Leon Fontaine - Fighting and Warfare - Part 2
Hey, everybody! It is so good to have you with me. We are on our second part of a crucial amazing teaching. I give you a quick little intro. We talked about this fact. And I shared a story from my life as a late teenager and how that I was trained by this couple in our church. My mom and dad weren't part of it. In fact, I didn't let them know we would do warfare against the devil for our lives, for our church. And we would just spend countless hours and hours. We called it warring tongues. And I was just in my late teens and, you know, warfare against the devil. We developed all these teachings about graphics in which demons in charge that we have to name and pull down.
And it was exhausting, and it literally destroyed some of the lives of the people that were in this, this little group. And I recognized this, this is not right. I began a journey to really understand how to win, how to be more than a conqueror, how to rise up in a life that has the miraculous power of God and His ability flowing in my life. And I'm telling you, Holy Spirit guided me on to the right path that I've been building ever since. And so I dove into that last time and we talked about how we have to fight the good fight of faith. And how we covered it and go back and checked it out how that he talks about develop faith and a good conscience. And we dive, we dive into that. That we just say, "Okay, here's if you do not deal with your good conscience, not from fighting the devil. But from the death, the burial, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus".
When you understand those things, you're going to walk. And it is the foundational truths we need to teach every born-again believer. And if you weren't taught those four things, then you'll be way out of bay. You'll take Scriptures out of context. And so I want to dive in and reteach it, but I pray you go back and take a look at that, so that you can just start where we are here. Now, let me continue with Scriptures here in the Word of God that I believe will help you. Now, in Romans 14:17, it says, "For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit".
When you give your life to Christ, something remarkable took place. The old you and the sin nature or the fear because it is a fear nature. When you look at the sins in people's lives, it's always fear base. I'm not going make enough money on my own. I'm afraid I can't pay bills. I'm going to steal from the government. I don't think I'm ever going to have a wonderful sex life. It's never going to work out. I'm going to go get my own, answer my own sexual desires, etcetera, etcetera. I'll never rise up for much. I'm going to manipulate people and I'm going to dominate people. I'm going to step on toes and stab people in the back because if you don't look after yourself, nobody else will. All these stupid principles. That even if we wouldn't say that out loud, we lived this way.
And so when we give our lives to Jesus Christ, we are now citizens of heaven. We are now born-again. When you die, heaven is your home. And so you can be assured of spending eternity with your loved ones who know Jesus. You'll spend eternity with them. It gives me such an amazing feeling as I see my children, my grandkids, my sons-in-law, my daughter-in-law, and the friends that I know in church all serving Jesus. Because I know all that we do here on this planet. I mean, a hundred years from today, we're all going to be celebrating in heaven as a team, as a family. And so when you are born-again, now most of the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, they are showing you and I principles of how to operate in the principles of this new kingdom. The kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven.
In fact, I've often told people that many of the times where when it talks about you cannot enter the kingdom of God. You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven if you do these things or don't know these things or learn these things. Everyone thinks you're going to go to hell, and it says, "Oh, you have to earn". No. Much of the teachings of Jesus, you've got to look at it in context. Because, yes, of course, if you don't know Christ, heaven is not your home. You've got to believe on Him. But much of the other stuff of the teachings of Jesus and here's where a lot of even really remarkable theologians go wrong is, they take all the teachings of Jesus and they make it something that's got to be done to be saved. And He is saying that this is how the kingdom works. And when you begin to recognize kingdom principles, it is up to you to work those principles. And so it says for the kingdom of God.
Now, this verse is power packed with doctrine. The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. All right. So yes, I know you might struggle with dope and smoking dope and alcohol and food addiction and physical addictions and sexual addictions. And all these things in the physical world. All right? Now, then you try to change all those behaviours. And even if you do, you're barely winning over those behaviours. But it says for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. You don't look at the outer life first. It says it's the inner life because all of this next line has to do with the heart. It says, "But the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit".
