In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the power of God and how believers should not be defeated by the lies of the enemy. He highlights the need for revival and how it reveals areas of deception and apostasy in our lives. The preacher shares personal experiences of being humbled by God and being shown areas of pride and bitterness. He also discusses the impact of Adam and Eve's sin, which brought humanity under the influence of Satan, but emphasizes the victory that can be found through the cross and the blood of Christ.

The psalmist said, Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee? Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints. But let them not turn again to folly. Heavenly Father, we commit this time today on eagles' wings to you. And I pray that we would learn to mount up with wings as eagles, that we would learn to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint. Father, that we would learn to live by the grace of God, in the power of the Spirit of God. And I pray for everyone listening today, that they would understand that you have provided everything that we need in our Christian life, and that you do not want us to be downcast and defeated, but you intended us to fly on eagles' wings, to be above the pesky little sparrows that Satan sends our way to discourage us, to tempt us, to deceive us. And Father, I pray also, if there's one that doesn't know Jesus, that they would stop and consider this one who died on the cross for them. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, I'm glad to be back with you again today. I've been talking a little bit about spiritual warfare. It's a vast subject, and the Bible has a lot to say about it. And in the revival ministry, you can't be in revival ministry without spiritual warfare. It's all a part of it. There's a price that has to be paid for every victory. There's a price to pay for revival. There's a price to pay for an awakening in our land. Where are you at? Are you rejoicing in that which God is excited about? You know, these disciples came back to Jesus one day, and they were all excited because the spirits were subject unto them. And Jesus said, notwithstanding in this, rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you. He said, rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven. You know, I wonder if we just don't get away from the simplicity of Jesus, just the simplicity of knowing Jesus and loving him and living in his presence and trusting him. You know, Chambers, Oswald Chambers said, as Christian workers, worldliness is not our snare. Sin is not our snare, but spiritual wanting. And by that he meant taking the pattern and the print of the religious age we live in and making eyes at spiritual success. And what he meant, I believe, is you get into the mode of counting nickels and noses instead of seeing people with needs. More interested in getting somebody to walk the aisle or join the church. These superficial things. Chambers said, never court anything other than the approval of God. Wow. We have adopted a commercial kind of approach. We have adopted a commercial view. He said, so many souls saved and sanctified. I wonder if we really realize how far we have backslidden. We have a humanistic, socialistic Christianity that is not spiritual and it's not biblical for sure. We have an easy believism where all you have to do is trust Jesus and there's nothing about taking up your cross and following him. We have a don't offend anybody attitude and so we compromise and we're wishy-washy in our services, please everybody. And nobody is offended but God. I remember my evangelist friend, John Musser, many times used to say, it's better to offend man than God. Where are we at spiritually? And we cry out with the psalmist, will thou not revive us again? But I wonder, do we really want revival? I've never seen a real revival like the old days where the Spirit of God moved in on the scene and did a deep, deep work. I've seen some local revivals. I saw what God did for seven months when I was pastoring. How the Spirit of God went from church to church and area to area for periods of time. And how there was a change and there was the glory of God was on the scene. And then I've seen what's happened afterwards, how many went back. But in each spot there was usually a few, at least one or two, whose lives were really changed. In a major awakening there would be hundreds if not thousands of lives permanently changed. And the area where I'm at now and moved in with the pastor, where God worked for nine and a half weeks in a small town of 10,000. We've seen little touches and glimpses but we haven't really seen the glory of God. And many, many are praying for the glory of God to come back. And let me tell you something, when He comes, He may change the way I do things and He may change the way you do things. Until He comes, we are to wage war against Satan. I've been sharing with you a little bit about warfare, spiritual warfare. And I want to take again today and share a few more things and take you back to how it started. And if we go back to the beginning, I guess we have to go back to old Lucifer himself in Isaiah 14 and verse 12. And Isaiah recorded, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cast down, or cut down to the ground, which doth weaken the nations? For thou hast set in thine heart. Now I'm sharing these things with you, by the way. Let me stop. To bring you up to where you're at right there where you live, in your life, in your church. And so that you can see some things about how this one who is called Lucifer affects your life