The Devil's Business To Keep Christians In Bondage

The devil makes it his business to keep Christians in bondage, bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in their own grave clothes!

Why doesn't the old devil, Satan, give up and bow out of the picture when a person becomes a believing Christian? 

Although he is a dark and sinister foe dedicated to the damnation of humans, I think he knows that it is no use trying to damn a forgiven and justified child of God who is in the Lord's hands.

So, it becomes the devils business to keep the Christian's spirit imprisoned.

He knows that the believing and justified Christian has been raised up out of the grave of his sins and trespasses. From that point on, Satan works that much harder to keep us bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in our own grave clothes.

He knows that if we continue in this kind of bondage, we will never be able to claim our rightful spiritual heritage.

He knows also that while we continue bound in this kind of enslavement we are not much better off than when we were spiritually dead.

This is one reason why the Christians in today's churches are behaving like a flock of frightened sheep - so intimidated by the devil that we cant even say "Amen"!

I admit that occasionally you find a few who are just childishly happy about everything, but that is not what I mean. Often these are just like children playing in the market places, having never been seriously engaged in the conflict on the spiritual battlefield. 

Show me an individual or a congregation committed to spiritual progress with the Lord, interested in what the Bible teaches about spiritual perfection and victory, and I will show you where there is strong and immediate defiance by the devil!

~A. W. Tozer~

Have To Lose Reputations

So it has been with all of God's saints who have pleased Him and praised Him through the centuries.

At some time in their witness and expression of the living Christ they have had to lose their reputations among those who have been traditionally pious and somber, dogmatic and cautious. This is still happening in our day, and with glorious results.

A young man who is director of one of our American Bible conferences has given me his testimony of great and radical things which the Lord has done for him in recent months.
 
I realize now that in my service for God I was one of the most self-assured, conceited and horrid young fellows you could ever meet" he told me frankly. "I could raise money, I could put on a great program, and I figured I was a great success in the Lord's work.

But recently on a trip to Wales, I had the opportunity of talking to some older folks who remembered Evan Roberts and the great Welsh revival. They told me about the true working Of the Holy Spirit in Christian renewal and revival - and I didn't really know what they were talking about. 

Somehow, and they did not realize it, it was just as though they were burying me under a great load of crushing bricks, and God spoke to me about my own great spiritual lack.

He told me that he made his way to the little cottage where he was staying and got down on his knees and began to sweat it out before God.

Do you know what this was?

It was the act of dying! It was the end of self. 

That man died to reputation, ability, presumption, success, conceit, personality - all of that stuff!

He said to me, "Mr. Tozer, I was filled with the Holy Spirit and my whole life has been transformed. Now I only want this cheated and betrayed generation to see the glory of God once more!"

I said to him then, "Brother, do you realize that if you carry through with this message and this blessing that you will lose some of your best fundamentalist friends? You will be described as having gone off your rocker."

I am not worried any more about my reputation. he replied. "I am perfectly willing because I am going to let the Lord have His way in the whole operation."

The interesting thing is that he hasn't had to switch or change his doctrines around at all-he just found out that he needed the fire of God on his doctrine, and he got it!

~A. W. Tozer~

Fear Of Fanaticism

Also related to reputation is the fear of many Christians that they will be considered fanatical or extreme for their Christian faith.

I think it is ironic that the devil gives the world all of its extremists in every realm -entertainment, politics, society, education, anarchy, intrigue-you name it! Yet it is the same devil that frightens believers about the great danger of becoming "extreme"

I passed an auditorium recently where one of the young crowd of singing stars was appearing. Police were having great trouble with the crowds and in the erotic fury of that concert, girls began to tear off their clothes; many were weeping and screaming. Those who had fainted were being carried out. It is the same devil, but he uses different tactics in dealing with Christians. 

Should a Christian get blessed and say, 'Amen," the devil quickly intervenes and whispers, "Don't be a fanatic-you ought to stay quiet and stable in the faith!"

Oh, what a devil the devil is! He frightens us first and then sells us a bill of goods about caution, caution, caution in the church. 

Some Christians also are greatly awed by the fear of ostracism. The devil says to them, "Be careful about religion - you will be lonely. You will have to go it alone!"

I have heard one of our preachers tell about the experience he had years ago in coming to a decision concerning the claims of Christ on his life. It was at the close of a service, and he was standing with the rest of the congregation while an invitation was being given to come forward in submission to the will of God. 

There was a struggle going on in his own soul, and he knew that the Spirit of God was pressing him to make the decision to sell out completely and to become a real Christian in commitment to the Lord.

But the devil knows how to join in these arguments, and he whispered, "Charlie, you must be careful at this point. You know how easy it would be to break up your marriage and break up your home. You know how staid and strait-laced and conservative your wife is about religion. Don't do anything that would break up your home, Charlie!"

But the Spirit of God persisted, and Charlie found himself answering the call. He went forward and knelt at the altar for heart-searching and prayer. 

Suddenly he thought he heard someone weeping at his side. Then he was sure that it sounded like his wife. Turning, he found that it was his wife, for she had been just a few feet behind him when he made his way to the altar. Together they made their commitment to Christ and to His service.
 
