Let us pray.
Lord, as we come to Thee this morning, we have to say, Lord, we have found out that there is truly only one thing that can fundamentally change our lives, and that is coming into contact with You, Lord Jesus.
Lord, it is only in acknowledging our desperate need for our Saviour, Lord, that we are changed. It is only by Your Word, Lord, that things are changed in our hearts and lives.
Lord, I think that when the Holy Spirit looked upon the deep, and this whole world was in chaos and darkness, You could contain Yourself no longer, and You spoke: “Let there be light.” And the whole world was altered.
Lord, it just takes one word from You to alter our lives, to change darkness into light, Lord; to bring us into the kingdom of God and take us out of this kingdom of darkness in which we are born.
And Lord, we come back to Thee this morning, and we would ask for the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon us as we hear Your Word and as we share Your Word this morning. Lord, we need the Holy Spirit to speak. We need the Holy Spirit to interpret to our hearts individually.
And Lord, as we spoke of this amazing grace this morning, we have to say, Lord, we look and we say, “It is amazing grace.” It is absolutely amazing that You could touch hearts such as we have, Lord; that You could actually do something, Lord, could obliterate our sins.
Lord, how thankful and grateful we are for this mighty God that we have, for this One who is full of love and has no other desire and purpose but to shed that love upon us. How grateful and thankful and humbled we are before this throne of mercy this morning.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, as we come this morning, I am continuing in my—I reckon it has become a series. It was not intended to be that way, but certainly concerning this matter of spiritual warfare.
You know, in our lives, early on, even when we are not Christians, I think we have some sense that there is something about sin. We may not understand this havoc that we are born with in our nature. In other words, we have an inclination towards sin, even from birth.
That is not hard to recognize, particularly even in babies. We see how self-centred and selfish they really are—but when they are babies, it is okay. But we are thankful that, as they grow up, hopefully they will be delivered from that self-centredness.
But we find out as adults that our deliverance from our self-centred life only occurs through Jesus Christ, our Lord—the selfless One, the One who selflessly gave Himself on our behalf, that we might be delivered even from the self-life.
And we find out, as we grow up, and particularly once we become Christians, that there is something still there that is against us. We find out that the world is still against us. We find out that the flesh—our own flesh, our self-life—is against us and against the Lord.
And we find out that we have an enemy behind it all. His name is Satan, Lucifer, the fallen angel. It is Satan.
And it is interesting in the Word of God. Brothers and sisters, I reckon what is on my heart is that we cannot be passive in our Christian life about any of these areas.
Is it the world that has a grip on your life—the love of the world, something that seems to drive you? We cannot be passive about that as Christians. We have to deal with it and let the Lord deal with it in our lives.
When it comes to the matter of our self-life, our flesh, and our desire to live for ourselves, we know that it is a tremendous grip upon the Christian life. It is so subtle and so hidden, so often, that we do not even recognize the power of the flesh in our own lives.
But when we do, we cannot afford to be passive or take the position that, “I just accept the way I am. Everybody is just going to have to live with the way I am, and the Lord is going to have to live with the way I am. After all, He loves me dearly, and He is willing to forgive me my sins and shortcomings.”
But that is not the proper attitude for Christians. We cannot be passive. Neither can we accept the things of the world, the flesh, or Satan in our lives. We have to be awakened to these things through the Holy Spirit.
So this morning, my emphasis, of course, is on this matter of spiritual warfare. But I did want to give some illustrations of how God has made every provision in Jesus Christ, while we have to take an active part in possessing what the Lord Jesus has made available to us to overcome the world, the flesh, and Satan. It is important that we do.
In Galatians 6:14, it says:
God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom the world is crucified unto me,
and I unto the world.
In other words, in the Lord’s going to the cross, He says, “I have done something on the cross that is available to you.” And that is that the world has been crucified. In other words, the sentence of death is upon the world.
It will never really satisfy your heart, because you are not a creature of the world. You have been born again, and you are in a new kingdom. The things of the world do not fit into the kingdom.
And the Lord says, “I have made that provision in the cross.” In other words, He has cut off the world.
And in another place it says that we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. That is not something that you had to do. That is something that was done when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour.
However, that provision was made on the cross of Calvary. The provision was made. Your ticket from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light was given to you at the cross of Calvary. And when you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, you received that ticket as well.
But you have to exercise your own heart in this matter in order to possess what it means to live in the kingdom of light.
It is interesting: in you is a life that knows it does not belong to the world. That is why, when the things of the world begin to press in on you, or when you are drawn by the things of the world, there is some automatic resistance in you, because you have this life of Christ that is opposed to the world.
I think the greatest example of that is Lot. You remember Lot, Abraham’s nephew, how he always was looking towards the world. He was always drawn to go back to Sodom.
