Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Real faith. Real life. Hosted by Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown of Sandals Church, The Debrief Podcast goes beyond Sunday conversations—diving into the questions, stories, and struggles that shape who we are. Thoughtful. Honest. Unfiltered.
Welcome to the Debrief podcast with Matthew Stephen Brown, where we take your real questions about faith, the bible, and culture, and give you honest practical advice you can trust. This episode contains mature themes and may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Tammy Brown:Well, hey, debrief listeners. We'll take a quick just like point out the obvious. I
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Oh, yeah.
Tammy Brown:Chopped off my hair this week.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And it looks amazing.
Tammy Brown:So it's kind of been the week where everyone who sees me makes the deal. So I'm just gonna get that out of the way. It's done. We're moving on.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I cut my hair too. Nobody notices or We're
Tammy Brown:with it. Let's get into these questions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Great questions, by
Tammy Brown:the crazy. And so I do wanna do a little disclaimer right as we get started that if you have little ones in the car or around you that it is gonna be some heavy content, you may want to pause or come back to it. But yeah. These questions are really heavy, but they are such good questions because I think they're questions a lot of people will wrestle with and be curious about. So let's get into this first one from Hannah.
Tammy Brown:Hannah says, I've been spiritually attacked, especially in my dreams. My biggest struggle is lust, and I keep having dreams about having intercourse with random people. I've been abstinent for over a year, and I heard that having sex or eating in your dreams is coming into agreement with a demon. I rebuked it in the name of Jesus and felt my whole body shake. Was that a demon leaving me?
Tammy Brown:Crazy,
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:crazy question. Crazy dreams. So Hannah, man, first of all, thank you for your authenticity. Mhmm. And what I love about our church is just our vision to be real.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, I think most people, if they heard this question, they would assume it's a guy. Hannah, I just appreciate as a woman that you really changing the narrative, and, you know, God made both gender sexual. That was His idea. And so our sexuality looks different as men and women, but we both have it. And so you said, I've been being spiritually attacked, especially in my dreams, and so let me just say this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know, I'm not always sure what to make of a dream. Sometimes it can be God, sometimes it could be the enemy, sometimes it's spaghetti. So that's just, and what I mean by spaghetti is you eat spicy food. Nobody in here is laughing. So It
Tammy Brown:is true, though. Sometimes if you have too much sugar, too much carbs, like, can't have a crazy mind at night. Not to dismiss this, but
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So what she says here is my biggest struggle is lust, and I keep having dreams about having intercourse with random people. So here's here's what's really important. I I've been abstinent for over a year. So whenever we go from sexually active to abstinent, right, so it takes the body a while to catch up with new rhythms.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So we can make a spiritual decision that's real, but it takes our physical nature some time to keep up. And so what I would say, Hannah, is I don't know whether or not your dreams are spiritual or not. So before we get into that, let me say, I would say that's a normal process when your body's, you know, used to doing something and then you stop, its cravings are not going to shut off overnight. So for example, you know, you stop eating bread. You know, you could have dreams about bread, you know, and I laughed about that when I cut out bread when I found I was gluten free.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I had some pretty graphic dreams about French bread. Let me just tell you, it was inappropriate. But I really, really want to eat French bread, and so it's just the body saying, Hey, I feel abandoned, forgotten, so the body has these physical As Christians, we submit physically to what we believe spiritually, and so that's the pattern. What the world says is that your spirituality should submit to your sexuality, and we say, No, no, no, bodies must submit to what we believe. Now, that doesn't mean it's easy, and that's why Jesus hand us sweat drops of blood on the night that he was going be crucified, because even though it was God's will to die, man, that was a stressful event and a difficult event, and everything in his body is saying, no.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The Apostle Paul says, I beat my body make it my slave so that it will do what it should. That's a challenge. So what I would say is sex dreams can be a normal part of anybody's life. You know, there have been times where I've had to tell you, hey, I had this weird dream, It was sexual. I don't know what to make of it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And you've laughed at times because, you know, it's not like I was attracted to this person or love this person. I'm not in control of my dreams. I have crazy dreams. You have crazy dreams. We've both had dreams where one of cheated on the other.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We've had dreams where one of us died. You know, we've had all kinds of dreams. And guys, if you have a wife, sometimes you have to apologize for the dream she had because it felt like you did it, so even though you did not. So dreams are this weird thing where they're part mental. So like our mind is doing things and making sense as it shuts down.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So it's replaying emotions, feelings, whatever. And so is this just your mind doing busy work? Is this a spiritual attack? Is this prophetic in nature? Because in the Bible, sometimes dreams are prophetic.