and my life, your church and my church. And how you can have victory. And how you don't have to be defeated. Because he's a liar and he's got so many of us believing things about ourselves and about our churches and about our ministries. And because we're believing the lies, we're not seeing the power of God. And God has taught us some things through revival, how to get back a hold on God. And how to see some things happen that we didn't believe were possible. And how he's cleansed us and began to show us how far we've backslidden. And it's been humbling for him to come in and rip us apart and show us pride in our hearts. And show us fear. And show us things that we wasn't willing to face up to. And how we need to make restitution with one another and with those that we've offended. And so in verse 13 he said, For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit upon the mound of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. And by the way, if you're going to follow Satan and obey him and go his way, you better be careful. You might follow him all the way. His destination is hell. And I hope yours isn't that. Without Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior, that's where you're going. Now that's not my opinion. That's what God says in his word. Now in studying the biblical description of the fall of Satan, it appears that Satan was originally a high angelic being, one of the highest, a leader among leaders. And he got carried away with himself. And his act of pride and rebellion brought him to a point where he was saying, I will ascend, I will exalt, I will sit, I will be like the Most High God. And so in this movement, in God's judgment on him, he was banished from all practical means from heaven, from his position and from his function. He became depraved in his character. And now he's turned to use his powers of evil to strike out against God. And he uses whatever means he can, whether the Christian or the non-Christian. And he had a lot of the angels that followed him along this way. Now if I take you back to Genesis chapter 3, let's see how he entered in on the scene on earth. Reading verses 1 through 6, the scripture says, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, had God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God had said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Now, let's make some observations from this passage, a familiar passage that we know about. One thing I want you to understand, as we look at the passage, that it's very important for us to see that Satan operates on the basis of error, selfishness, and the senses. And by the way, these are the opposite of the three moral attributes of God, which are truth, love, and holiness. These things constitute the basis of the Christian life. And so, if you understand this, you can grasp the key to our deliverance at the cross by the blood of Christ, and how this affects us practically in our Christian life. Now, with this sinful deed that Adam and Eve did, it brought them and us into subjection to Satan. We are now open to his attacks. We are now subject to his influence in our lives. And this is why God has told us to continually to resist the devil, and he will flee from you. He now has a right to speak to the human race. He was there at that point given great authority over the human race, and his influences never waned. And all the time that he's been working in the human race, as his influence is gained, it's built up to a momentum and a point where then God had to step in and judge the world. The first cleansing came right there with Adam and Eve, and blood was shed to cover their sins. And then down the road some years later, there was a flood. And we can just keep on coming down through history to our day, and God is getting ready for one more judgment. But as sinners, all of us have accepted to some degree his authority. It grieves us that we've been disloyal to our Savior, but this is a fact of life. We have been deceived so many times and deluded. We've done things against the word of God. And this brings us to the point of revival. When revival hits, God shows us how we've apostatized in little bitty areas, and how we've been deceived, and we come back to him in brokenness. God started on me in 85 by showing me that I was bitter, trying to act like God as a pastor over my people. And he broke me, and I had to get up before them and confess that sin. And since then he's continued to show me some things of which I'm not proud. One of those things being pride. Something else that happened there. Satan led Adam and Eve to doubt. To doubt the word of God. To doubt the goodness of God. And to initiate an action that was very similar to his own proud rebellion. And he's continuing to do that. You know that? He's continuing to try to get you and me to doubt the word of God. To doubt the goodness of God. One of the things we need to dwell on continually is the love of God. God loves you. Did you know that? God loves you so much that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. You may be sitting out there in your living room, driving down the road in your car, or wherever, and you're wondering, does anybody love me? Oh my friend, let me tell you, God loves you. He wants to move into your life. And he wants to be all that you want. Won't you let him move in? Confess your emptiness. Confess your loneliness. Confess your sin. And ask him to come in. Ask Jesus to come in and save your soul. And if you're a Christian and you've been trying to live without him being your Lord, he wants to fellowship with him. You know the Apostle John said, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. You know one of the things the Corinthians were doing? They were fellowshipping with demons. And Paul told them, we can't fellowship with God and Satan at the same time. What fellowship does darkness have with light? None. God's going to walk off. I don't mean by that you'll lose your salvation, but you'll sure lose the joy of your salvation. There's no joy if Jesus isn't in control. This is why if you're filled with the Spirit, you'll have the joy in your life. You'll have the enthusiasm and the love. If you're filled with self, your countenance will be down. Your whole atmosphere will be glued, like there's a black cloud hanging over you. And something else there, with Adam and Eve in the garden, at the very foundation, the basis of this temptation and fall, the issue of authority, who's in control, was brought out. Adam and Eve, when they disobeyed God, they chose to believe Satan. And instead of obeying God, they acted on Satan's word, and he became their master for that moment. Do you realize that when you disobey God and you go off and do your own thing, you are acting in rebellion to the authority of God? And God says, be not deceived. Whatever you sow, you're going to reap. And that's one of the sad consequences of life. Many of us get saved later on in life, but we still got the scars and the consequences there. Nothing's changed. Now, I want to slip over and show you some of the workings of Satan and the rest of the time that we have, and how this affects your life and how important it is for you to resist Satan. Resist him so that he will not have authority in your life. And I want to start off with Ephesians 4, 27, where God has told us, neither give place, and that word place means ground to the devil. Satan can obtain a place in your life, a foothold in the life of the believer. This is why we are to resist him. Don't let him have a place in your life. This is why it'd be good for you sometime to get along with God and go back through your whole life and see if there's been any kind of involvement with the occult, any place where you began to entertain fears, where you began to accept non-truth about yourself in your life. Someone one day may have laughed at you as you gave a speech in school, and from that point on, you just went down and you began to think that you were nobody. Or somebody may have made a comment about you being the ugliest kid in the whole block. And you began to think about that thing and look around and compare, and you just went down from that point. Something else Satan can do. He can physically, materially, or spiritually attack the believer. In 2 Corinthians 12, 7, Paul said that he had a messenger from Satan that buffeted him, and he asked God to remove it. And God said no. He asked him again. God said no. He asked him again. God said no. And then finally God said, listen Paul, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. And Paul came out and said, okay then, most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. Man, Satan couldn't get through that. What about you? Do you go around looking like you've been weaned on a sour dill pickle? Or do you go around in the victory of Jesus, full of enthusiasm, and the life of God is bubbling out of your life and that fragrance draws others to you. And they say, what is it, what is it, what is it? And you just say, it's Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. You can have him too. There's plenty to go around. There's always room for Jesus. Something else Satan can do, he can hinder you. Do you know that? In 2 Thessalonians 2.18, I was reading this passage today, if I can get over there, 2 Thessalonians 2.18, Paul said, wherefore we would have come unto you, even I, Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us. Don't take anything for granted, my friend. If you know that God wants something done, if you know that God wants revival in your church, or God wants somebody saved, or this or that, then you believe God for it and you hang in there and you keep praying. You read the life of George Mueller. He prayed for a long time for one man. He didn't even get saved until after George Mueller died. Don't let him hinder you. You just keep on going. Something else he'll do is he will deceive you. Back over in 2 Corinthians 11, in verse 3, Paul said, but I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that's in Jesus. It's easy. You just relax and let God do the driving in your life. You be conscious of him. Lord, what do you want me to do today? Okay, Lord, I'm going to go to work. I'm going to watch you. I'm going to praise your name. I'm going to believe you to work in that old rascal of a boss I have. I thank you that I can be there for him to see some light. He's about as dark a character as I know. Live with Jesus. Love Jesus. Enjoy him. Talk with him. Oh, it's a lonely, hard life without him, without him as your savior, or without him being the director in your life. Be continually filled with the Holy Spirit. Don't let him deceive you. Don't let him trick you. Don't let him tempt you. First Thessalonians 3, 5, Paul had a concern for the Thessalonians, and he said, For this cause when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labor be in vain. Don't let him tempt you. Don't let him offer you some kind of a cheap thrill to get you away from God and fellowship. Don't let him offer you some kind of a something. He doesn't have anything that's real to offer you except suffering and sorrow and pain and misery. So don't let him get you away from prayer meeting. Don't let him get you away