O Lord Jesus, we're so thankful that we're
Thine, that we can rest in Thee, and
find in Thee our all and in all,
for it is written, All things are Yours,
for Ye are Christ's.
We only desire that Thy name shall be
greatly magnified here this evening, and hearts built
up in their most holy faith.
So we're looking to Thee, Lord, for the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, for the praise
of Thy name.
Amen.
Here in the Gospel according to St. Matthew,
the closing chapter, where we find the great
commission of the Church, or if you prefer,
the marching orders of the Church, given by
the Savior just prior to His ascension.
All power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world.
Amen.
Or as in some versions, there may be
Bibles here this evening, no doubt a great
variety of versions, it reads, All authority is
given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Now, to what was the Savior referring?
Just what did He mean?
Was not all authority His from the very
beginning?
Was He not with the Father from eternity?
Were not all things made by Him?
Are we not told in the epistle to
the Colossians that not only things visible, but
things invisible, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers?
And does not Paul go on to say
that all things subsist by Him?
And do we not read in the epistle
to the Hebrews that He upholds all things,
these one hundred million universes of which astronomers
speak today, that He upholds all things by
the word of His power?
And here we have the Savior saying, All
authority is given unto me.
In what sense?
How are we to take this?
Now, friends, this authority of which the Savior
speaks as He gives the marching orders to
the church, His marching orders, Go ye into
all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature.
I say this authority in a sense was
not His.
This authority had to be wrested from the
hands of the evil one, Satan.
This authority had to be won.
This authority cost Him His bitter suffering and
death.
There on Calvary's cross.
Where?
Through death.
He destroyed Him who had the power of
death.
That is to say, the devil.
Now, that leads us to go back to
the very dawn of history.
We all know what took place.
Our forefathers in the garden and how they
were tempted, how they fell.
Choosing deceived, we read, was Eve.
Choosing rather to believe Satan's lie is over
against God's word of truth.
Falling under the power of the evil one.
In that hour there was an alliance forged,
as it were, between our forefathers and
Satan.
We read here in the first epistle of
John, the closing chapter, the 19th verse, that
all the world, it reads, No, in the
Greek, in the evil one.
The whole world right there.
Is it possible?
In the evil one's lap.
We are told in the book of Revelation
that he deceiveth the nation.
Now, this authority which Satan wrested through deception,
even the master, when tempted in the desert,
recognized.
He did not deny it.
When the devil brought before him there in
the mouth the nations of the world and
said, All this will I give unto thee,
that thou will bow down and worship me.
The Savior did not say, Well, it's not
yours to give.
No, he didn't.
Ah, yes, he overcame, praise God.
He said, It is written, Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt
thou serve.
Yes, he overcame.
But he acknowledged, he recognized, I should rather
say, the authority of the evil one.
His right to rule.
All this will I give unto thee.
The Savior would want to speak of him
as the prince of this world.
The prince of this world cometh.
He hath nothing in me.
And you will recall how that when he
entered upon the Via Dolorosa, as we say
in Spanish, to go to the cross, he
said, Now shall the prince of this world
be cast out.
Now is the judgment of this world.
He shall be cast out.
But that was done on a legal basis.
That was done through ethical means, in keeping
with the righteousness and the holiness of our
God.
He could not, by a mere divine fiat,
overthrow the prince of darkness.
He could not, by a mere word of
authority, shatter the alliance between the children of
men.
It was handed down from Adam.
The children of men and the prince of
this world.
Now, a mere divine fiat was sufficient to
bring this universe into being.
But God could not, for he works always
in a perfectly righteous way, God could not
destroy the works of the devil.
I shall put it that way.
From the throne.
What he could not do from the throne,
he could do from the cross.
In a sense, a throne, the cross.
There he found the means by which he
could righteously destroy the works of the devil.
Now, only another man could do it.
It was a man, it was through the
sin of a man, Adam and Eve, that
this alliance was formed, the federal head of
the race, Adam.
And only another Adam could destroy this alliance,
the last Adam.
