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Empowering multimedia ministry for bold Christian living: Weekend Messages, Deep End Podcast, Deep Dive Bible Study. Tim Hatch, Lead Pastor, Waters Church, 26 years of pastoral ministry, book author.
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0:00 You're listening to Waters Church podcast, where faith meets real life. Where 1 church, many locations, and 1 mission, to see lives changed by Jesus. No matter where you're listening from, you0:12 are a part of Waters Church family. Now let's dive into today's message from our pastor.0:20 Today, I wanna talk to you on 1 of the tools that God has given you to bring heaven into your situation, whatever that situation is. And we're gonna look at a situation here that is0:32 fraught with problems. Somebody say problems. How many of you have had problems? Unit, raise your hand if you've had0:44 problems. Anybody not raising their hand, talk to me after service, I want to know your secret. So how many know everybody's got problems? Okay. Well,0:55 here's an option. Everybody's got problems, but not everybody has praise. And today I want to help you.1:09 Add the ingredient of praise to your problems, because if you do that, if you add praise to your problems, God1:21 is gonna give you a pulpit. There we go. Is that pulpit? Not very clear, is it? Did you get the idea?1:35 There we go. There's a pulpit right there. Add praise to your problems, God gives you a pulpit. There's no avoiding problems, and Paul the Apostle knew1:47 this, and some you got to get ahold of this, there's no avoiding problems even if you do what God wants you to do. I want to give you 3 points on what we do in the face of our obstacles, in the face of our challenges, in1:56 the face of our problems. Number 1, write this down. We understand the spiritual battle lines. You got to understand there's something going on in the unseen realm around you2:07 right now. Not just right now, but every day of your life. There is a spiritual battle at work. Your enemy, the devil scripture says, prowls2:19 around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Satan roamed the earth in the time of Job. He roams the earth right now.2:31 Not only Satan, but I believe there are demonic spirits at work in the heavenly realms. Paul says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. People are not the problem.2:43 Demonic spirits, principalities, rulers, authorities in the heavenly realm are the obstacles, the opponents that we must be aware of. Now in our in2:55 our chapter today, in Acts chapter 16 oh, by the way, we've we've been giving you we've been talking through this all these 3 weeks of prayer and fasting, and I hope this has been a benefit to you. But number 15 is where3:06 you are today if you've been following along the devotion for our 3 weeks of prayer and fasting. Here's how it opens today. Praise is a weapon. Some of you people think, oh, praise happens when I've won the battle.3:18 Uh-uh. Praise happens in the battle. You cannot wait for the battle to be won. That's like a soldier with a m 16 rifle3:30 waiting to shoot shots up into the air as soon as the enemy surrenders. No. No. No. No. You gotta use the weapon to win the war. Praise can happen after3:42 the battle, sure, But you gotta start to move that praise into the battle. Praise when the problem is happening. Add praise to your problems, God gives you a pulpit. And3:54 it says this, praise is a weapon, midnight worship shakes prisons because it declares God is greater than my circumstance. And I love this, miracles begin4:07 when praise rises where complaints could live. What have you been complaining about this week? I hope you haven't been complaining about the4:18 fast. Lord knows I've been tempted to. I've been driving by, you know, some of my favorite haunts. They look good to me.4:30 I mean, I don't usually eat Dunkin' Donuts food, but I've been seeing the advertisements. God help these football games with all these advertisements. That's not helping. And I've been looking at Dunkin' Donuts4:42 saying, mm-mm And then and then you got to stop and you got to say, Lord Jesus, you are better. You are4:54 more delicious than the delights of this world. Miracles begin when praises rise, where complaints could5:06 live. So today, you gotta understand the battle lines. Satan is out to get you. Satan wants to dominate your thoughts. The and it might not5:18 be Satan for you, a demon, spiritual principalities. They want to occupy space in your mind. Every battle has a ground5:29 that the opponents fight over. 250 years ago, the ground we're sitting in right now was fought over between Britain and the5:41 colonists. The colonists won, we got the ground. How about this? Who's winning the ground in your mind? Who's gaining ground? Who's losing