Rick Renner — Attacks When You’re on the Brink of a Breakthrough

my name is Rick Renner and I'm on the Sea of Galilee thinking about the night that Jesus and His disciples were passing over this lake to the other side to the country of the gadarenes where Jesus was going to cast a legion of demons out of a man and while they were in route they encountered a storm of wind it was opposition which tried to stop them from getting to the other side and the Bible tells us that night Jesus was asleep on a pillow he was never worried about making it to the other side but the disciples they were worried what were they doing they were bailing water and binding waves all that long struggling with the waves the waves in fact the Greek uses the word Kamata it describes one succession of waves after waves after waves as far as they could see all they could see were waves that were assaulting them from every side interesting that in Ephesians 6 verse 12 the Bible says our struggle is not against flesh and blood for our purposes we can say our struggle is not against the waves that tried to beat us in life the real problem is not the waves the problem is the wind the wind is the source of the problem spiritual opposition and you can bail water and bind waves all day but until you deal with the wind you're going to continue to have to deal with waves you have to go beyond the symptoms and deal with the source that is what I'm gonna talk to you about today stay tuned for a teaching you can trust a message that will inspire strengthen and equip you with vital insight and understanding from the Word of God here's Rick welcome to the program my name is Rick Renner and I have been waiting for you and I want to tell you right up front that if you need prayer we want to hear from you we would love to pray with you and if you know anyone else to pray with you call us send us an email we'll pray with you it would be our joy to put our faith together with you and I want to tell you that I'm offering you my series called taking authority over the wind and waves in your life it's a brand-new series a five-part series based on these programs the back of the series says the devil wants to derail you before you ever reach the victory God has planned for your life often he waits for strategic moments to strike with ferocious attacks what triggers these attacks what is the normal moment when the devil chooses to strike you or those you love we need to know the answer to that what triggers a spiritual attack and if a spiritual attack comes against you how can you push it out of your life so that you make it to the other side that's what this series is about and it comes with a great study guide we're also offering you my book called dress to kill a biblical approach to spiritual warfare and armor it's nearly 500 pages loaded with information this book contains so much revelation it's based on Ephesians chapter 6 where the Apostle Paul describes the weapons of warfare that God has given to you and to me and what I really like about this book is it has full-color illustrations which show us what the pieces of Roman weaponry looked like that Paul describes in Ephesians chapter 6 if you have never read this book this is a book you need to read millions have read it and I want to encourage you to get your copy today today I'm gonna talk to you about taking authority over the wind and waves in your life and our primary text for this series is found in mark chapter 4 where Jesus and his disciples are in a boat and they're headed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and suddenly they're struck by wind and waves a ferocious storm that tries to derail them while they're on the way to the other side but before we cover that first we have to go to Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 12 this really is very important that we begin in that verse so get your Bible open your Bible to Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 where the Apostle Paul describes the spiritual forces that the devil tries to marshal against you and me Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 where the Apostle Paul writes for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places this verse is packed but we have to begin at the first of the verse where Paul uses the word wrestle well because we're from a Western culture when we see the word wrestle we think of two wrestlers who are fighting on the mat that is not what Paul's readers saw when they saw this word wrestle the word wrestle is an English translation of the Greek word Pali and the word Pali is much bigger than two wrestlers wrestling on a mat the word Pali means to wrestle or means to struggle or it means to fight but it's connected to another Greek word the word palaestra he said what is a palaestra well the palaestra was a facility that was located in every major Greek and Roman city and it was called the palaestra or the house of combat sports it was a house of struggle it was a house of conflict it was a house of fighting it was a house of intense wrestling it was a palaestra a house of combat sports and every major Roman city or Greek city had a palaestra today you can see the ruins of palaestra is in Athens Rome you can see them in Ephesus Pergamum all over the Greek and Roman world and every Greek reader knew what was a palaestra and this is the word poly connected to this word palaestra so when paul's readers saw this word wrestle the greek word pali immediately all kinds of images went through their minds what images went through their minds well in the palaestra there were three primary sports that took place just three number one there were boxers second there were wrestlers third there was a sport called pan crayon let me go through these very quickly first of all there were boxers now when we think of boxers we think of two men slugging it out but in the Greek and Roman world it was much more intense first of all all of these athletics were done naked they were done in the nude so this was a very serious affair because nearly nothing was off-limits but when the boxers boxed they took straps of leather that were 16 feet long and they began wrapping them from the elbow all the way down the arm across the wrist across the hand across the knuckles and where every knuckle is there was affixed what we would say looked like a nail that was serrated like