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 apostacy has already taken place. It happened before AD 70 when Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed. We are now in the time of the restoration of all things.
The Word of God is living, it will never pass away, so we can apply it to today.
Do you understand what Paul was saying? In the latter times we are going to be up against deceitful spirits and doctrines of devils. We are well aware of this problem now, but Paul foretold it.
Many churches today have very elaborate doctrines and creeds that did not come from God. It is easy for a Christian to follow the spirit of this age and be tolerant toward it saying, “Well, I study it because there is some truth in it.”
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.
“Well, you know, it doesn’t make any difference which church we go to, as long as we go to church.” Yes, it does! Satan’s ministers are transformed as ministers of righteousness. He himself comes as an angel of light (II Corinthians 11:14). Oh, how he wants to deceive! This deceit that Satan is bringing forth is so great that the Word says if it were possible he would deceive even the very elect. False prophets and false Christs shall arise and bring lying signs and wonders (Matthew 24:24).
According to the words of the Lord, “If any man will do His will”, “he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself” (John 7:17).
Knowing what is true or false does not come from reasoning it out. It does not come because you consulted a good commentary. 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. Does that disturb you a little? 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 your best protection is your dedication to walk in what God shows you. A person is in a dangerous position when he is not dedicated to the Lord. To hold any truth, to hold anything in your walk with God and not press into it, puts you immediately in some degree of spiritual jeopardy in the warfare.
If you really want to be protected and come through victoriously, the first thing to do is to will to do His will. Let God put it in your heart that you want to do His will more than anything else. Then you will know the teaching, whether it is of God. God can help you with that. Open the door to His will, and you will see that the answer is right there.
Very closely related to your will to do the will of God is the rein that you place on your own soul and body. Paul says that he brought his body under subjection; he disciplined 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 man dominates you, the result is disaster. If the soulish man dominates, you are also open to deception. If the spirit man (the spirit within you) dominates, you have a better situation.
You may say, “Things get into my spirit.” Almost invariably when you say, “There is something wrong in my spirit,” you mean something is wrong with your soul. “Well, I have a bad spirit.” Nine times out of ten when you say you have a bad spirit you actually have a sick soul, because it is the emotions that get into your soul. It affects your 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 your spirit under control. You say, “I thought my spirit was going to control the rest of me.” Let’s see what controls your spirit.
Your will centers in your soul. Think of your will as a thing apart from your spirit instead of a faculty of your spirit. Then think of intensity and emotion as almost a thing apart from your soul, as only applied to your soul. The picture is the same in both cases.
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. He just flips the switch, and 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 the human spirit? The human will. Everything comes into being in your spirit by willing it to be so. It isn’t emotions that control your 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 not happy.” You are as happy as you have made up your mind to be.
The will operates with faith. When I minister to an individual, what is that little secret mechanism that turns on revelation for him? It’s very simple. It’s my will. It is my responsibility to have a word from God, so I have decided I will have a word from God.
I yield my will unto the will of God. I will to do His will and it happens. I know the truth, and I know what to say. The same thing is true with you. You set your will on God. “Oh, but I am so unhappy.” You have decided in your mind to be unhappy.
You don’t believe that? It’s true. There was much truth in Will Rogers’ philosophy that people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Do you sometimes feel sorry for yourself? That’s because you want to. You like that self-indulgence. You must realize that you are one of the most fortunate individuals in this whole universe to be in a walk with God and to have God meet your heart.
You can either set your mind on a few little, tiny problems, little petty things, or you can set your heart on God and the walk with Him. Walking with God is being Led by the Spirit, instead of living unto yourselves.
You can set your will to be spiritual, to walk with God, and to be happy. Have you ever noticed how some people are incurable that way? They are dispensers of gloom. You cannot be happy around them. Try to say something cheerful, and they snap right back. Then what should you 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 you, but especially people to whom you are open. Satan will come to harass you, and if you have a defense around your spirit, you have shut off much of the battle. This does not mean that you shut your heart up to another individual. It doesn’t mean you put a wall up to them. You put a wall up to what they are dishing out.
This is a very practical lesson because it deals with the time we are in 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 you determine that you are going to control your own spirit, and you will.
