The War of the Worlds
By Pastor Jim May
The 20th century proved to be one of the bloodiest periods in the recorded history of mankind. With the worldwide conflicts beginning with WWI, “The War to End All Wars”, and ending with the invasion of Kuwait and Desert Storm in the 1990’s, the death toll was well into the millions. Now that we have entered a new millennia, there doesn’t seem to be much difference. Already, in the first 6 years, we have seen our soldiers engaged in battle in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg on a new world war known as terrorism. Our world is at war on a global scale. There isn’t a nation on the earth where the tentacles of terrorism have not taken root and made its presence known.
But we should not be surprised at these events. After all, Jesus spoke these words to us in Matthew 24:6-7, "And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places." In the Book of Luke 21:9-10, we see these words spoken again, "But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:"
In addition to all of the troubles that we face right here on planet earth, there are many people who are convinced that we should be concerned with visitors from another planet who may have hostile intentions. This idea has resulted in some popular films such as the movie titled, “The War of the Worlds”, where the Martians supposedly invade the earth.
I don’t believe that we need to worry about UFO’s or aliens from outer space, but I do believe that there is truly a “War of the Worlds” happening right now and we are all caught up in it even though most people are completely unaware of what is happening.
I am here this morning to give you a message. That message is that all of us, and each one of us, are fighting even if we don’t realize it and the only way that you can be victorious in this war is to be on the right side and stay in your place among the ranks.
Of course I am speaking of the war between “Good” and “Evil”, a war between the “Powers of Darkness” and the powers of Heaven, and a battle between “Light” and “Darkness”. This war will determine the eternal destiny of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, from Adam to the last child that will be born before time ceases to exist as we know it.
Signs of this great battle for the souls of men are everywhere. All you have to do is look around you and you can many who bear the scars of battle. Many are wounded emotionally, almost unable to cope with every day life and its pressures. Some carry around scars of guilt and shame as a result of the life that they have lived. Many more carry a wounded spirit or a broken heart that almost sends them over the edge and often makes them feel that life just isn’t worth living.
The weapons of this warfare are not bullets, knives or bayonets, but words, prayer, sin and faith. Satan’s arsenal is filled with temptation, loaded with fiery darts of passion and he lays traps, or minefields, where men walk every day. He is an enemy that is out to kill, steal and destroy everything that he can, including your very soul.
God’s weapons of this warfare are love, faith, a sound mind and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Blood of the Lamb and the Cross of Christ. While God’s weapons are far superior to those of the devil, none of them can be used without faith and trust in God to make them work.
The problem is that most people won’t use God’s weapons because they don’t want to surrender their will to God’s will.
When an addict is fighting for their life, doing everything in their power to overcome whatever has them bound, it is a fight with eternal consequences. Sadly, too many try to fight this battle alone, as though “will power” can be strong enough to break that bondage.
Let me tell you that “will power” just won’t work most of the time. If you don’t think that’s so, then tell me how long an addict can go without a fix from the needle or the pill, just relying on will power? How long can the man who needs his nicotine stand the jitters of needing that next puff on a cigarette by using only his will power? Though there may be a few isolated cases where people claim to overcome these addictions through will power, most fail miserably, only adding to their feelings of hopelessness and frustration.
The reason that people can’t overcome these things on their own is that these are not just physical battles with a physical addition. They are spiritual battles that can only be fought, and won, in the realms of the supernatural.
Let me give you a story from the Word of God that describes what I am talking about.
Acts 16:16-31, "And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."
As Paul and Silas were going about their daily duties they came face to face with the powers of another world. They were ministers of the gospel, preaching the truth and teaching people that Jesus, the Light of the World, and the Savior had come. These were two great soldiers in the Lord’s Army.
Let’s look at the Apostle Paul for a moment. I don’t know if anyone realizes it but Paul was an addict of sorts before he was an apostle. No, he didn’t take drugs, he wasn’t hooked on tobacco and he wasn’t a man given to drink. Paul was a Pharisee, a man who dedicated his whole life to obeying the commandments of the Law. But he was an addict. He was addicted to ambition and to recognition.
Paul was first called Saul. As Saul, he was a defender of the faith of the Jews and he loved the idea of persecuting heretics to the Jewish faith. He was constantly appearing before the High Priest to obtain letters of authority to kill, maim and imprison every Christian he could find. Saul was fighting the battle against God. He was trying to win a battle that he couldn’t win. He could do nothing to overcome his desire for recognition and power. In fact, he saw nothing wrong with the way he was living and the things he was doing.
It’s a sad thing to see most of the world living for the devil, and fighting in his army, and not even realizing what they are doing. No one would admit that they are fighting against God. Every man is right in his own eyes because he is blinded to the truth. The truth is that unless you are living for God and serving Him, then you are fighting for the devil.
Saul was soon going to come face to face with the war that was raging around him. He was fighting on the side of Satan, thinking he was doing God a favor, but he was going to meet the Lord on the Road to Damascus. It was there, in the middle of the day, that he was knocked off of his horse into the dust by the True Light from Heaven. Jesus knew that Saul was a sincere man, sincerely wrong even though he though he was right; and Jesus also knew that Saul’s sincerity needed some direction.
Saul didn’t know who he was fighting for. He thought that he was doing the right thing the whole time. But he soon found out that he had been in the devil’s army, fighting against the very God that he thought he was serving. It took the power of God to break through his blindness and to shatter Saul’s addiction, and it still takes the power of God to truly break any addiction today. You can’t do it on your own, but with God’s help, according to Jesus, in Mark 9:23, "… If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."
