Guarding against the enemy

[00:00:00] Good morning. I want to greet each one of you in Jesus' name this morning. How many of you remembered when Harold said the name Harbinda Garanj? I think it was. Do you remember that name, when Luke shared that name as a request in church? I remember the name. I don't remember exactly how it was said, but it was in the letter to Harold right now. [00:00:33] He said he is experiencing healing and Luke shared that he had in the letter that Luke shared with us. If this man is healed, the people of the village have agreed they will accept Christ. They will believe then that Jesus is real if this man is healed. I think that is really exciting news. And the whole thing about all the demons getting cast out, that is a lot to do with what I plan to talk about this morning. [00:01:11] I guess if I have a title this morning, it would be Guarding Against the Enemy. Are we on our guard? Are we, do I need to worry about being deceived? Let's look at 1 Corinthians 10, 1-13. I actually, my passage I guess that I plan on sharing from is Ephesians 6, the armor of God. A little bit of that, but I'd like to look at 1 Corinthians 10, 1-13 [00:01:43] And think about it, that this does apply to us. We are not above being deceived or being misled. I could kind of go along with what the DVD we saw the other night, Sunday night, about the emergent church and the new way of thinking. It's new and yet it's old. The church has always faced deception. 1 Corinthians 10, 1-13 Notice as we read through here that the Israelites, they all had the same experience, they all had the same, they were genuine Israelites, they were baptized to Moses, they were for real. [00:02:24] And yet, almost all of them did not make it to the promised land. Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat. and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now this is something we need to notice. [00:02:57] Now these things were our examples. These were recorded so that we could learn from it. To the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. [00:03:33] Now all these things happen unto them for in samples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall. There is no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. Alright, the first 12 verses are warning us, admonishing us, take heed lest ye fall. [00:04:12] He that thinketh he stands, take heed lest he fall. We might say, well that was the early church, that was back then. We all know better, we're not going to be deceived. But I think that 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. There are no fill-ins in the Bible. If it's there, it's for a purpose. And I believe that we need to be on our guard. [00:04:43] Verse 11 and 12 show a warning of our sinful tendencies. You know, just because you think you're standing, we may be standing, we may not have sin in our lives, there may not be anything wrong right now, but we need to be on our guard lest we fall. We can look at those first 11 verses and think, well, look at all these people, they were good and they still lost out. But verse 13 tells us we still do not have to sin. We make the choice. There is no temptation taking you that you cannot stand, that you cannot overcome. With every temptation God allows, there is also a way to escape. [00:05:31] Okay, we need to believe God always. When we make a choice to sin, when we sin, I should say, we make a choice to sin. And the choice that we make is to believe Satan rather than believing God. Let's go to Ephesians 6, 10-18. Let's see what our defense is. I had been planning on going through the whole list of the armor. [00:06:06] I believe we're going to focus a little bit on, first of all, on our enemy himself, Satan. I think the best, any army general, anyone that's in a battle, or even in a sports scene, The more you know about your opponent, the more likely you're going to be able to defeat your opponent. Okay, what is our plan of defense? Ephesians 6, 10-18 [00:06:39] Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, there's a wherefore, see what it's there for, because we wrestle against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness. [00:07:12] Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. That to stand would mean to be steadfast, don't give ground. Having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked [00:07:43] And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God Praying always with all prayer and supplications in the Spirit And watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints Verse 10 and 11 tell us to be strong in the Lord. He is our defense. That's the first thing we need to realize. [00:08:14] If it's just us versus Satan, us versus the devil, the wiles of the devil, we are no match for Satan. But at the same time, God is our defense as much as we are helpless in the battle against Satan. Satan is as much helpless in the battle against God. We have a tendency to think, how many of you get the SMBI newsletter? [00:08:49] How many of you read the article in there about how we tend to view Satan and God as being in a constant battle with Satan being almost as strong as God? We always know God is all-powerful and He is going to win in the end, but we tend to think that Satan is right there just about as powerful and it's a constant battle between God and Satan. Who is Satan? What are he and his demons