Spiritual Warfare: Recent Episodes
Mike Miller
If you are a child of God you are in the middle of a war between the greatest powers that exist. The battle is spiritual, and it is in the spiritual realm. The enemy engages us in the mind, which is the battlefield of spiritual warfare. Very practical and helpful preaching on this important matter that will change your view of life and give you the knowledge you need to fight the good fight of faith.
Knowing truth is not the end goal of sanctification – holiness is. "Sanctify them through thy truth, they word is truth." John 17:17 Lack of knowledge is not the problem - lack of wisdom is the problem. Truth revealed by the Holy Spirit of God will cause a person to grow in grace and holiness. Truth in the hands of the devil turns people into arrogant bullies who stay focused on one or a few truths and use them to beat on other people. If the truth turns you into an ogre that hates and destroys other people, you got that truth from the devil, even if it is a truth of God. If God reveals a truth to you it will be manifested by the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, ... Beware! The devil can deceive you more easily with truth than he can with lies.
In all our conversations and encounters with other people we are touching them and they are touching us, even if we do not physically touch them. It is felt in both parties, and many times by those who are not in the conversation, but only looking on and listening. We touch one another with our words, our facial expressions, and our spirit. We always walk away from someone thinking about how they made us feel. We would be more like Jesus if we walked away thinking about how we made them feel. A smile, a kind word, an encouraging word, are ways of touching someone in a way that will leave a good feeling, and a blessing in their mind and heart. How much more good could we do, as Christians, if we understood this truth and put it into practice and made it the habit of our life.
Feelings are not something that we cannot control. We can control our feelings, if we can control our mind. Yet, most people are controlled by their feelings most of the time. Feelings are a result of what we think about, and we are more prone to let our minds be obsessed with our feelings than anything else. Consider Webster's definition of the word "obsession." "OBSESS'ION, n. The act of besieging; the first attack of Satan antecedent to possession." When we are obsessed with something in our mind, we are being besieged by the devil and we are one step from being possessed by him. Better gird up the lions of our minds, and we better let that mind be in us, which was also in Christ Jesus.
The Scripture here speaks of two spiritual influences at work in this world: the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. One is of God and the other is of the devil and reasons with you with the wisdom of this world, which is earthy, sensual, and devilish. One will lead you to God and eternal life – the other will lead you to the world, which ends in sin and death, and eternal punishment and separation from God. This message is about how to tell them apart, according to the Scpritures.
There is a difference between being deceived in our mind and in our heart. Feelings accompany a deceived heart, while confusion and instability are more likely to accompany a deceived mind. The mind can be changed by hearing and believing the truth– the heart, not so easily, because the feelings of the heart override truth and reason. So the most important thing is to keep your heart from being deceived, and that happens through feelings. If God is truly Lord of our heart, He will be Lord of our feelings, and they will be governed by love. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Proverbs 4:23
It seems that one of the hardest things for us to learn is that we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, and the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. We hear it, we believe it, and then we just immediately go back to our same old methods and habits of dealing with evil. Most professing Christians are not even engaged in the battle, but are "as one that beateth the air." Flesh is not the source of evil, as so many have been taught to believe. Satan hates God and all that is good and holy, and the flesh is man's weakness that he exploits to work evil and misery in this world. As long as a person remains ignorant of Satan's devices and strategy he will be in the devil's pocket. Once we know who our enemy is and what to do to defeat him, we can have victory in our life.
God created man in his own image and likeness. The things that all men know about God is that He is love, He is kind, He is merciful, and full of compassion. Jesus, the Son of God, came and showed us in the flesh what God is like. The Scripture says Jesus is not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." God made us to feel deeply about other people, and even other living creatures, because God feels deeply toward them. However, sin destroys that part of God's image and likeness in man. Instead of love and compassion for others, he has contempt and hatred and suspicion. Instead of good he only thinks evil and his heart is darkened. The lack of empathy and compassion for others is how depravity is manifested.
Feelings are how people naturally discern things. The first mention of feelings in the Bible is when Isaac discerned between his sons Jacob and Esau by feeling of Jacob's hands and neck. Isaac trusted in what he felt more than what he heard, and was deceived. The worldly advice to "follow your heart" is the road to hell for almost all of the human race. To overcome our feelings and not allow them to control us, to make our decisions for us, and to direct our lives requires the help of the Spirit of God. Only the person who has truly been born again, and learned to trust in the Lord at all times, is able to deny himself and do the will of God, instead of what he feels.
Feelings are the language of the soul, but there are some people who appear to have no feelings. Modern terminology describes these people as sociopaths, or psychopaths. Their identifying characteristic is their lack of feeling for others, and their lack of regard for the feelings of others. This is exactly the kind of people the Bible refers to in Ephesians 4:17-19. These people have serious spiritual problems. Feelings are the issues of life. What matters more to you about someone than how they feel about you? Which is a greater confirmation of love, the words you say, or the feelings you show? The closer we walk to God, the more sensitive we will be to the feelings of others. A person that never shows any sign of feelings, and is insensitive or indifferent to the feelings of others, is someone to keep your eye on. That is a road that leads to a bad end somewhere.
From God's perspective there are two groups of people in the world. There are the children of men and the children of God. There are the sons of men and the sons of God. It has been this way since sin entered into this world, with the sons of men always outnumbering the sons of God. These children we just dedicated to the Lord will either be the children of men or they will be the children of God. We must fight for their souls and not let the devil and the sons of men steal them from the fold. Here are some things that might help these young families in this battle.
No true spiritual awakening ever begins with murmuring, complaining, blaming, accusing, realizing you are a victim, or in any other way dishonoring other people, especially those who came before us. No real turning to God ever begins with contempt for other people. It is an evil spirit that is working in this generation, not only in the churches, but in the whole population. Being a "victim" is everyone's excuse for everything that is wrong with them, and for their low life way of living – that will not fly when they stand before God. It is poisoning the minds of this generation and neutralizing any hope of true revival. We will never see any kind of spiritual awakening or any kind of revival until we rise up and resist and cast out that spirit of contempt and condemnation for all that came before us. We have to view our situation like Nehemiah, like Ezra, like Daniel, WE, as a people, have sinned and departed from the ways of God, and WE, as a people, must return to the true and the right way, by opening the book and committing to obey what it says, and live according to God's precepts.
This is the day after the election. Trump won, now what? Here are just a few sober thoughts about what has just happened and what our situation is now. Many people are living in some kind of fantasy or delusion about what all this means. We still live in a pagan country and world, and our family members and neighbors are still lost. The whole world is still full of war and violence and misery. Assuming the best, God has granted us a small mercy to work a little longer before the night cometh. Let's not waste the next 4 years being lazy and stupid in the Lord's work. Let's do all we can, with all that we have, everywhere we can, to reach the lost in this dying and wicked world and hold our celebrations for something real and lasting.
Do you keep God's commandments? Better not answer that question too quickly with the "no" that you have heard so much from preachers and half-hearted professors of religion. Keeping God's commandments is connected with every blessing promised in the Word of God, and the Bible makes it very clear that it is the mark of a true born-again believer. It is not sinless perfection, or strictly obeying a list of rules like a Pharisee, but to order and arrange and conduct our life according to what we know God has designed, ordained, and commanded in his Word. It is to do it willingly, with a desire to do so, and to diligently seek to know and do the Will of God. Certainly, it is obvious that there are few people like this, and most are running from any knowledge of what God desires, knowing that it will conflict with their sin and their desires. Many will be in hell for eternity because they swallowed the devil's lie that keeping God's commandments is working for your salvation, but this is not works for salvation, it is the evidence of a new birth and a new man.
