Frankie Mazzapica - I Talk Back to the Devil - Part 1
In the first part of the "I Talk Back to the Devil" series, the preacher stresses our human fragility as dust and clay jars that Satan exploits through shame, wounds, anxiety, pride, and fatalism, but believers can resist by verbally talking back to the devil with spoken words and Scripture rather than mere thoughts, finding ultimate strength in God's Word and presence as revealed in passages like 2 Corinthians.
Starting the New Series
All right, we are kicking off a new series this morning. If you enjoy it, part two will be next week. The title of the series is "I Talk Back to the Devil." Doesn't that sound good? "I Talk Back to the Devil."
Here is the reality: whether you have been a Christian for a minute or you have been a Christian your entire life, whether you are in this room and you are like, "You are not a Christian, but somebody made you come," nobody is immune. Satan comes after every single person.
He is constantly whispering. Constantly. Just, you know, if you are married, you are hearing it all the time, all the time. Let me say this—this is just for free: if you are not talking to each other, the devil is talking to both of you. That was for free.
All right, but it doesn't matter. You look in the mirror, you are going to hear the devil talking to you. You go to work, you are doing your bills, you are hearing the devil talk to you. Every single day, he is talking to you, and he will not stop. He is an irritant, and he is focused, and he is determined to ruin your life.
So I want to talk about three things. The first thing I want to talk about is how fragile we are and how the devil leverages our fragility. He leverages how weak we are because you are weak in areas that I am not, and I am weak in areas that you are not. But he finds it; he looks for it, and then he uses it as leverage.
Then I am going to talk about what am I going to talk about? Oh, the title: talk back to the devil. And then number three is, where is your source of strength?
Our Human Fragility
So let us talk a little bit about how weak we are. Let us just acknowledge it. Let me share with you something that Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4. He says this: "We know we have this light." Let us read this one. I am not going to have you read all of them, but let us read this one because this is the foundation of the whole message.
All right, real loud. One, two, three. "We now have..." Read those last words like, "Watch this." Let me show you another verse. This is David speaking: "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows how we are formed; he remembers that we are dust."
We are dust. We are just dust. He formed us out of dust. He made Adam out of dust. We are just dust. We are like dirt. And I have said this a few times: your dust held in this skin. You are like this bag. You are a dirt bag, basically.
Don't take it personally; you are a dirt bag. You were made from dirt. It is being held in here. You are a dirt bag; I am a dirt bag. Look at the person next to you. No, don't tell them. But this—put the first scripture back up again, Zoe. Look at what he is saying: we are fragile clay jars.
I promised I studied clay jars. We are fragile. We are so fragile.
Five Ways Satan Leverages Fragility
And there are five areas that the enemy leverages our fragility. I will share the first one with you: Satan uses shame and condemnation. The enemy points to our weaknesses, our failures, and sins to convince us that we are useless—not useless to our boss or our clients or where we work. No, no, no, no.
Satan comes along and says, "I know your past, and I know things about you that you don't want anyone to know. Therefore, you are useless. God is not going to use you the way you hope he will. It is not going to happen."
Look at number two: Satan exploits emotional wounds. Satan uses past hurts, betrayals, and trauma as entry points to whisper lies about God's character. I have a friend of mine who, when he was growing up, his father punched him and beat him regularly.
Sometimes, he would come home drunk and just beat him. He just endured this for his entire life. Well, now, guess what? He has got these emotional wounds. If you can't trust your dad—the person who is supposed to love you the most—if you can't trust him, who can you trust?
And if God is a father and the only father you know is an evil man, how do you come to love your father? Do you see how this gets tangled up? Have you ever had somebody—I have never had anyone beat me before, but I have had people say things to me that I can remember—it has been 20 years.
And if I think about that, the enemy slips in there. Are you with me? Say yes. Are you with me? Say yes. You know, there are some of us in the room—not I say us, I like to talk about us because I fight the battle just like you guys do. I am anointed to preach it, but I have to live it like everybody else.
But there are some in this room who have been married before, and they promised you, "I will never leave you or forsake you." They promised you in sickness or in health, and they are not here today because they broke those promises. It is extremely difficult to get over these emotional wounds, and Satan uses them.
Let me show you a third way Satan tries to overwhelm the mind. The enemy torments fragile vessels with racing thoughts, fear, anxiety, and mental exhaustion. These are the fiery darts that Paul speaks about in Ephesians 6:16.
