Hindering Spirits: Understanding the Role of Ministering Angels

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Greetings, friends and new listeners. Welcome to The Sound of Faith. I’m Sharon Knotts, thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The message you will hear today, Hindering Spirits vs. Ministering Spirits, is the first of the five-part series, Spirits, Angels, and Demons. You are probably familiar with the term ministering spirits, describing God’s angels sent forth to aid and protect His children. But there are also hindering spirits sent forth from our adversary, Satan, to impede our progress on our Christian race and prevent doors of opportunity from opening. Where did they come from? Find out in hindering spirits versus ministering spirits. And so this is what I want you to see, that there are ministering spirits that God sends in. And then there are hindering spirits that Satan dispatches. So where did they come from? How do we get these hindering spirits or these hindering angels? Well, we know that when Lucifer fell in the ageless past, we know that when he fell, he took one-third of the angels with him. Amen? Turn in Ezekiel, the 28th chapter. Amen. You may know these verses well, but for the sake of those who may not or people who may hear this message later, we want to have the scriptures for them. So let’s look in Ezekiel 28 and let’s start at verse 11. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God, thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden in the garden of God. This one little phrase here tells us this was not a human thing. Amen? Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold. Again, this is not a human. This is a very exotic angel. The workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou was created. Again, not a human. I ministered on this not too long ago that he had musical instruments built into him. And now we know for sure it’s not a human. Verse 14 says, Thou art the anointed cherub. That covers. And I have set thee so. And thou wast upon the holy mountain of God and has walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. That means he walked up and down right in front of the throne of almighty God. And thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created till iniquity was found in thee. And by the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned. Therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God, and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, and thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness. I will cast thee to the ground. I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Oh, wow, that day’s coming. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities. I want you to see this next phrase. By the iniquity of thy traffic. Therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. So what Ezekiel is telling us here, and by the way, we won’t turn there today, but the companion passage that identifies and names him as Lucifer would be Isaiah 14. But here we see that Lucifer was an anointed cherub. And he was the highest of the cherub. He had the stones, the jewels in his person. And he had musical instruments in his person. I mean, I just can’t even imagine what he must have been like. He was so extraordinarily beautiful. And not only that, he had superlative wisdom. I mean, he was God’s highest, at that time, the highest creation that we know of in the Bible. amen but what happened he began to focus on his own beauty he focused on his own beauty and self-focus is dangerous now i know today if you go to the psychiatrist you go to the psychologist and the therapist they’re going to have you focusing focusing focusing on yourself and looking in there and all that sort of thing that’s not the bible way to do it Amen? And so we see here that this is what caused Satan to fall, that he was focused on his extraordinary beauty. It was not imagined. It was not exaggerated. He wasn’t thinking something that wasn’t true. It was a fact. He was beautiful. He was extraordinary. He was wise. But because he focused on it, it began to corrupt. Amen? corrupt his thinking and corrupt his wisdom. He looked around and he could not see anyone superior to him when he looked at all of God’s creatures. No one was superior to him. But he then made the mistake of thinking that he was equal to his creator. And the thing created cannot be equal to the creator. It’s not possible. Amen? And we know if you read in Isaiah where he said, I will ascend to the throne. I will be the most high. I’m going to sit on the throne in the mount. of congregation so that’s what happened to him but what I want you to see is what we read here it says by reason of thy traffic Isn’t that kind of an unusual thing? By the iniquity of thy traffic. And also what we read in verse 16, by the multitude of thy merchandise. Now these are very sort of strange words in this setting, merchandise and traffic. But if we go and we get the meaning of them, we basically find this out. He was going amongst all the angels of God, slandering God. Amen. That’s what it boils down to. He was going from one angel to the other angel, and he was telling them, you know, I can take the throne. I can take the throne. And he was able to convince them. I mean, he had to be convincing because it’s a very high risk to try to dethrone God. But somehow he managed to convince a third of them. Now whether he demonstrated some sort of supernatural things or just with his gift of speech, whatever he did, he went from one to the other. You know what, I got, this is speculation, but you know, I know how the enemy works. He probably said, come with me and I’ll give you a position. I’ll give you a better job than you’ve got now. Just come with me, and I will exalt you higher. Amen? And somehow or another, he was able to convince one third. of the angels to go with him. And you say, well, I don’t see that here. Well, I’m telling you that what he did was go around slandering God. Amen? You don’t have to turn there, but I’ll tell you where you can find it in Revelation, the 12th chapter. Verse 4 says, now using the metaphor that Satan is a dragon and his tail… drew a third part of the stars, and that refers to angels, the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth. Verse 9. