Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28, verse 19, go therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. You welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Matthew Bloomfield.
The message today is called, stop giving Satan access to your life. Now, as Christians, when we go through trials in life, we should come out the other end, closer to God. That's the way it's supposed to work according to the Bible.
As Christians, that makes sense. However, if you're finding that the difficulties of your life are drawing you further away from God, if you don't see any hope of getting through them, then chances are you may have a spiritual breach in your life, something that is giving Satan access to your life. So that's what I'm going to be talking about in this message today.
In ancient times, the strength of a city was determined by the strength of its walls. The classic example, of course, is the great Wall of China, which at its thickest point is 16 metres through. That's a pretty substantive wall.
Our minds go back to cities like Babylon and the huge wall that surrounded that, some 60, 60ft across. They said they had chariot races on the top of it. When an army approached walls such as these, it was almost impossible for them to gain access, to break through.
So instead, when an army approached a wall like this, they couldn't just use brute force, they'd have to use subtler, subtler, more subtle tactics. They'd have to send out scouts and look for small breaches in the wall cracks and perhaps a gate that wasn't so well guarded or something like that. They'd have to find weak spots in the wall.
And Satan works in much the same way. He's not necessarily going to try and attack a strong wall. Perhaps your belief in the Bible is 100% sure.
Nothing could shake you from believing the word of God. Satan's not going to try and attack that for you. Perhaps he's going to find something else.
He's going to look for a weak spot, a small crack where he can snake through. He doesn't care what the breach is. Perhaps it could be pride or lust or addictions.
If he can find a breach, he can use it to gain a foothold in your life. When we hold on to sin and ungodly behaviours, it's like we break down our spiritual fortification. Solomon puts it like this.
Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without wall that's an apt picture, isn't it? Now more than ever, we need all the protection we can get. We talk about putting on the armour of God, which we need to do, but we also don't want to leave any cracks in that armour. There's a really good passage in ephesians that spells a few things out.
Paul tells us that there are even seemingly small things that can give Satan access to our lives. And if you've got your bibles, I might pay to turn to it because we're going to keep referring back to this passage. I'll have it up on the board as well.
But it reads, this is just part of it. It says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.
If you have a different translation, it might say something slightly different for give place to the devil. Some translations say, do not give the devil an opportunity. Other translations say, do not give the devil a foothold.
What's a foothold? Yeah, it's a first step in. Let's read that passage, actually, sorry, I know you've already got it all there, but probably do us well to read through it before we go. Ephesians four, starting in verse 23 22, says that you put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another. Be ye angry and sin not, let not the sun go down on your wrath. Neither give place to the devil.
Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour working with his hands, the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake, has forgiven you.
I think that's a really good and a really challenging passage for us. Let's have a look at some of these footholds that he mentions, footholds that we might be giving Satan in order to find them. We need to ask God for help because some of these things we may have been holding onto for years, we may have become completely blind to them, or mostly blind anyway.
So let's search for these spiritual breaches. And just as a side note, we're looking a lot at sin and Satan's tactics in this message. And I don't want us to lose focus.
Satan is not omnipresent. We know from the Bible that he is a defeated foe, that he can be resisted, but only if we attach ourselves to Jesus. So even though we're going to be focusing a lot on his footholds, ways he can work his way into our lives, I don't want us to lose focus and think that is hopeless, because it's not.
And we'll cover that a bit more. Here is what David prayed, and this needs to be our prayer as well. As we start to look at these things, he says, search me, o God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my anxieties and see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. So we're asking God to turn that holy light onto our lives and see if there's any wicked way in us, because we want to be in that way everlasting, don't we? We need to know exactly where these holes in our spiritual fortification are. What we're going to go through today isn't a complete list, obviously, but just some common things and a couple of things that we don't normally talk about so much.
The first one is cherished sins. We know that sin is the breaking of God's law. We've looked at that verse many times in our afternoon study.
One, John, three, four. Whoever commits sin transgresses. Also the law, for sin is transgression of the law.
That's a biblical definition. So this is sort of basement floor footholds. Cherished sins are those things that we have become a little bit comfortable with, those that when we commit them, we hold off on repenting because we think that's not a big deal, or I'll sort that out later, or perhaps not.
Again, it's awkward and embarrassing to go to God with this exact same thing yet again. Notice what's written in Isaiah. It says, behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.
Is God able to help us? According to that passage, Lord's hand isn't shortened. He's more than willing to help. He's more than willing to listen.
However, it says, but your iniquities have separated you from your God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity.
Now, is this talking about sins that we've sought pardon for and confess to God? No, he's talking about iniquity. It's deliberate sin. This passage tells us that God wants to help us, he wants to forgive us, he wants to give us the victory.
But he can only do that when we give our sins to him, when we lay them down at the foot of the cross and confess them to him. Otherwise God's hands are somewhat tied. If we have sins that we have not confessed to God, that is a major breach in our spiritual fortification.
