Creflo Dollar - 7 Keys to Obtain Victory Over Satan
We have been talking about victory over Satan and demons, and there's a reason why I decided to teach this series, is not so you can figure out how to beat the devil because the devil has already been defeated. It is so you can know how to receive and how to get what Jesus died for you to have. In other words, because of Jesus you're already healed, you're already delivered, you already have victory. So we're not trying to go from defeat to victory; we are going from victory to victory. And so, by faith, I receive the victory that Jesus has already given to me. Say that out loud. "By faith, I receive the victory that Jesus has already presented to me". I'm talking to you about seven keys for victory over Satan, okay?
The first key was to be aware of the battle. The first key is to proceed with caution, be aware of the battle. Proceed with caution. Be aware that there's a battle. You can't fight a battle if you don't know that one exists. The second key for victory over Satan and demons is to rebel against Satan or to push away and run to God. Say, "Push away and run to God". And then the third key for victory over Satan and demons is to get dressed in the armor of God and we left off with that. The Bible says: "We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, powers, wicked spirits in heavenly places". I mean, that verse of Scripture right there tells you that there are demonic forces that are out to affect your life. In fact, let's start there, Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10, and then I'll go right to the fourth key.
Here's the reality that the world has got to get that they're just not gonna get. The reality of Satan is something that most people who are not saved, they just fool with. They don't fool with, they don't wanna talk about it. They are giving the enemy exactly what he wants. And what he wants is, is for you to not believe in the reality of his existence. And so, this Scripture says: "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might". Verse 11 says: "Put on the whole armor of God". Why? "That you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil". "Wiles," that word means strategy.
So the first thing you need to understand is you're fighting an enemy who actually takes the time to develop strategy to try to defeat you. So the things you struggle with that maybe nobody knows about but you and God, he uses that same file to intimidate you, and the battle is right here in the mind. So, he's gonna try to deal with your thought life. Your thought life is the area that the enemy deals with. Listen, you are so important to the plan of God that the devil has to develop a strategy, wow, to come against you. Now, the strategy he uses against me may not be the same strategy that he uses against you. But he says the solution is the same for us and that is to put on the Word of God. And that's what the world's not doing. They're not putting on the Word of God. They just think this is crazy, stupid stuff that we talk about here.
And yet, while they're doing that, they are subject to the strategies of the devil, because they're not putting on the Word of God, which means they can't stand against the strategies of the devil and they walk under demonic influence and don't even recognize what's going on. They're going around, they think, "It's me. Something's telling me to kill myself". Yeah, the devil's telling you to kill yourself. And you don't realize that there's a battle going on there so you become subject to that. Now, look at verse 12. He says, and he's very specific. He says, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood". So the real battle is not physical, is what he's saying. "But we wrestle against," what? "Principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in four places". He states here the four classes of demons. The first class here: principality, second class is known as powers, rulers of darkness of this world, and then spiritual wickedness in high places. I mean, what else do you think it is?
Those are the four classes of demonic forces who take the strategy that's developed for you and try to work it in your life. But you got to understand how he operates. He operates through thoughts. Suggestion is the most powerful weapon of the enemy. The most powerful weapon of the enemy is the things he can say to you that you won't contradict with the Word 'cause you don't know the Word. And when you don't know the Word, you will accept the contradiction as the truth. See, the first thing I learned in ground school before I went in the air is that if you get one degree off and you keep going that way, the further you continue to go, the further away you get from the designated point. And that's all that Satan wanna do. Just put just a little something in there to get you to just take that one little deception and the longer you go and the longer you live, you get further and further away from the truth of what God wants.
So now, number four moves right into this. So the fourth key to defeating demons and the devil: the fourth key, because we've identified that the devil is real. We've identified that these four areas of demonic classes that you're fighting, but now, number four, this is huge. The fourth key is prayer. And, phew, what I'm gonna say to you tonight is gonna be so simple so that you can understand how to use prayer as the key to defeating the enemy in your life. Now, if you just move on down to verse 17, Ephesians 6 and 17. Related to the Word of God or the armor of God is prayer as it comes in at verse 17 and 19. Verse 17 says this. He says, "And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is," what? "The word of God". So will you understand if I say, "Take the Word of God," all right?
So, take the Word of God, verse 18. Take the Word of God. Take it where? "Praying". So take the Word of God, "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for the saints". And he says, "And for me," he says, "pray for me," Paul says, "that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mysteries of the gospel". Now, I asked the Lord about this. I was, like, "Okay, so how is prayer going to help me to get victory over the enemy"? And this is, please hear this, so, prayer is saying to God what God has already said in his Word. I know where they got a lot of other deep explanations for what prayer is, but prayer is simply saying to God what God has already said in his Word.
