Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Are You Spiritually Vulnerable Without Even Knowing It?

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

I'm filling out the C&C sheet and the sheet isn't letting me link the books in the description. so I'm sending it here so you will have the links when inputting the description: The spiritual world is real—and ignoring it doesn’t make us immune to its influence. In this episode of Culture & Christianity, Pastor Allen Jackson explores angels, demons, the Holy Spirit, spiritual warfare, and the unseen forces shaping our lives. He explains how to recognize the difference between conviction and condemnation and why practicing “spiritual hygiene” matters. Rather than living in fear, we’re called to know God’s Word, recognize His boundaries, and walk closely with the Holy Spirit. Links to books:Your Identity In Christ by Allen JacksonThey Shall Expel Demons: What You Need to Know about Demons--Your Invisible Enemies by Derek PrinceVictory Over the Darkness: Realize the Power of Your Identity in Christ by Neil T. AndersonThe Bondage Breaker by Neil T. Anderson

Spiritual forces are shaping your life today, and they will shape your destiny for all eternity. I think we have to acknowledge that evil exists, but at the end of the day, the spirit of God within you, and your Bible and a desire to be free are the most powerful forces to help you walk towards freedom. Jesus walked into the slave market and paid the price. For you and for me, to be delivered from the kingdom of darkness, that we could come into this eternal kingdom. You keep seeking the Lord? And he will lead you. Welcome to culture and Christianity.

We are stepping into fall very soon. But I want to take some time. Last week, I had a conversation with Billy Hallowell. And he had just finished, completed a documentary around angels and demons and the supernatural. You can see that at CBN. It's available. but the conversation with him sparked enough memories and ideas in me that I really want to do kind of a follow-up to that interview that I had with Billy.

And if you haven't seen the documentary, I would recommend it to you. I think it opens the doors for a variety of conversations and perhaps thoughts and things that you can seek God about and open your Bible about. But in big picture terms, I want to talk about angels and demons and you. I've got a book out by that title, which is really a series of sermons that I did on that. And for full disclosure, it started, I was on vacation. And I decided as a part of my vacation, I'd read the book of Revelation every day while I was on vacation. And as I began that, what became so clear to me was that the book of Revelation on one level is an angel story.

The angels of the churches in the opening chapters, the angels is a part of the seen in heaven. Every time we see the throne room of God, we see angels in various numbers, sometimes enormous numbers, various configurations. When the judgments of God begin in the earth, the angels are very much engaged with that. And I was convicted as I was doing that, that I really had not given in my awareness an appropriate biblical place to the role of angels. And so I started that study. And from then until today, I have the habit when I'm reading my Bible, every time I find the word angel, I just circle it. And I'm finding that angels are a part of the biblical narrative, really, from the beginning to the end.

But if we're going to talk about the angels, we have to talk about the unholy spirits. It's not a fair conversation if we only talk about the part we like. And so really the bigger conversation for this session is the reality of spiritual things, the spirits that are under the authority of God directly, in pursuit of the purposes of God in the earth and the spiritual forces that are arrayed against the purposes of God in the earth. And both exist. Both are every bit as real as any part of our material world that we engage with. And we're a little reluctant, I think, to lean into that.

Or we've known somebody that has embraced that and they've been so weird that we've stepped back from it. And I don't think you need to check your brain at the door or check logic at the door in order to believe in spiritual things. In fact, I think you are ignoring a great deal of observable reality if you don't include spiritual things. I mean, right now we have a national tragedy unfolding before us in the trial of Lindsey Clancy, who she murdered her children. and a judge and a jury are trying to decide her culpability in that. And I haven't followed it very closely, but I do know that the part of the reporting has been that she heard a voice. Apparently one time that instructed her to kill her children and kill herself.

Anybody that's read the Bible casually should have at least some question around a voice if infecting somebody's behavior, at least the possibility of their spiritual connection to that. But that's very difficult to evaluate in the context of a courtroom with a jury. And so I'm not offering an opinion other than to tell you that spiritual forces are shaping your life today, and they will shape your destiny for all eternity. So to say you don't believe in spiritual things means you really are setting aside the Council of Scripture. Now, what to do with that is not simple.

