all the different virtues. The one virtue that is curiously absent in that book is the virtue of humility because in our Western thinking humility is a vice, not a virtue. A virtue is pride. In the Bible humility is a virtue and pride is a vice.

Some of you say so what? Should I have low self-esteem? No, what I’m saying is you should have no self-esteem. It shouldn’t be high. It shouldn’t be low, and it shouldn’t be based or rooted in self. You should have Christ-esteem. That’s what you should have. You should know that God made you in his image and likeness. You have dignity, value and worth, that God loves you, that Jesus died for you, that God has given you talents and abilities. God has a call on your life to be about meaningful service on the earth. You don’t need to have a self-esteem or a low self-esteem. You need to have dignity, value and worth that comes from God who made you and loves you.

The problem is when we look in self for our pride and our confidence, we end up becoming either depressed because we’re honest or proud because we’re deceived. There’s nothing good in us to esteem, but in God there is good, and being made in his image and likeness, that’s a good thing.

Satan wasn’t willing to get his identity in relationship to God. He wanted to be independent. Satan wasn’t willing to listen to God. He had his own ideas. Satan wasn’t willing to obey God. He had his own choices that he wanted to make. And so Satan recruited in alliance with him one third of the angels, and they declared war on God in Heaven thinking that if they could topple God off of his throne, then Satan could assume the throne, and Satan could be the new God.

The war indeed happened. They indeed lost. They were kicked out of Heaven along with those fallen angels, and now those fallen angels we know as demons. That lead angel we now know as Satan, the Dragon, the Serpent, our enemy the Devil, the tempter, the murderer, the father of lies, our adversary, the accuser, the destroyer and the evil one. The Bible uses a lot of titles talking about his various work on the earth.

What that means today is that spirituality is bad, right. Recent Newsweek poll says that somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 percent of Americans are spiritual. What that means is I believe in the spirit realm, and I plug into the spirit realm, and I believe in angels and the supernatural and the miraculous, and isn’t that a good thing? No because spirit is also euphemism for demon in the same way that self-esteem is euphemism for pride.

Just because you are spiritual does not mean necessarily that you are dealing with holy angels. You could be dealing with unholy angels. You could be dealing with demons. This is very serious business. On the earth there are good people that you can trust. There are bad people that you cannot trust. It is no different in the spirit world. There are good angels you can trust, and there are bad angels that you should not. And if you do, it will be to your own peril.

Satan was kicked out of Heaven. 2 Peter 2:4 says that there is no opportunity of salvation for Satan and demons. Jesus didn’t die on a cross for their sins. Jesus didn’t come to save, love, forgive and heal them. They are forever doomed, but they remain at war against God seeking to destroy him and topple his rule so that they can rule the world and so that Satan can be the new God. This war in Heaven as they lost that battle, they were kicked out of Heaven. The battle then came down to earth, and that was the new frontline of the war.

And there were our first parents, Adam and Eve, made like the angels in perfection with the ability to make choices. Satan came to them, and curiously he tempted them in an effort to enlist them to join him in rebellion and war against God. And here was his sales pitch. You need to have a high self-esteem so that you can have freedom to make your own choices.

The three great American virtues: pride, freedom and choice. All demonic, all demonic, right? The biblical virtues are not pride but humility, not freedom but faith, and not choice but obedience, trusting that God is good and that if we do what he says, that’s what’s best for us because he loves us.

Satan came to Adam and Eve and said this. Do you really think that you should just do whatever God tells you? Don’t you have a high self-esteem? You should think more of yourself. Don’t you have dreams and opinions? Don’t you have perspectives? Don’t you have interpretations of his word for yourself? What do you want? It’s not about what he wants. What do you want? You need to be a little more proud, little more self-esteem.

Then he came along and said do you really need to depend on God and follow God and submit to God and obey God? You should be free to do whatever you want. God’s holding you back. Here’s what you need to do. You need to be pro-choice. You need to make your own choices, your own decisions. And God’s got his opinion. You’ve got your opinion. God’s got his desire. You got your desire. God’s his own God. You should be your own God. What do you want? What’s best for you?

Our first parents, they sinned against God. Since that time, we are all sinners by nature and choice. We have all aligned ourselves with Satan, and when you sin, you’re joining Satan’s team. That’s all it is. That’s all it is.

As soon as they sinned, they got filled with shame. They were separated from one another and God. A curse came. They were kicked out of the garden, and ultimately, they died. From that point on, all of human history is marked by those same things: shame, separation, death, sadness, loss and remorse. And since that time, everyone born is a slave. This is the great myth. The great myth is that we are free. It is the great lie that all have bought.

Coming in here tonight if I said are you a slave or free, everyone would say free. I’m no slave. I do whatever I want. No, you don’t. There are two things that you are not free to do. That is stop sinning and not dying. Argued with someone recently who said I am free. Are you free to stop sinning and not die? Well, no, because nobody’s perfect and everybody dies. That’s because we’re all slaves. We’re slaves to sin. We’re slaves to death because ultimately we’re slaves to Satan. We’re captive. We belong to him. We can’t stop sinning. We can’t stop dying.

I had someone tell me I’m free. Then prove it to me and never sin again and live forever and show me how you are in charge of your life and your death. Said well, I can’t do that. Okay, then you’re a slave, that sin and death and Satan rule over you, and you are a captive in war and you work for the enemy and you can’t stop. Some of you have tried. You’ve tried to white-knuckle goodness and purity. You can’t. Or you exchange one sin for another, and you can’t stop sinning altogether.

Throughout the course of human history, this becomes the problem. Sin and death. God at that moment could have looked at our first parents and said, “Like demons, there is no hope for you. There is no salvation for you, just judgment, just hell, just justice. That’s all I’ve got.” But God in his great loving mercy preaches the first gospel. The theologians call it the Protoevangelion.

At Genesis 3:15, he looks at our first parents, and he says well, you’ve sinned and you’ve joined Satan and demons in rebellion against me, but I will send Jesus. He will be born of a woman and Satan will harm him, but he will ultimately crush Satan. He’ll be wounded, but he will bust his head wide open. He will win a tremendous victory, and he will bring salvation to people.

Human history goes on. People sin and they die, and then Jesus is born as was promised to a young girl named Mary. Early on in Jesus’ life, Satan tried to murder him, have him killed because he knew that Jesus was God, and he thought that if he could destroy Jesus, then he could be God. And so the frontline of the battle moved from Heaven to Eden to Earth to baby Jesus. And as a young boy, a man who was evil and working for Satan, man named Herod who was a ruler, sent out the decree that the baby boys should all be murdered because he wanted to kill Jesus, and Satan wanted him dead.

