Taffi Dollar - The Wrong Enemy and The Right Enemy
- Watch
- Donate
Let’s turn in our Bibles, tonight, I wanna look at something that I believe will be a blessing to your life. We’re gonna start in the book of Ephesians, the book of Ephesians chapter six. And we’re gonna jump around a little bit and talk about some things concerning the enemy. Gonna shine the light, not so much wanting to give him attention per-se, but just kind of shine some light on things that the Bible says and so we can begin to live a life that is victorious, a life that destroys the enemy, that defeats him in our everyday walk in our everyday life. And we can begin to keep him under our feet where he belongs, amen?
All right, so we’re gonna start tonight, let’s look at Ephesians chapter 6 and we’re gonna look at verse 12, we’re gonna talk about the wrong enemy and the right enemy. Spend a little minute here just talking about the enemy as it relates to the things that we wanna share with you tonight. So it says here in verse 12, «For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places».
And so, I want us to zero-in and just highlight if you have a device to be able to highlight with, «For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,» because I think it’s so important and so indicative of the time in which we live to understand who we are wrestling against. Because the enemy doesn’t want us to recognize and to be aware of the fact that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but he says, «We wrestle against principalities, powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world». And so, it’s vital for us to recognize that it is the enemy who wants us to think things that are not true. He wants us to believe the lies just like he did in the Garden of Eden in Genesis, and when he came to Adam and came to Eve and started to commune with them and to talk with them.
And the Bible says, in a very subtle way, in a crafty way, to cause them to be distracted and to get into a place where they would not recognize that it was the enemy that was talking. And so, I want us to realize this scripture, let’s look at it in The Amplified. This same verse in The Amplified translation. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12, «For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents],» because that’s one thing I think that we forget, is that it’s easy for us to see people in the natural as those who we fight against, as our enemy, who we are wrestling against. But it’s not flesh and blood, it’s not your boss, it’s not your neighbor, it’s the enemy that we are wrestling against and principalities, powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world.
So, first and foremost, we’re gonna probably keep it pretty simple tonight, and you’re looking for the Greek and the Hebrew and, you know, some other stuff you might wanna come back on Sunday, but we’re just get into a place where day-to-day we can walk in victory and deal with the enemy and keep him under our feet and not allow his plans to cause us to be tripped up and to be defeated in our life. So we are not in a wrestling match with the enemy, I mean, with people, we are wrestling against these powers that the enemy has caused to be released as a result of him coming in the Garden of Eden, I won’t get into all of that.
But let’s look over at 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 14. I think this will help us, too, as it relates to recognizing the enemy. 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 11, let’s back up a little bit here and we’re shining the light tonight, glory be to God. It says, in fact, we can go back a little bit more, let’s back up to verse 9. Let me see where that takes us in terms of a good starting point here. Okay, go to verse 10 and I got y’all jumping around but, okay, «To whom you forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes, forgave I it in the person of Christ. Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not», What? We are not unaware, we are not unknowing, we are not misunderstood concerning his devices.
So he says, recognize the fact that there is an enemy because if we don’t recognize him, he can take advantage of us and, particularly, if we are ignorant or unaware of his schemes, his plans and his devices. And so, what he does is with us not being able to recognize that our fight isn’t against our coworker or our family member, we can be unaware and we could be taken advantage of. But when we realize that our fight, which Jesus already won and already defeated the enemy, it’s us walking it out on a day-to-day basis, is to enforce the victory that Jesus already gave for us to receive. And so he, in many instances, will take advantage of the ignorance in the church, the ignorance in our life, all the things where he can find a foothold.
That’s what a stronghold is. It’s a place where the enemy can hide-out and feel safe. It’s a thought pattern. It may be passed down from generations to generations to think that, you know, it’s okay to be in poverty, it’s okay to think that the government should take care of you, or to think that, you know, I’m inferior and I can never be what the scripture says, it’s just these thoughts that the enemy, in many instances, wants us to take advantage of. And so, as a result, he can have a dwelling place and develop a stronghold in our life. And so, we’re resisting those thoughts, we are resisting the enemy and we’re coming against him when we renew our minds, and we understand who we are in Christ and what the word of God has said concerning us, amen?
So the one reason that we won’t prosper is, if we stop believing that we are blessed, one reason that we fail to operate in victory in areas of our life is if we stop the blessing because we believe the lies of the enemy. And that’s happened far and wide where the church, as an institution, has latched on to the lies of the enemy, that the church should be in poverty and that believers should… the more godly you are, the more in poverty you are. And just all these different things that, you know, women are inferior to men and women are not called and women should not be in the pulpit and all these different things where the enemy has put these things out here and this race is inferior to the other race. And this class of people is below this class of people. And so, if we’re not in a position to renew our mind, it will cause us to stay in a place of brokenness, to be defeated, to not experience God’s best.
Look at 3 John verse 2, 3 John verse 2, very popular scripture. One that we have taught for a very long period of time, just on the fact that we must allow our souls to prosper. Our «thought-life» to prosper, because it’s believed that, on an average, we have 60,000 thoughts a day and 85% of those thoughts are considered to be negative and repetitive. And so, as a result of that, we have to renew and rewire and reprogram our mindset and change our thinking because, primarily, sickness, illness comes from stress. And so, if we’re stressed out because of being so accustomed and conformed to the world’s way of doing things, then we will fail to operate in the blessing that God wants for our life.
