You are called to view Scripture not as a chore, but as essential armor for the spiritual battle you are already in. Open your Bible today and invite the Holy Spirit to teach you, transforming your reading from a duty into a source of life and victory. When you engage with God's Word, you equip yourself to stand firm against the enemy and walk in the freedom Jesus purchased for you.
Let's stop and look at that right there. So notice that Jesus did not argue with the devil. Okay. He didn't reason with him. He didn't try to say, well, the thing about the bread or oh, know, you know, the Holy Spirit's got me on a fast, you know.
No. He's he's quoted the word right into the devil's face. Alright? And he he and look at the look at what he quotes. "It is written", man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
So Jesus has been fasting for 40 days. The bible says he's hungry. I agree. I would be too. And the devil comes and says, hey, here.
Why don't you have some bread? Right? And Jesus says, I need the word of God more than bread. It's good. Like, do we need the word of God more than our next meal?
That's good. Right? Wow. Good word. Because we need to be hungry for this like Jesus was.
Yeah. Yeah. 5 through 7. Then the devil took him up into a holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you and in their hands, they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone.
Jesus The devil's quoting the Bible here, just so you know. Jesus said to him, it is written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. Did you know that the devil reads the Bible? I hope the devil's not reading the Bible more than me. Did you know that the devil tries to teach the Bible?
Yep. And I'm gonna say this, some of you have opinions about the Bible that the devil actually taught you. And I'm not naming or blaming anyone, but some opinions about the Bible are completely rooted in lies. So, let me just break a couple of them down. The Bible is not boring.
You are not a bad reader. Yep. Yep. Is not too big of a book for you. That's right.
The Bible is for children. Yeah. Mhmm. You are capable of read it reading it and you do, in fact, have the time. Amen?
So we need to let the Holy Spirit teach us this book and not the devil. Notice that the devil doesn't tempt Jesus with the same temptation again. And I want you to get this. Okay? The first temptation was to make life a little easier, maybe satisfy the flesh, give him some bread.
The next 1 is completely different. Here, do this miraculous stunt. Why didn't he tempt him with the same sin? I'm gonna tell you this way. Because Jesus had victory over the first temptation.
Okay? Some of us get tempted with the same sin over and over and over. And I'm gonna tell you right now, it's because we've never had victory over that sin and it's because we've never fought like Jesus fought. Amen. We need to quote the word.
Okay? We have medicated the devil. We have logically reasoned with the devil. We've debated him. We've negotiated with him.
We pleaded with him. Oh, I hope he doesn't come back. But we've never fought the devil like Jesus. James-4:7 says, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Yes.
He will flee from you. You know, we need to get used to seeing the devil running. Okay? And that's not gonna happen in any other way than this message right here. standing on the word of God.
The devil isn't scared of much, you guys. But what he is scared of, he is terrified of. That's right. And Christians who know their authority in Jesus Christ and wield the sword of the word of God by the spirit of God, the devil is terrified of. Amen.
Verse 8. Again, the devil took him up to an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to them, all these things I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said, away with you, Satan. For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.
The devil left him and behold, angels came and ministered to him. So 3 times, the son of God, the right you know, the 1 who was there when the book was written, quotes the word of God. Alright? By the power of the Holy Spirit. 3 times.
We need to have persistence in this. Because a lot of times, you're not gonna feel like quoting the word. When you're when you got a bunch of anxious thoughts, you're not gonna feel like saying, I have I have a God has not given me a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power. Because you're not gonna feel like it because you have anxiety. You gotta quote it and quote it and quote it until your feelings change.
The devil uses feelings to manipulate you. Okay? But the the truth doesn't change. That's good. So he will leave when you when you "stand on the word".
Notice that Jesus did not have a copy of the scroll in front of him. Okay? The word of God had gotten down into him where he knew it in his heart. Alright? So the battle is not the time for basic training.
We need to train in the word so that when the battle comes, are equipped. Okay? That we have the things that we need in order to have the victory. Jesus was found in the synagogue studying the word at the age of 12. And we find that in scripture.
1 of the few times we ever hear hear about Jesus outside of the his 30 33 year old age during his ministry. Okay? The age of 12, he's in the he's in the synagogue studying, finding out about the word, talk talking talking with the teachers, teaching them back. Okay? Can you say that again?
The battle is not The battle is not the time for basic training. Yes. Amen. That's so good. There's a different version of this that says that there's a different version of this story in Luke.
