As you read this Scripture, let it happen to you. I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war. This is the emphasis in the book of Revelation—He judges and wages war. And His eyes are a flame of fire, and upon His head are many diadems; and He has a name written upon Him which no one knows except Himself. And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “King of kings, and Lord of lords.” And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God; in order that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.” And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies, assembled to make war against Him who sat upon the horse, and against His army. And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of him who sat upon the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh. And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he should not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years. Revelation 19:11–20:6.
Isn’t that something you’d love to meditate on? Dwell on it many days. Read it over and over again, because this shows you that war is really the theme of the book of Revelation. All eschatology is involved with Christ’s aggressive warfare, with the victory that He brings ultimately to the earth and over the great satanic hosts, bringing them down into final judgment. To see this we have to understand that Christ is coming to remove the curse from the earth and to clear the heavens of all the filthiness in them, spiritual, as well as any other kind of wickedness. It must be brought down.
In Genesis, the third chapter, you read the story of the fall of man and how Satan (the serpent) was put under the curse. Then God turned to Eve and put upon her many restrictions. Notice the difference. Man was not placed under a curse. He sinned and death was pronounced over him—judgment, but not a curse. It is the earth that was cursed. The earth was cursed for their sake. Woman is not cursed, but she lives with definite restrictions and judgment is upon her. Man lives with restrictions, and judgment is upon him. He was told that by the sweat of his brow he would earn his living because of the curse upon the earth. The earth would not yield its vitality to him. Thorns would grow and choke out what he tried to till and tried to grow.
We do not find any real promise or description of how that curse is to be released until we read the book of Romans. In the eighth chapter, we find that God is concerned about the process by which that curse is going to be lifted off of all creation. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. Romans 8:19–23.
Therein the death sentence is upon us. Judgment is upon the physical body, and even those who have come into the redemption of their spirit in the sight of the Lord, are still groaning within themselves, waiting for that redemption of their physical body. Now, there must be some order in what God is doing. He’s working with us now. He’s bringing forth the new creation of sons. Sons are come to the birth. The purpose of the sons then is that they should turn and loose all creation from its curse. And yet at the same time, we read in the book of Revelation that the ones who follow the Lamb sit upon thrones, that the future judgments on the whole human race and the whole course of things—angels, principalities, and powers—are going to be laid in the hands of those who have come to life and sit upon the thrones.
Two things lie before us: the release of creation—the creative work that God wants us to perform—and the judgments that He will minister through us. We’ve said over and over again that this is exactly what God is doing in this walk. It’s a ministry of grace and it’s a ministry of judgment. God is moving in two directions. He is judging the old order of things and bringing it down. But He’s ready to cause His sons, as they come into these glorious experiences in Christ, to go through the land and begin to release it, to release creation from its futility, from the curse that it is under. This is a heritage that God has ordained we should fulfill.
I’m concerned about this because every one of us who comes into this walk is aware that the satanic assault against us is so tremendous. We get into warfare that makes us wonder what on earth is happening, why the battle is so vicious. Some of us have served the Lord for many years. I’ve served the Lord since I was a small boy and yet I never knew there was a devil as far as I was concerned. I believed it because the Scriptures said so, but I wasn’t doing business with him every day. I didn’t learn that something aggressive was coming against me until the prelude came in the battle before I came into this walk. After hands were laid upon me and I came into the walk, I was aware of tremendous assault. I became aware of a spirit world of activity, of warfare that I had never realized before.
We can say, “What is the key to it? What are we to do? We are just human beings; we can’t even see where we’re going or know what we’re doing. We don’t have the natural senses or faculties to understand a world that is invisible and incomprehensible to us. How do we know why we’re being hit or how we’re being hit?” Stop to think what has happened so far in this walk. God has brought forth a people that are more and more perceptive, until we can tell what kind of spirits are coming against us, as well as when they come, how they come, and why they come. We’ve reached the place that Paul spoke of when he said, “We’re not ignorant of Satan’s devices” (II Corinthians 2:11). We are not ignorant of his devices. God is bringing forth a people who are growing in their perception and in their discernment.
