— Brother Phil Enlow: Think about this from the devil’s point of view. Here’s his dream, and now, all of a sudden, the Son of God was in his grasp, and he thought he had won, and all of a sudden, he realizes He’s gone! He’s gone to heaven, and I can’t get to Him, and the message is going out.
Man, if I were the devil, I would do everything in my power to thwart that. But what did Jesus say on one occasion when they accused Him of casting out devils because He was in league with the devil, and it was just all a big trick…is what they were saying? He said, how can Satan, if Satan is against himself, his kingdom won’t stand. His kingdom is divided. How can Satan cast out Satan?
I’ll tell you, the only way that can happen is if you’re gonna rescue somebody from a strong man, you’re gonna have to bind the strong man and then you can go in and spoil his goods. You’re gonna take something from him, I guess, in this case.
You see what Jesus was really saying about what was going to happen in world history? Do you think the Gospel would have gone to the ends of the world if Satan had had unfettered access to be able to do that? No. He wouldn’t.
That’s something the Lord has revealed, I believe, in a particular way, but, I don’t need special revelation, I can see it in the scriptures. Because that’s what we need to go by ultimately. We need to go by the fact that in order for the Gospel to go out, there had to be a restriction, a divine restriction on Satan’s ability to oppose the Gospel. Praise God!
And we call it the binding of Satan. I’m gonna go to something that will be…like I say, I have mixed feelings about trying to get into all of this, but I’m gonna go ahead and do it anyway. Well, look at the scripture that we use so times in Revelation 12. You remember how the child was born, and Satan, the dragon, tried to kill it, and then, it was caught up to heaven, and then, there was war in heaven? Do you remember what happened? What happened to Satan?
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He lost a place in heaven. He was cast down to the earth and became aware that he only had a short time, and so he was filled with wrath, with anger. But the Word tells us in verse 10, “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” (NIV).
Do you see the victory that was won there? And Satan literally lost a place. There was a restriction that was placed upon Satan. Now, here’s one that really, a lot of people, I don’t believe see, and that’s in Revelation chapter 20. Considering the time, I’m jumping out on a limb here, but I’m gonna do it anyway.
You see that prophesy of the 1,000 years. Now, if you were a Jew reading this, what would you assume, hearing about a kingdom that was established and rule and authority for 1,000 years? What would you assume by that? It’s a natural, earthly kingdom. Okay?
This book of Revelation is filled with symbols, and a lot of people think, oh, if it’s not literal, if you can’t touch it or see it, it’s not real. It’s just a vague…oh, it’s real, all right. But a symbol stands for something that is very, very real. Folks, this is real, but it’s not the way people have taken it. There was a restriction placed upon Satan.
“And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.”
Well, now, you could read that and say, oh, praise God, the influence of Satan is gone! Life is gonna be glorious and wonderful! You want to know what the binding was about? How do you know what the binding was about? How about looking down to the loosing? Think about that. If you want to know what this restraint upon Satan was really about, look at what happens when the restraint is released.
And you come down to the end, verse 7, “When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out…” To do, what? “…To deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and…” To do, what? “…To gather them for battle.” And so forth. He goes around all over the world, and he encompasses the camp of the saints.
He’s got a…this is Satan being allowed one last opportunity to try to fulfill his dream. Throughout the ages…you know, Rome eventually fell, the great empire. There have been other empires. There have been other people that have risen up and tried to dominate the world. Hitler was certainly one of them, and no one has succeeded. Do you wonder why? Do you think, just maybe, Christ in on His throne and says, no, it’s not time?
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We’re not there yet. There are people that I’m reaching out to right now. The Gospel is going out in power, and Satan, you can’t do anything that I don’t let you do until the time. Folks, the era in which we live, we are seeing in our lifetime the unfolding of the last loosing of Satan.
See, this kingdom that he talks about is real. There is real authority, but it’s in the spiritual realm. It’s real! It affects life on earth! But it’s not a political thing where you’re gonna have a reporter go in and interview Jesus and say, what’s your policy about this, and how’s, you know…I mean, get real. This is not that kind of a kingdom.