These racing thoughts—during the first service, I was on the front row, and just like that, out of nowhere, I thought of something I did 20 years ago. No, no, no—yeah, 20 years ago. And all of a sudden, I went, "Oh my goodness, I can't believe I did that!" And the enemy is trying… I am in church! My goodness, I am in church! Slipped right in there.
This is how he tries to leverage it. Somebody says something, and you are like, "I will never forget that you just said that! I will never forget it!" I have a friend of mine. You are probably thinking all my friends are messed up, but I have another friend of mine.
Another friend I just hang out with—I just hang out with messed-up people so I feel good about myself. But I have another friend of mine; she lost her brother years ago, and she said at the funeral, "I will never be happy again." And you know what? She hasn't.
The enemy just grabbed her words and slipped right into her life because of that emotional wound.
Number four: Satan uses pride to isolate us. He uses pride and isolation, making us pretend—listen to this—pretend to be strong so that he can destroy us alone. So, if I am in the ministry and I have been pastoring for 27 years, do you know how many friends I have in the ministry?
Also, do you know how many of those people give me the projection that they hear from God all the time, that God is always blessing them, that doors are always opening? They hear God all the time; they are always being blessed. Doors are always opening.
And every time I have talked with them over the years, that is how they talk. I know that because they are on this earth, things are not perfect in their lives, but they have built this persona that everything is great. So they are not going to tell me what else is going on.
I am sure you are blessed, I am sure you are highly favored, and I am sure doors are opening. But what else is happening? Does anybody know somebody like that?
Here is number five: Satan twists our fragility into fatalism. Satan whispers, "You will never change. You are too broken." His tactics are hopeless. You know, hopeless means you do not see your future being any better than it is right now.
Your marriage is never going to get better. Your finances are never going to get better. All the goals you are not reaching; this is where you are at. If you are a depressive person… I have said this before: I fight depression. That is the spirit that has been assigned to me.
Everybody has a spirit assigned to them. For example, I don't struggle with alcohol addiction or drugs; that spirit is not assigned to me. But depression is assigned to me, and that is the spirit I have to fight. I don't know which one you have to fight, but we are all in this together.
Nobody gets a pass. I don't care how good-looking you are; you don't get a pass. Some people look in the mirror and say, "Dang, that looks good." And I am so happy for you; that is awesome! But most of the world looks in the mirror and goes, "All right, we are good."
Satan whispers, "You are never going to change. Frankie, you are always going to fight depression. You are always going to fight insecurity." Don't let my outgoing personality fool you; I am more insecure than you will ever know. I don't just struggle a little bit; I struggle a lot.
Some people are like, "Frankie, you are a little too transparent," and I am like, "Well, I don't know any other way." So if you don't like it, there are 71 other churches really close to us. Go pick another one. But when I am in the lobby, our team says, "Frankie, you really need to be in the lobby more often because people want to meet you."
And I am like, "I don't think that is true, but I will do it anyway." You see the confidence battle, right? This is when Satan tries to come in and leverage that. Are you with me? Say yes.
Talking Back to the Devil
And so you see me in the lobby anyway going, "Come on, let me go to point number two: talking back to the devil." Man, I have to give Zoe this point. She came up to me. Zoe, why don't you stand up so we can embarrass you? We love her!
She is the one putting everything on the screen, but she comes up to me and says, "You are going to hear me say this again in the future, and I am not giving her credit, so this is the first time she is going to get credit, and then after that, it is mine." All right?
She comes up to me and says this: "You cannot fight thoughts with thoughts. You have to fight thoughts with words. And red-letter words always win." Ain't that good? If you do not talk to the devil, you are losing. But if you are talking to the devil, you will always be winning.
I will take it a step further: If you are talking to the devil, your faith in God is rising, and demons are running. But if you are not talking to the devil, your faith is getting weak. Just look at the person next to you and say, "That was not for me, but it was for you. Like, it was for you! You need to write it down. Write it down. Go get a tattoo and put that on there; that was for you."
Did this help? Let me share a couple of scriptures. This is in Second Corinthians. Watch this; it is real short, so let us read it out loud: One, two, three, "I believed." One more time, real loud: "I saw because I believe." I am going to say something. Are you with me? Say yes.
