Turning about toward the gate, God's people gathered
to seek revival.
This is cassette number 3 in this series.
David Ravenhill is our speaker, speaking on Living
in Victory and Resisting the Enemy, a message
from 2 Chronicles chapters 31 and 32, given
on Monday evening, June 5, 2000, Glad Tidings
Assembly of God, Abington, Massachusetts.
Here to introduce our speaker is Pastor Paul
Taylor.
...nights to get home from work, get a
bite to eat and get over here.
But we do welcome you here at Glad
Tidings Assembly of God Church and are believing
for God to do some great things.
Let me lay some ground rules, you might
say.
Sometimes when you come into another person's church
or another body's church, you feel intimidated or
you feel like you have to behave yourself.
We're all here to worship the Lord in
spirit and in truth.
And we want you to be free to
worship the Lord and just to seek His
face tonight.
Seek Him to come into your life and
strengthen you.
That's why this conference, or what this conference
is really all about, is the fact that
we want more of God.
And we are believing for revival in New
England.
We're doing everything that we possibly can to
join pastors and churches together across denominational lines
to see that that takes place.
And we believe that that is causing great
attack, a great attack upon the church.
And we can only say we've experienced it
in tremendous force here in this church.
And that's why the title of the theme
of our conference is Turning the Battle to
the Gate.
And we realize that we must turn the
battle to the gate.
The enemy is trying to break down.
The enemy is trying to destroy the city
of God which he has established.
And we're just turning that battle right back
to the gate and believing for God to
give us the victory.
So that's what this is all about.
As we worship tonight, we encourage you to
just open up and let God come down
and visit you in a powerful way.
And not only visit you, as Brother Ravenhill
spoke last night, but our desire is to
be His abode.
That He will be with us wherever we
go.
And as our saying here is we want
to break the mold of the church.
We want to get out of the church
and do the work of God.
This is just practice, so to speak.
But there's the real battle out there.
And so we ask you just to let
it happen.
Let God move.
We're not here to make something happen.
We're here to allow God to do what
He wants to do.
And I really believe as we do that,
God will.
He's more than willing to do all.
In fact, what?
Far beyond what we can even imagine this
evening.
The Scripture is in Isaiah 28, verses 5
and 6.
In that day shall the Lord of hosts
be for a crown of glory and for
a diadem of beauty unto the residue of
His people and for a spirit of judgment
to Him that sitteth in judgment and for
strength to them that turn the battle to
the gate.
Our prayer is tonight that God is going
to give each of us that strength to
turn the battle to the gate.
And as you know, the enemy seems to
be turning the heat up each and every
day.
The world is getting more and more evil.
It's time for the church to get more
and more holy, more and more righteous in
Christ.
Of course, we know He is the one
that equips us and provides for us.
Let's stand to our feet tonight as we
begin an opening prayer.
Hallelujah, Jesus.
Hallelujah, Lord God.
Oh, we glorify Your name.
We glorify Your name, Jesus.
Oh, Lord Jesus.
Hallelujah.
Inhabit the praises of Your people this night,
God.
Oh, we're here, Lord Jesus.
Hallelujah.
Lord, we want Your attention, God.
You more than well know our needs, God.
And we cry out as we prepare our
hearts tonight to meet with You and to
receive from You, Lord God.
Strengthen the hands of Your people, Father.
Lord, teach our hands to war and our
fingers to fight, God.
Oh, Lord, strengthen us in such a marvelous
way.
Lord, that we'll go from this place, not
having said we've gone to church, Lord, but
having said we have been in Your presence
tonight, we have been with You, Lord Jesus,
and that we go from here, Lord Jesus,
with just a little bit more understanding, Father,
a little more strength and knowledge, God, of
what You want for us and what You
want to do through us.
We thank You that You have supplied every
need, Father, every need, Jesus.
This night we believe that, God, that You,
Lord Jesus, are able to meet every need
that is here, Lord God, every person that
has come in here this night.
You know the needs that they have.
You know the burdens that they carry, Lord.
Lord, we pray for Your anointing to break
the yoke, Jesus.
We pray, Lord, for a freedom to worship
You this evening.
That God, as we worship, Lord, that You
will begin to do something new and fresh
and alive in every person's life, Father.
And, Lord, from this place, there's going to
go ripples.
