Diabolical - Agenda # 3 - Intimidate and Isolate, Part 1

Where are you most afraid today? I mean, what has you uptight inside? What causes you to have great concern about the future? Is it a job loss? Has your mate walked out on you? One of your kids gone south and you don't know what to do? You wonder how you're going to pay the bills?

Did you get a biopsy report or someone you love got one and you don't know what's going to happen? Fear is a very powerful emotion that can paralyze your soul. Want to know how to break out of it? Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Druey and the mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. Thanks for joining us as we continue our series, Diabolical, Satan's Agenda for Planet Earth, Including You, by focusing on the root of fear and why this particular tactic of our enemy is so effective at discouraging and disrupting our faith journey.

If you have your Bible, let's dive into this important subject. Here's Chip with his message, Intimidate and Isolate from Acts Chapter 8. The roar of a lion can be heard for over five miles. That same roar 30 yards from your car or truck will rattle the metal. There's three reasons that lions roar.

Number one, it's territorial proclamation. They roar over what they rule. Second is to communicate with other lions. And third, they roar when they're angry.

In my research, I found a person who'd done studies on lions in Africa, and he said his roar is an awesome message of power that he is Lord and master of all that he surveys. And so it seems fitting that the Holy Spirit would lead Peter to describe our enemy, the devil, Satan, as a roaring lion. He writes, be self-controlled and alert your enemy the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

Your response, resist him, stand firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering. By and large, Satan likes to be covert. He likes to be under the radar. He would rather use lies, deception, getting us divided with one another, tradition. He likes to get us moving in ways where we're convinced things are right.

We have, you know, we don't even think he really exists. And all the while, subtly having us completely off course. But when a group of people or an individual begins to get in line with God's will, and you begin to expose him for who he is, and you begin to take the word of God into the lives of other people, and you begin to grow, and God begins to use your life or a group's life, his tactics change. Sometimes subtlety doesn't work. And when subtlety doesn't work, he uses intimidation and isolation.

He goes frontal. Here's intimidation. Webster says it's to make fearful.

It's what he wants to do. To compel or deter by acts or threats. Literally, the enemy wants to terrorize you, causing alarm, fright, or dread with the apprehension of violence or injury or death.

To intimidate means to cause to fear, to have a sense of inferiority, to bully, to cow, resulting in a broken spirit or a loss of courage. And sometimes he does that through a biopsy report, sometimes rejection in a relationship, sometimes you lose your job or you're in bankruptcy. Sometimes you take a step and everything falls apart at work. Sometimes you're just alone and you find yourself taking a step that you never dreamed you could take, and you fail, and all this fear and all this condemnation. And the fear is to immobilize and then to paralyze, to isolate you. Lions don't roar when they attack. They roar to create fear. When a lion wants to attack, it's stealth. In fact, a lion will not attack until it's within 10 to 20 meters of its prey. And unlike other animals who wait for the weak or the sickly, and wait for that weaker sickly animal to get off to the side, that's not how lions work. They stealthily move and they go for that which is unaware. It can be strong, it can be sick, it can be weak, it doesn't matter.

But when they get within about 10 meters, they're extremely fast for 10 to 20 to 40 meters, but they have very little endurance. And when God's word says your enemy is a roaring lion, he wants to create tremendous fear to get you isolated. And in your isolation and self-condemnation and withdrawal from people and withdrawal from God's word, no matter how weak or how strong a Christian, the attack will come when you're alone and when you're vulnerable. And he wants to isolate. That means to cut off, to seclude, to get you away in order to kill and steal and destroy your life, your relationships, the work of God in you and the work of God through you.

And it's real and it is serious. But Peter gives us two things. One, he gives us a warning. The devil's a roaring lion. But notice at the bottom of the page, he finishes with the promise. And the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered for a little, there are wounds.

You're in a real battle. Tough things happens to people who love God. After you have suffered for a little, he will himself restore you, make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power forever and ever. His roar is fearful and certain.

His attack is predictable. And the only question is, how do you respond? What's God's answer to the tactic of intimidation and isolation? And the answer is in Acts chapter eight. Open your Bibles, if you will, to Acts chapter eight or open up your mobile device.

Remember, it started out subtle. They tried to divide the church. Chapter six, chapter seven, they were wrapped in this tradition. Well, now chapter seven at the end ends with the martyring of Stephen. They stone him.

And if you're a follower of Jesus now, it is a bad person to be. And they're fleeing for their life. They're leaving their homes.

