Pathway to Victory

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Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory and Dr. Robert Jeffress.

We're dedicated to bringing you bold biblical teaching that transforms your life and strengthens your walk with God.

And you can study God's word alongside Dr. Jeffress in person on the 2026 Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska.

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Have you ever witnessed the breathtaking majesty of massive glaciers rising from crystal blue waters? Or stood in awe as bald eagles soar over snow-capped mountains?

I want you to experience these unforgettable moments with me on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, June 13th through 20th, 2026.

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Join Dr. Jeffress and the Pathway to Victory family for a spectacular seven-day adventure aboard Holland America's luxurious Koningsdam.

Indulge in elegant staterooms, world-class dining, and expansive decks perfect for breathtaking views.

Visit historic ports like Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, where wilderness and frontier history await.

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There's something powerful about connecting with God and fellow believers in the majesty of his untamed wilderness. I truly believe this journey will refresh you spiritually, physically and emotionally.

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Cabins are filling quickly, so reserve yours today. To book your spot on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska, call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

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Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.

On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, one author said it this way: Deep within the hidden recesses of the human heart, a bloodless battle is being fought. A life and death struggle for our soul.

This intense spiritual warfare is raging between God and Satan upon the invisible battle of our own heart.

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Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Have you ever had that unsettling feeling that there's more going on in your life than really meets the eye?

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress explains that we are caught in the crossfire of an invisible war between God and Satan, and it's essential for every Christian to understand the dangers of spiritual warfare.

But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

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Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Did you ever think you'd live to see a day when young children would be encouraged by school teachers and sometimes even their parents to pick and choose their preferred gender, or to declare a tie and choose to be non-binary? Well, the day has come, and arguably, these are symptoms of spiritual warfare.

On this first day in October, I'm launching a brand new study that's intended to expose the enemy's tactics. More importantly, it's designed to equip you for victory not only on issues related to the public square but on matters that are deeply personal. My series is called Spirit Wars. God wants us to triumph in our personal and spiritual lives. But it doesn't always feel that way, does it? In our day-to-day struggles with repeated sin and failures, doubts and temptations, feeling like a victor is certainly a rare accomplishment. Not to mention the times in which we live: gender confusion, rampant immorality, and social upheaval. These are frightening times, and the enemy likes it that way.

But God has left us a battle plan to turn the tables on Satan. I've written a brand new book that complements this study, and this one's for your children and grandchildren. It's called Suit Up: The Armor of God for Kids. Do your loved ones understand how to fight and win their spiritual battles? In Suit Up, I'll show you how to share God's strategies with the children in your life.

Please keep listening because later in the program I'll explain how to receive a copy. But right now, let's get started with the first message in the series. Take your Bible and turn to Ephesians chapter six for a message I've titled Spirit Wars.

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There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. It lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call the Twilight Zone.

Every Friday night during the early 1960s, I remember watching that program and hearing those words uttered by its creator, Rod Serling, at the beginning of every episode. The Twilight Zone was an anthology series about that intersection between the visible world and the invisible world in different individuals. Those of us who grew up watching the Twilight Zone will never forget some of those episodes. Remember the one when the airline passenger was looking out his window on a stormy night and to his horror, he saw a demonic creature on the wing disassembling the engine? Or the one in which a customer at a department store realizes that the mannequins she sees were actually human beings? Or the one in which the father realized that his life was nothing more than a motion picture and he was simply an actor reading the lines he had been given?

I think beyond the entertainment value of the Twilight Zone, the reason it was so popular is it struck a chord familiar to all of us. That sense we all have that there has to be something more than what we can see with the naked eye. I mean, how else do you explain the coincidences in your life that can't be explained by mere chance? Or those intuitive feelings you have that turn out to be correct? Or that sensation you have when you're alone that you're really not alone?

Rod Serling was right. There is a world beyond comprehension. It is a world as vast as space and timeless as infinity. No, it's not the Twilight Zone. It's the spirit world. It's the world in which God and Satan, angels and demons reside. And it is a world that, believe it or not, is responsible for most of the struggles you and I face every day. We can't see the spirit world with our naked eye, but God has given us an instrument through which we can see the reality of the spirit world. That instrument is called the Bible.

