Well, this morning, as we’re gathered together, Dennis Dolmer asked me what the message was on this morning, and it is no surprise: spiritual warfare. I noticed he asked me what the Roman numeral for fourteen was, so I do not know if this is ever going to end. I did not really realize there had been that many messages on spiritual warfare.
What is on my heart is the sword of the Spirit. So let us pray this morning as we begin.
Lord, we come back to You this morning. We worship You, Lord. How can we have something so precious and so dear, this blood of Jesus Christ? Oh, Lord, and this robe of righteousness. Lord, how we want to honor Thee with our hearts, with our lives, and with our being.
Lord, how we want, in this last hour, to serve Thee as You need to be served. Lord, help us to be responsible in the house of God, responsible in service unto You, Lord Jesus. Lord, may we not be caught up in the things of this life and find ourselves as sojourners here, as ones who have found a home here. Lord, our home indeed is no longer here.
We are in a new kingdom, and we thank You for that, Lord. Oh, Lord, awaken our hearts this morning to Yourself, and awaken us to our call in this last hour. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I am still a little bit struggling with how to begin this morning. Actually, when Dennis asked me what I was going to be sharing on, I said it is the sword of the Spirit. But what is on my heart concerning the sword of the Spirit is speaking to the mountain—speaking to the mountain—and we will see what that means in a little bit.
My concern is that there are many mountains in our lives, and there are many mountains in the church. I wonder if many mountains are there because we have not yet learned how to speak to the mountain. Anyway, may the Lord, in His grace, show us this morning as we share in His Word. I do pray He will bless His Word this morning.
Now, last time I was sharing some background leading up to this. The Lord did not obliterate or annihilate Satan when He cast him out. He had a plan—a master plan—that He would raise up humanity, joined with God’s life, a spiritual man, to actually overcome His enemy.
Now, we know that in the history of man, unfortunately, he very quickly fell under the wiles and deceit of our adversary. He was no match for Satan. The reason was that when he was challenged by Satan, he had not yet eaten of the tree of life, our Lord Jesus Christ. That spiritual life was not there, and when he was challenged, he fell.
We know how great his wiles are, brothers and sisters, because we are Christians, we have eaten of the tree of life, and yet we still find ourselves falling under his wiles and deceit. So we know how great they are.
Yet the Lord did not give up His plan. He did not at that point annihilate the enemy, nor did He annihilate mankind and start with a new race of some sort. Rather, He redeemed us. He redeemed a people unto Himself by His blood shed on Calvary’s cross, which we shared so much on this morning.
He redeemed the people, and He did something new. What He did anew occurred at Pentecost. When those one hundred and twenty were in that room before the Lord, awaiting the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit came. It says they were baptized into one body, and it was the church.
The body of Jesus Christ would be this new man: Christ the Head and the church His body. This new man would overthrow Satan. The interesting part is that the Head, our Lord Jesus Christ, overthrew him at Calvary’s cross, but still did not annihilate him.
He left him there for a work for the church to do in this last hour. That is, to take the victory of the Lamb, to apply the victory of the Lamb to our lives and to all the circumstances in this world and in our lives, that the victory of Christ might actually be manifested through His body, the church.
It is amazing—God’s plan. You know, in some ways, I think we lose appreciation for what our Lord has done in this tremendous wisdom and insight of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a master plan that none of us could have ever dreamed.
Because I know how we are, brothers and sisters. If something does not work, we throw it away and get a new one, do we not? I do. Eventually, I get tired of working on my car and repairing it, and I say, “I have got to have a new one,” particularly when the new models come out. The old car is not quite what it used to be when the new models come out.
Well, that is our nature. We give up on things. But praise God, in His mercy and in His great love, He did not give up on fallen mankind. Rather, He gave His life on our behalf and allowed us to partake of the tree of life through the gift of God’s only Son, Jesus Christ.
Not only that, but now He has commissioned us in this last hour to be His body, to be His army upon this earth, to be a vessel through which the enemy will be brought under control until that day when finally the Lord Jesus, after He has served the purpose of God—after God has used our enemy to test His people and strengthen His people—will do away with him.
It is amazing to me, brothers and sisters, that God uses the enemy. Now, it seems the enemy uses us quite a bit, does he not? But in reality, God is using the enemy. One way He uses the enemy is to test us.
