Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”
1 Peter 5:8-9
The message is: Spiritual World
We are not alone in this world. There are beings we cannot see, but they are around us….The bible says about things happen in the Spiritual realm.
Be alert, your enemy, the devil, he prowls like a lion looking for someone to devour, to destroy….
While I am preaching here, there is a big battle happening around us.
Demons are trying to deceive you, to get your attention, to distract you and stop you from being free. Today I want to speak about the Spiritual world. What exists around us, what is happening, who they are and how to understand and live on earth without forgetting that we are in a constant battle.
In the beginning before God created mankind, something happened in heaven…
Satan was an Angel of light, but he rebelled against God.
Let’s read…
“How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.”
Isaiah 14:12-15
When he decided in his heart, to try to be like God, he failed and he was kicked out from Heaven and he did not leave alone. He took angels with him…
Look…
“Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”
Revelation 12:7-9
So, now the fallen angels became demons. They are from darkness, and they changed their purpose…
Can you imagine? They were created by God, they were in heaven, a holy place, with no sin, no depression, no sadness, no pride…they were holy creatures, but they were deceived by Satan….wow…Satan knows how to work…he is good at his job…because of that, the bible says: Be alert!
Know that demons have a role: They fight against mankind, they seduce people to take us away from the purpose of God.
And they don’t get tired…
While we are here, he is trying to deceive you, to put thoughts in your mind, feelings, to distract you. Pay attention…
When you read the bible, what happens? You feel sleepy. When you decide to pray you feel lazy. Do you think that is normal? There is a battle happening right now so that this word that comes from God does not reach your heart.
Jesus talked about it in Matthew 13…
“When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.”
Matthew 13:19
Demons fight to do not let you hear the word of God. They want to snatch away what is sown in your heart.
I had the pleasure of being close to this Pastor in Brazil who had his spiritual eyes opened. He could see many things while he was preaching or praying, it was an amazing gift from God.
One day he said to me and these others guys: Pray for deliverance while I preach today, because God showed me demons closing peoples ears. And he said: One guy was asleep during my sermon and when I looked, I saw one demon behind him, with hands covering the man’s ears so he wouldn’t listen to the voice of the Lord!
There are people who don’t think the spiritual world really exists… But it’s here right now…even inside the Church! Demons are trying to close your mind, change the focus of our thoughts to prevent you from listening to God’s voice. They don’t want to see you free from oppression.
One day, I was here and I after I had finished preaching, at the end of the service, an older man came and ask for prayer. I felt something different in my heart and I prayed with my eyes open. When I started to pray he took my hands, he started to turn his neck, his breathing changed and then he let go of my hands and said: That’s enough! I don’t want it…and I said: God wants to set you free…but he refused and run out from the Church.
Demons are trying to hold him down…they don’t want to see you being free!
We read before in the book of Peter: Be alert!
We need to be watchful! Jesus said to the disciples:
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.””
Matthew 26:41
You, men, need to watch your family all the time! You, women, need to pray for your kids all the time, you, sons and daughters need to watch yourself all the time…be alert! Like a soldier, you cannot go to sleep in middle of a battle… you have to insist in prayer for your house.
A few weeks ago, I had a dream. In the dream, I was in a house, and suddenly sewage and dirt started to come out from the ground. So I called a plumber. When he arrived, the dirt and sewage was already as high as my ankles…it was building up… So I said to him: Please, help me to get rid of all this dirt…And he said: If you are not before, it will take over your entire house…
And so he started to clean the backyard and the dirt was gone.
I woke up that morning and I felt it was a spiritual dream. Many times God speaks to me through dreams and during that whole day I thought about this dream.. During breakfast I told to my family about the dream as I was trying to get understand it better..
At the end of the day, we were all together having our daily time, when suddenly God showed me what was happening… Demons were trying to take my kids…yes…they were coming against them, with dirt, trying to deceive them… So I got the revelation. The dream came from heaven. We rebuked the demons and cleaned the dirt… Praised be God! Be alert, be vigilant!
Brothers and sisters, Satan will not come to scare you, he will come to destroy you!
He comes to change your focus from God to yourself!
Pay attention:
In the garden of Eden, satan appeared like a snake to deceive the woman. What did he do? He told her, if you eat from this fruit you will become like God.
What he was really saying was….you deserve it…I understand you, you can do whatever you want…no one can tell you what to do or not…you are free to do whatever you want! And so She ate it…when they ate that fruit they lost their focus..
While they were looking to God they didn’t look to themselves…but when they ate from the fruit they realised that they were naked… Now the focus was them…
When you are not looking to God, trying to find ways to please him, you start to look at your naked body, your shortcomings, your imperfections…and your focus is distorted…
This is the job of Satan and his demons… to change your focus.
- Satan wants to steal your joy
You are happy, something happens, you feel good, but suddenly a thought comes, you listen to bad news and your joy is gone,….
