The Battle Is The Lord's

Pick our bibles up.

I want to get into the Word with you tonight and just lift them up and wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

I believe it does Father's heart good to see people, believers, gathered, even if it is on live stream.

And let's say this together Say heavenly Father, I treasure your Holy written Word, I'm so glad that you have spoken to me supernaturally and I treasure your Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, shine your light on the Word and give me illumination tonight so that it's food for my faith, it's nourishment for my spirit and I will be given the means to always overcome in Jesus' name, amen.

Let's turn in our bibles tonight to 1 Samuel 17 and verse 47.

And also, while you're marking, let's get to 2 Corinthians, chapter two.

Let me read verse 47 in 1 Samuel 1.

This is David talking, and he's talking to his enemy Goliath.

And to Goliath he says and all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth, not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands.

Praise God, the battle is the Lord's.

That's what I wanna talk about tonight.

The battle is the Lord's.

I know many of you are in battles.

You know you're either in one, you're just coming out of one or you're fixing to go into one, and so it's good to remember the battle is the Lord's, but the victory is ours.

And let's look at 2 Corinthians, chapter two, verse 14, very familiar verse, one of my favorites.

Now, thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ and maketh manifest the savor or the flavor or the aroma or the fragrance of his knowledge by us in every place.

Hallelujah, he always, he always.

Just say that out loud.

God always causes me to triumph in Christ.

You know it's when you think about that, when you're going through something.

I mean, you know, sometimes we're tempted, when we're going through a battle, to be overwhelmed with the intensity of it.

Hey, it's not over, it's the Lord's, and he always causes us to triumph.

That's gotten me through many a scrap, and besides that, we know the war's already been won.

Amen, you know to triumph.

I like to read this entry in the linguistic key to the Greek New Testament.

Years ago I sent off and bought this little book.

I'm not a Greek scholar, but the people that put that together are, and so I like to use it as New Testament words in the Greek to give you a little bit more than your concordance.

And so to triumph indicates the ancient procession celebrating the utter defeat of the enemy.

It's the picture of a triumphant entry of a military hero into Rome.

The victorious Roman general marched into the city in a long procession, preceded by the city magistrates, followed by trumpeteers, then spoils taken from the enemy, while white oxen for sacrifice, captives headed by the king of the conquered country, then officials of the victorious army and musicians dancing and playing, and finally the general himself in whose honor the whole pageant was taking place.

Paul here represents himself not as one of the generals, not as a triumphant general, but he pictured himself as one of the soldiers sharing in the victorious general's glory of triumph.

You know, jesus is the victorious general and we're just soldiers in his army.

Amen.

And so it was customary for the release of sweet fragrance by burning incense and spices in the street while the procession is proceeding through.

What a picture of triumph I mean when we triumph.

It's like it's a procession of the devil having to have his nose rubbed in his defeat over and over again.

I tell you, and of course, in verse 15 here in 2 Corinthians, it says this for we are unto God, a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish.

To the one with a savor of death unto death and to the other the savor of life unto life.

And who is sufficient for these things?

So we have an aroma victory and people who are victorious have an aroma, and to and to Christians it's an encouragement, it's a celebration, but to the devil and the demon powers Hallelujah.

It's a reminder that they're doomed.

Praise God, we have the aroma of victory on us and come on, let's just lift our hands right now.

Thank God, I'm, I'm smelling like victory right now.

Yeah, we're in a battle, yes, we are in a battle, but the war is already won.

It's good to keep that in mind.

You know the enemy always contests and opposes what God is doing in and through you.

You know, I was reading years ago Brother Hagin teaching on the authority of the believer and how we're seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

He said there's few battles you'll go through and more vicious than the one that contests your entrance into exercising your authority as a believer.

Early in those days, when you get a revelation of who you are in Christ and you begin to exercise authority.

He will throw everything but the kitchen sink at you.

He's going to bring against you every kind of pressure to get you to move off of that.

