Podcasts about Our Struggle

Our Struggle with Identity and Faith is the topic that will be discussed today on RIOT Podcast, a Christian Discipleship Podcast. How can we ensure we're walking in obedience rather than delaying God's call? In this week's episode, we explore Genesis 33:1-17, where Jacob's long-awaited reunion with his brother, Esau, takes center stage. After 20 […] The post Our Struggle with Identity and Faith | RIOT Podcast appeared first on Riotpodcast.

Our Struggle & God's FaithfulnessNehemiah 13:30–31Pastor Nate ClarkeNovember 19, 2023SERMON NOTES:1. We are prone to fall.    - “We won't get into ungodly relationships.” (Nehemiah 10:30)      Gets into ungodly relationships (Nehemiah 13:23)    - “We won't do business and trade on the Sabbath.” (Nehemiah 10:31)       Does business and trade on the Sabbath. (Nehemiah 13:15)    - “We won't neglect the house of God.” (Nehemiah 10:39)       Neglects the house of God (Nehemiah 13:10)    - Exodus 32:1, 7-8    - Romans 7:18-20    - Galatians 5:17    - 1 Peter 2:11“It is the nature of a fire to go out; you must keep it stirred and fed and the ashes removed.” —General William Booth2. We are prone to forget.    - Nehemiah 9:16-17    - Psalm 77:7-8    - Psalm 77:11-12    - Deuteronomy 4:9“It is not by new revelation that the Spirit comforts. He does so by telling us old things over again. He brings a fresh lamp to manifest the treasures hidden in Scripture. He unlocks the strong chests where the truth has long been, and he points to secret chambers filled with untold riches. However, he mints no new coins, for enough is done.” —Charles Spurgeon3. God is prone is save.    - Romans 8:3-4    - Romans 5:20-214. God is prone to remember.    - Nehemiah 13:14    - Nehemiah 13:22    - Nehemiah 13:29    - Nehemiah 13:31Oasis Church exists to help people see Jesus more clearly.We are led by Pastor Nate Clarke and are located in Richmond, VA.Stay Connected:Website: https://oasischurch.online Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oasischurchva/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OasisChurchRVA/

Pastor JD shares good news concerning our struggle with sin as Christians with the hope that all of us will be encouraged. The post Good News in Our Struggle with Sin – 1 John 1 8-10 – April 30th, 2023 appeared first on Calvary Chapel Kaneohe.

Love is boring and breakups are banal. Flight attendants are gay and have extraordinarily high body counts. We're calling for a New Sensualism! Have you read The Line of Beauty? Drew's getting into astrology and martinis, Lauren's still running the show. Alex Dimitrov is, in fact, a respected poet–published in The New Yorker, no less. He likes getting his haircut once a week, to feel in control. He likes keeping a diary, he likes the camaraderie of a handjob. Lauren's been reading a lot about AIDS and Quebec. Drew's been forcing people to take shots of Pepto Bismol. Dimitrov doesn't like lunch, but he likes Hemingway. Lauren knows where to find the best steak tartare in New York. Drew still hasn't found a father. Dimitrov is writing a novel but it's not a queer novel. Karl Ove is falling in love. No one's beautiful, we're all going to die, and Our Struggle is back from an accidental hiatus. Eat this episode with cranberry sauce. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ourstrugglepod/message

A new MP3 sermon from Providence Village Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Our Struggle with Sin Subtitle: God's Righteousness Revealed Speaker: Dax Summerhill Broadcaster: Providence Village Baptist Church Event: Sunday Service Date: 9/18/2022 Bible: Romans 7:13-20 Length: 46 min.

A new MP3 sermon from Providence Village Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Our Struggle with Sin Subtitle: God's Righteousness Revealed Speaker: Dax Summerhill Broadcaster: Providence Village Baptist Church Event: Sunday Service Date: 9/18/2022 Bible: Romans 7:13-20 Length: 46 min.

This content is for members only. Visit the site and log in/register to read. The post Our Struggle with Food Addiction w/ Dr. Bunmi Aboaba appeared first on Soul & Spirit Guide.

Russia's armed invasion of Ukraine has already exacted a terrible human cost. Thousands of people are dead and over a million have been displaced. In condemning Russia's actions, other nations across the world have sought to hit the country with a broad array of economic sanctions. One of those sanctions targets several large Russian banks, and could have repercussions across the globe. This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, about the economic repercussions of kicking major Russian banks out of Swift. Then, WIRED staff writer Aarian Marshall joins us to talk about how the war has affected gig workers in Ukraine. Show Notes:  Read Aarian's story about gig workers in Ukraine. Recommendations:  Aarian recommends going on a walk to clear your head. Lauren recommends the Maintenance Phase podcast, which tackles the worst aspects of the wellness movement. Mike recommends the podcast Our Struggle, which is all about the series of autobiographical novels by Karl Ove Knausgård. Rachel Rizzo can be found on Twitter @RachelRizzo. Aarian Marshall is @AarianMarshall Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week at the Silver Screen Video we are happy to have one half of the Our Struggle podcast team Lauren Teixeira. We discuss the great actor Stellan Skarsgard and a few of his movies. Our Struggle is available wherever you get your podcasts and you can visit their website at ourstruggle.store. Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to check out our new Patreon to get access to The Silver Screen Video After Dark and more. Link is below for all our social media. https://linktr.ee/silverscreenvideo $3 Tier- Access to Silver Small Screen Video and Silver Screen Video After Dark $5 Tier- Access to Silver Small Screen Video $10 Tier- Access to both of the above tiers and you get to pick the film or film topic we discuss on an episode. Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to email at silverscreenvideopodcast@gmail.com with any comments or thoughts. Also be sure to follow us on Instagram @silverscreenvideopodcast or Twitter @SilverVideo --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/silverscreenvideo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/silverscreenvideo/support

It was the INTERNATIONAL BREAK! Portugal won games against Ireland and Qatar. The debate of The line-ups selected, the performance of players, and who should be starting for the team. With all the drama of the Ireland game, missed Penalties, and breaking records, Cristiano Ronaldo is a thing of perfection. Then we show our appreciation for Joao Mario, Goncalo Guedes, and even little Otavio. The number 7 and some all-time greats. Transfer deadline day and Portuguese players moving around at the last minute, as well as the guys who stayed put. We re-ignite the spite follow the conversation of Juventus and Wolfsburg. We announce that Wolverhampton Wanderers are going to be undefeated until at least December. CANADA: we went to the Honduras game and then watched the USA match, and our boys had a great run! The Reds are looking better and better. Our Struggle of trying to buy a Stephen Eustaqio Jersey at BMO, a true failure to the Portuguese community in the city of Toronto. We throw a lot of fuel into the fire of the Canada V America Rivalry. Justin finds a new name for Christian Pulisic and we talk about his idol growing up. A very obvious Joao Wonder is crowned. This episode is Fueled by: Slowly made sandwiches, buckets of Super Bock, and the Glorious Cristiano 04 jersey. Thanks for listening! Please join us on the RealFevr app and join our Portuguese league Fantasy season in the league "The Portugal Corner" Please make sure to rate and review us wherever you get your PODs & subscribe to our YouTube page! Twitter: @joao_wonder Instagram: @theportugalcorner Google: theportugalcorner@gmail.com Anchor: https://anchor.fm/joao-wonder Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/3JhYDg9UQ5mpMMOkaItpwx Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-portugal-corner/id1553421610?l=en Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy80YzM4YzQ1Yy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw=

We're back! After their triumphant NYC debut, Lauren is back in DC, Drew's moved into Morningside Heights with his Jane Goodall-fancying roommate, and they're ready to chat Grandma's shit death house with their pal Donny Morrissey, an investigative journalist and fan of the show who was first K-pilled some years ago during a stint in county jail for heroin possession. This is a classic struggle session, with equal parts textual analysis and Martin anus riffing. You're going to want to shoot this one into your veins, listener! NOTE FOR THE AUDIO FREAKS: There was a weird rustling sound on Donny's end to begin with but it's resolved by 38:40 so skip ahead to there if you really can't stand it (although you will miss a lot of good riffing). 0:00 - Lauren and Drew convene early to catch up and plug Our Struggle's 1ST ANNIVERSARY CALL IN SHOW, the deadline for which is August 21 (GOOGLE VOICE NUMBER: 443-584-6486). We've been getting a lot of delightful missives from listeners and would love to get more. So call in! Especially if you can help Lauren interpret her MRI report, a dramatic reading of which she gives at 8:15. 14:00 - Our boy Donny beams in from his Marc Maron-style LA garage and we quickly stumble upon an excerpt from Christopher Hitchens' memoir about being horny for Margaret Thatcher and definitely not horny at all for his good chum Martin Anus. After pondering how Martin A would fare on Twitter, Donny tells us about his K-pill experience in the clink (interestingly he couldn't Pynchonpill himself, even locked up for 23 hours a day) and Drew whips out the James Wood blurb on prison literature. Does the cleaning grandma's alcoholic shit death house section of Book 1 have a certain prison lit quality, in which every minor detail takes on great world building significance?  1:20:39 - Lauren, Drew and Donny sat sail upon a sea of cleaning products, or is it a ocean of meaningless? At any rate we try to draw out what we feel is one of the most important paradigms in Book 1, about the erosion of meaning over time. We read from some of the most iconic passages in the book, about childhood, construction cranes, crabs. A lot of roasting of Yngve in this passage for everything from his outfits to his sleepwalking to his lutefisk eating -- the latter of which inspires us to interrogate our own relationships to fish. 2:10:10 - After what is surely an unhealthy amount of on-topic discussion, our three close readers lapse back into digression and chat neck pain, the notorious JC episode, Donny's hot take re: jail vs. prison. We spend at least a quarter of an hour discussing height percentiles with the help of tall.life, ultimately arriving at  the conclusion that Lauren is taller than Drew. Thank you for listening! As always, write in to us at teixeira.lauren@gmail.com or deohringer@gmail.com. And please do call in! You have three days left!!!       --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ourstrugglepod/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ourstrugglepod/support