- Satan wants to kill your faith..
He tries to put doubt in your heart, about the word of God, about who you are, your purpose…
- Satan wants to destroy your relationship with God
This is what he has been doing since the beginning…In heaven with other angels, in the garden with Adam and Eve and now with you and I…. Be alert!
Maybe you are afraid of what you are hearing, but you don’t need to be afraid, this is a calling to fight, a calling to be alert, to watch yourself!
Praise God, we are not alone on earth! There are demons, but there are also many angels who fight for us. They are incredible creatures from God who have a role to protect us and bring answers to our prayers.
In the bible there are some passages about the work of the angels, and I’d like to read some of them with you…
They are ministering spirits, they serve God and us. Let’s read…
“Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”
Hebrews 1:14
–Angels serve God and His Church
I had a ministry of evangelism in Brazil and I remember the first time we performed.
We went to a Church for a youth meeting. We had rehearsed a drama sketch, worship songs and at the end I would preach. After the practice, we start to pray as a group.
When we were praying, everybody started to fill the atmosphere changing…it was like heaven… This sudden peace came and invaded us… suddenly this lady from the group said: Paulo, God opened my eyes… I asked her: please, tell us what you see…
She said: I am seeing many angels surrounding us like fire…when we started to pray, they came and they are here, they are here and there, and she started pointing them out…wow…amazing… Praised Be God… While we are praying to God in Jesus’ name, God sent angels to serve his Church and not let any demons came against us during that service. It was a blessed night.
- Angels bring protection
Hezekiah received a letter from Sennacherib from Assyria. In the letter he was saying that he would attack Jerusalem and destroy the Jewish People.
So, Hezekiah presents that letter to God and asks for help in prayer. God answered him saying that he wouldn’t need to fight, because God would fight for him.
Look what happened that night…
“Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!”
Isaiah 37:36
Only one Angel of the Lord put to death a hundred and eighty five thousand people….
The bible says that there are angels surrounding you…
Read with me…
“The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.”
Psalms 34:7
If you fear God, if you love God, you are not alone…there are angels around you. You may not see anything, sometimes we do see, but they are there… Each one of us have angels around us. They are beside us, in the front, in the back, beside us… They are protecting us… So do not be afraid of demons….only…be alert!
There are angels surrounding us….
One day I was worshipping God… And it was a pastor with a heart disease that would preach that day… He asked for a sign of God… And he saw a big Angel behind me….someone came and prayed for him…he preached…
God sends Angels to protect us!
We were on a camp site, and God showed us that demons were there trying to destroy our service, so we organised a group to pray at night… Would you be able to walk in the forest at night, in the dark, with no lights, praying against demons? You need to be a believer to do that… People from the world would think we were crazy rss..
But we did it…at the night we started to pray around the place in the forest…and for each lap we walked, God started to show something,,. I don’t have the time to talk about what happened there…I never lived something as powerful as those 4 days…but in one lap of prayer, God showed us that there were demons surrounding us like bulls and like bulls they were coming against us, but when they arrived at the fence of the camp site, they were stopped by angels… hallelujah…they tried but they could not come through because God sent angels to protect us…
Pray to God, ask for protection and He will send angels to your house, while you are driving, to your workplace…
- Angels bring answers to our prayers..
When we pray to God in Jesus’ name, angels are servants of the Lord and they come to bring us answers…
Daniel was praying to God and fasting…while he was praying God sent angels to bring answers to his prayer.
Read with me…
“Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.”
Daniel 10:12-14
Explain the verses….
Once, while I was still a part of a different church, my friends and I were praying for answers…we could see some wrongdoings in the leadership of the church and we started to ask God to help us and deliver us from it…
One day at the end of a service meeting, my friend came to me and said: Paulo, I saw an Angel, I saw an Angel! And so I asked, and what happened?
He said: I looked up to the roof, and it opened up…then I saw Heaven upon me. Then a big Angel came down and stopped at the entrance of the Church. He was so tall that His legs were the size of the door.
When he said that, God reminded me that in the scriptures, every time angels appear they come to announce new things… So I said, let’s pray because God is telling us that something will happen… and then that same week, the leadership was brought down… They were sinning against God and God revealed it to the Church.
God takes care of his Church and he uses His angels to bring answers to our prayers.
Jesus is superior to Angels. The angels are here to serve Jesus while he was a man on earth, and they still serve Jesus in heaven. I’d like to read to clarify it to you…
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.”
Hebrews 1:3-4
So, we finish this message, reading again 1 Peter.
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”
1 Peter 5:8-9
There is a spiritual world, there are demons trying to deceive you, to seduce you, to take the focus away from God and onto yourself.
Be alert, keep your mind in God, resist them…
Resist them in prayer, ask God for deliverance, protection, and God will send angels to fight for you! He is a powerful God and he never fails!
Don’t forget that for every action you take here, something happens In The spiritual world. Amen?!