Captured: What the Hell Happened?

we just did was the really fun part everything sounds great God's big he's good if God's so good and God's so great got so kind and got so generous and got so loving why is everything so messed up this is not a fun talk to give ok we're gonna end I'll warn you now on a hard note and with an image that I'm gonna share with you which is meant to convey what I feel like God wants to convey to us so as to set up what's coming what we did this morning was the beginning of the good news the reason why the good news is good news and not just news is because the bad news is horrific [Music] and we don't talk often about the bad news but the bad news is worse than your worst nightmare so we're gonna look at the second part of the charisma which is sin and its consequences or why is everything so messed up or if I can say this more directly and I mean every word in it what the hell happened the grace to ask for here odd as this sounds and I know this sounds odd the grace is despair what do I mean by that despair is not a virtue you're not supposed to despair but the point of reflecting upon all that we're gonna reflect on right now is to try to ask the Holy Spirit mindful that we know Jesus is Lord and we're gonna make that clear by the end of the day to help us understand that if in fact God had not done for us what he has done for us in the person of his son you would have no hope at all that's what I mean by the grace of despair okay it's intentionally supposed to be provocative is how God gets my attention it's how I try to get other people's so let's take a moment again and just ask the Holy Spirit to come here right now and to move amongst us and to help us to understand what it is that he wants us to understand so father we do ask in your kindness and your love for us that you would very clearly expose the enemy [Music] father ask that you would shine an intense light on the one who seeks to wreak havoc in our lives the one who hates us the one who's come to steal and to kill and to destroy father we ask in the name of your son our Lord Jesus that you would not only expose how he's working in our lives right now but that she would help us to come against him with the authority and the power that you've given to us so that we can grow in freedom and enjoy so come Spirit of the Living God and move amongst us even though help us to hear and see and know those things that you and you alone know we all need to see and know and hear we ask it all in Jesus name Amen so not too long ago August twenty nineteen the Superior General the Society of Jesus that is the order that was founded by st. Ignatius said this symbols are part of reality and the devil exists as a symbolic reality not as a personal reality with all due respect to the Superior General of the Jesuits I believe he's wrong and I believe he's wrong based on the words of Jesus so Jesus we're gonna ask to shine this is this is the image that I have in this talk you ever seen an aircraft landing light it's like a million candlepower it's an intense spotlight so God because God is a good God and a loving father he wants to shine this light on the enemy right now to expose him to put him in his place to help us grow in freedom this is one of the reasons why I asked you to pray for Mary and Steve and myself and Nick and Chris and our work the enemy can't and us because we're trying to expose him but that's alright we don't mind that's why I know how to think about what it is we're gonna look at is this is game film sorry it's a Packers picture but you can look at them without any you know say oh they're so passe you know like they want to play over long ago so um game film for those of us who like sports and who played sports is an essential aspect of winning you study game film because you want to see what your opponent does well and not so well so when the Chiefs were preparing for the 49ers there was a lot of tape that was watched so as to see what they do well so as to be prepared for it and what they don't do so well so that we can exploit it took him three and a half quarters to get there but they got there it's alright scriptures game film scripture reveals to us God reveals to us the opponent what he does and what he's not very good at speaking really honestly from my own life the humbling thing about just growing older is I've just come to recognize this thing runs the same dang play every single down and he gets like eight yards every play in my life but at least I know what is strategy to use so we want to try to do two things we want to first look at who the enemy is because this is the overarching answer to the question what the hell happened or why everything is so messed up and then only after that do we want to look at what are the consequences of the fall which are far worse than I ever really imagined certainly when I was younger so first the enemy so we want to look at these things we want to look at his identity his reason for rebelling his names his root strategy I think he has won his tactics and his goal for your life okay his identity his reason for rebelling his names his root strategy his tactics and his goal for your life what's his identity there's only one God and everything he makes is good so there's not a good God and a bad God and they're equal powers and their warrant this is not a Marvel Comics story okay well we're just hoping the good God prevails there's only one God Satan's not him he's not a rival to God he's a creature he was an angel his name was Lucifer which means Light Bearer and lots of different traditions and stories down through the history both in the scriptures and the traditions of the church have ascribed to him the place which was closest to God's throne this is an amazingly mighty creature who is majestic beyond anything you and I can fathom he is not to be trifled with st. John Paul the great once said have nothing to do with the dragon you don't flirt with dragons they devour things so he was an angel he was a good creature because God only makes good the Catechism paragraph 391 Satan was at first a good angel made by God the devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God