Any tool in our life that can be used, the devil doesn't have to create something; he just uses what's there. That's the beauty of what he can do, he and his ranking forces, these powers, principalities, rulers against; rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places. If you take all of that this is why when he says, “Put on the whole armour of God,” he's saying, “Protect yourself! You may think this is a cartoon right here: put on the whole armour of God”" He's saying, “Protect yourself, stand firm in the faith, know what you believe so that you are able to defend and protect yourself against these unseen forces that will attack you,” and they will. ♪ ♪ ♪ We're still in Colossians, but I've taken a little side-road, and I didn't get through and finish my mission last week, so I'm going to try and, for the folks that are watching today that didn't listen last week, I'm going to try and do this real quickly so that we are kind of all on the same page. We have been in a teaching series in the book of Colossians. Today would be message number 15. We are on verse 16 of the first chapter, and that is the Greek of that verse 16 out of the first chapter of Colossians. Now the reason why I took this sidebar, for the sake of those who haven't been listening, is this passage is probably more important than even I had given consideration to. When you consider that when we're trying to learn and know about God, creation, the things seen or unseen, we've got to go into these passages and keep peeling back the layers to be able to see what we can exhaust, what we can glean. So what we saw here is, in this verse: because in Him, that's Christ, were created all things in the heavens and upon the earth, the seen, orata, and the, ta aorata, that puts it in reverse━the not seen━whether thrones, whether lordships, kuriotates, whether archai, whether exousiai, all things were, all things through Him and to Him have been created. So I thought, looking at these words, which we're familiar with because we've done a lot of different studies in different books, I thought this is a good time to lay down foundation for something. So I started with looking primarily, last week, in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, and tried to show just how much, we were looking at good angels, good, and when I start down this pathway, there's going to be people listening that will say, “Do you believe in angels?” Let me just say this. And some people will think I'm a little nutty for saying this, but hey, listen, not that I care. Okay. How many people here━no, no cameras on you. I'm the only person looking. How many people here believe that there are otherworldly beings not in human form that come and go from this earth? Is anybody here that believes that? That's the vast majority of you. I believe that, too. Now, you can either take that as, if you, if you believe that Jesus created everything, you can ponder this. The universe, the stars, everything as we know it was created by Him, if you believe that, which I do. So then the other question is what about these people, these other beings? Are they from another world? And, and then that comes back to, if Jesus created, here's the word, ta panta, all things. Then all things include even the things that we do not understand, that we cannot see, that we cannot rationalize. And yes, I know there'll be people out there saying, “Wow, she's a lunatic.” Well, I'm a lunatic for Jesus then. But the thing that cannot be denied, you know now it's interesting. A lot more declassified things from the government. Because you know the government's so, so out there already, so you might as well declassify what seems nutty, which actually is more rational and more reasonable than the other things that are actually current, going on. So, yeah, I'm just praying for a spaceship to land over the capitol to suck them all away. There are certain things we cannot explain; that, really, I wouldn't care to try and explain that; I would just rejoice. But what I'm saying to you, though, and this is the important part. Because we live in a society that is highly, we'll call it skeptical or cynical, to explain these concepts is either taken as caricature or fantasy or mythological meddlings of the mind, or if I'm looking and I'm studying this book I realize something. I realize that you cannot talk to me and read this book, and if you're going to take the book as it is, as I started going through just the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, I realized there's a lot more references to angels appearing, giving help, giving guidance, sometimes, sometimes being the agent of meting out justice and judgment. Sometimes, sometimes God, most of the time, has to open the eyes of the people for them to even see that there is an angelic presence. Do you remember in the passage with Elisha and his servant, you remember Elisha is telling his servant, “Can you see them all”" They, they're going into what looks like a very bleak, stupid military situation. They are just the few that they are, and Elisha says, you know, “You see the host? Can you see the host”" It wasn't until God opened up the servant's eyes that he could see. And the same thing is true with Balaam. Balaam was not able to see until God opened his eyes to show him the angel of the Lord was there. So if we take the references and go through the Bible and read them, you find some very staggering things. For example for those people who have questions about, “Well, where did the angels come from?” And I just said they were created. If you'd like turn I'm going to read some passages to support things I, I'm saying and I'm using these passages specifically because I want you to see them with your own eyes so no one thinks these