You might be thinking, how do I know? How do I know if I have sins that I haven't confessed to God or that I am cherishing? In my experience as a Christian, I know the things that I'm cherishing and that I'm holding on to. But this is a question I get a lot online. How can I confess everything if I don't know it? Well, I skipped a verse there.
In John 16, verse eight, speaking about the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, and when he the Holy Spirit has come, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgement. One of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to point out sins in our lives, to point out what we need to confess. So we need to ask him, Lord, show me, is there something in my life that I need to confess? Ephesians 430.
In that same passage, Paul pleads with us. He says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. When the Holy Spirit points something out in our lives, we need to do something about it.
We're told to not grieve. We're not to ignore what the Holy Spirit is telling us. Let's look at some less obvious but more insidious breaches.
Putting God second. Most people don't bow down and worship graven images. Let me rephrase that.
Most people here, I hope, don't bow down and worship graven images. But really an idol is anything that we're putting above God that we're trying to put in the place of God. Perhaps you spend five or ten minutes in the morning and you're reading the Bible or praying, and then you go and spend the next half hour scrolling through every single news story that pops up online or scrolling through on your social media until everything's exhausted and you've seen everything.
In situations like that, we have to ask, where are our priorities? What are we putting first in our lives? Maybe you'd rather have the tv playing to drown out that voice of the Holy Spirit. Just have it going in the background so that there's a noise, so that you don't have to listen to that. I don't want to use the word nagging, but persistent voice of the Holy spirit.
Where does your heart really lie? Jesus gives us an invitation. He says, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. These things that Jesus is referring to are all the things we need in life.
He's promising that if we put him first, he will take care of everything else. If we put him as our first priority, he will ensure that we're provided for. However, unfortunately, it's all too easy at times to get this the wrong way around.
And you know what? Satan really likes it when we get this one the wrong way around. Because we know that when Satan was still an angel in heaven, a similar desire blossomed in his heart. We read about him.
It says there in Isaiah, for you have said, in your heart, I will ascend into heaven and I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest side of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.
I will be, like, the most high. Satan wanted to take God's place. We know that.
We went through that in our afternoon studies. So if we take, you know, figuratively speaking, take God off the throne in our lives and we put something else, or we put ourselves or our desires or Facebook or the news in its place, then Satan's more than happy if he can't directly get himself on that throne. So long as we're not putting God in first place, he's reasonably content with that, and that gives him a foothold into our lives.
Sinful speech. One sin that we often overlook because it's so very, very common is sinful speech. If we watch tv or we watch videos online, then we're constantly bombarded with it.
And I find this watching a lot online. People send me things and things pop up. And this is something I struggle with, watching videos online.
It's just full of this. And these sins are even prevalent in the lives of many christians today. Notice how seriously this is taken in the Bible.
In James, it says, if anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. If you don't get control of your tongue, he says your religion is useless. That's not my words.
It's what the Bible says. So why would James write something so harsh? Jesus said in Luke six, he says, a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.
When there is sinful speech coming out of our mouths, it shows that there is something wrong in our hearts. When we gossip, it shows that we don't have a true regard for the people for whom Christ has died. It shows that we don't see them in the same way that Jesus sees them.
When we complain, it shows a lack of trust in God's ability to work in our lives. If we're constantly complaining about things when we use coarse language, it shows that we still have our mind back in the world, that we're filling our hearts with things that we shouldn't be filling it with. In fact, going back to ephesians four, one of the things is written there.
It says, no corrupt word proceed out of your. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. But what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.
Number four, ungodly behaviours. Ephesians four lists two really important breaches in our spiritual fortification as far as behaviour goes. The first one is anger.
Has a couple of verses about that one we already read, which says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Is it wrath or wrath? Wrath.
Thank you. That's what I've always said. That's good.
That's good to know. Good to have it confirmed. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.
There is a place for anger, we read in the Bible, but not many of us. In fact, I would say hardly any of us, are in a place that we can make use of it or safely implement it. Jesus could.
We see that in a couple of instances. But he was not angered with personal attacks against himself. He took those, but instead he was angered by hypocrisy and injustice done to sincere people.
Justifiable anger is against the wrong act without holding on to hate against the person who has done it. And I think most of us. Well, I.
Me, speaking for myself, I'm not in a safe enough position to make that distinction, so it's best to avoid it altogether. Perhaps this is why, in this verse he especially warns us to not let the sun go down on our anger, because it's not safe, not safe for us to do that. He goes on to say in verse 31, let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.
Have you done that? Or can Satan still claim these things as footholds in your life? It's like disturbance, upset. Yeah, noise. The second ungodly behaviour listed in this passage is this one, verse 28.
It says, let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labour working with his hands what is good that he may have something to give him who has need. How honest are we in our work? Are we lazy on the job? Do we waste time, money or resources? These are all questions that we can ask ourselves. Number five satanic strongholds.