Okay? In Luke-4:13, it says that the devil departed from Jesus until a more opportune time or till an opportune time. Okay? So this is an important thing I wanted to add because the devil is not looking to overcome the word of God. When you're in a when you're in a legit battle with the devil, he's not looking to overcome the word of God.
He's looking for you to put your sword down. Right? He's looking for you to like take the helmet off or like, oh, I'll just put this breastplate of righteousness over here, sin a little bit. You know? He's not looking to fight the fair fight.
He's waiting. You know? It said was the 1 he said? The devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Right?
Because he can't devour me. I'm gonna tell you that right now. And I'm not scared of the devil. So this isn't a message to preach, oh 0, be afraid of the devil. Because once you understand the power that you have with the word of God and standing on the word of God, you don't have to fear.
Okay? So he's not gonna devour me. He's seeking to devour me, but he's not going to. That's right. This is good preaching.
You're right. This is good. I'm listening to it myself. Was saying, dang. I didn't plan on saying that.
So my wife, Mariah, I'm gonna use her as an example. Okay. We I'm gonna I'm gonna give you an ex a real life example of what does this look like played out. Okay. So God is so funny because Mariah and I, you know, got married 3 years ago and I do anesthesia for those of you who don't know.
So I work with needles. I work with I put epidurals in people. I I I work with the the blood and guts of of the head the medical system. Right? And I have never met anyone at about 3 years ago that had a needle phobia quite like my wife.
And I have seen a lot of people with needle phobias. I mean, she would just pass out. Yeah. She was like 1 of those goats, know, like, you scream and just pass out like needle. And I'm like, oh my goodness.
And she hated him hated him. And I make it funny but it was bad. And she would she was really struck would really struggle with that and there's a lot of reasons behind it. But we were gonna go to Africa. Okay?
And we had to get shots. We had to get like, you know, whatever yellow fever and different shots. And so, about 10 minutes, 15 minutes before we started to get in the car, I noticed that Mariah's whole attitude has kinda changed because we're gonna go to CVS. And she and she's kind of breaking down. Okay.
She's getting she's getting quiet. She's getting a little fearful. And I can just tell. And so, we get in the car and I say, okay. What scripture should we quote?
You know? I could tell, you know, we're like like, we're gonna pray. And between working it out a little bit, we came up with a scripture. We found 1. And so, let's get that 1 up.
It's Luke-10:19. This thing keeps messing up here. Luke-10:19, behold, I give you the authority to "trample on serpents" and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. That's Jesus talking. Okay?
So we can so let's so we took that verse and I said, alright, Mark. Pray that out. And she said, behold behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions over all the power of the enemy. Nothing shall by any means hurt you. Okay.
Lord, thank you Jesus. Thank you, God. Help me, Lord. Help me. Help me, God.
I said, okay. Alright, babe. Let's say it again. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Okay.
Let's make it personal. Behold, Jesus gave me the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing will by any means hurt me. Right? And it was a 30 minute car ride and as we're driving, faith is building in the car. Okay?
Because faith comes by hearing the word of God. Okay? So and faith too can't exist in the same room as fear. It's just like that's what you know, you see the faith over fear stuff. Faith just drives it out.
So as faith is coming, fear is dissipating. And I'm gonna tell you, by the time we got to CVS, this woman is screaming, I would die for Jesus. I would die for Jesus. What does a needle have anything to I would die for Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.
And I'm like 10 and 2 like, what have I unleashed here? And she went in there. She went in she would usually say, you know, tell them, you know, don't don't tell tell them don't say then 1 2 3 pog. Don't do this. She went in there.
They said, are you ready for your shot? Yep. Let's go. She walked back to the room. Here you go.
Shot shot. Done. And I'm just like, oh my God. So give her a hand clap, please. Oh, so good.
So all you need is 1 word from God and if you "stand on it", you will have victory. Period. That's all you need. That's right. We need to start practicing this.
So let's take a look at some practice examples. Anxiety. Let's say you struggle with anxiety and fear. I threw 1 up there for you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of "power and of love" and a sound mind.
Amen? So, next time you're feeling anxious, what you do is you pull that scripture out and you quote it to yourself. You quote it to yourself and you quote it to the devil, the demonic, which is fear and anxiety. Right? There is no fear and anxiety in heaven.
That is a demonic realm thing. So, as anxiety comes, you say, God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound mind. I thank you, God, that you have not given me a spirit of fear, but you've given me a spirit of power. I thank you, God, for your love. Perfect love casts out fear.