are my machinations and my ideas. They're from the Bible. The book of Job, which is, it comes right before the book of Psalms, chapter 38 and in this particular passage which I've quoted before but for another reason, starting at the fourth verse, this is a conversation that's going back forth between Job and the Lord. And here's where, what verse 4 through verses 7 approximately say: “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” The morning stars are referring to the angels and the angelic authority. We'll find that, by the way, I need to make a special note here and talk about this. There are several references in the Bible to “morning star” and this has led many people to confusion. Why, because in the book of Revelation it speaks of Jesus saying, “And I will send the morning star,” He doesn't say, “I am.” Here, let me just show you so we can read it together. It's important to look at these things and kind of process them in a proper way. So when He says here, and your King James will, I may have to correct this, but in Revelation 22 and 16, “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you,” this is the Lord speaking, “sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches, I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” If you read carefully in the reference to “morning star” twice Jesus says, “I will send”" He doesn't say, “I am.” That passage is grossly misunderstood because of the way it's translated. So we should not get this confused, “morning star” in terms of the reference I just read out of Job is referring to all the host, the heavenly host of angels and in their unfallen state, their power and authority, these words that appear here, at least here exousias, or exousiai, “authority,” and from another passage, “powers,” which would be out of Ephesians 6, powers, principalities, authorities. So it's important to understand this passage in Job 38 tells us that the whole angelic host was there at the creation. You can back that up, and I always tell you things become solid doctrine when you find the references two and three times, and then you can say, “That's solid.” This is not some, one verse that's just saying something that we lift out and it becomes error. But you'll find the same thing essentially is being said in Psalm 148. I'm not turning there. Just make a note, verses 1-5 which speaks of the angels are basically told to praise the Lord, the moon, the sun, the stars, and he says He created them all, but you get the sense between Psalm 130━148, Job 38 and there are other references that the whole angelic creation was there watching the creation happen and occur. So there are several things we can know right there, that they were before, they were created before everything else that we are discussing in terms of the creation. They had to be created before they were there witnessing it. That's number one, they too were created, which begs the question, which I'm not going to answer now, but it begs the question of, is this part of what happened between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2? But that's a question for another day. So we, we have certain things that we can know for sure. The other thing that I think is important is to understand that not all of these angels are of the same order or rank. And I say that, why? Because as I pointed out, the cherubim for example, that God placed at the entrance to the Garden to keep Adam and Eve from basically coming back and partaking of the tree that would have preserved them in their fallen state; they could not have been redeemed out of it. If you think about it, the cherubims, when they are appearing in certain references, they are in a guardian state, usually guarding a holy place or representing the holy place, like the folded wings of the cherubim on top of the ark of the covenant, both facing each other, that very sacred place where the Shekinah, the glory of God would descend. Not only that, but the embroidered curtains that had depictions, if you will, of cherubims, the same thing, protecting the holy of holy places. So they act, the cherubims, in a way as what Daniel references and calls them: watchers. So the next question we have to ask is why are these watchers so concerned with humankind? Whether they be good or bad, why are they so concerned? I go back again to reference what I was talking about last week. For example, out of Genesis, why was it such a concern, and I want you to start putting the pieces together. They, they're very simple pieces, but when you start to put it together you see a framework of something I, I'm in the book all the time, I didn't even put together until I started looking at this in the right view. It's almost as though God sent in each of these instances, God sent, the references to the angel of the Lord or an angel, God sent to particular people at particular times, who were going to be instrumental in God's plan for certain. No one can dispute this with me. Abraham would be instrumental in essentially God promising, giving him the promise that He gave him, which is if you look at it; it is the stream from which all of the three major religions flow: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from Abraham, referring to “father Abraham.” And so He's, God sends an angel. The first time is to say, “Your wife is going to have a child,” making good, by the way, on the promise that God had already given. So it's almost as though these messengers come to reinforce something God has already said. They're typically not the primary; first time God will speak or God will do something, and then after that it's as though He sends in His reinforcements to make sure. Now, remember, we still have, just as these people in the Bible still had free