Back in my college days, I would lift weights. Actually, at that time I became—I do not have to say right now—probably three times as weak as I was when I was in college, even though I am twice the weight. But it was because I continually pressed to do more. More weight was added weekly to my routine, and I got where I could do pretty good for my size in those days.
The thing of it is, there had to be that resistance. There had to be something to develop me. And God uses the enemy for that purpose.
Brothers and sisters, God is in control. I think we need to be reassured of that, and reassured of how much He loves us, cares for us, and just will not give up. He just will not give up, and I thank Him for that.
May we have that same spirit in us: that we will not give up, that we just will not give up.
Well, let me get on here. As we were sharing last week, let me read some Scriptures that will help us this morning. There are about seven of them, so if you will follow me quickly this morning, I am going to begin with Matthew 16.
Matthew 16:18:
And I say also unto thee, Thou art Peter,
and upon this rock I will build My church;
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Then, in Matthew 16:24, it says:
Then said Jesus unto His disciples,
If any man will come after Me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Then go to Matthew 18, starting with Matthew 18:18. In Matthew 16, we see the universal church in its essence. In Matthew 18, He is talking about brother and brother; it is the local assembly. Once again, we hear these words:
Verily I say unto you,
Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven:
and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say unto you,
That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask,
it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them.
Now to Revelation 12. Revelation 12:5 and Revelation 12:11:
And she brought forth a man child,
who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron:
and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne.
It is caught up unto God and His throne.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb,
and by the word of their testimony;
and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Now let us go all the way back to the front: Exodus 14, starting with Exodus 14:15. This is when they were locked between the Red Sea and the Egyptian army, coming out of Egypt, with Moses leading them.
And the Lord said unto Moses,
Wherefore criest thou unto Me?
Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward:
But lift thou up thy rod,
and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it.
Why criest thou unto Me? Speak. But lift up thy rod, stretch out thy hand over the sea, and divide it. In Exodus 14:21:
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea;
and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night,
and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
Isaiah 45:11:
Thus saith the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker,
Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons,
and concerning the work of My hands command ye Me.
Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands command ye Me.
I have made the earth,
and created man upon it:
I, even My hands, have stretched out the heavens,
and all their host have I commanded.
I have raised him up in righteousness,
and I will direct all his ways:
he shall build My city,
and he shall let go My captives.
If I have got a problem—no, that is the glitch. This thing vibrates; let me know. I kept hearing this little popping noise. I wondered what it was. Thank you.
Ask of Me. In this verse it says, “Command ye Me.” It is important to know that He is talking about concerning My sons, the work of My hands. Then He goes on to say, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, “He shall build My city, and He shall let My captives go.”
Then Matthew 17:20:
Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said,
Why could not we cast him out?
And Jesus said unto them,
Because of your unbelief:
for verily I say unto you,
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed,
ye shall say unto this mountain,
Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove;
and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, “Remove hence to yonder place,” and it shall remove. Nothing shall be impossible unto you. Speaking to the mountain.
Well, this morning I need to make it clear out of these verses we have read, particularly out of Matthew 16 and Matthew 18: we see it is interesting, the two places where the Lord Himself talks of the church—and those are the only two places—because something that is very precious to God and very precious in His heart, often you find seems to be a hidden thing. He does not seem to say a lot about it.
It depends on the Holy Spirit working in our hearts to begin to reveal these things to us. It is through revelation that God really makes a difference in our lives. Just learning about the church is not enough. We have to live it. We have to experience it. We have to be it. Very important.
But the point being that in His speaking about the church, both universal and the local assembly, the Lord speaks of binding and loosing.
We kind of quickly read through those Scriptures: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” and we say, “Okay, the church will be triumphant in the end,” and we kind of go on. But, brothers and sisters, something very significant is said here in both places.
It speaks of a responsibility of the church as His vessel upon this earth: the responsibility to bind and to loose.
To bind up the works of the adversary; to bind up what is not of Christ; to restrain our flesh; to restrain what is natural; to restrain the adversary and his works and his demonic forces.
To loose the power of God; to loose the Holy Spirit to be allowed to work in a situation; to loose the things of God; to loose His children to be able to worship, to pray, and to serve Him; to loose the power of the gospel upon this earth.