Watch. Let me show you the next verse. Good Lord, that is a long verse. All right. You don't have to read this one. This is okay. David talking to Goliath. David said, what did he do? He said to—some of you knew the answer, but you weren't sure, so you didn't say it.
David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with a sword, spear, and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord." See, he is talking. He is yelling. He is shouting at Goliath. And behind Goliath is a Philistine army.
And so he is not just thinking God's going to deliver us because you can't cancel one thought out with another thought. You have to say it. So watch this. Listen. David invented talking trash. All right. Some of you have talked trash. You think you are good at talking trash. He invented it. Invented it.
Watch this kind of trash. He says this: "This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel."
All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands. Come on! I am going to kill you, and then birds are going to come down and eat you! That is talking trash.
I am about to say something that I am going to regret. I am going to drive all the way home telling myself that it wasn't necessary, that it wasn't necessary. However, it will bless some of you, and then it will offend the rest of you.
I was laying—I was thinking; I think I was 15. I am laying on the couch in the living room at night, going to sleep. My dad comes in, and he is like, "What is wrong with you? What are you doing in here?" And I was like, "I feel like when I close my eyes and I roll over, there is a demon behind me."
And he goes, "The next time you feel that, don't open your eyes. Don't look in that direction. Just hold your hand up and flip them off." Now I may or may not have done that; I will just let it be known it is not biblical because I thought, therefore I spoke, and that has no speaking involved at all.
The whole point is that you can't just sit there and think about where you are at in your current state. I am so stupid; this ain't never going to work out. You can't think, or you are like, "Devil, I know it is you! Leave me alone!" Or, "Jesus, I know you love me; I love you."
No, no, thinking does not help you win the battle. Speaking helps you win the battle. Speaking: "Devil, get out of my house! I know you are in here! Devil, I know you are talking to me! Shut up! I don't belong to you! In the name of Jesus, get out of my life! Get out! Get out! Get out!"
Let me share with you. Absolutely. Put your hands together for that.
Stories of Talking Back
I was reading earlier this week about this gentleman who was just tormented emotionally. Tormented. And so he had determined, "I am committing suicide. That is it—like, that is it." And so he felt this compelling urge to go talk to a friend and not tell him he is going to commit suicide, but just to tell him, "I can't take this anymore; I am done."
And his friend looked at him and said, "There is a demon tormenting you, and if you don't cast it out, he is going to continue to rule you. The spirit you entertain is the spirit you will serve." And so he was entertaining these thoughts.
He goes home and sits on the couch—not bold, not with energy, but with just broken faith. Have you ever had broken faith, like you are trying to believe but can hardly believe? He sits down on the couch and says, "Satan, just get away from me in Jesus' name."
And he just kept saying it—"Get away from me," in this low tone—like sometimes when you are saying, "Satan, get away," but then there is this brokenness, you can hardly get it out of your mouth. And remember, if you think "get away from me," then this devil laughs at you; he makes your mind his playground.
You have to speak it. So he just said, "Devil, get away from me! Jesus, in Jesus' name, leave me! Devil, get away from me! In Jesus' name, leave me! Devil, get away from Jesus!" He just kept saying it, and he said, "I could feel this spirit leaving me."
But watch this: he still felt so close; like if he could see him, he was only about three inches away. And so I just kept saying it over and over again: "Satan, leave me! Satan, leave me! In Jesus' name! In Jesus' name!" And then all of a sudden, the atmosphere changed.
But watch what he says; he says, "He often comes back and I have to rebuke him all over again." In Matthew, I think it is 12:43, it says, "When a demon leaves you, he circles around looking for a dry place, and then he comes back to where he was."
The interesting thing is, it says he is looking for a dry place. "Oh, there is a dry heart! Let me just land right here." He will leave and come back to see if that heart is dry, and then he will land and say, "Okay, this is my seat right here—this is my house."
You can't let it get dry. And so when that spirit comes back around, he is like, "Get away from me in Jesus' name! Get away from me in Jesus' name!" When depression comes to me, or whatever, I have got to do the same thing: "Get away from me in Jesus' name! Get away from me! In Jesus' name, get away from me!"
There is somebody in our church; his name is Richard. There are lots of Richards, so you will never be able to find him. But he was addicted to meth, and his family didn't know. His wife didn't know; his kids didn't know he was addicted to meth.
They go on a family vacation; they are walking through the airport. He hasn't slept for three days. They are going through the airport, and the security guy—you know how they randomly pull you out of line; it is just totally random—they say, "Okay, hey, you, come over here."