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and his angels were cast out with him. So when we put Isaiah 14… Ezekiel 28 and Revelation 12, all together we get the picture of what happened. Satan was cast out. Remember Jesus said to his disciples when they came back all happy, we were able to cast out the devils in your name. He was like, that’s not a big deal. I saw Satan fall as lightning from heaven. Amen? Amen? Of course you can cast them out in my name. Amen? And so we know that when Satan was cast out, one-third of the angels that he convinced to go up against God in that rebellion, those who rebelled with him were cast out with him. Now, we know that God created them to be ministering spirits. They were trained to minister on behalf of God, to follow out his commandments, to go and minister to God’s people. How many Old Testament stories think of them? Just let your mind come up with a couple of them. How many times did angels come and deliver Israel? You know, almost every battle they were always outnumbered, outmanned, outarmed. Amen? And always God intervened supernaturally. One time they were able to, David and his men were able to go up against the enemy and they just went with a frontal attack and they had victory. And then the enemy came back against them. And so David, being wise, inquired of the Lord. He did not assume, well, let’s do it the same way we did it before because it worked that time, it’ll work this time. Never assume anything. Always go back to God and say, Lord, I know you work this way, but you want to work that way again or you want to do something else? And God told David, don’t do what you did before. This time I want you to sneak behind and ambush them. And do not make a move or a sound until you hear rustling in the tops of the mulberry trees. And so… David obeyed. What is up with this rustling in the mulberry trees? Amen? Now, it’s not in your scriptures, but the rabbis of Jewish wisdom teach that it was the sound of the feet of the angels that God dispatched. Amen. And so when they heard the rustling of the mulberry trees, amen, the enemy, they were frightened, amen. And then David and his men, they came up from behind them. And like I tell you, God said, actually the King James says, go and make ambushments. That’s the words used in the King James. Make ambushments. You say, what is an ambushment? I believe it’s angels in the bushes. Amen. Amen? God sends angels in the bushes and he said, when you hear them rustling, it’s time to move because I will give you the victory. So these angels that fell with Satan were trained to be ministering spirits. But in their corrupted state, they’re now using their training to be hindering spirits. Amen? And now their goal and their purpose is to hinder, to obstruct, to discourage, amen, the saints from running the race and to impede and stop the ministry from preaching the gospel. Amen? They’re allied with Satan, and now they are sent to hinder the kingdom of God. So they’re going to try to harass you, to vex you, discourage you, whatever they can do to stop you from fulfilling your call in Christ and finishing your race and your course with joy. And they will relentlessly, relentlessly try to come against you, to elbow you, and cause you to stumble. And at some point, we’ve got to get smart. At some point, we’ve got to wise up, and we’ve got to realize that when we keep getting pushed back, pushed back, pushed back, it’s hindering spirits. Amen? And if you know that you see a pattern in your life that you go so far and do so good for so long, and then you hit this point where you always seem to start, uh… and losing ground. You need to know, you need to understand that these are hindering spirits that have figured out a way, that have figured out some sort of open door, amen, to try to come against you. And probably whatever it was that really had you bound before you came to Christ and got set free and delivered. Amen. The enemy knows that thing that really held you in sin. He knows that thing. Amen. And he will try to send hindering spirits to come against you in that same manner. Amen. To try to elbow you and get you distracted and get you to fall. And if you keep having problems with the same old sort of test and trial over and over, we’re all going to have tests, folks. We’re all going to have trials. God’s going to purify our faith until we leave this earth. It’s going to need to be purified and he’s going to keep doing it. Amen. But if we keep falling in the same thing, we need to think, well, maybe these are hindering spirits because like Paul said, I tried to come not one time, not two times again and again, but Satan hindered me. Amen. Now here’s the good news. There are more for us than are against us. That’s the good news. Amen? There’s more for you than are against you. We know that’s true. Amen? I love the story of Elisha and Gehazi when God was speaking in Elisha’s ear and telling him all of the war plans of the king of Syria. So every time they went to carry out their plans, Israel knew ahead of time, and they never were able to catch him because God kept speaking to Elisha in his prayer closet, and Elisha would go and tell the king, and the king would tell the generals. And so this kept happening and happening. And you know, finally, the king of Syria says, we must have a traitor. We have to have a mole. our cabinet we got to find out who is the mole because somebody is going back to Israel and telling the king of Israel and his generals everything we’re planning to do and some very bright person said King we don’t have a mole we don’t have any traitors there is a prophet in Israel who prays and God tells him in his prayer closet and whispers in his ear all our plans And the king said, oh, really? One? Just one man? One prophet? One man who prays and God hears and answers? Well, then I know what we need to do. We just need to go get rid of that one man. And if we get rid of that one prophet, we’ll be good. So we know that they sent the whole army. Imagine that. And Elisha was staying in a town called Daphne. And here, one morning, Gehazi, his servant, got up and went outdoors. Maybe he went to get the chicken coop to get some eggs and fix breakfast. But when he went out, he looked and terror seized him. He saw, he could see over in the horizon, everywhere he could see. And look, there was the Assyrian army arrayed all around. He went running in. He was terrified. He said to Elisha, oh, my father, my father, we are in big, big trouble. The whole city is