Binding and loosing is, dare we not say, the responsibility of the church. No other vessel has this responsibility. No other vessel is empowered with this capability but His church.
Remember, He is talking about the church. But He says, “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst,” in Matthew 18.
In other words, brothers and sisters, two or three gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus—there is something unique, something that happens. We have the Holy Spirit within us. When we accept the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is within us to speak to us, strengthen us, cause us to hear what the Lord is saying to us, and interpret what God is saying to us.
We have the Holy Spirit, the anointing upon us, to serve Him in whatever way that will be. When we go to worship the Lord, there is an anointing not only from within, brothers and sisters, but upon us. When we go to praise, it takes the anointing of the Lord. When we serve the Lord, we should ask for His anointing upon us.
Our Lord Jesus Christ already was full of the Holy Spirit, even in the womb. But when He was baptized in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit came upon Him. He came upon Him at the beginning of His outward ministry to this world.
In other words, there was that unique outward outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our Lord Jesus—that outward anointing. But here we see that even though these two anointings are already there, there is something special, something unique, about two or three gathering together as the body of Jesus Christ, as His church.
That is, the Lord Himself is in the midst. Now, He cannot be in the midst of me, because I am just one. He can only be in the midst when there are two. He can be in the midst of many.
In other words, there is a special, unique action of our Lord Jesus Christ that He takes when two or three are gathered in His name. He says, “I am going to come. Not only am I in you, and you pray for the Holy Spirit’s anointing upon you to be able to pray or whatever you are doing, but I am going to be right there in the midst.”
The Captain of the host is in the midst to direct the action, to empower us. The Lord Himself, the very presence of the Lord, is with us. I think sometimes we overlook that aspect of the Lord’s ministry.
We know He is our High Priest praying for us, do we not? You know, I thought about that on the way this morning. I said, “Lord, I have not really been praying much this week,” and I realized the Lord has been praying continuously for all of us as a High Priest.
But here is a ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ where He says, “I will come and be in your midst.” When it comes to this matter of binding and loosing, we need that special presence of the Lord Jesus Christ standing in our midst.
I think it is because He is the victory. He is the Victor. If you are going to stand in the name of the Lord and claim His victory, and have Him in your midst—the Victor in your midst—that gives us faith. That gives us the ability to stand, to bind, and to loose. He is in the midst.
So the church has a very unique responsibility, brothers and sisters, one which has almost been lost down through the ages, one in which very little is participated in. Yes, we may come together and pray about different needs and different things in our lives, but this matter of binding and loosing—what is its purpose?
I think Isaiah 45 really reveals the main issue here. The issue is not our welfare individually. The issue is God’s welfare. Let me go back to Isaiah. I am just going to have to take some time on this, even if it takes two messages, because I want us to really see the amazing responsibility God has left with His church.
Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel,
Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons,
and concerning the work of My hands command ye Me.
Is that not strange? That the Lord would say, “Command ye Me.” You and I, weak vessels as we are, commanding the Lord. It almost seems that would make us heretics to even consider commanding the Lord.
But the context of this has to be understood. The greatest example is Moses, I think, when he was pressed against the Red Sea. The Lord said, “Why are you crying out to Me, Moses? Lift up the rod of authority that I have given to you, and divide the sea.”
Why are you crying to Me, Moses? You have been given this authority. Use it in My name. The rod of authority. He lifted it up over the sea, and the seas were parted.
Now, as I read that, I emphasized something that you may not have picked up. It says in the following verses that Moses lifted up the rod, and the Lord brought that wind and divided the sea. The Lord really did it. It was not Moses. It was not Moses’ authority. It was not Moses’ power that divided that sea.
All that was required of Moses was to be the vessel of God’s authority, to lift it up in that situation in the name of the Lord, and then God took action. What God is saying here is that a lot of times, brothers and sisters, He is waiting. He is waiting for His church to lift up that rod of authority, and then He will move.
That is what it means to “command ye Me.” We cannot make the Lord do anything that He does not want to do, can we? You say, “Try it, if you think you can.” You cannot really change the Lord’s mind. You are not going to convince Him to do something that is against His will.