will, and the angels, there's the thing I want to point out: they too have free will. And when I say that in this respect, if they didn't Satan would not have been able to do what he did, which is get puffed up, basically go off the track from God's plan, and take a third of the angelic host with him in the fall. So think of it this way, not in every case, but in many of the cases it's as though God is sending━and the word “angel,” both malak in Hebrew and angelos in the Greek both mean “messenger.” Sometimes the messenger of God is merely a prophet, sometimes the messenger of God is simply a man, an ordinary man, but many of the times the messenger of God, Old and New, refers to something that is not of humankind delivering a message, guiding, like the angel to Hagar twice, not once but twice. That ought to tell you these references say God, like the Bible says, is no respecter of persons. He can come and talk to whomever He wants, whether they be in or outside of His realm or of His plan. And Hagar, if you think about it Hagar was not part of the promised plan. That was Abraham and Sarai's ideas of how to make good on God's promise, doing it in the flesh. And yet, God still spoke to her through an angel, twice; one time to give her guidance to send her back to her master, and the other time to save the boy's life. Both her and the boy would have died of thirst had it not been for the angel showing the way. So what I'm going to say to you really does tie into fifteen-plus years of ministry, but really over forty years of ministry here, and that is if we, if we isolate these entities, these forces of God that come and deliver good messages, that come and deliver guidance, that come and deliver help, we should also be mindful that on the other side of the equation these same unseen forces. Oh, they bring a message all right, but they don't bring a message of God. They bring a different type of message. It's that just that little quarter turn, the little blurriness. If God, if looking towards God is putting on glasses to be able to see 20-20 and those are the messages that come from the good messengers, the messages that are coming from some of these other unseen forces are not to give clarity like the spectacles of God. They are to bring blurriness, confusion, a little bit of chaos, and if we're at all lucky, get you off the path that you started on. Now let's keep going, because I have some other things I would like to point out. In your Bible, you'll also find references to the Lord of hosts or if you're familiar with the term in Hebrew Sabaoth. That is a military term. Lord of hosts, well, He's Lord of the host of what? Well, He's Lord of the heavenly host, and the heavenly host if we understand many times in the Scripture what's being said, refers us back to an unseen category in rank and file serving, if they are unfallen, called holy angels or elect. There's a reference out of Timothy “elect angels” or “holy ones,” unfallen, and those that are fallen that are basically servants and the underlings of the hierarchy of the kingdom of Satan. Now, I know I sound like “church lady” right now, but you know, listen, that's the fun part of this, you either take this for what it is or you can just discount it. And I'll quote what C. S. Lewis wrote when he has the conversation between the aged and rookie demon, he says, “We've never had it so good. Essentially nobody believes we exist. And if they do believe, they believe it as a cartoon, a caricature.” I've been around long enough in ministry to watch good people, dedicated people; we're not talking about taking a wrong turn, we're talking about people who come under an influence. Now, I'm going to tell you I wouldn't start cataloguing, because the list is pretty long of people that I've seen that are full of vim and vigor for the Lord and at the first hiccup they are running for the door, because they can't figure out what's happened to them. And some of these I never see again but I'm telling you something, you can't, this is why I said you can't come into the church and expect in one day out of the year to understand everything about God because you sat and listened to a Christmas message of the birth of Jesus Christ, which I've said many times, had Christ━His birth is important, but had Christ not grown into the man that He was, man and God, it is His death and Resurrection. Yes, a child had to be born, but it's His death and Resurrection that make Him Lord and Savior; not His birth. And you can theologically parse what I just said, which brings me back to if you are not getting into this to educate yourself, you're, you're walking on such thin ice and I'm not sure what you're holding onto when you talk about Jesus as your Lord and Savior. And let's put it this way, if Jesus is the Conductor of it all, He's the Creator of it all, it all answers to Him. And in the “al”" it also means you and me answer to Him. Most people don't believe that. Most people do not believe that they answer to Him or that all creation answers to Him; even these fallen beings. You remember many times over we read how Jesus, they knew who He was. Remember when He's going to cast out the demons and they, they begged to not have a certain punishment put on them; they knew He had the power, they trembled at His voice. Now you, you know, you can say, “Yeah, okay, but you know, this is just a compilation of stories.” Okay, suit yourself. If that's how you see it then Jesus is nothing but a compilation of good stories, you're still in your sins, you have not been redeemed, there is no God and there's no hope for you. You like that message better? Because that's what I encounter with people who will not look at the church and look at especially what we do here as dig, folks, and dig as