Spiritual Insights For 2023 & Beyond (Part 5) Study The Call Of Jeremiah - Rod Mills

​Throughout Scripture we see God reveal to his people His plans and highlight certain focuses for the coming season of time. Each year, we pray and seek the Lord for His guidance, insights, and direction for the upcoming year. This series is an overview of some of the prophetic insights God is highlighting to the AeroNova spiritual family for the year 2023 and beyond. 
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In 2023 and beyond, God is calling us to study and understand the calling of Jeremiah. He understood that the spiritual weapons and authority of the heavens are much greater than human weapons.  God-empowered spiritual warfare is much more effective than man-empowered physical warfare.

Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):





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​So I think we're on part four, I believe I lose track. I can't remember. But I think this is part four of just in the early part of the year, we're looking into spiritual insights for 2023 and beyond. And I'm sorry, this is part five last time was part four. But we're, we've had several people share on this just. And for those of you who who may not know, each year, at toward the end of the year, we start turning our face toward the Lord in the next year and ask God, what does he want us to know and prepare for in the coming year. And so something started to change. I mentioned that this at the beginning on New Year's Eve night. We used to just really get a bite sized kind of direction, and God would give us a sense of what to aim for insights and prophetic insights about what is coming how to prepare. And we've done that Beth and I have done this our whole married life 30, almost 40 years. But what we're noticing now, as we do this, as a spiritual family, both here in Colorado, New Mexico, Mississippi, Alabama, as we're doing this, one of the things that began to change was it wasn't so much that we were just having a sense of what was coming in the next year, and preparation, but the next years plural. So it's kind of like you're used to walking the pathway. And you're used to kind of looking out, you know, 20 yards ahead of you. And the Lord has started something different with us in the late teens, early 20s of this decade, where he's kind of lifting our eyes going, Okay, I'm going to show you what's in front of you. But I want you to see further down the road, that you need to be prepared. And so God gives us very specific things. And, amazingly, they have been, I mean, and that's what I love about the spiritual family, everybody shares in the puzzle pieces come together. And amazingly, what God has been showing us for the last several years has had uncanny accuracy. Now that shouldn't surprise us. But it has had uncanny accuracy. And so in this series we've had, I've shared several others have shared and some of the things I've shared is that God was calling us to press into divine promises, things that he's saying and doing, and not just take it for granted. There's a there's an attitude people go well, if God said he's going to do it, he's going to do it. Well, yeah. But remember what happened with with Esther, when we read that passage? Where basically, Mordecai said, Hey, if you if you don't do this, you may perish. God will raise up someone else, he will save his people, and you will perish. But you know, isn't it for such a time as this? We quote that for such time as this, but often, we forget the earlier part where he said, basically, I'm paraphrasing, this is your opportunity. Guys, we are in a window right now of time. And we were born for this time. And it's easy for us to get busy with life and lose track of what we were born for. Right? Yes, we're raising our families. Yes, we're working. Yes, we're investing. But more than that we have a destiny in this age, this is the best time for you to be alive. Because this is the time God ordained for you. And it's all connected to our eternal destiny and things God has for us on the other side, specific callings in the age to come. And we're, we're we're we kind of have the the other series on break until we finish this insights for this year. But the kings of tomorrow series is exploring what the Scriptures tell us about our eternal destiny, and how it is connected to what I get up and do today. And that's important, because a lot of times we're stuck in the here and now. But we don't see how this fits in to all these other things. And that's where the enemy wants us. Because if he can disconnect your eternal destiny from what you're doing now, you just kind of get in the rat race. Right? And so God is calling us out of the rat race so that were part of that. A second thing we shared was a shifting and a shaking, and you can go back and listen to that if you want to hear it you didn't hear. Then we talked about as it was in the days of Noah I believe we're going to hear this phrase more and more. Now the day I spoke this and shared this. The next week I heard it two more times to different places. I was like man, as it was in the days of Noah And there's a lot of meaning in that we covered it. And then last week, we talked about something Jennifer, I, I'm hoping to hear more from you on because you're the one that first started sharing this on the prayer streams. And that was the know a crest. And we looked into the meaning of the word of the name, Noah. And what is that know a crest? And how does it relate to people who are on the ark, if you will, or judgment is around them, but they are secured in God. Same with the Passover, we looked at different, different templates and paradigms for that. One of the other things I felt a strong strongly from the Lord and God confirm this. Now. Remember, when