ground? Now5:53 you gotta understand that you are on enemy territory, and Paul experiences that here in Acts chapter 16. As we were going to pray, verse 16 of Acts 16, we were met6:05 by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination. The word divination here in Greek is pythos, from which we get the word python, and a python is a snake.6:17 How does Satan show up in the garden? As a snake. So this is the spirit of divination, spirit of there is, by the way, spiritual there there are, false6:28 evil spirits that perform false evil signs. In fact, in Matthew chapter 24, Jesus declares very very6:40 plainly to the church. He said there's gonna be an increase of lawlessness in the last days, and there will be a leader who will perform miracles. He will6:52 perform signs. What I'm saying is there will be a deceptive quality to miraculous powers in the last days. Christians, you never want to mess with a7:03 fortune teller. That's what she is. She's a fortune teller. You never wanna mess with tarot cards. Or, this might offend some people, Reiki massage.7:15 You gotta watch it. This is opening the door of your mind to spiritual oppression. The enemy is not to be trifled with. You've got to7:27 take him seriously. And the scripture says in first John 5 19, we know that we are from God, but the whole world is under7:39 the power of the evil 1. And there is a power at work in the world today that if you ignore it, you are a sitting duck for7:51 his strategies and eventually his strongholds. Who's winning who's winning the battle? Now look at the picture of this girl. She is a picture of the game plan of the enemy.8:02 The game plan of the enemy. First off, she's a slave girl. What does the devil wanna do? He wants to enslave. That's why your habits become8:14 addictions. Addictions become prisons. By the way, if that's you, we've got a class called celebrate recovery. I8:26 encourage you, get help. Some things are just too strong for us to take on alone. By the way, fasting and prayer is how we break the strongholds of the enemy. Jesus says in Mark 6 that8:38 some demons can only come out by prayer and fasting. Some strongholds can only come out when we let God be everything to us and we ignore and and and and forego food so that we can be filled with the8:50 holy spirit. Amen? What I'm trying trying to say is you gotta understand the battle lines of the enemy. So enslavement is number 1. Number 2, she had owners. They were making9:02 money off of her. Number 2 battle plan of the enemy is exploitation. Ever notice how everything that we could be hooked by has a price tag? The the the end game9:14 is to exploit you. God wants to prosper you. I believe that with all my heart. God wants to prosper you. The scripture says, the blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no9:26 trouble to it. Oh, I love that promise. Yeah. I I I have no problem telling you that the Lord has blessed my life abundantly, way beyond my wildest imaginations, and he has blessed me.9:38 And this is so important for you to hear, church. Some of you are weak givers. You're weak givers because because you stress about the salary of the pastor. God has blessed me beyond my salary. Outside of the salary that9:49 I have at this church, the Lord has blessed me in ways. Multiplication blessings, and I look at my life and say, how? You know what it is? It's the blessing of the Lord. It brings wealth. God does not want you broke.10:01 Yes, blessed are the poor. Yes, the poor will be blessed. It is not a blessing to be poor, the poor will be blessed. Amen. Not that they'll be blessed necessarily with10:13 wealth, but they'll be blessed. Anyway, exploitation is the devil's game. Prosperity is God's game. And then so you got enslavement, you got exploitation, and then you got10:25 this. And don't miss this, economics. They brought M I c k s. There we go. My brain can only do 1 thing at 110:37 time. So exploitation enslaving, exploitation economics, that's the devil's game plan. You will start10:48 drinking, and before you know it, you're spending half your paycheck on alcohol, and before you know it, you got nothing. Same thing with marijuana and drug use, same thing with pornography, same11:00 thing with keeping up with the Joneses, same thing if you ever see, there's a movie out called The Joneses. It is a very unknown, very little known movie. Check it out. I can't speak for all the11:12 content in that show, so just watch out. I watched it a long time ago, but it's about basically trying to keep up with other people, and it'll wreck your life. Everything in this world that can become an addiction11:24 leads to enslavement, exploitation, and it's there's always an economic cost. This this poor girl is under the enslavement and exploitation and the11:36 economic system of the devil. Now this