By the Word of our
Testimony
Revelation 12:7-9
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more
in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent,
called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out
into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
We have been discussing principalities and powers and the
rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places.
We have also been discovering our ability to overcome them by walking as a
follower of Yeshua, Jesus, seeking to walk as He did in purity, perfection and
holiness. Further we have been discussing that even though the rulers of
darkness display great power and manifest great signs and wonders, that we do
not have to be debilitated by fear. We do not have to suffer paralysis. By our
faith, works and obedience to the almighty creator we become endowed with power
from on high to defeat the enemy and have the victory in every battle. This is
inclusive of the battles fought in the natural realm as well as the spiritual.
I remember once, led by the Holy Spirit, I was instructed to
teach the men in our congregation that the most powerful battle stance for the
follower of Jesus to assume was, like Him, on our knees in prayer. I believe
this to be true. The success of this is well established in me in accordance
with my own testimony. That’s one of the wonderful things about testimony. Over
time your testimony fills you with knowledge and experiences that cannot be
taken from you. You develop an inner witness that no spirit or person can
effectively dispute. It is yours.
When we read scripture about how Michael and his angels
defeated the devil and his angels, we find that there is a three-part battle
plan or strategy they used while defeating them. We see this in,
Revelations 12:10-11
10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come
salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his
Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before
our God day and night.
11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by
the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Here in verse eleven, we find the powerful strategy every
follower of Jesus should adopt and have in their knowledge base when it comes
to warfare. This is warfare in the natural and in the spiritual realm.
By the blood of the Lamb. You must discover, have faith, and
walk in the knowledge of the fact that Jesus, the Lamb of God, gave His life
for you as a holy sacrifice. He shed His blood for all of His sheep. His sheep
are those who make the choice to follow Him and obey all He commands. This He
did so that His sheep would have an avenue to be forgiven and freed from
sinning, and the everlasting curse and death that surely follows continual sin.
He did this so His sheep would have an avenue to the Father in heaven. He did
this so that we would have life more abundant in this life and in eternity.
The word of their testimony. The holy angels developed a
testimony. They grew to know the goodness of God. They saw the pain of
separation from the source of life that comes with rebellion and wickedness
that was exhibited by the fallen and their interactions and observance of
mankind. They live in the result of their humility, obedience, righteousness,
love and faithfulness to our heavenly Father. They know the result of disobedience
and betrayal. It is essential for we as
believers and followers to develop a testimony. Be courageous, have faith, ask,
ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find and knock and watch doors open to you.
Draw neigh unto God He will draw close to you. Jesus promised this,
John 14:20-21
20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye
in me, and I in you.
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is
that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will
love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Once the kingdom of heaven begins to manifest itself to you
in a tangible way you desire to experience more. If you are like me, it lights
a fire in you that cannot be quenched but each experience is added to your
portfolio, so to speak, of encounters. By this you are enriched as you begin to
move from glory to glory. Your
experiences begin to build faith and belief and that faith and belief compel
you to seek more knowledge of the truth. This is when you really start to
become a danger to the darkness of this world, and like Jesus, you begin to
become challenged more and more in your hunger and in your faith. And this is
where many stop in teaching this concept of casting down the accuser, because
the next piece of the strategy requires a level of humility, surrender faith
and belief that is available but most do not want to dawn.
“And they loved not their lives unto the death”. By your
experiences (Testimony), you become so full of knowledge, faith and belief you
start to make a transition. This transition is that of a temporal worldly
thinker to an eternal thinker. Your knowing is no longer bound by the confines
of the world but released into the universal understanding that with God,
truly, nothing is impossible. Now here me, I am not saying we become careless
and reckless. Foolishness ought not be suffered. What I am saying is that when
the follower of Christ Jesus really knows that they are bound for eternity, the
cares of this world begin to slowly grow dim, so too does the concern for the
threats of the enemy. The devil and his children may be able to mess with us in
this temporary life, but they have no presence nor effectiveness in the kingdom
of Heaven. Realizing this is when you become a real threat to him and his
design in the natural and in the spiritual.
