Epistle Of James
Resisting The Enemy | Standing Firm In Faith 02
[Music] Please turn your Bibles to... Let's begin with our foundational scripture in 2 Corinthians 1, 24 from the New Living Translation. Hallelujah, this series is called "How to Stand Firm in Your Faith." We're going to need this now. Amen, this is the time to stand firm, not to quit, give up, and run in the other direction. There is no armor for your back, okay? All your armor is for the front. Hallelujah, because God never intended you to turn, run, and run. Not when He has given you His armor. See, this is not our armor. This isn't something that we put on, that we made. That's God's flaws. I think it's extraordinary that God gave us His armor. Amen? Anyway, that's for another time. So here again from the New Living Translation, the apostle Paul again is writing in 2 Corinthians 1, 24, but that does not mean that we want to tell you exactly how to... He's in the middle of a statement, don't worry about it. How to put your faith into practice? He says, "We want to work together with you so you will be full of joy as you stand firm in your faith." God expects us to stand firm in our faith. That's why in 1st Timothy 6 and verse 12, the apostle Paul says to Timothy, "Fight the good fight of faith." We're in a fight, family. We are in a fight. This is way, it's really sad that people think, "Well, you know, I'm a Christian now, and all my troubles are gone." Are you kidding? You have become a nightmare to the devil, and if you ever wake up, you are going to be walking all over him. So he's going to do everything that he can to put you under his feet when God said that we are to put him under our feet. Amen? So last time, excuse me, last time again, we looked at what I titled here, identifying the enemy. We looked at what Jesus was talking about when he said that the thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. And then he says, "I have come to give you life and life more abundantly." There is a thief. Do you know thieves go where they're not welcome? Do you all know that? They cross boundaries, they shouldn't. God has said, "Touch not my anointed, but he'll cross that boundary." Amen. God has paid for our healing and restoration and just everything in our life with the cross. It's all ours, and yet the devil will cross that threshold and put sickness on you. Are you all with me? And try to make it go broke and just do everything he can, but he needs your cooperation to work. This is what's really sad. That's why God said, "My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge." They don't know. So they allow the devil to come in and with bad preaching as well. It's really sad the way we are not being ministered to as we should be. And I don't mean here, but obviously in the body of Christ. And I get to see a lot of that because of all the things I'm involved in at the moment. And it sends me. And I think if people knew they would stand up and they would fight. But if you don't know, you don't know. As somebody said, "You don't know what you don't know." Amen? So we again identified the enemy in the last session. I'm going to do it again today. But again, remember we looked at Revelation 12, 9, and we saw all of his attributes. And I got to the place where I said that we're going to go and look at 1st Peter chapter 5, verses 8 and 9. So I want to go straight there now. Because the apostle Peter identifies him and tells us what to do about it. It's pointless knowing about him and then letting him just run wild in our life. So today, I'm going to weaponize you. Amen. Hallelujah. So let's begin reading in 1st Peter chapter 5, verses 8 and 9. Let me read these two verses together. Then we'll go back and look at verse 8 and then go into verse 9. He says again here, "Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." Verse 9, "Resist him steadfast in the faith." How to stand firm in your faith? Okay, steadfast in the faith knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. You know, let me just deal with the back end of this and then we'll go deal with the front end. Just know there's nothing new. All right, the devil just uses the same old trick on everybody. And if you believe him, he'll win. If you don't, he won't. Okay, it's you're not something special. Don't stand and say, "Oh, the only one that's getting attacked like this. Oh, everybody in the world is getting attacked like this." Just they're not whining. Well, maybe they are. Maybe there's a little club. Okay. You get cheese with it. You know, wine. Never mind. Never mind. Never mind. Anyway, just know you're not alone. You know, sometimes just knowing that is something and it allows you to stand up and say, "You know what? I want to do better. I don't want to be a part of whatever is going on out there that's not making it." People need to see us overcoming things, family. If they are ever going to come to Christ, it's only going to be because we show them something that's worthwhile. If they see us failing like they're failing, why bother? No, I'm serious. You know, I was told once I kind of swallowed it, you know, because I didn't know any better and I kind of didn't have God's, you know, God's angle on it. God's wisdom on it. Whatever. Okay. And