Today's Reading:
Thoughts and Commentary on Today's Reading
Today, I would just like to focus on praising Yahweh. Praise is the Place where Yahweh is Enthroned. Praising Him transports us instantly into the very Presence of the Almighty. Psalm 89 begins with one of my favorite praise passages:
"I will sing of the mercies of Yahweh for ever: with my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations."
What has Yahweh done for you? I'd like you to think about it, and then bless us all by sharing some of your personal testimony in the Comments at the end of this blog.
I'll start us off with making known the mercies of Yahweh and declaring His faithfulness in my life.
The most dramatic mercy of Yahweh in my life was shown 1) at Calvary and 2) in the story recorded in my book, Escaping from the Dragon's Jaws.
Remembering the insidious attack of the enemy on my life makes me grateful to my Heavenly king. For the devil sent a woman, who was a high (low) witch, to feign Christianity, become my prayer partner, and infiltrate herself into my life and family deeply enough to become my best friend.
Her influence was dangerous - deadly. And my life quickly left the realm of the "normal" and became increasingly paranormal. Science-fiction like things became commonplace. And yet, I was deeply deceived by this time. I was losing my soul.
Over a couple of years of continually planting seeds in my mind of ideas which were of witchcraft, but which were always couched in Scripture (twisted Scripture), making them appear right, this woman was used of Satan to remove me from the path of Scriptural truth and to nearly break up my marriage and destroy my family and ministry.
But God interposed. He stepped in and grabbed me as I was falling off the cliff and into a dark abyss from which I would never have seen the light again! He pulled me back, when I was too foolish and deceived to cry out to Him to do so. He saved me, when I didn't even realize that I needed saving.
But now, looking back on my story and experience, I can join with Psalmist to say, "Yeah, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death..." I have experienced the saving power of my Heavenly Shepherd's Rod. He reached down and pulled me up from the brambles of hell which were choking the life out of me. He carried me. He redeemed me! Yes:
"I will sing of the mercies of Yahweh for ever: with my mouth will I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations."
Now, won't you encourage us with your testimony? What has Yahweh done to demonstrate His mercies to you?
Today's Reading:
Thoughts and Commentary on Today's Reading
Sennacherib's attack against Hezekiah and the kingdom of Judah was most insidious, as recorded in 2 Chronicles 32. It struck me how similar was his attack to a spiritual warfare battle which we face, when Sennacherib's messengers called out to God's people with words to get them to doubt the reality and delivering power of Yahweh.
"Where is your God?" he asked. "Do you really think he can save you from me? Look what I have done to other nations! Their gods couldn't save them from me!"
What a horrible - satanic - thing to do! And how was Sennacherib's demonic doubt campaign defeated? Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah prayed - crying out to Yahweh for deliverance. And Yahweh heard their prayers and dealt with Sennacherib.
This story is much more than a historical account. It is a spiritual warfare lesson. Because the way Sennacherib attacked Judah is the way the devil attacks the people of God all the time!
So, how can we respond effectively to the words of satan, when he tries to convince us that God can't help us - and that we'd better let him have his way or he'll crush us like bugs?
Let's look at the steps in the story from 2 Chronicles.
Often times, when we are hit with a spiritual warfare encounter, we think we've already failed because the instant the attack comes, we don't sense peace - we are in distress. Judah, Hezekiah, and Isaiah were not peaceful about the words of Sennacherib either. They were troubled, prayerful and weeping!
Similarly, when you are in a spiritual warfare attack, do not expect to start with peace.
When you
get troubled or upset, when attacks come, do not try to
start
with making your heart feel at peace. This is a mistake many
people
make. They try to conjure up some kind of feeling of peace
within
and succeed only in upsetting themselves more. Do not start
with
peace. Start with truth. Work your way back down through
truth
and righteousness and you will come out at peace. This is
the
way to begin.
Now let u s take a closer look at this
battle. If we remind
ourselves of these great truths, they ought to
set our hearts
at rest. But we all know that even though these truths
often will
set our hearts at rest, there are times when they do not.
We are
still depressed and filled with doubts.
