“ACCEPTANCE OR DEFEAT OF DEMONIC ACTIVITY?”
By J. Farrell Fisher, June 9-11, 2017
There is in Luke 19:41-42 a very sad response as Jesus drew near the holy city of Jerusalem and wept over it, saying: “If you had known, even you, (religious Judaism!), especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”
But one has to ask, “Does Jesus look over our cities today and weep over them?” Though for Jews in Jerusalem, it may have been a ‘foreign god’ that they bowed down to and worshipped, is it possible that today our nation and citizenry bows down to the gods of their own making?
A greater question! “Does Christ Jesus look upon YOU and weep over you ‘in this your day’?” “Your day” determines what YOU have allowed to rule and master you, and, yes, whether You have allowed “Acceptance Or Defeat of Demonic Activity”!
1 Peter 5:8-10 tells us, (This is Peter the disciple who walked with Him those three years of His public ministry and probably in his and Jesus’ growing up years together!), “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered for a while, perfect, establish (or make to stand), strength, and settle you.”
And, “in this YOUR day, what is it that you have experienced, are experiencing, or will soon experience, as your adversary, like a roaring lion, stalks you to devour you”? And I say, if you don’t know, haven’t experienced demonic activity, it’s because you belong to him so fully your captivity has become so comfortable that you’ve accepted your enslavement to the powers of darkness! “If you had known” – are you aware of your culpability? ‘Culpable’? The Random House Collegiate Dictionary says ‘culpable’ means, “Deserving blame or censure, held liable, (being) reprehensible.”
Understand! The Holy Word of God in 1 Peter 5 says that true disciples KNOW “the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.” And also understand: It’s because you’ve been born again by the Word and the Spirit, and the Christ in you calls for the intense opposition to the powers of darkness!
But that same word also says, “the God of all grace, after you have suffered for a while, will perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you,” everlasting words of eternal hope! If the Lord Jesus suffered in agony as the Son of God, as sons of God also, are we convinced we don’t have to face the same Gethsemane highway? Didn’t Peter just tell us n 1 Peter 5:8-9, “Be sober (or serious-minded!), be vigilant (armed and ready against your enemy); because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, KNOWING that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.” Dare I tell you that “the greatest world wars are in the souls of all men, women, boys, and girls, between them, YOU, and the devil and the powers of darkness called ‘demons’?”
In John 16:33 Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” So, disciples of Jesus who have troubles from the world, the flesh, and the devil (or Satan himself or his demons) have been marked out by the powers of darkness for assaults, accusations, attacks, or to tempt you away from your God-given assignment as Christ’s ambassador to follow your own fleshly pleasures, your own mental, moral, or Christless purpose, opening wide the door to self-interests, inner desolations, worldly dreams of self-satisfied ‘flesh’ and ‘fleshly feelings’, leaving Jesus alone in your world of choice as you willfully deny His Lordship to satisfy your lusts!
Don’t dare miss in your Bible the reality of the “Prayer-Life of Jesus” and “sleeping disciples”, because what happened then still happens today! In Matthew 26:36-46 we read: What you’re going to see is a picture of “disciples” accepting “demonic activity” rather than defeating and resisting demonic activity! And so, one has to ask himself/herself: “Have I opened or closed the door to demonic activity”? It says: Then Jesus came with His disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.”
And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.” And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.
Then He came to His disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand.”
You understand: Sleeping for the natural body IS normal and natural, but sleeping for the spiritual body is extremely dangerous! Yet how easy is it for many believers to “sleep” and leave Jesus Christ “alone” to the darkness of the devil, to the ignoring of His purpose and providence, and let Satan has his way with family, friends, our nation, and a blinded, darkened, demonized world?
But what was Jesus’ last words in John 16:33? Don’t miss this! “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” And Jesus overcame, not only the world, but His flesh and the devil!
Oh, and then, in John 17, Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven again, praying for Himself about what He faced, praying for His disciples, and praying for all believers, then and now! Do not casually read and then overlook what Christ Jesus declares to us!
John 17:6, “I (Christ Jesus) have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world” – are YOU the chosen of God in Christ?
John 17:11b, “Holy Father, keep through Your name those You have given Me.” Are YOU a “gift of God” to His Son Christ Jesus? Verse 13b, “that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” How’s your “joy-in-Jesus register”?
John 17:15b, “that You, Father, should keep them from the evil one.” Are YOU being kept from the evil one by Jesus or do you fit in with a Judas? Verse 17, “Sanctify them (“set them apart”) by Your truth. Your word is truth.” Are YOU set apart to the glory of Christ Jesus only?
John 17:20-23, Get ready! Firm yourself up in Christ with what we’re about to hear! Jesus prayed! “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe (or trust) in Me through their word; THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given to them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in My; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”
And did YOU receive it? “and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW!