The rest of the Christian world may sit back and say, “They’re spooks. They’re mystics. We don’t want anything to do with them.” That’s too bad, because as Satan is raging because he knows his time is short (Revelation 12:12), there must of necessity be a people who know what it’s all about. There must be some who will know what they’re doing because this is in the will of the Lord. You may say, “Well, God will protect us; He’ll take care of us. We don’t have to worry about the Devil.” But we do have to be concerned about aggressively manifesting Christ’s victory in and through us. That is exactly what God is concerned about, that you be aggressive in manifesting Christ’s victory, because He’s allowing these forces to come against you. In the book of Revelation you read that Christ slays them by the sword that proceeds out of His mouth; but notice that all of those who are following Him on white horses and who enter into the battle, have judgment given to them, and they enter into it. I want you to see clearly the picture of Revelation. It is not one of Christ sovereignly bringing this victory and defeating Satan. Romans 16:20 says, The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly—very soon. This was the plan of God.
In the third chapter of Genesis God promised the woman that her seed was going to bruise the head of the serpent, and the serpent would bruise his heel. This was the first prophecy concerning the Messiah; but how many have understood that the Messiah who first came in the flesh of one man, the lowly Nazarene, accomplished this in theory and price, purchasing redemption for us, and that the execution of it will be in Christ, the many-membered Christ. It’s the Christ reigning over His many-membered Body, and that many-membered Body moving in unity and moving in warfare, that is going to be the one to bruise Satan. God will bruise Satan under your feet shortly. This is the will of God. This is the plan of God. What about all this warfare? It must of necessity come. These spirits must be stirred up to come against you so that they might be judged. As long as the serpent is in hibernation, or some distance away, you don’t worry about him. You only become concerned when he’s right there with you, so you can put your foot on him. And that’s exactly where he’ll be!
The bruising has to take place by a spiritual encounter. People must be prepared for the fact that the warfare will not be less. There will be more and more warfare, more forces coming against us. But none of these things need harass us. That is the conclusion I’ve come to in seeking the Lord—none of these things need harass us. They are only coming against us that in our faith we rise up and take dominion over them. I am also persuaded that Satan has no power over you except what you give him. He is the defeated foe. And he’s stirred to come against you. You say, “Doesn’t he know he’s a defeated foe?” Satan is incapable of knowing anything. “I thought he was subtle.” Very subtle. “I thought he was cunning.” Very cunning, but he can’t know the truth. Satan has no capacity to know the truth. He’s the lie and the father of it (John 8:44). Satan cannot know. You have the faculty to know the truth, and if you sin and become reprobate in your mind, God will turn you over to believe a lie. Do you think that God has not turned Satan over to a lie to believe it? Satan is the lie. He’s the lie and the father of it. Doesn’t Satan know? There’s only one thing he is aware of—that his time is short, but neither he nor the demons know when. When Christ walked the earth two thousand years ago, the demons shrieked, “Are you come to torment us before the time?” They knew that the time was coming and they wondered, “Is it now, or is He tormenting us ahead of time?”
How do we battle? A lot of it is in our attitude. If the carnal mind isn’t subject to the law of God and neither indeed can be, we cannot let our carnal flesh force be the thing that encounters Satan, or that Satan encounters in us. You have to walk in the Spirit. You won’t fulfill the demands of the flesh and you’ll not be under the law. Nothing can harm you nor reach you when you’re walking in the Spirit of the Lord.
There are two things I would like to point out to you. First, you must aggressively resist Satan. This must be an aggressive action. Do not give the devil an opportunity. Ephesians 4:27. Don’t give him an opportunity. At times you can let your guard down. You can open the door. You can give him an opportunity or a chance. Don’t do it! Continually shut the door on Satan. Wherever you see him working, go shut the door. Bind him. Resist him. Frustrate him.
