There is a satanic attack against the Christian in these last days.
Some of you here this morning, Satan is doing everything he can to get you to backslide.
Others of you, Satan is doing everything he can to keep you from going forward. There are many Christians that Satan has contained and has kept ineffective and powerless in these last days.
Satan knows that his time is almost up, so he is doing everything he can to keep you from making an impact against his kingdom.
I’m tired of seeing church after church and Christian after Christian living bound by the enemy. I’m tired of the world thinking that the church is powerless, and God’s people are feeble minded.
The Lord spoke to my heart yesterday and told me that some of you are being contained. There are too many believers that are being held captive. There are too many believers that the enemy is running all over. There are too many families that are about to be destroyed.
I’m tired of the enemy trying to keep the Maranatha Church of God contained and ineffective.
Some of you want to move forward. Some of you are trying to get out of the problems you’re in. Some of you want a closer relationship with God. But it seems like every time you take one step forward, the enemy is doing everything he can to make you take two steps back.
If that’s the condition you’re in this morning, I’ve got news for you. I’m here to expose the enemy and give away his game plan.
I’m here to tell you this morning that God has more than enough power and strength to deliver you out of the snare of the enemy and your pit of despair.
I’m here to tell you this morning, there’s not a problem or an obstacle that God can’t move for you.
I’m here to tell you that the devil can’t build a big enough wall to keep God from coming on the scene.
I’m here this morning to preach to the captive, the bruised and the bound, that today is your day to stand back and see the salvation of the Lord! Could somebody say amen!
Our scripture text tells us that we are not ignorant of his devices. I want us to look at this word devices for just a moment. The Greek word here for devices is noema which means thoughts, purposes or designs.
We know in Jeremiah 29:11 God reveals to us what His has plans and thoughts for us are. His plan is to prosper you, not harm you and to give you a hope and a future.
2 Corinthians 2:11 let’s us know that the enemy has plans and thoughts of his own for us. You need to understand something this morning. The devil will try take advantage of every failure of yours, using it to get into our life and try to cause our downfall.
Make no mistake about it. Satan hates a true child of God. I don’t believe that lukewarm Christians bother the devil too much because he knows that God doesn’t like that type of Christian.
But find a believer that really wants to experience God and live right before God, the enemy is sitting in his war room trying to plan your demise.
Let’s look at three areas that the enemy is trying to contain you with this morning.
I. The first major are of containment is in the area of finances.
There’s more controversy in churches, more marriages destroyed, more stress brought on in the area of finances.
Here’s one thing that we need to understand, that your finances are a spiritual matter. If Satan can contain your finances, then he can begin to contain our church from growing and prospering as God intends for it to.
God’s plan is for you to help finance the work of the church. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard pastors say they don’t have the finances to do what they need to do.
We’ve even face it here. But what has happened, Satan has sold some of you a bill of goods that keep you from being blessed the way God wants to bless you and has you living under God’s penalty.
There are two lies the devil enjoys peddling. First, all the church wants is your money and the second one is the enemy has convinced some that they don’t have enough money to give to the church like they should.
The reason some of you are struggling in your finances is the fact you’ve been listening to the enemy and because of that you’ve been robbing God and you’re living under a curse.
How many knows it’s bad when you’re living under a curse from God. If Satan can convince you that you can’t afford to pay your tithe and give in the offerings, or the church doesn’t really need your support, then he’s got you living under God’s judgment.
Mal 3:8-9 “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.”
Why does God feel this way? Because the tithe is His. Something that some don’t understand, you don’t give just to get. But if you’re faithful in your giving of tithe and offering, you are walking in God’s blessing. It’s the only time in the Word that God says prove me in this.
There’s been times when the enemy told me I can’t afford to give, and I’ve been tempted to hold back, but I learned a long time ago, the tithe is not mine, and I don’t have the right to spend it any way I want. I’ve also learned that when I’m faithful in my giving, God somehow, someway, takes care of me, and blesses me.
When I’m being blessed of God, there’s no devil in hell that can contain me. Amen!
II. The second wall of containment I want to share with you is the wall of containment of your family.
There is an unprecedented attack by the enemy against you and your family. This past week has just been one of those weeks you would just like to forget. The Lord told me the other day, that Cindy and I were under attack.
There’s a lot of families under attack. It seems we don’t have time together as a family any more.
The priorities of our homes have gone astray. The family alter has been replaced with the color TV.
Did you know that by the time the average child is 18 years old, they will have spent a total of three years watching TV and only a total of 4 months in church. And we wonder what’s wrong with our children.
I read statistically, the largest viewing block for MTV is Christian young people.
We are allowing Satan to get a foot hold in our homes by allowing the alters of Baal to stay in our homes.
It’s time we tear down the alters of other things, and bring back the alter of God in our homes.
Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it…”
Don’t expect your child to understand the importance of reading the word, if he never sees you reading the word.
Don’t expect your child to understand the importance of prayer if they never here you pray.
Don’t expect your children to grow up loving the church if all they hear is you constantly putting it down.
Don’t expect your children to understand the importance of being in the house of God if you don’t care whether you go or not.
Until we make God the number one priority in our families again, we’re opening up the door for the enemy to come in and destroy our young people, and destroy your marriage.
If you’re children are out of control, and your husband is falling away, or your wife’s desire for the Lord is waning away. Then you need to get on your knees, and get into the Word and bring God back into your family again.
If all you’re doing as man and wife is fighting, then you need to run to the Peace Speaker. If you feel like your love is growing cold, then run to the one who can set your heart afire.
Tear down the walls around your marriage and your family by keeping Christ first in your home.
III. The final wall of containment is in the are of your spiritual life.
Have you ever noticed whenever you start determining in your heart that your going to declare war on the enemy and you’re going to get closer to God, and you’re going to pray more and get into the word more, that’s when everything starts to come against you.
You start to pray, and the phone keeps ringing and everything that you need to do, but probably won’t do, comes to your mind. You go to start reading your Bible and you can’t seem to concentrate. How many knows what I’m talking about.
Satan don’t mind religious activities. He don’t mind if you go to church but you don’t really pay attention. He don’t mind if say a prayer as long as you don’t pray from your heart. He don’t mind you reading your bible as long as you don’t comprehend what it says.
As long as you’re just going through the motions. But when you get serious about these things, that’s when the enemy gets nervous and the warfare starts.
Ephesians 6:12 says “for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
I’m hear to tell you this morning, when you’re in a wrestling match with the devil, keep listening to the voice of God, and you’ll come out a victor. It’s time church that we quit giving the devil more credit than he deserves, we treat him like he’s as powerful as God, but in a negative way.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Let me expose him right now for who he is. He’s an angel who didn’t have enough smarts to know that he could never be equal to God who got enough other not so bright angels to follow him. He couldn’t tell the truth if he had too and he was defeated for once and for all, stripped of the keys, by Jesus Christ when He died on the cross and descended into hell. And now Jesus Christ has given us power over all devils.
The sad part is, even after knowing all of that, we still allow Satan to keep us bound. Churches have allowed Satan to keep them bound.
They’re bound by tradition. This is the way we’ve always done it. You hear me this morning, I’m not so interested in how we use to do it. I want to know how God wants it done now! His ways are not our ways, and His wisdom is far above our wisdom.
If we really want to move on for God, then we need to get the mind of Christ.
Some are bound by the lack of spiritual appetite. There’s too many who’s lost their appetite for spiritual things in these last days.
One of the tricks of the enemy is to keep the church asleep. To keep us unconcerned about spiritual matters. And that’s where many people in the church are at.
I get concerned about you when you start letting things get in the way of your relationship with God. There’s no amount of money that is worth more than your relationship with Jesus Christ. There’s no job in the world that’s more important than Christ.
We seem to spend all of our time and energy on everything else, and give God the leftovers, maybe.
As long as you keep God on the back burner in your life, you’re always going to be living on the edge of disaster.
Ah yes, we want God to bless us. We want God to meet our needs, but we’re not willing to do what God has command us to do or called us to do.
Luke 6:46 says “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”
I told our Wednesday night group, incase you forgot, we do have church on Wednesdays, that every one of us will have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Every one of us, no exceptions.
Finally, the church is bound by the lack of prayer. We wonder why God doesn’t move any more. Why we don’t see miracles like we use too. The answer is the Church doesn’t pray like it use too.
A powerless church is a prayerless church. Loran Livingston, an acquaintance of Cindy and me, he pastor’s the Central Church of God in Charlotte, NC which runs several thousand now, told the Tennessee Camp Meeting this year that the Church of God has a prayer problem.
As long as a church is prayerless, it’s useless. God spoke to him and told him that they should spend as much time in prayer as they do hearing the word on Sunday.
Yesterday while I was praying, God spoke to me and told me to call our church on a fast, and on Sunday Nights we’re going to have a prayer service.
As a church, God has called us to make an impact on the world. One of the greatest ways to do that is through prayer.
On Sunday nights we’re going to be praying for our schools, our nation, our Church leaders, for revival, for the lost in our city, and for you and the church.
When a church prays, it will humble us. When a church prays, it will have greater Worship Services. When a church prays, signs and wonders follow. When a church prays, prison doors come open and walls come down.
Conclusion:
You don’t have to be bound by the enemy this morning. You can be set free. Some of you have been bound for so long, you’ve become use to the chains, and the weights that the word says “so easily besets us.”
You can become so accustom to the dark, that it begins to get easier to see. Some of you need to let God do a work in your life, today and now. Quit holding back on God or you’ll find yourself missing out.
