 Okay, good morning everyone Morning and really good to connect back with all of you in this course of believers authority We will pray and then we will get into the subject for today Would anyone like to lead in prayer? Please feel free to take the mic and pray Either of you one of you Me in the last class we began with an introduction about authority and we understood what authority stands for and we saw that there are many examples of authority in our day to day life. We recognized that when there is authority there is influence. One can use it for good influence or unfortunately authority can also be misused and similarly something that is sad is to not use the authority at all. So we went through elaborately regarding authority and we saw how authority is generally given to somebody or it is vested on someone and they can use that authority to enforce whatever they are supposed to enforce in that given sphere. We also saw that authority it need not necessarily depend on one's ability like your natural abilities in the example of a traffic police who may not be so strong looking and yet has been vested with authority as a traffic police we know that we follow their instructions because they are selected by the government, trained by the government, appointed by the government to do their job. So we still do it because they carry authority. So these were some of the things that we looked at and after discussing these things we said that God has given us spiritual authority which we should utilize. Now why should we utilize our spiritual authority? We said that we have an active enemy in Satan who comes against us. We know that this world is corrupted with sin and therefore there is a battle for us to live pure, live holy, live righteous before the Lord and as we are going through these things fighting against sin, fighting against Satan we would also see that the Bible teaches us that we have to fight against worldliness or the world, the influences, the lusts of the world. We can enforce our authority and we can overcome, we can live an overcoming life. There are certain times when Satan and his demons can cause a demonic disruption. Even in those moments we can overcome because we carry authority and this authority will help us to assist others who may be oppressed by demonic powers and this authority will help us fulfill God's purpose for our lives. So this is just a quick recap of what we had done in the last class and we were then taking time to understand that God has created man and woman with authority. So we have been created with authority when God created us at that very time we looked at passages like Genesis 1 verses 26 to 28 where God says okay you know you need to rule over, you rule over the earth, you rule over the creatures of the earth. So God gave man dominion and authority. We saw how in Psalm 115 and verse 16 the scripture says that the heavens belong to the Lord but the earth is given to the sons of men. So we have been given authority by God to take charge on the earth. We said that we have been created in the likeness of God. So that also gives us the ability to govern the way God governs. Of course we are not God but God has created us with a certain glory as human beings and we can take charge and we can if you may say steward the blessings and all the things that God has entrusted us with but what happened is because of disobedience or we call it the fall man lost that opportunity. See man could have been a person who represented God very well on the earth but he lost that opportunity because of the fall and we know that Satan I was just telling us that when it comes to the temptation of Jesus we find that Satan tells Jesus if you bow down if you worship me I will give you the kingdoms of this world. But then we have to ask the question the kingdoms of the earth were given to man how is it that it has shifted into Satan's hands is because of the fall. At the fall these things happened it got shifted to Satan but thank God Jesus came he died on the cross which is actually our victory you know it may seem like a very defeated picture to look at the cross and Jesus hang on the cross but it was God's plan and Paul talks about it you know Paul says it's foolishness to the world like how come you know Jesus came and he died on the cross and he set us free to the world it is foolishness but to us who are getting saved right this is the wisdom of God this is the victory of God so through what Jesus did we have actually conquered and he has given back that authority that Satan had taken so that is why today you and I we are sitting in this class as believers and we are discussing about believers authority because we can use it now Satan cannot come and tell us why are you why are you trying to do all these things you know like you don't have any authority we can say Satan you're lying Jesus has won the victory over you over sin over the world and I have dominion and authority because he's given it back to me you remember Jesus said right that I give you the keys of the kingdom what is keys authority we discussed that when we see keys it is a picture of access to resources access to influence so it's a it's it represents spiritual authority the original authority that God wanted for us it has been restored to us okay so now it is our turn to understand it and use it so this inner gist is what we talked about in the last class now we'll go on to talking about the influence of the spirit world on the natural world so far we said that God created us or designed us with authority we lost it Jesus redeemed us gave us back that authority now we can use it but from this point onwards we'll also delve a little deeper into who this enemy is that we are facing okay now when we consider the spiritual realm as believers which kingdom do we belong to any idea sorry okay God's kingdom how many kingdoms are there we belong to God's kingdom but are there any other kingdoms kingdom of darkness okay kingdom of darkness Satan's kingdom right so in the Bible we understand that there are two kingdoms kingdom of God and the kingdom in which Satan rules and reigns so we could also turn them as kingdom of light kingdom of darkness now what we have to recognize is that both of these kingdoms are not independent of each other it's not like something like okay we'll we'll come to that anyway so now let's talk about natural realm and spiritual realm okay