Conquerors-1981

Imagine what it would be like one evening you go to the movies to see an outstanding picture about some people who have to make it through a war. The film ends, you dry your tears, you shove the empty popcorn box under the seat and head for home. You're barely out of the theater when the whole night sky lights up with a blinding flash, the earth begins to tremble under your feet, and suddenly you're knocked on your face with a shockwave.

People are screaming everywhere, glasses flying all over the place. So now, you're not just watching a war from a theater seat, you're in a war. We Christians love to talk about spiritual warfare in our Bible studies, in our prayer meetings, in our private conversations.

But when it comes to actually walking through the battle zone, as we have to every single day of our lives, our posture all too often is not that of a conqueror, but of a whipped dog. The long face, the timid bark, the conditioned reflex that causes us automatically to avoid any road that threatens in any way to bring us into some kind of conflict. But to follow Jesus in this world puts us in conflict all our lives, makes us people who have to involve themselves in conflict and who have to conquer all the time.

The Christian life is not just being good and staying out of trouble. Jesus went about doing good, but he was in trouble all the time. His whole life was a battle, it was a conquest of evil.

From our favorite book, Revelation, chapter 5, these days, and no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it. And I wept much that no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, weak not, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has conquered, and so he can open the scroll and its seven seals.

He's worthy to open the scroll and break the seals because he has conquered. And those who follow him, who believe in him, are expected to conquer even as he did. Revelation 2, to him who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

He who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death. To him who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone, which no one knows except him who receives it. And the male gender here can be applied male, female.

There's no difference here. He who conquers and who keeps my work until the end, I will give him power over the nations, and he shall rule him with a rod of iron as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself received power from my father. And I will give him the morning star, hope.

Revelation 3, he who conquers shall be clad thus in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.

Never shall he go out of it. And I will write the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven on him and my own new name. And finally, he who conquers, I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I myself conquered and sat down with my father on his throne.

Our Lord teaches us to look at life in this world in two ways, two ways, which at first appear to conflict. On the one hand, he teaches us to look at life in this world in terms of peace. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

They neither toil nor spend. Yet Solomon in all his glory, I tell you, was not arrayed like one of these. A picture of peace.

On the other hand, he also teaches us to look at life in this world in terms of war. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he assails him and overcomes him, he takes from him the armor in which he trusts and divides the spoil.

He that is not with me is against me. He that does not gather with me scatters. Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth.

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to cast fire on the earth. Yes, we have a heavenly father who sees each sparrow fall, who knows us and who loves us and who watches over us.

But we are also living our lives in a world which is a battlefield. Even while the sun shines and the flowers bloom and the birds sing, there is a war going on. And every one of our lives serves the purpose of either one side or the other in this war.

And when the war comes to an end, as it will, our eternal destiny will be determined by which side we serve. Ever since our mother and father ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the human race has been involved in this war. Ah yes, but Jesus won the battle on the cross.

True, he did. That was a decisive battle. But his victory becomes our victory only when we line ourselves up behind the Lamb and in his power we conquer evil.

Either we conquer evil by the power of his indwelling good or evil conquers us. When we get to the end of the line, as every single one of us will, every single one of us in this room will be perfected, either in the image of Jesus just like Jesus, in freedom, glory, mercy, peace, or we will be perfected in the image of Satan, just like Satan, in self-idolatry, deceit, unspeakable bitterness of heart and soul. The reason so many of us so much of the time are so ineffective is because of one or two things.

Either we have allowed ourselves to be lulled into thinking that there is no war, or we have been sucked into a war which is irrelevant to the real battle, spending our strength year after year fighting a crusade in which both sides belong to Satan. We have to be able to grasp and understand with our hearts as well as our minds two things. First, we have to see who the enemy really is.

Ephesians 6, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his mind. Put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the wild, the deceitfulness of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.

Our enemy is not the boss of work, or our husband, or our wife, or the criminal element, or the revolutionaries, or the oil companies, or the Japanese, car makers especially, or the IRS. Our enemy is not flesh and blood at all, but spirit. A deceiving spirit who in fact indeed has manipulated the boss at work, our mate, the criminals, the revolutionaries, the oil companies, the TV networks, but this same enemy has also many, many, many, many times manipulated us into serving his purpose, playing right into his hand in his all-out war of rebellion against the living God.

We worship his idols of money and power and pride. We've trembled at his threats that we might become a failure, or starve to death, or be looked upon as a fool. We've lusted after the fulfillment he dangled in front of our noses, going for it like a fish going for a worm in a hole.

We've wasted whole years of our lives crusading with a passion against an enemy he taught us to hate, who isn't our enemy at all. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the satanic kingdom and the spirit of this delusion, and unforgiveness, and mercilessness, and pride, and hatred, and bigotry by which the satanic kingdom rules. God help us to quit fighting the wrong enemy, to quit hating the wrong thing, and to open our eyes by his grace to see who the real adversary is.

Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have all of you guys, that he might sift you like wheat, but I pray for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail, and when you are turned again, strengthen your brothers. Satan's gonna try to sift you all like wheat, but Peter, you're gonna conquer him. First, we have to see that there is only one enemy that we ever battle, and that enemy is Satan.

And secondly, we have to see that this enemy absolutely can be conquered by us in this world. Instead of walking around like dogs with our tails between our legs. Revelation 12.

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, a loud voice. They even get loud in heaven. Now the salvation, and power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God, and they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, for they love not their lives, even unto death.

They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. We conquer the accuser, inwardly, by the blood of the Lamb. His grip on our minds, his hold on our conscience, his control over us through our continuous unconscious, often, fear of death.

All these things are in fact removed by the power of the blood. There is power in the blood. When we put our trust in the blood of the Lamb, a mystery takes place.

Who can explain it? Who can understand it? But it's true. And it happens that when we put our confidence in the blood of our Lord's cross, our troubled, unsettled conscience becomes clean and whole. And we are set free from dead works to serve the living God.

We are free from the fear of death. By the blood of the Lamb, we come with boldness before the throne of God, knowing that he hears us and that he receives us. We conquer Satan inwardly by the blood of the Lamb.

We conquer Satan outwardly by the word of our testimony. And the word of our testimony is simply that we tell the world without shame and without fear that Jesus is Lord. And we do this not only with our mouths, but with our actions.

When we welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, we are in fact telling them that Jesus, not Satan, is Lord. When we take time with a person who's being just absolutely crushed by what's going on, by the absurd things that are happening to her or to him in this world. When we stand side by side with those who are oppressed and share some of their shame and oppression, we are in fact telling them that Jesus, not Satan, is Lord.

By the word of our testimony, we set the captives free. We set people free from their bondage to Satan. We expose his lies.

We literally tie his hands. We destroy them. And we open a path through this battlefield so that people can literally find their way to the throne of the living God.

When Jesus says to us, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, it sounds so peaceful. But he is in fact with those words preparing us for war. For when we in fact become or even seek to become poor in spirit, God's strength is made perfect in our weakness.

And by that strength, flooding and filling our own inner poverty, we go forth to conquer. To be poor in spirit in this world is not to walk around like a whipped dog, but to follow in the footsteps of the lamb. Who by being poor in spirit conquered Satan.

For each of us, as an individual, and for all of us as a body, it's either conquer Satan or be conquered. And there's nothing in between. May God help us to conquer the only enemy we have in all creation by the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony, loving not our lives, even unto death, even if it costs us our lives.

Let's take some time in silence. Just silence for a while, then I'll break it.