He reigns! But He’s on a throne where…beyond the reach of every devil. And every time he has tried to stop the Gospel from going out, God has overruled. In fact, many times, it’s when things are most difficult that the Gospel has gone out with the greatest power.
You know, in China, they thought they had squelched the Gospel, they had stamped it out with the great cultural revolution. Then all of a sudden, God began to raise up a younger generation, and they began to go out, and all of a sudden, you wound up with something like a hundred million people who are Christians in a place where it could cost you your life.
We keep getting reports out of Iran. Do you think Iran is a tough place to be a Christian? The word coming out of Iran is the mosques are empty! And Christians are meeting in little groups in homes! I’ll tell you, God has a way of reaching. His power reaches past what the Devil does!
But we are in that last time when Satan is being allowed to go out into the earth, and to seduce men with his lies and to try to gather them together. You want to know why the world is in such upheaval? Obviously, he’s used this disease. It’s become an instrument of control, greater control. You can argue the merits and demerits of this, that’s not the point.
But Satan is being allowed to do so many things. There are natural disasters that are happening. And seemingly…I mean, there are economic issues that are just…we see our society being torn apart because groups are being pitted against one another, and it’s just nothing but anger and hatred and name-calling on both sides.
That’s part of the world we’re living in. The devil is being allowed to tear apart the fabric of our world, because he has a dream. And, for a short time, God is going to allow him to, seemingly, fulfil his dream.
I don’t know exactly what that’s gonna look like for us. I haven’t got a neat little chart that tells you when and where and exactly what’s gonna happen. But I do know what the Lord has showed us. But what I see in the Word is enough. He is being allowed to pursue his dream. He’s being allowed to do something that he couldn’t do for almost 2,000 years. And suddenly, okay, it’s time. We are in the last hour of earth’s history.
And I guess, if I had to bring this down to what that means for us, first of all, we need live with a reality of what’s going on. One of the things that we are encouraged to do, because I’ll just refer to a scripture you know about. 1st Thessalonians 5 talks about how suddenly things are going to end. Absolutely, out of the blue, as far as the world is concerned, they will have no clue what’s about to happen, and suddenly, Christ will appear!
And we know from putting all the scriptures together, it means the end. It means the end of planet earth. God’s gonna gather His people, and disaster will fall upon this planet, and judgment will follow. But what does He say to us? It’s high time…I am gonna look it over. I’m gonna look up the scripture. 1st Thessalonians 5. I want to get it right.
“Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, Peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.” That’s pretty sober language, isn’t it?
“But…” glorious but, “…you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.” Praise God.
“For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep…” That is, whether we’re still alive or have died prior to this. “…We may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” Folks, God wants His people to be awake.
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Interesting…I can’t remember exactly where, but one of the scriptures I read was a piece in Isaiah that talked about how God has to deal with the wicked. And basically, what it says, the paraphrase is, if God blesses the wicked, they don’t get it. They don’t learn anything about righteousness. They don’t appreciate it. They just take it for granted and think it’s an affirmation of what they’re doing.
The only way the wicked could possibly learn about righteousness is to be judged, and to suddenly face some form of judgment, and now, all of a sudden, oh my God! You know, something’s wrong. And in that context, God can actually reach some people.
You wonder why things get difficult? How else is God going to reach those that He’s going to reach? And you’re gonna see the same thing that we’ve seen throughout history. You’re gonna see people migrating into two camps, and it’s gonna become very evident the further we go which camp somebody’s in.
Right now, there’s still a scattered remnant. God knows His people. And I always, I pray this often, God, I want to be just as open as I need to be to every brother, every sister. I also want to be discerning, because I’m not smart enough to figure all this out. God is. We need Him!
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Do you see the connection with things that the Lord has emphasized lately, how much we need to be walking with the Lord, how much we need to be looking to Him in a practical sense, allowing Him to live through us?