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so Hannah, I don't know what it is in your case. What I do if I have a sexual dream I've had dreams. When I have a dream that I've cheated on Tammy, I never have the fun part of that dream. I always have My dream always starts afterward, and I'm panicked. My life is ruined.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Tammy's going to leave me. My kids are going to hate me. And when I wake up from that, I always wake up and I say, Thank God. Thank God. It's not real.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It didn't happen. I have to relax. Mean, because dreams can really rattle you. And I don't know if anybody else our listeners have had that experience where you wake up and you're like, oh, thank God that wasn't real. But I need to pay attention to that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Is my lust getting out of control? Am I not talking, you know, to you about my feelings, my desires? Am I not talking to my accountability partners? I am a dude, although I am older. And I just want our younger listeners to know, it becomes easier as you get older.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I don't know if you would say that. Yeah. She's like, you know? This is a bigger issue as you're younger, but there are some older people that still struggle with lust immensely. And I'm not saying I don't struggle with it all.
Tammy Brown:So What about the part, though, about is it an agreement with a demon if you have sex dreams?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So I've heard sex or eating in your dreams is coming into agreement with a demon. Yeah. I don't know where you heard that. And so here's the problem again.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Where there's spiritual ambiguity, idiots love to provide clarity. So let me say that Where there's spiritual ambiguity, idiots love to speak clarity. So, you know, specifically the Bible says, be careful of people who interpret dreams or talk about dreams. There's a literal verse in the Bible that says be very, very careful about people that are telling you what dreams mean. You just have to be really, really careful.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:There are Daniels who have the I gift
Tammy Brown:would say there are instances Yes. In the Bible where
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So we have to be cautious because, like, if you don't know what something means, I mean, people can speak into that. So you need to be really, really careful. So I don't think that having sex or eating in your dreams is coming into agreement with a demon. I just don't believe that at all. Could a demon be impacting you through dreams?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Absolutely. And so if something feels demonic, and here's why feel like you might be experiencing something demonic. Take out sex, take out food. It says- I rebuked you I rebuked the it in the name of Jesus, and I felt my whole body shake. Was that a demon leaving me?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Well, if you're a Christian, a demon cannot possess you, so it was never in you. So you need to understand that as Christians, when the Holy Spirit resides in us, we cannot be possessed by a demon. So the Catholic church may disagree with that. I would humbly just share that the Holy Spirit does not share space. That's what I would say.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:When you are God's temple, you are God's temple. Now, having said that, we can be afflicted and attacked by demons. So she says, My whole body was shaking. So it could be shaking you from the outside. So what we talk about in our deep healing is demonization.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So is it normal for believers to be attacked by Christians, oppressed by Christians?
Tammy Brown:By demons?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Sorry. Yes, attacked, afflicted, or oppressed by demons. Yes. That can happen to Christians. Absolutely.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Why wouldn't the devil attack Christians? So there might be something that's going on, and it sounds like when you rebuked it in Jesus' name, and here's the thing, demons cannot stand up against a believer who truly knows Jesus. It it's literally the drop the mic moment in the spiritual world. They cannot handle his name because at this at his name, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, period, and even though the devil is the father of lies, he has to honor that truth. So what I would just say is there could be some spiritual connections to sex that you've allowed in your life.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Go to a counselor, maybe if, I don't know what campus you go to, Hannah, but make an appointment to do a deep healing and just ask that maybe some of these things that have attached themselves to you, remember, they're not inside you, but they could have attached to you because of, you know, sex is a powerful thing. It creates memories. It creates attachments. And we want to break those down to get the enemy away. And so just think of demons like rats.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They're attached to garbage. So we can pray in the name of Jesus, and they'll scurry away, but if we don't deal with the garbage in our lives, they're going to come back and eat again, And so we want to get rid of that garbage that's in our life, and what is that? And literally ask the Lord to break bonds, to break strongholds, to break connections that we've had with people, because remember, sex is a bonding mechanism created by God. So whether you're married or not, when you have sex with somebody, there's a bond that is created, and we may need to ask the Lord in our repentance, in our renewed effort to be abstinent to break that, because it can feel very powerful like an addiction. So Hannah, just want you to know I'm praying for you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I love you.
