While I was at work today, I had the most wildest thought come across my mind. Initially, it resurfaced from a comment I made during the last time I was before my church doing a message. While I was speaking, I had commented on a saying the I hear quite often from churches I visit. The comment I hear is about how so anointed they are that as soon as they wake up in the morning, and their feet touches the ground, the enemy, being HaSatan begins to be in a panic because they got up again. Usually after this comment is made, the church is in an uproar, as the people shout amen, in agreeance, as if that is their testimony.
Although I am sure that we all want that as our testimony, the reality of it is that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, many of those shouting amen, aren’t even in the fight. I am not trying to throw shade at anyone, so allow me a minute to really get into this thought. The only person to ever have that as a testimony was Yeshua, however, the only time the enemy seemed to worry about Him was when He directly interfered with something they were at work doing. A good example would be casting out spirits. When Yeshua came upon one possessed, the spirits in that person immediately reacted, and pleaded with Him not to torment them before the time. The recognized and feared His authority.
Yet, in other cases, such as the time He fasted for 40 days, the enemy was there with Him, as a tempter, trying to persuade His to prove Himself to him as the Messiah, and even to bow down and worship him, and that in doing so, he would give Him all the riches that YHVH left in his control. To all of this, Yeshua rejected his offers, and even hit him back with the word. During this encounter, HaSatan clearly wasn’t trembling at His presence, although he was fully aware of who He was. However, in all cases, HaSatan knew Yeshua was indeed the Son of the Living God. At the same time, this did not stop him from influencing the religious leaders of the day, to be agents of destruction to Him. Although they did not physically do anything, but rather influenced others, by His will. My point is, HaSatan only feared Yeshua when He directly impacted things they were doing. My point is this, demons did NOT freak out when Yeshua woke up in the morning.
We also have the Disciples, while still with Yeshua before He was crucified. Peter was being influenced by the enemy, note that I said influenced, and not possessed. Although he did not have the Holy Spirit at that time, HaSatan was not able to possess him, first because you have to first surrender yourself to him first, in order for him to possess you. We see this, when Peter attempted to rebuke Yeshua as He spoke about Him being taken by the people and crucified. Yeshua immediately spoke to the spirit influencing his speech, as opposed to speaking to him. We later see Judas, at the table, when Yeshua released him to go do what he was going to do. Clearly, Judas had already given himself to the will of HaSatan in his heart, and although he had the opportunity to go, or stay, he chose to go, and at that moment, he had given himself over to the control of the enemy.
We also see that the Disciples were indeed empowered to cast out spirits. Although they were given the ability to do this, there was a particular time that they were not able to cast out a spirit, and so the people brought the family to Yeshua so that He could cast out the spirit. Yeshua later told them that some things only come out through the power of one who is given to fasting and praying often. After Yeshua ascended to the Father, the Disciples, having been released into their apostolic ministry began to great works through Yeshua. They successfully cast out every spirit they came across. In one particular incident, one person possessed but spirits, having seen the apostles on the area, begin to declare to all the passerby’s that these men were servants of the Most High God. It recognized clearly their anointing.
At the same time, realizing who they were, these spirits were not afraid of them because if they were, they would rather have hidden as opposed to shouting out who they were to the people in the area. Nonetheless, the outcome for them was that the apostles cast them out, the same way Yeshua did. There was also a case, when other men, seeing how Paul successfully cast out spirits in the name of Yeshua, decided that they wanted to do the same. After a failed attempt, the possessed man spoke to them declaring that they knew Yeshua, and they knew Paul, but as for them, they had no idea who they were. Immediately those men were severely beaten by the possessed man.
My point is this, HaSatan recognizes those who are a threat to him, and based on these examples, the only time that they feared Yeshua or the apostles was when they had direct contact with the, by means of one being possessed. Other than that, there are no other scriptural references be it in the gospels or the book of Acts, where we see evidence of spirits fearing Yeshua or the apostles simply because they got up the next day. Again, I am not trying to bash anyone by what I am saying, but I just felt that this needed to be addressed. If you are not one who is actively casting out spirits, or even healing people on a regular basis, chances are, your name isn’t even known by the enemy, and if your name isn’t, known, how could he fear you? We really need to humble ourselves.
When looking at the spiritual opposition that both Yeshua and His apostles faced, there are a very very small number of us who have even faced a small piece of what they did. If their day to day experiences is what caused HaSatan to know them, can we really believe that we can be less active in these areas but have the same testimony as them? The reality of it all is this, HaSatan is not worried about any of us like that. If the only thing that causes him to fear the apostles was their activities toward him when they came upon one another, then the little lightweight stuff we deal with on a daily basis is probably not even him.
HaSatan did so much damage to the church between divorcing the church from the Hebrew roots of the faith, and establishing a whole new church with a diluted doctrine, all the way to re-divorcing the church again by means of the protestant reformation, so that we are so divided that we are anything but a threat to him. HaSatan not concerned with causing you drama on your job, or causing your finances to be messed up, in fact, most of the times, this comes by means of us not being good stewards with what we have been entrusted with. Now yes, there are times that we have marital issues, or maybe our kids our wildin’ out, but is satanic opposition always the issue? No, not always. There may indeed be cases that are legit, but for the most part, some occur just because. Some cases happen because someone is not fully in-line with the word of God, and it manifests itself through marital issues, or maybe even finances.
Not everything we accuse HaSatan of is really him. Some things are just mere happenstance. Ultimately, we tend to assume we are in a fight that the enemy isn’t even engaging us, and just because YHVH brought us through it, we think the enemy was at work. Let me tell you something, having shattered the church in so many pieces, and diluted biblical doctrine so bad, the church is too divided to fight him, so while we are on the sidelines trying to figure out what’s going on, he is waging war with our society. He is dividing our democracy, fracturing our government, attacking our kids, and corrupting our morals. All the while, the church looks on. Some churches even begin to embrace the corruption that he is injecting into our society. Again, while we sit here boasting about how afraid he is of us, he is back their laughing because the same once saying this are the same ones not even actively in the fight.
If you really want to be the threat you think you are, then go where the fight is. That’s what the apostles did, they went to the places where the enemy was at work. They recognized the spirits at work and began to cast them out. Notice, we never read about the apostles casting out spirits that were bothering them, instead, we read how they were to busy casting out spirits who were bothering others. Clearly, the enemy recognized that messing with them directly was futile. Instead, they stirred up the religious leaders, and used them to come against them, but never do we see where Paul is calling out spirits that were coming against him. Yet, in the church today, all we do is battle alleged spirits that are busy trying to keep us down. Newsflash, HaSatan isn’t worried about you, he has bigger fish in the pond that he is going for, so while you keep chasing your tail on the sideline, he isn’t even giving you a second glance.
Bottom line up front, we need to get into the fight, and what that looks like is us getting out of the four walls of the church and into the streets where some of these people are with theses twisted spirits in them. The problem, not many of us are willing to do all that, despite the fact that that’s what the apostles did, and for this reason, HaSatan ain’t even worried about you. Time to get off the bench and into the fight. Now that you know, are ya’ll ready
