HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON

Mike Cunningham

August 6, 2006.

Make no mistake about it; as soon as a person experiences the new birth and becomes a Christian he or she also becomes a special target of Satan. It as though the devil has locked onto that new follower of the Lord as a missile is programmed to lock onto a specific target. We should constantly remind ourselves of the reality of what we are up against as the Apostle Paul did with the first Christians.

Ephesians 6:12 (ESV) ^12”…we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

The more credible a Christian’s witness is for the cause of Christ and Truth, the more of a mega threat he or she becomes to the success of the diabolical work of those cosmic forces of darkness. Such a follower of Jesus can be certain that Satan and his evil demonic accomplices will make an all out effort towards destroying or weakening the person’s faith.

For instance, as a Christian matures in his or her faith and starts to exert a positive influence upon  non-Christians and their fellow believers as to the power of the Gospel working within them, these unseen evil spirits step up their opposition to Christ and counter attack by unleashing a brilliant unrelenting all out assault on that person.

The adopted child of the living God is bombarded from every which way with the most potentially devastating spiritual weapons in Satan’s arsenal. Each of them is locked onto the Christian’s weakest and most vulnerable spot. Every spiritual missile has been carefully designed to maximize its ability to destroy the Christian’s witness amongst those poor lost souls still held in slavery to the devil.

If the Christian doesn’t personally ward them off and destroy them, those satanic projectiles will exert a tremendous negative impact on the persons mind. In other words, the Christian’s thinking will be knocked out of wack.

My heart goes out to those sincere Christians who are extremely concerned as to whether or not the life they are leading is pleasing to God. They take their faith very seriously. These folks don’t want to let God down. They are fearful of failing and somehow disgracing the Lord.

They have been endowed by their Creator with a sensitive introverted fearful temperament. By nature these folks have a mind which seems as though it is always in gear. They are constantly thinking and analyzing and wondering about everything. They are very cautious and hesitant to take chances.

I can imagine the satanic strategy that has been designed to weaken their faith, ruin their witness and make them feel miserable about themselves. Those demonic missiles will zero in on the Christians already worrisome mind. The person will hear things such as:

Look at your self. You rarely smile? Where’s all that joy Christians are supposed to have? You should be happy. Instead you’re sad because of the test results. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Cheer up. Stop worrying. Look at what the Bible says about worrying. It’s a sin. Hear read it for yourself. Rejoice in the Lord always. Don’t be anxious about anything. You call yourself a Christian. I’m not so sure. I wouldn’t take my salvation for granted if I were you.

My heart can’t help going out to such a Christian who is being so viciously trampled over by Satan in this manner. Their thoughts will become scrambled and start racing all over the place. Fears, both real and imaginary will soon take center stage in their life. Satan has succeeded in getting the person to be on the defensive. Now they will spend most of their time and energy hanging in there as they try to survive the hits they have taken instead of pressing forward and spreading the Good News.

Their minds will have difficulty focusing on the Goodness of God during those trying times. They are apt to forget that it is His world and that He is governing it with awesome power and infinite wisdom. A wounded Christian is apt to lose sight of the fact that God’s love for him or her is perfect and that it is infinitely greater than the Christian can even begin to comprehend.

Nor will that Christian be able to comfort themselves by remembering that God’s eternal plan has been designed so that everything, including the bad things that He has planned for him or her to experience in their life time, has been arranged so that everything ultimately must work out for the Christians good and God’s own glory.

The severely wounded Christian is apt to forget that God’s ways are not his or her ways, and that God’s are higher than their ways as well as being perfect and past finding out. A Christian who has fallen into such a state of mind will become discouraged and spiritually depressed. End result? That Christians witness has become a very poor recommendation for a non-Christian to even consider the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thousands of years ago a very wise man remarked, “…there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9).

You and I can echo that man’s observation and learn from it. In fact, the most effective Christian witnesses have trained themselves how to respond to those kinds of diabolical assaults upon their faith that I have been speaking about; just as many of the first Christians during the time of enormous tribulation had been advised by a fellow servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ what they ought to do. James told them to,

James 1:2-4 (ESV) ² Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, ³ for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ⁴ And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The most effective Christians in these spiritual battles are those who have struggled to grow in their faith and who have added lots of solid biblical knowledge to it. Those folks are able to prove to themselves and the non-Christians the Lord has planned for them to witness to, that their faith is indeed genuine by the manner in which they pass through their trials. In fact, they will demonstrate that it is so real that they can do more that just hang in there. They are actually able to rejoice in the midst of the most trying of circumstances. I assure you this kind of mature faith commands the attention and respect of non-Christians and is a mega threat to the evil workings of Satan.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (ESV) ⁸ We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;

Afflicted in every way? Perplexed and persecuted? In the fifth chapter Paul spells some of them out. They were beaten and thrown into prison. They suffered hunger and spent many a night without getting any sleep. In spite of all this Paul was able to say, “”In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” 2 Corinthians 7:4, ESV).

