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  THE SPIRITUAL BATTLE IN MINISTRY
  by Jim Logan
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Summary: The spiritual battle in ministry is a struggle against demonic
spirits and territorial spirits that seek to blind our minds to truth,
steal the word of God, and take young people and children out of the
hands of Christ.

Duration: 52:09 Topics: "Spiritual Warfare", "Evangelism"
Scripture References: Ephesians 6:10

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the spiritual battle of reaching children for
Christ, highlighting the need to rescue them from the hands of the enemy
and bring them into the hands of Christ. It discusses the challenges
faced in sharing the gospel with young people and the importance of
being prepared for spiritual warfare. The sermon also touches on the
significance of standing in truth, righteousness, and peace as part of
the armor of God to resist the attacks of the enemy and effectively
reach others for Christ.

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CONTENT
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And so they asked me, they really assigned me what to speak to you on,
and that's how to beat kids in a club and not leave marks. No, they
asked me to speak on the spiritual battle of reaching children. And I'd
like you to go to Ephesians chapter six, because it is a battle.

When you get involved into soul winning, you are getting involved in a
very deep, deep spiritual battle. The Bible says, people are either in
the hands of Satan or the hands of Christ. Let the redeemed of the Lord
say so, whom he hath redeemed out of the hand of the enemy.

So when you go to share the gospel, regardless of whether it's backyard
clubs, whether it's in the schools or whatever, the purpose of going is
to take young people and children out of the hands of the enemy and
putting them in the hands of Christ. And if you think the enemy wants to
lose any child in its hand, I'm telling you, that's not true. There's
gonna be a real battle.

And are you prepared for the battle? Do you realize that you're in a
real battle? Do you know what goes on every time you teach a club of any
sort, even in here, when I'm speaking? Satan is working the audience and
he's doing two things. He wants to blind your mind to truth, the word of
God says. The second thing is to steal the word of God.

The third, out of the heart. How many of you ever really taught clubs
where you end up for an invitation to salvation? You ever done that?
What happens when you start giving the invitation? Kids cough. And
somebody knocks something over and it is like, what happened? You know,
all through the lesson, they're right there.

Now you come to the part of for them to make a commitment to Christ or
whatever, and it's like, they're all demon possessed. You know, they're
moving, they're bumping, and it's just unbelievable. Then you get all
through that and they're all good again.

Well, that's not by accident. And what we learned in CEF is that as one
was giving the invitation and bringing the lesson to the purpose and the
close, another was in the back, praying against the enemy working the
audience. And how this worked out so wonderfully in Cincinnati or
Chicago or someplace, they were doing an inner city club.

I don't know if you've ever been with the inner city kids, but inner
city kids are really bad. I mean, really have a terrible time. These
kids are sexually abused, physically abused, awful.

And this was a club of about 50 of these kids in the basement of a
church. And they would just about tear the church apart. These kids were
really, really struggling.

And so this couple that was running this club decided that when the wife
would come to the part of the invitation and so on, he would stand in
the back and he would pray. And if he would see a kid starting to
disturb, he would pray against whatever was stirring up that child. And
the people in that church could not believe how quiet it was when they
gave an invitation.

They had never seen it before, but they realized, this couple realized
it was a battle. And so it is so neat if you're doing any kind of work
for one of you to share and one to pray, that they'll get it, that Satan
will not blind their minds to the truth you're sharing. And when they
leave, sometimes it's just a seed sowing, right, you're just sowing
seed.

And you know, I sowed some grass seed and I went and looked two days
later, nothing was there. So I scraped it off and sowed some more. That
would be crazy, wouldn't it? Because it needs to be watered and so on
and it takes time.

So maybe all you're doing is planting a seed, but you don't want Satan
to rip that seed out when they leave, that it would be there. And then
they go somewhere else, hear something else and they hear truth. Very
few people ever accept Christ the first time they hear the truth, you
know that? Very few, it's sort of a process.

They hear a little here, hear a little there, and all of a sudden it
makes sense and they wanna receive Christ as their savior. All right, so
the enemy is working the crowd. But the enemy is also gonna work on you.

And God knew that we were in a spiritual battle and the more you want to
serve the Lord, the more you want to be used of God, the more you're
gonna become a target for the enemy. Years ago, there was a fellow that
was saved by Billy Graham just two weeks before I was saved. And this
fellow, his parents taught at a Bible college, but he was working for
the police department and also the mafia in Los Angeles.

And Billy Graham had a film on his life and so on. He worked for Mickey
Cohen. He would plant, what do you call those things, those bugs? Yeah,
I'm not talking about, you know, bugs, bugs, but the bugs that pick up
phone, what do you call it? A wire? Yeah, but he stuck these things.

He would go into the mafia's houses and plant these things, so they're
recording the conversation. The mafia would come and say, you understand
this stuff, don't you? Yes, we will pay you so much money to take him
out. So the police department paid him to put him there and the mafia
would pay him to take him out.

