Choosing Truth

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Well, I’ve just been praying to our heavenly Father, asking Him that He would put His love in my voice and His truth in my mind, and His power, the power of the Holy Spirit in everything that is said, so that those of you dear ones who listen, may find that something there just for you. God knows what we need. Jesus our Lord said, “Your Heavenly Father know of what things ye have need of, before ye”. Ask Him? He likes have us ask. He likes to have us come as dear children to Him and ask Him, but He knows, just as any wise parent or grandparent knows a child’s needs, so He knows our needs and He cares. “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares”, the Bible says, “for you”, you are His concern. We were looking at Mark chapter 3, where the scribes, these know it all’s from Jerusalem, came down and said, “He hath Beelzebub and by the prince of the demons castest he out demons”. They were ascribing the work of the blessed Holy Spirit to Satan, in effect they were rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ as God’s Messiah. Well our Lord Jesus didn’t shout back at them, didn’t even scold them, He asked them a question, “How can Satan cast out Satan”? You may try, ever so hard my friend, aside from the redeeming and transforming grace of God, to make your life measure up to Christian standards, but when it comes right down to it, as long as you’re under the control of sin and Satan, and the forces of this world, you can’t really make all of that work against itself. Paul says in Ephesians 2 that, “Unsaved people are under the control of the spirit who now worketh in the children of disobedience”. This is a hard saying and many people back off from it, because they say, oh, I know a lot of nice people, who can’t possibly be under the control of Satan, but he says here in Ephesians 2, Paul does, “You hath he quickened made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked”, that means lived everyday, “you lived every day in all of this, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now worketh in the children of disobedience”. Now see, the key word there is according. Toutou kata, which means right down along the line of. You live right along the line of the prince of the power of the air, whose that? Satan. The spirit who now works in the children of disobedience, so you may try ever so hard my friend.

Somebody listening this minute needs this message, listen to it, dear friend. You may be trying ever so hard to approximate the type of life that you might call Christian, but you’re not succeeding nor indeed will you, because Satan can’t cast out Satan, and as long as you haven’t yielded yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and have come under His control, you are under the control of another. It just isn’t going to work. You cannot fake the Christian life. The only answer is to yield yourself to the Lord Jesus, commit yourself absolutely to Him, repent of your sins, turn away from them, turn in faith to Him, the one who can transform your life, let Him begin to run it. The secret, Paul says, in Colossians 1 of the Christian life is, “Christ in you, the hope of glory”. When the Lord Jesus enters into your life, and by His Holy Spirit begins to reproduce in you, His attributes and qualities, then you will be living, indeed, the Christian life.

We had of you moments together on this theme of binding the strongman. How do you oppose Satan successfully? Number one; realize you’re in a battle. Gird yourself for a battle, not a dialogue. Then second; know how Satan has been defeated and use the same methods for victory in your own life. Revelation 12:11 is a revealing verse in that regard isn’t it? “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”. Three things to remember, Jesus died for you. He shed His blood for you and you can plead the merits of that shed blood, as over against any opposition of satanic forces. Jesus shed His blood for me. I hide under that blessed covering of God’s righteousness, given to me in Christ. Then it says, “The word of their testimony”, and that word always needs to be based upon God’s eternal Word, the Bible. The Lord Jesus quoted Scripture to Satan during His own temptation, there in the wilderness, as recorded for example in Matthew chapter 4. “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. It is written thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. It is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve”. Satan cannot stand the authority the word of God. You are safe from every a satanic attack, ladies and gentlemen, when you are filled with the word of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, and using that word as your sword of the spirit, as Paul calls it in Ephesians 6. Not only that however, but it was the word of their testimony. What you personally know about the Lord Jesus based on His Word, which you proclaim is in itself, is a blessed shield against all of the attacks of the evil one. The word of their testimony. When you share your faith in the Lord Jesus with someone else, you are at the same time successfully combating Satan’s powers. Then it says, “They loved not their lives unto the death”. That is to say, even if it costs me my life, I’m going to obey God. That’s what they had been said.

