Close the Gates - Sermon Notes

Close the Gate - Jan 26th, 2020

Any competent military leader will study their opponent as much as possible prior to going into battle. We see the idea of studying your opponent as a viable strategy move from the arena of military campaigns to boxing, ultimate fighting, football and several other competitive venues. Walking into a fight with little or no understanding of your opponent is just stupid.

I remember helping coach the 11 – 12-year-old fellas at Dora Park. At the beginning of the year we had a secret weapon. A young man on the team could hit a 35-yard field goal 8 out of 10 times. Now maybe you don’t know much about football, but this was the weapon that took us to the playoffs. When we would line up for a field goal at the beginning of the season, the other team would think we were going to run a fake, but they were wrong. Field goal after field goal we marched straight to the playoffs. Eventually word spread, videos flooded Facebook and our secret weapon wasn’t much of a secret any longer.

Knowing your opposition, the way he will come at you and what he will come at you with is vital if you want to have victory in this life through Christ. I’ve heard folks ask, “When will the fight ease up, when will it be over?” We will fight as long as these physical bodies are drawing breathe.

As believers we know that our enemy was defeated once and for all at the cross when Jesus said those most divinely powerful three words, “It is finished!” However, we as believers must learn how to walk in that victory. Battles arise daily and they must be fought on three fronts, our flesh, the world and the unseen realm of darkness. These three fronts intermingle like the land, the sea and the air. When your right in the midst of the attack, it can be hard to know how your adversary got behind enemy lines, all we can seem to do is cover our head and wait for any window of opportunity to return fire. And sometimes the best strategy is to just grab ahold of something and hold on.

Knowing how darkness slips in, is as important as a cargo ship plugging the smallest leak in its giant hull. Because a small crack won’t stay small very long. What may appear as a small compromise, just missing church occasionally, a few drinks, listening to a few cool rap songs, watching a movie that is just a little explicit, can open the gates of hell against you.

Darkness doesn’t force its way into a believer’s life, it must have permission and permission only comes through compromise, and the compromise doesn’t have to be huge.

Think of the invitation for darkness to come in as if you had left a gate open, knowing where the gate is and how to close the gate would be important, wouldn’t it?

Satan the commander of the dark realm is described in scripture as being subtle, crafty, slick. He doesn’t kick gates in, he just hangs out patiently waiting on us to leave one open. It begins to get you to question why you have the gate closed in the first place. How did satan word it when he was talking to Eve, “Did God really say?” Just a subtle seed of doubt about what God means is all darkness needs to slither its way into your life.

It’s also good to know that satan is the greatest counterfeiter this side of eternity. We are all born with basic needs that were meant to be only satisfied through having the right relationship with God. God is the only one that can legitimately fill these needs, satan provides cheap counterfeit solutions to these needs that only lead to a ravenous appetite that points you right back to the very counterfeit vice that produces once again an increase in the ravenous appetite. The result is an increasing appetite for what can never be satisfied.

Proverbs 27:20 MSG Hell has a voracious appetite, and lust just never quits.

The Passion Translation Death and destruction are never filled, and the desires of men’s hearts are insatiable.

When we live for the natural, no matter what we achieve we will never find satisfaction.

Believers open themselves up to be initially oppressed and eventually dominated by darkness by accepting one of its counterfeit blessings. These counterfeits to the promises of God are presented to us through the Kingdoms of this fallen world.

· Intimacy with God

o Sexual stimulation

· Worship Music

o Worldly Music

· Kingdom Building

o Self – Empire Building (Bigger Barns)

o Politics

· The Truth

o Worldly Knowledge (Scientific Theories)

· Holy Spirit

o Drugs / Alcohol

· Spiritual Growth

o Self-Improvement

· Unity of the Body of Christ

o Community

· God promises us peace

o The world provides anti-depressants & nerve pills

Revelation 18:1-3 ESV After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.”

This passage paints a clear picture of our world today. We constantly witness the richest and most powerful corporations’ prey on the unsuspecting generations. We line up, follow and believe whatever we see in the news. We take the medications that have been pushed through the process of the FDA, the organization that was created to protect us. We purchase what we cannot afford and do not need, chasing this idea of an American Dream. We eat the food that has supposedly been tested that makes us sick so we will need to take more of the medication that was pushed through the FDA process by the rich corrupt corporation’s lobbyist. We live in fear consumed with worry by what the corrupt media presents as news. When we refuse to compromise our biblical standards of living, we are called bigots and racists.

