The Foot of Faith

Every believer becomes involved in spiritual warfare when the realm of darkness tries to stop your spiritual progress.

In this messsage you will learn more about how Satan has set up his attempted Kingdom and how you as a believer have authority to put him under your feet.

Audio File

Transcript

Joshua 1:3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, that I have given to you, as I said to Moses. [GBMV]

James 2:20 But do you realise, O foolish man, that faith without action is dead? [GBMV]

The Foot of Faith

Now we saw earlier in the series that we have the arm of faith and we showed you how that with the arm of faith you reach up into the heavenly realm to receive something from the Lord and then you pull it back down to earth, going to this realm in which we live. Now God always moves by faith. So if we want to receive anything from the Lord, we have to do this.

The Rhema Word

We’ve got to receive it by faith. And when you do that, you tap into the spirit of God. And what takes place is the Lord by His spirit deep inside of you, He speaks to you from deep down inside.

It’s a deep inner voice that goes lower than consciousness. This is what the Bible refers to as the rhema word of God. See a rhema word is a spoken word, a word that’s fresh from the lips.

And when God speaks to you in this way, that’s how you get a rhema word from deep down inside. That’s the rhema word of God. And the rhema word is the word that brings the faith that we need.

In Romans chapter 10 and verse 17, it says, so then faith comes as a result of yearning and yearning by means of the rhema word, the spoken rhema word of God. And so faith is born inside of us. But unfortunately, faith is not enough to bring us what we need.

The arm of faith is not enough, which is why I’ve added a whole lot of additional teachings to the series. And today we’re going to put the cap on it. We need to follow our faith with some form of action.

Okay. God’s power has to be released in the earth for him to do anything. And that power must always be released in this world by a person.

Human Channels

See God always works through human channels. We see that he’s given us keys and he’s given us swords that we can use. Now there’s two ways to release the anointing, which we’ve looked at extensively many times in the past.

The first one is by words that are spoken into the earth. And the second one is by actions that are carried out. Now we’ve looked at the keys and the swords and interestingly enough, the keys are usually used with spoken words.

The swords can also use spoken words as we saw the sword can come out of your mouth, but the swords often involve more than words. It involves some form of action attitude. So when we use words and actions, we are in actual fact, taking our keys and our swords and using them together to release the power of God into the world.

Spiritual Opposition

And the moment you do that, you’re going to find that you are going to get opposition because we have an enemy and he’s going to oppose everything that you ask for or anything that you desired from the Lord. And so before you can receive what you asked for, you’re going to be in a fight and you’re going to have to overcome the attack of Satan. Now, contrary to what many people believe, God doesn’t do this.

He did all that he’s going to do on the cross of Calvary. He conquered Satan there, potentially, but on a daily practical basis, it’s in our hands to overcome the attack of the realm of darkness. So God’s already done his part, given you all the tools that you need to now do your part and to make this happen.

Spiritual Wresling Match

What does it mean? It means spiritual warfare. Now, this can be like a wrestling match. In Ephesians 6, verse 12, Paul actually compares it to a wrestling match.

He says, Well, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against authorities, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. In order to overcome, you’ve got to do two very important things. Firstly, you’ve got to submit yourself afresh to the Lord and tap into his power.

Pick up your keys and your swords. Prepare your heart first. Then you turn on the enemy and you attack and overcome his attack.

Okay, James 4, verse 7 gives us so nice and simple and clear. It says, Submit yourselves, therefore, to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So, after submitting, you turn to the enemy, but you must do both.

You can’t just come and attack the enemy if you haven’t first submitted fully to the Lord. They are both very important. Okay, how did Joshua do it? Okay, we looked at the scripture at the beginning that the promise that God gave to Joshua.

He said, Everywhere where you put your foot, I’ve already given it to you. Ah, I’m a faith. God gave it to me.

I have it. Thank you, Lord. You gave me what I asked for.

The Lord said, Joshua, I’ve given you the promised land, but you’re going to have to put your foot on it before it becomes yours. Ah, that’s the part we miss. That’s the part we hope we can just avoid.

We’ll just leave the Lord to do all of it. You know, we think we’re going to step across the Jordan like Joshua, wave to all the people and say, Yoo-hoo, we’re here. We’ve come to get our land.

Thanks for handing it over to us. Not that simple, I’m afraid. Before Joshua could do that, he had to carry out certain actions.