In these past several weeks we have tried to show and establish the fact that paganism is fast becoming the prevailing spiritual influence in the world and in our nation. We are moving in leaps and bounds back toward the darkness and violence that ruled the world until Jesus came 2000 years ago. Christians are about to lose their long-held protections that were purchased for us by our ancestors with their blood. Those who call themselves Christians in this country have never known what it is like to live under the evil, bloodthirsty, merciless, and godless rule of pagans, but we are about to find out. We need to be waking up to what we are facing, and we need to be preparing ourselves and our children. Elections and politicians will never save us, but this election will have much to do with how soon the darkness of this world will have complete control. In this message we are talking about some things every true believer in Jesus should be considering and preparing for.
When it comes to witnessing to the lost the situation has changed drastically in the past few decades. The prevailing concept concerning sin, salvation, and God seems to be that everyone is going to heaven no matter what they do with God or how they live their life here on earth. Sinners seem to be confident in the fact that God is a loving and forgiving God, but they know nothing about what the Word of God says about that matter or any other. Someone has made them believe that their sin does not matter and that God is going to take them to heaven to live with Him forever in the same state they are in now. They must repent of what they BELIEVE because that is what is going to damn their soul. Someone has to tell them they are wrong and call them to repentance! Jesus and the Apostles preached the Gospel to their pagan generation and the Great Commission was given so we would do the same in ours.
The first two men who came to God to make an offering and worship are examples of the two ways that men have always came to God. Abel 's offering was accepted and Cain's was rejected. Most worship is of the kind that Cain offered and it is no more acceptable to God now than it was then. Abel worshipped the LORD God that created the heavens. Cain's idea of God was much lower. Evidently, his concept of God was just a better version of himself. He that worships God must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Contemporary worship is generally focused on self, not on God, and that is not acceptable to God.
That God created man male and female is the most important foundational thing to the divine order of Creation. This fact is repeated in the story of Creation and in the New Testament by Jesus himself. In order to destroy man Satan always begins by breaking down this pillar of the divine order and thereby destroying the image of God in which man was created. Both male and female have their strengths and weaknesses, and they have their roles in life precisely laid out in the Word of God. When confusion and disorder is introduced to the distinction and roles of men and women it leads to complete abandonment of God and a return to paganism. This is the spirit of Jezebel we read about in Revelation 2:20.
The slide into paganism, which is the total abandonment of the LORD God and the embracing of false gods, is much more than throwing out the moral law of God. The strategy of Satan is to change what we believe, and at the same time to change the very way we reason and think. The heart must be corrupted, and the mind must be corrupted, also. Good becomes evil and evil becomes good, but then rational thinking is abandoned and replaced with insanity on a national or even world-wide scale. All anyone has to do to know this is true is simply look around at what the world has become.
It seems our perception of the great falling away before Jesus comes has always been far too shallow. For whatever reason, most who should have had enough knowledge of history, Scripture, and human nature to have seen this "woke" generation coming, did not see it coming at all. We are farther into the darkness than we realize, and the hour is late. This message contains a lot of statistics and information that reveal in a pretty shocking way how fast this apostasy has progressed and where we really are now. God's people desperately need to be awakened to this matter and be informed about the situation as it really is in order to avoid the great deception that is coming very soon.
There is a delusion among many people that the world will soon be completely secular, and religion will be a thing of the past. The plan is to simply erase God from every aspect of life and then they think man will be free to do as he pleases without any condemnation or opposition. But they are in for a great disappointment because men simply cannot, and will not, continue to live as if there is no God and nothing greater than himself. Life is too full of pain and sorrow and hardship and grief for man to bear it all by himself, so he will seek some way to offload his burdens, and find help with his problems. He will seek God's help, but normally he does that without being reconciled to God by dealing with his sin, and God will not answer his prayer, and so he turns to idols. Secularism is only an interval between abandoning God and embracing the worship of devils. Secularism leads directly back to paganism.
How does the human race change its collective mind altogether? It happens very slowly as those who are called by God's name compromise little by little and give up ground to the devil. Evil gains control of the microphone and then it isn't long before the moral and intellectual changes begin to manifest themselves in the collapse of that civilization . It has happened in this country and our world in my lifetime. The danger to your soul and the souls of your children and grandchildren is that you will not be diligent to guard your heart, your mind, and your spirit in such an environment, and you will be sucked into the deception of this self-made religion, and this self-determined righteousness that is so prevalent in this pagan world now.
This modern generation that is wise in its own eyes would never admit it, but their views and ways of thinking are strikingly similar to the ancient pagans. Their eyes are on the skies as they look for their "gods" to come anytime now. They are not looking for Jesus, but for aliens from outer space. All humans of all ages that have rejected God and clung to their evil ways have done exactly the same thing. The "gods" they believed in were simply super-humans, or super-heros, who lived in the heavens somewhere. They did not concern themselves much with Creation and where everything began, but their "gods" and their religion was self-serving and about making their lives safer, more pleasurable, and successful in their endeavors. That should sound familiar as you look around at this modern world.
Man has invented machines to do most of his work for him, especially over the past 200 years. But now we have crossed a threshold where man is turning over his thinking to machines. First radio, then television, then the computers, smartphones, the Internet, social media have done to mankind what all the kings and conquerors of all the ages could not do, and that is to bring all of humanity under one authority and one entity. Now AI has been rolled out and is evolving into the dream of pagans through all the ages. It is the collective mind of all humanity, but it is already showing many signs of not being under the control of its designers. No wonder Jesus warned repeatedly about the last days, "Watch!" The great falling away is in full swing and the great deception is at hand.
What does paganism look like? It looks exactly like the marriage of religion, patriotism, and worldliness that we are seeing in our culture right now. Paganism is the worship of nature, the worship of animals, the empowerment of the feminine over the masculine, the removal of all moral absolutes, the extinguishing of all hope, and the eventual collapse of the civilization. It looks like darkness, because that is what it is, and it is taking over our world very quickly. If you do not understand, start watching.
Religion without holiness is the first step to paganism. ALL religions outside of true Bible-believing Christianity reject the moral law of God. When people turn their back on God and his church the issue is always practical righteousness, holiness, reverence, and separation from this ungodly world. Paganism is based upon the belief that nothing is absolute - nothing is absolutely wrong, nothing is absolutely right, and nothing is absolutely forbidden. You can have religion without holiness, but you cannot have God. You can call yourself a Christian, but if you live like the world you are deceiving yourself. There are only two choices and there will only be two groups standing before God at the judgment. Which one will you be in?
The descent into darkness described in the first chapter of Romans is primarily a description of mankind as a whole, or individual countries or cultures, because the slide into paganism happens corporately. Nations or peoples do it together, and that is a major reason that it has such power when it gains control. It starts with a knowledge of God. Man did not start out as pagan, he started out fellowshipping with God in the Garden of Eden. Then when Noah got off the ark, everyone who was alive on the earth was very familiar with God and his ways. Something happened since then, and this message is about the slide into paganism, and the fact that we are witnessing it in this generation.
The issue that drives everything on earth is the battle between good and evil. To fail to understand that there really only two sides engaged in this spiritual battle always leads to being deceived by the evil. The battle waged by evil is to confuse, compromise, mix the two up together, and eventually change places so that good is called evil, and evil is called good. All gods except Almighty God are devils, not just imaginations of men. All gods except the God who created all things are unholy, unclean, murderous, and destroyers. The Bible tells us clearly that they are all devils. So it is either love and serve God in truth, or you are submitting yourself to the devil.
