Who Is The Most Powerful Enemy?

But whether it's a physical or a spiritual war, we need to ask for the Lord to come to our rescue and through his mercy and grace, infinite mercy and grace, bestow that peace in every heart, in every human being, and in every nation, every country, and more so in his beloved church, the bride whom he has purchased with his own precious blood on the cross on Calvary. In the gospel of today, according to Saint Matthew, our church fathers chose from two different places from the gospel, according to Saint Matthew. The first reading was from Matthew chapter 10 and verses 37 to 42, and the other one was from Matthew chapter 19 and verses 27 to 30.

Very briefly, the Lord Jesus says, if you do not carry the cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. He who finds himself shall lose it at the end, but he who loses himself for my sake, I, the son of man, shall find it at the end. If you do not carry the cross, you cannot be my disciple.

Number one, Christianity. Christianity is discipleship, meaning we are all followers of Christ, from the highest rank in the church to the lowest rank in the church, every one of us follow Jesus Christ of Nazareth. No one can lead, the only true leader is the good shepherd, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and the day that comes that we start leading, we will destroy everything Christ has given us.

The Lord will always be the good shepherd, he will always be the head to this beloved bride, his beloved church. We are disciples, we are not leaders, we are followers of Christ. If you do not carry the cross, you cannot be my disciple.

In other words, if you do not carry the cross, you cannot follow me, you cannot follow me. Now why? Because there are two gods, one God, his name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the only true divine God. The other one is a false God called me.

When I do things my way, when I live my way, when I behave my way, when I, whatever I do, it is all about me, me, me, I become God, however the false one. The Lord says, there cannot be more than one God, for God is one and one only here, O Israel. Your God is one.

So there is only one God, and that is the true living God, the creator of everything and everyone that is visible and invisible. Therefore, there cannot co-exist another God, for there is only one. The day you, my beloved child, come and wish or choose to live your way, do things your way, speak your way, you are becoming your own God.

Therefore, you cannot carry the cross, because the cross is about death. Crucifixion is dying on the cross, and what is death in the biblical terminology? Self-denial, self-denial. I do not live for myself anymore.

I do not live my way anymore. I live according to Christ and no one else. The Lord says, if you do not deny yourself, i.e. carrying your cross, how can you be a follower? If you don't carry the cross, you are being a leader, and there is only one leader, and that Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

This word me or I am, I resemble it with a factory. It's like a factory. In the factory, every product is manufactured.

If it wasn't for me, I wouldn't have killed. If it wasn't for me, I wouldn't have lied. If it wasn't for me, I wouldn't have stealed.

If it wasn't for me, I wouldn't have done this, and this, and this against God. It is me that gets me into trouble always, when I listen to me. The ultimate and the source of all problems is me, and this is why the Lord said, there are several enemies.

However, there is one enemy to you that is the most powerful of all. The Lord says, do not be afraid of the one that kills the body but has no authority over the spirit. But I say to you, whom you shall fear, fear the one that can kill the body and has the authority to cast your spirit into hell.

Now, who is the enemy that has the authority to kill the body but has no jurisdiction over your spirit? Satan. Satan, the ultimate he can achieve with a human being is to kill the body that has no authority over your spirit. Who has your spirit? Christ the King in the palm of his hand.

I have engraved your names when I received the nail that pierced my hand, there I engraved your names. Your spirit is in my hand, and this is where the Lord, when he was on the cross about to give his last breath, he said, Father into your hands I commit my spirit. So where is our spirit? When we trust in Christ, it is in the hand of the Father.

And what did the Lord say about his Heavenly Father? No one can take anything out of my Father's hand. And then the following verse, I and the Father are one. And people say, where did Jesus say he is God? Well, this is one of the ways to say that he is God.

Because no one can dare to put himself before God unless he is equal to God. Satan can kill the body, no authority of your spirit. Who has the authority to kill the body and the spirit? Me.

So who is the most powerful enemy? Me. I am stronger than Satan against my own self. This is one of the reasons why God kept Satan and did not abolish Satan.

Because if God were to wipe Satan out, he had to wipe us before Satan, because we are much more powerful enemies to ourselves than Satan to us. I am the number one enemy of my own self, when I am stubborn about things. My son, come to church.

No, I'm going to the club. My son, pray. No, I'm not praying.

My son, fast. No, I'm not fasting. I don't care.

My son, listen. No, I'm not listening. The only person I will listen to is me.

Whatever is in my head, I will say. And whatever is in my thought, I will implement into action. It is either my way or you brother can hit the highway.