They're leaving their businesses. They're fleeing to Samaria. Some are hunkered down in Jerusalem.

And we pick up the story in the beginning of chapter eight. On that day, a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem. All except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned for him deeply. But Saul began to destroy the church.

Going from house to house, he dragged them off and put them in jail. You might circle that little word. The word destroy here used nowhere else in the New Testament. It means with hatred or cruelty. It's used in other Greek literature for when boars come in.

And if you've ever seen a wild boar root up things and completely destroy things, it's with a vengeance. Paul's somewhere between 24 to 40 years old. He's probably late 20s at this point in his life. And he is a zealous, over the top thinking he's doing God's will to kill all these Christians. I mean, that's the environment.

It's frontal. It's intimidation. He's going from house to house, dragging them out of the house, throwing them in prison. But God often does what I call spiritual judo. He takes the evil that comes at you and by grace, if you cooperate with him, he flips it.

And he brings something really good out of things that were designed to be really bad. Look at verse 4. Those who'd been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

Remember one of the seven? Philip went down to a city in Samaria and he proclaimed Christ there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs that he did, they all paid close attention to what he said.

And then notice the results. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city. Now, to get the context, to really get what's going on, you need to understand that, remember, Jews hate Samaritans. It goes back hundreds of years. The Samaritans were in mixed marriages, so they're part Jewish and part other people.

And the Jews in Jerusalem were 100% Jewish, not only in culture but in genetics. And these were the half-breeds. But now they're running for their life. And as they're running for their life, all of a sudden there are people being rejected. And the Samaritans, what do you need?

Well, I've lost my home, I've lost this, I've lost that, I'm running for my life. And in the midst of their worst time, they begin to share with them, I've found life and the story of Jesus and the love of Christ. And Philip says, there's power here, we don't have to be afraid of death anymore. And he begins to preach and God begins to work and miracles occur and people are healed.

And all of a sudden, amazing things are happening. The year of Acts chapter 2 is about A.D. 33. Acts chapter 8 is two years later, A.D. 35.

This is two years. All the Christians that you're reading about are two years old in the Lord. Now, if you look at your notes, let's summarize. Satan's strategy is to destroy through intimidation and isolation.

You see that in the first eight verses. Hey, it's true here, it's true for you, it's true for me. He wants to take the issues in your life and make you fearful. This marriage will never work out. My son or daughter will never come around. This health issue will never go away. I'll never find a job. I'll never break this addiction. And there's fear.

I'll always be single. Notice, however, God's purpose is to deploy through suffering and proclamation. You're not immune to suffer. I'm not immune to suffer. It's a fallen world.

He never promised. In fact, he said, in the world we'll have tribulation or suffering. But he takes the suffering and as we suffer, he can use it to do really, really great things. It's not a wasted suffering. The truth is sometimes our worst times are God's best times to use our lives.

It's hard to think about, isn't it? Sometimes when you're going through the bankruptcy, when you're reeling from losing your job, when your house is upside down and you just think, oh, God, and you're so fearful, he says, I want to come close to you and I don't promise to wave a magic wand and make everything wonderful overnight, but I'll go through whatever the most difficult, painful issue is in your life. And I will be with you.

And let me tell you this, as I'm with you, it is how you respond in my grace in you in the midst of that may be the greatest platform for me using you that has ever happened in your life. You can go all the way back to the Old Testament. The principle shows up early in Joseph's life.

He's what? Rejected by his brother, sold into slavery, falsely accused, left in prison. I mean, for 13 years, suffering, suffering, suffering, suffering. On all the while, God had a plan. And at the end of that plan, he becomes the head of all of Egypt. And he would say to his brothers, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. To bring about this present resolve, he saved the entire nation.

You may have a boss, you may have an ex-mate, you may have a health issue, you may have a rebellious child, you may have out to lunch parents. They actually may mean it for evil, but God means it for good if you cooperate with him. And here's the application. The application is fear not, preach the word. See, did you notice that who's preaching? It's not the apostles, it's not the pros, it's not the professionals. These are two-year-old Christians.

You know who they were? Regular people just like us. I mean, if persecution happened on Christians and we were running for our lives and going for other countries, your homes are gone, your money's gone, your bank's account, 401Ks are, I mean, they're zero 1Ks.

You got nothing going. And how you respond, you cling to God. And as you went, you preached and told people about your hope in Christ.