Jesus parents, Mary and Joseph, were warned and they fled into Egypt as refugees, and Jesus’ life was spared. Luke 2:42 says, “He grew in favor and stature and wisdom with man and God.” He grew up. He begins his public ministry around the age of 30, and he commences it with 40 days in the wilderness in Matthew 4 and Luke 4. There he is fasting and praying. He’s hungry. He’s tired, and at the end of the 40 days when he was at his weakest moment, Satan came to Jesus just like he came to Adam, our first father, and he tempted him to sin and to join his team and to declare war against God the Father.

And he brought the same temptation as he did to Adam. Go ahead and eat this. You’re hungry, aren’t you. Jesus, you know, the problem with you is you don’t have enough self-esteem. You’re gonna be humble and poor, not get married, have kids. You’re gonna suffer on the cross humiliating shame. Jesus, don’t you have any dreams, ambitions? Don’t you have a high self-esteem? Don’t you know that you have more potential than that? Jesus, you know what you want. You wanna rule and reign. You wanna be a king. You wanna rule the world. Let’s just do that. How about we work an exchange where I give you the world and you just worship me as God. We both get what we want. You need to make your own choice. You need to be free. You need to be unshackled from that God who tells you what to do, and you need to be a man who does what he wants. What do you want, Jesus?

Satan then quotes Scripture a few times, misquoting it as he did to our father Adam. Jesus responds with successive quotes from Deuteronomy. I think he spent the 40 days meditating on Deuteronomy. Jesus is given exactly what he wants as a temptation. I want you to see that. Satan will give you whatever you want. He does not care. He’s got a hook, and he will bait it with whatever you like: sex, drugs, fame, money, power, beauty, marriage, kids, healing. He doesn’t care.

He’ll bait the hook so that you bite. He’s got the hook in your mouth, and then he reels you in to be on his side. And he put out on the hook for Jesus fame, money, glory, power, rulership without suffering on the cross. Jesus said, “No, I don’t just see the bait. I see the hook. And I won’t bite. And the Scripture says that God is good, and you are bad and that I am to trust God and not you.” And then the Devil left him looking for another opportunity to tempt him.

And throughout the course of Jesus’ life, the Devil continually tried to tempt him. Says that “he was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin,” in Hebrews 4:15. You ever wanted to lie, steal, cheat? You ever wanted to lust, be proud, have sex outside of marriage, do evil to someone, be lazy? Jesus struggled with all those temptation, but he said no every time. He never did sin. Bible says that when we are tempted, our temptations are common and that there is a way of escape for us as well.

Satan didn’t give up, though. Jesus trained his disciples, sent them out, and they encountered people that were demonized. The Bible doesn’t necessarily use the word demon-possessed. Uses the word demonized, which sometimes there’s a demon in someone. Sometimes there’s just a demon hassling someone. Just because a demon is hassling you doesn’t mean you’re a bad Christian. Paul was hassled. Jesus was hassled. Sometimes people who love God are hassled. Doesn’t mean they’re demon-possessed. Means they’re demonized.

The disciples said it’s amazing, Jesus. When we go out, people have demons, and when we use your name, the demons obey us because of your authority. There’s authority in the name of Jesus. One of the reasons I say Jesus all the time at Mars Hill and I don’t say the name God is because a lot of people would import into the word God all kinds of meaning. When I say Jesus, we know which God we’re talking about. That’s the name under which we could be saved. That’s the name that casts out demons. That’s the name that is the exercise of spiritual authority, so we use the word Jesus, the name Jesus, and so did they.

But the temptations kept coming. The oppositions kept coming. Curiously, Jesus himself in his life dealt with people who were demonized. They would bring people to him, and he would encounter people who had unclean spirits. They had demons in them or demons hassling them from the outside.

Okay, now, for those of you that have a medical background, let me profoundly trouble you and give you something to think about. Those who came to Jesus, we could say they were diagnosed with multiple personality disorder because, see, here’s what happens in our day. The counselors and the psychologists, they treat the mind. The physicians and the doctors, they treat the body, and no one knows what to do with the soul.

So when there is a problem that is soulish in nature, we either give it a mental or physical diagnosis. Sometimes we don’t know what’s wrong because it’s a soul issue. Do I believe in psychology and counseling? Actually, I do. Do I believe in medical doctors and go to one? Yes, I do. And I believe that we need to treat the mind and the body, but the problem is what if the problem is with the soul or the spirit, not just with the mind or the body?

We come up with diagnoses like you have multiple personality disorder. What that means is there are multiple people living in you. In the New Testament we call that being demonized. Maybe someone does have a mental problem. Maybe someone does have a physical problem or maybe they really have a demonic oppression or possession.

One guy comes to Jesus. They call him Legion because there’s so many personalities living in the guy. He was essentially put in the insane asylum in his day. He was a crazy man, out of his mind. Jesus cast the demons out of him. The guy took a shower, got a job, got married, lived happily ever after. Everything was totally fine. He didn’t need pills. He didn’t need counseling. He needed deliverance. He needed Jesus. What the physician couldn’t do, the great physician could.

Some of you have seen this. Some of you have been diagnosed multiple personality disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar, all kinds of treatments given to you, pills, counseling, psychology, medical tests, and they can’t find anything wrong. Maybe you have a demonic problem. I know that some of you do.

I found this out years ago. I was meeting with someone. This lovely woman says, “I love Jesus, but I have this multiple personality disorder. They’ve given me all kinds of medications, pills, treatments. Nothing’s happening. I can’t fix it. It troubles me.” I said, well, can you bring up the other personality. She said yeah. I said, well, before you do, do you love Jesus? Yeah. Did he die on the cross for your sins? Yeah. Do you wanna walk with God? Yeah. Okay, bring up the other one.

Literally, her whole features change. Who are you? Another name. Do you love Jesus? No, I hate him. Are you the other personality? Yeah. Are you a personality or are you a demon? I’m a demon. Okay, well, bring the other one out. We gotta pray now because this Christian has got another spirit working through her in some supernatural way that hates Jesus. It’s no wonder she’s depressed. It’s no wonder her life is hard. We prayed. Spirit goes away. She’s fine, gets off her meds, live happily ever after.

See, we diagnosis people. We don’t know what to say, so we just give them sort of a junk drawer diagnosis, and we keep prescribing medication. Well, sometimes the medication doesn’t help because the Bible says to be self-controlled and alert to resist Satan, and when you’re all doped up, sometimes you’re not self-controlled or alert. You’re sort of out of it. I see this all the time.

These kind of people were brought to Jesus, and he helped them. He prayed for them. Some of you need mental health help. Some of you need medical help. Some of you need demonic deliverance. You need Jesus to run interference and to protect you. It’s true.

