Frankie Mazzapica - I Talk Back to the Devil - Part 2
Last week we started a series. It was part one. This is going to be part two. And then next week will be the third part. It’ll be the last part of the series. But the title of the series, or the message in the series, is «I Talk Back to the Devil.» And my challenge to you is to challenge you to talk back to the devil as well. The reason why is the devil is tormenting you, and he’s tormenting me, and he never takes a day off. He never takes a day off. Every single day, he’s sending people to come torment you. He’s tormenting your mind; he’s tormenting your body. He wants it. He is constantly trying to make your life hell on earth. So the question is not whether or not the devil is talking to you. The question is whether or not you are going to talk back.
Let me say this: You cannot fight thoughts from the devil with thoughts. You have to fight thoughts with words. If you do not speak, you will lose. If you do speak, you will win. But you have to speak. If you sit there and think only, you won’t win. It’s like thinking, «I believe in you, God.» You will entertain thoughts from hell unless you speak. I’m going to recap two points from last week that I shared, and then I’m going to give you some new content.
But the first point that I want to recap is actually speaking. Let me give you a couple of verses. The first verse to support this is Proverbs 18:21. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. It doesn’t say in the power of your thoughts. It means that life will happen-you will get stronger, your faith will get bigger, your doors will open for you, and opportunities will come to you if you use your tongue. Okay? Life and death.
Watch this. Here’s another verse: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. When you look to God and you say, «In Jesus' name, I want you to know that I trust you; Satan, leave me alone,» when you are praying, you are loosing. When you look to heaven, whatever you say to the Lord happens on earth. You speak to heaven, and it happens here.
Let me show you another verse. «And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name, they will cast out demons.» In my name-people who say the name Jesus-you will notice that when hell is tormenting your mind, reminding you of every single thing that you’ve done wrong, and telling you that there’s nothing in your future, you are going to be in the season that you are in forever. Whenever you are there, it says this: in my name.
You will notice that the scripture says you have to say his name. But when you are low and you are down, you will notice that it is so hard to say Jesus. It is so hard to just repeat the most important statement you can ever make: «I love you.» It is so hard for you to open your mouth because hell treats your lips like a Ziploc bag. He wants you to think but not speak. Because if you speak, demons run. If you think, demons play. Your mind becomes the devil’s playground. If you don’t speak-are you with me? Say yes. Say it again: are you with me? Say yes.
Here, let me share another verse: In Revelation 12:11, «And they will triumph.» They will win. They will be victorious over him, over Satan, by the blood of the Lamb. Watch this. And the -what’s that word say right there? What’s that word say? That’s kind of funny. What’s that word say? Of their testimony. When you speak, «Satan, you tried to kill me when I was 15. You tried to break me when I was 15. Satan, you brought me through a divorce that almost killed me. Satan, what you did to me, what you dragged me through-you see, you’re talking about your testimony. It didn’t work. Look where I am.»
When you look back at where God has brought you from, come on, put your hands together. It’s your testimony. And then you say your testimony to remind Satan with your mouth, «You tried to kill me, and now you’re trying to kill me again. The Lord delivered me then; he’ll deliver me now. And whatever you come against me with in the future, he’ll deliver me then.» But you have to say it. Everyone say it.
The devil does not care what you believe. He doesn’t care. Believe what you want to believe; just don’t say it. Is there another scripture, Joe, or was that the last one? I can’t remember how many I had in this category. Oh yeah. «Let the high praises of God be in their mouth.» Praise God with your thoughts? Please take a ticket and go to the end of the line-with your mouth! Watch this: «And a two-edged sword in their hands.» Hebrews 4:12: «And the word of God, the Bible, is like a two-edged sword.» With your mouth, you say something out of the Bible.
If you’re intimidated about opening up the Bible, I’ll talk more about that during my third point. I’m just catching a recap: you have a creative assistant, all of you, that works for you for free. It’s called ChatGPT. If you’re not familiar with ChatGPT, like my father says, «I have Chat QRS.» I’m like, «Just stop.» You’re familiar with Google. Type in what verse talks about Jesus loving me, because sometimes that’s all you need to know. A scripture will come up, and you see that one scripture, and you back up and you say that scripture. Don’t think it. It doesn’t matter. Satan knows there’s a God. He couldn’t care less what you know.