So it is not you with the authority. It is not that He is servant to you. But the Lord has put His church in a special, unique relationship with Him, saying, “Look, I want you to be a part of My life. I want you to be a part of what I am doing. When it concerns My sons and the work of My hands, I need your cooperation.”
Frankly, I am just not going to move until I have your cooperation, because that is important to Me. It is more important than that I just go ahead and do it Myself. I need your cooperation.
I think we as parents can understand that so well—that very principle of life. With our children, there comes a point in our relationship when we wait on them to act. We want them to. We train them up for so many years—fourteen, fifteen, eighteen years—and it is time for them to take action.
Yes, we are there to support them. Yes, we are there to do it if that is what is necessary. But we want them to stand up and take that place that they are brought into.
God has said, “I want to bring many sons to glory.” It also says in the Scriptures that the earth is in travail and is groaning until the manifestation of the sons of God—mature Christians.
So you see, the Lord here is not looking to be a slave to us, that we are just commanding here and there. All we are doing is saying, “Lord, I realize what Your will is here. You revealed Your will to me, and now it is time to move.”
So I lift up that rod of authority in this situation, and it moves.
Let me give you another example. I think I mentioned this last time. The battle of Jericho is so significant.
For six days they marched around that impossible fortress, that impossible situation, that mountain that stood in the way of the nation of Israel entering the promised land, obtaining God’s promises, obtaining God’s blessing. There was this citadel of the enemy. A mountain was there, if you understand the metaphor here.
It takes faith as a grain of mustard seed to move the mountain. What did the Lord do? He had the nation of Israel march around this citadel for six days, once each day, not saying a word, only listening to the ram’s horn announcing the presence of the ark.
“Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am in the midst.” That was a significant issue.
On the seventh day, they marched seven times around. Completion—seven is always completion. Brothers and sisters, all that means is that in that period of time, faith as a grain of a mustard seed arose in the hearts of God’s people.
As they looked at this impossible fortress, this tremendous mountain that stood in the way of their progress into the promised land, there was this tremendous fortress there by the adversary. They knew the will of God was to tear down these walls.
But the first day, they were not ready. God had to bring them to a place of faith.
There are many things, many mountains, that we pray about—maybe for years sometimes. But there comes a point. In this situation, there was this point of faith that they had reached.
The Lord said, “Shout,” and they shouted. They had reached the place of really commanding—the place of commanding the Lord. They knew the Lord’s will. They were standing for the Lord’s will. Faith had risen in their hearts, and they basically were declaring those walls were nothing before the Lord, before this ark. They had to fall, and they did.
Now, I do not want to in any way indicate that we should go around shouting at our enemy. I think that can get us into a lot of trouble. But speaking to the mountain—this is on my heart this morning.
This is what this “command ye Me” is all about. He is waiting for the church to act. All we are really doing is saying, “Lord, You have revealed Your will to me, and this is the time, this is the hour. It is here. I sense it in my heart by faith, and I take it.” Then the walls crumble.
Faith and timing go together, brothers and sisters.
If you read that Scripture concerning Moses dividing the Red Sea—really the Lord dividing the Red Sea—you will see that right before that, Moses declared to the people, “Stand and see the salvation of God.” He had faith.
But the people were still crying out to the Lord, and Moses was looking to the Lord. He did not know what the Lord was going to do, but he knew the Lord was faithful. That gave Moses faith, but the people were lacking a little bit.
God said, “Okay, it is time to take up this rod of authority that I have given to you”—the same rod that he used in all the battles with Pharaoh, in dealing with all the plagues that came upon Egypt. The rod of authority was there.
That is what God has called His church to do. In this last hour, in the Book of Revelation, if you read that carefully and His Word to the seven churches—there may be a calling beyond this, but I do not know it yet—to the seven churches He says, “Overcome,” in every one of them, regardless of their condition.
Their conditions varied from very good to very poor. The Lord said, “Overcome.” His call was to overcome. As far as I know, that is the last call to the church, His people.
Are we going to enter into His call as His church? That is what is on my heart: being able to deal with the mountain.
This is really a church issue. When we say, “Concerning My sons,” in other words, it is not concerning just my personal needs, even though the Lord is so gracious in working with us in our personal needs and our personal life.