When it comes to me, it is the most powerful enemy ever to exist. And this is why the Lord Jesus pre-warned Adam in the Garden of Eden, when he said to Adam, whatever you do, Adam, don't ever, don't ever, don't ever eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, some people went into a lot of hassle and heartaches and headaches to figure out what kind of a tree was it.

Was it apple? This is where they invented the iPhone apple with the symbol of a bitten apple from the side. What apple? Was it figs? Was it orange juice? Was it none of that, my beloved? The Holy Bible is very clear. The name of that tree which God pre-warned Adam not to eat from is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

That tree is literal and that tree is me and you and every human being. We are the tree. And there was another tree which God said you can eat anytime, the tree of life.

And who is the tree of life? Christ, the King. The Lord says, God said to Adam, you eat from the tree of life from my son, you will live always. But the day you rely on yourself, surely you shall die.

Your beginning is good, but your end is definitely evil. And isn't this, isn't it the case when we do things our way? Always the start is stunning, breathtaking, magnificent. I went out of the prison called home where these old-fashioned people called mom and dad lived in there and persecuted me, imprisoned me for 20 years of my life from the day I was born till the moment I went out with my friends for the first time.

I was 20, I was 18 and the friends came and took me in this Toyota Corolla and they had this big subwoofer Habibi in the back seat and there was about four of us or five and we were cruising down the freeway going downtown. For the first time I said life is good LG, not the brand, life is good. The beginning was amazing, it was stunning, nothing like it.

For the first time I am in heaven, I am flying, I am free and after a while I am dead, I am destroyed, I am empty, I'm lost, I'm confused, I'm a drug addict, I'm a gambler, I am whatever I am. I became someone God never created. When does a person kill themselves by themselves? When they become someone God never created.

God created you, when you do things your way you end up being not you, someone that never exists and what is the thing that never exists? Dead, because when you die you don't exist anymore, finished. Do you exist on earth anymore? No, you can't. Can people see you after you die? No.

So when I become someone that God never created, I become someone dead. If you don't carry the cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple, i.e. a follower and one of the church fathers put it so beautifully, he says, I am not a Christian, I am a follower of Christ. So true, so beautifully said, I am not a Christian, I am a follower of Christ because so many Christians do not follow Christ.

When are you truly a Christian? When you follow Christ. I am not a Christian, I am a follower of Christ. Saint George was a true follower of Christ, someone who lived in the third century.

Saint George, he was born on the 19th of March 275, well not 2000, 275. That is a very long time ago. He was born on the 19th of March 275, third century.

Saint George still lives, he was not married, single, never had children. His name is still remembered and those who got married and had children, their names are forgotten. You see, you are not forgotten when you are in Christ embedded, but you will be definitely forgotten if you walk away from him.

Someone who never married, never had children, we still celebrate his feast. Churches are built in his name throughout every century without fail. Incredible how the Lord rewards those who are faithful and loyal to him.

Then when are you going to represent Christ before the world? When? When you die too late, you die too late. Saint George stood and faced this vampire, Diocletian, the emperor of the Roman Empire, the most powerful man on earth. He faced him and he said, I will not deny my Lord Jesus.

I worship the true living God and his name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I will not bow before idols, false gods, pagan gods. Well, the outcome was he faced imprisonment and he was tortured because he even tore the emperor's decree against Christians, which angered Diocletian.

Despite facing horrific torture, including being beaten with iron rods and cast into a cauldron of boiling water, Saint George remained steadfast in his faith. A prayer to Saint George. O Christ, our Lord, you have authority.

You gave authority to Saint George over your good treasures to distribute to all the needy. Save your people by your grace. Bless your inheritors by the abundance of your mercy.

Shepherd and guide us according to your will. Deliver us from all tribulations by the prayers of Saint George the martyr and have mercy on us. Amen.

May the prayers of Saint George, the intercession of Saint George, be with us all, my beloved. Be with the church always, always for unity to be always made possible in the church and in the world. And the prayers of Saint George, we ask him to intercede for Syria and the people of Syria for peace to be made possible in that part of the region.

Saints are living. They always pray for us. They always intercede for us.

They are the living ones. We are the dead ones in paradise. They do not seize from praying.

They worship the Lord and they intercede for all of us, for the church on earth. So Saint George is the living saint with his so many other beautiful saints. He can't count them because they are more than the stars of heaven, more than the stars of heaven, glorifying the Lord Jesus, worshiping the Lord Jesus in paradise 24-7 non-stop, my beloved.

