I Timothy 4:1: But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.
The great falling away has already happened. And we are now up against deceitful spirits and doctrines of devils. It is easy for a Christian to follow the spirit of this age and be tolerant of different doctrines saying, “Well, I study it all because there is a little bit of good in everything.” Remember, rat poison that is really effective is ninety-nine percent pure wheat. That’s the way they kill rats.
Satan gets a hold of the saints by making them tolerant of doctrines, tolerant of the things that are going on in the church that are wrong.
This deceit that Satan has brought forth is so great that the Word says if it were possible he would deceive even the very elect, which has already come to pass, and when you are deceived you do not realize it.
This brings one to a realization that some will fall away from the faith because they will give heed to these deceitful spirits, this has already happened to the early church.
The church at Ephesus was one of the greatest churches this world has ever known and in one generation it fell away, and God had to remove the lamp stand. Ephesians 2:5.
We have already lost the faith once delivered to the early saints. I could list at least a hundred doctrines that the church believes that are false. But I could care less about all the false doctrines the church believes, if I can teach a person how to walk with God with a right spirit, they would be able to allow the Holy Spirit to lead them into all the truth. But until you become poor in spirit, you will never know the truth. To be poor in spirit means you have no spirituality whatsoever, you are just another religious believer that is deceived, but the Holy Spirit is with you, if you will just humble yourselves and admit you no nothing yet as you ought to.
According to the words of the Lord, John 7:17 If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. 18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him.
Knowing what is true or false does not come from reasoning it out. It does not come because you consulted a good commentary. It does not come from going to the best bible college, because they also are deceived in one area or another.
Isn’t it surprising that the best scholars of the Scripture in Jesus’ day plotted to crucify Him? Don’t forget that the men who were the most learned in the Word of God were the ones who tried to crucify Him. To hold the truth, but to hold it in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18), to hold it without a dedication to walk in it, can be very dangerous because God turns you over to delusion and you believe a lie. God does it, and the devil takes advantage of it.
In spiritual warfare our best protection is our dedication to walk in what God shows us to walk in. A person is in a dangerous position when they are not dedicated 100% to the Lord. To hold any truth and not press into it puts us immediately in some degree of spiritual jeopardy in the warfare of the enemy, whose only tool is deception. If we really want to be protected and come through victoriously, the first thing to do is to will to do His will.
And the will of God is first a state of spirit. The kind of spirit you have determines the kind of revelation you will receive.
We need to Let God put it in our heart that we want to do His will more than anything else in this world. Then we will know the teaching, whether it is of God. God can help us with that. When we Open the door to His will, then we will see that the answer is right there, hidden in plain sight.
I could go through every verse of the New Testament and tell you first what it meant to those it was written to (the early church) and then what it means to us today, but just having a mental understanding of correctly interpreting the bible, does not mean you have a walk with God.
Very closely related to our will to do the will of God is the rule that we place on our own spirit. Paul says that he brought his body under subjection; he buffeted it. He brought it under control lest the body should lead him (I Corinthians 9:27).
We must decide who is going to be the master. If the physical dominates us, the result is disaster. If the soul dominates, we are also open to deception. If the flow of God’s Spirit within our spirit dominates, we can keep your soul and body under its influence.
When things get to us, it is because something is wrong with our soul. We have a sick soul because it is the emotions that get into the soul. It affects our spirit too, but the disease begins in the soul life of an individual.
Proof of this is found in Proverbs 25:28: Like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit. In other words, he has no defenses. Spiritual defenses come from having our spirit under control.
If you do not have control over your spirit, it leaves you like a city with the walls broken down. That’s a dangerous place to be in spiritual warfare, where you have no walls, no protection. You are like a city that has been broken into and is without walls. Everything has been broken down. The enemy can come in any time he wants.