I'm a bit fascinated at the way secularists now have spiritual conversations. People who say that spirituality or faith or faith in God or faith in Jesus has been a limited part of their lives. They're far more open to believe in spiritual things impacting them. And yet those of us who spent our lives in church and have kind of lengthy pedigrees around Christianity, we tend to be minimalistic sometimes around spiritual forces. We're cessationist. We believe when the last of the apostles died, the miracle. miracles stopped. Or we don't believe that unclean spiritual forces have really any impact on us if

we're Christians, that we're immunized against them. It's a, it's a bewildering set of positions that Christians take. So I'm going to walk you through today. I'm not going to do an in-depth Bible study. I'm certainly not above that. That's where I spend most of my life. But in these podcasts, I try to use scripture more to inform the direction, and then I'm going to share some opinions, which means you could disagree with me, and we could both go to heaven. But nevertheless, that's the direction I want to go. I think I'd rather start with the realization that God is the spirit, and those that worship him, worship him in the New Testament, as in spirit and in truth. And so that if you're a Christ follower, a person that embraces the Christian

faith, you have embraced the notion of a spiritual reality that shapes your life in time, and ultimately you're trusting for your eternity. So I'm not inviting you to something that's weird. This isn't a lunatic fringe portion of Christianity, and it doesn't diminish our intellect, or our responsibility to develop our intellect, to learn. I think we want to do everything we can to learn, but at the end of the day, God is not like me. He's different than me. He's a completely different being than I am.

He is the creator and the initiator and the sustainer of all things. You and I are not that. We're a finite part of his creation. And so in our desire to know God, which is what the Bible is, the Bible gives us a way that we can know the creator of heaven and earth, have a relationship with him in such a way that we can participate in his eternal kingdom. That's what the Bible presents to you. to me. It's ultimately not a science book or a history book. It doesn't answer all of the questions

that we have, but it does give us a pathway if we're so inclined that we can know the Creator, have a relationship with him, and participate in his kingdom. It's the greatest invitation that will ever be presented to a human being. It's not about joining a church or a denomination or an affiliation. Spoiler alert, Jesus is the door. He's the key. Jesus himself said no one comes to the Father except through him. So the reality of spiritual things, you and I are created as a physical being with five senses. We can see and hear and taste and touch and smell. And those are the portals through which we experience reality.

We can know the texture of something or the taste of something. But the spiritual world is not available to us through those five senses unless God chooses to give us some unique discernment. and pull the curtain back. And there's any number of biblical examples of that. The prophet, when the Aramaean king sent his army to surround the city of Dothan where the prophet was, and the prophet's servant goes up on the roof, and he sees all the surrounding armies and the prophet prays that the Lord will open his eyes. And the young man who's serving can see the armies of God standing between them and the armies of a foreign king.

I mean, there's many examples of that. when in the New Testament the Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up to a high mountain, and he was transfigured, transformed before them, and he has a conversation with Moses and Elijah. And Peter, James, and John could see Moses and Elijah. So they could, with their physical senses or vision, it's not elaborated beyond that in Scripture,

recognized both Moses and Elijah. I don't think they had on big laminated name tags, and they had been dead for hundreds of years before Peter and the crew got there. So there's all these places in the scripture where God pulls back the curtain a bit, and we can observe spiritual forces. The New Testament tells us that angels are ministering spirits sent forth to help us. They're messengers to help us. So the book of Revelation describes that, as I've mentioned already.

So angels are a part of our existence. And I don't think we want to worship angels. I don't think we need to seek angels. I think we need to recognize that they're a part of our lives. Typically, the Bible says that sometimes to practice hospitality, because sometimes we entertain angels and we're unaware of it. We didn't recognize them as angels. There have been a handful of times in my life where in retrospect,

not in real time, but in retrospect, I'm quite confident that God has put angels in my path. They have made significant impacts in my unfolding story. My brother and I went to Hebrew University. We lived in Jerusalem. And it was a difficult season in our lives for a lot of reasons. But we had made the decision. I had made the decision really thinking I would step out of ministry.

And that weekend, we went to Jaffa. We lived in Jerusalem. We went to Jaffa, which is over on the Mediterranean coast. And there was a conference being held in a youth hostel. And so we got a room. It was not an elaborate place to stay. We were in a room with 20 bunks and there was one fan and it was a pretty simple place. But we had a meal break the next day around lunchtime and we were just sitting outside

at an open courtyard at a picnic table. And a woman came up and said, may I sit with you? And at the time I thought she was a really old lady. She's probably younger than I am now, but the arrogance of youth. And we invited her to sit down. I didn't feel like talking to her. I was discouraged. I thought my life was changing course.

and she sat down and asked us two or three questions. And she spoke English. She spoke American. And she opened her Bible and began to read some passages to us from Isaiah. And they were completely on point with where we were in our lives and talking to us about not quitting, but understanding that God was opening. And we had a remarkable conversation with her for about an hour and a half. and she lived in Jerusalem, she said. So we made plans to meet, and we knew the city at that point pretty well

because we'd been living there for several months. We were very comfortable in navigating Jerusalem. And we got an address where she said we could find her and very much looking forward to that because we left that encounter with the courage to stay engaged. And we got back to Jerusalem, and we spent two or three weeks trying to find the address and the person.