system exists all around the world. Scripture says in Colossians 1 13, he has delivered us from the domain of what? The the domain of darkness. Circle darkness11:47 in your notes. He has transferred us to the kingdom of his son beloved son. Good news, Christian. If you are in Christ, you are not captive to the domain of Satan.12:00 But you have got to get a picture here that scripture very clearly paints about the battle lines of the spiritual war that you are in. Jesus said12:11 to his disciples in Luke 10 verse 18, he said, I saw Satan fall like lightning from where? From heaven? Yeah. Before12:23 he was on this earth, Satan was in heaven. Before he was Satan, which means, by the way, accuser, that's what Satan means, accuser, he was an angel. Do you know this? He was an angel. He was12:35 called Lucifer, son of the morning, morning star, day star, some people call him. This comes from Isaiah chapter 14. Isaiah chapter 14 talks about the fall12:47 of Satan. Satan was 1 of 3 archangels in the presence of God, listen to this, before human beings were created.12:59 He was in heaven. By the way, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit were all there, ruling on the throne. Around the throne, 3 archangels, Gabriel, the messenger13:11 of the word, Michael, the messenger of spiritual warfare, and Lucifer. Lucifer was, many of theologians believe, the song13:23 leader in heaven. The song leader in heaven. Now let me just say something. It's gonna sound rude, but I think there's improvement here happening. You ever notice how so often secularists13:35 have far better music than Christians? Because Satan is in charge of their music. Please do not ignore this. I I gotta be honest, I'm a musician. I've13:47 been a musician my whole life, and I have no problem saying this. Man, he is skilled. He can write a beat, he can get us singing, and you ever you ever notice that you'll be singing a song, a secular song, and13:59 suddenly you'll say, what am I saying? I can't believe I'm saying those words. Right? My first album ever bought was called it was it was by a band called Poison. Boy, what14:11 I'm dating myself. But what an appropriate name for secular music, Poison. And the name of the song was Talk Dirty To Me.14:26 Confession is good for the soul. Pray for your past. Now the Lord's delivered me from this. Lord's delivered me. But I used to sing that song, oh, 0, talk dirty. What am I singing? You know, if you ever hear that14:37 song, it is good. I hate to say it. It is good. Do you know because Satan is skilled. Where'd he get his skill? He got it from God. But here's what happened. He let his skill go to his head, and the14:49 scripture says in Isaiah 14, he said, I will arise, I will ascend, I will be like the most high, I will set my throne on on the mountains of the Lord, I will rule over God. As soon as he rebelled, he was15:01 cast out of heaven like lightning. Now nobody puts this together, but where was he cast to? Earth. Now when scripture15:13 opens up let me show you something. When scripture opened now all that took place before we got here. When scripture opens up in Genesis, the scripture says, the earth was without form and15:24 what? Void. This is chaos. This is emptiness. These are the 2 things that15:36 Satan traffics in. People are confused. People are blinded. And then notice this, darkness was over the face of the earth. This15:48 is because Satan was cast to this planet. And the first thing that God says is what? Let there be light. From the16:00 beginning, you have to understand, Genesis is painting a picture, from the beginning, God's intention was to invade, invade the kingdom of16:11 Satan. And out of the ground, God formed a man, put into his lungs the breath of life, and the man16:23 was created to worship and praise God. You understand this? I hope you're getting a little bit jived about praise this morning. When you16:35 praise, you strike a blow to the kingdom of darkness on this planet. When you lift your voice to God, the16:47 devil has an allergic reaction, because you're doing what he forsook up in heaven. You've been assigned to replace him, to bring glory and praise to16:59 God in the heavenly realms. But understand that this is most understand you are presently, if you're in Christ, you are presently17:11 on enemy territory. So you cannot expect this world to love you. In fact, Jesus said if this world loves you, it's because you belong to this17:23 world. But because it hates you, that's a sign that I have brought you out of this world. You understand this? So important.17:35 So important. Young people, you don't follow the crowd. You don't follow Satan. Don't be stupid. Darkness, emptiness, confusion, that's all that awaits you. Now the good news is Satan17:47 fell like lightning from heaven. We're on enemy territory, but