Priscilla Shirer: YOUR Spiritual Battle & the Armor of God (Full Teaching) | Praise on TBN

he wants you to point fingers at him or at her at your boss at your parent at that particular professor or your r. a in your dorm he wants you to think it's that advisor or it's that financial problem anything flesh and blood because he knows as long as we're looking at the flesh and blood we will direct all the wrong weapons at the wrong culprit i cannot even begin to tell you how excited i am to be here thrilled finally to be a passion this is my first time being at passion i i'm the new kid on the block thank you for making the new kid feel welcome it is a privilege to be a part of what god has already been doing through this movement for these years these decades that god has been sowing seed into the lives of of you y'all don't even know what it is that the lord has in store you can't even imagine i'm trying to tell you that whatever is in your mind right now about what god might do with your life it is too small for what he's actually planning to do too small you cannot fathom what god has in mind for you the reason why i can say that with that much boldness is because while there are 30 plus thousand of us that are gathered together in these three arenas and then those that are on the other side of the screen in their homes thirty thousand sounds like a big number unless you consider the fact that with seven plus billion people on the planet the fact that he'd let us be the ones that are recipients of what he's done over these last few weekends really it's just our last few days really it's just a drop in the bucket 30 000 sounds like a lot but in the grand scheme of all the people that could have been here y'all he chose us that means he intended for you to know you're an arrow that your expectation is that you're getting ready to go places the likes of which you could never imagine oh i like y'all y'all talk back to me i go to that kind of a church where they talk but you know i go to the kind of church where if the preaching gets really good to us we might throw something at the pastor a shoe a baby anything might go flying up there y'all are my people y'all came to have church so i have three boys um it's a little bit scary to me that they are nearly and will be very soon in the next few years will be about your age three sons the distinguishing characteristic about my boys is that they are giants they are huge boys my 15 year old is six foot two inches tall he wears a size 14 men's shoe my 13 year old is about six one he wears a 13 men's shoe and uh they tower over me i have a nine year old who's coming up in the ranks with his brothers they are tall boys somebody can help me feed these people and one of the distinguishing characteristics about or what makes their size work for them rather is that they do love sports so whatever sport is sort of in season that's what we're playing at the time my second son for a lot of years he's into basketball now but for a lot of years baseball was this thing and i enjoyed that i enjoyed baseball season i liked going out there for spring ball i liked spring ball because you go sit in the cool of the evening while your kid is practicing i remember all those years of of little league when he was just coming up and we'd sit out there in the cool of the spring evening under the lights of the bleachers watching and practice and enjoying just uh that whole atmosphere i like spring ball so much the only problem with spring ball is that it is going to become summer ball and i don't know what happens where you live wherever you're coming from but i can tell you in dallas texas which is where i still live and where i was born and raised in dallas texas in the summertime it doesn't warm up slightly it gets hot i'm talking about slap your mama hot that kind of hot the kind of hot where you feel like the sun must be mad at you about something like you did something to the sun and the sun is trying to get you back all summer long that's what it feels like and you're sitting out there at a game trying to enjoy your kid's game and it really still is okay when there's just one game the problem is that at the end of every season there's a tournament so you got to be out there on a thursday at 8 00 am and 10 a. m and noon and 2 p.

m and then depending upon how your kids team did you're gonna have to come back on friday at 8 am and 10 a. m and then they give you a little lunch break but you got to come back for the 2 p. m game the 4 p.