But you know, I got way into this before I suddenly said, my God, this is the logical next step for what we talked about last week. Because now, the question is, okay, what do we do? Do we just hunker down and find a cave somewhere and wait this out? Okay, Jesus, You’re here.
Here’s the thing that jumped out at me as I was thinking about…the more I was thinking about this. Do you think it’s an accident that you’re here? Do you think that it’s an accident that you and I are alive at this very moment? If we serve a God who plans and purposes the way it is described everywhere in scripture, then God has a reason for you being here and you and you and me. We’re not just here as digits, numbers on a page, numbers…you know, some vague membership in a vague kingdom somewhere. There is a reason we’re here.
How many times have we heard it referred to? Was it Ruth? Not Ruth. Esther is who I’m thinking of. Esther found herself in a very, very unlikely place, a Jewish girl as the queen of a heathen empire!
But yet, when the time came, that there was an evil man who had a plot against the Jewish people, guess what? She was right there! And her uncle said, who knows whether you have been brought to the kingdom for such time of this? And she had a critical role to play.
Jesus came into this world in the fullness of time. It was an expression of God’s heart and God’s purpose. He was there, not by accident. This is His time. And we talked last week about how Jesus lived when it came time, especially, for ministry. He says, the Father is working, and I work.
He didn’t get handed a handbook of what the Father wanted Him to do and go out and do it in His own wisdom. His whole ministry was devoted to just seeking God, walking with Him, basically saying, Father, what are You doing? What’s Your plan? And if there wasn’t something to do right then, He didn’t do it. He didn’t try to figure it out. He didn’t try to plan. He just listened to what His Father said, and He did it.
And by all human reckoning, it didn’t make much sense. You would think after He had gone to a few places and healed everybody that was sick, that that would define His ministry. My God, look what God’s doing. Let’s go out and organize this, let’s…but He’d leave there, and He’d go to some out-of-the-way place and heal one person. He’d preach to crowds, and He’d preach to one person. And when He healed them, He didn’t even do it the same way.
You know, we’ve talked about that before. There was this relationship that I believe God wants to bring His people to, where we know we’re not accidents. We’re not here to do our own thing. We’re here to be alert and awake, to realize where we are in history!
Satan has tried, throughout history, to fulfill his dream! Jesus went to a throne and said, you’re restricted to what you can do! You can’t fulfill your dream, until I’m done sending the Gospel to the ends of the earth. And now, at the end, okay, go for it.
In the very context of what Satan is being allowed to do, God is finishing His job. We’re not supposed to just sit here and watch the devil and see what he’s doing. We’re here to look to God and say, God, what are You doing?
( congregational amens ).
Because we are absolutely called to the Kingdom for such a time as this. It doesn’t matter who we are or who we aren’t, how big or how small our place is, every one of us has a place! Every one of us can rest in God, and speak as He speaks, and act as He acts. May God help us to seek Him.
Many times, we refer to the prophecy, it goes right back to Daniel. One of the things the Lord showed him out of the Book of Truth was that there was going to be a wicked emperor come around. It was one of…it was a descendent of one of the generals that had been under Alexander.
And he came into Israel with great anger, and he absolutely desecrated their temple! He took a hog and slaughtered it on the alter and rededicated the temple of God to a heathen god. I don’t remember which one. It says, he corrupted many because of flattery. He came in, he knew how to manipulate the people.
But what did it also say? “But the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” (KJV). Firmly resist him, take action. The original is so simple. It’s just, take action is a pretty good way to do it. They’re not going to be paralyzed by fear. They’re going to be able to say, God’s still on the throne. We’re here for a reason. God, just show us what to do! Give us the courage and the faith to do it, and to do it with the energy You supply.
That’s kind of simple, but it’s kind of hard for us, isn’t it? Oh, man, we want to jump in there. We want to get it done. We want to see a need and fix it! And God said, I have a plan that has been unfolding from all eternity. “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” (NIV).