That's what's happening here. And a revolution is occurring. Remember, Jesus said that this gospel will begin, right? You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Sumeria, and the uttermost parts of the world. Well, after two years, guess how far the church made it?

They never got out of Jerusalem. God actually allows this persecution to occur to begin to fulfill and break the cultural barriers. And now, here's what we see. Amazing things happening with the group that they used to hate. Now they've come to Christ. Now, I got to tell you, what I just shared is really true. It's right theology, and I've known it in my head a long time. But now and then, God gives you a little opportunity to sort of get it from your head to your heart.

And I think he brings fear in the areas that you're most vulnerable. I was a younger pastor in Santa Cruz. We've been there about five or six years. And all I can tell you is it was one of those windows in your life where it was just the hand of God. There was a movement of God. We saw hundreds of people come to Christ, and the churches were working together, and all of a sudden we had to build some buildings. And there were times where people would line up after every service, 10 or 15 or 20, that all were brand new Christians.

And all the Satanic worship and weird stuff was happening, and there was this movement of God. And every Sunday afternoon, sort of to blow off steam, I'd get out and play basketball with some friends. And it was a little bit rainy one day, so I thought, well, if we play outside, I might slip and get hurt.

So we went up to Bethany College to play and had a good buddy there. And so I can still remember driven down the middle, and a guy was cutting to the corner, and I was going to throw an off-the-ball pass like this. And then out of the corner of my eye, I realized this guy sees it. So I reared back to give it a bunch, and I went... Well, you notice where my body is? You ever turn your ankle? I twisted my knee like this with all my weight, and I tore my ACL, my MCL, and all the cartilage. And it just went... Now, to know the personality, as warped as I am, I mean, my knee is kind of dangling, and I get up and I say, you know, I think I can play one more game, you know? And there's a football coach there, and he looked at me and he goes, stupid, just sit down. Well, you know, when you get refreshed by something that's physical like that, and just with my makeup, putting me on crutches and having to go to physical therapy three days a week, we're in the middle of a capital campaign, all these things are happening, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm under incredible pressure.

The one little window was working out a couple times like that. So I go to the physical therapist, and it's a young gal who has a small child, and his divorce was abandoned and was pretty bitter. And she let me know early on, her father was an atheist, that she's in line with her father and what he believes, and the only people that she's really more mad at than God are people from church.

By the way, what do you do? And I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Make a very long story short, little by little, she began to share her story, and I began to share mine, and she was not open to hearing from me, and I said, well, have you ever, you know, have you ever just even explored who Jesus is? No, I really haven't.

And I said, well, just, I mean, you're killing my body three times a week here. Would you just like read John chapter 1 and maybe just, I mean, just, I don't believe in the Bible. I said, you don't have to believe in it. It's okay.

Just, you ought to be educated just to know what it says. Well, okay. God's word never returns void, and it was a long rehab, and God miraculously brought that young woman to Christ. And then she began to grow, and it was a neat story, but the story gets better.

Then we moved to Atlanta, and then about a year after that, or two years, they asked me to come back and speak at Santa Cruz, which was kind of cool, and let them know what was going on. And so I came back, and I never forget, I can't remember what I spoke on, but she was in the second row. And now that little girl, when I first met her five, six years ago or more, was sort of a bigger girl, and I'll never forget, I came down the steps, and she just came right around, tears flowing down her face, and her arms were out like this with her little girl. She gave me a big hug, and she just said, Jesus is so real. I'm so glad.

Thank you so much. And I want you to meet my little girl, and I'm reading Bible stories to her. And I thought, you know what, I walked out the side door, and I thought, that's worth a knee. That's worth a knee, isn't it? That's worth a bankruptcy. That's worth an unfair getting fired. That's worth someone walks out on you. What difficult situation do you have in your life right now that makes you just want to get focused and isolated and fearful that could be the greatest opportunity that God ever gives you to preach the Word? And I don't mean just with your life.

We've got to get beyond that. Hebrews 4.12, I put it in your notes, it says, The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any twitched sword, piercing as the far division of soul and spirit, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. It wasn't that I was convincing with this woman. It was that she, for the first time, explored the living Word of God. Your neighbors don't have to believe it.

People in your hobbies, the people in your carpools, they don't have to believe it. But God calls us regular, normal people to preach the Word, not judgmentally, not we're better than, but winsomely, lovingly sharing our life, our testimony, and inviting them to explore what it says. Now, this revival occurs. And after this, now there's sort of a battle between good and evil, because these Samaritans had been hoodwinked by some demonic activity. We pick up the story in verse 9. In verse 9, it says, Now for some time a man named Simon practiced sorcery in this city, and he amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people both high and low gave him their attention and exclaimed, This man is the divine power known as the great power. He actually was claiming deity. They followed him because he amazed them for a long time with his magic.

