Pastor Joel Laswell

We have been studying how Jesus walked when confronted with the temptations of the great deceiver so we may learn to do likewise when tempted. What was the third temptation and how did Jesus overcome it?

We studied the first wilderness temptation of Jesus the last time we were together. And as we look into this second temptation experience of Jesus we will see that within every human heart the great conflict through which Christ passed in the wilderness of temptation is repeated.

How is Jesus our example, especially when it comes to battling temptation? Jesus went through the same attacks that we go through beloved yet He overcame these temptations by constantly drawing on that same power that is available to us. I want to concentrate on this example of Jesus on how to deal with temptations for that is the way Satan tries to convince us into choosing to sin--to be lawless.

A question arises very often when I speak about the sin issue and in particular, these truths about the will and conscience and educating the conscience and that question has to do with temptation--namely: what is temptation and is it a sin? Let us get an answer from the Bible to this question.

There are no material things that we can take with us out of this world, but there are some things that we can take with us out of this world. I want to talk to you about one of those things, and probably the most important of all. It is something that we use commonly in our every day speech and yet there are many people, if you ask them, they could not define exactly what it is. It has a great deal to do with the plan of salvation and it is the conscience.

So I finally looked at this flower bed the other day and it is a real mess. This pervasive plant has really taken root and is choking out the beautiful flowers. It is going to be a lot of work for me to uproot this plant from the flower bed without destroying the flowers. I have to be sure that I remove it at the root or it will continue to be a terrible problem. Sin is the same way in our life. Once it takes off it will keep growing and it will pervade your life and by your influence, that of others too. And if it is not uprooted, it will keep coming back. If we want to be ready when Jesus returns, we must have the root of sin removed from us. I wish to talk about being ready for Jesus by uprooting sin in our life.

Adam and Eve were created with a perfect mind that was in complete control of the passions of the heart—the higher brain was in control. Because the higher brain was in control, and they were wearing a robe of righteousness provided by God Himself, they would hit the mark every time in every choice they made. But something changed.

Paul states in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." In Romans 6:23 he says, "For the wages of sin is death..." And in Ezekiel 18:4 it says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." From our previous studies we know that the Bible is speaking in these references about the second death in the lake of fire which consumes the sinner completely, turning them into ashes, never to exist at all anymore for eternity--see Malachi 4, Revelation 20. So if all have sinned and the end result of sin is eternal death, and if we want to stop sinning so that we can receive eternal life.... well we better be sure that we know exactly what sin is, don't you agree?

Knowing that the consequences for sinning is eternal death, we better be sure what sin is so that we can choose not to commit it and thus lose eternal life. Where is the only place we can rightly estimate the exceeding sinfulness of sin? In the light, the truth, of the cross! By looking at the truth about the cross--the death of Jesus, we will learn how terrible sin is--we will then see the sinfulness of sin.

We must get to the point where we see sin as God sees sin. In order to see the true sinfulness of sin as God does, one must come to the cross of Christ and look upon the One Who sinned not, yet died because of our sins so we may have life!

This is the conclusion of the series I have entitled Spiritual Possession and what I want to do is summarize what we have learned. I hope that this series has helped to educate you to the power and limitations that demons have, as well as remove doubts and give you the confidence that every believer may have that we can possess the strength to resist and help others to resist these foes of Christ. Jesus can give us victory over sin and the devil!

I want to share with you how to be protected from becoming possessed of devils or demons. There is only one way, one defense against falling under the control of these evil powers of darkness and that one defense is.........

I want to spend some time looking at the question that often arises especially after learning what we have learned and that is, what can cause a person to become demon possessed, or what can open a person up to be possessed of a demon or demons?

I want to continue in our series by taking a look at times when demons controlled a group of people, as well as examples of those who choose to be possessed--united with Satan and see what we can learn.

I want to continue our series, Spiritual Possession, by taking a look at some examples that deal with those who were from the church or in church leadership. If you don't think that someone from a good Christian home or church cannot be possessed by demons then you haven't been paying attention! I want to begin by looking at this devout follower of Jesus called Mary Magdalene.

Demons want to destroy human beings and if they can't do that, they want to possess us so as to coerce us in a way that best suits them to influence others to sin. Sin leads to destruction. These demons know that they are going to be destroyed and they want all to be a part of it. The demoniacs at Gergesa are a lesson about where sin will lead. Let's take a look at this example and learn.....

I want to contemplate one of the greatest hopes we have, if not the greatest, concerning that of Christ's ministry in our behalf. I want to look at the Resurrection Assurances with you.

Demon possession doesn't mean that you no longer have a will, or the freedom to choose. It means that your will is taken captive and caged, then beaten down and thus so weakened that it cannot but make the wrong choices--this is where sin leads. But it is possible that Jesus can be seen through the bars of the cage and set the captive free!

It seems like anywhere you go in the world, in just about anybody's life, at some point there are these minions of darkness that scare us. Now, with that kind of commonality there has to be some sort of truth associated with it, and there is. The Bible doesn't call him the bogeyman. It has another name. They're known as demons, devils, or evil spirits. And you'd be surprised how much the word of God has to say about demons, devils, and evil spirits and how to defeat these creatures. And defeating them is what is really important for us to know and understand--especially as we are living in the last days when such manifestations are going to increase and we will be confronted more and more by them. In this series of studies concerning spiritual possession we will be looking at the powers involved in spiritual possession, we are going to define some terms, look at examples of possession and how one grieves the Holy Spirit and then how to cast out demons.

We need to be cognizant of the fact that there’s another realm, another dimension that we cannot see with our physical sight, and yet it’s just as real as the world we’re living in right now with the things we see all around us. The apostle Paul spoke of these things in 2 Corinthians 4:18 when he said, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”