Because he knows a believer who is fully identified with Christ, who whose faith is built in the Word of God, who begins to get a revelation of how great our power is and our authority is in the earth, over the enemy.

His days are numbered.

And so in Mark, chapter four, let's turn over.

There Jesus is speaking about four kinds of dirt.

He talks about how the word, the sower, sows the Word, the Word of faith.

If you're preaching this Word, maybe you've heard it before.

Well, tonight, if you've heard it before, then it's water for the seed that's been planted and it's going to bring another harvest.

If it's new information, well then it's seed that's going to be planted in your heart.

But whenever we hear the Word of God, the sower is sowing the Word and into your heart.

And so Jesus told the parable of the four kinds of dirt, and only only one kind of dirt had a crop.

So there were three.

Three out of four instances had a crop failure and the and they kind of pictures how the enemy will attack you.

He will.

He will throw circumstances your way in differing intensities.

So the first one is.

The first one was you know, the word is sown and it's not really planted, it's just on the wayside, it's just kind of you know, kind of casual, it's not really planted like a farmer would plant a seed.

And so what happens?

The birds of the air come and and eat the seed, they devour it.

So Jesus said that that was the way, that, that when people have heard the Word, satan comes immediately to take away the Word that was sown in your heart.

So that that's a picture of a frontal attack.

I mean, the devil will come as soon as you begin to hear good news and hope begins to blossom in your heart about a situation that you're facing, he will come with an additional frontal attack and try to just steal every bit of your faith out of your heart before you can even get started.

And so that battle happens.

You know, sometimes it just till we get wise to his ways.

And and then the second one talks about the Word being planted in a.

At first, you know, the Word grows up a little bit and the person hearing the Word is real glad and excited.

And then when persecution and affliction arises for the word sake, immediately they're offended.

And he talks about that.

The sun scorches the Word.

See the heat of circumstances.

You know, if he can't do a frontal attack on you and steal the Word, then he'll bring other attacks towards you, the heat of circumstances, to try to get you to give up.

And that that second one is because the Word is really.

You don't have a lot of depth to your faith.

Your, your faith is just on the surface and we're going to dig deep in the Word of God.

We got to.

You know.

I've been talking about prayer and how many times we're too fast to pray or too quick to start praying and quoting scripture and declaring our victory before we've really found out the lay of the land, before we really find out what's going on.

And and so that second thing is the Word is is the first, first situation, the frontal attack, the Word is stolen.

The second, when the word is scorched and it does not return a crop, you don't get victory.

And then the the third one If he doesn't, it's not successful on the first two, then he'll bring the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lust of other things, entering in it chokes the word and it becomes unfruitful.

Jesus said it becomes.

So that tells me that it was fruitful.

For a season it was fruitful.

You began to get results.

I've seen this so often in my ministry, where people get partial victory and then they sort of relax, they get busy, they get to enjoying life so much, and I think we ought to enjoy life.

But we can't ignore God while we're doing it.

And the next thing, you know, they just kind of cool off and now the word is choked, it's strangled.

So you have the stolen, the scorched and the strangled word and you get no results, no lasting results, and so that's a picture of the way the devil will bring his attack against you.

Let's be wise to the attacks of the devil.

Let's know, when the attack starts, that the battle is the Lord's.

He will give you the strategy.

The battle is the Lord's, but the victory belongs to us, amen.

You know, in 2004, we were just moving into this building.

I think we had our first service in this building in May of 2004 and I was away praying in Galveston, and I mentioned this here recently in one of my messages.

But I heard this word from the spirit of God.

He said you know, many just tip their hat to me and go along their merry way, which kind of indicates a casual relationship with the word.

You know, when the word is less than your whole life, that's what that means.

It means you're not taking the word seriously enough, you're not giving it first place, you're not giving it the attention that it requires for victory.

And then he said, right on the heels of that statement many just tip their hat to me and go along their merry way.

