It is important to know that when we are going to spend a month exposing darkness that we can expect different kinds of attacks. It was unexpected that I got sick this week, and the Lord has lifted me up more as I have come to proclaim his truth. So, it's very important not only that we take this time to focus in prayer, especially for the covering of our families, but this month becomes a time of focused prayer in all of our households. Because the enemy's strategy is to be invisible, to appear as a comic figure in red tights, it is very important that we guard our minds. Our minds are the door to our spirits. Will you bow your head in prayer. Begin by praying for your own personal protection – protection of your character, your mind, your heart, your integrity, to be fully awakened out of any kind of hypnotic sleep of darkness. Now pray for a covering over your family – everyone that's connected to you, naming the name of Jesus over them. "We pray by the name of Jesus, by the redemption won in Your blood, a covering over us and all who are dear to us, and everyone connected to us. In Jesus' name. Amen."

I want you to know that we have taken this so seriously, that before we began our meetings this weekend, and in all of our sanctuary meeting rooms, there have been groups praying and they have prayed over every seat in our campuses where we will be studying this message in the next month. Why angels and demons? Some have said that it's a strange topic right after Christmas. Hang with me. When we travel in Darfur, we are very aware of inherent danger. Especially, there is one day on each of our trips when we have to travel from our compound in Ed Daein to Adilla Town, which is a six-hour round trip over the rough desert terrain. On this particular road, there are frequent bandit and rebel attacks. As a matter of fact, one of our staff was kidnapped on this road this year. Another was shot on this road this year, and we lost two vehicles. There are no potty breaks or rest stops because of the threat of attacks from bandits or rebels. I asked a UN security officer about security in this area, and he said, "Do not trust your eyes. What you see with your eyes can be deceiving. It will look like calm, but the real danger lies in what you can't see. It is the unseen enemy lurking in the barren brush that blends in with the crowd, who represents the grave danger." So, we take precautions. We always travel in five-vehicle caravans, trying never to be at a speed lower than 45 miles per hour. There are no restroom stops. We maintain constant radio contact, and sometimes because of what we hear on the radio, about a particular hotspot, we alternate our routes, even if it means getting lost. In this last trip, we were lost in the desert for a period of time.

How does this relate to angels and demons? It is important to take proactive measures in regard to the unseen opposition to win the battle of heart and mind. The force that is working against us, it's not about Taliban terrorists. There is a deeper force that would have us for lunch, and we can't win over this power – but God can. It's in God's mighty power that we will win the battle of heart and mind. It is a war. Open your Bibles with me to Ephesians 6:10, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Here's where we have to begin. How do we especially intellectually, deal with this unseen reality? 

I remember, it was the summer of 1971, right after my sophomore year in college, I was a relatively new Christian, and I went to a beach project with a campus organization called Campus Crusade for Christ in Ocean City, New Jersey. In the mornings we had Bible studies and we began with spiritual warfare. I thought, "Oh no." There has always been a little skeptic in me, struggling with believing in things. I had just come to believe historically in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and now they are throwing this angel and demon stuff at me. Why do we struggle intellectually? There are several good books if you're struggling with this. C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" is a book I recommend. He was an agnostic professor at Cambridge. He had a conversion experience and wrote this book. It's not bedtime reading; you've got to hang with it. Another one I read was by Josh McDowell called "Evidence that Demands a Verdict." I was wrestling with this thing: to believe in Jesus, you've got to believe in the resurrection. The latest one is Lee Strobel's book, "The Case for Christ." He was an atheist attorney, who had a conversion, and he wrote this book. Now, I've worked through this place of accepting the historicity of the resurrection, and now I've got to deal with (in my mind) men in tights. Angels and Demons.

Why is it, in the Western world, we are so skeptical when it comes to believing in spiritual things? We have to understand that in the world today, there are two worldviews. We've been raised with a Western worldview that rejects a spiritual interpretation of life. We've been immersed in this. A Western worldview has a closed, mechanical view of the universe. It sees reality as only what can be measured scientifically. The universe is made up of matter, and it's measured in quarks, nanos and molecules. If you can't measure it in quarks, nanos and molecules, it's not real. It's a humanistic point of view that says truth is relative and it's defined by the individual. Human beings with enough knowledge can create utopia through scientific advancement and political systems. So, the religion of the Western world, in which you and I have been raised, is politics and science, and through politics and science, we can create a better world.