And so he was working both with the police and the mafia and all of
this. His name was Jim Voss. Anyway, when Jim Voss finally got his life
right and got saved at a Billy Graham meeting, and Billy Graham said it
was his first meeting, there's a man here tonight, if he doesn't receive
Christ as his savior, this is his last chance.

That's not Billy Graham's typical thing. And Jim Voss was at the very
back, knew it was him. He walked forward and got saved.

He was supposed to fly to St. Louis that night and they were waiting in
St. Louis, the mafia's waiting in St. Louis to kill him, put his feet in
cement and drop him in the Missouri River. And the mafia came to his
house to kill him. And he walked outside, he knew they came to kill him,
but he was doing other stuff.

I can't go into this whole story, he was doing other stuff. Anyway, he
walked out and shared his testimony with them and they walked away and
they didn't kill him. And it was amazing.

And later on, he was able to witness many times to Mickey Cohen, who was
running all of the mafia stuff in Los Angeles. But when Jim Voss got his
life squared away, his mother said this, a godly woman, she said, Jim,
never forget, the devil loves a shining mark. And that was the book of
his life, the devil loves a shining mark.

And if you just wanna be a nothing of a Christian, then you don't have
to worry too much about the enemy, do you? But if you really wanna be
used of God and you wanna touch people's lives and you wanna bring
people from darkness to light, you became and you become a shining mark.
And God has given us instructions in Ephesians chapter six of his
protection for the spiritual battles that we're going to have when we're
trying to take people out of darkness and help them get into the kingdom
of light. So Ephesians 6, 10, finally, my brethren, be strong in the
Lord and in the power of his might.

And the word might in the Greek is the ability to perform anything. God
says you're entering a spiritual battle. You are going to fight demonic
powers.

And he said, realize that the victory does not lie in your strength, it
lies in the Lord's strength. I could go through a lot of scriptures
about Satan being defeated and all that. It's all in the scriptures,
Colossians, all of this.

But to give you a living illustration of this, when I was at Child
Advancement Fellowship, I was traveling around speaking at Bible
colleges all across America and I was speaking at a Bible college and
the head resident assistant said, did you see my brother? I'm sure he's
demonized. I said, yes, bring him out to the mission and I'd be glad to
see him. You could stay there.

We had a building where you could stay free. It was like a motel with
about, I mean, a motel, hotel kind of thing. You could stay there and we
have a dining room there and all of that and it won't cost you.

Well, they were coming out on a Sunday and I had gone to church in St.
Louis, which is about an hour away, one way. We came back home. I told
my wife, I'm gonna go out to the headquarters to see if these fellows
are there because they won't know where to meet me on Monday and I know
some of you or your parents have been to CEF working with the children
thing there.

You know how huge, the property's a square mile, so it's huge. So when I
went, I just had a pair of old jeans on and an old shirt and so there
was one fellow I knew but the other fellow I didn't know. When I knocked
on the door, they said, come in.

When I opened the door, if this would be a twin bed, the door opened
against that end. So I'm standing there and between me and the bed is a
door and the kid I knew was sitting on the bed. I couldn't see him.

I'm just standing in the doorway. His brother was sitting looking out at
the lake. He whirled around and looked at me and a voice spoke out of
him and said, Logan, we're not afraid of you.

I'm going, how'd this guy know it was Logan? You know, usually a vice
president of a mission doesn't wear jeans and an old shirt. So I knew
what was going on. And he said, we're not afraid of you.

So I went over and I sat down in the bed and I looked at this fellow and
I said, why would you be afraid of me? And the voice had said, we're not
afraid of you and want you to know it. And I thought, this is gonna be
quite a week. I'm just telling where to meet me and already we're having
problems here.

And I said, I want you to know this. I'm not here representing Jim
Logan. I'm here representing the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the voice has said, we're afraid of him. See, do you know who you
are in Christ? Do you know that? That's what he's saying here. It's not
your strength.

It's not, in the name of Jesus. You know, and sometimes you get on the
TV, you think that's it. The powers in the voice, in the hand, whichever
hand is supposed to be, I'm not sure.

But you know, I mean, you see them do this and this big name and
everything. That's not what he's saying. What is he saying here? He
says, the power is in the Lord.

Don't forget that. You're in a spiritual battle. God will empower you to
have victory in this battle.

The enemy you're meeting is already defeated. Do you know that? He was
defeated 2000 years ago when your salvation was paid for. So you're
meeting a defeated enemy.

He just doesn't want you to know he's defeated. So now he goes on and he
says, all right, you're going out to the battle. You're gonna snatch
kids from darkness to light.

He says, first of all, put on the whole armor of God that you may be
able to stand against the wiles or the schemes of Satan. Satan is
scheming to defeat you. Satan is scheming to keep that club or that
class in darkness.