they said, you know, they were talking about the church and they said, "Well, you know, the church is there to, you know, when people, the difference is that, yes, we all have trouble, but if you're in a church, then people will hold your hand and people will look after you and people will just be there for you." And I thought, "Yeah, you know, you know, this is like the community church." You know what I'm trying to say? And where we sort of become sort of that, that kind of like a hospital, where we sort of bring in the sick and we nurse them and we look after them and everything else. And while that sounds really sweet and nice and everything, that's not what we're here for. We are here to show what heaven is like. We are here to enforce a victory that was won. When it said, "And he spoiled the principalities and powers and made a sure of them openly in his death, in his burial, in his resurrection, and he is seated at the right hand." All of that. And they said, that's why they said, "At the prince of this world, no one would have never crucified the Lord." Because that messed everything up and it brought to pass what was said in Genesis, I believe in Genesis 3.15. He said, "You will bruise his heel, but he's going to crush your head." And he did. He crushed the devil's head. So we're dealing with an enemy that's got a crushed head. You can heal, you know, from a bruised heel, but a crushed head, that's a little difficult. Okay, that's something. Humpty Dumpty can't get put back together again that way. All right. So let's get into this. All right. So here again, we see that the apostle Peter lets us know that we do have an adversary. He is called the devil. And from what we learned in Revelation 12, 9, he is powerful and cunning. We need to acknowledge that family because one of the things that we must not do is underestimate him. Do you know why I say that? Because when we do, we think we can take the fight to him by ourselves. He is a powerful adversary. The only way we can fight this thing is with the understanding that we are born of God, with the understanding that God is on our side, with the understanding that we are the temple of the Holy Ghost. We understand that God lives inside of us, that we have his armor, all of these things, and we go into this with God, not apart from him. And when we go in with God, then the enemy runs in the opposite direction because he has come up against this before and lost miserably. Amen? And that's why again, Peter tells us, be sober, be vigilant, or literally be self-controlled and alert. Now remember again, this series is how to stand firm in your faith. So I'm going to teach you that. Okay, so here are the first two things. See, we read this stuff and go, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." We can't do that. We need to look at this closely. This is the apostle Peter. He's been through some stuff. When he gives you advice, when he gives you a word, listen to it. He has given you two words here. He has told you to do two things. He said, first of all, be sober, okay, or self-controlled and be vigilant, be alert. So let's have a look at this. In his commentary, Simon J. Kistemacher explains that the sentence, "Be self-controlled and alert concentrates on two characteristics." The first characteristic describes a person who controls his own disposition. So you need to be self-controlled. Don't run around screaming and yelling, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die." That's not going to work. You're going to, you know, pull yourself together, man, okay? You need to be self-controlled. You need to stand firm. Are you all with me? So that's the first thing. Don't allow things to just, you know, tip your little boat over. Have some guts. I feel like, you know, some of the things that people have said in the body of Christ, you know, everybody comes in, they become wimps. How in the world there are these tough armbrays and they come into the body and suddenly they're, this is all, you know, limp noodles. I don't know what else to say. You know, and it's what happened. Oh, brother, I'm just thundering. Don't surrender to everything. You surrender to God, but you stand firm against the devil. See, this is, again, this is because of our preaching, because of what has been going on out there. People have been preaching and say, "You just have to, you come in, you can't have our own will. Now you've got to surrender everything." And they then don't know how to fight because it's all about, watch, God has everything in control. You just surrender to it all. It's kind of comical. Okay. When you watch people preaching that and then they'll run, they'll start to preach on a scripture about standing firm and then they say, "But you have to stand firm." I'm thinking, "Wait a second. How do you do that?" You've just told everybody to surrender everything. God has everything in control. Why stand firm? What's the standing firm? Oh, no, because he's got it on on control. But then you're telling us that he's in control of everything. So if he's in control of everything regardless of what he stands for, that's what's going to happen. If he's in control of everything, unless he's not, then we have a problem. Okay. It is