But He is saying, “My sons”—bringing many sons to glory. That includes the gospel being spread. That includes brothers and sisters being released from bondages. That includes principalities and powers being bound, such as what we are dealing with today in the Middle East.
Do we know there is a prince of darkness there that is guiding these forces of terrorism? The terrorists are not so much the issue as what is behind it. There is a spirit of darkness behind it. God has given the responsibility to the church, saying, “Why are you crying to Me? Lift up the rod and use it.”
Now, it takes faith, brothers and sisters. I know we have got to come to a place of faith in our prayers. We are dealing with this, because you cannot just go around lifting up this rod every second, you know what I mean?
Every situation requires prayer—diligent prayer. Every situation requires faith, and only God can bring us to that point of faith.
One of the illustrations I was going to use today: I remember actually when I first started thinking about spiritual warfare, it occurred because of situations happening at work, long before the attack that we experienced on September 11.
I remember things at work were getting very intense. I do not know how to describe it. It was more than just intense. Very unusual things were happening, and they were personal attacks against me—my integrity and things. That is okay if that falls; it probably should.
But I am just saying that all of a sudden it seemed like my supervisor was against me, that he was totally agitated with me. All these things were going wrong. You know, I have one hundred and seventy men at work in maintenance at the Housing Authority. Any of them make a mistake, it is my mistake. That is the way it is.
They were making some mistakes, and they were coming back up the line and up the ladder, as we call it. They would reach the executive director’s office, and he would come back to me. I would spend days investigating situations. A lot of times, of course, there is always the other side of the story that he was not hearing. I was always going back: “You need to hear the rest of the story.”
But I was going through this, and it was maddening. It was just wearing me out. One day, I came across the Scripture in Matthew 17 about speaking to the mountain.
I got the call from the executive director. He said, “Jerry, I want you down here right now.” I said, “Well, what is it about?” He said, “You just come.” So I knew that it was not good, put it that way.
I got in my car. Matthew 17 came to my heart, and it was like the Lord said, “Okay, now is the time to speak.” I did outwardly, verbally. I said, “Enough of this. In the name of Jesus Christ, I bind this stuff. In the name of Jesus.”
I went up there, and that meeting turned around very quickly to be positive. From that time, things began to change very significantly. Those things basically went away until this past week, when one of our buildings blew out.
This past week has been quite a week. I want you all to know that we did lose a building, and one resident was seriously injured because one of the buildings exploded from a gas leak.
But that was a different warfare of a different nature, I am telling you. This past week, it was as if the enemy was trying to crush me, trying to get to me. That previous time, he was getting to me, really. It was really difficult. He was not just trying to steal my time and wear me down.
I say that only to say there came a point in dealing with this situation. I had been praying about it, not as diligently as I should. But that morning when I got in the car, that is what came to me. I said, “I bind this in the name of Jesus Christ.”
I did not shout at the enemy. I just did it. I did raise my voice: “I bind this in the name of Jesus. This is enough. No more.” And it broke. I am telling you, it broke. It broke something that was behind it.
Now, brothers and sisters, there are mountains in our lives sometimes. We do not understand them, and we cannot seem to comprehend them. They are just like Jericho: impossible fortresses. You really cannot deal with them.
My reasoning was not working very well with my supervisor, and my explanations. He was tired of explanations. He wanted all these problems to go away, and I could not make them go. Well, I thank God that He dealt with that.
But that is an individual thing. I want to say in this matter of binding and loosing, because it is a responsibility of the church—and I have been asked this—can you, as an individual, bind and loose?
Remember the issues: concerning My sons and the work of My hands.
I will direct all his ways:
he shall build My city,
and he shall let go My captives.
That is the work of God’s hands: building this city, this New Jerusalem, of which we are a part, and letting My captives go. Those are the matters.
If the enemy is crushing your life so you cannot serve in the assembly, brothers and sisters, the problem is not your circumstances. The problem is the enemy behind it. May God, at some point, awaken us to the real issue.
The issue is not the circumstances that are crushing us. What is behind them is the issue.
Remember when the Lord Jesus went to Peter’s mother-in-law’s house? Remember, she was sick. It says that the Lord rebuked the fever, and she immediately rose up and served the Lord.