natural realm and spiritual realm when we enlisted these two kingdoms okay can we see this kingdom in this world on this earth can we see it with our physical eyes we can't because it's it's not a natural kingdom that we are talking about these are spiritual kingdoms so we can perceive through our spiritual eyes okay however there is some form of influence of the natural realm on the spiritual realm and the spiritual realm on the natural realm these things happen how do these things happen is what we are going to look at right now okay so that we can understand you know we can understand how the spirit world I'm just calling it the spirit world I know it sounds very fancy and all but all I'm trying to say is there is a spiritual kingdom and the operations of the spiritual kingdom affect the natural kingdom and the operations of natural kingdom affect the spiritual kingdom so this spirit world okay it can have an influence on the natural world we just said that Jesus bought the authority and he gave it back to us now tell me how can this in this from the spirit world that the kingdom of darkness how can that kingdom of darkness still affect the earth or the people on the earth if Jesus already won the victory for us on the cross how is it possible when we yield okay so when believers yield it can affect us you're right okay sister can I say something yes yes sister get through yeah there are three realms the realm that we can see through a naked eye then the second realm the satan dominates and the third heaven is where God rules so when we pray our prayers are affected by the satan in the second heaven okay so you're talking about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of satan second heavens and you know the third heavens we are just classifying them as the spirit realm okay okay so same thing sister yeah you brought a different categorization whereas we're saying the same thing there's a natural no you said how it is affected because we are prayers and they can hinder our prayers yes yeah so they can hinder our prayers so that's one of the ways in which you know the demonic realm functions my question is we just said that Jesus has won the victory on the cross and we are redeemed now Jesus has won the victory and given us back that dominion how can the kingdom of darkness still have influence in the earth that is my question sinful nature okay sinful nature is it sinful nature I heard that from someone and please hold on someone here in class wants to answer maybe you can use the mic then they can hear you hey because of satanic environment which we are seeing beside of us because of that also no but Jesus already won the victory on the cross no why satan still doing all these things you're right you're telling me what's happening I agree with you but I'm asking you why why not have satan fully out because Jesus did everything that needed to be done correct okay don't get stressed now come here Andrew because he is the prince of the world according to the Bible okay so Andrew says because satan is the prince of the world according to the Bible Shani I thought you raised your hand did you want to say something oh I was just said I was going to say sin somebody else had already said that I was going to say that I was going to say that through sin people sinning that's how he can have but somebody else has said that right before I said it though yes yes someone yeah someone else also said sin okay thank you for that answer um parmita did did you want to say something uh ma'am because uh Christ saved us and before it was certain you had all the authority of the Adam so he was obviously satan would feel angry uh that's why he has his influence on people who discussed it okay so it it's like retaliation from satan's side fine even everyone's presented their views so how do how do we uh you know reconcile this see Jesus has already done the work of salvation the work of redemption on the cross but the age that we're living in right now or the time that we're living in right now we are able to receive from the work of Jesus if we believe in what he has done so if you and I we are believers then we have salvation if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ then uh you know we we now have been redeemed restored authority has been restored to us but it doesn't apply to those who have not believed you understood but if we if we study scriptures it reveals to us that the way things will unfold in the world and we are seeing that right now you know uh the manner in which eschatology we call it like the end of the world how things are going to proceed there will come a time when now whatever satan is doing okay he is already defeated he is a defeated enemy but he still has time on the earth that's the answer he still has some time on the earth so he is doing everything in his power we'll talk we'll come to that later everything in his power to uh cause destruction in the lives of unbelievers unbelievers okay is he fully defeated answer is yes he's fully defeated but there is a time duration that he still has on the earth which is what he's trying to utilize and then we see all these demonic oppressions and demonic influences and all of that okay so that's how we understand it so now that we we recognize why this is still happening and the earth is still corrupted by sin there will come a time when the redemption that Jesus has provided on the cross it will be brought to completion at that time the bible talks about a change a total transformation of the world itself right new heavens new earth so much is going to happen the millennial period rule and reign of christ a lot of things are going to happen which we will see okay but there's a timeline to everything right now satan is still active he has not been bound he has not been thrown out of the earth and that is the reason we still have him interfering and influencing the natural realm okay so uh with that understanding let's now talk about some of these influences there is a spirit world and right now i'm only going to talk about satan and his demons okay uh there in the spirit world we also have god we have other heavenly hosts god is a spirit who's god he is a spirit he doesn't have a body like us god is a spirit angels heavenly hosts who are they spirits so there is a spirit world kingdom of light kingdom of darkness now we're mainly talking about the kingdom of darkness and their