God, ripples, Lord Jesus.
Spiritual ripples out into our communities, God.
Oh, Lord, we pray for souls, souls, souls
to be saved.
Transform, God.
We come, Lord, in Your name, believing it
to happen, Jesus.
And we'll thank You.
And we'll praise You for it this evening,
God.
In Your Son, Jesus Christ's name, amen.
And amen.
And I do pray for you, my children,
that I come to bring you life.
Do not hide anyone.
Come to worship me.
Give me all that you have.
Do not hide in the darkness.
Jesus.
I just had an overwhelming sense of the
holiness of God.
And that we need to walk so softly
in His holiness, in His holy presence.
And I thought about Moses when he went
up to the mountain and he saw the
burning bush.
And the Lord told him to remove his
sandals for the ground that he stood on
was holy ground.
And we desire that same encounter with God,
that same coming into His presence.
But we can't take it lightly.
Oh, Jesus.
It's holy.
Yes.
Holiness that we can't comprehend.
We need to tread softly.
Jesus.
Oh, God.
We can only come through the blood.
Yes.
Your righteousness, Lord.
It's His covering that protects us in His
holiness.
Thank you, Lord.
Have a time of inspection.
Begin to look into our own hearts.
Brother Ravenhill spoke last night on the abiding
presence of Jesus Christ.
The environment that is necessary for Him to
abide with us.
And it's the same in a corporate setting.
The environment that is necessary for Him to
abide here.
Oh, hallelujah.
Let's just take a few moments just to
begin to search our hearts and ask the
Holy Spirit to search our hearts and to
prepare us.
Prepare us for the Word.
To prepare us to become more like Jesus.
That that Word might transform us.
That that Word might reveal things in our
lives that maybe we don't want to see.
We may even know that they're there.
And I'm sure we do, if we're all
honest.
But we have turned from dealing with those
issues.
God is getting the Bridegroom or the Bride
ready for the Bridegroom.
And it's time for the Bride to prepare
herself.
The book of Revelation says, She geteth herself
ready.
She maketh herself ready.
Oh, God.
The world looks at the church today many
times and laughs because the church is undone.
It's not ready.
We are here.
God doesn't work with numbers necessarily.
It doesn't matter how many is here.
He just is looking for those who will
bow their knee and say, Lord, here am
I.
Take the coal off the altar.
Take the coal off the altar, Lord.
Oh, cleanse my lips.
Cleanse my lips.
Lord, I'm an unclean vessel.
Forgive me of my sins.
Oh, Jesus.
Let's just take some time.
We have time.
We're here.
Honestly, no special music tonight or any night.
We're not here to entertain.
We're here to come into His presence.
Because it's only in His presence that we
can be changed, transformed.
It's in His presence that He reveals in
a loving and a merciful and gracious way
our faults or our need for change.
Oh, God does it so wonderfully.
Don't fear coming to Him.
Don't fear hiding in those shadows, in that
darkness.
But come into the light.
He's not there to embarrass us.
He's there to make it right and to
cleanse and to make us after His own
image.
Come to Him tonight.
It's been such a privilege and a joy
to have with me, with us, but being
able myself to spend some personal time with
Brother Ravenhill, pick his brain, talk about the
Lord, talk about things that are taking place
all around the United States and world, just
to be able to be with him.
If you haven't been with us, obviously many
of you haven't because you've had your own
churches to go to yesterday.
The services or the messages are on tape
and you can purchase them from Brother Sanders
in the back later.
Thank you, Brother Sanders.
All of the services are on audio cassette.
Awesome word.
Amen?
Those that have been here, awesome word.
Deep, hits you between the eyes.
He's one of those that can smile and
cut you.
I've said that to several people before.
How do you get away with saying some
of the things that you do?
When I say it, people get upset at
me.
They say, you've got to smile when you
cut them.
Hallelujah.
He's given us some great insight into the
Word of God.
And that's the reason that I brought Brother
Ravenhill.
Last year when we were at Awake America
and I heard him and then given the
book, For God's Sake Grow Up, which is
a great title, which is also a great
message for the church.
All pastors say amen.
All people say amen.
Praise God.
One of the greatest detriments to the church
being fruitful for the Lord is the fact
that many are still babes in Christ.
And there's no doubt there's a special place
for praise and worship.
Dancing and shouting.