they became evil by their own doing Genesis 3 which is the story of the fall right which again is inspired poetry its game film is revealing to us by the way not just what happened back then to Adam and Eve it's also revealing to us what always happens what the enemy did with them as we're gonna look at when we look at his root strategies what he always tries to do with us it's the heart of every single temptation but Genesis 3 says the serpent which is this image it's a poetic image of the enemy who's gonna come to light again in Revelation when we see that the serpent was the Great Satan was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made the point there is just to underline he's a creature keep him in his place he hates that but note what Jesus who's the eternal son of God calls this creature he is according to Jesus the ruler of this world st. Paul calls him the god of this world or rather the holy spirit inspiring Paul calls him the god of this world the Prince of the power of the air st. CS Lewis not st. CS Lewis CS Lewis might be st. Cetus Lewis I don't know I mean if he's in heaven he's a saint we just don't pray to him publicly but CS Lewis once how many people have read the Screwtape Letters great if you haven't read the Screwtape Letters are an amazing book they're extraordinarily humbling to read because you it's this story of a senior devil giving advice to a junior devil about how to go after this particular person and you read this and you go oh my gosh like he does this with me all the time like why don't I see this anyway at the in the foreword of that book CS Lewis writes that the devil's - 2 lies are either to get us to think that he doesn't exist or to think that he's more powerful than he is he does exist scripture makes that emphatically clear and so does Jesus and Jesus isn't culturally bound but he's not more powerful than God he is the Prince of the power of the air why did he rebelled this is the part please please catch this satan's sin is pride right so the angels are pure spirits they don't have bodies our sins are sensual because we have bodies and spirits the angels are pure spirits they're just intellects and the church has always taught that somehow the the root of the rebellion of the enemy comes from the fact that God had unfurled before all of his creation all of his angelic creatures the plan that he had for us which is to be divinized and that the plan included that the angels without losing dignity by any means would in some sense serve us Paul says that in one of his letters to the Corinthians do you not know that you will judge angels so even though we are on the level of sheer Majesty far lower than the Angels right now in reality once we're divinized the angels can't touch us in the sense of majesty it's extraordinary quite honestly this is what provokes the enemy's rebellion the book of wisdom says through the envy of the devil death entered the world and those who are in his possession experienced it who is the envious of you this changes everything see Satan knows he can't touch God Satan knows he's a creature Satan goes to war against the creature God loves the most that's you his goal is to deceive you and me so that we will not reach the end for which God has made us because he finds that and abhorrent now why why would this majestic angel be so insensitive on us friend of mine in this paper that he wrote about the Christian life he says this is a great little quote so he's trying to help us understand how is it this extraordinary being would be possibly envious of you and me puny as we are in comparison the angels he says he just as the devil perceived that in fulfilling the role God had planned for him according to Heaven's logic of love he would be called upon to serve creatures a far less power and excellence than himself he envied the good that he saw coming to them you know what envy is right and he's different than jealousy it's actually a good thing to be jealous sometimes I see you living up virtuous life hopefully that motivates me to want that and I aspire to be virtuous myself that's jealousy in its best case envies never good Envy is a sadness that I have over the good fortune of another and I'm so sad that I don't want them to have it that's what he is about us so he envied the good that he saw coming to them and he resented their destined to place the sight of these happy creatures us filled the devil and his fallen angels with anger and indeed they took thought as to how they might Mar the work of God and destroy the destiny of this newly created race and then take a picture of this sentence please because this is the enemy's desire they said about to enslave those whom they had been meant to serve and to degrade those who had been assigned such an exalted place into the lowly slime beneath their feet that's hell's game plan for your life and mine and every human being slavery and degradation we see it played out right now in the world we have since the fall on countless levels but at the root of what's going on in my life when it goes wrong right when it goes haywire when I sin and yours is don't get me wrong I'm cooperating obviously as we'll get into this but someone's trying to enslave and degrade me and you so as one person put it it's on the the stage if you will that is human life it's not just me and God and I'm wondering how come God's got the magnifying glass out and he's just burning me like an ant when things go wrong no it's me it's God and it's this other creature those are the three persons on the stage his name's his names mean something because his his name's revealed not only who he is but what he does huh so his names are primarily Satan and the devil Satan means the accuser it's what he does he accuses God he accuses me he accuses my friends my family I was uh I had a great life growing up in my family I've my mom and dad are gone now they were the greatest people I've ever known in my life I've great siblings they never knew what happened to me in my life but I was abused when I was a child for quite some time Satan had a field day with that his voice in my ear where's this good God you believe in if he's so good why he allowed