And I mean, you know, God wants us to not be in a place of stress and frustration and defeat and addictions and bondages and strife and all of these things. And so, it happens when we recognize that we’re not wrestling against flesh and blood, and not believing the lies of the enemy. You know, when I first married Creflo, I didn’t know if we were gonna stay together. I thought, at some point, I would get tired of him and he’d get tired of me. That’s just because I said, «Well, you know, we’ll just go for the ride and just see». But, you know, I was very ignorant, so ignorant in areas of my life when we first got married, we just, you know, thought that we would just live doing our other jobs and then the ministry would just be part-time and we would just kinda try to figure it out from paycheck-to-paycheck.
And, you know, we had rented all of this furniture and we didn’t, you know, he got some stuff off the side of the street and so, you know, we were just trying to make it work as best as we could, you know, and until we start renewing our mind and understood that, you mean to tell me, God wants us to prosper and not live from, you know, paycheck and penny-to-penny and borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and, you know, it was just so foreign, this scripture here that says, «Beloved, I wish above all things that thou prosper and be in health,» because we were so accustomed to sickness and just being passed down from generation to generation. But it is God’s best that we prosper and not believe the lies of the enemy that say, you know, «You can’t live in victory. You can’t be successful living the Christian life or even as a single person or as a married person or as a widowed person».
It is God’s plan that, above all things, above all things, that you prosper and not believe the lies of the enemy about being okay with being insufficient and having lack. And how many, you know, you can’t be a blessing if you haven’t been blessed. And so, he says how he’s called us as a part of Abraham’s seed because Abraham’s seed is blessed. And once we understand that we are blessed and we can be a distribution, a channel, a funnel to be able to produce and distribute good in the lives of people.
So it’s when we renew our mind, when our soul prospers, is when our life begins to prosper. Until our soul prospers, our life will not begin to change. And so, we make up in our minds that we are not stranded by the world’s way, we’re not stranded by our genealogy or lineage, and we looked at how Rahab and, there were many who had a past, but you know what, God can cause that thing to be turned around and transformed and, all of a sudden, you see her and others included as the heroes of faith over in the book of Hebrews. And so, God is not limited by the things that are in our past. If anything, we limit him by believing the lies of the enemy and by receiving his mistruths and the things that he wants us to believe. So the one reason that we don’t prosper is if we stop the blessing by believing a lie, amen?
So you know the battle is raging, but the question is tonight, are we fighting the right enemy? Are you fighting flesh and blood? «Well, you know what they said»? And «I saw them,» and «I heard them,» and «they told me», that’s not your enemy. Your enemy is the devil who hides and wants to outwit and outsmart you into thinking that that is your enemy. That person isn’t your enemy. The enemy is the one that we read about here and just read in Second Corinthians chapter two, that Satan, he is the one who is trying to take advantage. So the lives of the enemy have no power in our lives except for that which we give them, amen? He is continually bombarding our minds with lies in an effort to try and take our eyes off of who God is.
And that was what he did in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. He wanted to take their focus off of God and onto themselves. «Has God said, has God commanded you,» and, subtly and craftily, he bombarded their minds with lies in an effort to take their eyes off of God and who God says that they were. So it’s important that we not only identify that we… not identify with those lies, but that we replace them with the truth of God’s Word. We replaced them with the truth of God’s Word because he had them to think that, you know, this one tree was the end of all and everything, regardless of all the other trees.
But to make them think that God was holding out on them and that they were missing out because of this one tree that they were told to focus their attention on, «Has God said,» and «because God said, God knows that this will happen», and this and that, and so he consistently has done that through centuries of time and comes in our minds in the very same way. «Has this person said? Do you know that God has forgotten about you? Do you know that God doesn’t love you? Don’t you receive the fact that God is angry with you? Don’t you know that nobody has ever done that? Haven’t you realized that that promise of God is not going to work»? And so, it’s his strategy that he wants, his scheme, his device that he wants to take advantage of us with through our lack of knowledge, our unawareness concerning him.
Look at Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, chapter 12 of the book of Romans, «Lies are costly as they steal life from all who embrace them. If I believe a lie, I empower the liar, the devil is the enemy of our souls. He wants to trip us up through lies, through intimidation, accusation and seduction. His aim is to get us to question who God really is». And that’s what we were just referencing in Genesis chapter 3, verse 4 and 5. Even in chapter 3 of Genesis verse 15, I encourage you to look at that when you get home because these are things that have not changed and this is his scheme and he is a thief, klepto. You don’t know what a kleptomaniac is, they steal, they take things, they are robbers.
So Romans chapter 12, verse 2 is where we wanna look at this. I’ll read it here in the King James and, it says, «Be not conformed to this world: but be ye», what? «transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God». So I had to renew my mind about being a Godly wife to be a Christian wife, to be a Christian mom, to be a Christian example, a Christian leader. And, as a result, I had to get rid of all the things that were contrary to that, you know, holding on to fear and holding on to pride and, you know, allowing the enemy to have this place where he could dwell in my mind thinking that, you know, any time my husband asked me to do something, «He trying to take advantage of you, don’t you let him take advantage of you»?
That fear that was trying to maintain that stronghold in my life because of what I had seen and what I believed and what I fought and those were all lies. And so, as long as he can get us to believe the lie, we are empowering the liar. And when we don’t recognize that it is not flesh and blood, it’s not our spouse, it’s not our kids. It’s the enemy that wants you to believe the lies that he is really the one behind saying all these things and he wants you to catch it. He wants you to believe it. «Yeah, I tell them a thing or two girl just, bless them out, just cuss them, just punch him, kick them. I mean, who do they think they are talking to you like that? I mean, you’ve got to», and the enemy subtly makes you think things that are not true because we’re not wrestling, our wrestling match is not with flesh and blood but with spirits, amen?