You see, Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. And so let's look through these three things and let me show how it works. Now, people who continue to fight the devil with all that they can do. They are by fighting the devil, their beliefs are that he has all the power. That he is the one stopping them from living his righteous life filled with peace and joy. And they're not getting healed and their relationships aren't working, and their businesses are being destroyed and their bodies being destroyed, their churches are being destroyed. Anger and competition and envy and jealousy and pride are destroying their businesses, their churches, all the stuff.
And so we give, we think it's the devil doing that. No. He doesn't have that kind of power. But if you believe he does, you let him come in and steal. And I said last time that a thief isn't someone you do warfare against because he's not taking you on. He's behind your back trying to steal from you. He's trying to lie to you. That is a wimp. It is a wimp who lies and steals to destroy because he doesn't have the power to come walk right up to you and take it away. He's got to steal. And if he can get you to believe that though, you give him your power and it works against you.
So Romans 14:17 says for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking or this outer world because back in the Bible days all these laws were on your external conduct. What you were eating. What you were drinking. How much you can have. What you could eat. What you couldn't eat. Couldn't eat this, couldn't eat that, couldn't do that. And I think much of that is still great health laws, etcetera. But not the way to being right with God. And so being right with God is in the Holy Spirit, in the Spirit of Christ. And so rather than warring against the devil, if you would take the time to listen to these messages over and over. Dive into the Word of God and begin to say, "Okay, righteousness. What is that"? That is you being in right standing with God.
Now, if you are in right standing with God or you are righteous. Then everything from God that He has given you flows easily. It just flows easily. But when you don't feel righteous, as we found out last time. If your heart condemns you, you won't get faith to work. And grace which is God's ability as a favour to you, it is worked by faith, by trusting in it. So righteousness is a gift. Three are two kinds of righteousness. A gift of righteousness and then there is works righteousness. Where you have to earn it through behaviour for doing good works or making up for bad works, sins, etcetera. But those are all self-righteous. And you can't get anywhere when you're self-righteous. So you have to accept this gift of righteousness Romans 5:17. In fact, today, as you listen to this again and again say, "Father, I accept the gift of righteousness. I am in right standing with You. You and I are cool. You and I are good. You're looking at me smiling because I am righteous because of Jesus".
Now, this righteousness. This legal standing between you and God isn't just a legal thing but it is an ability because when we are in Christ in Him, that's our legal standing. But when Christ is in us, this is His ability flowing through us. This is His power, His peace, His joy. So you must recognize I believe that look at the kingdom of God once you're born again. And what is the kingdom? Jesus and the kingdom is within you. In other words stop trying to change and build some kind of kingdom outside of you. You'll never do it, okay, until you build something within you and so you are righteous. You need to confess that. There are many of you who have no faith who are confessing healing, confessing your marriage being restored. And you have never taken the Word of God on righteousness and meditated and spoken it until that revelation explodes on the inside of you. Then you're working this process of faith that's going to get you to tremendous miracles.
Now, it says that the kingdom of God is righteousness. So once you see what righteousness is, then a peace begins to flow. When your heart is at peace, it dominates your mind. And even though your mind can see enemies. Even though your ears can hear bad reports. Even though you can feel all the attacks and the problems that are going on in this world. The peace is untouchable because it's not a peace that comes from your fives senses like the world. It's a peace that is a power source that comes from Holy Spirit living in your human spirit. So when you begin to understand righteousness, and righteousness begins to be renewed into your mind because you already have that gift. Now you need to renew your mind with that. You need to live out in the power of that. You'll be at peace. This peace is stunning.
Jesus would sleep on boats that were about to sink almost. I mean, demon possessed. People will be running at Him who had literally broken chains and terrorized towns and no mighty man could shut them down. And Jesus just looked at him, and the guy would just fall on his face in front of Him. This peace. And then when you have this peace, the Bible says, and a joy. There's a joy. Joy leads to laughter and a merry heart. Joy leads to a constant feast. I mean, the Bible says He prepares a table for us in the very presence of our enemies. This living and this life that is overcoming and winning in life. You have to understand the kingdom of God and stop fighting foolish wars against a defeated foe and instead get back to understanding who you are in Christ.