we're in Christ. He has delivered us, back to Colossians 1, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness. Now Luke chapter 10 verse 19, and Jesus says, I17:58 have given you authority over the power of the enemy. You can tread on what? Serpents and scorpions. Now that doesn't mean go play with snakes. I18:10 hate snakes. And nobody has a pet scorpion. A snake bites you with its head, a scorpion bites you with its tail. From head to foot, the devil stings.18:22 And you've been given authority of somebody say authority. Authority. In your notes, circle authority. I've got authority over the power of the enemy. And circle the word power because some people18:34 don't take the devil seriously enough. He's not to be trifled with. This is why you've gotta check what are you allowing into your home? What are you allowing into your body?18:46 What are you allowing into your ears? You you gotta check this out. This is not a game. There's a power at work in the spiritual realm. Take18:58 ownership of it. Now there's a plan that the devil has mapped out for every human being. The devil's plan, write this down, letter a, b, and c. Number letter a, deception. He's the father of lies. The devil has a plan19:09 for you. He wants to deceive you. And every lie that you believe seeds ground to the devil. Every lie and how many19:22 you 1 of the things that you got to remember is it's so important to get under the word because the word undoes the power of the enemy's lies. 1 of the lies that some of you19:34 believe someone's here, this is your lie. This is what you believe. God's out to get you. No, he's not. The devil is out to get you. Enemies in the spiritual realm are19:46 out to get you. God is out to save you. Another lie that the devil will seed into your life is, God can't forgive me. Oh, yes, he19:58 can, and he will. Confess your sins, and God is gracious and faithful and just and just faithful and just, and he will forgive you of your sins, and he will cleanse you of all your unrighteousness.20:11 See, some of you, you came to church today, you thought the ceiling was gonna cave in. You came with somebody today, they bought they brought you, and you said, ceiling's gonna cave in if I go, I'm that bad. I got20:23 news for you. This might sound funny, but good news, we're all bad. Amen. Amen. There's no good person, only Jesus. Alright? And so you that's a lie from the enemy, though. I can't come to20:35 yes, you can. God has made a way for you to come back to God. Alright? Watch out for the deception of the enemy. John 8 44, he's a father of life. He's a murderer. He when he20:46 speaks, he lies. As soon as he speaks, he every voice, every word from the enemy is a lie. Once he gets you understanding lies, letter b, it leads to discouragement.21:00 Lies, deception leads to first he's gotta deceive you, then he can discourage you. Look at the word discourage. Just put a line between the s and the c. Dis and then what?21:11 Courage. He wants to take away your courage. He wants to take away your confidence. That's his game plan. And how does he do it? He accuses believers constantly. Revelation 12 10 says that he is the accuser21:23 of the world. Now he's been thrown down by that time, but it says he's the accuser, and he accuses them day and night. Satan means accuser. That's what the word actually means. So what does he do? He tempts you,21:36 and by the way, the flesh tempts you, but he tempts you, and this is this is how much of a jerk he is. He tells you to do it. You do it, then he gets on the other21:48 side of you doing it, and then he accuses you for doing it. That's pretty jerky if you ask me. Now we got to fight. 1 of the weapons we've got is the word of God. Let22:00 me show you a passage of scripture that we always quote. John 8 32. I'm going start it, you're going to finish it. Are you ready? John 8 32, I'm gonna start it, you're gonna finish it. Are you ready? Yes.22:12 Alright. John 8 32, and I won't even put it up yet. You shall know the truth. Yeah. You know that 1. Right? Okay. That's exactly what Jesus says. You shall22:24 know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And some of us say, well, know the truth, but I still have bondage. Do you know why you don't have freedom? Because you didn't pay attention to the fact that Jesus started22:33 that phrase with the word and. He didn't start that with you. So this and says, wait a second. Look back. Look back. Okay. Well, let's look back. How22:45 did Jesus actually start the phrase? Well, first, the context. He said to the Jews who believed in him, so do you believe in Jesus? That's great, but you can still be in bondage while you believe. You22:57 can still be in bondage while you believe. So this is for us. Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, if you abide the word here means stay. If23:09 you abide or stay in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. What are you doing with the23:21 word of God? It cannot be an Airbnb in your mind. You gotta build your house there. You gotta build your house in the word.23:33 Your mind is a battlefield. The ground is up in here. What are you filling your mind with? Get into the scriptures outside of Sunday morning. Come on, somebody.23:45 You say, I don't understand it. When I read it, I get confused. That's okay. To this day, some parts still confuse me. But we grow. You gotta give God something to play with. You23:57 gotta give God you gotta give God the holy spirit, something to work with. Put it in your mind. Deposit it. How about this? Take it up a notch. Memorize it. Rehearse it. Put it on your phone. Start24:08 playing it. You can even do it audio wise on your phone. Let it be the first thing that you hear in the morning. Let it be the last thing you hear at night. Okay. This is a this is24:20 how you fill your mind so that you get freedom. We're fighting for your freedom. You will not get free if you just vacation in the word of God. Amen. It's gotta be24:32 your habitation. So deception, discouragement. By the way, how do you answer the discouragement of the enemy? How do you answer the discouragement of the24:44 enemy? Well, that's another passage for you. I'm just riffing today. Is that alright? Romans 15 verse 4 says this, whatever was written in former day24:56 scripture was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures. If the25:07 enemy's game plan is discouragement, the scripture's is encouragement. The scriptures are the weapon of your warfare25:19 to disable the deception of the enemy and thereby disable the discouragement of the devil and encourage. Check that word out. Give me some25:30 how do I get courage? Because I spend time in the word of God, and I'm not swayed by the opinions of men. I'm not a liberal. I'm not conservative. I'm not a democrat. I'm not a republican. I'm a25:42 born again son of the most high God, and his word is in my heart. That's how we win. But third part of the25:54 devil's plan is destruction. Ultimately, his goal is to kill you. That's his ultimate goal. It doesn't start with destruction, it starts with deception. It leads to discouragement, and then it ends up26:06 in discour destruction. John 10 10, the thief comes to steal, kill, and what? Destroy. Destroy. So understand the battle plan. This fortune telling26:17 girl, this enslaved girl, was crying out for many days, and what was she saying? These men are servants of the most high God, verse 17, who proclaim to you the way of salvation. Now what she says is right,26:32 but she's demon possessed. You can say the right thing from the wrong spirit. I got to have you understand the spiritual component here. All right? You26:44 can do the right thing and still not be saved. You can look the right way and still not be saved. My question is not, are you doing I'm not ever gonna ask, are you doing the right thing? I'm26:56 gonna ask you, do you believe on the Lord Jesus? Amen. Do you believe in the Lord? You gotta be set free from within. You gotta be born again. Alright? So Paul put up with this for many days. Verse 18, and having become27:07 greatly annoyed, he turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came at that very hour. The name of Jesus is our second weapon. We've got the word of God,27:19 we gotta stay in it, we gotta abide in it, we gotta put it in our heart, and then we gotta name the name of Jesus in our atmosphere. I I I wanna encourage you today to understand the power of the name27:31 of Jesus. There's power in that name. Every time the the apostles or the disciples of the Lord in the book of Acts cast out27:43 demons, they said, in the name of Jesus. Now what does the word in the name mean? It's not abracadabra. It's not some magic formula. What it means is that I stand in27:54 Christ against the enemy. Me versus the enemy is a knockout every day for the enemy. I lose every day. But me standing in the name28:06 of Christ against the enemy is a knockout against the enemy every day. Because when you think about name in the book in the Bible, name is reputation. I don't stand in my name. My name can't do anything. I don't have a28:18 reputation in the spiritual realm. Jesus has the reputation. Jesus is undefeated. Alright? Jesus is the 1 who wins the battle. It's like having Michael Jordan on your team. I don't care who's on the other side,28:30 who's on the other bench, you got Michael Jordan, you're winning that sucker. Or more appropriately, you got Tom Brady on your side. Alright? You know what I'm saying? That you've got someone28:42 who's undefeated in the spiritual realm, and you stand in his authority, and in the name of Jesus, demons flee. Now I encourage