Much of the rest of the world does not have a closed mechanical view of the universe, but an open view of the universe. I've been invited to go to Korea and teach for half of the month. In Korea, Asia and Africa, much of the Southern Hemisphere, they have an open worldview that says reality cannot be determined just by your five senses, or the material dimension, that there's also this other dimension of life, and it's the spiritual dimension. I'm going to have to step up my game, because in Korea so many people are highly educated, and they want me to come with more scholarly teaching. But because of this open worldview, they have massive churches. There is one church in Seoul, Korea, that will have 250,000 people in attendance in 19 services. At one Methodist church there, my son was with me when he was in seventh grade, and I took him up to the pulpit. They had enough services for 90,000 people a weekend, and it would hold 6,000 people at a time. In an open worldview, people believe what you can measure scientifically with your five senses isn't enough. Science is inadequate by itself; you also need revelation - science and revelation working together in an open worldview.

From a biblical perspective, God is the cause, and God has created a moral universe with moral absolutes. God has created multiple dimensions. There is this material dimension, made up of matter, that you and I are a part of, called human beings. But, in this other spiritual dimension, he's created angelic beings. Angels are mentioned all throughout scripture, not just an isolated event. In a majority of the books of the Bible, angels are mentioned many times. For example, Daniel survived the night when he was thrown into the lion's den, and the next morning, they asked, "Daniel, how are you alive?" Daniel said, "My God sent an angel, who closed the mouths of the lions." Angels ministered to Jesus after his temptation in the wilderness. When they came to arrest Jesus, and Peter drew the sword and cut off the slave's ear, Jesus said to Peter, "Put that thing away, son. Don't you know, I could ask the Father, and I would have more than 12 legions of angels at my command?" After the resurrection, angels were at the tomb. Matthew tells us that when the Son of Man returns, he's going to return with angels. The Bible tells us, that just like in this realm, where human beings have names, angels have names. We're given some of the names. Gabriel is the angel who made the birth announcements to Elizabeth, about John the Baptist's birth, and six months later to Mary about Jesus' birth.

Another angel who we're given his name in both the Old and New Testaments is Michael. Michael is an archangel, who is a commanding angel. A third angel that we're given the name is Lucifer. We translate it out of Latin as Lucifer, but the Hebrew is "bright, shining star of the morning." Many think this angel was the supreme commander - bright, shining star of the morning - not a man in tights. We make the demonic look so ugly, and it's really beautiful. The other thing we're told about angels is that we're not to pray to angels or worship angels. In Revelation 19, an angel is giving a message to the Apostle John, who is having this revelation. And John said, "I fell down to worship him," and the angel said, "No, no. Wait, get up. I am a fellow servant, serving the gospel of Jesus Christ with you. Worship only God." So, we're not to pray to angels or worship angels. We're to worship only God. So, where do demons come from? Everything that exists, God has created. And God only creates good. God didn't create a race of evil. God created two forms of spiritual beings. And who knows – we're looking in the material world that there's life on another planet. C.S. Lewis always thought there could be life on another planet. God is God, and we don't know that. But what we do know, there are human beings and there are angelic beings. Both of us are spiritual beings who have been created in the image of God. The thing about being created in the image of God is that we're created in goodness, but we have a free will. We're not machines or robots who are programmed. We have the ability to choose to believe in God or not believe in God. Yet, we have the freedom to choose to love God or not love God. We have the freedom to give allegiance to God or allegiance to self. To serve God or serve self. Demons are angels who chose to serve self.

We're going to do some flipping around in the Bible today. Look with me at the next to the last book of the New Testament which is Jude. There's only one chapter, so when I say, Jude 6, it's the sixth verse. "And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling, these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day." Let's break that down: angels who did not keep their positions of authority, but abandoned their proper dwelling. In other words, they voluntarily, out of their own free will, left their post. They quit heaven. They made a decision to give their allegiance to self instead of God. When you say, "God, I don't agree with you on this one," and you begin to argue with God and say, "My way is better than your way. I refuse to submit to your absolute moral authority, and take the highway instead of your way, what happens is you're bound in darkness. Darkness is not like blackness. Darkness is moral darkness, which means if you're not going to submit to God's authority, then you live in moral darkness. Heaven and hell can't coexist. The root of sin is pride. It's when you dare to argue with God, "I agree with you on almost everything you say, God, but this one thing doesn't work for me." 

