Satan’s Battle Plan – Part 7
Scriptures: Luke 8:5-18; Mark 4: 26-32; Isaiah 55:10-12
This message will conclude this series on Satan’s battle tactics. Throughout this series we have discussed Jesus’ parable of the seeds as captured in Luke chapter eight and Mark chapter four. Keep in mind that Jesus was teaching a kingdom principle. When Jesus discussed the parable of the Seed, He describes clearly what happens to the Seed based on where they fell and how they were received by the ground upon which they fell. What He described is what happens in real life with the Word of God. There are a couple of points I want you to remember about the seeds that I have not discussed previously. First the sower went out to sow – he had planned how he would distribute his seeds. This was a purposeful decision. When it comes to sowing the Word, it’s not something we do haphazardly. We do it with purpose. And when we do something with purpose we make time for it. All of us at some point will sow seeds in the lives of others but when we actually plan for the “sowing season” the seeds sown have a much better chance of falling on good soil and which brings me to my next point.
In the parable of the seeds, there were four separate places where the seeds fell which described people’s response to the Word when they heard it. In three of the four situations those who received the Word did not trust, protect, and/or use it to bring forth fruit. It was only one situation where when the Word was sown it was received gladly and was able to product fruit. Think about it, 75% of the people who heard the Word did absolutely nothing with it and Satan was able to steal it from them so that they could not produce any fruit with it. I want us to really think about this. If these numbers hold true for our Church, then every Sunday and Thursday, 75% of you hear the Word and do nothing with it. That percentage is very concerning and I do not believe that Jesus randomly chose those examples. I believe this parable can change our lives.
This morning I want to share with you how to win against Satan’s battle tactic. Remember, he comes to steal, kill and destroy. He wants to kill the Word within us before it can take root and product fruit. I have shared with you some of his tactics, but not all. What I am going to share with you this morning will work against all of his tactics. Ephesians 6:11-17 says, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:11-17)
Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. If you have no Word, you have no faith. If you have no faith, you have no armor in which to protect you against the onslaught of the enemy and to enable you to go on the attack against the enemy. The way that we win against Satan’s battle tactics is simply to trust the Word sown within us and then protect it to ensure it cannot be stolen. Trust and protect!!! We cannot win without protecting and trusting the Word (seed) that is being sown. Remember the 75% from the parable of the seeds that produced no fruit with their seeds? These individuals did not trust the Seed. Can Satan come and steal anything that you are holding on to, that you are protecting? No, he cannot. We have the responsibility of stopping him, it’s our job! Right now in this message, I’m sowing the Word. You have a decision to make before you walk out of these doors. He’s trying to steal the Word at this very moment even as it’s coming out of my mouth! Satan has no power over us but what we give him. If we do not protect the Word being sown, we are going into battle with no armor on to protect us. The Word is your armor!!! If we don’t hold on to the Word of God, then that gives Satan an advantage over us.
When we read the parable about the seeds in Mark chapter four we only read the first parable that Jesus told about the seeds. Turn back to Mark chapter four and we will read the other two parables about the seed. What I want you to pay close attention to is what happens with the sower and to the seed when it was protected and allowed to grow (the seed that fell on the 25% who received it.) Let’s start reading at verse twenty-six. “And He was saying, ‘The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows, how he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29)
This parable focuses on the mentality of the sower of the seeds versus the receiver of the seeds. Many times we think it’s a waste to time to try and help someone out of their situation because they refuse to hear what we are saying. Well, as Jesus says here, when we sow the Seed, it’s going to produce! Jesus speaks of the Seed having power of its own. The disciples had to learn to trust the power of the message they were spreading and we have to do the same. Remember, the Word has power all its own and will yield results in its time. I told you earlier that when we read the first Seed parable, three out of four of the soils did not produce. Jesus is training the disciples to go out and sow the Word and he’s making it very clear that there will be more people, now listen to me closely, there will be more people who will reject what we are saying than accept what we are saying. Jesus said this from the beginning so we should not take it personally, but likewise, we should not let it defeat and/or discourage us. Here is another point I want you to see, sometimes it is those who identify themselves as members of the body of Christ who are doing the rejecting. Remember, in each example of the seeds from the original story, the seeds were received but something caused them to not produce fruit in the lives of those receiving them. In His explanation, Jesus made it clear that it was the person’s fault that the seeds did not grow. If this first parable is any indication, three out of four Christians are not going to accept the totality of the Gospel. Three out of four! Jesus is telling His disciples that when you go out and sow the Word, this is how it’s going to play out. Using these numbers, Jesus is saying three out of four are not going to listen to you. They’re not going to hear what you have to say because their ears are going to be closed – on purpose. Now let me ask you another question. Do you think that those three out of four believe that they are not the one who received the seed and produced fruit? Do you think they believe that they are one of the three? They are failing when it comes to seeing the Word of God manifest in their lives.