So, if I take the Word and pray the Word, and say to God what he has already said, that is the same thing as the Bible says decree a thing and what? "It shall be established". Declare a thing and it will come to pass. It's the same thing. And so what we understand is you wanna defeat the devil? Say what God has already said. Go and find you some promises of what God has promised you about the situation you're going through and take that to prayer.
And so while the devil's trying to say, "You're defeated, you're messed up, you're never gonna be any good," you're opening your mouth up and say, "No, according to the Word, I am gonna prosper and be in health, and according to his Word, this shall not last," and according to his Word, the devil can't even stand up when you, see, all that other kind, we've turned prayer into an emotional counseling session: "Dear kind heavenly Father, we just a few of your children gathered here once more and again to ask you, if you're not busy. I know you're busy, but if you're not busy, if you can stop by just a little while, we know everything is gonna be all right. For Christ's sake, we pray. Amen and thank God".
You did nothing. You accomplished nothing. Prayer is saying to God what God has already said in his Word. So that's why he says: When you pray, take the Word with you. Take the Word with you when you pray. Does everybody get that? And also, let's look at Matthew 6 and 13. Matthew 6 and 13. Not only do we obtain our victory, but we kind of keep the enemy in his place when he tries to come against you. This is Jesus's teaching on the Lord's Prayer. In this one outline he says: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil". The actual translation says: "Deliver us from the evil one," or "Deliver us from Satan his self". Pray you're delivered from the evil one. Pray that you're delivered.
See, the evil one, I don't know if you know this yet, but every day he intends on being in your face. Pray that you're delivered from the evil one and his strategies. Pray that. And the way you pray that is, I'm gonna show you in just a moment all of the places where he got whipped, stripped, and shamed by Jesus. And you just pick a couple of those and, you know, "Father, I thank you that today, that the wicked one touches me not". You remember when Jesus says, "Satan cometh, but he finds nothing in me".
You know, you ought to do the same thing. Satan today will find nothing in me. He will not find fear, he will not find fret, he will not find doubt, glory to God. When he shows up, he's only gonna find the Word of God, hallelujah. Pray that you are delivered from the evil one. Again, if you don't believe in the existence of Satan and demons, you're never even gonna waste your time praying that you are going to be delivered from the evil one. And the whole time, he playing with you. Remember the power of suggestion. Whole time he playing with your mind: "You ain't no good, you ain't gonna be not'in'. You gonna be just like your sorry daddy. You just fooling yourself. Don't nobody wanna have nothing to do with you".
And you sitting up there, letting him bombard your head the whole day 'cause you don't believe he exists. And while you're not believing that he doesn't exist, he is just having a field day in your mind. The mind is the arena of faith. He's having a field day in your mind. And those of you who know, you can just simply say, "I am delivered from the evil one today. You'll find nothing in me today". The Bible says he has to seek whom he may devour. You can't devour me because I know the truth about who you are and your defeat on the cross. Are you understanding that? So, we've got to learn how to put prayer as a weapon or two for our spiritual battle with the enemy. So that's key number four.
Let's look at key number five. This is cool. 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 3 through 5. Turn there. So here's the key. Get rid of false thoughts. Get rid of false thoughts. Now, you got to know how to play this game like chess. The battle's up here. "As a man thinketh, so is he". "As a man thinketh," comma, "in his heart so is he". And so, it's about, really, renewing your mind and your thoughts, and if you don't renew your mind, you're gonna carry on the same old thoughts and if you carry the same old thoughts, how susceptible are you to the bombardment of words that are spoken to you through demonic influence? How susceptible are you? All right now, look at this. I'm gonna go through this. Verse 3, he says: "For though we walk in the flesh". And this is real interesting here.
When we talk about the flesh, I don't wanna, you know, Romans chapter 7 shows you this. But when you're walking in the flesh, you're really walking in the law or you're walking in right here. This is where the flesh is. The flesh is the unrenewed part of your mind. He's not referring to your body. But those who walk in the flesh or the dictates of the unrenewed mind, that doesn't line up with the Word of God, he says: "We do not walk in", he says: "for though we walk in the flesh". Now, excuse me. We are in the physical flesh here. We do not war after the physical flesh. Okay, let me correct that. We are in this body but we're not warring against this body. Now, next verse. Watch this. "(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.)" So the word I'm looking for is "carnal". Carnal means of the five senses.
So we walk in a physical body, so that means physical body in that previous verse of Scripture. We walk in a physical body, but he says the weapons of our warfare, even though we're in a physical body, are not based on the senses that we depend on in this physical body. So let me start over again. I didn't wanna confuse you. In a lot of places in the Bible, the flesh is talking about that mindset, but this is one of the places where he's actually talking about your physical body. And in your physical body, you have those, the five senses which you can touch and see and smell and all that other kind of stuff. So he says we're not warring against this physical body and the warfare is not based on smelling, touching, seeing, and all that other stuff. He says, "But our battle is mighty through God," watch this, "to the pulling down of strong holds".
