MY FRIENDS, OUR CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, WHY HAVE WE MADE HIM OUR FRIEND?

Nov. 23, 2015

MY FRIENDS, OUR CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, WHY HAVE WE MADE HIM OUR FRIEND?

My friends, “Satan is constantly at work, but few have any idea of his activity and subtlety. The people of God must be prepared to withstand the wily foe. It is this resistance that Satan dreads.

He knows better than we do the limit of his power and how easily he can be overcome if we resist and face him. Through divine strength the weakest saint is more than a match for him and all his angels, and if brought to the test he [or she] would be able to prove [their] superior power….

The enemy is preparing for his last campaign against [God’s faithful, and] concealed himself from view…and when he makes another advance move, we will not recognize him as our enemy, that old serpent, but we will consider him a friend” (E.G. White, Testimonies Vol. 5 pp 293-294)

We will consider Him a friend. That my friends, is the scariest part of that quote in that we can be so naive as to the deception of the enemy that we fail to recognize where he is leading us which is too perdition.

The enemy is preparing for his last assault on our lives. “Breaking news” tells us that’s his strategy each day. Satan, knows he has very little time left. But it seems we have lost a large portion of our memory, back, at a time when the enemy had us convinced his way would make us happy.

Back at a time when our entire being, our affections, the life we lived, our intellect and talents were all about self. Back at a time when we did not know God. Back at a time “when we thought we were grown but continued to speak as a child, and live our life like there was no tomorrow as a child.

But now that we have become men, and women we should have put away childish things and given it all to the Master.” 1 Cor. 13-11 (NKJV paraphrased) My friends, as men and woman who have all been born in sin and shaped in iniquity” we each have a propensity to “obey the worst impulses of the heart.”

Consistent with this, we must “pray without ceasing” while recognizing how far we are from surrendering it all to the Master“  and allowing His Spirit total access to our life to do as God leads. My friends, we must not forget, it is only through Christ that Satan becomes ineffective in our life.

Remember, Christ has been where we are only He did not give in to the enemy. In addition, Christ knows the rough terrain. He knows the temptations and hardships we must encounter daily from the forces of evil.

He knows the pain of the road we must travel and the exhaustion of the constant battles from Satan. But He conquered so we could receive victory through Him. That is why He stayed focused and His love for us never wavered.

He knew our fragile framework, He remembered that we are made from the dust of the ground. And what delicate steps we must take to follow Him to Calvary. But who else to Guide us along this journey but someone who has been this way before, and finished the course.

So when temptations seems to be more then we can bear. Remember, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when we are tempted, he will also provide a way of escape through Him” 1 Corinthians 10:13 (KJV)

Every excuse we may give as the reason we cannot serve Christ, was challenged and answered at Calvary.