And Satan didn’t give up. He even put words into the mouth of and ideas into the mind of Peter, the leader of the disciples. Jesus looks at him, says, “Get behind me, Satan.” He filled Judas Iscariot, the Last Supper, and Judas was participating in the plot to murder Jesus. It was demonic. It was evil. It was Satanic.

Then Jesus Christ goes to the cross, and most curiously, it is on the cross where Jesus is suffering and dying that it looks like Jesus is no victorious king. It looks like his is just a sad, pathetic, defeated man. When you look at Jesus being crucified, it looks like Satan beat Jesus. Jesus is coming off his throne. He’s being killed and that Satan is ascending to the throne, and he is the new God.

Isaiah 45:15 says, “Surely you are a God who hides.” Martin Luther made much of that verse, rightly so, and what he declared was on the cross what looked like defeat was actually victory. But because Jesus is humble and not proud, he disguised it because he was on a mission to save us, and he wasn’t worried about showing off. He was worried about saving souls.

And so Jesus on the cross in what appears to be greatest defeat in all of human history actually achieves the greatest victory that has ever been known. Perhaps the best verse on this is Colossians 2:13-15. It’s in your notes, and I’ll read it to you. Anytime I deal with someone who’s demonized or I’m talking to a demon – and this is part of the job, don’t freak out – I like to read this verse because there’s so much in it, so much power and authority in it.

It says, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, when you were not a Christian, God made you a live with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, past, present and future, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against and that stood opposed to us. He took it away by nailing it to the cross.” First thing he says is that God in Christ has canceled our debts to him. Okay, you were made by God. God has laws written down in Scripture. You’re supposed to live the life that God has called you to and obey him. At any point that you deviate from what he instructs you to do and you sin, that is a debt to God because you have failed.

We sin in many ways. We sin by commission. We do that which we are not supposed to do. We sin by omission. We do not do that which we are supposed to do. We sin in our thoughts and our words and our deeds and our motives, and our sins are many. And some of you say I don’t sin. I’m a good person. Again, your sin is pride. That makes you the most sinful of all. That was my favorite sin until I got saved.

And we have all sinned, and we have a debt to God for all of our shortcomings, and Jesus Christ goes to the cross and he takes upon himself all of our sins, our debt to God. And he dies in our place as a substitute, death being the penalty or wage for sin. And in so doing, all that Satan had against us, right, he had a long list of charges, guilty, guilty, guilty. They belong to me. They joined my team. They’ve sinned. They’ve rebelled. They are my possession, my captives. They do my bidding.

He cancels that, Jesus does, and the slate is wiped clean, and our sins are forgiven, and Satan no longer has claim to us because we are taken, as Paul says, “from the dominion of darkness to the dominion of light, and we are brought from enemies of God to children of God and captives in war to free sons and daughters adopted into the family of God.”

So first, Jesus Christ cancels our debt to God. Secondly, in Colossians 2:15, it further says, “that having disarmed the powers and authorities” – that’s Satan and demons – “he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” What he’s saying is this. That there was a great war on the cross, and Jesus was the victor. That’s why when he cried out “it is finished,” that was a triumphant note of victory from the cross.

Let me explain to you how the early Christians would’ve heard this. In their day there would be, let’s say, two kingdoms with two kings, and they were in hostility and at war. And so the two kings would ride out with their soldiers, out of the city into the plain, and there they would declare war on one another and the war would ensue for some time. Blood would be shed. Men would die. Back home in both kingdoms people would be waiting with eager anticipation for the verdict, who had won.

These two kings and their kingdoms would be at war until one was declared victorious. Upon victory, the victorious would strip naked and disarm all of the soldiers of the opposing king and kingdom. He would sit in his chariot with his white horse. He would ride back into his kingdom. He would send someone, a squire perhaps, in advance to proclaim his victory, that he’s coming. They’d declare a national holiday, close the businesses and the schools. Everyone would come out and cheer and celebrate and be glad. And the king would ride into town and behind him all the victorious soldiers and behind them all their conquered foes. And ultimately chained to the chariot of the king would be shackled and naked the defeated king who had been deposed from his throne and had been crushed from the other kingdom. And the people would come out and they would cheer gladly because they were safe and they were loved and they were protected and their king was a victor.

What he’s saying is this, that there was a war on the cross between Satan and demons and that Jesus Christ triumphed over Satan on the cross, making an open public spectacle of him, disarming him and demons, literally punching Satan in the mouth, sending his teeth right down his throat, stripping him naked, shackling him to the back of the chariot and riding into town. Rest of the story is that Jesus, upon his death, it was a great victory. He was laid in the tomb. Three days later he rose, and he walks back into town as a triumphant, victorious king. He proclaims his victory to hundreds over the course of 40 days. I beat Satan. I beat demons. I beat sin. I beat death. I am back from the dead. I am King of Kings, Lord of Lords. And a great celebration ensued called the church of Jesus Christ, and we have been celebrating that party now for about 2,000 years, and our King is Jesus.

So those of you who are scared of Satan, scared of demons, you need to know that he is a defeated foe. But I need to be careful at this point theologically because some of you from more charismatic and Pentecostal backgrounds, you have been told that Satan is defeated, and you’ll never get sick again. You’ll never struggle again. You’ll never be tempted again, that no weapon formed against you shall prosper and that all your days will be good. Theologians call that an over-realized eschatology. Theologians like big words.

Here’s what it means. Some people think this is Heaven, and they’re wrong. It’s not. We’re not there yet because in the thinking of Paul, his doctrine is often already and not yet. We’re already saved, but we’re being saved, and one day we’ll be glorified and our salvation will be complete. We’re already saved, but it’s not yet done, that the Kingdom of God is begun on the earth through the church preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, that the Kingdom is in a very real sense already here, but it’s not yet completed. That’s why Jesus prayed thy Kingdom come. There’s still more to come.

And when it comes to the defeat of Satan, some of you will wonder well, why is there still verses that say that he is “the prince of this world, that he is the power in the air” because he is defeated, but he’s not yet destroyed. That’ll happen at the white throne at the end of the book of Revelation in the end. So he is defeated, but he is still at work, though he is not destroyed. He is walking wounded, and he is limping, but he is still in battle against us.

And so through the course of human history, this wounded warrior continues his battle all the way up until our present day right here in the city of Seattle. Today in Seattle you are in the least churched city in America. Only eight percent of people here are evangelical Christians. That means that they belong to Jesus. What that means is 92 percent of Seattle doesn’t belong to Jesus. What that means is 92 percent of Seattle belongs to Satan.