Satan is scheming to keep those that do not know him from knowing
Christ. This is what's going on. You're in a battle.

And he said, the armor of God will protect you when you go in there.
There's meaning. Now it doesn't mean we're selling armor here.

We have whole sets for $200 and we take credit cards. And you get them
in the hallway in a box. No, it's not that.

He took a soldier that everybody was aware of and said, I'm gonna take
how the soldiers dress and show you how he goes to battle that these
things represent, are representative of what we need to put on to go to
battle too in the spiritual realm, battling over the lives of children.
And he goes on and I wanna read verse 13. We're skipping 12 for a
reason.

Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God. So you have in verse
11, put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand. You jump
12, go down to 13, take unto the whole armor of God that you may be able
to stand.

But all of a sudden there's a major change in verse 12 that's
tremendously significant. This is the apostle Paul writing. And he said,
for we wrestle not against flesh and blood.

The key is we. He said, you put on the armor, you put on the armor, we
wrestle. What's the difference? You will go to lunch, right? We will go
to lunch.

What'd I do? I included me with you, didn't I? The greatest Christian
that ever lived said he what? Wrestled demonic forces. If you think
there's a certain time in your spiritual life that you're not gonna have
to deal with attacks of some way of the enemy in working with children
or in your own life, let me tell you that is false. Because the greatest
Christian that ever lived said he still wrestled or struggled.

The word is really struggled in the Greek against demonic forces, the
apostle Paul. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood. We are
not fighting people.

The enemy wants you to fight people. Now I can tell you this, I've been
involved in this kind of ministry for more years than you guys have
lived. And I have never been hurt by a demon.

And many of you know medicine men have sent them in my room and people
have tried to kill me in counseling and all this stuff, but they
couldn't. Tried to strangle me, all this kind of stuff. If you know the
stories, you've seen the videos.

Because I'm in Christ, the wicked one touches me not. But I have been
hurt more by people than I ever have by any demonic spirit. And what
hurt me a lot, which I didn't believe and I was telling Joy about this,
I didn't believe this was happening.

I've had people and pastors tell me when I was going out talking about
CEF, going out trying to get the stuff that we do not believe children
under 12 can be saved. I said, Joy, I thought that went out in the dark
ages. Can you imagine, under 12 can't be saved.

Most kids are saved before they're 12. Do you know that? All of my four
kids were saved before they were 12. I think the one that was saved the
oldest was five and a half and the one that was saved the youngest was
four, our second born and when I led her sister to Christ.

We used this little, you put them in, you click and you see stuff,
click. And we had the Easter one, Jesus' crucifixion, and the one that
was about. So I asked Cheryl, do you want to receive Jesus as Savior?
And she could see it.

She said, yes. So I led her to Christ and her four-year-old sister says,
me too. I go, oh no, you don't get saved being a me too.

Where's the repentance? Where's the tears? I'm a sinner of four. And so
I led her to Christ and I thought, did this work? Did it really work, a
four-year-old? Well, she's the one that became a missionary. Probably
didn't work, right? She never doubted her salvation.

So don't underestimate the power of the Spirit to reach a child if you
make the gospel simple enough for them to understand. We used to be,
complicate the gospel. And we get it so complicated.

Well, in the Greek, four-year-old, this is what it really means. A four-
year-old could care less about Greek, right? Or all of this stuff. Don't
get complicated with a kid.

Now, let's go on. He's saying, you're not fighting people. Your dad is
not your enemy.

Your mom is not your enemy. Maybe your demonized brother or your
demonized sister, that's another issue, right? But he says, no, our
battle, our struggle is not against people, but against principalities.
What in the world is a principality? That's a category of demonic
spirits.

A principality is a prince, a polity is a geographic location, and it's
a demon assigned to hold a territory in darkness. The Bible says the
whole world lies in the wicked one. It says that Satan is the prince of
the power of the ear, and he's assigned some of his spirits to hold the
world in darkness.

Territorial spirits, they're all over. Sometimes you can sense them,
sometimes you can't. Before I even believed demonic spirits were real, I
was flying to Molokai to counsel some missionaries that are struggling.

Molokai is an island, one of the Hawaiian islands, and I was flying from
Maui to Molokai. I love Maui, even though it's probably the most new
agey of all of the Hawaiian islands. You know, a lot of new age stuff
going on there.

But when I got off the airplane at Molokai, the airport's really cute,
you know, orchids and all this, real small. I got off the airplane, the
missionaries are standing there, and I did the hoof and mouth thing, you
know, where you put your hoof in your mouth, and I said, how can you
guys stand to live here? Well, that's not the best thing to say to
people that just met you getting off a little airplane. I just had the
creepy feeling.

And they said, what? I said, I don't know, I just feel really yucky. And
I mean, I've been to Africa, I've been all over, but I've never felt so
yucky as I did in Molokai. And the wife said, well, praise the Lord.