that to happen where was he when you cried were these great parents you talk about so often if they were so great they would have done something they didn't do anything isn't it obvious they don't love you isn't it obvious no one cares about you isn't it obvious you're disposable isn't it obvious you've been abandoned isn't it obvious you don't matter simply percentages speaking there's more than a few of us who had that same experience in this church right now regardless of via that experience or not we've all had experiences where that voice has spoken to us in different ways that's what he does he accuses God he's not good his name is also the devil diabolo some Greek which means the divider which is also what he does so he accuses and he divides he divides us from God he divides retries husband from wives parents from children priests from priests parishioners countries the world this is his strategy it's just to divide he sews division his root strategy and I think there's one is simply this God is your adversary not your father certainly not your loving father this is the lie he tells to our first parents Adam and Eve right God gave Adam and Eve again this is inspired poetry a command that they could eat from any of the trees in the garden so God provided nothing but bounty for them they know nothing but perfection happiness there's no sickness there's no pain there's no objectification there's no fear there's no anxiety there's no death it's just perfection and he says to them you can eat from any of the trees Jony from this one tree the tree of the knowledge of good and evil why because it's a poetic way of saying if you eat from that tree what it means is because when you eat something you take it you digest it you break it down you make it your own the poetic imagery here is when you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you make for yourself the capacity to determine what is good and what is evil you can't do that only God can do that in other words you're making yourself to be God the necessary consequence of making yourself to be God is you cut yourself off from God and since God is life if you cut yourself off from life you die so the command don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a gift because God doesn't want us to die it's as if God is saying in order for you to have life in abundance you have to trust me just like any other relationship here's the challenge the enemy that you and I deal with is so powerful and so deceitful and so cunning he was able to get Adam and Eve who knew nothing but perfection to doubt that God could be trusted John Paul in a letter that he wrote on the Holy Spirit says this about who we're dealing with here God the Creator he's talking about what happened in the fall was placed in a state of suspicion indeed of accusation in the mind of the creature he seeks to falsify a good itself the devil does for in spite of all the witness of creation everything that they can experience which is nothing but goodness the Spirit of Darkness is capable of showing God is an enemy of man man has challenged become the adversary of God and what John Paul goes on to say is if he was able to do that with Adam and Eve who knew nothing but perfection what can he do with somebody who's been sexually abused as a child or whose child died or whose spouse died or who's endured all the many hardships that we have here he tries to capitalize on that like crazy why because his goal for you and me is to degrade us and enslave us and to keep us from God in being kept from God were kept from life and he hates us his other root strategy if you will is to try to deceive us into thinking that we can find happiness apart from God right this is the temptation of the tree the knowledge of good and evil right obviously if you just had some of this if you just ate this you would be happier than you are now just go ahead and have it and so it is with us in lots of different ways and the roots of our temptations are either to doubt God's goodness or to think we can accomplish more happiness in our lives without God or at least without God being the lord of every sphere of our lives many of us live our lives like yeah Jesus is Lord of this area in this area in this area this area not really why because I'm really not convinced that to surrender that to him is to bring perfect happiness might be my time might be my finances might be my sexuality might be my relationships might be a whole set of different things some areas just fall perfectly into place other areas we wrestle with much of our lives why because we're not convinced that to follow God's law the God who loves us and who made us to be divinized is to find perfect happiness what are his tactics here's another slide to take a picture of this is what he does he accuses he lies he divides he flatters he tempts and he discourages right so he accuses in all the ways that we said earlier huh he accuses God if not being good of not being there of not being present of not being loving of not being merciful as a fessor I can tell you I've never seen anything more relentless in a person's life than a man or a woman who's been involved in an abortion even in the midst of going through the experience of reconciliation of hearing God's mercy and forgiveness the devil has a tenacious hold in someone's life trying to get them to doubt that God could possibly forgive them he's a liar and he's an accuser remember that God loves to forgive everything we don't love to forgive God loves to forgive but the enemy tries to sow accusations against the enemy you think God's gonna forgive you you killed your child you're out of your mind you knew what you were doing for those of us for whom that's relevant learn to say things like in the name of Jesus I renounced the lie but I'm not forgiven in the name of Jesus I renounced the lie that God doesn't love me in the name of Jesus I bind this accusing spirit and I cast you to the foot of Jesus's cross for him to do with as he wishes because he's a liar and we can fight back as we'll see in the afternoon he divides we talked about that he flatters right flattery is not a good thing honoring is a good thing