Paul says in Ephesians 6 that our war isn’t against flesh and blood. We’re not against the 92 percent. It’s against “powers, principalities and spirits.” Behind people who have been taken captive by Satan to do his will are spirits, demons and Satan that are working to get people to rebel against God and continue in sin. And we are here not to declare war on the 92 percent but to love and to serve and to bring the good news of Jesus Christ, who is a better king than Satan, provides an eternity that doesn’t include death, and gives us freedom from Satan, sin and death alone so that more than 92 – more than 8 percent, rather – would worship Jesus and love Jesus and know Jesus because this city is not our enemy. This city is held captive.

I didn’t believe this, quite frankly, when we started the church, to be altogether honest with you. I thought that Satan and demons was just nonsense made up by people with overactive imaginations and people who were naturally scared and intimidated. And then I dealt with Satan and demons in this church. We started the church. We had one Sunday early on. The church was very small. Man got up in the middle of our prayer time, started screaming, yelling, shouting “worship yourself,” blaspheming Jesus, cursing, and he ran down the aisle. Looked right at him, read 1 John 4. “Test the spirits. Not every spirit is from God. Antichrists have gone out in the world.” The guy just shrilled and ran out the door, ran down the street, disappeared.

We followed up with him sometime later, said what happened? He said, “I have no idea. Something overcame me, and I was gone.” He was into witchcraft and all kinds of weird religion, and he was filled with demonic activity in his life.

I had good, godly, dear, sweet Christian women calling me saying the most atrocious things had been done to them. I found that over time I have learned that oftentimes it is the most godly who undergo the most opposition. You see, Satan and demons are limited in number and power. You could think about it. If you were in war and someone was already bleeding out on the battlefield, you wouldn’t send a soldier to shoot them. You would go get the healthy and the strong. You’d go get generals and not buck privates. Satan is that way.

The people who love and serve God the most, the people who read their Bible the most, the people who wanna be like Jesus the most, they take the heaviest enemy fire. Those of you who are just stupid and drunk and high and killing yourself, Satan doesn’t even waste a bullet on you because you’re gonna self-destruct. You need no assistance.

And I got these calls early on from some of our best people. I had one woman call, new mother, saying, “I was in my room nursing my new child, rocking in the chair. Something showed up, walked through the wall, threatened to kill me, and then my chair levitated off the ground, and my child was screaming. What’s that all about?” Like, “Well, I don’t believe in demons, so I don’t know. I’d better study my Bible and get back to you.”

I had a woman say, “You know, when I was a little girl, my uncle would repeatedly rape me at night. And then I got an invisible friend. Bible calls it a comforting spirit. It’s a demon. They would come to me after my uncle would rape me, and it would be like a friend that they would talk to me and make me feel better. But then as I got older, that spirit would start to manifest as a man, and it would rape me, too. And I thought I was crazy, but the other night I was sleeping, and it came again, and it raped me. And when I checked, I knew it was real because I was bleeding. How does that happen?” this woman says.

One woman who spent most of her days in her shoe closet in the dark, huddled in the fetal position taking massive amounts of medication with panic attacks and anxiety so great because when she was home alone, if she would go out in the house, she would be attacked my unclean spirits. And it had paralyzed her whole life and had her housebound. They had put her in institutions. They had given her medication. They had treated her in every way they could, and nothing helped.

So I grabbed my Bible, and I started in Genesis, and I worked to Revelation. I took over a year. I studied every verse on Satan and demons I could find. I dealt with pastors, theologians, people with PhDs, authors, missionaries. Anybody who would talk to me and tell me something, I would listen. And it just kept happening in this church. I’m thinking, man, Hebrews 13 says I need to give an account for all the people in my church. This is the flock that God has given me to love and to serve. I need to take good care of our people. What is going on? How can we help?

One verse that was particularly helpful to me was 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 11. It says that “Satan will not outwit us if we are aware of his schemes.” The message is this. Whether it’s a debate or a street fight, if you know your enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, their tactics and their tendencies, you can defend yourself so you don’t get beat up.

Some of you are getting beat up. I wanna tell you how your enemy works. I can’t tell you all of his schemes and tactics because it would take me six months of two sermons a day to do it, but I’ll give you the brief list of what I see most. The first thing I’m gonna give you is the ordinary, the ordinary tactics, and then the extraordinary, and I believe that most people when they think of the demonic, they think of the extraordinary, not the ordinary. It is the ordinary where Satan really gains ground, and then he moves onto the extraordinary, but rarely does he start there.

Each of these is related to sin. Satan is our tempter, and I want you to see that he’ll hang out a hook and he’ll put whatever bait on it you want. He’ll let you feast on that bait without seeing the hook and then reel you in. That’s what the great Puritan Thomas Brookes says. It’s a great analogy.

The first is just simply sexual sin. Old Testament, New Testament and wherever there’s demonic activity, false religion, there is sexual sin. Paul says to married couples that married couples alone at 1 Corinthians 7 should have a sexual relationship. It should be frequent and fun, and if not, then Satan’s gonna get in there because he loves to destroy families, and he loves to tempt with sexual sin.
If you’re here today, you’re having sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend. You’re flirting outside of marriage. You’re looking at porno. You’re going to strip clubs. You got booty calls, friends with benefits. You’re demonic. You’re demonic. You say but it’s fun. Of course, it’s fun. Satan isn’t gonna put on the hook do you wanna go to hell? Everybody vote no. Do you wanna get naked and have an orgasm. Yeah. Okay, great. Just bite. Don’t look for the hook. It’s demonic.

Some of you are now slaves to your lust. Your lust keeps going. You’re not free. You can’t stop. You are in grave trouble. You’re out of control because sin leads to death. Sexual sin. Americans just think sex is good. Married sex is good. All other sex is evil.

Another one is marriage between Christians and non-Christians. 2 Corinthians 6:15 says that marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian is essentially marriage between Jesus and Satan. If you’re here today, and you’re dating someone who’s not a Christian or you’re not a Christian, you dump them tonight. That’s an order. What are you doing? They’re not fit for marriage. You think Jesus and Satan are gonna make for a happy home? You think raising kids in that environment is gonna be nothing but bliss without conflict? You think when you open the Bible and they pray to Satan that somehow you’re gonna be on the same page? You’re out of your mind.

You say well, I know this one person. They were dating a non-Christian. That person got saved. Great. God’s gracious. Dump them. If they get saved, you go through the premarital. Then we’ll do your wedding. Until then, no. It’s demonic.

See, Satan loves it when non-Christians and Christians marry because it weakens the witness of the Christian, and it ruins the legacy of the family. It just creates generations of havoc. Some of you are here today and you say, yeah, that’s right. I married a non-Christian, and I would testify that it has not been good. We can’t get a divorce. You need to pray for their salvation, but it is a demonic tactic.