m game and then if your kid's team had the nerve to do well you got to come back again on saturday for the 8 a. m game and 10 a. m and noon and 2 and man you're sitting out there under the blazing sun trying to be happy that your kid is doing well really you're wondering if it's ever okay to pray they lose so you can go home i will never confirm nor deny that i have ever done that but i will tell you that we were sitting out there at a tournament so several years ago sun was blazing we were so excited for the lunch break just because that meant we would be able to go to a restaurant where there would be air condition and ice water that actually had ice in it we got refreshed we came back we drove our suv up into the parking lot opened up the back of the suv so that we could pull out all the gear that we needed to go to the next game in the tournament we were three days into the tournament hot sweaty they were doing well we were trying to be excited about it ready for the next game i was walking behind my son to get from where we had parked the car over toward the dugout where the next game was going to be played and so i gathered up all the stuff you know the ice chest that you have and the um the umbrella that you might have to go over your head and you know the water bottles the the backpacks the the baseballs the mitts all that stuff and i was following behind my son my second son jerry jr is a fairly gregarious personality he's outgoing he's excited for a challenge so i could see that in his step as i followed behind him i could see a skip in his step his chin was up his shoulders were back he was excited about the next game and i got to tell you he's pretty good in baseball he has a natural knack for it i remember at 10 years old was the first time he got a good hit and sent it sailing over the fence line at 10 years old and i think it's partly because of his size just a lot of power behind the swing a great as a first baseman so we were really excited about his success in baseball and and i watched him as he kind of hopped and skipped over to the next game just excited about the next challenge in the tournament but because i was following behind him i had my eyes glued on him and i could see when something changed i could see that as we took the short walk from where we parked the car over to the dugout i could see that his shoulders started to hunch over and his head hung down i could see that that that skip that had been in his step it changed he was kind of walking like he was nervous he was wringing his hands a little bit i saw that he was looking around his eyes darting and looking a little bit sketchy i was trying to figure out what happened to my boy it was a short walk from where we parked the car over to the dugout and all of a sudden his countenance had completely changed so i started looking around trying to figure out what was going on why did he look so insecure and fearful all of a sudden i realized that as we were going toward the dugout we were walking past some kids from another team they were all laying on the grass underneath the shade of an oak tree getting ready for the next game as i passed them i could see this was the team we were about to play next kept walking and i kept getting a look at these boys and when i looked at them i realized what my son's problem was we had faced this team before we had faced them earlier in the season and when this team had played my son's team earlier in the season they had annihilated us it had been a complete embarrassment a complete upset this team right here y'all they were serious baseball players but we had to walk right by them to get to the dugout as we walked past there were two players they were talking to each other one was whispering to the other i think he thought he was whispering but we could hear him he leaned over to the other one and he said there goes that big kid from the red sox team is he the one that hit the ball and it went over the fence yeah he was the one at first base the one that caught any of the outs that we got in the game that was him so that's jerry shire when my boy heard his name cross the lips of the opposing team members those shoulders that had been hanging down all of a sudden i watched him pop back again i watched his chin go up i watched him get a little swag back in his step as he headed over toward the dugout in fact we had to bring him down a few notches before the game started it's amazing really how your countenance changes when you really overhear and understand what the enemy thinks about you when he sees you coming it doesn't mean that the challenge goes away it means that in the face of it you're different your stance is different because you recognize that when the enemy sees a daughter or a son of god coming his way he's shaking in his boots not because of you but because of the holy spirit of god that lives on the inside of me i came to tell somebody today that even if you don't believe what it is that the word of god declares to be true about you you need to know that the enemy does he knows that every single thing that god's word declares to be true about you every word that has been declared over you in these last few days of this conference even if you're not convinced about it the enemy is he knows that you have been forgiven he knows that there is therefore now no condemnation for those of us who are in christ jesus he knows that you have been given the victory he