Why does the Bible say Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil if Satan still operates in the world today? The Word of God reveals that Jesus did not merely challenge the kingdom of darkness—He decisively stripped Satan of his authority through His death, burial, resurrection, and exaltation. Yet believers are called to enforce that victory through obedience, love, holiness, prayer, faith, and Spirit-empowered living. This study explores how first-mile discipleship preserves a believer’s walk with God while second-mile living actively advances the Kingdom by blessing others, rescuing the lost, and pushing back darkness. Discover the connection between obedience and spiritual authority, why heaven is characterized by perfect obedience to God, how Jesus modeled second-mile living, and how ordinary acts of love, service, intercession, and faith become powerful tools for dismantling the influence of darkness in the earth. Every act of obedience strengthens the advance of God’s Kingdom and demonstrates the triumph of Jesus Christ. Why Your Life Is A Weapon That Enforces Jesus Victory, that’s our focus on this week’s Light on Life.

This Week: Obey God. Bless People. Push Back Darkness.

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Accept the Challenge

Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This weeks call is:

This week, take one deliberate second-mile step.

Not just avoiding sin. Not just keeping yourself clean.

Go beyond preservation into participation.

Your challenge: Obey promptly when the Holy Spirit nudges you.

Bless one person intentionally.

Pray for one person in need.

Forgive one offense completely.

Share Christ with one unbeliever.

Serve where it costs you something.

Remember: First-mile living keeps you.

Second-mile living multiplies you.

This week’s challenge is simple: Obey God. Bless people. Push back darkness.

Join the Conversation

Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believers life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).

This week’s question is:

Question: Has obedience become delight for you, or does it still feel mostly like duty? Have you ever seen an act of love dismantle darkness in someone’s life? What spiritual weapons do you need to take out of the closet and start practicing again?

Share: Where do you see God calling you from first-mile living into second-mile living? Is there someone you need to serve, forgive, encourage, pray for, or reach with the Gospel this week?

Remember: The Kingdom advances when ordinary believers obey God in extraordinary ways.

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 49 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 45 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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Podcast Notes:

• Well again, welcome.
• Let’s pray.

Father God, thank you for Jesus. Thank you for His life of obedience unto God and for us. Help us to understand His life, so we can understand the way in which we are to walk so that we can be fully pleasing to you. We know that this will come by your precious Holy Spirit living inside of us. And so we look to you and we look to Him this day in Jesus’ Name, we pray Amen.

1 John 3:8 (NASB 2020) — 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.

• The word ‘destroy’ does not mean eradicate or annihilate.
• A missile hits a plane and there is an explosion and when the smoke clears, there is no more plane.
• That’s not what happened at Calvary with the Resurrection of Jesus.
• What really happened is that Jesus stripped Satan of his authority giving it back to man and by so doing He undid His Kingdom.
• What do we mean ‘undid his kingdom?’
• Well, imagine a ruthless king who rules a vast territory through fear, deception, and intimidation.
• His power seems absolute.
• His subjects obey because they don’t have any choice.
• One day, a freedom-fighter enters this kingdom.
• He does not begin by fighting every soldier, tearing down every prison, or chasing every official.
• Instead, he discovers the source of the king’s authority—a royal seal hanging in his chambers that validates every decree, every arrest warrant, every tax demand, and every military order.
• The freedom-fighter takes the seal and destroys it.
• At first, nothing appears to change.
• The soldiers still wear their uniforms.
• The prisons still stand.
• The officials under the king still shout commands.
• The king still sits on his throne.
• But something fundamental has happened.
• Every order he issues is now legally worthless.
• Every claim of authority is a lie.
• Every threat is backed up by nothing.
• The king continues shouting because that is all he knows how to do.
• Many subjects continue obeying because they have not yet learned that this kings seal has been broken.
• But as the news spreads, people begin walking free.
• Guards abandon their posts.
• Prison doors are opened.
• Entire regions stop acknowledging the tyrant’s authority.
• The kingdom is not transformed because the king was annihilated that day.
• It is transformed because the foundation of his authority was destroyed.
• That is what Jesus did at the Cross.
• Satan still shouts.
• He still threatens.
• He still deceives.
• But through His death, burial, resurrection, and exaltation, Jesus stripped away the legal foundation of Satan’s dominion.
• The enemy’s kingdom still makes noise, but its authority has been broken.
• We are not trying to defeat Satan—we are announcing and enforcing the victory Jesus already won.

