We could begin with a word of prayer this morning.
Lord, what can we say, Lord, when we are brought before Thee into Thy presence, Lord Jesus, other than, “You are worthy”? Lord Jesus, You are the worthy One.
O Lord, Your ways are so much higher than our ways; Your thoughts are so much greater, not only in scope but in depth. Lord, we are just dust of the earth, quickened alive through Jesus Christ.
We come back to You this morning, Lord, as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the One who triumphed over all opposition to You and Your throne on Calvary’s Cross.
Lord, what great victory was wrought there in the hour which seemed to be the world’s greatest hour of despair. You turned despair into victory. Lord Jesus, You overcame and overthrew principalities, powers of darkness, and evil.
Lord, I can imagine that all the greatest forces of all hell were focused on one Person that day. It was Yourself. And in death, You triumphed over death, Lord. We come this morning in the victory of the Lamb. What precious, precious truth.
Lord, how marvelous to know that this victory was not just Your victory, but it is our victory. Lord, may we learn how to stand in the victory of the Lamb for Your glory and for Your name’s sake.
Lord, we ask this morning that You would reveal Yourself to our hearts, that the things we need to know, hear, and understand will be made clear; that You will anoint us both to speak and to hear Your word, Lord. May these not become doctrines to be stored away in the annals of our minds and eventually lost. But Lord Jesus, may they become the power of God in us. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Well, last week I shared on our enemy, Satan, and I wanted to make it clear from the very start that our focus—our eyes—always have to be on Jesus. But the Word of God is also very clear that we have an adversary. He may be defeated at Calvary’s Cross, but he is still here and works his wiles against us, and we have to be aware of that.
The Word encourages us in James 4:7. It says:
Resist the devil, and he will flee.
And obviously that means that we encounter resistance in our lives.
My burden last time, two weeks ago, was really to once again rekindle our awareness that we are in a great warfare—a tremendous warfare, a tremendous battle, the battle of the ages—won in Jesus Christ, but which has to be made real and effective in our lives personally as we live on this earth.
It has to be yours. That victory has to become your victory. And it is an intense, ever-going battle.
My concern last week was that, often in our lives, we can become very passive. The example I used was World War II, when the United States sat by relatively passively and watched for two years.
Until December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor. We could no longer be passive at that point. We had taken a direct frontal attack—a tremendous attack. It almost destroyed our entire Navy.
That war had implications of the antichrist, which I brought out last week. It is all part of this tremendous warfare that is going on in the spiritual realm around us all the time. I wanted us to be aware of that and to be alive to the fact that something is happening. You have an adversary in your life, and we have to know the reality of that.
At the same time, it was not my intention to scare anyone or frighten anyone, because even though there is a great host of wicked ones arrayed against us, we have Jesus Christ as the perfect Victor and as our Leader.
I do need to clarify one thing, because you always have to tell the truth, particularly when you are speaking and it is going on the internet.
I mentioned Hitler, being a kind of preview of the antichrist, and I mentioned that he was a plumber. That is not entirely accurate, is it? Jim says, “No,” and shakes his head now. Not entirely accurate.
Actually, I was challenged on that matter, so I went back and tried to figure out where I came up with the thought of him being a plumber. What I could find out was that he really wanted to be an artist. I wish he had become an artist instead of what he did.
He kind of bummed around construction sites and picked up jobs here and there, from what I could read and understand. Is that right, Jim? Paperhanger? So he did a little oddball work like that. Actually, he was a maintenance man.
For all of you who are not familiar with me, I am the director of maintenance for the Rich and Reveling Housing Authorities, so it is kind of close to home when we talk about maintenance.
But the point I was making was that for a person like that to come into such power, there was a power behind him to bring him into such prominence.
Last week, I also wanted to share some of the wiles of the enemy. His wiles are not exactly temptations. Temptations are pretty obvious to us when they come. His wiles are his deceptions: the way in which he tricks us, the way in which he gets us to turn away from Jesus Christ, and the way in which he gets us to accept lies in our lives and create great havoc personally.