The bible teaches us that without faith, it is impossible to
please God. Jesus taught that if we are concerned more for our own lives other
than doing what it takes to follow Him, we are not worthy of Him. Love of your
own life will surely impede your ability to be an effective courageous warrior
for the kingdom of heaven.
Consider this,
Matthew 10:37-39
37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not
worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of
me.
38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me,
is not worthy of me.
39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that
loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
In our last discussion, titled, “In His Likeness and Image”.
I said this, “Now biblically there are supernatural wars in the heavenlies and
as we discovered in the last teaching, by the testimony of Elisha, we can, by
faith, catch a glimpse in to the spiritual realm. This is happening all of the
time but people are not aware of what they are truly witnessing”.
Truly there are manifestations of the supernatural realm
happening all around us. Some of these we discussed in earlier teachings others
we have yet to. Today it seems that sightings of unexplained phenomena are on
the rise. More and more people are recording unexplained events. These involve
events that used to be discounted as delusions or hallucinations of madmen.
Recently, in some fields the understanding of this has changed dramatically.
Let me give you an example. Since the earliest forms of written or pictorial
records man has witnessed and made record of events and/ or objects appearing
in the sky that seem to indicate the existence of intelligent life forms of
other worldly origin. Most of the time these are things that people just pass
off as imaginary, fanciful or fantastic, even unbelievable. People have
reported sightings of objects that are considered to be obviously beyond the
current technology of mankind presently. Most of these sightings were
discounted and those attesting to their existence were ridiculed and scorned.
That was until more recently. Objects are being caught on real-time modern-day
recording devises. This includes radar systems and flight recorders in military
and other types of aircraft.
Now the public is aware of these sightings and recordings
more so then ever before, yet they seem to be remarkably unconcerned, even very
disinterested. Recently the pentagon released a number of videos taken from
military aircraft. One such video was taken from a fighter jet of an object
flying over the ocean in the Arabian Gulf. As the object was flying it was
suddenly hit in the side by another object which broke apart somewhat then
bounced off. Even after the collision, the object kept flying on course. What
was released to the public was that the unidentified object was struck by an
anti-aircraft missile which inexplicably did not detonate. The durability of
the craft allowed it to remain in flight subsequent to the impact. It continued
on until the fighter was no longer able to track it. This was made part of a
congressional hearing in the investigation into these events and the nature of
their increased presence. This and other similar events have been attested to
under oath in front of congress. These reported sightings are not made by
hallucinating madmen mind you, but highly intelligent and credible people with
the assistance of their high-tech recording devices.
Do you believe that the events I have just revealed to you
are true? I never really believed such things could be true. Some things such
as this were fun to fantasize about as a child when watching Science fiction
movies or reading science fiction novels but actually believing? Not really.
But that mindset is part of my testimony. You see, I grew up in a household
that was consistently experiencing input from very intelligent scientific
people. We were practical, patriotic and hardworking, I began to operate heavy
equipment and drive amphibious trucks for the family business at a very young
age. Many of our family friends were in the construction, engineering, mining,
medical, flight and legal fields. I gleaned much in my upbringing and was
tutored to some degree in all of the fields I just mentioned. As is usually the
case, most of my mentors included family members. However, some also included
the likes of men like George and Charles Finn of the famous flying Finn twins
of WWII.
After high school my chosen area of studies were
Anthropology, Archeology and Paleontology. I always had an interest in origins
and in ancient history, peoples and structures. However, as sometimes happens,
life decisions cause us to change course. Because of some of my decisions, I
found myself returning to the field of profession I grew up in and expanded in
the fields of Marine Engineering and construction and mining.