It was a man, federal head of the
race, who delivered to Satan, bowing down before
him and accepting his lie, his offspring.
All that followed, it was a man.
Only a man could shatter that alliance.
Only a man, federal head of the race,
it was the last Adam, could overthrow the
authority of the prince of darkness, obeying where
the first Adam disobeyed, believing where the first
Adam gave place to unbelief.
Now, all this was in the Savior's thought
when he said, authority, all authority has been
given unto me now.
Things have changed.
There's been a shift.
I have wrested from the hands of the
prince of this world authority.
And what could not have been done from
the throne was wondrously wrought from the cross.
Why from the cross?
Well, from the cross because it was there
that the Lord Jesus took away that which
gave Satan authority over the children of men,
their sin, their guilt, a broken
law.
We read in Colossians that the Redeemer took
away that which was contrary to us and
nailed it to his cross.
Why contrary to us?
Well, we have it in a verse over
here in the book of Revelation, the twelfth
chapter.
One of the strangest words in all Holy
Writ, friends.
There are those who just can't accept it.
I accept it.
We read in the tenth verse, I heard
a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is
come salvation and strength.
Now!
Ah, in the light of Calvary's consummation.
Now is come salvation and strength in the
kingdom of our God and the power of
his Christ.
For the accuser of our brethren is cast
down, which accused them before our God day
and night.
Can that be possible?
That that'll day and night before God?
Accusing the children of men.
Well, here it is, brethren, friends.
How?
Pointing to a broken law.
What about it?
Your law, your government.
Broken!
Your law which reads the soul that sinneth
it shall die.
What are you going to do about it?
If I may paraphrase.
Now, God couldn't override that in the exercise
of his divine authority.
He couldn't override that.
He couldn't silence Satan.
See, how dare you say that?
Here it is.
Let me illustrate.
The principles involved, friends, are really very simple.
We all recognize them in our relationships.
Let's presume.
Here on the campus of the Rio Grande
Bible Institute, I commit a great fault.
One of the students will say, Charles, I
don't know whether there's a Charles over there.
Charles goes to the president of the Rio
Grande Bible Institute, my dear brother Ehlert, with
an accusation.
Charles saw.
Charles know.
Charles knows.
He goes to the president with an accusation.
Can the president of the Rio Grande Bible
Institute silence him by the mere exercise of
his authority?
No.
Who are you to accuse the preacher?
To me.
He can't do that.
If he does, things are going to get
worse.
Charles may have to leave the institution.
Charles may go out on the street and
tell everybody he meets.
No, this matter can only be arranged on
the grounds of moral, ethical procedures.
Let's presume.
I don't like the illustration, but I want
this thing to be pinpointed, focused, so that
you can just see it.
Let's presume that it's a matter of money,
only that you might be able to see
it.
I owe Charles $500, and I'm not willing
to pay it, not even to recognize the
fact.
Charles goes to the president of the Bible
Institute.
Now, he can't silence him by a mere
exercise of his authority, but he can silence
him by working justice.
How much did you say Mr. Hegel owes
you $500?
Here's your $500.
Thank you.
Well, now Charles is silenced.
There's nothing more Charles can say.
The debt has been paid.
I repeat, I don't like the illustration too
well, but there it is.
Charles was silenced on moral grounds, and
the devil was silenced, the accuser of the
brethren, who according to this word, day and
night.
You'll recall the book of Job.
These are strange things.
I don't understand them, but here they are,
and I believe them.
Job accusing, Satan accusing Job.
No.
He's not the righteous man, you say.
You bought him.
Why, he's the richest man on earth.
Look how you blessed him.
You take away these blessings, Lord, this man
will curse you.
But you know the story, how the Lord
accepted the challenge.
And it was made manifest that Job's love
was pure.
The Lord had given, the Lord had taken
away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
It's all right.
Satan was silenced.
And here we read that the accuser of
the brethren, oh, this broken law, God's law,
which gave him ground, and God couldn't override
it with all his power and glory, to
accuse man before God day and night.