I love to dance and shout with the
best of them and worship the Lord.
But it is truly the Word that matures
us.
It's the Word that causes us to look
into the mirror and see ourselves in the
light of Christ and to recognize that there's
a lot of things that need to be
changed.
And Brother Ravenhill has done that very, very
well over the last two evenings.
Last night's message is still lingering with me
as I ponder the thoughts of Christ abiding
with me and the environment that I must
create and its holiness as we were just
singing and crying out to God for Him
to dwell with me.
What a difficult thing that is sometimes today
in our society.
Television, you just turn it on and it's
not on for but a mere minute or
so and you realize you're battling right then
and there.
It just seems like every place that we
turn to, it's the things that come against
our minds and so forth.
It's a constant battle.
And yet we have to work with the
Lord and the Holy Spirit to continually fight
for that atmosphere and that environment, for the
Holy Spirit to abide with us.
And I'm convinced that it can happen because
God's Word tells us it can happen.
And I'm so thankful for the Holy Spirit
dwelling within us and I'm determined, and I
know you are in your lives, to take
the Holy Spirit out of the church and
into the workplace.
That's the New Testament church.
All the acts of the Apostle, very few
of them happened in the church.
They all happened out there.
And that's what we're endeavoring to do, is
to be so full of God when we
come in here that when we go out
there, it can't help but splash over on
somebody else and that we will walk boldly
with the Lord.
Brother Ravenhill, thank you so much for coming.
Come and share the Word with us this
evening.
Praise God.
Let's just pray again, shall we?
Father, we just thank you for this time
of lingering in your presence.
Thank you, Lord, there's no substitute.
The Lord, that anointing oil can't be duplicated.
And Father, we just again cherish these times
when we can lay aside the concerns of
the world and just draw aside the concerns
of the world and lay aside and meet
with you.
Lord, be refreshed.
You said, Lord, be holding.
We're changed.
Lord, we desire again that transformation.
Lord, we might more and more, Lord, reflect
your very beauty, your very life, Lord, would
be manifest through us.
So, Lord, come and take this Word again,
Lord, and quicken it to us, we pray.
Have your way in Jesus' name, amen.
If you have your Bible with you, turn
with me to 2 Chronicles, chapter 31, and
then into chapter 32.
And I want to speak to you about
how to live in victory, how to resist
the enemy.
I find there are so many defeated Christians,
and we have got to learn to triumph.
The Bible says He always causes us to
triumph, not seldom, as is the case of
some, but He always causes us to triumph.
And this is the story of a wonderful
man by the name of Hezekiah.
Hezekiah ascended the throne after his father.
His father was a wicked man, an idolater,
a man that caused his sons to pass
through the fire, erected all sorts of high
places, burned incense to the bales, and so
on and so forth.
His final act was to turn the nation
of Israel away from God and go into
the house of God and close up the
temple, seal it off from the people.
And then Hezekiah comes along and he tears
down all the high places and he cleanses
the house of God and he brings about
tremendous reformation in the nation of Israel.
And his life is summarized in verse 20
and verse 21 of chapter 31.
And it says, Thus Hezekiah did throughout all
Judah.
He did what was good and right and
true before the Lord his God.
It doesn't matter whether you do it before
your denomination or before the elders or before
your husband or wife.
What really counts is whether you do it
before the Lord.
Hezekiah was not trying to influence man.
He was wanting to bring pleasure to the
heart of God.
And so it says, He did that which
was good and right and true before the
Lord his God.
And every work that he began in the
service of the house of God, in law
and in commandment, seeking his God, he did
with all of his heart and he prospered.
That's a pretty good summary of an individual's
life.
I've often said and I've told my wife
if I die before she does and there's
enough money left for a tombstone, that I
would like these two verses on the tombstone
just modified a little bit.
I'd like it to read this way, And
David did throughout all America what was good
and right and true before the Lord his
God.
Every work that he began in the service
of the house of God, in law and
in commandment, he sought God with all of
his heart and he prospered.
Pretty good summary.
I don't think anybody would want to add
anything or subtract anything.
Everything he did, he did because of the
blessing of God upon his life.
Why was the blessing of God upon his
life?
Because he prospered.
Now as a teacher, one of my pet
peeves are chapter divisions.
And if you have a modern translation, I'm
reading from the New American.
