DISCIPLES WHO ARE WARRIORS - 2                                      10-12-03

Ephesians 6:10-18 (11)  pg.830

The battle is real, and so are the enemies. 

We have been looking at our mission statement as a church: to produce growing disciples of Jesus, who are worshippers, witnesses, workers, and warriors.  And last week we began looking at this 4^th W – Warriors.  As Christians we fight against the sinful nature on the inside of us, and the devil on the outside of us.

Last week we looked at the enemy on the inside.

Ephesians 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;  to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

This putting off of the old self and putting on the new self is a life-long process.  It is not something you do once and you are forever done.  It’s something we must address every day of our lives. 

V.25 of Eph. 4 continues: Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

Not only do we have a sinful nature to struggle with on the inside of us, there is also the devil on the outside of us trying to gain a foothold in our lives.  And he is the one we want to expose today. 

My message is in two parts this morning.  In order to be a victorious warrior against the devil, here are some things you need to know, and here are some things you need to do.  Actions that are not based on the teachings of the Bible will be ineffective.  But knowledge without action will not bring victory either.  So let’s look at both.

HERE IS WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW.

The devil is your enemy.

1 Peter 5:8 says: Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

The devil is not your friend.  He lies to you, he deceives you, he will do anything in his power to destroy you.  He knows your weaknesses and your weak moments, and he will take advantage of those by placing temptations in front of you every chance he gets.

He hates God, and since you are both God’s creation and God’s child, you are his special target.  He cannot touch God, so he goes after anything that God loves, and that includes you.

I one time had a man tell me in all seriousness: “I’ve made a deal with the devil.  I told him that if he would stop picking on me, I wouldn’t be too sold out for the Lord.  And it’s been working pretty good.”  How many of you know that’s a bad deal to make?  But the devil would love to make that kind of deal with every one of us: “Live a mediocre Christian life and I’ll not pick on you so much.”  Just remember, he’s a liar and the father of lies.

The devil has access to you.

He is the tempter.

Matthew 4 begins: Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.  After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

The devil is the one who tempts you to sin.  God never tempts you to sin, but the devil does.  Sin separates us from God; it hinders our relationship with Him, and the devil knows that.  If he can get us to sin, our spirit is clouded by guilt, and like Adam, we want to hide from God rather than enjoying His fellowship.

He is the hinderer.

1 Thes. 2:17-18 But, brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you, certainly I, Paul, did, again and again, but Satan stopped us. (thwarted, hindered).

Satan hindered us.  Why is it so hard to spend time in prayer, even though we know we need to?  Satan hinders us.  Why is it so easy to neglect our times of devotion, reading our Bibles and reflecting on what we have read?  Satan hinders us.  Why is it so hard to talk about Jesus with others who so desperately need Him?  Satan hinders us.

Whatever good thing you want to do for God, understand that there will be resistance, & that resistance comes from a hinderer named Satan.

He is the deceiver.

We mentioned this a moment ago.  Jesus said to some hypocritical religious leaders in John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

That’s why it is foolish to try to carry on conversations with the devil and his demons.  That’s why the occult is foolish.  If the devil is a liar, why would you want to ask him questions?  You never know whether he is telling you the truth or telling you a lie.  And even when he tells the truth, it is only to advance his own anti-God agenda.

He is the tormenter.

In the book of Job, there are a couple of strange conversations between God and Satan.  Sometimes we have a bit of a hard time trying to make them fit into our theology, but Satan finally gains from God permission to attack Job.  And here is what verse 7 of chapter 2 says: So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

Is all disease a direct result of the devil tormenting us?  No.  I have found that if I wash my hands more and don’t rub my eyes after shaking hands with all of you, I don’t get as many colds.  And you can’t wash the devil off with soap and water.  Some things come as a result of viruses and bacteria.

But there are times when there is a direct attack on a child of God, as in the case of Job.  Paul spoke of one such attack in 2 Corin. 12 (7-9).  To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

A messenger of Satan to torment me – that’s one of the things the devil loves to do to us.

He is the enslaver.

In Luke 13, Jesus had healed a woman who had been crippled for 18 years.  It just happened to be on the Sabbath that He healed her and the religious leaders were unhappy about that – they thought Jesus should only heal Sunday through Friday, and not on Saturday.

Jesus said that this woman had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over and could not straighten up at all.  Here is Jesus’ reply to these religious leaders:

“You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” (v.15-16)

He spoke of her condition as bondage.  Alcohol, tobacco, drugs, pornography – these are some things that hold people in bondage today.  And while these things have their physical and emotional and mental aspects, there is also a spiritual aspect to these bondages.  Satan loves to enslave us to things that keep us from being effective for God.

Let me address one question here: can a Christian be demon possessed?  I believe that there is Biblical evidence that we can not be possessed by a demon & at the same time be possessed by the Spirit of God. Can a Christian be under the influence of demons? Yes. Affected by demons?  Yes.  Deceived?  Tormented?  Hindered?  Yes, the devil & his demons can do these things to us when we do not know how to deal with them.  But the Holy Spirit will not share His dwelling place, His Temple with demons.  But they do have access to us.

God is more powerful than the devil.