We are encouraged in Ephesians 6:
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
The wiles of the devil—his deceptive ways. He is cloaked most of the time. I know on Star Trek they have this marvelous cloaking device. You can be in this great battle, and all of a sudden your enemies disappear from your video screen. You cannot see them, but then all of a sudden you get hammered with a couple of phasers, and your shields are knocked out.
Well, that is kind of what happens to us a lot of times. The adversary is cloaked most of the time, and you just do not recognize him until the phaser hits you. His idea is to take your shield out, which we will find out is the shield of faith, so that he can get to us.
I will briefly review some of the things we have talked about. One of the great resources he has is our mind. He is able to put thoughts into our mind. He is able to plant little seeds there that are not exactly right—little lies that he gives to us at times.
An example I used was Eve. Eve was taken down. The enemy wanted to get to Adam, and he could not get to Adam directly because he knew Adam would see through what he was trying to do. Adam had direct revelation from God about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So first of all, he said, “Eve, I want you to think about this tree here in the garden,” and she started thinking. The next thing we know, Satan is saying, “Hath God said?” He put a seed of doubt in Eve’s mind about God.
How often in our lives, brothers and sisters, does the enemy put seeds of doubt about God in our own hearts? For the unbeliever, he says God does not exist. He convinces them that God does not exist. He convinces them that he does not exist. These are myths created by man because they need something, a crutch to hang on to.
Well, let me say this much: God is not a crutch. He is the Creator. He has created us with purpose. Until our hearts and lives are aligned with His purpose, our lives are out of order and in disorder, totally open to all these assaults—particularly the thought that God does not exist, or that He is some distant God out there who is very hard and difficult.
Some of us have been left with that impression through the years. But the enemy could not get to Adam that way, so he went to Eve and convinced her that God was holding something back. And she bought it.
She went to Adam, and Adam fell—not because he did not understand what he was doing, because the Word of God is very clear. It says Adam was not deceived.
But Adam’s affection for Eve—the enemy got to Adam through his affections for Eve. Legitimate affections. Real affection.
But by the time the enemy had gotten to Adam, his heart was so tied to Eve—and in a sense it should have been—but so tied to Eve that he could not give her up for the sake of the Lord. His love for Eve was stronger than his love for God, and the enemy got him through his affections.
We also know that he attacks our bodies. Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever. The Lord came to their house, went in, and rebuked the fever. She immediately arose and served them.
You cannot rebuke an illness. You have to rebuke a personality—a person. There was a force behind this particular fever. Now, we know that at other times the Lord just healed people. So not every sickness is the work of the enemy in the sense of there being a presence there.
He attacks the body. He also goes after your conscience. If he can get to your conscience one time, how weakened we are, are we not? Even in our personal relationships with our family, when children tell a lie to their parents, once they do that, it is very difficult for them to communicate because they know they have done something wrong and are out of fellowship.
It is the same way with the Lord Jesus Christ. Once the enemy can get some little something into your conscience, he says, “Okay, you have offended God.” If he can keep you there without coming to the blood of the Lamb or coming to reconciliation, he has you, because your fellowship is broken.
The greatest example in the Bible is Samson—no, not Samson. Samson is consecration. I am sorry, not conscience. But he can get through our conscience.
Oppression: he just oppresses us. Remember in the garden of Gethsemane? The Lord brought Peter, James, and John there, and they could not pray. They could not stay awake. The reason they could not was that the oppression was so heavy. The spiritual oppression and spiritual warfare were so heavy that the flesh could not handle it, and they fell asleep.
Just spiritual oppression.
He uses our strengths. Last week I used the example of the division among the brethren in the 1850s between J. N. Darby, B. W. Newton, and George Müller—all great men of God.
Yet the enemy used, particularly in Darby, his love of the Word and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and his passion for the character and nature of Christ. There was a great division because of that.
I think of Paul and Barnabas. Barnabas was the one who introduced Paul to the church, because everybody was afraid of Paul. Barnabas was a very kind person, a very gracious person, and he was able to reach out to Paul. He recognized what the Lord had done in Paul and was really the one who brought Paul in.