Let me give you an example: Tiger Woods. Let's go to the next verse, and then you'll understand Tiger Woods. In the same way that angelic beings abandon their posts, human beings abandon their posts. Verses 7-8, "In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer punishment of eternal fire. In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams (This was their dreams, not God's dreams; their passions, not God's passions.) these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority (God's authority) and heap abuse on celestial beings." God, this monogamy of being faithful to one person all my life, it's just not natural. It's like going to get ice cream and eating only vanilla ice cream. Some days, I like Cherry Garcia. It's like, "God, it just doesn't work this way." So, how evil works is to get you to act – like Tiger Woods. You don't understand, I'm out there on the tour, I'm traveling all the time, so sometimes I have these needs. And if it feels so good, how can it be so wrong? As soon as you make the exception, you're arguing with God. You make yourself the exception and you don't think God's absolute authority applies to you, then you become bound in moral darkness. You are in chains. Now we're hearing about a tell-all book being written by one of the mistresses about how Tiger Woods liked threesomes, and all of this kind of stuff. I guarantee that's not how Tiger Woods started out. That's not what Tiger Woods believed. It's called spiritual death.

I loved the first Star Wars movies back in 1977 and 1978. It didn't matter that they didn't have all the technology, and they had all of those funky rubber masks and everything, I just thought those were better movies. The very first one is the best when Darth Vader chose to abandon his post, to give up his place in the Kingdom of Light for darkness. Darth Vader became a machine, a robot living under the control of the values of the world, the passions of his appetite and the influence of darkness.

Religion will not work! There is a war going on right now and we're not fighting powers of the flesh. The enemy's not the Democrats or the Republicans, or the Taliban. It's unseen principalities and powers between two forces. Revelation says Michael and his angels are fighting against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels are fighting back. These two opposing forces – one is a force that dignifies life and understands all of life is holy and sacred, and sees every single person on Planet Earth as created in the image of God. Then, you've got this opposing force that disregards life. It's hedonistic. What's life about? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Suck up everything you can for yourself today, and it's destructive. This war is being fought at two levels. There's the macro level, in which you see the systemic influence of evil in the world that demeans people - racism, classicism, sexism, denominationalism. That's the whole point - conquer and divide. America could be a great nation and a powerful influence of democracy in the world. Do you know what evil's scheme is? They think they're going to be one nation under God? I'll divide them into two groups. We'll have Republicans and Democrats, and they can fight against each other, and instead of working together for a better country, a better world, they'll be fighting each other to see who's going to win the next election in two years. The church is to be an alternative to that. We've got Republicans and Democrats in one room, working for the same God and the same purpose. But, not only is this at a macro level, it's a micro level – there's the war that goes on in each of us, as a consequence of sin.

Couldn't you relate to Romans that Pastor Brian read at the beginning of worship, where Paul said, "I know what's right; I believe in what's right; I want to do what's right, and I keep doing what's wrong." Is that the experience of anybody in the house? Is there anybody in the room who has quit making New Year's resolutions? Why have you quit? You never keep them. Here's the problem with all of us: we realize that we're powerless over these areas, whatever they are, so then we begin to accept the compromise instead of calling it what it is. It may be procrastination. You say, "I'm just a procrastinator." Procrastination keeps you from being the best that God creates you to be. So anything that is less than God's perfection, let's name it: is sin. I don't care what area it is in our life. If it's not under God's absolute, it is sin. We don't need to accept that or rationalize that, we need to confront that. Well, pastor, how do we confront that? How do we have lasting change in our life when we're powerless against it? Here's how: it is to really get serious to know that you can't, and get serious in your commitment in 2010 to God, who can. To realize that you are powerless and these areas that you've been rationalizing are sins. Please, write this down if you haven't already: heaven and hell can't coexist. It's not just about being forgiven. God wants to do a bigger thing in your life and transform you into the image of his Son. It begins in the new birth.

I was talking to Dan Bracken last night, and I asked him if he remembered the new birth in his life. He said, no, he was raised in a Christian home and it was really kind of progressive until he knew that he belonged to Jesus, and Jesus was in him. For me, it was a radical transformation. I was the brother that did things … I picked on my sister Gayle all the time. It was a radical change like day and night. I graduated at the bottom of my high school class and the next year, I was number one in my class at the University of Cincinnati. Smart kids were coming to me in college to tutor them. It's like being kissed by the prince; it's like awakening out of this hypnotic state of darkness and you begin to see the lie and see the world from God's perspective. I love what the word says: when the Holy Spirit comes into you, you begin to dream God's dreams and have God's vision. You begin to see that you're not this 120-pound wimp, but God has created you with a plan and a purpose, and he's gong to use you to help shape the world. But, here's the problem; I hear people say that being born again is a one-time thing. They say, "I got saved back in …" as if being saved is a one-time event. No, in the Bible, the word 'saved' is present continuous tense, which means it happened back there, it's happening now, and it's continuing in the future. The problem in the church is that many people have been born again, but they've never left the spiritual state of perpetual babyhood.