the blade of a knife and for this reason when they fought they left gash marks on their opponent and sometimes they even killed their opponents if you look at the vases of the ancient Greeks very often the vases portray Greek athletics and you'll see boxers with ears missing noses missing with all kinds of gouges and blood spilling from their body that's because they were fighting opponents that looked like they had nails or knives affixed to every one of their knuckles this was a deadly blood spilling sport that's the first type of sports that took place inside the palaestra secondly there were wrestlers in wrestling again it was done in the naked it was done in the nude and nothing was off-limits there were nearly no rules to wrestling Wow it was horrible what they did you can break fingers break backs it really was a back snapping sport and then third there was a sport called pan crowd young this was the most fearsome of them all it's a compound of two Greek words the word pan means all the word Kratos the word power so when you can pound the two words together it forms the word pan crayon it's those who had more power than anyone else you know who these guys were these were the ones who survived the boxing match and the wrestling match and now they had come to fight the others who survived their boxing match and their wrestling match pan crabbing on these were the Masters these were the men who had more power than anyone else these were the survivors but when they came pen crayon to fight in the sport of pen crayon they came with clubs that were spiked with nails satchels of rocks it literally was a blood spilling sport now if I hadn't told all of that to you you wouldn't have known all of that was in the word Russell but Paul's readers were Greek readers they understood all of this that was the world they were from if I say to you football I don't have to stop and explain to you what football is because you've grown up in a culture where everybody knows what is football well when Paul wrote the word poly this word wrestle it was like the word football to first century readers they all knew what it meant when they saw this word they knew that Paul was describing a blood spilling back snapping eye gouging event so impulsive we Russell the first thing it communicated was in front of us there is a very serious conflict not just a little wrestling a real conflict a real struggle and the devil is committed to take us down now we can't do it because we have authority in Jesus Christ but it's good that we know what the enemy wants to do and Paul says what the devil would like to do is pull you into an affair that is back snapping eye gouging blood spilling and that's why he wanted you and me to understand it and that we would be prepared and notice what else he said in verse 12 he said for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places in this verse Paul repeats one word five times what word does he repeat five times the word against and in every case it is the Greek word Prost P R OS this word Prost means face-to-face ribcage the ribcage shoulder to shoulder it describes a very close upfront intimate kind of contact and Paul uses this word so we will understand that spiritual conflict is not what happens to people who are serving as missionaries in another country it comes to all of us it comes close to all of us at some point in our life demon spirits will be marshaled against us we have to understand that at some point in our experience it happens and we have to know how to stand against them and then Paul describes these demon spirits he calls them principalities powers rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places he begins with the word principalities which is the Greek word Arcas this word Arcas describes those who hold the highest seats of power the chiefest seeds of power the word ark to us it's also from the word RK which describes something that is ancient so these are high-ranking demon spirits that have held their chief seats of power since ancient ancient times then he says there's a second category of demon spirits he calls this powers from the Greek word ex osseous it describes demons the diversity of license and authority to roam the earth and do whatever they want to do wherever they desire to do it then he describes a third category which he calls rulers of the darkness of this world that is a translation of the Greek word Cosmo crud or us a very strange word the word cosmos describes something that is ordered or something that is arranged the word Kratos is the word power cosmocrator us so it's power that has been organized it's power that has been arranged it's power that has been disciplined or given some kind of a system and now we find that Satan is very organized he's very organized his troops were organized he has order in the camps the devil is very serious in the arrangements of power and how he organizes his attack against us and once demon spirits have been organized than they are dispatched and that leads us to the last category in the verse wickedness in high places the word wickedness is their weak word poner us and the word poner us really describes something that is wicked something that is malevolent insidious these demon spirits are dispatched into our environment now I understand that Ephesians 6:12 says spiritual wickedness in high places it's really describing our atmosphere the air that we breathe demon spirits don't live out in the cosmos there's no one out there they come into the air where we live into the air we breathe because that's where human beings are that they can attack that they can victimize all of that is in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 12 that verse is very loaded by the way I cover all of this in my book dressed to kill now the first of the verse says for we wrestle not against flesh and blood this is really what I want you to see we wrestle not against flesh and blood Paul says but behind the flesh and blood behind what you can see are these other entities that are invisible but they really are the source of problems they really are the root of the problem now the temptation is to fight flesh and blood to fight what you can see to wrangle with what looks like it's in front of you but very often what you see is not really the problem it's just the symptom behind it there's something else that is