I thank you that your love casts out fear, and I have no fear right now in Jesus' name. I thank you for a sound mind, God. I thank you that my mind is not anxious and twisted. Even though it feels that way, it is not because I have the mind of Christ. Right?
Do you see how some other scriptures just start flowing? They just start flowing out. Why? Because the Holy Spirit brings to remembrance the things that he's teaching you in your private time in the word. I didn't have those scriptures planned out.
He's just popping them up in my head. Right? Because the Holy Spirit is actively displaying for you guys right now that this is how he works. Let's go to the next 1. Depression.
Wait. But this wait a second. Jeremiah-29:11 says, for I know the thoughts that I think towards you. God says that to me, says the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope.
I'm laying in bed and I feel hopeless. But God says, I have a future and I hope. You still feel hopeless. Pray it out. Thank you God that I have a hope.
I have a future. You have plans for me. You have them written down. You know the plans you have for me. Plans to prosper me and give me a hope and a future.
Thank you Jesus that I'm not hopeless. You're gonna feel faith start to rise up and that's how you use the weapon. The weapon of the word of God as a sword against the devil. It doesn't lose. The bible says love never fails.
This this never fails. Let's go to the next 1. I'm just doing a few of these because I want you guys to really get this. Exhaustion slash beat down. Wait a minute.
Can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians-4:13. I got other ones on there too, so you can snapshot that if you like. But you can just go online and say, know, exhaustion, beat down scriptures. But the problem is we're we don't treat these again, we're not treating these like little cute quotes.
Okay? This isn't quote of the day. Oh, neat. Put that down. Like, this is the word of God.
This is what we stand on. This is this is truth. This is what we need more than bread. That's why Jesus said it. Because we've been get having our lunch eaten by the devil And we need this more than we need bread.
Okay? You're gonna start having victory as you stand on the word of God. Let's go to the next 1. Addiction. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have come new. So the next time somebody says, well, I'm an alcoholic. I've always been an alcoholic. Actually, you're a new creation.
My bible says you're a new creation. All things have become new. Let's go to the next 1. Unsaved family or friends, but God demonstrates his own love towards us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. See, some people have family and friends.
I know many people in this room have family and friends and they've been unsafe for so long. They've been living crazy for so long. They've been driving you crazy for so long that you have lost hope for them. You have a very tough time even praying for them or you probably just don't pray for them. But I'm gonna tell you, Christ died for us while he while we were still sinners.
As we still were in sin, Christ loved us that much. And so, if Christ loved us that much, I can love my brother, or my mother, or my sister who still needs Jesus, and I can claim them for Jesus because Christ works with sinners. Amen? The Christ came for the sinners. Christ came for the sick.
Last 1. Just memorize this 1. Any demonic strong hold in your life. Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the powers of the enemy and nothing by shall any means harm you. Even the little phrases in there, you know, he said that man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
So pick up on this every words. It says, nothing shall by any means hurt you. That should build faith. Just that little phrase. You you stand on it.
There is no way you can hurt me. That's why she said, needles? Are you kidding me? I would die for Jesus. Are you kidding me?
Needles?
I'm a do you. It's good.
Freedom, man. Yes. It is freedom. Alright. Let's go on.
I'm gonna very quickly just give you for like a kind of an introduction to the Bible. These are 2 more questions that I that were asked. I would like to read the bible and I need to know where to start. And I struggle with getting started, so I just open my bible to where the fingers go, but I'm feeling that is not enough. What should I do?
So I'm just gonna give you a very quick breakdown. If you don't know the bible at all, it's gonna look like this. Okay? I would What I would recommend starting with is a gospel, which means Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, those are the first 4 books of the New Testament. Those are the books that explain Jesus life, what he said, what he did.
We're Christians. We need to know what he said and know what he did. Okay. From there, we're gonna move on to the book of Acts. The book of Acts is the first church.
So it continues right after Jesus death and resurrection, continues as the church grew, and what church looks like, and what Christianity looks like. And, I'm gonna tell you, it's a beautiful book and there's gonna be things in there that might even challenge how you've always done church or how you always thought it was supposed to be like. From there, I would go to the epistles, which means the letters of Paul. That's Romans, Galatians, Corinthians, Ephesians, the ones that sound like that. That's after Acts and those are you got you gotta get into them.
You and when you again, I wanna emphasize, I wanna go back to this. When you read with the Holy Spirit, it's gonna be an adventure. Okay? It is like, you you can't stop. I know you know what I'm talking about, Dylan.