like? How much power do they have? [00:09:24] The Bible calls Satan our adversary, that wicked one, accuser of the brethren, a liar. He is not God's equal. He's not even close to God's equal. He is created by God, just like we are. He receives His strength, His substance from God. God gives us life. If God were to decide not to give us life, we would all die instantly. [00:09:57] We have no life of our own. That is one thing that separates God from everyone else. God is the only one that can give life. We talked about it in Sunday school. The earth is full of the glory of God. Everything that has life is proof that God is God. God is the giver of all life. And there is, scientists can maybe, they can take maybe a kernel of corn or a grain of rice or any kind of seed and make, they can put all the, they can break that down and figure out all the chemicals that are in there, everything that is made of, and they can put it in a tube and do everything that they need to do, but it will not grow. [00:10:47] It will not, they can, they're just that missing ingredient that is called life and science has no explanation for it except for God or tremendous heat and pressure and a big bang which it takes, I can't, life can only be attributed to God. So we see Satan as being created Satan was not created a bad angel [00:11:19] Satan was an angel He was Lucifer Satan decided that he was going to be like God And there's another thing that tells us the difference between God and Satan Usually if there's someone you're in contention with If there's a problem, you're trying to overcome that person. You're trying to be better than that person or higher than that person. Satan said, I will be like God. [00:11:50] Satan, of course, could never become like God. But even in his twisted way of thinking, he realized that being superior to God was not possible. There was no way he was going to overcome God or say I'm going to take heaven over. He didn't do that. He said I will become as God. He realized too that he was not going to overcome God. Another thing, when he was cast down, it doesn't say that God cast him out or that he fought with God. [00:12:27] Satan fought with Michael and his angels. The angels, we would readily say that when we think of the angels, not the demons, but the angels now, the good angels and God, we would readily say the angels are subject to God. You know, God's up here, the angels are here, and we would readily say that they are subject to God. But somehow we take Satan and put him way up above the other angels, he's more powerful than the angels. Michael and his angels defeated Satan. [00:13:03] We can, I'm not trying to bring Satan down so low that we do not need to worry about him or we don't have to be, you know, he's easily defeated. But at the same time, we do not give Him the same reverence or the same high place as what we give God. God is far superior, far stronger than Satan. Okay, Isaiah 14.14, some of these verses I have printed out, we're not going to turn to them. [00:13:40] I'm sorry, I kind of got ahead of myself is where he said, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds I will be like the Most High. How do we defeat Satan in our life? One thing, in James 4, 7, it says Resist the devil I'm sorry, now I... Yeah, submit yourselves therefore to God Resist the devil and he will flee from you. We have been told, resist the devil and he will flee. [00:14:19] We do have that. We have not been told, rebuke the devil. Jude 1.9 says, Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. And I think that in the same way, we do not reverence Satan like we would reverence God. But at the same time, we need to realize that Satan is as a roaring lion. [00:14:53] He is someone that we do not trifle with Satan. He is powerful. We would respect Satan. We need to have a certain level of respect for Satan. And maybe in the way that you would respect a bomb. You do not reverence that bomb, but you don't go fiddling with it and see what's going to happen. And I guess when I think of Satan, I don't mean just Satan, but what are some examples maybe, I guess I didn't really think through that, of things that maybe we can think, well we can dabble in it a little bit. [00:15:34] We're not going to get too far in it. We won't get carried away with it. And yet that is the way Satan works. He is a deceiver. We don't ignore him in the way that we would ignore, well, if we just leave him alone, he'll leave us alone. Maybe if he's leaving us alone, it's because we're not doing enough to fight him. The book of Job proves to us, The story of Job proves to us Satan cannot force us to do anything. [00:16:12] Satan came to God. Every time that things went further and further with Job, God had to give Satan permission. There again, very clearly shows Satan wasn't going behind God's back and messing with Job and God was trying to keep him away. and God had to let him get to Satan. He has no way to force us to do anything against God. He can only make it appealing to us. [00:16:45] We need to be willing to believe that what God wants for us is what's best for us. Maybe an extreme example, I was trying to think of a way that someone, I remember when I was a kid in school, the teacher saying, You can, no one, including your parents, no one can make you do anything. Maybe they can make you fall down. But no one can make you do anything. Your