The Whisperer, Part 3

Greetings, friends and new listeners and welcome to The Sound of Faith.

I'm Sharon Otz, thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today's message is a true eye-opener and ear-arrester, the Whisperer. In Genesis and Revelation, Satan is called a serpent.

The Hebrew word is nakash and its verb form means to whisper like the hiss of a snake. From the moment he beguiled Eve in the garden, Satan has been whispering his cunning lies and accusations against God and his true people because he is the Whisperer. Now I might step on more toes about this time because I'm going to say not only don't listen to the Whisperer, don't become a Whisperer. Because you know there are Whisperers in the church.

I'm going to prove to you. Let's look to Romans 1, 29. Now in Romans 1, we have a whole catalog of deadly sins but we're zoning in on our subject so let's look at verse 29. Being filled with all unrighteousness. Now that's a very key description. Being filled with all unrighteousness and here is the symptoms, the outgrowth, the fruit, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malinity, Whisperers.

Whisperers. Now several of the traits that we just read here are synonymous with words we've already looked at in connection with the serpent Satan. For instance malicious and then envious and the murderers, these are all Satan's nature.

Deceitful. Malinity here is the same word as craftiness that we read in the other verses. It's the same word. But the last one is one of Satan's titles, the Whisperer. So let's look at the Greek word for Whisperer.

Whisperings and Whisperer. What is the Greek word? I'm not even going to say it because it's a little tough. Not that you really care. But here's the meaning.

This you do care about. A secret slanderer. Because the devil is a coward. And he's like a snake in the grass. He does all his things he tries to do secretly.

Incognito. So you don't realize it's the devil. Amen. Slander. To speak false charges which defame and damage another's reputation.

To assassinate their character. That's what Satan does. Revelations 12 10 names him one of his titles. The Accuser of the Brethren.

Amen. Accused means to charge someone with an offense. To claim they have committed something wrong or bad. And this is what Satan's MO is. He's always slandering someone. Slander is a direct connection to Satan. And I hate to say this to you but he's got some saints in the church he can use to do his dirty work. I'm not saying just faith tabernacle. I'm saying the church. Amen.

The body of Christ. You know the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 that there are vessels of honor and there are vessels of dishonor. And the enemy knows who he can use that he can whisper to them, accuse godly people to them, and get them to do his work of starting to slander them.

Amen. Back in the second Corinthians chapter 12 and looking at verse 20. For I fear lest when I come I shall not find you such as I would and that I shall be found unto you such as you would not.

But here's the point. Lest when I come there be debates, envians, wraths, strifes, backbiting, whisperings, swellings, and tumult. So here we have that word again. I fear lest when I come this is what I'm going to find. I'm afraid when I come to see you again Corinth. And I want you to know that this would be his third trip there. He's already been there twice. He's saying I'm afraid even though I've been there two times already.

I'm afraid when I come back this is what I'm going to find. Debates and envians, wraths, and strifes, and backbiting, whispering, swellings, and tumult. Saints there was a lot of bad stuff going on in this church at Corinth. It's even all the more remarkable when you consider they are the ones to whom he wrote all about the gifts of the Spirit. But he also wrote to them the chapter on love.

Amen. So here in this church we got backbiting. We don't use that word anymore. But what's it mean? It means slander. It means defamation. Whisperings, slander. You know it also referred to the ones who were able to use magic to charm the snake.

That's also what this same Greek word was used to refer to. Swellings. How many know what swellings is? It means to be puffed up with pride. Puffed up with pride because these things all go together. Amen.

Puffed up with pride. And tumult. It refers to a state of instability, disorder, and confusion.

Think about this. Paul was saying I'm afraid when I get there that I'm going to find tumult. I'm going to find confusion and disorder because James said in James 3 16, for where there is envy and strife there is confusion and every evil work. Amen. Envy and strife bring forth confusion and every evil work. Because when there is envy and strife the devil gets in the mix.

When he gets in the mix anything evil can happen. Amen. Let's look at verse 21. And lest when I come again my God will humble me among you and that I shall be well many which have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and less civisness which they have committed. So he says I fear that when I come I will be humbled among you.