and we never did make another connection with that person that spent that time with us in Jaffa that afternoon. But that encounter changed the trajectory of my life. And I didn't get a business card that said angel, but I'm confident in my heart that God sent an angel at that point in time with the message that I needed to navigate the decisions that were on the table in front of me. And I could take you through another handful of experiences that I think were, without any doubt, God providing spiritual direction in a tangible form. Now, God's spoken to my heart. I've heard God speak to me with the same clarity that I've heard him speak to people,

but he doesn't do it on a momentary basis. And I don't want to give you that impression. You know, I'm of the opinion that if God gives you a direction, you don't really need further instruction until it's time to change the direction. and I think sometimes we want constant affirmation, and I don't believe that's a very mature way to respond. Children, young children may have to have constant reminders to say thank you or to say please or to say you're welcome.

But if you need constant reminders to say that when you're 16 or 36 or 66, there's something wrong in either the learning process or the training. And I feel that way with the Lord. If he provides direction in our lives and we are moving anything towards maturity out of infancy, we should be able to hold the assignment until we're given further clarification or further direction, which means I don't have to have affirmation every day. I'm happy for all the affirmation the Lord wants to provide, but sometimes I think we want to hold a rather childish, not childlike,

but a childish posture with the Lord. and I would encourage you to grow up. If the Lord has told us what to do, let's go do that with joy and enthusiasm. And when he needs to redirect or refine our form of service, I trust him to do that. In my life, he's proven to be very, very faithful when it's time for course corrections or adjustments

and I trust him to be that way with you. You know, this podcast is made possible because of sponsors. And one of our sponsors is Preserve Gold. I appreciate their partnership with us, and I pray it's a blessing to you. You know, one of the things that I hear most often right now is this, that people are doing their best plan for the future, but they're not sure what to trust anymore. You know, the headlines, they change every day,

and the economy, it feels pretty unpredictable. And that uncertainty, it's unsettling to all of us. But as people of faith, we're not called to live in fear. We're called to live with wisdom, with discernment, and with peace. Well, part of that is simply taking care. practical steps to protect what you've worked so hard to build and establish for yourself and your family. That's why many are turning to time-tested assets like gold and silver, not as a reaction, but as a way to bring stability into their financial plans. Well, if you'd like to learn more,

I encourage you to connect with preserve gold. They've helped many people understand how to diversify their savings with physical gold and silver, including in retirement accounts. And right now, you can get their free wealth protection guide by texting Allen, it's A-L-L-E-N to 50-505. Plus, with a qualified purchase, you can receive up to $15,000 in free gold or silver. Well, if you want to learn how precious metals could help protect your savings, text Allen to 50505 today. You'll receive your free wealth protection guide. The other side of this equation and the one I want to talk about with you a little bit, too, is the unclean spirits, the unhealthy spirits.

And we talk about the healthy spirits. It's not just angels. It's the presence of the Holy Spirit that dwells within you. It's one of the characteristics of the new covenant. That you and I have become temples of the living God, that the Spirit of God lives within us. And you should recognize his voice and recognize his promptings and know how to cooperate with him and know what grieves him

and know what makes him unhappy and care about it. If you'll put the care about it first at the front of the priority, list, you'll become far more adept at recognizing his promptings. If you don't care, it's highly improbable. He's going to bother you. But if you care about the promptings of the Spirit of God, and it matters to you, and you'll do the things necessary to walk uprightly with the Lord, I find that he becomes far more involved in my life. The flip side of that equation, which I keep trying to get to, is the unclean spirits and their influence in our lives. I think they have phenomenal presence in our world. You don't have to have much discernment at all to look

around you and say some things are evil. If something cannot be explained by logical progression and observation, my default position is that there's some spiritual influence involved in it. It can be good or bad, but there's some spiritual explanation. And I think we have to acknowledge that evil exists and that it doesn't just exist in the hearts of human beings. beings, that there are spiritual forces beyond human beings who are described both biblically and by observation as perpetrators of evil. And if that is the case, then you and I should have an imagined plan for overcoming expressions of evil.

I believe viruses and bacteria exist, and I think they are very prevalent in our world, and God has gifted us with some rather elaborate immune systems. which will protect us from the majority of the bacterial and viral threats that we face. But there are certain practices of hygiene that help us maintain physical health. And there are certain practices of spiritual hygiene that will help you maintain your spiritual health. And to say that I don't believe in a virus or a bacteria and practice poor hygiene will not make me healthier. Saying I don't believe in them doesn't protect me. Ignorance does not provide an excuse.

even if it's willful ignorance, and the same is true spiritually. Just choosing to be ignorant and uninformed doesn't mean you'll be spiritually more healthy. And sometimes Christians get confused, and they think you have to attach intent in order to have a negative impact. Well, if I didn't intend to do something to make myself vulnerable, then I shouldn't be vulnerable. That is a very naive approach to life. I don't have to intend to subject myself to somebody who has a cold in order for me to be exposed, but sometimes exposure comes. It isn't about intent.

