One of the things that happened before the Passover when the Lord was crucified, was that the disciples were called with Him into Gethsemane and the spirit of heaviness came upon them until they were so drowsy that they couldn’t keep their eyes open. Always at a moment before a great victory, that spirit of heaviness and weariness would come upon people to discourage them.
Remember how Jonathan and his armor bearer exposed themselves to the Philistines, wondering “Do we fight them here or do we go up there and take them? We’ll take as a sign, whatever they say,” and they said, “Come up,” and in a little area of about three acres they slew them right and left, and the Philistines began to flee.
Those two men who said, “God is not limited to save by many or by few,” started a riot of defeat among the Philistines, and as the Philistines were fleeing, Saul was so encouraged he made a rash vow, that everyone was to fast, and if not, it would mean their death.
But Jonathan was so busy he hadn’t heard about it, and as they were chasing through the woods he came to a tree where there was a great honeycomb. Reaching out with his spear, he snagged some honey off the honeycomb, ate it, his eyes were enlightened, and he was strengthened.
The rest of the Israelites began to drag because they were hungry; they were weak and couldn’t make it. There’s a time to fast and there’s a time not to fast. God puts fasting on many of us; but in the midst of the times of victory I think we need the honey from the Lord. That’s the counterpart of the spirit of heaviness.
A heaviness came upon the hearts of the disciples when Christ went into the hour of travail. Even Peter, James and John succumbed to it. The Scriptures say He sweat as though it were great drops of blood, the assault against Him was so tremendous. This meant there was an internal rupture; it was a miracle He was able to continue to the cross.
When He said, “Let this hour pass from Me” (Mark 14:35), He was not praying that He would not die. Concerning His death on the cross He said, “For this hour came I forth” (John 12:27); but He did not want to die under the assault of Satan before He reached the cross.
It has been said many times that Satan thought he had triumphed when Christ went to the cross, but I don’t believe that is true.
Satan knew he was defeated the very moment that he couldn’t kill Christ in Gethsemane. And the cross was not a supposed victory for Satan; it was the victory of Christ that He went to the cross to die.
He said, “No man taketh my life from Me, I lay it down.” Because of that, the hour in which He would have been killed by a heart rupture passed. It was in that hour that Jesus said, “Watch and pray: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. I John 3:8b. We speak of the work of Christ as being a potential, a possibility. “He died for the sins of the whole world, but the whole world is not going to be saved.
He made the provision for our healing, but not everyone is going to be healed.” But the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil—and they are going to be destroyed.
You may not appropriate what is available to you, all of the rich provision that the Lord has given to you, but nevertheless it is there.
Whether you keep oppression in your life or not, the time is going to come in which all oppression will cease. You can be a partaker of it.
We find in the Old Testament a rich foundation for saying that the Israelites were a chosen people. The promises rested upon them; but they chose to be chosen, and then God laid His hand upon them and He said, “I choose you.”
When the disciples opened up their hearts to Christ he said, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain… John 15:16. This is a mutual thing: it takes place for us to participate in it.
Yet many of those chosen people were sent into judgment. They either walked with God and accepted that they were chosen, or they entered into judgment.
It is not enough to say today, “I am a Christian, I am a believer, I’m under the grace of God.” You either go on and appropriate the fullness of that or you are going to find yourself in great difficulties because you have not. But the time is coming in which there will be no more works of the devil.
You may be thinking, “There doesn’t seem to be enough of God to cope with my personal need right now. I need a miracle.”
That is a deception of Satan; because that miracle is happening, it is taking place! The waves of depression the spirit of heaviness comes to bring upon you, are to create that conviction within you that your faith wasn’t strong enough, your effort wasn’t great enough, you couldn’t attain to it, that the victory of Christ and His impartations weren’t adequate to meet your need.
That is a lie from Satan. There is more in this walk with
God than you know. We are just putting the fuse to the great potentials and they are beginning to explode about us one by one. We need to enter into it with all our heart. Christ is manifested to destroy the works of the devil, and that He will do—every lie, every hindrance, everything that comes against us.
This was the purpose and design of Christ when He came to make the provision, to set things in motion: every man and woman that would be born in the world would have a way to rise out of the dominion of darkness and be translated into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, to be loosed, born of God, and overcome the world. This is the victory that would overcome the world, even their faith.
I know that we shall overcome because we are born of God. The works of the devil will be destroyed. Don’t be discouraged, don’t look at the things about you and say, “Oh, that is the enemy.” Don’t magnify the works of the devil.
When you see them, pray, and suddenly like walls they begin to quiver and waver, become mists and soon are gone—and then you see clearly.
All of the formidable foes that seem to be so tangible, so solid, when you look at them you think, “This is the real world.” But the real world is the living Christ within, Who will destroy all the works of the devil.
The Word that you hang on to, that is the reality. Heaven and earth shall pass away but Christ’s Words will not pass away. That is the reality. Keep pressing into it. Turn away from the illusion to the real. Begin to focus on the thing that God is becoming within you.
Let there be worship, let there be praise, let there be continual thanksgiving in the house of the Lord. For though thou art assaulted by the enemy, it is only for his defeat and for the manifestation thereof before all the eyes of the nations.
Doth not the Lord make a reproach and a derision of the principalities and the powers, and doth He not make an open show of them? Hath He not gloriously triumphed over them? It is thy privilege, O house of the Lord, to live in the day in which the Lord alone is exalted. And every opposing spirit shall be brought down and everything that wars against the souls of men shall be defeated.
Oh, rejoice! Say not in thy heart, “All things have continued as they were since creation,” for it is the Lord that makes sudden changes.
One age dies and another age comes and it is the Lord that has privileged thee to live upon the pinnacle: to look back and see the order that is disappearing and to look forward and see that which the Lord establisheth forever.
It is the day of grace and the day of victory, the day of release; yea, the times of refreshing that come from the presence of the Lord. And though the earth may tremble, though a host encamps against thee, and though the waters would overwhelm thee, yet the Lord is that Rock that establisheth thy foot, that it slip not, and preserveth thee in the day of oppression.
These are days in which thou shalt be relentless and thou shalt pursue after the Canaanites and thou shalt not give them any part; when that which thou hast left in days past (has it not been a thorn in thy side, risen up to oppress thee that thou shalt not fully enter into all thine inheritance?) today the Lord maketh a full end to these things; thou shalt pursue after them.
If there remaineth that which oppresseth thee (spiritual oppression, the things of the flesh that come against thee, circumstances, relationships, many things that have come against thee), this is the day that thou shalt believe for a total victory, and rejoice therein, because thou hast set thy heart upon it, and thou hast pursued after it with violence in thy spirit, and thou hast been ruthless and relentless in thy faith. The Lord hath brought forth before thee principalities and powers to be brought down. Is not this the cry of thy heart? Therefore enter in and possess: the victory that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.