Colossians 2:15 (NASB 2020) — 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.

• The Greek word disarmed means to remove or to strip away.
• Literally stripping his weaponry and artillery from him and leaving him without any weapons with which to respond¹
• Jesus didn’t just loosen Satan’s shoelaces.
• He burned up His entire wardrobe.
• The seal of his authority is gone.
• The complete removal of Satan’s kingdom is only a matter of time.
• You see this same concept one chapter earlier in First John.

1 John 2:17 (NASB 2020) — 17 The world is passing away and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God continues to live forever.

• The world system, authored by Satan, is on Hospice.
• It’s passing away.
• But, it’s still here as First John five tells us.

1 John 5:19 (NASB 2020) — 19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

• The words ‘in the power’ are not in the Greek.
• Satan doesn’t have legal authority in the earth.
• It has been stripped from Him.
• With all of this as a backdrop, let’s talk about why and how our lives are real-time tools to further the demolition of Satan’s kingdom.
• Your life is a weapon for good and for God.

Taking Your Weapons Out of The Storage Closet

Hebrews 5:12–14 (NASB 2020) — 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the actual words of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unacquainted with the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to distinguish between good and evil.

• Did you hear the phrase ‘because of practice?’
• Wuest says this: ‘But solid food belongs to those who are [spiritually] mature, to those who on account of long usage have their powers of perception exercised to the point where they are able to discriminate between both that which is good in character and that which is evil.’
• Practice—long usage: the Greek word conveys the idea of constant use through repeated practice.²
• Repeated practice is a habit achieved through repetition and sustained engagement until it becomes second nature.³
• The sustained use of specific areas of God’s Word cultivated over an extended period of time, is what makes you highly effective for God in enforcing the victory of Jesus.
• Get your tools out of the closet and start using them.
• In your closet are spiritual pieces of armor that both protects and penetrates darkness.
• These pieces of armor represent spiritual attitudes you must use and maintain.
• In your closet is fruit that conquers all.
• The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace against which the enemy has no defense.
• But you have to be in the practice of love—the practice of engaging in the fruit of the recreated born again human spirit.
• Not just talking about it—but putting it to a constant, habitual use.
• And with that thought here is the Illustration of the Day.
• Nicky Cruz was a violent gang leader of the Mau Maus in New York City.
• He hated Christians and openly threatened David Wilkerson, a suburban pastor whom God sent into New York City to minister life to the gangs.
• During one encounter Cruz told Wilkerson he could kill him.
• Wilkerson responded with words to this effect:

You could cut me into a thousand pieces and lay them in the street, and every piece would still love you.

• Now think about that.
• Nicky knew how to handle the weapons of his world: fear, intimidation, threats, hatred, and violence.
• These were the weapons of darkness.
• But Nicky had he had no defense against unconditional love.
• It dismantled him.
• Those words “You could cut me into a thousand pieces and lay them in the street, and every piece would still love you” stayed with Nicky Cruz.
• And, eventually he gave his life to Jesus and became an evangelist himself.
• You see love dissolves the kingdom of darkness.
• Nicky Cruz knew how to fight hatred with hatred.
• But, he did not know how to fight love.
• Practice using your weapons.
• Just like David Wilkerson, your life can become a weapon for good and for God.
• Obey God. Bless People. Push Back Darkness.

Second Mile Living Destroys Satan’s Kingdom

Matthew 5:41 (NASB 2020) — 41 Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.