Tammy Brown:But that's like to be abstinent for a year. Like, you're in such the right path. But to me, like you're saying, I just feel like some of that like, you you know, with our kids when they were younger, with young adults that you and I get to interact with, speak to when they come to us and ask us about this of, like, what's the big deal about sex outside of marriage? And it it's it's not God's way. This is just kind of a this gives leads into a gateway to talk about.
Tammy Brown:It's not God's way of saying, like, you can't have fun. It's because of the attachment. Yeah. The body. Yeah.
Tammy Brown:Of his love and kindness for us that he doesn't want us to have attachments that create with a demon, but it's it's that it's residual from doing it outside of God's way Yeah. For for that. And it's just it's just part of the aftermath of how that goes. It doesn't mean it will always be there, but I don't I agree with you. I don't think it necessarily means there's agreement with a demon, but I do think it's pretty incredible that you were abstinent.
Tammy Brown:And then I also love that your first instinct was to rebuke it, and I think that's always the go to. I'm just going to Jesus. And and the more that becomes your instinct, the better. So
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I that's would say, especially if something feels spiritual, go to Jesus. Mhmm. You know, there if it's something physical that you need to do, right, you know, you you don't don't know, Jesus is not going to do things for you. We're talking about our summer series, the book of Nehemiah, and one of the things we were talking about in creative team, I'm super excited. If you're around for the summer, don't miss that series, but a lot of Christians believe that God builds the wall, and it's like, no.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:No. No. No. Nehemiah built the wall, and so there are some things for us to do. Mhmm.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So the constant challenge for the Christian is what is my part, and what is God's part? So when I'm under attack by the devil, the Bible says resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So I have to I can't give in to temptation. I can't give in to sin, but I also know that I have this trump card, right, I can call upon the name of Jesus, and the devil cannot stand. He cannot stand when I, as a born again believer, call in his name.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so thank you so much for your
Tammy Brown:question and so good. Thank you so much, Hannah, for trusting us and being real. Okay. Next question. Also a really heavy question, which is why I started with that disclaimer at the beginning of the show.
Tammy Brown:This is from Jesse, and I think it's from Seacoast, New Hampshire. So shout out to our East Coast friends
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yes.
Tammy Brown:Listening in. It says, I was raised satanist. At age 14 and 15, I sold my soul. I was in a coma for a while. I saw hell a few times and had spiritual visions.
Tammy Brown:When I awoke, I wanted to change, had an epiphany one night, and was moved to tears listening to a reading of the book of revelations. Question for you, pastor Matt, is am I ruined? I did sign a contract. I may have already broken those terms, which would explain why my life is always a mess. But what do you do when you've done this type of damage?
Tammy Brown:Where do you start?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Man, Jesse, let me just say thank you so much just for sending in your question. I'm so sorry that your parents chose to raise you in such an environment. And, you know, I think for all of our parents who are listening that bring their kids to church, that's why it's so important, because Jesse needed a friend, a friend that went to church, a friend that knew the Bible, a friend that knew and loved Jesus, and a friend to say, hey, there's a different way to worship. And so, you know, I'm not familiar with all of the ways that Satanists worship or work, and you know, it's like denominations in Christianity. There are denominations of Satanists.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's a broad term that describes believe in Satanists, and that can be a spectrum all the way to it's just a rejection of God in general, and the worship of self reliance. So I don't know where Jesse fits into that. I would guess that it was more dark because he said, at the age of 14, 15, I sold my soul. What I would just do, Jesse, is remind you that Satan is the father of lies. Jesus says every word he speaks is a lie, for he is the father of lies.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Jesse, let me just tell you the truth. You can't sell your soul because your soul is not yours. It can't be for sale. It's not yours.