They traveled together on a missionary journey, and they had John Mark with them. At some point in that journey, apparently, John Mark turned back. The indication is that John just was not happy, and he turned away from the work of God.
When they were going to go on their second journey, it says a discussion arose between Paul and Barnabas. Actually, the words used there indicate there was anger. They were extremely angry with one another, and the issue was John Mark.
Paul was a very intense person, as we know, very dedicated to the Lord and dedicated to His work. Paul was trying to make the point: “Look, John Mark has failed. You just cannot back out of the work of God. He has to be committed, and he is not committed, and he should not go with us.”
Barnabas did not disagree with Paul on the fact that John Mark had failed, but he said John Mark needed a second chance. He needed to go with them. The two men parted ways at that point. They did not continue to minister together, and it was over this issue.
We have two great virtues here. There was virtue in what Paul had to say, because Paul said, “Look, you cannot take the work of God that lightly. There needs to be some discipline here.”
On the other hand, Barnabas was saying, “I understand that, but we need to give this man a second chance.” Both were very legitimate virtues—Christian virtues.
And they parted.
As we know the story, eventually Paul asked that John Mark come back to him because he needed him in his service. There was some reconciliation that occurred. Paul recognized that John Mark had gone on.
John Mark went with Barnabas. We know that John Mark wrote the Book of Mark, which presents Christ as the Servant. John Mark had been with two great servants of the Lord. He himself became a great servant of the Lord.
We see the Lord’s mercy. Obviously, John Mark was touched very deeply by Paul’s rejection of him. In other words, he needed a strong word, but he also needed a kind one.
He received them through two different great men. But these two men, for a time at least, as far as we know, did not come back together. There is nothing in the Bible about them coming back together. Yet we do know that Paul later received John Mark, recognizing what the Lord had done in this young man and his commitment to the Lord’s work.
So we see that often the enemy takes very righteous things—virtuous character in great men of God—and creates division.
Remember the time the Lord rebuked the storm? The disciples were in the boat, and He was asleep. They said, “Lord, we are perishing here.” Now, they did not say it like that. I have a feeling they were screaming to the Lord, “Hey, we are perishing!”
They were quite upset. The boat was sinking. These men were fishermen; they had lived their lives on the Sea of Galilee. They were used to storms, but this one was about to sink the boat.
The Lord got up and rebuked the storm. There was a presence behind that particular storm. The enemy was behind it, out to destroy the disciples and Christ. The Lord rebuked them for their little faith.
Actually, the Lord is the God of resurrection. Being sunk in a boat was not an issue for our Lord. Obviously, it was for the disciples. But the point is that the enemy can use our environment—our circumstances—against us. We need to recognize these wiles.
We are unwittingly used by the enemy at times with other brothers and sisters. I think the great example is Peter. When the Lord told His disciples, “Look, I am going to the cross. I will go to Jerusalem, and I will be killed there,” Peter grabbed Him and said, “No, not so, Lord. Not so.”
The Lord turned around and said, “Get behind Me, Satan.” I always thought that was very interesting. He addressed the real issue. The real issue was not Peter; it was Satan behind Peter.
Satan was once again using Peter’s affection for the Lord Jesus Christ as a foothold to get his point across. There was nothing wrong with Peter’s affection for Him, other than that he allowed his affection for the Lord to get in the way of the Lord’s will.
It was the Lord’s will that was at issue, and the enemy was opposed to that. He used Peter’s affection. So Peter was unwillingly used in that circumstance.
I really want this to be a help to us when these situations occur in our lives personally—and they do. Remember, your brother or sister is a third party in this thing. It is the enemy who is really the one you have to get to, to deal with, to bind up.
He injects fear. He puts a fear in our lives about something. I think Job here is a good example. Job says:
The thing which I feared is come upon me.
There was a fear in Job, and the enemy got his foothold into that fear. We know all the trials and tribulations of Job. He tries to inject fear.
Read the first chapter of Joshua. I think four times Joshua is exhorted:
Fear not, neither be dismayed.
Fear not, nor be dismayed. Two of the greatest arrows and weapons of our adversary are fear and dismay.