Second, we must also aggressively yield to God. And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to his power, which mightily works within me. Colossians 1:28,29. Paul was able to describe it. The Lord was within him, and he was aggressively, mightily working. He was concerned, not about going out and doing a great work for God in his own strength, but about turning loose the divine force—God’s very presence, God’s authority. And he said, “I labor, striving according to His power, which works mightily within me.”
God, in conjunction with His people, is the key of all spiritual victory. Everything you undertake in the flesh is doomed. Everything you undertake in God will be a success. Our weapons are not carnal, but they are mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds (II Corinthians 10:4). When we learn how to mightily move, by letting His power work in us mightily, we’ll come forth in it in the name of the Lord, and it will be tremendous.
This may seem very elementary, but look again to the book of Romans for a picture of the way you aggressively move into God. As you read, soak up in your heart how you reckon, how you think, what you think in relationship to Christ’s work, how you identify yourself with it and with His victory. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him (We shall live with Him!), knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts (Don’t let it reign!), and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. Romans 6:3–14.
Do you see what Paul is saying? Christ was identified with us so that we can identify ourselves with His victory, with His authority, with His strength, with His resurrection, with His crucifixion. We can reckon, and this is the beginning of all spiritual victory. You must understand that in the spirit world facts mean very little, if anything. Actions make very little difference. In the spirit world, what you think and what you accept makes the difference, not facts or actions.
There are three words that should be your key of spiritual warfare for the rest of your life: reckon, resist, and reach—the three “R’s” of spiritual warfare. The first key is to reckon—reckon yourself dead to sin. If you reckon it, it will be so; if you don’t, it won’t. It’s just that simple. Reckon yourself to be victorious. Christ’s atonement and redemption mean nothing to a man until he accepts it. In the spirit world, facts mean nothing until they’re accepted. And a lie means nothing until you accept it. If you accept Satan’s lie, you’ll accept his condemnation, and that’s exactly what will work and be valid in your life.
For example, only in the non-Christian countries do people die of witchcraft. Very rarely do they die of witchcraft in die of witchcraft. Very rarely do they die of witchcraft in America. Why? Because we don’t accept it. The Devil can only work where people accept him. With the current interest in the occult, people are believing a little more in witchcraft, in having spells cast and things of that nature. However, you must realize that if a Christian believes he’s not under the dominion of Satan but that he’s translated into the Kingdom of the Son of His love (Colossians 1:13), then witchcraft has no power over him. All he has to do is reject it completely. Only fear is the negative kind of faith that Satan will use to bring his curses to pass. If you’re not afraid of it, it won’t work.
To reckon is a great key in spiritual warfare. Too often we’ve had to consciously or unconsciously accept Satan or his aggressiveness and what he could do and that was what made it valid. I’m not saying that he’s not going to battle you. You’ll be assaulted, but it doesn’t need to be a valid thing to defeat you. I reckon myself dead with Christ. I reckon myself risen with Christ. That’s the thinking that will be effective in my life! I reckon myself to be alive to God and alive to righteousness in the hand of the Lord. Praise His Name.
The second key is to resist. There has to be a resistance to the enemy. I Peter 5:8,9 tells us: …your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. We resist him! We resist him in our thinking. We resist him in every way. When we see him moving in, we refuse that; we resist it.
It may come like a tiger but it will turn into a paper tiger and evaporate before your eyes, because what you believe, applies. There is the victory. When you see that old serpent, don’t be afraid of him. When you stomp on him to bruise his head, you will be surprised to find nothing there. He will evaporate and disappear. He’s the lie. He’s the bluff. He’s the master of illusion. He has come to deceive the whole world. He’s the deceiver and the liar. Nothing that he is doing is valid until people accept it. The minute they accept it, it works in their lives; it’s deadly. On the other hand, the minute you accept all that Christ has won, that’s the thing that is effective in your life. This is an important key of spiritual warfare. We’re not struggling to win a victory over Satan. We accept the fact that Christ has won the victory over him. We accept the victory of Jesus Christ totally and completely and absolutely in every situation and we refuse to see anything else.