There are really only two forms of religion in this world: the worship of the true and only God, or paganism. There is faith in Almighty God, who created the heavens and the earth and all that is therein, who has revealed himself to man through the written Word of God, and his only begotten Son, who came to earth and died for the sins of mankind and rose from the dead, and also by the Creation that we all can observe. The only other option for man is superstition based upon fear and the unknown. Satan is the master of that system, and it includes all other religions and philosophies of life. Not believing in any God or gods is not an option. Every man will be influenced by spiritual powers, and if he is not submitted to Almighty God he will be guided by evil spiritual beings, whether he is aware of it or not.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my savior. He is the theme of my life and my everything. When all is said and done, God is all there is. David gave God the honor, the glory, the credit for everything he ever accomplished, and every blessing he ever enjoyed. When we learn to live with God as the biggest thing in our life, our soul, our mind, and our heart, we will know what victory is like.
Sin divides a man against himself. He has violated his conscience and lost his innocence, and sees himself different than he ever did before. An inner conflict is set up from that moment on; there is an internal struggle with himself, good against evil. It is that enmity in Ephesians 2 that can only be abolished when we are born again and reconciled to God. The old man is crucified with Christ. The war between our members and the law of our mind is ended. The inner conflict is over and there is inner peace now in its place; the peace of God which passeth all understanding.
To be weary is to be exhausted physically, and/or mentally. It is when you think and say things like, "I am sick of this." "I have had it with this." "I'm tired of this." It can also be the result of being, or feeling defeated. It happens to all us, over and over through life; as long as we are living we will feel weary often, because life is a struggle. God does not tell us not to be weary, but not to be weary in well-doing; that is, doing what is right. Rest is the cure for physical and mental weariness, while faith and patience are the cure for weariness in well-doing.
Love is the diminishing of self. Love does not exist until we value someone else more than we do ourselves. Until we desire their good more than we desire our own. Until we count their life more important than our own. This is not just a higher type of love, this IS the Bible definition of what love is. This love is the very evidence of being born again, and the lack of it is the evidence of being unregenerate. 1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
I never envisioned a world like this, and I do not know anyone who did. We knew that "evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse" but we never imagined that it would be like this. We expected more of the same kind of sin we were seeing 40 years ago, and we expected it to be more and more widespread and common, but we did not expect the insanity and the madness that we are seeing now. We should have seen it coming, though. If we had been more knowledgeable of human history and the Word of God, we could have known this was coming. Moral degeneration and depravity always follow the same path and end up in the same place, and it is plain to see from all the examples that happened in times past that we are nearing the end. The hour is late, sin has become exceeding sinful, and a holy God will soon judge this wickedness, as He has always done before.
God views man and his history forward and backward by generations, not by the present only. We have a strong tendency to only look at the present; at our own generation, and our own experience. This makes our view, and therefore, our comprehension of everything that matters very small and narrow. Judging and discerning truth by our little life and our few short years of experience on this earth is certain to cause us to err from the truth. This generation of know-it-alls in the world and in the churches needs to hear this.
There are certainly times when people who leave a church have been done wrong. Offenses are a part of life in any kind of social setting, including church. There are an abundance of Scriptures that instruct us and command us concerning the issue of being offended, and how we are to deal with it Biblically and righteously before God. But it is also clear to me after over 40 years of preaching and being a part of churches, that most people who leave a church offended do it because of a manufactured offense, not a real one. Their number one charge against the church when they leave is that the church is a bunch of hypocrites. But there is a common pattern with all who leave a church with this attitude. They slowly switch sides and take the side of evil, and call it good, then proceed to call evil what they used to think of as good. They are the real hypocrites, not the people who remain faithful and continue in ways of God without redefining everything.
Hypocrisy is defined as simulation, or pretending to be what you are not, and also dissimulation, which is hiding what you really are by having multiple versions of yourself that you present to others. Both of these aspects of hypocrisy are based in dishonesty and lies. Hypocrisy is the leaven that has leavened the whole of humanity. It has become almost all that life is about for almost the whole of mankind. Almost everyone has very few thoughts and feelings toward other people that are not, in one way or another, centered around trying to figure them out. Hypocrisy is the greatest manifestation of sin. Every aspect of man's life on this earth is dominated by this matter of trying to see beyond the facade that others are putting on and trying to figure out who and what they really are. Loving sincerely is the only cure for hypocrisy. If you truly love people you will not deceive, lie, or hide from them. If you love others sincerely you will not be able to be dishonest with them.
Hypocrisy is the omission of truth, and/or the addition of lies. This must be done with words, which are the utterance of thought. So hypocrisy begins with the manipulation of thoughts through the use of words. Do not allow your mind to be deceived by distortions of truth through the shell games people play with words. Satan is a master wordsmith and this is his game. Remember that truth is fixed and eternal; it never changes. The Word of God is truth, and therefore our only protection from being deceived and becoming a hypocrite ourselves.
Hypocrisy is basically having multiple personalities. Dissimulation is part of the definition of hypocrisy. It is like "simulation" but with the "di" it means pretending to be two (or more) different people at the same time. The inner conflict and confusion affects the emotions and makes them hard to control. Thus, we have moods, which in fact are multiple spirits that we allow ourselves to be subject to, manifested by anger, melancholy, frustration, or foolishness. Moods are very similar to the way alcohol affects people. Hypocrisy is common among all people, with the exception of those who have been truly born of the Sprit of God. The only kind of person that is of any use to the kingdom of God, or to the good of others on this earth, is a person who is free from hypocrisy.
The traits of Jezebel all speak of pride, rebellion, and selfishness. These things are ugly, abominable, and sinful in anyone, man or woman. A simple study of the name and its meaning tells us that she is an impudent, daring, vitious woman. She is shameless; lacks modesty; is bold, with contempt of others; saucy. She is impure and immoral. She is defective; there is something wrong with her in her heart and mind. Every thing about her is a perfect description of todays modern, liberated, empowered woman. Her problem is not with men, but with God who made her a woman. Her rebellion is not against men, but against God because she is deceived by this wicked world into thinking that God has put her in some lower place and done her wrong. She is the very opposite of what God made a woman to be and should be called out for it instead of being praised and admired. Jesus pronounced judgement upon this kind of woman and those who "suffer" (put up with) her, especially in the churches. A woman is empowered by God with the traits and abilities and the station in life to change the world if she would only realize it and submit her life to God, and live according to his design.
Satan's spiritual attack against you will come in three ways. He will try to convince you to believe that you have done too much, and the mess you have made of your life is too much for God to fix. He will also tell you that you are not worth God's concern; you have nothing to offer, or your problem is too insignificant for God to be bothered with. He will also tell you that it is too late for you; that you have missed the opportunity and are hopelessly lost, because God has had it with you. All of these things are LIES straight from the devil himself. God is infinite in power, infinite in mercy, and infinite in his love. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. It is never too much, too little, or too late for Him. All things are possible to him that believeth.
Purity and pollution both affect the way we view the world around us. To the pure all things are pure. He looks for the good, finds it, and rejoices in it. Them that are unbelieving and defiled in their mind and conscience only look for the bad and find it in everything and everyone. Rotten fruit is sweet to a worm but noxious to normal people. These are the two kinds of people in this world. When we find ourselves thinking that there is nothing but evil and no good in this world we are under the influence of the devil, because that is a lie. No true Christian can live with such an attitude and disposition.
Throughout the Scriptures purity is more often than not connected with our interaction with other people. The matter of purity is not simply for our own sake, or so we can be right with God, it is necessary in order to be right with others. Every relationship between people is affected by purity or the lack thereof. More than that, we can say that it is one of the pillars of any relationship. If you want a good relationship, whether in marriage, with your children, or anyone else, keep it clean. Keep the profane and the corrupt talk and actions, and thoughts out of it.