Now, strongholds exist in the mind. You can build a house of thoughts and create a stronghold in your thinking that's like addictive behavior. It's like, you say "no" and the no doesn't stand because you have a stronghold built up so in your thinking that your thinking always seems to override the stronghold. The Bible calls it lasciviousness, with no restraints. And then all of a sudden, you say, "One more time," okay, but the stronghold effects that and then you say, "One more time," and then one more time becomes one more time, and then one more time becomes one more time, and before you know it, you don't have any restraints but somehow you think you've got restraints because you keep missing it but you keep going back to it after you say you're not gonna go back to it.
"I ain't gonna do that no mo'," but then you do it, and then, "I ain't gonna do it no mo'," and you do it, and, "I'm not gonna do it anymore," so obviously, there's a stronghold somewhere. Obviously, there's a stronghold somewhere that you actually had to feed and nourish in order for it to get that strong. I'll use something, and nothing against men against women, but there may be a stronghold where pornography is concerned, for example. And you watched it so much you nourished it and you fed it and you nourished it and you fed it and you said, "I'm not gonna look at porn anymore," and you were cool for a week. But it was a stronghold that hadn't been dealt with and now you're back doing it again.
And if we check your history, and it's evidence that you were not able to defeat that because of the stronghold that was nourished and the house of thoughts that had built this gigantic mansion that you have yet to tear down while you deceive yourself and say, "I'm free". You didn't deal with the stronghold. He said, "That's where our battle is". It ain't knocking somebody out. It's right up here. This thing needs to be knocked down, and this thing needs to be destroyed. Did I unconfuse everybody, I hope? Okay, he says: "(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty through God to the pulling down.)"
So he's talking about we have something that can pull down strongholds. What is that? The Word of God. We have something to pull down strongholds. So now, here's the deal. Look at the next verse, verse 5. All right, this is so important. "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing," or high thought, "that exalts itself against the knowledge of God". So what he says is, if you're gonna win, if you're gonna pull strongholds down, the first thing you've got to learn how to do is to cast or it's like a balloon. As soon as that balloon appears, pop it. As soon as it shows up, pop it. You've got to become a good custodian over your thought life so that you won't take hold of that imagination, that bad thought. Cast it down, get it out. Deal with it. "Deal with every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God".
So whatever thought comes in your mind that exalts itself against God's knowledge, ain't nothing higher than God's knowledge. This thing's coming in as if it's higher than God's knowledge. He said, "Don't let it stay there in that high place. Get rid of it". How? By using the Word of God. I've done this for years, but I want you to count from one to ten and then, you know, to yourself, not out loud. To yourself, not out loud. "To yourself" means silently and not out loud. And then I want you to just follow instructions. You ready? Count. Now say your name out loud. What happened to your counting in your mind? It stopped. Why? Because it had to get a hold of what was coming out of your mouth. That's how you capture thought. When the enemy has a wrong or a high thought in your mind, you open your mouth and catch it with the Word of God.
If there's a thought that says, "I'm gonna die," open your mouth and say, "I will live and not die," and that stops that thought. You understand? See, a high thought is when the world is saying, "This is right," but the Word say that's wrong. That's a high thought. It doesn't have to be some wicked thing. It's just an idea or a thought that you got off social media, you got from somewhere, and it seems to be contradicting the Word of God, and you're just letting it stay there as you consider it. He says, "Don't do that. That thing's gonna become a part of a house. Cast it down, get rid of it. It's trying to exalt itself against the knowledge of God, and you are the only one who can stop it".
So how do you stop it? You don't sit there with your mouth closed and say, "Mm. Mm-mm, mm-mm. Mm". Somebody: "What you doin'"? "I'm fighting thoughts". You can't fight thoughts with your mouth closed. You gotta open your mouth and load it with the Word of God. And the Word of God got enough claws on it to pull that thought down and say, "No, God's Word reigns here". That's how the devil fight. That's the fight. That's the fight. I don't care what you're fighting. I don't care what you're going through. I don't care what you're dealing with. That's the fight. And if you're not fighting that way, you're not even in the fight. You're not even in the fight. You're not even in the arena, dude. You're out here with some religious fable outside thinking you doing something. You ain't doin' not'in'. You're not even in the fight because you're not casting these thoughts down. You're not resisting these thoughts.
Let us resist false teachings and instead take all of our thoughts captive to the truth of Christ and the gospel. Do you know the dangerous part is when you're introduced to something that contradicts the Word and you're kind of thinking, "Oh my God, I don't believe in the Bible no more," because of this new knowledge you got. That new knowledge is the strategy he's using against you so you can receive false teaching so you won't hear the Word no more.