They are patting him down, and they find a little bag of meth in his pocket. So the cops come, and the wife is like, "What is going on here?" The kids are freaking out. And so he gets put in jail.
They release him, and he is laying on the floor in his bathroom with a gun. And then he starts saying the same thing: see, it doesn't matter what spirit you are fighting; you fight back the same way: "Satan, get away from me! Get away from me in Jesus' name! In Jesus' name! In Jesus' name! In Jesus' name!"
If you don't talk back, you will only hear what he is saying: "Get away from me! Get away from me! Get away from me!" Today, not only is he a strong man of God, his whole family goes to church and his family brings people to church. Can you put your hands together for that? You have got to talk back to the devil!
Source of Strength: The Word of God
Now I want to share. I often talk about prayer, but I don't talk about the word of God enough, and so I am making a conscious effort to talk about it more because that is how I fight. I am failing you as a pastor by not talking about it more.
In Hebrews chapter 4:12, it says the word of God is like a double-edged sword. It is like your butter knife; it is only sharp or kind of sharp on one side. It is like a sword—a double-edged sword that pierces between the bone and the marrow.
Do you know how the marrow is inside of a bone? It pierces that, convicting the thoughts and the intents of the heart. We got to get that word. People who do not read the word are weak, and people who do read the word are strong.
Now let me just say this: if you are anything like me, sometimes it is discouraging to read the Bible because you are like, "I am never going to remember this. I am never going to remember this!" The Lord spoke to me one time, and He said this: "You are having an encounter with Me every time you read. You are having an encounter."
So whether you ever remember it or not—now, the Bible says in Acts 20:24 that the Holy Spirit will bring it to your remembrance. If you never remember it, you are having encounters with God.
And the other night, and this is point number three, by the way—source of strength—I couldn't sleep, so I grabbed my cell phone, and I opened the Bible. I went to Second Corinthians because I know in Second Corinthians it talks a lot about how much He loves us, and so that is what I wanted to hear.
So I opened it up, and I read a few scriptures, and I felt closer to God than the shirt on my back while I was reading. I am going to share with you just a couple of these scriptures because they will bless you.
Notice the first one is going to be in chapter one. Watch this: "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!" This is what got me: "God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort."
I mean, when you are a wreck, that is where you are going to get your comfort. And I am laying there, and I am like, "Man, that was so good! I am having an encounter with God at that moment." Are you with me? Say yes.
Let me show you the next one. That was in verse three of chapter one. This is in verse ten. There is good stuff in there, and it is everywhere. Watch this—this is awesome: "And He did rescue us from mortal danger, and He will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in Him, and He will continue to rescue us."
Watch this: "He did it; He will rescue us now, and He is going to continue to!" You pulled me out before; You are pulling me out now. Even though I can't see it, You are pulling, and guess what? He is going to continue.
God pulled you out of trouble in your life. There is a part of your story that is so intense you are probably not going to tell anybody—that is how intense it was. And if you do tell anyone, it is only going to be a couple of people because it was so intense it almost broke you.
This scripture is for you. He pulled me out then; He rescued me then; He will rescue me now. And as long as I live, He will rescue me. Watch this: I only got to verse ten. I started in chapter one. The first verse I read was verse three.
Watch it. Let me show you another one. This is in chapter three. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
I rented a car. I think it was Hertz or something. I was somewhere speaking in another state, and I had to rent a car. I walked into the place to rent a car, and there is this lady, and she is playing worship music in Hertz or Budget or wherever I was.
My first thought was, "Whoa, that is bold." So I got up to the counter. I am going to quote her exactly. I got up to the counter and said, "I really love this worship music." And she said these exact words: "Ain't nobody going to create this atmosphere. If I want it, I got to create it."
"I am not going to come to your house and take your phone and put in worship music. The worship team is not coming to your house. They are not going to get in your car. It is not going to happen. If you are in an atmosphere where you feel heavy, you feel down, you feel overwhelmed, you don't like what you are feeling, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
You go, "God is everywhere." Eh, kind of. He is the omnipresence of God; you can't get out of it. However, there is the manifest presence of God, where you say, "At this moment, in this place, right here, right now, I am going to sense, feel, and have an encounter with God."
