Twenty-five percent of Christ s fifty words in the Lord s Prayer have to do with deliverance.

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1 What is Deliverance? Luke 4:18-18 January 24, 2016 Pastor Keith Johnson Twenty-five percent of Christ s fifty words in the Lord s Prayer have to do with deliverance. And Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. do. There are some things that we need to be delivered from. And that s what Jesus has come to Jesus says of Himself, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. There are some things from which we need to be delivered. We need to hear some good news because we are spiritually poor. We need to be delivered because we are being spiritually held captivity. We need to be given spiritual sight. We need to be set free from all that is oppressing us. There are things that are not of God that are binding us. They are oppressing us. They are confining and restraining and restricting our lives. And these things are spiritual. As St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. This is Paul s way of talking about anything that would rule us other than God Himself. This is spiritual warfare and the Devil is our opponent. The devil wants to emotionally emasculate our minds. He wants to put us into emotional and psychological prisons that we believe we can never be released from. He would trap us into believing that we are hopelessly bound- victims of our past and victims of our circumstances. He would have us to believe that we can never know God, we can never experience peace, we can never know joy, and we can never be filled with hope.

2 But there is an answer. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. There is an answer. Jesus is that answer. Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus and you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. That s a promise from God. True Deliverance is found by looking into the face of God and asking Him to intercede for you. In a dream, Martin Luther found himself being attacked by Satan. The devil unrolled a long scroll. It contained a list of Luther's sins. He held it before him. On reaching the end of the scroll Luther asked the devil, "Is that all?" "No," came the reply, and a second scroll was thrust in front of him. Then, after a second came a third. But now the devil had no more. "You've forgotten something," Luther exclaimed triumphantly. "Quickly write on each of them, 'The blood of Jesus Christ God's son cleanses us from all sins.'" Spiritual deliverance is found in Jesus. The devil is a deceiver. He uses trickery to fight this battle of Spiritual Warfare. He would have you believe that you can never win. You can never be different. You can never change. You can never defeat the fallen desires that plaque you. The devil understands that to gain control of the mind is to ultimately have control of the soul. How do we fight and win a spiritual battle? The Bible says in, 2 Cor. 10:4-5, For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments & every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God & take every thought captive to obey Christ. Our weapons are not carnal. Humanistic attempts are futile in spiritual warfare. We cannot defeat the devil with bombs and guns, armies or navies. We defeat the Devil, as Martin Luther says, with weapons of the Spirit. Our weapon is the Word of God. It will defeat him every time. Alcohol, depression, and narcotics, these are not what people are bound by. Fear and guilt and shame, these are not what people are bound by. These are only the manifestations of the true bondage and that is the bondage of the mind. The true bondage is spiritual!!!!!!! The Bible says in Proverbs 23:7 For as a person thinks in their heart, so they are.

3 The devil knows that the way a person thinks is how that person will act. If he can convince a person to believe something that is untrue then he can cause them to fall and defeat them in this spiritual war. Therefore the alcoholic thinks they need the alcohol in order to make it through the day. They are bound because the devil has control of the mind. The drug addict thinks they can t survive without their drugs. They are therefore bound by their thinking because the devil has control of their mind. It s all bondage of the mind. The Bible says in Romans 12:2, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. It is within our minds that the devil has bound us into thinking that this is the way a certain situation is supposed to be. It is Satan who tries us to get to believe that there is nothing that can be done about it. He convinces us to believe that something is real even though it is not. When we believe something in our minds it not only alters the way we perceive a certain thing, but how we begin to act and live according to what we believe. The Bible gives us in detail the weapons that the devil uses to fight against us, in 1 John 2:16, For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh & the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions- is not from the Father but is from the world. These are the weapons the devil uses against us. If we surrender ourselves to them we will become bound by them. NUMBER ONE IS THIS: THE DESIRES OF THE FLESH! The desires of the flesh!!!!!! The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 2:11, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. The lust of the flesh are the desires that the flesh has that are contrary to the will of God. That is not to say that the body is bad. Nor is it to say that all the desires of the body are bad. We were made by God to feel and desire. God has made many things for the body to enjoy. But what we are talking about here are the desires of the body that are contrary to the will of God. A listing of fleshly desires is given to us in Galatians 5:19-21, Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife,

4 jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. The lusts of the flesh is one weapon he uses to fight this war & cause us to be bound. He knows that our bodies were made to be a temple for the Holy Spirit. 1 Cor. 3:17, If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy & you are that temple. Therefore, he uses the lust of the flesh to war against us in this spiritual war. He knows that if we have been infiltrated by the lust of the flesh we lost a battle in this spiritual warfare. NUMBER TWO IS THIS THE LUST OF THE EYES. The lust of the eyes. This weapon although mentioned second is used first in spiritual warfare. In order to lust after something within the flesh you first must see it. This is how Satan has caused many people to stumble and fall. This is the first step to bondage. This is how he captured Eve s attention in the Garden of Eden. He appealed to the lust of the eyes first. Genesis 3:6 says, And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. The devil realizes that if he can cause us to get our eyes fixed on something that the flesh will begin to desire it and the struggle then begins. King David fell to the tricks of the devil when he looked and saw Bathsheba and his flesh lusted after her. He knew that he was the King. His pride caused him to believe that because he was King that he should have her. In so doing she became with child. David s pride and reputation was affected. It worked on his emotions. It caused him to act in a different way. He conspired against Uriah, Bathsheba s husband, and caused his death. Later David understood how the devil had worked within him. In Psalm 121:1-2 he said, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. David realized that if he continued to keep his eyes on