What he’s afraid of is if you open your mouth and say, «I love you, I love you, I love you.» And every time you say, «I love you,» you try to say it with more passion than you just said it. Oh my goodness, he runs. He runs. You can’t fight thoughts with thoughts. You have to fight thoughts with words. And if you can just, in addition, if you can grab one scripture, let me recap something about the Bible. A lot of times we don’t read the Bible because we think that we’re not going to remember it. Let me say this first, but that’s my second point. I kind of spoiled it. We don’t read the Bible because we can’t read long. So why even do it? You know, you try to read the Bible, and you read like one chapter, and then you get discouraged. You can’t read long and you’re like, «Man, I only read one chapter. This is ridiculous.»
Let me encourage you: read the Bible for as long as you have grace to read the Bible. In other words, sometimes you’re going to open up the Bible, and you only have the grace to pray for five minutes, and then you get bored, and your mind drifts. Okay, you had grace for five minutes. Close the Bible. But sometimes you’ll have grace to read it for ten minutes. Sometimes you’ll have grace to read it for thirty minutes. You read as long as you have the grace to read. But open it and read.
Let me say another thing. A lot of times people don’t want to read the Bible because they say to themselves, «I’m not going to remember it anyway.» Have you ever done that? Like you read it? If you’ve never done that, I’ve done that. So if you want to be super holy because you’re at church, that’s fine. But when I read it, I’m like, «Oh my goodness, I didn’t even remember anything that I read.» And the Lord introduced this to me a couple of weeks ago, and it just helped me so much.
See, at that moment when you are reading, he is talking to you. And in this moment, you are connecting with God, and you’re seeing him tell you, «I love you.» You’re seeing it. And so you’re having a moment. And so when you open up the Bible, you’re saying, «I want to have a moment with you. I may not remember what I’m going to read, but I just want to have a moment.» If you don’t know where to start, start in Second Corinthians because it just talks about how much he loves you. Three books: Second Corinthians, First John, and Romans. Two Corinthians, One John, Romans. Two Corinthians, One John, and Romans. Start there, and you just pray as long as you have grace. But you go to it and say, «I just want to have a moment.»
Let me share something with you. You know how you, let’s say it’s your birthday, okay? And somebody gives you a birthday card, and you take the birthday card, and on the front, it says, «Happy Birthday,» and there’s like Garfield the cat or flowers or something. And then you open it up, and there’s like print in there, and it says something like, «On this day, you were a gift to the world, and anywhere you go, when you smile, you bring sunshine into every room,» and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Now watch this. If somebody comes up to you, they bought the card, and they hand it to you. You take the card, you see Garfield, fake laugh. You open it up on this day, and there’s only what the card already had printed in it, but the person didn’t write anything in the card from them. Now you take it, and you’re like, «You didn’t write anything!» In other words, «I’m happy. What do you think? What do you think about me? I’m not going to talk about me; that’s boring. You tell me what you think about me. That’s awesome.»
You see, the Bible is when He tells you about you. Yeah, yeah. Are you with me? Say yes. I got three major points for today. The first one is who is targeted by hell. The importance of being on fire for Him is point number two. And then number three, the reward. Okay, so I’m going to use a different verse than the one I gave you, Joe. This is the first I want to establish for point number one. If you’re looking in your app and following along, just punch this one in.
In 2 Corinthians 7, verse 5 and 6, it says this: Paul says, «When we first came to Macedonia, a great door of opportunity was before us.» In other words, God has this anointing on us, and we know exactly what we’re supposed to do. He goes, «But we arrived exhausted. Everywhere we look is trouble, and people are against us.»
So who does the devil target? People who have a significant assignment. Satan attacks the anointed. When you look around and all you see is trouble, when you look at yourself and you think these thoughts, «I can’t believe I’m still fighting this. I can’t believe I’m so weak. I can’t believe that this is happening.» This does not mean that God doesn’t have a great call on your life. This does not mean that you’re not anointed; it’s actually confirming that you are called by God. Is there anyone here going through something that is confirming? Like, clearly, if troubles mean that I’m anointed, I am greatly anointed. Are you with me? Say yes.
