======================================================================== THE FIRST THING I MUST SAY WHEN I FACE MY ENEMY by Sandeep Poonen ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the need for humility and dependence on God in recognizing the superior intelligence of the devil and the presence of our selfish will as an ally within us. It highlights the importance of seeking help from God in every situation, acknowledging our limitations, and continuously seeking revelation to avoid being deceived by the enemy's cunning tactics. Topics: "Humility", "Dependence on God" Scripture References: Philippians 4:13, Ezekiel 28:3, Romans 8:7, 2 Corinthians 11:3, Matthew 11:25, 1 Peter 5:8, Proverbs 3:5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the need for humility and dependence on God in recognizing the superior intelligence of the devil and the presence of our selfish will as an ally within us. It highlights the importance of seeking help from God in every situation, acknowledging our limitations, and continuously seeking revelation to avoid being deceived by the enemy's cunning tactics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I want to build on that in what I want to share today. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. If in our fight against the devil we can find that, or in our fight to have our inner life strengthened, we can find that it is not that easy. And I want to talk about something that the Lord has been teaching me about that. You know, as I'm thinking of an analogy, what if I had to try to keep this house, this room secure? What if all of us had to keep this room secure? And what if us, we were to together try to figure out, okay, we've got to stop this room from allowing the people to come in, the enemy to come in. And we made it a team effort. And the youngest to the oldest, everybody's ideas was important. We secured all the doors. We secured all the windows. We secured all the vents. We had video cameras set up. We had people watching every place the enemy could get in. We could feel very secure. But what if I said that the enemy was a million times smarter than all of us put together? Would we have the same confidence? All of us put together, we're trying to secure this building. But what if I knew that the enemy who was trying to get in was a million times smarter than me? Not stronger than me, but smarter than me. Then it wouldn't make much of a difference. I'd be very thankful for the unity that we have. I'd be very confident that we did our best. But if the enemy is truly a million times smarter than me, then I've not made much of a dent in locking everything that I can see. Because my brain and my intelligence will only go so far. I don't know how many of us believe that the devil is at least a million times smarter than us. Think about it. Think about it. Think about how you live your Christian life. Ask yourself, if you're in your fight and your walk in the Christian life, God calls us soldiers, do we see that the devil is a million times smarter than us? Let me ask you this question, as we live in this earth. Honest question. Do you think you can be fooled easily? Do you think you can be fooled easily? And I tell you why it's difficult for us to think. I tell you why it's difficult for me to think that I can be fooled easily. Because I got a good education. I studied hard. I read the news. I work myself in security, so I'm always watching for the ways in which people can break in. I'm always learning. I don't think I'm the smartest guy around, but I tend to live this life thinking I'm generally smart. Not in a proud way, I'm just thinking in a normal way. I don't think I can be fooled very easily. I walk this life not thinking that I can be fooled very easily. But I'm really, really wrong. I can be fooled very easily because the devil is a million times smarter than I am. Let me show you this verse in Ezekiel chapter 28 verse 13. Ezekiel chapter 28 verse 13, sorry verse 3. He's talking about the devil. Ezekiel chapter 28 verse 3. I don't know if we know this, but it says in Ezekiel chapter 28 verse 3, behold you are wiser than Daniel. Okay, do you think you're smarter than Daniel? Probably you won't say yes to that. But you're wiser than Daniel. There is no secret that can be hidden from you. It's the simplest thing in the world for the devil to fool me. It's simple. We're butter in his hands. We're like putty in his hands. He can fool us so easily. And here's what makes it worse, as you've heard me say it before, it's not that the devil can come in. We have been taught and we know that the devil cannot come inside any Christian who's a born again believer. A Christian who's born again can never, never be possessed by a demon or the devil or the lowest demon in the entire universe. He can never come inside of us if we're born again. And if we're walking with the Lord, he can never come inside of us. Zero chance. But we need to also recognize that there is someone inside of us who thinks like the devil, who also hates God inside of us. Not a demon, not the devil, who hates God and the Bible says is at enmity with the God. That's Romans chapter 8 verse 7 and 8. If you don't know that Romans chapter 8 verse 7 and 8 says that the mind set on the flesh, which is the mind sent on selfish thinking, hates God and is at enmity with God. There's somebody inside of us who hates God, even those who are born again. It's our selfish will. And so here's the ally that the devil has on the outside. He can never come inside, but he can entice us and he can seduce us and he can lie to us, twist God's word to get us to do what we need to do. So the devil will use our feelings to play on our emotions. He will use our logic to twist it to serve his purposes. He will use flattery or fear to get us to arouse our selfish will, to become anxious. And the devil will even use God's word to twist it and create lies out of the truth. This is how powerful the devil can do on the outside and the biggest advantage he has is he has one of his allies on my inside. 