The Enemy's Opposition

I am sure many of you will bear me out when I say that the one great work  of the enemy is to get us out of  the Spirit when the LORD is going to do something, to make us say, I was not in the Spirit for it, or to feel not in the Spirit.

Sometimes we use another word - 'mood', not in the mood. Well, it is the wrong word, it is not in ourselves at all, it is in the Spirit.

And the enemy has a very shrewd knowledge of anything that is at least possible of the Lord; if he does not know what the Lord is going to say and do, he has a long experience of these things and he can at least put two and two together. 

He senses the movements of God. He is always seeking to anticipate. He has a Herod when Christ is born. 

He always has his preparation to counter something of the Lord, and so it may be days ahead of something of the Lord that is coming, and the enemy tries to get us out of the Spirit, all upset, annoyed, worried, distracted and cast down so that when the time comes we are not in the Spirit.

Something has got to happen with us before the Lord can say or do what He desires.

It is so real that it really does call for a terrible battle. It is so real in ourselves; it is wicked, it is simply evil.

We could not find words strong enough to express this sense of diabolical wickedness in the atmosphere, it seems to get inside of us, to get us upset.

We blame somebody, anything, and then the hour comes and we are out of the Spirit, and nothing but a tremendous battle will get us through.

I say this to make you aware of the meaning of these things. We can put it down to circumstances, we can put it down to people. 

But let us remember that back of these things, more often than not, the enemy is trying to prevent us from being in the Spirit at the crucial moment.

~T. Austin Sparks~