Sometimes I think to myself, «Man, I’m going through hell,» and then I think, «Satan, what are you so afraid of?» Do you know that Satan can see God sending you blessings even though you feel like a complete failure and you don’t feel like He’s even hearing you? But Satan can see the blessings coming to you, but you can’t. Let me illustrate it. In the book of Daniel, there was a guy named Daniel, and he was going through-look, I know it sounds obvious, and it sounds obvious because it is.
All right, so Daniel comes before God, and he says, «I need you. I’m desperate for You.» Nothing happens for three weeks. He’s calling on God; nothing happens. Zero. Nothing. But he thinks there’s nothing because that’s all he can see. Do you know how discouraging it is when you’re praying, and nothing’s happening? What do you end up doing? You stop praying. You close your lips, and then you pray in your head, and the devil starts laughing because you’re not opening your mouth. You’re not talking back. And so he keeps on praying for three weeks.
And the Bible says this: that the first day he prayed, God sent an angel to bless him and take care of him. But the problem was that while the angel is coming down from heaven-I don’t know how he flies, but that’s how I’m going to fly when I get to heaven. I’m going to fly backwards, actually. I’m going to fly like nobody’s ever flown before. No, no, no one’s ever flown before, so that’s going to be easy. But that was funny, though. All right, what am I talking about? Oh yeah.
So here comes the angel. Well, the problem is that Daniel is sitting there so desperate, but a devil saw the blessing coming. And so a demon was sent up with a flaming sword and started fighting the angel to keep the angel from coming down. So Michael, the archangel — forget about it! He’s the man. So he sees another angel fighting who’s a messenger angel, Gabriel. He’s not a fighter kind of guy; he’s a " I’m bringing you blessings» kind of guy. So here comes Michael. In like two minutes, Michael goes, and then that demon just flies away. Then Gabriel comes down and blesses him, and he says, «The very day, Daniel, you prayed, I was sent here.» Incidentally, in Psalms 56:9, it says, «The very day you pray, the tide of the battle turns.» But you have to open your mouth.
And so what am I trying to say? Why am I using Daniel? Because he can see the blessings of God coming down on your life. And so he’s fighting the angels while other demons are sealing your lips. Daniel kept on praying. So who does he target? He targets people that have an anointing on their life. He targets people who can see blessings coming down. If you’re in the middle of a battle, you just need to back up, open your mouth, talk back to the devil and just say, «What are you so afraid of? Get out of my life! Get out of my life!»
Don’t be afraid of saying the same prayer over and over, because there are angels that have existed before time began that circle the throne and keep saying the same words over and over. They just say, «Holy, holy! The whole earth is filled with your glory! Holy, holy! The whole earth is…» That’s what they’ve been saying for trillions of years-the same sentence. But every time they say it, they say it with more passion than they just said it before. And that’s what pursuing God looks like. Let me talk about having a fire inside of you. A fire inside of you means that you pursue God under any circumstances. «God, I feel down; I’m still going to pray. I feel like all I do is ignore you; I’m still going to pray. I feel like I’m the most inconsistent person on this planet, but I’m still going to pray. I’m still going to worship you. I’m still gonna play worship music.»
In this day and age, it’s so easy to play worship music in your car. You say, «Siri, play worship music!» Or whoever your little friend is in your phone — Samsung, play music. I know I say some stupid stuff up here, but it’s kind of funny. To worship in your car-that’s pursuing God. To pray-that’s pursuing God. But there are people who pursue with a fire inside of them under any circumstances. Now, now watch what Jeremiah went through. His circumstances were horrible. He feels like God tricked him. He’s like, «You-I felt like things were going to go very well with me, but you tricked me.»
Watch what he says here in Jeremiah 20:7: «Oh Lord, you misled me. You tricked me. You misled me, and guess what? I allowed myself to be misled. You are stronger than me, and you overpowered me. And now, now look what’s happening. People are mocking me. You go to church, you worship, and look at your life! It stinks!» Now let’s read verse nine. It says this: «But if I say I will never mention your name again, if I say I’ll never speak your name, this is what happens: Your words, the things in the scriptures, and what you have impressed upon my heart burn in me.» Well, look at this. «It’s like fire. They burn in my heart like fire. It’s like fire shot up in my bones. I am worn out trying to hold it in. I can’t stop thinking about you even when I try.»