In Joshua 1, verse 10, it says, Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the host and command the people, saying, Prepare your provisions, for within three days you will pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving to you to possess it. Joshua had to make a proclamation. He had to speak words.

He gave a command. Within three days we’re crossing. We’ve got to go take the land.

Joshua, in actual fact, carried out three actions in order to get his foot on the land and to receive what God had promised and had already given to them. After he made the proclamation, he circumcised the men because they hadn’t been circumcised according to God’s law while they were in the wilderness. Then he crossed the Jordan and then he proceeded to overcome the enemies.

Now, this wasn’t a once-off event. It had to be repeated. And in fact, Joshua continued doing this for most of his life, much later in his life, God speaks to him and says, Hey, there’s a lot of land still hasn’t been taken yet.

You haven’t finished your job, Joshua. And I’m afraid for us, the same thing applies. This is not a once-off event.

We conquer the devil. It’s over. It’s done.

We have victory. And now everything goes smooth. I’m afraid not.

Getting A Rhema Word

See, we have to do something very similar. Firstly, you need a rhema word. How do you get the rhema word? When you reach out of the arm of faith and God speaks in you and says, I’ve given you what you asked for.

That’s the rhema word. And that brings you the assurance that God has said yes, and he has answered your prayer, but the manifestation is not there yet. So the first thing you must do is to make a proclamation.

Confession As A Sword

You must take that rhema word and you must speak it out loud, speak it out loud. The Bible calls this confession. You’ve got to use the rhema word now as a sword.

Ephesians 6 verse 17 says, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the rhema word of God. You’ve got to do something with that rhema. Now you also need a fresh commitment to the Lord.

Confessing of Sins

Now when I speak of a fresh commitment, I’m not talking about a continual repentance of sins. You know, some people seem to think that a commitment to the Lord means confessing your sins every day. You know, Jesus is interceding for us on the right hand of the father and he dealt with your sin before you even were aware of it.

We don’t have to keep confessing our sins in our commitment to the Lord, but what we do need is to develop a closer relationship with the Lord Jesus. See, all of this is part of James 4 verse 7. Submit yourselves, then resist. So we submit ourselves afresh to the Lord and really the simplest form of commitment is Lord, here I am.

Here’s my body. I give it to you. Come and take control.

Come and relive your life through me, Lord. I give you permission now to live your life through me. That’s the kind of commitment that the Lord requires from us on a daily basis.

Well, you could take it right down to an hourly basis or moment by moment. Something we need to do all the time. Then you need to overcome the enemy.

Spiritual Warfare

Spiritual warfare will become a way of life when you decide to go on for God and serve him as a believer in this world. And it must be maintained because Satan doesn’t take a rest. He’s going to be there to attack you for the rest of your life and you better learn how to deal with that on a regular basis.

Now there are different levels of warfare, but I love the way the scripture likens it to using your feet. Romans 16 20 says, and the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. You see the picture? Crush him, squash his head, you snake.

Well, you know what? We’re waiting for the Lord to crush the devil. No, he’s going to crush Satan under your feet. You’ve got to take the action, make that move.

Now we need to understand a bit about Satan’s realm to be successful in warfare. And I’ve thought extensively on this in many places. So I’m just going to give you a quick summary.

The Realm of Satan

If you’ve never studied these, Satan in his attempt to be like God, he wanted to take the throne of God and be as God. He’s tried to counterfeit everything that God does. And one of his biggest counterfeits is to set up something that looks like the Trinity.

Just as God functions as father, son, and Holy Spirit, Satan is not a universal spirit like the spirit of God, but he’s tried to counterfeit the Trinity by setting up three leaders at the highest level. I like to call them the infernal trio. The first one is what the scripture calls the God of this world.

Now in the Old Testament, Egypt was a picture of the world and Pharaoh, the leader of Egypt, was a picture of the God of this world. So there is a spiritual Pharaoh. Now these are high level princes, the highest level of all.

I’ve seen them in the spirit. I’ve done warfare with them. You may never come to that place, but I want to make you aware of what they do because ultimately you will end up having some kind of conflict with them.

Spiritual Pharoah

Pharaoh has been set over the world system. He controls the finances of the world and he’s in control of worldly success and promotion and everything that this world has to offer, all the functions, politics, you name it. That’s Pharaoh’s job.

Apollyon

Okay. The second character is Apollyon and we read about him in the book of Revelation. He looks like a scaly reptilian creature and he is the general of Satan’s armed forces.