But the Lord found a way to silence
him, and it's a way that will be
throughout all eternity.
Reason for hallelujahs on the part of the
redeemed.
It was done so wonderfully.
In perfect keeping with the demands of justice,
there will never be found in all the
ages to come the slightest trace of a
flaw in God's government.
That law which demands the death of the
sinner, fulfilled in a man, the last Adam,
the Son of Man, the Son of God,
he tasted death for every man.
Now it's on that ground that God silences
the devil.
Now is come salvation and strength in the
kingdom of our God.
Ah, yes.
Now the crucified risen Lord, whose precious blood
cleanseth from all, now is come salvation and
strength in the kingdom of our God, and
the power of his Christ for the accuser
of our brethren is cast down.
The Savior said it, you know, when he
turned his face towards the cross, now shall
the prince of this world be cast out.
And so it was.
And in view of this fact, oh, this
wondrous, nothing greater.
The Savior is in a position to say
all authority has been given unto me.
It's a man saying that, brethren.
The last Adam, federal head of the race,
it's a man that says this.
Ah, I believe in his deity, the God
-man.
All authority has been given unto me.
Go ye therefore, friends, how we need to
write deep into our entire evangelistic undertaking, this
fact, else it will be superficial.
All authority has been given unto me.
Go ye therefore in the light of this
fact to enforce the throne rights of your
King, liberating souls from the thralldom of the
prince of darkness.
He still stalks over the earth.
The hour of his doom has not yet
come.
We read that he shall be cast into
the lake of fire, but he still stalks
the earth with his hosts of evil spirits.
But he's a defeated foe.
I'm going to say it again here tonight.
The weakest Christian, why, that babe that was
born last night out here in a mission
station, only a day old, he has more
power.
I should use the word authority.
It's not a question of power.
He has more authority than the prince of
this world.
Why, he's linked up with the risen Christ,
and he shares his authority.
He has the right to take upon his
lips that name which is above every name,
the name of Jesus.
The devils tremble and flee before that name.
We are living in an age of unprecedented
satanic oppression.
I need not tell you that.
That's well known among Christians everywhere.
Ah, yes, friends.
It would appear that the enemy, knowing that
his time is short, has come with great
wrath.
And we are commanded, as it is in
the sixth chapter of the epistle to the
Ephesians, to buckle on the armor of light
and to stand, to withstand the wiles of
the devil.
We have the right to say no.
I'm in charge here.
Now, I'm just going to have to tell
that story again, you dear brethren.
I see it on your faces.
My good brethren, the members of the faculty
here have heard this story every year that
I've come.
Brethren, listen, I'm getting down pretty deep into
that burial.
You're talking about me coming back.
Yeah, you know the story.
But I'm not ashamed to repeat it.
It's worth a million.
Please turn the tape over at this time.
Why, it was written right up here in
Texas.
I've forgotten the name of the village.
By General Wainwright, before he died, he felt
he must write and tell the story of
his sufferings.
Five years there in that Manchurian concentration camp,
the abuse of the prison keepers, sickness, loneliness.
Never a word reached his ears regards events
in the outside world.
Hunger.
Five years.
And then one day, General Wainwright was just,
oh, General Wainwright was a dying man.
There came from the sky a little plane
and settled down there in the concentration camp,
outstepped a colonel of the Allied Forces.
Where's General Wainwright?
I've been sent to speak to General Wainwright.
You'll find him over in that corner of
the camp, Colonel.
General, I have been sent by the Allied
Forces to tell you that the Japanese have
been defeated.
In three weeks, we signed the peace.
The General couldn't take it in at first.
It was too much.
The Colonel flew away in his little plane,
but the General was able to take it
in.
And the General was able to get up
onto his feet.
Why, that would raise any man, dare I
say it, from the dead.
Well, near dead.
In majestic fashion, he got to his feet.
Three hours later, he says the prison keepers
came, not knowing what had happened, to deal
with him as they had always dealt with
him.
Why, he was served under their feet.
Their greatest pleasure of using the General.
But they observed a great change.