And Saint George is one of those saints that comes very quick, very quickly. When you ask for his help, oh he comes very quickly. Some saints, they take a bit of a time to come, you know, like they are kind of easygoing, cool, you know, it's okay, you can wait, but Saint George comes flying.

He is that quick and he is a warrior, a mighty one, my beloved, but it's all by the grace of the Lord Jesus. However, the Lord honors them. We need and must honor them as well.

The Lord honors them. We must honor the saints, my beloved, and I can assure you they are 100% living in the presence of the Lord Jesus in paradise, the third heaven. They are definitely alive and warriors and mighty as well, my beloved, and Saint George, my goodness, my goodness.

I have to say this, during the the time, the incident, after the incident, this saint, I mentioned it in one of the talks, this saint came, it wasn't a dream, it was real. I was sitting fully awake. So this person came from the middle, from the heart of the desert.

Anyway, I found out later on, I've never seen this saint before, I've never heard of his name, I never knew he existed, I never knew. So anyway, I checked, I found out that he happened to be a bishop in Egypt and he had moved on passed away seven years ago, seven years ago. He was a bishop and he had passed away seven years ago.

I saw him coming in real, no dream, nothing, nothing. I was fully awake. Anyway, this bishop went to build a monastery to name it after Saint George and this bishop's body is actually placed in that monastery which I visited last year, when we went to Egypt.

The saint's name is Amba Bimwa. I never heard of this name before until he appeared. Are you telling me they're dead? What dead? We're dead, they're alive, come on.

We need to grow up in our spirituality, we can't remain in kindergarten level, we need to graduate from university in the spiritual sense. So anyway, he went to build a monastery and to name it after Saint George. In that part of Egypt, there's a lot of people that are kind of stubborn and some of them are not Christian, a lot of them actually not Christian.

So this bishop went to build a monastery, he came to buy this parcel of land to build a monastery for Saint George. The people went at him full steam ahead against him. They said, there is no way in the world we will let you build a monastery and whatever you are, you're a Christian, we don't want you here, get out of here.

So the bishop realized it's going to cause a lot of dramas and it could escalate and there could be bloodshed. To avoid all that, he used his wisdom and he retracted. He said, it's all right, I'm not going to build it.

He went away and he asked Saint George to intercede and intervene. He said, Saint George, by the way, Saint George used to appear to him and talk to him face to face because Saint Bimwa is a saint on earth and in heaven. He was a saint and he's a saint forever.

Anyway, so Saint George used to appear to him and talk to him. So he went to Saint George, he said, what do I do? These people are difficult, I don't want trouble, they don't mind even killing. Saint George, you intervene.

Saint George went and appealed to those people. He taught them a lesson they will never forget it for the rest of their life. They went to the bishop and begged him to come back and build the monastery for Saint George.

In fact, he asked for a small parcel of land, they gave him 10 times the size of what he was asking for. It's a massive monastery and a massive piece of land. It is in the hundreds of acres and Saint George's monastery was built because the warrior went and fixed them up.

I pray even though I am nowhere near the little toe of Saint Bimwa, I am nowhere near that, but I pray the Lord sometimes sends his saints and shake the grounds beneath certain people that are willingly seeking evil. Shake the ground beneath their feet to realize there is God. Put fear in their hearts to come back and ask for forgiveness.

Amen. God bless you my beloved. May Saint George's prayers and intercession be with us all and may the beloved country of Syria and our people in Syria be always in good health and good spirit and peace and harmony with one another and with the neighboring countries.

In Jesus mighty name we pray. Amen. Let's bow our heads and ask for forgiveness to be made worthy by the grace of our Lord Jesus to come forth and receive him in the true body and the true blood of Christ.

Amen. Our good God and full of mercy, our good God and full of mercy whose grace and mercy is poured upon all, pour my Lord the compassion of the delightfulness of your love upon your servants and again transform them in the hope of renewal to the life of repentance. Renew in them your holy spirit by whom they are sealed for the day of salvation.

Purify them by your compassion from all flesh and spiritual blemishes and assure the hope of their faith by the aid of your grace and instill the walks of their behavior and the paths of righteousness. Please them along with the saints in your kingdom by the assurance of the hope of their faith and the adoption as your children and in the joy of your absolving mysteries. Empower them by the aid of your mercies to observe your commandments and fulfill your will to confess worship and praise your holy name the Lord of all, Father and Son and Holy Spirit forever.

Amen. May the Lord Jesus bless you, guide you and protect you.