His role is to attack and one of his major areas of attack is our personal health. He’s responsible for all health problems that we face and that includes mental illness and it also includes spiritual problems like spiritual bondage, sinful habits, addictions, fear, worry, depression, every spiritual problem that we face. Apollyon ultimately is the author of those.

Lucifer

You say, what about Satan himself? Lucifer is the name that the scripture gives to him. Lucifer is actually in charge of ministries and churches. He’s in charge of the religious system of this world.

So if you want to grow a church, you’re going to be dealing with Satan. He’s not happy about that. If you want to set up a ministry and establish something in this world for the kingdom of God, you’re going to come into confrontation with Lucifer.

That’s his domain and he doesn’t like you interfering in his domain. He’s got full control of the religious system. He’s in charge of the world council of churches and all these great big church organizations and ecumenical movements who think that they’re working for the Lord, but actually they’re under control from the Prince of Darkness himself.

Overcoming The Systems

So Satan is opposed to any church growth and any ministry that you set up. Well, how do we overcome these? I want to look at that quickly. How do we overcome world systems? Well, anything that you accomplish in this world, whether it be financial wealth, promotion, success, Pharaoh has got his hand in it somewhere.

And before you can rise up and succeed, he has to give permission. He has to authorize whatever happens in this world system. If you are to become wealthy and earn a lot of money, Pharaoh is not going to let you do that lightly if you’re a believer.

He will do it gladly for those who are following him, that he may control them and use them and manipulate them to fulfill the goals of the realm of darkness. I’ve dealt with Pharaoh in the spirit. I’ve seen him.

He looks a bit like one of these ugly characters like in the Addams family, the lurch, the ugly guy. He’s the spiritual Pharaoh. Okay.

And I’ve seen at times when I’ve tried to trust God for financial breakthrough or other things that require a release in this world system. And I’ve seen that at times I’ve had to come in direct confrontation with Pharaoh himself. And I remember on one occasion, I saw that he was sitting and he had in front of him there, this piece of paper.

And I knew that this was an authorization for me to get what I wanted. And I knew that before I could get it, Pharaoh had to sign that document and release it. He said, well, you know, isn’t God in control of that? In this world, God has put you in control of that.

Authority Over Pharoah

And if you will let Pharaoh be in control, you will not be in control. And God cannot overrule because mankind are giving Pharaoh all the license that he needs. It’s up to you to cut that license and break it.

And I saw the spirit of the Lord said to me, tell him to sign the document. And I spoke to him and I said, in the name of Jesus, the name to which every knee will bow, Pharaoh, you sign the document. And I saw him angrily pick up the pen and sign it.

And what I was asking for was released. See, this is part of what’s going to happen when you get into spiritual warfare, especially if you’re going to believe for finances or promotion or success in this world. And anything that you want to do in this world, he’s going to oppose it.

Princes of Darkness

Okay. Now, he passes orders downwards to the princes that are under him. And this whole world system has been set up under princes of darkness.

There are several levels of demons. You have the lower level demons, which are really just like the ordinary privates that carry out all the dirty work. And you’ve got the sergeants and others, but your princes are the highest level.

And every region in this world has had a prince allocated to them. We live here in Kempton Park. There is a prince of Kempton Park.

Kempton Park is part of the province in South Africa of Gauteng. There is a prince of Gauteng. Gauteng is a province of South Africa.

There is a prince over South Africa. When you get into spiritual warfare and by the gifted discerning of spirits, you come against these characters. Those who have entered into that higher level of warfare will at times find themselves seeing these people in the spirit, these demon princes.

High Level Intercession

And high level intercession actually involves coming against them with the authority and the power of the Lord. So Pharaoh will sign the documents and he’ll pass it down to the lower level princes until it comes down to the prince in your region. Now, we have an expression in English that says, you should always go to the top.

Because if you can get the top guy to give the order, we know the guys lower down have to obey. A lot of people get into spiritual warfare with their local prince. And after having a lot of warfare, they may be able to deal with that prince, but there’s a higher prince.

Going To The Top

And there’s a higher prince until it goes all the way up to the top. Okay. If you’ve learned high level spiritual warfare, I personally, I go to the top.

If I’m going to have a problem in this world, I’m going to address Pharaoh himself. Now, I see these guys in the spirit. I see the local little princes.