right but he got married you didn't say I will flatter you all the days of my life miss you shouldn't flattery is never good flattery is always an attempt for me to say something to you in such a way that I will get something out of it that's actually what we do do most of the time honoring is totally different honoring is saying something to somebody in a way to build them up that is what you promised all right to honor somebody is to like pull out from within them the good that you see in them and to hold it up in front of them wait Gerard you have this in you and it is oh good I just want you to know that I see it in you that's what you're married that's what you did promise you would do all the days of your life it's so important for us to hear people honor us whenever a priest telling me before I got ordained John just remember this most people don't think there's anything good in them we put up these great facades you know I got this great exterior I was like fantastic you look so good yeah doing well thanks but deep down I got these lurking suspicions because of things I did that might have been years ago and I just have no self-worth or I feel like I'm under a spirit of condemnation or accusation and he said our task our task as priests and our tasks as human beings right it's like the magic coin trick when you see something in somebody like pull mitt out from behind them and go Tim you have this man I just want to tell you I see it in you it's so good when we do that what happens it's like the person we're talking to stands up like wow we need to do that for each other he doesn't do that he flatters how does he flatter he fight us like this you know I know alcohol was a problem for you when you were younger but you're stronger now you can handle it come on you're not a kid anymore you can manage this and things of that sort tries to play on our vanity why because he wants to enslave and to degrade us that's why and of course he tempts and he discourages right lots opportunity for discouragement in the world were living in right now lots of opportunity for discouragement the church were in right now but that's his game he tries to take our eyes off the one who made the universe that's 46 billion light years across what's his ultimate goal for your life it's really simple he wants to destroy you priests used to say when they do missions the Redemptorists especially like if we can't scare you out of hell we'll scare the hell out of you this isn't this isn't an attempt to like to be a scare Tackett it's an attempt to be sober and realistic that's what this is scripture gives us an account of reality reality is about evil and suffering and ultimately it's about God's triumph over them where do the evil and the suffering come from at their root they come from this creature who has unleashed hell into our world Jesus tells us that he's come to steal and to kill and to destroy it is people very personal and the enemy has thousands of years of game film on the human race and he has 54 years of game film on me and he has however many years of game film on you and he's constantly playing the tape cuz that's his goal for my life and yours so what are the consequences of sin that's the enemy one of the consequences of sin oftentimes it said that the second part of the charisma is that say we've called sin and its consequences and the consequences of sin are often taught to be this that you're separated from God that's very true don't get me wrong but when I was like 23 years old if you told me that consequences of sin are you gonna be separated from God I would have met that with the resounding yawn like who cares I'm separated from God in my own man just I'm living the American dream right well you're not your own man you're not your own woman and you're not on your own if you're separated from God then it means you're necessarily in the hands of another there are no independent parties here so it's not just that it is that it's just not that and one of the most powerful ways that I felt like God showed this to me so when I was in seminary I did the Spiritual Exercises of st. Ignatius so it's like a 30 day retreat where you're just meditating you know for hours in the course of a day in prayer on various moments in jesus's life but before you even begin to do that you spend a week praying on sin and on Hell which is not a really fun week I got to tell you and there's one day which is entirely dedicated to hell and that was one of the worst days of my life and so in this meditation I felt like God brought me to a place where I was I was trying to picture what it would be like to be in line at the end of the world so I mean it's Judgment Day Jesus has come back it's all over and I mean like this massive auditorium it looks like this maybe and Jesus is up here standing on a stage and everybody is in line like all of human history's in line they're all coming up to him and I'm the last guy in the line and I'm seeing him respond to people like oh well done good and faithful servant wait till you see what my father has been preparing for you and I just see him smile after smile and joy after joy after joy and then I'm the last one in the line and his heads down and he looks up at me and the smiles gone and he says to me the only other thing that we're gonna hear when we die we're all gonna hear one of two things either well done good and faithful servant or what he said to me in this exercise which was depart from me you accursed and to the fire prepared for the devil and his angels and the sadness was on his face and then he started to walk away and I'm there on the stage and he's walking off the stage and he's leaving and he goes through a door and I hear the door shut and I'm realizing he's not coming back like there's no there's no more time to repent I can't go find a priest to go to confession I can't say I'm sorry like it's it's it it's over it's done and I'm horribly alone and that all of a sudden I hear this voice start to laugh and the laughter gets louder and louder and louder and then this creature walks up to me and says those words with a look of Glee on his face you fool God offered you abundant everlasting life