After six years apart, Lauren and Drew reunite in the Den of the Wizard of Remsen Street (noted literary critic Christian Lorentzen) to produce [sic] an episode that some will call unlistenable and others mumblecore. They bear witness to the completion of a new Lorentzen piece (“I'm going to see my editor at the bar later,” he says). Lauren fiddles fruitlessly with wires and mics she picked up from a listener/new friend serendipitously named Gunnar in Williamsburg,  Drew sprawls out on the couch with an old Spanish guitar, and Christian's neighbor and pod supplicant Krithika Varagur shows up with salted licorice. Lorentzen, ever the solicitous host, supplies the discussants with Pepsi (Mexican, mid-century sugar), coffee (Chemex, poured over paper towel) and Miss Vickie's chips.  You are listening to an excerpt of what was in fact a deep, deep--geologically deep--hang: Drew and Krithika bonded over incest and heroin in the work of Edward St. Aubyn, Lauren smoked Lorentzen's Camel Blues, and the critic himself typed away and commented on the mingling of smoke and afternoon sunlight in his study. In a state of classic Our Struggle delirium, Drew and Lauren finally vowed to face that evening's bar hang without chemical aid--raw-dogging life, as the kids say. In that vulnerable, intimate and perhaps diseased spirit, we humbly present our first-ever in-the-flesh episode, REMSEN STREET RAWDOG with Christian Lorentzen and Krithika Varagur --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/ourstrugglepod/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ourstrugglepod/support

SO OFTEN, WE ARE DIVIDED MENTALLY IN A SYSTEM THAT TRAPS OUR POTENTIAL COLLECTIVELY. OUR STRUGGLE, AS BLACK PEOPLE, CAN SEEM TO DIFFERENTIATE SUCCESS AND FAILURE BUT NEGATE THAT SUCH A MAGAZINE OF INTERNAL CONFLICT AND COMPETITIVENESS IS WHOLLY OWNED BY WHITE SUPREMACY. YET, ONE CAN DEBATE WHETHER THE OWNER IS THE CAUSE OR NOT; WHAT IS OBSCURED IS THE SYSTEM THAT PERPETUATES THE IMPOTENCY OF BLACK POWER THINKING. SUCH THINKING MUST HAVE BALANCE; YET, MAINTAIN VIABILITY AGAINST THE FORCE OF WHITE SUPREMACY THINKING. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

We were a little perplexed when Torrey Peters came groveling before us to come on the show. She'd written a best-selling novel with big topical themes--and other odd things like scenes, characters, plot. Why did she want to talk to two people who've devoted their own discourse to a seemingly shapeless, semi-essayistic inventory of one Norwegian's life?   Torrey quickly provided her Scandinavian lit bona fides--which is to say she gave us detailed accounts of her homosocial and romantic adventures with various laconic Nords. We hear about dreary ferry rides, a house of forlorn beauty she would never get to see, Per Peterson's candlelit dinner routine. These details allowed Lauren to make the first-ever comparison between My Struggle and Brideshead Revisited.... We tried to learn a little bit about the uses and operations of so-called conventional writing. Were we wrong to call easily translatable prose bland and insipid?  (Actually, it was our pickly-prickly guest J Cohen who advanced that argument, and Torrey has some grounded, considered rebuttals for him here.)  Still, we wondered, what had Torrey learned from the Knausgaardian messiness? She showed us how his odd lack of emotional differentiation helped her render scenes of dissociation in Detransition, Baby. And why did she beg to come on our show after all? Torrey told us that her Knausgaardianism has estranged her from her own community--trans writers, it turns out, don't really want to talk about My Struggle. Which is strange, since, as Torrey reveals, the series is a naively rigorous documentation of the male code; its essaysistic form allows us to see the anxiety and barely-concealed messiness of male performance.  “There's so much gender there,” Torrey says (ie, dudes want to perform verbal guitar solos on Hitlerian themes). We also asked her to give the official trans community statement on tinned fish and the hot girls who consume it. NOTE FROM LAUREN: BUY OUR T-SHIRT! CERTAIN SIZES HAVE ALREADY SOLD OUT. ourstruggle.store PS. GET IN TOUCH! teixeira.lauren@gmail.com; deohringer@gmail.com; and as always the Our Struggle hotline 443-584-6486 - call-in show records in August!

Our Struggle returns! It's 100 degrees outside so come out to the shore and take a trip under the boardwalk with us and our very special guest Joshua Cohen (author of The Netanyahus; buy it now)!  A Book of Questions about our season 2 premiere:  Why is Joshua Cohen compared only to the dead? What is the sound of one ball-sack slapping against wet tile in a banya? Why does Lauren think the past is quaint?  Is auto-fiction solipsistic and foreclosed?  How does JC avoid setting off the bullshit detectors of his household gods?  Where has all the passionate nihilism gone? Why do semicolons induce impotence?  Why does The Netanyahus contain so many disquisitions? What's the problem with pastiche, bricolage and collage?  Why didn't Lauren participate in boardwalk necking?  Why don't critics discuss the ghostliness of writers' anonymous work?  What does it feel like when James Wood reviews your book?  How can Drew regrow his foreskin and escape the limitations of his MFA?  Why does liberalism end in martyrdom?  Why does JC think Time's Arrow is Martin Amis's best book?  What was so hysterical about hysterical realism? What are the dangers of comic exaggeration?  Can words enact an incantatory violence?  Is My Struggle merely narcotic?     Do you want to get in touch? Email us: teixeira.lauren@gmail.com ; deohringer@gmail.com Do you want to leave us a voicemail for our 1st anniversary show? Call 443-584-6486     Psst......... ourstruggle.store  

Cassandra's Twitter Cassandra's Book Impact: How I Went behind Enemy Lines in Our Struggle against the Far Left

WE ARE BACK! After a dire situation earlier this month, Our Struggle returns, as lo-fi and perfunctory as ever! It's just us boys again this ep but be assured we have some VERY prestigious and intellectual guests on the horizon, so if you're one of those dweebs who listens to our show for so-called "literary criticism" and "thoughtful discussion of the work of Karl Ove Knausgaard" just hold on a little longer.  MAJOR shout out to "The financial times of Norway" DAGENS NAERINGSLIV AKA DN which recently published a write-up of Our Struggle that really captured the essence of our podcast. We love our new Norwegian listeners and hope to be flown out to your beautiful country someday for a North Sea oil wealth-funded panel. HOUSEKEEPING: I forgot to mention this on the pod but we are collecting voicemails at our google voice number for our eventual (1st anniversary?) call-in show: 443-584-6486 cheat sheet: 0:00 - Lauren and Drew velkommen our new Norwegian listeners and discuss their newfound Norwegian notoriety. 8:20 - A digression about Elvis Costello turns into a full-blown music segment in which we listen to Costello, Belle & Sebastian and Jonathan Richman and reflect on the richness of the Scottish indie pop tradition. 19:08 - We struggle through the first five or so pages of part two of book one. Karl Ove is writing in his studio in Stockholm and sees Jesus in the parquet, takes a cigarette break and observes the morning rush; does he feel a part of the city or detached from it?  57:00 - Lauren and Drew lose their minds imagining Karl Ove engaging with nostalgia bait memes 1:08:40 - Huge thank you to 6'4" Norwegian alpha male friend of the pod Robert Rust for linguistic coaching! Thank you for listening! As always, feel free to write in with your thoughts, questions and Norwegian memes to Lauren (teixeira.lauren@gmail.com) and/or Drew (deohringer@gmail.com). We love hearing from you!  

Welcome to the Determined to Dance podcast with your host, Jennifer Hallmark. Today’s episode, “Our Struggle with Procrastination” focuses on one of the deadliest negative actions when it comes to our dance with God. Are you ready? The world would have us march to its chaotic beat but God invites us to dance in His will and His way. Let’s take a moment to be energized, refreshed, and motivated to face the day, one spin and twirl at a time. Show Notes: Our Struggle with Procrastination A few days ago, I needed to work on the upcoming episodes of my podcast. I really did. But it’s late spring and there’s so much yard work to do, not counting getting our above-the-ground pool ready for the grandkids, and let’s not even discuss spring cleaning. The deck needs some fresh paint and… All of a sudden I’m in a major procrastination mode. I mean, who wants to sit inside and work when beautiful weather is calling? But there is a time and place for everything. So, here I am. Perched at my desk, slogging my way through an ever-growing pile of work. Procrastination. The Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition is to put off intentionally and habitually. Also, to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done. Ugh. Is that what I’m doing? I think so. Before I know it, I’ve stopped dancing and moved onto my own path, far from God. I noticed one word that’s mentioned twice. Intentionally. Now, I’ve been known to forget an appointment (if not written in my trusty Google calendar) or forget a birthday, or to schedule a blog post. But we’re not talking forgetful here. And we’re not discussing survival mode-that time after tragedy or crisis where you can only accomplish the bare minimum of everyday life. No, intentional is on purpose. Yard work is calling my name, not because it’s my favorite pastime but to avoid putting myself in this chair and putting together a podcast. Why? I’ve thought of seven reasons while I put off doing something and over the next weeks, we’ll look at each reason in detail. To avoid conflict. Because something is difficult or seems difficult. I might fail. I might succeed. I’m overly busy. Loss of focus/low priority. Perfectionism I’m sure there are many more but these are my top seven. I studied the list and noticed they had one thing in common: Fear. Some more than others but they all deal with some type of fear or dread or anxiety. And that brings us to an age-old struggle: Fear versus faith. What’s the Bible say? A lot. I love what Jeremiah tells us in the 17th chapter, seventh and eighth verses. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” NKJV We put our trust AND hope in the Lord. You’ll note it doesn’t say that everything will be fine and perfect and lovely. Instead, we read “when heat comes” and “year of drought.” Wow. I wish He’d left those phrases out. But if He had, we wouldn’t need faith. And dancing and faith go hand in hand. Let’s pray about it: Father God, we come before you today and admit we have fears and worries and tend to be anxious. We put off dancing with You and pursue lesser things. You understand and woo us back to the dance floor with liberal doses of love, grace, and mercy. We are so thankful that You are extravagant and kind and good. Help us learn that everything has a time and give us wisdom as we follow You. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Next week, we’ll discuss procrastination and conflict. Yikes. I think I might need to trim the hedges again… Until then. Stay determined to dance. Future topics include: Procrastination. Fear vs. Faith Avoiding Conflict What will people think? Continue to dance.