Listen to these words from 1 John 4:1-4.  Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.

This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.  

Make no mistake: Satan is powerful.  Make no mistake; God is more powerful.  God is the creator of all things, including the devil.  Some would have us to believe that God and Satan are brothers, locked in an eternal conflict which neither of them can win.  They are equal in power, these people say.  Evidently they have not read the book of Revelation.

Greater, more powerful, more wonderful, more awesome is the One Who is in you than the one who is in the world.

The devil has been disarmed.

Colossians 2:15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Jesus forever defeated Satan at the cross.  When Jesus died on the cross, Satan’s power over us was forever broken.  You need to know that.  The only power over us that he has is the power we voluntarily give to him when we believe his lies.  That’s why I’m spending so much time on this first part of today’s message.  You need to know the truth so you recognize the devil’s lies.  He has been disarmed.  Jesus made a public spectacle of him.  Jesus triumphed over him by the cross.

God has given you authority over the devil.

The commands, the promises, the power that Jesus gave to His first disciples He has also given to us.  And listen to what He said to them when they came back from a ministry trip one day, having seen demons submit to them when they came against them in the Name of Jesus:

I have given you authority … to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”  Luke 10:19-20

As a Christian, you have more authority than most of you realize.  It is not your power; it is God’s power.  But He has given you authority to release His power in your dealing with the devil and his demons.  God’s power overcomes all the power of the enemy, but His power is released as we exercise authority over the devil.

God will strengthen and protect you.

2 Thes. 3:3 But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.  We do not need to fear the devil; we do not need to fear demonic powers.  We need to recognize them, but not fear them.  God is faithful, and His promise is to give us strength and protection.  We can trust Him to fulfill that promise.

It’s important to know what the Bible says, so we can do what the Bible says.  Which brings us to the second part of our message.

HERE IS WHAT WE NEED TO DO.

Be self-controlled and alert.

1 Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  “Be vigilant” it says in the KJ translation.  If you are not aware that the devil wants to destroy your effectiveness for God, to destroy your relationship with God, if you are not alert to his working, how can you defeat him?  That’s why we have spent time exposing him in the first part of this message.  Be alert, or you will be defeated by him and not even know it was him.

Put your armor on.

We now come to our text for this morning.  Read Eph. 6:10-18.

Beginning in the fall of 1990, we spent nearly 2 years studying the book of Ephesians on Sunday mornings.  And we spent 6 weeks looking at the armor God has provided for us.  I went searching through the archives on Friday and found 4 of those tapes: the breastplate, the shield, the helmet and the sword.  And if you would like to order those 4 you can do it at the information center this morning.

The important thing is that you put the armor on, that you go through the process of committing yourself to truth and truthfulness, to righteousness, to preparation.  That you let your salvation provide protection to your thinking processes, that you understand that your faith in Jesus is your shield against Satan’s attacks.  You need to use the Word of God as a sword against Satan, just like Jesus did when He was tempted.  And with all the armor on, praying in the Spirit.  Without prayer, there will be no victory over the enemy of our soul.

Verse 11 says that when we put the armor on we can stand against the devil’s schemes, we can stand our ground and not give way to him.  To be a warrior, we need to arm ourselves with the armor God has provided for us.  Otherwise we will not be able to stand.

Let’s look at one more verse – James 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Don’t try to resist, however, until you have done the first thing:

Submit yourself to God.

Since the power is His, unless we are submitted to Him, we can say all the right words and have the devil simply throw them back in our face.  That was the case with the 7 sons of Sceva in Acts 19 (13-16).

Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.”  Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.  One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?”  Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

If we try to deal with the devil without first submitting ourselves to God, he will have a heyday.  The authority only flows through those who are submitted to God.  And maybe that’s why there are so few who can effectively deal with the devil. 

Submission is not something most of us like to do.  We want to be in control; we want to call the shots; we want to be in charge and even get the glory.  Submission means that I put myself under God’s authority and obey Him in everything – no little corners of my life that I am reserving for myself.  I have yielded all to Him.  But when we do that, we can move on to the next step.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

1 Peter 5:8-9 says it as well: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

How do I resist him?

1. I resist him by putting on my armor.  If that is what will enable me to stand, then I had better put it on if I want to stand.  That’s one of the ways we resist him.  And pray in the Spirit.  There is no piece of armor to which prayer is likened, as are these other things.  With prayer it is simply a command: pray!

2. I resist him by believing the Bible.  When he comes to me with his lies, I make a conscious choice to believe what the Bible says instead of what the devil says.

3. I resist him by speaking the Bible out loud so that both he and I can hear it.  There is power in the spoken word.  Jesus knew that, and when the devil came to Him and tried to tempt Him, He spoke words from the Word – Jesus quoted Scripture to the devil.  And the devil left Jesus, defeated by the spoken word.

The sword of the Spirit is the only offensive weapon that is listed there in Ephesians 6.  Have you ever thought about that?  The rest of the things talked about will protect you, but they will not win the battle.  Only the sword enables you to defeat the devil.

The battle is real, and so are the enemies – your sinful nature on the inside, and the devil on the outside.  But God says we can win this battle as we put into practice the things He says to us in the Bible.

PRAY