Tammy Brown:It's powerful.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:God is giveaway. You can choose to reject God, but you cannot choose to sell your soul. It is not yours to sell, and what I believe the enemy has done here is he's tricked you, because that's what he believed. And so in the same way in our country, a minor cannot sign a contract. Did you guys know that?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So if you're under 18, you cannot sign a contract that is legal and binding. I would say, Jesse, Satan doesn't get to sign kids up for hell. That's not what he gets to do. You were young, you didn't know better, you said I was in a coma for a while, I would love to hear more about that. You said I saw hell a few times, and I had spiritual visions.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so I would even be careful with what you think you saw because the enemy can portray things. He's not just a liar in words, he's a liar in pictures, he's a liar of visions. Thoughts. Thoughts. I mean, you name it, and so we have to remember, if we go to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives these visions of what he will give Jesus if Jesus just bows down and worships him.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now, think the assumption is that somehow Satan was actually showing Jesus real things. They could have been visions. They could have been pranks, tricks. You know, I mean, who knows, right? So it's a temptation.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I'm not saying that maybe Satan didn't really show him these things. I'm just saying everything that he says is a lie. And his worst lies have little bits of truth in there. So be really, really careful. So I don't know what you saw, but I'm glad you saw something that scared you because you said, When I awoke, I wanted to change.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so, I mean, I could just say, That may not have been Satan at all. That could have been the Lord. The Lord was saying, Hey, here's where you're headed. Here's where you're going. Here's what I'm trying save Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You Here's a picture of your future if you continue to give your soul to the devil, because here's the thing, if we don't give our lives to Christ, our souls are not safely in his hands. That's the one choice that we have, and what Satan wants is the unsaved soul, and so that's when, at the end of time, God will hand him over these people, these beings that were meant to live forever in his presence to the enemy, you know, according to Revelation, in the bottomless pit of hell. So when you awoke, you wanted to change. I had an epiphany one night, and was moved to tears listening to and reading the book of Revelation, and so that's interesting. Revelation often scares people, and yet for you, it actually served its purpose, and a lot of Christians don't know that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The book of Revelation was never meant to scare. It's meant to offer hope. So, you know, when Jehovah Witnesses come door to door talking about dragons, and they're trying to scare you, that is not the point of revelation. The point of Revelation is no matter all of this crap that we go through, there's dragons, there's beasts, there's sufferings, there's plagues, there's horses, and then behold, Revelation 21, I saw a new heaven and new earth. We win.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:God wins. And the last verse of Revelation, for those who don't know, the last verse in the Bible is the Lord and the Spirit say come. Come, Lord. Excuse me. The Lord and the church say, come, come, Lord.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The spirit, there we go, the spirit and the church say, come, Lord. So come, Jesus, because what we look forward to is not judgment, it's not dragons, it's not bottomless pits, it's not plagues, it is the new heaven and a new earth where every tear will be wiped away, and things will be made as new. And so
Tammy Brown:How do you answer the question where it says, am I ruined? I signed a contract.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So no. Yeah. Again, you could have signed whatever. I mean, you don't own your soul.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You are not the author of the story. You're a character in this story, but the story is written by God. So, you know, your soul is not independent from God. Your soul is birthed out of the idea of God. Like, so God spoke, and you came into existence.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So Psalms 139, in the darkness of your mother's womb, God saw you, he created you, he crafted you. You are God's idea. You were never made for Satan or by Satan. You were made for God, by God. And so the only way that Satan can have us is through the rejection of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's the only unforgivable sin. We can make mistakes. We can, you know, sign contracts. We can speak curses. We can do all of that stuff, but at the name of Jesus.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Deal. And the only contract that is mentioned in the Bible is those whose names are written in the book of life. That's the only thing that's written. There's no mention of your name being written in the book of Satan. He doesn't have a book.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm. God has a book.
Tammy Brown:Well, and that's part of the lie he wants you
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:to believe. Yeah. He's not the author. He doesn't have a book. You don't stand before him, and as an accuser, he's gonna tell you it's too late.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Your life is ruined. And I'm here to tell you that is not true. Satan loves to speak that it will never get any better. You can never change. Easter, which is coming up, proves that anything can change because Jesus Christ is so powerful that he can even overcome
Tammy Brown:I think the next part the last part of this question, if we read it a little bit in verse, the real question is where do I start because my life is always a mess? And so could you I it's not the way the question's written. It says, I may have already broken those terms, which would explain why my life is always a mess. But what do you do when you've done this type of damage? Where do you start?
