Saving Souls

“Resist the devil.  Stand firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of thing.”  You’re not in this alone.  You’re not the only Christian who’s had to say no.

All right, now let’s deal with the subject of hardships.  Now I’m going to warn you in advance.  This part you’re not going to like very much.  I don’t like it either.  You cannot preach the Bible selectively, okay?  So get ready.  You’re not going to like these scriptures.  I don’t like them either, but it’s a part of your Christian walk.

There are three scriptures:  Matthew 10:19 and 20.  These are concerning hardships.  And before I read them, let me say this, the Holy Spirit is present in hardships.

All right, Matthew 10:19 and 20.  “When you are arrested”—now I’m not talking about arrested for drunk driving.  I’m not talking about arrested because you did something illegal, because you ran somebody off the road.  I’m talking about when you are arrested or called into question because of your faith, okay?

“When you are arrested, don’t worry about what to say at your trial, for you will be given the right words at the right time.  For it won’t be you doing the talking.  It will be the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of your heavenly Father speaking through you.”

Now Jesus was on this earth at a time when Christians were being arrested.  We’re not living in that day.  But I promise you, should the Lord tarry, that day is coming.  The day is coming when we will be arrested for our faith.  The day is coming when the very Honor Code that we hold up as a witness and as a testimony on this campus will be questioned in the courts of this land.

And then, third, spiritual conflict against the devil himself.  Third, against the devil.  First Peter 5:7-9.  This scripture is very, very powerful.  First Peter 5:7-9.  This is how I make it financially.  This is how I make it in so many areas of my life, to avoid stress, to avoid ulcers, to avoid sleepless nights and the things that I’ve had to deal with in my lifetime.

“Cast all your”—this translation says “anxiety”—this is the NIV—but, “Cast all your cares,” the New King James says, “Cast all your cares on him, because he cares for you.

“Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  King James says “he walketh about.”

“Resist him.”  How do you resist him?  “No!  No!  No!” when he comes in.  “No!  Satan, the answer is no.  What part of no don’t you understand?”

When our youngest daughter was little, Chloe, who is a freshman here, she was always into something.  And we wore out the word “no.”  And one day I finally said to Chloe, “What part of no don’t you understand?”  She said, “The o.”  I’m glad she grew up.

But that’s an indication of how we’re supposed to talk to the devil, “No, satan.  What part of no don’t you understand?  I’m not going to do it.”

It was President Ronald Reagan’s wife Nancy who had a campaign against drugs.  And most of you were very, very young when that was going on, but it was just called the “Just Say No” campaign.  What do kids in school do when they’re offered drugs?  Just say no.  “No!  I will not buy your drugs.  No, I do not want a drink of what you’re drinking.  No!”

Well, there’s a lot of peer pressure.  Well, I know there’s peer pressure, but the easiest thing to do is just say no.  They’ll have far more respect for you than you think.

Secondly, spiritual conflicts against the flesh, or, in other words, against your own human nature.  Galatians 5:16 and 17.  “So I say to you, Live by the Spirit.”  Let’s take this back up with John 16:33, “Knowing this, therefore, I say, Live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

“For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit that which is contrary to the sinful nature.”  They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.

In other words, the picture that you have seen in commercials where a person has a little angel sitting on one shoulder and a little demon sitting on the other shoulder—you’ve seen those things on television?—that may be more accurate than any of us would want to admit, that you have the voice of the Lord on one side and you have the voice of satan on the other side.

And one is peaceful and calming, and the other is coming against you, trying to get you to do something that is against the way that you’re made.  That’s what He’s talking about here.

What did Paul say?  “When I want to do right, evil is with me right there by my side.”  Even the apostle Paul, who wrote two thirds of the New Testament, faced the same thing.  We say, “No, no, he’s a superstar.  He wrote two thirds of the New Testament.”  No, he’s just a man.  He faced exactly what you are facing.

All right, so Galatians 5:16 and 17, “So live by the Spirit so you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”  In other words, if you live by the Spirit, you will be in a position to fiend off or hold off those things from satan that try to come against you to do things that you know are not of God.  That’s how you do it.

RR: Let’s stand together.  Father, we thank You and praise You and bless You this morning, give You honor and glory for this opportunity to join together in this class.  Thank You, Lord, that the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart are in harmony with Your Word and Your will for my life and for the lives of these students in this class.

Lord, this morning before we begin, we pray again for all the family members of those who’ve lost children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews in the terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech University.  We pray for President Steeger and all of the administration there.

And, Lord, in light of what I’m teaching this morning, may the power of the Holy Spirit bring comfort and healing to their broken hearts.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

I thought about teaching this particular lesson next week, but I think it’s far more appropriate today in the light of these events.  The subject this morning is “The Holy Spirit and Trials.”  This is a regular of the series that I do in this class, and it fits much better today in light of what happened on Monday.

I did about a 15 to 20-minute telephone interview yesterday with Fox News.  If you’re turning this up, please don’t.  Yeah, thank you.  I did a telephone interview with Fox News yesterday about this.  They were wanting to know was this young man demon possessed?

And I thought it was most curious that the media is asking the question.  And my response was, “Well, I don’t know because he’s dead.  I don’t know the answer.”

And they wanted me to talk about that and explain it to them from the biblical standpoint.  So I took them back to the Garden of Eden and talked about satan and his attempt to destroy what God had done.

Okay, now last time we were talking about “The Gifts of the Spirit,” were we not?  And we were talking about the revelation gifts, which are the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, and the discerning of spirits, those gifts that reveal.

And then we talked about the power gifts, the gifts of healing, the working of miracles, and the gift of faith.  And I think, as I recall, that’s where we stopped.  Is that correct?  And so we were headed toward the last three of the twelve, the vocal gifts.  That’s where we are.  We’re at the vocal gifts, these giftings that are spoken.

And the first one is the gift of prophecy.  Now I want to remind you of something that I said last week, that oftentimes several of the gifts of the Spirit can operate at the same time.  And that was evidenced, and if you’ll remember the chapel service before I went overseas for this crusade in Niger, two pastors, a pastor and his wife from Louisiana prayed over me at the end of the service.  Do you remember that, Pastors Mark and Trina Hankins?

And there was a combination of the operation of the gift of prophecy, as well as the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues.

Now we’ve had lots of operation of the gift of prophecy over the years, but we have not had much of the operation of the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues.

And I talked to lots of students after that chapel, and many of them said to me, “President Roberts, I have been in services where there have been gifts of prophecy in operation.”  But many of them said, “I’ve never been in a service where there was the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues.”

And if you will remember, that couple worked together as a team.  She would give what you would classically call a message in tongues, and then he would bring the interpretation.  Okay, now, that is not to be misunderstood with your own daily devotional prayer language.  Okay?  That is a sovereign gift.

What happened in chapel that day is a sovereign gift, whereas you and I can decide to pray in tongues any time we want.  But we cannot decide we’re going to operate with a gift of tongues or a gift of interpretation of tongues.  That’s sovereign.  Okay.