deep as you can because the deeper you dig the more you're going to find how much you don't know. And the more I dig I find how much I don't know. It takes a smart person to say how much you don't know and an ignorant person will tell you the things that they have great knowledge of, which they have zero of. It's always like that. Now, let me just kind of recap a little bit. We have angels we know are created by God; I gave you the passage. They were created to live forever. Now, people get this confused. At the end of time when God basically punishes the evil host that has been rampant on the earth and we read about the lake of fire, that is a place of eternal punishment. It means the fallen ones, the fallen forces will end up in that eternal punishment, but they are not, you know, when we talk about created, they were created for eternity. In fact, when we read about Jesus' return it says He shall return with an angelic host, a heavenly host. And in the last days, all of the things that are being dispensed upon the earth they're also being dispensed in part from the heavens and upon the earth by angels; not all but some of them. You read that in Revelation. So angels are spiritual beings. This brings up an interesting sidebar. If they're spiritual beings many have argued that they don't have form. Most of them do have form and the form that we read of is usually, in some cases the form of a man, in some cases like the references out of Ezekiel where we have this unbelievable wheels and all kinds of turning things, eyes everywhere and other references to one having the face of an ox, another dimension or side face of a man. These are a combination of things and representational, but not fictional or not made up. If you want to say it that way, these too are angelic hosts or beings representative of God's power, His authority. In fact, there's a whole detail if we were going to pick apart Ezekiel's visions that speaks volumes of Christ's mastery and Master over all. Even in passages that aren't referencing that you can glean that. As I said before, angels are not meant to be worshiped so I don't want anybody thinking that my message here is telegraphing this is what we should, our new phase; but I'm sure there'll be a ministry out there, you know, the ministry that wants you to send their whatever their sum of money is. I'm sure they'll have a new, from my messages it seems like there's a lot of perversion that comes out of these other ministries of suddenly an idea to “Send your money to the guardian angel, care of my ministry.” Somebody will do that, trust me. Angels are subject to Christ. That's very important. And angels also have, as I said earlier, they have a will. If you read you also can see that there are passages that refer to angels as having emotion. What does it say, “When one sinner repents,” what happens in heaven? Angels rejoice. Now, I'm saying that because there are so many references that if you start looking you'll probably say, “I never released this before.” We start with the opening passage in the New Testament of the angel coming first to Zacharias the father of John the Baptist. And if you can imagine, here is an angel basically giving the message to this man. And then we have the same but here is the name is mentioned, Gabriel, standing in the presence of Mary. We have the angel speaking to Joseph and telling Joseph what he should do to, even though he was, the Bible says “espoused to Mary,” she was still a virgin. He did not know her and the angel basically says, “Take her anyway. This is basically of the Lord.” And it's also the angel when they flee to Egypt, it's the angel that says, “It's safe to come back now; Herod's dead.” So you look at all these things, it's the angels that are heralding the birth of Christ out in the field, it is━I mean, keep, keep digging, keep looking. You're going to find they are there and present at the Resurrection. Whenever Jesus rose up they were there, an angel it says in one of the Gospels rolled away the stone, and then the witness of two angels in the sepulcher and the angel appearing to the women, and then you've got an angel appearance to those that were in prison once you start moving into the book of Acts. Acts 5 is that passage that you can read for yourself. Acts 8 talks about the angel guiding Philip to go find the eunuch. There's so many of these references you have to ask yourself, and then you get into Revelation and it's almost all, for example the angel to the seven churches. And, and that also has a lot of room for interpretation. All I'm saying to you is that there are so many references that we can at least glean enough to know that the ones that are carrying out God's plan and God's program are usually coming as heralds of good news, they're usually coming to give direction, guidance, help. So let's flip this on its head because if all that I said is true, look, even when you get into passages; there's just so many of them that can't just; I could stand here and just rattle them off to you. The Bible, in the book of Jude, says that the angel, the archangel was wrestling for the body of Moses. It tells you there there's a lot of content here that cannot be ignored from different writers at different times. Paul, in his writing, says that the angels played a part, and we know that from the writings of Moses in the Pentateuch that the angels played a part in the handing down of the law. So if all of that is true, and if it's true, there has to be the other side of the equation, the fallen band, the fallen ones. We know that those that are not fallen, the holy and elect they are called, unfallen, they're carrying out God's order, they're carrying out God's directives, His plan. So what about these fallen ones? Well, they