Somebody said there were ten versions, five wise
and five foolish.
But you'll notice verse 20 begins with a
bold print.
Meaning that that's a new paragraph.
And chapter divisions are not inspired.
They were never there originally.
So let me read it the way it
was written.
Just from verse 21 on.
And every work that he began in the
service of the house of God, in law
and in commandments, seeking his God he did
with all of his heart and he prospered.
And after these acts of faithfulness, Sennacherib, who
is the enemy, the king of Assyria came,
invaded Judah, besieged the fortified cities and thought
to break into them for himself.
And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib would come,
and that he intended to make war on
Jerusalem.
Notice after these acts of faithfulness, not after
these acts of rebellion, not after these acts
of sinfulness, not after these acts of perversion,
but after these acts of faithfulness the enemy
comes.
A good sign that you're prospering spiritually will
be that you're under the attack of the
enemy.
Now I know you didn't come and sign
up and pay money to hear that tonight,
but it's true.
A good sign, let me say that again,
a good sign that you're prospering spiritually is
that the enemy is attacking.
I had the privilege of being four years
in Kansas City.
And Mike Bickle had a saying, I don't
know if it was from him originally, but
he used to say, New levels, new devils.
That as we progress spiritually, the enemy unleashes
an attack against us.
And so I measure my spiritual growth by
the amount of spiritual adversity.
And the amount of strategies again that the
enemy sort of brings against me.
And so here is a man that is
prospering, here is a man that is seeking
God, here is a man that is doing
tremendous things for God.
And of course the enemy doesn't like that.
My father went to a Methodist Bible school
for one year, sat on a very godly
old man by the name of Samuel Chadwick.
Samuel Chadwick wrote books on revival, he was
a tremendous man of God, things on the
baptism of the Spirit and so on.
And it was an all-boys school, training
men for the ministry.
And on the weekends they would be assigned
various teaching posts around the Yorkshire area of
England.
And they were given their preaching assignments, what
church they were to be preaching at that
particular weekend, the sort of student teachers.
They were given the times and the addresses,
and how to get there and so on.
Samuel Chadwick used to bring them into the
chapel and give them a little word of
exhortation, send them out for the weekend, and
then he would pray for them.
And my father said many times at the
end of his prayer, he would close with
these words, Go and may the devil go
with you.
Because if the devil doesn't go with you,
you're not worth sending.
That's a good Methodist.
You see obviously we are called to tear
down the ranks of the enemy.
We are called to undermine what the enemy
is doing, and likewise the enemy is called
to undermine what we are doing.
We have an adversary right in the very
beginning in Genesis.
I will put enmity between your seat and
the enemy himself.
And so if you don't have an enemy,
you have to ask yourself the question, why
don't I have an enemy?
I think too many Christians are made terms
of peace with the enemy.
In other words, they've gone, sort of made
an appointment with the devil, and say, devil
I've got a little proposition here, and it's
this, if you don't bother me, I won't
bother you.
Do we have an agreement?
The devil says, well I've got an awful
lot to do, I'll shake on that.
You know, you don't bother me, I won't
bother you.
I think that's where most Christians are.
And they never really get involved in any
sort of spiritual warfare, whether it's personal or
whether it's on a national level, because they've
made terms of detente, if you like, with
the enemy.
But here is a man that now has
to resist the enemy.
Notice it says that Sennacherib, the king of
Assyria, verse 1, has already invaded Judah.
He's already besieged the fortified cities.
So he's already destroyed many of the cities
of God, the people of God.
He's broken in, he's dominated their lives, dominated
their cities.
But now he is advancing on Jerusalem where
Hezekiah is.
And it says in verse 1, he thought
to break into them for himself.
The enemy has got one design, and that
is to get you back.
He wants you for himself, God wants you
for himself.
Somebody said, both the devil and God have
the same plan for your life, they both
want to kill you.
It's true, isn't it?
God wants to bring us to the end
of ourselves, we've got to take up our
cross, we've got to die.
The enemy obviously wants to kill us for
another reason.
He comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but
nevertheless, he wants to break into your life
for himself.
He wants you back, he's a poor loser.
You were once part of his kingdom, you
were once part of his family.
You were of your father the devil before
we're saved.
He is a shepherd in one sense.
He is a strong man that guards his
house.
He watches over everything that God does.