And so please don't use a lack of intent as a credible defense or imagination of spiritual protection. I don't believe it's legitimate. Sometimes God at his mercy and his grace protects us from things, and I'm very grateful for that. I don't ever want to diminish the role of God's grace and mercy, but I don't want to build a life that excuses any responsibility on my part, having done all the things God has shown me to do, then I'm very comfortable, fully relying on His grace and mercy. But if I ignore what God has shown me to do, if I ignore the Ten Commandments, if I ignore Jesus' teaching, if I ignore the clear counsel of Scripture,

then I don't think I'm relying upon God to protect me. I think I'm leading a presumptuous life. And I don't want to do that. and I don't want you to do that. So if we can accept the point that there are spiritual forces that want to help us and there's spiritual forces that oppose the purposes of God in our lives, then I think we can have a credible conversation about what to do with that. I want to recommend some resources.

If this is a new conversation to you, there's some books you can read that I think will help. One author who happens to be a friend of, well, both men were friends of mine. But Dr. Neil Anderson has written a variety of books, and has spent his life understanding this topic. And I think has done so in a way that is very approachable. If you come from a Christian tradition that didn't have a robust conversation around spiritual realities,

I think Dr. Anderson's thoughts and writings are very approachable and can be easily interpreted. One book is Victory Over the Darkness. And it's really grounded in your identity in Christ, which I'm going to talk about more. It's a very worthwhile read. The bondage breaker, overcoming negative thoughts, irrational feelings, and habitual sins, acknowledging that there are spiritual forces engaged in our lives that shape our lives

and our personalities and that our forces arrayed against us. What I like about the bondage breaker is it gives you some steps to freedom, some prayers that you can pray, that you can walk through, and the scriptural support for those prayers so that it doesn't require the intervention of somebody else. You know, I'm not, I think far too often when we have this conversation in Christian circles, we want somebody else to be our solution, somebody that has more experience than we have to bring us the answers, to distill it down and tell me the two things to do or to pray a prayer over us. I often call it the Naiman syndrome.

You know, Naiman was the leader of the Assyrian army that had leprosy, and when a servant told him that there was a prophet in Israel that could heal him, He lined up all of his permissions, presents himself at the Prophet's house. Then he's angry because they just send a message out and say, go dip yourself in the Jordan River. And Naiman's angry. He said, I thought you'd come out and clap your hands over the place where I were and say a prayer and I'd be healed. And I think most of us, at some time or other in our lives, have a name and attitude. We want somebody to pray a prayer for us.

Somebody to do our spiritual homework. Somebody to make the effort to distill it down. Somebody to teach us. and at the end of the day, the Holy Spirit is our teacher and we have our Bibles. I'm grateful for what we can learn from one another and from resources, whether it's a podcast or a sermon or however. But at the end of the day, the spirit of God within you and your Bible and a desire to be free are the most powerful forces to help you walk towards freedom. You don't have to have a connection with some person with a special insight. Isn't that good.

So don't give up your determination to be free. free, thinking somebody else can pray a prayer. The bondage breaker is a great resource for you, and the steps of freedom are great tools. And I wouldn't think about them in terms of, well, I read the book and I walked through the steps of freedom. Good. I would do it again. I would make it a part of my spiritual hygiene. You know, I've had a bath in the last week. In fact, I've had more than one. And I have a plan to have more than one in the day. ahead because I don't maintain my physical hygiene. It requires continuous attention.

I know there's a, anyway. The same as maintaining your physical health requires consistent ongoing attention. Your spiritual health is no different. And your spiritual cleanliness is no different. Another book I would recommend is by Derek Prince. It's called They Shall Expell Demons, What You Need to Know About Demons and Your Invisible Enemies. a very similar topic to what Dr. Anderson picks up.

Slightly different approach, different individual, different set of life experiences, but it will open a set of conversations for you derived from Scripture. Sometimes Christians spin off in arguments, and I don't think it's helpful. You know, I have a life practice that I encourage others towards is that if you and I can disagree on a point and still both go to heaven,

I will extend to you a hand to fellowship. and sometimes I think we draw lines in the sand around secondary and tertiary things, and then we limit our learning. We'll argue about how frequently we take communion, and whether the communion that we receive is with purple grape juice or red grape juice or fermented grape juice or not, or we will argue baptism, the appropriate place to be baptized, the appropriate timing to be baptized.

I have opinions about a lot of those things, or we'll argue eschatology, or the return of the Lord. Are we pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, no-trib, some other trib. And, you know, we become so animated and so determined to be right that we isolate ourselves from other believers.