Have you ever tried to turn your back on God? Like, you’re mad at Him. You’re ticked. You’re disappointed. You’re just like, «I’m not going to church anymore. Hook this!» And guess what? «I’m gonna zip-lock my own mouth.» The devil didn’t even have to do it. «I’m not praying anymore. I’m sick of this. I’m done!» And then you try to do that, but He’s always on your mind anyway. He keeps crossing your mind until it kind of breaks down. You’re like, «I gotta get back with God. Are you with me? Say yes! I gotta get back with God.» It’s because there’s a fire burning in your heart. And people who have a fire burning in their heart, they just keep on praying, «I love you! I love you!» And people who are just going through the motions, they’re detestable to God. Detestable.
Do you know I read that one time 70% of America says they’re Christians? Seven out of ten people that you look at are Christians. You go to the mall, you go to work, you walk around-seven out of ten. How many people believe in that? No, nobody believes in that. What they’re saying is, «I believe in Jesus, I believe in the Bible, I believe in God,» but they have no passion to pursue Him. How do you pursue Him? You sing, you worship, you ask Him, «Is there anything in my life that’s grieving You?»
Those people who don’t do that are not living for Him. You acknowledge Him. I said this already, but I’ll emphasize it: God and Satan know that God exists. It doesn’t matter what you know; it matters how you live. And people who stumble and mess up -what do you do? When Adam and Eve sinned, I can’t wait to talk to them. I’m like, «Do you like apples that much?» Really? Like, do you know what you did when you ate the stupid apple? I can’t wait to talk to them. But what did Adam and Eve do? See, their routine was that every evening, the Lord would show up and meet with Adam and Eve. He’d walk around in the Garden of Eden with them. But after they ate the apple, the Lord showed up in the garden, and Adam and Eve were not there; they were hiding. The Lord called, «Adam, Eve, where are you?»
See, Adam and Eve sinned, and they felt so guilty that they ran from the Lord. Now, Peter, when Jesus was being crucified, he was watching from a distance, and someone came up and said, «Aren’t you one of the disciples?» And he cursed. «Blank, no, F,» he cursed three times and denied Him. But the first opportunity he had, he ran toward Jesus. The question is not if you make a mistake, but when you make a mistake, do you turn from the Lord and hide? Or do you run to Him with your hands up saying, «I love You, I love You. I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but I thank You that You’re so full of grace and mercy. I love You.» These people have a passion; they’re on fire for God.
Now watch what He says to people who are just going through the motions, because it makes Him mad. Let me show you a couple of verses on what He says to this. In Revelation 3:1, it says, «You have a reputation of being alive, but you’re dead.» You go to church all the time; everybody thinks that you’re a Christian because you have perfect attendance. You got all stars on your Sunday attendance bar; you get a lollipop at the end of the week. But you know what? Guess what? I know the truth: you’re just filling a seat. You’re dead. Watch this; He gets more and more aggressive.
«Wow, this is big: Away with your noisy singing, your hymns and praise; I will not listen to the music of your hearts. Stop singing to Me; I’m not listening to you.» He does-He’s not playing. Watch this: Matthew 15:8-9. «These people honor Me with their lips. I love Jesus. I’m a Christian. Yeah, I got it. Yeah, yeah.» They honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God. You know what a man-made idea is? It’s anytime somebody says, «Well, I just believe,» and then they justify how they’re living. But they always start with, «Well, I just believe.»
This is man-made baloney. I don’t give a diddly or a squat about what you believe; hopefully, you don’t care about what I believe. The only thing you should care about is whether or not I’m opening up the Bible and saying what’s in the Bible, because the Bible is not man-made ideas; it’s what God likes and what He hates. So anytime somebody says, «Let me tell you why I believe this,» it’s because in Romans-it’s because in First Corinthians-but if they lead with, «Well, let me just tell you what I believe,» you’ve already lost me.
