New Year, New You, New Season - Part 4

New Year, New You, New Season – Part 4

Good Morning, and praise the Lord.  We are continuing with our series entitled New Year, New You, New Season.  Please turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 20.

Deuteronomy 20

When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be, when ye are come nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, and shall say unto them, hear, O Israel, ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies: let not your hearts faint, fear not, and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them; for the Lord your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you. And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, what man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it. And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? Let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it. And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her. And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, what man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart. And it shall be, when the officers have made an end of speaking unto the people that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.  When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee: That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the Lord your God.  When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege: Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.

I want you to know that we have an enemy warring against our very soul.  He doesn’t want us to live righteously, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that we’re deceived and bamboozled enough to miss Heaven, as well as to miss all that God has for us to do.  However, the other enemy that does this is who you see in the mirror.

You see, we can’t blame everything on the devil, like Geraldine said.  Some of you are too young to know that reference, but it’s ok.  When we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, we can’t say that the devil made us do it.  Why?  Because the Lord has given us free will to choose this day whom we will serve.

In this New Year, we need to determine whether we believe and trust the God of the bible, or do we stand between two opinions.  I know that there are people who say that the word of God is just a book of stories, and not to be taken literally.  Let’s go there for a few moments.

This might shock you, but in a sense, it’s true.  Now don’t shut me down yet, because I’m trying to make a point.  The bible is full of stories, meaning accounts of Godly inspired men who wrote the books.  We all know that Moses wrote the first five books of the bible, from Genesis to Deuteronomy.  There are minor and major prophets who wrote more books.  There are two books written and dedicated to two women, Ruth and Esther.  The majority of Psalms and Proverbs were written by David, and some by Solomon and Asaph.  Song of Solomon is a love story between Solomon and his wife, which also parallels Christ and the church, in case you didn’t know.  The first four books of the New Testament were written by four disciples who followed Jesus, and gave an account of His ministry based upon what they witnessed.  Luke wrote two books, the self-titled one, and Acts.  The Apostle Paul wrote most of the books in the New Testament, with a couple by Peter, and John, the brother of Jesus did as well, his self-titled one as well as Revelation.

Yes, these are all stories, but don’t get it twisted.  It’s not fiction, but fact.  Do we need to take it literally?  Well, it all depends.  Saints, when we read the bible, we need to determine when and who it was written to.  Some of the mandates in the Old Testament were specific for the children of Israel, and doesn’t apply to present day.  But I promise you that the Ten Commandments as well as the entire New Testament, you’d better seriously consider what the word of God is saying, and know that it does apply to our lives.

My strong suggestion is that you read all of it, ask the Lord what applies, and go with it.  It really is important that you study to show yourself approved.  Most people go with the King James Version, but there are other versions that are great study bibles.  Whatever version you use, make sure that you study it, and cross reference with a good expository or concordance.  Enough about that.

Now, back to the enemy.  There are all types of scriptures that we can look up in order to guard ourselves against Satan.  You need to know who he is, what he does, and look at the tale of the tape.  This isn’t an ordinary fight.  You have to look at his strengths in order to cry out to God for help.

Let’s talk about this some more, because I don’t think that folks really understand that unlike the Creator of the universe, the devil is not all powerful, all knowing, omniscient, and omnipresent.  We give this character more power and access to our lives than he needs.  Do you realize that he is already defeated, but we get all shocked and shaken when he comes on the offense, looking to jack us up?

We’d better take it seriously, because he’s out for blood.  He wants to terminate our contract with the Lord, which is salvation.  He’s like the big bad wolf, huffing and puffing, and threatening to blow our house down.  I stopped by to tell you today that the devil is a liar and a deceiver.  We should already know that.  He’s only doing his job, and it’s time for us to do ours.

First of all, we need to believe every single word that God says in the bible.  He is our coach, Jesus is the pitcher, and the Holy Ghost is our catcher.  Didn’t get that?  Ok, here’s another one.  I’ll keep God as the coach, Jesus is the quarterback, and the Holy Ghost is the defensive line.

In other words, God tells us the game plan in His word, Jesus delivers the message, and the Holy Ghost keeps us from straying.  It’s really that simple, but we make it so hard.  Once you recognize that the enemy has no stroke at all, then you can resist his schemes, plots and plans.  He’ll go away, but count on him coming back to try it again.

If you’re scared, admit it, but don’t stay that way.  Know that the Lord has your back, and you should equip yourself with the full armor of God, so you can withstand the devil’s attack.  Notice that the front of your body is covered, but your back is exposed.  Why is that?  Because Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, interceding on our behalf.

Remember we talked about the various factions?  The Jebusites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Hivites and the Canaanites?  These were the arch enemies of the Israelites, who wanted to take them out because they thought that their armies and the idols they worshipped would help them to defeat God’s chosen people.  They couldn’t have been more wrong, as the children of Israel ran through them like a hot knife through butter.

Now don’t get me wrong, because there were days that the Israelites got their hats handed to them, because they got cocky, and didn’t seek the Lord for direction.  Sometimes we’re like that, too.  We figure that we’re intelligent and savvy enough to figure it out on our own.  Let me burst your bubble and tell you that there is absolutely no time that we will ever not need the Lord.

I will say it again for the people in the back who didn’t hear me.  We need the Lord.  If we think that we don’t, we will fall flat on our faces, and all of hell will be laughing at our foolish selves for thinking that we could do that.  Don’t ever get a big head because of where we are.  God allowed us to get a measure of success with each trial, but it wasn’t because of us, at any time.  He has our hands on our lives, and we must acknowledge Him with every step we take.  May the Lord bless you, and we’ll see you tomorrow, God willing.