The primary meaning of religion, by it's definition, refers to the true God and the Savior. The word has been misused and slandered so that now most people have the wrong perception when they hear the word. But it is in the Bible and it is our subject. There is only pure religion and vain religion. Pure religion has two identifying marks: more concern for others than for self, and not defiled by the world. Vain religion is marked by an unbridled tongue, which is connected to a heart that has been deceived by self.
We purify water, air, coffee, oil, fuel, and all kinds of other liquids by running them through a filter. We cannot hope to remain morally pure in a world like this unless we have a filter. We cannot hope for our children to remain pure unless they have a filter. We can be their filter while they are very young, but every day as they get older they will see and hear more from this world, and they will be exposed to all of its filth and corruption. To maintain purity we must have something between us and the world around us that stops the filth before it goes in our eyes and ears.
To be pure is to be clean; it is to be free of pollution and unadulterated. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." There is no such promise to those who are not pure in heart. This world is a very unclean place. We are swimming in filth up to our necks all the time. We are bombarded with pornography, profanity, blasphemy, and violence in everything we look at and listen to. There is no way to maintain a pure heart and mind unless we separate ourselves from the fountain of it all. If people who call themselves Christians do not start drawing some lines and backing away from all this social media and filth, this generation is going to be completely lost. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord..." Flee from Sodom or you will die with them, and so will your children.
Jesus said that the world would be like it was in Noah's day just before He comes again. The earth was filled with violence then, and it is approaching that same condition now. While we are focusing on all the wars going on in the world, that "same spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience" is filling the children and young people of this generation with the spirit of violence. Video games, entertainment, and the lack of truly godly people in their lives are making them that "generation whose teeth are as swords and their jaw teeth as knives." When this generation takes the reins in the next decade we will see the world as it was in Noah's time. There is a great difference between those who are possessed with the spirit of violence, and those who resist them. It is the difference between good and evil.
A pure heart is a heart that has its affection set on God above everything and everyone else. The "perfect heart" that is mentioned many times in the Scripture is that heart that will not turn away from God. A pure heart cannot be wooed or drawn away, and is described in Solomon's Song this way: "I have found Him whom my soul loveth, I held him, and would not let him go."
This is one of those messages that I wish everyone would hear. The matter is so vitally important! If you are a child of God you are involved in a spiritual conflict , and we are living in the most dangerous times. The enemy that will do you in is most likely the one you will not see. You will not see him because part of his strategy is to keep you distracted while he deploys his spies, his snipers, his double-agents, his land mines, and his disinformation in your mind, and in the minds of your children and others around you. Social media and the Internet are rife with them, and until we can begin to recognize that Satan has his hand in all of it, and shut the doors against it, our ranks are going to get thinner and thinner.
There is no way to have peace with God without a pure heart, a pure mind, and a pure conscience. The pollution and corruption of this world makes it a very dangerous place for us to work and live in, physically and spiritually. Disease, germs, viruses, and poisons are a danger to our physical health, but the greater danger is the spiritual and moral corruption that we are exposed to everywhere we go. Our conscience is made pure when the blood of Christ is applied to our heart. We must learn how to apply the blood to our heart. Our mind is made pure by the washing of water by the word (of God).
The devil wants to kill you, and he has a plan to do so. What he plans to do with you is more than just kill you; he intends to take you to hell with him for eternity. His strategy has two stages. First get you to say "no" to God; to deny God, and turn away from Him. Then to lead you on down the road to destruction of your earthly life. He will use every means, every person, every situation, every device that is available. He will use your own desires, even holy desires, to draw you out into the world, which is his territory where he will have the advantage. There he can convince you to say "no" to God and "yes" to yourself. Then you are on the road to destruction and it is only a matter of time until your demise.
Purity means clean, not mixed with any other thing or substance. We can understand this truth in the physical realm. All sickness and disease is caused by something in our body that is not supposed to be there. Contaminates, pollution, infection by germs, viruses, or bacteria result in sickness and even death. In the spiritual realm it is much the same. Unclean spirits are mentioned more than any other in the Bible. Wickedness, sin, and evil are contagious and when we gaze upon it with our eyes and ears something filthy enters our mind and heart. Until the people who are called Christians separate themselves from the filth of this world and all its sources things are going to continue to get worse. The work of God is suffering greatly because of the sin and immorality that is commonly found in the churches.
Purity of mind, heart, conscience, and soul is a major part of being a child of God. The word means "clean" and we are very attentive to cleanliness when it comes to food or drink. We want what we take into our body to be pure, but it seems that we are very careless about what enters into our mind, our heart, and our soul. The devil is on the rampage right now like most of us have never seen. Sin, worldliness, and immorality are commonly reported among the churches. When sickness and disease start spreading we began an urgent search for the cause, and the cause is always pollution, contamination, something corrupt that has invaded our food, drink, or home. The people of God need to do the same immediately.
The "world" that God commands us to be separated from is not the created things of this earth, but rather all that is under the influence and control of Satan and unregenerate human beings. This world system and all its means of influence over mankind is under the control of the devil. The only way to be a child of God is to forsake this present, evil world and become a citizen of God's kingdom. We then live as a pilgrims and strangers here. If we are a friend of this world the Bible tells us we are an enemy of God. If we love this world then the love of the Father is not in us. But "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." So how we "fit in" and deal with the world around us is very accurate evidence of whether we are truly born again or not.
Being alone and feeling alone are two different things. All of us feel alone and abandoned at times. It is part of life. It is a hard part of life for folks when they get older because they feel it a lot. The devil likes to push us into that corner because we are very vulnerable to his lies when we feel alone and abandoned. The thing that drives this kind of loneliness away is to simply realize that we are a part of the family of God in heaven and on earth. We must be like a tree and spread our roots far and deep, into the past, and the present, with a long look into eternity. We have a great cloud of witnesses and so we are not ever really alone, or abandoned. And the Lord said, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."
The devil never changes his strategy. An object is presented for our consideration. Then while we gaze upon it and consider it, a desire is born in our heart for it. Then a plan is formed to obtain it. Then we obtain it. This is the natural order of things for the good and for the evil. The problem we have is with the desire. We allow the desire to take control of our mind, and truth and reality are shut out while we figure out a way to get what we want. This is our Achille's heal and the devil knows it very well. This is what the Bible is talking about when it says in James 1: "When lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished bringeth forth death." We must learn that if we are a true child of God, His desires come before ours.
It is a marvel that the mind is so prone to forget the most important things and remember the most vain things; a mind that was designed by Almighty God to work and operate in his own image and likeness. Surely there is an influence at work that causes the mind to malfunction like this. Strive to not be a forgetful hearer of the Word of God. Strive to remember and hold dear that blessings of life that God gives you in other people and his loving care for you and yours.Resist the powers that would have you forget by occupying your mind with vanity and drama.
The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. To pray according to his Will is to ask for those things which He has said in his Word that He is willing to grant. Not my will, but thine be done. Prayer is not to bring God on board with our plans and desires. It is not to inform God of the problem and tell Him how to fix it. The less of self that is involved in our prayers, the more effectual our prayers will be. To pray according to his will is impossible unless we are walking with God in righteousness. If we regard iniquity in our heart, God will not hear our prayer. (Psalm 66:18)
A carnal mind is not identified by sins and vices, but by how we interact with other people. Envying, strife, and divisions are the evidence presented in this Scripture to convict these people of being carnally-minded. Having a checklist of bad habits, vices, and other things we abstain from does not certify us as spiritually-minded. Our attitudes toward others and the way we esteem them reveals whether we are carnal or spiritual. The carnal mind is enmity with God, and is not subject to God, so Webster was right when he defined "carnal" as "unregenerate." Such sobering facts demand an honest assessment of ourselves.
