May 11, 2012
"The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD's favor has come." -- Luke 4:18-19 (NLT)
Popular verses in the modern church and powerful for the lives of so many. Jesus is quoting from the Prophet Isaiah here and these verses highlight what Jesus came to do in the spiritual realm of this world. I know that it is not in vogue to preach much on the spiritual side of Christianity but it is imperative that we never lose sight of the fact that what we face every day is in fact spiritual by nature.
A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. -- Ephesians 6: 10-12 (NLT)
There is an enemy to our souls and his name is Satan. He is not some cartoon cutout with a red suit and a pitchfork. He is not some anti-conscience action figure sitting on your left shoulder. He is real and he has strategies that he uses against us. These verses from Ephesians are the prelude to the description of the armor of God. Unfortunately we have turned even that into a cartoon at times -- a veggie tale to tell our kids. While we are playing fun and games and church the devil is busy seeking whom he may devour.
How does he devour us? As the key verses intimate -- he seeks to bind us, to blind us, and to oppress us. But we must realize that each of these are spiritual conditions. As the Ephesians verses teach us we are fighting against evil rulers and authorities of an unseen world. Mighty powers of this dark world. Evil spirits in heavenly places. This is who rules the world. The Bible says that Satan is the prince of this world. It is his domain and we walk in it sometimes like we belong in it! This is why the Bible demands that we recognize that light can have no fellowship with darkness. These are spiritual matters and when I look out amongst the church I see that it is a battle we are losing too often because of something God has warned us about:
my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. "Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children. -- Hosea 4: 6 (NIV)
Note what was happening in Hosea's day and what is going on today. It is the priests that reject the knowledge of God and thus pass on their own ignorance to the people who are following them. Today it is the pastors and preachers who so often fail their followers. There are too many interested in numbers and book deals rather than spiritual warfare and equipping the saints. There are too many pastors and preachers who simply do not understand or even agree with the spiritual side of their calling. The result is a body of Christ that is anemic when it comes to the spiritual battles they must face. That weakness is why we end up with believers of God who find themselves spiritually bound. You know of whom I speak. We all see people every day who are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ but bound in one area of their life or another. An area they just can't seem to get "victory" over. Of course they fail to see it as a spiritual battle. Instead they seek the solutions of the world which only furthers the spiritual attack upon them. Saved but bound in this life and crawling into heaven.
Or we find believers who are spiritually blind. A great many mega-pastor leads entire sheepfolds of spiritually blind sheep. Congregants who think their Christianity is built solely upon the hour and a half they give on Sundays. Congregants who think that God is a magical ATM for them to constantly withdraw blessings. Or even worse, congregants who actually think they are saved when they are not. Sheep walking down the broad path to destruction who think they are heading to the narrow gate that leads to eternal life.
Or lastly, we see believers who are spiritually oppressed. People who cannot tell a genuine move of God from the rampant emotionalism that is coursing through our churches in America. People who hear loud music on Sunday and they think that their sensory reaction to it is somehow spiritually related. People who hear an intellectually preached word from a preacher and then wonder why they cannot seem to apply it to their own lives. This is how entire denominations can fall prey to such heresies as the holy laughter movement from the 1990s. This is how people can be duped by false prophets left and right every single day. Because they cannot discern what is of the Spirit of God and what is not. And it ought not to be.
The key within the key verses today is that Jesus
says that He can do all of these things -- unbind the captive, give spiritual
sight back to the blind and set at liberty those who are spiritually oppressed
because of only one reason -- the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him! A true born again
child of God has that same Spirit living inside of them. This is a battle we
should be winning, not losing. But it always starts with recognizing the battle
we are in and then relying upon the Spirit God has given us to combat the
schemes of the enemy. If you find yourself in a church today where this is not
preached, you need to find one where it is. You need to be prepared for the
battle you are in, whether you like it or not. Too many churches today have
become mausoleums for the works of man led by preachers who themselves do not
care to understand the battle they are in. Whitewashed tombs that may sound
right and look right, but inside are filled with the bones of dead men. Jesus
said He came that you might have abundant life. That does not mean materially
but spiritually. It means ripping those shackles off your ankles, tearing those
scales from your eyes and defeating the spiritual oppression from the evil
authorities of this world. Do not be destroyed today from a lack of knowledge.
Rev. Anthony