5 the Lord that he would be able to fight in the spiritual war and be victorious in the end. There is an old saying that goes The eyes are the windows of the soul. A person may have a smile on their face, but by looking into their eyes you realize that something is wrong. What the devil does is he takes this saying and changes it around a little, The eyes are the windows to the soul. He realizes that in order to cause the lust of the flesh he must appeal to the eyes first. Therefore, the eyes become a gateway to ultimately gaining access to the soul. Bondage is placed upon us because we commit ourselves to looking at something to the point that the temptation of that becomes a desire. Then that desire became an obsession that we had to have. NUMBER THREE IS THIS: THE PRIDE OF LIFE. The pride of life. This is the most dangerous and destructive weapon that the devil can use, because it is all fabricated, executed, and manifested in the mind. The Bible says Proverbs 23:7 For as a person thinks in their heart, so they are. The devil knows that the way a person thinks is how that person will act. If he can convince a person to believe something untrue then he can cause them to fall and defeat them in this spiritual war. Pride is the thing that caused our first parents to rebel against God. The pride of life is the existence in a person s mind that they themselves are of great importance. When the pride of life occurs it leads to destruction. The Bible says in Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. In the Garden of Eden, Eve was attacked with the Pride of Life when in Genesis 3:6 she desired the tree. The Bible says, And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. The pride of life was that she believed she would become wise. Pride made her believe that she would be like a god and that in her mind she herself would be of great importance. The devil realizes that pride is the silver bullet of destruction to the heart and mind of men and women. A person that has tremendous pride- to the point they feel as though they are of some great importance-is headed for destruction soon, for the Bible says pride goes before destruction.

6 On the other side a person that has extremely low self-esteem is also vulnerable to the pride of life. When a person has low self-esteem they often feel that they are worth nothing. Their spirit is broken. They feel like what s the use. However, this is just the type of person God wants, for the Bible says in Psalms 34:18 The Lord is near to them that have a broken heart; and saves them who have a contrite spirit. Never give up. Never yield to the temptations of the pride of life. Whether it is thinking of yourself as being of some great importance or worthless, never yield to this weapons of spiritual warfare. A person becomes bound by yielding to the weapons the devil uses to fight against them in spiritual warfare. Can WE ever hope to be delivered? Someone may say I have been this way all my life. I have committed some of the biggest sins you can imagine. I am at the bottom of the barrel. Society has abandoned me. My friends have forsaken me. My family has forgotten me. Surely God wouldn t deliver me. When a person has low self-esteem they often feel that they are worth nothing. Their spirit is broken. They feel like what s the use. However, this is just the type of person God wants. When we are at that point then God can truly manifest Himself in our lives. Psalm 34:18 reads, The Lord is near to them that are of a broken heart; and saves those who have a contrite spirit. You may be broken-down, beat-up, pushed aside and cast out. But remember 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. John 8:36 says If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 10:10 says The thief comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that you might have life, and that they might have it abundantly.

7 When we are bound by the devil we are not living life abundantly. God wants to deliver you and have you experience life more abundantly. DELIVERANCE IS FOR YOU!!!!!!! Remember deliverance is why Jesus came. There is a great difference between realizing that On the Cross Jesus was crucified for you, and knowing that On that Cross you have been crucified with Him. The first realization will bring you deliverance from sins condemnation, but the second will deliver you from sins power. The first understanding saves but the second understanding empowers. Knowing that you have been crucified with Christ is what leads to repentance and renewal. It leads to a life of absolute faith and complete trust! Oswald Chambers once wrote, "Faith is unutterable trust in God, trust that never dreams that He will not stand by us." That s what it means be to be delivered by Jesus. This is how the author of the letter to the Hebrews says it, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is standing at the break of darkness. You don t know if the next step is going to throw you off a cliff or not. But faith is knowing that when you take that step that God will either give you something solid to stand on or give you at that time the ability to fly. Faith is being able to believe that God will make a way out of no way. Trust is the basis of faith, reliance, and hope. Trust is learning how to lean and depend upon Jesus. Staying delivered is trusting in God and keeping your mind on Him. Never give up. Never yield to the temptations of the pride of life, whether it is thinking of yourself as being of some great importance or worthless. Never yield to this weapons of spiritual warfare. Spiritual Warfare is an ongoing battle that we all must learn how to fight in, bondage is the result of this warfare. Deliverance cannot happen unless you first change the way you are thinking. Don t let the devil have control of your mind and you will not be in bondage. Give our mind to Christ. He will deliver you.

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