They think they’re big shots. I start moving in this mood and I’m praying and I see this little guy ranting and raving and threatening me, coming against me. And usually what I’ll do is I’ll turn to him and say, hey, you don’t know me, do you? Go and have a chat with your big boss.

He knows me. He knows me. He knows better than to argue with me.

So you just small fry. If I were you, I’d shut up because I go to the higher level. He just kind of loses all the air that he had.

And he realizes he’s dealing against somebody who has a much higher level of authority. And you as a believer have the highest level of authority that there is in the name of Jesus. You can come against any one of these higher level demons because the authority in Jesus is not just for little demons.

It’s for every demon right up to Lucifer himself. And I’ll share with you shortly how I dealt with this Lucifer as well. I’ve shared it before, but I want to bring it in context.

Okay. So you must command Pharaoh to bow. You must make him sign the document.

Sickness And Disease

Then we come to Apollyon. If you are struggling with sickness and disease and your health, if you are under spiritual attack, you’re faced with terrific fear, anxiety, care, and worry, or you’re battling with temptation, it is sin or any other spiritual problem that you face. The author of all of this is Apollyon.

He’s the one who brings the spiritual attack. So if you’re going to overcome, Apollyon’s got to withdraw his forces. Now when it comes to sickness and disease, the demons that he uses, we call them spirits of infirmity.

They are responsible for bringing sickness and disease in our bodies. There are demons that possess and oppress. These are all coming from Apollyon.

And this affects all of our spiritual progress. So if you want to go forward spiritually and you want to overcome all of these problems, you’re going to have to come against Apollyon and get him to retract his forces. And you can do that just using your keys because you have authority in the name of Jesus.

The Religious System

And then we have the religious system. Whatever happens in the religious system has to get permission from Lucifer himself. That’s the realm of his operation and responsibility.

Now this does not affect you as a spiritual invisible member of the body of Christ. He can’t touch you. He can’t touch your spiritual life in the Holy Spirit.

Satan can’t get access because the Holy Spirit’s there. However, the moment you want to rise up and get involved in this world in any way, you’re going to have to deal with Lucifer. If you want to build a church organization or run church meetings or build any kind of ministry, Lucifer’s going to stick his finger in the pie and you’re going to have problems.

So if you want freedom for ministry, you’re going to have to command Lucifer to bow. You’re going to have to command him to authorize and let go and get out of the way. Now I’ve dealt with all of these characters in the spirit and Lucifer himself.

My Experience With Lucifer

I met Lucifer at a time when I had left my job to move into full-time ministry and I was looking to the Lord to know how I should start, what I should do to begin a ministry. I was spending hours every day in prayer and intercession waiting on the Lord for wisdom and releasing things in the Spirit and this character appeared to me. Tall, dark and handsome, good-looking character and he tried to persuade me to give up everything I was doing.

He offered me whatever I desired in life if I was prepared to do that. Now perhaps one of the reasons why Lucifer himself came was because the area I was living at that time was known as the satanic headquarters of this country. So obviously I was in a region where there was a lot of demonic activity and probably Satan himself was visiting at the time and he heard this noise coming from this guy interceding and praying in the Spirit and he said, let me go and sort this guy out quickly.

Using The Word

But he wasn’t what he got from me because I knew my position in Christ and I knew the Word. And when I realized who it was that I was standing in front, the Word of God came up out of me at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess and I said, Lucifer that includes you. At the name of Jesus you must bow and I stand in that name so you must bow now.

And the charming smiling guy became very angry and got a real ugly look on his face, began to scowl and as I laid it on him, he eventually bowed down like that and then he disappeared. If you want to do a ministry for the Lord, you are going to get opposition at the highest level. If you want to build a new ministry or establish a church, no matter what size it is, Lucy is the one who’s going to be involved.

You know, I don’t have to be afraid of him or respect him. I’ll call him Lucy. Hey Lucy, you’re giving me grief again.

Go bow. In the name of Jesus, you were conquered over two thousand years ago so stop messing with me. I stand in high authority and this is how we deal with these things.

That’s how we use the foot of faith. See, the Lord wants to bless you and when you come to him in faith, his answer is yes. He responds with a yes.

Sudden Warfare

But the moment that happens, warfare begins immediately. Have you noticed then when you have a wonderful time of prayer and you get that breakthrough in the spirit and you have the yes answer and you start to rejoice and you know, wow, the answer’s on the way, bam, bam, boom. It’s like a side wind hits you.