I didn't come up with that phrase. I saw it somewhere. As Bible believing christians, there are certain things that we should have absolutely nothing to do with.
There are obvious ones, like addictive substances, pornography, spiritualist practises fortune tellers, tariff cards, counselling, consulting with mediums and horoscopes, that sort of thing. Those are obvious things. The Bible is clear in its condemnation of these practises.
It says, and when they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living, to the law and to the testimony? If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. In deuteronomy it says, there shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, or anyone who practises witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spurtus, or one who calls up the dead Satan. For most Christians, Satan struggles to bring blatant things like these into our lives.
I don't think any of us here are actively involved in witchcraft or fortune telling or consulting mediums. But like we said in the beginning, sometimes Satan takes a more subtle approach to this. Rather than getting us to sit down in front of a crystal ball in some back alley, he will give us books to read, he'll give us movies to watch that make all these things seem fun, light hearted, perhaps, and enjoyable.
Maybe it's magic, maybe it's talking to dead people, maybe it's murder mysteries. Maybe it's something that's glorifying crime and sinfulness. Or mindfulness.
Satan has something for everyone. You might be thinking, and I know some people think this. Hold on a minute.
I know the difference between watching a video glorifying sin and the actual sin itself. I can tell the difference. It's not the same thing.
Let me give you an illustration. Look at it this way. Imagine I'm sitting down at home looking through a photo album.
Photos of me and an ex girlfriend. All the fun times we had. I'm just sitting there enjoying reminiscing on those days, and Catherine walks in.
She's upset. She wants to know what on earth I'm doing. I explain, settle down.
Never a good way to start a sentence, but settle down. I'm just remembering all the fun times I used to have. This is just an illustration.
It's not something that happened. But don't worry, I know all those fun times are in the past. I'm with you now.
How well do you think that's going to go? Not very well. It's like that when we find entertainment in the sins that put Jesus on the cross. When we find entertainment in sin, it's like we're looking back at photos of our old life of sin and saying, that's where I really want to be.
The good old days. This should go without saying. I'm not sharing these things because I'm perfect and have everything laid out.
I'm sharing these things because they're in the Bible and God is calling us all to a higher standard. Number six, sins of omission. In that passage of ephesians four, we see that it's not just putting away wrong things, but doing what is right.
Paul encourages us. In verse 32, he says, and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. And this idea is really made clear again in James.
He says, therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him, it is sin, just as it is sin, according to the Bible, to transgress God's law, God also cause us to live out our faith, to do Christianity. Now, I don't know how you'd put a list together of that, but God impresses us to do things sometimes, oftentimes. Whether it's to say a word to someone, whether it's to help someone, to give someone a phone call, whether it's to pop in on someone's house as you're heading home.
We're to do the things that we know are right. It might be completely surrendering our lives to God as something we know we need to do. It might be having a true hatred of sin.
And the most important thing that we often miss is seeking God with all our heart. In Jeremiah, we're encouraged, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. Why is that the most important task? Because it is God who works in us to take care of all these spiritual breaches.
We might be looking at this list and thinking, gosh, that's a lot. But if we take care of this one thing, seeking God with all of our hearts, he will take care of all these other things. If we put our lives in his hand, it is God who comes into our life and patches up all these cracks.
Just look at the list of gifts he gives us when we seek him. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such, there is no law.
Seeking God is our most important work, and this is the very first step in protecting us against Satan. I haven't got this on the board, but let's just look up another verse before we finish off. Let's go to John 14.
The last few messages I've shared have been about spending time with God and putting him first. But we're looking at all these topics in the light of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I believe Jesus is coming soon and God is looking for a people that he can use in a way that he's never used people before, that the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out in a way that we can't even comprehend.
Now let's have a look at John 14 and verse 15. We know this verse back to front. If you love me, keep my commandments.
Jesus says, but look at the next verse and it means it follows on from what he just said. And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter, that is the Holy Spirit, that he may abide with you forever. Why does God need us following him before he can pour out the Holy Spirit? It's because the Holy Spirit enables us to do God's work with such a mighty power that we can't be trusted with it unless we're fully consecrated to God, unless we're fully given our lives over to him.
God doesn't want people out there healing and doing all sorts of wonderful true works. If, on the flip side of the coin, they're breaking his law and they're doing all sorts of horrible things. It's not the way it works.
Yeah, that's right. It would be as if God were sanctioning evil. So God wants to bless us, he wants to help us.
We just need to put ourselves in his company. Yeah. Otherwise we tie his hands.
His hands are not shortened, but by our actions. So my prayer for this week is that we ask God to point out these things in our lives. Hopefully some of the things we've read will trigger us to know what's wrong in our lives, work out what's holding us back, what's giving Satan a foothold in our lives, and by the power that God gives us that we might overcome these things.
So that's my prayer for this weekend. Message was made available by the Masterton Seventh-day Adventist Church. For more resources like this, visit Mastertonsda.nz. This programme has been brought to you by 3ABN Australia Radio.