Tammy Brown:So can you speak to Matt? Where do you start when you feel like your life is a mess? Because I think that such a majority of people feel like that. They feel like I've made bad choices. I've not been who I want to be.
Tammy Brown:I've gone down roads I don't wanna go in. I'm a mess. I don't even know how to dig myself out.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. And I think that where you start is in the local church. And, I mean, you may have to Jesse, you may have to go to multiple churches for years. Bible study on Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night.
Tammy Brown:What do you mean by multiple churches?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Because so as Christians, right, we fall into this trap that we don't want to wear people out because a lot of kids that grew up in church, right, it feels overwhelming. You're there every day of the week, and we have this visceral reaction to that. And I get that, but there are some people that need church every night. There are some people that cannot go to an AA meeting once a week. They have to go every day.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Some people have to go in the morning. Some people have to go in the afternoon. Some people have to go in the evening. And so, Jesse, your job is to figure out the frequency with which you need spiritual community, and you may need way more spiritual community than many people many people need, and
Tammy Brown:More so more than than some churches offer. Yeah. So it might be one program at one church, one at
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. So we had, you know, we had this ministry at Sandals called JC's Girls years ago, and, you know, the girl that helped us found that ministry, and it was a challenge for us. You did not agree. We were not in agreement with this ministry, but this girl came out of her other church, and it was very legalistic. It was church all the time.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I thought I was setting her free by providing freedom and liberty at Sandals Church. It actually destroyed her because she needed the regiment- She
Tammy Brown:needed the guardrails.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:She needed the guardrails because of where she was coming out. So for example, if I'm an alcoholic, even though I have the liberty to drink, I should never drink. Not a drop, not mouthwash. You know, we were at dinner last night with a guy, and he's like, I don't even drink mouthwash. He's a recovering addict.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He doesn't do Nyquil when he's sick. Now, to us, that seems ridiculous, but he knows the pit that God saved him from, so he's not going back. So, know, Jesse, you got to be careful about movies. I wouldn't celebrate Halloween if I was you. I wouldn't go anywhere near that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I don't think that there's anything wrong with Halloween for Christians. I think it's a great opportunity for us to minister to our neighbors. I would say for you, that's not the night. My butt would be in church, and I would be praying, And if there are other satanists that come out of that cult, that's your guy's night to pray, to encourage each other, to fast, not to participate You in know, if I'm a sex addict, I don't go to a strip club ever for any reason. If I'm an alcoholic, I don't go to a bar.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So I just think you need Christians around your life that understand you are coming out of a unique darkness. And it doesn't mean you're a worse sinner, it's just an unusual set of circumstances that most people have no wisdom to speak into your life. And I would encourage you, you know, find a loving church, a gracious church, this is going be a long process to get out of this because those lies that Satan had, you know, are those tentacles. And I think in the back of your mind, for a long time, it's always going to be, am I really saved? Am I really out?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Can I really change? Am I really forgiven? And you need, you know, praise God if you can find one church that's open every day of the week, and find a place to serve, man, clean toilets. I mean, whatever it takes, you need sanctuary. So we used to understand that in the Christian church, right?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So if the government of Rome was pursuing you, you could run into a church and scream, Sanctuary, and they couldn't arrest you. You need spiritual sanctuary for a good period of your time until you feel healthy enough to where you're like, you know what, I can go to church five times a week. I can go three times a week. I can go twice a week. But I would always be very, very attentive to, okay, maybe I need a little more, because what God has to deliver you from is way more fierce than what any of us will, you know, experience, and so a lot of churches just don't understand that.
Tammy Brown:Or just have the experience to help navigate
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I would say, you know, we were in a small group with a woman whose dad, and I don't know that she would use the term satanist, but it was something. Oh, we would, yeah. Yeah, we would. And you know, her dad was a part of this sexual satanic cult that involved her until the age of 11. And I just always tell her, you know, you're fighting battles that I can never understand.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I just encouraged her because, you know, she wanted it to all go away, and I never told her this, but in my mind I thought, okay, some of these things will not be healed until Jesus comes, because it's one thing to experience evil outside of the home. It's another thing when it's your parents that are introducing you to this. The very people that God meant to protect you are the very ones that put you in harm's way, And that's very, very confusing.