knows that you have been made competent by the spirit of god he knows that there is therefore now no condemnation for you or for me no shame no guilt he knows that you have not been given a spirit of fear but a power and love and of a sound mind and y'all he knows that in the end we win and i'm saying what ashamed it would be for the enemy to believe more about your potential than you do what ashamed it would be for us to go out of here with all of this inspiration that we have been given this investment of god's word that he has gathered us together over the course of these days to worship in spirit and in truth and to hear his word declared true over our lives what a tragedy it would be for us to walk out of here and still live like we were before we came through these doors so what the enemy will do is scatter challenge in front of your life because listen you're going back home to challenge y'all do know we going back home in a little while right and don't we wish we could wake up to this every single day don't we wish that we could have god's word spoken over our lives with this much authority and power every single day and be in the presence of leaders who can lead us into the presence of god and worship every single day like this but the reality is we're going back home the challenges of your university campus the challenges of your home your relationships your friendships on your job those challenges will be sprawled out in front of you with you get home and let me tell you something what the enemy hopes is that the sight of them will cause you to shrink back in so much fear and insecurity that you'll never step up to the plate of being who god has called you to be listen if you've placed faith in jesus christ i hope you know that the enemy understands he cannot destroy you he knows his chances are over of destroying you so he is going to spend the rest of his time and the rest of his energy just trying to discourage you trying to distract you so that you'll shrink back in fear and insecurity and not step up to the plate and be who god has called you to be it is at least in part to this end that the apostle paul gives us a passage of scripture that has become a lifeline for me in fact i was talking with christine yesterday chris and i have known each other for a very long time very close friends and she was asking me what i was going to speak on i had several thoughts of directions that i was leaning toward but in the end we as we were talking the question came up if there was only one thing you could say to them if there's only one message that you ever have the opportunity to tell these students these young people that will be gathered together on this occasion what would that message be and there was one thing that immediately popped into my heart and my mind for you at the end of this year's passions passion conference it's the words of the apostle paul he writes them in the book of ephesians listen let me just tell you quickly before i read this passage you got if you've not read the book of ephesians you're gonna have to read the book of ephesians y'all listen it's it's like for real the apostle paul y'all know he was a bad boy he gave us most of what would become the new testament letters written to first century believers that now disciple us and help us to mature as believers and as the body of christ and scholars say that of all of paul's writing really the cream of the crop the cherry on top of the cake is ephesians because in the book of ephesians y'all he just spends the first half of the book just rehearsing who you are as a daughter or a son he wants to make sure you step up to the plate rise to the occasion of who you've been recreated in christ to become those of you who place faith in jesus christ last night who stood to your feet at the end of pastor louie's message and you place faith in jesus listen the old has gone and the new has come you're a daughter your son and you have full rights and privileges that have been granted to you the apostle paul wants you to know what is the hope of his calling and choosing you he writes in the first and second and third chapter about the treasure that you have he wants you to know about the mercy that has been lavished upon you the grace that has been given to you he wants you to know that if you've been rejected by everybody else you've been hand-picked chosen and adopted by the one true god he wants you to know that if you've dug a pit of sin for yourself that is so deep you can't find your way out of it that the mercy of god is so great and so grand that it can reach down into any pit and snatch you up out of it once and for all in fact paul gets so worked up that by the time he gets to the middle of the first chapter he bursts out in a prayer and he says i'm praying that the eyes of your heart would be open so that you would just know what is the hope of his calling and choosing you and after going over and over and on and on about the lavishness the richness the grace the mercy the goodness the adoption that has been poured out over us the forgiveness that has been granted to us he's trying to figure out how do i close this letter to make sure they step up to the plate how do i put an exclamation point on passion 2018 to make sure that what god has given them they don't hand over to the enemy as soon as they walk out the door and the apostle paul writes these words to us in ephesians chapter 6 beginning in verse 10.