True repentance admits guilt and responsibility, yielding all rights, hoping only for grace which is not deserved.Our Struggle with RepentanceHumblingIncriminatingYields all RightsA Call to the Church (vv. 12-13, 15-16)For Whom the Horn Blows? (vv. 12-13, 15-16)Judgment Begins in the House of God (1 Peter 4:17; Revelation 2-3)Defender of the Defenseless (vv. 13-14, 17)What Repentance Looks LikeSincere Sorrow (vv. 12-13)Turning from the World (v. 16)A Contrite Heart He Will Not Despise (v. 14; Psalm 51:15-17)Discussion StartersMonday—Why do we like it when others repent, but hate to repent ourselves?Tuesday—Why is it important to remember that the call to repentance in the book of Joel is addressed at the church? What is the danger of the church forgetting that it needs to repent regularly?Wednesday—Why do you think we struggle with the idea of corporate repentance? Is the Bible opposed to the idea of corporate repentance?Thursday—What does it mean to rend your hearts and not your garments? What does true repentance look like?Friday—What does it mean that our worthiness is found in admitting our unworthiness? Why is that which scares us the most, the only way to find comfort?

True repentance admits guilt and responsibility, yielding all rights, hoping only for grace which is not deserved.Our Struggle with RepentanceHumblingIncriminatingYields all RightsA Call to the Church (vv. 12-13, 15-16)For Whom the Horn Blows? (vv. 12-13, 15-16)Judgment Begins in the House of God (1 Peter 4:17; Revelation 2-3)Defender of the Defenseless (vv. 13-14, 17)What Repentance Looks LikeSincere Sorrow (vv. 12-13)Turning from the World (v. 16)A Contrite Heart He Will Not Despise (v. 14; Psalm 51:15-17)Discussion StartersMonday—Why do we like it when others repent, but hate to repent ourselves?Tuesday—Why is it important to remember that the call to repentance in the book of Joel is addressed at the church? What is the danger of the church forgetting that it needs to repent regularly?Wednesday—Why do you think we struggle with the idea of corporate repentance? Is the Bible opposed to the idea of corporate repentance?Thursday—What does it mean to rend your hearts and not your garments? What does true repentance look like?Friday—What does it mean that our worthiness is found in admitting our unworthiness? Why is that which scares us the most, the only way to find comfort?

*Below is Pastor Andrew’s teaching outline from Sunday's sermon, not a word for word manuscript. This is meant as aid in seeing the thought and direction of the sermon. “And while he thinks that, we  do not have to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully  recognised, sin, but only with his vague,…… Continue reading Romans 7:13-25 – Our Struggle with Sin

Our Struggle returns, and this time it's "just us boys"! This is a vibes-packed episode that is sure to alienate any new so-called intellectual listeners we may have gained via our show with esteemed Gen X critic Christian L but who gives a shit, we're vibing out like it's the first weekend of 1985 and Dad has left us a basket of fresh shrimp and a 500 krone note while he's away at a seminar. The passage we cover starts at 141 in Kindle, not sure what it is in paper sorry cheat sheet: 12:54 - One of our most ghastly segments yet as Karl Ove consumes liver pate on toast while lying about eating shrimp in aspic at the NYE party. CW: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SHRIMP IN ASPIC 37:15 - A truly inscrutable passage involving a visit to Grandma and Grandpa and a tablecloth  51:06 - Dad is away at a seminar, thus kicking off a remarkably and delightfully 80s teen movie segment of My Struggle (and one of Lauren and Drew's favorites) SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS: I have created an Our Struggle playlist on Spotify to help you achieve maximum vibeage after the episode. Listen and let yourself be transported to a sunny Saturday morning in Kristiansand, Norway in 1985, you’re walking around town as faces flash by and the world is full of possibility….. As always, we would love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out at teixeira.lauren@gmail.com or deohringer@gmail.com      

Our Struggle returns, and this time with highly prestigious guest Christian Lorentzen! In addition to being our new token Gen X friend, Christian is a famous literary critic whose work appears regularly in Harper's, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and other high falutin venues. He has not only reviewed book 6 of My Struggle for TLS but SMOKED CIGARETTES WITH THE MAN HIMSELF during an interview for New York magazine. In this episode we discuss one of the most memorable passages of My Struggle book 1, the beer on the hill saga. If you would like to read along this passage starts at roughly page 62 in kindle and page 56 in analog.cheat sheet:1:00 - Christian recounts his meeting with KOK and confirms that the man is indeed six and a half feet tall. Also: some NYC literary world color including horny Jeffrey Eugenides13:22 - We start discussing the amazingly mundane hero's journey that takes up about 20% of this book, of teen Karl Ove smuggling beer to a new year's eve party. How does this section fit into the paradigm Christian outlines for us about the transition in contemporary literature, over the past few decades, from romanticism with a leg in fantasy to romanticism of the banal? Also, some meta-critical discussion of how Knausgaard became an international literary sensation, in light of Christian's infamous 2019 meta critical essay in Harper's45:30 - Touching off from Knausgaard's description of the "hostile" rooms in the family home, we get into an interesting discussion of what might be called Knausgaardian essentialism - his technique of trying to make something of nothing by probing the essences of both people as well as inanimate objects as mundane as gravel. 1:08:00 - We discuss the parquet factory as a motif in this book and get nostalgic about light industry.Thank you for listening! And if you would like more of Christian, you can find him on twitter @xlorentzen. He has a piece about Phillip Roth upcoming in the new Bookforum and you can find his piece about literature in the Trump era for Harper's here.As always, would love to hear from listeners - you can DM us on Twitter @OurStrugglePod or reach us at teixeira.lauren@gmail.com or deohringer@gmail.com intro: Guided by Voices - Game of Pricksoutro: Guided by Voices- Game of Pricks covered by Andrew Ohringer   

After a nearly two month hiatus, Our Struggle returns! Lauren and Drew are back and spicier than ever, delivering for you our timely review of KOK's new essay collection "In the Land of the Cyclops" (which to be clear neither of us have read) before getting on with struggle session 1.2 covering Karl Ove's My Struggle book 1 reflections on his diaper-laden domestic life in the aforementioned land of the cyclops (Sweden).cheat sheet:0:00 - Drew connects with a guy on Instagram8:00 - We review KOK's new essay collection based off of one excerpt of an NYT review that a listener sent to me. We also read some correspondence from a Norwegian listener about an anti-Knausgaard pamphlet entitled "The Knausgaard Code." Thank you so much for writing in, would love to keep hearing from listeners!34:00 - Terri Gross drops in to interview Drew about his new novel, "The Gay Quebecois"41:20 - Finally getting into the meat of the struggle session, we discuss KOK's attitude toward his children and his bold admission that they "do not provide enough meaning to fill a whole life." How does fatherhood and domestic life figure into the My Struggle project? Does Knausgaard really wish he could go back to the paradigm of the 19th-20th century male genius, free to pursue his artistic passions and unburdened by family responsibility? Also, we draw some very accurate and legitimate parallels between KOK and Louis C.K. and propose a CBS thursday night-style sitcom adaptation of My Struggle.                                                                                   

The struggle continues in the third episode of OS as we attempt to bridge the America/Canada cultural divide in a conversation as wide-ranging as the breadth of the interior between Vancouver and St. Johns! Our guest is our new friend John Cullen, a Canadian, comedian and co-host of the Blocked Party podcast, which is by some metrics actually a more famous podcast than Our Struggle. John has done his homework for this episode and raises the salient question: Is Karl Ove Knausgaard actually just a tedious asshole? We talk about that for a while but also get into some cool discussions about Newfy culture, employee discounts at sporting goods stores, and soliciting Knausgaard on Cameo. Thank you to John for guesting and no thank you to Drew as usual! The article discussed is "My Saga," a travelogue KOK wrote for the New York Times magazine in 2015. Lauren messed up and lost the last part of the recording where John plugs his new album. For those interested, the name of his album is LONG STORIES FOR NO REASON and you can find it on iTunes and Spotify. You can also follow John on Twitter @cullenthecomic. Do it!!