• Rome, as the great conquerer of the Jewish world, implemented a travel law.
• Any Roman individual on a trip could enlist a Jewish person to carry their bags with one proviso.
• They could only exact the forced labor for one mile.
• Jesus knowing the power of God’s love, axed the one mile limit and instructed all who heard Him to ‘go the second mile.’
• Think of your Jesus walk in terms of the second mile.
• The first mile is duty.
• The second mile is devotion.
• The first mile is fueled by discipline.
• The second mile by love.
• Duty or discipline reads one chapter in the Bible everyday because it knows it’s supposed to.
• Devotional love doesn’t count the chapters.
• You read because you want to know God.
• You pray because you want to know God.
• You go to church because you want to know God.
• Salvation is free—but effectiveness costs.
• It costs you time.
• The greatest impact for God occurs in the second mile.
• The first mile keeps you out of trouble.
• The second mile helps somebody else out of trouble.
• The first mile protects your walk with God.
• The second mile extends God’s influence into the lives of others.
• The first mile preserves you.
• The second mile advances the Kingdom.
• Saying this another way.
• Your personal holiness is not the full mission.
• Dismantling Satan’s kingdom by rescuing lost men is.
• Saying this more simply.
• First-mile living keeps you out of the ditch.
• Second-mile living helps pull somebody else out of the ditch.
• When enemies are loved, offenders are forgiven, needs are met, burdens are carried, extra prayers are prayed, and men turn to Jesus, the territory that once belonged to darkness shrinks.
• Discipline is the doorway—Devotion is the destination.
• And that’s why you are here in the Kingdom for this time and this place.
• Obey God. Bless People. Push Back Darkness.

First Mile Living Means Keeps You Clean

• Now, this doesn’t mean that we should negate first mile living.
• To get to the second mile, you must walk the first one.
• But you must keep walking—not shut down operations because you have attained a little.

Philippians 3:14 (NASB 2020) — 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

• Discipline and duty lead to holiness and they are a must.
• For those who bear the weapons of God must be clean.
• With that, there are five specific ‘clean verses’ I want you to know in the New Testament.
• These verses have the words “keep yourself” in them.

Acts 15:29 (NASB 2020) — 29 That you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from acts of sexual immorality; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well.

1 Timothy 5:22 (NASB 202) — 22 Do not lay hands upon anyone too quickly and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others; keep yourself free from sin.

James 1:27 (NASB 202) — 27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

1 John 5:21 (NASB 202) — 21 Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

• The word word ‘guard’ is the same word keep in the other verses.

Jude 21 (NASB 202) — 21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

• And, with that thought, here is the Definition of the Day.
• The phrase ‘keep yourself’ means just that, to keep yourself or abstain.
• The root of this Greek word denotes active preservation through obedience and vigilance.
• Now, put this definition back into these verses.
• Be vigilant and obedient to never be caught in sexual immorality.
• That’s first mile living.
• Did you know Satan’s primary fiery dart against ministers is sexual temptation?
• Ask yourself, what have you really accomplished by keeping yourself sexually pure?
• You’ve kept your life from being destroyed.
• Now, that’s good proper, proper, and right, but the mission goes beyond keeping yourself.
• The gospel is helping rescue others from darkness.
• In reality, the first four verses are intertwined.
• Listen to them, keep yourself from sexual immorality, sin, unstained, and idols are all centered around holy living.
• What do you think about the fifth verse, ‘keep yourself in the love of God?’
• Notice that the first four verses are things you keep yourself from.
• But when you get to Jude 21 it says ‘Keep yourself IN the love of God.
• When we get to the love of God, now we are getting over into second mile living.
• Romans 13:8 is the crossover between the first and second mile.

Romans 13:8 (NASB 2020) — 8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for the one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the Law.

• The Law consisted of the Ten Commandments the majority of which are ‘thou shalt not’ commandments.
• You have done your neighbor no harm.
• Because here’s the thing—your neighbor doesn’t even know that you ‘kept yourself’ from these sins.
• You haven’t hurt your neighbor but you haven’t helped him either.
• You may have spent years avoiding certain sins, but how has that actively blessed people?
• If you help your neighbor, now you’ve added something to them.
• You need to crossover.
• If you encourage the discouraged, you’ve added something to them.
• If you pray for the sick, you’ve added something to them.
• If you share Jesus with the lost, you’ve added something to them.
• If you pray for your nation so the Gospel can move freely, you’ve added something to countless others.
• There is no value that you can place on that.
• It’s second mile living.