We know what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. It was destroyed by fire under the judgment of God. But Lot was drawn, and he found himself always moving back towards Sodom and dwelling there.
Yet it says that his soul was oppressed there inside through what he heard and saw. Yet he could not leave. In fact, God had to literally take him by the hand and draw him out of Sodom—him and his family—before God destroyed it.
There was this thing in the world that had captured Lot. He was what we would call today a saved one, and yet the world had him.
But the point I am trying to make is this: there is something in you already. It is the life of Christ. It says, “I have crucified the world unto you.” You do not belong to that world anymore, but you have to make it practical.
And in 1 John 2:15, it says:
Love not the world,
nor the things in the world.
It has to become real in your life. What the Lord Jesus has accomplished on Calvary on your behalf has to become real. He says, “Love not the world.” So, if we find the love of the world in our hearts, we cannot be passive about it. We cannot allow ourselves to be captivated by it.
On the cross of Calvary, in Galatians 5:24, it says:
And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh
with the affections and lusts.
The old man, as we know from Romans 6, has been crucified on the cross. The Lord went to the cross, and He went to the cross as Man, as Son of Man. When He went to the cross, He was crucified, and He says that there is a judgment upon the self-life.
You do not live for yourself anymore. You live for God. But He has done something there to the flesh, to the old man, to the self-life. There is this sentence of death upon the old man.
If we see that self-life—self-love, self-determination, self-will, all these selves that we have—coming to the forefront in our lives, we cannot be passive about it. We have to deal with it. We have to allow the Lord Jesus Christ to deal with it.
Provision was made on the cross. He says, “I have taken care of it,” but it has got to be real in your life.
In Romans 13:14, it says:
Make not provision for the flesh.
In other words, if you see the self-life wanting to come to the forefront—“my will”—you have to deal with it. Say, “No, Lord. You have already condemned that on the cross of Calvary. You have taken care of that on the cross of Calvary, and I agree with Your work on the cross of Calvary, Lord.”
“I agree that the self-life should not live, but remain nailed to the cross with You.”
In Luke 9:23, it says:
Let him deny himself,
and take up his cross daily.
In other words, that is an active thing that we have to do. The work was accomplished to release us from this fleshly life on Calvary’s cross. But we, as brothers and Christians, have to allow that to work out in our daily life.
When He says, “Deny yourself and take up your cross,” it says, “Daily.” Not once, but daily, we have to deal with this issue.
And then, when it comes to Satan, in Colossians 2:15, it says:
Having disarmed principalities and powers.
So, on the cross of Calvary, once again, our Lord Jesus has done tremendous work. He has actually disarmed our enemies. We know that He has the keys of hell and death, and yet we know that they are still there. He has allowed them to continue to be there.
And it is that we might enter into His life, that His overcoming life might be real in your life. So there is still resistance out there. But I think it is interesting that he has been disarmed in the sense that he cannot touch you unless the Lord allows it.
The enemy has been disarmed, and that is a work that Christ has done.
So, in James 4:7, we have to take this provision that has been made at Calvary and make it real in our lives. It says:
Resist the devil,
and he will flee from you.
Now, why is it that if you resist the devil, he will flee? It is because the Lord Jesus Christ has already disarmed him. When you mention the name of Jesus Christ, he has to flee.
Brothers and sisters, a tremendous work has been accomplished at Calvary.
I am trying to think of that Scripture—it is a warning out of Hebrews: “Beware lest you fall short of God’s full salvation.” In other words, there is salvation to deal with sin, salvation to deal with the world, salvation to deal with the flesh, and salvation to deal with Satan.
It is all Christ Jesus. I am very aware this morning, as the brothers gathered to pray before this meeting, one brother said, “May Christ be lifted up.” So I am always concerned, when I am sharing on spiritual warfare and the enemy, that we lift up Christ.
Because He is the Overcomer. It is His work on Calvary’s cross. The victory has been won.
Now, we will be confronted with issues in our lives, and the only way to overcome them is to take the victory of Calvary. It is not that you will not have to pray, but the victory has been won for us, and we can enter into that victory. The Lord is going to make His victory very practical in your life.
He never allows us just to be students, but we have to become apprentices. Do you know the difference?
Well, let me separate them a little bit. A student is one who learns, basically. You know, I went through four years of college. I learned things, most of which happen to be things that I have forgotten.
The only thing I can remember about calculus is the word “calculus.” You know, that is about all I remember—and that you could do great things with it.
It was wonderful. I mean, I loved calculus. It was amazing. I said, “Man, so many things you can solve with calculus.” Of course, the main things in life calculus cannot touch, but the scientific things—it is amazing what it can do.
So I was pretty thrilled with it, but all I can remember is the word, honestly. I reckon it did teach me how to assimilate data and knowledge and those kinds of things.
