Spiritual Warfare - Perseverance

Just had a life changing, fair to say, experience, I mean, a lot of what Lord taught her, a lot of things. She was on the ship Doulos for two months and visited almost three months and visited a number of ports and had just a lot of wonderful experiences and a lot of stretching experiences that she's going to just like Andy, compress down into a brief 25 minute time of sharing. Okay, so looking forward to it. It's going to be good to hear what the Lord taught you. Okay, turning to your Bibles, since I know you all have your Bibles and some of you may be saying hallelujah. We're not talking about money tonight. I'm not one of them. We're going to talk here about something I feel quite strongly about right now in my heart because of where we are in relationship to this building and the banquet as well, but particularly in relationship to the building. You there in second kings 13. Oh, well, you're not there then. Go ahead. Two kings 13. Someone help Dave find that. It always makes a pastor a little uncomfortable when people are asked to turn to Kings or Chronicles and they turn to the New Testament. It's pretty hard to disguise it when you're going like that. Visitors. Listen, we do have some visitors tonight. We would never embarrass you with that, but when I see people that have been around here for three years flipping in front of their Bibles. You don't have kings in your Bible. God bless you. You sure? I find be fun. This doesn't count as part of my 10 minutes, Arlene. Okay, there are four postures I got to tune in here that a person in an army can adopt. The first one is he can take or she can take the offense. They can go on the attack. Right. The second one is they can take the defense. They can secure a position, entrenched, protect. I always felt a lot better about that. For some reason, going out there and rustling around in the bushes wasn't my idea of a good evening. But obviously wars aren't won by being on the defense, are they? Number three, they can declare detente. Okay, Gene, here you go. D A. Oh, look at this. He knew all along. Put an E on there. And number four, they can dessert. Detente means. Truce. All right, d e s ert. Now, in the Bible, all four of these are clearly illustrated. Lots of times that King David goes on the offense. Lots of times. For example, in Joshua took charge of securing the promised land, went on the offense as God led him and secured cities AI and Jericho and so on. Lots of times when the people are God on the defense, when they are told simply to ward off the attackers, those who would come to lay siege, for example, Jehoshaphat is on the defense. There's times when they are called, or at least by the trickery of the enemy, to be put in a position of detente. Can you think of one of those when it didn't work? How about when Nehemiah was asked to come out on the plain of Ono? Remember that? And his detractors wanted him to just stop building the wall. He said, come on down here and talk a bit about this. Remember that? It's right about the fifth chapter of Nehemiah. Fortunately, he had the wisdom to not do that. Said, well, I'm not going to stop and talk. The walls of the city remain unfinished. And finally, there's even times of desertion, times when the battle is given up. A number of the kings we find running from the enemy rather than confronting them. But where we are right now, we are not in a time of being on the defense in relationship to the spiritual warfare that we've been involved in for a number of months here at Bradley's. I'm afraid that some are thinking about some form of detente. And most of all, I am concerned that some people are considering desertion, giving up the battle and letting someone else continue on into what God's called us to. And I want you to look tonight, just in these few verses. I got to hurry. All right, beginning second Kings 13. Now, when Elijah had fallen sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash, king of Israel, went down to him some Bibles. That's Jehoash with an H in there. And wept before him. Now, understand, Elisha had not been heard of for 45 years. 45 years. That's what I call a lull in your ministry. And Jehoash had been 2 Kings 13, 14, that's where I am now. 13, 14, that's where I am right now. Shall I start over again? And now, when Elisha had fallen sick with the illness of which he was to die, Jehosh, king of Israel, went down to him and wept before him, crying, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen. In other words, he's seeing the end come and he's to understand what had happened. Jehoash had been the king of Israel, and he had suffered humiliation and defeat at the hands of Ahazael, who was the king of Syria. Continued oppression, continued affliction from the east Syria to the east of Israel Alright. And he's pleading, he's looking for some answer. And he goes to Elisha and he says, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and Torsima. In other words, I see the incoming and, and here's what Elisha said, the last words of a great prophet of God. That's why this scripture is particularly significant. He says, take a bow and arrows. And so he took a bow and arrows. Alright, and I'm going to begin and I think I'll just list the points. Gene, there's five of them. Now just draw a line across there. Five points that we need to be reinforced with concerning our spiritual battle. The first one is take the bow and arrows. Be on the offense, take the bow and arrows. Don't simply lay back and hope that no one will overtake you. I want you to know something. Tonight, as the company that God's brought together here to have a time of prayer, if we do not maintain the position of being on the offense, we will find ourselves on the position of the defense and we will begin to lose the battle. I'm talking about the building, I'm talking about our need for a place to carry on our ministry. Detente isn't going to work either. We're not just trying to work out some sort of a little agreement that can tied us all over. I believe it's very important, brothers and sisters, that we take the bow and arrows, that we continue on the offense. Paul said, take the sword of the spirit. That's our only offense. Take it, put it in your hand. All right. Then he said, verse 16, the king of Israel, draw the bow. And he drew it. And Elisha laid his hands upon the king's hand. So take the bow, draw it back, and notice the king picked the bow up and Elisha stepped alongside of him, put his hands over the king's hands, and that's the second point. Draw the bow, Put on your hands. The hands are symbolic of the faithfulness of God. See, Elisha is saying, as you take the step, the anointing of God comes upon you. That's what