Through the lens of scripture, we realize that we are in a conflict, a cosmic conflict between the unseen kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 6:12. Paul says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood." That word, struggle in Greek, "pole," is a word that referred to a wrestling match in Paul's day. In Paul's day, wrestling matches were not the fake stuff you see on TV today. They were real. They were a life and death battle in which the loser of the match would first have his eyes gouged out and then he would be executed. Paul said, you and I are involved in that kind of struggle every day, but it's not against things we see or people we see. It's not against flesh and blood, but it's against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

You may say, "Well, I believe that, Pastor, but I've got more pressing problems. How I'm going to pay my mortgage, how I'm going to survive the next round of layoffs at work, how I'm going to help navigate my teenagers through adolescence. Why should I be concerned about this spiritual war you say is going on?" Because the spiritual war impacts and invades our life every day, whether we realize it or not.

How many of you remember where you were on September 11, 2001? Do you remember if you were alive during that time? I remember where I was. I was in Wichita Falls, Texas, having my final cup of coffee, getting ready to go to work. I had the television news on, and I saw the image you did of one of the World Trade Center towers having been struck by an airplane with a gaping hole in it. And the commentators were speculating the different possible causes of that collision, of that invasion. Some people thought it was pilot error. In fact, then President Bush said, "That was one bad pilot." But then we realized it wasn't an accident. America was under attack. For the first time in a hundred years, we'd been struck in our own continent by an enemy invader.

You know, knowing the source of a problem is key to finding the solution to a problem. If, in fact, that attack on the World Trade Center had been an accident, pilot error, navigational error, air traffic control problem, then the way to solve that problem in the future would be better trained pilots, more traffic controllers, better navigation equipment. But when we discovered we were under attack, that meant a whole different kind of solution was necessary.

Every day, your life and my life are bombarded by what seem to be random events, and we respond accordingly. Couples divorce, and so we develop marriage enrichment seminars. Drug use among children increases, so we increase drug education for our children. Accidents occur, we find a solution for it. Pornography rates increase among even Christians at an alarming rate. So we develop accountability groups. Now, don't misunderstand. I'm all for marriage enrichment seminars, drug education programs, accountability groups. But what if the source of these attacks was something more than what we could see? What if it was a spiritual cause beyond it?

Ephesians 6:12 says, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood. It's against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness in heavenly places." Ladies and gentlemen, our greatest problem is not what we see.

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It's what we don't see.

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It's what we don't see that can destroy us. And notice Paul's use of that personal pronoun. Our struggle. Our struggle. We're in the struggle, whether we know it or not. This is not a case of two cosmic forces battling one another. It is our struggle. We're in the crossfires of this cosmic battle going on. We can't say, as many of us do in Texas, use that expression, "I don't have a dog in that fight." We do have a dog in that fight. We're the dog. And we suffer the fallout of this spiritual war every day.

Let me explain what I mean. First of all, spiritual warfare, the cosmic battle between Satan and God, manifests itself in invasions from without. Many of the external attacks that we have come because of spiritual warfare. Whether or not you realize it, you're living in the crossfire of that cosmic battle. I love the words of the late Expositor Martin Lloyd Jones. It's my favorite quote about spiritual warfare. He said, "Not to realize that you are in a conflict means one thing only, and it is that you are so hopelessly defiant, so knocked out, as it were, that you don't even know it. You are already completely defeated by the devil. Anyone who is not aware of a fight and a conflict in a spiritual sense is in a drugged and hazardous condition."

Spiritual warfare manifests itself in invasions from without, but also it's responsible for the invasions we experience from within. Every Christian is a walking battlefield where the spiritual war is being played out upon. The Apostle Paul said it this way in Second Corinthians, chapter 10, verses 4 and 5: "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."

Now, I have friends, some of them Christian leaders, who hate talking about spiritual warfare. They say, "Robert, it's so negative to talk about that. We've already defeated the enemy. Satan is already a defeated opponent." And ultimately that's true. But immediately it's not true. Somebody has said, "Satan is like a junkyard dog on a very long chain." Although his power to destroy is considerable, it's also limited. Luther was right. The devil is God's devil. Everything is under control of the sovereignty of God. But if you discount the reality of spiritual warfare, you've got to rip a lot of pages out of your Bible, because the Bible says right now in this world, at this time, you and I are in that death struggle for our very soul.

