Satan – Auriesville Tubthumper

Your Worst Enemy, Part 2

Part 2… Click here to start at beginning.

People are unaware and ignorant to his devices while this dirty fighting foe uses guerrilla warfare and is on our path every moment pursuing us. He is stalking every part of our households, he is walking the streets of our towns, he is present in many of our churches, he is in our courts and governments, he is seducing and deceiving, ruining body and soul of mankind, men, women and children, he is breaking up our families and sowing seeds of hatred, strife, evil and murder. We see Satan’s damages all around us and yet we remain passive and almost regard them as normal. The power to beat it is close at hand if we would just connect with it.

Satan continually seeks to overcome God’s people by working to break down the barriers that separate us from the world. “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (2 Corinthians 4:4) If you haven’t decided to follow Christ and live under His laws then you are servant of Satan. Sorry to have to put it so bluntly but that is the truth. Those with an unregenerate heart have love of sin and a willingness to cherish it and excuse it away. Those that have turned to Christ have a renewed heart and a hatred of sin and should be determined to resist it. When a Christian chooses to keep company with the ungodly and share in the ways of the world they expose themselves to great temptation. Satan is hiding close by and he will work very hard to pull the wool over your eyes. A continual indifference to the world will cause you to become more and more blinded to the assault. We must be different. The world must be able to identify a difference between one who professes to be a child of God and one who does not.

By conforming to the world we have converted our churches to the world. You cannot convert the world to Christ by becoming more like them. We must be different. The more familiar you get with sin the more you will see it as acceptable and you will be lulled into a comfort zone around the master of evil. If we knowingly place ourselves under temptation we will likely fall sooner or later.

Satan works most successfully through those who are least suspected of being under his control. So he goes after those most admired and honored. He uses anyone but specializes in going after the prize. He goes after people with talent, education and culture. These talents and qualities will grace the character of Christians and work in favor of true religion but they must be consecrated to God otherwise they become a powerful weapon for evil. Many a man of intellect and polish has become an instrument of evil in the hands of Satan. Remember the example of Solomon. Solomon obtained the wisdom that earned him the wonder and admiration of the world. Then he turned from his source of strength to rely upon himself and he became susceptible to temptation. This allowed the evil one to use this wise man more effectively to complete the evil mission.

Satan is working constantly to blind you to the fact that you, “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12) And another warning, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) And, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” (Ephesians 6:11)

Ever since the fall of Adam the enemy has been exercising his power to oppress and destroy all he can. He is preparing right now for his biggest and his last campaign against the church of Christ. Everyone who is seeking to follow Christ and regards themselves as a true child of the King will be in major conflict with this relentless enemy. The more we try to be more like Christ, the more we will be in the cross-hairs of the sights in the attacks of Satan. All of our people that are active in the cause of Christ will be able to join in the testimony of Paul, speaking of serving the LORD with all humility of mind, with many fears and temptations.

Satan attacked Jesus Christ with all he had. He went at Christ with all the subtle temptations he could and the fiercest advances but Christ was repulsed at every conflict. The battles between Christ and Satan were fought on our behalf. The victory of Christ made it possible for us to conquer as well. Jesus Christ will provide strength to all who will seek it. No man can ever be overcome by Satan without giving consent. Satan has no power to control your will. He has no power to force you to sin. He can distress you and he can tempt you or try to confuse you but he cannot overtake you without you giving the willful go ahead. Satan can cause you a lot of agony but he can never defile you. Christ has conquered Satan already. This should give you the courage to fight on through the battle against sin and against the evil one. You have the power to defeat your worst enemy!

Fight on…God bless you all,

‘The Tubthumper’

YOUR WORST ENEMY

The judge slammed his gavel on the podium and immediately pronounced the verdict and the sentence. Guilty was the verdict and the sentence was divine and engaged all of mankind who should ever live upon the earth. The defendant and alleged offender was one named Satan, alias Beelzebub, Lucifer, Devil and Prince of this world. The sentence which was pronounced quickly was, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) The judge, jury and executioner was, none other than the Great “I AM”, the creator of all and our LORD and savior.

Could this also be classified as prophecy?

This word, enmity means to create a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill will; animosity or antagonism which is mutual to all parties. This enmity thing is not something that occurs naturally. When Adam committed the transgression against the law that God had laid out he imposed upon all mankind an evil nature. His actions placed us all in harmony with Satan when God’s intent was for us to be in opposition or difference. Man, along with Satan became evil through an act of apostasy. If God had not taken some severe action we would have been continuously united with Satan against God.

Satan worked over Eve with deception and then Eve became an accomplice to help move Adam into sin in a grand scheme to get full cooperation in warfare against God and His Kingdom. When Satan heard the sentence of a declaration of enmity between himself and the woman, and between his seed and her seed, he understood that he had been had and that man would somehow he able to resist his powers. Drat! Sassa-frassa-rassa he probably was muttering. How could this happen?

This does not stop the evil one and only serves to slow him down. Actually, the evil one thinks he will some-day win and steps up his efforts to try and win the next battle. His fury is kindled like a camper throwing birch twigs on the hot coals of the smoldering fire.

God’s grace that he lovingly placed in the soul of man has given us enmity against Satan. Without the grace of God and His love and redemption mankind would be totally captive to Satan and we would all be servants to do his evil. The result is that in our souls there rages this conflict where before the fall of man once was a soul at complete peace. For all that choose to access it we have the power of Jesus Christ that enables us to resist the efforts of the evil tyrant that lurks at every corner and is seeking us out. Through the love of Christ we can conquer the evil passions that draw us and we can abhor sin and flee from it.