have a mission too and if, this is what I'm trying to drive at; people ask me this, “Do you really believe this stuff?” And the answer is, yes! I actually wish I didn't. I started off that way; I started off when I first started reading the Bible, thinking, “You've got to be a lunatic to believe in all this stuff; it's nutty, it's crazy. It's only for kooks,” because who could actually say? Have any of you in the sound of my voice, physically sitting in front of me, have any of you ever seen an angel? (No ma'am.) I haven't. Has an angel ever; and I'm speaking about heavenly host; spoken to you? Please if they, if it's yes, I, I━just I don't want to know about it, okay. It's like the, you know, I told you; you've heard me say this before, you know the people that “God told me to tell you. . .” Well, I think I'm pretty good with God. I think, you know, I know Him well enough if He has something to say He can talk to me directly; but He hasn't just yet. But if the angels report to God, unfallen, elect, holy, where do these fallen ones report to? Well, they have the prince of their kingdom, which in 2 Corinthians 4:4, I believe, says “the god of this world,” that's Satan, “the god of this world hath blinded the minds of those” so they cannot receive, they cannot see. So if an angel of God, holy, unfallen can give clarity or can give wisdom or can give guidance, these fallen ones, well, they do just the opposite. They give guidance in a twisted way. They may urge, they may; and you may say, “Well, so does everything function like this?” Well, in the spiritual realm, we're only talking in the spiritual realm; we're not talking about somebody who's going to talk to me outside in the world like what happened at, what happened at some store somewhere, you know, “Was that an accident when I was out and about? Was that an accident or was that a demonic, fallen angel that was trying to do something bad to me?” I'm not going to blame everything on the devil. I'm not going to blame everything, you know, you remember “the devil made me do it.” But I do believe, we're talking about the committed ones, the faithful ones, I'm talking about the saints of the church. You know, somebody who's out there who's really not making a dent for the kingdom, who really doesn't care about church, ministry, God, the devil's not going to bother you. The devil is, doesn't care about you; you are of no consequence to him. It's when you turn your sights and your affections to God, when you decide that nothing else is more important than establishing, developing a relationship with Jesus Christ, that's when it gets interesting. Now you know, some people listening to me, they would probably say, “Aw, I don't believe any of this,” or “I can't,” or “I'm not sure.” Let me tell you something. As I said, I came into the ministry like many, did not believe, thought it was a caricature, thought it was a joke, it's goofy, it's stupid; but I started to see patterns of things. And over the years; sorry, just like any other vocation, just like anything else, you see patterns you must acknowledge them. Remember, I came on the scene as someone wanting to help. That's all. And how could my help be turned into and translated into I have motives and people hating on me. And then of course, the transition from administrative pastor to pastor; how could so many people hate me? I'm asking this. I'm human like you. Now, I've come to a good place and that is, you know, hate sucks, but my faith in God is what carries me, not your emotions or your feelings towards me. But how do so many people hate someone or something they don't even know about or understand my motives? I've stood here for fifteen years talking to you, growing, developing, changing, trying to be a better steward and a better custodian and a better teacher and showing by example, leading by example that it doesn't, it doesn't mean that just because you weren't in the church your whole life that God doesn't look at you as a favored child later. Or because you grew up in the church and never knew anything else that somehow you're God's special child; give me a break. More importantly, when I say, and I've had this conversation with many people, when I say the things I have seen these are, these eyes, there are certain things I never wanted to see. But when you see people who have the capacity to shift; we're not about the politics that go on in the world━I think that's demonic right now, but that's; actually no. I want to take a page out of Bush and say that's the axis of evil, okay, politics right now anyway. There's just nothing good in it. But if you think about it, when I say what these eyes have seen, don't discount because you haven't been privy to or you haven't seen, because before I stood here and said the things I've seen, stood someone in this very platform that said for thirty years, “Don't doubt what I've seen.” In fact, his words were a little bit different. He said, “A lot of people come into the church and they don't believe in the devil.” And a lot of people chuckled at what he said because they didn't understand what he meant. He said, “Stick around me long enough and you'll believe in the devil.” Some people thought, “Ah, that's so funny, ha, ha, ha, ha!” But the reality is if you stick around someone who's going to stay by the stuff you're going to see things, things that are hard to understand, almost mysteries of how baffling, but these have to do in the spiritual realm. And then you've got the people who are the massive intellects that want to come in and tell you, “What's wrong with these people has nothing to do with spirituality; they either have mental imbalances or mental health problems or there's something else; it could not be that spiritual forces have attacked