Your spirit is more difficult to change than the rest of your being, but it can be changed. It can be altered. Your spirit can acquire things. Your spirit can appropriate. When you put on love, that is a thing you do with your spirit. You reach out and take something from God. Is there something lacking in your spirit? Then acquire it from God. Qualities are acquired. You learn in other ways. You react. But with your spirit you appropriate.
There is a big difference between the spirit, the soul, and the body. You want things to change in your spirit. This is where you want the victory. The victory is not won; your spirit appropriates it. Have you ever noticed that?
Your spirit will appropriate the victory. It takes it. The victory is in Christ. All of this is in Christ. You put on the Lord. Your spirit has an amazing quality that it will absorb whatever you are open to. If you have no walls up against sin, it will absorb sin. If you have no walls in your spirit against certain things, then they come in and you 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.
You absorb God! You appropriate Him! When you come to a service with a right spirit, an open spirit before the Lord, you will receive a great deal. Someone else who comes with a bad spirit, will sit there and receive nothing. They will be worse off than they were before. This is something to learn about warfare.
Contrast that with the way you change physically. Your size and shape is 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 you grow physically. If you don’t like your features, you 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. We know how to control them.
When we come to our spirit, it is completely different. This is why Sunday School is probably the most inadequate way there is of changing a child. We are approaching his little carnal mind that …is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. Romans 8:7.
We are trying to educate him or her about God and the changes do not come from that level. They will change because something was recreated in their spirit. We know we are recreated in our spirit. That is why we send elders around to bless the children; to lay hands on their heads and restrain the things that need to be restrained, and to open their spirits more to acquire and learn.
If your spirit is open, you will absorb the teaching on spiritual warfare so that it is created within you. When the living Word comes forth it creates within you the truths it is bringing.
Someone who is deaf and dumb could come to the church, and if they had an open spirit they would be exceedingly blessed when the service was over. They would be more blessed than some person who was not open in their spirit. Things of spirit are acquired. You come and get hold of them. Then they become a part of you.
We have a good secret of warfare right here. Do you want to be happy? Don’t make it just a wish. Determine that you will be happy. Do you want to be spiritual? Determine to be spiritual. Set your heart on God. David used that wonderful key. He said in the Psalms, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed on Thee” (Psalm 57:7). What a beautiful thing! He was a man after God’s own heart because that is what he decided (I Samuel 13:14).
People are constantly reasoning themselves into misery. You do with your reason what you want to do. If a person decides they are rich, they are rich. If a person decides they are poor, they are poor, no matter how much money they have, because they have opened the door by their own determination to create the reality of a spiritual state. It’s what they have decided that counts.
If a person has decided to be filled with self-condemnation, that is what we do when we yield to those thoughts and feelings. The person laments, “I’m no good, I’m no good,” then they are no good. Do you believe this is true?
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7). You say, “This sounds like mind over matter.” No, we are not talking about mind over matter. We are talking about the human will—its decisiveness, and how it regulates what your spirit really is, what it acquires, what it does.
If you decide, “I’m going up to the house of the Lord to be blessed,” then you will be blessed. Decide, “I am going to the house of the Lord, and we’re going to have a good service,” and it will be a good service.
The problem with prophecy is that people try to hear and accept intellectually, prophecy that comes over them. They have confused wishing with faith. They want to wish real hard. You know the song, “When you wish upon a star…” Forget that. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride them. We are not worried about the wishing. We are concerned about what is really going to happen, and then making it happen.
The things I teach you will work in your life because I teach you to make them happen. How do you make something happen? You determine that it is going to happen!
You know what is in your heart. Sometimes you get wiped out when the garbage comes out. It’s like the dog that has gone back to his vomit, and the sow that has gone back to her wallow (II Peter 2:22). People do the same thing.
What is in your heart? It would be a good idea for everyone to be shoved into a corner just long enough to get that vomit out of your heart and find out what is wrong with you. Then you would determine, “This is what I’m going to be in my heart!”