But the point is that we have to become apprentices. In other words, a student just learns things. But because, as I moved into my work environment, I did not continue to use calculus, I forgot it. It does not have a lot of actual practical meaning in my life anymore.
Now, a lot of what I know Kenny does. He does not actually do calculus, but a lot of the stress formulas and all are based on such things, so he is a little more involved with that than I am. It might be more meaningful to him.
But an apprentice is one who not only learns things in their head, but learns how to do things with their hands. We think of apprenticeship mostly in the trades—for bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters.
They are working. They are having to make use of what they learn. They go to class, they learn how to read a rule, dividing it into eighths and sixteenths and sixty-fourths, which is one of the hardest things to learn, I understand.
But then they go out and begin to work on a job, and they begin to apply what they learned in the classroom to build houses.
So an apprentice is one who takes what has been provided through their learning experience and makes it very practical. We have to be more than just students, in the sense that we understand students today. We have to become apprentices under our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord will not let us get away with just having knowledge of anything. He will take us through an experience so that whatever we have learned has to become real—or else we do not learn it.
The first time, He will see to it that we have a second chance. So that is the way the Lord works.
Well, I thought it was very interesting that this matter of dealing with the world, the flesh, and the devil—what I am trying to say is that we cannot be passive. We have to be active in our Christian life.
It was true of the nation of Israel. What did the Lord do first? He delivered them from Egypt. I think that was shared this morning. Egypt represents the world. It was the highest order of the world at that time, and the nation of Israel had to be delivered from it.
You know what? The Lord had to take them across a barrier that they could not get back across. They had to experience the crossing of the Red Sea.
In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ has already made the provision for our full deliverance from the world. There will come a day in your life when you will cross the Red Sea. You will realize that the world has such great influence, and you will be willing to say, “Lord, I have got to put this world behind me.”
“I agree with what You have done on Calvary, and from now on, I am going to be attentive to the things of the world. I will not let them get a grip on me by Your grace.”
But there has to be a kind of fundamental dealing in this area of the world, because it grips us so much—more so than we ever think.
The nation of Israel had the pillar of fire, and they got to the Red Sea. Through a mighty work of the Lord, the Red Sea parted, and they crossed over.
Israel could not be passive. They could not just sit there and say, “I am delivered.” They had to cross the Red Sea. In other words, they had to take that step of faith to make God’s deliverance real in their life.
They had to take that step of faith and walk through those waters, walled up on either side of them, and go the pathway through the Red Sea. So the Red Sea was deliverance from the world.
Then we come to the Jordan River, and that is dealing with the flesh—the self-life.
In Deuteronomy 8:1, it says, “I brought you into this desert for forty years for one purpose, and that was to humble you, and to prove you, and to show you what was really in your heart.”
Now, that is dealing with the flesh—a whole desert experience. God’s purpose was to deal with their flesh, to humble and prove them. He knew what was in man, but we do not know what is in ourselves until we are proved by the Lord Jesus Christ.
So there is a necessary desert experience in our lives where the flesh is being dealt with. Finally, we get to the Jordan River in our lives, and there has to be a fundamental dealing when we realize how hideous this self-life is.
The Lord brings us to a Jordan River experience in our life. He says, “You are going to have to cross this thing.” And all hell is against it.
As the waters raged that day when they got to the Jordan River, it was only the presence of the ark by which they could really go through. The priests lifted up that ark, and they stood in the river, and the waters parted once again—or they backed up, as we shared in the last meeting.
So you see, the Jordan River is representative of our death, burial, and resurrection in Christ: the dealing with the old man. That is what the Jordan River is about. There has to be that fundamental dealing.
Interestingly enough, before they were allowed to fight the battle of Jericho, before they actually went in to possess the land—all the males had to be circumcised. That is the cutting off of the flesh.
In other words, it was really not possible to possess the land or to carry out spiritual warfare as long as the flesh was dominant in the life of the people. God had to have a fundamental dealing.
Now, the cross of Calvary has provided for that cutting off of the flesh. But there needs to be a fundamental dealing, and we have to actively enter into that and realize that it is something that is against us.
We cannot just kind of plod through a Christian life accepting the way we are. We have to allow the Lord to deal with it.
Well, we do get to Jericho. Now, I am not trying to say that you have to get rid of all the chains of the self-life before there can be any entering into Christ or any spiritual warfare. But, brothers and sisters, let us face it: there have to be some fundamental dealings in our lives for the Lord to carry us on through.
But the next step was Satan, and that was represented by Jericho—that stronghold of the enemy. It represents Satan and all of his forces and all of his tactics. Jericho was seemingly an impossible fortress to take, and it had been up until that time.
But the Lord made provision, and we have already talked about that. The King of Peace marched around the city in silence—not in turmoil, not in uproar, not in rage, but just silently walking around those walls.