he says finally you be strong in the lord and in the strength of his might he says put on the full armor of god so that you may be able to stand firm against the scheme somebody say schemes against the schemes of the devil he says we wrestle not we struggle not against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the powers against the world forces of this darkness against the spiritual forces of wickedness that are in the heavenly places he says so therefore you might as well just go ahead and put down all the weapons of this world that aren't working for you anyway and take up some weapons that actually have some power he says take up the full armor of god so that you may be able to resist in the evil day and having done everything to stand firm he says you ought to just stand firm therefore in these few verses of scripture the apostle paul begins to introduce to us a concept that has not been at least in the context of thus far in church development at that time had not been as overtly described as it is right now in paul's letter he brings up the topic of spiritual warfare he says you have an enemy he says i want to make sure that it's loud and clear there are other places in the old testament and throughout throughout the new y'all where we can infer that we have a spiritual unseen battle going on but this is the first time that an author comes right out and says you have an enemy and he is scheming against you that when you leave this place in just a little while when i leave this place in just a little while you need to know that there is an enemy he is against you he is not for you he plans to do anything and everything in his power to stir up challenge in your life enough to cause you to shrink back and not rise up and stand firm in the victory that you have been given in christ jesus that's why the apostle paul says stand firm because you have an enemy an enemy that wants you to think that just because he is invisible he is also fictional he wants to be chalked up to nothing more than a caricature a cartoon picture a myth a character for a kid's nursery rhyme he doesn't want you to recognize the influence that he has over your life possibly to to cause you to never walk into the full expression of god's grace and goodness in your life he is sinister he is a master illusionist and he is a deceiver and he hopes to cleverly disguise himself behind life's most pressing problems to where you will forget he is even there he wants you to point fingers at him or at her at your boss at your parent at that particular professor or your r. a in your dorm he wants you to think it's that advisor or it's that financial problem anything flesh and blood because he knows as long as we're looking at the flesh and blood we will direct all the wrong weapons at the wrong culprit we'll think our money will work we'll think our rationale and logic will actually work we think that the diploma we're about to to achieve and receive we'll think the diploma will be work worth it we'll think that the connections will work anything natural cannot take care of the supernatural when your problem is unseen and spiritual you need weapons that work in that realm so the apostle paul says you got to know first of all that your enemy is not the person you are sitting next to today that your enemy is not your parent at home your enemy is not that professor that is difficult to work with your real enemy is not your boss on your part-time job your real enemy is unseen he is hoping y'all that we will forget he's there he is the master deceiver so there's a little church around the corner from my house in dallas i've been taking my kids there since they were little to harvest festival that's basically this church's answer to halloween so we will go there for harvest festival and this church has a good old-fashioned trunk or treat does anybody know what i mean when i say trunk or treat okay all right so trunk or treat for those of you who are not clear on what that is that's when members of the congregation volunteer they volunteer to bring their cars into the parking lot on harvest festival night so that they can open up the trunk of their car so you go into the parking lot all the trunks are open and each person has basically crafted a carnival game or some sort of fair game out of the trunk of the car so kids line up one trunk after the other they play whatever the game is and then most of the time whether they win or lose the person that owns that car gives them a whole bunch of candy and sends them home we're always so grateful so we stand in line one car after the other waiting on bags of candy and we play one game after the other a few years ago the biggest line the longest line at the carnival wasn't behind a car it was behind the bed of a truck it was really clever a huge truck had been parked in the parking lot and they'd put a step ladder right at the bed of the truck so that a kid could walk into the bed of the truck they had attached a tabletop which was about the same size as the bed of the truck they had attached it to the side of the truck cut six holes into it put some fabric some drapery over it and out from those holes every few seconds a puppet would pop through they gave the kid a huge plastic mallet and the job of the kid was to run up and down the inside of the bed of the truck as he tried to hit the puppets on top of the head it was a homemade whack-a-mole game is what it was and it was the longest line me and jude at the time he was like four jude is my youngest me and jude are standing in line we're waiting on our turn behind us there's another kid he's with us his mom he's probably four or five as well and y'all he was hysterical because he was annoyed at this whole situation and he was making sure she knew it he was first of all annoyed because mom i don't understand why i got to stand in this long line didn't we come to the carnival to have fun this ain't fun standing in line ain't fun i have an idea mom how about this how about i go play all these other games while you stand in line and hold our