them, no, of course not.” So let me get this straight: you only want to believe in good angels that give guidance, that help you, that lead you, that can minister to you. As the book of Hebrews says we're supposed to really pay attention because we may be entertaining angels unawares, which I believe is in direct reference, by the way, to Abraham, to Lot and these folks. It should be taken to us as well. But let me get this straight, if that's the case and the Bible says, basically, be careful because you yourself may not know who you're entertaining. In other words you could be in the presence of this type of an entity or a power, then I'm going to heed that caution. I'm going to be on the safe side. Now, from the perspective, and I could, there's so many ways to attack this, but from the perspective of the Scripture, the reason why I wanted to take you through the good and the bad, I've taught out of Ephesians 6 ad nauseam, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, principalities, the kosmokratoras, these unseen forces. And yet, now I'm not asking anyone to raise their hand; it is rhetorical, but I'm asking the question. Can you blame everything that happens on mere bad luck, especially if you're someone who's committed and dedicated? Or can you look to something else and say not everything, but some things will be under the banner of these kuriotates, archai, exousias, kosmokratoras; all of the things that we're looking at, the, we'll call them fallen, demonic forces or powers. Now you tell me if Jesus Christ was not immune to it, why should any of us be? This is my question to you. If Jesus is the template and the pattern, and He, only He could be what He was, but we are microcosms of His, of Himself, if you will, and we have the implant of God the Holy Spirit in us, what makes you think or why should any of us think that we wouldn't be buffeted, we wouldn't be the attempt to use us in any way, shape, or form as tools of the devil? You take the whole book; don't cherry-pick. And the whole book tells me that I'm up against some heavy-duty unseen forces that are constantly trying to derail my progress, my growth, my understanding. Look, go to Ephesians 6, the passage we've been to so many times because honestly this whole exercise was basically to starting trying to get people to think this way. While you're turning to Ephesians 6 let me just say a sidebar. To the apostle Paul, who came out of, we'll call it Jewish tradition, to the Jews and for many of the Jewish scholars the belief was that evil, in Jewish literature primarily, evil comes from, if you're looking in your Bibles, would be coming from Genesis 6, where it says, “The sons of God mated with the women of the earth.” And a lot of confusion happens there, especially in Jewish literature to basically say it all came from there. Well, then how do you explain what happened in the Garden? How do you explain the disobedience, not just of Eve, both Adam and Eve? These, these are hard things for people to actually wrap their mind around. It wasn't just one, and then people, stupid people would like to basically put the error on the woman, but actually the error is on both of them. Adam let his wife out of his sight, she wandered out of his sight. See, there there's a lot in this that we could look at and say, “You know, if we would take from this book, we could glean a lot more,” because right there in the opening chapter there is this “Did God really say?” That's what, that is the manipulation of God's word. See, the devil's not going to come outright and tell you, “Oh yeah, take that wrong turn,” or, or “Have another drink.” The devil's not going to come out and do that. That's too obvious. What was the obvious thing in the garden, “Oh, eat of it, you're not going to die. No, no, no, on the contrary, nothing could be further from the truth.” Well, here here's the funny part, depending on which way, depending on the definition of “is”━never mind. So what is the definition of this? Was it that she partook? And then they didn't die right away, but they eventually died, which is what the whole issue is. See, just a little click, just a little blurriness where you can't have clarity opens the door for you to take the wrong step. That wrong step in, in Eve's case, the door's wide open, “Did God really say that?” to get you to doubt. Or go back to the temptation of Christ, “Turn these stones into bread.” The response, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” There again, twisting, just manipulating just enough. This is why I tell you: be a Berean. I don't care if you check out and you fact check everything I say. I sometimes in speaking may cross certain things, but I come back and I'll make sure that I've made clarity for the sake of wanting you to check out what I'm saying, because so many people who do not check out what their pastor, minister, priest; whoever it is that's talking to them, “Oh, well, he must; it must be true because they said it.” And this is how we get charlatans collecting money for “holy water” and people doing silly things in the name of Jesus, which have no relevance and no support from the Bible at all. So what can we glean from this? Ephesians 6, lest you think that I forgot I told you to go there. Ephesians 6 opens there in that passage, verse number 12 as I quoted it: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world.” Rulers of the darkness of this world means those who have authority within the realm of their area and territory. Remember Jude says “the angels which left their first estate.” There are angels that may come and go from heaven to earth, but the ones that are fallen, the vast majority, this is their home just unseen that's all. See, when you start figuring out that you're