If Jesus is the risen and ruling king of all creation, why is living in his new life a struggle? In this message, we consider Christ’s victory and our struggle. Outline Christ’s Victory (v10) Our Struggle (vv11-12) God’s Gospel Armour (vv13-17) Gospel Action (vv18-20) Gospel Encouragement (vv21-23)

It's our sophomore slump! In the second episode of Our Struggle, we welcome guest Brendan O'Kane, a renown sinologist and literary translator who has not only not read Knausgaard but adamantly refuses to. Can we convince him that early modern Chinese literature and My Struggle have more in common than he'd think?0:00 - More fish talk. Drew had a canned fish phase; we predict another salmon-heavy diplomatic standoff between China and Norway.21:24 - After spending way too much time looking for the part in My Struggle where Knausgaard describes prematurely ejaculating, we let Brendan talk about The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅), a famous 16th century work of pornography. We then discuss the strangely common phenomenon of busting to death in early modern Chinese literature. (We actually do find a way to connect this back to Knausgaard)37:49 - Drew ponders the dense materialism of Knausgaard and how he manages to preserve the "thinginess" or heftiness of objects - letting them come across as objects with material properties rather than lazy mimetic stand-ins. A discussion touching on IKEA furniture and sumptuary regulations in the Ming dynasty follows.1:11:49 - Finally we discuss genre fiction and propose that literary fiction has actually just become its own genre with its own tropes. Maybe it's better to just write Amish teen vampire romance novels.  MUSIC - GUIDED BY VOICES "GAME OF PRICKS"  EDITING BY LAUREN, THE MAN OF THE SHOW

God decided for us to be different, we were all uniquely created. And though God celebrates this, we have historically struggled with it! But why? The post Our Struggle appeared first on Hoboken Grace.

This First in Future episode features Dr. Rupert Nacoste, author of the new book "To Live Woke: Thoughts to Carry in Our Struggle to Save the Soul of America". Dr. Nacoste is a native of Louisiana, but for the past 32 years has been a professor of psychology at NC State. Dr. Nacoste’s research and public service efforts have focused on developing a systematic understanding of the social psychology of social change, and using that scholarly understanding to help people manage the social changes that are influencing their everyday lives.

NOTE TO LISTENERS: DREW'S AUDIO GETS BETTER IN THE SECOND HALF I PROMISE Call this episode the opposite of Norwegian cuisine because boy is it SPICY! In the pilot episode of Our Struggle we put the following institutions on blast: quinoa, Sweden, the New Yorker, and august literary critic James Wood (for being a beautiful genius :) ). This is a jam-packed episode that is sure to make you laugh AND make you contemplate your mortality. - so will James Wood give it a positive review? (Please come on the pod Professor Wood.)Please feel free to reach out with your thoughts on the show. You can email us at knauscastpod at gmail or tweet at us/DM us on Twitter at OurStrugglePod. We also have an obligatory newsletter: subscribe to it at ourstruggle.substack.com.cheat sheet:2:28 - Lauren and Drew introduce themselves and talk about their reasons for starting the pod. Do we, in this moment, need Karl Ove Knausgaard more than ever? Our answer is yes, if only because of the fate currently befalling the overly hydrated quinoa eating Swedes.10:57 - Our friend Robert Rust, a real Norwegian, calls into the show to teach us how to say the great man's name in the AUTHENTIC style of the fjord peoples. My pronunciation is perfect and Drew's sucks22:32 - We get pretty deep into Norwegian cuisine. If you're like Karl Ove and fish makes you nauseous - maybe skip this section!36:10 - Finally we start building out a theoretical framework for KOK with the help of close personal friend of the show James Wood. We discuss Wood's 2012 NEW yORKER essay on Karl Ove. Why is death so crucial to storytelling? Are contemporary novelists willfully avoiding the ultimate fact (their own demise) in their writing? Why do Lauren and Drew keep connecting quinoa with mortality?INTRO MUSIC: Guided by Voices - Game of PricksProduction by Lauren Teixeira, the Man of the show  

I replay and dedicate this show to my Beloved, lets call her SARAH, the wife of Abraham, the Mother of a Nation....Your struggle is our struggle and OUR STRUGGLE is the Glory of God, and your well being.....

Reading by Wilson Tan (Jakarta) and meditation by Markus E. Bonorianto (Jakarta) THE REAL WORLD IS THE FIELD FOR OUR STRUGGLE The theme for our meditation today is: The Real World is the Field for Our Struggle. There was a student who was studying in the city, was having a phone call with his parents in the village. He told them about many temptations that always bothered him, such as love relationship between boys and girls that were not enough mature, fights between friends, laziness or tiredness in study, and many other evil influences around him. His father who was speaking with him then responded, "We in the village also have a lot of disturbances such as I argue many times with your mother, your brothers and sisters are lazy to work and study, and a very low telephone signal almost happens everyday." Our very life everyday is full with distractions. This world and every human person who inhabits in it becomes the field of work chosen by Jesus Christ who was sent by the Father. He was willing to die for our goodness and our salvation. Sin, evil influences, disturbances and difficulties of any kind always make our lives not in peace. According to the today's reading, these are the weeds that disturb our lives as followers of Christ. None of us can go free from these weeds. Even though you try to do good and always intend to please those around you, but there are still some of them who dissatisfy, disagree, dislike, oppose, and envy at you. They are all weeds who have no tolerance on you. However, Jesus never gives up or stops giving us His loving attention. Jesus Christ does not abandon us, and the Holy Spirit faithfully accompanies us. This is the reality of this world. We cannot avoid this world's reality. We can only stand on our feet, keep walking on our way, and must be able to equip ourselves with all the commandments and guidance of the Lord. Like the prophet Jeremiah who lamented that this real life is broken because of sin and it really hopes for God's mercy, we also should have an optimistic view about a better life we can achieve. This attitude surely will support our purpose of being at home with one another and contribute our sharing of active participation for the renewal of our lives and the world where we are in. Let us free ourselves from the view that sees this life merely a dream or an illusion that can lead people to a pessimistic attitude and hatred toward this real world. When people dream to escape from the real world because they can't stand the situation they are facing right now, this type maybe like a car that passes on a long road where some times endures the rocky part and some times enjoys the smooth part. The rear wheels continue to dream or fantasize as they say: "We want to be in the front position in order to arrive first, but how can we ...? Many of us often fall into such dream, which means that they are not comfortable, not optimistic and not realistic about this life on this world. We hope we are not part of this type of people, because we are still realistic and optimistic about this life and because God Himself is always with us. Let's pray. In the name of the Father ... O God, the almighty Father, may the Holy Spirit always enable us to renew the world and our lives, and our fidelity to Jesus Christ never fades from the faith that we have professed. Glory to the Father ... In the name of the Father ... --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/media-la-porta/message

After eight into marriage, we finally decided to have kids. However, God was not on board with our plan. The world was not ready for our children, and there was... The post EP//28: Our Struggle with Infertility first appeared on The Marriage Adventure.

Another day in the United States of Serfs and Lords. Conservatives suck. One of Tara's OG patrons and supporters does not like her anymore... as much. Hawk Newsome of BLM puts Fox News in its place. Fox News cherry-picks MLK quotes but forgets that MLK said, Our Struggle is for Genuine Equality, Which Means Economic Equality. Protesters bring a guillotine to Jeff Bezos' mansion in DC where he buys politicians and corrupts governent. Denmark can pay its workers a livnig wage while Americans choose between buying food and clothing and can't take a day off when sick or even afford a doctor if they could take a day off. Twitler touts jobs report - another hoax. The world looks at the United States as a pariah - as Americans continue to get sick in record numbers of Covid 19. We discuss the day's madness. _________________________________________ BECOME A "TARABUSTER" PATRON: www.patreon.com/taradevlin _________________________________________ Want to Connect In between shows? LEAVE TARA A MESSAGE: 360-777-6007 (your message may be played on the air) _________________________________________ Join the Tarabuster community on Discord too!! https://discord.gg/PRYDBx8 _________________________________________ DONATE TO PROGRESSIVE VOICES: www.progressivevoices.com/rdtdaily Buy some Resistance Merch and help support our progressive work! rdtdaily-merch.myshopify.com/ _________________________________________ Please support the Independent Liberal Media. Donate to RDTdaily.com and "Tarabuster." Every donation over $20 will receive a "Keep Calm and Join the Resistance" window cling featuring RDTdaily's mascot Francis Junior, Jr.! rdtdaily.com/dona…/donate-to-rdtdaily-2/ _________________________________________ Tune in tonight 6PM EST a FACEBOOK and Youtube LIVE for another LIVE “Tarabuster!” Join RDTdaily.com’s Tara Devlin for our weekly therapy session for the Resistance! Rebroadcast on Progressive Voices Sunday 6PM EST, then ANYTIME on the Progressive Voices App. Spend your Saturday Evenings with Tara Devlin. Tweet @REALTaraDevlin or join the Chat LIVE at www.youtube.com/c/RDTdailyMedia