2nd Corinthians 11 verse 3, we know this verse, we've talked about it many times. I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by how? It says in 2nd Corinthians 11 verse 3, how the serpent deceived Eve? By his strength? No. By his scariness? No. By his craftiness? It's by his smarts that he outwitted the most innocent of all human beings, Adam and Eve. It is the smartness of the devil that's always going to outwit us. All of us put together, you take our best opinions, even though we're born again, we stand no chance against the smarts of the devil. And what makes it worse is that we have an ally inside each of us, an ally of the devil, who also hates God, who is also an enemy of God. And the Bible says that the God of this world has blinded our minds. You see, in 2nd Corinthians 11 verse 3, it says he will lead our minds astray. I think that most of us live most of our lives based on our logic, based on reason. And we think we can't be fooled because if anybody tells us logically, hey here's the way you're doing it, but here's a better way to do it, and he can convince me logically, I'll do it his way. And if another lady comes and tells me, well you're doing it that way, but actually there's an even better way, I will do it that way. And that's how I run my whole life. Very logically. Sometimes based on feelings, but some of us may be educated to know you can't base yourself based on feelings, now we base our lives based on logic. And the devil can run circles around us with logic. That doesn't mean we set our logic aside, that doesn't mean we set our feelings aside. But what we must recognize is that our feelings and our logic cannot be trusted compared to God's word. That we can be deceived despite us being born again, and despite us seeking to follow God in logic and in feelings. Because we're dealing with an enemy who's a million times smarter than us. So what are we trying to get at? What am I trying to get at? I'm trying to get to the point that we must live our lives as ones who are seriously in need of help. The word that must come out of our being, if I truly grasp the fact that I am dealing with an enemy who's a million times smarter than me, and I have an ally inside of me who also hates God, the first word that must come out of our mouths and our hearts must be help. We talk about having our hearts of need. Need is not something I manufacture. Need is something that I must have more of an instinct, not because I'm in great trouble, not because I'm in a really difficult situation, because I know that I'm dealing with an enemy who's a million times smarter than me, and I have an ally of his inside of me who also hates God. That it must be whether in good situations or in bad situations, whether in prosperity or in poverty, whether I have lots or whether I have little, in every situation, help. That's the instinct that must come out of me. And I saw this in Matthew chapter 11, Matthew chapter 11 verse 25. The context of Matthew 11 25 is he's talking to all these cities in Israel that who had witnessed in verse 20, who had witnessed all of these mighty miracles and even then didn't repent. Just think about it. These are people who saw Jesus with their own eyes. Talk about logically telling them, I saw there were only five loaves and two fish, and I saw how 5,000 got fed. I saw how he did these miracles, a man with a withered hand, a blind man, just to give you insight. You can't debate that. You can't debate that, that it was logically it happened before me. But yet Jesus was saying that he rebuked these cities because even though they saw the miracles, it was right in front of them, they didn't repent. And here's why they didn't repent, and that's what's instructed to me in Matthew 11 verse 25. Because I praise you father in heaven that you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent. Because they think they are so smart, because they rely on their logic, and they're not looking for the divine logic which far exceeds human logic. They are easily fooled by the devil. The devil is able to come and use scripture and Jesus and miracles and twist it to say Jesus must be crucified. That's what the Pharisees did. They studied the scriptures, they saw the son of God, they looked at the scriptures and they said, you know what must happen to Jesus? We must kill him. The most religious people took the word of God, used their logic and ended up killing the son of God. They studied the word of God much more than we did. We'll suffer the same fate with the word of God and to the son of God. We will so easily twist God's word to fulfill our purposes. That's why we must be very sober. 