In Galatians 6:7, is a tremendous principle that you need to work for your benefit. It says, "Do not be deceived". All right, deception comes from the enemy. Here's a place he tries to deceive people. "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man plants, that he also will harvest". All right. Plant where? He's talking here about planting God's Word in your heart. Jesus teaches that in Mark 4 and says it is the parable is the key to all parables. And that the soil in this parable is your heart and the seed is God's Word. People always read this as a negative. You be careful what you look at, be careful what you hear.
And I agree with that because that's how you guard your heart in Proverbs 4 and 19. You guard your heart. Yes, but did you know that the enemy and fallen people and the world, they can't stop the blessing of God in your life. God is not going to be mocked. That His Word doesn't work. No one can look at you and I, "Oh, that doesn't work". That is crazy. You need to learn to plant the Word of God because nothing can stop it when you deal with this beautiful, simple, powerful process of planting His Word in your heart. So it talks here about that don't be deceived, God is not mocked. You can be spending all your time fighting the devil thinking he's stopping your prosperity, or you can plant the Word of God. And when it comes up, it's going to come up thirty, sixty, and a hundred-fold and nothing can stop it.
Your time of screaming at the devil, warring tongues or however you're doing it, is unnecessary. Because as you find out who you are, and you plant the Word of God. It takes your life forward and the enemy cannot stop the planted Word in your heart because it begins to produce. There's life in the Word of God. Now, as you look here in Mark 4:22. Let me dive in for those of you who are new here. I know today I'm speaking a lot more of believers. But if you're a new believer, listen to it. If you don't understand some things, go to the Scriptures and read them over. The Scriptures before and after. Get them in context.
And for time sake, I'm going to go to a couple of verses in Mark 4:22-25 in the Amplified and here what it says. It says, "Things are hidden temporarily only as a means to revelation". Jesus earlier says in this parable and it's in more than one of the Gospels. That the principles of the kingdom are for you, but they are hidden from the world. They cannot hear them. They cannot understand them. And so here he's saying, "Now they're hidden temporarily", but it's just a means for revelation to you who is a follower of Christ, who are born-again. It says, "Nothing is hidden except to be revealed, nor is anything temporarily kept secret except in order that it may be made known".
Did you know that when you begin to plant God's Word, things begin to rise up. These powerful truths and mysteries in the Word, and then you start getting transformed. Verse 23 says, "If any man has ears to hear," Well, I got ears and I can hear. But it says, "But it's not just hearing the physical sound. It's listening until you perceive, and you comprehend". You know, everyone listen to me. You think you understand the Bible. And you've got to be careful. That can become a proud thing. "That I don't need to, I get it already. Yeah, yeah". A lot of people will tell me after I teach. "Yeah, it was a great review. Thanks, pastor". And they do with the sense of trying to prove to me they're mature. But I know in the way they talk that I'm not talking about your mind understanding it, okay?
There is some wisdom in your mind understanding it and being renewed. But listen to what it says here. It doesn't say that your understanding is going to change your world. Verse 24 says, "And He said to them, 'Be careful what you are hearing. The measure of thought and study that you give to the truth you hear.'" The measure of thought and study. There needs to be this connection at the heart level. It's not just, "Oh, it makes good sense. I read that book. It's good". No. That you stay, and you begin to plant this Word, the Word of God in your heart. Holy Spirit begins to reveal things to you that are deeper, and they're comprehended by the heart.
You see, the heart isn't logical like the mind. By that I mean you can't follow logic. The heart knows things. And you might not even be able to understand why it is so, but you've got to trust that it is so. And as you begin to study and meditate and think and confess the Word of God. This truth that you are hearing. It says that's what determines the measure of virtue and knowledge. Virtue's powerful. That Jesus said that when that, that widow woman touched Him. He could feel virtue left Him and completely healed her physical body.
Did you know that a new knowledge rises up in you? The power of God, His virtue rises up in your life. And it says here that the measure of thought and study you give the truth you hear will be the measure of virtue and knowledge that comes back to you and more besides will be given to you who hear. For to him who has more be given, and from him who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away by force.