parents can punish you, they can train you, and whatever. [00:17:18] But you still, in your mind, have to make that decision that you are going to do it. An example, it's an extreme example, but say there's something someone's trying to force you to do. You say, no, I'm not going to do it. And they put a gun to your head. And they say, do it or I'll shoot. All of a sudden, and this may be kind of comical, but all of a sudden, whatever they're trying to tell you to do seems appealing. Because if I don't do that, I'm going to get shot. [00:17:51] And in the same way, Satan, well, on the same way, you still make that choice. There are people that lose their lives every day because they are told, if you don't denounce Christ, if you don't give up your Christian ways, you will die. The term, the devil made me do it, never applies. The devil cannot make us do anything. In Ephesians where he talks about they may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil [00:18:28] That wiles is trickery, that is, it's also translated, now I didn't write it down It's translated lying in wait Satan sets traps for us, he deliberately deceives us And the way he appeals to us is by making what God said is best for us look less, like I said, put a gun to your head and all of a sudden they're robbing a bank and the lady says, or they say, give me the money. [00:19:04] And they say no. He pulls a gun. And all of a sudden it seems to her like the best option here is to give him the money. And in the same way, Satan comes to us and says, if you don't do this, this will happen. And we have God telling us, do not do it. And what Harold said last Sunday about every time we sin, we despise God. Because we are taking what he tells us and saying, I do not believe that. [00:19:37] I choose to believe that what Satan is telling me is the best option. And at the same time, we can be deceived into doing it where we don't even realize we're making that choice. That comes back to knowing the Word, being grounded in the Word, and being able to recognize things. Hebrews 5, 12-14 [00:20:07] For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, Even those who by reason of use had their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Especially notice that last line. [00:20:38] Even those who by reason of use had their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. If we're not exercising our senses, our spiritual senses, if right now spring training is going on for baseball, If those guys that have been off since September, October was the last they played ball, if they just came to the ballpark on 1st of April and said, okay, let's go play ball, they would be terribly out of shape. [00:21:12] They would be, they're not exercising. They come in the middle of February, 1st of March, and they exercise, they get in shape, and when game time starts, they're ready to play ball. All in much the same way, we don't wait until we're into something or wait to exercise our senses until we've been deceived. We exercise to stay in shape, to keep our focus sharp so that we are not deceived. [00:21:46] Along the same line of, it says, but strong meat belongs to them that are full age. 1 Peter 5, 5-9 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. 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, [00:22:21] Walketh about, seeking whom he may devour Whom resist, there again is that resist word, resist the devil Whom resist, steadfast in the faith Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world We need to realize when there is a baby, a human baby is born, we grow up And it takes time. There is no way to make that child grow up any faster. They may mature at different rates. That child has no power, no choice how fast they grow, how tall they get, how they turn out really. [00:23:09] We as Christians, when we accept the Lord, are babes in Christ. The difference with us is, it is up to us. Harold preached here a month ago or so about going on, not just staying. We already read that about babes needing milk. We do not stay there and return again and again to being born again. We go from there and mature. We grow. We also need to realize that there are people that are in every stage of that growth [00:23:45] and maybe need to be honest with ourselves when we say we feel like, well, I'm one of the more mature ones. Nobody needs to tell me anything or, you know, I'm watching out for myself. We need to be doing our best to grow to a perfect man. Again, when the Bible says to be perfect, it doesn't mean perfect like we use it. That means mature. It means an adult, a grown man of full age is another way it's interpreted. [00:24:17] So, when there is that perfect or an older, and I guess I would really like to talk to the young folks a little bit. Please realize, well, and everyone, we're in this together. We're not, well, the young folks especially, or children, anyone, your parents are not telling you something because they don't like you, because they don't want you to have fun. [00:24:50] And I don't, I'm not speaking to any certain circumstance or anything at all that I'm aware of. But, maybe your question would be, well, what's wrong with it? And maybe your parents, the best answer they can give you is, I don't know, I'm just not comfortable with it. Maybe their senses are a little more mature, a little more exercised to discern good and evil. I guess