Confronting The Enemy

The Holy Spirit helps us to be aware of the strategies we need in winning the war against evil. Trust in God, let the Holy Spirit of God fill your life and He will be with you every step of the way.


Scripture: Acts 13:8-12, Romans 8:28

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello, friends. How are you? The last time we got together, we were talking about the fact that Paul knew conscious dependence upon the Holy Spirit of God in momentary situations, which probably could not be foreseen but in which he reacted as a man of God. Saul, full of the Holy Ghost, looked at Elymas, the sorcerer and said he spoke in terms of his complete dependence upon and fullness with the Holy Spirit of God. Now, I reminded you, my dear friend, that you do have the choice of depending on this Spirit of God. The conscious use of in other words, “the Spirit of God and more preciously than that, consciously allowing the Holy Spirit to use you. Well, Paul said to this sorcerer, he said, “Oh full of all subtlety, that’s guile and mischief, that’s our word, villainy. “Oh,” he said, “You’re full of guile and villainy, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of Alrighteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?” Now, stop here long enough to see how he profiled this man’s character and showed the point at which there needed to be a change in his life.

First of all, the atmosphere of his life was guile. And then it turned into villainy. Whenever you use guile in other words, whenever you start to deceive you end up with villainy or mischief. Will you remember that? The old saying of course, that your parents used I suppose, on you… “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” Do remember, will you? That deceit leads to overt mischief and villainy. This man had probably started his career by being dishonest here and there. It grew into a web of dishonesty, which had, of necessity to be reinforced. And at some point or other, he had given himself over to evil, to Satan. So that the atmosphere of his life was guile and mischief. Then he had given himself to the devil, thou child of the devil, he was under the control of Satan. I have to warn you, my friends that America is in for a wave of demonic oppression and attacks from every quarter now, that our nation has thrown out the Bible as the real foundation of its culture, this happened as you know, years ago and was pin-pointed legally just a few years back.

So God is in the process of allowing us to run our own way. The nation is becoming polarized between the extreme left, and the extreme right, both of these extremes hating each other desperately… And with a polarized nation, then you have the way prepared for all kinds of chaos and anarchy and violence, which we are seeing in this very day. Added to that is the fact that if you take God away, it creates a vacuum in the human soul, and other false gods rush in to fill that vacuum. So that here you have in the day when Paul was living, a person who is an exact duplicate of what you may be prepared to meet in terms of opposition to the gospel. A person who has started innocently enough, perhaps in deceit and in guile and in trying to appear to be something that he was not, who went onto over to evil, and mischief and villainy, who then gave himself to the devil and who then became inevitably an enemy of everything that is right. When you find as you do find people who unexplainably are against that which is right, they will inveigh against it, they will argue against it, they will use all sorts of specious logic against righteousness and godliness. When you find people like this, you will find that this is the inevitable result of the fact that they have given themselves over to evil.

And so the process of that opposition is perverting the right ways of the Lord. Satan’s procedure, then and now, oftentimes is a flank, attack rather than a frontal attack. Now, of course, there have been multiplied thousands and perhaps millions since the start of this century, who have sealed their faith with their life’s blood. You and I know this to be true, but there are many more millions who are under ceaseless attack from Satan, as a kind of a flank attack, where it’s a perverting of right things. Where the words are used without the meaning that God attaches to them, so that “evangelize” in the modern way of thinking, doesn’t mean preaching that people need to be saved. It means proclaiming that everybody is alright the way he is, let him do his own thing and God will be pleased. A perverting of the message of the Lord. Now, this is Satan’s attack and you need to be aware of it. This is a perfect profile of those who have given themselves over to evil.

