24-1006p Transcript

Preacher: Mike Mathis

I’m continuing what started this morning with to be victorious. We looked at the fact that we all have challenges, and whether we are in Christ or out of Christ, we have battles.

But if we’re not in Christ, and we just do not have the help that we need, the blessings that we have by being in Christ. But these battles that we have, we have no one to really help us fight these. So no matter what the situation is, whether we’re a Christian or whether we’re not, it determines just how we’re going to come out.

And we’ve learned that the devil is a powerful foe, but Christ is more powerful. He brings to naught the devil’s power, according to 1 John 3.8. And I saw in Hebrews 2.14-15 that through the death of Christ, the devil has lost his power, the power that he did have. Through his death and his resurrection, Jesus wrested the keys to death and hades from Satan.

He no longer has the keys. But you know, we sometimes may let the devil get a foothold, and we shouldn’t do that. And if the devil has a place in our lives, we let him.

We let him have that place. And in 1 John 2, verses 15-17, we have, The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. So, you know, we got three avenues here that Satan uses to tempt us.

And he used these three avenues to tempt Eve in the garden. And he used these same avenues in tempting Jesus. And he’ll use these three avenues to tempt us.

But we don’t have to give place to him for we’re told that we’re not to love the world. Or the things and the faith that are in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

But these three things we can see comes from the devil. But we are involved in letting him in when we succumb to these lusts, to this pride of life, to the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh. But those, one thing about these things is the world is passing away and the lust of it, these things pass away.

But we find that he who does the will of God abides forever. So, doing what God desires for us to do will cause us to abide forever. And we need to keep looking for open doors of service to God in order to not let the devil get a foothold.

Satan can be resisted. As we read in James 4 and verse 7, it says to resist the devil and he will flee, you know. We know we should not want someone that to be the kind that will not stay around.

We can surely respect someone that will stand up for things that he believes in. But if he just doesn’t stand up for those things, and there is correction to be made in things that are there, and it is pointed out that correction needs to be made, and that person just will not listen. But the devil, he can be resisted and he will flee.

In 1 Peter 5 and verse 9, we learn, resist him, stay fast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. In other words, if we are suffering and the devil is really bringing it on to us, we have people with the false doctrines pounding at us and resisting us when we need to resist. And we need to resist and be steadfast in the faith and not faltering.

There are two extremes about the devil, and there’s one that gives him more power than he has. The devil made me do it. Why did you do what you did? Well, the devil made me do it.

That’s one extreme. No, he didn’t. We have a decision to make.

We have the decision to succumb to the temptation that he puts up before us, or we have the decision to obey what God wants us to do. That’s our decision. And the temptation that’s put before us, we have the decision to not give in to what we are tempted.

So the devil doesn’t make us do it. We may be tempted, but just as Eve in the garden, when the serpent tempted her with the forbidden fruit, what she did was she looked at that fruit. She saw that it was good for food.

You know, that’s the lust of the flesh by her when she looked at it. And it says, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took the fruit and ate it. The serpent did not make her take that forbidden fruit.

She took it and she ate it. And then she gave to her husband with her, and he ate it. You see, he didn’t resist.

He didn’t say, no, we shouldn’t do that. But he did, and he took it. And the result was that the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew they were naked.

So they hid themselves. So the serpent said, yeah, and we know that it was the devil that told her, you know, that she wouldn’t die. And she looked at it, and it would make one wise, and it’s good, and that.

Then the other extreme is that we fail to take the devil seriously. There are people that just, they don’t take him seriously. You know, there are those that deny the existence of God.

And likewise, there are those that deny the existence of the devil. And if we do accept that there is a devil, we just, he’s just not really taken seriously. And there is where the defeat is.

In John 8 and verse 44, this is the gospel of John. And verse 44, Jesus said, you are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father, you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. You know, there are those that would accuse God of man, one who resorts in mass murder. They’re accusing the wrong one.

It’s the devil, for he lies. And he’s the murderer. When he lied that to Eve, she said, God said that we shall surely die.

He said, you shall not die. And she believed him, he lied. And thus she and her husband took of the fruit, and ate of it.