this. You might wanna do it when no one's looking,28:54 but walk around and just claim the name of Jesus over your home. Walk around. Anybody notice that the name of Jesus is a swear word? This is not an accident. This is not an29:06 accident. The devil knows exactly what he's doing. He has tried to deride that name since it came to this earth. No 1 is out there hitting their finger with a hammer saying,29:17 oh, Buddha. No 1 gets into a car accident and says, oh, Muhammad. Do you know why? Because the devil knows those names have no29:29 power. He has nothing to do with those names because those names do not intimidate him. He has tried to deride the name of that stuff shows up on your on your TV, you shut it off. Somebody29:41 says that in front of you, you say, please, I believe in that name. Can you not use that word? Can you can you not use that name as a swear do you mind? Do you mind like, don't respect everybody else's belief. They29:50 should have respect ours. That's true tolerance. Yeah? Speak up. Say something. And and and and people will respect that, by the way. But but what you gotta understand is that the devil the devil30:02 wants you to dis to to to disdain the name of Jesus. The name of Jesus is not a cuss word. The name of Jesus is the name above every other name. The scripture says that at the name of30:14 Jesus, every knee's gonna bow, every tongue's gonna confess in the earth and above the earth and below the earth that Jesus Christ is Lord.30:26 Satan has to flee at the name of Jesus. During this fast and prayer, I wanna encourage you to walk around your house, maybe late at night when everybody's asleep, and30:38 you just start saying, in the name of Jesus, peace over this house. In the name of Jesus, prosperity over this house. In the name of Jesus, sickness, flee from this house. When you have a30:50 newborn baby, don't show them to grandma and grandpa first, show them to Jesus first. Lay your hands on their head in the name of Jesus. This child belongs to Lord, no sickness,31:02 no disability, no frailty. Strong strength in the name of Jesus. Come on, somebody. We've got power in the name of Jesus.31:15 Some of you get out get outside on your car. Just lay hands in the name of Jesus. I was driving down the highway yesterday with me and my wife next to me and my son, my 14 year old son in the31:27 back seat. Came up to this ramp, on ramp for a highway. We stopped. I was actually driving pretty good, which is a rarity for me. Pretty calmly, the wife was next to me. How many know that's how it goes?31:39 Anyway, suddenly I hear bang. Car behind me gets rear ended and starts to go towards my car. Lord, quicken my mind just enough, put the gas on just a little bit, and I31:50 avoided getting rear ended from the guy who got rear ended behind me. Man, that'll shake you up. That'll shake you up. We're all in the we're all in the car like, whoo. You know what it is? The protection of the most32:02 high God. Don't need an I don't need an accident right now. Praise God. Thank you, Jesus. And I just said I said, Lord, thank you for the protection that the name of Jesus puts over my house. Some of you wives,32:14 that's what you need. You don't harass him while he's driving. You just pray the name of Jesus over the car. Lord, he drives like a maniac, so you just Jesus, you're gonna have to really thank you that32:26 you are above all. The name of Jesus cast this demon out immediately. Now look what happens. Things turn quickly. When her owner saw that their hope of gain was gone. That's what it's about. It's about money.32:38 They seized Paul's silence. They dragged him to the marketplace before the rulers. I've been there, by the way. I've been in the ancient Philippi. When they had brought them to the magistrates, these would be the32:46 justices. They said these men are Jews. They are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us Romans to accept their practice. There's nothing new under the sun. This girl's32:58 set free from slavery to to Satan, and the worldly system, the government has a problem with it. Don't miss this.33:12 They join then it says this the crowd attacked them. The magistrates tore their garments, gave orders to beat them with rods. They were beaten on the back with rods for delivering a girl from slavery.33:26 It says they put them in the prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. I said this last service, let me do it again. There is a graph I want you to get familiar with, and it's a very appropriate graph for us33:38 in our day. This is 20 26. Let's just say this is 1900. And so this is time, and this the vertical axis33:49 is down here is crazy, and up here is truth. Okay? Crazy truth time. Now here's how it goes.34:01 Scripture never changes. Yeah? The word of God never changes. Culture culture34:13 