In the first parable Jesus talked about the seeds being sown and how they were received. He talked about how the seeds that did not land on good soil did not produce fruit. I want you to think about the number of people you know who go to Church. Think about how they are living. Think about what you hear them complaining about. Think about how often you hear them say anything about God and what He is doing in their life. Think about how they live the Word. As you think of these people that you know, how many of them are actually living the life of those who received the seeds and did nothing with them? Now consider the person who has sown the Word in their life. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was their pastor or another member of the Church. The person doing the sowing is not in charge of what happens to the seed after it is sown. It’s the receiver’s (ground) responsibility. The receiver determines how the seed is utilized. I am sowing the Word into you right now. How you receive this Word will determine how this Word will grow in your life. I had to learn that it’s not my responsibility to make you do anything to nourish the seed being sown, all I am responsible for is to keep sowing and make sure that YOU have everything you need to produce fruit with YOUR seed! Jesus said when the sower sowed the seed, he went to bed. He did not stand watch over the ground to see what would happen to the seed. He sows the seed and then lets the ground take it from there. When the ground has done what it would do, produce the crops, the sower comes back and receives his harvest. We own the seeds being sown into us as we are the ground and we really need to understand what type of “ground we are.” Maybe our ground needs some fertilizing before we can receive the seed. Whatever is needed, we are the ones responsible. Let’s look at the last parable about the seed.
“And He said, ‘How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.” (Mark 4:30-32)
We have talked about the 75% that does nothing with the Seed and here we see an example of the 25% and what they did with the Seed. Remember, the sower sows the Word. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is like that Seed after being sown begins to bring forth life in us. He says it’s like a mustard seed. That’s another reason to have the confidence to trust the Seed. This should be a big encouragement to us. All those hours we spend praying and confessing the Word and our minds tell us we’re not seeing anything happening – something is happening! The question is do we have the endurance or are we going to abort the mission? As the Seed grows it pushes out unbelief. And the more it pushes out unbelief the more the Word is going to manifest in our life. But we can’t give up. We have to endure. This is a profound word of encouragement for all those who are sowing. The mustard seed is small but when planted in good soil, grows into a large enough plant where the birds can rest on its branches in its shade. If a small seed can produce fruit to serve others, imagine what that large seed can produce within us. Receiving, protecting and establishing a small amount of the Word of God can produce large fruits in your life! Let me read to you what is recorded in Isaiah 55:10-12.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:10-12)
God says His Word will not return to Him without accomplishing what He sent it forth to accomplish. It will not return without doing what He designed it to do. Now the question for us is this: do we trust the Seed to do what God says it’s going to do? Do we trust the Word to do what God says it’s going to do? That is always the question because everything in this world says God’s Word cannot be trusted. But whose report are you going to believe? Are you going to believe what the world says or what you see in God’s Word? While I am not trying to offend any of you I want you to think about how you are living. The Christian on the side of the road is believing the world. The Christian on the stony ground is believing the world. The Christian among the thorns is believing the world. In each of these situations, the person receiving the Word places it second behind what the world is saying. In these situations, the lives we are living chokes the Word so that it cannot bear fruit. If we are going to change our lives and actually start gaining some ground back from our enemy, we must start trusting the Word of God and believing that it will produce exactly what God intends for it to produce in our life!