When we look at how the world treated Jesus Christ we can see it as an example or picture of the type of antagonism or enmity existing between the Spirit of Christ and Satan. The Jews totally rejected Jesus. His purity and His holiness drew out the hatred of all the ungodly around Him. For a community of sensual and proud people the sinless life of self-denial that Jesus exhibited was too much for them to take. Once again we saw this enmity. This time it was the Jews eliciting enmity with the Christ. They would deny that Jesus was the messiah. Satan found some companions with these evil men and they all joined together in apostasy to conspire against Jesus the Christ the Champion of Truth.

Please understand this very important point otherwise you will leave yourself open to destruction. The very same enmity that was manifested toward Jesus Christ is and always will be manifested toward His followers. Whoever is able to recognize sin for what it is and call upon the LORD for strength to resist the temptations will surely attract the attention of the evil one. This battle between truth and evil will exist as long as sinners and sin remain part of the earth. There will never be any harmony between Christ and anyone or anything that serves Satan. The attack and persecution leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the Cross has not stopped. “Yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2 Timothy 3:12)

Satan continues to fight and is constantly working to build up his kingdom in the battle against the Kingdom of God. There is and will be a constant attempt to deceive any of Christ’s followers and Satan would love nothing more than to lure you in and pull you away from your allegiance to Jesus Christ. He is always working to misconstrue and pervert the Scriptures to accomplish his objective. Satan is having a hay-day right now with all the false teachers and the preachers that are watering down and adding to scripture and not preaching the truth. These weak ones are falling into his hands. There is a constant effort to malign God’s people just as there always has been since it was all foreshadowed in Genesis 3:15. This enmity will continue until the rapture and the end of the battle in Revelation when Satan is cast into the lake of fire.

Satan continues to throw all the weight he can at us. He puts his entire power into combat and the battle continues to rage. The battle rages on because we do not connect with Christ the way He wants us to. We cannot see sin as repulsive and as abhorrent as Christ did. We cannot see it because we are not putting forth the effort to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We are so removed from Christ we are destitute of the Holy Spirit. Most of us do not connect with the malignity and the expansion of sin and we are blind to the power and character of the prince of the world. Mankind does not elicit enmity against Satan and his works because mankind is ignorant regarding his power and his malice. We don’t grasp the vastness of his warfare against the Church of Christ and against Christ Himself. The masses of our land are deluded and unaware. Most are caught up in all the enjoyment of life and ignorant to the destruction around them. Most don’t realize there is a mighty general of an evil army that has a massive attack plan with calculated maneuvers to war against Christ and to stop Him from saving souls.

How many times do you hear reference to Satan from professed Christians? Not often. Certainly not often enough! What about the clergy in the pulpits these days? There is an occasional mention of the battle here and there but the evidence of his activity and success is not addressed in near comparison to the gravity of the situation. Most people are neglecting the warnings about the subtlety of Satan and most seem to ignore his very existence. Most preachers of today wouldn’t touch the subject for fear of making some people feel uncomfortable. Well guess what? You should all be real uncomfortable! The enemy is after your soul people. He is out to kill you and your family. Wake up!

Continued… in the next post. Click here to go to part 2.

Have a Godly day,

‘The Tubthumper’

Are we a Bunch of Losers? Part 6

Part 6

I mentioned earlier that you should evaluate the church, your church and your life. Let me draw your attention to the first six books of Revelation.

The first church Jesus addressed is the Church as Ephesus. He started with giving them a commendation, “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.” Oh, but all is not good because He then rebukes them, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen!” If you have studied the Bible much at all you should know that love is one of the top three topics if not the one greatest of all. They had forsaken the LOVE! And then comes the warning, “Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”(In other words He would leave them in darkness!) And then He gives them a promise, “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Now there is some fine motivation. Have you forsaken the Love?

The second church in the evaluation is the church at Smyrna. He starts again with an accolade. I think this may be where the “sandwich” style of delivering some criticism in the business world might have come from. It is usually the way we get something positive as the first slice of bread and then the filling is the rough stuff before the last slice added is a word of hope and praise. Jesus tells them, “I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.” Ouch! Next comes the warning, “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Lastly he gives the hope, “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the Churches. The one who is victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death.” Notice the hint to listen to what the Holy Spirit says for the things churches are to do. Be sure you are not a synagogue of Satan.

Church number three is the church of Pergamum. Right away we see the praise coming, “I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives.” Not long after, however, comes the complaint, “Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality. Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” He is warning them against false teachers and sexual immorality which we have plenty of in these days. The warning is sharp, “Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” And He finishes with the hope, “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.” Once again He says to listen to the Holy Spirit! Do not worship idols or be committing sexual immorality.

The fourth Church Jesus addresses is the church of Thyatira and He starts by acknowledging they have grown from where they started, “I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.” But then comes the reprimand, “Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.” It sounds to me like He is not happy with them, to say the least… So now comes a further warning, Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.” So to those of you that are somehow righteous you better stick with the program until I come get you. Jesus then tells of the reward for doing as He commands, “To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’ ¬- just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give that one the morning star. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Hear it? Listen to the Holy Spirit? Do not follow false teachers.

Please join me in the next post (JUST CLICK HERE) for the conclusion as we review the last three churches and bring this series to a close.

God bless your day,

‘The Tubthumper’