Lucy shared Lucy Cantrell shared on New Year's Eve night from Virginia, she shared this and she did not know I had it right there in my notes, study the calling of Jeremiah. And so Lucy gets up on the recording, it was on the Zoom and she goes, The Lord is telling us to study the calling of Jeremiah. And I just said, right here, right here, I didn't tell her she didn't tell me study the calling of Jeremiah. And that's where we are today. That's what we're talking about today. In 2023, and beyond, I believe God is calling us to study and understand the calling of Jeremiah. Now Jeremiah is interesting, he understood that the spiritual weapons and authority of the heavens are much greater than human weapons, or human influence or human power or human, you fill in the blank, you kind of get the feel for what we're talking about. And we'll read the passage. I like to say it this way, God empowered spiritual warfare is much more effective than man and powered physical warfare. Now, if I asked for a show of hands, if I said, How many of you in this room believe that probably everybody in this room would say, Yeah, I believe it. But when we search our hearts, a lot of times our intellectual theology is not what our operational theology is, is it a lot of times what we think and believe in our heads is not always the same of what we think and believe in our hearts. Because we think, man, I kinda, you know, I've got to take this physical action to make a difference. And God's saying, oh, wait a minute. It starts with what you do in the heavens, spiritually, exercising the authority that I have given you, and walked in. And it takes us back to Luke 18. Remember, Jesus tells us this woman, this widow, and and she went to the judge every day, and notice she did not offer supplication doesn't say, I request this, this, this and this. And here's my grocery list. She said, Lord, or she said, Judge, get justice for me. All right, that's a different prayer right there. She's praying for justice. She's asking for justice, that I think it's interesting that Jesus uses this in the parable. Not I need a request. I just want you to do this. Now it was a request. But the point I'm making is that it's interesting that in order to illustrate persistence, and prayer, Jesus uses something related to justice. And a woman who's asking the judge to set things right now, we hear a lot about justice today in the world, and most of it is very distorted, and very unscriptural. With a little bit of truth, you know, you got to have a little bit of truth to have any credibility. But half truth is a whole lie. And there's books written on this. In fact, if you want to know afterwards, I can recommend one or two to you that what's the difference between biblical justice and this justice we hear now, the world takes these terms and redefines them, the world redefines the word justice. And then oh, this is biblical. They say this is Christian, they'll read a scripture, the world redefines the word love, not what God says love is what the world says love is and then they go, Well, God says to love, and then they redefine it. Well be careful of them. So I just like to call your attention to Luke 18. Because she was doing more than just making a request. She was asking for justice. And she was wanting the judge to set things right. There's something in us that knows there needs to be a divine order. And when the divine order is not there, people start getting hurt, live start getting destroyed. People fall into all kinds of addictions and false beliefs and seductions of the enemy, and that's where we live today. Don't be discouraged. God made you for this hour. God created you for this time. But don't put it on autopilot and lose your destiny. Okay, like God has a purpose. You're here for a reason. And you have a role and your role is important to play. But first, you've got to believe it. That's number one. I want to read from Jeremiah one. And I'm gonna start with verse nine. Nine. Let's read how Jeremiah's call came about and what the Lord said to him. Verse nine of Jeremiah one. I'm reading from New King James. Then the Lord put forth his hand, and he touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See? Okay, now stop there for a second. Whenever he says, See, he's saying, Jeremiah, this is not something I want you to know, this is something I want you to see. There's a difference, isn't there? Have you ever known something but it changed when you saw it? When you saw it? That's the difference between information and revelation, information. Something you know, Revelation is something you see the Greek word there means unveiling, that word for revelation means unveiling. Now, that's the Greek in the New Testament, but even in the Septuagint. That's what they use in the Old Testament as well. He says, See, he wants you to see it. Jeremiah, I have this day, set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, I underline these things to root out number one, to pull down number two, to destroy number three, to throw down number four, to build number five, to plant number six. Before it was built in plant, it was ruled out, pull down, destroy and throw down what in the world is God talking about? That's interesting. Before he builds, God's calling, Jeremiah's life begins with an encounter and a touch by God. Isn't this interesting? This will happen to Isaiah, right? Remember, Isaiah, God touched his lips with the coal, remember? So there's a purification. When we encounter God relationally we're talking about when we have relational encounters with God, there is no way you can walk away the same. If you have a relation encounter with Jesus, we're talking about interaction, interpersonal interaction, where there's an encounter with Him, you cannot leave the same person that you came on