Tammy Brown:So Before we go, Matt, why don't you if I could just ask you to for Jesse, because I do think he's believing some big lies Yeah. From the enemy probably for years at this point to just speak truth over him. Is he ruined? Like, what what is the truth about who God says he is and his eternity?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. Amen. So we're just gonna pray right now for Jesse. So if you're driving, pray with your eyes open. But let's all join as a church.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I mean, think about us as a church. Think about us as a debrief family. Like if we all pause whatever we're doing, and I think we all need to be a little bit grateful that we didn't have these parents. And Jesse, that's not to malign you at all. I think all of us can get a little self focused and a little traumatized by our own experience.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I want to praise God and thank my mom and dad for raising me to know and love Jesus, and not leading me to sign a contract at the age of 14 with Satan. So I think we all just need to appreciate the parents that we had. And then what we need to do is be a spiritual family for Jesse. We need to be a debriefed family for Jesse, and we need to say, Lord, we're rooting for Jesse, we're pulling for Jesse, but we're gonna pray for Jesse. And so, Jesse, I hope you're listening to this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I hope you know that you're loved, that the Holy Spirit is more powerful than Satan has ever dreamed of being, and he can do things in your life that you don't know. And so remember, God raised Jesus from the dead by his spirit, and and his spirit can can raise you from the depths of this. Just demonization and satanic worship. So let's all just pray right now if you join me. Father, we pray for Jesse right now, and I just am so grateful that he found the debrief.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Obviously, he doesn't attend Sandals, he's on the other side of the country, and so I just pray that he would know that there's a church on West Coast that loves him, that's praying for him, and that there's a debriefed family that's interceding for him right now. And Lord, we pray that you would remove the enemy from him. God, send your fiercest, most powerful warrior angels to protect him, to fight for him, and to drive the enemy of darkness out. Lord Jesus, I just ask in your precious name, and by the power of your blood, that you would speak truth to him, that he's a child of God. Lord, I specifically think of your words to the apostles in John 15, by my words, you are already clean.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I pray that you would speak that to Jesse right now, that by your words, by your declaration, he is already clean because of his faith and trust in you, and I pray that he would live in that. And like Paul said, I pray that he would remember that he's a new creation, created in Christ Jesus to do new works. Lord, the old is past, the new is here, and he is able to transform and change. And for all of us, Lord, that are struggling with addiction and difficulty, and we find ourselves falling back into darkness over and over again, Lord, deliver us, we pray. Help us to stop listening to the enemy, and help us to trust your gracious words.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So Lord, we pray that you would strengthen our audience, you would strengthen Jesse, and Lord, you would remind us all that we are your children, and nothing according to Romans eight, nothing above, nothing below, nothing spiritual, nothing in the dark. There is nothing in heaven, on earth, or under earth that can separate us from the love that is in Christ Jesus, and I pray that Jesse knows that, experiences that, and remembers that. I pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
Tammy Brown:Well, I just think this episode is such a reminder of how much we need Jesus and how much the enemy helpful to someone you know that you've had a conversation with that you love. If you could just help us have a chance to help them and and get them to be part of our community here so that they too can know the love, the grace, the forgiveness, and the power of Jesus Christ. Would you share that with them? You can support us in a lot of ways versus sharing. Second is send your questions in so that we can be a resource to help and support you guys on your discipleship journey.
Tammy Brown:You can go to sandalschurch.com/support to actually support us financially so that we can just keep this going and just the cost that it takes to do this. But we're just so grateful, again, to all of you guys who listen and send your questions in, that you trust us with the real things going on in your life. Sometimes they're a little simpler. Sometimes they're really heavy and messy. But regardless, we wanna be a real a real resource to you guys.
Tammy Brown:We're super grateful. So until next time, we love you guys. We're praying for you. Remember to pray for one another. Even if you don't know the people writing in, like, you can stop and pause and pray for them right now because the Lord knows that and just be a part of one another.
Tammy Brown:And so until then, we'll see you next time.