We don’t know His times. We don’t know His ways. We can’t do God’s work. God has to do His work, but the glorious thing is He wants to do it through us. He has a people that He longs to work in harmony with and through, just as He did His Son, just as He did the prophets, just as He did ordinary people in the New Testament. It’s not who you are in the natural. It’s who He is.
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But oh, I’ll tell you, it’s not gonna be long. You see it unfolding. I don’t know how long it’s gonna take. Things could just suddenly gel. It’s easy to see what’s happening in America. It’s not the America we grew up with, those of us who are older especially. Young people, you have no idea…how it’s changed.
But Satan is being allowed to capture the hearts and minds of those who just don’t want God. Some of them want religion, but they don’t want God. They don’t want Christ to rule in their hearts.
And I’ll tell you, when you start down that road, it’s darkness, it’s deception, and all Satan has to do is just to tear apart the fabric and then raise up a hope presented to humanity. Here is your way forward. We’re gonna get together. We’re gonna govern the planet together. We’re gonna be united! Justice for everybody!
You’re gonna hear those kinds of things. You’re hearing them now. But I’ll tell you, it’s happening under our eyes. Don’t you just go to sleep and think life is gonna get back to normal. There is no normal in this world. We are on a track. We are on a trajectory toward the coming of Christ.
As the Word says, it’ll be an absolute shock to this world. But oh, what an awesome thing it will be for those of us who are alive and remain. If we’ve gone on, we’ll come back with Him, to meet those who are still here. But if you’re still here, oh my God. Won’t it be something to have an angel fly up to you, take you by the hand and lead you up to be with the Lord forever? And your body will be changed like that. That, I can’t wait for.
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These old bodies are getting more and more wrong with them. But there’s one coming that nothing will ever be wrong with it. We’re gonna stand there, and we’re gonna…we’re just gonna be blown away with the greatness of His plan.
Yeah, I know there’s a lot of terrible stuff happening in the world. But God is allowing men to taste the fruit of what they have chosen. There’s no way He can bless the human race and bring them out of what’s going on. We’re gonna have to see…we’re gonna have to see iniquity for what it is, but that’s another story.
But anyway, maybe that’s more than enough for today. It’s a big picture. But do you see Satan setting out on his dream and God continually interrupting it all the way along, until He really interrupted it at the resurrection? And, all of a sudden, there was a period of history when Satan was restricted from his dream. He was allowed to oppose the Gospel but not to unite the nations! Okay?
And then, at the end, there’s this little period of time when he is allowed to pursue his dream, but we know how the story ends. It ends suddenly with the coming of Christ, and then the judgment and then eternity.
I’ll tell you, you need to be on one side or the other. You are on one side or the other. You could be sitting here, and you’ve never, never really opened your heart and seen who Jesus is, and how much God loves you and His purpose for your life. I can’t do that for you. I pray God will…I pray that God…I’ll tell you, if God lays somebody on your heart, pray for them. It makes a difference. Sometimes, we want to jump in and try to fix it and try to get somebody. We need to say, God, You are the One who…You’re the only One that can change somebody’s heart.
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Lord, do it. We can’t be dismayed by how people react or don’t react. We’re gonna have to say, God, You know. You know every one that is Yours, and every one that is Yours will stand there in white one day because of what Jesus did, because of the heart and the purpose of God. Praise God!
I mean, you could go on and on talking about this, but I’ll tell you, we have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this, not because we’re anything, but because of the heart and the purpose of God. You and I are alive today, not in the 1800’s, or the 1500’s, or whatever. We’re here now, because God, in His purpose in eternity, knew about this time and ordained that you and I live right now.
We need to live with that awareness and say, God, help me to fulfill my purpose as a part of Your purpose. May the purposes for which I live align with Your purposes.
( congregational amens ).
That’s what God is looking for from His people, and I believe He’s gonna draw a people together more and more, that will live in harmony with that eternal purpose. Satan has his dream, but God has His purpose. We know which one wins. To Him be the glory! Praise God!