Sure God tell us to rejoice all the time. That’s something we can do based on how much spiritual knowledge we have acquired, and then believe those truths. But to think that we can feel happy when we are going through this kind of stuff as Satan told that Christian I described earlier is sheer idiocy We can rejoice “in the Lord” but, without the use of mind altering drugs or having a lobotomy, there is no way we can make ourselves “feel” happy when we are enduring intense physical or emotional suffering.

Spiritually immature Christians are often produced by preachers who usually are more concerned with enticing folks to come to their churches and keeping them coming back instead of teaching well balanced biblical doctrine. They deliberately avoid Biblical truths which may upset their hearers. In other words, those satanically deceived preachers are offering people an escape from reality.

Then there are other spiritually depressed out of sync Christian’s who are the products of preachers who obsess over certain portions of Scripture such as those dealing with the Doctrine of Election or the end of the world. My concern for such folks is that one day they may be shocked to discover that their faith was no more than a theological pastime.

We must train ourselves and cultivate the habit of looking t our seasons of intense physical or emotional suffering from an eternal perspective.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (ESV) ^{16 “}So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Throughout the New Covenant Gospel Age, those Christian’s whom God had called upon to experience and endure the greatest suffering, often for a long drawn out period of time, were the ones who had developed the wise habit of casting their eyes Heavenward. This tactic enabled them to clobber their spiritual enemies and joyfully press forward for His sake. You could even say it was under their feet that the Lord was able to crush Satan (    ).

The most valuable spiritual warriors are the long time sufferers who struggle, often moment by moment, to glorify God in the midst of their suffering. These are the ones who, in exercising their God given faith, know that divinely ordained suffering is developing beautiful Christ-like virtues within them and also enhancing their capacity to enjoy unimaginable eternal happiness of living in the presence of the Lord.

There is no way they would be able to enter into and have the capacity to appreciate the eternal joy He has planned for them to experience in His presence without them first passing through the doorway of seemingly never ending physical or emotional pain. For instance, the intensity of happiness capable of being experienced at the moment of reunion with someone you love dearly will be in direct proportion to the length of separation and the intensity of sorrow you endured. It behooves us to remember that no plan of His can ever fail.

As you continue your often painful pilgrimage through this sometimes frightening world you will be hounded every step of the way by those cosmic forces of darkness attempting to waylay and cripple you. Don’t listen to them. Instead, listen to and then trust and obey the One who reminds us that:

Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV) ¹⁸“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Gospel Age that you and I are privileged to live in was foreseen by the Old Testaments prophets.[1] Jesus established His kingdom a little over two thousand years ago.[2] The Christian Church is the New Israel of God,[3] and Jesus is now on His throne and ruling over His kingdom.[4] Where is it located?

Luke 17:20-21 (ESV) ²⁰ Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, ²¹ nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

Romans 14:17 (ESV) ¹⁷ For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

John 18:36-37 (ESV) ³⁶ Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” ³⁷ Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Guess what else. Satan and his fellow demons don’t have the kind of power most Christians imagine.

Matthew 12:28-29 (ESV) ²⁸ But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. ²⁹ Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.

Luke 10:18 (ESV) ¹⁸ And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Colossians 2:15 (ESV) ¹⁵ He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Hebrews 2:14 (ESV) ¹⁴ Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,

Hebrews 10:12-13 (ESV) ¹² But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, ¹³ waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

Do you see the work we are called upon to do? The hymn writer Sabine Baring-Gould did. Listen to these famous words. On-ward Christian soldiers, marching as to war. With the cross of Jesus going on before! Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe; Forward in the battle, see His banner go! With the cross of Jesus going on before!

The Kingdom of God has been advancing for the past two thousand years. Some times it has been rapid and other times it’s been quite slow. In places it has even died only to rise again. But is pressing forward and will continue to do so until the literal bodily return of Jesus Christ the King of all Kings, at which point He will literally resurrect the dead and judge the living.

We must stay engaged in the battle. You and I must do our utmost and march along with the Spirit of Truth. Regardless of the challenges He has planned for us to face or the global terrorism and other evils He has ordained our world must contend with, Scripture testifies to the fact that His truth is marching on!

2 Mark 1:15; 9:1; Luke 11:20; 17: 20-21; John 18: 33-37; Colossians 1:13.

3 Galatians 3: 28-29; 6:16; Ephesians 2:12-22; Philippians 3:3; Romans 2:28-29; 1 Peter 2: 5-9.

4 Acts 2: 29-35; Romans 8:34; Hebrews 1:3; 10: 12-13; Revelation 1: 5-6; 3: 21.