All that could be heard was the sound of the ram’s horn, announcing the presence of the ark.
Brothers and sisters, what builds our faith more than getting to the place in our lives—particularly when we are facing a stronghold such as Jericho in our lives—where we get silent before the Lord and just be before Him?
In this case, it was six days. You know, they walked around those walls. They were aware of this mighty fortress. But as they walked in silence, their hearts and minds were fixed on the Lord, the ram’s horn announcing the presence of Christ.
Their faith began to build. It strengthens our faith because what they were concentrating on now was the Lord and not Jericho. Their faith increased.
And after six days, I think on the seventh day they walked around it—what? Six times? Seven times? Anyway, after they had walked around it, their faith had gotten to the point where they could shout. The victory was secure at that point because faith had come into their hearts.
Satan was taken down. The walls crumbled.
In other words, God allowed the nation of Israel to share in His victories. The victory was already secured even before they crossed that Jordan River, but there were some things that had to happen.
They needed deliverance from the world. They needed deliverance from the flesh. They needed to get before God and let faith build in their hearts. Then they were able to deal with the enemy, but not on the basis of their own strength, not on the basis of how they were armed, but on the basis that the ark was present there. That is what their heart was upon.
And the Lord did it. It was not really their shout. Their shout was an acclamation of their faith that God had given to them and built up over those six days.
So you see, that is the way God works.
But my basic thought is this: as you look at the history of Israel, we cannot be passive as Christians. The Lord has allowed the world to still remain in its system that is so opposed to God. The flesh, the self-life—we know we still have to deal with that. Our enemy is still there, though he has been disarmed.
It is to bring us through it so that we might experience all that God has done for us through His Son on Calvary’s cross, and it might be ours; it might be real in your life.
That is what God is doing. He has made us apprentices in His school.
The truth must be practical. We must be active and not passive. We must be diligent and watchful as Christians.
When our Lord Jesus Christ was in the garden and He had asked three disciples to pray with Him, they fell asleep. I think the oppression was so great, and they were not spiritually prepared to deal with the spiritual warfare that was going on.
It was so great, and they fell asleep. The Lord said, “Could you not watch with Me one hour?” So critical—watching, being aware, not being passive.
Well, brothers and sisters, we know we have the sin nature, the world, the flesh, and Satan. We need to know what we are dealing with in our Christian life.
Now, the other night, Wednesday night, Ben Hebert was here. Ben and his wife, we have known for, golly, what—thirty years? Twenty-five years? Somewhere around there.
In the last three years, I think, they have been able to go into Cuba. You know, the doors were opened to Cuba to some extent to allow Bibles to come in, and the truth to come in, the gospel to come in.
So they have been going down there. I was really touched by what Ben had to share the other night about how the Lord was working in Cuba, the place where the enemy had his grip and would not let the gospel light come in.
I was talking with Ben that night, and somebody asked a question. I cannot remember the question, but Ben’s response touched me in this matter of spiritual warfare.
It was a missionary from Europe, I think, who came to Cuba and was able to get in. As he went around Cuba, he saw that all the Christians were so frustrated with the government. The government was the problem, and they were wrestling, trying to find ways to deal with the government so they could simply have a Bible.
The brother shared with them, “Look, you are dealing with the wrong thing here. The government is not the problem. The problem is Satan. He shut the door in Cuba. Your prayers need to be against him.”
From what Ben shared with us, it was a result of this brother’s life from the Lord, which he was able to give to the Christians, that their prayers began to change.
Then, a few years ago, it happened. The doors opened just a little bit. Now we have Bibles going in, and we have those who are able to go in.
They cannot openly preach. I think he said you could share your testimony, but you could not supposedly preach. That was the word. They would not let them preach, but they would allow them to share their testimony. So Ben has many, many testimonies to give in Cuba.
The point is this: they had to know what the fight was against. It was not really against the government. It was against what was behind that government. The fight was over there, and it was not until they focused on that that there was breakthrough for them.
You know, Paul said, “Do not just start fighting, throwing punches everywhere.” We have to fight smart.
Well, I think the point is pretty clear. Is it the world you are dealing with? Is that the thing that has a grip? Then you need to deal with it before the Lord. The victory is there.
Is it your own flesh? Well, we know that it says daily, “Take up the cross.” That will be a daily issue with us.
In this matter of the enemy, when the enemy is at work, recognize him. Recognize what is behind the situation and deal with that. So often, we are trying to figure out ways to deal with the circumstance and not what is behind the circumstance.
Okay, we have been talking about armour in Ephesians 6:14. The armour is very important. When we are standing against principalities and powers of darkness, we have to be armed. We have to have the proper armour on.