Just consider some of the references to warfare in the Bible. Did you know the very first mention of Jesus Christ in the Bible is in Genesis 3:15? We call it the Proto Evangelon, the first mention of the Good News where Jesus is pictured as a wounded warrior. He's been wounded on his heel. It's a temporary wound, but he is temporarily wounded. The final image of Christ in Revelation 19 is as the conquering warrior who's coming back to reclaim what has been lost. And in between Genesis 3 and Revelation 19, you find constant references to warfare.

For example, look at Ephesians 6:11 and 12. Verse 11 says, "Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil." Jot down Philippians 2:25. Paul refers to Epaphroditus as "my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier." In First Timothy 1:18, Paul said, "This command I entrust to you, Timothy, in accordance with the prophecy previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight." Or in Second Timothy 2:3-4, "Suffer hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so that he might please the one who enlisted him."

At some point, folks, we've got to decide whether or not we believe the Bible. And if we believe the Bible, we believe it's accurate, then we have to believe we're in the middle of a war. Why do we need to understand this subject, this reality of spiritual warfare? First of all, understanding spiritual warfare is crucial for our faithfulness. It's crucial for our faithfulness as Christians. I love the way the late Warren Wiersbe put it. He said, "Christian service means invading a battleground, not a playground." And you and I are the weapons God uses to attack and defeat his enemy.

When God used Moses' rod, he needed Moses' hand to lift it. When God used David's sling, he needed David's hand to swing it. When God builds a ministry, he needs somebody's surrendered body to get the job done. We've been enlisted in this battle to serve and defeat God's enemy. We learned a lot of great songs in vacation Bible school as kids. Remember one of them? "I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery. I may never zoom or the enemy, but I'm in the Lord's army."

Okay, that's enough. I didn't care to worry. There, you see why I wasn't called to be a minister of music? But behind that children's song is a very real truth. Whether we realize it or not, we've been enlisted to serve. Paul said in his final words to Timothy in Second Timothy 4:7-8, "I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith. I have finished the course. In the future there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord himself shall award me on that day. And not to me alone, but to all those who have loved his appearing."

I have fought the good fight. Understanding spiritual warfare is crucial for our faithfulness in the assignment we've been given. But it's secondly crucial for our survival; just our own survival depends upon our understanding of spiritual warfare. Now, I have some good news and some bad news for you today. Which do you want to hear first? It doesn't matter. I'm going to tell you the good news. I was just being polite to give you a choice.

Here's the good news, and I'm serious about this. Although you and I were born into this world as slaves to Satan, as indentured servants to the evil one, whose plan for us included our eternal separation from God, even though that's the way we all entered this world, Colossians 1:13 says, "Through Jesus Christ we have been delivered from the kingdom of darkness and delivered into the domain of God's own son, the Lord Jesus Christ." That is great news. God is going to deliver us. We are going to ultimately win this invisible war. That's the good news.

Here's the not so good news. The moment you became a child of God, you became an enemy of Satan. He put an X on your back, and he is determined to take you out no matter what it takes. That's why Peter said in First Peter 5:8, "Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert for your adversary, the devil, roams about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour." Again, will you notice the pronoun here? Your adversary. He doesn't say "God's adversary, the devil prowls about" or "Dr. Jeffress' adversary, the devil." It is your adversary, the devil.

I want to tell you how true that is. In my 40 plus years as a pastor, I've seen what Satan can do in the life of a Christian who's not aware of his schemes and not aware of God's defense against those schemes. I just jotted down this week some of the things I've witnessed through the years. I've seen that Satan has the capability of disrupting your marriage, of discouraging you from trusting in God's faithfulness. He's got a plan for destroying your physical and mental health. He has a plan for deceiving your children into following him instead of God.

Pastors, church leaders, he has a plan for dividing your church. He has a plan for damaging your influence on the kingdom of God. And he has a plan to deny you of your eternal rewards in heaven. And that's why we're beginning this series today, talking about Satan's war against Christians, but God's provision to defeat the enemy who wants to destroy you.