sharing your space, first and foremost as a believer you're sharing your space with God. He's with you all the time. And if He's with you all the time you can be darned sure there's other forces at work, whether it's to try and drive a wedge. I'm just telling you this; this is the apostle Paul's probably greatest contribution, which the vast majority of Christians will not latch onto: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood”; not brother and sister, or brother/brother, sister/sister. That's not our battle. That's why I asked what about hatred? What about the vitriol? What about all of the things that I've seen here? Is that just bad human nature? Is that people who have no social graces? Or is that people whose desire it is intent driven by another force? You know, how do you demoralize somebody? How do you discourage somebody? How? Well, if you keep pummeling them enough, if you keeping making it painful enough, if you keep making it difficult enough one might give up. Trust me when I say that probably for the first five years of ministry I wasn't thinking this way, but for the first five years of ministry that's what was happening. There was a very big push to get me out of this position as pastor. Now, say, well “Who was doing the push? Who was driving this push?” Well, I could say certain individuals but the fact of the matter is these certain individuals, they were just tools of the devil that's all. They were just used by him. I can see it as plain as day; they cannot. They were just used. Their whole goal was thinking if they can just get me out; and then what? So that you can open the door for some pseudo-friend of the late Dr. Scott to come in and basically pilfer and destroy this ministry or what's left of it? Was that your goal? Because there were a few of those, and then there were people that came under the guise of being friends of the late Dr. Scott, who said, “Oh, you need help. You can't do this by yourself.” And I said, “You're darn right I need help; my help comes from above.” I don't, I don't need, I don't need that type of help. If God can't fix this, beginning with me, then He's not God. And if God can't guide me and give me direction, then He's not God. If my heart is here to help others in the ministry to grow, to become greater in faith; and God can't help me to do that just as God can't maybe help me to do other things from this book to you, then He's not God and I shouldn't be here and neither should you. But if He is, look out because when God gets a hold of things and they're the things that He desires, that He wants, be a little bit aware or cognizant of that because it can change everything about what you think is possible. All the people that said, “You can't do it. You can't do it,” you're right! I can't do it, but with God all things are possible. You're right when you say I can't; I cannot, but He can. And He did and He still is doing. And as long as I understand that's where my help comes from, I'm not to lean on the flesh, I'm not to lean on my own understanding, and I'm certainly not to lean on the world and its advice because its advice basically sifted down is from the prince of this world, the god of this world, who has indeed blinded the minds of people so that they cannot see, they cannot receive, and they cannot learn or understand. Now, the reason for getting on all of this, and I could not resist, is to stop and say let's recognize something. If He created everything, if He did, He created a perfect and beautiful creation which was marred. That by sin, by the first fall; and maybe if we want to discuss the first fall, is the first fall Satan's rebellion or what happened in the Garden? It's irrelevant. It produced a whole host, a waterfall, a watershed of, we'll call it ranks of evil and they, they are in rank and file, just as there is rank and file; Michael the archangel and if you work your way down, and there are many names. If you read, for example, 1 Enoch from 1 Enoch 6 to 1 Enoch 36 tells you, basically expounds upon Genesis 6, explaining everything that happened in this apocryphal literature detailing that. You can find great, its great source of information in some of these secondary and tertiary, apocryphal literature for sure that basically backs up and gives a greater clarity. I spent some time reading 1 Enoch 6-36 and something clicked in my mind where as I used to look at a lot of that literature as maybe dubious, it's kind of impossible when you start even reading that type of literature that basically not only agrees with, but expounds upon what you find in the Bible. You have to stop and say, “I've got to give this a little bit more attention.” And that little bit more attention lets me open up my mind to say if, if these unfallen, holy ones, elect are operating, then these forces of evil, fallen forces are equally operating. The goal for those unfallen ones in the creation is the goal of God to help, to convey, to communicate the goodness of God. And to these others the power of darkness, the forces of evil, those people━let me ask you something. Have you ever known someone, you may not have been thinking spiritually, but you said that person may have a demon? You know sometimes we say that if somebody's got an addition, they say, “Oh, that person's got a demon.” Have you ever heard that said? (Yes ma'am.) Now, I believe that not all addictions are alike and I believe that although the addiction itself may not be from the devil or from demonic forces, it's used. See, any tool in our life that can be used, the devil doesn't have to create something; he just uses what's there. That's the beauty of what he can do, he and his ranking forces, these powers, principalities, rulers against; rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places. If