Overcomers

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing all right? Yes, thank God we can be in the world but not of it, and that’s the basis for the little corny greeting that has become part of our trademark. I stole it originally, from my good friend Elliott Stedelbauer, who lived up in Toronto for most of his life, I guess. I’ve traveled with them across the world, precious brother, and he used to say that and the verse stuck with me and when I went on the radio, the day by day, back in 1962, representing the college, I said, well now, let’s have a little greeting and maybe you can use Elliott’s greeting, “How in the world are you?”, and it stuck. So, that’s where it comes from. Well, I hope everything’s all right at your house, and so glad that you are there on the listening, and thank you for being there. Well, these people who were came from Jerusalem, these know it all’s, they couldn’t explain the power by which our Lord Jesus Christ was casting out demons, and so all they could do was to ascribe it to Satan himself. A tragic mistake and blasphemous statement. Well, “He called them unto Him”. How gentle the Lord Jesus was, He didn’t defend Himself. He just, he just lined up for them, some very special truth. He said, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand, and if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand, and if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but have an end. No man can enter into a strong man’s house and spoil his goods except he will first bind the strong man, then he will spoil his house”. We stop just for a moment. Our Jesus always pointed out the fact that you can’t go in two directions at once. Satan can’t cast out Satan, a house divided against itself can’t stand and elsewhere He said, “No man can serve two masters”.

I once asked Bernice Cory who with Vic Cory founded the great Scripture Press publishing house. They started in their own home and their shipping department was their kitchen table. Humble beginnings, but my, what a great ministry today. Well, they’ve both gone to be with the Lord, but during four or five years, it was my privilege to work closely with them, and so I said to Mrs. Cory once day, “Bernice, tell me, how was it that you were brought to the Lord Jesus Christ?”, and she went on to say that she was quite religious and quite self-righteous, at the same time, and determined that she was going to get all the enjoyment she could out of life, and not allow religion to circumscribe her activities, and hinder her pursuit of happiness. Now, she wasn’t doing anything terribly wrong, but she was simply determined that nobody was going to make a Christian out of her, the kind of Christian at least, that couldn’t do the things that she wanted to do. She said, this went on for a while and she knew that God was dealing with her heart at the same time, and she knew also that there was a godly aunt, who was praying earnestly for her niece, and so it came about one day, that her aunt was talking with her, and Bernice, rather petulantly I suppose, said, “Well, Auntie, I just, I don’t think God says anywhere that that I mustn’t do these things, and I want to have some fun”, and so on. She was defending herself as vigorously as she could, and this dear godly lady asked her to look up the passage where Lord Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters”. She said, “Read that out loud, would you Bernice”, and so the young lady read it. “No man can serve two masters”. Now, said this godly aunt, “It doesn’t say, Bernice, no man should. It doesn’t say that you mustn’t. It says you can’t. That it says it’s impossible to go both ways”. You want to think about that for a while? And that truth began to stick in the conscience of this young lady, and Mrs. Cory told me that it wasn’t long before she said, “Lord I know I can’t go two ways at once. I know I have to make you Lord of my life”, and that was the turning point.