that day. And I believe the way God wants us He wants us to have sustained encounters an encounter an encounter, an experience a connection, we're talking about relational connections with Jesus. And when we have these God begins a purification in us a purity in us we don't hear a lot of teaching about purity, holiness, repentance, these days in the church, but this is what happens when we encounter Jesus. It's like the it's like the the man who said, I'm a sinner, Jesus, I'm, like he, he became aware in the presence of a man so pure, and so full of love, and so much, God, you're right. He says, You've seen me, you've seen the Father, that all of a sudden you're like, oh, no, look who I am. And then we start being changed on the inside through those encounters. It's not we're just changed because we're Christians, because we're not. There's a lot of carnal Christians, the Bible teaches us that we are changed. We're transformed from being in the presence interaction with God. That whole what Paul talked about seeing and beholding becoming, so what you see you start to become at that's another teaching for another day. So then God's call on Jeremiah's life continues with a commission of spiritual authority. Does that ring a bell for you? Remember Jesus before He gives the great Commissioner while he's giving the Great Commission, what does he say? All authority has been given to me. In other words, what he's saying is, I'm the new sheriff in town. And I have the authority to deputize you, I have just kicked out the ruler of this world. Not that Satan has gone from the world but that Satan has now lost his right and his authority that he had before. Jesus is saying the Great Commission is directly connected to authority. Are you guys tracking with me? There you if you try to make disciples and do the Great Commission without walking in the authority God's given you? You'll struggle and you'll strive. People have asked me many times, they've said, how do you how'd you get this kind of harvest? I was like, we're under authority. We just go and do what Jesus tells us to do. We don't try to make ourselves rich. We don't try to make our ministry bigger. We don't try to all these other agendas that people add into the Great Commission. We literally just do what He told us to do. And amazingly revival hits and a bunch of people come to the Lord, things happen, miracles happen, all kinds of things happen. We didn't make it happen. We didn't plan it. We didn't organize and administer, manipulate events so that these things would happen. But we lived under authority and under the authority and being deputized by that authority that He's given us. So effective spiritual authority, requires encounters with God, and sustained walking with him remember what the what they said, but but the disciples they go out, and there's so much power in their lives when they encounter the people they're ministering to, the Bible says, And they knew they had been with Jesus. You ever been you've ever been in with someone, and they ministered to you or they're ministering to others, and you go, Wow, this lady has been with Jesus, like, there's, like you just know, because they've been in the presence of Jesus, the relational presence, not the physical presence, he's everywhere. Talk about the relational presence of Jesus, where there's interaction, when they've been with Jesus, there is a divine authority that's being expressed, that comes from that relationship. Right? Like, if you if someone here today, even if you don't have any title, or anything, but if you know, the president of a company, or the president of the country, or anything, and your close friends with them, if you call them, you will get a connection. Like if they're if your close friends doesn't matter what their position is, if you call them up, they're going to take your call, if you say, hey, I want to come and see you, it doesn't matter whether they live in a mansion or the White House, they're gonna go Yeah, come on up, because you're close friends with them. And if they ask you to do something, or you ask them to do something, you're going to do it. So even if you didn't have an official title, there is an authority to influence that you would have because of the relationship. And that's what Jesus takes us back to. Now, in this case, we see that Jeremiah has this encounter with God, before God says, I have set you over the nations. And to know that God has given you spiritual authority like this, you have to be with Jesus to see it. Because knowing it will not be enough. So I wrote, I wrote it down this way. We will see in a little bit that Paul also reveals the importance of obedience. So there's a role of obedience in this. But I'll say it this way, in the midst of this, don't just wear this authority as a badge, or the authority God has given you as sort of an ornament. Because if you wear it as a badge, but you don't use the badge, what is it? It's a pin on your chest? Right. But But usually, when you see a law enforcement officer, and they are wearing a uniform, you don't say, well like your PIN, right? Or that's a cool pin, you go, that's a badge. There's a difference, right? It's a badge because it represents authority. But it's only an ornament if it's not exercised. So if the law enforcement officer doesn't exercise his or her authority, then really all they have on their chest is an ornament or a pin. Yet there are many believers who live this way. Many believers live and they talk about the authority, they quote, the scriptures about the authority, God's given his talk about spiritual authority, but then maybe don't activate it. Don't assault the gates of hell, so to speak, you know, the kingdom of violence, or the kingdom of God suffers violence. Remember that scripture and the violent? take it by force. What