He counteracts, if you like, or he copies.
Thank God that we have a shepherd that
looks after the flock as well.
But he's a poor loser, and he wants
you back.
He wants to break back into your life,
and dominate your life for his cause, for
his purpose.
And so Hezekiah recognizes that, and he sees
that the enemy has come, and that he
intends to make war on Jerusalem.
Now before we go any further, let me
have you keep your finger there, and I
want to have you look at a couple
of verses.
The first one is in Exodus chapter 13.
Exodus 13 and verse 17.
And it speaks here about the children of
Israel.
They have just, in typology, been saved.
The blood of the lamb has just been
sprinkled on the doorposts, and they've had this
wonderful deliverance come through, if you like, the
waters of baptism.
The old taskmasters that dominated their lives have
been drowned.
The horse and the rider has been drowned
in the depths of the sea.
And God's purpose is to take them out
of Egypt, through the wilderness, and ultimately into
the promised land.
And so it says in verse 17, It
came about when Pharaoh had let the people
go, that God did not lead them by
the way of the land of the Philistines,
even though it was closer and nearer.
For God said, lest the people change their
minds when they see war, and they return
to Egypt.
Now God here is looking at His family.
Again, they're young, they're inexperienced, they're just new
Christians, again in typology.
And He says, I want to take them
into the promised land, and the quickest way,
and the shortest way, is to go right
through the land of the Philistines.
But then He looked at their spiritual condition,
and He says, if they get into the
land of the Philistines, there's going to be
warfare.
And they are not experienced yet in the
area of warfare, and so therefore they're going
to turn, they're going to run, they're going
to go right back into Egypt.
Now God obviously is a Father, and those
of you who are parents here, and you've
got young children, you know that there is
a season where you protect that child from
problems.
You go down to one of these, you
know, into the heart of Boston there, and
you're crossing a busy intersection, you pick up
that little two year old, and cradle that
two year old in your arm, and you
walk across the street.
Why?
Because that little two year old is not
old enough, or experienced enough to negotiate the
traffic by himself.
You just don't say, you know, Johnny, you
know, there's a green light, run across the
road, you know, I'll be there in a
few minutes.
You know, you watch over that child.
God is the same.
He keeps us from war, many, many times.
Now that is not a sign that we're
spiritual, it's a sign that we're immature.
Now go with me over into the book
of Judges.
Judges chapter 3, and verse 1.
And it says, Now these are the nations
which the Lord left.
If I was Steve King, I would have
you say with me, say this, these are
the nations that the Lord left.
Anyway, to test Israel by them.
That is, all those who had not experienced
any of the wars of Canaan.
In order that the generation of the sons
of Israel might be taught war.
Those who had not experienced it formally.
These nations are, notice number one, the Philistines.
Now here is the same God, the same
Father.
His children now are a little older.
But he says, listen, things have changed.
I'm not going to bypass the Philistines any
longer.
In fact, I have purposely left the Philistines
in your path.
Because some of you have never learned how
to fight.
You've never been taught war.
And therefore I want you to learn how
to fight.
And so I'm going to give you something
to fight against.
In other words, I'm going to give you
something to overcome.
You see, there comes a time when we
begin to mature.
And part of that maturation process is that
we have to learn how to resist the
enemy.
We have to learn how to overcome the
enemy in our own lives.
My wife and I have three children, three
girls.
Our oldest is 34 almost now, in a
couple of days, at least about another week.
And then we have a 31-year-old
with three grandchildren, one on the way.
And a 24-year-old, one in China,
one in London, one in Colorado Springs.
They all fled the coop.
But when they were younger, I remember Lisa,
who is now in China, been there for
many, many years, and I remember her coming
home from school with her first math assignment.
And here were these major problems.
2 plus 2 equals 1 plus 1 equals
3 plus 1 equals 4 minus 1 equals,
and so on.
And Lisa came to me and said, Daddy,
I want you to help me with my
homework.
Now I could have taken that sheet of
problems and literally in a matter of 30
seconds solved them all and handed the sheet
back and said, Lisa, go out and play.
But you see, she was entering now a
new stage of life.
She was now 5 1⁄2, 6 years of
age, and she was in school.
She was no longer playing with dolls and
just running around the house and no responsibilities
and just enjoying life.
She now was in school.