Why does the "way" people think change? Look at what has happened to our world over the past few decades, and how the insanity has snowballed in the past few years. The "way" people think and reason has been changed, and is being changed at a much faster pace now. The only way to have a sound mind and sound reasoning is to have a mind that is stayed on truth. Lies, fantasy, and misinformation corrupt the mind and the ability to think and reason properly is affected or done away with completely. The corruption in our minds comes mostly from influence of other people, with their corrupt minds and hearts and their insane opinions, especially about moral issues. This is why the Scripture tells us to "come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord."
The mind is such an important part of our being. It is the power to reason, conceive, and judge, and if it is feeble in these matters our life will be one disaster after another. Feeble means to be weak and powerless, and therefore easily deceived. There are a number of reasons for a feeble mind, but none of them are hopeless because of the promise of God that He will give us a spirit of a sound mind, and that we can have the mind of Christ. This is the comfort for feeble-minded folks.
Our mind is our own and we can control it. Our spirit is our own and we can rule over it, if we simply WILL. If we do not rule our spirit and control the thoughts of our mind, we are wide open to spiritual evil. They move in quickly and establish strongholds in the mind through that inner dialog that only you hear in your thoughts. All this knowledge will do no one any good unless it is applied and practiced in our life at all times.
Paul admonished Timothy to be "a good soldier of Jesus Christ." Also, to war a good warfare. The first business with any kind of soldier is training. He must learn to recognize the enemy and defeat him. He must learn how to stay alive keep from getting wounded by the enemy. Most people who profess to be Christians have no training at all and are absolutely impotent in the face of the enemy. We cannot be ignorant of his devices, how he works, and what his strategy is. Until we know how the difference between natural appetites, desire, and lust, and how the tempter uses them against us, we are doomed to fall into his snare again and again. We are to arm ourselves with the same mind that Christ had in this warfare. Too much is at stake and it we cannot afford to be careless in this matter.
The first time the devil tempted a human being he did it by convincing Eve that if it tasted good and looked good, then it was good for her. Temptation is always an appeal to the mind to set aside truth while under the influence of some desire that has been aroused in your heart by the sight of, or the thought of, some object. What kind of appetites do I have in my thought life? That secret place of mine where no one sees or knows what is going on? We are drawn to thoughts in our minds just like we are drawn to food when we are hungry, or to other fleshly desires. The devil and his helpers in this world are able to direct our thoughts by directing our attention to some object. Once we see an object the image of it is forever filed away in our memory, so from that point the devil does not have to put the actual object in front of our eyes anymore, he can just remind us of it and we see it again. This is the power of sin and the answer as to why it has so effectively destroyed the human race. That battle is in the mind, and our thought life has to be governed with the help of the Holy Spirit, or all will be lost.
Appetite and desire are two words we need to consider. Appetite speaks more of a desire of the flesh for gratification, either of the body or the mind. There are natural appetites and there are artificial appetites. Having an appetite for food and drink is a natural appetite. Having a desire for tobacco, alcohol, drugs, or anything that is not life-sustaining and beneficial to the body or mind is an artificial appetite. God gave us natural desires and they are not sinful in themselves, but temptation to sin always involves our natural desires. The first sin on earth happened when Eve developed an appetite for that which God said would bring sure and certain death. So our desires can manipulated and directed by outside influences. So knowing this fact and having this understanding, we should take up arms against whatever would affect our appetites and desires.
Many people who call themselves Christians have fallen for a trap that the devil has laid for them. Being a critical thinker has become a kind of badge of honor that many boast of now, but they have taken the same bait that Satan gave Eve in the garden. The Bible tells us that we are not to believe every spirit, but we are to try the spirits to see if they be of God. The modern concept of critical thinking makes each person the judge of all people and all things with no foundation of truth but their own prejudices, preferences, priorities, and opinions. By the world's own definition critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. Therefore, it is self-serving, as well. It is to doubt everything and not believe anything. It leads to absolute uncertainty about everything, and leaves people totally lost and without any moorings, or waypoints, or landmarks, or sense of direction at all. To search for truth in order to obey it is right and what God wants from us. But to search for a way to overturn truth is plainly of the devil himself. Be careful with that critical spirit and that doubtful heart. It is not pleasing to God and will take you away from Him, not closer to Him.
To "think no evil" means to put the best possible construction on the motives and the conduct of others. It is not about evil thoughts or temptations to sin in the mind. It is about our attitude toward other people. If we are under the influence of charity we will "think no evil." Love will be our first reaction and we will not think evil until it is impossible not to. The devil has a great advantage over us in this matter because we have been hurt by the evil in others all our lives. But the Holy Spirit of God who indwells the true believer will enable him to overcome in this matter. To think evil is ungodly. To think no evil, even when the evil is obvious, is to be like Christ. We overcome evil with good, and this is a matter that is vital to our testimony as a Christian. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
The first goal of the devil is to try to take away our hope. You will hear his voice in your mind very often, telling you there is no hope and the future is nothing but dark and dreary. The Christians hope is in eternity, not in anything or anyone on this earth or in this life. It seems that only hope most people have is for what God will do for them here and now in this life. When circumstances are bad they lose hope. Now abideth faith, hope, and charity. What if we lost our faith like we lose our hope? What if we lost our charity like we lose our hope? The only way we get in trouble is when we get our eyes off of eternity and on the present circumstances of this world. No matter what happens in our life here on earth our hope lies beyond all this. Don't let the devil take, or hide your hope from you.
There is spirit and there is flesh. One of the main themes of the teachings of Jesus was to point out to man this fact. The flesh profiteth NOTHING, it is the Spirit that gives life. Only when a person is born of the Spirit of God are their eyes opened and they begin to see that life is about more than what they can perceive with their physical senses. God is a Spirit and we must worship Him in Spirit and truth. A spiritual person and a religious person are two different creatures. One sees God and is directed by the Spirit of God with an awareness of the spiritual world, while the other sees only the physical and lives according to his carnal interpretation of everything.
The devil does not have an advantage over us unless we give it to him. The Scripture is clear that we are more than conquerors through him that loved us; greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world; that if we resist the devil he will flee, etc. There are many ways we can give him an advantage over us. By putting our confidence in man instead of God is probably the most common way. If we wander off into his territory, or allow ourselves to become involved with his people he has a great advantage over us. The danger is not only in the physical influences we allow, but also we must guard against allowing ourselves to be in a state of mind that gives the devil an advantage.
It is spirits of devils that try to influence our thinking to lead us away from God and righteousness. It is the Spirit of God that influences our thinking to lead us in the paths of righteousness and a closer walk with God. To try the spirits is simply to look closely at the direction your thoughts are being led. Are the thoughts being presented to your mind tending to soften or remove the enmity between good and evil? Are they making something that is wrong seem not AS wrong as you have been led to believe? Are they a direct challenge to something that is wrong, and has always been considered wrong by the people of God? You can be sure that these thoughts are the voices of spirits of devils. The Spirit of God will never lead your mind to think more favorably, or sympathetically with what is evil in God's sight. This is a basic truth about good and evil. The kinds of thoughts that soften us up toward evil are riddled with lies wrapped in some truth, and that "truth" usually has something to do with what the word "love."
