Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Friday, August 2, 2013
The strength and the power of His might is an offensive characteristic, but the armor is concerned with our protection, and the defensive side of our struggling and wrestling with the devil and the principalities and powers.
If you enter into this spiritual conflict on the defensive only, and have ignored and forgotten the offensive and the positive, you are already defeated.
They get so wrapped up in the satanic attack that they begin to worry, live in fear, anger or bitterness and forget about verse 10, be strong or start becoming strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.
1. Worry is a mental attitude sin which is self-induced and therefore soulish torment or anxiety regarding anything in life.
2. Remember that Adversity is inevitable, stress is optional.
3. PHI 4:6 Stop worrying about anything, but in every circumstance through prayer and through supplication for personal needs after thanksgivings let your requests or petitions be revealed to the God.
ZEC 2:5 “For I,’ declares the Lord, ‘will be a wall of fire around her, and I will be the glory in her midst.” . Worry always anticipates the worst, and so becomes apprehension or
anticipation of danger, misfortune, trouble, or uncertainty.
5. Worry is a state of restlessness and agitation, producing mental disturbance, uneasiness, anxiety, and painful uncertainty.
6. Worry then short circuits the function of the faith-rest technique and causes the believer to be pinned down in no man’s land.
7. If you retreat, you do not go back to your previous stage of spiritual
growth, you’re out of fellowship, you’re out of the PPOG, you go back to reversionism.
8. Once you get out into no man’s land, either you go forward and take the objective or you retreat into reversionism, as we have used the phrase in the past, you crash and burn.
9. Worry causes the believer to be pinned down in no man’s land, and to be pinned down in no man’s land means to become a casualty for reversionism.
10. Worry is a destroyer of the soul. If unchecked, it results in mental illness.
Worry in the mind causes shock to the body, PRO 12:25 Anxiety in the heart of a man weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad.
11. Worry is a satanic device to lead the believer into reversionism and the sin unto death, EZE 4:15-17; EZE 12:18-19.
12. Worry is a great weapon in the hands of Satan because the forces of evil take over the soul as a result of worry.
The perpetuation of the function of perception, metabolization and application of Bible doctrine becomes absolutely necessary to put muscle on your faith, as per the principle of PSA 55:22.
PSA 55:22 Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the supergrace believer to be shaken.
PSA 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
PSA 37:5 Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
13. Bad news causes worry, JER 49:23ff.
14. Worry causes hysteria, LUK 10:41 But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things;
15. People cause worry. People are always worried about other people. Worriers have to have an object, 1SA 10:2.
16. Economic disaster is a cause of worry, JER 42:16.
17. Sin causes worry. People worry about sin which causes guilt,
PSA 38:18. Worry is a sin, ROM 14:23b.
PSA 38:18 For I confess my iniquity; I am full of anxiety because of my sin.
ROM 14:23 whatever is not from faith is sin.
18. We are ordered to stop worrying, LUK 12:29, PHI 4:6-7.
LUK 12:29 “And do not seek what you shall eat, and what you shall drink, and do not keep worrying.”
19. Worry characterizes reversionism, ISA 57:11.
20. Worry does not solve problems, MAT 6:25-34.
21. Worry distracts from doctrinal teaching, MAT 13:22;
LUK 8:14.
22. Blessing from God includes freedom from worry, JER 17:7-8.
EPH 6:11 Put on the full armor of God,
Or EPH 6:13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God,
We have to realize that as long as we are in this world, defence against the subtle attacks of the enemy is a constant necessity never to be neglected.
The enemy that is forever confronting us never admits defeat and is always watching and waiting for our unguarded moments.
The devil himself is aggressive and his ambassadors are everywhere and always watching for a moment of slackness when a believer with PVTD is off guard.
Though we may have great strength and power, the apostle reminds us that this defensive armor is always an absolute necessity.
There is no protection, there is nothing we can do, that will ultimately protect us against this deceptive, subtle, powerful enemy but the armor of God.
The great thing is that we are not left to our own resources and devices.
We are in a state of warfare, exposed to invisible enemies, and we are naturally unprepared for this warfare in our own strength.
The enemy we have to contend with bears an incurable hatred against us, and seeks nothing less than our destruction and overthrow.
He has a contact or a strong agent within us, called our old sin nature.
The highest rank in the demon table of organization which is in the accusative plural from the noun arche.
Arche is taken from an ancient Greek word called archon and it refers to rulers, leaders, chiefs, those in position of high rank.
a. There is Abaddon or Appollyon, who is a demon king who is located in the abyss, REV 9:11.
The abyss which is the fourth compartment of Hades is the jail for certain demons who have been incarcerated there because they disobeyed the rules for the angelic conflict in human history.
The abyss, at the present, is the barracks for the first demon assault army under the command of Abaddon (Hebrew) or Apollyon (Greek).
This first demon assault army will invade the earth during the Tribulation period, REV 9:1-12.
There will be visible heroes among believers; e.g., Moses and Elijah and the 144,000 Jewish evangelists.
When Satan is cast down to the earth, he is going to be permitted to release his three hard-core demon armies.
And they will attack human beings physically.
The first demon assault army is found in the first 13 verses of Revealation chapter 9 led by the second ranking fallen angel of all time called Apollyon or Abaddon.
1. Only those in the cosmic system or involved in the world system can be attacked.
2. The second restriction is that they cannot kill their victims.
The fifth angel is one of the elect angles who have privileges and authority for glorifying TLJC in the first angelic rebellion.
The star is a reference to Satan who had fallen to the earth in the middle of the Tribulation period.
ISA 14:12 “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations!”
In LUK 10:18, TLJC who was a prophet, a priest and a king, as a prophet the Lord said “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”
The word for bottomless is abussos which means the abyss. The word pit is the noun phrear which means a well and it refers to the pit of the abyss.
Just before God the Father throws Satan down to the earth in the middle of the Tribulation period, he gives Satan the key and the power and authority to release the first demon assault army.
Satan is permitted to release his first demon assault army and they will torture their targets for five months.
Satan does this to his own servants because Satan is an ungrateful master.
Once Satan can no longer use those involved in the cosmic system, he tries to destroy them in his satanic frustration.
The opening is the entrance and the exit for the great underworld prison known as the abyss.
We will see in this chapter that phenomenon where arrogance tortures
arrogance!
Where arrogance destroys arrogance.
He uses what God has given him to destroy those that have served him against God, both carnal believers and unbelievers.
MAT 7:7 “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.”
JER 29:13 “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”
MAR 12:30 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
If you’re in the cosmic system you are the servant [slave] of Satan.
There are two areas where demons are in prison, the first is called Tartarus and there is smoke in Tartarus.
The second is the abyss and there is smoke in the Abyss.
2PE 2:4 which says For if God Himself did not spare the angels when they sinned [those are the sons of God in
GEN 6:2], but He incarcerated them in Tartarus with chains of darkness [zophos – black clouds and a mist], keeping them for judgment;
JUD 1:6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under thick darkness [zophos- black clouds and a mist] for the judgment of the great day.
The word for locusts is akrides used for an army of destruction. The destruction of Nineveh by the way in the book of Nahum is described in terms of the locust plague, NAH 3:15-16.
PRO 30:27 The locusts have no king, Yet all of them go out in ranks;
Whenever the locust form up and go into the air, their wings make an awesome sound and they literally darken the sky around them.
For the first time in history, beginning in the middle of the Tribulation, demons are permitted to attack men.