I'm realizing that it's fun being a grandparent for the first time. You forget what it was like with your kids. Ellie is 10 months old now and was at our house for Christmas, from Boston. She'd be playing on the floor and have those nasty diapers - the kind that shoots up the back. When Kristin came home, we told her that Ellie had three nasty diapers, and Kristin said, "I don't understand it … she usually has only two a day." Well, she had three nasty ones this morning! It was amazing playing with her, because she had all of these toys all over our family room. When our kids were little, we used to tell my parents, "Quit with all of the toys." So, what did my wife do for Ellie at Christmas? There are so many toys that they couldn't take them back with them on the plane, so I've got all of these toys in my family room that I've got to pack and ship to Boston. So, she'd be playing with the toys, and she'd stop for a minute and you'd see her grunt and groan, and she'd do it in her pants and go back to playing. Potty training is coming. You've got to do it at the right time. One of our staff said you know it's time to potty train when you go to the store and the kid knows the brand of diapers that they're supposed to wear. Why is it even when we're old enough and we can read, we resist potty training? There's a time that you've got to grow up and quit making messes. The problem is that many of us who have been born again of the Spirit have never left potty training.

We've got to grow up spiritually, church. There's the thing of learning to live under authority. The first two words that kids learn are 'mommy' and 'daddy.' The third is 'more' and the fourth is 'no.' We call it the terrible twos. Why is it so hard to learn to live under authority? But, it's only in the authority of Jesus Christ that we have the power to stand against darkness, which means we've got to put ourselves under his commands, not our wants or feelings. We've got to grow up. It is so fun in your first four years. Your mom cleans you and feeds you. You can sit home in the morning and watch cartoons and I Love Lucy reruns. I remember the end of my being four, and it was the year before I went to kindergarten, Mom would say, "Next year, you're going to kindergarten." I remember, I stood in front of the picture window at our house in North College Hill and watched the kids who were going to kindergarten, where I would be going in a few months, go and stand on the corner and this big yellow thing came and sucked them up. It must have so traumatized me, because I was still there three hours later when it came and vomited them right on the sidewalk.

I turned five at the end of August, so picture this experience in the eyes of a new five-year-old. Kindergarten started and I remember the first day Mom walked me to the corner and I had a blanket under my arm. You've got to be old to understand what the blanket was for - naptime. I had a white envelope with a safety pin, pinned to the left side of my chest that had milk money … three cents, I still remember that. On the other side, I had emergency phone numbers form with all the numbers - here's the grandparents' number, the father at work's number, whatever. If that thing had ever come undone, I'd have tripped over it and broke my neck. We were standing on the corner, Mom was holding my hand and she said, "You've got to do good in kindergarten, because if you don't do good in kindergarten, you won't get into college. And, if you don't get into college, you'll be working for Rumpke, and you won't be the dude driving the truck; you'll be the dude hanging onto the back of the truck." Here I was, a five-year-old by two weeks, and I've got to grow up. There's all of this responsibility and getting a job.

The problem in the church is that so many people who are born again are living in this perpetual state of spiritual babyhood. Why angels and demons? Because we are dealing with unseen principalities and powers that would have you for lunch, and we need to take proactive measures. How? The same thing we do in Darfur. Travel in caravans. You cannot do this life journey by yourself. You got to travel with people who are experienced in the terrain and know the road. Now when we go back to Darfur, since we've had so many security problems in the last year - one kidnapped, one shot - we don't even have our staff drive our vehicles. Now, we hire professional drivers who can keep a vehicle in rough terrain over 45 MPH. You've got to travel with people who know the road. You'd better believe that when I do a series like this, I come under attack, and sometimes I feel isolated. And some of you who've been nice to me all my life, I'm getting these crazy letters from you all. Crazy stuff, a little meanness. You have to remember, I'm no different from you; I'm not Jesus. Everything I say, you've got to test it against the word of God. I told the Lord, and he knew this when he called me to do this, I'm just the Lord's servant, serving alongside you.