And there are times when in your car, in your house, you feel this heaviness, and you need freedom. You make the decision on whether you want that atmosphere to change. You make the decision by speaking it. "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you."
And what I try to do—I pray just like that, by the way—I try to make my next "I love you" more passionate than the previous "I love you." Are you with me?
Let me share with you two more verses. 3:18. This is the other night; I am in chapter three. The Bible starts good right out of the gate. By the way, if you don't know where to start, even some people who have been believers for 40 years say, "I don't know where to start."
Try Second Corinthians right off the bat, then go to First John, and then Romans; your faith will skyrocket. This is in verse three. I have only got two more. "And the Lord, who is Spirit, makes us more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image."
I know you have prayed like me, "God, I want to be like You. I want to be like You." You can't make yourself like God; you can't make yourself holy; I can't make myself good. But it says, "I make." Will you put that scripture back up there, Zoe? Look at this. Who does it? He makes us like it.
These little moments are encounters with God in the Bible. Now, now listen to me. Will you come play the keys so that people think I am almost done? I guess I am done because I don't remember what I was going to say.
Was I talking about… oh, the Bible talks about believers who hear the message of God, but just like a person who looks in the mirror and forgets what they saw, it is like a Christian who hears the message and forgets it before they stand up.
A couple of weeks ago, I preached on offense, and the next morning, I got six emails from people who were offended. I wanted to quit the ministry. I am like, "What did I do yesterday? I didn't do anything! All I did was just talk."
Six people offended after I just read scriptures about not being offended. Actually, I am not going to chase that. But God knew that people would be like that, and that is why He said, "Don't be like a person who hears the Word and then you are like a person who looks in the mirror and forgets what they saw."
You look in the mirror and there is a booger hanging out of your nose, and then you change your mind, and you forgot that it is there. It is like… "You are so cute. How old are you?" "Twelve." She thought it was funny.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when we hear the Word of God, we see where we need to change, and then we just turn like it didn't happen. I want to say, hear me say, talk back to the devil! And don't forget—we talked about this: talk back. Are you with me?
Closing and Altar Call
Stand to your feet and give the Lord a standing ovation. Come on, let us give it to Him! Lord, we love You, Jesus. We love You, Jesus. We love You!
I would like our prayer partners to come down, if you would. I am just kidding! I just felt like pushing y'all. You are wonderful! If you are in this room, just know I think you are wonderful.
Somebody came up to me in the lobby last Sunday and said, "You have ADD." I was like, "How did you guess?" She replied, "I can help you." I said, "I don't want your help. I am having a lot of fun up here!"
What if you have a child that has ADD? Let it show the strengths. We can talk about the weaknesses, but if we are just going to talk about the weaknesses, that is not life-giving. There are some strengths.
Some of the most brilliant people in this world, we wouldn't consider them normal. Let us celebrate it, right? ADD for me—why am I talking about this? Well, it will bless somebody, right?
When I read scriptures on the screen, I am concentrating so hard because I am wanting to skip words. Like, especially since I know what it says already, I am thinking, "Why am I reading this? I already know what it says." I am like, "No, there are people listening that want to."
Okay, so that is a weakness of ADD. But the strength is I am having a lot of fun, right? Okay, I don't know. Jesus, help me! Did you say, "Help him, Lord?" Just help him.
Some of us haven't had somebody pray for us in a long time. In a long time. And that is why the prayer partners are down here. If that is you, just say, "I want someone to pray for me."
And I also want to say this: whether you have been coming to church here for years or this is your first time, if your heart were to stop beating in the next five minutes, are you 100% sure you know where you would spend eternity? 100%?
Just because you know that He exists, that doesn't mean you will live with Him forever. Satan knows that He exists. Does your heart belong to Him? And if you are unsure of that answer, I want to encourage you to come out of your seat and take somebody's hand.
Say, "I just need to get my life right with God." The Bible says that if you are ashamed of Him in front of people, He will be ashamed of you when He sees you. So don't let any pressure or worry make you pretend like you are the only one in this room.
And if you need to get your life right with the Lord, then come down here, take somebody's hand, and tell them, "I need to get my life right." If you have any other requests to be prayed for, then come out of your seat, and we will pray for you.
No official dismissal. You can leave whenever you get ready. But let us sing this song one time through before anyone goes. May the Lord bless you. May He keep you. May His face shine down upon you and be gracious to you. May His countenance be lifted up on you and give you peace. In Jesus' name.