Folks, you know, as far as eschatology goes, I went out of here on the first load up, but I want to prepare as if I have to live till the very end. And then I will trust God to lead me through that. And I have some opinions, but I don't want to bring division to the body of Christ. When it comes to the conversation about spiritual forces and demons, Christians get a little isolated. The New Testament, as I understand it, the word that is most frequently used when it deals with the people of the covenant and unclean spiritual forces.

And unclean spirits, evil spirits, demonic spirits, they're really interchangeable terms as they're used in the New Testament. and the most consistent way their impact on the people of faith is described as the people were demonized. It doesn't say typically that they were possessed. And I don't want to spend time in this podcast having the debate around possession, oppression, suppression, depression. I understand there's different meanings to those words. if we could establish a baseline that unclean spiritual forces can influence your life. And if that's the case, then what I would submit to you that we want to know is how to limit their influence or how to overcome their influence so that it is minimized or nullified.

If we can choose that pathway without having to descend into the full debate, for this session, I think it's adequate. it. And I believe that Dr. Anderson's books or Derek Prince's book will give you a beginning on that. I'll add one more and full candor, this is distilled from what I learned from both of those people. So I don't claim anything about this to be unique. But I've put together a little book. In fact, it was this year, your identity in Christ, 12 truths about who you are. I'm confident if you become very well-versed and who you're, are in Christ and you lead a life with the desire to honor God and to put him first in your life,

that the spirit of God will continually put you on a path towards spiritual freedom and liberty. But to imagine that you can attain spiritual freedom and liberty and maintain it and sustain it, apart from understanding who you are in Christ, seems very presumptive to me. So it's another great tool. I'm not working on a commission. So I'll put it in that list. When we talk about unclean spiritual forces, I think we unwittingly make ourselves vulnerable. The Council of Scripture is to not seek direction from any spirit other than the Holy Spirit.

So any time you and I put ourselves in a position of trying to get spiritual guidance, direction, insight, pictures of the future, apart from the person of the Holy Spirit, we make ourselves vulnerable. And there's a lot of ways that our culture encourages us to do that. Typically, we roll them up into a conversation around the occult, which, as I use the term, it typically means this pursuit of spiritual direction from something other than the Holy Spirit. It involves things like witchcraft, fortune-telling, Ouija boards, necromancy, when we contact the dead,

whether you call it a seance, whatever language you use around it, I think that whole set of behaviors biblically is prohibited. We're told not to do it. And I don't think it's God trying to limit our creativity. I think he's trying to protect us from spiritual forces and influences that are destructive. So I would encourage you to take the simple approach to Scripture and just not do that. And if you have done it, there's a simple little paradigm that I've invited people to, and it didn't originate with me.

It's come from Scripture. But it begins with repentance. God, I'm sorry. Rependance means a change of mind and a change of behavior. I'm sorry I did that, and I'm going to choose a new behavior. Forgive me. And then I want to renounce. I want to separate myself, and I'll say it out loud.

I want to separate myself from any influence that I open myself up to through my choices or by my behavior. Through the blood of Jesus, I have been set free. And then release. Sometimes there are other people that I need to forget. give or other institutions. There are some things I need to turn loose of. Maybe I bought books or paraphernalia or tools that you may have used in pursuit of the occult. I would separate myself from those. I wouldn't keep them around. I don't want any lucky charms or any talismans

or any of those things. I don't want to give place to anything physically in my life that is a connection to direction from an unclean spirit. I don't intend to do that, not on a purposeful way at all. So that little pattern of repenting, of renouncing, and of releasing is a great little trifecta for helping yourself walk through places of spiritual freedom. And if the Holy Spirit reminds you of something, if he reminds you of a time when you were young and you got involved, you went to see a fortune teller, I'm not adding shame to that. I'm simply saying, if you have the desire to bring alignment, say, God, I'm sorry. I did it unwittingly. I did it under the influence of an authority figure. I did it with a group of friends, but I repent of it. I want to renounce it

in Jesus name. Any way I open my life to anything unholy, I renounce it in the name of Jesus. And if there's anything there that needs to be released, then I will release it. And again, don't you, if you say, well, I didn't intend to do anything wrong. We lost a whole generation of Americans to the ravages of lung cancer caused principally from cigarette smoke. They didn't intend to cause lung cancer. We didn't have the knowledge to know it was destroying our physical bodies. But ignorance didn't protect them from the ravages of disease. And ignorance won't protect us from the ravages of spiritual forces of darkness.