Another one that’s common. False religions, false teachings, false Jesus. Again, spirituality’s demonic. Spirituality means demon. Not all spirits are from God, 1 John 4 says. Not all spirits are clean, good spirits. There’s false teachers. You can’t just say well, they’re good people. Some people use the Bible. I actually know demons that take the name Jesus.

I was dealing with one woman who was demonized, and a spirit started speaking though her, and I said who are you, and they said, “Everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about. I’m Jesus.” I said Jesus of Nazareth, born of Mary, died on the cross?” No, another one. True story. I’m talking to this demon named Jesus. It’s another Jesus, false Jesus, counterfeit Jesus.

2 Corinthians 11, Paul says there’s are lot of counterfeit Jesuses. New Age has got a Jesus. Jehovah’s Witnesses got a Jesus. Mormons got a Jesus. Everybody’s got a Jesus. It’s the not Jesus of the Bible. It’s a counterfeit false Jesus. It’s a demon using the name hoping that no one checks.

Actually know a guy who’s a faith healer. He was like a New Age faith healer, and he would heal people in the name of Jesus. Come to find it’s a demon using the name Jesus. Gotta be careful with this stuff.

You know, Joseph Smith, the founder or Mormonism says, “I know I have the truth because an angel told me.” That was a demon. Paul says in Galatians, “Even if an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one that we did, they’re going to hell. Don’t follow them.”

Mohammed, founder of Islam, says the same thing, “I know it’s true because an angel told me.” A holy angel or an unholy angel? An angel or a demon? It was a demon. Some of you say that’s harsh. The greatest lie the Devil ever told is that he doesn’t exist, that spirituality’s good, that you should open your soul to anything just like you should open your door to everyone, just like on earth all people are pure and good, so it is in the spirit world. They’re all pure and good. Just be naïve and stupid and trusting. Be spiritual. That’s good enough.

Satan will hang spirituality on the hook if you bite. He doesn’t care. You could pray, mediate, do yoga, go to hell. He doesn’t care as long as you to hell. He’ll give you whatever you want. Some of you are afraid that Satan will take away all of your joy. No, he’ll give you exactly what you want so that you love and worship and serve him. You can call him whatever you want, but it’s demonic.

Another one that’s common is just bitterness. Ephesians 4 says that when we’re sinned against, we have two choices. We forgive or we become bitter. If we become bitter, we give the enemy a foothold. He gains ground against us. Like a rock climber, Ephesians using the language, he gets a foothold and a handhold, and scales to greater heights in our life.

Some of you have been violently sinned against, but you’re unforgiving. You have to forgive so that the bitterness isn’t there so that Satan doesn’t have any ground against you. Ours is a God of love, grace, mercy, compassion, forgiveness. Satan hates those things. He loves bitterness, resentment, anger and violence. Just by being bitter, that’s demonic.

Another one that is common. Ephesians 5 talks about foolishness and drunkenness. Those of you who just drink too much and get high and go to the club and take shots or get stoned or put a needle in your arm or freebase or pop pills or whatever it is, all demonic. Bible says to be self-controlled and alert. When you’re drunk or high or stupid at the club, that’s not self-control. That’s out of control. That’s not alert. That’s with your senses dulled.

When you go to a party, and you see a bunch of women half-naked and a bunch of guys taking shots, that’s demonic. You say but that’s really fun. Again, it’s just bait on the hook, hoping you don’t see the hook but that you take the bait. Another one that’s common is idle gossiping busybodies. Paul talks about this in 1 Timothy 5:11-15. This is particularly about women, that they give the enemy an opportunity for slander. This is just ladies who talk too dang much. They’re on the phone. They’re one the e-mail. They’re walking the dog around the neighborhood, snooping on everybody’s business. They’re like God. They wanna be all-knowing. They wanna know everybody’s sin and everybody’s business, and they got their fingers into everybody’s lives, and there’s something profoundly wrong with them because they have a God complex where they wanna know the worst about everybody so that they can then share information with others. Oh, it’s a prayer chain.

I tell you, more idle gossiping, busybodying, demonic activity happens in women’s ministries than anywhere on planet Earth. Oh, my husband’s a loser. He’s nothing. My husband’s a this, and my son’s a that. Well, that’s nothing. You should hear about her husband. Next thing you know, Satan is running the meeting, and it’s a prayer meeting. It’s actually an idle gossiping busybody fest.

You say well, it was just an e-mail. It was just demonic. It was just a phone call. It was just demonic. If you were talking about other people instead of talking to those people, that’s demonic.

And lastly, very simply, it’s lying. John 8:44 says that Satan is the father of lies. Lying is his native language. He’s been lying since the beginning, Jesus says.

A couple years ago, we had a movie called Liar, Liar, and the genre was comedy because in our culture if you tell the truth, that’s hilarious. That’s how corrupted we are. Lying, we just assume that everyone’s lying. Politicians, preachers, car salesmen, everybody’s a liar. Jesus says over and over and over in John’s gospel, “I tell you the truth. I tell you the truth. I tell you the truth.” We should be able to say the same thing. I’m not a liar. I’m a truth teller. I’m not lying. I tell the truth. My yes is yes. My no is no. The truth, the falsehood, I don’t confuse those.

And walking in here, had I said what do you think constitutes demonic activity? Most of you would’ve went for the extraordinary. Rosemary’s Baby, the talking television in Poltergeist. You would’ve went for the scenes from the Exorcist. You would’ve went for the crazy stuff. We see that Satan is sly and crafty and subtle and smooth. He likes to fly under the radar with simple things like sex, dating, being engaged to marrying a non-Christian, being spiritual, being bitter, getting drunk, being a gossip or telling lies. That’s all the subtle but profoundly significant ordinary demonic activity in the world today.

1 John 3:8 says, “He who does what is sinful is of the Devil because the Devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the Devil’s work.” As long as we’re sinning, we’re doing the Devil’s work. Jesus died so that we could put to death sinful activity so we could stop doing Satan’s work, and we could start doing God’s work. We could sexually pure. We could be self-controlled. We could be married and faithful. We could tell the truth. We could speak to people instead of about them.

Move from the ordinary demonic, which gives Satan ground in life, to the extraordinary demonic, which is usually something that follows only after a season of ordinary demonic. The first is in Acts 5:16. Talks about torment. I’ve given you some illustrations already. I can’t open the whole counseling load and the thousands of demons I’ve dealt with and the dozens of demonized people, but I can tell you that torment is very real, people being raped and beaten and wounded and abused. Some people thinking they’re crazy, some people thinking that they’re out of their mind, torment. Some people can’t sleep. They’re haunted. Sleeping pills don’t help. Medication doesn’t help. Counseling doesn’t help. Therapy doesn’t help. Institution doesn’t help.