does that mean? It means that there is an assertiveness of the kingdom, that takes what God has commanded to be taken, that breaks what God has commanded to break. We don't hear a lot of teaching, about breaking. And yet the first four things God tells Jeremiah is breaking and taking and uprooting and this tearing down and we'll see in a minute what Paul tells us what this is. He's talking about strongholds. But there is a there is a breaking of strongholds that happens, because we enter into this spiritual authority. This is going to get this is going to get really relevant to us in a moment. I want to read Second Corinthians 10. Four. He Paul says, though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. He's talking about by our physical ability, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. And that word carnal in the original means. Have the flesh or have the natural that natural flesh, but they are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds now his language starting to sound very similar to Jeremiah's isn't it? He says to the pulling down of strongholds. Remember, Jeremiah, what God spoke to Jeremiah was to root out and to pull down. That was the first two things he said to root out and to pull down. I won't ask for a show of hands. But how many of you, in the past month or so have been doing rooting out and pulling down? What is there to root out and pull down? And how is it done? Now, this is not going to be a big teaching on this. This is just to whet our appetite about thinking in this next year in these coming years. God wants us to start seeing life through the template of the call of Jeremiah and the call that he has upon the church we just read in Second Corinthians 10. I'm gonna read another scripture and the danger of reading these passages that you see a lot or have heard a lot, is the danger of cliche. So whenever you read them, or you hear them, you go, Oh, yeah, I know that one. And it just, it's done. Instead of going, Wait a minute, what's God saying? Even if it's my 1,000th time, I don't want cliche to put me into zombie mode, where it doesn't have any impact on me, right? This is the next one. Ephesians 612. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Again, there's the physical, the carnal, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, even the conflicts we have in ourselves, the conflicts we see in our country, the conflicts we see in our culture, the conflicts we see in politics, the conflicts we see between nations. That's not the war we're in. There's another war, of which all those people and things are puppets. So it's not the puppet we're fighting. It's the puppet tears. Right? And that's what he's getting at. He tells us in the rest of cases, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. And then he says, against principalities, against powers, those principalities are high ranking. It depends on who you talk to as how these are interpreted. But if you go through a systematic theology of the scriptures, it becomes very clear who these are. principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age now, who are rulers of the darkness. First, it's talking about spiritual rulers, not just physical rulers, but spiritual rulers, we're talking about demonic powers as well as angelic powers of of light, demonic powers of darkness, there's this light and darkness in battle, God and Satan, people who are aligned in these alliances. So right now in the earth, there are alliances, people don't even know they're aligned. Some people don't know they're aligned with God and righteous causes. They all they know is this man, I'm not going that way. I'm sticking with these guys over here, and they have no idea they're actually in an alliance with righteousness are what is right. Others are in alliances with darkness. But they think that they're doing good Isaiah tells us about them, we may have time to talk about them today. But there are alliances and many times the puppets don't know who the puppeteers are. That's what Paul's showing us. You're not fighting against the puppet, you're not fighting against flesh and blood. You're not fighting against men, you are in a spiritual war. And even many of these men and women who think they're doing good are doing evil, because they call good evil and evil, good, because they're confused and they don't know how God believes about things. Are you guys starting to see a picture? Here's the point every day you and I wake up. We wake up in a spiritual world more than we wake up in a natural world, whether we're aware of it or not. So which is more real, the puppets are the puppeteers, which is more real, the spiritual, unseen war or the scene war and how it manifests. While Paul tells us in Corinthians, He tells us that the things my I'm paraphrasing, the things that are unseen, are actually more real than the things that are seen. Because many of those unseen things are eternal, whether they be entities or whether they be qualities. Starting to get the picture. I know some of you do, but already, but the point is that God wants us to see as Paul saw, as he describes in Corinthians, as he's described in Ephesians, even Jeremiah, when Jeremiah sees the call of God, then what happens is the call of God becomes a pair of glasses. He puts those glasses on, so that now it's kinda like these X ray glasses that he sees right through the physical into the spiritual world. And then God whenever God says to pull down to root out To destroy, Jeremiah doesn't go get his sword and join the army. Right? What he does is Jeremiah goes, Wait a minute. This is a spiritual call this is a spiritual war. How does he combat it? When the Lord speaks, he speaks. We call that prophecy. He speaks, he writes it down, he prophesies what God is saying. That's all it