Humans have a peculiar trait in their nature. Their spirit will never accept the fact that they are really blessed. The old nature will not accept that. They will whine, “I have my problems and my battles. This warfare is making me crazy. Poor me.” Something in the human will is so perverse that it refuses to accept the verdict God gives, “I have blessed you with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:3).
We argue against that and say, “I’m not blessed.” You are blessed! It’s when you determine that, and you set your will to the acceptance of that and say, “I am blessed—I am blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places,” that you are blessed.
What are you going to do about this practical lesson on spiritual warfare? Set your determination now by saying, “I am blessed! I will continue to be blessed! I will it to be! I accept nothing else because I know when I set my will on God, and I fix my heart upon the Lord, then it is going to react in my heart.”
Can you build a wall by making certain decisions? Yes, because you decide that. When you say, “I am building a wall; I am building defenses; I am getting rid of oppression,” then a wall is created and oppressions are lifted. Whatever you decide to do, in faith, you will do.
Sometimes the will has to be set. Since the human will is the trigger of faith, God will do things to bring the people forth. Faith becomes something not passive, but active by the operation of the will. I will people to be healed. My faith reaches in and the anointing comes.
The gifts of God work because I will them to be there. When I find out what God wants, what the will of God is, then I will it. He doesn’t make me a little mechanical man saying, “Well, if God wants to, He will bless this man.” No. I get aggressive when I come at a demon power. Don’t you? I will it to be cast out. Regardless of what it takes, that devil will be cast out! It will be cast out when you determine something is going to happen. When you decide it’s going to happen, it happens!
This is the way you get your victory in the battle. Indecisiveness is present when your heart isn’t really set on the Lord, on His will, on His Word, or on what He has revealed. Like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit.
God paints a beautiful picture about the people in a walk with God in Song of Solomon 6:4. It talks about the beautiful bride of Christ being …as awesome as an army with banners. In verse 10 we read: Who is this that grows like the dawn, as beautiful as the full moon, as pure as the sun, as awesome as an army with banners?
In chapter 8, verse 5 we read: “Who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness, leaning on the arms of her beloved?” What is an army with banners? Whenever an army went to war and defeated another army, they took their banners. This was like capturing the enemy’s flag when they were surrendered.
Even to this day the defeated army has to take down its flag and surrender it to the victor. What does God say? We are as Awesome as an army with banners. How many fights have we won? How many armies are we knocking down? Everyone is carrying a banner. An army was defeated for every banner that is carried. awesome as an army with banners. That’s the picture—an army that has never been defeated; an army that has never been beat.
God intends for us to be …more than conquerors… Romans 8:37. We have won many battles, and we will win many more. It’s a sickness when people give themselves over to defeat, when they give themselves over to some morbid attitude within their spirit that accepts defeat.
Whining, miserable people are not worthy to be called sons of God when they whine over their defeat. Stop it in the name of the Lord! It is the sickest way there is of bringing down the walls and bringing defeat into the house of God. Stop whining! Stop that sickness!
Open your heart. Rejoice in the Lord and in everything give thanks. Everything will come out right. Have faith! Determine the way it is going to be and walk in it!
When God gives you a word, don’t whine, “I guess it’s not going to happen.” It surely won’t happen that way. It’s going to happen because you make it happen. You determine that it is going to happen! God has put the anointing within you. It’s already there. He …is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. Ephesians 3:20. It’s already there. It’s already working. Stop frustrating everything God is trying to do. This is the way of victory. Twice in the gospel of John, Jesus made the declaration, “Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.”
Satan uses your will. He uses the lack of the focus of your will. Have you ever found someone, Christian or non-Christian, who had determined what was going to be in their life, and when they set about on that course, it happened?
The whole force of a person, whatever they are, everything they have—is determined by what they decide it will be. Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out. John 12:31. …and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. John 16:11.
Obtaining victory in the warfare shouldn’t be such a big problem. Satan is already defeated. He has already been judged. The problem is that many times by your own attitudes you are nullifying and reversing everything God has done. You must rule your own spirit.
We talk about our defenses, our joy, and our love to one another; but what about our submission? We have a real battle with submission. The people who are going to have the most submission are the people who have the strongest wills.