Her service to the Lord was impeded by a mountain. It was impeded by this fever that she had, and she was not able to serve the Lord that day. But the Lord rebuked the fever.
Now, some fevers come from natural illnesses. But there was something behind this fever, because you cannot rebuke something natural. It has no way of knowing anything. There was a spirit behind this fever that had brought it on, and it was rebuked.
The Lord rebuked it. Otherwise, He would just touch her and heal her. But it says He rebuked the fever. There was something behind this fever. It was a mountain standing in the way, and the Lord took care of it.
So what I am trying to say is, concerning My sons, the matter here is that we can, just like I did at work that day, individually bind and loose. But it is always on the ground of the church.
I have asked the Lord to help me explain what I mean by the ground of the church. That means you are taking your place in God’s house. It means that you know what it is to be in the body of Jesus Christ. That is the ground you take in this prayer.
It is very similar to when I sin. Do I come back to God with my good works and deeds and say, “Lord, I think I have now done enough good deeds to offset this sin that I committed”?
Now, those with Catholic backgrounds, you know you have to do penance to offset your sins. But praise God, God has revealed something in the Lord Jesus Christ: that He has served our penance for us. That is the only acceptable sacrifice on our behalf, the Lord Jesus Christ. All of our good works can never take away one sin.
So when we come to God, when we come to worship Him, do you come on the ground of your good deeds that week? No. You come on the basis of what? The blood of Jesus Christ.
I can come because of the blood of the Lamb taking my sins. I confess my sins before Him. I can come and worship God. The guilt can be taken away, thank God.
So I come on the ground of the work of Calvary. That is my ground. This morning, it was in my heart, this robe of righteousness that has been given.
Whenever you approach God, it is always with this robe of righteousness. I do not know if you realize you have it, but when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ, He knows that we can never appear before God in our fleshly condition.
No matter how good a Christian you are, how spiritual you are, unfortunately you have the flesh with you until the day you die. We cannot come before a holy God.
So God made provision in the Lord Jesus Christ that He would become our robe of righteousness. When we appear before God, when we appear before the throne, what God sees is you in the light of Jesus Christ. That robe of righteousness is what He sees. Therefore, you are not consumed when you come before Him in worship and prayer.
That is the ground of Calvary that we come on. So what I am saying is, in this matter of binding and loosing, we come on the ground of the church, being one with our brothers and sisters.
Even though I do not agree with you, there is a oneness between us that can never be broken. In our practical experience, of course, we can be divided. We know that. But there is a oneness of God. It is Jesus Christ. It is impossible to break, and you have to come on that basis.
Let me explain that a little bit, because I know it affects us directly here in Richmond. When Ahab and Jezebel—who was the prophet? Elijah, thank you.
He built that altar. The nation of Israel was in two parts. Two tribes—the tribe of Judah and Benjamin—stayed true to the Lord. Well, they were drifting, but they were the ones staying true to the Lord. Ten tribes had separated.
But when Elijah built that altar to the Lord, did he just put two stones down there? No. He saw the whole nation of Israel as one, and he built that altar with twelve stones.
The outward condition was not true, but the spiritual condition is what Elijah stood upon. He stood upon the truth. He stood upon reality: one nation.
So when we come, we stand on the ground of the church. Today the church is divided. Today the church is in disarray in a lot of ways. But we still come standing on the ground of the church. It is the only way you can bind and loose.
And boy, I am running out. When we talk in Revelation about overcoming, the Lord said, “He that hath an ear, let him hear.” Not all who were there heard. Not all had an ear. But those that did, they had to stand on the ground of the church and do binding and loosing.
It is only in the church that this responsibility can be carried out, brothers and sisters. It is only on that ground that we can bind and loose.
You might say, “Well, Jerry, that day at work, on what basis was that?” Well, interestingly enough, for the brothers that have been gathering with us on Sunday nights, when we gather and meet with the brothers in the various groups, invariably and every time we pray, “Lord, this week, rule over our work situations. Rule over our family situations.”
Because we do it every week, some people might say, “Well, this is just routine. It does not mean anything.” But, brothers and sisters, that is the prayer of the church.
So you can stand in that prayer this week: that the Lord have control over your work situation. Oh, we cannot be passive in our lives. I will get into that later. I have not got off the first page here.
