In Philippians 4:13 Paul said, “For I’m trained in the secret of overcoming all things, whether in fullness or in hunger. And I find that the strength of Christ’s explosive power infusing me to conquer every difficulty.”
In many cases, apathy and complacency are ways that people opt out in going into battle. They may see it as too hard and lose faith before even entering in to it. This is because they are looking to obtain the victory in their own strength. It is Christ’s strength and not our own strength that will win the battle. The Lord will provide all that we need to come into the victory for the day of battle.
David, when surrounded by adversaries on every side that sought his life because David and his men rescued the Ziphites, prayed and cried out to Lord to help and rescue him. He then proclaims, “I will give thanks to Your name, O Lord, for it is good, for He has delivered me out of all my trouble; and my eye has looked down on my enemies.” (Psalm 54:7)
Ever been there? People tell you that “God will never give you more than you can handle” but you feel totally defeated and pushed beyond your limits? With no place to turn except God.
I was sitting in a prayer room and telling God how hard my current circumstance was as I was feeling totally stuck, pressed beyond my limits. I told the Lord I was over my head and I didn’t know what to do. I felt exasperated and started devising ways to get out of my situation completely in my mind. I felt He spoke these great promises but everything moved in the opposite direction.
Then in the prayer room they started singing about the Holy Spirit being limitless. “He has no limits” someone sang. Suddenly as I looked up, I realized The Holy Spirit is inside of me and He has no limits. This is why he could say that we should forgive 70×7 times. We are never beyond His capacity!
I was operating out of my self-sufficiency and understanding rather than His sufficiency. I was not defeated but could press on in the power of the Spirit. I had unlimited capacity available to me in Him. This was such a revelation in the moment.
Jesus says in Matthew 5:3, “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.”
What happened was then a day later, the situation began to move toward the promises I had been given some years back. Once I was standing in God’s sufficiency, the promises that God gave me started to break forth. I had a miracle happen and the situation switched in my favor.
Strength to sustain me is never in myself, it is in the Lord. Psalm 28:7 says, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and He helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I will praise Him.”
Right now, I am feeling overwhelmed with caring for my mother. I was hoping that she would be able to stay with us until the end. She does not want to live in a nursing home but her care is such that it feels over my head at times and more than I can manage. While having some help come in is really a blessing and provision of God, there are so many pieces that make it hard.
In the Lord’s love for us, He does not hold back difficulty from us. Even when we think we are beyond what we can handle, the Lord will help us overcome and step into the victory if we say yes and do not run or shrink back from our circumstances. The Lord will be faithful to bring us out from our most difficult circumstances in the wilderness right into the Promised Land if we hold fast.
While we are to look forward to His day of coming, it also says that many will mourn as He becomes more visible. Amos 5:16-17 proclaims about His return, “Therefore this is what the LORD, the LORD God Almighty, says: ‘There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,’ says the LORD.
When we are at the darkest point and the sun has set, Jesus appears as a smoking firepot and flaming torch (Genesis 15:17) and passes through what is divided in the flesh, bringing His covenant of peace. As He does, we repent, mourning and grieving our sin– passing under the rod in humility, bringing us fully into the bond of the covenant (Ezekiel 20:37).
The divided flesh we can see today in the body of Christ as there is division everywhere. Since the beginning, division has been an issue for the people of God. Jonathan Edwards warns of this as spiritual pride when he writes, “Spiritual pride takes a great notice of opposition and injuries that are received, and is apt to be often speaking of them, and to be much in taking notice of their aggravations, either with an air of bitterness or contempt.” [1]
Jude speaks of spiritual pride and division in the end times and the coming of the Lord’s judgement against it. He writes, “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.
But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.’ These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.” Jude 14-19
While the flesh in the body becomes divided, the Spirit of God brings unity. Paul prays for the Church in Ephesians 4:13-15, “Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.”
How does this come about? Just as the words of Proverbs tells us that it is wisdom not to spare the rod from our children so they will learn discipline and grow up to bring their parents joy, so the Lord, as a good parent, does not spare us from the rod or the sword to free us from the flesh and all that hinders us.
In Ezekiel The Lord draws the sword against His people who got tied up into Babylon, the great harlot (Rev. 17), to bring them into freedom. He says in Ezekiel 21:4-5, “My sword shall be drawn from its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north that all flesh shall know that I the Lord have drawn forth my sword from its sheath. It shall not return anymore…”
It would not benefit us if the Lord always turned His head and ignored our sin. Rather it is His loving kindness that deals with it and brings us to repent. We may otherwise excuse or overlook our sin without accepting that we are doing wrong.