Fear renders us powerless. It gives an open door to the enemy once we accept fear. Fear, in whatever form, should always be immediately rejected and put under the blood of Christ.
Often fear is something sudden. At other times it comes because of your circumstances. But dismay is similar. Dismay usually occurs over a period of time. You become exhausted and dismayed; you do not understand, and it is difficult. In that state, we will not fight. The enemy knows that.
In 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Paul said he was perplexed, but not in despair. That is very key. It is one thing not to understand what is happening in your life, but it is another thing to go into despair. That is where the enemy wants to get us.
He wears us out. He exhausts us. In Daniel 7:25, it says that he shall wear out the saints of the Most High. He will simply exhaust you.
Brothers and sisters, do we live in an age where we can get exhausted going? I remember in my parents’ day, most of their lives were spent on the farm with their family and the family that lived two or three miles away.
But today we have so many activities and so many pressures at work. I mean, you are not asked to work overtime anymore; you are made to work overtime. We have tremendous pressures on us today. It wears us out and exhausts us.
He tries to take our hope. Kenny spoke on this last week, and this Scripture really grabbed my heart:
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope unwavering; for He is faithful.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope unwavering. Why is that important, brothers and sisters? Because in Hebrews 6:19, it says:
We have this hope as an anchor of the soul.
When you lose hope, the anchor to your soul is gone, and you are adrift on the sea of despair and dismay. When you find your hope fading, you must look to Jesus.
It is interesting how the Lord works in this matter of hope in our lives. Kenny, I hope you do not mind, but I feel that was so critical: we must not lose our hope. It is the last bastion. When your hope is gone, you are shattered.
Often in our lives, though, the Lord has to test our hope. He has to let our hope be strengthened and find its hope only in Jesus.
Often, as we are tested in our lives, we find that somehow our real hope has been in our own abilities, our jobs, or even our spiritual lives. Our hope may be in the fact that we say, “Lord, I get up every morning. I pray. I read my Bible. Things should go okay in my life.”
Where is our hope? Is our hope in our prayer? Is it in our Bible reading? The Lord puts a little pressure on us—allows the enemy to put a little pressure on us—and we start getting up, reading our Bible, and praying, but things get worse and worse.
We read a little more and pray more, and it gets worse and worse. Finally, we cannot pray or read. It is gone. There is no energy left.
If the pressure continues, we can go into despair. Many of us have been there.
But you know, the greatest place is finally where the Lord gets us. Our prayer life seems to be gone; it is not working. Reading the Bible seems to be gone; it is not working. Our jobs are a mess. Our family life is in trouble. Our hope is shattered.
There seems to be nothing but darkness. But one day a little shaft of light comes through, and Jesus says to you, “I am your hope. You have been putting hope in a lot of things. You have even put hope in your spiritual life and activities, but there is no hope there. I am your hope. I am your hope.”
If you are hoping in anything else in your life, it will fail you. But brothers and sisters, that process which we often, or sometimes, have to go through in our lives brings us to the pure hope, to the living hope.
That is the way God works. That is the way He uses our enemy. But I just want to say, brothers and sisters: hold fast to your hope, unwavering.
When we find ourselves wavering, let us remember Christ alone as our hope. Hold on to Him. You can let all these other things go, if you have to, for a while, but hold on to Christ. He will bring the rest back to you. But do not allow your hope to be taken. It is the anchor of your soul.
He steals our consecration, and I mentioned Samson. We have to be consecrated people, right? Consecrated means you have given yourself to the Lord for His service and to serve Him in the house of God. You are consecrated unto Him.
The enemy brought in Delilah with Samson, and she kept after him and after him and after him. The hair represented his consecration before the Lord. When his hair was cut off, his strength was gone.
When we lose our consecration to the Lord, our strength is gone. Yes, we muddle through, but our real strength—the energy and power of the Holy Spirit—is gone because we have lost our consecration to the Lord. We must consecrate ourselves to Him.
Actually, consecration is something we should do morning by morning: “Lord, I give myself to You for this day.”
He attacks our prayer life. I mentioned before that in the garden of Gethsemane, they could not pray. The oppression was so great. He would not let them pray.