influence so we see that in this world this kingdom of darkness can influence individuals or people you know by themselves this kingdom of darkness can also influence certain circumstances and situations that people go through it can influence world systems there are systems in the world that have a strong influence of the demonic on them uh it can influence regions territories cultural forms organizations institutions activities building spaces and so on so we'll talk about each one of these now why did we suddenly switch to the influence of the spirit world because i want us to understand that as much as there is an influence of the spirit uh that kingdom on us we can overcome the believer can take authority over whatever satan is trying to do so uh we can be victorious over the works of the evil one or the kingdom of darkness so let's consider you know how exactly uh the kingdom of darkness influences we said individuals in the ministry of jesus there were so many people who were demon possessed you remember there's a man called legion who um who lives as an outcast and uh he has many demons when jesus casts out the demons they pray and they say okay allow us to go into the pigs so who was he just one person but was he under the influence of demons yeah he was in fact possessed by demons and they were they had taken full charge of his life okay uh that he had lost his senses and they literally destroyed his life so the kingdom of darkness can influence people individuals it can be we'll see later there are levels of influence in this particular case that i talked about it was and it was a possession okay uh there is another example in act chapter 13 there is um there is a an official by the name of surges paulis uh in the ministry i think yeah paul uh paul and bhanubhas they meet this person surges paulis and he's very interested to know the gospel he hears about jesus and um he is eager to learn more about jesus but with this official is a sorcerer by the name of elimus or bar jesus okay there is a sorcerer as long as that sorcerer uh we don't know what he did but whatever he did was keeping surges paulis away from accepting the truth of the gospel so paul observes this he sees and then he rebukes the sorcerer elimus no he rebukes him and he goes blind after that you find that surges paulis uh understands the gospel and he comes to the position of receiving the gospel so there is a there is an influence of the kingdom of darkness on people this is just one example where uh people are kept away from god by the work of demons maybe they want to know more about christ but what are the demons doing keeping them blind keeping them away deceiving them you know uh doing playing all these mind games so that people are away from the gospel so in this way we find that demons can influence people uh at many different levels and keep them away from the plans and purposes of god why are we talking about this because as believers we know that we can overcome right what did jesus do he just went and cast out the demons how did paul you know and and the other apostles minister they took charge they took charge wherever they saw demonic influence they knew what to do you know they prayed and they cast out demons they did many different things they overcame and regions were one for christ so uh let's acknowledge that there is an influence now this is the trick of the devil either he wants us to believe that you know he's so powerful and that uh he's interfering in everything and he wants us to give him the full attention or he wants us to completely ignore him okay there are believers who say why are you talking about demonic influence demonic oppression there's no need to talk about it jesus has won the victory that's it uh we don't even want to talk about demons i understand where they are coming from but if we completely ignore that there are demons there are negative you know influences of the kingdom of darkness satan is actually happy because he can get away with whatever he wants to do believer is not even acknowledging that there is this evil influence so both these extremes are not good we should not ignore the existence of satan and demons at the same time we should not give too much attention you know some people become so um curious they want to know uh how are they how do they look you know what do they do a little too much read books about them make notes okay so unnecessary that's not needed just have an awareness that yeah this is a reality but as a believer we overcome whenever we see an influence you just overcome keep moving forward that's that's where we should be in that middle place of acknowledging and overcoming okay so let's move on we notice that there can be an influence over individuals there can be an influence over circumstances and situations so uh in in the writings of paul apostle paul in 1st Thessalonians 5 and verse 18 paul says uh that uh you know satan hindered us we wanted to come to you we wanted to do this and that but satan hindered us or he stopped us he did something to um like uh keep us out of our plans so can satan affect situations circumstances he can can demons affect circumstances situations they can so what should a believer do don't worry too much about it pray ask for wisdom from god how to resolve how to overcome rebuke bind cast out keep moving forward okay but sometimes what believers do is uh they attribute everything that went wrong to satan like suppose i'm just giving you an example okay let's say uh i have to be here at class 9 a.m maybe preferably 9 at least 955 so that we can connect the computer but i leave home late okay i leave home late and i'm driving away and everything and then comes a traffic jam and i'm sitting there thinking satan is hindering me today you know i wanted to be in class early but what is satan doing he's not letting me go to class on time but whose problem is that i should have left home early isn't it i left late and now satan is sitting there and thinking anything and everything that people do they put the blame on me i didn't do anything but people are blaming satan so it is true that satan can influence circumstances and situations but not every problem every challenge every delay that we face is because of satan many of them are because of our own poor choices maybe our own wrong decisions hopefully once it's happened we learn from it and you know we try our best to