Let's pray together, please. Father, we thank you for the treasures of your holy word. We pray you would help us to think biblically, accurately, faithfully about this very important and very widely misunderstood and mispracticed topic of spiritual warfare. Help us to understand what the scriptures teach about it, to receive its truth with faith and love, to lay it up on our hearts and to practice it in our lives. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Please turn your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, 2 Corinthians 10 verses 3-5 is our scripture reading and sermon text for this evening. 2 Corinthians 10 verses 3-5, this is God's Word. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. May God bless the reading of his Holy Word. I grew up listening to Mike Warnke tapes. Anyone remember Mike Warnke? Some of the older heads are nodding. Remember Mike Warnke? The former Satanist high priest who allegedly became a Christian and wrote a book called The Satan Seller. And it was a best-selling book. And I remember it sitting on the coffee table at home. And eventually it came out, he made the whole thing up. He was a liar. He was hugely popular. That book first came out in 1972. Rocked the Christian world. I also used to listen to the tapes of the popular Christian radio personality, Bob Larson. Anyone here ever listened to Bob Larson? Bob Larson, Richard, listen to Bob Larson? And I remember listening to tapes of Bob Larson's radio program where he conducted exorcisms over the radio. And they were disturbing. I listened to those when I was 12, 13, 14 years old. I lost a little sleep over some of that. I now today believe it was fake. All of it was fake. I heard one person who's part of a group today who call themselves the Demon Slayers. They're the people that produced the film, Come Out in Jesus's Name. He said to a very large group of Christians, if you are addicted to anything, you've got company, meaning you have demons, even if you're a Christian, from which you need deliverance. Now, exorcisms are something that Jesus and the apostles did, and you see those in the book of Acts, you see them in the gospels. After the time period of the apostles, however, there were many unbiblical practices that developed around exorcisms, and it kind of waxed and waned in church history in terms of its popularity. Protestant Reformation, Lutheran and Reformed, branches of it abolished those practices. We're going to do an entire message on demon possession in this series. I'm going to try to do it on the Sunday nights that I'm speaking to you on Sunday nights and the rise of so-called deliverance ministries. Deliverance ministries is a strange phenomenon. It started in the late 1960s. and it had its heyday and then it kind of died and then it made a resurgence in the vineyard movements. Anyone here familiar with the vineyard and the Toronto blessing and all that stuff? Many people I know experienced deliverances. Many Christians I know went through deliverance sessions and deliverance ministry stuff where they had demons cast out of them, et cetera. And then it died off a little bit then, but it's come back in the last few years with a vengeance, with a group that now calls themselves the Demon Slayers. And they're rather wackadoodle practices that you can watch online. Now, before we look at our text, one thing that's important to recognize, which is almost never recognized, is the following. Y'all need to make a mental note of this. Every person in the Bible that cast out demons of anyone in the New Testament also healed the sick and raised the dead. The ability to exercise demons is one of the special miraculous sign and wonder gifts that the Lord does not give to people today. Exorcists and so-called demon slayers today do not heal the sick and they don't raise the dead either. While there are certainly lots of psychosomatic, that means bodily phenomenon, that take place at these deliverance meetings and in deliverance sessions, what the demon slayers and the exorcists of our time will fail to tell you is about the multitudes of people who have been through these deliverance sessions and deliverance meetings to go home after the euphoria has worn off only to discover they're still addicted to drugs. only to discover that they're still sick, only to discover that although the demon of cancer and the demon of Crohn's disease and the demon of liver failure were cast out of them, they still have all of these problems. They still have explosive tempers. They still struggle with the same sins. And so a whole movement now is arising up against the deliverance ministry saying, hey, it didn't work. And the deliverance ministry guys, the demon slayers are publishing very acrimonious videos saying, well, the problem is you, you didn't repent all the way. The problem is you, you didn't have enough faith. Now, why is this stuff not working? Why does this not work? Well, because at best trying to cast demons out of a Christian is a waste of time. A Christian has been delivered from the dominion of darkness and cannot