Winning The Battle

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing Alright today? Oh, you know as I do these broadcasts, you know of course, that there are placed upon tape and then distributed to the many radio stations that carry this program, but I have to tell you that as I’m speaking, I have in mind many of you whom I know personally. And then God gives me somehow an understanding of other lives, of people I haven’t met, but the faithful Spirit of God drops into my mind, situations and needs and relationships, that to which I can address myself while I’m giving out the Word of God.

So, it ends up that you and I are really together in thought and in heart and in God’s Word, and that’s such a blessed thing, isn’t it? My heart just warms with the realization that we belong, you and I, and God is ministering to me and hopefully through me, to you my dear, dear friends.

We’re going on in the Gospel of Mark-our Lord Jesus and some of His disciples have gone into Capernaum and on the Sabbath Day they headed for church, as you and I ought to do, surely, on God’s Day, and it says, “He taught them with as one that had authority”. That’s the place where we stopped. Worship and then the Word, “He taught them with authority”.
What’s involved in having real authority in the Word of God? Well the first thing is, you have to know Him, that’s the first thing. You can’t have any Christian authority unless you know the Savior, right? To know Him and to make Him known. That is the first thing.

Second, your mind must be full of the Word. You can’t give out something that really you don’t know. Now, you can know about the Bible and talk about it, but to have the Word of God in your heart and mind and memory and in the unconscious mind, which is the computer portion of your brain, that is part of the necessary background of any authority in the Word of God.
How full is your mind, including the computer part of your brain, the unconscious mind, how full is your mind of the Word of God? Well, you say, “Brother I’ve got work to do. I can’t be thinking of the Bible all the time”. I didn’t say that! I simply asked whether or not you have the Word of God in your mind so the faithful Holy Spirit can crank it out when you need it. For this purpose, you and I need to memorize scriptures and meditate upon them.

The Navigators, who have their headquarters out at Glen Eyrie, Colorado at Colorado Springs( I’ve loved their work and boosted it all through the years, because they’re true to the Word of God) But they teach young Christians to read God’s Word and meditate on it and memorize it, so that the Spirit of God can call that Word up when it’s needed.

To read God’s Word, to memorize it, and then to meditate on it and chew it over, so that God can speak to your heart, and can crank it out so to speak, out of the computer of your mind when it’s necessary. The Word of God.

If you want any authority you need to have the Word of God in the computer. Would you give some thought to that yourself? Many of us are tragically poverty stricken when it comes to a knowledge of and possession of the Word of God.

What else is involved in teaching with authority?

Well, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He is the one that that takes God’s Word and applies it to your heart. “When He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to you remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. When they bring you before kings and tribunes”, and so on, “take no thought”,-that means don’t worry- “how or what thing ye shall speak, for it is not ye that speak”, Jesus said to his disciples, “but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you”.
The Holy Spirit of God who indwells every believer. He comes to dwell in your life when you’re saved. It’s God’s command that you be filled with the Spirit and that’s something you take care of by faith- you open every room in your heart house, so wide open to the Holy Spirit of God, you invite Him in by faith.

All the different areas of your life, your inner secret life, your past, your present, your hopes, your dreams, your fears, your ambitions, your prejudices, your weaknesses, the areas you can’t handle, money, relatives, friends, associates, business, job, future, security or lack thereof, health, anything else you want to talk about, you open every one of these areas by faith to the blessed Spirit of God. Let Him have control.
When you do that, then the Holy Spirit speaks through you with authority, because you’re not saying, “I know that Dr. so-and-so says this about this”, you can say, “I know that God has spoken to my own heart on this basis and I obeyed Him on this verse, or on this command or on this truth”. You speak with authority when you are yielded to the Holy Spirit of God. “He taught though as one that had authority”.

Now, authority in speaking of God’s Word, is directly related to your willingness to obey. Simon Peter said, “We are His witnesses of these things and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God has given to them that obey Him”.