Let me show you another one. Oh, this is Samson. But he didn’t realize the Lord had left him. Samson, you guys know the story, man. He was so strong. The anointing of God was on him since he was a baby. He could lift 500 lb at three; he was so strong, he could run through brick walls. He was so mighty. He was a judge over Israel for like 30 years, but he lived a sinful life.
The Bible says right here that the Lord said, «You believe in Me, but you don’t worship Me; you don’t pursue Me. You know it, but you don’t open your mouth.» It says that the Spirit of the Lord left him, and he didn’t even know it. It’s a scary thing when someone doesn’t even realize that they’re no longer close to God because they’ve been going through a routine for so long that they don’t even know. But those who are on fire-those who pray, those who worship with their mouths open-those who do that are pursuing God. Are you with me? Say yes.
Let me show you this point number three. I’m closing up after this, maybe. But this point number three, when God backs up and He says, «Wow,» whether you’re feeling strong, whether you’re feeling weak, whether you feel like I’ve misled you, whether people are mocking you, whether things are down or whether things are up, you keep on pursuing you and me. And watch what He says in Matthew 6:6: «But when you pray, go into your room, close the door behind you, and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.» He’s going, «Wow, nobody knows that you’re praying as much as you are. I’m going to reward you.»
Do you know? And you can come up and play the keys. Do you know what His rewards are? I’ll tell you what they are. His rewards are things given to you that you can’t make happen by yourself. Like if you’re broke and you don’t want to be broke anymore and you say, «Well, guess what? Tomorrow morning I’m going to go do something that’s going to make me unbroke.» If you could do that, you would have already done it. If you’re addicted to something and you don’t want to be addicted anymore and you say, «Guess what? Tomorrow morning I’m not going to be addicted to that ever again,» you would have already done it.
If there are relationships that are just falling apart, if you could fix that, you would. If you are single here and you’re like, «My clock is ticking. I’m ready to get married,» and you say, «God’s gonna like, I got you,» if you could do it yourself at a Starbucks, you wouldn’t be here right now. You would be in Starbucks with a Frappuccino telling yourself it’s healthy, it’s creamy, but it’s protein. You can’t meet anyone on your own. God directs the traffic in your life. And thank God for the people that broke up with you! Oh, thank you, Jesus! You had no idea they were crazy. You had no idea. This is a free gift for everyone who’s single. This is free. I’m not-this is free. Has nothing to do with my message -it’s free.
But when you meet someone and you’re like, «Hey,» you’re not meeting them. When you meet them for the first time, you’re not meeting them; you’re meeting their representative, their best self, right? Like when you meet them and let’s say it’s some girl in high heels and she comes walking in and you’re like, «Hey, this is going to work. We’re eye to eye. This is going to be nice.» She’s coming in on high heels, and then she takes them off. «You tricked me! You tricked me for the first year!» It’s just so much. Hey, hey, you don’t know them! Everybody stretch your hand out and pray for me at this time. I don’t think I can recover from that.
Why don’t you stand to your feet? Let’s just end this. Let’s just end this message right now. Prayer partners, why don’t you come down throughout the room? Can’t believe I did that. If you ever feel like God can’t use you, just think about me. Some of you just need someone to pray for you. At the end of the day, you just need someone to pray for you, and that’s why these prayer partners are down here. If you’re in this room and you know-nobody has to tell you, but you know — if your heart were to stop beating in the next five minutes, you’re not ready to see the Lord; you’re the most important person in this room. You know there’s a God, but you’re not ready. I’m urging you to come out of your seat and take the hand of a prayer partner and just say, «I need to get my life right with God.»
And then in that first category, you just need someone to pray for you. In a minute, I want you to come out of your seat and take the hand of a prayer partner. And if it looks like all the prayer partners are praying with somebody, just come to the bottom of the aisle. Some of the best ushers and greeters you’ll ever meet are here at Celebration, and they will point you to the first available prayer partner. There’s no official dismissal. You can leave whenever you get ready. But let’s sing this song one time through together before anyone goes. Next week will be part three of this series. 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 bring you peace. In Jesus' name, amen.