Because you because we've talked about this. You get in there and then the Holy Spirit brings something else up, and then he's cross referencing other things, and you're get you're like, oh my gosh. What he says, he opened your eyes to understand the scriptures. It really happens. Okay?
Like, he opens your eyes to see what he meant by what he wrote, you know. A lot of people there and that's where you get you get off on different things because you people aren't reading the bible with the with the author. Okay? So it's an experience reading this word. Last thing I would say is Old Testament.
Go to the Old Testament after you've done some of these New Testament things because you wanna see the Old Testament through the lens of what Jesus Christ has already done and who you are as a Christian. But I There's no book in the Bible that I would say, oh, stay away from that or oh, don't read that. If you wanna pick up the Bible and start on page 1, do that. I've done that before too. Okay?
And if you want more in-depth information on that, I did an encouraging word like 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago on in-depth on like intro to the Bible. Alright. So praise God. So I wanna pray for you guys. I'm gonna invite the worship team up.
And if you guys wanna stand. I wanna say this. I have no credentials to be up here. Okay? I I I don't.
I don't I don't have a Bible degree. I don't have schooling and training in the Word other than having gone to church most of my life and read the Bible most of my life. Okay? So this is available. Like, when I'm up here and I just start quoting off scriptures, I mean, that happens to me all the time.
When I start to get in the word, God starts revealing more and more and more to me. Okay? And if anyone in here is interested in that, that's what I wanna pray over today. Okay? Would you put those last 2 scriptures up again?
I wanna read those 1 more time. But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. And then in Luke-24:45, he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures. So, I don't know. I'm gonna ask just a bold question.
I'm not gonna ask anybody come up or anything like that. But if if if you've ever struggled with reading the Bible or if you've ever like thought the Bible was boring or frustrating or tiring or it just collects dust or as you get into it, you become very very tired and you just wanna go to sleep. Would you raise your hand? Like ever in our life? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Well, what I want to do is I'm gonna pray this over you guys today.
Alright? And what I want you to do is receive what I'm gonna pray for you about. Because this book will become an adventure to you that doesn't end. Okay? This book, it's the word of God.
It's more important than food. This book, it's big. It's gonna become like a banquet. Okay? And, you're gonna eat it and eat it and eat it.
Alright? It's not gonna look big and intimidating. It's gonna be a big and delicious. Alright? That's what I'm prophesying over you today.
Alright? And, it's because we want to be able to equip ourselves for the battle that's at hand. Amen? We wanna learn the things of righteousness. We want faith.
We want more faith. Jesus said, if you have faith the size of a "mustard seed", you can say to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea. And it will be done. Right? So we wanna build our faith.
We wanna start seeing the things of God happen. So I'm gonna pray over you. I would ask you, lift your hands like this in a way of receiving. Okay? This is a prophetic just declaration that you say, I believe what he's saying and I receive it in Jesus name.
So Holy Spirit, I thank you, God. I thank you for this word today, and I thank you for your word. I thank you for Jesus Christ, the word of God, who became flesh, died on the cross so that we could be saved. And through faith in his name and his name alone, we are "made free". We are made holy.
We are made righteous, and we are set free. Whom the Son sets free is "free indeed". So, I pray right now in Jesus name over this congregation that anyone who has or is struggling with the the Bible and and getting into the word, God, I pray you would release your Holy Spirit over their life and open their eyes to see the scripture how you wrote it, God. I pray that they would come into their next time in the word of God and that they would actually do it with you. They would be aware of your presence in the room.
And say they get to a place that they don't understand, they instead of instead of moving on or closing the blah blah blah prayer, they'd ask you, God, what does this mean? And then, they'd wait and listen for the answer because you speak to us. You will bring us into all truth. You will clarify those things. So I pray in Jesus' name right now for an opening of the eyes to see scripture how you wrote it.
I pray in Jesus name right now for the Holy Spirit to come fill this room, speak to your people, and do exactly what it is that you do. Create an excitement for life, God. This book is exciting because it has life in it. You I we actually get life in it. We don't walk away from the Bible tired.
We walk away from the Bible invigorated, full of life, full of the Holy Spirit, full of your truth, enabled and empowered to live out our calling, enabled and empowered to say, "no more, devil". I've had enough. I've seen it in the word. I believe it in the word, and I'm standing on the word. All done.
You've been messing with me for many, many years, and I'm done. It's time for victory. It's time to see you walk away. It's time to see you flee in Jesus' name. Amen.
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We'll see you next time.