Pastor Joel Laswell

Paul states in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." In Romans 6:23 he says, "For the wages of sin is death..." And in Ezekiel 18:4 it says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." From our previous studies we know that the Bible is speaking in these references about the second death in the lake of fire which consumes the sinner completely, turning them into ashes, never to exist at all anymore for eternity--see Malachi 4, Revelation 20. So if all have sinned and the end result of sin is eternal death, and if we want to stop sinning so that we can receive eternal life.... well we better be sure that we know exactly what sin is, don't you agree?

Knowing that the consequences for sinning is eternal death, we better be sure what sin is so that we can choose not to commit it and thus lose eternal life. Where is the only place we can rightly estimate the exceeding sinfulness of sin? In the light, the truth, of the cross! By looking at the truth about the cross--the death of Jesus, we will learn how terrible sin is--we will then see the sinfulness of sin.

We must get to the point where we see sin as God sees sin. In order to see the true sinfulness of sin as God does, one must come to the cross of Christ and look upon the One Who sinned not, yet died because of our sins so we may have life!

This is the conclusion of the series I have entitled Spiritual Possession and what I want to do is summarize what we have learned. I hope that this series has helped to educate you to the power and limitations that demons have, as well as remove doubts and give you the confidence that every believer may have that we can possess the strength to resist and help others to resist these foes of Christ. Jesus can give us victory over sin and the devil!

I want to share with you how to be protected from becoming possessed of devils or demons. There is only one way, one defense against falling under the control of these evil powers of darkness and that one defense is.........

I want to spend some time looking at the question that often arises especially after learning what we have learned and that is, what can cause a person to become demon possessed, or what can open a person up to be possessed of a demon or demons?

I want to continue in our series by taking a look at times when demons controlled a group of people, as well as examples of those who choose to be possessed--united with Satan and see what we can learn.

I want to continue our series, Spiritual Possession, by taking a look at some examples that deal with those who were from the church or in church leadership. If you don't think that someone from a good Christian home or church cannot be possessed by demons then you haven't been paying attention! I want to begin by looking at this devout follower of Jesus called Mary Magdalene.

Demons want to destroy human beings and if they can't do that, they want to possess us so as to coerce us in a way that best suits them to influence others to sin. Sin leads to destruction. These demons know that they are going to be destroyed and they want all to be a part of it. The demoniacs at Gergesa are a lesson about where sin will lead. Let's take a look at this example and learn.....

I want to contemplate one of the greatest hopes we have, if not the greatest, concerning that of Christ's ministry in our behalf. I want to look at the Resurrection Assurances with you.