The word magic and the word sorcery, same root words, it has the idea of the manifestation of supernatural things through demonic power. And then look at verse 12. But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized, and he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles that he saw. When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon them. They had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Now, this big confrontation of good and evil, if you summarized it, Simon is intimidating through demonic sorcery. People were scared. We experienced a lot of this in Santa Cruz.

I've seen it in Haiti, when I was in India, parts of Africa. I mean, there are people all around the world, you know, we kind of think we're a little more sophisticated. I mean, I've seen people in South Africa pull up in Mercedes who have great jobs that live in a first world country, and with the demonic issues they have, put money and food on an open grave so the demons representing their dead parents don't terrify them at home. I mean, the world is in the lap of the evil one.

This is real stuff. But Philip liberates how? Through the word of God. And so, what you need to understand is the gospel goes from the Jews, then it goes to the Samaritans, and then it goes to the Gentiles. And every time that happens, the spirit of God and the wisdom of God the Father and Jesus is, He wants to make sure these groups stay unified. Remember, when they were just all Jews, but they spoke two different languages, remember the division? The Greek-speaking Jews and the Hebrew-speaking?

I mean, that was a problem. Well, now you've got Samaritans. Well, what are most of the people in Jerusalem going to think if you say, oh, the Samaritans are now Christ followers?

Oh, no way. And so, God doesn't baptize them in the Holy Spirit. In other words, that external manifestation, it doesn't say it here, but I would assume, because it's visible and you can see it, it's probably the same as Acts 2.

They spoke in other languages. There was a manifestation of God's power and God's spirit when Peter and John came. And so, what they did is they wanted to authenticate to keep the unity of the church.

You know, it happens different ways through Acts. And so, they go, and they say, oh, it's for real. They've received the word. I mean, all of Peter's and John's prejudices are going out the window. They pray for them, and then boom. Now they're brought into the body of Christ.

You'll see the same thing happen in Acts 10 a little bit later. And so, God keeps the preservation of the unity. But the real issue going on here is between evil and good. The people following after Simon, or now it's the truth of the word of God. Here's the truth I want you to get. The power is in the message, not in the messenger. The power's in the message, not in the messenger. These people, they've only been Christians two years. Philip's only been a Christian two years or less. If you would go through, it'd be interesting in my Bible, every time preach or proclaim, I highlighted it.

This is normal, ordinary, regular people running for their life, and every time you see the yellow, what it is is the word of God is going out. See, it's not you don't know enough. It's not you're not bold enough. It's not that no one would ever believe you.

It's not that they're gonna ask questions you can't respond. The power is in the message, not in us messengers. But here's the deal. When you begin to share that message, Satan's tactics will go from division and subtlety to often frontal. We saw that in Santa Cruz. I mean, it was crazy.

The first couple years there, we experienced things that I thought only happened in books. But we saw hundreds of people come to Christ, and there was all these Satan worshipers and all this weird stuff, and it got frontal. And what I want you to know is you don't have to be afraid. You don't have to be afraid. But I will tell you, there's all kind of Christians that you start growing, you start sharing, you start living. As you press against things, you'll experience some frontal attack, and guess what the goal is to get you to isolate and say, oh, well, that's for someone else.

Here's the application. Fear not. Greater is he that is in you than he that's in the world. But see, we say that, and it's up here, but it's not in here. There's not a boldness, there's not a power. These people had conviction. They knew that there's nothing more powerful than the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Just let it loose. God works through his word. But we know that.

Greater is he that is in me, but down deep, I don't think we believe a lot. Chip will join us here in studio to talk more about the message you just heard. But just a quick reminder, you've been listening to his series, Diabolical, Satan's Agenda for Planet Earth, including you. Many Christians are naive to Satan's schemes and head into their day-to-day lives unprepared and unprotected. But in reality, Satan does his best work in subtle ways, an unassuming attraction, a little doubt here, a little cynicism there, or a calendar loaded down with religious activity. These are dangerous and effective ploys, and we're all vulnerable because we're all targets of Satan's agenda. Chip's heart for this series is to open your eyes to the devil's truly diabolical plots, both confrontational and unseen.