Our Lord prayed. His sweat was as drops of blood; it was so intense. But we know that in our own prayer life, sometimes we find it is just, “I just cannot pray. There is nothing there.”
Well, all I can tell you is: pray. Pray anyway. He will take the feelings. He will take the desire. But pray.
Because that is the one avenue, source, and resource to the victory and power of God: prayer. That is your communication lifeline. Once the enemy has that, he shuts you down. All batteries are dead at that point.
These are his wiles that he uses against us.
Now, I mentioned in the beginning that when you consider the wiles of the enemy and how susceptible we have been to him, most of us can probably identify with most of these attacks and how we have fallen and faltered under them.
But there are some things we need to remember at this point. First of all, the idea is not to frighten anyone, but for us to become aware and not passive. We cannot be passive in this area, or we open ourselves up to more than the Lord would want us to have to bear.
First of all, the enemy is a defeated foe. We need to remember that. In Colossians 2:15, it says that He spoiled principalities and powers, triumphing over them in the Cross.
He is a defeated foe. At the Cross of Calvary, Christ overthrew the enemy. He is defeated, and we can stand in his defeat.
Secondly, God uses the enemy. The enemy is really not in control. God uses him. He uses him to test us.
The reason we have to be tested is because God has given us a free will. It was necessary that there be a test in the garden because Adam had been given a free will like God has.
I do not know that we appreciate free will, brethren, unless we come from a country that has been oppressed and our will has been oppressed. But to have free will is a tremendous thing. It is of God. God has given us this free will. It means that we can make choices.
Because God gave man choice, He had to have a test. He used the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and He allowed the enemy to test Adam.
God uses the enemy in the matter of discipline and destroying the self-life in us. I think Peter is a good example of that. Remember when the Lord came to Peter and said:
Peter, Satan hath asked to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee.
Peter was a very, very self-confident person. Being around the Lord Jesus and loving the Lord Jesus had not gotten at Peter’s self-confidence. He was still very self-confident.
In order for Peter to carry on the work that God had called him to, it was necessary that his self-confidence be dealt with. The Lord allowed Satan to sift him. But notice that the Lord Jesus Himself prayed for Peter. He is your great High Priest.
There are times when He has to let Satan sift us, but He is our great High Priest praying for you. He does not want you to be totally crushed under the enemy’s hands, but He does have to get at those little self-issues in our lives: self-love, self-pride, self-confidence—all these selves, and there are many.
Often He does allow the enemy to touch us.
God uses the enemy to glorify Himself. In the case of Job, He was getting at something in Job; that is true. Job basically had a lot of confidence in something. “I pray every day, and if I miss something, I have this fear in me that I may fail.” The enemy used this against him.
But that was the enemy’s foothold. On the other hand, what is interesting about Job is that Satan was before God, having come from looking to and fro throughout the earth, and the Lord said, “Hast thou considered My servant Job?”
The Lord pointed the issue out to Satan. He said, “Hast thou considered My servant Job?” Immediately, Satan took up the challenge. He said, “Let me touch his skin. Let me touch his physical body. Let me touch him in some way, and he will curse Your name.”
This was for the Lord’s glory. The Lord’s glory was at stake. Praise God, He maintained Job throughout that process, and the enemy was put to shame through the transactions in Job’s life. But God used the enemy in this case for His own glory.
There are things in our lives that we sometimes have no understanding of. Frankly, it is hard even to understand all that Job went through.
God takes us through these things sometimes, and we do not know why. Sometimes, brothers and sisters, He takes us through some things that we never understand why.
His glory is at stake sometimes, and that is the issue. When His glory is at stake, we can go through some things we have no understanding of. But He keeps us. He keeps you through it.
At the end of the storm, you are still found faithful in Jesus Christ. It is for His glory. So the issue is not always understanding. The issue sometimes is the Lord’s glory.
He uses the enemy to strengthen us. Brothers and sisters, the enemy is our adversary, and in having to deal with our adversary, we learn a lot about our Lord Jesus Christ.
We learn that He is the Victor. Because if you do not believe that He is the Victor, you will be continually defeated with no hope of victory.