I am telling you this because I believe it important to know
how experiences and testimonies can really work to change ingrained thought
processes and beliefs associated with origins. We were practical and logical. I
grew up in the High Sierra Nevada mountains. I was an avid outdoorsman, a
hunter and fisher. We had gold mines. We canned, we kept the generator serviced
and fueled and gathered wood for the long winters. There were times when we
could walk out the second story window into the snow. Again, we were a
practical people and life was sometimes a very serious contest for us.
Now having this serious nature about me I can tell you this.
I didn’t believe in unidentified flying objects until I had my own experience. For the summer, sometimes me and my children
would camp out in the back yard. Being up at nearly seven thousand feet in
elevation, without a lot of neighbors and lights allows for very clear and
bright star gazing. As we laid there, I would show them the satellites as they
flew overhead. Eventually it became a game to see who could spot one before
anyone else could. It was fun until we began to witness something very unusual.
On two occasions as we watched the satellite cross the sky, they all of a
sudden turned at nearly a ninety-degree angle without stopping or slowing down.
These two events happened months apart the first time was a cause of wonderment.
I was in my late twenties with a lot of life experiences and star gazing under
my belt. I had never witnessed anything like it before. My education and
knowledge told me that what we had witnessed was humanly impossible. But it
occurred. I was sure of it. The first time caused me wonderment. Then it
happened again and the second time caused me concern. Something was changing.
I never believed in Sasquatch or Big Foot. Until I had my
own Experiences. Once we got a call from our friends on a reservation in the
Nevada desert. They had had an experience with a creature they call Piedzo.
When we arrived, we witnessed the evidence of their experience. But that wasn’t
the last time. As I said, I grew up in
the forest. I was a hunter, not just a hunter but an archer. I believed I was
familiar with every animal in the mountains until one night I had an experience
with a large creature deep in the woods that screamed a scream that sounded
like the roar of a lion mixed with the amplified cry of a baby. I never saw it
clearly but where I was, was not a place frequented by people. I had gone all
my life up until that point and never had an experience. Things were changing.
I never believed in poltergeist or Ghosts until life
decisions caused me to have to move into a rental house, as a single parent, where
strange occurrences began to happen. They began with opening and closing doors
on the second level above my bedroom. The sound of someone upstairs walking
back and forth in the middle of the night. This causing my dogs to stare at the
ceiling and growl. Then it graduated to something taking over my computer and
sending messages across my computer screen. What ever it was got very
aggressive. I could sense hostility and anger in the air. What ever it was grew
in its maleficence. What caused me to leave that house is when I had come home
to find my kitchen cabinets open. Contents on the floor. The pantry door open
food everywhere, a fifty-pound bag of dog food open and spilled through the
kitchen and living room. The carpet in the living room was ripped off of the
floor from the front door all the way to the kitchen, about twelve feet, and
the front door looked as though my dogs were trying to eat their way out.
Experiences have a way of changing mindsets and belief
processes. I didn’t really believe in the supernatural until I could not avoid
acknowledging its existence. I didn’t believe in demons until I was attacked by
them. The first time I actually saw a demon was late at night in my bedroom. I
was woken up out of a deep sleep. As I opened my eyes, by the light of the moon
shining through my window, I saw an old woman standing at the foot of my bed.
She just stared at me snickering and softly cackling. I tried to address her
verbally as I sought to quickly get up out of bed to confront the threat I perceived
she presented. However, I found myself unable to speak or move. I laid there,
helpless, fighting what seemed to be a nearly complete paralysis preventing me
from moving. This lasted until she turned and seemed to glide across my room
through my open door. As soon as she left my room the paralysis ceased to
confine me so I immediately got up to pursue her but found she was nowhere to
be seen. She Just vanished.
The second time I saw an actual demon was in an old large
wooden church in Spokane Washington. This church was built in the 1800s in a
part of the city now known for its elevated crime rate. It was a Sunday morning.