We have already shared on our loins being girded about with truth. That word “truth” means practical truth—what you have already been talking about this morning. In other words, it is not the truth that we retain in our minds, but the truth that is worked out in our lives. That is our girdle. That is what keeps us stable in our warfare.
We shared on the breastplate of righteousness. Once again, it is practical righteousness in our lives that we are dealing with here. Christ is our righteousness.
But when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ, there are two robes. There is this golden robe, this robe that is the righteousness of Christ, which we will have upon us. Every Christian will have it.
But there is this linen robe, this needlework. It is the righteousness of the saints that will beautify the bride as well. So this matter of practical righteousness in our lives is important.
The breastplate covers our hearts. So fundamentally, is your heart with the Lord? In your heart, are you right with the Lord Jesus Christ? It is critical in this matter of warfare—being right with God, having a good conscience before God. It is essential. It is your breastplate. It covers your heart.
Then our feet are shod with the gospel of peace.
Peace in your life and in my life. Sometimes we say, “You know, I do not know much peace in my life.” Well, regardless of the circumstances, there is a peace available to us. Regardless of the turmoil, there is still a peace available to us.
And that peace comes only in full dependence on Him. Are we fully dependent on Him in the midst of whatever crisis we are in? It seems like when we begin to take things into our own hands, the crisis gets deeper.
But there can be a peace. There can be a peace. It comes from full dependence on Him.
When it comes to spiritual warfare, there is an interesting verse in Romans 16:20:
The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
The God of peace. In this matter of warfare, God is at peace because His Son has won the victory. He is at peace.
Now, that victory needs to become ours. That is why He says, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” In other words, “My victory can become your victory.”
My victory is your victory. It is the only victory you will ever know.
So it is possible—His peace. Brothers and sisters, we need to know this God of peace in the midst of every trial, tribulation, and turmoil.
Well, today that brings us, with fifteen minutes left, to the shield of faith.
The shield of faith is, once again, when we break it down simply, an active, full, entire trust in Christ. That is the shield of faith: active, full, entire trust in Christ in any circumstance.
The verse that immediately came to my heart was Job, when he says:
Though He slay me,
I will trust Him.
Though He slay me, I will trust Him. What a testimony from this man who was tried so deeply and put into a circumstance which he could not understand.
He had no clue from the Lord what was going on in his life, and the Lord never did tell Job what it was all about. But when Job saw the Lord, after thirty-eight chapters, Job saw the Lord, and Job was satisfied.
Well, “Though He slay me, I will trust Him.” Active, full, entire trust. It is not passive. Faith is never passive.
It is not, “Oh well, the Lord will take care of it.” That is not it. It is more like, “Lord, You have been faithful to me all these years. Lord, You will take care of me. I trust You, Lord.”
That is an active thing. It is not, “Well, He will take care of it.” There is a whole lot of difference between those two little thoughts, those two little senses that you pick up in my voice, hopefully. But it is an active thing.
Now, the shield of faith is so important because we talk of trust—our faith in the Lord, which is full trust in Him. The enemy attacks us, and it is no secret that his great little weapon is doubt.
Doubt. Doubting God.
I have already shared this, but how did Eve fall? She fell because the enemy put into Eve’s mind this little bit of doubt about God. Was God keeping something from Eve?
He put that little doubt in her mind, and eventually she was brought down into sin and seeking her own selfishness because of this little seed of doubt.
In another place he says, “Hath God said?” Just the way he worded it makes you want to doubt, right? “Has God said this to you? Really? Are you sure God is not holding something back from you?”
“Because, marvelously, He wants to be God, and He does not want anybody else to be able to approach Him.”
Doubt, brothers and sisters. He causes us to doubt Who God is. Most of the unsaved world—most of those that do not know Christ—doubt that God exists. The enemy has put that doubt in the mind of the world.
Even those that might think that there is a God, obviously, if they really were seeking God, they would have to find Jesus Christ, because He is God.
But there is this doubt that the enemy is always putting: doubt about the Bible, doubt about God, doubt that He loves us.
Now, we experience this, whether we say it or not, in our Christian lives. There are times, brothers and sisters, when the enemy—it is the enemy’s work; I do not know that anybody escapes it—somewhere in your life, somehow, you begin to wonder, “Does God really love me?”
“If He loved me, would I be experiencing such things that I am experiencing? Such trial that seems to go on for ages? As a matter of fact, the more I try to get to the Lord, it seems like the more difficult it gets.”
And the enemy says, “Does God really care about you anymore? Maybe you have done something to offend God that He just cannot overlook, and you will always be this way.”
Doubt that He loves us. Doubt that He is merciful. Doubt that He is faithful.
Now, that is a very tricky one. Most of us would not openly say that we do not think the Lord is faithful. But in our experience, in our daily lives, there are times that our own actions reveal that there is some doubt about the faithfulness of God, because we take matters into our own hands and deal with them ourselves.