be indwelt or possessed by demons. It is utterly useless. These deliverance ministries, the deliverance sessions that people go through, listen, they bear none of the fruit of genuine biblical sanctification. In his excellent book called Truth or Territory? A Biblical Approach to Spiritual Warfare, Jim Osman wrote this, quote, spiritual warfare is the most widely misunderstood subject in modern evangelicalism. When most Christians hear the words spiritual warfare, they envision some sort of mystical hand-to-hand combat that is waged with demons by certain types of prayers, mantras, incantations, or practices such as binding Satan, praying a hedge of thorns, exorcisms, or rebuking demons in an attempt to take territory away from Satan and claim it for Christ. Not only are these specific practices not the least bit biblical, but neither is the notion that spiritual warfare involves direct interaction against demons in order to gain spiritual or physical territory." End quote. Now, you might be wondering, why are we gonna read slowly and carefully through the passage that we're going to read through first? 2 Corinthians 10, verses three through five. Why not go through Ephesians 6 and the armor of God and how to put on each piece of the armor of God? Why not look at the passages about exorcisms where Jesus cast out demons and where the apostles and their associates cast out demons in the book of Acts? Why not look at James 3, 14 through 4, 12 about resisting the devil to make him flee from you? Why not begin with 1 Peter 5, 6 through 11 and talk about our roaming adversary, the devil, who is prowling around looking for someone to devour? and how we are to resist him by power encounters and casting him and his demonic agents out of people by identifying generational curses, praying hedges of thorns and delivering people from the demons of addiction, the demons of diseases and the demons of our sins. Why do we not do that? Because all such interpretations of those passages fundamentally misunderstand the true nature of spiritual warfare. we are called to engage in. David Powelson wrote this quote, the classic text, this is an excellent quote, please hear this. The classic text on spiritual warfare, Ephesians 6, 10 to 20, James 3, 14 to 412, 1 Peter 5, 6 through 11, teach a mode of fighting the devil's bid for lordship. that centers on the Word of the Living God, faith, repentance, prayer, and obedience in the power of the Spirit. There is no hint of exorcistic methods in these passages because the Bible does not view the problem of sin, especially in Christians, as linked to an indwelling demon who must be evicted. Satan is an enemy. Demons are enemies, but they're not your biggest enemy. And he's not my biggest enemy and demons are not my biggest enemy. You know what my biggest enemy is? Me. I'm the problem. All those practices I mentioned, trying to cast out demons from Christians, and even these demon slayers actually have instruction manuals on how to cast demons out of various parts of your body, where they tend to hide, like up your nose and your ears and your eye sockets and things like that. And folks, these YouTube channels have millions of subscribers. And people eat this stuff up. You know why they eat it up? Because they don't want to engage in real spiritual warfare. It's a lot harder than that. This whack-a-doodle entertainment stuff, yeah, sells better, but it has no effect on the spiritual realm at all, none. Our sicknesses, our personal struggles with sin, they're not caused by demons. And I believe personally that deliverance ministries, and there are a couple in this area. We've discovered, Ryan Kaiser would send me a link. There's a couple in the area. Maybe we should go just for fun. itinerant exorcists trying to identify demons as the causes of all of our sinful tendencies. Listen, that mentality is itself a demonic deception that will keep you in bondage to everything. The devil has deceived untold multitudes of people into thinking that they're really doing battle against him by ignoring the very field upon which that battle is to be fought. Spiritual warfare is about truth, not territory. It's about truth, not territory. It's about ideas, doctrines, teachings, theology. It is not about hand-to-hand combat with demons. Anyone here ever read any Frank Peretti novels? Okay, a few of you. All the older people have, none of the younger people have. You should seriously go home and praise God for that. I read This Present Darkness, Piercing the Darkness. I thought there was a demon under every rustling leaf. Listen, spiritual warfare is not about binding the devil, binding demons, casting demons out of Christians, as Alexander Pagani says, a man who identifies himself as an apostle, casting demons out of various parts of your body where they tend to hide. The battle is not about screaming at believers or unbelievers, come out in the name of Jesus, fire in the name of the Holy Spirit. That has nothing to do with spiritual warfare whatsoever. If Satan can get the church to believe that that sort of thing is literally