We are just starting a new series from David Platt's work on "The Secret Church". From what I understand, David Platt starts out this conference at 6:00 p.m. one night and goes until midnight. We will be breaking this up a bit.
Last night we had a preview night that ended up being chalked FULL with information. We watched the first session in a series of video clips. The section we are doing is on "Angels, Demons, and Spiritual Warfare" which I am really interested in learning about. All I know is what I have read from the fiction book "This Present Darkness" by Frank Peretti. I love the book, but at David points out, we need to be focused on understanding the Bible and not Frank Peretti.
We started the night (and ended it, too) by going over the Foundational Truths before diving into the angels and demons part. David Platt said he wanted to equip the body of believers and not entertain and that's what he did...he presented straight facts from the Bible without a whole lot of stories to entertain.
Here are a few key points that stuck out to me:
- As a church, are we a truth carrier or are we a luxury liner? (Truth carrier)
- Will we indulge ourselves in the peaceful comforts of this world or will we engage ourselves in battle for peoples around the world?
- There IS a spiritual world. See 2 Kings 6:8-23 . The king of Aram is at war with Israel and Elisha keeps telling the king of Israel where the king of Aram is and his troops so they can avoid them...well, the king of Aram gets angry and sets out to find Elisha. Elisha's servant gets scared: "Elisha's servant got up early, and when he went out, he saw an army with horses and chariots all around the city. The servant said to Elisha, "Oh, my master, what can we do?" Elisha said, "Don't be afraid. The army that fights for us is larger than the one against us." Then Elisha prayed, "Lord, open my servant's eyes, and let him see." The Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha". WOW! That was the spiritual world that Elisha's servant was able to see!
- The basis for understanding this war is biblical.
We are in a war daily:
"The devil who rules this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. They cannot see the light of the Good News-the Good News about the glory of Christ, who is exactly like God. We do not preach about ourselves, but we preach that Jesus Christ is Lord and that we are your servants for Jesus. God once said: "Let the light shine out of the darkness!" This is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts by letting us know the glory of God that is in the face of Christ".
-2 Corinthians 4:4-6
One of the ways we can be blinded is by not realizing DAILY that we are in a full fledged war for souls. We need to fight the spiritual battle in spiritual ways...PRAY! Satan wants to destroy...he wants to DESTROY God's people and defame God's power. Everyone is affected and involvement is inevitable. The battle is continual and we can't ignore this war.
But, the casualties are that you lose everything. The good news is the outcome is irreversible. Satan has already been defeated
"God stripped the spiritual rulers and powers of their authority. With the cross, he won the victory and showed the world that they are powerless".
-Colossians 2:15
We know the end of the story...we fight FROM victory, not FOR victory.
(I feel like there should be a battle scene here!)
*These are all my notes from David Platt...I didn't come up with this on my own :)
I started reading This Present Darkness and had to stop, it is hands down the scariest book I have ever tried to read!
ReplyDeleteI did that too and then I picked it up a year later and it's really eye opening, but one thing David Platt said was to not base our "knowledge" of angels and demons on "This Present Darkness" which is hard to do now that I have read it and that's what's in my mind. It's not TOO far off, but I need to remember the Bible is my authority and not the book :)
ReplyDelete