surrounded by the Syrian army. And Elisha says, don’t worry about it. Just scramble them eggs the way I like them. And then he said, Lord, open up his eyes and let him see that there be more for us. be against us and when his eyes were open he saw the angels of God and they are mighty in power and they excel in strength amen so you can read that story later because it’s a good story in 2nd Kings 6 amen and we know that we are asking Romans if God before us who can be against us And so we know that’s the good news. So what we have to understand is we’ve got to understand what Satan is doing and be ahead of him. There’s a verse in 2 Corinthians 2.11 that says, we are not ignorant of Satan’s devices. And the Greek word for device is noema. Noema, and it has to do with the mind. It has to do with thoughts. So in other words, we are not ignorant of the way our adversary thinks. or the mind games he plays. Amen? We’re not ignorant of that. And so we know how he operates. And if you’ve been saved any length of time, you know how he comes against you. You know if he tries to use a spirit of fear, put it on you. A spirit of intimidation and put it on you. Amen? You know if he just comes and outrides lies. Lies to you and almost makes you… Think that the lie is reality. You know if he comes and tries to put a spirit of weakness on you or infirmity on you, amen, or whatever it might be, but you know the way that he plays his game. You know if he tries to come against you triggering a bad temper that you used to have problems with in the world. When you were in the world, you couldn’t control your temper. If someone pushed the wrong button, you were ready to fight. Scream, yell, curse, whatever. Beat somebody up. That was the way that you worked. That was your default setting until you got saved and God reprogrammed your mind. Amen. Gave you some new software up there. Hallelujah. You know, just because you had a bad temper in the world doesn’t mean you can go through the rest of your life punching people, slapping them, and hollering at them and saying, well, I can’t help it, that’s the way I was made. You might have been born with that bad thing, but you’ve been born again. You’ll hear a lot of white people say, it’s just the Irish in me. It’s the Italian in me. It’s the devil in you. Amen. I don’t have either one of those that I know of. Amen. Of course, who knows? We’re all like Heinz 57, if the truth be told. And so the good news is, is we’re not ignorant of Satan’s thoughts. And we know another time that Paul said in Ephesians 4, 27, he said, be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down on your wrath. Next verse, give no place to the devil. Everybody gets angry. Even God gets angry. And we’re made in his image and likeness. We will get angry. Amen? But we cannot in our anger get out of control and sin. That’s the thing. We can’t sin in our anger. And if you’re a Christian and you have a problem, when you get really upset, you start cussing. You need deliverance. You need deliverance. A spirit is coming against you that calls you to keep falling in that. Amen? That is not the Holy Spirit. You know what his nine fruit are, and that’s not one of them. That is not one of them. There’s temperance, but there’s not temper. Temperance is self-control. Amen? And when the Holy Spirit is in control, you will get angry. You may feel your face get hot. You may feel your neck start swelling. And you may even have to speak firmly, boldly, harshly. But it should not be cursing. It should not be nasty, hateful, mean-spirited things that have nothing really to do with the situation. You get off the point and see what people start doing is they start arguing beside the point. And then they get way out here and a lot of hurtful, mean things are said that don’t even have anything to do with the issue that needs to be addressed. And they argue beside the point. So when you’re with people like that, you’ve got to just try to keep bringing them back to the point. Bring them back to the point. You cannot let them trigger. Because they said something off the point and it really angered you that you’re going to jump over there in that place. And then the real issue here is never even fixed. addressed or talked about amen so you got to see that you’re not ignorant of his devices and you’re not going to give him place and you know I’ve taught this before so I just cannot skip over it in the Greek the tense for neither give place to the devil is a present negative a present negative you say why do I care because what it means is the action is already in progress A negative action is already in progress. Amen? So let me just make it easy. Stop. giving place to the devil the inferences you’re already giving in place cut it out stop it and this is the word for all of us if we know certain things that we fall into amen we know it then we need to try to avoid those places if we can avoid them and if we can’t because they blindsided us Amen. Then we need to say, I’m not ignorant of Satan’s devices. I’m not going to give place to the devil and let this thing go the way he wants it to go. I just see a big elbow hit me in my gut, trying to knock me off my pace, and I’m not going to let him do it. Amen. These are all basic fundamental Christian scriptures. Amen. What an insightful teaching on hindering spirits versus ministering spirits. Scripture tells us that God sends forth his ministering spirits, angels to each of us for protection and assistance that we may complete our assignments on the earth. Amen. Amen. Amen. They use their training in alliance with Satan against us. Hindering spirits versus ministering spirits is the first teaching in my five-part series, Spirits, Angels, and Demons, which include familiar spirits, seducing and allying spirits, man-fearing spirits, and bail busters and troublemakers. This album of five CDs can be ordered for a love gift of $25 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK-185. Mail to Sound of Faith P.O. Box 1744 Baltimore, Maryland 21203 or go online to soundoffaith.org where you may also order on MP3s. I strongly urge you to get this powerful series the Holy Spirit has given me. It is thorough but simple and scripturally sound. You will learn much, so order today. Send $25 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Request SK185 for spirits, angels, and demons. Till next time, this is Sharon Knott saying, Maranatha.