is. Prophecy is literally saying what God says, if you take a scripture, and you stand up, and you start to speak God's promises, it's like prophesying God, some people think prophecy is just telling the future. Prophecy is not fortune telling, even though it does involve the future. Sometimes it's speaking what God speak, saying what God is saying. And I want to say, I want to know what God is saying, in my family in this hour, I want to know what God is saying, like, how are you going to know? How did how to proceed in 2023? Are you on autopilot? Or does God have a direction? Have you ever noticed if you aim at a target, you're a lot more likely to hit that target. But if you just come out pulling the trigger, you know, you may or may not hit him, you know, it reminds me some of the some firefighting comment, be like, Dude, you can't just go out there and pull the trigger, your likelihood of hitting something is highly, highly unlikely, other than things you don't want to hit. But the point is, is that you you have to aim and you have to know what you're aiming at. God is telling us to become aware of what he's doing in the year 2023, what he's doing in the decade of the 2020s. And we do that as we seek him together. And then we know what to root out. Now this starts with my own life, right? Like it, what good does it do for me to go, seek to root out or tear down some stronghold? If I'm walking around with all kinds of strongholds in my own life right? Now, don't don't hear the wrong thing. I'm not saying wait till you're perfect. If you wait till you're perfect, you will never do it. You'll get to heaven and go, Oh, my gosh, what did I do, I wasted my life. Because you can't wait till you're perfect. But we start with our own hearts and our own lives, pulling down strongholds, uprooting things that don't belong. And the way we begin is by speaking what God says words are powerful. We speak what God says, we sing what God says we speak to others in our family, what God says what God's promises are, what God is saying to do, what God is, is, is giving us unction for or, you know, there's the spiritual momentum that comes up inside of us. Now, in order to do this, we have to be people who center in on what's the main priority of our family, if the main priority of our family is just go through the motions, go to work more hours, get the kids do this, get the car washed, clean the garage, and we get into that, you know, that rhythm a row. And we're not saying wait a minute, all this other stuff needs to revolve around my call in what God's calling me to. That means I have to carve out space in my schedule for God in prayer, but also as a family, to interact with him and have a sense of what he's saying and what he's doing. Now, this is a cool part. What I love about this is when we do this, God begins to go, okay. Here's the stronghold. I want you to take that out. And we start by prayer, we start by speaking what I call prophecy, we say, No, this will not be in our family, we will uproot this thing. And then in the community, and in relationships in in our job. And my kids will tell you that we used to do this groan when they were growing up, we would say kids tell us what's going on what's going on in this group, your social circles, what's going on in my job, and we had a whiteboard, and when this biggest one downstairs, but we still have it by the way. But we would say, Okay, we're gonna pray over this. And they grew up seeing God bring down strongholds in all of these areas, the kids lives, our lives are all of these different areas. And then you start to get victory in those and then God goes, Okay, I've got something else I want you to pray about. And it gets bigger, right? It gets bigger, it gets bigger, the challenges get greater. So I said this before these two passages, that the danger is we've heard them quoted so much, that they become cliche, you're like, Yeah, I've heard Ephesians 612 A gazillion times, it doesn't really mean much more than you know, because we stopped thinking about it or letting the Lord peel back the next layer of the onion to what it means. So Paul indicates that the calling of spiritual warfare is about much more than combating demonic powers around us who attack our families. Now, first of all, most of us don't even think this way. We don't go well. You know, this is it's interesting if you go back and read the writings Have Martin Luther, have you guys ever read? It's really fascinating Martin Luther, he gets into these knockdown, drag out fights with Satan. And he writes about it. And he talks about it, like, spiritual warfare for Martin Luther was very real. Now you can imagine being in his role and what God's calling on his life was. Probably he didn't even know it was his call till it was happening. But he goes into details on how these battles he's having with the devil, and talking about it today, by many people, even Christians, they look upon it like it's superstition. And they do it because they don't really believe the spiritual world, the Bible says is an existence. I can't linger in between believing it and not believing it and not have a belief on it. Otherwise, I'll just live like it's not it's not the way it is. We are in a spiritual world, more than a physical world. In other words, the spiritual world we live in. There's a physical world inside of it. But the greater reality is the spiritual world. And so every day Jesus says in John 10, he goes, the enemy comes, right. And what does he say? He was to keep comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy, right? Most of you lock your doors at night, some of you have alarms on your house, most of you lock your doors on your car. Why? Because there's predators, right? In some parts of town, there's more predators than others. But it doesn't matter. You