It is impossible to speak with authority about God’s Word, while disobeying His commands. It just doesn’t work. So, you need to question again in your own life, and I need to question in my life, am I really obeying what I know to be the will of God? In those areas where I disobey Him, I can be certain that I will not have any real effectiveness. That’s the truth of it, right straight on the line. In the areas where I disobey God, I can be certain that I shall not have any real effectiveness or authority.

Well, what’s the answer to it? Bring it to Calvary, bring it to Calvary. Let the blessed Spirit of God convict you, let the precious, cleansing blood of Christ to be applied to that area, and then go forth to obey God in the power that He supplies. How many times in my life I’ve said, “Lord, I can’t do it of my strength, but if You’ll strengthen me and help me, I’ll do it”, and the decision to trust God, resulted in the strength to obey God.

The decision to trust God in a given matter, results in the strength to obey God. “I can do”, says Paul in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me”. Anything God asks me to do, I can do because He enables me to do it. The decision to trust results in the strength to obey. It’s a good truth isn’t it? “He taught them with authority”.

First the worship, second the Word, then what? The warfare. You haven’t gone very far in serving the Lord until you realize that Paul was absolutely correct when he said, “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”. Our life as Christians is not a bed of roses, it is a warfare. “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about”, said Simon Peter, “seeking whom he may devour. Resist him steadfast in the faith”. Yes, Satan is a defeated foe, but he’s still in this world system and he still threatens the believer, and there is a warfare between the forces of evil, and you and I who trust and serve our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, He’s victor.

You never need to be victimized by Satan, do you hear me? You never need to be victimized by Satan or by the forces of evil. There isn’t a demon in hell or anywhere else who can make you, believer in Christ, a victim, can get victory over you. “The battle is already won. He vanquished principalities and powers at the cross”, Paul says in Colossians, “He took care of the law of ordinances, He nailed that to His cross and He spoiled”,- that’s a military word means He trampled Him down and won the war-“He spoiled principalities and powers triumphing over them in His cross”.

The war has been won, the battle has been won, the victor is the Lord Jesus, you and I can say, “Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Hallelujah! The fact remains that there is, as there was in World War II, and in other great conflicts, a good deal of what they called mopping up to do, pockets of resistance, and Satan will try to trip you up every time and every place he can. Some of the saddest things in all of life are those times when you see someone who has been used of God, tripped up by Satan’s snares, by some temptation, by some great failure or other whatever, it may be. Sad to see something that need not have happened because Jesus is the victor.

Well, here’s this man who had an unclean spirit and he was in church. Is everybody in church a Christian? Oh no. Is everybody that goes to church under the control of God? Oh no. Is it possible for somebody to be in church and be under the control of Satan? Oh yes. Your geographical location, beloved, does not guarantee your spiritual condition. So here was a man in church and he was full of the devil, demons, and so he cried out and he said, “I know You, You’re the Holy One of God. You come here to destroy me!” Well, the Lord Jesus didn’t want any advertising from the devil and neither do you nor I.

Hey preacher, you don’t need any help from the world’s forces. You don’t have to join the sons and daughters of “I will arise”, or any other heathen organization in order to get notoriety for your church. You just get on fire and people come to see ya burn. Jesus didn’t want any advertising from the devil and neither do you and I. He rebuked him and said, “You be quiet and come out of him”. When the unclean spirit had torn this poor man and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him and they’re all amazed. With authority, He even commands the unclean spirits and they obey Him. Warfare in the power of the Holy Spirit of God.

Take your stand today against everything that is devilish and satanic and evil in the life around you, and in the temptations that hit you, and in the trials that face you take your stand with the victorious Christ of God, and let Him make you and keep you a victor through His eternal power and through the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, through the power of the Word. Amen? God bless you; give you His power in the battle.
So it’s worship and Word and warfare, these are involved in following the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dear Father today, make us victorious in the warfare against sin and Satan, 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!