at work and I want to give you an illustration from my life many years ago Denise and I back when we were first beginning our traveling ministry we really ran into some rough waters financially we were traveling everything was great people were inviting us I had published one book which very quickly became a best-seller and I begin to write a second book and I knew that the second book was really going to speak to a lot of lives it's my book called life in the combat zone I knew that book was really going to impact a lot of people but I didn't know how prophetic the book was was called life in the combat zone I didn't know I was about to be thrust into a combat zone suddenly just when it was time for us to pay for the printing of that book strange things begin to happen financially it looked like all of our money just dried up people begin canceling meetings where we were invited to speak for no apparent reason people who supported our ministry suddenly stopped supporting our ministry we simply run out of funds and I begin struggling with finances and every day I was wrangling with those finances hanging over a calculator punching in those numbers trying to figure out how we were in a workout our financial dilemma thinking somehow we would wing this we would swing it it would be okay but the truth is day-by-day and week-by-week it was getting worse and worse and worse and worse I was literally wrangling with the calculator hanging over the checkbook trying to figure out how we were gonna make our way through this very difficult time and one day the Lord spoke to me and he said Rick you do not have a financial problem I said what do you mean I don't have a financial problem clearly I have a very serious financial problem our money has evaporated and the Holy Spirit spoke to me a second time he said Rick you do not have a financial problem and I have to tell you the truth I became sarcastic with the Lord I said fine then tell me what kind of problem do I have if I don't have a financial problem what kind of problem do I have because it sure looks to me like I have a financial problem Lord look at the stack of bills look at this calculator look at this checkbook I obviously have a financial problem and the Lord said no you don't you don't have a financial problem I said then what kind of problem do I have and you know what happened that little conversation with the Lord led me into our revelation where I came to understand that I was wrestling with flesh and blood well think about it naturally there was no explanation for what was happening there was no reason for churches to cancel our services there was no reason that simultaneously at the same time all of our partners would stop supporting us this was just unthinkable we had never encountered any thing like this and it was right when I was getting ready to publish a book that was going to affect a lot of people and I need a lot of money to publish the book and suddenly out of nowhere a great storm came against us it seemed it was gonna capsize us and we were going to sink financially and I have to tell you that every day when I prayed I just prayed one thing money Lord we need money have you ever had a lack of money you know sometimes people say oh the rich so bad to be rich so carnal to be rich well you know there's something worse than being rich is being poor the biggest slave to money is not the rich the rich worry about where to invest it the poor are the greater slaves to money because they never have enough they think about money all the time where can I get money to pay my bills where can I get money to buy clothes where can I get money to pay the utility bill when you don't have money you are the greater slave to money because you're constantly the slave to it the slave to the lack of it trying to figure out how to negotiate life without it your whole life is about money when you don't have money when you're rich you wonder about where to invest it but when you don't have it you're the slave to it because you're constantly looking for more of it and I was like the slave to my financial need I thought about it every day when I woke up I was thinking about money when I went to bed I was thinking about money when I prayed I said money money money in fact you would have thought that it was God's name because every time I looked up and raised my hands I said money we just needed money and the Lord said you do not have a money problem and I said then what kind of problem do I have and the Holy Spirit said turn to mark chapter 4 and I'll show you your problem so I opened my Bible to mark chapter 4 so let's go to mark chapter 4 the Lord said he would show me my problem he was going to give me a revelation and that's the revelation that I'm sharing with you in these programs and when we come to mark chapter 4 the Bible tells us in verse 35 and the same day when the evening was come jesus said unto the disciples let's pass over unto the other side well what was the other side well we know from chapter 5 and verse 1 chapter 5 and verse 1 says then they came over unto the other side of the sea into the country of the gadarenes the country of the gadarenes was on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee just across the Sea of Galilee and there in the country of the gadarenes there were two demon-possessed men one of them is described in mark chapter five and verse two and when he was come out of the ship immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit the Greek says a man in the grip of an unclean spirit a man in the control of an unclean spirit verse three who had his dwelling among the tombs and no man could bind him no not with chains because he had been often bound with fetters and chains and the chains had been plucked asunder by him and the fetters broken in pieces neither could any man tame him and always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting himself with stones and when you read Matthew's account of this in Matthew 8 verse 28 the Bible tells us that these demon-possessed men were exceedingly fierce it means they posed a risk to everyone in the region so that no one was willing to pass by that way the word way in Matthew 8:28 is the word hold us is the word for our road there was a major road that went along the Sea of Galilee on the eastern shores of the sea people were afraid to even take the road because