That means we are doubting God when we take things into our own hands and are not trusting Him. Very subtle, brothers and sisters.
He causes us to doubt that God treats us fairly. You know, one of the things that I have, for some reason in my own life, is this matter of fairness. Even non-Christians really focus in on this thing of being fair.
Sometimes we think, “Well, God is not dealing with us fairly.”
You know Peter, when Peter failed, was so humble—so tremendously humbled—and even got to the place, I am sure, where he did not believe that he could ever be redeemed, because he had so failed Christ that day before Pilate. Peter had denied Him three times.
Peter was so distraught. It was obvious as you read the Scriptures. I am sure Peter thought it was hopeless for him. Yet after the Lord had restored Peter, the Lord made a statement to Peter basically about the way in which he would die—that he would become a martyr for Christ.
You know what Peter’s reaction was? It just shows you, brothers and sisters, after being so deeply humbled, Peter’s reaction was, “Well, what about John?”
“What about him, Lord? Are You treating me fairly? I know John has a special relationship with You. He is the one that is always closest to You. He is the one that seems to be heart to heart with You. What about John?”
Brothers and sisters, the most fair thing that God can ever do is deal with us the way He needs to deal with us.
It does not seem fair in our own minds because we are always comparing our life with the lives of our brothers and sisters and trying to measure ourselves by their life.
We see some Christian who is just joyous and happy all the time and has this great relationship with the Lord. You are over here struggling and dealing and seemingly being pounded under, and you say, “Lord, it is not fair.”
“What is that to you? Follow Me,” the Lord says.
The Lord, brothers and sisters—I have to reinforce this in my own heart—the Lord has a special, special path for every life.
Now, that path always goes through Calvary’s cross, but He has a special way for you. He has a special, unique way to deliver you from all of your problems, all of your troubles, all of the self, the world, and the things in you.
He takes us all different ways. Sometimes we look at our lives and look at the lives of our brothers and sisters, and there is this doubt: “Is God being fair with me?”
Let me tell you, that is a thought right out of the pit. It comes from hell. It comes from your enemy. It is a thought that comes from him, and it needs to be rejected.
Do not allow that thought to get a grip in your life, because God loves you dearly.
We should always be able to come to this table, like we did this morning, and realize the great love that God has for us. I think that is one thing: when we come to this table, we have to see the love of God. The love of God should touch our hearts every time.
Even then, it does not always touch our hearts, does it? Maybe the enemy has done some work in our hearts to cause us to doubt. That is his work. That is the way he gets at the shield of faith.
We need to have that trust in our Lord.
If doubt has got our heart, that means we drop the shield of faith.
Now, I would not condemn anybody for doubting. I cannot. It seems like I have had so much in my own life—or had.
But we should be encouraged today, brothers and sisters. God has not changed. God loves you. God has a design for your life. We may get off the path, but His design is to get you back on the path.
You may be off the path today, but He is determined to bring you back. He has got the Holy Spirit working full time in your life to bring you back.
I think Christ did a marvellous work on Calvary’s cross, but think of the work that the Holy Spirit has to do today just to keep us on the path—just to keep us on the path—and ultimately bring us into deliverance, into our full salvation in Christ that we spoke about this morning.
Now, what is that? It is a fiery dart. I thought this was interesting. The Lord does not use the word “dart” or merely “arrow.” It is a fiery arrow.
In other words, it has been dipped in oil, it has been lit on fire, and he shoots it, and it hits you.
The interesting thing is that not only do you sense the pain from this arrow, but it is burning. It continues to burn after it hits.
Most of the shields in the old days were not steel and iron; they were leather. Of course, a fiery arrow striking the shield would begin to burn it up.
But the point I am getting at is that that is the way doubt works, is it not? At first, it is just a little something. In a few days or a few weeks, it has become a hill. Finally, it has become a mountain.
It can even become Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. It can reach to the heavens. It can shut off the sunlight. It is a fiery dart.
Oh, brothers and sisters, we need to recognize these fiery darts and deal with them immediately. We need to quench them.
There is one thing I know will quench a fiery dart, and that is the blood of the Lamb.
You get a fiery dart in you and it strikes. You need to immediately deal with it and plead the blood over it. Say, “I will not have this fiery dart in my life.”
Let me give you some thoughts: sadness, a complaining spirit, grumbling, fault-finding, touchiness, hurt feelings, jealousy, depression, fear, bitterness. All of these are results of fiery darts—fiery arrows—that hit our lives.
The real secret, I think, is recognizing that this has come from him. So often, we take it as us.
We may be a complainer. Everything happens, and we are just complaining, complaining. We find ourselves complaining.
