Tag Archives: fighting Satan

What Do You Do?

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Daniel 8

Looking into the future made Daniel sick. He was overcome by the level of evil that would gain strength, the blasphemous power destroying the saints. When the vision ended, David took to his bed. He laid there for days.

If he were like me, he probably didn’t sleep much with all the troubling thoughts going through his head. He probably had no appetite, no energy, maybe no will to live. How could he function knowing what was in front of him? He didn’t have to imagine the worse. God showed him the worse in his vision. No wonder he was sick.

Do you relate? When you watch the news you don’t have to imagine the level of evil gaining strength. You can read the writing on the wall, can’t you? When you watch your children exchanging truth for lies, when you feel the hatred and growing intolerance for God’s Laws, for morality and good sense, are you tempted to go back to bed and pray, “Come back, Lord. It’s too much?”

We can learn from Daniel’s example in 8:27.

And I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days. Then I rose and went about the king’s business, but I was appalled by the vision and did not understand it.

The lesson? Get up and get busy doing what the King has commanded us to do. We can be appalled by what is going on, we don’t have to understand the why’s and how’s. But that’s no excuse for burying our heads in the sand or pretending everything is hunky-dory. If we aren’t about the King’s business, the battle is lost.

Let’s get off our comfortable couches, quit hiding behind church, stop shaking our heads and shrugging our shoulders. Instead, let’s pick up our cross, the Gospel of Jesus. Let’s arm ourselves with that which God offers us: the belt of Truth, the breastplate of righteousness, feet fit with readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, wielding the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God), protected by the helmet of salvation. (from Ephesians 6:10-18).

Let’s, like Daniel, be about the King’s business. You might not be able to change the world. But you can change eternity for that person God has laid on your heart. You can defeat Satan one redeemed soul at a time. And if all of us are about the King’s business, it WILL change the world.

The world is in trouble. Your family is in trouble. What do you do?

Check Your Weapon (Jeremiah 46-48)

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Do you get tired of this spiritual warfare you are fighting? You face the enemy, you resist temptation, flee from sin, and God gives you a victory. But you turn around, and there’s Satan again at the door with a new arsenal ready to lead yet another attack using another temptation, then another, and another.

God, through Jeremiah, is talking about judgment on the nations that rejected Him. The truth is, anyone who rejects God faces judgment. And every time we sin, we are rejecting God.

That’s why I don’t read about “them” in Scripture. What was true in Jeremiah’s time is still true today. Like this:

“Ah, sword of the Lord,” you cry, “how long till you rest? Return to your scabbard; cease and be still.” But how can it rest when the Lord has commanded it, when he has ordered it to attack Ashkelon and the seacoast?” (47:6-7)

If you aren’t weary of the spiritual warfare, you aren’t fighting the spiritual enemy. How can you think about resting when God has commanded it? Hear what He has to say about that:

A curse on him who is lax in doing the Lord’s business! A curse on him who keeps his sword from bloodshed! (48:10)

How clean is your sword? Is it stained with Satan’s blood because you have stood up for Truth, you’ve resisted temptation, you’ve introduced someone to the Savior? Do you go to bed at night spent, exhausted from being a soldier in God’s army, doing this and that, going here and there, speaking to this person and that person, tending to the needs of others God brings to mind, studying God’s Word, growing, maturing, being stretched and pulled as He transforms you into someone who isn’t afraid to strike a blow in the heart of Satan?

Or are you lax in doing God’s work? Have you put away your sword and are content to leave it there shiny and new? I don’t see anywhere in Scripture where God retires his soldiers. I don’t see an age limit to picking up your sword and using it in the fight for the kingdom of God. I don’t see any army or any soldier in Scripture who went home after winning one battle. This is war!

Check your weapon. I pray it is nicked, and stained, and ready for another battle. I’m checking mine.

April 13; How Much Better Would It Be?

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I Samuel 13:24-14-52; I Chronicles 8:1-9

The Israelites were at war, and God gave them one victory after another. Saul had tunnel vision, which probably isn’t really a bad thing for a leader. But what I see here is that Saul’s tunnel vision had him wanting to defeat the enemy, without caring for the fighting men who were putting their lives on the line. The Bible tells us Saul was so intent on winning, he threw out an oath and cursed anyone who ate anything until he had “avenged himself on (his) enemies.”

“Fight!” he seems to say. “Attack and kill! And don’t you dare stop even long enough to eat anything until I have the victory.”

The Bible says the men were in distress because of it. I love what Jonathan said when he heard what his dad had demanded of them. In effect, Johnathan replied,

“That’s just stupid.”

Just a taste of honey made a noticeable difference in Johnathan’s appearance and strength. How much better would an entire meal be?

We are at war with our enemy Satan. And I wonder if some of us aren’t fighting one battle after another without stopping to feed our souls. We neglect our private time with the Bread of Life. We don’t drink from the Living Water when we don’t pray, when we don’t meditate on His Word.

Yet we’re out there fighting Satan, weak as we are. Johnathan asked, “How much better would it have been if the fighting men had stopped to eat…?” I’m asking the same thing of us.

How much better would our day be, how much more decisive would our victory be, if we’d take on every day, every battle, not in our own strength – but in the strength of the Lord? Thinking we can fight Satan without a nourished soul is, in effect just… well…

stupid.