She says, you know, I feel the same way here. She said, I have to go
into the hotel, and there's only one hotel on the beach where you can
swim, in Hawaii, any beach that you can swim on, you know, there's two
sides to an island, you know that? One where the waves crash and you do
the windsurfing, the other side is where the tourists are in their
bikinis. And, you know, you don't wanna go on the tourist side, it's
really bad, you go on the Hawaiian side, it's great.

You know, where the Hawaiians go. But you go to any Hawaiian island
where the waves are nice, the hotels are so close together that the sun
doesn't even shine between them. You know, they cast shadows on each
other.

Molokai has one, just one. Why? Because everybody that goes there does
what? Mm, you just get this creepy feeling. This missionary's wife, if
she didn't fly off that island once a month and shop on the big island,
she couldn't stand to be there because it was so oppressive.

It was like there was a dark fog over that place. That place was so bad
that the mayor or governor of Molokai at that time was a transvestite.
The high schools had bathrooms for those who were perverted and those
who weren't perverted.

Talk about darkness. You could cut it with an ax even though the sun's
shining. You know what I'm saying? It was just oppressive.

Why? There was a territorial spirit over that thing and it was sensing
its oppressiveness. Missionaries can sense that in various parts of the
world, some places stronger or stronger than others. Now, the second
one, so you're going out to reach kids and I don't care where you go,
there is a principality somewhere over it.

Before this thing starts, Knoxville, every year, I've been here, every
year that Knoxville's been here and I've been before. You know what
happens before this thing starts? Bill Gothard, the board, and myself
get on our knees and we bind the powers and principalities over this
place. A few years ago, I walked into the auditorium.

The second one's powers. I walked in the auditorium, TBA, whatever it's
called, DBS, I don't know, you know the thing I'm talking about. The
bigger one.

I walked in there and I'm going, ugh, I just feel dirty. The place is
empty. You know, they're sweeping, this is early.

And I'm going, you know, there's something really wrong in here. I don't
know what it is. I mean, that empty arena and you feel like, yuck.

And so I went to the guy and I said, you know, I just feel really, I
don't know, I don't feel good. And he said, I said, who was here? Oh, he
said, last week Guns N' Roses was in here. They had a rock thing in
there.

I didn't know the rock thing, and I went in there and guess what? Some
of the people not only left their trash, they left their demons. You
know, let me tell you, a rock concert has all kinds of demonic stuff
going on there and it was still in the auditorium. Those are powers.

Principalities over areas. Powers are the ones that want to influence
your personal behavior. They want power over you.

And so if you go to an area where the people in that area are all
empowered by the same power, you will feel it. In New York City, CEF was
working in the inner city and they were working with welfare kids in
welfare hotels. And we went to a section of the city.

I had a doctor and a businessman with me hoping that they would give
money to CEF, seeing how they were working with these kids. We're
walking up the street, stepping on crack vials that were all over the
place. The businessman turned to the doctor.

I was behind him and it was creepy, broad daylight. Well, you know where
Times Square goes like this? We're walking up the side of Times Square,
up the street. I think it's 42nd, 72nd, something or other.

Some kind of second street that goes up that way. And we're walking up
and the businessman who had part of his hand gone turned to the doctor
and said, I have fear. After we just went right around the corner.

I have fear. And he said, the last time I felt like this when I was in
Vietnam, walking through the jungles. And you know why? That whole area,
people live that were in the same bondage.

And you could feel it. Some people can't handle San Francisco. They
just, people that have a sensitive spirit.

There's something not good here. Not right here. Some people can't stand
Bourbon Street down in New Orleans.

It is so evil. And they just sense the evil because the people there are
all under the influence of the same kind of lewd spirit. And they sense
that.

So there are spirits that want to empower. You can have children come
into your meeting that have a spirit on them. There have been kids here
that were in trouble.

They had spirits on them. So that can happen. That's why you should
always minister by two.

The third one are the rulers of the darkness of this world. These are
spirits assigned to leaders. And then against the spiritual wickedness
in high places.

And high places in the Bible are always places of religious experience.
These are demons that promote religion. So they're demons that are
holding territories in darkness all over the world.

They're demonic spirits whose job is to attack me individually. Each one
of us individually. They want to empower my life.

And then there's demons that want to attack the leaders. That's why God
says, pray for all in authority that we might live, what, a quiet and a
peaceful life. Because there's demons that want to influence Bush.

They want to influence a congressman. They want to influence this man.
And we have, for years, I spoke to congressmen and so on.

Do you realize there are demons who want to influence your decisions in
Washington, D.C.? And they never got whatever. They listened and they
believed it. Why not pass laws that extends darkness? No Bible in the
school.

No praying in the school. Why not do it this way? Rather than, you know,
ah. So we're to pray, those kind of things.

And then there's demons that promote anything that's false. All kinds of
false religion. When I went to Rostov, Russia, I didn't know where
Rostov was.