So when the Spirit of God makes you aware of something, you don't need to feel threatened or ashamed or embarrassed or belittled or attacked. What I would submit is we want to be grateful. God, thank you for showing me that. And thank you now that I can walk out from under that. It doesn't have the power to define my future. So don't be involved in the occult. And if you have, ask the Lord, I trust the Spirit of God to bring a sense of being conviction, being ill at ease. You know how to distinguish between the Holy Spirit and an unholy spirit. The Spirit of God will convict you of ungodliness. He'll make you ill at ease with it, uncomfortable with it, but he will show you a

pathway of resolution. That is the pattern of the Spirit of God. An unholy spirit will always condemn you. We'll tell you that you're wrong, you're a failure, you're always going to be a failure, there's no chance you're going to outrun that, your future is sealed. That kind of condemnation that diminishes your worth and your value never comes from the Spirit of God. The whole point of the Jesus story is that Jesus came to this earth to deliver us from the kingdom of darkness. It's the ultimate search and rescue mission. The other characteristic of the Holy Spirit, he'll convict you, he'll make you uncomfortable, he'll make you ill at ease. When you know that he is calling you to an account, there's a forfeiture of peace, but he doesn't control you.

the Spirit of God will never force you to be holy. I have yet, in all of my years of ministry, I've yet to have a meeting with someone who said, you know, Pastor, I woke up this morning, and I just couldn't stop being holy. In fact, I wrote in my journal this morning, I want to be ungodly, and I've tried all day long, but I just couldn't be ungodly.

The Holy Spirit will never manipulate you, dominate you, and control you. An unholy spirit will do precisely that. I have sat with many, many people whose lives were unraveling because of very destructive behaviors. And without any identification on my part, they would say to me, I know that this behavior, this habit, this addiction, it's destroying me physically or it's destroying my relationships or it's destroying my finances. But I feel powerless to stop. That is the description of an unholy spirit. And if you're in one of those places, read the bondage breaker, walk through those steps of freedom.

Don't imagine you're a victim because there's not somebody else to do something for you. The Spirit of God will bring freedom to you. God designed our bodies to heal. When I came to that awareness, it changed my whole attitudes towards prayer, but it also changed my attitude towards health. We've got a responsibility to do everything we can to promote our own health. That means what we eat matters. Well, in our busy lives and all the things going on,

I have found I need little help with that. So supplements and vitamins, nutrients have become an important part of my own lifestyle. Jordan Rubin's a friend, so ancientnutrition.com has become a part of my daily routine. They're a sponsor of this podcast, not just because we needed a sponsor, but because I actually use the products and I believe in them. They have given us an opportunity for you. You can put in Back to Health 26. As a code, you'll get 26% off site wide on all the nutrients, all the supplements. Folks, eating healthy is important, but you can do some things to add to that.

Let's stay healthy so we can fulfill what God has for each one of us to do. That distinction between the Holy Spirit and his conviction and the unholy spirit and his condemnation and his control is a powerful litmus test in your life. Do not, if you recognize a behavior path and that you are forfeiting control of your emotions, of your will, it's not a, good thing, even if in the moment it feels good. Temptation, the reason it's a temptation is it promises something that looks very attractive at the point of initiation. Even the Bible describes the pleasure of sin for a season. Ungodliness is not without attraction, but the backside of ungodliness is destruction. And so the essence of temptation is we're invited to something that feels satisfactory, pleasing, pleasant, that brings happiness to us. But the pursuit of that, unbridled,

brings complete destruction. And so to have the help of the Spirit of God and the information that comes from the Word of God, the prohibitions that we have from Scripture to keep us away from ungodliness, that helps us frame temptation. Oh, I know the Bible says I shouldn't do that, but I want to do that. We write all sorts of country songs about that, that tension. And to have the self-discipline, the courage, a community who will help you, say no to ungodliness, and yes to godliness, is because we don't want to pay the tax, the burden,

walk through the pain and destruction of ungodliness. Asking Jesus to forgive us does not always unwind the consequences of our ungodliness. So when you're saying no, a temptation, recognize there's a spiritual force on the other side of that. You know, we all have a carnal nature. The Bible talks about our earthly nature, our Adamic nature, that even when we're born again, we still live in this earth suit. And we have a soul, all of which are subject to the frailties and the weaknesses of that

Adamic nature. In Galatians, it talks about the fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh. And we have to overcome the works of the flesh. and the only biblical prescription for overcoming the works of the flesh, you can't cast it out. You can't renounce it. You can't quote enough scripture to make your old fleshly nature recede. The only way to overcome that fleshly nature and those desires, you know, anger, jealousy, lust. You can read it.