If we can really trace the whole issue back to this little dart or arrow that the enemy has been able to get in somewhere along the line, and if the Lord can get us back to that, we can deal with it and say, “Lord, You are right. I accepted this.”
“I accepted this little thought. It depressed me, and I accepted it. It kept building and building, and it has become a huge weight in my life.”
“First of all, I want to quench it. Lord, I take the blood of the Lamb. I want to quench it. And Lord, take it out.”
Because often, brothers and sisters, you can—have you ever tried to pull an arrow out of your body? Of course, we have not lived in the cowboy and Indian days.
But I have seen the movies. A man has this arrow stuck in him, and he grits his teeth. They break it off and pull it out the back. You can only imagine the pain.
But let me say this: you have got to get the arrow out. Even that sometimes can be a painful experience.
But we cannot afford to allow our lives to be held in bondage by sadness, complaint, grumbling, fault-finding, touchiness, hurt feelings, jealousy, depression, fear, and bitterness. That is just a short list.
Do you see the arrows that have stuck in your own heart? It is still burning. It takes the work of the Lord.
Now, the way through—I will use a word that I used before in spiritual warfare—is: detect and reject.
First of all, you have got to detect: “Hey, I have been struck by an arrow. This is not normal.”
Sometimes we accept the way we are as being normal. “You know, I am just depressed all the time anyway,” or, “I have this bitterness in my life, and it is not my fault. I am just bitter.”
“I just find myself complaining all the time.” Well, an arrow has struck. By the grace of God, if He will open your eyes, you can say, “This is the enemy.”
I know in my own battle over a certain fear in my life years and years ago, the day I found out that that was from the enemy was the day of my deliverance.
Now, I was not completely delivered on that day. It took two years. But because I knew it was the enemy, I could always deal with it on that basis.
It was just like that little brother coming to Cuba and saying, “Look, you are dealing with the wrong thing here. It is the enemy that is the problem.”
Once I knew it was really the enemy trying to destroy me—which he was—because at one point I honestly thought I was losing my mind. Some of you think I went all the way.
Really, it was a terrifying experience. But the day I saw it was the enemy, it was a day of deliverance. It was the first step to deliverance.
Well, detect and reject. “Lord, this is from the enemy. I do not want to accept it. I will not accept it. I plead Your blood over it.”
Then we stand in faith. Remember: stand, withstand, and faith. James 4:7 says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee.”
These feelings, whatever they may be—bitterness, depression, complaints, hurt feelings—they eventually will go as we stand in faith and resist them. “I just resist it. I do not take this today.”
Then withstand. To me, the withstanding is saying, “Okay, Lord, I know that this has occurred because the enemy has found some ground in me to work on—maybe something in our self-life or whatever.”
“I know the enemy has found some kind of ground here to work on. So I ask for deliverance from that. I may not know what it is. Lord, if there is any ground here, any cause, any ground in my life that has caused this, deliver me from it.”
But all of this is being active. You see what it means to be active as a Christian? We just cannot let these things happen to our lives and just live under these weights and burdens.
Well, I am going to try to finish this one section, if you all will not mind, and get through this shield of faith.
In 1 John 3:8, it says:
Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the devil.
I thought, “Well, okay, remember I had the four A’s: we must be alarmed, armed, armoured, and engaged in authoritative prayer.” That was the four A’s. It was not AAA; it was something a little different: alarmed, armed, armoured, and authoritative prayer.
These others are the terrible D’s, I call them the terrible D’s. He causes us to doubt. He disarms us. He debilitates us. And he defiles us.
There may be others, but I kind of summarise them all into those four D’s: doubting, disarming, debilitating, and defiling. That is what he does to us.
I have already talked about doubt, but how does he disarm us? I think one of the great disarming things is when he gets us into a depressed state.
Something happens in our lives, and it begins to build. We do not immediately respond to it and deal with it, and it becomes heavier and heavier. We need to actively resist because depression is disarming. In other words, it makes us passive.
For those of us who have been depressed, would you not say that the hardest thing when you are depressed is to do anything about it? That is really the hard thing.
But now, little Christian—what is the story of The Pilgrim’s Progress? Little Christian, I love little Christian. He gets in this Slough of Despond, right? Is that not it? The bog of despond?
He gets off the road and he gets in this bog of despond. I thought about it. I said, “Lord, that is so true.” If you have ever stepped in mud, that is what depression is like: walking in mud.
You stick your feet in it, you sink up about halfway to your knee, and you want to take a step, you want to move on, but the hardest thing is to get your foot up out of the mud to take the next step.
That is what it is like. It is not easy, brothers and sisters. But the Lord has made deliverance for us. We do not have to live in the bog—whatever it was, the Slough of Despond.
The Lord has deliverance from that. But we have to be active. We have to recognize it is the enemy that has done this. It is the enemy’s work. Stand and withstand.