1. Our Call to Love (1:22)2. Our Source for Love (1:23-25)3. Our Struggle to Love (2:1)4. Our Source for Love (2:2-3)SONGSGlorious Day #7081388 by J Ingram, J Smith, K Stanfill, and S Curran© Fellow Ships Music, Hickory Bill Doc, So Essential TunesJesus Paid It All #4689508 by J T Grape, E M Hall & A Nifong2006 worshiptogether.com songs and sixsteps MusicKing Of Kings #7127647 by B Ligertwood, J Ingram & S Ligertwood2018 Hillsong Music PublishingBuild My Life #7070345 by B Younker, K Martin, K Kable, M Redman & P Barrett© Said And Done Music, sixsteps Music, Thankyou Music, worshiptogether.com songs--------------------------------------------Love Well Change Lives Through ChristIt's the vision of Woodmen, led by Pastor Josh Lindstrom, in the Pikes Peak area of ColoradoFind more at https://woodmenvalley.org or download the Woodmen app at https://subsplash.com/woodmenvalleychapel/app —Connect with UsWebsite:https://woodmenvalley.org Woodmen Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/woodmen_valley_chapel/Woodmen Twitter:https://twitter.com/Welcome2WoodmenWoodmen Facebook Pages:Central https://www.facebook.com/WoodmenValleyChapel Heights https://www.facebook.com/WoodmenHeights Monument https://www.facebook.com/WoodmenMoument  Rockrimmon https://www.facebook.com/WoodmenRockrimmonSouthwest https://www.facebook.com/WoodmenSouthwest

Our Struggle with the Remnants of Sin

Our Struggle with the Remnants of Sin

Our Struggle with the Remnants of Sin

Our Struggle with the Remnants of Sin

"Our Struggle to Live by Faith" from Pastor Pat Nemmers

Our Struggle for Spiritual Authority

Sian Birch shares a simple series of age appropriate conversations we can have with our kids about “Our Struggle with Sin." Rockingham Baptist Church, Waikiki, Western Australia

08-23-15: Our Struggle is not Against Enemies of Blood and Flesh (Rev. Denny Wayman) by Sermons