It was a new phase of her life,
and she had to learn to exercise this
muscle between the ears called the brain.
And that had not been exercised a great
deal prior to that, and so we sat
down together and I said, Lisa, what is
1 plus 1?
And the tears began to flow.
Daddy, I don't know.
And after about five minutes, we solved it.
And then we doubled the problem, 2 plus
2.
And again, the tears flowed.
Daddy, I don't know.
I want to go out and play.
And another five minutes, and we solved that
problem.
And about an hour later, all the problems
were solved.
Now you see, if I hadn't have done
that, she now has a degree, which I
don't, but I would have been getting letters
in the mail from university.
Dear Dad, here's your next assignment.
Please have it in by Friday.
It's got to be at least 2,000
words on nutrition, you know, double-spaced and
blah, blah, blah.
And by the way, Dad, there's a project
due at the end of the month, and
it's going to count for a third of
my grade this semester, and so I want
to give you plenty of time to, you
know, be able to study and develop this
thing and so on, so I'll give you
all the details in the next letter.
Now I know that's rather humorous, but we
do that, don't we?
That's what we pay pastors to do, solve
our problems.
I literally, as a pastor, and I pastored
for many, many years, I literally have had
people come into my office, wanting, of course,
to walk out 15, 20 minutes later after
my incredible wisdom, and have their problems solved.
Have me lay hands on them and part
something or de-part something, whatever the case
may be, and walk out 15 minutes or
20 minutes later, you know, with all their
problems solved and not having to worry about
a thing.
Here, Daddy, do my assignment for me.
And I've sat there and I've said, Listen,
I know you.
You've been in the church now for 5
years, 10 years, whatever it is, and I
believe God has left you a Philistine, because
you're now in a new phase of life.
Oh, a few years ago you were just
saved, you were just learning the ropes, so
to speak, but now it's time that you
learn how to overcome.
You see, God is looking for overcomers.
To him that overcomes, to him that overcomes,
to him that overcomes.
You can't overcome something unless you've got something
to overcome.
If you remove the thing, then you don't
have to overcome it.
You know, you remove the mountain range, you
don't have to go over the mountain anymore,
you just go on the level.
It's interesting, isn't it, in the book of
Revelation, that there is only one access, actually
12, but one means of access into the
holy city, which is the bride, and that
is through one of the 12 gates.
And if you recall, those 12 gates are
made of only one substance, and that substance
is pearl.
The gates are not diamonds, the gates are
not sapphires, the gates are not rubies, they're
not made of gold, they're not made of
silver, they're made of pearl.
And what is a pearl?
A pearl is a problem that's overcome.
You see, there is no such thing as
a genuine pearl, unless at the heart of
that genuine pearl there is a problem.
That little piece of grit gets into the
oyster, and the oyster has a choice, I
guess, never having been an oyster, but, you
know, it can allow that thing to irritate
it the rest of its life and bug
it, or it can say, listen, I'm going
to overcome.
And so it secretes a certain substance and
it overcomes, and the more it overcomes, the
more value that thing has, isn't it?
And I think God knew what he was
talking about, he always does.
And I think when he talks about pearls
being the means of access, he's talking about
the fact that this bride that I'm looking
for is an overcoming company of people.
That they've had some grit in their oyster.
And they've learned how to apply the grace
of God to that situation.
You know, Paul had some grit in his
oyster, and he said, God, take it out,
would you?
Do a little bit of surgery on me,
Lord.
And the Lord said, no, my grace is
sufficient, Paul.
I don't want to hear any more about
it.
So now we're learning in this portion of
scripture, if we go back to it, how
to overcome.
The first thing we've got to recognize is
verse 2, that we have an enemy.
And that an enemy intends on making war.
In other words, we are in a spiritual
warfare.
The Bible says, your adversary, the devil, goes
around as a roaring lion, seeking whom he
may devour.
It's not the person on the left of
you or the person on the right of
you, it's your adversary.
And he's out to undermine your faith.
He's out to bring discouragement and doubt and
unbelief and all the other things into your
life.
To try and frustrate the work of God
in your life.
And so we've got to recognize that we
have an enemy.
Now there are two extremes that we can
go to when we talk about the enemy.
One is we can join the sort of
the higher critics.
Those are men in the theological realm that
have got more brains than faith.