“Lord, I feel this way. Lord, this is the way I feel it, but I do not accept it because the enemy has done this work in me.” You need to recognize that it is not you. It is the work of the enemy.
It really is. Oh, what deliverance breaks when we finally see. We think, “It is us. This is the way I am always going to be.” It is not true, brothers and sisters. The enemy has done the work, and you cannot accept his work.
You will be delivered. Now, deliverance sometimes is not instantaneous. Sometimes it is. It depends on what the Lord has to do in your life.
Well, okay, we have talked about doubt and disarming through depression. Debilitating—what is debilitating? Fear.
Fear is one of the most debilitating things in your life. When you are under fear, you cannot move, you cannot act. You are okay, but all of a sudden this overwhelming fear comes upon you.
Today we have a word for it. It is called anxiety—an anxiety attack, a panic attack. That is what I was looking for: panic attacks.
Look, brothers and sisters, you need to recognize that these things are of the enemy. Please know where they are coming from.
As long as you think it is you—because God has never intended us to live under panic—it cannot be you. It is the enemy doing his work.
Brothers and sisters, I know what it is. I told somebody that to me it was like standing on the shore of a calm ocean and then all of a sudden having a hundred-foot wave hit you. It can happen instantaneously. You are doing fine, and it just hits you. It is fear.
Fear grips you. It debilitates you. What do we do? We stand in faith. We detect it and reject it.
Say, “Lord, this is not You. I know this is not You.” The Word says:
Perfect love casteth out fear.
In other words, we know that fear is opposed to God. We can take that ground: “Lord, this is not of You. This is from the enemy. Lord, I plead the blood of the Lamb over me. I stand. I resist the enemy in the name of Jesus.”
“Lord, if there is any ground in my life that the enemy is using, deliver me from it.” He will reveal it and deliver it, if that is what it is.
Sometimes it is just a direct attack. Other times, it is because there is some ground in you that needs to be dealt with. But the Lord can deal with that.
Defiling—that is the last D I had: things that defile. One of the things that can really grip us is bitterness.
Many of us, I know, have had to deal with this matter of bitterness in our lives. The Word of God in Hebrews says:
Beware lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you,
and thereby many be defiled.
Bitterness defiles. Not only does it defile you, but it defiles others around you.
When you recognize this spirit of bitterness, this arrow, this shaft that comes into your life, you have got to learn to reject that. “This is an arrow from the enemy. This bitterness, Lord, I do not accept it.”
Now, if the arrow has been there burning a while, it has become kind of like a stronghold in your life. Often we say, “I have got a right to be bitter here because of what has happened.”
Now, if that is in our heart, and we really think, “I have a right to be bitter,” you are in deep bondage. There is deliverance from that. There is real deliverance from bitterness in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Something Brother Frank shared with us probably twenty-five years ago—I have never forgotten it. A young man had come to him and had run away from home. He was really bitter over something his father had either said or done. I cannot remember what it was.
The young man was so angry, and Brother Frank looked at him and said, “Young man, you have reasons to be bitter, but you have no right to be bitter.”
What an amazing difference. That was like a light bulb for me. You have reasons—yes, often we have reasons—but, brothers and sisters, remember, we have no right.
We should not allow bitterness to stand regardless of what the situation may be. Bitterness is from the enemy, and we have to deal with it as such and ask for deliverance.
Once again, I think we can stand and withstand, stand in faith: “This is from the enemy, Lord. I do not accept it. I do not accept it.”
“Plead the blood of Jesus over this feeling in my heart, this feeling of bitterness,” and He will deliver you from it.
Now, I want to say something. You really cannot deliver yourself from any of these things. It is the work of the Lord.
But by recognizing the enemy, focusing your heart upon that direction, knowing what is happening here—the enemy is trying to destroy you, to keep you from Christ, to keep you out of the promised land, to keep the finished work of Calvary from being completed in your life—he shoots all these arrows.
We need that shield of faith. Faith will give you the vision to say, “This is from the enemy,” and, “This is the Lord,” whatever it may be.
We know we have dealings in our lives that come from the Lord, but these fiery arrows need to be detected and rejected.
The shield of faith—how important it is.
Let me end by reading something. Unfortunately, with these terrible D’s—with doubt, being disarmed through depression, being debilitated through fear, or feeling defiled through bitterness—it gets in our mind. It gets in our head, and we start developing an attitude.
I ran across something by Charles Swindoll. Actually, it was given at an ecumenical conference I was at. I was surprised this guy had something from Charles Swindoll. But anyway, let me read it. It is about attitude.
I think my biggest point today is that we cannot be passive about anything in our lives. We have to be active.
Attitude
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, more important than education, more important than money, circumstances, failures, successes, than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home.
The remarkable thing is