Perhaps there
is no good reason for us to feel this way. We
may wake up in a blue
mood even though we were happy when we went
to bed the night before.
There may be no good reason for our depression.
There is nothing
wrong physically (the physical elements of our
lives can have a very
great bearing on our feelings), but still
we feel
depressed.
Well, what is happening? We are experiencing What
Paul calls
here "the flaming darts of the evil one." These
stratagems
of Satan come to us in various forms. Sometimes they are
evil
thoughts and imaginations which intrude suddenly upon our
thinking,
often at the most incongruous times. We may be reading the
Bible;
we may be bowed in prayer; we may be thinking about
something
else entirely when all of a sudden filthy, lewd thought
flashes
into our mind. What is this? One of the fiery darts of the
evil
one. We ought to recognize it as such.
Sometimes these
darts come as doubts and even blasphemies--sudden
feelings that
perhaps this business of Christianity is nothing
after all but a big
hoax or a dream. Perhaps we feel that it can
all be explained
psychologically or that Jesus Christ was a victim
of self-delusion.
Perhaps the world is not the way we have been
taught to believe it
is, and things are not the way the Bible
says. You have doubtless
experienced these times of doubt. All
Christians have had this sudden
feeling that perhaps it is all
a fantasy. Again, these fiery darts
may come in the form of sudden
fears, anxieties, fleeting sensations
that things are all wrong.
We cannot seem to shake them
off.
The Devil's Whispers
These feelings, in
whatever form they may take, are always
from the same source. They
are the fiery darts of the wicked one.
We are the biggest fools on
earth if we do not see them in that
light and deal with them as such.
And in whatever form they may
come to us, they always have two
characteristics. First, they
seem to rise out of our own thoughts.
They seem to come right
from our inner selves. We feel, "This is
something I am thinking,"
and oftentimes it is a shocking
thing.
But the Devil is really whispering to us. He is
influencing
us. Ah yes, but it doesn't seem like that to us. In our
ignorance
and innocence we blame ourselves: "How can I think a
think
like this if I am a Christian? Can a Christian have such a
lewd
and filthy thought as this? Can I really be a Christian if I
think
like this? I must not be one after all."
This, of
course, is exactly why the Devil sent those thoughts
to you. He wants
you to think that way. If it is doubt (and we
are always exposed to
doubts, these sudden attacks upon faith,
these sudden feelings that
Christianity is not as sure and certain
as it once seemed to us), we
say to ourselves', "I must have
already lost my faith or I would
not think like this." What
is the matter with me? How can I be a
Christian and even have
such a bought?" So we try to repress the
thought. We think,
There must be something wrong; we should not feel
like this,"
and we push the thought down in-to our subconscious.
But it is
still there, lurking underneath, and we feel dishonest
because
we are not even willing to look at it and face it. This
takes
its toll on us in physical ways as well s in mental and
emotional
strain and tension.
We feel uncertain and confused
because we are convinced that
the opposite of faith is doubt. We
think if we have doubts we
cannot have faith and if we have faith we
do not have doubts.
Therefore, if we have doubts, we cannot be men
and women of faith.
We fail to recognize this as the lie of the
Devil.
The second characteristic is that doubts are always an
attack
upon our position in Christ as the truth--as our
righteousness
and our peace. These darts are always an insinuation of
doubt
about those matters-never about anything else. They are an
attack
upon those areas of faith.
This is always the way of
the Devil. He said to Eve in the
garden, "Has God said unto
thee--did God say that?"
There is the implication of doubt. He
said to Yahshua in the temptation
in the wilderness, "If thou be
the Son of God, then turn
these stones into bread." If! There is
the insinuation that
these things are not true. This is the way he
raises doubts, creates
guilt, arouses fear. These are the attacks of
the evil one.
The Quenching Process
Now, what
are we to do? How are we to combat these attacks
successfully? Well,
the Apostle says, "Take the shield of
faith, with which you can
quench all the flaming darts, of the
evil one." Notice that he
did not say the "shield of
belief." We have already
reminded ourselves of our belief
when we have put on the girdle of
truth, the breastplate of righteousness,
and--the equipment of the
gospel of peace. That is our belief
in what Christ is to
us.