uh do it better the next time but yes there can be an influence of satan in circumstances and situations um yes shani so even though as a believer the devil can influence stuff don't we just have victory through jesus because it says in the bible that he always pauses the triumph and then we have authority so even though he influences us don't we always have victory because of jesus you're right so the bible does tell us that we already have the victory through christ all we're doing is we're just acknowledging that there is the existence of an enemy known as satan and i explained earlier that uh he is not evicted from the earth he still exists and he still continues to influence um things in this world till his time of being bound comes so that's what scriptures tell us so he very much exists and he very much continues to interfere do you have a call up to that yeah thank you okay thank you uh here in the comments sanjay says god has given us free will so we get to choose between light or darkness before our spiritual eyes are open we can't tell between the two kingdoms yes yeah that's true sanjay so we are more aware of both the kingdoms once we are born again so uh fine so we talked about influence of the kingdom of darkness on individuals circumstances and situations now the next is world systems okay so world systems when we consider this many of you may have heard uh of the seven mountain initiative anyone here have you heard about the seven mountains of influence so basically what that teaching says is that um i mean i'm not trying to promote that teaching anything i'm just referring to it uh it says that there are all these these systems in the world which have a great influence on society and community for example government religion family business arts and entertainment okay media politics so when we consider these systems they influence large groups of people imagine you know education if the education system is good it'll influence thousands of students who are graduating uh from you know any particular region but if it is bad or if they are teaching something uh erroneous or wrong what will happen it'll affect the lives of people it is influencing so these are all the systems that have great influence on people now we recognize that satan can influence these systems as well now if we look at the life of paul and his missionary journeys we notice that he visited you know very many different places so when he came to a place like emphasis there was a worship you know of a of a goddess and you know people were even making idols of that goddess and the whole place was taken up by worship and it also like acts 19 you you see that it talks about uh many people who practice black magic they're being in that space as well so what's happening you know the system in that particular region their religion their politics it was affecting them but what kind of worship did they have was it a worship that worship the true and living god no it was worship to uh some other you know some other god or goddess uh and their lifestyle all those things were affected so we recognize that satan can influence right these huge systems he can influence business how can he influence business he can make it corrupt no he can make uh he can make it uh uh full of uh evil practices he can fill it with hatred where people hate each other for the sake of money um you know they're hurting each other evil things are going on so what satan does is exactly the opposite of what god is saying right so he will influence that business culture or he will influence religion he will influence politics okay to kind of tune it to himself but we as believers again we can rise up we can rise up in prayer we can rise up in declaration we can rise up in uh doing acts of righteousness okay all of these ways we can use to overcome what satan is doing okay we can uh we can enforce the victory we've been saying again and again jesus already won the victory jesus already won the victory now we as believers have to enforce that victory so satan can influence these world systems he can affect geographic regions and territories so similar to uh what we said just now if you even take for example that city of emphasis it's an entire region right it's an entire city the whole city seems to have um this way of worshiping and a certain lifestyle all influenced by you know that that god is dying so can regions territories be influenced yes they can be influenced by demonic powers when we recognize we can of course go against it but we'll talk in detail about it later on um then there's a mention of cultural forms you know cultural forms being affected by uh demonic powers cultural forms means music dance art uh it can actually be used as an expression of the kingdom of darkness in certain places we as believers what do we do we use these art forms as an expression of worship to our god but what satan likes to do is everything that is pure everything that is genuine clean holy he likes to pollute it he likes to corrupt it makes a count of it you know what's the count of it if we have like original 500 rupee notes then sometimes there are those fake 500 rupee notes or you know whichever country you come from there's count of it currency why is there count of it currency to imitate the original but to corrupt the original isn't it so similarly we see that satan tries to influence cultural forms and corrupt it okay so there can be an influence on cultural forms organizations and institutions even certain activities let's consider a certain place okay uh and maybe in that in that particular place when it comes to money people deal with corruption or when it comes to just lifestyle you find that there's alcoholism very deep rooted very strong and you're wondering like hey what's happening why are all these people affected all of them are affected they most likely there would be an influence from the spirit realm as well and demons can we we'll talk about it later there are all kinds of demons they function in different ways but if that is their function and their role then they are kind of influencing the people to have that wrong lifestyle okay so there can be an influence on activities even buildings spaces homes and objects what we'll do right now is let's just take a break we'll come back and then we'll we'll take it further so 10 minute break as of now and then we'll get back into our session thank you