and you fell for my lie wait till you see what I have waiting for you here's the reality when our race fell when Adam and Eve rebelled unknowingly what they did at that moment was they sold our race into slavery to powers that we can't compete against there are two primary powers we can't compete against the first is death and the second is sin which are both best written with capital letters these aren't just things that happen the way scripture speaks about them their powers it's like their governments or authorities and they're really easy to prove I would argue someone wrote this one so I've ever buried someone you love because if you haven't you will and you will know the sting of death upfront and personal it haunts everything in this life and two and a half years I buried my mom my dad and my brother and all of us in here most of us in here have buried people that we love my mom was dying I was there the afternoon with my sisters but this point we lost my dad and my brother we're standing at her bedside clearly watching her leave this life and despite all the resources that my dad had left us behind financially despite the extraordinary medical care that my mom had as I'm watching her gasp for air I am aware of how utterly impotent I am and I can't do a thing to stop from happening what is happening and if you've been there at the bedside of someone you love as they are dying you know it to death as a power someone said once we give birth astride of a grave the light gleams an instant and then it's night once more death is constantly looking to devour every thing death is so great so aggressive so pervasive so militant of power but the only fitting way to speak of death is similar to the way one speaks of God death is the living power the presence in this world which feigns pretends to be God why are we looking at all this because this is reality this is the bad news st. Paul reminds us especially in Romans Paul speaks and fatica Lee about sin and death as powers we often lose this in the English because there's a variety of different words that are translated there but the words he's using are the words that stem from the word lordship death reigned Paul says that is to say lorded over the human race it's a tyrant it's a government in authority a power it exerts control over our race and you are absolutely powerless from fighting against it you can't win right we hear this all the time with people who've gone through things like cancers there's a boatload of cancer victims in here I know that we hear people say and I understand what they're saying right I'm going to beat this no you're not not like you can't get well from cancer you're not gonna beat death you can't it will claim you it's the only thing everybody in this church knows is going to happen that's why it's worth preparing for right someone once said you know I love golf if you if great golfers play golf backwards the rest of us like stand at the tee hit the ball go try to find it when you find it you hit it again you'll try to find it you hit it again you put it on the green then you get in the putt you get to go do that again right that's not how great golfers play that's how rory mcilroy plays golf rory mcilroy plays golf by looking at the green saying what do I need to be on the green to make the putt to make a birdie then backing up from there and saying what do I need to be in the fairway to hit my approach to be on the green in that spot and only afterwards to say then what do I need to hit my tee shot you play golf backwards great people live life backwards you start by asking the question when I die not if when I die what do I want to hear you get two choices all right well done good and faithful servant which we all want to hear or depart from me you accursed 'add into the fire prepared for the devil and the angels which nobody wants to hear given that how do I live my life in such a way that I hear this that's how you live life Paul again in Romans we know that our old self was crucified with him so he's talking about the effects of what it is that Jesus has done in his passion which we're gonna get to after lunch so that the body of sin might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin that's a capital S sin is not just something that I do or I don't do or I say or I don't say or I think or I don't think it is those things but before that sends a power and we are enslaved to it if we don't have the power of the Holy Spirit within us for whoever has died that is by the effects of what Jesus does for us in his death and resurrection is free from sin that is from its power we'll talk about that in the afternoon that's great news people if we have died with Christ we believe we also will live with him but we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again death no longer has dominion over him that's an extraordinary thing to say that doesn't lord it over the end over the lord deaths lost its grip blessed be Jesus all men's you and Greek are under the power Paul says of Sim Paul again speaking this isn't his letter to the Colossians about what Jesus has done for us he has delivered us from the Dominion that Greek word there means again the government the rule the authority the power the lordship of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son so when we baptize somebody cute as this little child is or not so cute as this little child is right because me when I was a child wasn't all that cute Judas this little child is the tragic sober reality is if if you could see a spiritual birth certificate or passport it would say something like this this child because it's a child of Adam is a child of darkness it has no hope it belongs to the kingdom of darkness it's under the Dominion of darkness everybody hence the grace we're praying for right now to know how utterly hopeless we are if God had not done something for us in Jesus but he has so hang under that right but that's the reality Paul Romans 7 I do not understand my own actions I do not do what I want I do the very thing I hate I do not do the good I want but the evil I do not want is what I do now if I do what I do not want it's no longer I that do it but sin