When Saul gave his heart to Christ on that road to Damascus, God changed him completely, making him a new creation in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
Saul’s addiction to power and ambition to the chief among the Pharisees came to an end, broken forever by the power of God. From that day on, God gave him a brand new name, Paul, and a new purpose, to preach the gospel; and a new life. All that he had been in the past was forgotten by God and forgiven. The blood of Jesus had washed away every sin and Paul was filled with the Holy Ghost and power.
He kept fighting the same war between the worlds of good and evil, but now he was on the right side for a change.
In the story that we read earlier we can see that Paul and Silas are battling the forces of darkness as they walked the streets of the city. They were going about doing good, praying and ministering, but Satan never stops trying to win the war, so even in the simple things of living for the Lord, they are still in midst of the war.
Let that be a lesson to us all. Don’t ever think that the war isn’t raging just because life seems to be good right now. Your next battle with the devil is just ahead so be prepared for it.
The girl that followed them, crying out that these men are the servants of the most high God, and they are here to show us the way of salvation, wasn’t there to become a part of their evangelistic team. She was fighting in the devil’s army against them and she was doing everything she could to play on the ego and the former addiction that Paul had for recognition and power. What she was saying sounded good, but it soon became evident that her intentions were anything but good.
Sometimes we can become involved with people, on a job, or in a relationship that seems so right in the beginning. We can’t see anything wrong. But before long, something just doesn’t feel right anymore. That’s called the power of discernment, where the Holy Spirit living in you, begins to warn you that all is not as it seems.
When the disciples finally rebuked her and cast that spirit of divination out of her, is when they really discovered just how much they were involved in a war of two worlds. Satan’s forces came out strong through the people who were around them, especially the men who were making money off of this demon possessed girl. The disciples were beaten, tortured and then cast into prison and put in chains; locked away to be forgotten.
Satan plays for keeps. He meant to destroy the disciple completely. His methods are subtle most of the time, but he can be as confrontational as he wants to be when the battle gets harder. He was perfectly happy to allow the little girl to do his dirty work for him, but now it was time for the “big guns” to go into action.
Sometimes living for the Lord isn’t fun. Sometimes God allows things to happen to us that we just don’t understand. Paul and Silas may have thought, “Lord, we were doing our best, so why are we in jail?” It’s okay to ask questions, but then we need to accept the answer and leave it in God’s hands. Nothing can happen to you that God doesn’t know about.
Like Paul and Silas in that jail, God will make a way for you to escape the traps that the devil will lay for you. You may face some strong temptations to fall into your old life but don’t quit, keep fighting. All of us face temptation in some fashion, but that doesn’t mean that you have to yield to it.
And even if you fail, and all of us fail from time to time, God doesn’t give up on you. He says in Hebrews 4:16, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."
1 John 2:1-2, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."
Jesus paid the debt for your sin. His blood washes away all sin, that from the past, from the present and for the future. You cannot do anything that the Blood of Jesus can’t wash away. All you have to do is repent of the sin, ask for forgiveness and then get up and walk on in your service to the Lord.
1 Corinthians 10:13, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
We must learn in the midst of the battle that we have a God who cares. He has already made a way for us. God is just waiting to see what we will do in those bad times, because what we do then will prove whether we really trust Him or not.
So here are two disciples, Paul and Silas, bruised, bleeding, hurting and locked up, and its growing late. The darkness of night has settled on the land, and even more important, the powers of darkness were all about them, gloating over their great victory. The world of darkness had won the battle and silenced these men of God and in the War of the Worlds, Satan had won another fight.
But then something happened. What was it? Suddenly there was something that shattered the victory march of the devil. There was something that shook his powers until he couldn’t hold the disciples any more. What was it?
It was the power of praise and worship of the God of Heaven. At the darkest hour, when many men would have simply given up, Paul and Silas began to lift their voices in praise to God! These are powerful weapons in the Lord’s arsenal; powerful enough to drive the forces of darkness back on their heels.
The supernatural power of their praises to the Almighty God of Heaven triggered the response that God had planned for them all along. The gates of Hell were shaken; the very earth trembled at the power of God; the chains snapped in two; the iron shackles fell off; the cell door was knocked off its hinges and there was nothing to stop the disciples from walking out as free men.
In the War between the Worlds of Good and Evil, the power of the devil is no match for the power of God.
1 John 4:4, "Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world."
Matthew 28:18, Jesus said, "… All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth."
As an extra bonus for their faithfulness, God gave them an opportunity to preach the gospel to the very men who had them in jail. The jailor’s whole family was saved.
All of us here have been victims of addictions of one form or another. Any sin that controls your life is an addiction, and only the power of God could break the hold that sin had on you.
If you are here today and still battling sin in your life, God is here to set you free. You are not here by accident, but by design. God chose to lead you here today, to this church, and to this service, so that you may be set free once and for all.
We are in a spiritual battle, A War of the Worlds of God and Evil. Whose side are you on? If you aren’t on the Lord’s side, then there’s only one master that you can be fighting for, the devil. There is no neutral ground. There is no fence. It’s either all for Jesus, or all for the devil. Whose soldier are you right now?
The choice is yours. The victory can be won. You can join the only army that is destined to win. Why not surrender to Jesus everything? Why not give yourself to Him? He loves you, and He wants you to be on the winning team. He will help you to overcome any sin, any addiction and any habit. Jesus has all power to set you free right now and forever more.