Every secular media outlet is presenting compromise, sin and darkness as an acceptable standard of living. All of this carefully and subtly presented is a way to fill the needs that we all have. But these counterfeits only bring comprise as a way of life. These seemingly small compromises produce an aggressive progression of lust that if not contained will birth sin. If the idea of this sin continues as normal, the idea will lead to death.

Darkness smells compromise as a result of the fear and doubt we cannot help but to embrace.

The most natural vile and unclean bird that I can imagine would have to be a vulture. These scavengers are large ravenous birds that gorge themselves on dead rotten carcasses that lay victim across the landscapes. Like the unclean birds mentioned in Revelations the very idea of what these vile creatures represent frighten us. The pictures and videos of several of these creatures picking the flesh off the decaying victims repulse us. Somehow these creatures know when death is approaching. They begin to circle the sick and the injured waiting on death to appear and rip that last breath from their mortal bodies. They slowly and methodically wait, inch closer until death presents itself and takes the last breath away.

We see the underlying spiritual meaning in this very natural process. Unclean spirits must be invited into the lives of individuals based on a continual sin, an unrepented sin. The longer we stay in a sin, the closer death gets. What are the wages of sin? Death. You don’t show up for work and get paid immediately. You must earn your wages over a period of time. Life would be a lot simpler if we received the punishment for sin immediately after committing the sin. But God grants each individual mercy. He gives us an opportunity to turn from the sin, He also gives us believers Grace, the imputed Spirit of God, to have the power to turn from sin. As believers we are convicted by the Holy Spirit as we consider and eventually engage in the acts of darkness. Darkness proposes these counterfeits by what we allow to enter through our five senses, especially by what we see and by what we hear. If we resist, quench the conviction of the Holy Spirit, our hearts (sub-conscious), begins to lose its ability to feel the conviction that is telling us to turn and flee. This is what scripture refers to has hardening of the heart.

Proverbs 28:13-14 NKJV

He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. Happy is the man who is always reverent, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.

Parents can invite these unclean spirits into their children’s lives by their continual unrepented sin, by their rebellion against the mandates of the Lord.

Exodus 20:5 NKJV you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me…

Generational Curses / Familiar Spirits

Lamentations 5:7 NLT

Our ancestors sinned, but they have died— and we are suffering the punishment they deserved!

Exodus 34:7 (ESV)

keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

These falling angels, demons, are eternal beings meaning that they have been around a long time and will live forever. These beings best understood a persons without a physical body. They are well organized and according to Ephesians the 6th chapter and Daniel the 10th chapter we see that they vary in authority, rank and power. We see unclean spirits mentioned throughout the Bible. These are the foot soldiers and some of them get assigned to your family for generations. When a medium supposedly is talking to someone’s deceased family member, they are just talking to the demon that has been assigned to your family generations. At these seances these unclean demonic spirits are granted permission to attach themselves to the believer and enter the unbelievers.

These demonic, unclean foot soldiers know yours and all your family’s dirty little secrets, everything you have done, everything your mama has done, everything your daddy has done has been carefully watched for generations.

Job is a great example of a godly person leaving a gate open for darkness. Some of the most relevant scriptures in the book of are just read over.

Job 1:6b KJV …for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

Job 3:25 MSG … The worst of my fears has come true, what I’ve dreaded most has happened.

KJV … For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

Job demonstrates what excessive worry, doubt and fear will bring into your life. He allowed his words to be controlled by his anxiety and not by the promises of God. It looks like Job attended church, he was extremely financially blessed, so he was a consistent thither and giver. The scripture says he was a perfect and an upright man. But, he lived his life by the, What Ifs!

Matthew 12:34 KJV O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

What we fix our hearts on, what rolls over in our minds, what keeps us up at night, will eventually come out of our mouths.

Proverbs 18:20-21 MSG Words satisfy the mind as much as fruit does the stomach; good talk is as gratifying as a good harvest.

Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.

Every natural issue we have in this life, has a spiritual root.

Here are a few signs that you are struggling with an unclean spirit;

· Constant depression and anxiety

· Continually complaining, a very negative mindset

· You find yourself hiding part of your life, even lying about it.

· Overtaking medication

· Inability to stop looking at and listening to things you shouldn’t be

· Your finances are always a mess.

o Malachi 3:11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes”

· You just can’t seem to be consistent with you walk with the Lord. Prayer, Studying, Worship, Church Attendance

· Judging others

· Minimizing your sins by comparison to others

· Envying others position, belongings and status

o If I just had a good job like __________?

o If I just had a good husband/wife ________?

How to handle the unclean spirit…

2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

To understand Spiritual Warfare, we must understand the importance of who we are, why we created and who we are fighting.