from church. Don't let him get you out of your Bible reading. Don't let him tempt you. Don't trade an hour with God in prayer for some steak dinner that's not going to last. Check your priorities. Don't let him tempt you. Don't let him ensnare you. Listen to this, 2 Timothy 2, 25, Paul said that in 24, The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God for adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. So don't let him snare you. Don't let him devour you. 1 Peter 5, 8. There's a roaring lion. He's walking about seeking whom he can devour. Don't let him sift you. He wanted to sift Peter. You remember? Jesus said Satan has desired to sift you, but I've prayed for you. Remember Jesus is praying for you, saying nobody cares about me. Ah, that's not true. Jesus is praying for you. He's interceding for you. That's what he's doing right now. You may fall a hundred times today and a hundred times Jesus will intercede for you. He will cover you. And all you need to do is acknowledge that you fell each time, one at a time. I'll tell you what, you get victory after a while, you get sick of doing it. You say, Lord, I'm going to quit doing this crazy sin, this habitual sin, because it's the same old thing. I feel bad and then I got to come back to you and confess it. And then I go out and do it again, feel bad and come back to you. You always forgive me. I'm just going to quit it. And God says, hey, that's what I've been waiting for. I've given you the victory a long time ago. You could have had it years before. So don't let them ensnare you. Don't let them devour you. Don't let them sift you. Don't let them make you proud. First Timothy three, six, listen to this. When a new pastor was to come in, they gave this command that he wouldn't be a novice less being lifted up with pride. He fall into the condemnation of the devil. So don't let them bring you into a state of being proud. Don't let them bring you into a state of being under condemnation. In verse seven, he said, moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without, lest he fall into the reproach and the snare of the devil. So resist him. This is spiritual warfare. Satan can corrupt the believer's mind also. Second Corinthians eleven, three. And Satan can accuse a believer. Revelation twelve, ten. By the way, don't get caught up into doing his dirty work for him. You just let him do that. But if he can tempt you into accusing a brother, it's a very dangerous thing to accuse a pastor or a spiritual leader. A very serious thing. You take upon yourself to do that. There's a proper way if there's something wrong. There's a proper procedure and you follow the scriptural guidelines that God has given to you in that area. But don't take upon yourself to do something that might get you into trouble. Something else. Satan can push a believer into hypocrisy. He can just sort of lead you into this thing through some circumstances. So be very careful. You remember Ananias and Sapphira. Everybody was giving their money away and selling their lands and everything. They said, hey, we got a piece of land. Let's sell it. So they sold it and they had all this money. They say, hey, listen, nobody knows how much we made on this thing. Let's just give half the money and we won't say anything else. And they'll think that we were giving it all. Oh, I want to say something about that in just a minute here. But you know how they got in trouble with that. And God punished them with death. Don't let Satan get advantage of you. 2 Corinthians 2, 1-11. Paul says we're not ignorant of his devices. So don't be ignorant of his devices and his means. Be careful. Pray about everything. Think about it. Be careful. Let Satan should get an advantage of us for we are not ignorant of his devices. 2 Corinthians 2-11. And remember, Satan will cast fiery darts at the believer. He's a 16. And somewhere along the line, I think we should take some time about the armor. But let me go over this quickly. Here's what Satan's trying to do. One, he's trying to keep you from spiritual progress. Two, he's trying to keep you from entering in Christ. Three, he's trying to keep you from the daily experience of being filled with the Spirit, experiencing the fruit of the Spirit. And we have evidence all over the place that he's been successful in keeping us from these things. All of us are under attack. None of us are immune. Be careful about the guy or the gal, the man or the woman that has the appearance of everything being perfect. And the one that never shares any needs, never seems to have any problems, that person is probably in serious trouble. We are all under attack. We all need each other. We need to pray for one another. We need to share our burdens. We need to share where we're being tempted. Have us have prayer for one another. We need each other. And one of the things that Satan has done is he's introduced a superficial spirituality in our churches where we come to church, oh brother so and so, how you doing? Everything's great brother, just fine. But his marriage is falling apart. His life is in shambles. He's not a spiritual leader at home and he's a liar. And just like with Ananias and Sapphira, if I can close with a comment on this just quickly. Satan filled their heart. He filled their heart so that they would do Satan's will. And Peter's questions to them indicated that they had chosen to cooperate with Satan. And in closing, let me ask you this, are you doing that? Resist him. Well until next time, I'm going to trust that God will keep blessing you and remember this, Jesus Christ is all you need. Is he all you want? God bless you.