just, and the same with a brother coming to you, or a sister. [00:25:24] I've heard stories already, I've read stories of a band of soldiers, you know, they're doing guerrilla warfare in the jungle somewhere. Well, there's booby traps, there's snipers, there's lots of things to look out for. And they might have a dog or they might have a lead man that is going first and he's supposed to try to detect the booby traps. He's their watch out or whatever. He's supposed to be the eyes of the group. [00:25:58] But I'm sure at the same time, the rest of the guys in that group aren't just looking at the ground and walking. They're looking around. They're looking for danger. And if one of those spots a sniper, spots whatever, and I'm sure he's going to say, Well, that guy in the front is supposed to be taking care of things, and I don't want him to think that I don't think he's doing a good job. Or he says something and the other guy says, well, that's my job. You leave it to me. I'll watch for stuff. [00:26:30] I guess in the same way, when someone says, hey, I've got a problem with, you know, or a question about something you're doing, or I'm concerned about something you're doing, Do we see that as, well, now you're judging me, or do we say, thanks for pointing that out, I hadn't even thought of that. I guess we can really be a big help to each other if we're all exercising our senses and keeping them sharp. I guess the first thing there in the armor, it says, and having your loins girt about with truth. [00:27:07] And that is the thing all the way down through. If you notice, Satan, here again, his biggest or maybe only weapon that he has is deceit. Convincing us of something that isn't true is how Satan operates. If we have the truth, the truth sets us free, and I'll probably be looking a little more into the weapons we use next time. But, prayer, there at the last minute says, [00:27:41] Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. How much time, and I, well in all of this I need to, I see areas where I can improve. But how much time do we spend actually praying? It's natural for us when we pray to pray for our children, our wife or husband or whatever. [00:28:12] How much time do we spend praying for the brotherhood? That we can be victorious every day. Maybe you know of someone that's struggling. Maybe you know of someone that's having a problem of some kind. Do you go and tell somebody else about it? Do we say, hey, did you hear what he's doing? I don't know why he's like that. Or do we pray, sincerely pray, that that person can have victory in their lives? We're in a battle. We are in a battle, and we're in it together, and the more we help each other out, the better it's going to go. [00:28:51] I guess I would just really like to emphasize praying for each other, and let God give us a way to discern, a way of overcoming the enemy. Truth is the first piece of armor mentioned. Faith is said to be above all, in verse 16, but isn't faith simply believing God's truth? There again, Satan brings something at us, and thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. [00:29:25] If we have God's word, that is our, no matter what temptation, if there is a temptation to steal, and right away we think God said thou shalt not steal, all of a sudden that temptation is not a temptation anymore. Oh yeah, God doesn't want me to do that. So there. I guess I would just really encourage you, when you have doubts about something, [00:29:57] when you, is it something, I don't know, I don't really see anything wrong with it, but yet something just doesn't seem right. Maybe that's something we just need to turn away from. That might be Satan trying to lead us to the next step. Satan is a roaring lion seeking who he can devour and he uses trickery to do it. Now we've talked a lot about, like I said, [00:30:27] I thought I was going to kind of cover the whole thing, all the armor, but it ended up being a lot more than I had realized. Why don't we, we do know that we have an adversary that is powerful, he's dangerous, he's more than a match for us, and yet at the same time, we have God on our side, which means that we can be more than conquerors through Christ. [00:31:00] Let's look at, I would like to leave you with Jude, Jude verse 24 and 25. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. If God be for us, who can be against us? God is able to keep you from falling [00:31:32] and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory I guess let's just commit to not falling to being on guard against the enemy and to praying for each other that that could be realized in all of our lives 24 and 25 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. [00:32:06] Let's stand for prayer. Lord, I thank you for this day that we can be together. Thank you for the snow. Thank you for the beauty that you've created. I pray, Lord, that you would help us this week to have our focus on you, to not be deceived, to be aware of what's going on around us in our lives, what dangers there might be, what to avoid. I pray, Lord, that you would just open our eyes, give us eyes to see what is going on. [00:32:44] I pray, Lord, that you would be with each member here, each person here. Help us all, Lord, to be victorious, to live for you, to give you the honor and glory. Thank you, Lord, for all you do. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.