There are individuals who make an effort to walk with God and say, “Oh, I’m going to get down to business. I am going to pray, read the Word, wait on the Lord.” The devil looks back and laughs at them because all he has to do is push a little button, and they will respond in a certain way. Flip, flip, flip, they are out of the race. He knows just how to do it, so we had better build up some defenses for our spirits.
What is it that controls our spirit? The human will. Everything comes into being in our spirit by willing it to be so. It isn’t emotions that control our spirit. You may say, “I’m going to wait on the Lord in undisturbed surroundings. I’ll play some nice soft music, take the phone off the hook, and put the children to bed.” Then you sit down and think about something that happened yesterday and you become angry. It isn’t the circumstances that are going to help you have that good spirit. Some people in this world are never going to control their spirit because they never set their will to do it.
Being spiritual is a soul activity with many people. When they say, “I am going to be spiritual,” they really mean that they are going to be religious or soulish. Being spiritual is another thing. You decide; you set your will to walk with God. It is a matter of your will turning your spirit unto God.
Don’t say, “I would, but I am depressed”. We are as happy as we have made up our mind to be because our spirit can tune into the joy of the Lord.
The will operates with faith. When we minister to an individual, what is that little secret mechanism that turns on revelation for them? It’s very simple. It’s our will. It is our responsibility to have a word from God, so we have decided we will have a word from God. When we yield our will unto the will of God, when we will to do His will then it happens. We know the truth, and we know what to say.
We must realize that we are one of the most fortunate individuals in this whole universe when our spirit is alive to God, because then God can meet our heart. We can either set our mind on a few little problems, little petty things, or we can set our heart on God and our walk with Him. We can set our will to be spiritual, to walk with God, and to be joyful.
Some people are dispensers of gloom. It is hard to be happy around them. We Try to say something cheerful, and they snap right back. Then what should we do? Put up walls. Say in your heart, “I set my will not to be disturbed by this person.”
We are talking about spiritual warfare where Satan uses agencies. He uses anything that is close to us, but especially people to whom we are open. Satan will come to harass us, and if we have a defense around our spirit, we have shut off much of the battle. This does not mean that you shut our heart up to another individual. It doesn’t mean we put a wall up to them. We put a wall up to what they are dishing out.
This is a very practical lesson because it deals with the time when God will have a people who will defeat principalities and powers. But they will not be successful if they cannot even rule their own spirits. With faith we determine that we are going to control our own spirit, and we will.
Our spirit can acquire things. Our spirit can appropriate. When we put on love that is a thing we do with our spirit. We reach out and take something from God. Is there something lacking in your spirit? Then acquire it from God. Qualities are acquired. We learn in other ways. But with our spirit we appropriate.
There is a big difference between the spirit, the soul, and the body. We want things to change in your spirit. This is where we want the victory.
The victory is not won; our spirit appropriates it. Our spirit will appropriate the victory. It takes it. The victory is in Christ. All of this is in Christ. We put on the Lord. Our spirit has an amazing quality that it will absorb whatever we are open to.
If we have no walls up against sin, it will absorb sin and become defeated and defiled, it will become weak. If we have no walls in our spirit against certain things, then they come in and we acquire them.
When Moses went up on the mountain, he wanted to see the glory of the Lord and he saw it. When he came down, that glory had so completely saturated him, that even his face was shining. People couldn’t look at him. We absorb God! We appropriate Him!
How do we change physically? Our size and shape are determined by the hereditary process, as well as by what you eat, how you take care of yourself, how you exercise. All of these are factors that make us grow physically. If we don’t like our features, we can go to a plastic surgeon, and he will change some of them.
How do we change in our soul? We work at it through the power of positive thinking. That’s the way we reach the soul life. We can learn to control many of our feelings, our reactions, and other areas of our soul, by what we think about.
How do we change in our spirit? – By exposure to God. We open our spirit to the Lord; we must connect to the Lord with our spirit. We must get the life of God flowing into our spirit. When we are filled with the Spirit, then we have the strength to keep our soul and body under its control.