Put on the whole
armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil. Ephesians 6:11
The Christian believer cannot be happy and victorious in
the true liberty of the children of God if he is still quaking about his past
sins.
God knows that sin is a terrible thing—yes, and the devil
knows it, too! So the devil follows us around and as long as we will permit it,
he will taunt us about our past sins.
As for myself, I have learned to talk back to him on this
score.
I say, “Yes, Devil, sin is terrible—but I remind you that
I got it from you! And I remind you, Devil, that everything good—forgiveness
and cleansing and blessing—everything that is good I have freely received from
Jesus Christ!”
Everything that is bad and that is against me I got from
the devil—so why should he have the effrontery and the brass to argue with me
about it? Yet he will do it because he is the devil, and he is committed to
keeping God’s children shut up in a little cage, their spiritual wings clipped.
Brethren, we have been declared “Not guilty!” by the
highest court in all the universe. It is good to know that on the basis of
grace as taught in the Word of God, when God forgives a man, He trusts him as
though he had never sinned.
The Bible does not teach that if a man falls down, he can
never rise again. The fact that he falls is not the most important thing—but
rather that he is forgiven and allows God to lift him up! That is the basis of
our Christian assurance and God wants us to be happy in it.
Also check out the Book: I
Talk Back to the Devil by AW Tozer
Here’s a Brief Excerpt:
I Talk Back to the Devil! Tozer
“The
devil makes it his business to keep Christians in bondage, bound and gagged,
actually imprisoned in their own grave clothes!”
WHY DOESN’T THE OLD DEVIL, SATAN, give up and bow out of the picture when a
person becomes a believing Christian?
Although he is a dark and sinister foe dedicated to the damnation of humans, I
think he knows that it is no use trying to damn a forgiven and justified child
of God who is in the Lord’s hands.
So, it becomes the devil’s business to keep the Christian’s spirit imprisoned.
He knows that the believing and justified Christian has been raised up out of
the grave of his sins and trespasses. From that point on, Satan works that much
harder to keep us bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in our own grave
clothes.
He knows that if we continue in this kind of bondage, we will never be able to
claim our rightful spiritual heritage. He knows also that while we continue
bound in this kind of enslavement we are not much better off than when we were
spiritually dead.
This is one reason why the Christians in today’s churches are behaving like a
flock of frightened sheep—so intimidated by the devil that we can’t even say
“Amen”!
I admit that occasionally you find a few who are just childishly happy about
everything, but that is not what I mean. Often these are just like children
playing in the market places, having never been seriously engaged in the
conflict on the spiritual battlefield.
Show me an individual or a congregation committed to spiritual progress with
the Lord, interested in what the Bible teaches about spiritual perfection and
victory, and I will show you where there is strong and immediate defiance by
the devil!
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