of these two demoniac who lived there who would barge out of the tombs and would terrorize everyone passing by that way these demoniac sposed or risk and when Jesus said let's pass over to the other side Jesus had a plan Jesus wasn't wasting time he never wastes time Jesus was passing over to the other side of the lake to set these demoniac free and to liberate the entire region from a spirit of fear that had terrorized them and when Jesus was in a route to the other side something happened look what the Bible tells us verse 37 and there arose a great storm of wind and the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full very interesting that when the Bible says there arose in Greek it is the word gentlemen the word genome I describes something that takes you off guard or by surprise you could actually translate it like this it was the last thing we would have expected that night no one saw it coming it took us completely off guard it took us completely by surprise out of nowhere taking us off guard taking us by surprise suddenly there arose a great storm of wind it was a demonic attack coming to stop Jesus in the middle of the lake in the middle of the night to prohibit him from reaching the other side where there was going to be a great spiritual breakthrough and usually when you're on the brink of our breakthrough that's when an attack comes I was on the brink of a breakthrough in my own ministry because my book life in the combat zone was about to be published and it was going to affect a lot of people and suddenly I had again on my moment out of nowhere something I couldn't explain I couldn't have anticipated that I didn't see it coming suddenly our finances just dried up for no natural reason it was again on my moment when the devil had come to sink us in the middle of the lake in the middle of the night to stop us from publishing that book and if you were under assault right now it likely is a signal that you are right on the edge of one of the greatest breakthroughs you've ever had in your life you're gonna make it beyond this time and you're gonna get to the other side and you are gonna see the power of God in the station I'll be back in just a moment and I'm gonna pray for you does life feel like a storm problems in situations surrounding you on every side tossing you around you don't have to live in the storm in Rick Renner's teaching series taking authority over the wind in the waves Rick teaches that God wants you to have breakthrough but often times the attack comes right before your success when you take authority and control your thoughts and trust in God you will overcome available in digital or physical formats starting at just ten dollars in addition to this teaching series you can also receive the book dress to kill this comprehensive study on spiritual warfare teaches you how to put on the full armor of God and the importance each piece of the armor plays in defeating the enemy this beautifully bound 500 page book is the definitive Bible study available on spiritual warfare and is available for just $22 taking authority over the wind and waves in your life and/or the companion book dressed to kill call now [Music] [Music] 1-800-789-7895 we even able to join the several Christian we have sinners for men and women can be trained to reintegrate into the workplace receive the medical help they need and have a support system in place so they're not isolated and alone because of your generous support we have some people with hepatitis C get well many velocity' family relationships get back together and many others who are on heroin cocaine and other drugs we see freedom and become complete people again this has been made possible to partners to support our work your gift makes this kind of a difference these people need your help please call one eight hundred seventy four two five five nine three or go online to rhema.org to give a gift of any size because your support we are able to make a few difference in people's lives today we've seen in scripture that when you're on the edge of our breakthrough that is often the moment satan chooses to attack you and try to derail you from reaching the other side where you're going to have a great victory and if you're under attack right now well you need to look and see why you're under attack maybe you've opened the door but if you've done nothing to open the door for an attack you're probably under assault because the devil is trying to stop you from getting to the other side from reaching your goal where something magnificent is about to happen in your life and I would guess that if you're under assault you're right on the edge of a great breakthrough in your life that's usually what triggers a demonic attack that's a signal that you're on track just keep believing TECA thority over the wind take authority over the waves and you are going to make it to the other side and I'm going to pray for you for that in just a moment but right now I want to remind you that I'm offering you my series called taking authority over the wind and waves in your life order your copy today this will really encourage use five parts comes in multiple formats also offering you my wonderful book which is called dress to kill a biblical approach to spiritual warfare and armor father I think in the name of Jesus that we can take authority over the wind and the waves we are not victims and we are not helpless you've given us power you've given us authority in the name of Jesus and we take authority over the wind we take authority over the waves we tell you to be still in Jesus name and my friend I declare to you you are on the edge of a breakthrough and you're going to make it through these rough waters you're gonna make it to the other side and see the power of God demonstrated in your life I declare it to you in Jesus name Amen well remember it clear as T's 8 4 it says where the word of a king is there's power let that word work in your life today and I'll see you in the next program thank you for joining Rick Renner today for more information about Rick Renner ministries and product resources visit renard go RG and connect with us on Facebook Twitter and Instagram [Music] you

Channel: Renner Ministries

Views: 73,550

Rating: 4.6426797 out of 5

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Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 18 2019