In the day of difficulty Ezekiel prophesies and asks, “Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with you? I the Lord have spoken and will do it.” (Ezekiel 22:14)
For all of us, the day of the Lord in His coming is one of great rejoicing over our enemies but also tribulation and difficulty as well. It is part of Him preparing for Himself a holy bride that is ready for His return and bringing the fullness of His kingdom come.
As the Bible warns for His people to “come out of her,” many will need to put off the colors of the great harlot, leaving behind sin and betrayal for a holy pursuit. Over and over, the Bible speaks of the people of God turning their back on God by turning instead to their desires. The Lord will deal with many on their sin with testings, trials and discipline so that they come through the fire purged of sin and shining as gold.
We can read about tribulation and feel overwhelmed. However, we do not need to have the strength to endure these trials; As we come to an end of ourselves, we will walk more and more in the provision of God. The Lord is our provision. As we let go of our own strength and capacity, we will find a new found dependence upon Him. The Lord will provide all that we need to come into the victory for the day of battle.
To be victories, we need only be willing. Where we lose, is because we get discouraged and quit. We opt out because we are looking at our own strength and provision. Proverbs24:16 tells us that in wisdom, the righteous will keep getting up again. When we fail, we rise again.
Often, the biggest downfall, at least for me, is to sit down when I fail and beat myself up over it. I want to quit because I feel it is too hard and I am incapable. I feel frustrated and angry at myself. Then I indulge in food and begin to feel more complacent and apathetic as I distance myself from God in self-shaming.
David was an example of someone with the wisdom to keep going. When he made a mistake in going with King Achish to battle alongside the Philistines and was sent back home, he found that his land was raided and nothing was left. His men were tired and angry so they wanted to stone him. But rather than become discouraged, he got back up and strengthened himself in the Lord. He kept moving forward and inquired of the Lord what to do from there. He didn’t let his failure or discouragement stop him in his tracks.
David also gives us an example of not letting the size of the battle cause him to be discouraged or fall back. When he saw Goliath, he did not size up the situation based upon the size of the enemy like everyone else. Instead, He judged it based upon how Goliath was not under the protection of the covenant and was taunting God. He knew the strength of God far surpassed that of his enemies.
In being like Jesus, Proverbs 30:30 reminds us that we are to be roaring lions. It says, “A Lion which is strongest among beasts and does not turn away for any.” (Proverbs 30:30) David knew how to fling himself on the mercy and strength of His God and come forth victorious.
Our biggest battle in the cases of failure or opposition that looms large, is our own attitude. It is our attitude that causes us to shrink back. And it says that the Lord is not pleased when we shrink back. Hebrews 10:39 says, “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”
Because of this, the quickest way to win the battle, just like in the time of the Israelites, is to surround the problem / obstacle / opposition in tons of prayer and then praise Him for the victory before it even comes. Trust Him that He fights for us and that no problem is to strong or big for Him. He is more than able to bring every wall down.
Even better is to surround your life in prayer before any battle. We can be like Job who prayed and made sacrifices on the altar of fire for is kids every day in case any of his children would unwittingly sin. True that it did not change the fact his kids died, but it is still a great example of how to steward what we have been given. He lived in great care, treasuring those gifts that he was given by covering them in prayer and sacrifice ahead of any difficulty.
Jude tells the Church in Jude 20-21 that we endure the end times and win the battle by faith, prayer and humility as we hide in Christ. It says, “But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
One revivalist writes similarly, “The baptism of the Holy Spirit has been given to you to be a witness and to fulfill the great commission. Live modestly, vigilantly, and in constant prayer and fellowship because of end-time darkness and because your true reward will be in heaven” [2]
Having people around you that are in the same battle, supporting and encouraging you are huge in navigating. We find strength in numbers and like thinking. Living modestly keeps us from becoming lethargic and more vigilant in pursuit Wisdom cries out, give me neither riches or poverty, lest I be full and deny you or lest I be poor and steal (Proverbs 30:9). And our greatest help in times of battle is prayer. It sets our heart right and brings us in a place of dependence as we look to the One whom our help comes from.
Of course Paul reminds us of some of the same as he tells us to put on the whole armor as we go into battle. Ephesians 6:10-20 says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Lord, when our foes multiply and rise up against us, You, O Lord, are a shield for us, our glory and the One who lifts our heads. We are grateful for Your strength. Over and over, I have cried to you and You heard my voice. You answered me. It is only for you that I can lay down and sleep, for You sustain me in peace. We will not be afraid in the day of evil when we are surrounded. Salvation belongs to You. Your blessing is on Your people.
1. Murillo, Mario. Freshfire: When you are finally serious about power in the last days. Freshfire Communications, San Ramon, CA. 1991.
2. Hastie, Lane. Revive us Again! Hosea 6:3. Located at: https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/revive-us-again-lane-hastie-sermon-on-revival-249025. Last Accessed: 8/1/2021