I looked it on a map. When I went there, spoke at the University of
Rostov, way down by the Black Sea in Russia, I couldn't believe the
university was full of New Age and New Age teaching. And you know why?
New Agers do not have a headquarters and they do not have missionaries.

It's amazing. The New Age has permeated Soviet Union more than the
gospel. How is that? Yeah, spirits promote this stuff.

Okay, now, let's go on. Because of this, that verse 13 says, wherefore,
wherefore it says, because there's spirits over where you are, because
spirits want to influence your personal behavior, because spirits are
trying to influence leaders and spirits are trying to promote anything
that's false. Because of this, what am I to do? Take on to you the whole
armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and
having done all to stand, stand therefore, or keep on standing.

Now, let's go back and look at this. He said, take on to you the whole
armor of God, all of it. Why? Because you and I are going to have evil
days, the word of God says.

And I read that and I read it wrong. I read it because we're living in
evil times. That's not what it's saying.

Because everybody's lived in evil times. I mean, times have always been
evil. Go back to when Jesus was there in the Roman Empire and all of
that was going on, it was very evil.

What is the evil day? It's the, a definite article in the Greek and in
English, the evil day. What is your evil day? It's a day of violent
temptations and attacks whenever they come to you with extraordinary
strength and the desire to yield is strong. That is an evil day.

And all of us are gonna have them. In Mark four, I mean, in Matthew four
and Luke four, we have Jesus being tempted by the devil. And Luke four,
it said Satan, after Jesus resisted him three times, it said Satan left
Jesus until an opportune time.

Or he left him for a season in the King James. And Satan's opportune
time to come and to attack you is your evil day. When you're most open
to be defeated, most open to quit, most open to sin, most open to do
whatever, he will wait and come and attack you.

You are going to have an evil day. This is written to all believers,
even those under 20. All of us are gonna have evil days.

And when we have the evil day, we're to keep on standing. After we've
done all to stand, how do we keep on standing? We stand in the armor of
God. We stand in God's protection.

That's what he's saying here. So he says, what do we stand? Stand
therefore having your loins skirt about with truth. He says, put on the
belt of truth.

Truth can only be one of two things. Truth can be what I perceive is
true or God's truth. That's all the truth there is.

What I think is true or God's truth. We know it has to be what? God's
truth. Why am I to put on God's truth? Who will I meet today? What will
this protect me from? You say Satan, but what aspect of Satan? Satan is
the father of what? Lies.

If I know truth, and Jesus said the truth of what? Set you free, but
then what will bind you? Lies. We just set a kid free today, just before
I came over here. How old was he? 15 year old kid.

That was believing some stuff that wasn't true. And as long as he
believed the lies, he could never be free. Right? I mean, how can you be
free if you believe lies? I believed a lot of lies growing up.

Had a lot of help believing lies because my family helped me believe
them. You know, I was no good. I was dumb.

You know, I was stupid. I never amounted to anything. You know, they
were visualizing achievements.

So as I was growing up, I was dumb and stupid and didn't amount to
anything. And I was so unhappy, most of you know, I tried to commit
suicide at 15 and a half years of age, but I didn't do it. I couldn't do
it right.

I mean, I couldn't even commit suicide right. So I was really dumb and
stupid, couldn't do anything right. I couldn't even do that right.

Thank God, right? You know, I know what it's like to feel inferior and
all that stuff. No one's inferior. Were you really aware of Johnny's
wheelchair after you started talking? No.

I flew into, I don't know if we're gonna finish what I'm talking here,
buy my book and read it, but I flew into, I'm not pushing my book. They
may not even sell it here. I don't know.

But I flew into Hobart Harbor in Tasmania and true to faction, when I
fly overseas, no one meets me. So I fly in and no one's there. And I'm
sitting next to this lady from Scotland who flew from, you know, where
the bridge is and all that stuff.

I think it's the capital of whatever, Australia. Flew over. Anyway, I
told her no one's gonna meet me.

She says, well, you're pretty pessimistic. I said, honey, I travel all
over the world. Wherever I get there, no one comes.

And usually I don't have telephone numbers. You know, so I don't know
who to call. So I'm in a foreign country, but at least in Australia they
speak English, sort of.

And so I get off the plane and airport empties out and I'm there by my
lonesome. And so I'm figuring, I gotta have a phone call somewhere. So
we'll speak at a college here.

And it's a CEF thing on this island. And finally I found a number and I
dialed this number. And the guy answered and he said, where are you? I
said, well, your plane ticket took me.

I didn't buy the ticket. I mean, I don't know Australia or anything. Why
would I pick out somewhere to land? They said, well, you're at the wrong
end of the island.

Oh, you're eight hours away. And he said, by the way, this phone was
disconnected three weeks ago. They hadn't taken it out yet.