It says that He was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. Have you seen the works of the enemy destroyed in your life? You learn something of our Lord Jesus Christ. You are strengthened in the inner man through this process of dealing with your adversary. You are spiritually strengthened.
It causes you to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, to depend on Him, and to trust Him.
The enemy is often used by the Lord to humble us. I think Paul’s thorn in the flesh is a prime example. Paul was lifted to the third heaven. As far as we know, we do not know of any other who has been there.
He saw things that were so marvelous he could not express them. All he said was that he had been there. It was so marvelous that he really could not express anything.
But he says:
The Lord gave me a messenger of Satan, a thorn in the flesh, that I would not be exalted above measure.
In other words, what he saw could have caused him to be so exalted in himself, so lifted up. It was such a glorious thing. So the Lord allowed a messenger of Satan—a thorn in his flesh—to keep Paul humble.
It seems, brothers and sisters, that often you find a flaw even in great men of God. We mentioned J. N. Darby and others. You find something recognizable, and you wonder how such a great man of God could have such a flaw. It keeps us humble. It keeps us before the Lord.
I wonder how such men as Paul and Barnabas could have separated. It keeps us humble. He uses the enemy to do that.
God is in control, not the enemy. The enemy had to get permission to touch Job’s life. He had to get permission to sift Peter.
The Holy Spirit arranges circumstances in our lives, and often He allows the enemy to come into those circumstances. But God is in control.
But, brothers and sisters, we cannot be passive and take the position, “Well, even though it is the enemy, God is in control, so I will just leave it up to Him. I perish if I perish. I live if I live.”
That is not it. We cannot be passive. If there is anything that any of us get out of all this, it is that we cannot be passive. We have to be active in Christ.
Let us turn and read 1 Peter 5 for a minute. Starting with verse 6, this should be our attitude, brothers and sisters.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time:
Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. In other words, we have these circumstances in our lives. We know that somehow they have been allowed of God, and yet somehow we also know the enemy is in there. So what do we do? We humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.
We have to accept God’s hand in our lives, casting all our care upon Him. “Lord, in this situation, I humble myself to You. Your hand is in it. Lord, I do not want to be found fighting against You. I trust You.”
“This is more than I can bear, Lord, and I know You care for me.” Can you have that much faith in the midst of it? Can you say, “Lord, I do know You care for me. I believe in You”?
Then we are told to be sober and vigilant, because our adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion walking about, seeking whom he may devour. On the one hand, we have humbled ourselves under the Lord; on the other hand, we have this warning to be vigilant and aware, because the enemy also wants to use the circumstance to destroy us.
“Whom resist steadfast in the faith.” On the one hand, we humble ourselves under the Lord’s hand. On the other hand, we are called to resist.
In James 4:7, as I read earlier:
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
So you say, “Lord, I am willing to accept Your hand in this, but I stand against all the devices and works of the enemy in this situation.” Believe that if you resist, he will flee.
The God of all grace, who has called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, will make you perfect—or mature you—establish you, strengthen you, and settle you.
This experience has a greater purpose. It is not only for His eternal glory, but after you have gone through this, He will use it to mature you, establish you, strengthen you, and settle you.
When we first start experiencing problems in our lives as adults, it is very unsettling. But the more we go through these things, the more we learn our trust and dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ, the more we learn that He is faithful, and the less unsettled we become in these situations.
So we see that really the enemy, though he is still able to utilize wiles against us, is ultimately under God’s control.
Now, brothers and sisters, we have to be very clear. God is still in control, but do not get yourself in the place where you are way out in the distance. There is no doubt that there are times when the enemy is able to wreak much more havoc than God would have, because you have exposed yourself in such a way.
If the enemy does get to you, that seems contradictory, and I do not think I can really explain it. But let us turn to Psalm 91.
This really ties in with putting on the whole armour. We have not gotten to the armour yet. It says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. We are to stand, and having done all, to stand.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. Be strong in the Lord and put on the whole armour of God. Brothers and sisters, this is an act of will. We have to put on the whole armour of God.
I will not get into the whole armour of God today, obviously, but it is important that we know that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, is our armour, and we have to be found in Him.