the hands are symbolizing. You see that going on? Here's the long side of it. You've got to see that when we pick up our weapons, God comes in and his faithfulness, his hand on our hand is our assurance that this is going to be effectual. Then he says, and he said, verse 17, Open the window eastward. Now beloved, he is saying, direct that arrow. Where? Right toward the enemy. Open the window and in effect, listen, expose yourself to the enemy. Don't try to come in along the side. And I want to say to you, I met with the Bradleys today, and they are not the enemies of which I'm speaking. I'm going to be real clear about that. But we had to open our windows to the east and talk directly to them. It was very difficult to explain our situation here because part of us is just filled with compassion for the difficulty of their circumstance. But we believe that the Lord has clearly called us to receive what he's provided. We need to be bold in facing the enemies. There's spiritual enemies. Their spiritual resistance, maybe is a better word that we need to confront. All right, so open the window eastward, number four. And then Elisha said, verse 17, shoot. And he shot. Once you've picked up that spiritual weapon, you've drawn it back, you've opened the window, you let it go. Now that just says to me, we're going to do just what we're doing tonight. We're going to pray, we're going to come before the Lord, we're going to get before him, and then we're going to follow that up with the action of our own involvement. Andrea's call, her summons to pray for the banquet must be followed up with what? Our involvement? She didn't say this, and neither did Carl, But I want to say it. This banquet is not just for the inner city, it's principally there. But I guarantee that people that you bring from the suburbs who are friends, maybe they're unsafe friends, they will be ministered to, they will be touched by the presence of the Lord that night. You won't have to worry about them being embarrassed. I don't believe, and I hope you're purposing to invite a neighbor or friend who maybe has never been. Invite them down. Let them ride with you. Let them share in the magnificence of who God is and his provision. And I believe, if any indication last year was to be recorded, that this thing is so powerful and what it says, that people will be touched. All right, shoot the arrow. Put action in your faith. And finally, and most key tonight, he said, the Lord's arrow of victory, the arrow of the victory over Syria. For you shall fight the Syrians in Aphek until you have made an end of them. And then he said, take the arrows. And he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, strike the ground with them. That's the fifth command. Strike the ground. Gene, put prayer and action up there. Number four, would you? All right, number five. Strike the ground. Measure Your victory. Strike the ground and notice what he says, what happens. And he struck them three times and stopped. And the man of God, that's Elisha, was angry with him. And he said, you should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck down Syria till you'd made an end of it. But now you will strike down Syria only three times. Now that's a story familiar to many of us. Why was it that there was symbolism in the striking of those arrows on the ground? What was it that Elisha understood that Jehoash didn't understand? You see, there wasn't burning in Jehoash the desire to see that victory won at all costs. In my mind I see that Elisha wanted a man who was going to just continue, continue until Elisha said, stop, no more. The victory is won. But in some sort of a revelation of his half heartedness, he only struck it three times. Don't you get a picture of a man who is just half heartedly or with doubt? I don't know. This is kind of weird, hitting the arrows on the ground. And beloved, do you see the picture? This is what the scripture is teaching. Persevere. Go, go and go until the Lord says no more. The victory is won. Now where we are right now, Persevere. Where we are right now, brothers and sisters, is we have not won the battle. This building, this situation is at a critical point right now. They have our offer, they've come back and made some adjustments which we are trying to work out. And in addition to that, there's a further sort of complication. And, and with respect to the zoning laws, we found out just today that there's no guarantee that a church can be permitted to occupy this building. There's no guarantee that the commercial zone that this building is under will accommodate a church. And we're going to have to go through that zoning process to the best of our knowledge. Now does that mean what does that mean that we're defeated? Absolutely not. It means that we keep striking the arrows and God is doing things. And there is real receptivity in the Lowry's and I'm blessed by that. But I want you to know tonight I feel just terrifically needy. Not just me for your support, but that we not stop right now. Do you know what a victory would be for Satan? It if we get run out of here January 2, You say, well, God's in control, something else will come up. I believe God's in control, but I believe this is what's up and we need to receive it. And I'm not talking now about what the people. I'm not at all talking about the need for the money. I'll just go ahead and say we need to have enough money to put a roof in this building which is going to be in the neighborhood of 60 or $70,000 in addition to what it's going to cost to close our down payment and everything. That's what we need. We need to strike the arrows. How about that? Is it time to do that? No. I believe the Lord wants us to spend 15 minutes perhaps in prayer, perhaps longer as the Spirit of the Lord anoints. But we won't labor this out. We'll go as the Spirit leads. I want to say this Tomorrow morning at 6:30, if it's 50 below zero, I'm going to be there at a prayer meeting. Well, you're unreasonable. I don't think Satan's out there watching the temperature. Most of us will be at work tomorrow. So if it's physically possible for some of you to come to pray, be at prayer. If you can't pray at the prayer meeting, join with your wife in your home or take some time. But would you do that? Would you keep striking those arrows? I'm only talking to 50 or so people tonight and there's 600 people that are affected by this. So I just think God raised up a remnant. You're the ones he wanted here tonight. This is what he wanted said. And I'm excited about that because when see God changes plans, it's not for a purpose of confusion, it's for a purpose of his victory. And I want to see that happen. Don't you? Thank you lord jesus. Well, I just bless the Lord.