Our Lord Jesus always pointed out that there’s is a choice. You can’t go in two directions. You can’t serve God and earthly things at the same time. You can’t go God’s way and Satan’s way at the same time. It’s impossible. It’s not that God’s as you mustn’t, it says, He says you can’t. Have you stopped to think about the impossibility of the compromise, beloved, that some of your trying to make? Trying somehow to act like a Christian while being in the world, in certain phases, let us say, of your conduct. Have you stopped to think of the fact that it’s absolutely impossible to get away with it, it will work? Well, somebody needs that, and I just threw it in there because it comes to my heart and mind now, as the Lord Jesus was saying to the scribes, “Satan can’t cast out Satan, a house divided against itself, cannot stand”. Oh, by the way, fathers and mothers, make sure that the whole family is going in the same direction spiritually. “A house divided against itself”, make sure that all of you agree on the imperatives of God’s will, and on the great principles of Christian living. That’s one of the first jobs that you need to take care of, if you haven’t already, make sure that everybody in your home knows that as Joshua said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”. Don’t let your house be a divided house. You can’t force that, but you can take your stand, as a godly individual, and you can set the pace in your home, and you can set the tone of life in your home, by living for God they by day. Make sure that your home, mother and father and children, and anybody else who lives with you, that it is clear to everybody that you’re going God’s way. Alright? Well, now, the Lord Jesus said, “You can’t really go to directions, and Satan can’t possibly cast himself out”, he would last that way. It says in in verse 27, “No man can enter into a strong man’s house, except he first bind the strong man”. I want to talk with you for a few minutes on this broadcast about binding the strongman. That’s a reference, obviously, to our adversary the devil. Now, first of all, the Bible tells us to watch out for him. The Bible talks about the snare of the devil, the devices of the devil, and the attacks of the devil. He is your adversary. Peter says, “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil is a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour”, and sometimes says the word of God, “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, so that if it were possible he might deceive even God’s very elect”. So, Satan comes to you in many different ways and using many different approaches. Sometimes he’s roaring and sometimes he’s beguiling, sometimes he sets a trap for you and sometimes he uses devices, different strategies, and all of that. So, be aware the fact that you do have an adversary, you do have an enemy. That’s always shaken me up when I found somebody who was my avowed enemy, largely because in most cases because of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it shakes you up to realize that there are people who wish you ill, who would like to get rid of you, but that’s the kind of a world it is. Going a step farther, you and I have to realize that Satan himself has vowed to get us. He likes some Khrushchev, standing in the middle of an Iowa cornfield. Remember that occurrence when Khrushchev was visiting in this country? He was out there in Iowa, he was out in the middle of a cornfield, he said, “We will bury you”. Well, hasn’t happened yet, thank God and I don’t expect it will, today or tomorrow, but the avowed enmity that there is in the intentions and motives of the enemy of your soul, need to be aware of that, don’t you? Never just dream your way through life. Be aware of the fact that you do have an enemy and that this is a war. This is a war, “Take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able withstand the evil day and having done all”, that means after the dust has settled, and it’s all over, you’ll still be on your feet, having done all to stand. You’re in a war, there is a battle today. It’s a battle for men’s minds, chiefly. That’s why many of us have warned them, time to time, against the dangers of what we call godless, secular humanism.

Humanism to oversimplify it is simply the idea that you can do better for yourself without the concept of God and the absolutes of His will in His Word. You can do better for yourself and life, the humanist says, the secular humanist, you do better for yourself and life without the extra baggage that is involved in believing in God, and in obeying the absolutes of His revealed will. And that’s being taught all across our world, not just in the United States, but all across the world. It’s new kind of religion really, and your irreligious religion if you want to put it that way, and Satan is using that, in order to bring about his own devices, because it is one of his first approaches in the Garden of Eden, he said to Eve to Adam, “God knows that’s what if you disobey Him, you’ll get to be like He is, knowing good and evil. He’s keeping you from enjoying something that you would otherwise enjoy. God is a repressive God”, Satan was saying, and He’s keeping you from enjoying something that you could enjoy if you just disobeyed Him. Well, there you have the ancient lie of Satan, and he’s still using it today, and telling people, “You don’t need God, you don’t need Christianity, you don’t need evangelical faith, you don’t need the Bible, you can do better for yourself without these things”, he says. Now, in dealing with Satan then, the first thing to do is realize you’re in a battle, and that you have an enemy who has vowed to defeat you, and he’s against you because he’s against Jesus. “Marvel not if the world hate you, for they hated Me before they hated you”, Jesus said, and so Satan is against you because he’s against the Lord Jesus Christ, and you better be aware of the fact that there are his devises and there are his traps, his snares, and that he’s going to roar, and try to intimidate you, try to scare you off, and try to trap you, and do all he can to get you off the main road of honoring and glorifying your blessed Lord. That’s the first thing in binding the strongman, realize it you do have an enemy. Then what? I look at Revelation 12:11 says, “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”. How in the Heavens’ point of view, in writing it as history, how did people overcome Satan? Says, “By the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death”. Three things: the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is more than a symbol. It is a glorious fact that the Lord Jesus gave His life for you and for me, and in the shedding of that blood, He was at that moment and continues to be, God’s Passover lamb. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with his stripes we are healed”. We’ll get at this the next time we get together, because I want you to know how to bind the strong man.

Dear Father today, make us victors over all of the attacks of Satan, through Jesus our Lord, Amen.

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