lock your doors, you have a secure hedge you you like you're securing the perimeter of those who are most precious to you. Why wouldn't we do it spiritually? Right? Why wouldn't we have the same attitude, the same intensity about protecting the people we love? Spiritually, we're talking about their souls, and then our city, our cities, that we live in our nation, and the nation is the word like, whoa, wait a minute, I care about what's going on, I can't just go to my house and say, it doesn't matter to me, because this is the nation I love, or this is the city I love, or this is you fill in the blank. But there is a call for us, as warriors, as people of authority in the kingdom, to pull up to uproot, to tear down and to to literally break those strongholds that Paul talks about in our own lives, but also greater than us, so that we are engaged in the spiritual war. So I said, it's not just about the war around our families, which is going on whether you believe it or not, it's happening. Like whether you whether you think it or not, you know that, you know, it's always funny. I have memories of different different times in battle in combat. And it's like, there's always somebody who's oblivious to what's going on. And sometimes it's you, right, like, one time we were, I remember it was Christmas Eve, and, and he had this big battle going on. And so we called in some guys to help us and, and so, you know, there's a lot of there's just a lot of explosions and a lot of things going on, well, pretty soon we start getting complacent. And we're talking and it's kind of a low, but there's a few explosions here and there. And somebody walks in and goes, Hey, guys, we've been under attack for 10 minutes. And I'm like, You know what, I'm talking about chasms like whoa, wait a minute, I didn't know we got sidetracked and, and just didn't know. But you're probably wondering how that can happen. I'll tell you afterwards. But the funny part was, and not really funny is we were oblivious, like, have you ever been under attack and you didn't know it? You know, the enemy is attacking your life. And all these things are happening and you don't know it. And suddenly you're like, I think we're under attack here. And spiritually, you start to get a sense for Wait, I'm seeing a pattern here. I'm seeing a pattern well, you can try to deal with those problems in the natural. Or we can approach it like Jeremiah and first go to the spiritual. And how many times I'll tell you I'm guilty of this many times, I'll try to solve the problem in the natural instead of starting with the spiritual. Start by prayer, Lord, this is going on what can you show us what's happening here spiritually? And what do we need to do? Most of the time, the victory comes a lot sooner than when I go, Oh, I got it. I need to take care of this. Well, I try this and I try that and I try this and it gets worse. And then I start and then we're getting defeated in this area and that area and I go wait a minute. Why didn't we just pray and ask the Lord what to do and we start praying we enter in and their spiritual victory, because now we're walking in that authority that he talks about in Jeremiah that authority he talks about in Matthew 28, that that same power Paul talks about in that scripture in Ephesians and Corinthians, I know you can relate to that. But he goes on and in Ephesians passage, and he uses words like strongholds. What is a stronghold? Normally a stronghold is like a fort. Right? It's a, it's a, it's an area that's a stronghold or an area that is that is fortified in some way. Now he's talking about evil strongholds or fortifications that oppose the plan of God. fortifications that oppose God's destiny for your life, or your family, or your city, or your nation, or your church, whatever you fill in the blank. He uses words like principalities, go look up that word principalities. You ever noticed the word Prince is in it, and the English word in the English word principalities, because these are ruler spirits. They're not lower ranking, if you will. rulers of the darkness, he uses the word rulers. In other words, they're not we're not talking about pawns. That's the you see the language Paul's using here. We're not talking about pawns in the chess game, we're talking about the rulers, the princes, the powers, the strongholds. And then he says, hosts, which I won't go into details on that, but you get the idea of wickedness in high places, right. They like to make alliances in high places, both spiritually, and in the natural, they are swaying and seducing to bring men into thinking the way that the enemy wants them to think. Many people are influenced by powers of darkness and do not know it, because they don't have spiritual discernment. They have their set of virtues and their set of rules or their own personal homemade religion about what's right and wrong. That's one of the most dangerous places you can be to be deceived. One of the most dangerous and God says through these these writers of Scripture, he is calling us to be people who pull down, tear down and uproot these before the building of the kingdom happens. Can you see that? Somebody I thought somebody would. Paul goes on to indicate in the next verse that it's passage we read in set Corinthians 10. He goes on to indicate that God will punish the demonic powers and alliances through divine justice and the spiritual warfare and obedience of his people. I want to read this, this is important. Again, we don't hear a lot of teachings on punish punishing these powers. But here it is, right here in the Scripture, right in front of us. Second Corinthians 10 Verse five, he says, Casting down arguments, which means false reasonings. By the way, it's not just talking about getting an argument with somebody you love. He casting down false