Then he said many are satiated with the cares of this world and the pleasures of this world, and much of the care comes from the pursuit of the pleasure.

And you know, fear is a common tactic that the devil uses to gain power and to gain the advantage over you.

In fact, we're seeing that in our federal government.

They absolutely applauded and released fear over the population and a lot of their abusive power came as a result of the population being so fearful.

And it's shocking to see how many people are still afraid.

You know, I recently they've done a poll among people and they're not really.

A lot of people are not eager to go back to work.

A lot of people are not eager to remove their mask.

Our governor now has removed the mask mandate and he is gonna penalize all state owned facilities, including schools, public schools, who enforce mask mandates.

He is demanding that all schools go maskless.

He's dissolving all of those.

It's gonna be interesting to see whether how many of these schools are gonna try to defy the governor, how much litigation there's gonna be.

I don't know.

I don't know the answer, but people, even though we have less death and less cases, they're still afraid.

This whole thing has unnerved the population in ways that World War II just think about.

I mean, we had.

I don't know if you know this, but there were German submarines in the Gulf of Mexico.

They were right off the coast of Corpus Christi.

My family was living in Corpus Christi at the time and there was a German submarine they found right just off of Padre Island scoping out the city.

And I mean people weren't as unnerved and fearful back then as they are now over something that amounts to the flu.

And so, oh, you're just a COVID.

Well, I don't deny there's a virus.

I just deny it's right to control my life.

I deny it's right to steal all my money.

Amen and so.

But the enemy this is one of his favorite tactics is to bring fear, and one of the ways to for fear to happen is when you extend yourself financially so much by the pleasures of the world that you get into great debt.

Then you have that fear of going bankrupt.

So the pursuit of happiness brings the fear of running out, and it's a common tactic.

They're satiated.

The Lord told me that way back.

So how long has that been?

17 years ago, he told me that the people's hearts were satiated.

Satiated means gorged, filled, overflowing.

I believe that's what you're seeing right now on the streets of our cities.

You look out there.

I mean there's no need to wear a mask, but they're wearing one.

I mean it's just tragic when I look and see a young mother and you've got the little old toddlers with masks.

That's just the silliest thing.

There's no, absolutely no scientific reason for your toddler to have a mask on, or any of your children, none of your, even your teenagers.

I mean you've got a good, healthy person that, 22 years old, has a 99.96% recovery rate from COVID.

You have more chance of drowning in your bathtub than dying from COVID and you wouldn't know it by looking at these people running around with masks on.

Well, why am I getting all into that?

Well, because the church has got to raise a spander.

The church has got to be the example.

Come on, let's act like Jesus is still alive Amen, he is.

Let's act like God didn't die.

Amen, the battle is the Lord's, but the victory is ours.

So you know, it's good to remember that.

Number one we are in Christ.

Number two the battle is the Lord's.

And number three he always causes us to triumph.

I mean, if you can think of those three things, it'll get you a long way toward victory.

Amen, praise God.

So I've got one, two, three, four, five little steps, check offs for you to check if you're in a battle or the next time you are.

And in Hebrews 13,.

The first one on my list is what I just got through talking about do not fear, fear not.

Jesus said that over and over to his own disciples fear not it, as I be not afraid.

Hebrews 13, five, in the second part of verse five he said, for he has said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear what man will do unto me.

And they amplified I like it like that.

I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.

I will not, I will not, I will not, so that we may boldly say the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear what man will do unto me.

I will not, I will not, I will not.

I like that.

I mean, you know, let's drum that into our consciousness.

I will now say it out loud I will not fear, I will not See.

It's up to you.

You can either fear or not, and I'm not talking about just natural fear, I'm not talking about being startled, and you know, I mean I still every hair on my head stands on end.

If I ever hear a rattlesnake, I don't care if it's in a cage, I'm gonna.

I had a friend of mine that lived upstairs.

I lived in the second floor of Mitchell Hall.

They've torn it down.

That's how wonderful that place was.