God himself put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent. God's children and the devil's children will never get along. One of the main strategies of Satan is to break down that enmity by softening our attitude and thoughts toward wickedness. It is the devil's work because he never tries to soften the attitude of the wicked toward the righteous. However, he is very successful in silencing the people who are called by God's name concerning evil. They not only stop speaking out against it, but they actually develop affections for those that do wickedness. We are told clearly that if a man is a friend of the world he is the enemy of God. We are the salt of the earth and we should speak up more than we do and stand against this flood of evil that is overwhelming everything in this world.
"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:" How do we know we are not under the influence of a spirit other than the Spirit of God? The Bible gives us the clear answer right here. Failing to heed this warning has been the major failing of the past few generations. It has allowed the churches to be filled with Satan's influence. He is an expert counterfeiter and imitates the Spirit of God to deceive those who do not pay close enough attention. The stakes are high in this spiritual war, so we must take heed to the warning and the instruction here.
It is very obvious from the Scriptures that there is something more than most people ever experience in their religion. Jesus made it clear that without Him we can do nothing. He told the disciples to tarry at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. The indwelling power of the Holy Spirit is the most neglected part of the Gospel. Most people simply assume the Holy Spirit dwells within them because the Bible teaches He dwells in the believer, while they have no evidence at all that He does. Most of what is done is done in the power of the flesh and not in the power of the Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is present there will be some evidence of his working IN us, and the Bible gives us plenty of information about what that work is.
Spiritual warfare is that great battle that is being waged in the minds of people between good and evil. We must be able to recognize spiritual evil - spirits of devils, as they try to deceive us in our mind. But we can learn to do that and still be defeated by them. The most important thing in spiritual warfare is that we are truly led by the Spirit of God. This is what is missing in most professing Christians, and in most churches altogether. So much to say here, but the Holy Spirit of God must be a reality in our life or we simply do not have any true evidence that we are a child of God.
The greatest danger to our soul, and to the souls of our children, is that we will be deceived. The devil is a liar and he is good at it. He is the father of lies and deceit is his main weapon, and his universal way of defeating and destroying a soul. Others are deceitful, sin is deceitful, Satan is deceitful, but our greatest danger is that we can deceive ourselves. We can actually lie to ourselves and come to believe it. Beware of this greatest danger to your soul.
Charity is not a spiritual gift, but part of the fruit of the Spirit of God, and the "more excellent way" that the Scripture refers to here. Spiritual gifts are to be desired, but only from a motive of love toward God and others. Everyone seems to want to "DO" something, or "BE" something "for God." Sadly, many times it is from a motive of pride and self-interests. Charity will move you to "DO" things for God and others, but it will be without any selfish interests involved. It is the very essence of what it means to be like Christ, "who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister..." and "who gave himself a ransom for all."
All spiritual gifts are for the manifestation of the Spirit of God. Spiritual gifts are what God uses through a person, or a person's life to edify and encourage other Christians. The Spiritual gifts are to the body of Christ what the contribution of each member of our physical body is to the life and wellbeing is to the whole. No member is the same, or has the same function and purpose. Christians are individuals - not cookie-cutter replicas.
Spiritual gifts are just that - SPIRITUAL gifts. Their operation is in the spiritual realm. They are meant to edify the soul, the spirit, and the church. Carnal matters are the opposite of spiritual matters, and yet almost all the spiritual gifts mentioned in the Bible are misrepresented, misused, and misunderstood, and then applied to carnal concerns. It is very obvious that most people are far more concerned about physical healing that spiritual healing. Yes, we are to pray for those who are sick in the body, but the health and wellbeing of the soul and spirit is much more important. It is God who heals ALL our diseases, and He does so out of his mercy, love and compassion, but never to prove himself or to increase our faith because that is not where faith comes from.
The manifestation of the Spirit of God, what is it? It is when we see clear evidence of God's Spirit working in a real way in others. Spiritual gifts are for that purpose. They are never to exalt or edify, or make someone special of the one who exercises the gift. They are never for show, or for a spectacle, but for the manifestation of the Spirit of God. This is what unifies a church and bonds our hearts together in love. A church where the Spirit of God is not being manifested in this way is not really the body of Christ, but only a worldly, social organization.
Ignorance in spiritual matters leads to superstition. To be ignorant is to be destitute of knowledge, uninstructed, or uninformed of the facts. If we are going to entertain spiritual thoughts and exercise spiritual gifts it must be according to knowledge and truth. otherwise, it is simply superstition and mysticism. There is much enthusiasm in those who conduct themselves in spiritual matters without knowledge, and enthusiasm is not what we need in the churches, and in our lives. Neither do we need superstitious fascination, but we need truth and the true working of the Spirit of God which breaks the chains of sin and sets souls free.
A gift is something given, not learned, and not acquired through our own efforts, A skill is something we have acquired through learning. It literally means "to know." So to have a skill is to know how to do something, make something, repair something, etc. We know how because we have learned how. Now honestly, what do you think the churches are mostly operating with, spiritual gifts,, or skills? When the preaching and the music are skilled instead of spiritual the whole thing is nothing but carnality.
Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He accuses us day and night before God, and he also accuses us day and night to one another. He is always inciting discord by making accusations through the minds of people. It is the number one way the devil is able to defeat the people of God. Our command from Jesus is not to police one another, but to love one another. We should be wise to this wile of the devil that separates very friends and brethren with what is almost always lies, which are Satan's best weapon. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Love one another, which is the identifying mark of a true believer.
If you are a Christian you are involved in a war. It is a spiritual war of aggression by Satan and all his devils against you and they will attack anything or anyone in your life to get to you. Our orders from the Word of God are to STAND. The primary goal in any war is to take away the ability of the enemy to wage war The devil wants to make each of us unable to fight back or defend ourselves. He does this when we lay down any part of our spiritual armor. He tries to demoralize us by making our life difficult and taking from us the things we hold dear, just as he did with Job long ago. We must be vigilante to stand against his wiles, and we must trust in God who is able to make us stand, and having done all, to stand. Never surrender and never quit resisting the devil.
Lying is the first sin that we know of that was committed on this earth. It is the original sin in that sense, as well as it is the original sin that occurs before any other sin is committed. All sins of the flesh and the spirit begin with a lie. Lies lead to deception, which is a very effective snare for the mind. To be deceived is to believe a lie and then begin to form your views and opinions based upon it. Through all the ages it has been the devil's lies that have been the destruction of man. The devil is a liar and the father of it. Beware that you believe the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You can only find it in that Holy Book God has preserved for us forever.
The only way to have peace is for the heart to be yielded to the truth and in one accord with the mind. The struggle we all feel in life is the heart struggling against our mind concerning the truth. All the trouble we know in this life is felt in our mind as it constantly tries to some way reconcile good with all the evil around us. This is what we inherited from our ancestors - the knowledge of good and evil. We CAN live with a good conscience and peace of mind only by having a heart that is yielded to God and his truth. Intellectual knowledge is not enough to deliver a soul from death, for "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness." The new birth happens when the heart yields to God, and not before.
Why do so many start the Christian journey and fall by the wayside? The answer lies mainly in how they treat the truth. To belong to God is to belong to the truth, for the Holy Spirit of God is the Spirit of Truth. Only those who cannot abide a lie in any form whatsoever have any real reason to think they possess eternal life. Satan is a liar and the father of it. He is relentless in trying to turn us from the truth by exploiting our sentiments and our desires. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If we do not walk in truth, we are not walking with Jesus, and we are out of the way, and we have no life.