Introduction I believe every Christian on the face of the earth greatly underestimates spiritual warfare, perhaps even infinitely underestimate spiritual warfare. I think all of us do. I think the vast majority of, at least American Christians, are day by day unaware that they're even in a spiritual war. And so I feel like my job today is to, as one Puritan pastor put it centuries ago, to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. And so, I think about my home state Massachusetts, one of the heroes there is Paul Revere, and you think about that story, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. April 18, 1775, he was roused from his bed, was told that the redcoats are on the move that very night, found out that it was going to be by sea, he went, escaped from some British pickets and then rode out to Lexington and conquered to warn the slumbering countryside, a Middlesex County there that the redcoats were coming, the British were coming. And you picture in your mind the militia being roused from their beds and getting their weapons and going out to the green there in Lexington and then to the bridge it conquered, and getting ready to fight. And so, I feel like this text is going to do that. I pray that this text will do that, kind of run roughshod through our complacency and rouse us from our beds of ease and comfort, as the book of Amos says, "Woe to you who are complacent in Zion," that we would not be complacent, that we will be roused to vigorous, attentive fighting in the spiritual realm. One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament, I've quoted it many times from the pulpit is the story of Elisha with his servant, and the Aramean troops surrounding the city. I've quoted even quite recently, and how Elisha prayed, "Oh Lord, open his eyes. There are more for us than there are for them." And so, the servant was enabled to see in the spiritual realm the chariots of fire, the angelic army that was surrounding to defend and protect Elisha. Well, I have maybe a bit of an opposite mission. I want you to have your eyes open to see the spiritual forces of evil that are arrayed against you without neglecting the fact that there's an angelic army or the sovereign power of God, but that you be aware of “the rulers and the authorities and the powers of this present darkness,” and that you would see into the spiritual realm. And you're only going to do that by faith, you're only going to be aware of your danger by faith in the word of God. So we're coming to Ephesians 6:10-18, the whole section on spiritual warfare, and my desire is that you would be aroused and aware that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened so that you could see spiritual danger, and then take the precautions the Lord wants you to take. I feel like many of us Western Christians, American Christians, we fall prey to what one missiologist called, “the Flaw of the Excluded Middle.” And the idea here is that we Christians believe in the most high God, creator of the ends of the earth, and also in His own son, Jesus Christ, who sits at the right hand of God, and our prayers go up to the throne of God, and we have that sense of the loftiness, and the grandeur, and the greatness of God. Amen. And then we see the physical world around us that operates by physical scientific laws, and we're familiar with that, and we operate in that realm, and we've increased in the last 200 years of our scientific awareness of the principles by which this physical world is governed, we're more and more aware of that. But we've excluded the middle realm of angels and demons. We're like practical atheists when it comes to those things. We're like materialists, or deists, who act like it doesn't even matter, and we're not aware of the kind of danger that we're in all the time from the devil, and from demons, from demonic influence. And it seems like this text for us is a major wake-up call that we would be aware of what kind of enemies are opposing you every step of the way. We're not aware of his moment by moment activity. You never think that if you're sick, it might be a satanic attack. You're not aware that if something breaks down or something happens, you just think materially what would it take to get fixed and you wouldn't be aware of the fact that it might be a satanic attack on your life. Or that when you're in a conflict, like you married folks occasionally get into marital discussions from time to time with one another, and in the course of that discussion something pops in your head that if you said it you'd spend months living it down. And perhaps some of you husbands have actually said it. Only the husbands now. Say that thing, and then how do you un-explain, and then, what's so amazing, it's like I don't even think that's true. I would never want to say that to my beloved wife. Where did that come from? I know where it came from. 2 Timothy 2 says that the devil can take us captive to do his will, and so that we actually even as Christians, we can sometimes do the work of the devil, we just need to be more aware of the invisible spiritual realm. A few nights ago I was watching with my kids, the movie, The Hobbit, probably some of you have seen it, the Tolkien thing. I don't know how in the world they got three movies out of a 250 page book, but you have to do what you have to do. But at any rate, that first movie, in that movie, this Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins finds this magic ring, this powerful ring that enables him to turn invisible. And he finds its previous owner, Gollum, is a wicked, vile creature who just lives for lust of this ring, loves it, lost it, is looking for it, and Bilbo has it. He doesn't know it's power but somehow he comes to put it on and goes invisible, and this nasty creature is blocking his way out of the cave system. And there's this very poignant thing in the movie where Bilbo, invisible, has his sword laying right at the neck of Gollum, ready to kill him. And I was like, "Wow." But Bilbo has a good heart, he's got a merciful heart, and he doesn't want to kill him, and so he doesn't kill him, pulls the sword back and jumps over him and escapes. Turn it around. Imagine the most vile, wicked creature you can imagine. Worse than any human tyrant that's ever lived, worse than Hitler, worse than Stalin, worse than all of them. With his sort of spiritual lies laying at your spiritual neck, and zero mercy in his heart. That's the picture that I have of spiritual warfare. And the word of God has come to be a light shining in a dark place to show us the truth, so that we're aware of the kind of enemy that we have, and that we will fight. And so, look at the text again verses 10-13. It says, "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 schemes for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, or we wrestle 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. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you've done everything to stand, stand firm then." And he goes on from there. Our Spiritual Warfare is Real “Our Struggle” So I want to begin by saying our spiritual warfare is real. There's a real war going on, a spiritual war. We have a struggle, we wrestle. Look at verse 12, "Our struggle..." NIV says, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood." A more literalistic translation, “we wrestle.” We have a wrestling. It mentions later in the text. There's this day of evil that's on us, and so we have this struggle, this fight. So if you're a Christian, you are at war. War is upon you, and you need to know it, you need to be aware. You have a violent, a vigorous enemy that's against you. And so, we wrestle. KJV, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, [or this present darkness,] and against spiritual wickedness in high places [or in spiritual places.]" So you picture a vicious hand-to-hand combat and two soldiers with knives, and they're rolling on the ground, and they're grabbing at each other's clothes, and sweat coming down their face. It's war, and they intend to kill each other. There can be no truce, no peace between the two. One or both of them will end that struggle dead. And that's the picture that we have in the scripture. The word of God alone has the power to teach us the reality of this spiritual warfare. You can't find it in a laboratory, you're not going to be able to come up with an experiment that will prove that it exists. It's the word of God that tells us what's happening to us, what's going on. We're told in 1 Timothy 6:12, "Fight the good fight of faith." So there's a war that we have to fight. The “Spiritual” Nature of this Warfare Now, this warfare is spiritual. It's a spiritual war. It's not physical. It's fought in the spiritual realm. He talks about how our struggle is, “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and spiritual force of evil in the heavenly realms, that spiritual language.” We have spiritual enemies. Now, Paul makes an amazing negation or an amazing assertion in the negative. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, that is to say not against human beings, but Paul is not denying the reality of human opposition to the Kingdom of God. He's not saying, "You will never have a human enemy." I would imagine none of you will have as many human enemies as the apostle Paul did. I mean, committed, dedicated, murderous enemies who hated Paul. Paul struggled mightily against the Jewish leaders of his nation who didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and they felt motivated to do everything they could to shut down the sect of the Nazarenes of Jesus of Nazareth, that shut it down. Paul had been one of them. And when he turned and became a servant of Jesus, they became his mortal enemies. And then even in Greece, they're going from town to town to persecute him and arrest him and stir up riots against him. And speaking of riots, in Ephesus, he had Gentile enemies too like Demetrius who made shrines to Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt. Losing money, comes after Paul vigorously.Sso much so that a riot starts for two hours as they're shouting, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians." They would have killed Paul on the spot if they could. And the Romans, to some degree, were Paul's enemies. In the end, Caesar executed him, cut off his head. They were holding him, and they incarcerated. So Paul knew very well that he had vigorous human, flesh and blood enemies. But he also knew that there is no human enemy so depraved, so wicked, so violent that they're beyond the sovereign grace of God to save. Even the bitterest enemy breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples can be converted in an instant like Paul was. He knew that. Satan is Behind the Enemies of the Cross So what is he saying when he says our struggle is not against flesh and blood? We want to stick in some extra words maybe. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the Scripture, but my understanding just through exegesis, “Our struggle is not only against flesh and blood.” Or even better, “our struggle is not ultimately against flesh and blood.” Behind every seething hate-filled enemy of the cross, there is a demonic, even a Satanic presence. That's what he's saying. So as we look at at our world, and we see who they are, who are the human enemies. And you may talk about ideological enemies, gay rights activists, abortion rights activists. Talk about Islamic terrorists, ISIS, people that behead Christians. Talk about atheistic, materialistic, scientific professor types that are hostile to your faith in the classroom, or other students who are like that. Behind every racist, behind every materialist, every atheist, behind all of that is a demonic, satanic world system of lies, and a spiritual presence. That's what he's saying. Now, what is the spiritual warfare that we're talking about? Later in the chapter, Paul's going to talk about the shield of faith with which we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. So I hope you knew we weren't going through the entire spiritual armor today. Piece by piece. Maybe four sermons, maybe five, probably not 40. Okay? But a good number on spiritual warfare. So we're just getting going. So say, "Oh, God, give me strength and patience." But yeah, there are these flaming arrows that the shield of faith can extinguish. Faith operates in the invisible spiritual world, the shield of faith. And so these flaming arrows, shot at us by the devil, are invisible. Defending Against Satan’s Weapons What are they? They have to do with truths or really lies on his part, contradiction of biblical truth. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, you can turn there if you'd like and look there or put your finger in Ephesians and look at it. But this is a very important passage. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. And there the Apostle Paul says this, "Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ." If you just walk through that you get a sense of the nature of spiritual warfare. What are we talking about? I think one of the keywords there is the word "arguments." Paul says, "We demolish arguments." What are arguments? Arguments are not like having an argument, not like that. Arguments are like the closing argument in a law case. They are rational. They are organized. They are thoughts and concepts and the idea of, supposedly of truth. Satan makes lying arguments against every doctrine in the Bible. And we have the power to demolish those arguments, to blow them up. We don't blow people up like the terrorists do. We blow up arguments and concepts. We blow up ideas. We refute the sword of the lies of the devil. As he swings his sword of lies, we meet it with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And it blocks it. We have the power to refute, to demolish satanic arguments, the cults, the false doctrines, the false religions, the false philosophies of this world, and the temptations that come. We're going to take captive in this warfare every thought and drag that thought obedient to Christ like it's in chains. We fight a mental, spiritual, conceptual battle. That's what we're fighting. So the devil is a liar. And he tries to use lies to manipulate our feelings and our senses. He stimulates lusts. He stimulates doubts and fears and depression. I honestly believe every spiritual depression is demonic, all of them, not some of them, all of them. I'm not denying that there's physiological side, but Satan has some access physiologically too. They're all of them should have to be fought in this way. And so, Satan comes at us. In all of this, Satan and his demons have the power to insinuate thoughts into your mind. Think about that. I mean it's. I think it's creepy, but it's true. Satan can put thoughts in your mind. Now he can't trigger your volition. He can't make you will, but he can tempt you and allure you with concepts. We'll talk more about it next week, but he's just constantly pushing. And you can't see it, but you can feel it. Assaulted from All Angles It's to me like air pressure, 14.7 pounds per square inch of air pressure pushing on every square inch of your body all the time. You're just used to it. It's all you've ever known. The only time you really notice it is like when you're on an airplane taking off in your ears start to pop because the cabin pressure is stabilizing. So you're chewing gum or whatever. You have an ear infection, it's awful. But you didn't even notice it. You didn't even feel it. It's just the world you live in. It's like, does a fish know it's wet? Does a lost person know they're in darkness? Do we know that we're surrounded by a dark world? Are we aware? I think if the Lord wills to take away all demonic influence from you for 24 hours in which the devil could have literally no approach to you at all, not physically, not mentally, not in your feelings, not in your thoughts, none. I wonder if that day might be like the closest to Heaven on Earth you've ever felt in your life because that pressure would be removed. And you would be almost giddy with joy and peace as a Christian I mean. I mean, just so confident, so happy, so elated. Friends look forward to an eternity of days like that in Heaven, Amen. I'm just looking forward to that. But all I'm saying is that that's not happened. And we have this pressure, constant pressure. He's called the “power of the air, the kingdom of the air. And so he's pressing on us all the time.” Our Spiritual Enemy is Relentless Your Enemy, the Devil And our spiritual enemy is relentless. He never stops. We have a spiritual enemy. Look at verse 11: "Put on the full armor of God." Sorry, I'm back in Ephesians 6. "Put on the full armor of God. So you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.” So we have an enemy who makes schemes. That's what the verse says in verse 11. He has schemes. And it's really terrifying, but here's the truth. Just as you have a personal Savior, you also have a personal enemy. You have, if you're a Christian, you have a savior, His name is Jesus Christ. But 1st Peter 5:8 says, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith." So, you have an enemy, the devil, and that's terrifying. What it means is, I think, that the demonic realm has demons assigned to each one of us as believers, who study us and know our weakness and come after us all the time in our weak areas. All the time, and it's relentless. Jesus Crushed Satan Jesus Christ fought the devil every day of his life, all of his life. I believe Revelation 12 makes it plain that that ancient serpent, the dragon, Satan, was ready to devour the male child, the moment He was born. And what happened, you remember what happened? King Herod sent soldiers to Bethlehem and its vicinity to kill all the boy babies that were two years old and under. That was a direct demonic, a satanic attack, seeking for Jesus. But the Lord had sent an angel to warn Joseph in a dream. That proves angels can speak into our brains. And the angel spoke and warned him, "Get up and flee, go to Egypt," because Herod is going to search for the child to try to kill him. And so Joseph took the warning from the angel, that was insinuated in his mind, and he ran, and he got Jesus out of there. But that, I think, it was a demonic attack on Jesus. And then, when Jesus began his public ministry, right at the start of his ministry, he was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil, for 40 days. We're going to talk more about that in future weeks, God willing. But the Holy Spirit led him, and the devil tempted him. And, when the devil was done, he left him till an opportune time. I'll talk more about that in a minute. Satan fought Jesus every step of his way, and Jesus opposed and advanced his kingdom by means of driving out demons, the kingdom of God advancing. It was a battle of light and darkness. Satan mysteriously tempted Jesus through Peter, when Peter took Jesus aside. When he said, "I'm going to be crucified," he said, "Never, Lord, this will never happen to you," He said, "Get behind me, Satan. You're a stumbling block to me." But, strangely, at the end of his life, at the Last Supper, Satan entered into Judas to go and betray Jesus to his death. So, honestly, Satan didn't know what to do with Jesus, we can talk about that another time. He's like, tempting him, "yes" to the cross, "no" to the cross, which is it? But, ultimately, Satan was there fighting Jesus every step of the way. And at the cross we're told in Hebrews, chapter 2, and this is so vital for us. Jesus, by his death, Hebrews 2:14-15, “destroyed him who holds the power of death, that is the devil. And freed those who, all their lives, were held in slavery by their fear of death. Jesus set the prisoners free, He crushed Satan at the cross.” So, Satan is a defeated foe, but he's still alive, he's still roaming the earth, and he's still dangerous. The Devil’s Defeat: Past, Present Future So, who is the devil? What are we talking about? The devil is a created being, an evil angel, I guess we could think of it that way, created by God. It's debatable, but I think so, the most powerful, the most glorious, the most capable of all of his created beings. Seems that way, anyway. He, Satan, according to Ezekiel and Isaiah, became enamored with his own beauty and his own power, and sought ascendancy in heaven, sought to take God's throne from him, not realizing the infinite gap between creator and creature. Infinite gap. He tried to topple God from his throne. Michael, the good angel, and his good angels, fought against the devil and his angels. He apparently, it seems, was able to co-opt, to persuade one-third of all the angels to follow him in his rebellion. Michael defeated him, Revelation 12, he was thrown to the earth, and now he's doing all his damage here on earth. Then, in the next moment in redemptive history, the next main thing in redemptive history, he co-opted a serpent, and came and approached Adam and Eve through a talking snake, the deceiver that he is. And he led Adam, and through Adam, the whole human race, into joining Satan's rebellion against God. And in us joining Satan's rebellion against God, we also took on his wrath and condemnation, as it says in Matthew 25, in the sheep and the goats, the Lord will say, on that final day, to all those that have not been redeemed through faith in Christ, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." He's not in Hell, now. Hell is his punishment, talking about Satan. But at the garden, God also judged the serpent, gave a prophecy to the serpent, this is God being more clever than Satan. "Okay, you're going to come in in disguise, I'll talk to you through your disguise. I'll talk to the serpent. I'll put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed." “He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.” So, the clear prediction there of the coming destruction of Satan's kingdom. Now, the word "Satan" itself means "accuser." He is the enemy of the people of God, and has fought God's people for 20 centuries, every generation Satan fights God's people. The Satanic World System He's pictured as a dragon, you think of a flying, fire-breathing dragon, but it's just a metaphor for his deadly power. Actually, he usually masquerades as an angel of light. Sweet, alluring, beautiful, enticing, clever, appealing. And in this way, he comes through cults and false teachers and others who masquerade as servants of righteousness, but