And sure enough, they separated themselves from God spiritually, and of course, physically, they died. And death comes to all men, because of sin. Now, the devil is a powerful spirit being, and he wants all of humanity lost.

You know, someone has said, the devil’s going to get you for this. No, he’s not. On the other hand, somebody said, God is going to get you for this.

But you know, the devil doesn’t want us. He doesn’t want to get us. He doesn’t want God to have us.

And you see, when we can resist him, and he will flee, we know that he just doesn’t care anything about us. We learned this morning that God promised to be with us, and never forsake us. In Revelations 12, verses 9 through 11, we have, so the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the devil, and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 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.

And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Now, of course, there’s times that one may lose his life because he’s serving Christ. And if he loses his life because he’s serving Christ, as the apostles did, and as those martyrs did, that lived of old, that did not give up their faith, then threatened that they would die if they did not give up their faith in Christ.

They held to their faith, and they lost their lives. But Jesus said, promised that he that loses his life shall find it, and he that finds his life shall lose it. In other words, we need to be faithful.

We need to be trusting in God and steadfast. Now, as we’ve said, the devil is powerful, but he’s not all powerful. When Jesus was tempted in Matthew 4, verses 1 through 10, Jesus answered each time it is written.

It says, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, afterward he was hungry. Now when the tempter came to him, he said, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.

But he, that’s Jesus, answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And this is found in Deuteronomy 8.3, where Moses tells the people that they should have learned that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him up into the holy city, sat among the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the Son of God, throw yourselves down, for it is written, Now you see, Satan is going to quote a little scripture, but he’s misquoting the scripture.

He’s saying, If you are the Son of God, throw yourselves down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone. Now that part of what that is, that’s in Psalms 91.11, that this is taken from. But he left out some of this.

But Jesus said to Satan, It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. And that is found in Deuteronomy 6.16, where these Israelites were told that they were not to put God to the test. Again, the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory.

And he said to him, All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you worship. And this is found in Deuteronomy 6.13, that the Lord is the one and only one you shall serve.

And so, in this, these three times, Jesus came out with, It is written. And thus, the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. They came and ministered to him because he did right.

He overcame these temptations that Satan put forth to him, and he did so by saying, It is written. And we too can resist the devil by saying, It is written. It is written.

So in conclusion to this, we need to bring every thought captive to Jesus. There are no shortcuts or easy ways about this. So we just can’t really give you ways that we can do this, but we need to train our mind to have the mind of Christ.

As Philippians 2.5 tells us, Paul tells the Philippians, have this mind which was in Christ. And we need to train our minds to have a mind of Christ, and to be controlled by God. Our thinking, our feelings, our actions.

Now let’s think about this. If we let the devil have control of us, he’s going to make slaves out of us, and we’re going to be under the bondage of sin, which brings forth death. It condemns when death comes.

But we are controlled by God. That means that we let God control us. You know, sometimes sin forces its way in.

That’s what the devil did during the Garden of Eden. He just forced his way in. And through the serpent, he gave Adam and Eve the temptation, and especially Eve, and they sinned.

And we confine ourselves under the bondage of sin, and find ourselves being slaves. But if we let God, now we let God do this. You see, God is all-powerful.

The one who created us is the one who knows all about us. And we ought to let Him have His way with us, as one of the Psalms we’ve seen says. We ought to let Him have His way.

We will find that then our thinking and our feelings and our actions will be controlled by God. We will then have freedom, then, through Christ. You know, it is written that we must believe Christ is He.

Christ told the people there in John 8, 24, Except ye believe that I am He, ye shall die in your sins. Believing in God, believing who He is, is a must, for it ought to lead us to obey His commands. Our faith and our trust in Jesus, we can surely say our faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

So in this, we ought to let Christ be the one that can lead us to victory. And He can lead us to victory. Through this life we may suffer because, you know, not hopefully as the apostles did in the first century, but if it comes to that, let us have the faith that may lead unto death.

For if we lose our lives for His sake, we will find it. Yet our faith is the victory. This is the way to be victorious.

So if there is any that is subject to the gospel invitation in any way, we would argue to make up the mind to serve the Lord. And then we can all be victorious in Christ. So if you are subject in any way, why not come while we stand and sing