Satan is the father of all lies. Lying and deceiving is his his main tool and weapon against the kingdom of God and the souls of men. Every sin is preceded by a lie or many lies. A lie is what makes that which is forbidden desirable. Our greatest defense against this formidable foe is an intimate knowledge of the Word of God. Casual knowledge of the Word of God makes a person more susceptible to the devil's lies. Intimate knowledge of the Word of God only comes from personal reading and study. Intimate knowledge of the Word of God is a body of understanding, not just a database of facts.
Carnal wickedness is not the same as spiritual wickedness – there must be a difference or this phrase would not be in the Bible.There is a threshold where carnal wickedness becomes spiritual wickedness. When the carnal desire is driven by hatred and contempt for the moral authority of God and his Word it is no longer just carnal wickedness, but spiritual wickedness. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. High places are those places of authority and influence; political, religious, medical, entertainment and education. The strongholds of spiritual wickedness in the high places are what makes life a struggle for the righteous who regard God's moral law. Our orders from God are simple: "Stand." Do not compromise and do not give place to the devil.
First, there is the Word of God, then there is faith. It is weak faith, it is struggling faith, it is unsure faith, but it is faith. Romans 10:17 "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Mark 9:24 "And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." This is the kind of faith that opens the door of our spirit and soul and mind and heart for the Holy Spirit of God to come in and make his abode with us.After this the Holy Spirit of God DOES increase our faith as we trust and learn of Him through his Word and the experiences of life as we walk by faith and not by sight. There is a great difference between newborn faith and the faith of a true saint of God at the end of his journey.
Sorrow is a part of life, but life is not all about sorrow. It is a necessary part of life, but should not be the dominating part of life. Sorrow must be mixed with everything else or it becomes death to us, and to those around us. II. Sorrow has the power to take over our life if we do not keep and rule our own spirit. When it becomes bondage, we have forgotten God and Satan has been able to establish a stronghold in our mind with it. There is only one way to have victory over sorrow and that is to have faith in God and to trust in his promises in the darkness, as well as the light.
The basic definition of the word "carnal" is "pertaining to the flesh," "to be in the natural state; unregenerate." The great difference between true salvation and the many religions of the world is that true salvation is a spiritual birth that begins a spiritual life here in this present world. The true believer in Christ has the Spirit of God living inside of him and his view of the universe around him includes the spiritual realm. Those who are carnal live and walk "after the flesh," and follow the ways of the world around them. They look to men for their help and they trust in the wisdom of men for their guide. This is what it means to be carnally-minded, and to be an enemy of God.
The devil will always begin his attack by questioning a moral issue in your mind. When you realize that there is a debate going on in your mind trying to justify something that you know is wrong, you can be sure that you are being influenced by a devil - an evil spirit. We can see Satan's step by step method of deceiving and ensnaring souls by his conversation with Eve in the garden. He has never changed his method because it works so well. Lots of wisdom here to enable us to fight the good fight of faith and to keep the devil from deceiving our children, as well.
Prayer has its foundation on the Word of God. Prayer is a spiritual exercise, it is not a religious duty or performance. It is communion with God and the Spirit of God must be involved. If we find ourselves bound and unable to really pray and know God hears us we can discern that we are being drawn away from God by other spirits that are not of God. If we are not experiencing the comfort, the guidance, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit we can be sure that we are listening to other spirits that are not of God. Prayer is a spiritual battle.
God calls, prepares, and sends men with a message from God. The response to that message from God makes people better or it makes them worse. There is no neutral ground. The message is not from the man who is sent, but it is from God. There is a great difference between a message from another man's mind and heart that touches our intellect or emotions, and a spiritual message from God, sent through a spirit-filled man, that touches our soul.
The one thing that makes the war between good and evil so difficult is that those that are evil are not bound by any rules while the righteous are. Anything goes for the wicked; they can lie, cheat, steal, kill, fight dirty, and they do not hesitate to do all of these things in order to prevail. The righteous are bound by truth, justice, mercy, righteousness, and the fear of God to do what is right in spite of what the wicked do. God has given the righteous rules by which to engage the enemy, and every Christian needs to live by them or the cause of Christ suffers and souls are lost.
To be afraid at times is part of how we are constituted. It must be so in a world such as this. The sin of man has made every creature a potential enemy, and there is danger all around us. But just as a spirit of infirmity is quite different than having an actual infirmity, the spirit of fear is quite different than simply being afraid when we should be afraid. A spirit of fear consumes our life by dominating our mind and emotions with fear and dread of what "might" happen. We become paralyzed and useless, and a liability to others because we have yielded to an unclean devil which has taken control of our mind. This kind of fear is never of faith and faith is never fearful. Resist the devil and he will flee from you! Realize what is going on, recognize the true enemy and source of your fear, and fight!
The woman in our Scripture apparently did not have anything really wrong with her body, but was oppressed by a spirit of infirmity. It is common for people to think themselves sick when they really are not. This is a spirit of infirmity. It is that voice that starts talking to you in your mind and striking fear in your heart when you have a pain, or when a doctor tells you there is something wrong in your body. The spirit of infirmity is probably one of the strongest spiritual foes we encounter. Always ask yourself honestly, "Am I really sick, or is this a spirit of infirmity?" It can steal your life by dominating your mind with imaginations that cause you to live in fear. This is certainly NOT the work of the Holy Spirit of God.
Perverseness in the tongue is evidence of a breach in the spirit. When people just believe and think all wrong it is because spiritual evil has made its way into their spirit through a breach. That breach was likely caused by the perverse tongue of someone else. Hurtful, careless, or lying words shoot a hole through someone's spirit just like the bullet from a gun does. The damage is every bit as real and lasting, too. Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. - Proverbs 4:24
An experience that is common to all of us in this life is that our spirit, our heart, and our mind is sometimes overwhelmed. It is a part of the spiritual war in which we are involved. Here are some words of advice and wisdom from the Word of God about how to deal with this matter that is the devil's best weapon against us.
The unclean spirit is mentioned more than any other type of evil spirit. It is like the carrier spirit or the gateway spirit for other spirits that totally possess and destroy a life. The unclean spirit seeks to void the distinctions between clean and unclean that God established in his word as so vital. The unclean spirit is the voice of compromise in matters of morality and right and wrong. The New Testament gives us many examples of what an unclean spirit takes a person and it is extremely grievous and sad. Listen to the hopelessness in the cries of those who the Bible declared to have an unclean spirit and beware, for they are still here and seeking a place to inhabit.
To be "in the flesh" and to "walk after the flesh" are two different things and the Bible carefully distinguishes between the two. We are all "in the flesh" because we live in a body of flesh. But those who are born of the Spirit do not "walk after the flesh" but "after the Spirit." Romans 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
What does it mean to be "in the Spirit?" The Bible uses this phrase 25 times in the New Testament, so it is important for us to understand what the Bible is referring to. This is a very helpful and practical message about how to walk with God and the Spirit's real work in our lives.
We must gird the whole armor of God with prayer. It is a most important part of the spiritual armor. We are to pray always, with all prayer - that is all the different kinds of prayer, always in the Spirit, and for all the saints, and always watching thereunto, or making sure we are diligent in this matter of communion with God. What a difference it makes when the people of a church pray fervently for one another this way! What a bond of love and fellowship it creates! How it works to bring about oneness of minds and hearts!
We are not called or commanded to defeat the devil, because we are not able to do that. But what we are called and commanded to do is to STAND, and to be still standing when this is all over. Satan's attacks are always aimed at changing our mind about the very things the armor of God protect: Truth, righteousness, preparation, faith, salvation, and the Word of God. Those who compromise on the biblical view of any of these issues have failed to stand because the devil got to them in their mind.
