Spiritual Warfare

Jesus teaches us here in Matthew 24:12 that the lack of true and godly love will be a sign of the last days. Love will have a different meaning in the last days than what the Bible teaches it to be, and what men have generally understood it to mean through the ages. Think about it! Isn't it obvious that in this generation people do not love one another deeply, fervently, and faithfully? This is true in marriages, families, churches, and every other relationship between people. The love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost will keep a true believer from falling into this snare of these last days.

To be faithful with what God has given us is the most important thing. In our dying moment, it is all that will matter to us. All God requires, and all of God's promises of reward are based upon faithfulness - not performance, and not great accomplishments. What God gives a person, as far as knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures, and the truths of the Word of God that make up God's ways, he must never water down or mix with false doctrine for any reason, if he expects to hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." How faithful have you been with what you once knew to be true?

Knowing truth is not the end goal of sanctification – holiness is. "Sanctify them through thy truth, they word is truth." John 17:17 Lack of knowledge is not the problem - lack of wisdom is the problem. Truth revealed by the Holy Spirit of God will cause a person to grow in grace and holiness. Truth in the hands of the devil turns people into arrogant bullies who stay focused on one or a few truths and use them to beat on other people. If the truth turns you into an ogre that hates and destroys other people, you got that truth from the devil, even if it is a truth of God. If God reveals a truth to you it will be manifested by the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, ... Beware! The devil can deceive you more easily with truth than he can with lies.

In all our conversations and encounters with other people we are touching them and they are touching us, even if we do not physically touch them. It is felt in both parties, and many times by those who are not in the conversation, but only looking on and listening. We touch one another with our words, our facial expressions, and our spirit. We always walk away from someone thinking about how they made us feel. We would be more like Jesus if we walked away thinking about how we made them feel. A smile, a kind word, an encouraging word, are ways of touching someone in a way that will leave a good feeling, and a blessing in their mind and heart. How much more good could we do, as Christians, if we understood this truth and put it into practice and made it the habit of our life.

Feelings are not something that we cannot control. We can control our feelings, if we can control our mind. Yet, most people are controlled by their feelings most of the time. Feelings are a result of what we think about, and we are more prone to let our minds be obsessed with our feelings than anything else. Consider Webster's definition of the word "obsession." "OBSESS'ION, n. The act of besieging; the first attack of Satan antecedent to possession." When we are obsessed with something in our mind, we are being besieged by the devil and we are one step from being possessed by him. Better gird up the lions of our minds, and we better let that mind be in us, which was also in Christ Jesus.

The Scripture here speaks of two spiritual influences at work in this world: the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. One is of God and the other is of the devil and reasons with you with the wisdom of this world, which is earthy, sensual, and devilish. One will lead you to God and eternal life – the other will lead you to the world, which ends in sin and death, and eternal punishment and separation from God. This message is about how to tell them apart, according to the Scpritures.

There is a difference between being deceived in our mind and in our heart. Feelings accompany a deceived heart, while confusion and instability are more likely to accompany a deceived mind. The mind can be changed by hearing and believing the truth– the heart, not so easily, because the feelings of the heart override truth and reason. So the most important thing is to keep your heart from being deceived, and that happens through feelings. If God is truly Lord of our heart, He will be Lord of our feelings, and they will be governed by love. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Proverbs 4:23

It seems that one of the hardest things for us to learn is that we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, and the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. We hear it, we believe it, and then we just immediately go back to our same old methods and habits of dealing with evil. Most professing Christians are not even engaged in the battle, but are "as one that beateth the air." Flesh is not the source of evil, as so many have been taught to believe. Satan hates God and all that is good and holy, and the flesh is man's weakness that he exploits to work evil and misery in this world. As long as a person remains ignorant of Satan's devices and strategy he will be in the devil's pocket. Once we know who our enemy is and what to do to defeat him, we can have victory in our life.

God created man in his own image and likeness. The things that all men know about God is that He is love, He is kind, He is merciful, and full of compassion. Jesus, the Son of God, came and showed us in the flesh what God is like. The Scripture says Jesus is not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." God made us to feel deeply about other people, and even other living creatures, because God feels deeply toward them. However, sin destroys that part of God's image and likeness in man. Instead of love and compassion for others, he has contempt and hatred and suspicion. Instead of good he only thinks evil and his heart is darkened. The lack of empathy and compassion for others is how depravity is manifested.

Feelings are how people naturally discern things. The first mention of feelings in the Bible is when Isaac discerned between his sons Jacob and Esau by feeling of Jacob's hands and neck. Isaac trusted in what he felt more than what he heard, and was deceived. The worldly advice to "follow your heart" is the road to hell for almost all of the human race. To overcome our feelings and not allow them to control us, to make our decisions for us, and to direct our lives requires the help of the Spirit of God. Only the person who has truly been born again, and learned to trust in the Lord at all times, is able to deny himself and do the will of God, instead of what he feels.