The Life of Obedience Dismantles Darkness

• Now here’s a question of epic proportions.
• And with that thought, here is the Question of the Day.
• Here’s the question.

What is heaven like?

• Consider a soldier gone off to battle.
• Pick a war, any war—the Civil War, the Korean War or Desert Storm.
• The story is the same.
• A soldier spends months, even years away from home.
• The battle is over—the war is won and this soldier gets to go home.
• But is the house the focal point for this soldier?
• Or is it, ‘who is in the house?’
• What makes heaven is who is in the house.
• Loved ones who have gone on before are in the house.
• But that’s not what makes heaven, heaven.
• Bible men of faith and power are there as well.
• But neither do Moses, Elijah, and the prophets make heaven, heaven.
• There is unending, peace, joy, and praise in heaven.
• But neither do these attributes make heaven, heaven.
• But there is one who sits on the Throne of The Universe, His name is Yahweh.
• To Him everyone flocks.
• Everyone wants to see Him.
• Everyone wants to meet Jesus who sits right beside Yahweh.
• But there is one common characteristic that makes heaven, heaven.
• Heaven is a place where God’s agenda is completely carried out at all times, in every place, and in every way.
• Everyone in heaven does the will of God—everyone.
• From the saints down to angels, everyone obeys God.
• The life of obedience is the life of heaven.
• There is zero disobedience in heaven—zero.
• The last fella that disobeyed God was hurled out of heaven with the extraordinary and mighty power of God, to the earth.
• It was no struggle at all for God to hurl Satan out of heaven.
• Satan’s downfall was disobedience.
• You master obedience—you master Satan.
• You master obedience— you master the world system.
• The lesson is simple for all earth dwellers—to dismantle darkness obey God.

James 4:7 (NASB 2020) — 7 Submit therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

• The word ‘submit’ means to be subordinate.⁴
• Simplified to everyday language, the word means to obey.
• The word ‘submit’ carries military tones, that is placing, yourself under God the Father, the Commander and Chief.
• We are not talking halfhearted commitments here.⁵
• All of heaven obeys.
• All of earth should do the same.
• Since you know that obedience is part of what makes heaven, heaven—shouldn’t we be practicing that in this life since it carries over to the next?

Jesus: Your Example of Obedience

• Now, how does obedience dismantle darkness?
• The connection to darkness is disobedience.

1 John 2:6–9 (NASB 2020) — 6 the one who says that he remains in Him ought, himself also, walk just as He walked. 7 Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. 8 On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. 9 The one who says that he is in the Light and yet hates his brother or sister is in the darkness until now.

• Disobedience is the connection to darkness.
• Obedience to God dismantles darkness by severing this connection.
• Now, we come to Jesus and He is wonderful and God was so smart in how He pulled redemption off.

Hebrews 5:8 (NASB 2020) — 8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.

• So, think about this statement.
• He learned obedience.
• Why did He have to learn it—He came to die for your sins and mine.
• Yes, He did but it was a more complex plan that simply stated end-goal.
• If Jesus only came to die, why didn’t the Father God allow Herod to kill Him when He was a baby?
• You see there had to be a way to get men to God but then there had to be a way for men to walk with God once they got to Him.
• Jesus broke down the wall of sin but He also laid the highway for you to know God.
• That’s why He had to learn obedience as an example for you.

1 Peter 2:21 (NASB 2020) — 21 For you have been called for this purpose, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you would follow in His steps,

• Put these two verse together: How did Jesus suffer? — by learning obedience.
• So Jesus didn’t just suffer by way of persecution.
• Of course at the end, we know what He went through at the cross was by being separated from God was ultimate suffering.
• There were things that Jesus had to submit himself to in obedience to God that shaped His life and laid a path for yours.

Matthew 3:13–17 (NASB 2020) — 13 Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan, coming to John to be baptized by him. 14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I have the need to be baptized by You, and yet You are coming to me?” 15 But Jesus, answering, said to him, “Allow it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him. 16 After He was baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and settling on Him, 17 and behold, a voice from the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

• The baptism of John was the baptism of repentance.
• You find that reference in Acts 13.