I dealt with one guy. He was raped repeatedly as a little boy. He grew up to be a child rapist, raping multiple other young boys. Asked him why do you do that? Do you like raping little boys? No, I hate it. How do you feel when you rape a little boy? I feel terrible. I feel suicidal. I wanna kill myself. Well, then why do you rape? Did you like being raped as a little boy? No, I didn’t like being raped. It was terrible. So if you hated being raped and you hate raping and you feel bad when you rape, why do you rape little boys?

He said, “When I was a little boy, I would get raped by this man, and I felt like whatever was in him came on me, and ever since that time, I feel like something is in me, and I can’t get rid of it. And when I’m around little boys, there’s part of me that just wants to rape them, and the other part just wants to kill myself so I won’t do it.”

I said well, it sounds like you’re possessed. It sounds like there is a war in you that is altogether real and that part of you hates what you do and part of it can’t stop. What had happened was – and it happens frequently and I don’t know this works, but I deal with it a lot. Someone is raped or molested, and there’s a spirit that is in or through someone who rapes or molests another, and then that spirit comes upon the victim. Sometimes it’s a comforting spirit, an invisible friend, a fake helper.

And then that person has that evil on them, and unless they know Jesus and they pray and they get rid of it, that evil is them and through them. They start committing the same atrocities that they were victimized by. And I think that when you see that people that are raped or abused tend to do the same thing to others statistically, it’s not just that they’ve been biologically conditioned. I think that there is spiritual darkness that has come upon them as well.

Torment. Torment. I’ve seen people physically attacked. Torment. Physical injury. Acts chapter 8 talks about. I’ve been physically attacked and tormented. I’ve had many. I’ll tell you sometimes getting up here on Sunday is like running in water up to my neck. It’s hard just to get through the day. I had one time. It was a Saturday night. I went to bed. I was sleeping. Middle of the night I thought my roof collapsed or a tree came through the house and fell on my chest, knocked the wind out of me, pushed me down on the bed. It was the middle of the night. I woke up. I felt like there were knees on my chest, and somebody had me by the throat. I couldn’t even breathe. I was choking out. I was dying. I was blacking out. It was terrible.

I’d read a little book called The Bondage Breaker. It was pretty decent on this stuff, and therein it said that you need to pray out loud to tell Satan and demons what to do, and I’m trying to pray out loud, but I can’t breathe because something’s got me by the throat. And then I realize it’s not that I’m praying to Satan and demons. It’s that I’m praying to Jesus, and he knows my thoughts, so I don’t need to speak out loud. I just need to pray silently in my mind, and Jesus’ll get it. And I prayed, and Jesus delivered me, and I was freaked out, and I was awake for awhile, finally feel back to sleep.

Got up the next morning, came into preach. When I got up in the morning, I stood in front of the mirror, went to brush my teething thinking am I crazy? Did I make that up? Was that a bad dream? I take off my shirt. What I saw I’m black and blue across my whole chest. Felt like I had a cracked rib. I couldn’t breathe for a couple weeks. I told Grace, I said, man, I don’t even know if I can get through the day. My chest is so bruised, it hurts to breathe. Black and blue.

I’ve seen it with my kids. My son Zach, he used to when he was little, because he started praying on his own at 18 months, he didn’t talk real well. Sometimes he’d have night terrors. I’d go in there. He would be shaking, traumatized, sweating, yelling, pointing at something in the corner. I had the gift of discernment, and I feel it, and I’m praying and casting things out and cleaning out his room. He was so little, he couldn’t even explain it.

There was an occasion he was about three, and I woke up in the morning, and I went in to see him, and he looked tired. He was in his bed. He’s my buddy. I love him. We pray together. I mean, this is my son, and I said, buddy, Zach, you look tired, man. Did you not sleep? He said, “I had a hard time sleeping last night, Daddy.” I said why is that? What happened? He said, “Satan came in my room.”

I take this stuff real. We hadn’t talked about Satan and demons. I hadn’t filled his mind with any crazy thoughts. He was young. I didn’t wanna scare him. I said well, how do you know it was Satan? He said, “Well, he said he didn’t love Jesus, and he said he was gonna do bad things to our family and that he was gonna hurt you and that if I told you that he would kill you.” I said that’s what he said? He said, “Yeah, Daddy, and it was really scary.”

I said well, you could’ve called for Daddy. Daddy would’ve came in and prayed for you. He said, “That’s okay, Daddy. I prayed to Jesus, and Jesus showed up too, and Jesus kicked him out, and then I went back to sleep.” And I said well, that’s good. He said, “Yeah, Daddy.” So he said, “I didn’t need you. I could talk to Jesus for myself.” Okay, all right. You know, I believe it’s real. I believe it’s all real.
Because of that, we’ve seen people physically healed in this church. Women who have miscarried multiple times. Sometimes it’s physical. Some of these were demonic. Prayed, they carried to term, no problem. Seen women who are on multiple medications, bleeding, suffering, multiple surgeries, in and out of hospitals. Prayed for them. Fine. Cleaned up. Throw their medication away. Totally fine, perfect health, no problem.

See, I believe in healing. I don’t believe that all physical injury is demonic, but I believe some is. And you pray and you ask Jesus the Great Physician. And you pray against Satan, his servants and their works and effects. I found that with people. And when Satan and demons leave, they need to take their works and effects with them, which can include injury or physical harm, so that people could be healed.

Another common tactic in the extraordinary demonic that Satan uses is false miracles. People get healed. Some of you are clairvoyant. Some of you see auras. Some of you know the future. Some of you have words of prophecy about people. Some of you have supernatural paranormal power. Some of you feel like you work in another plane or dimension. Some of you are into astral projection. Some of you have all kinds of New Age beliefs. All demonic. You said but it’s powerful. It’s demonic. But it does good. It’s still demonic.

We’ve even created this silly little thing for wicca, which is witchcraft, which is the fastest-growing religion among teenage girls. We call it white magic. Girls will tell you oh, I’m not a bad witch. I’m a good witch. I’m into white demonic activity, not the black demonic activity. There’s good demonic activity and bad demonic activity, and I only work with good demons, and I only cast good spells. I only do good.

2 Thessalonians talks about counterfeit signs, wonders, miracles. God knows that you and I are prone to worship, and so does Satan. So he’ll let us be healed or have power and then we’ll just give ourselves to whatever gave us power or healing because all Satan cars about is that we worship him. He doesn’t care if we’re healthy or powerful. All he cares about is that we serve him and we go to hell.