It shouldn't be ringing. I was going out the door to fly to this other
place. He said, the phone's ringing.

He said, I better answer it. He said, just stay where you are and
someone will pick you up. And so they're calling all around this place
to get somebody to take me in their house because I travel with a lot of
money, usually about 25 bucks.

And that'll only usually pay a cab to get you from the airport
somewhere. So this lady comes, she picks me up, takes me to her house. I
had a wonderful time because they had a screwy teenager in that house.

But anyway, the next day, this lady's taking me, driving me the eight
hours where I'm supposed to be. And this lady was telling me that in
Australia, she had a burden for children. And Australia has children,
they have those with mental illnesses or mental struggles in one
category, those with physical struggles like Johnny and so on in another
category where she ministers.

And those have a combination, mental and physical. And she was sharing
how she would teach these children, especially those in wheelchair. She
would take the flannel figures and rub them on their face where the kids
couldn't talk.

This is Jesus and she'd rub Jesus on him and put him on the board and
the kids would be drooling and so excited as she was putting them on him
because they couldn't move and so on. And so she was saying that she was
talking to the kids that were mentally okay but had physical handicaps.
And there was a beautiful blonde girl in a wheelchair.

And she was doing the story that I love, the CF story, the one with the
eyes. What's that story? You know, she had brown eyes, one of blue. Who
is it? Yeah, that's Amy Carmichael.

I gotta tell you, this is good. They asked me to speak at an Awana group
and it was hair night. And so the kids had their hair all different
ways.

And I got up there, I'm doing the Amy Carmichael lesson. So I got up
there before the kids. It was a big group like this.

And I said, oh, I feel so bad. I wish I hadn't come. Why? I said, it's
hair night and I don't have any.

And I said, we like you anyway. That was my introduction to Amy
Carmichael wishing she was different. You know, and the kids really got
it.

I got them already thinking in terms of this whole thing. But anyway,
she did the Amy Carmichael thing. And she said, do any of you hate
anything? And the girl said, yes.

Cute little blonde girl, I hate my wheelchair. I hate not being able to
walk. People don't look at me.

People, like Johnny was talking about, I just hate it because I have a
handicap. The teacher says, don't you realize that I have a handicap?
And she said, no. And the teacher had, teacher's on a crutch with, she
had polio and she has a big brace up her leg.

Can't miss it. But she was so going with Christ that the kids never
noticed that she was on a crutch and limped. Isn't that neat? See,
because you want people to notice what? Your handicap or your
countenance.

And when you look there, she just radiated Jesus. The kids never, the
girl didn't even know. She said, oh, you are handicapped.

She'd been teaching her for a long time. She never noticed it. Isn't
that neat? Anyway, get back to our thing.

Okay, Satan's a liar. And so I need truth. Because as soon as I hear
this, because every attack of the enemy has a lie in it to some degree.

That's what he does and he lies to me. Okay, the second thing is put on
the breastplate of righteousness. That righteousness is gonna be one of
two things.

All the right things I do, or what we call doctrinally, the imputed
righteousness of Christ. Christ giving me his righteousness. And we know
what has to be right.

His righteousness. It says, he who knew no sin became sin for us. When I
gave my sins to Jesus, who knew no sin, he gave me his righteousness.

Whether you guys know it or not, I am clothed in the Shekinah glory of
God. And when we get to heaven, you'll see it. I am clothed in the
righteousness of Christ.

What is that to protect me from? Satan's attack, the accuser of the
brethren. That's what the scripture says. Satan accuses the brethren.

What makes you think you could teach a lesson? Right? I'll tell you
something. Before you go teach a lesson somewhere, you know what you're
gonna do? If you're not traveling in one of the teams, you're gonna have
a fight with your mother. Yeah.

Where's my thing? Mom, mom, I'm late. Mother, I'm late. Can't you
understand my priorities? I know you have 46 kids here and you're the
woman in the shoe.

But I mean, you get all frustrated and you get there and you're driving
and Satan is saying, what makes you think you could teach a lesson? You
know, they must be hard up if you're one of their teachers, right? They
must be scraping the barrel. He's the accuser. Satan had a lot to accuse
me of.

I didn't get saved till I was 20 and I did a lot of evil living. And
when Satan reminds me of the evil living, you know what I tell him? He
left stuff out. And I will not receive an accusation of Satan.

Why? Because I'm clothed in Christ's righteousness, not my own. When he
tries to point out a past failure, don't receive it. You're clothed in
the righteousness of Christ.

That's a wonderful thing. That's one of my protection, because against
the accuser. And then the third thing we have with the first three, and
your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

What in the world is that? The sandals of peace for spiritual battle.
What in the world is he talking about? Well, to really understand this
third piece of the armor, we need to go to second Peter or first Peter
or something. Go to first Peter chapter five.

Verse five says this. Five, five. Likewise, you younger, submit to your
elder.