The classic illustration of that comes from the Old Testament. The three young Hebrew, young men, who refused to bow down to the big image that the King had set up, do you remember that story as it’s recorded in the book of Daniel? The King issued this command that when you hear the Symphony Orchestra begin to play, then everybody has to bow down to that image. I suspect that it was an image of himself, Nebuchadnezzar says, made an image of gold. His height was threescore cubits. Cubit is the distance, normally was the distance between your the end of your fingers and your elbow. So that turns out to be about eighteen inches, so a foot and a half. So, the height was threescore, that’s 60 times one and a half, that’s 90 feet high. That’s a big image isn’t it? And it says it was gold. Can you imagine how much that might cost in today’s market? Gathered all of people and the rulers together and the princes, the governors, the captains, the judges, the treasures, the counselors, the sheriffs, and the rulers of the provinces, gathered together, and he said, “Now, what time you hear the sound of the garnet flute harp set but sultry dulcimer and all kinds of music, fold down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar, the king, has set up so falleth shall worship and shall the same are be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace”. Well, you know everybody did that except three young men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were still standing tall, when everybody else was down on their faces, before that idle. Well, the king said, I’ll give you one more chance, but if you don’t, into the furnace you go. Well they said, “We’re not worried”, I’m reading now from Daniel 3:16 said, “We’re not worried”, the word there in the King James version is careful, what that means is care filled. “We’re not worried about our answer in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and He will delivers out thy hand oh King, but if not, if He doesn’t deliver us, be it known unto thee oh king, that we will not serve thy God’s and nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up”, now that’s commitment. God’s able to deliver us, but if He doesn’t choose to, if we’re burned to a crisp there in those terrible flames, we’re not going to bow down to the idle anyway. We are committed to God. Now, that’s the thought that you find there in Revelation 12:11, “They loved not their lives unto the death”.

Communists, many years ago, were called dead men on furlough, meaning they’d already decided that if it cost them their lives, they were glad to give their lives for their cause. You and I can do no less than to yield our all to Jesus Christ, no matter what it costs. A friend of mine prayed, oh God I want to be a deeper Christian. I want my life and my ministry to be deepened no matter what it costs. Now, I don’t fall for the ancient fallacy after this, therefore because of this, but within a very short time of that prayer, severe illness struck his family, and there were prolonged agonizing hours of combating that illness and finally the death of a dear one, and in the process, we could watch that individual grow spiritually, through the travail and through the burden and through the heartache and through the tears, there was the immense spiritual growth that occurred. I don’t know what God may use to answer your prayer and mine concerning His Lordship in our lives. I only know this, if you want to defeat Satan, you have to decide that you going all out for the Lord Jesus Christ, and that no matter what it costs you, right straight up to the matter of giving up your life if need be, you’re going to be true to your blessed Lord. Amen? Well, there’s another passage, while time serves us here, that I want you to see and that is, Simon Peter says, “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil like a roaring lion, is walking around, seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist”? Now, you can change that relative pronoun around and read it this way, resist him steadfast in the faith. Resist him steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren there in other parts of the world. Have you learned to resist Satan? In faith, in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can stand against him. Now, there, this passage in 1 Peter 5, is parallel to something that is mentioned in James, as well, James 4. He says, “God giveth more grace, wherefore he says, God resist at the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble”. Submit yourselves therefore to God, period. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Now, what is the process there in James? Receiving God’s grace, submitting yourselves to God, and resisting the devil. Look at 1 Peter 5, “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 carethfor you. Be sober, be vigilant, because of your adversary, the devil. Resist him, steadfast in faith”. So, you have God’s grace, you have that self humbling of yourself before God, submission to God, and then you have, by faith, the process of resisting Satan. Learn to stand against Satan in faith because Jesus, our blessed Lord, has already won the victory. Paul says in Colossians that, “He spoiled”. That is to say He just won the battle and took away all the loot. He spoiled principalities and powers at His cross. The victories won, Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dear Father today, may we resist Satan successfully, because Jesus is our victor, in His name I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!