I’ve had people who have been reticent to convert to Jesus because they didn’t wanna give up their supernatural power, and you have to choose between operating in the power of Jesus and operating in the power of sin. It’s real.

Another one that’s common in the extraordinary demonic, and this is the one where I’ll camp on most is accusations. Revelation 12:10 says that Satan is the “accuser of children of God, that he accuses them day and night.” Zechariah 3 echoes the same statement.

Some of you this whole sermon, it’s been hard to listen because you have voices ringing in your head, thoughts running through your mind. You’re distracted. You can’t think. You’re hearing stuff like this guy’s crazy. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This doesn’t apply to you. There’s no hope for you. You deserve this. This is God. This is what he has for you. Don’t listen to this. You should leave now. This is crazy. He’s lost his mind. You thought it was a Bible church. See? He’s just like all the rest.
It’s accusations. Some of you hear voices. Some of you think you’re crazy. Some of you have been diagnosed with all kinds of things. Some of you have been in counseling and therapy and pills. Some of you haven’t ever said anything because you’re afraid that people will think you’re nuts. Some of you aren’t nuts. Some of you are being oppressed.

I found this out years ago dealing with people. A woman comes into my office. I’m meeting with her. She says, “Pastor Mark, I just need you to pray for me. I have very low self-esteem, and I’m very depressed.” I said low self-esteem? You know that Jesus made you. Jesus loves you. You’re his daughter, beautiful, holy, valuable in his sight? She said yeah. I said well, then, you don’t have low self-esteem. I said what’s the causing the depression in your life? She said, “Actually, I have a great life. My family loves me. My husband loves me. I’m healthy. Things are going better than ever.” I said, well, you don’t sound like you’re depressed, and it doesn’t sound like you have low self-esteem.

She said, “Well then why do I have all this negative self-talk?” I said well, what do you mean? She says, “Well, I just say the most terrible things about myself.” What do you say? “You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You should die. No one will ever love you. You’re not really a Christian. Jesus doesn’t really care about you. No one will help you. You’re a failure. You’re a disappointment. You should just end your life. You should kill yourself. You should die.” She says, “I say this terrible stuff to myself all the time.”

I said really? Said do you talk to yourself in the second person all the time? She says, “What do you mean?” Do you say you’re going to the grocery store, and then you’re going to Mars Hill? Or do you say I’m going to the grocery store and then I’m going to Mars Hill? She says, “Well, now that you mention it, I always talk to myself in the first person.” I said so when someone else talks to you, do they talk to you in the first person or the second person? She thinks about it, “Well, in the second person.” I said so who do you think’s talking to you? I said do you think you’re fat, worthless, stupid, should die, that God hates you?

She says, “I don’t think that.” I said do you wanna think that? “I don’t wanna think that.” Then do you really think that that’s what you’re saying? “No, I guess not, Pastor Mark.” Well, who do you think would say that to you? Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice. They listen to me.” Is that the voice of Jesus? She says, “No, Jesus would never say that.”

I said here’s what happens. If you had a physical person stalking you and verbally assaulting you, you’d get a restraining order, but because this person is spiritual and invisible, you think you’re crazy or talking to yourself. It’s one of the tricks. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. You should hear the stuff I hear when I come up to preach. Every sin I’ve ever committed, man, I just get hammered. It’s brutal. It’s accusation. It’s constant, day and night. It’s your enemy trying to get you to believe lies.

Some of you have struggled with this so mightily. Some of you have sinned greatly in your past. You feel terrible. You’ve asked Jesus to forgive you, and you know that he died for your sin, and you stopped doing it, and you’re not doing it anymore, but you just keep getting pounded. You say God, please stop convicting me. Please stop burdening me. Please stop yelling at me. Please stop hurting me. God, I thought Jesus died for this. God, I thought you loved me. God, I thought that you cared about me. God, I thought that you gave me new life. I thought that if I said I was sorry and I stopped doing it that you wouldn’t bring it up anymore, that I could move on with my new life. God, why not me? Why don’t I have a victorious Christian life? Why don’t I have joy? Why can’t I get a fresh start? God, why do you not love me? Why do you not help me? Why do you not save me? God, what did I do?

And hear lies like well, you didn’t say it enough times. You didn’t pray sincere enough or you used the verse wrong or you didn’t really mean it in your heart or God doesn’t really care or Jesus is still angry, so you pray again. God, okay, I’m really, really sorry this time, and I really am sorry, and I’ve stopped doing it, and I regret it with all my heart. Please, please, God, stop bringing it up. Stop picking up that rock of my sin and throwing it at me over and over and over.

Friends, that’s not Jesus. Colossians 2 that he cancels all of our debt, past, present and future. He literally wipes the slate clean. He remembers our sin no more. You know the verse, Mars Hills. Romans 8:1, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Some of you have repented of the same sin a hundred times. You haven’t committed it in years. You say God, today will you please just leave me alone? That’s not God. That’s Satan just picking up the rock, throwing it, picking it up again and throwing it, and will keep throwing it till you realize that that’s not God. The only reason you’re taking it is because you think it’s God, and it’s not. It’s a demonic deception. It’s a lie. Jesus has forgiven you. You are a new creation in Christ. If you are a Christian, God sees you as perfect as he sees Jesus because he sees you through Jesus.

My poor daughter had this. She had one of the most horrifying accusations. She was a little girl, two or three, sleeping at night. It was a horrible season in my life. I was getting killed in my marriage. I was getting killed in this ministry. I remember waking up one day just saying Jesus, can I do anything else? Can I do anything else other than pastor this church and be a – I don’t think I’m gonna make it to 30. I just felt like literally I was gonna die. The beatings were so constant. Sleep was hard to come by. The attacks were continual.

My daughter who had – she’s my sweetie pie. She’s eight years old. I love her. When she was little, she was my firstborn child. I adored her, was so close to her. I’m still so close to her. She was being defiant, disrespectful, just this bad little kid for a few days. She never had been like that with me before or since. I look at her and I say, Sweetheart, I’m your daddy. You need to obey me. And then she literally falls into a puddle on the floor because she realizes that she’s sinned against her dad. I mean, she’s tender-hearted. And I was disciplining her sternly because I was frustrated with her, disobeying Ephesians 6:4.

Went into her room one night feeling like I should pray for her. I open the door. There’s my daughter at about 3:00 in the morning wide awake under the covers shaking, terrified, sweating. I said, Sweetheart, what is wrong? She says, “Daddy, I’m fine. You can go back to bed. I’m fine.” I said, Sweetheart, no, no, no, no. There’s obviously something wrong. Have you slept at all tonight? “No, Daddy.” Did you sleep last night? “No, Daddy.” So you’re going on your second sleepless night as a kid who’s a couple years old? “Yeah, Daddy.” What’s going on? “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you, Daddy.” Her eyes get real big.