spiritual warfare, Satan's going to take over the world. What turned the Roman Empire upside down, folks? The gospel. The truth did. What liberated Europe from the satanic bondage of the Roman Catholic state church religion? It was the gospel. It was the truth. What turned convents and monasteries into orphanages in 16th century Europe? It was the message of the gospel, the truth about a free and full salvation by faith alone in Christ alone, completely apart from works. That revolutionized the world and the recovery of the Christian doctrine of vocation, that your jobs matter, that you should do your work well. That's what liberated people from bondage. You ever notice Calvin, Luther, Bucer, all the rest of the reformers, the second generation reformers, they did not try to map out where all the demons lived in Strasbourg and Wittenberg and Geneva and cast them out by name. They didn't do anything like that because they understood what spiritual warfare was all about. It's about the truth, not territory. It was the gospel, the Bible, the preaching of the word, what led to the evangelization of the modern world. It was the truth of the gospel that were justified by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone, and the multitudes of people that were born again. They changed the world. They brought a Christian worldview into history, science, geography, the arts, engineering, law, teaching, shoemaking, cooking, raising children, marriage, friendship, charity, weaving, and every other Christ-honoring calling and vocation under the sun. The resurgence in our time of deliverance ministries, the resurgence of that in our day, after they appeared in the 1960s and then died, reappeared in the vineyard movement and then died, and it's come back now with a vengeance, that is itself a demonic deception. to keep Christians preoccupied with useless garbage that accomplishes nothing while lies about God, grace, Jesus, the gospel, sin, salvation, God's covenants, sacraments, God's sovereignty, law, society, marriage, the church, lies about all these things go unchecked. The nature of the battle we fight is about truth. Spiritual warfare is about truth. Our enemy is lies and falsehood. Who are the heroes of the Christian church throughout its entire history? Who are the greatest heroes of the Christian faith? Theologians, pastors, scholars, Bible teachers. Who fought the good fight against false doctrine, against soul damning heresy, against lies? Who fought those battles? I have a question. Who are the great exorcists of the second and third centuries? Who are the demon slayers of the 12th and 14th century? Yeah, I couldn't think of any either. Jesus told us about our enemy, the devil. You want to know where he's operating? He tells us, John 8, 44, he told his opponents, you're of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning. Everywhere you see people being murdered, abortion clinics, that is the work of Satan. Okay, anywhere people are needlessly losing their lives, that is the work of the devil. Murder, he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources for he is a liar and the father of it. So murder and lying, those are his tools that he uses. That's where you see the work of the devil. As far as our own struggles with sin, we must not blame the devil. We must not blame demons for those things. It is our own sinful flesh that is the source of our sins. And we are told in scripture to put to death the deeds of the body, put to death the old man, put to death the sinful flesh that you have. And our victimhood culture wants to blame someone else for everything, doesn't it? You see how this plays right into the hands of the generation that's arising now that doesn't think it does anything wrong ever, and that every stupid thing they ever do is someone else's fault? Christians do the same thing, sadly. Remember when God confronted Adam in the Garden of Eden after he rebelled? God said, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I have commanded you that you should not eat? And what does he say? The woman, it's her fault. And then God says to Eve, what have you done? What does she say? The serpent. We're all about blaming. And isn't this a convenient thing to do? When I sin, when I do foolish things, I can blame it on demons. What I really need is to go to a deliverance session and to roar and scream and writhe around on the ground for a few minutes. And that'll take care of my sin problem. And as I said, the people going through this stuff are realizing it doesn't work. We all still have the same sins. Adam blamed the woman and God. Hey, God, the woman you gave me, she was your idea. It's her fault. The woman, serpent made me do it. We all want to blame someone else. Today that comes in the form of blaming demons. You know, it's neatly refuted by the word of God. Listen to scripture, please. Galatians 5.19, now the works of the flesh, what is the flesh? That's our sinful nature that we still have even as believers. Notice he doesn't say, now the works of demons are evident. Adultery, fornication, he says, no, no, no, the works of your flesh, the works that arise from your own sinful heart. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, simple ambitions. Selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Satan is an enemy, but he's not our greatest enemy. My own sinful flesh is my greatest enemy. Listen, please. If God were to lock up Satan and every demon on this planet and keep them completely away from us for the rest of our lives, guess what you're still gonna struggle with tomorrow? Sin. It's not his fault. My biggest problem is my own sinful heart that I carry with me everywhere I go. You can't blame demons for what we freely do. Our war is against lies, it's against ideas, it's against false doctrines. And you know what? The Bible contains no instructions about casting out demons, none. But most of it was written against false doctrine though. Most of the New Testament is a polemic against lies, against false teaching. All war is against those lies. That's what the battle is. Spiritual warfare is a battle for truth, not territory. It's not about intensive battles with demons where we cast them out on Jesus's authority or anything of the kind. It's a war about what's true. Now, are you still in 2 Corinthians 10, three? Let's walk through this passage here together now. 2 Corinthians 10, verse three. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Now, I wanna give you a little bit of background. What is Paul talking about? What is the context of this statement here? 2 Corinthians is Paul's defense of himself. After he wrote 1 Corinthians, if you've read 1 Corinthians recently, you know Paul says some pretty harsh things to them and rebukes them for a lot of different sins that they were committing. And there were people in the Corinthian church who claimed to be apostles, who were not really apostles. Can you imagine that? People saying that they're apostles and they really aren't. There are many, many, many people today claiming to be apostles, okay? And you need to understand, There are no apostles today. There are no apostles today, capital A or small a, apostles, none. There are elders and there are deacons. And these fake apostles were a constant problem in the early churches. And Jesus dictated a letter to the church at Ephesus in the book of Revelation, and he commended them for this. He said, and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them to be liars. That was a good thing that Ephesus did that. I wish people today would test those who claim to be apostles and mark them for the liars that they are. The false teachers in Corinth, they attacked Paul's motives. They claimed he was in it for the money. They claimed that he lacked integrity. They said he was hypocritical. He was a man who would say one thing and not follow through with it. They also attacked his friend Titus. They even made fun of Paul's physical appearance. They attacked his abilities and they even attacked his preaching. Rarely in the history of Christianity has a church ever had someone so gifted like Paul who treated him so badly. And Paul describes these fake apostles in very strong terms in 2 Corinthians 11, 13. He says, for such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. And those dangerous people alive are always ordained ministers. Always. Who preach false gospels. And people trust them. Paul wrote the second letter to this church, and he wrote a lot to the church of Corinth. First Corinthians is 16 chapters. Second Corinthians is 13 more. And he wrote this letter to defend himself, to defend his coworkers against these vicious attacks of false teachers. Paul vindicates his own apostleship, his authority, his power, his ministry, his conduct, his motives, and the message of the gospel. In 2 Corinthians, Paul calls the true believers in that church, he calls upon them to reject entirely all of these wicked teachers, all of these false teachers. And Paul in the verse immediately following our passage, you see verse six there? See verse six there for 2 Corinthians 10? He says, and we are ready to punish all disobedience whenever your obedience is complete. When he says, when your obedience is complete, meaning when you have expelled all these people out of the church. He's telling them, you gotta know who these guys are and excommunicate them and get them out and reject them, reject their false Jesus, their false gospel, the false methods of spiritual warfare that they're advocating and their attacks on a true apostle, me. And in fact, Paul even says in 2 Corinthians 12, 12, one of the ways that you know I'm an apostle, I did the signs of an apostle. I did signs and wonders and miracles and they didn't. And this brings us to the main issue before us. Paul in our passage here in verses three through five, he's going to draw a very sharp distinction between his divinely true method of spiritual warfare and that of the false apostles and these deceitful workmen. Okay, so let's look at verse three here again. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. Verse four, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. Now the word flesh, as he's using it there, he says, we walk in the flesh, but we don't war according to the flesh. He's simply speaking of, we're just ordinary men with normal human natures. Paul is simply saying, we walk as normal human beings in this world, but the way that we wage spiritual war is not limited by our physical natures or our normal human limitations. We walk and live physically, but we do battle spiritually, not physically. We do battle spiritually, not physically. One of the things that happened in 2007, 2008 with Todd Bentley and the Lakeland revival and him following in the path of a former revivalist like Smith Wigglesworth and others. This man was kicking people in the face to try to knock demons out of them. Smith Wigglesworth did the same thing. These people baptized crass violence to try to get demons out of people. That is fleshly spiritual warfare. That is not how we're called upon to do spiritual warfare. We have specific weapons given to us, dear congregation. Look at verse four. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful. Okay? I'm not supposed to jump on someone and attack them and put my hand on their forehead and scream at them in Jesus' name, come out of him or anything like that. Okay? Our weapons are not like that. They're not fleshly weapons. The weapons of our warfare are divinely powerful for the advancement of truth, not for the defense of physical territory. The temptation that the church always faces is to go beyond scripture and to take its cues from the world of unbelief. We're not called to walk in human wisdom or human methods and in worldly ways of thinking. And while I'll tell you, power encounters and deliverance ministries, I mean, it works to draw a large crowd. and to get people whipped up into an emotional frenzy and it causes a lot of growling and writhing around on the ground and other odd phenomena. While that certainly works to draw a crowd, it has no influence on spiritual things at all, none. You wanna know what real spiritual warfare looks like? A seminar on the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. Here's another way to fight the spiritual war. A seminar on justification by faith alone. and the right distinction between justification and sanctification, and the judgment of God, the judgment of works, and understanding that biblically and accurately. That's how you do spiritual warfare. That's how our Christian forefathers did spiritual warfare. They understood it was a battle for what's true. What did our Christian forefathers go into battle for? The truth. And what did they fight that battle with? God's word, with the scriptures, the sword of the spirit, It's a very famous statue of the great church father, Athanasius, the great defender in the fourth century of the full deity of Jesus Christ. And at the bottom of the statue, it says, Athanasius Contramundum, Athanasius against the world. And the statue is him holding a Bible close to his chest because he loved God's word and he stood for God's word. And he stood at times almost by himself against most of the professing church on earth as it was capitulating to the Arian heresy that denied the deity of Christ. And he defended the deity of Christ while everyone else was compromising. How did Athanasius fight that battle? Did he bind the demons of heresy? Did he cast them out of the church? Did he hold a deliverance session and invite the Arians and rebuke the demons and bind them and cast them out? How did Athanasius win that battle? He preached, prayed and wrote. He refuted heresy with Scripture. He fought with divinely powerful weapons of spiritual warfare, the truth of Holy Scripture against the lies that damned people and left them in bondage to falsehood. And folks, we gotta realize in our church culture, especially in America today, we're surrounded by worldly fleshly methods of spiritual warfare. new and improved methods and theories of how Christian war against the world, the sinful flesh and Satan are to be fought. And we're assured that we can win with these worldly fleshly methods. We walk as normal human beings, we walk in our bodies and our flesh, but the way that we wage war is not in the flesh. It's not in that way. We don't fight the way the world does, nor the way these fake apostles and false teachers in Corinth wanted to. The modern deliverance ministries and manuals of how to bind and cast out territorial spirits, how to do genealogical research to find out, hey, if you've got a problem with alcohol, if you've got a problem with this or that, it's because someone up the line in your genealogical tree had this issue and you got to use this incantation to break this generational curse and set yourself free from all this stuff. Modern deliverance ministries that are telling us these things, that is the fleshly style of warfare that Paul is denouncing here. We're not to use the weapons of human origin, but divinely powerful ones, using the word of God against lies, against falsehood. Jim Osmond said this, quote, the Corinthians trusted in human wisdom and human understanding, which they elevated above divine wisdom. They cherished displays of human abilities, gifts, and talents. They criticized Paul because he was not as gifted in oratory as others. They formed divisions around different teachers and boasted in their own abilities. They sought approval from men and large followings. These are the types of fleshly weapons that Paul rejected. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 1, Paul revealed that when he came to Corinth, he purposely refused to engage the Corinthians on that level, even though he knew he could gain a following if he adopted such man-centered methods of ministry. Remember what he says there? Jews want signs and Greeks seek wisdom, and we refuse to be pragmatic about either. We preach Christ crucified. Well, that's not very exciting. And Paul says, yes, but that's the power of God. That's the wisdom of God. And the foolishness of that message is how God saves people. Paul opted for the foolishness of preaching and the wisdom of God, says Jim Osman, the very opposite of what was sure to draw a following in Corinth, end quote. We are taught three things about these divinely powerful weapons. Number one, they're spiritual. They're not this worldly. It has nothing to do with Todd Bentley using a biker boot to kick old women in the face. The man did this. They have divine power. They destroy strongholds and fortresses. Now, we're going to talk exactly about what he means by this. Now, are you still wondering what these weapons are and what exactly is it that we're fighting? We're fighting lies, we're fighting falsehood. Are we fighting organizations? Are we fighting the ACLU? Are we fighting LGBT-ism? Are we fighting the abortion providers themselves, political parties, the National Organization of Women, the liberal mainline denominational power structures? What do we aim our weapons at and what are we fighting against? Look at verse four again. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. Notice, once again, before we look at the next verse, our enemy is not primarily Satan or demons or generational curses. Our enemy is fortresses. Now, what does he mean by that? He says in verse five, you see it, verse five? We are destroying speculations. and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." Notice, we're not taking every demon captive to the obedience of Christ, every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So the weapons that we have are aimed at something very specific, and it's not demons. It's speculations. And what does that word mean? The Greek word Logismos means reasoning, reflection, thoughts, the product of a cognitive process. So here's what it is. Here's what our war is really against. It's against false thinking. The spiritual war we fight is with false ideas that raise themselves up against the knowledge of God. Years ago, when I took the history of philosophy, it was one of the first classes I took in seminary, and I was really not looking forward to studying the history of philosophy, but it turns out to be incredibly fascinating. Incredibly fascinating. And R.C. Sproul did a wonderful, it was a tape series when I listened to it back after the floodwaters of Noah went away, but a tape series called The Consequences of Ideas. Everything is about the way people think. We're in a war for people's minds. We're in a war against lies that people believe are true. We don't do hand-to-hand warfare with Satan or with demons. We do war against lies, war against speculations, war against vain unbiblical reasoning that is not subject to Christ and to the Bible. The fortresses that we're trying to bring down and destroy, they're not demonic hierarchical power structures. Did you know that you can buy books from the demon slayers and from the deliverance ministries about how to do spiritual mapping of your city? How to identify the demons that live in various parts of your city so that people can pray more specifically against them. And a lot of discernment minister guys have said, don't you think Satan would get a copy of the book and say, hey guys, just move to a different part of town. The fortresses that we're trying to bring down and destroy, they're not demonic hierarchical structures of power. They're not spells or curses or possessions or indwelling demons. Spiritual warfare is a battle to destroy mental fortresses. We are called to fight the vain speculations, the made-up ideas, the, well, there's no God, God's not allowed to exist, so where did we all come from? I guess dirt just accidentally assembled itself into life. That's speculation. And we say to that, no, that's not true, that's not scientific, that's false. And here's what's true. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We're called to fight the vain speculations and empty reasonings of unbelief, evolution, false doctrine, false gospels, false Jesuses, false holy spirits, false notions about God, about sin, about grace, salvation, heaven, hell, demons, about spiritual warfare itself. Ministers need to preach and preach and preach to get the doctrine of the true gospel right. Justification by faith alone and Christ alone. We need to preach and teach so that people understand God correctly, that he is tri-personal, that there's one true God, that there are three consubstantial, co-equal, co-powerful persons. We need to make sure that people understand what repentance is. what the final judgment is. That is the essence of spiritual warfare. And that is what our Reformed forefathers and our Christian forefathers before them understood. The battle we are in is about the truth, not territory and demons. It is not a charlatan prancing around on a stage, screaming at demons while music plays in the background and people are rolling around on the floor, raising their hands. I wanna tell y'all, such activities have absolutely no impact on the spiritual realm or the souls of men whatsoever, none. You wanna see spiritual warfare in action? You wanna see spiritual warfare in action? Let me tell you, here's what spiritual warfare really looks like. Here's where you know someone's really come to get on the battlefield and do battle. It's the young man, the young woman, the nine-year-old, the older man, The older woman, sitting in church with an open Bible, following along, listening to the exposition of the word of God, learning and changing the way they think about everything from error to truth. That's what spiritual warfare is. It's people having their own false mental fortresses shattered and rebuilt with biblical truth. That's what spiritual warfare is. Answers in Genesis has been doing spiritual warfare, real spiritual warfare against the vain speculation of evolution for many decades now. as has Jason Lyle, as has Brother Following, as has Creation Ministries International. That's where the battle is. It's against lies and speculations. That's spiritual warfare. It's a battle for the mind. It's a battle against lies with divinely powered truth from God. You know, Ken Ham, one of his best books. I love the title because it's so spot on the money and it's so offensive. It's just called Evolution Lie. Because that's what it is. Evolution is vain speculation. The Christian church needs to do battle against that vain speculation, not, well, let's figure out ways to talk about Hebraistic triads and couplets and make it so that you don't even need to care what Genesis 1 really means. That's called leaving the field of battle and giving it over to Satan and his agents. Why has the ministry of R.C. Sproul stood the test of time and a new generation of Christians are now discovering him? because he did real spiritual warfare. Why do you not remember any of the demon slayers from the 1960s? Because they didn't have any lasting impact on anything. Why don't you remember the demon slayers from the various centuries? Because they didn't accomplish anything. Sproul fought against gospel heresy with the divinely powerful tools to destroy those fortresses. Listen to scripture, Romans 12, one and two. Listen, listen to this. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect, the will of God. You want to be transformed? You want to be delivered from your sins? You want to be delivered from the clutches of your besetting struggles with temptation? Is it going to be by a deliverance session, having the demons of disease cast out? Is it going to be by going to a wild revival meeting with no preaching and teaching or exposition of scripture, but lots of dancing and lots of loud emotional music? Is it by learning how to bind Satan, bind demons, cast out demons from Christians? As I said, please remember this, if the devil can actually trick you badly enough to think that such things are even remotely related to the real battle, he will assure that you never get on the battlefield at all. All that loony stuff, seriously, if you can stomach it, YouTube search Deliverance Ministries and just watch for about five minutes and then I'm not responsible for anything after that. That stuff has nothing to do with God. And God, the Holy Spirit, is not present in those meetings, and there's nothing happening there. You know how I know that the Holy Spirit's not present there? Because Christ is not being exalted and preached. And anywhere He's not exalted and preached, the Holy Spirit's not present there. That glorious word, transform, that be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that Greek verb, metamorphomai. It's where we get the English word metamorphosis. You ever seen the caterpillar, they spin themselves up in the cocoon and saw a documentary about what happens inside the cocoon. You know, the scientists have really no idea what's actually happening in there. Somehow, the caterpillar liquefies its internals and all these structures and stuff start forming and when it comes out, it can fly. How do you gradually get something like that to happen? That transformation, that is every bit as miraculous and spectacular and glorious as we are born again too. We go through the metamorphosis too. Christian life is one giant transformation, one giant metamorphosis. And how has that happened? You