they're really not. And this is how he does his damage. He crafted, if you can believe this, every world system that is anti-Christian, every world system that's against Christianity, he crafted it. All of its various snares and traps and lures, the world and its system, every false religion, every atheistic philosophy, he created it. He's exceptionally devious, intelligent. His power is vastly greater than ours, that's Satan. But he's not alone. As I said, one third of the angels fell with him, we call them demons. And they're mentioned in the text, looking in at verse 12, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against... " Now, these words are plural, "against the rulers," plural, "against the authorities," plural, "against the spiritual forces... " plural, "of evil in the heavenly realms." So there's this array of demonic opposition to the Church of Christ. It's a vast, dark, organized kingdom. The Scriptures speaks of the devil's authority and the rulers' authorities and all that. They have powerful positions. So much so, that in Jude and 2 Peter, we're told as believers we are not to deal with the devil. We're not like hunting the devil down and going after the devil. No, the devil will come after you. Be fruitful. Lead people to Christ. Speak the truth. The devil will find you. He's already after you anyway. We're not going to hunt the devil. Actually, even the Archangel Michael only said, "The Lord rebuke you." He's not getting in a debate with the devil. You'll lose. Just, "The Lord rebuke you. I'm here to do a job. I'm here to bury Moses." That was what Michael was doing at that point. We're here to preach the Gospel. We're trying to advance the Kingdom of God, but that's the devil in it. And it speaks of the demons as powers of this present darkness. Satan is called the “god of this age,” 2 Corinthians 4:4. “The ruler of the kingdom of the air,” Ephesians 2:2. Demons are everywhere. I don't personally think that I've ever gotten up on Satan's radar screen. I think I'm too small for that. I'm a small fry. I don't make Satan omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He's a created being. He moves fast, but he's dealing with big stuff. But he's delegated parts of his kingdom to me and to you. And so, to some degree, you're dealing with demons. You're dealing with Satan and his kingdom. The Devil’s Powers Now, he has powers. Look what it says in verse 11: "Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." Now, when you think of a scheme, what do you think of? I think of like the Ponzi scheme. You think about some of these money-making things that bilk people, investors out. I think of an intelligent malevolent, twisted plot, don't you? When I think of a scheme, a stratagem. Alright. So the devil is intelligent. I think of a combination of poker and chess and boxing. I mean, it's kind of weird, isn't it? Can you imagine combining those? I actually think there was a biathlon of chess and boxing a number of years ago. I don't know if they're still doing it. So they would fight. They'd fight around, and play chess, and then fight, and chess, and fight, and chess. Isn't that weird? I guess they took off their gloves, but fight and chess. But also poker where there's bluffing going on, and basically lying and deceiving going on. That's the mix. So a combination of a left, couple of rights, a left, and you're down on the mat. So I get that sense of that malevolence, that evil allure. It says in 2 Corinthians 2:11: "In order that Satan might not outwit us, we're not unaware of his schemes." He uses that same idea. Satan crafts, allures by intelligence. Think of the brilliance of Satan's mind to come up with Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, pagan religions, animism, materialistic atheism, Christ-rejecting Judaism. He's able to take a God-given religion that should have moved on into the New Covenant and shut it down and maintain the old covenant as long as they could, and then reject that whole thing, Paul says of the Judaizers that their religion is not much different than paganism at that point. Satan was able to do that. Think of how clever he is to stimulate some people toward sins like homosexuality and then stimulate others to brutalize and attack them because they're gays like the Nazis did. He's behind both sides. Just like I think he was behind the Nazis and the Soviet army that fought in World War II, both sides, demonic all across, murdering everybody on both sides. That's just how intelligent he is. His dark genius is seen, and he sows division, especially within local churches. There is nothing I think more terrifying to Satan and his kingdom than a healthy local church. It is a terrifying weapon. It's more dangerous to him than any individual talented person, who's got a position for working for a magazine or working for CNN or whatever. Those folks have great ministries and can have an influence. But an organized, healthy, Gospel-preaching, advancing local church is a terror to him. So he will fight in healthy local churches like this one and seek to divide it and cause there to be factions and divisions within it, and cause people within the church to go after godly pastors or elders or go after different things and create and sow factions and divisions, as could happen in our church. Some geographical regions seem especially saturated with satanic influence. Revelation 2:13, Jesus said to the church at Pergamum, "I know where you live, where Satan has his throne." There's a focus of satanic activity. And he's able to attack us. He has the power, according to the Book of Job, to steal our possessions, to bring about natural disasters. Job lost every possession he had, his camels, his donkeys, his livestock, his servants. He even lost his children, seven sons and three daughters in one day. He has the power to hurt us physically, even to kill us. "He was a murderer from the beginning," Jesus said. But especially he kills our souls through lies, and he brings on us temptations. He's able to stimulate us. How Satan Tempts Us Thomas Brooks in the 17th century wrote a book called 'Precious Remedies against Satan's Devices,' powerful book. You ought to get hold of it and look at it. And he just talks about different ways that Satan tempts us. Like one of the things Satan does is he presents the bait and hides the hook, right? So I think about David and Bathsheba, right? And so he's out there on his roof looking and he sees the bait, but he doesn't see what's going to happen, what his life is going to be like afterwards. He hides the hook. He's able to do that. He's very skillful at doing that. He's able to paint sin with virtue's colors, so that sin looks actually virtuous, and morality looks not so virtuous. He's doing that in our culture today. Satan actually minimizes sin. He makes very little of it, making it appear minor and insignificant. He can twist our view of God, making us forget before we've committed the sin that our God is a consuming fire. And then making us forget after we've committed sin that our God is the Father of the prodigal son and welcomes penitent sinners back in the name of Jesus. He twists our perceptions of God, he's able to do that. He's able to persuade us that repentance will be easy later on, that the sin isn't that costly, it's not that big a deal and that you can always repent later, forgetting the hardness of heart that sin produces. Satan makes the soul bold to venture into tempting situations. “I can handle that,” although Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." By the way, that's the correct translation. Not "deliver us, generally, from evil." Deliver us from the evil one. But we think we can handle it. We get into tempting situations. Satan makes much of happy, apparently happy sinners who haven't yet repented. The prosperity of the wicked, so that we forget the darker side, or the future of what's going to happen. Satan persuades sinners that there are a lot worse sinners than they are. And he works to discourage us from holy duties. He presents to the soul a twisted view of the difficulties, crosses, afflictions and troubles of serving Christ. How hard it's going to be. He makes us bored and weary of godly duties. Like getting up for a quiet time or listening to sermons. He persuades us that holy duties will not make us better, they're going to actually be ineffective in fighting sin. He's able to make us distracted and mentally weak in prayer. Not only does he tempt us, though. He also accuses us of the sin after we've committed it. In this way, he is the greatest spiritual hypocrite there has ever been or will be. He is the most wicked being there is, but then he gets all righteous and accuses us of sin. How can that be? He seeks to manipulate God, to use God's holiness and God's Law against God's people. He is the “accuser of the brethren, who accuses them before our God,” listen to this, “day and night.” Revelation 12:10. And he causes sinning Christians to despair of mercy and grace as though God can never win them back. He does all of this and he orchestrates persecutions. Satan's behind ISIS. Satan's behind communist governments that use their position to shut down the Gospel as best as they can. He's behind any anti-Christian elements in our government. Satan's behind all of it. The Devil’s Limitations But the devil is on a chain, amen? He's limited. He's restrained. As powerful as he is, he is infinitely below God. This is not dualism, the yin and yang. You've got Satan as the yin and God as the yang. It's not like that at all. Satan continues to exist only because God allows him to continue to exist. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” At any point, God could pull the plug on Satan's very existence. Now you may ask, "Why doesn't He do it, then?" Because Satan is actually serving God's purpose in this world. Part of it is to the Church, He wants you to learn how to be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. He wants you to get strong. He wants you to use your faith. He wants you to rise up like Jesus and fight like Him and do great deeds of valor in His name. He wants you to be strong. And so, Satan is the foil against which you will be courageous and strong and bold. God is using Satan. But in Job 1 and 2, Satan has to ask permission to get at Job. Complains about the hedge He's put around Job and all of his possessions. It says in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 10:13, "God is faithful, and will not allow you, [will not permit you,] to be tempted beyond what you can bear." There's Satan's leash. “But with the temptation, He will make a way of escape so you can stand up under it.” Praise God. Our Spiritual Determination is Required God is Always Present And so, the Lord is on us, strengthening us and helping us. I was talking to somebody recently like, "Does God just let us fight on our own?" Does He just say, "Alright, here's your spiritual armor. Put it on. Hope it goes well for you. I'm busy doing other things?" Not at all. That's, again, that deistic view. God is so on top of every moment of your spiritual struggle, more than you can possibly imagine. “With the Lord, one day is like a 1000 years.” He is filtering and chaining Satan and resisting at every moment, but allowing some things through so that you can be strengthened and you can fight with your spiritual armor on. He is filtering at every moment. And so, we're told in James 4:7, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." Friends, he's not fleeing from you. He's fleeing from the power of God around you and behind you. Now, the devil is a defeated foe. He was defeated in the past by Michael and his angels. He was defeated at the cross and the empty tomb by Jesus. Couldn't stop the cross. Couldn't stop the resurrection. He was crushed. And God has willed a slow death for Satan's kingdom. It's been going on 20 centuries. Slow death. And so, Jesus said, "I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it." So He is slowly, gradually, taking dark territory back from Satan. One living stone at a time. We are scaling the walls of Satan's dark kingdom. It's kind of cool. I think of myself like a spiritual ninja. It's so exciting. And we scale the walls and we're going in the dark kingdom. And we are rescuing sinners. We're seeing chains fall off and people rescued. And there's nothing he can do to stop us. It's been going on for 20 centuries. All of the elect, all of them will come to faith in Christ, and Jesus will raise them up on the last day. None of them will be missing, and it's awesome. And so, little by little the God of peace is crushing Satan under our marching feet. It's awesome. So, that's the devil's past, present, and future defeat is coming at the second coming of Christ, when the Lord comes with the armies of Heaven and with the sword of truth coming out of His mouth. And He will consign, finally, the devil and his angels, to Hell, where they will be forever and ever in torment. That's the future. And so, he knows that his time is short. Alright, now, what are the actual commands given here? And like I said, we're just beginning to look at this week, but there are three commands given here. Look at verse 10 and following, "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." So verses 10 and 11 has three basic commands to you in terms of spiritual warfare. Command number one, “be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.” Command number two, “put on the full armor of God.” And command number three, “take your stand,” or “stand your ground,” which he says four times in these verses. So be strong in the Lord and His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, and then stand your ground. Be Strong in the Lord So, let's talk about them briefly, and we'll talk more next week. First, what does it mean to be strong in the Lord? What it means is you cannot, you must not, try to fight on your own. When the devil comes you've got to run to Jesus, get close to Christ. See all of your fighting as with Him and close to Jesus and empowered by Him. Not away, like "Look, Jesus. Look what I can do." “Apart from me,” Jesus said, “you can do nothing.” You draw close to Him. Well, who is He? He is the omnipotent God of the universe. He's the God of Isaiah 40, who sits enthroned above the nations. And “all the people are like grasshoppers, are like dust on the scales, they are like a drop from the bucket.” That's the omnipotence of God. Infinitely powerful compared to Satan. “Be strong in His mighty power,” in His omnipotence. Do you realize nothing difficult for Jesus? What would you think would happen if you said to Jesus, "Which is harder, to cure a blind man or a deaf man?" What do you think He'd say? I think He'd say, "No, but trust in me." Something like that. Something that make you scratch your head and say, "Okay, what is that? What did He say?" Nothing's particularly difficult. Do you think it was particularly difficult to save Saul of Tarsus? The language means nothing when you're talking about omnipotence. There's nothing particularly difficult for omnipotence. And so, draw close to Jesus, the omnipotent one. Draw close to Him, the undefeated one. He defeated all of Satan's temptations. Get close to Him. “Be strong in the Lord and His mighty power.” Find out how powerful He can and will be through you. Find out. Again, we're going to look at each of these elements of the spiritual armor, but they relate to your salvation. Think of who you are in Jesus, how righteous you are in Him with imputed righteousness. How secure and strong you are in the Gospel, with your feet fitted with the readiness of the Gospel of peace. How at peace God is with you. How secure you are with the helmet of salvation on. How saved you are and will be. That's the strength of the Lord. There's nothing Satan can do. His mighty power. I love Isaiah 40:28 and following, it says, "Do you not know? Have you not heard the Lord is the creator of the ends of the Earth? He will not get tired or weary. His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." Think about that. Don't you get tired when tempted? I do. I mean, you're resisting, resisting and it just doesn't seem to abate. And it gets wearying to fight for holiness. So be strong in the Lord. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. “Even youths grow weary and stumble and young men stumble and fall, but those who wait on the Lord, will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings as eagles. They will run and not grow weary and walk and not faint.” And then put on the full armor of God. We're going to talk about that beginning next week, God willing. And then finally stand firm. Stand firm. Stand firm. Verse 11, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand.” Stand against the devil's schemes. Verse 13, "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, that evil day, that time of temptation, you may be able to stand against." That's literally what it says, "Just stand against them. Stand your ground. And after you've done everything, to stand." That's three. Verse 14, "Stand firm then." Four times he's told you to stand. So you stand, stand firm. Be Determined Not to Sin Well, how do you do that? You're utterly determined not to sin. You're not going to give in, you're not going to yield. You're going to say, "No" to the sin. Sometimes you're going to do that by running. You're like, "What? Wait, wait, wait, wait. What do you mean?" I mean running in the physical world so you can stand in the spiritual world. Think about Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Remember that story? Of Potiphar's coming after that guy, day after day after day. Remember that one day when Joseph comes in and said, "Huh, where is... Everyone's gone. Where did all the servants go?" And then, here she comes, again. It's like, "Oh, I get it. I see what's happening." There's nothing to talk about, there's only one thing to do. Run for your life! Leave your garment in her hand, whatever, just run. So what's interesting is the combination of standing and running. Listen again to what it says, 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has seized you, except what is common to man, but God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear." Listen, "But with the temptation will make a way of escape so you can stand up under it." It's like, "Alright, am I escaping or standing?" You're doing both. You're standing by escaping. “Lead us not into temptation.” You've gotten yourself into a tempting situation? Get out! Run! So do that. Application The Gospel Alright, let's finish with some applications. We'll pick it up, God willing, next week. First and foremost, I just want to say, none of the advice I've just given for fighting Satan applies to non-Christians, not yet. There's only one thing you need to do, and that's come to Christ. You have no hope, you're actually already in Satan's kingdom. His chains are around you, spiritually. You can't break free, but here's the thing. You've come to a place today where the Gospel is being preached. What is the Gospel? The Gospel is that God created Heaven and Earth, gave us laws by which we are to be governed. We have violated those laws. We have broken them. We are in Satan's dark kingdom thereby. But God sent His Son who lived a sinless, righteous, upright life, perfectly obeyed all of God's laws, resisted all of Satan's temptations, won our righteousness for us, then suffered on the cross, paying the penalty we deserve for our sins, and now offers His righteousness as a gift, and to take your wrath on Himself as your substitute. That's salvation by grace through faith. Trust in Christ. You don't need to do any works, just trust in Him. And if you do that, all of your sins, past, present, future, will be forgiven. Trust in Christ. And then, once that happens, Satan will be at war with you and you can begin your battle. See the War and Fight To you Christians, embrace the central concept of this sermon. You're at war. You're at war. Wake up. Fight. Stop underestimating the amount of damage this war is causing you, how much trouble it's causing you in your marriage, how much trouble it's causing you in your parenting, how much trouble it's causing you at work or at school. Stop underestimating. Greatly increase your spiritual vision of seeing what's happening in the spiritual realm. See it. Be not unaware of his schemes. Be aware of what he's doing. When you fall into sin, ask the Lord to show you what Satan did to get you so you don't do it again. And then follow the three steps that we'll talk about. Be strong in the Lord and His mighty power, draw close to Christ, do that in your morning quiet time. Do it throughout the day. Be very Christ-centered in your life. Evaluate Your Present Life And evaluate your present life. How do you see Satan attacking you? What's going on? What temptations have been a recurring theme in your life? How are the demons coming at you day after day? What lusts are conquering you? What habits do you have to change so you stop yielding to those lusts? Might have to do with the internet, might have to do with your smartphone, your iPad, or something. What covetousness has mastered your heart, what material thing are you living for? What hidden anger or unforgiveness is Satan stirring up in you so that you're hostile towards someone you should love? What excesses are glutting your lifestyle right now? How is Satan duping you and drawing you. Evaluate the duties you're neglecting. How are you doing in your morning quiet time? How are you doing memorizing scripture? How are you doing putting on the full armor of God? How are you doing in ministry? Are you interceding and praying for brothers and sisters who are going through these kinds of struggles? How are you doing with witnessing? So next week we'll talk about putting on the full armor of God. Let's close in prayer. Prayer Father, we thank you for the time that we've had to study today. Study your word. Father, I pray, strengthen us for this battle. Help us to be more aware than we've been of what the devil does and how he attacks us. Help us, O Lord, to fight. And not just to fight but to win. To be victorious in Christ. To stand firm in the day of testing. To stand firm in the evil day when temptation comes. Father help us to do all this for your glory and for the spread of your Gospel here in Durham and even to the ends of the earth. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