that dwells within me why do I put that up there it's really easy I think to prove that death is a power everybody here knows you're gonna be powerless in front of it sin we might be tempted to go not quite so sure here's the proof don't raise your hand just think for a moment anybody in here ever done anything that you didn't want to do now you hated doing that you know you shouldn't do and you did it anyway anybody like all the time you ever wonder why cuz sends a power that's why and you're powerless against it this isn't Paul talking here when Paul says I do not understand my own actions there's no way this is Paul talking about himself Paul can say about himself I am blameless according to the law he's just talked in Romans 6 about how someone who has died with Jesus and baptism is no longer under the power of sin who's the eye here the eye is the human person left on his own or her own without the power of the Holy Spirit that's the eye that's why we're hopeless without God Scott Hahn who I think's coming with the parachute not too long from now I saw a little flyer out in the narthex says this the controlling metaphor of this sack of this section that Paul's writing in Romans is slavery and freedom Paul paints a black or white picture of a human situation either one lives in service to sin and remains in spiritual bondage or lives in obedience to God and enjoys liberation from sins captivity it's a stark either/or there's no fence sitting there's no third option I know this is not how we think I'm an American for crying out loud what do you mean I'm a slave to somebody here's how another person put it no one is capable of being captain of his own soul or master of her own feet fate each of us has worked upon by unconscious impulses of which we are not even aware and over which we have little control Paul unlike the typical American does not think in terms of autonomous human beings no one is free in the domain of this world as it is either we must live our lives in the clutches of soul-destroying powers or we are delivered into the obedience of faith the clear implication is that there is no way for the human being to move from the domain of sin to the domain of God's righteousness unless there is an invasion of the kingdom of sin from the outside in other words it's not enough to repent repentance is important asking for forgiveness is important but it's not enough I need to be somehow rescued from this kingdom which we've all become born into because of the rebellion of Adam and Eve the domain of sin leads to death it's goal and purpose is death and there's no way out of this downward moving spiral of dissolution remember this quote through the envy of the devil death entered the world and those who are in his possession experienced it who is in his possession everybody unless you're in the possession of God this isn't meant to scare you this is just meant to be an account of reality here's the best image I know to explain it aside from abortion the greatest scourge in our world right now is probably human trafficking there are more slaves right now in the world than there have been in the history of the world up until now economic and sexual it's astounding in the most powerful way I know how to help people to pray with this especially women is to ask the Holy Spirit to help you to understand how it would be to have been captured and abducted now enslaved no one knows where you are and no one's coming for you you live in the hands of a fiend who loves to use you and there's no way out Ignatians tried to encourage us when we pray to use our imagination to use our senses our memory some of us when we pray we see black others of us when we pray we can see everything would shine a picture if you can see things when you try to close your eyes ask God for the grace mindful that the reason we're doing this is because we want to learn how hopeless we would be apart from God why because we want to grow in gratitude that's why it's not so we can feel bad so we can grow in gratitude ask the Holy Spirit we're gonna go have lunch in a few minutes when you come back take some time and just ask him before we get into this next section on rescued asking for the grace to picture what it would be like to be in a situation where you are enslaved and utterly hopeless whether it's as a victim of human trafficking or whether it's in a prison or concentration camp or whatever it is ask the Spirit take me there so that I can be prepared to give thanks to you for what we are about to talk about next Jesus and describing why he's come says this at one point when a strong man fully armed guards his house his possessions are safe who's the strong man Satan what's his house this world what are his possessions every one of us [Music] there's more to that passage we'll see it after lunch might encourage us maybe just grab a picture of this slide I'll leave it up although I know Ryan's gonna show a little movie some wonder we'll put it back here's why we do this it's not only to kind of get an understanding of the bad news so as to prepare us for the good news it's also because God's desire for us right now is to grow and freedom so it's worth capturing this and then asking the Lord to help give us answers to these questions remember because the Lord is light the enemy likes to work in darkness and in shadows God likes to expose shadows as he loves us to grow walk in freedom so ask the Holy Spirit show me right now where the enemy is accusing me and write it down show me what lie is crippling me right now [Music] show me where he's causing division in my life my marriage my family my work wherever right now show me where he's flattering my ego right now [Music] ask him for the grace to identify and to write down what temptation is strongest in my life right now and finally ask the spirit where am I most discouraged here February 15th in Saint Michael's right now because God wants to free us from whatever the answers to those questions [Music]

Channel: ACTS XXIX

Views: 28,182

Rating: 4.9014087 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 0RAsRLpp0Hc

Length: 53min 18sec (3198 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020