It's in Galatians. You can read the list for yourself. The only way to overcome those ultimately, the Bible says, is we have to put them to death, not physically ourselves to death, but we have to crucify that old nature. And the best description I ever heard for that, how do you help a puppy defeat a lion? Because typically my old nature feels more like a lion

facing the puppy-like qualities of my desire to honor the Lord. Well, if you feed the puppy and starve the lion, the day will come where the puppy can overcome the lion. And so don't do anything consciously that will feed those worst expressions. of your carnal nature. So it becomes important. What you watch, what you listen to, what you talk about, what you think about. That's where the renewing of our mind becomes important. That's why reading your Bible on a regular basis is so important. It doesn't mean that you understand everything

you read or you know how to pronounce every name or you understand where every city is and you could find it on a map or that you even understand every principle. But that consistent daily subjection to the authority of the Word of God and the invitation it represents to the Spirit of God begins to impact your spiritual formation and it shapes your character. Choosing with your discretionary time to spend time with people who encourage godliness, it will promote godliness in your life. If you spend your discretionary time with people who promote ungodliness and you call it evangelism, you are giving license in your imagination, in your behavior, and to your future,

I can't afford that. I simply can't afford that. I have people in my sphere of influence that are not godly, that don't seek the Lord. But I don't typically order my private life and my discretionary time to give to those persons because I need the strength and the reinforcement and the refining that comes from people who have an interest in pleasing the Lord. Doesn't mean all we sit around and talk about is the Lord. We lead normal lives and talk about normal things.

but I want to spend my discretionary time with people who've accepted godly biblical boundaries because that's what I want to be reinforced in my own life. I don't need help in creating temptation. I need help in maintaining my boundaries towards godliness and holiness and righteousness and purity. And I suspect you do as well. I don't like to watch movies that are terror-based. I'm not saying that they don't have some of them. appeal. I was just chosen not to open my mind and my spirit to those movies that are based on

terror or based on spiritual, the occult. I just, I don't need that. I don't like movies where evil is celebrated, where the evil characters are presented as being virtuous. I just, I don't need that extra tension in my life. And on this point, Christians get weird. You've probably known some. You know, Disney is in my adult life has turned into a purveyor of a lot of darkness and witchcraft and wickedness. But the Disney of 40 and 50 years ago was an innocent version of Disney compared to what they have been representing in recent decades. So I don't want you to turn into something, you know, I have Christian friends who won't celebrate Christmas, for instance, And they'll say, well, Jesus wasn't born on December the 25th.

No, duh. Okay, you got me. I mean, I wasn't there, but I think it's probably a legitimate assumption. He wasn't born. And that December the 25th is dangerously close to the winter solstice, and it was a pagan holiday for a long time, and therefore Christians should have nothing to do with a Christmas celebration. And they certainly don't want a tree in the house,

and they're not going to unwrap any packages, and they're going to be happy Christians. Well, I'm not an advocate for worshipping trees. I would not push you towards druidism. I don't want you to worship on the winter solstice. I do believe that the entry of the Son of God into the world, that the incarnation, that God's sending his son into the world, is something that is worthy of our acknowledgement.

It's worthy of an annual reinforcement. And Christmas is the season. See, I derive far more joy from a culture that completely disrupts its normal routine around the celebration of the birth of my Lord and King, I find far more joy in that than I do offense at the day they've chosen to celebrate. I don't believe Christmas is about a fat guy in a red suit. I don't believe Christmas is about reindeer that fly. I don't imagine that a tree in the living room produces gifts underneath it automatically. I'm not confused about any of those points. I understand that Jesus is the center of the season. On the other hand, I'm not offended by a

Christmas tree. And I enjoy exchanging Christmas gifts. I've lived in cultures where that was illegal and where it wasn't encouraged and I had to celebrate Christmas in a very private way, in a covert way. And so I'm very grateful. It makes me smile to walk into a store and have them playing traditional Christmas music. Their motives are probably not right. They're probably driven by a profit motive, but they are inadvertently drawing attention to the arrival of my Lord and King, and I love it. So when I tell you not to be weird, I'm not asking you to separate yourself so completely from our culture that you're bizarre. I'm asking you to think about how to lead a life that is spiritually clean. I have friends that border on being germophobes. You know, they don't want to

touch a public doorknob. They're better acquainted with Purell than I am. I don't begrudge them that. And I'm not asking you to become a spiritual germaphobe. I don't want you to imagine there's a demon hiding behind every bush or that something is going to jump on you if you have an unguarded thought. I trust the grace and mercy of God. Having said that, I try to practice good physical hygiene habits. I try to eat a reasonably healthy diet. I try to exercise with some consistency. And I believe in divine healing, but I'm not asking God to compensate for my lack of care for the temple. While I believe in grace and mercy, I believe I have a responsibility for maintaining spiritual cleanliness. And that's what I would invite you to. If you've engaged in things

that make you vulnerable, repent and renounce and release, read a book, educate yourself a little bit. You say, I go to a tradition, we don't talk about those things. I'm not telling you have to leave the church you're in, but you don't have to stay as ignorant as the leadership that you've subjected yourself to. Invest the effort in learning. It's unacceptable to me that we would allow secular Hollywood to have a more vibrant imagination of spiritual things than we do is Christ followers. And so engage in the conversation. Give the Lord permission to help you.