reasoning, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Oh, we a lot of times we stop there here. He says, being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. What does he mean? When's the last time you heard a sermon on Christians being ready to punish disobedience? I don't know if I've ever heard a sermon on ener D Jean on it. So what does it mean? In the punishment phrase? Paul isn't talking about spiritual vigilantism. Let's get that out of the way. He's not talking about spiritual vigilantism. Like, Oh, he did this wrong, I'm gonna retaliate. That's not what he means. Some people, let's back up for a moment and kind of give this context. Some people limit the application of this passage in Second Corinthians to the battle for the mind, because he uses reasoning. Remember, he said arguments or reasoning, he uses another term may see here, I'm going back to it. arguments, false reasonings and things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. And then he talks about bringing thoughts into captivity. Now, I've heard many sermons on this verse. And they were about the battle for the mind. And that's a good start. But it would be wrong to stop there spiritual warfare is not just battle in the mind, right? There's too much other terminology in these verses here. The knowledge and the reasoning that he talks about the knowledge of God the, the high thing or the the every thought captive, those are the words, the reasoning, the thoughts, and I like to call those those are paint on the wall. In other words, Paul is telling us There is something that needs to be broken down and defeated in this passage, and people go to the battle in the mind, and they stop there in the battle in the mind and the reasoning and the arguments. And all of that is only the paint on the wall, there's actually a structure under that paint. And it's called a stronghold. So the paint on the wall, if you will, or the veneer on the outside, it is the arguments and the lies and the half truths, and things that deceive people. But Paul wants us to see in this passage, when you look at the other nouns in it, there's actually a stronghold that must be broken down, not just the belief system. So spiritual warfare is a whole lot more than a debate, or apologetics. Now, I came from traditions in the church that really abused spiritual warfare as like, just debate like, well, this is the right thing, and this is the wrong thing. And that's a good start. But it's a lot more than apologetics. We see from Jeremiah and from Paul, that strongholds are demolished through the prophetic and spiritual powers of God's people walking in the authority God has given. Now this is what does that mean, for you and me? When Paul talks about punishing obedience, he's referring to the punishment that comes to the powers of darkness. When strongholds are broken down? Are you guys tracking? Remember what what was one of the favorite phrases the demons like to ask Jesus? Or kind of shout out when Jesus shows up in brings his presence and the kingdom of God? Do you remember many times what the demons would shout out? They would say did you come? Did you come to torment us before our time? What do you think about that question? Isn't that interesting? I thought it was fascinating. Why would they ask that question? Because when God brings judgment against the powers of darkness, it is a torment to them. And we cannot assume that God's only time he's going to bring judgment against them is that the very end, God is judging them now, we are literally living out this period of time before the final judgement, when God is bringing them to a reckoning. And God's intention is not just to bring them to a reckoning, but his intention is to break their power off of people. We cannot go through life and go Well, we're just we're coming upon the end, everything's going to is going to Tailspin here, everything's going to get bad. So I'm going to batten down the hatches with my family inside my four walls, and do my best to protect us. There's nothing in the scriptures, we just read the indicates that's our lifestyle. But yet many people do it because they want to be comfortable. I mean, I can't tell you. I've never been in a firefight where I was comfortable, right? I've never had people trying to kill me that I was comfortable. I wasn't comfortable. That's not our call to be comfortable. Now the cool thing is, is it is our call to be content. God can make us content and fulfilled, but still doing what he's called us to do. There are strongholds that God wants to break in our families. There are new things he wants to plant, but he's going Oh, before I plant it, I need to pull that stump out. We got to take that tree out of your front yard of your heart, right, or of your kids or whatever it is. A few years ago, my neighbor decided well, his his ash tree. One year a bunch of the ash trees died when it got cold real fast here in Colorado. And so people had to cut their ash trees down. Well, he cut his tree down, but he still had the stump in there. And so he has a Jeep that has a six cylinder engine. So he thought that six cylinder engine will be enough to pull that stump out the front yard. And so he gets out there with a chain hooks it up. And he puts that thing in gear, low gear and it didn't even move that stuff didn't even budge. It didn't even move like one millimeter, I don't think and so I said I said hey, I said let me help you. So I got the our pilot out there, the Honda Pilot sidebyside tandem, and we hooked two chains onto that stump. And now we got to six cylinder vehicles. I put it in low four wheel drive, so I get the best traction and both of us start pulling. It didn't even budge that stump. It didn't even move it like it didn't even like you couldn't even see the stump move at all. And I said