But faith is more than that. This is very important to
see.
Faith is acting upon belief in Christ and in His Word. Faith is decision, action,
resolution.
Faith is saying, "Yes, I believe the Word of God is the
truth. Yahshua
is my Righteousness, He is my peace. Therefore this, and
this,
and this, must follow." Faith is working out, the
implications
of belief. When you say "therefore" you move
from belief
into faith. Faith is particularizing; it is taking the
general
truth and applying it to the specific situation and saying,
"If
this be true, then this must follow." That is the
shield
of faith.
Now, have you learned how to take the shield
of faith when
doubts come? Do you say, "Christ is the truth. He
is the
basic revelation of things which really are. He has
demonstrated
it. Therefore, I cannot accept the thought that the Word of God is
a hoax. I cannot believe that the Bible is the truth and
that my
doubts are true, too. I have committed myself to Christ
because
I have been persuaded that He has demonstrated truth fully.
I
stand on that ground. Therefore. I must reject this
insinuation."
Do you reason that "the Word is the
truth? Therefore I cannot
believe this subtle philosophy which exalts
man and makes God
unnecessary in human affairs. I must reject it.
Since I have found
Christ true, I cannot believe this sudden feeling
I have of unreality.
I must regard it as what Christ says it is: from
the Devil. God's Word says he is a liar from the beginning.
Therefore this is
a lie and I reject it."
Is this the
way you think it through? Our problem is, that
we have become so
accustomed to believing our feelings as though
they were facts. We
never examine them. We never take them and
look at them and ask,
"Is this true?" We simply I say,
"I feel this way.
Therefore it must be true." This is
why so many are constantly
defeated; they accept their feelings
as facts.
Rather, we are to say,
"Christ is my righteousness.
I am linked with Him. I am one with Him. His Life is my life and
my life is His Life. I stand upon the Foundation of His Word. Therefore, I cannot believe
this lie that these evil thoughts are my
thoughts. They are not
my thoughts at all. They are thoughts which
come because of another
force. It is not my thinking at all. No, it
is the Devil again.
I do not want these thoughts. I do not believe them.
I reject them.
I do not want them in my thinking; therefore the are
not mine!" With this, we are using the shield of faith.
Using the shield of faith
means refusal to feel condemned or
to feel guilty. "God loves
me. He says so. He says nothing
will change that. Nothing will
separate us! All right, then I
will believe that, and I will not
believe the thought that God
does not love me and want me." You
see, you cannot entertain
both thoughts. "No man can serve two
masters."
Christ is the ground of my peace. Therefore it
is his responsibility
to take me through every situation. So I
cannot, I will not believe
this fear, this sudden anxiety which grips
my heart. I will not
believe that it is from me. It is simply sent to
shake my confidence
in Christ. It is an attempt to destroy my peace.
But Christ is
adequate for even this, and I refuse to
change.
Proof of Faith's Reality
This is what
James calls "resisting the devil." This
is the shield of
faith. It is refusing to believe the lie that
if you have doubts you
cannot have faith. Because that is a lie.
Doubt is always an attack
on faith. The fact that you have doubts
proves that you have faith.
They are not opposites at all. Doubt
is the proof of the reality of
faith. Therefore reexamine the
ground of your faith and reassert it.
Remember that feelings are
not necessarily facts at all.
And
James says further that if you keep on resisting the Devil
he will
flee from you (James 4:7). Think of that! He will flee
from you.
Resist the Devil again and again every time an evil
thought or doubt
comes back. Refuse to give up your position.
And, sooner or later,
inevitably, the doubts will clear, your
feelings will change, the
attacks cease, and you will be back
again in the sunshine of faith
and the experience of the love
and joy of God.
That is what
Paul is talking about when he says, "Take
the shield of faith.
It is able to quench every fiery dart of
the evil one." (adapted from on online article by Ray Stedman)
So when the devil comes to you with the insidious doubt tactics of Sennacherib, remember the stand up on the Word of God - and resist him. Pray! And believe God's Promises. The fiery darts of the wicked one can only burn, defeat, and destroy if you let them in! So, instead, use the shield of faith in God - and in His Word.