1 Peter chapter 5 says, be sober, be sober minded because your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Now he doesn't devour by coming in and attacking us, he can't come inside but he'll roar at us through logic, through feelings from the outside knowing that his ally inside of us can get worked up and we can just cave. We get paralyzed or completely give up on being sober minded. Be on the alert. Peter's talking to Christians. Be sober minded. You're dealing with an enemy who's a million times smarter than you and you've got an ally inside of you who hates God too. Be sober minded. That's what it means to become like an infant and that's what an infant is. Now if I were to tell you that same story, what if you had a bunch of infants here trying to protect this room? I'm not talking about five- year-olds, I'm talking about three-month-olds. Now do they have a chance to protect this room? No. What are they going to cry out? They're just going to cry out one word which is help. I thank you Lord that you've hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and you revealed it very easily because the infant sees the devil, sees that he's a million billion times smarter than him and says I got no chance. Help. I thank you Lord that you've made it this way. He says that. It's pleasing in your sight. It's when I ask for help, when I genuinely ask for help in every situation, I find that the helper is available. The Holy Spirit comes quickly. It's when I ask for help that the helper becomes very real. We are trained to ask for help when things are not going well, when our children are sick, when we lose our job, different things like that. That's not the Christian life. Even the godless ask for help. They go to a mosque and temple and church when they're having their children are sick. They'll do anything. They'll pray to any god. What's the difference between the godless and the Christian? The Christians cry for help all the time. I can do all things when I ask for help. I can do all things whether I'm rich or whether I'm poor. No matter what the situation, I'm crying for help. I need to ask for help. The last thing I wanted to say is we need to keep asking for help. It says that word 1125. He uses this word twice in that section. He says these have been revealed to you. In verse 27-2 it says that no one knows the son except the father and the one to whom the son will reveal it to him. It's something that God has to reveal to us that we are helpless, that we need help, that we're little babies. And the classic example is Peter. Peter was really confronted with his lack. You can read about it I think in Mark chapter 7 or something around that time when he saw the man healed in Bethsaida and he saw his lack and Jesus said, don't you understand what's going on here? And Peter went to the Lord, went to the father and said, God show me. And the father showed Peter, revealed to Peter that Jesus was the son of God. Because then they go to this other place, Caesarea Philippi and Jesus asks, who do people say that I am? And they said Elijah, Jeremiah, all kinds of different people. And then Jesus asked, who do you say that I am? And the father had revealed to Peter, this is the son of God. Revelation changed logic. An uneducated fisherman saw what the religious scribes couldn't see, that he was the son of God. And that revelation, Jesus commended him and said, blessed are you. But you see what happens just a few verses later when Jesus said, guess what, I'm going to be crucified on the cross. What did Peter do? Went back to his logic and said, who in their right mind will allow somebody like Jesus to be crucified? Somebody so special like Jesus to be crucified. What kind of logic would that be to go and kill Jesus? So he says, no, that will never happen to you. He went back to leaning on his own very beautiful logic. Please don't kill Jesus. And Jesus said, get behind me, Satan. Immediately, you've gone from having revelation from the father, just a few verses later, you're back to being influenced by the devil. The devil wasn't inside of Peter, but the devil was influencing Peter's thinking because he went back to just human logic. So Matthew 25 and 27 tells me I need to become like an infant. My basic instinct in every situation needs to be help. Whether you're in trouble or whether you're in prosperity, our instinct needs to be that of infants. Then we will continuously receive words of revelation. Man lives by words that proceed from the mouth of God, continuous revelation. Not one time like Peter, Lord, you're the Messiah, the son of the living God. And then five, 10 minutes later, I'm going back to being influenced by the devil. That shows me that I can get revelation about one thing. And then a few minutes later, a few hours later, I'm acting just like a godless person influenced by the devil. Lord, I want continuous revelation. I want to keep having the cry. When I have a problem, when I don't have a problem. Lean not on your own understanding. You three-year-olds, you five-year- olds, you 35-year-olds, you 105-year-old, doesn't matter. Lean not on your own understanding. Become like an infant. Imagine you're like a three-month-old and you're trying to protect this. There's one word that can help you. Help. The helper is available to all of us very quickly. He'll come by quickly to succeed, to give justice. Help. But then in all your ways, acknowledge him and let him direct your path. Wait for him. Wait for him to open the doors. Wait for him. Don't come up with bright ideas as this three-month-old. We're like a bunch of three-month-olds trying to get together to figure out how to beat the devil. We will just acknowledge, Lord, I'm weak. I want to be like an infant who doesn't know how to solve all these problems in my personal life, in my family life, in my financial life, in my health life, in my church life. I want to maintain a spirit of being an infant. And Lord, you lead in all your ways. Acknowledge him and he will direct your path. God will help us as we seek to become infants. May the Lord help us. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/pgBru03vKQk.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/sandeep-poonen/the-first-thing-i-must-say-when-i-face-my-enemy/ ========================================================================