Now let me read Psalm 91 to help us get an understanding of how we can get outside of the Lord’s will, outside of His heart, distant from our Lord Jesus Christ. It subjects us to many more attacks of the enemy.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Abiding in the secret place of the Most High—brothers and sisters, our spiritual life with the Lord is extremely important. It is necessary that we have a close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, not only as our Savior, but as our Buckler, our Shield, our High Tower, our Strength, and our Power. He has to be our everything, and we must be dwelling there.
I think sometimes we live a dual life. Sometimes we spend a few moments with our Lord Jesus Christ, but the rest of the day we revel in the world. That is not dwelling in the secret place of the Most High.
To dwell in the secret place of the Most High means that our heart is always set on Jesus. The compass is always set to the north. No matter where you go, the compass is always pointing north. In other words, your heart is always toward the Lord Jesus in all the circumstances of your daily life.
He that abideth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
The shadow of the Almighty. I have never seen this, but it is such a marvelous example of what this is saying.
Take a chicken with little biddies. She will try to keep those little biddies as close to her as she can, particularly if there is a hawk about. The hawk will not go after the chicken, but he will go after the biddy.
As long as they stay under the shadow of the wings of that mother chicken, they are safe. But we are all curious, are we not? We all want to go our own way. Often we find those little biddies straying. They will be much farther away than the mother hen is comfortable with, and she will try to get them back.
But just as we are, they are often very curious little biddies. We find ourselves in a danger zone, possibly attacked and taken by the hawk.
In other words, the enemy is always trying to get us out from under the shadow of the Almighty God, the shadow of His wings. We expose ourselves.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress:
My God; in Him will I trust.
I do not know if you make the Lord your refuge—your fortress. Is that where you go? I am afraid that so often we just get stirred up. We are all stirred up in our hearts and minds, and we do not really get back to the Lord.
We do not really say, “Lord, I need to get back to You. I need to get back to my refuge. I need to get back to that fortress.”
Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
And from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with His feathers,
And under His wings shalt thou trust:
His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night;
Nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness;
Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,
And ten thousand at thy right hand;
But it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold
And see the reward of the wicked.
Is this true? Is it true, brothers and sisters? The terror by night, the arrow by day, the pestilence, a thousand falling at our side?
Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge,
Even the Most High, thy habitation.
A habitation. It has got to be the Lord. Your habitation is where you are at home, right? That is where you feel at home. That is where your comfort is. That is where your rest is. That is where your protection is.
But our responsibility is to make Him our habitation.
There shall no evil befall thee,
Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
For He shall give His angels charge over thee,
To keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands,
Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:
The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
This is also speaking of our Lord, obviously.
Because He hath set His love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him:
I will set him on high, because he hath known My name.
We must set our love on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is our protection. That is our real defense against the enemy: to set our love on the Lord Jesus Christ.
It says, “Because he hath known My name.” Do we know the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Sure, it is Jesus Christ. But that is not what this means. It means you are under His headship. His name is upon you. You belong to Him.
He is your Lord, your Savior, your Strength, and your Tower. Therefore, you can use His name because you are given to Him. In His name, you can say, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I rebuke this adversary.”
You can call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and say, “Lord, avenge me of my adversary,” because you know Him.
Sometimes we cry out to a distant Lord, but He is saying, “No, I cannot be a distant Lord in your life.”
I hope we see this morning how, on the one hand, we must learn to resist—and we will talk more about that later—but I felt it was so necessary to see that the wiles of the enemy are so numerous that you cannot really explain them all. They are very effective and have worked on all of us.
But he is not really in control. He is a defeated foe. Our place is to stand and withstand.
Do you know what it means to withstand? It means the onslaught is coming, and you are standing faithful in your place, saying, “Lord, I stand in Your victory in this place.”
“The onslaught is coming. Avenge me of my adversary. I withstand the enemy. Avenge me of Thy adversary. I bind him up in the name of Jesus Christ from his attacks on me and on my family.”
“Lord, I stand. I not only withstand, but I stand in the victory of Jesus Christ. I stand on the ground that is given to me because of Your victory at Calvary’s Cross. Because Your name is my name, I can stand in Your victory.”