And if you'll allow one more suggestion, don't use your awareness of spiritual things to belittle other people. You know, I don't think Harry Potter is a force for good. I don't like encouraging children to think about magic and the occult and the supernatural. And if somebody asks me, I will tell them that. I'll even do it in front of a camera. On the other hand, I don't stand in front of people's houses who I have seen purchase Harry Potter books and say, you've invited the devil into your home. It isn't helpful.

And we've got to have the wisdom to understand. If somebody asks for your opinion, you can share it. You can share it with compassion and grace and mercy. Don't wield the truth like a hammer. Every day brings new reasons to worry. Family. finances, health, the future. Sometimes it feels like the weight of tomorrow

steals the peace we're meant to enjoy today. But Jesus gives us a different invitation. In Matthew chapter 6, he tells us, do not worry, not because life will always be easy, but because our Heavenly Father is faithful. In the updated book, Freedom from Worry, Pastor Alan Jackson shares practical, biblical encouragement to help you replace anxiety with confidence in God's promises.

Through scripture, discussion questions, memory verses, and daily reflections, you'll discover practical ways to experience the peace Jesus offers every day. Request your copy of Freedom from Worry with your gift of $20 or more at allanjaxon.com or call 800-8805102. Jesus came to set us free. You know, the image that's presented in the new, Testament is that Jesus delivered us from our bondage to sin, and I'll wrap with this analogy. In the Roman world, slavery was widely practiced, still practiced in the world. More slaves in the world

today than at any time in human history. I read that statistic this week. But in the Roman world, when a country was conquered, it wasn't uncommon for some portion of that population to be sold as slaves. And they'd be in some public setting, a public square, some public arena, typically would have been Roman soldiers around, they would drive a spear into a wall, into a pole, and maybe you'd be stood on a platform, but to be stood underneath the spear in a public square, it was understood you were being sold into slavery. It's a very humiliating place. A highly degree of probability you'd be naked. And people would come and examine you to decide your worth and your value. When you're being sold as a slave. You could be sold as a slave for noble purposes or some very debased purposes

because you are void of any determination. That decision is being made by the purchaser. That's the image in the New Testament that you and I are in the public slave market being sold under the spear and Jesus walked into the slave market and paid the price. For you and for me to be delivered from the kingdom of darkness, that we could come into his eternal kingdom. We were delivered from bondage to sin. And then the invitation is don't allow yourself to enter into that bondage again. So I don't want to lead a presumptive life upon the sacrifice that Jesus made for me. I am very willing to call him Lord and King for what he's done for me. And the way I honor the sacrifice he made that I might know that freedom is I'm very interested in leading my life in a way that finds the fullest expression of

that freedom that he sacrificed so fully. I don't want to know the minimum I can do. I want to know how closely I can walk to the Lord. With my vegetables, I want to know what the minimal daily requirement is on kale and how many donuts are allowable. But it comes to walking with the Lord, I want to walk as far away as I can from the darkness and as close to the direction of the spirit of God as I can. And so if that leads me to daily Bible reading and daily prayer and intentional community with people who prefer godliness over ungodliness and attending a worship service, even though every time I attend it may not be affirming for me or encouraging or even

feel meaningful to me, I will engage in those behaviors because I have a desire to walk as close to the Lord to initiate and sustain as much momentum towards godliness as I'm capable of doing. If you'll do that, I have complete confidence. The Spirit of God will put you on a path that will bring freedom to your life. You don't have to be afraid of unclean spirits or demonic influences, but you need to recognize they exist. If you choose not to be aware of them, I promise you they're aware of you. And ignorance is not a good defense.

So inform yourself with the Word of God. God, become familiar with the person of the Holy Spirit, know the boundaries that God has given us, and choose to honor them. When you ignore God's boundaries, you make yourself vulnerable to unclean, destructive spiritual forces. Don't do that on purpose. Don't confuse success with spiritual health. Don't confuse accolades and affirmation, fame, big platforms with spiritual health. Let's humble before the Lord comply with the simple scriptures that you know the truth that you know and if there is further truth that is necessary for you to have freedom I have complete confidence God will bring that truth to your awareness we'll work on

this topic some more I know I've just opened the door but I thought on the heels of the documentary that Billy had done it was worth having a little further discussion God's moving in the earth I want to be a part of that I know you do too you keep seeking the Lord and he will lead you. Thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear

about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure and subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries' YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity Podcast. You can do that on Spotify, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith. We can change our culture.

I'll see you next time.