oh, that's a problem. I said well, I got a new truck. I got this Tundra over here. Let me try that so we got the other two vehicles out The way and I back the tundra up, put the chain on it. And he said, Okay, I'm ready. And I push the gas pedal down about a quarter of an inch. And we're right when I was getting ready to really gun it and pull that stump out, he go, that's good. That's good. I go, What do you mean, that's good, he goes, it's out. And literally without even a hesitation, that tundra, that big 390 horsepower engine just pulled that stump right out. And here's the point. There are many stumps that God wants to pull out of our lives, or out of society, or out of institutions in society. But if we use the wrong tools, it won't pull it out, no matter how good we think that tool is. And that's why Jeremiah takes us back to the authority. That's what Paul does, he takes us back to the authority, we will function in spiritual authority. And then he says, When your obedience is full, you will punish disobedience. He's telling us something, he's like, Hey, if you will walk in the authority, God's called you. And then walk in obedience, like say, You know what, God, I'm going to quit messing around and just halfway serving you, or whatever it is that He convicts you of. But you go, I'm going to be obedient. Like, I'm gonna press into obedience and God, it's like back in the tundra up to the stump, you're walking in the authority, you're walking obedience, and you'll be amazed how easy it becomes. I don't mean life is gonna be easy, but it will be much easier to do it. I sent this text out to several of the streams this week. And I had remembered, one of my mentors was Lester Summerall, for years taught, taught on all these different things, but I've never seen anybody live in victory like he did. And all my life, I've never seen anybody. And that's the something was imparted to me through him. But he was he got to talk in one day, this was many years ago, you could probably find it on YouTube somewhere. But he got to talk in one day. And he's talking about people in cycles of defeat, they're in defeat, and they're in cycles of defeat, and then they get some victory, and then they're in a cycle of defeat, and then they get to victory, their cycle of defeat. And he paused, he stops like this, he just stops. And he goes, stop sinning. And I said, you know, that's kind of like blunt force preaching, when somebody does that. But for me, it was like revelation, like he was literally when he spoke that the first time I heard him do that, and say that. It was like, wait a minute, you are empowered, you have the authority, by the power by the blood of Jesus, to enter into obedience. It's more than just somebody yelling at you. That's the point. It was a revelation for me. Because he was saying, Hey, you want victory? You get it, because you will make room for the righteousness of God to start flowing in your life and operating instead of your own righteousness, and you will be victorious. And I'm telling you, I'm saying this to you and to myself, you will be victorious. Just keep entering into it in the name of Jesus. But let's do this spiritually. Before we try to do it the natural way. Just try that as an exercise if you're confronted with a natural problem. Now, I understand there's not going to be a magic button at your house, like, you know, kind of like the the phone to the President. Like you just go pick it up. And then it's all solved. There's no magic button. I understand that where you're going, Lord, we're having this problem in our lives, in our marriage in our family, and you go when you push a button, and everything is okay, we understand that's not the way it is. But we do believe that we can walk like like Jeremiah walked. And here's what will happen. As we get victory in our own families. God calls us to start helping other families. And as we get victory in our families, God goes, I've got another area I want you to enter into. And I'm going to give you victory. I started praying this when I was a young man. I started praying and I said, Lord, I want to be like Joshua, I start telling the Lord that after I gave my life to the Lord. And I started reading the book of Joshua. I said, Lord, I want to be like this dude. Because I see a man that's victorious. He goes in, and they take the land, and he's victorious. And I understand that they missed it on AI because of a guy that stole the golden stuff. But the point is that they went in and they were victory after victory after victory after victory after victory. And the good news is no matter what you're up against, you can live that way. I'm not saying you will have some defeats like Josh would did with AI. But you can live this way we can live this way. And we're in an hour now. Where I really you know, one of the brothers shared it I read it to you last week it shares. It's no longer time to mess around. It's no longer time. What you know, my mom used to say, don't dilly dally around, just go do it. And it's kind of like, Okay, it's time to engage. Don't wait till everything gets so bad that you're going, Oh Lord, I wish we wish we had oil in our lamps. Lord, I wish we'd done what you told. Just start now. And let's enter in Amen. All right, let's pray. Lord, we're thanking you for the authority you gave Jeremiah the authority you gave us in the Great Commission, the authority that you speak through Paul, and the other writers of Scripture, and we ask You, Lord, help us to enter into this. Teach us the way show us Lord, how to root out and pull down how to destroy the strongholds of the evil one, through spiritual warfare prayer, entering into doing what you're doing, saying what you're saying. So that then we can build and we can plan and we can see great victory in Jesus name, Amen and Amen.