Hi all,
They say when training government agents about how to spot counterfeit money, they train the agents to know real money to the last detail. In that way, when a counterfeit is seen, the agent immediately recognizes it is counterfeit because they know the true so well.
So in this study I’m going to start by showing New Testament realities. Once we are so immersed in New Testament realities, when we encounter the fake, we’ll immediately recognize it.
What is your ‘ticket’ into heaven?
To ask another way, “Why do you go to heaven? or, “How do you know you’re going to heaven?”
Most people would immediately say, “My sins are forgiven”.
But that is not the correct answer. What gets you into heaven is your spirit being recreated by the Holy Spirit.
“…Truly, truly I tell you, ‘Except a person is born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit.” John 3: 5
Here Jesus says the ‘ticket’ into heaven is having your spirit recreated by the Holy Spirit – He said nothing about sins being forgiven. Think of it another way; that everyone in heaven has a spirit that has been recreated by the Holy Spirit. Old things are past, behold, all things have become new. We are new creations in Christ.
Having our sins forgiven was the legal action which allowed the Father to recreate our spirit by His Spirit.
What about the water?
For some, this has been a point of great debate, but if we set it in context it makes sense. The first method of setting the context is to see who Jesus is talking to. That answer is Nicodemus, a leader in Israel, who was trying to grasp the ministry of Jesus. They met at night, privately, and we are given insights to this private discussion.
Then we ask ‘when?’ That answer to that is early on in the ministry of Jesus. In John 1 it was all about John the Baptist, and Jesus Himself had submitted to water baptism. Jesus had to show Nicodemus He was righteous – He had fulfilled all righteousness by being water baptized. What does that mean?
What did water baptism meant to Nicodemus and first century Judaism? In Judaism in the first century, there were many ‘ritual washings’, including full and partial baptism. Gentiles who wanted to become Jewish were water baptized as a public expression of their faith in the God of Israel. Jewish people were baptized to express repentance or renewal of dedication to the Lord.
So whether Jew or a Gentile convert, faith in the God of Israel was publicly expressed by being water baptized. Without it, you were not counted as being in covenant with God. That’s why Jesus submitted to being water baptized, so He would have credibility, because it was right culturally and historically to the Jewish faith.
This is in the 3rd chapter of John
Jesus had submitted to John’s water baptism. John’s words and Jesus’ baptism would have been fresh on Nicodemus’ mind, for he understood to be ushered into the faith, Jew or Gentile, one must first be water baptized.
So when Jesus said to Nicodemus in this private meeting; ‘Except you be born of water (initiated into faith in the faith of the God of Israel) and the Spirit (your spirit recreated by the Spirit of God’, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven’, it makes sense.
This understanding of the emphasis on the recreated spirit being the ‘ticket’ to heaven is seen throughout the New Testament.
I haven’t forgotten the subject is spiritual warfare…
But we need to know the position from which we do battle – from the trench or from having already won?
Once your spirit is recreated by the Holy Spirit – that is you are born by the Spirit, you are now a citizen of heaven. You are a child of God for He took of His Spirit to cause you to be born into His Kingdom.
“From this point on I will judge no one by earthly standards, for if anyone is in Christ old things are passed away, behold! All things have become new, and those all things, are of God…” II Corinthians 5: 16-18
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.” Ephesians 1:3
“…after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, after you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise…” Ephesians 1: 13
“…that the eyes of your understanding would be opened to know the invitation He has given to you, and what the riches of that inheritance is for the saints, and His exceeding great power which is directed to and for us who believe. That is the same power He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and authority and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world but also that which is to come. And He (Father) has put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the church (the body of Christ), which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills the universe with Himself.” Ephesians 1: 18-23
This is just a start at seeing what we have and who we are in Christ. We are recreated by the Holy Spirit, we have the authority to use the name of Jesus against demons, we are seated in the heavenlies in Christ. We’ve been adopted to the Father through the sacrifice of Jesus (1:5).
Once you realize this, you’ll know demons are terrified of the Christian who knows who they are in Christ.
I freely share things of the Lord and angels during visitations – those times I am ‘in the Spirit’ as Revelation 1:10 and 4:2 calls it. But I rarely talk about seeing demons, though I’ve seen many.
Nearly every time I’ve seen a demon, and he realizes I can see him, he runs away terrified. They are terrified of us. An exception to that was a demon I saw in a church once, actually I’ve seen a few of that kind. They look kind of like the character from Star Wars called ‘Jabba the Hutt’. Big, slovenly, fat, lazy. In each time they were secure in their position in the church building.
And each time I saw them they were in what we could call ‘prosperity churches’. Their task seemed to be causing people to become prideful in their possessions, resulting in laziness – let someone else reach the poor, the downtrodden. “Teach me but don’t challenge me to apply it to my life” sort of Christian. The kind of church where people invite Jesus into their life as part of their schedule, rather than give Jesus their whole being.
These demons knew I couldn’t cast them out of the building because the pastor and leadership and people wanted them there.
In one visitation with the Lord He was teaching me how demons get into the mind of a person.
Christians cannot have demons in their spirit, for that has been recreated by the Holy Spirit. But if a person entertains evil thoughts they can reach a point a demon will enter into their minds and try to take over their thoughts and emotions.
In this visitation it was about a Christian man who was just standing there, and in the Spirit where the Lord and I were, this man was in a massive sphere of light. The light was not stopped by floor or ceiling or walls. The man had about a 10 foot (3m) or more sphere of light he was in – God’s light, God’s life.
Two demons were walking around the outside of this sphere of light, looking for a way to get to this man’s mind. The Lord and I were standing behind them as the Lord talked to me, for the demons were focused on the man and didn’t even look behind themselves to see us.
The Lord talked of how this man was righteous
But in one area he had a secret sin that he protected. About every 2 weeks the Lord said, he would entertain thoughts of his flesh, and instead of disciplining himself and redirecting his attention, he would open the door for those demons.
Just then a part of the sphere pulled open, like a slice of pie, wide on the outside and narrowing towards the center. But it was an opening. I saw the demons turn sideways as they moved towards the man in that ‘slice’ so as not to touch the light. When they got close enough to the man they jumped up on his shoulders, and started talking into his ears, and then hopped inside his head, to occupy his thoughts. Then the man sinned, repented, they jumped out, and the opening in the light closed with the demons on the outside once again.
Spiritual warfare gets very personal when we talk of our will, discipline, and secret sins. But I learned in that visitation that we have all the power, all the authority we need. When it comes to personal spiritual warfare, very often we open the doors.
But the devil does also get into our lives by people around us, to harass us – and we’ll pick it up there next week.
Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