Let me say something here. As, in my late teens as this couple taught me all this spiritual warfare which for them was warring against the devil. I had did not, did not have the Word planted in my heart. I was born-again. I was excited. I was passionate. But you can be passionately wrong. And rather than spending the time that I had screaming at the devil, warring tongues against the devil, just praying hour after hour against the devil to dethroned someone. God, Jesus had already dethroned. I should have been in the Word, implanting His Word in my heart. I should have been, if you want to fight the good fight, that's the good fight of faith to know Him and know His Word, to spend time absorbing Him. And then you begin to understand.
It says, "For to him who has will more be given". Back then, I didn't have much knowledge in the Word. I didn't have much of the Word planted in my heart. And so as I was doing warfare and praying literally. I was failing because I wasn't doing what was needed. I was wasting my time waiting for the breakthrough, waiting for the breakthrough, the breakthrough, the breakthrough, and there was no breakthrough but a constant warring. That, you know, I just... People began to get weird. But here, if you do that warfare and you don't do it the way the new covenant says this process of faith growing in the Word of God.
Then it says even what you've got is going to be taken away. In the Amplified says by force. You start losing thing. But it says if you begin to plant the Word of God in your heart and you work that process. You might call it devotions, meditation. It's not how much Bible you read. It's how much that you plant in your heart through meditating, asking Holy Spirit to reveal it to you. And as you begin to work this beautiful process, did you know that it begins to give root and more and more besides. And you begin to grow quickly and fast as revelation begins to happen. And you just like, "Man"! Your world begins to change.
See, that's like this planting an apple seed in the ground. Jesus is comparing our heart to that. That one apple seed becomes an apple tree. That one apple tree will have thousands of apples. And inside of every apple is ten seed. If you get ten thousand seeds and they're being spread all over the place and apple trees are growing and it just keeps growing and developing. That's the law of sowing and reaping. And He is saying if a Christian believer here would recognize that the Word was given to you. This Word must be planted.
A farmer with sections and sections as far as the eye can see of beautiful property that he wants to plant and have prosperity and strength for his generations and wheatfields and barley fields. He's not going to just keeps screaming and cursing the weather. He's not going to just keep getting up and screaming at the devil. No! Where he needs to labour is to get out and plant the seed in the ground. Get out there and get it done. That's what I want for you. If you've been taught this or you don't know even how to deal with this. Here's what I do. I simply meditate in His Word. If I feel something demonic, which at times I will. That behind something is a demonic attack. I will command the enemy who was using someone against me. I command the spirit that's behind that guy.
And I'll just, "I command the spirit that is behind Bobby Joe pushing against me. I command his power broken in the name of Jesus". Because I can't change Bobby Joe. Making that up. Bobby Joe's mind and heart and actions. He's a person. But I can command that spirit who's using him because he doesn't know Christ well enough or he's not even a believer, but the enemy is using people. I'll just command it to stop. But other than that, times like that, I simply plant the Word and the Word is unstoppable. God's Word rises up within you and healing just begins to grow and be harvested. Peace begins to grow and flow off of you and then careers and families and generations. This is crucial.
If you want to know about fighting and warfare, it's not a warfare against the devil. It's this warfare. This constant purpose. This focus to just keep the desires of the flesh at bay. Get into God's Word, plant it on the inside. The Old Testament type of Nehemiah with a trowel in one hand that he building a city and then a sword in the other one if he need it. That's there. But I want to challenge you. Stop believing the warfare is against the devil. And begin to recognize that he's a thief. So there's time you'll see him stealing something and you can rebuke him like Jesus and the disciples did. And it was a fast instantaneous victory and they went on sharing the Word, teaching the Word. Wow go over this. There's a lot of stuff packed in here.
If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Saviour, there's a powerful prayer only you can pray. He'll never force Himself on you. But if you don't know Him, just say, "Jesus, come into my life, come into my heart. I choose to put my trust in You. I don't understand everything but I'm following You. Teach me Your Word, teach me Your ways, for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name, amen". Well, I pray that these, these last two messages go over them and over them and over them. For many of you, there is a tremendous change in the way you look at victory and how you war a warfare. God bless you.