They tore it down about three or four years after I graduated at him.

But anyway, I lived in second floor and a friend of mine lived on the third floor and he was a major in, I think, animal science.

He became a taxidermist.

He was a professional.

One time I went to see him and he was working on a full body mount of a rhinoceros.

You know that guy could stuff animals.

But anyway, I walked in his room At A&M.

We called him holes.

You know your room was called a hole.

So I walked into his hole and I mean rattlesnake started.

He had a plastic garbage can, a big garbage can, 55 gallon, you know big old thing, and he had three rattlesnakes in there and every time anybody opened the door those things would start rattling.

I mean it's just involuntary.

I started dancing, I started bringing my feet up.

I mean I thought they were under my feet, it was just blood.

I'm not talking about that kind of fear, that's just natural fear.

I'm talking about fearing dread, stress wrung out, sweating, drops of blood all night long, can't sleep, kind of fear.

Do not fear.

Never let fear gain a foothold.

You know, 2 Timothy 1, 7,.

God didn't give us a spirit of fear, but he gave us a spirit of power and love and a sound mind.

Laying in the ICU after my heart surgery and I was short of breath, timed, and couldn't breathe properly, couldn't sleep, I'd fall asleep and wake up, not sleep, apnea is what was afflicting me for a period of time and I went days without really sleeping.

I couldn't get any rest.

It was just a pretty miserable time.

And I don't know how many thousand times out of my mouth.

God, you didn't give me the spirit of fear, but power, love and a sound mind.

That scripture came out of my mouth and I overcame praise God, we overcame it.

Number two say do not fear.

Number two set the battle in array.

Now, what does that mean?

You see it in the Old Testament a lot, you know.

Israel would set the battle in array.

David set the battle in array.

Saul set the battle in array against the Philistines.

It means to get your troops lined up properly so that you can win the battle.

You don't just go willy nilly into a battle without having a strategy, and so what I mean by us setting the battle in array is whatever attack that the devil has mounted against you, he's not fighting against you, he's fighting against God.

And remind your enemy yeah, you're not attacking me, you're attacking God.

And because that's the truth, you're in Christ, you're in Christ.

He's attacking the work of God, and that's exactly what David told Goliath.

You know, you.

Just you know.

He's out there.

He's blaspheming God.

He's not just blaspheming us, he's blaspheming God.

So set the battle in array.

Realize who it is that he's attacking and what are his chances of defeating God?

Anyway, not any.

There's no chance.

So that helps you, helps you have the right outlook.

And then the third one is seek God for his strategy.

You know, don't go off what I call half cocked.

Don't just run out and start throwing scriptures and start doing things just because you're desperate.

No, spend some time praying and getting into the heart of the matter and let God download into you a strategy.

And I've had people say well, pastor, that's good for you.

You're do, you can do that because you're a pastor, but I'm just.

No.

Every believer has the ability to find out from God what a strategy is to an attack that they're suffering.

Don't just assume oh, this has happened to me before.

I'm going to do what I did before.

Don't assume that that's the right way, because it might not.

There might be a different strategy this time around.

Spend some time praying.

There's no emergency that's going to overtake you until you have found out exactly what the strategy is.

No temptation, test or trial.

First Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13.

1 Corinthians 10:13

There's no temptation, test or trial or battle that is taking you, but such as common man that is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted, tested or tried above what you're able, but will, with the temptation, test or trial, also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear up under that pressure.

Another version says, in other words, get the victory.

So there is a strategy and God said he would give it to you.

So that's that's.

That's so net.

Don't skip that, because you just start flailing wildly, quoting scripture, throwing things at the devil.

That's not the strategy.

The strategy, there's a specific strategy.

The Holy Spirit will get dropped down in your heart and then praise God.

Number four praise God in advance for the victory.

And you might not even smell victory, you might not see it, in fact it might be even worse, the intensity might be even worse, but you begin to shout his victory, you begin to praise him in advance before you see any difference.

