10.14.2014

Know the Enemy Part 2

This week, I am sharing some thoughts from a message that I delivered to our congregation about spiritual warfare.  Every time we seem to turn on the news there before us is another story about the wars going on around our world.  What we do not hear much about is the war that has been waging for centuries... the war between God and evil.  Whether we like it or not, we find ourselves in the midst of this battle.  Thanks be to God that He has not left us abandoned to our own defense, but He has provided the victory through Jesus Christ.  He has also allowed us a peek into how our enemy operates so that we can stand against the Devil and the forces of darkness.  You can read part one of this little blog series by clicking here.

In this post, I would like to bring to light another way in which our enemy, the Devil, works.  He seeks to steal God's word from us.

We are told in Psalm 119:160 that the word of God is truth, and it endures forever.  Truth is something that is coming under fire greatly in our world today.  The thought that there would be an absolute truth that applies to all people at all times is crazy-talk to many.  The fact is that time and time again, God's word has proven true.  It is reliable and trustworthy.

As mentioned in my previous post, Satan knows that God's word is true and brings life.  He will do whatever he can to take it away from us.  In the part of the world that I sit, there are copies of God's word in almost every house, doctor's office, and hotel room.  Here in my office, I am looking at twelve different copies of God's word.  Sadly, in many parts of the world, that is not the case.  There are believers who cherish a couple of pages of the Bible that they have been able to hide from authorities and others.  May those of us who have the privilege of owning a copy of God's word never take it for granted.

Jesus told a parable in Matthew 13 about one who sows seeds.  This seed is the words of God.  In this parable, Jesus refers to some seed that is sown on the path and stolen.  Jesus clearly shows who does the stealing - the Devil (v 19).

Before we shrug this off as some fairy tale, think about it.  When was the last time that you heard the word of God from a sermon, devotion, a song, on the radio, and it sparked something within you?  You thought to yourself, "I have to come back to that."  When you got to a point where you could come back to that, it was gone.  You couldn't remember where it was.  You couldn't quite remember what it said.  You begin to think, "maybe it was nothing."  You figure that if it was important, you would remember it, right?  So you go back to life as normal.  The truth is that this precious gift has been stolen right from under your nose.

Every word of God is true.  It is a life-giving gift.  Jesus reminded us that man lives on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Deuteronomy 8:3/Matthew 4:4).  Today, let's make sure that we are not letting the very thing that will give us life - the word of God - be stolen from us.

3 comments:

Know the Enemy Part 3 | The Way I See It said...

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Know the Enemy Part 4 | The Way I See Things said...

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Know the Enemy Part 5 | The Way I See Things said...

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