just comical. And I think the body of Christ is confused. They're walking around going, "Hang on, do I resist? Am I resisting God?" You know, I mean, you just don't know which way to go with this thing. Then you get word of faith that resists everything. Even God. I mean, they do that too. I mean, I'm just going to tell on us as much as everybody else. Let's just call it like it is, okay? I mean, you know, God comes and says, you know, just do this or do that. And because you don't like it, we say, get the behind me, Satan. Hello. That was in the devil. That was the Lord. Moving on. So the first characteristic, again, describes a person who controls his or her own disposition. While the second discloses his readiness to respond to outside influences. So not only must you control how you respond or react to things, but you also need to watch for things that are coming at you from the outside. See, yes, the outside things are the things that cause you to respond in a certain way. But sometimes, you know, all we're doing is thinking about how are we feeling about this? Instead of looking at what's actually coming against us and rebuking those things, coming against them, fighting against those things. So we stand for, are you seeing something here? So we stand firm two ways. We stand firm in the way we deal with it. And we stand firm in the way that we don't allow it to come and affect us, to attack us and continue its work. Because you can get so, you know, involved in thinking about yourself that you don't take, you know, if you're getting bitten by a snake and you keep kind of going, I'm strong, I'm strong, kill the snake. It'll stop biting you, okay? You know, you need to deal with whatever it is that is coming against you. We wrestle not against principle, against flesh and blood, but against. There is something we're wrestling against. Prince values and powers and rulers and things that come have been arrayed against us. And we do need to fight. Are you all here? So we need to not only be strong on the inside, but we also need to fight what's coming out, coming at us from the outside. It's a, okay, you're getting this? Both things, okay? All right. And just, you know, sorry, I have to tell on us a little bit, you know, I've noticed where the faith has this, this kind of, oh, that's uncomfortable. I review your devil. Oh, this is taking too long. I don't know if I can do this. And a lot of the sort of more traditional denominational Christians, bless their little hearts, they'll stand and fight till the end, like I'm standing for, and the devil's attacking them. And, you know, they've developed a backbone because they don't know what all this to do. We need to learn a little bit of that, and they need to learn it, well, a little bit of us, you know, we need a lot of both, to be honest. We need to be tough, okay, like them. And we also need to know our rights. Amen? Okay. So he says here, a Christian must always be on guard against both internal and external forces that are bent on destroying him or her. These forces originate in man's chief adversary, Satan. Do y'all get that? In other words, I like what Norman Hillier says, he says, "Believers are to be on the watch like keen sentinels." Really like that. "Aware that the foe may attack at any time and from any quarter. Unseen he may be, but the spiritual fact is that their enemy, the devil, is forever seeking a way to infiltrate and take advantage, listen, of any weaknesses among God's army of believers." I love the way he phrases that. He is looking for any weaknesses in God's army of believers. We are an army. Amen? And he's looking for any weaknesses in this army. The less we know, the more weaknesses he's going to find. Okay. Continuing on in verse 8, he goes in the Seine now. He says, "Be sober, be vigilant," so we know now there are two things there. "Because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." Now the phrase, the devil walks about like a roaring lion. Let's us know that the devil is a cruel and ferocious beast of prey. Okay. That is on the hunt for any believer that he can, through lies and deception, turn away from God and his word. That's what he's after. He's constantly looking for ways to turn your attention away from God, to turn your attention away from the word. If he can get you to do that, he's got you. But while you stay focused, while you meditate on his word, that's why he said to Joshua, we'll look at the Scriptures later. Okay. He said, "You do this. You keep your, you know meditating means you keep your mind set on something." Are you all with me? So you don't let your mind wander off somewhere else. You said it on the word. You said it on God. And you trust him. And that's what Proverbs then talks about trusting with all of your heart, not half of it. Okay. Which, which also we'll go and look at. All right. Back to this. In his commentary, Simon J. Kissimarker says, "Were it not for God's revelation, this portrayal of Satan would strike terror in the heart of the Christian. The believer would have no protection against this fearful adversary. Should he become Satan's victim, he would be ruthlessly destroyed." Now notice I said, should he become. Okay. We need to stay out of Satan's territory. Are