The General on his feet, in a majestic
fashion.
I'm in charge here, sir.
Ah, yes.
Oh, this man knows.
This man knows.
The game was up.
Yes, General.
These are my orders.
Yes, General.
And from that hour on, the General says
he was king in the prison.
You know, there are just millions of Christians
that haven't taken it in yet.
See what I mean?
That the devil's a defeated foe.
That the game for the devil's up.
They don't know it.
Why, I was preaching to a group of
pastors down in the south of Mexico two
or three years ago.
Tobasco.
And after it was all over, I usually
touch on this.
One of the pastors wrote to me.
He said, oh, how I thank you.
Why, I never knew that it was true
that the devil's a defeated foe.
Why, brother, that's the gospel.
For this purpose, John says, the Son of
God was manifested to destroy the works of
the devil.
Everything else was secondary.
And so, friends, you see in the greatest
conflict of the ages, between two thrones, in
the greatest conflict of the ages, who won?
Ah, that lonely man.
Yes, that lonely man hanging on a cross
to God.
Man won on the
ground of the fulfillment of perfect righteousness.
Get that, please.
The devil can't point to a broken law.
It was nailed to the cross.
And furthermore, what is it that gives ground
to the devil?
Our pride.
And you know the Savior put an end
to pride on the cross.
He forged a new humanity, the new creation.
And there's no room for pride there.
And so you see, when he took the
old creation to the cross, the old man
was crucified together with Christ.
He just cut from out, out from beneath
the devil's feet, all ground.
All ground taken away.
Put into an end the old creation, over
which Satan does have power, because its governing
principle is pride.
And bringing into being the new creation, over
which Satan has no authority.
Yes, we can say with Wainwright, if we
stand with Jesus, united to him, united in
his death and in his resurrection.
Because if I'm standing on the ground of
pride, I can't rise up and overcome Satan.
Why, he'll laugh at me.
He said, all the ground's mine.
But if I'm standing on the ground of
redemption, one with the crucified.
Ah.
I can do as did General Wainwright.
I can say, I'm in charge here.
And it works, brethren, it works.
Indeed it does.
You can move mountains.
That's what that verse means over there in
Mark 11, 24, 5.
You say to this mountain, that's what it
means.
He's not talking about the kind of mountains
we have around Mexico City.
Mountains, ah, in the scriptures, dominions.
You say to this mountain, be thou removed.
Ah, Satan flees.
Satan flees.
He can't stand up before the victory wrought
on Calvary.
It avails.
And brethren, there's nothing we so need today.
Oh, brethren, nothing so tragic as for missionaries
to go to the foreign field without these
weapons.
I did it.
Ah, I know what it cost.
Brethren, the agony, the shame, the suffering.
Oh, thank God, he wrought and he brought
these weapons to me in time.
But I wouldn't do without them for a
day, for an hour.
The authority of the believer in view of
the victory wrought on Calvary by a man.
The Son of Man.
The Son of God.
Now the victory's yours.
And we're told that we're more than conquerors.
Through Him we'll love this.
Victory's yours.
And you can apply it day by day
in a thousand different ways as the occasion
arises and you become aware of the working
of the principle of the darkness of this
world.
I wonder if I may just give you
one illustration.
It's five minutes to nine.
I'm thinking cheaply as I give this of
the missionary students here.
Some three years ago, maybe four now, I
was in Costa Rica where that language school
you know is found.
Some two hundred, at that time I think
something like a hundred and ninety, close to
two hundred missionaries preparing for the Latin field.
At the close of the service a young
man came up to speak to me and
he said, I want you to come and
have dinner with us very well.
Lovely family, the little ones, the good wife.
He was an artist.
With a crayon he could, with a few
dashes, there was the face of the Savior.
After dinner he said, you know what's happening
here?
Rocks as big as your fist.
He showed me one afterward.
Rain down on this house and in the
garden and my children play there.
What shall I do?
Well, it struck me at once, this must
be the work of the enemy.
This isn't just some fanatical folk.