Some little weak sister may say, “I’m being submissive,” yet she may not be submissive at all. She may not be filled with the Spirit. It’s the same with an old horse that just lumps along. He is being submissive, but who needs him? Train an eager young horse and you will notice the difference. He is a high-stepping, prancing horse, but when you lay the rein on him, he is obedient. That’s submission! In the sight of God, one who has a strong spirit can also be poor in spirit if they have their spirit under control. The decision is up to them.
Submission is not wrought by an gloomy, defeated attitude. Submission is wrought in people who determine they will be submissive. They would rather die or forfeit their life than not be submissive and not do the will of the Lord. With their will they have determined in their spirit to be submissive. Determine to do His will with all your heart.
The same principle is true of joy. The Lord tells us to rejoice. You say, “I don’t feel like it.” Who said anything about feeling? Joy does not come out of the realm of the soul, it comes out of the realm of spirit. In the realm of your spirit, you will find joy and rejoicing.
Love is the same way. Young ministries must understand the principle of love. They can preach like angels, but every one of them must remember the Scripture: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal” (I Corinthians 13:1).
How do we have this love? We determine to have it. We have faith in our heart. We must move in this love. It must be the predominant thing in our thinking. In everything we do or express that love has to come out.
But maybe you don’t do that. You turn it on and off on the soul level. Some people say, “Today I don’t love them. They’re not lovely today.” Love doesn’t do that. Love will never fail. Love functions in the realm of the spirit. You determine and you set your affection on God. You set your heart on the Lord. You have determined that these things are going to be.
This is your defense. This is where spiritual warfare is won. You either are more than conqueror or you’re not. If you determine to accept God’s verdict in everything, you are a conqueror. Anything God says you determine to believe.
Father, we set our will and determine that we are going to enter these days of spiritual warfare. Our soul shall no longer be cast down within us. No longer shall we delight to sit and weep by the side of the road and say, “How lovely was Jerusalem that did sit upon a hill.”
But our hearts shall be prepared, and our hearts shall be fixed to go forth as that army that shall not break rank nor thrust one another through.
Our wills shall be fixed, O God, to do Thy will. Our hearts shall be fixed. We shall offer up praises, and we shall be determined to be joyous. We shall determine, O God, to walk in your will with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our mind.
Father, we shall endure the cross and despise the shame for the joy that is set before us; for our heart shall be fixed and set, O God, to walk in all of Thy ways. Amen.
“You shalt reckon as absolutely true the word and the verdict of the Lord that He has spoken to you. He has granted unto you all things pertaining to life and godliness. He has blessed you with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. He has given you freely all things to enjoy. You shalt reckon upon these privileges as your own. You shall choose this day whom thou shall serve. You shalt no longer halt between two opinions. You shalt no longer entertain any manner of defeat, but you shall set your will. You shalt focus within your spirit that you are blessed; you are the people of God; you are the children seated at His table to partake of His abundance. You shall not entertain the verdicts of defeat. You shall not be as reeds that are shaken by the wind. But you shall be a people who stand in the faith and contend and believe for the fullness that God has turned loose in this hour. The confession of your faith shall bring it forth.”
“Wisdom shall be found in the presence of one who has understanding. It is the eyes of a fool that look to the ends of the earth. Behold, your eyes shall no longer search out for that which shall come from afar. But you shall see how the Lord’s word is nigh unto you, even in your mouth to speak it.
Behold, He has created it in your spirit and within your heart. Therefore, shall you profess it. Therefore, shall you bring it forth, and manifest it unto the hearts of people.
For Jesus said, ‘My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. Behold, he who willeth to do His will shall know of the teaching, whether it be from man or whether it be from God.’ He who speaketh from himself, seeketh his own glory. He who speaketh the word that he hath received from the Father seeketh the glory of Him who hath sent him.
Therefore, you shalt be a people who shall receive the instruction of wisdom to your hearts. You shall not look from afar for a deliverance. The Lord shall bring you forth by the instruction of wisdom. You have received the way and the path on which you shall walk. Look not for another word. Look not for another instruction that comes to you, for behold, you have received it. Walk therefore in it and you shall see how the Lord shall prosper you. He shall cause you to stand as that Remnant to bring judgment.”