I say, Sweetheart, you have to tell your daddy. You’re not in trouble. I love you. I just need to know what’s going on so I could pray for you. She says, “Daddy, are there such things as bad angels?” We’d never had this talk. I said, yeah, honey. Some angels love Jesus, some don’t. She says, “The bad angels came into my room, and they said terrible things about Jesus, and they won’t let me sleep, and they said that they’re gonna hurt you and Mommy and that if I tell you, they’ll kill you.”

I said, Honey, I’m so sorry. You’ve been disobeying me, and I’ve been disciplining you sternly, not knowing that you were under demonic attack, and the only reason you didn’t say anything is because you didn’t want your daddy to get hurt.

See, Satan has no love, mercy, grace, compassion, forgiveness in him. He is altogether dark. There’s no life. He was causing my daughter to act up through sleep deprivation. Me in my frustration to discipline her sternly to drive a wedge between me and my daughter. And my daughter had gotten the accusation that if she said anything that Satan would kill her daddy.

Accusations are real, and all this leads to death. Satan’s plan always is death. Proverbs 8:36, “All who hate me love death, says God.” Die. And Satan doesn’t care how you kill yourself. You could be a glutton whose god is your stomach. You could eat to the point where you die of a heart attack. You could drink as an alcoholic and die, do drugs, have sex. He doesn’t care. Whatever your thing is, he’ll give you your thing to kill you. That’s what he wants.

This is how foolish our culture is. Freedom, choice, pride and death to where now the apex of being a woman – and this is not a political statement – is to be free with a high self-esteem to have choice to murder your own child. That is the apex of being an American woman. I’m free to have choice, high self-esteem to commit murder. Aren’t I a liberated woman? Satan says oh, yes, most definitely.

I’m not real political, but I love kids, and we live in a day when freedom, choice, pride and death are our four guiding values. We’re so foolish that even the superstars we pick, the rock stars, we wanna be just like them because they died in their 20s in a bathtub with a needle in their arm, naked with groupies. Boy, that’s living right there. Free to choose death and hell. All who hate me love death. Satan hates God. He loves death, and he wants you to die. He wants you to kill. He wants you to suffer. That’s what he wants. Wants you to kill your kids, wants you to eat, drink, screw to death. That’s his plan. We’re just dumb fools. We see the bait. We bite. We don’t see the hook, and next thing we know, we’re reeled off into hell.

Jesus says in John 8:44 that Satan is a murderer. He’s a murderer, that he loves to kill people. Some of you have even contemplated suicide, the murder of yourself. Some of you had the pills in your hand, the gun in your mouth, the knife at your wrist. You said well, I’m depressed. I just wanna end it. You may not be depressed. You may be oppressed. Your enemy may be whispering in your ear saying there’s no help. There’s no hope. There’s no future. Just die. Just get it over with. That’ll end the suffering because he knows if you don’t love Jesus, you’ll go to hell, and you’ll suffer forever, and you bought a terrible lie.

Again, we are a culture marked by freedom, choice, pride and death. And Satan wins all the time, and people lift up as heroes women who murder their children and men who get groupies to get naked. They get high. They get drunk, and they die at 20 in their hotel room, and those are our heroes.

And Jesus comes to save us from all of this. I’ll close with this. I was talking to a woman who had the most severe demonic activity I’ve ever seen. She was a former witch. She had massive sexual, drug abuse. I mean, just crazy. She came to this church and asked the demon that was in her, said why is she here? They said, “Well, she’s here with some other women in an effort to have sex with lots of men in this church, particularly leaders in this church to get it to be compromised, collapse and fall. That’s the plan.” I said well, why is that? They said, “Because you talk about Jesus. Mars Hill’s about Jesus, and so we hate Jesus, and we’re attacking wherever Jesus is.”

So I’m talking to this demon. Don’t freak out. It’s part of the job. I’m talking to this demon and I said well, why is your plan failing? The church is growing. People are getting saved. Things are going good. You know, people are learning about Jesus. The demon – demons usually lie, and this one told the truth. It said, “Because you’re under a shield.” I said well, what is that shield? Is that shield Jesus? He said yes. I said what happens if we get out from under the shield? And it got this sinister look on this woman’s face and it said, “Then you’re ours.”

See, there’s a real war with a real enemy who’s got a real battle plan, and we’re under a shield. His name is Jesus, and the demon used biblical language. It’s from Psalms, and I’ll read quickly because I’m past my time. Psalm 3:3, “You are a shield about me, O Lord.” That’s the Lord Jesus, our shield.

Psalm 7:10, “My shield is God most high.” Psalm 18:2, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer. My God is my rock in whom I take refuge. He is my shield.” The demon was right. As long as we’re under the shield, we’re in the safe place. The shield is the Lord. The Lord is Jesus.
I invite you all today, if you’re living outside of Jesus, you have no defense against Satan, sin, death, hell. You are in grave danger. You have taken the hook, and you have just focused on the bait, and you have neglected to see that you are a slave to sin and a slave to death and a captive to Satan. You need to repent of sin, turn to the Lord Jesus, come back under the shield.

For those of you that are Christians that wander out to sin, repent and get back under the shield, the safe place under the Lord Jesus. I worry about some of you. I’ve got 40, 50 years. I’m gonna give you the rest of my life, and I can admonish you and encourage you and love you and pray for you and point out Jesus, but ultimately, you have to repent of sin and turn to him. You need to say I reject pride for humility. I reject freedom, false freedom from Christ, for freedom in Christ. And I don’t wanna have choice. I wanna obey God. I don’t wanna do what I want. I wanna do what he wants. I don’t wanna die. I wanna live. I don’t wanna be a slave to sin. I wanna stop sinning. I don’t wanna die and go to hell. I wanna die and go be with Jesus, which is the only freedom that is ever available that is lasting, enduring, real and true.

So today you become a Christian or you leave here marked by your enemy under grave danger. And I’m gonna pray for us so be ready to come up, take communion, give your tithes and offerings. Communion remembering Jesus’ body and blood shed for our sin for all Christians who are repentant. Giving your tithes and offerings. If you’re not a Christian, you’re a visitor, don’t give financially. We love you. I’m gonna pray for you. Gonna ask you all to bow your heads. For those of you who want, you can just repeat after me. We’re gonna pray together tonight.

Jesus, thank you for the cross. Jesus, forgive our sin. Jesus, conquer our enemy. Jesus, send the Holy Spirit. And Jesus, keep us under your shield. Amen.