A Cure For The Serpent's Poison Part 2

Do lots of damage when believers gain a foothold. Slandering others is only one of the sad results.

Christians need to rid themselves of every evidence of these strongholds otherwise much damage can be done to the cause of Christ from the Moody Church in Chicago. This is running Windows server was clear.

Teaching helps us make it across the finish line. We are currently in a series on Satan, God's devil vasculature. Why is it that so many are easily deceived by Satan's no I think I can answer that very quickly by saying this it because Satan has a willing partner that resides within us. The Bible calls that the flesh and sometimes we are anxious to be deceived. We want to be deceived to all who are listening today. I believe that this series of messages entitled God's devil is a tremendous blessing to those who are being introduced to spiritual warfare. Perhaps you been able to get some of the messages but not all of them we're making them available for you for a gift of any amount you can go to RTW offer.com or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 ask for the sermon series God's devil you can listen to it again and again but now let us give our attention to the word of God as we continue our study of how we can fight successfully against our enemy. Did you know that if you are deceived you don't know it. You don't know because if you knew it would not be a genuine deception there so many things in our life that God has revealed to us because we need to deal with self will, which lies at the root of this awful tree that God has cursed now in order to relate this to demonic activity and for you to understand the significance I want to tell you the story today of a woman by the name of Laura. Laura came to Moody Church 10 years ago and I might say that she is no longer here, and more importantly, I might say that she has given me permission to share her story. In fact, in writing.

She said you can share it and you can even use my name, so we are going to use her real name Laura Laura came to the attention of the staff. The church many, many years ago because of divisiveness. She was a problem causing division within the church speaking ill of others even manipulating to the extent of being able to divide a friend from a friend causing problems all the time became very clear to some of us that Laura was indeed struggling with deep demonic oppression and as she came to us for counsel in another staff member and I counseled her and this may really surprise some of you. And if you're not used to this. You have to simply understand that it's not as shocking as it first appears, but when you counseled her and spoke to the spirits that clearly oppressed or the spirits would take her vocal cords and speak and frequently they would not only harass us, but they would mark I sent it would make fun of our ability to cast them out in the name of Christ. They were they were just really wildly evil beings and and we couldn't help Laura. In fact, about a month later after we had done some counseling. She came to me here at the church right here at the platform and said pastor Luther. She said I want you to know that I've hated you, ever since I've come here and I asked her what I had done to deserve this and she said really it's not your fault is just mind. She said that I wanted to make sure that I was reconciled with you and so I accepted that about a month later she called me on the telephone at 11 o'clock at night and said that she said you know I've been battling the spirits all evening and at last I think I'm free and I want to: tell you so I said fine and I said Laura I'm gonna pray with you on the telephone that you might be able to sleep well the minute I began to pray as spirit took over her vocal cords and said why did Laura call you so late. I'm gonna wear you down and I recognized again that I was talking not to her but to his spirit.

I said what is your name and the name of Christ, tell me your name is my name is love. I said that stand is truth in the side of the living God, and he said no and he said I've caused her to heat you would Moody Church so that she wouldn't listen to a thing that you say on on this went for about 15 minutes and then I rebuked the spirit and spoke to Laura. I said Laura do you know what's happening and she said oh yeah, she said I know she said I am so impressed that his Spirit speaks through my mouth while we never help Laura and Laura moved on to another state and left Moody church and I never heard from her and thought well that's too bad I didn't know what happened or 10 years later, she writes me this letter and I need to read it to you because it is a powerful letter, just listen dear pastor Luther I wanted to write to you to let you know some of the things the Lord has taught me concerning spiritual warfare a few years ago when I was attending Moody church and experiencing demonic oppression.

I had low low self image and was not able to experience the victory that had been already purchased for me by Christ.

I was beaten up with guilt and shame, despair and hopelessness I saw no way out since Moody church I was involved in two other ministries were practically the same thing happened. I was not even aware that I was being manipulated by demons to try to destroy my pastor. I was not getting along with others in the body of Christ, and I couldn't like myself. I couldn't maintain a decent job. I could not grasp the love that God had for me, nor did I understand that he had gained the victory for me for many years. I drifted in the same direction. Nowhere. About a year ago the Lord brought me to Tulsa were I joined a very powerful spirit filled ministry. In the beginning things sort of happened the same.

Still the same guilt and shame and low self-esteem, but the Lord help me to determine that I would not run anymore. Besides, I had run out of places to run with the Lord's help and the love and patience of the pastoral staff and the support of brothers and sisters in the body. I began to believe that God love me too and that I could take him at his word and that I could have victory over the devil and his schemes.

I can now see that the battle does begin in the mind if the enemy can get you to focus on the things that he is planted in the mind. He has you where he wants you defeated and miserable.