Now what does he mean by that? He means I will feel like I have failed. As your pastor, as your mentor, as your teacher. I will feel that somehow I have failed you because now on the third time I will come and find these situations still going on. I will find people that have not repented.

And I will be well or I will mourn for them. You see, whispers can tear up a church. They can lie against the leadership and sow suspicion amongst the members. And then that means that the leadership or the minister is handicapped now because when he goes or she goes to preach the people are sitting there judging every word they say. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. They're not receiving the word. The good sheep, the good sheep are not being fed the good word because now they're suspicious of the person that's preaching because someone has slandered them. And now everything that they say is now going through this filter of slander. So everything they say gets twisted to mean something else.

Amen. That's what whispers can do when they lie against leadership. They can lie against other members in the church, the sheep in the church and greatly wound them and maybe even drive them out of the church. The church where God put them, the place where he planted them. He wanted them to be in that church under that shepherd to be fed that diet that he put in that church. Other churches have good shepherds and God uses them for their sheep.

Amen. But he put them in this church because there's a diet he wants them to have. But they can become so wounded that they leave because of whisperers. They can break up friendships between two good friends over things that are absolute lies. I'm going to read to you a very powerful verse, Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 28. I'm in the King James of course and it says, a froward man sows strife and a whisperer separates chief friends.

So a froward man, what in the world is a froward man? It means perverse. The word actually means to overthrow something, to overturn someone. So a person who is perverse, they come in and with this strife, they can overturn or overthrow something good or good people.

Amen. The Hebrew word strife here means contention and discord. You know in Proverbs six verses 16 through 19, the word says there are seven things that the Lord hates. Seven things and three of them are directly tied with the tongue. Number one, proud look. Number two, lying tongue. Number three, hands that shed innocent blood.

I wonder what the pro-abortion people have to say about that one. Number four, hearts that devise wicked imaginations. Number five, feet swift running to mischief to do evil. Number six, a false witness. And number seven, he that sows discord amongst the brethren. See he's not talking about the world, he's talking about the saints.

Amen. Going back to Proverbs 16, 28, the second part says, a whisperer separates chief friends. The word is a slanderer, a tale bearer.

See, a tale bearer in the Bible sense, in the Bible understanding is not just someone who gossips. You can gossip and be saying something true. You can be saying the truth about someone.

That person stole my pocketbook out of the bathroom and took my money. And it can be true. But if you keep going around telling everybody all the time, that's gossip. You're not lying. You're not lying about the person they told the truth. You go to the leader, the pastor, if it's in the church and you say, this is what I believe about so and so, and then they can call so and so in and the pastor can take care of it. But when you go tell everybody else, you've ruined that person if they do get right with God and they are repentant after that, that's all everybody's going to think about them.

Amen. So gossip can be true, but a tale bearer is someone who is spreading lies. So when you see tale bearer, it's not just gossip, it means lies.

And what's he say about that? It can separate. It can divide chief friends or intimate friends. And that is really a shame.

It's a shame when two people have been good friends forever, loved one another, had many good times together, done many wonderful things together. But that incident comes in and divides and separates. That's what a whisperer can do. Amen. So in our final part with the time I have left, we're going to talk about, we talked about, you know, how Satan is a whisperer. We talked about how we don't want to be a whisperer. Amen.

How to handle whispers in the church. And now we're going to learn how that we can keep up a hedge so the serpent can't get in. Let's turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 10 and looking at verse 8. He that digs the pit shall fall into it. And whoso breaks the hedge, a serpent shall bite him. So whoso digs the pit, they're going to fall into it. So you know, that's another way of saying whatever you sow, you're going to reap.

Amen. David actually said this very same thing, but he added something to it. In Psalm 7 15 he said, he so digs the pit shall fall into it. And he added his mischief shall turn upon his own head. So whatever you sow, you reap. Sometimes when people have done vicious, cruel, mean things and done a lot of damage and a lot of hurt, you know what you say? I'm shaking my head.

I can't believe they did that. But you know what? I'm not pronouncing it. God's word pronounces. They're going to reap it. They're going to reap it.