Trouble is part of life in this sin-cursed world. Being a child of God does not exempt us from trouble and hard things. But "evil day" or day of trouble, is the place where Satan and his minions are sure to attack us in our minds with the goal of making us doubt God and question his faithfulness and his word. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand this assault of the devil in your time of trouble.
Ignorance of the Word of God, and therefore ignorance of the ways of God and the mind of God, makes a person very vulnerable to the lies of the devil. The world comes up with word games and little phrases that lead the mind astray from truth. The idea of critical thinking has become a virtue among many professing Christians and it is one of the most ungodly concepts the devil ever came up with.
It is not enough to be able to discern between truth and error - we must learn to discern between the "spirit" of truth and the "spirit" of error. We have all heard the truth preached with a bad spirit. The spirit of error will always enter your thoughts with truth, but only as the bait to get you to take down your guard. We are given some clear instruction in this Scripture on how to tell them apart.
There are 24 types of sin and sinners named in these four verses of Scripture. They paint a clear picture of the person with a reprobate mind. Somehow we have been made to believe that having a reprobate mind is some special kind of sinner that is worse than others, but it is in fact the state of all those who reject God. Many of them have found places in churches and even places of leadership there, so that now the way of true salvation is very hard to find.
A reprobate mind is not the cause of sin - it is the result of sin. A darkened heart and a blinded mind are the result of sin, not the origin of it. To be left to your lusts and selfishness may sound just like what the rebellious sinner wants, but it quickly turns into the suburbs of hell for him. The way of the transgressor is hard, and his pleasure turns into his punishment.
God says in his word that homosexuality is a heinous sin and abomination in his sight. So then why is it not looked upon the same way as other sins? Would people be as tolerant and sympathetic to murder, stealing, or lying? Of course they would not! The righteous God who judges sin will account those who sympathize with sin as guilty as the sinner himself because their heart and mind are in agreement with him. A person involved in this sin must acknowledge that it is sin and turn from it and trust Christ, just as all sinners must do to be saved.
To worship the creature more than the Creator is to worship the creation, or as most people perceive it - "nature." To look for God in nature is not the right thing to do. Nature has been corrupted by man's sin and is not as God created it in the beginning. We must look for God and truth in the only reliable place it can be found and that is the written Word of God.
There is a point where God turns loose of a rebellious soul and leaves him to his lusts. This is the last thing that can be done when all else has failed to bring them to repentance. There came a day when the prodigal's father released his son and even gave him his portion of the goods. But the boy still had a father he could return to and that is what he did after his sin had brought him low. God would have all men to be saved. Never think that his giving someone up to uncleanness is God giving up on their soul.
The wise men of this world are only pretenders to wisdom. They are not really wise, and in fact are fools, according to the Scripture. "The world by wisdom knew not God." This is obvious when they change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. People who imagine God to suit themselves are fools. More people go this route to hell than any other way.
"Their foolish heart was darkened." To be darkened means to be deprived of light, or to be made ignorant. Light and love go together. A darkened heart does not love, and simply does not care.. The ungodly who claim to be motivated by love and compassion are not telling the truth. "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." A darkened heart is under the control and influence of spirits of devils and has become a stronghold of Satan.
When we turn away from God we are surrounded by darkness. When we draw nigh to God we are surrounded by light. When our mind and imagination has nothing but truth to work with we find the way gets brighter and brighter. One of the rewards of having a sound mind here and now is that we begin to know the breadth, length, depth, and height and are filled with all the fulness of God. The end of the earthly journey is a glorious and joyous graduation to the very presence of the Lord.
When we leave God out of our thoughts and our imagination becomes vain we are taken farther and farther from God. Satan is able to establish a stronghold in our mind because we have took his bait and accepted his lies as truth, and from that point we do not reason rightly. Our mind and heart are darkened and we are lost in the darkness without any light.
Romans 1 marks the path that leads to depravity and eternal death. Satan wages his battle in our minds and if we would survive his assaults and his deception we had better know how the mind works. This is a very important message full of truth that will help you more than anything else in this world in having victory in your own life, training your children, and seeing to their spiritual survival, and understanding what is going on in others around you.
Imagination is creating in our mind an illusion or fantasy made out of the things we have seen, heard, and felt. God meant it to be used for creating real things, since we are made in his image and likeness, but sin has corrupted the human mind and heart and now it is used by the powers of evil to destroy us. Imagination is where sin is always born and planned before it is carried out in the flesh. An imagination that has no reins will wreck the mind, life, and soul. Insanity is legally defined as "the inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality."
Spiritual warfare is about the battle for the soul. Satan has a strategy to destroy an individual, as well as the entire human race. The invisible things of God are clearly seen from the creation and all men are without excuse. Satan's first step is always to draw men away from the proper view of God. When God is not enough to satisfy your mind, your feelings, and to answer your questions you are losing the battle and Satan has you where he wants you.
To provoke others to anger has consequences. God tells us not to do it, and as Christians we should be very sensitive and careful not to provoke others to anger unnecessarily or carelessly. Likewise, we are to not be easily provoked ourselves. This is what is tearing our country apart right now.
Understanding is the receiving of knowledge and information. Wisdom is the right use of that knowledge and information. There is wisdom of this world and there is the wisdom that God gives. Until we are born again we understand only with a carnal mind.
"Soul" means "life" here, which has the same meaning as "spirit." We are not really born again until our whole being is submitted to God in love. Many submit their heart (emotions and feelings) and their mind, but not their life, which is their soul. They live their lives in this world and these will hear in that day, "Depart from me....I never knew you."
We are always thinking, and that is where the trouble always starts. The mind is the battlefield of spiritual warfare. All sin begins there and so does any drawing nigh to God. We fail badly in guarding and training our minds or those of our children.
Spiritual death is not mentioned in the Bible. It is a phrase invented by men to try to explain the great gulf that sin has caused between man and his God. Spirits do not die, so your spirit is not dead, but it is alienated from God and walks in darkness, until the new birth restores your fellowship with God.
Being "born again" means more than a sentimental religious cliché. It is to be delivered from this prison whose walls let us see only the physical, carnal world around us. Our blinded eyes are opened to the spiritual kingdom of God and we can see what is really going on. From that point on we are engaged in the spiritual war between good and evil.
Our charge from God is not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits whether they are of God. We are not to let our curiosity take us any further than that. To seek more knowledge of them is to enter into the occult and to be deceived by Satan.
You can be subject to evil spirits or you can resist them and they will flee. You rule your own spirit or it is overrun by spiritual evil. It is really that simple. It is here that what we call "victory" is won or all is lost. It is here that we either "overcome" and inherit all things, or our soul is vanquished, and our life is destroyed.
Jesus said to "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." What are we supposed to watch? We are to watch what kinds of spirits we are being approached by in our minds. This is spiritual warfare and this is the battle the Bible talks about.
Demonic spirits do not manifest themselves in ways that scare and thrill superstitious people like Hollywood portrays. They are those voices in your mind arguing and debating with you about established and known moral issues. Devils are scratching at your soul's door when you hear in your mind their arguments against what is right. Beware! Lest you end up like this poor boy in Mark 9!
The story of the poor centurion's son who was vexed with a deaf and dumb spirit is very much like what we often see now. There is no need to try to fix blame or analyze what caused this. Help for the hopeless can only be found in Jesus Christ himself, and not in men - not matter how knowledgeable or spiritual they are.
Superstition is the devil's counterfeit to true faith. It focuses on the physical looking for confirmation of the supernatural. It is based in fear. Modern religion is full of superstition that is presented as faith. Saving faith is only found in truth, which is the Word of God.