Oh, I know some of the world gathers around “what they know about themselves”! Agnostics, atheists, unbelievers, dissenters, active opposers against anything that has to do with Truth, with Christ, with the Word written and living, with especially the “True Church”, with missions, missionaries, evangelism and discipleship – there Are enemies for them! It was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in his writing, “Faust”, (Pt.11), who said: “While man’s desires and aspirations stir, (in himself!), he cannot choose but err.” That’s because man’s desires and aspirations, apart from Divine Will, instill within fallen men unbelief in the need of God as Lord and Savior but adaptable to devilish and demonic activity- so he errs! And especially was I encouraged by the wisdom of St. Augustine, in his writing entitled “Sermons”, (no. 164, sec.14): “It is human to err; it is devilish to remain in error,” even understanding, “Yes, there is an ‘acceptance, by many, of demonic activity’ rather than its defeat”!
But what about “the defeat of demonic activity” in their attacks, in their deceit, in their intimidation and accusation of you as simply a ‘pretender’ in following the Jesus you claim to be surrendered to as you find it convenient to follow or not, to obey or disobey, to proclaim allegiance as you’re defiled by devilish domination, yet at the same time have been the most faithful follower of Christ up to now, not a claim but a testimony – but then the sad moment came and you didn’t resist? Maybe, like Jesus, in Matthew 16:23, even indicting Peter at that moment as a slave of Satan: But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men,” and, yes, even the ‘most faithful’ do face dangerous moments, but usually it’s fleshly, demonized men who can be, and often are, the tools Satan uses to bring the ‘walks’ of the most faithful to a stand-still or to use them to frustrate your faith-walk, inciting you and tempting you! Yes, at times in the spiritual world, there are or can be dangerous, demonic, disappointing, disillusioning temptations to ‘shame the name of Jesus’ by His own ‘professing servants’ like a Judas!
You may remember Shakespeare in his writing “Hamlet” saying, “The spirit I have seen may be the devil: and the devil has power to assume a pleasing shape,” and immature ‘disciples’ become a major ‘front’ of the devil’s spiritual warfare, yes, even in “pleasing shapes”!
Hollywood’s Academy Award Winners are no match for the devil himself! He can, at times, appear as an angel, but he comes to shoot death into one’s veins! He’ll even bring the best world symphonies to play their melodious, historic melodies, while he opens death’s door for your entrance! Even ‘sweet voices’ are not necessarily men at their best but the devil himself at his worst! And his ‘marching bands’ and symphonic voices are nothing more than Satanic attempts to calm one before his/her eternal enslavement in the devil’s headquarters! The devil doesn’t introduce himself to one as an enemy but a ‘virtuous friend’, and when one succumbs he leads that one downward, not upward toward the throne of God!
I came across a statement by Henry Fielding, in his writing entitled “Tom Jones,” (Bk. XV111, ch.8), that pictures devilish ‘dads’ in our world today: “What the devil and Doctor Faustus, shan’t I do what I will with my own daughter?” That’s godless, devilish, demonic activity that achieves Hell’s highest awards!
Be careful about the glib talk of family, friends, professors, worldly men and women, even some “pastors or preachers”, whose conversation often readily reveals they easily have been “ensnared” by the devil himself when “snared” by the devil can become, yes, eternal slavery, bondage, and captivity, taking one, a family, friends , often even businesses and ‘churches’ down the dark trail in “chains”!
This is why the inspired Word of God through Paul in Ephesians 6:10-16 tells us: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the WHOLE ARMOR OF GOD, that you may be able to STAND AGAINST THE WILES OF THE DEVIL. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having to done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”
You do know, you understand, you equip yourself and your family, to faithfully “quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one” who is Satan who has you and yours targeted for spiritual destruction! What does John 3:16 tell us? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” AMEN? Sadly, the “perishing” ARE the result of demonic and devilish domination, entrapment, slaves to the will of the devil’s darkness!
It was Robert South who once said: “He who would fight the devil with his own weapons, must not wonder if he finds him an overmatch.” Never assume on your own that YOU can win any battle with Satan you find yourself in – not so! The devil is stronger than you, smarter than you, and able to destroy the best a godless world has to offer – only Christ Jesus speaks with Heaven’s Authority! “Get behind Me Satan!” And YOU better be ONE IN CHRIST, WITH CHRIST, THROUGH CHRIST as you wage war against him and his armies of demon-powers!
There’s an old, old chorus that my church in my early years used to sing. It says: “Moment by moment I’m kept in His love; Moment by moment I’ve life from above; Looking to Jesus till glory does shine; Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.”
To WHOM do you belong? “The world, the flesh, the devil”? Or do YOU belong to Jesus, bought by His precious blood on Calvary’s Cross? And King Jesus IS conqueror over the world, your old sin nature, and the devil himself! Amen?