So you just need to leave it in the Lord's hands. Part two, whosoever breaks the hedge, a serpent will bite him. Now a hedge means whether it's a hedge made out of shrubbery or something else, it means a hedge or a fence about you surrounding you to protect you, to keep out predators. You put a hedge around a garden, which is just kind of what this is speaking about. You put a hedge around a garden to keep out animals from running in your garden and destroying it and eating it.

Amen. People walking through and tromping through your yard. You don't want people tromping through your yard. So you put up a fence.

It might be made out of shrubbery or it may be made out of wood, but you put up a fence because you're trying to keep people out of your yard and your place and your garden and protect it. Amen. And we learned in the book of Job how that God was so proud of his righteous servant Job that he even said to Satan, do you see my righteous servant Job? How he issues or he avoids or stays away from evil and is a righteous man. And we know that how Satan spoke back to God. And he said in Job 1 10, have you not made a hedge about him and about his house and on his every side, God, you got a hedge all around him.

He's protected all around. You have blessed the works of his hand and his substance is increased in the land. So Satan said, sure I see that Job is a righteous man. I see that, but I also know that you have blessed him and you put a hedge all around his blessings.

And he said, you know, God, the only reason why Job is serving you and is a righteous man is because of all the blessings that you heap on him. And I say to you, just remove the hedge, remove those blessings, allow me to attack his blessings. And this is what he said, and he will curse you to your face. I'm quoting the King James verse 11. He will curse you to your face.

Now that's strong. You can curse somebody under your breath. You can curse somebody and say, you know that person, but when you look in their face and curse them, that's bold. He says, he will curse you to your face. So God, because he knew that he was going to give Job the commensurate grace, like I preached last week, he allowed Satan to attack him. God had to remove the hedge.

Satan couldn't. Amen. And God did it for his purpose. Many purposes to show the devil you're wrong about you. You're a liar to show Job, I put my trust in you and you stood true.

And now I'm going to restore you and I'm going to give you double. Amen. And to show every child of God since that time, because Job is the first book that was written down. If you know that it's the first book, not Genesis, Job was the first book written to show every child of God going forward, even down to you and me, that God will always bring us out on top in the end.

But now listen to this saints. We're under the new covenant. We have a hedge of the blood of Jesus. We have the hedge of the word of God. We have the hedge of the Holy spirit. And Satan cannot get to us if we stay all hedged up. As long as we stay behind the head, Satan can not get to us. But if we break down the hedge, the serpent can bite us. Amen. So don't break down the hedge. Don't allow Satan the serpent to get in to your life.

So let me just briefly say it this way. Don't let up on your prayer time, your Bible study, spending time with God. Don't go spending more time on Facebook than God's book and FaceTime than God's FaceTime. Amen. Those little things, when you let down, then you begin to get carnal minded and natural minded.

You start skipping church for carnal reasons. Amen. And when you start doing that, you are breaking down the hedge and the snake is waiting to get in. Don't break down the hedge of your financial blessings by withholding God's ties and offerings. Amen. Don't break down the hedge around your holy marriage by watching porn. You're breaking down the hedge. You're going to let that serpent bite you.

And when he bites you with the bite of pornography, it does a lot of damage. Amen. Don't break down the hedge around your marriage by becoming flirtatious with someone. You know, on the job, just flirting. You know, they keep flattering you how well you dress and how good you look and how nice you are and how smart you are.

And you start eating all that up. Amen. Instead of keeping what would be a respectable social distance.

Amen. Or you start crying on somebody's shoulder because your husband don't understand you and your wife don't do you right. And that other person says, oh, I know how you feel. And you cry on their shoulder and it goes from crying on their shoulder into a full blown sexual relationship.

Don't let the hedge be broken down. And even if it's just those thoughts, your husband don't appreciate a thing you do. You work and you clean and you cook and what does he do? He don't do nothing. And so then he's thinking the other thing. My wife don't care about me.

She never tells me she appreciates anything I do. And so there you're like this at one another. The devil is getting you to break down the hedge. Amen.

People say, I don't know what happened. We just grew apart. How can you grow apart when you're serving the Lord together?