For a long time, you see, Satan had been telling Charlie that his wife would never be willing to yield to joyful Christian dedication.

But the devil is a liar and the father of lies! He never tells the truth unless he can use it to whip you and embarrass you ? unless he can use it in his attempts to ruin you!

~A. W. Tozer~ 

Satan Loves To Intimidate

Satan has been in this business of  intimidating and silencing and oppressing the people of God for a long, long time.

The armies of Israel experienced this kind of fright in the valley of Elah when Goliath and the Philistines were camped on the opposite mountain.

King Saul was leading Israel, but he was sour, fearful, intimidated because of Goliath, that giant of a man who daily shouted his taunts, "This day I defy the ranks of Israel!" (1 Samuel 17:10). So the army cowered in fear.

But a little fellow by the name of David came along, and he was in right fellowship with the Lord.

We are told that the spirit of the Lord came upon David, who said to the Israelites, Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight with him!
1 Samuel 17:32.

This was the first word of encouragement to come to these ranks of soldiers who had been able only to gaze in fascinated fear at that great giant who taunted them daily. 

David was confident and serene because he knew and trusted the Source of all strength. 

The recorded result was one of the great, miraculous turn-arounds of history, David and his sling disposing of Goliath in a way that brought glory to the God of Israel as well as victory to the armies of Israel.

I am sure that it is not glorifying to our God that Christian's should be so intimidated and silenced in our day.

It was Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, who came down and took our human body for Himself. He was a man, born of a woman, a man wearing our own nature - but He was also God!

He went to the cross and they sacrificed Him there. The Father, God Almighty, accepted His sacrifice as the one, last, final fulfillment and consummation of all the sacrifices ever made on Jewish altars.

After He had been dead three days, He came forth raised from the dead and out of the grave.

After a few days He ascended as Victor over all the forces of death and hell and sat down amid the acclamations of the heavenly hosts!

There He sits at God's right hand~a living man, our representative and advocate and great, high priest.

Believing this, we ought to be the most fearless, the most relaxed, the happiest and most God-assured people in the whole world!

But Satan is an old dragon who defies us to this hour. He is saying to Christians, "I defy you - what can you do about it?"

~A. W. Tozer~

To Be Understood, TRUTH Must Be Lived

 Being Participants in Truth

 

Truth cannot aid us until we become participators in it. We only possess what we experience.

 

St. Gregory of Sinai, who lived in the fourteenth century, taught that understanding and participation were inseparable in the spiritual life.  

 

He who seeks to understand commandments without fulfilling commandments, and to acquire such understanding through learning and reading, is like a man who takes a shadow for truth.

 

For the understanding of truth is given to those who have become participants in truth (who have tasted it through living). 

 

Those who are not participants in truth and are not initiated therein, when they seek this understanding, draw it from a distorted wisdom.

 

Of such men the apostle says ‘the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit,’ even though they boast of their knowledge of truth.” Here is a simple but neglected doctrine that should be restored to its rightful place in the thinking and teaching of the Church. It would work wonders. 

 

Lord, teach me what it means to participate in Your truth that through it I may be free.

 

The Lord says: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is made up only of rules taught by men.' — Isaiah 29:13

 

Some of us measure our commitment to Christ by the truth we mouth and the rules we keep - rules which may be man-made and not from God. But truth must be tasted through living if we are to be participants in it.

 

~A. W. Tozer~

                                                              

 

Wrong Judgment

Spiritual Warfare and Sin

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. Galatians 6:7

Sin, I repeat, in addition to anything else it may be, is always an act of wrong judgment. To commit a sin a man must for the moment believe that things are different from what they really are; he must confound values; he must see the moral universe out of focus; he must accept a lie as truth and see truth as a lie; he must ignore the signs on the highway and drive with his eyes shut; he must act as if he had no soul, and was not accountable for his moral choices.

Sin is never a thing to be proud of. No act is wise that ignores remote consequences, and sin always does. Sin sees only today, or at most tomorrow; never the day after tomorrow, next month or next year. Death and judgment are pushed aside as if they did not exist and the sinner becomes for the time a practical atheist who by his act denies not only the existence of God but the concept of life after death....

The notion that the careless sinner is the smart fellow and the serious-minded Christian, though well-intentioned, is a stupid dolt altogether out of touch with life will not stand up under scrutiny. Sin is basically an act of moral folly, and the greater the folly the greater the fool.

Keep me from sin today. To sin is indeed so foolish, and yet the tendency is so strong! Deliver me from 'moral folly,' again in the power of Your Holy Spirit. Amen.

~A. W. Tozer~

God Will Make Our Obstacles Serve His Purposes.

                                                                             

I will turn all my mountains into roads. Isaiah 49:11

God will make our obstacles serve His purposes.We all have mountains in our lives, and often they are people and things that threaten to block the progress of our spiritual life. The obstacles may be untruths told about us; a difficult occupation; “a thorn in [the] flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7); or our daily cross. And often we pray for their removal,for we tend to think that if only these were removed,we would live a more tender, pure, and holy life.