The 2013 Spring Crusade is April 14-17 at CrossRoads Baptist Church with the theme "Piercing the Darkness with THE Light." Dr. Bobby Atkins, Pastor, Truth Tabernacle of Praise, Stone Mountain, GA is the preacher. Monday evening, April 15 he preached "Our Struggle is Not Against Flesh..." from Ephesians 6:10-12.

“The Vicissitudes of OUR Struggle to Matter - Black History , Victories and Pain” Dr. Johnson ignites discussion on topics which engages the nature of how we conduct our lives to history and a moral barometer that serves to guide our empowerment, resistance and perserverance. RIVETING . . . MINDFUL . . . HOPEFUL The Most Powerful Force on the Earth . . . A Soul AFIRE ABOUT SOUL AFIRE A unique talk radio experience exploring issues, topics and current events vital to African American spiritual interests and well-being. Matthew V. Johnson, Sr., is a graduate of Morehouse College and earned his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Philosophical Theology from the University of Chicago. He has done post-graduate studies in Psychoanalysis.  Dr. Johnson had been in the Christian ministry for thirty years. He is the Pastor of Church of the Good Shepherd-Baptist located in Atlanta,  GA.                  "Spirit Matters Talk Radio" Listen Live    Wednesdays, 10 pm Soul AFIRE  http://ww.soulafire.wordpress.com/ Like us on FB: facebook/SoulAFire Twitter: @ASoulaFire  #SpiritMatters Subscribe to our News: www.truthworks.ning.com Email: soulafire@truthworksnetwork.com

"Africa On The Move" is an international, revolutionary, pan-africanist , political talk show. It seeks to politically educate African people on world affairs and issues that affect Africa and the African diaspora. We believe, that the need for Pan-Africanism and revolutionary struggle and change is a historical necesssity in order to free Africans  from all forms of domination .. capitalism/imperialism etc.  .We understand, that information must to be used as a tool for liberation and the upliftment for all of humanity.

Our Struggle as been characterized in James (1:14) "But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust." Scripture Reading from 2 Timothy :1-9