But it is important. Maybe I just need to share it. When Kenny shared on fear last week, it was very timely, and I really appreciated that, because it is warfare.
Fear is a spiritual enemy. It is not some condition that you have. I want you to know that. It is a spiritual force behind it. It is not a weakness of yours. It is a spiritual force behind it that has to be dealt with.
It is always good, if you are dealing with it, to get another brother and sister to pray with you. Stand on the ground of the church. Better with two or three.
I remember, as a personal testimony of this matter—and to illustrate this point of binding and loosing, and not just letting your life go and being passive, letting things happen and just kind of accepting them—we cannot do that any longer.
This was many years ago. It was at the passing of my mother-in-law, who was my—I call her my spiritual mother. I know most men do not have a very good relationship with their mothers-in-law, but mine was excellent. I could not ask for a better relationship. I called her my spiritual mother.
I had a special, unique relationship with her. But she died at the age of fifty, and it shook me up. It really did. I never knew I had any fears.
She was the Lord’s, of course, and everything, and that was okay. But it was interesting enough. I remember that morning I had gotten up to go to the hospital to see her. I think it was a weekend.
I stopped by—she was in a hospital down near Broad and Boulevard. There used to be a little hamburger place, the White Tower, right there on that corner. The Richmond people remember White Tower. They had the best little quarter hamburgers in the world.
But anyway, that morning I was in there, and they were frying up sausage. That sausage smelled so good to me, and I ate one. But I went on and saw my mother-in-law, and she passed away that day.
What I first noticed was that after that, any time I smelled sausage, immediately a fear came over me. Interesting what the enemy does, does he not? He took that little unique smell of sausage and her death, and there was a fear there that came upon me.
Any time I would smell sausage cooking, the fear would come. I went on for almost two years with this fear coming upon me on and off. Then other things began to trigger it. Any unique pressure would begin to trigger this fear.
I remember getting to the point where I honestly thought I was losing my mind. It kind of came to a head one day. I hope this helps somebody.
I was at work. It was five minutes to five, and my boss called me and said, “Jerry, we are having an emergency meeting in five minutes. I need you there.” He did not call me to his office; he phoned me. I said, “Fine, I will be right there.”
I hung up the phone and walked out of the building. Nothing in my mind about this meeting—it was gone. It just left.
I came back to work the next day, and of course I got dressed down pretty hard. My boss said, “Are you crazy?” Honestly, I thought I was.
I really thought, “Lord, I am losing my mind. I really am.” Now, this was honest. This was not just saying, “Hey, we are losing our minds.” In particular, as we get older, we realize we do not remember much anymore. But this was not that case. I was in my thirties.
I was really struggling with this matter of fear. Sometimes it would hit me, brothers and sisters. I have always described it this way: to me, it was like standing in the calm ocean, and then all of a sudden having a one-hundred-foot wave just wipe you out. That was the way it was for me.
It began to affect my mind, is what I am trying to say. I was doing just ridiculous things because I was not remembering anymore.
I cannot remember how I came across this particular book or who gave it to me, but it was called War on the Saints by Jessie Penn-Lewis.
Now, if you decide to read War on the Saints, I want you to do something for me: pray. Pray before you read War on the Saints. Ask for the covering of the blood. There is nothing wrong with that book.
It is just that I think she so revealed the tactics of the adversary, she so uncovered his deceptive ways, that I do believe he does not want people to read that book.
But anyway, I read the book. As I read it, I began to see that what had happened to me was that fear had come, and I had become very passive—a very passive spiritual state and mental state.
The enemy really used that passivity: just going through things, just letting things happen to me, never challenging them as being from the enemy or anything. But what I discovered that day when I read that book changed my life.
The reason it did is that I realized I was not the problem. Of course, I am a problem. But the issue here was not me so much as there was an enemy behind this. I was just taking it as something natural, something that just happened to Jerry Amos for whatever reason.
I was just letting it happen. There was no resistance on my part. You know, in the Bible, in James, it says, “Resist the enemy, and he will flee.” I never knew that verse existed until I read the book by Jessie Penn-Lewis.
I began to see that I needed to resist. But I was awakened to the real enemy.
As I began to pray, I came in touch with the real enemy. I want you to know, uncovering that it was the work of the adversary was one of the greatest revelations that ever hit my life.