But as we begin this series, let me say one final word. You know, I know you all pretty well. You know me pretty well. After 18 years, I imagine there's some of you right now thinking, "Spiritual warfare? Why spend so much time talking about that? I mean, I believe in Satan. I believe demons exist. I believe there's a spiritual war going on. But what, if anything, can I do about it? I sure don't want to do anything weird. I mean, I'm not into exorcising demons from my friends and family members. I don't want to carry around a large cross or wear a garlic necklace. I'm not into levitating bodies or spinning heads. I mean, what can I do?"

Let's acknowledge there are two extremes in the subject of spiritual warfare. One extreme is to ignore it. And, ladies and gentlemen, people who ignore the subject of spiritual warfare become spiritual roadkill. Don't ignore it. But there's another extreme, and that is to obsess about it, to become too focused on it. C.S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters notes that either extreme is fine with Satan. He said, "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them." Satan and his demons are equally pleased by both errors.

Neil Anderson has written a book called The Bondage Breakers, and he compares the world of Satan and demons to the world of germs. He says, "We know that germs, though invisible, are all around us. They inhabit our food, our water, our air, and other people with whom we come in contact. Some people are absolutely phobic about germs and spend their lives trying to insulate themselves from any contact with them. But the right diet, appropriate rest and exercise, and practicing some simple principles of hygiene will prevent you from most infections. You do not have to obsess about germs to be free from them. Yet without awareness of these microbes and the way to protect yourselves from them, you would be more prone to illness and even death."

As we talk about spiritual warfare, we're going to be balanced. But ladies and gentlemen, please don't confuse balance with passivity. This is no time for God's people to be passive. Whether you believe it or not, you...

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Are in the midst of a real war.

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Everything you hold dear could be lost. Your faith, your family, your future. Satan hates you and has a terrible.

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Plan for your life.

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But God has provided us with six strategies, or as Paul calls them, six weapons to destroy Satan's plan to destroy you. And in the weeks ahead, we're going to look at this miraculous divine defense. God has provided every believer.

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Well, I can't think of a better way to launch this important new study than awakening all of us to the realities of spiritual battle. Our enemy is real, and those who ignore him do so at their own peril. Our study is called Spirit Wars. All of us, whether we realize it or not, are engaged in an epic battle between good and evil.

At Pathway to Victory, we're taking a stand against the enemy by spreading the light of God's Word into the darkest corners of our nation and world. And as someone who's willing to link arms with Pathway to Victory, you play a significant role in bringing light into the dark corners of our culture. Your gift is channeled directly into providing these daily Bible studies so that people learn how to triumph over the enemy.

To express my thanks for your generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, today I'm going to send you my brand new book written for your family. It's called Suit Up: The Armor of God for Kids. This is my first occasion to tell you about this practical book, and I'm hoping you'll sit down next to your child and grandchild to equip them with God's protection for their hearts and minds.

Plus, I'll also send you our brand new resource for adults titled Angels and Demons: Fact versus Fantasy. One more thing: I'll remind you that Pathway to Victory is hosting a fabulous cruise to Alaska from June 13th through 20th, 2026, and it's not too early to make arrangements for this vacation of a lifetime next summer. You'll find all the important details at ptv.org. Here's David to tell you more.

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Give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. You're invited to request "Suit Up: The Armor of God for Kids." Plus, you'll also receive "Angels and Demons: Fact versus Fantasy," another brand new resource especially for adults. Give a gift and request both books when you call 866-999-2965 or visit us online at ptv.org. When you give $100 or more, you'll receive not only the two books but also the "Spirit Wars" teaching series on both audio and video discs. You'll get that along with a copy of the best-selling book by Dr. Jeffress, "The Divine Defense." Again, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. You could also write to us if you'd like. Here's that address: P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O. Box 223, 609, Dallas, Texas 752.

I'm David J. Mullins. Many people think that Satan is God's equal opposite, but that's not the case at all. Next time, Dr. Jeffress exposes the truth about our adversary's origin, his catastrophic fall, and his relentless quest for revenge. Join us for a message called "The Purpose Driven Strife." That's Thursday on Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.