Message Date: October 24, 2018
Bible
Our fight is not against people, but against the devil and evil spirits. (Ephesians 6)
This spiritual fight is nothing new to our time. It has been happening since the beginning.
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The attack of the enemy is always targeted at the word of God.
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Genesis 3 – “Did God really say?”
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Post fall, God speaks again.
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Devil hears the prophecy of the snake crusher.
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Pharoh kills Hebrew male babies.
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Herod kills babies 2 years and younger.
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Jesus faced the question posed to Eve (3 different ways) Matt. 4
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Clearly an attack against God’s word that confirmed his sonship at Christ’s baptism (Matt. 3)
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The devil said…”Did God really say?” Jesus said in, “Yep” (FAITH!)
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Going back to Genesis 3…
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The enemy banks on our lack of understanding why all the time and instead of us resting in a place of trust concerning God’s character, we become tempted by means of suspicion/fear (unbelief) or lustful curiosity (immorality).
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“I will heal you” (wait time breeds suspicion & fear) = unbelief
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“This is wrong” (but…why…) = immorality
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The fight we face is the fight of faith. (1 Timothy 6:12)
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The struggle isn’t getting faith, we all have that, the struggle is about what we are going to put our faith in.
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We constantly wrestle with faith and needing to understand, when the truth is that having faith is what proves we have understanding.
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Parable of the Sower (Matt. 13)
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In the Gospels Jesus is constantly praising people for their faith and rebuking them because of unbelief. Their faith got resisted (Sarophonecian woman, woman with the issue of blood, paralyzed man lowered through roof) but pushing back/persevering got them results.
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Faith is rebuked by men and amen’ed by God, unbelief is rebuked by God and amen’ed by men.
Jesus showed us in his exchange with Peter how the devil seeks to war against us in this fight of faith.
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Matt. 16:22-23
Our will (understanding) has to be realigned to God’s word so that His will can come to pass in our lives.