Now, what Paul said was “Now behold, the hand of God is on you and you’ll be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately they fell on him a mist in the darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.” I cannot tell you why Paul said this to this man. I only know that we are operating here on what Norman Grubb calls “The Law of Faith”. I’ve been reading again, a book which you would do well to get, if you can. I don’t know if it’s still in print or not. It is published by the Christian Literature Crusade and your religious bookstore may have it, don’t ask me for it, for I do not have the book to sell, but Norman Grubb, in this book entitled, The Law of Faith, has a chapter which he calls “Strategy in Faith”. He said “If we are to be bold and believing that in many circumstances of our daily life, what we want is what he wants us to have for he is working in us to will and do of His good pleasure. Then, there remains one important prerequisite and that simply is, get with your commander-in-chief,” says Mr. Grubb, “and get his orders for the battle.”

“Life’s battle must have its strategy, blind tactics, front-line shooting is a mere waste of ammunition. There must be that quiet spot, that General Headquarters away in a wood where the war is reviewed as a whole and the voice of the Commander-in-Chief is heard. Not just a blind stick-to-it-boys or fire away or how can we relieve the pressure? But rather, as it was with Jehoshaphat when the Moabites and the Ammonites and the Edomites came upon him and there were only 30 miles from the capital. Common sense would have said, mobilize, rush out and stop them. But Jehoshaphat knew… ” I’m still reading from the Law of Faith, here, by Norman Grubb. “Jehoshaphat knew that the secret of the spiritual strategist is not rush out, but rush in, go to the commander-in-chief, have it out with him, get his outlook and his orders. Ah, yes, our problem”, Says Mr. Grub “is blindness. Blindness is the problem. Pre-occupation with and resignation to the status quo, we are all guilty of it in a thousand ways”.

“To see things from the human aspect, to feel the weight of things, the apparent impossibility of any change is not wrong, it is just natural. You see. So we have to learn to see things God’s way, to see that God can do the impossible, go into your Commander-in-Chief and get your orders, says Mr. Grubb and then go out and really trust God, this whole matter of the will of God, means simply to get God’s mind and then act on it. When this heavenly boldness is ours, Heaven is open to us, the throne of God, is a throne of grace and we are seated with him in the place of plenty and of authority, the Holy Spirit has prayed through us according to the Father’s will. The circuit is then complete, from the Father to our minds by the Spirit from our minds back to the Father, by the Holy Spirit, the hidden power is then released.” Isn’t that great? I want to share that with you because I just finished sort of soaking it up, in my own soul. I read this book about once a year, just to refresh my own heart. That’s The Law of Faith, by Norman Grubb.

Well, Saul of Tarsus confronted now with a sorcerer who was opposing, actively opposing, the preaching of the gospel. Now, what did Paul say? He said, “You’re gonna be blind.” And God, I am sure, at this point was thinking through Paul’s mind and speaking through his throat, and also tying his almightiness to his servant. All through the Bible you have the case of God’s servants who spoke apparently without pre-meditation, and God in infinite grace and mercy and power, tied himself to their statements. The prophet saying tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria, three measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel and so on. It’s gonna be bargain day tomorrow, said He. There was no evidence at that moment, that anything like that could occur, but it did, it did. God tied himself to His prophet. Now the same thing then is true for you and for me, the Bible says God works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, if indeed the war between you and God, is over, if you have given yourself completely to God through the Lord Jesus Christ, if today you know that with all your heart, you want God’s will, then my friend in the every day crisis and pressure situations of life, you can be confident that what you say and what you do is under the control of God, and you can act on that basis.

God is big enough even to countermand your mistakes. Romans 8:28, which says, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” That verse has to include my blunders and my mistakes, for I am still a fallible human being. God is a big enough God to love me, to save me, to call me into his work and then to tie his almightiness to me, including the sanctifying even of the blunders that I may commit as I go on through life. What do you think of that? Trust your God absolutely today, put your life by faith under the blood of Jesus, let the Holy Spirit of God fill your life and God will talk through your throat and look through your eyes and walk in your shoes. You, my friend, will be a walking miracle. Hallelujah for that. Isn’t that great?

Our Father, we’re thankful for Thy blessing, we’re thankful for Jesus our blessed Lord and we commit ourselves to Thee for this day in His name and for Thy glory, Amen, and Amen. God bless you, dear friend, all the way.

That’s all for now, until I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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