gotta think differently. You gotta think differently about everything. And you know what? That takes a lot of hard work. That takes a lot of Bible study. That takes a lot of wrestling with Scripture. But listen, the way that you think about everything has to change. You want your life to change? You gotta think differently about everything. The way I think about money, about work, about marriage, about the biological sex that God gave me, my habits, my hobbies, music, God, grace, sin, theology, all the categories of systematic theology has gotta be transformed if we are gonna be transformed. My own mental fortresses that are set up against the knowledge of God must also constantly daily be destroyed by the divinely powerful weapons of true spiritual warfare in the study of scripture. The battle we are in is for the minds of people. It's a battle of ideas. It's a battle about truth, not territory. Truth, not territory. Until the Christian church gets this, Until we get this, the church in America is gonna continue limping along, concerned about social causes instead of truth, instead of theology. We're gonna keep limping along until we're all dead, and then God's gonna have to raise up a new generation of people who are better than us. who are not enamored by worldliness, who don't care about fleshly methods of spiritual warfare, who are not so distracted by entertainment, who are not so self-centered and selfish that our thoughts don't extend far enough beyond our nose to reach to a Bible. If we think spiritual warfare, the war in which every single true believer is a soldier fighting it, if we actually think it's the goofy, useless power encounters and shaking, shivering, barking, screaming buffoonery that has come to dominate whatever's left of Bible-believing Christianity in America, we are doomed. What we need more than anything is another reformation of theology. and a return to Scripture, and a renewed confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture for the church and the Christian life. Jim Osmond said this, one last quote from his book, his book is outstanding. He said, these mental fortresses are against the knowledge of God. Paul is not just describing innocent thoughts, he's talking about mental fortresses. Reasonings of the human heart, prideful, self-reliant, man-centered human philosophies and speculations. The war we wage is against the proud, lofty, God-defying speculations of the human heart that are raised up in opposition to the true knowledge of God." End quote. I just wanna warn y'all, we are not called upon to directly engage with demons or the devil. As soldiers in God's army in this spiritual war, we fight mental fortresses with divinely powerful weapons. The reasonings that set themselves up against the truth of God, that's what spiritual warfare is against in scripture. It's a war for truth, not territory. And if Satan can deceive you into thinking that spiritual warfare is about territory, and it's about fighting hand to hand with demons, listen, you will be useless as a soldier to God. You wanna fight your own mental fortresses and really change? Memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism and all the biblical proof texts. You wanna really engage in spiritual warfare? You wanna see your own life transformed? Show up at church adequately rested with your Bible in your hand, having prayed, God, help me to destroy my mental fortresses that are still set up against you. Come to church, prayed up, ready to study. There's nothing that gives me the chills more. See a young man, young woman, see anybody, they're ready. They got their Bible, they're ready to go to war, ready to go to battle. Has nothing to do with these weird power encounters and this stuff that it sells well. I mean, it sells, it makes for good TV, but it has nothing to do with God. It has nothing to do with the real war. We're transformed by the renewing of our minds. And the divinely powerful weapon that we have, the scriptures, the sword of the spirit, is to destroy speculations and mental fortresses and lies. That's what the battle's about. Spiritual warfare is about truth, not territory from Satan. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this great passage, 2 Corinthians 10, three through five. Help us to reflect on it and look carefully at what it says. And may we not war according to the flesh, but as your word teaches us to. As Paul wrote and refuted with the truth, the false teachers of the Judaizing heresy in Galatia, as John wrote against those who deny the incarnation by speaking forth the reality of that physical incarnation, he gave truth in the place of error. Paul put truth in the place of error. Lord, why would we be so foolish as to think we're supposed to fight in any other way than they did? Help us to fight this war against ideas, against lies, and to fight it with truth, that divinely powerful weapon you've given us. And we pray you deliver those who are deceived into thinking that the spiritual war they're in is about territory from Satan. I pray this in Christ's name, amen.