Just the work of the enemy to frighten
this man, drive him from the field.
David, I think it's the enemy.
So I went through the scriptures with him
to show him that the enemy is a
defeated foe.
And it was all Greek to him, this
missionary on the way to the field.
He didn't understand, but he was willing.
I said, will you say amen to what
I'm going to do?
Yes, I'll say amen.
He didn't understand, but he would say amen.
And so going through the word and showing
him how the true death, the Redeemer, destroyed
him who had the power of death, that
is to say shattered his authority.
Through his death he destroyed the prince of
darkness.
And so it was just a tiny prayer,
but a prayer of authority against the enemy
to take hands off that home in the
holy name of Jesus and to leave that
home in peace and to flee.
Amen.
He said, I feel better.
Yes, you feel better now.
Your fear is gone.
The wife, amen.
Praise the Lord.
Two nights later I was preaching in the
downtown Methodist church there in San Jose.
In walked the whole family, all smiled.
And I noticed the little one wanted to
get up and sit with me, get my
clothes.
At the close of the service the father
came and spoke to me.
He said, there hadn't been a rock since.
Praise God.
Later on in the week, it was Sunday
night, another church, the Central American Mission.
The whole family all smiled.
The father came forward, there hadn't been a
rock since.
Praise the Lord.
And the good wife said to me, can
I write this home to friends in North
America?
Well, you do as you like.
I don't know whether they'll understand this sort
of thing.
A year later, a year and a half,
when was it?
A year ago when I was in Buenos
Aires.
There he was, taking part with me in
a Victorious Life conference.
David, David.
It works, friends.
It works.
Even if you're in doubt and you don't
know whether the enemy is behind it, you
can say, well, now if the enemy is
behind it, I hold the victory of Calvary
and I bind the strong man and cast
him out.
You'd be amazed at the things that clear
up.
The mountains that move.
All authority has been given unto me in
heaven and upon earth.
Go ye therefore.
I wonder if we've ever gotten the full
import of that therefore.
Now that's the real, that's the biggest reason
for your going.
You know what irritates me, Saul?
I wrote an article about these things years
ago when a missionary leader back here in
America, on some missionary board, wrote to me,
oh no, he said, these things clear up
when civilization comes.
Although you're sitting up there in that swivel
chair of yours and you're telling me a
thing like this.
This is superstition.
It all passed away with civilization.
Listen, it gets worse with civilization.
It gets worse.
And here's my verdict regarding that.
Yes, all these benighted souls in the islands
of the sea, millions.
It's true, they are mistaken as to their
methods by which they seek to appease evil
spirits.
But they are not mistaken regarding the fact
of satanic oppression.
We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but
with principalities and powers, the governors of the
darkness of this world, wicked spirits in high
places.
And there's only one way, there's only one
method, there's only one weapon.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal
but mighty through God for the pulling down
of strongholds.
It's the victory won on Calvary.
Stand on the ground of the blood.
Stand on Romans 6 where we're told that
the old man was crucified.
Just get close to the crucified and stand
by faith with him in his death.
And then give your orders.
You say, I'm in charge here.
Oh, you try to frighten me.
Oh, it'll be just standard, I'm in charge
here and these are my orders.
And he flees and mountains move.
Gracious Father, how we thank thee.
Oh, it cost our Redeemer so much to
come all the way from glory and then
to go all the way to Calvary that
as a man he might shatter this alliance
with the prince of darkness and put an
end utterly to his authority.
How we praise thee that it's a fact,
Father.
We have nothing to fear.
It's been done.
Praise God.
And we only have one request, Father.
Teach us to lay hold of these weapons.
Why, Father, it breaks our hearts to see
what the devil's doing today.
And where are the Christians?
To rise up as soldiers and say, no,
I'm in charge here.
Lord, raise up children of the cross who
will buckle on the armor of light and
stand before the enemy and say, I'm in
charge here.
These are my orders.
We ask it in that worthy name, Father,
that is above every name.
The blessed name of Jesus, our Savior and
Lord.
Amen.