And they would tell you that there is
no such thing as a devil.
That 2,000 years ago there were no
names for sort of depression and mental illness
and so on and so forth.
And so they sort of blamed it all
on this mythical figure called the devil.
Obviously that's not true.
But that's one extreme, to sort of deny
his existence altogether.
The other extreme is just as bad, and
that is to give him too much credit.
My father used to tell the story of
the devil sitting by the side of the
road weeping.
Sort of overcome with grief and a well
-meaning Christian going up and his arm around
the devil and say, devil, what's wrong?
And the devil between his sobbing said, it's
you Christians, you blame me for all the
things I'd love to do but I don't
have time to do them.
Now that's the other extreme, that every time
you sneeze it's the devil.
You know, we blame the devil for everything.
You spend the night out in the cold
without a sweater or something and then you
wake up in the morning and you blame
the devil for the bad cold.
And it was your own stupidity.
But anyway, he gets blamed for a lot
of things.
But in between those two extremes, there is
a devil.
Your adversary.
It goes around seeking to destroy, to devour,
to undermine.
Now Hezekiah, in verse 3, decided with his
officers and his warriors to do something about
it.
And you and I need to be decisive.
I think there's too much passivity when it
comes to the enemy.
In other words, we know theologically that he
exists.
We sort of can quote scriptures.
Yes, he's, you know, our adversary, the devil.
But most of the time we really don't
believe that he is actively involved day after
day, along with all his demonic hosts, you
know, trying to destroy the activity that God
is doing in our life.
And then we certainly don't get to the
point of making a decision that I'm not
going to allow this anymore.
We're very passive most of the time.
We just allow the enemy sort of access.
We allow him to sort of run over
us, so to speak, beat us up, and
so on.
Hezekiah was not that sort of an individual.
He makes a decision.
And he says, along with his officers and
his warriors, we are going to cut off
the supply of water from the springs, which
were outside the city.
And so they helped him.
Verse 4, And so many people assembled, and
they stopped up all the springs and the
stream, which flowed through the region, saying, Why
should the king of Assyria come and find
an abundance of water?
You see, one of the things that Hezekiah
did, he had a word now that the
enemy was advancing.
He's already besieged certain of the fortified cities
of Judah.
He's already broken in.
He's already dominated certain areas of the nation
of Israel.
And he is advancing towards Jerusalem.
And so Hezekiah looks around, and he comes
to this conclusion.
Listen, he said, We've got all sorts of
springs around the city.
Not only do we have springs around the
city, but there is a river that flows
through the region.
And if the king and all of his
army come, and they find this abundant supply
of water, we will never get rid of
them.
See, water, obviously, as it was in those
days, as it is today, is essential for
life.
Now, we, of course, get so used to
turning on the faucet, and there's always a
supply of water.
We never really think where it comes from.
But if you go to other nations like
India and so on, their entire towns or
cities are built around a water supply.
They're very, very conscious of the fact that
if this well runs dry, this city literally
will die or will have to move on
to where there is a supply of water.
And one of the strategies of war in
the Old Testament was to fill in the
wells.
Remember that Isaac had to dig again the
wells that his father Abraham had dug.
Why?
Because the Philistines had filled them in.
It was a strategy of war.
So if we can cut off the water
supply, then that person cannot exist.
He's no means of living.
He's got to have water to survive.
He's got to have water to provide for
his crops and to feed and water his
plants and so on and so forth, the
vegetation.
And so if we can destroy the water,
we can literally drive him out of that
area, and then we can take over.
We can re-dig that well and establish
our own setup.
And so Hezekiah says, Listen, we've got to
cut off that which will sustain the life
of the enemy.
Now the way in which you and I
overcome the enemy is by doing the very
same thing.
We have to ask ourselves, What is it
that flows out of my city, so to
speak?
What is it that flows out of my
life that sustains the life of the enemy?
It may be lust.
It may be pride.
It may be anger.
It may be resentment.
It may be, you know, pornography.
It may be some other thing.
But whatever it is that we are feeding
the enemy with has to be cut off.
That's what, of course, we call in the
New Testament, repentance.
Dealing with sin.
The Bible says, Don't give place to the
devil.
Another way you can read that, if you
like, is don't feed the devil.
I think it was Bob Mumford many years
ago that used to say there are two
ways of getting rid of the devil.