You should be getting stronger, not weaker, stronger. You let the heads go down. Amen. Don't let the hedge be broken around your spirit by listening to the whisperers like we've talked about. Those whispers of anger and bitterness and racism and envy and jealousy and all those things. You've got to protect your spirit from them. Don't let the hedge around your soul be broken down by exposing yourself to things that will trigger fear.

There are things that will trigger fear. Watching a cult did things. I'm sorry, but some of those movies, you shouldn't be watching them.

You should not be watching them. You can laugh and say, oh, well, we know it's just Hollywood. We know it's just makeup. We know there's not really ghouls and there's not really ghosts and there's really not all that. Yeah, but there really are evil spirits. There really are evil spirits and that's what they do. They make it look like, you know, it's very innocent and it's entertainment. The devil uses entertainment as much as anything else to try to get to people and let them get their guard down or the hedge down. I have heard of people that have been attacked severely with a spirit of fear because they watched a horror movie.

I would never watch them and I would not let them be watched in my home. Amen. Because I don't want to open the door to the enemy to come in. Many years ago, we're talking almost 30 years ago, one of my children brought a Ouija board into my house and I didn't even know it till one day when I was cleaning and found it under the bed.

It was at this time of year, this exact time of year, and that is the exact time of year and shortly thereafter is when one of my sons was hit with vertigo so seriously that it made him bedridden and I was injured in my back and put me in bed. You can't open the door. Amen. Don't let down the hedge for your body.

Amen. Don't yield your members to uncleanness. Don't yield your members to that because when you let down the hedge, the devil is going to come in and let's be on our guard this time of year and know that because it's a holy time when people that I know they're religious, but I'm just trying to make you understand God gave them these feasts and they're doing it now without Jesus and that's the mistake, but the point is it's a time when they're going after God. The devil is going to come in and try to draw people into the lie. Now, when I was getting ready to go out the door almost the last minute, I remembered that years ago, we're talking like 17 years ago, I wrote this poem.

So I quick printed it out and I didn't know whether or not I was going to read it or not, but I'm going to read it because I think it goes with the message and I got a couple of minutes. The poem, as I wrote, like I said, in 2002, it's called Satanisms. Satan is the God of isms, isms as in schisms, schisms as in divisions that lead to fissions. He loves to spread unbelief and doubt because he's the God of negativism. He insists things will never work out because he's the God of cynicism.

Oh, those in charge can never do it right. He's the God of criticism. You're wiser in God's sight. He's the God of Pharisaism.

You know in yourself their hearts aren't right. He's the God of judgmentalism. You possess superior insight. He's the God of egoism.

They act sincere, but you doubt it's true. He's the God of skepticism, jealous spirits with wicked imaginations. He's the God of phanticism, false claims of evil defamation. He's the God of slanderism. These are some of the satanic isms he uses best to bring divisions, evil surmising, gossip and lies, holier than thou, self-righteous pride, accuser of the brethren he is called, sower of discord, lying on saints and lying on God. Satan is still the serpent who beguiled Eve. He is a deceiver because he's deceived.

Don't be fooled by his ploys to defame. Cast him out promptly in Jesus' name. Amen with a bondage breaking word of the Lord, the whisperer. One of Satan's most dangerous and effective tactics is not just to lie against God, but to subtly whisper his accusations like the hiss of a deadly serpent. He is called the serpent and the accuser of the brethren.

He could also be called the whisperer. Paul wrote to the church of Corinth, I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. There are five significant Greek words in this verse that tell the story of Satan, the whisperer, and reveal how he whispers thoughts to the mind that accuse God and godly members of the body of Christ. If they are not taken captive when just a thought, a notion, or suggestion, they can become mental strongholds of deception. Whisperers can tear up a church with jealousy, slander, suspicion, and lies, maligning leadership and wounding members. Learn how to discern the whispers of the enemy and take captive every thought.

Make sure not to allow the hedge of protection around your life to be broken down because Proverbs says, where the hedge is broken, the serpent bites. Order the whisperer on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK 208, mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Order online at soundoffaith.org where MP3s are available. To order by mail, send your minimum love gift of $10 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Request SK 208. Until next time, this is Sharanat Sayyid, Maranatha.