But brothers and sisters, to be a warrior—and we are called to be warriors as well as servants—to be a warrior of Jesus Christ, the Lord cannot be distant to you. The Lord cannot be distant in you.
You know, I have something on my heart. I do not know; I will share it.
There was this young man who was an atheist. He did not believe in the Lord. One day he decided to go up in the Shenandoah Valley. He was walking in the autumn, and the leaves were turning. It was beautiful.
The clouds were floating by in the blue sky. There was a nice soft breeze in the air. He was walking along and saying, “Oh, this is so marvelous. It is amazing. It just exploded into existence. Oh, how marvelous this is. I am just enjoying it so much.”
Then he heard rustling in the bushes behind him. He looked around and did not see anything. So he went on a little more, still enjoying everything and thinking how great life was and how great he was.
Then he heard a rustling, much louder this time. He turned around and saw a big brown grizzly right behind him with his paw raised. He just took off running for his life.
He went about a quarter of a mile, fell over a log, landed on the ground, and looked up. This great big grizzly was there with his paw ready to take him out. The man said, “Lord, save me. Help me, Lord.”
The clouds stopped, the breeze stopped, and the bear froze in his tracks. Then there was this voice out of heaven: “Why are you calling on Me?”
“Well, Lord, if You do not do something, this bear is going to kill me.”
“So I do not understand why you are calling on Me. You have denied Me all your life. You denied My existence. You even have attributed this wonderful creation of Mine to an explosion. Why should I help you?”
He said, “Please, Lord, help me. This bear will kill me.”
The Lord said, “Well, are you prepared to become a Christian?”
The man thought about it a while. He had been an atheist all his life. He said, “Look, I am much too proud to become a Christian. I have been an atheist all my life, and all my life I will remain one. But I do have a request, Lord.”
The Lord said, “What is your request?”
He said, “Would You make the bear a Christian?”
All of a sudden, the clouds started moving, the breeze returned, and the sounds of the stream returned. He looked up, and the bear just bowed his head and said, “Lord, I thank You for this meal I am about to receive.”
Oh, that he would have become a Christian.
The point is, brothers and sisters, we cannot keep God at a distance. We do have a tremendous adversary. I am so thankful for the Lord’s victory. In His victory, the enemy is ultimately under His control, but we can put ourselves in precarious positions.
We can get outside the shadow of His wings, and the enemy will attack us and do great damage and harm. We can get out of His will.
The greatest victory over the enemy was achieved at the Cross of Calvary. Therefore, our greatest victories will be achieved at the cross when we are willing to take up the cross in our lives.
What does the cross mean, very simply? The cross is His will and our will. It becomes a cross to our lives when His will and our will are not in agreement.
When we are not in agreement with Him, it becomes a cross. We have to go back to the Lord and say, “Lord, I am willing to take the cross. I am willing to do Your will in this situation.”
Great victories are achieved by doing the will of God, by making God your habitation.
Brothers and sisters, if nothing else, may the Lord encourage us. We have a great adversary. We are under great attack, not only individually but corporately. But making the Lord our habitation—really our habitation—is the issue.
May the Lord bless.
Lord, we come to Thee this morning. My prayer is, Lord Jesus, that we would be active and not passive. Lord Jesus, that we would learn about our weapons.
Lord Jesus, that we would, in a sense, be able actively, under the power of the Holy Spirit, to take Your victory to every situation in our lives; take Your victory to every place in this world; take Your victory and declare it; and stand in the name of Jesus.
Lord, to be able to bind and to loose, Lord Jesus, as You have called us to do as Your church. Lord, so teach us. In these days, teach us, Lord, and strengthen us greatly in the inner man.
Let us not just be captured and beaten down. Lord, if we find ourselves in that place today, raise us up, for You are the Victor.
Lord, may we rise up in the triumph of our Jesus Christ. Lord, may we not live in defeat, but live in Your triumph today.
And Lord Jesus, in these days, may You turn our hearts. May we make You our habitation. You are our Shield and Defender, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.