You know how old I am? You know how old you are? Believe this, practice
this right in this group. Yea, all of you be subject one to another,
clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but he gives grace,
the desire and the power to make right choices to the humble. Humble
yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt
you in due time.

Casting all your care upon him, he careth for you. This is such a good
one. I was flying down to speak to Wycliffe Bible translators down in
Guatemala at their translation centers.

They come from all the Mayan villages and tribes and everything. And I
was teaching the warfare to Wycliffe missionaries, lots of them. And so
I looked this up in the Greek before I went down.

Casting all your care upon him, he careth for you. Care, careth means
matter of concern or object of his care. And I thought, isn't that neat?
God cares, it's really neat.

So I went down and I shared with them. And a guy that was, just had
translated this in the Mayan dialect came to me. He said, you know how I
translated this for the Mayan Indians in my language group? I said,
what? He said, what concerns you, concerns God.

Isn't that neat? Because what does the enemy tell you? God doesn't care.
God doesn't care about you. You know, God cares so much about me that he
knows the number of hairs on my head.

Logan lost six this morning. Okay, six, mine is six. I mean, he knows
everything about us.

You know what's amazing? He knows everything about us and he loves me
anyway. Isn't that neat? And he cares. What concerns you is a concern to
God.

And one of the attacks, the enemy is God doesn't care. He doesn't even
know you're around or whatever. Johnny went through that.

Does God really care? Does God really know what's going on? When she was
reading her book and so on, when she was in the hospital and struggling
through some of this stuff. And then he goes on and he said, be sober.
Sober means to be cautious.

Be vigilant means to be watchful. Why? Why am I to be sober and
vigilant? Why am I to be cautious and watchful? Because your adversary,
the word adversary is there's someone who opposes you. Who opposes you?
It is not evil with a D on it.

It's not the evil, it's the devil. Do you see that? You have an
adversary. You have someone who's opposing you.

Every time you're gonna do something for God, there's somebody who's
going to try to oppose what you're gonna do. That's what the word of God
says. And he opposes you as a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he
may devour.

And the word devour in the Greek means to gulp down quickly. Now I'm
gonna ask you guys something. Do you think God would put a warning in
scripture that was not true? Do you hear what he just said? He said, you
have an enemy that wants to swallow you up.

People will come to me and say, and they got fire in their eyes. Do you
believe that a Christian can be demon possessed? Do you believe a
Christian can have demons? I said, does that bother you? You know,
smoke's coming out of your ears. And I said, yes.

I said, have you ever read this verse? And I quoted to him. I said, I
don't really know what that verse means. But the verse here seems to say
that Satan can swallow up believers.

So my question is, can demons have Christians? Who in the Bible was
swallowed up by something? Jonah, money. Now I know God was behind all
that thing, but it seemed like the fish was more in control than Jonah
was. Now I don't know what this means.

I have 565 or 70 books on spiritual warfare in my library. None of them
touch this verse. None of them.

What do you say? It's a difficult verse, isn't it? Very, very difficult.
But he says, resist him standing fast in the faith. Now let me explain
this.

There's a girl here. Two girls came up to see me. One of them, I stayed
in the house.

And she said she was glad I wasn't staying there anymore. And then the
other one, I knew her brother. Who's real, he needs a lot of prayer
right now.

He's really backslid. Anyway, I can't see her. She's in here someplace.

Anyway, her brother came to see me. And they lived in Texas. Because I
didn't understand, it says Satan operates as a roaring lion.

What in the world does that mean? And I had a backpacker come that year
who told me this story. And her brother came and told me the same story.
And her father was with her brother.

And he said yes, because they lived close to where there was a thing.
The backpacker said as he loved the backpack, he was in Arizona
somewhere or New Mexico. And there was a sign by the Forest Service that
was up that said you are entering Puma territory.

If you see a Puma or a mountain lion, don't run. Stand still and see how
tall you can be. Now if you saw that sign, and your folks are
backpacking, and they send you out to pick up some twigs and brush and
stuff to have a fire.

And you're out there picking it up. And you saw the sign. And you know
that these animals are out there somewhere.

And it's getting dark. And you think your folks are that way. And you
start walking.

And all of a sudden, there's a crunch of a stick behind you, another
crunch. And all of a sudden, you get those goosebumps up your neck. And
there was a roar.

What do you think you would do? Someone said, after I fainted.
Basically, instinctively, we would what? Run. And you say, I'll climb a
tree.

Guess who's up there with a knife and fork and a bib around them. Ha,
ha, ha. Waiting for you.

You cannot run them. And you cannot climb them. But what was the thing
that motivated your action? Fear.

Wasn't it? Fear. Now the girl that was here, that's here, her brother
told me this. That they had cattle, and they were right by the state
forest.

And the forest ranger said, you know, in our area here, we do have pumas
or mountain lions or whatever they call them in Texas. And said, if you
see one, number one, don't run. Number two, put your hands over your
head and look as tall as you can and make as much noise as possible and
run towards the lion.