you take all of that this is why when he says, “Put on the whole armour of God,” he's saying, “Protect yourself! You may think this is a cartoon right here: put on the whole armour of God”" He's saying, “Protect yourself, stand firm in the faith, know what you believe so that you are able to defend and protect yourself against these unseen forces that will attack you,” and they will. For the rest of the people, I could say as Paul says here, when he says, “Wherefore, put on, take unto you the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all,” my question is how can you “do all,” how can a person do all if you don't know what to do? Anybody? And that's why I'm telling you something. It's so important to have a place to learn and to know how to handle these things. You know, it's very easy to say, “Well, I, I've done everything in my power.” Well, we're not talking about in your power. That's the problem. We're talking about having done all in God's power, in God's strength, in God's will, in God's way, in God's purpose, in God's plan. Now if you are in this book you may have an idea, and if you're studying this book on a regular basis you may have an idea, but if you're coming here once a year, you will not. Now I'll say for me, to close this message, let's see, thirty years ago, thirty years ago in my life the devil didn't exist. Thirty years ago in my life a totally different frame of reference. If I saw awkward or strange behavior, I'd say, “That person's a little messed up,” right. And we say stuff like that, right? It's the person. I'm telling you something after having walked now probably twenty-five years in the faith, maybe a little bit more, I now can understand something. When the Bible says we are God's treasure, we're the apple of His eye, do you really think that there wouldn't be opposing fighting forces to stain you, to dirty you. And I'm, I'm saying that with the mindset of we don't look at it this way, we look at “Oh, I've been washed and cleansed by the blood of the Lamb,” but if you have a clue you realize that the devil and all of his minions, their whole goal is to soil you up again, to make sure━that's not saying you'll never sin and I'll never sin━that's to make a ridicule of His work, to lessen what He did, the efficacy, to make you doubt your faith, to make you believe that everything that you've ever believed may be a lie to get you to question what you believe in or why should you even believe and why does faith even matter? These are the reasons why I stand here every single week to try and reinforce the faith and to try and communicate the whole counsel of God, which requires putting on the whole armor of God and fighting against these evil powers of darkness, rulers of darkness that do try, and they do try to derail, to manipulate, to thwart God's purpose and plan in your life and in mine. In over fifteen years of ministry here I have been probably pulled over more coals, put into more battles, and not, not because I chose them. And I keep asking myself, even, even right now as I speak to you: why? Why does it have to be like this? Like, you know, I envision a quiet and peaceful life; does that exist anywhere? And the answer is, no. There's a reason for that. As long as you and as long as yours truly keep pressing with Christ in my heart and keep, keep heralding and keep proclaiming, and the more confident and the more vehement and the more strongly and boldly that I will stand here or any of you, the greater the attack will be. So I'll say to you the thing that's probably the most unpleasant for me, but I will keep proclaiming, which also means I will keep battling until the last battle is won, whenever that is in my lifetime or not. And I will say to you do not be ignorant of what the devil and his minions have tried to do to this ministry, tried to do to some of you. I speak of children, kids, now young adults in this ministry, parents who have grappled with whether it be a child's falling away from the faith or a child's addiction, or whatever the problems may be, which are normal problems in normal circumstances that even people outside of the church would experience, except, remember what I said: the devil uses raw material that's already there. He doesn't have to create a new situation, he doesn't even have to lay a trap; he just has to take in your life the weakest link in the chain. That's all he needs. Nothing else is created out of that except chaos, so I'm going to say stand in the faith. Stand and having done all; and if you don't know what that is I'll keep telling you what the “having done all” is until I can speak no more. But foremost, press in, try and build your relationship and your understanding about who God is through this book. And I don't care if you do it in this ministry or any other teaching ministry. It's not like “Oh, you can only listen to me.” If you can't listen to me find somebody else who's teaching the truth and listen them. But it's only that that will do one thing. What did, what does John 8 say? When you know the truth, the truth will set you free. But hearing a little bit and knowing are two different things. So I'm wanting you to know the truth, which starts with understanding two forces at work to derail; two forces, one to derail and one to build, unseen by all, but nonetheless created by Him and under His power, which means one thing: the last word belongs to Him. I'll take that any day because when He has the last word the enemy will be vanquished, until that time, I'm going to keep trusting Him and looking unto Him; my Salvation, my Savior, my Lord Jesus Christ. That's my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you'd like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com