As you listen to this series, we hope you'll feel properly equipped to defend yourself and your family. For all the information and resources for Diabolical, including Chip's special cards on spiritual warfare, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org or call 888-333-6003. Chip's going to be back in just a second to talk more about these cards that have been such a helpful resource for so many people. But just a quick reminder, you'll find them at LivingOnTheEdge.org.

App listeners, tap Special Offers. Chip, you know as we talk about Satan's diabolical plans, some people think demons cause anything and everything that's negative. And then there's others who just completely deny any thought of demonic activity. Now, how do you answer those extremes? Dave, that is such a great question.

As C.S. Lewis rightly pointed out, the two great heirs that the enemy wants us to believe is that he's behind everything, or he's not a part of anything. What these spiritual warfare cards do is, first, I go through and about five or six cards give you the basic principles of spiritual warfare all through Scripture. Then I go through, and through the names of Satan, you can understand what his tactics are. So you can identify, oh, this really is from the enemy.

No, this happened because I made a bad decision, or I sinned, or I just got mad, and that's on me. I think it's important to have a resource where you can discern what's spiritual warfare and what's not, and that's why we've created these cards. We want it to be simple, clear, reviewable, and something that people could do in, you know, three or four minutes before they go to bed each night so they begin to renew their mind and prepare themselves for the battles that we go through day in and day out. Satan doesn't take vacations. He comes at us in very subtle ways, and the armor of God is really about preparing your mind, your heart, and your soul to be aware and then know how to respond when he comes at us. That's a great reminder, Chip, thanks. If you are looking for spiritual victory in your life, let me encourage you to order this resource. These spiritual warfare cards will equip you to defend yourself against Satan's attacks with the power of God's Word. So whether these cards are for you or a gift to encourage someone else, I hope you'll pick up a set or two while supplies last. To order Chip's spiritual warfare cards, just visit us online at livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003.

App listeners, tap Special Offers on the Chip Ingram app. As we close today's program, I want to remind you of a very, very powerful but unpopular truth, and here it is. Sometimes our worst times are God's best times to use our life. Let me say that again. Sometimes our worst times, when we're going through the most difficult, painful, fearful, uncertain, oh, God, take this away time, sometimes that's when he can use our life in deeper and greater ways than ever before. Now, let me tell you, I don't like those times. You don't like those times. Joseph didn't like those times.

But it's in those times that God has your attention like never before. And when you get to where, I mean, you say, I can't do anything about this cancer. I can't do anything about the job that I don't have. I can't do anything about my mate's attitude. I can't do anything about what's happening at work.

I mean, it's terrible. And you cry out to God. You are in a position to receive grace like never before. He wants to come through.

He wants to use you. But here's the key. You can't bail out of the process. You need to come to him and say, Lord, I can't, but you can through me. Lord, I'm afraid, but I want the courage in this moment to be all that you want me to be.

So do anything and everything you want to do in me, and then do exactly what you want to do through me. I had a lady come up, and she, just tears rolling down her cheeks as I finished this message, and she gave me a big hug, and she said, Chip, I see it now. And she was a lady who got conned, put her entire life savings, she's in her probably mid-60s, put her entire life savings in some sort of Ponzi scheme, lost all of it, ended up having to move back to the Midwest to help her mother. Her mother gets sick. She ends up dying. She buries her hair. She comes back now, and instead of having this great job, is working in a funeral home where all these people are coming through in their grief, and she finds that because of her pain and her loss, she's lost everything she has, and she's lost her mom. God gives her a sensitivity, and she's being used in ways beyond her wildest dreams. And she came up to me with tears down her face, and she goes, I see it. It's been incredibly hard.

The attorney general is now going to prosecute these people. I don't expect to get anything back, but all I can tell you is the Jesus that I worship now, the comfort that I've experienced, and the love I have for people is beyond anything in my wildest dreams. I'm not saying it's easy, but I want to remind you today that God loves you. He's for you, and that sometimes the worst times that we go through are God's best times to use our lives. Don't give up. Don't give in.

Cry out. He hears your voice. Just before we close, I want to thank those of you who financially support the ministry of Living on the Edge. Amazing things are happening, and you're a part of that. If you want to get in on what the Lord is doing through Living on the Edge, there's never been a better time. Between now and July 6th, every gift you send will be matched because a small group of ministry partners has committed to double everything we receive. Now, to send a gift, just go to LivingOnTheEdge.org, tap Donate on the app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003. We'd love to have you with us. We'll be with us again next time, and until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.