Where did that come from? What happened now? Things were going so good. Now suddenly, you know, I remember as a child going to the sea for the first time, this great big wave came up the one day and just knocked me over and I went flying. And there was a good picture of how you feel when that happens.

Just boom, just suddenly you get hit. And you think, where did that come from? I was on top of things. I was worshipping the Lord and standing in faith and authority and things were going great.

The Lord’s answered my prayer. He said, yes, here it comes, here it comes, hallelujah. You’re telling everybody, the Lord gave me, just watch, just watch, bam, there I am against the wall.

When To Use Your Foot

That’s when you have to use your foot. That’s when you’re going to have to learn that you’re up against high level powers who don’t want you to succeed. So you’ve got to learn to use your foot.

You’ve got to drive the enemy off and put your foot on the land. That’s what Joshua had to do. As they drove the enemies, they took the land.

And as you progress and you conquer different land, you go forward. And there’s always more land. But once you’ve taken land, you’re going to have to stand and hold it.

Otherwise you’re going to come back and try and attack you and take it back from you again. So you’ve got to put your foot in the land and then you must stand. Scripture says, having done all to stand.

Stand therefore in the armor of God, Paul describes it in Ephesians chapter six. All you need to do is stand. Now this is a continual progress, a continual process if you make progress and if you wish to move forward and you want to take more land and do greater things for the Lord and experience greater blessings and eventually come through to some degree of the abundant life that the Lord’s promised us.

Prayer Essential

In order for this to happen, prayer becomes a major part of your success. Your prayer life is absolutely essential, especially if you’re going to build a ministry. The late Yonggi Cho, who built what was then, probably still is, the largest church in the world.

He set up something they call Prayer Mountain, where they set up a specific place where they built little places in a mountainside where people could go and spend time in prayer. They encouraged people to continually be there. People would go and spend days sometimes in prayer.

The Prayer Mountain, they would have early morning prayer every day. Prayer became the major emphasis of Cho’s church. Before he died, Cho made a statement.

He said, even if we didn’t succeed in all the things that we did by the home cells and everything else that we did, he said, if we took away Prayer Mountain, this ministry would collapse because that’s all that keeps it going. In every church, in every ministry, prayer must be the foundation. What Yonggi Cho called the Prayer Mountain, I call the Prayer Wall.

Those who are experts in doing this are those that God has given a prophetic ministry. The prophets are the experts at spiritual warfare, but all believers can still take part and be involved. Yes, the prophets move at a higher level and they decree God’s will into the earth, but you as a believer have the right and the authority to use the name of Jesus.

So if you are struggling in any of these areas, and you’ve been trying to put your foot on the land, and it’s not quite working the way you want it, my next question to you is, how’s your prayer life? Well, you know, I have a very busy job. I work long hours and, you know, I barely have time to come home and sleep and eat. I really don’t have time to pray.

Do you have time to die? Do you have time to get poor? Do you have time to struggle in this life? You must make time to be in his presence, because that’s going to be the place where you’re going to walk up and down. You’re going to pick up your keys. You’re going to pick up your swords, and you’re going to say, you serpent, I crush you now.

I’m going to put your foot on his head. You know, if you do that every day, Satan’s not going to mess with you much. The word will get around.

You know, while you’re attacking believers, watch out for that one. He’s dangerous. You know, I can see Pharaoh speaking to some of his lower princes and say, just watch out for that guy, because I had a tangle with him once, and he’s pretty tough.

Marked By The Enemy

So, you know, rather avoid him. There’s other people that you can deal with. You’ll become marked by the realm of darkness.

Satan knows. Does he know your name?

The sons of Sceva came and tried to cast out demons in the name of Jesus. They said, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know, but who are you? Paul was known in the realm of darkness. Do they know your name in the realm of darkness? Or have you never been a threat to them because you never bothered to use your foot of faith?

Start With Worship

So what do you do in your personal prayer? Well, you can start by worshiping the Lord. That’s probably the most important thing of all. And don’t come bringing him a list of prayer requests. Ask him what you should pray for and what you should do.

Get wisdom and direction from him. If any man lacks wisdom, James said, let him ask, and you’ll get it. If you combine together all the principles that we’ve learned so far in this series, and you’ll do them correctly, you will find that this will lead you automatically towards the abundant life that the Lord has promised us.

Thank you, Jesus.