It opened my eyes to see that I had an adversary who was not just a guy running around with a pitchfork. He was real. He was taking delight in destroying my life emotionally and mentally, and I was letting him do it because I was ignorant.
I did not know about this spiritual warfare. I did not know that this enemy worked in this way, that he had a way to put things and thoughts into our minds, that there was a spiritual force and power called fear that he used so greatly.
Fear is probably one of his greatest weapons. I would say there are probably very few people in this room who at some point in their life have not been attacked by fear in some degree. He uses that against us to keep us from serving the Lord.
It is a mountain. It can be a mountain in our lives. But I am telling you today, you do not have to be passive. In fact, if you are, he will not stop.
You know, I thought about these terrorists. He is hidden. He hides himself in circumstances. We say, “Oh, this is a physical condition.”
I take the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I stand today, and I am getting up out of this bed now. Speaking to the mountain. Loosing.
Now, I have just said something that I do not know whether it affected you or not. But you have resurrection life. Sometimes we are so weak that we just feel like we cannot press on anymore. We feel like we cannot do this or we cannot do that. Oh, we cannot get up.
If faith comes into your heart, if you are not passive about it, but begin to turn to the Lord and pray and look to the ark to come into this situation and declare the victory of the Lord, there comes a point when you can say, “By the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus Christ, I rise up and go on.”
Speaking to the mountain.
I think I had better stop for the day. I am still on page one. Obviously, I really believe it is on the Lord’s heart, brothers and sisters.
I wonder how many mountains remain in our lives because we have been passive about it. The enemy has used his devices against us to either keep us under guilt or whatever, and we do not deal with it. We cannot.
Guilt is a tremendously debilitating thing, because when you are under guilt, there is no faith.
I pray today that you will see the truth of the power of the blood of Jesus Christ, which I have spoken on many times, but it is so critical, so essential. You have to believe that that blood takes away the guilt and the penalty that you do not have to serve.
I know how we are. We want to do penance. That is our way, but it is not God’s way. That is man’s way. We want to do penance. We want to say, “Well, I have not suffered enough for this sin, Lord. I can never pray again in the assembly. I can hardly even pray at all. I certainly cannot worship You openly because of this sin in my life.”
Brothers and sisters, that is not taking the ground of the work of the cross. Do not be passive. Do not let him continually keep you under the power of guilt or under fear.
“I resist this in the name of Jesus Christ.” You have that authority. It is the Lord who really does the resisting. Just like when Moses lifted that rod, he lifted the rod and the Lord moved. But he had to lift the rod first.
So the Lord says, “First, I want you to resist.” That resisting really is declaring the Lord in that situation. That is the way you resist.
It says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. What is our wrestling? Our wrestling really is prayer—prayer declaring the victory of Jesus Christ.
Lord, we just come to You today. We thank You, Lord Jesus, for the victory in Jesus Christ. We thank You that You are the God who is so concerned about His sons and the work of His hands.
Lord, You have called us as a church to cooperate with You, to use Your name—obviously to use it correctly and rightly—to give ourselves unto Thee, and to let Thee have full control of our lives.
But, Lord, may we understand that, Lord Jesus, in this last hour You have called us to overcome. The first thing we would say to You is, “Lord, how? I cannot do it, Lord. It is not in me.”
I think Your response would be, “My grace is sufficient. My grace is powerful. Thank God you cannot do it, because I will do it. Just lift up My name. Just lift up the rod of My name. Declare My victory. Withstand, and the enemy will have to flee.”
Lord, give us faith—faith as a grain of mustard seed. Lord, deliver us from being passive in our lives spiritually, physically, and emotionally. Deliver us, Lord.
Lord Jesus, there is much to be done. It says that You would lower the mountains and raise the valleys and make a plain path for Your people. Lord, we need to be involved in that work of removing the mountains and lifting the valleys.
Lord, we are just dust of the earth, but what You have done is an amazing miracle. Lord, I just pray that we will not fall short of our calling. Lord, empower us today with the Holy Spirit. Send out Your blessing upon Your people, Lord.
Lord, we are sinful people. We confess that. But today we take the blood of the Lamb, and we stand today on Calvary’s ground, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.