Now notice the sentence and this is crucial all the knowledge that I had obtained through the years, was powerless at tumbling. That means that everything she learned it. Moody church.

Everything we tried to do with her in counseling was of no value. It was powerless because it was not coupled with faith. How could God love someone as awful as me.

I thought, he's going to leave me just as I am because he didn't care. These are the very words I listen to for years and I believe them.

Praise be to God.

He doesn't give up. Today I understand the position that I have in Christ. I am a joint heir with him and enjoy the same privileges as Christ. I thank him for his forgiveness. I keep short accounts with him.

He has given me a tongue at tongue that gives praise and speaks confidently of all that I have been blessed with in him. Everything is imperfect because we live in an imperfect world, etc., but now I enjoy a sense of freedom and victory, because of whom the son sets free, he shall be free indeed. It is my desire to share what I have gone through and to pray for others who are also victim of the devil's lies. Thank you for the part that you played in recognizing that I was being tormented by evil spirits.

Please continue to pray for me. I wrote back and said Laura I said your letter is so fantastic and I use it and she said yes you can even use my name, she said tell anyone you like in her second letter in which she confirmed that she said this. Please tell others that a life of praise to the Lord is one of the most effective weapons against the enemy, Satan hates praises to Jesus and so I have grown to love using praises against him. Also, if anyone is harboring sin in his life. Unforgiveness lying hatred of hostility, anger, etc. it only gives the enemy a foothold to torment them so you must forsake sin not making any excuses for what is happened in the past and I have found that demonic oppression can also be transferred and passed on through the family line.

I praise God that he will and can never live if you said the devil is a defeated foe, then he is was so hard for me all those years to believe this because Satan made himself to appear very strong. He made me feel that I was no match for him and that I would have to live the rest of my life in torment, but, praise be to God, whom the son sets free is free indeed.

I am grateful for the blood of Jesus Christ that bought this freedom for me.

Then she expresses the hope that others will be brought to the same deliverance. I know the time is hurrying along, but I would like to share with you very quickly what it means to die to self rule that is the fruit of sin. That is the root from which all other troubles and sins stem very quickly. Number one, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ. Remember that in Christ. In Christ you died to self rule. Romans chapter 6 says that we have been placed into Christ.

Shall we then continue in sin that grace may abound, no, how shall we who have died to sin, live any longer there in knowing this, that our old man our old nature was crucified with Christ in Galatians 6 the passage that we began with. It says all those who belong to Christ, have crucified the flesh with its affections and lust. Why is it so important to begin their listen carefully because some of you listening to this message say to yourself, you are a hopeless and helpless case that's what you're saying and the reason that you are saying that is because you think that God is going to ask you to do the impossible. But remember, God never asks us to do anything that Christ has not already done for us all.

We are asked to do is based on what he has done and therefore I want to give you hope and I want to give you confidence that you my dear friend today can be changed can be changed. Christ already paved the way number two we can die to self rule by a choice.

We can choose to could Alma have been helped here at the Moody church. Yes, maybe we failed in counseling. Maybe we didn't explain it correctly.

I don't know but if she had grasped the fact that she was going to have to lay down all that bitterness and she was an abused woman so we can understand how hard it was, but if she had grasped the she had to lay all that down, and to believe in the victory of Jesus Christ. Why, then, indeed, that transformation could have happened years earlier's letters. A great joy.

But the downside is too bad that she had to wander around 10 years with that kind of a lifestyle and torment before she was set free now for Laura dying to self meant getting rid of that bitterness. It meant believing God for you. It may mean something else.

It may mean giving up that that stronghold of uncleanness.

It may mean surrendering the control of your life and your business and your bank account. It may mean something different to everybody but is that God wants to settle pastor. That's what should I give up to God today. I can tell you very quickly give him the thing that is hardest for you to give up there, you've got it.

And for every one of us is different but but we come to the point where we we make a choice. We we simply say that I am no longer going to rule my life. I submit the matter that is dearest to me to God and I come under spirit rule rather than self rule God always puts his finger on the thing that is dearest to us, and often times, the thing that hurts the most. Thirdly, we must die to self rule by faith. It must be by faith of faith that what Jesus Christ accomplished for us is already done. Yes faith that we can receive the fullness of the spirit.

But even more than that faith to believe that God can use whatever he wills in our life to perfect us is able pastor Luther I don't know whether or not I died to self or not.

Have I have I of course it's a continual process that we cannot answer, just with a definitive yes and no definitive know.

