"Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." - Ephesians 6:11-13
"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." - Romans 12:21
"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." - John 16:33
"I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." - Luke 10:19-20
"I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one." - 1 John 2:14
"For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God." - 1 John 3:4-5
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I've recently noticed a new level of confidence in my spiritual life, and in my understanding of warfare. We just read Luke 10 where Jesus says "do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you," but I feel that this needs to be understood. This is not pride, but more of a surprised realization that goes far understated.
The Lord has given me opportunities for battle so that I can grow. He has put me in the face of danger so that I would respond correctly and overcome. It is Him who allows Satan to tempt me, and it is I who responds to that temptation. God wouldn't have that I would sin, but that I would overcome. Sometimes God puts me in impossible situations so that I would realize that I have to trust him.
The same is true about the church today, except we aren't trusting him. Our nation is crumbling around us, and every sign points to a massive return to God, but where is it? The Lord has given the western church every reason to cry out to him and take a stand for truth, but truth is no longer accepted in this generation, and the generation is dying because of it. We are missing our opportunity to overcome.
The point is, the Lord gives us difficult situations for us to grow. Hosea 6:1 says, "Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up." Recently I have had dreams where I have been attacked either by man or by beast. In many of those dreams, I have ran for fear and for my survival, but I died every time I ran. Even if it is a situation that I know is hopeless to escape, I feel that I have to try. But I have learned that there are times when running is not an option, because if I run for fear, I die. So what do I do? I fight. I've learned that there are times when running is not an option, and I must stand and fight with everything in me. It is in these moments of desperation where I find the strength to overcome. In one dream, a beast was charging to attack me, and it was clear that I could not outrun it nor escape it, and something stirred inside of me that became even more fierce than the enemy, and I turned and faced the beast with the same determination that it had against me, and I engaged it and I defeated it. It is when I am desperate that I am determined. It is when there is no other option that I finally have faith in God.
When I have faith in God, and am connected to Him, I have access to something more powerful than anything the enemy can send against me. No demon can stand against what Jesus did for me, and the Holy Spirit loves me and is inside of me and He hates the devil! So when the devil comes prowling, I don't have to hide. I can be stirred in my faith and can resist! I am not afraid to take a stand and behead the devil in his attacks against me.
There is something new stirred in me. I have a faith and the violence like John the Baptist in Matthew 11:11-15:
"Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
It was the spirit of Elijah that John had (Luke 1:17) that seized his heart! It was Elijah who stood before those who would kill him and challenged THEM! He stood before even more than 500 false prophets (most of whom were to Baal) and God answered his cry with fire and he killed every one of those prophets. There was a violence about Elijah that wasn't found in slaughtering false prophets, but a violent jealousy and zeal for God... a desperate determination. For Elijah, there as no other option. The Lord put Elijah in an impossible position where it was either fight or die. If God didn't answer, then Elijah was dead. There was no alternative but for God to answer! And we've come to a point in America where there is no alternative but for us to get desperate for God and for God to answer.
Now here we stand in an hour of history that we cannot escape. The percentage of the American population that is projected to become Bible-based believers has dropped to 4%... but Elijah had less than .1%. What are we going to do? Now we stand at the crossroads of Esther where we cannot run but must face our battle and if we die, we die (Esther 4:16), but we will stand having done everything to stand (Eph 6:13). We can no longer sit on the side-lines. We must engage our enemy. We cannot run, but the beast is not too great (1 Cor 10:13). This is our hour, like Esther, for such a time as this. This is our Joel 2 moment. What will we do with it?
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