My wife and I had just finished leading worship and the Pastor of the church
was beginning to preach the message to the congregation. As this was going on,
my spirit was just in an unsettled state, so I was in the back of the room
walking back and forth behind the congregation. I was pacing, silently praying
and proclaiming the goodness of God over the congregants.
As I was praying, my attention was drawn to the front of the
room where the pastor and pulpit stood. To my left, down the left-hand wall was
a hallway entrance that led from the room we were in, to the outside. At the end
of the hall was a door that had a window in it so the sunlight shown through
the window down the hall and into the room. This hallway also ran past the
doorway to the kitchen and the access to the basement stairs. As the pastor was preaching, my attention was,
for some reason, fixed on the hallway entrance. Then it began to appear. At first
it was a set of hands that gripped the door jam on the right side of the door
way. Then slowly a head and face began to appear between the position where the
two hands were. I say face but what I actually saw I can only describe as a
shadow figure with white eyes. When I saw it fully manifest, my attention was
then drawn to the congregants. In the front row sat the head of security. I saw
him looking at the same doorway I had been. I saw him began to get up slowly
while reaching into his coat, apparently to grasp his weapon. I looked back to
the door way and saw the shadow looking at me and as soon as it saw me see it,
it retreated down the hallway. When it did, it cast a shadow on the wall in the
sunlight revealing its movement as it made its way down the hall. Immediately
the head of security crossed the room Infront of the pulpit with his hand in
his coat gripping his weapon the whole time, until he reached the hallway. He
entered the hallway and disappeared out of site for a time. Then he reemerged
with a confound look on his face. He made his way back to his seat and sat
studying the hallway for the rest of the service.
After the service, I spoke to the security guard and asked
him what he had seen. He said that he saw the shadow of a man standing in the
hallway and when he moved to the direction of the hall, the man must have left
because he saw his shadow as he went down the hall but by the time he got there,
there was no sign of him. So, he inspected the kitchen and the door. He was
mystified that the man was able to leave before he got to him and that the door’s
security chime didn’t alert that the door had opened. When I explained to him
what I saw, he turned a bit white. He knew what he had seen but did not want to
admit to it at first. We corroborated together. We had actually seen a shadow
figure manifest itself so thoroughly that it was able to cast a shadow in the
sunlight down the hall. So, I spent some
time that day anointing the expansive basement with oil, casting out unclean spirits
and searching for intruders. I found none of the natural sort. There was a time
when I was intimidated by demons, until I found out who I am in the Lord and
learned to cast them down.
I didn’t believe in God really, until my life choices caused
me to have little choice but to seek Him. Now by seeking Him, my experiences
and my testimony have brought me to a place of maturity in knowing He is, and that
He is alive. The believer should come to a place where the more the devil
throws at you the more his efforts serve to reveal deeper levels of the existence
and love of the living God. In this way, Satan is a self-defeatist.
The occurrences are on the rise. Things are changing evil
manifestations are on the increase. we are surrounded by unexplained events. Or
are we? Are they unexplainable. Natural people tend to strive to rationalize
the seemingly unexplainable, by applying what they know of the physical realm. They cling to what is known in the natural
without contemplating that the spiritual realm does exist. Satan does exist. Angels
and demons do exist they are here walking among us. As we see in the following
scriptures. They manifest themselves from time to time. Perhaps just enough to
slowly desensitize mankind to their existence. They have been cast down to the
earth do not be deceived. Do not cower, do not hide. Evil must be confronted.
You have the victory.
Matthew 4:1-3
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to
be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was
afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the
Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Job 1:6-7
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present
themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
7 And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then
Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from
walking up and down in it.
Genesis 6:1-6
1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the
face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they
were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with
man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty
years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also
after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they
bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of
renown.
5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually.
6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the
earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
1Peter 5: 8
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Matthew 13:37-40
37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good
seed is the Son of man;
38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of
the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is
the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the
fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
Please read Hebrews chapter 11