Acts 13:23–25 (NASB 2020) — 23 From the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, 24 after John had proclaimed, before His coming, a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. 25 And while John was completing his course, he kept saying, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not He. But behold, one is coming after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’

• The baptism of repentance?—here’s the question.
• What did Jesus have to repent for?
• He never sinned—not one time.
• All of the other people whom John baptized that day were repenting for some sin that they had committed.
• Here comes someone—he enters into the waters having stole something from his neighbor.
• Here comes another— she enters the waters, having spoken ill of her husband.
• You get the idea.
• All of the people John baptized were repenting for something they had done— that’s why it is called the baptism of repentance.
• But Jesus never sinned.
• What is He doing in the waters?
• Here is what He is doing— he is identifying with you.
• But, He had humble Himself to do that.
• Do you think this might’ve been difficult for Jesus—to live a perfect thirty-years of life and then submit to the waters of John’s baptism like an everyday sinner?

Obedience Under Pressure

• Jesus learned obedience from the things He suffered.
• He did that for you—that’s second mile territory.

1 Corinthians 11:23 (AMP) — 23 For I received from the Lord Himself that which I passed on to you [it was given to me personally], that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was treacherously delivered up and while His betrayal was in progress took bread,

• Did you hear the words while His betrayal was in progress?
• Jesus was taking communion knowing that at the same time people were outside the door trying to kill Him.
• What does this communicate to you?
• It shows obedience under pressure.
• Not obedience when things are easy.
• Obedience when everything is collapsing.
• Jesus knew what those elements meant, His body broken for healing, His blood poured out for sin.
• Jesus maintained devotion and obedience right in the face of His tormentors preparing His death.
• What would you do in this case?
• Would you maintain devotion right to the end?
• Can you see that the life of obedience is the match that lights the fires of spiritual renewal?
• Not your renewal only—but the renewal of others.
• Think of a blazing fire for a moment.
• No, it’s a single match lit that can cause a fire to light that will benefit others.
• But, what about the match?
• No one remembers the match.
• It is burned up starting the fire.
• The match gave it’s life so that others may be lit.
• That’s the life of obedience and that’s second mile living at it’s best.
• Every time you obey God and bless another person, darkness loses ground and the victory of Jesus is enforced.
• Obey God. Bless people. Push back darkness.

How to Enforce the Victory of Jesus

• So what do we do with all of this?
• First, keep yourself clean.
• Keep yourself from sin.
• Keep yourself from idols.
• Keep yourself unstained from the world.
• Holiness still matters.
• But don’t stop there.
• Holiness is the doorway—not the destination.
• The mission is bigger than simply staying out of trouble.
• Cross over into second-mile living.
• Look for someone to help.
• Look for someone to encourage.
• Look for someone to pray for.
• Look for someone to serve.
• Look for someone to lead to Jesus.
• Every act of obedience weakens darkness.
• Every expression of love advances the Kingdom.
• Every soul rescued from sin is a way for heaven to rejoice.
• Never forget it:
• Jesus destroyed the legal foundation of Satan’s kingdom.
• We are not fighting for victory.
• We are enforcing the victory that Jesus already won.
• So this week, take your weapons out of the closet.
• Practice love.
• Practice obedience.
• Practice serving others.
• Practice second-mile living.
• Obey God.
• Bless people.
• Push back darkness.
• That’s how the victory of Jesus is enforced in the earth.
• Bow your head, let’s pray and commit to the Father God.

Now Father God, thank you for your Word. We commit right now to a life of obedience—to a life of doing whatever the Word says do and whatever the Holy Spirit says to our spirits to do. We say YES to your will and to your way. All the glory goes to your Name for these things, in Jesus’ Name Amen.

• ### Continue Your Growth Journey
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• Subscribe, share this episode with someone who needs encouragement to keep praying, and visit emeryhorvath.com for more Bible teaching designed to help you stand strong in the victory Jesus has already won.
• Why Your Life Is A Weapon That Enforces Jesus’ Victory.
• You guys have a great God week and we will see you next time for another edition of Light on Life.

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