I know that we have some struggles in our Church and for those of you who may be reading or hearing this message. I am asking you to decide to really trust the Word. It’s the only way.
? If you are in a financial battle, Psalm 37:25 says “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” You have to Trust the Seed. It doesn’t matter what it looks like right now, what does the Seed say?
? If you are battling an addiction, whatever it is, Romans 8:2 says “For the law of the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me from free from the law of sin and death.” You have to Trust the Seed. No matter what it looks like. We must know, understand and begin confessing the Word. When it doesn’t appear like anything is happening, continue to trust the Seed! God’s Word does not come back void!
? If you are a parent with a troublesome child, Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he (or she) is old, he (or she) will not depart from it.” Trust the Seed. That word “train” in the Hebrew means “to dedicate”. It’s used four times in the Old Testament and three of those times it’s translated “dedicate”. So parents, dedicate your child to God and then do what the dedication implies that you will do. You will feed them the Word. Why? God’s Word never returns void. You trust that the Word is going to produce.
? If you are battling something in your body, Psalm 107:20 says “He sent his word (his seed), and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” You have to Trust the Seed. I don’t care what our bodies are telling us, we have to trust the Seed.
These are just a few examples and the Word has many. When this year started my heart was heavy. My heart was heavy because it seems that sometime our lives are like the old broken record. I will explain this for those of you who have never listened to a vinyl record. When a vinyl record gets a scratch, the needles playing the record would get stuck at that point and keep repeating what has been played. It was extremely annoying. Some of our lives are like that vinyl record. We are going along good and then we hit the scratch and our lives just stop and we stay in the scratch. We see the repeating of the same circumstances over and over in our lives. We use our own strength to try and break free, to skip over the scratch, but at some point the needle always find its way back to that point. I told you last week that it’s the Word of God that can change a heart and when hearts change so does circumstances. Are you ready for a change this morning?
I want to close with a personal example. On Friday evening I was replacing the locks on our doors. My first choice was to hire a locksmith but we landed on me doing it. I have changed locks before so “I” knew I could do it in a short amount of time. I had estimated about an hour and a half to do all four locks. I started on the first one and realized that it was not fitting right. I worked on it for 30 minutes before I finally called Nikki upstairs to let her know she had purchased the wrong locks. When she walked in the room she knew I was irritated. I should her what the problem was and she immediately defended her purchase by clarifying that the man at the store had guaranteed that the locks would fit all doors. Well I showed her that obviously the man was wrong and I had wasted an hour of my evening trying to get it done. Nikki calmly walked over to the box and read the directions. She then asked me if I had read them and I told her no because I knew how to change locks. With the directions in hand, she walked over and showed me what I was doing wrong. Instead of being grateful, I was even more irritated because now I could have changed it in 15 minutes had I read the directions. I got the one finished and started on the second door. It was not working right either. You know what I did? I went to the directions to find out what I was doing wrong, although this was 20 minutes after me doing it my way because I was already mad. Here is my point. If I had read the directions first I could have done all of those locks in an hour. It took me almost three hours because I did not read the directions and I was irritated and determined to do it my way.
We are in a battle and some of us are on the battle field naked because just like me you did not take time to read the directions to learn how to put your armor on. Put on your whole armor which is the Word of God and everything that comes along with it. Start planting the Word within you and see the difference it will make. The Word of God is our instruction manual. Stop trying to fight the battle your way, it doesn’t work. Take the instruction manual and read it. Then and only then can you put on your armor and arm yourself for battle. I hope that this series has been a blessing to you.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
(If you are ever in the Kansas City, KS area, please come and worship with us at New Light Christian Fellowship, 15 N. 14th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102. We look forward to you worshipping with us. May God bless and keep you.)