My great example of that is Paul and Silas, when they were beaten with many stripes in Acts, chapter 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

They were in the will of God.

They had sought the Lord about what to do next.

They were in their second missionary journey together and they had been forbidden to go to Asia Minor.

They couldn't go to Bithynia.

The Spirit suffered them not.

And then Paul had the dream where the Macedonian man come over here and help us.

And so they were in the will of God.

They knew they were on the right track.

And yet they were accosted by this mob and thrown into the prison, beaten with many stripes, locked in the inner prison they're feeding and ankles and their hands in stalks.

And it says at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises, and the prisoners heard them.

I mean they were so loud, everybody in the prison.

I mean they weren't quiet about it.

And I know who else heard them, with the devil.

The devil heard them too and tried to kill them with an earthquake.

And God invaded the earthquake and broke open all the locks of the cells and broke open the locks on their stalks and they were completely free.

They could have escaped the prison, but they didn't.

They waited and got the jailer saved and preached to him and he got saved, his entire family, and they baptized him, hallelujah.

So always give God the praise.

They had to start praising God before anything had happened, and we're the same.

We have to praise God before we see any victory, because the victory is on the way, the victory belongs to us, the battle is the Lord's and God has never lost a battle, amen.

And so the last one I want to give you.

So do not fear.

I mean absolutely, don't let fear gain a foothold.

Set the battle in a ray, remind the devil.

He's not fighting you, he's fighting God.

Number three seek God for the strategy.

Number four praise God in advance for the victory.

And the last one enjoy the spoils of victory.

You have a testimony and don't be afraid to give the testimony.

I'm gonna say this I've seen people give a testimony and the devil attacks them in the same area all over again.

Don't let the devil intimidate you.

Don't say, well, I better not give this testimony.

You know, I just don't want to go through anything.

I'm just so tired of fighting.

No, don't have that attitude.

We overcome the devil by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

See, when you start running the other way from the devil, he's gonna catch up with you.

You know, I was thinking about being afraid of the devil, and that's kind of enters into not giving your testimony.

When you're too afraid of the results to give your testimony to that, you're going the wrong direction.

When I was a little kid, I was out on the edge of my yard.

We lived on a corner in Galena Park and my dad was out working in the garage and I was on the driveway which faced the street and the rest of our yard was fenced, and there was a stray dog running down the street and he came up in our driveway and started barking at me and buried his teeth and I'm just four or five years old, I'm not, you know and it scared me.

I mean, you know, here's this snarling, and you know.

And so I just turned and ran.

I started, I don't know how, I thought I was going to outrun the dog, but boy, he was chasing me and he was just about to catch me when I heard him, you know, and I turned around and I saw him flying through the air.

He went all the way over the street and landed in the ditch across the street.

My dad had come out of there and kicked him right in his rib cage and, just like a football, he kicked him about 25 feet, 25 feet.

And I was just amazed I'm still afraid I'm, you know, the dog is hollering and running off, you know.

And then my dad turned around and swatted me about three hard swatch right on my rear end.

Don't you ever run from a dog?

And, as you can tell, I've never forgotten it.

Well, don't run from the devil.

I don't give into the devil.

Give your testimony, tell what God has done, and if he ever does anything, it'll be the last time.

I mean, just get up even more and give the testimony.

You know, in Exodus 14, god told Moses.

He said I'm going to get me, you know.

You just wait, I'm going to get glory on Pharaoh in the Red Sea.

So when the waters of the Red Sea closed in on Pharaoh and his army, they all drowned.

That was God getting glory on Pharaoh for doing what he did to Israel.

And so we've got to realize, every time we manifest the defeat of the enemy, god is getting the glory.

Let's not cut off any of God's glory.

Let's give him all the glory and let's let others celebrate our victory with us.

The battle is the Lord's, but the victory is always ours.

Come on, lift your hands and receive.

Praise God, hallelujah, I pray.

That helped you tonight.