you all here? Amen? All right. He says, "A Christian, however, has the protection of spiritual armor." Remember Ephesians chapter 6. Okay. "When a Christian is fully equipped, the devil is unable to penetrate this armor." We'll look at it in a minute. All right. Also, Jesus has taught his followers to pray, deliver us from the evil one. All right. Or deliver us from evil. Whatever that is. Okay. "And God declares that Satan's defeat is through the blood of the Lamb." You know, that's why they don't want to hear it these days because that's what defeats him. Let's go and have a look at that. Revelation chapter 12. It's nice to go into revelations once in a way. Everybody freaks out there. Okay. Let's find some nice verses, shall we? Well, you know, relatively. Revelation chapter 12, verses 10 and 11. It says, "Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 'Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ have come. For the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down.'" Hallelujah. Verse 11. "Watch and they overcame him." You know, this is the devil himself. I mean, this is massive. This is the great dragon. This is not some little imp. Oh, one of his, you know, fallen angels. Okay. This is the chief. I think this is really, this is important that you see this, that it says here and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb. Oh, the blood of Jesus. I tell you, it is powerful. That's why, you know, some days you just need to stand and plead the blood. You just need to stand there and say, "You know what? I have the blood of Christ. It is protecting me. It is my shield, my arm, and my everything." Kind of paint yourself in the blood. I know it's horrible. But it's true. This is, this is something that goes beyond words. I don't have the words to describe the power and what's behind it. It is what allowed Jesus Christ to go into heaven and cleanse everything in this universe. It was his blood. Can you, can you believe that, that even heaven was affected by Earth's sin? Read Hebrews someday. Anyway, back to this. Oh, I'll do that for you. You come to church. And notice again, he says, "They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony." You know, that's the word. The blood and the word. Those are two things. The word of your testimony should be God's word. It should be in God's word, founded in God's word. Are you all with me? Your testimony should, it should be all about what God has done in your life. If it's not that it's bragging, did you get what I just said? And it says, "And they did not love their lives to death." Or it says in another version, they were not afraid to die. Not that they died, but they weren't afraid. One of the things that allows you to stand firm in your faith is to say, "You know what, just like those children, you know, Shadrach, Mesh and Abednego." Or it's one of the preachers saying, "My Shaq, your Shaq and Abungaloo." Okay. But, you know, those three guys, you know, this, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebi says, "I'm going to throw in the fire, go ahead." They didn't say, "Oh, no, please, you know, okay, maybe there was a misunderstanding. Let's negotiate this a little bit." They said, "No, you want to throw us in there? Go for it. We're not bowing our knee." Hallelujah. So, what happens? God turns up. Even the people that were throwing them in burn up. And they don't, they come back without a sinch. And then they convert the king because of it. He says, "Wow, this is, this is what heaven's in this before." Amen? That's what the church is meant to be doing. Okay. According to the apostle Peter goes and say, "First Peter, chapter 5, verse 9, says, "Resist him, resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world." Now, this verse actually parallels a verse in James chapter 4 and verse 7, which we're going to look at in some detail. All right? But, let's go and have a look at that now very quickly. The apostle James says there as well. He says, "Therefore, submit to God." There's a key there. Okay. We're going to talk about submitting to God, all right? He says, "Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Now, it's interesting that Peter just says, "Be sober, be vigilant that your adversary of the devil walks around like a, you know, roaring lion seeking who he may devour, and then says, resist him, steadfast in the faith, then leave this at that." And he goes, you know, because other people are having this problem too. Okay? But James is interesting. He says, "Resist him, he'll flee." So we want the devil to flee. And that word is actually in terror. Amen. I told you, we'll look at this verse. Okay? We'll look at this verse. But also, let's have a look at Ephesians 6, 11. Notice that we had to win this fight. And why even the apostle Paul says, oh, excuse me, Ephesians, yeah, sorry, 6, 11. Yeah. When he says, "Put on the full armor of God." He says, "Put it on why that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil." Whatever the devil is up to, this armor will take care of it. Amen? And we need to know this. This is from the New American Standard Bible. We need to know this, that we have armor that allows us to stand firm. Remember again, we're talking about how to