I hang with eleven pastors from the largest churches in America. We meet together. We call each other on the phone. I'm flying to meet them in Kansas City on Thursday and Friday. Why do I hang with these dudes? Because, I know these guys are living with integrity, but are experiencing spiritual warfare on a daily basis. The church is not a worship event, it's a community. You haven't been to church if all you do is come in here every week. It's a commitment to be connected to community. If you're not in a cell group, if you're not hanging with people who know the terrain, you're not going to make it.

The second proactive measure is you've got to maintain constant radio contact. You've got to learn to distinguish the voice of God from all other noise that's going on around you. I want to tell you something: there are all kinds of voices, and most of them aren't God's voice. You'll say it's God's voice, but it's the voice of the world. Or, you'll think it's God's voice, and it's really the voice of your appetite, your flesh. We're going to talk about how to distinguish these in the next three weeks. Or, they're demonic voices who appear as angels of light. I told you to keep your place in Ephesians. I want to show you what it says about radio contact. Ephesians 6:17-19, "Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Pray also for me, whenever I speak …" I want to tell you this: commitment to daily be in the word of God and prayer is absolutely essential to win this battle of the mind. Last night when I went to bed, with Carolyn asleep next to me, and then early this morning, I was in the word of God. You've got to fill your brain with the word of God, because your mind is the door to your spirit. The word of God and prayer - we can't do this in own strength. So, if you're not doing that, this is a great time to begin the Transformation Journal.

What is the third proactive response? The first, travel in a caravan; the second, maintain constant radio contact; the third is look for alternative routes. What is that old saying? If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got. It is so easy to get used to traveling in the well-worn ruts that we know so well. If we're going to experience change in our life, we've got to make a commitment to do a new thing, to get out of the well-worn rut. Here are some basic, simple things: exercise. There is a direct correlation to my exercise. There is a direct correlation to food you put in your body, the amount of sleep you get, and the receptivity of your spirit. You want to get deeper into the word. I wish I had two hours to teach you every week. I don't. So, make a commitment to attend Bible with Brian here on Wednesday evenings.

Here's another one. I'm not a pastor who tells you not to watch TV. I have some favorite shows that I watch every week. But, watch less TV and read some good books. Here's a good one I'm recommending by Joyce Meyer, she's one of my favorite teachers, "Battlefield of the Mind." That's a great book to read. I'm reading one right now by Francis Frangipane called "The Three Battlegrounds." C.S. Lewis' stuff. Make a commitment to constantly through this next year have some good reading.

Another one is to make a commitment to go on a mission trip. Don't rationalize or procrastinate. If the Spirit has told you that in the past and you said, "I know I should" then to not go is sin. I don't know how many times people have told me their life has been changed after they made a commitment to experience a mission trip. I've got to do it at least once a year to just stay human.

Are you praying for me? Before we leave, we're going to pray together. But, before we do that, after I dismiss you, there are lay pastors here who are going to pray with people who have special needs. Some of you are dealing with areas of resistance - you don't have to name what they are, because God knows what they are - but, the Bible tells us to have elders pray for us. Your prayers are not enough if you're dealing with a repeated area of resistance. So will the lay pastors who are going to pray with folks come up and stand here while I pray for the rest of the congregation? When you're dismissed, these people are here, ready to pray for you if you have a special area of need for resistance. Right now, will you go to prayer with me? I'm going to lead you in a directional prayer. It's going to be your own personal prayer, but I'm going to direct you in it.

We're going to begin with a prayer of repentance. Repent means to agree with God. If there's any area in my life that's not aligned with God's perfect will, I'm going to call that what it is - it's not a bad habit; it's sin. Even if it's something like procrastination, anything less than the perfect will of God, I'm going to call it sin. Name that right now. Ask for God's help. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. "Father, anything that is not of You, is not acceptable in my life. I name it for what it is. It is rebellion. It is sin. I need Your help, for I am powerless against it." Before you go to bed tonight, make a commitment to a proactive step. I've recommended some, and you might know of others. Now, we're going to have a prayer of receiving. "Lord Jesus, I want all of You to possess all of me." If you have done this for the first time today, it's called the new birth. The fullness of the presence of God's spirit has come into your life. Nothing, or nobody, no created thing, no unseen thing can separate you ever from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. "Lord Jesus, I want all of You to possess all of me. We thank You for the power of Your cross, of Your sacrifice, that has authority over all evil. And we place ourselves fully under Your authority. In the incredible name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.