place and then when it's our turn i'll come back and join you in life but he was not only annoyed about the line the four-year-old was also annoyed because mom i don't even understand this game why in the world would i waste all my energy running up and down the inside of that truck to hit the puppets on the top of the head if when i hit them on the head they're gonna disappear but then they're just gonna come back as soon as i hit them on the head what's the point of this game so everybody in the line is laughing hysterically because this four-year-old this five-year-old is talking so much about all of his frustrations finally he gets so frustrated that he works himself into a frenzy to where all i saw out of my peripheral vision was a four-year-old flash running past me as he ran forward and he grabbed the drapery off of the table top and pulled it clean off underneath there were three adults with puppets on each hand that day we all got a good laugh but we also got a good lesson there is always something you can't see influencing what you can and if you spend all of your time your energy your effort trying to hit at what you see popping up in your life you're gonna be so frustrated and by the way exhausted because as soon as you take care of one thing another one is coming back unless you do what the apostle paul says pull back the curtain and let the enemy know we got our eyes on you and we're going to use some weapons that actually work back there behind the curtain y'all i wish i had learned this when i was 18 19 20 21 years old that that person that physical problem isn't really where you need to invest your energy pull back the curtain use the weapons that actually have power the apostle paul wants you to know that the tactics of the enemy are serious business and so he uses a specific word to describe them he says schemes listen to me he knows your weaknesses he knows how to dangle what carrot at the right time in the right way to make sure you are snagged in particular have you ever wondered or found curious that that particular carrot is always dangled in front of you when you are most tired when you are most vulnerable when you happen to be most hungry most alone most weak that particular carrot the one that wouldn't mess with your friend because it's not her deal it's not his deal he's not enticed by that but the one that entices you always shows up at the right time y'all that's not coincidence that's a scheme the enemy is trying to derail you he's trying to make sure that you don't walk in a manner worthy pleasing of the lord that you come in here but that you don't go out of here the purpose to live for the glory of god he's trying to trip you up not only for his own benefit but because he does not want you having access to everything that you are privy to as a rightful heir to the king of kings and the lord of lords it's a scheme so if he's got tactics we need tactics the apostle paul outlines them for us i'm just going to read them to you because he says in verse 13 you need the full armor and here's what they are verse 14 he says make sure that your loins are girded with truth then he says you need a breastplate and the breastplate is called righteousness and then he says in verse 15 you got to have something for your feet if you want any hope of being able to move forward successfully so your feet need to be shot with the preparation of the gospel of peace and then not only that but he says there are some flaming missiles of the evil one that he fully intends to send sailing into your path you're gonna need a shield and the shield is your faith and then you know there are lies there are strongholds that he's going to try to erect in your mind you're gonna need something to protect your mind he says you need a helmet and the helmet is your salvation but not only that he says that you are going to need a sword really a dagger of the spirit it was about 18 inches long or so the one the apostle paul is referring to you need a dagger so that when the enemy is all up in your space you've got something close at hand to make sure that he stays at bay you need a dagger of the spirit and the dagger is called the what the word of god but y'all he doesn't stop at those six can i just say that there is one more in 18 verse 18 traditionally it's taught as six i really believe there are seven pieces of armor because in verse 18 he says pray it says pray [Applause] not like you know a prayer or a day to keep the devil away not like a prayer over your meal just cause that's what your mama did and your grandmama did and that's what you're supposed to do not something quick and casual fervent prioritized prayer y'all you can't have victory if you don't pray do you hear what i'm saying to you prayer is the key that unlocks the resources of heaven so that they can be unleashed on planet earth prayer is the key he's actually given you to get all the good stuff down here because i don't know about you but i don't want to wait to get to heaven to experience all that god has for me any bits of heaven he plans to give me on earth i want it right now prayer accesses the bits of heaven he intends to give you now and prayer listen prayer is what pushes the kingdom of darkness back it's what pushes it back that's why jesus said my house shall be called not a house of good preaching not a house of good singing not a house of great spotlights and production not a house of great cafes i hope you have all of that enjoy it but jesus said at the end of the day my house better be called a house of prayer because spotlights and fog machines and great singing and great preaching that won't necessarily push the kingdom of darkness back but when my people who are called by my name when they will humble themselves and when they'll pray he says then i'm gonna hear from heaven i'm gonna heal the land the enemy will have to bend the knee at the name of jesus in prayer so pray there's one other piece of armor i couldn't get by without talking to you about it for a few moments y'all still awake everybody again it's in verse 14.