This is what I’m going to do and I hope you’ll do it with me. We have to resist any illusion, actively and aggressively. This entire message is concentrating on aggressively manifesting Christ’s victory in and through us. He’s victorious in me and He’s going to be victorious through me, over all of the powers of darkness.
We can’t be passive. Passivity does certain things to your whole spirit. It results in a weakness. It takes over, causing an unaware state. Remember, Samson… wist not that the Lord was departed from him. Judges 16:20. A mental as well as a physical lethargy results when you are passive. It can result in nervousness until the carnal flesh force comes up and you’re too aware of it and can’t put it under. It results in a lack of hunger. Passivity will result in an unteachableness in your spirit until you’re not hungering and thirsting after the Lord. It will result in indecision so you’re always going to do something tomorrow about your spiritual walk. It can cause a depression to steal over you and you don’t know why you’re depressed. It can result in false signs coming to you. It may mar your judgment so you are not able to make wise judgment in a situation. This is the fruit of passivity.
Some of the young people are very violent in seeking God. Thank God for them, because that’s the way they are keeping themselves from becoming passive. Many of them have been too fresh out of the pit, and if they were not aggressively moving on in God, that passivity would come over them and they would fall right back into the hand of Satan. So you resist him steadfast in the faith. There has to be that active, aggressive resistance within you—a complete acceptance of Christ and an absolute rejection of the Devil. Everything within you—body, soul, and spirit—has to be violent. Everything in your mind, everything in your emotions must be set on one thing: it’s all-out war! Never become tolerant of evil. Never get to the place where you see sin without cursing it. Curse the power of it. Curse the wickedness that comes. Remember though, don’t curse the people. Believe God to save them out of the clutches of the enemy.
Paul probably expressed it better than anyone. “I buffet my body and I bring it under subjection, lest after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified” (I Corinthians 9:27). That’s it. He reckoned, “Man, I’ve got to be right in there! I’ve got to go at it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Regardless of what you’ve gone through or what hinderances you’ve had, there can be a spiritual conditioning of bringing your own body into subjection until it responds to what you want it to do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The third key is to reach, moving out to do the will of the Lord. Paul said, I press toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14. This means that perfect victory is not a negative thing, “Praise God I’ve overcome all the powers of darkness, and I’ve done the thing God wants me to do. I’ve resisted sin. I’ve overcome the habits.” Perfect victory consists of aggressively doing God’s will. It is more than just not sinning against God; it is doing the will of the Lord. Believe me, this is beyond spiritual defense. The negative struggle with weakness and Satan is one thing, but to aggressively go out and do the will of God is another. We not only resist, but we reach. We press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The man who is moving ahead in the Lord is a moving target, and the hardest target in the world to hit is a moving target. Satan too, has more difficulty trying to hit a moving target. He just isn’t that good a shot.
You’ll find if you stop and struggle with a weakness, you’ll have a great difficulty overcoming it. Instead, accept the victory of Jesus Christ. “What about this habit? What about this deep problem in my own flesh?” Reckon it dead! If you sit there and dwell upon it, it will resurrect right before your eyes. But if you say, “Good-bye old flesh: I’m going to walk with God,” and you aggressively reach in to do the will of God, you’re going to minimize the force of any of that flesh coming up. The quickest way to fail is to say, “I quit this habit,” as you continue thinking about it, “I’ve quit it, I’ve quit it, I’ve quit it.” Before you know it, you will be at it again. You’ll feel sorry for yourself and the old carnal mind will bring up a thousand reasons why you should go and do the thing you purposed in your heart not to do. Forget it! Don’t let Satan play on your mind. Don’t be so negatively engrossed with the problem you’re trying to eliminate. Be positively aggressive in everything God wants you to do. Get busy with it.
Always believe and act on your position in Christ. That’s the positive side. Always believe in your blessings and act upon them. Believe in your protection and act on it. Believe in your authority in Christ and act on it. Believe in your privileges in His name. Act on them!