changes. Here's what's been happening for 1900 for 100 years. And 20 20 came on. And it's just been going ever since.34:24 Now the reason why our culture is having a harder time with scripture is not because scripture changed, it's because34:35 culture deteriorated. And Christians, listen to me. The more faithful you are to scripture, the more crazy you are to culture. The problem is not34:47 scripture, the problem is the culture. The problem is this world. And that's what they see. They gave orders to beat them. This is uncalled for. This is we will not tolerate this.34:59 Isn't that crazy? Nothing's new under the sun. They put him in prison, and it looked like, man, that's it. That's the end for Paul. That's the end for Silas. No. No. No. This is just a problem, but we can add praise to35:09 our problems, and God can give us victory. So am I on point number 2 now? Write this down. Point number 2, we utilize spiritual weapons. In the face of our obstacles, we35:21 utilize spiritual weapons. The spiritual weapon you got, the word of God, praising I'm sorry, the name of Jesus and praise. Write this down, praise is a weapon.35:33 I'm sorry, praise There's power in praise. Write that down. There's power in praise. Let me tell you what the power is, letter a. Praise35:45 amplifies truth in the face of deception. What's the enemy's game plan? Lies. What does praise do? It destroys the lies of the enemy. Now you've got to know the word. A lot of our Christian music35:57 in churches today, I can't tell you this with enough conviction, but a lot of church music today is becoming highly emotional and not scriptural.36:09 And our church, we do the best that we can to weed out the emotional music and get the scriptural music. We'll do the best that we can, but you've gotta saturate the music with the truth.36:21 Amen. Otherwise, it's just celebration. Scripture has to be a part of it. Psalm 1 49 verse 6 says, let the high praises of God be in their throats and a36:33 2 edged sword in their hands. Praise in your mouth, a sword in your hand. What is the sword? Scripture says in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12, the word of God is living an36:45 act of sharper than any 2 wedged sword. So the word has to be in your hand, the praise has to be in your mouth. And and and and and here's what you can do. This is spiritual practice for some of you. Open the Bible, read36:57 stories, read scripture, and just give God thanks. If I was reading this scripture personally devotionally, would just say, Lord, I thank you that the name of Jesus has power over the37:08 powers of the enemy. And I just thank you for that. That's praise based on truth. So letter b, praise magnifies the Lord over our troubles. When you37:20 praise, you make God bigger. Not that you actually physically can make him bigger, but you make God bigger in the situation. Psalm 34 verse 1 says, bless the Lord.37:32 I will bless the Lord all times. His praise shall continually be on my mouth. My soul makes his boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear him be glad. And then this is verse 3. I love this. And oh, magnify the Lord with37:44 Magnify. Verse 3, magnify the Lord with me. What are you magnifying with your mouth? What are you magnifying with your mouth? So here's your options.37:56 Ready? A lot of people, everybody's got problems, but instead of praise, they go to complaints. And complaints try to get between38:08 you and praise. And when you complain, all you're doing is magnifying your problems. What's coming out of your mouth? Take authority over your mouth. The scripture says, set a guard over38:20 my lips, Lord. Oh, this job, I hate this job. These people, this job, I just can't stand these people. Oh, Lord, would you just Man, you just all you're doing is magnifying how much that job, you hate it. Oh,38:31 this family, these kids, those my money situation, oh, man, it's so bad, blah, blah. And before you know it, you're actually helping the devil bring discouragement into your heart. This is38:43 why scripture says, do all things without complaining. Do all things without complaining. Why? Complaint gets into the soil of your heart.38:56 And before you know it, you've just you've just talked yourself into absolute discouragement. So you got to learn how to praise in spite of the problem. Scripture says then, Psalm 34 verse 4, love39:07 this verse. He says, I sought the Lord and he delivered me from all my, what? So I when I was when we started the prayer and fasting, I started to read through the Psalms, and I came to this 1.39:20 And I saw something in this verse that I never saw before, but I want you to see it. He sought the Lord, the Lord answered, and the Lord answered how? By delivering from all his, what, fears.Show more
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