One is to cast him out.
The other is to starve him to death.
And I rather like that theology that we
need to starve him to death sometimes.
Jesse Penn Lewis, who gave us one of
the greatest books, I think, on spiritual warfare
during the height of the Welsh Revival, said
it's very easy to cast a demon out.
It's very difficult to deal with the grounds
that allowed that evil spirit to come in.
In other words, there was something that gave
place to that thing.
There was lust.
There was pride.
There was anger.
You can get rid of the demon, but
you've got to get rid of that which
provided a landing strip in the first place
for him to sort of come in.
And so we have to be ruthless.
Now, this is not an easy thing.
I'm a teacher.
I'm not the evangelist.
I get into trouble when I say that.
But, you know, most of us bought into
a lie.
And that was when the evangelist came to
town and said, Listen, if you come to
the altar tonight, all your problems will be
solved, and so on and so forth.
You'll have joy, peace, and happiness.
And we all flocked forward thinking, this is
an incredible deal.
Well, I'm here to tell you, you know,
all that was a lie, but at least
it got you to the altar.
You know?
That when you come forward, all your problems
begin.
You know, you have the great sculptor himself
that takes the chisel and begins to work
away at you.
Or, you know, he's the potter, and he
slams you down on the wheel there and
spins you until you don't know which way
is up.
And he begins to apply pressures and so
on.
And the evangelist never tells us all of
that because we'd never come forward in the
first place if he did.
But I'm a teacher, so I've got to
come along and give you the sort of
fine print.
And it isn't easy to fill in a
spring.
There's a force behind it.
There's life, if you like.
It's not easy to divert a river.
Again, if it was a little puddle, you
could just fill it in readily.
But such was the determination of the king
and the men of Jerusalem.
Now listen, we are going to cut off
that which supplies life to the enemy.
Because once you begin to feed the enemy,
you'll never get rid of it.
Some of you have made the mistake of
opening the door in the middle of a
cold, wintry, blustery morning, and there's a little
ball of fluff called a kitten that somehow
has strayed into your neighborhood and it looks
up woefully at you.
And, you know, you're not especially a cat
lover, but you, you know, remember your days
in the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or
whatever.
And so you go to the refrigerator, pour
a bowl of milk and put it down
and do your good deed for the day.
The problem is you now have to do
your good deed every day.
You're fed it, try and get rid of
it.
And the devil is that way.
Once you feed him and continue to feed
him, you will never ever get rid of
him.
And so therefore there has to be this
ruthless cutting off of that which will sustain
the life of the enemy.
Cut off the internet, you know, throw away
the girly magazines or muscle men magazines or
whatever it is, you know, quit listening to
the music you're listening to.
You know, whatever those things are, there's got
to be that determination.
That Lord, I'm not going to allow the
enemy access into my life anymore.
Now the next thing that Hezekiah does, it
says he took courage, verse 5, and he
rebuilt the wall that had been broken down.
Now the Bible says in the book of
Proverbs, like a city that is broken into
and without walls is a man or a
woman who has no control over their own
spirit.
In other words, the Bible likens your life
and my life to a city.
We're all like cities in the mind of
God.
And the Bible says there are two types
of cities, those that have walls around them,
and in that case, if your wall is
intact, you are in control of your city.
You reign, you rule, so to speak, you
govern your life.
On the other hand, if that wall has
been broken down, you've already been invaded.
And I find that there's a lot of
Christians, if you like, that the enemy has
come into their life.
They're dominated in certain areas of their life.
Oh, I'm not talking about possessed necessarily, but
they've got major problems in their life.
Again, a problem with anger that seems to
just dominate their life, or a problem with
greed, or jealousy, or fear, or whatever it
is.
And the enemy has come in, and he's
established, if you like, a beachhead in your
life, and you're under the dominion of that
thing.
You can't seem to break out of it.
You're in a prison.
Jesus came to open prison doors.
And so we're like cities, with walls or
without walls.
Again, when I passed it, I could almost,
you know, after a number of years of
seeing the congregation, I could almost go down,
you know, each individual and say, with walls,
without walls, with walls, without walls, with walls,
without walls.
You know, I knew those that had problems
and those that seemingly didn't have problems.
There are always surprises, of course.
But he rebuilt the wall that had been
broken down.
Now, again, this is not an easy task.