How foolish you are, and how slow of heart . . . ! Luke 24:25. These are the very conditions we need for achievement, and they have been put in our lives as the means of producing the gifts and qualities for which we have been praying so long.

We pray for patience for many years, and when something begins to test us beyond our endurance, we run from it. We try to avoid it, we see it as some insurmountable obstacle to our desired goal,and we believe that if it was removed,we would experience immediate deliverance and victory. This is not true! We would simply see the temptations to be impatient end. This would not be patience.

The only way genuine patience can be acquired is by enduring the very trials that seem so unbearable today. Turn from your running and submit. Claim by faith to be a partaker in the patience of Jesus and face your trials in Him.

There is nothing in your life that distresses or concerns you that cannot become submissive to the highest purpose. Remember, they are God’s mountains. He puts them there for a reason, and we know He will never fail to keep His promise.

God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells, for he views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens (Job 28:23–24). So when we come to the foot of the mountains,we will find our way. from Christ in Isaiah,
~F. B. Meyer~

The purpose of our trials is not only to test our worthiness but also to increase it, just as the mighty oak is tested by the storms as well as strengthened by them. 

'TROUBLE' INEVITABLE WITH SPIRITUAL SIGHT

                          

Act 7:56  And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
 

Act 7:57  Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,
 

Act 7:58  And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.

You and I, on the broadest basis of the Christian life, are here... to represent a check; and because we are here for that, we shall be called "trouble makers."

In a very real sense we shall be trouble makers. The trouble will focus itself upon us, and we shall have to suffer for it.

The very fact that you are jealous for the Lord will bring you into conflict with that trend that there is in this world, in man.... 

When there is the purest testimony, the fullest expression of what is of God, the heavenly over against the earthly, the spiritual over against the carnal or the natural, the enemy gives a turn to things, a twist to things, and lays the responsibility at the door of a spiritual and a heavenly ministry.

He says: "You are the cause of all the trouble – you are the troubler!" 

But no. The trouble lies deeper than that, and in another realm. The truth is, there is something here that, in its very nature,  must create trouble, must be a source of trouble, so long as God's known will, His revealed mind, is being violated; while the full expression of God's purpose is being withstood. 

To bring in something that stands for that, there is going to be trouble. It is a costly thing to have seen God's full purpose and thought concerning His people. It is always a costly thing.

The Lord Jesus set a very vivid example and object lesson of this truth right in the foreground, in the incident of the man born blind (John 9).

There is no doubt that the Lord intended that man to represent Israel and Israel's condition at the time. 

He gave that man sight – and what happened to the man? "They cast him out," that is all; they cast him out, they excommunicated him (v. 34). That is an object lesson, an instance of this very thing.

If eyes have been opened; if, in any sense – not officially – you have become a 'seer' – one who sees: it is going to cost you a lot, it will involve you in a lot of trouble. This matter of 'seeing' does that.

It was Elijah the Seer, over against the blindness of Israel. It is a costly thing to be a spiritual man or a spiritual woman in this universe. It is a costly thing, yes, very costly, to hold to a heavenly and spiritual position. 

It is a costly thing to hold for Christ's full place; it involves you in trouble. It is a costly thing to have light – if it is true light, God-given light.

It is a costly thing to have Life. But remember, it is here, in this, that the power is resident.

~T. Austin Sparks~

A Soothing Seduction

Let me show you what happens to every child of God who enters into a relationship with a bitter, unrighteous, rebellious person. There are awful consequences.

The fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat 2 Chronicles17:10. Jehoshaphat’s kingdom, Judah, was blessed and prospered abundantly, and nobody dared come against them.

But after Jehoshaphat entered into a relationship with Ahab, Scripture says, "Ahab . . . persuaded [Jehoshaphat] to go up with him to Ramoth-gilead. . . .And he answered him, I am as thou art, and my people as thy people; and we will be with thee in the war" (18:2-3). Jehoshaphat willingly got sucked into a
hopeless war, one that God had no part in.

The Hebrew word for persuaded in this passage means "a soothing seduction."Jehoshaphat allowed himself to be seduced into war by Ahab, answering, "I am as you are." In other words, I'm your friend, so I'm with you all the way. I won't let you down. You can count on me!

Is your close friend full of bitterness, hatred, anger—and pursuing a war of some kind? Is he involved in a marriage war, a family war, a personal war? And are you like a Jehoshaphat to him, offering help and encouragement? If so, look out, because you are about to be seduced into it all.

That's right, very soon you will find yourself smack in the middle of your friend's mess and you will be asked to take a stand. If your friend is in a troubled marriage, for example, you are going to be forced to take a side. And you will end up sympathizing with him—all the way through his divorce!

Beware, Christian, because whenever you extend comfort or encouragement to someone who is in rebellion, you take sides against the Holy Spirit. And that makes you are a partaker in that person's sin. Tragically, when Jehoshaphat joined Ahab's war, he only hastened his friend along the path of destruction!

~David Wilkerson~