But let me tell you something a person who has die to self rule has stopped telling God what he can or cannot use in the process of refinement. A person who is dying to self does not say God you cannot use injustice, I will fight injustice. I will get victory in injustice. I will not tolerate injustice now because the person was died to self rule says that God used injustice to put Christ on the cross he might also use injustice to put me on the cross to a person was died to self, does not say God you can't use the trail you cannot use the trail. Oh yes he can use the betrayal of Judas to get Christ to the crosscut God can use these things to so to speak, put us on the cross and so that's what I'm asking you to do today is to die to self rule to say that the things that I hang on to the things that I will not give up.

I will surrender in faith believing that God's way is best I can imagine there somebody here today. Maybe a visitor says all who in the world would want to do this anyway. I mean who would want to die to self rule who would want to turn over the reins of his life to God. I mean who would want to do that and why one of the reasons is to increase the July to increase the joy Jesus said that these things I've spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full but you can't experience the joy unless you realize that without me ye can do nothing, nothing, nothing that is deaf to self rule at one another reason might be to take away the loneliness. Not all loneliness, but some loneliness is due to refusal to submit to the sovereignty of Christ.

Jesus said that except the corn of wheat bowl into the ground and die. It abides alone. It abides alone and there is companionship and fruitfulness. There is a a great king all of our wills.

A a work of God that is so deep that we give up the surrender of our own lives to Christ and then the Holy Spirit of God and the work of God can break out of that hardshell that we have sold confidently and completely sealed ourselves within and that's what got us now let me say also folks that when I was out the farm. You know I used to freely walk alone in the grass and suddenly you come across a whole bunch of flies. What is a bunch of flies not a herd of flies. It's something. Anyway, lots of flies that I remember lots of flies and then you'd look and find out why you discover that perhaps a bird had died there and was rotting or perhaps a road had died and was rotting and you know it would've been interesting to try to get rid of the flies to do an analysis of the flies to try to see the different kinds of flies observe the behaviors of the flies and we could have written a book on flies and I'm sure somebody has written a book on flies is another way to get rid of them just get rid of the raw get rid of the rock. This isn't true all the time, but in most cases the reason that we are so harass by Satan is because there is something within us that we will not give up and it becomes his playground, and you can counsel Laura and you can exhort Laura and you can try to help Laura and you can play with Laura and you can do everything and it doesn't work.

She said it was powerless, powerless until she dealt with the fundamental issue up who will rule my life completely and totally and give up the thing that is hardest to give up and that's what I'm asking you to do today. I'm asking you to die.

That's what I'm asking. Jesus said that if you come after me, you have to take up your cross and follow me, and whoever Christ been since he bids him die.

Are you willing to die. That's the antidote to the serpents poison and if you will let us pray.

Father, we invite your blessed Holy Spirit to do what no man can were humble by the words of this letter that everything that was learned was powerless father. That's the way we feel today. Everything we've heard is powerless… Mingled with action and faith we ask today. Father therefore that you will do what only you can do what I would like to do today is to read a prayer in this prayer is basically a prayer that is an admission that we are dying to self and we are receiving the life of Christ into our lives that we are being broken that the thing that we hang onto is finally being given up and I would like you to have an opportunity to recite this prayer out loud after me if you would so desire.

I would think that most of you would want to for whatever reason.

Others of you might not want to but it's a prayer that I want to pray and I hope that many of you want to pray it with me as I give it phrase by phrase and line by line. Will you join me out loud. My father, I want to thank you that Jesus Christ died for me. I thank you that I also died with Christ, I now accept his death on my behalf in faith. I choose to die to self will I surrender every struggle I have with sin into your hands I received your cleansing and forgiveness and I crown Christ as Lord of my life I resist Satan. I affirm his gift feet at the cross.

I accept the truth that his defeat is final and complete and now in faith. I accept what you have provided for me.

I receive the fullness of the spirit and I desire to walk in obedience. In Jesus name, amen. My friend, this is Pastor Luther and even though that story about Laura occurred to so many, many years ago. I still remember it very clearly there was a woman who was not delivered until she thoroughly dealt with sin my friend today from my heart to yours. I want to say that these issues are very important in our lives. That's why we're making this sermon series entitled God's devil available to you. Some of you have heard some of the messages you've missed some you would like to have these messages so you can listen to them again and again share them with your friends and thanks in advance for helping us. I hope that you have time to get a pencil so that you can write this down as I've mentioned for a gift of any amount. These sermons can be yours. You can go to RTW offer.com I'm good be mentioning that again or if you prefer you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 go to RTW offer.com and thank you so much for helping us and ask for this sermon series God's devil or pick up the phone right now and call us at 1-888-218-9337.

The series is called God's devil you can write to it running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614 women to win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. The ravages of Satan clutter the annals of time, the devil's doom is certain these on death row howling until his date with the lake of fire. Next time I'm running to win an encouraging look at the final end of Satan, the prince of lawyers have long-lasting is due. Don't miss the serpents destiny. An eternity of regret for Dr. Erwin Luzerne this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church