That's going too far. Ha, ha, ha, ha. It's gonna be hard enough to stand
seeing that thing going, mm, I'm dead, mm.

Rah. I go, rah. Now, what does that mean? Let's go back and let's look
at this third piece of the armor.

In Ephesians six. And he said, this last piece of the armor and last
piece of the first three. Stand there for, pardon me, 15.

And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. God
says, stand in peace and resist the roaring lion. Stand and resist.

In the name of Jesus, leave. There he goes. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

I hate people that hold awful signs in front of me. Now, see these first
three pieces of the armor, we have, if you're a believer in here, you
have these three things. You have truth because Jesus is the person of
truth.

You have the Bible, it's the word of truth. You have the Holy Spirit,
which is the spirit of truth that is to lead me in all truth. In the
church, if you go to the right one, it's called the pillar of truth.

So, I have truth. That is to resist the deceiver or the liar. I have
righteousness because when I see Christ, he gave me his what?
Righteousness.

And I am to stand in that and resist the accuser. And then, what did
Jesus say? My peace I give unto you. My peace I leave unto you.

Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be
troubled, neither let it be what? Afraid. There is a spirit that causes
fear.

God, in Peter, says there is a spirit that causes fear. The God spirit
gives you love, peace, and a sound mind. When you allow yourself to come
under the influence of a spirit of fear, you will not make sound
decisions.

He said, stand in the peace. These three things are yours. And we're out
of time.

So, next year, we'll finish this. And you get the second half. Because
the second half says taking.

The first three says having. The second half is taking. That means I
have to use these.

The first three, I just need to stand in that. Let me give you a quick
story. Our pastor asked us to pray for someone in the neighborhood that
didn't know the Lord, that God would give us an opportunity to witness.

And I was praying for a single medical doctor right across the street
from my house. And I've been praying for a number of months that somehow
I would be able to witness to him. The opportunity came in a very
strange way.

I was in my parkway, you know, the sidewalk and then the grass and then
the street. I was there pulling the weeds out, whatever I was doing. And
this doctor drove down the hill.

So, he was driving down. And I said, our driveway is right across from
each other. And I looked at him and he looked terrible.

And I said, you look terrible. And he said, oh, Jim, it's really bad. He
said, I was rollerblading down at the river, Missouri River, and my dog
had an epileptic seizure.

And I've been with this dog all night long. And I'm going here down to
the university, which was miles and miles and miles away, to the
university vet hospital, because it's my only chance for my dog not to
die. Now, he was a single doctor.

And when you're single and have an animal, it means a lot more, because
when he came home, the dog wagged his tail, rather than a wife ragging
her tongue. You know what I mean? So, he was really excited about coming
home. And so, I'm praying, this is it.

But God, I don't know what to do. How can I witness to him? I'm not sure
how to do it. Anyway, so I'm praying and asking God for wisdom.

And he pulls his car in and he puts a bed down. He puts a dog in. I
walked around and I looked at him.

Can I tell you something? And I told him, I said, you know, when I was
in Guatemala and I told the story, I said, you know, a fellow translated
that verse, what concerns you concerns God. I said, are you concerned
about your dog? Well, I mean, obviously, tears were running down his
cheek. And he's a medical doctor.

And I said, so is God concerned? I said, I'm gonna pray that God is
going to heal your dog. And so, he hugged me and he said, thanks for
caring. And he drove off.

And I said, God, if you let that dog die, I'm quitting. God, I've never
prayed for a healing of a dog. For God, you gotta heal that dog.

And guess what? That dog was healed and God bonded me and that young
man. And I was not only able, he was a Christian, but you didn't know
it. He rededicated his life to Christ.

I was able to help him develop a prayer life and intimacy with God and
all kinds of real neat things. So, you know, I'll tell you, there's a
battle going on in there. And just be sensitive to the Spirit of God.

Now, you can get my book or have your folks, maybe your folks got my
book and go through the other three pieces of the armor. They're really
quite different. But the first three, you already have.

You have truth, you have righteousness, and you have peace. Stand in it
and resist him. Father, I thank you for these young people.

And I know that they're gonna be in a very real spiritual battle. That
they're gonna face the enemy when they try to snatch children out of the
hand of Satan, to put them in your hand, Father. And I know, Father,
when we go to battle, we don't need to go alone.

And Father, I pray that they might learn to battle by twos, one sharing
and one praying. And Father, I pray that this group of young people
would be able to turn many children from darkness to light. And Father,
those have come to the light that they would help them to grow deeper
with you and to be stronger.

I just thank you for this group, Father. Bless them, use them mightily.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and may they do great damage to
Satan and his kingdom.

Amen.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/ONqLeWMOc6E.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/jim-logan/the-spiritual-battle-in-ministry/
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