stand firm in your faith. Well, this is one of the things you do. Put on your armor. Know that you have armor. Know that you're not naked in this fight. Amen? Now I've done a whole series on the armor of God. I would encourage you to go have a little listen to it. So once again, notice that we have been given God's own armor to stand firm against the schemes of the devil with. So whether it's the apostle Peter or the apostle James or even the apostle Paul, they're all saying essentially the same thing. Stand firm in your faith and win this fight. Especially since Jesus said in Luke 10, 19, let's go there very quickly. Luke 10, 19, and this is just in the New King James. He says, "Behold, that means look and see." All right. Luke 10, 19, he says, "Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy." And these are two guys that weren't even born again yet. Amen? How much time do you have? Where am I? Oh, okay. So notice again, I've got some awesome things here. I'm going to get to them, but yeah. Anyway, he said, "Behold, I give you authority. You need to know that you have authority. You have both power and authority. Be strong in the Lord and the power of his might." Okay. And here he says, "I'll give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." So when you go up against them, don't go up against them in fear. You have God's Word to say that nothing will hurt you. You know, the devil always uses scare tactics. He says, "Oh, you're not going to win this. You know what you've done." And you know how he knows because he's the one that got you to do it. Remember again, the tempter is the accuser, both sides of the coin. But you need to know something. The blood was more powerful than all of that. If you acknowledge your sin, he's faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness, how do you use that in a fight? Whenever you go up against the devil, and the devil reminds you of something, don't curl up in a ball and die. Do you know what I tell him? Thank you for reminding me of that. I forgot. Let's quickly get the blood on it, get rid of it, and I'll come back and beat up on you again. Just wait one minute. Just hang on for a second. Is there anything else you want to accuse me of? Before I go, see how you can fight? Amen? This way you go. Thank you. I forgot. If you acknowledge your sin, he is faithful and just. Do you know he's not just faithful, but justice demands that you're forgiven because the cross paid the price. It demands that you be forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness so that you stand perfect and sinless before God, which means now you go from being Jonah in the boat to Jesus in the boat. And the swarms are about to get a whooping. Amen? See family, you need to learn to do this. Yeah, but I still feel so bad. You know what? We're not moved by our feelings. Come back to that later to say feeling. Stay here for a minute. We have a fight on our hands right now. God, have you getting, wandering and messing all this up? I know I'm a little tough on you guys, but okay. The devil's worse. Okay. I don't want to leave you at his mercy. Do you know those drew sergeants and stuff? I had one of those. My God. Anyway, you know, you know that job is to be worse than your enemy so that when you run into your enemy, you go, this is a piece of cake. My sergeant's a lot worse than this. Are you all with me? That's why the word of God is hard on you some days because it needs you to toughen up so that when you go up against the enemy, you go, is that all? Is that all you've got? Really? That's it? Hallelujah. I'm going to have to stop there. Oh, come back. Okay. Because I got some incredible things to share with you. We're going to go talk about, you know, in standing, you need to know that every word of God is tried and tested. We're going to look at scriptures that talk about that. All right. We're going to look at, never mind. If I keep going, I'll just tell you the whole rest of what we're going to do. Just know that there are some tremendous things up ahead and I'll also give you some scriptures that you can stand on. Since you're meant to stand firm and no scriptures, just in case, you know, you don't know a lot, I'll give you some things that will help you in some general and major areas that you can use, that you can stand on and believe God for. Amen? Let's have every head bowed, every day close. Father, we thank you today for your word and we thank you, Father, for all that we are learning, all the things that we're growing and I thank you, Lord, that thank you, Father, that you don't leave us in the dark. Hallelujah. You bring the light of your word, you illuminate us, you show us God what we need to do, how to fight, how to win. Now, thank you for everybody in the sound of my voice, Father, whether they're watching this later on this week, 10 years from now, the word is the same yesterday, today, and forever because you are the same yesterday, today, and forever and we just thank you, Father, that they received this and they walk in the fullness of all that you prepared for them to walk in, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. God has so much, he has prepared for you, walk in the fullness of it. Amen. Amen. Amen. [MUSIC]