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Introduction:
I recently learned from a friend about a horrifying experience she
faced a few years ago. She began to receive phone calls. The voice
at the other end, which she did not recognize, said things like,
“I am watching you. I know where you live. I know what you do. I
am going to kill you.” Sometimes the person called and spoke to
her husband. He would say things like, “I have seen your wife. I
know who she is. I know where she goes. I am going to kill her.”
Can you imagine that? How would you feel in that situation? What
would you do? Would you begin to constantly look over your
shoulder? Would you start doing some research about how stalkers
behave? Would you call the police? Would you talk to your friends
and have them be on the lookout? Would you start making sure you
were never anywhere alone? Would you take self-defense classes?
Would you start carrying a knife or a gun?
Imagine another scenario. If your daughter told you she saw
a man in his car across the street from the school bus stop, then
saw him hanging out near the school’s playground, then driving
down the street as she walked home, what would you do? Would you
wait at the bust stop with her? Would you pick her up at school?
Would you let her teachers know? Would you start training her in
“stranger awareness” and self-defense? Would you make sure she
was with someone at all times?
What would you do when someone said they thought you were
going overboard? What would you do when someone asked, “Do you
think it is really necessary to do all that?”
Someone is stalking you. Every breath you take, every move
you make, every step you take—he is watching you. Every single
day, every word you say, every game you play, every night you
stay—he is watching you. He knows where you live, where you
work, who your friends are. He knows what you do, how you respond,
where you are weak. And he has one thought on his mind. He wants
to take you captive, torment you and kill you. His name is Satan.
He is real and he wants you. He knows your spouse. He knows your
children. He is watching and wants them too. I
Peter 5:8 says, “Your adversary, the devil, prowls
around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” II
Timothy 2:26 says he wants to hold you captive to do his
will. Discussion: I.
We are not ignorant of our stalker’s schemes (II
Corinthians 2:11) A.
Satan
lies (John
8:44). How did Satan take Eve captive in Genesis
3:4-5? He lied. Granted he mixed in enough truth to make
it look good, but he lied. Don’t believe everything you hear,
think or feel because Satan lies. Do not be deceived. B.
Satan
uses our natural desires (I
John 2:16). He will use the wants of our flesh, the
delight of our eyes and the desire to be wise and esteemed to pull
us to his path. Isn’t that what he did with Eve in Genesis
3:6? Interestingly, according to Genesis
2:9 all of the trees in the garden were a delight to the
eyes and good for food. Satan deceives us into believing that
everything that seems delightful must be ok. After all, God wants
us to be happy and never suffer, right? C.
Satan
disguises himself and his messengers
(II
Corinthians 11:12-15). Satan doesn’t walk up to us and
say, “Hi, I’m Satan. I am tempting you and attempting to take
you captive. Won’t you please submit?” He attracts us with
things that look godly, but aren’t. For instance, just recently
I received a call asking me to tell you about Teenmania
Ministry’s “Acquire the Fire,” which will take place in
Nashville in April. It promises to be an event where teenagers can
have a genuine encounter with God. It sounds good. Many parents
are happy their children are doing something that has something to
do with God. But for all of the spiritual message they claim to
present, Satan has his fingers on it, turning worshipping God into
a time of feeding the flesh, presenting entertainment as worship
and emotionalism as connecting to God. Do not be deceived. D.
Satan
takes away the word
(Luke
8:5, 12). Satan doesn’t want us to know God’s word. He
wants to build barriers to it. He will bombard us with
distractions so we never get around to reading it. He fills us
with doubts so we are not sure we can trust it. He provides
skeptics who question everything. He fills us with resentment
against God’s messengers so that when they say something we
don’t like, we don’t have to listen. He provides us with a
sense of satisfaction that just “going to church” and
listening to the sermon is enough. E.
Satan
uses natural disaster and sickness
(Job
1-2). When Satan attacked Job, he used the armies of men (1:15,
17), he used the “fire of God”-lightning?-(1:16),
he used a great wind-tornado?-(1:18)
and a sickness of boils (2:7-8).
Through these means Satan took away Job’s possessions and even
killed Job’s children. When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, he
defended himself saying “And this woman,… whom Satan has bound
for eighteen years…” (Luke
13:16). When Peter preached and described Jesus’ work in
the flesh he said, “He went about doing good and healing all who
were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts
10:38). I am not saying every natural disaster or sickness
is directly caused by Satan. I am simply saying Satan uses those
things to take us captive. F.
Satan
uses others (Matthew
16:22-23). Jesus called Peter Satan. Why? Because
Peter’s words were a tool of Satan to tempt Jesus away from
God’s plan. He will use our family and our friends. In Job
2-3, Satan used Job’s wife. Why didn’t Satan kill
Job’s wife along with his children? Because she, in her personal
rebellion against God, was more useful to Satan alive than dead (2:9).
Then Job’s friends, who were supposed to be a source of comfort
and encouragement, ended up being Satan’s most effective
approach to taking Job captive. Their accusations came the closest
of any of Satan’s temptations to getting Job to stumble. G.
Satan
uses our emotions against us
(Ephesians
4:26). One of Satan’s biggest attacks is to take
advantage of our emotions and passions. The best example is that
of anger. How many sins do we commit because we got angry?
Unwholesome words, slander, bitterness, wrath, vengeance, clamor,
etc. all come out when we allow the devil a foothold in our lives
through not dealing with these emotions quickly. H.
Satan
doesn’t care where we are
(Job
1:6). Satan came into the presence of God by coming into
the midst of the sons of God. The fact is Satan doesn’t care
that we are the sons of God and have come into this place to
gather to worship and present ourselves to God. He will come even
here and attack us. How many are being attacked right now by Satan
with distractions, with irritation, with bitterness? How many are
being attacked to ignore or discount what they are hearing and
experiencing right now? How many are thinking, “This isn’t
such a big deal”? How many are thinking, “I can’t believe
Edwin classed that with the work of Satan”? How many are
thinking, “That’s just preacher talk”? Those walls are not
from God, they are from Satan, he attacks us even here. I.
Here is the long and short of it. Satan is stalking us. He
is attacking us. He may attack us using our weaknesses, our
desires, our friends, our family, our brethren, our co-workers,
our feelings, our eyes, our pride. He may attack us with natural
disasters, sickness, oppression, persecution. He may attack us
using something we see on tv, hear on the radio, see at the check
out counter of Wal-mart, hear at work. He will attack us at home,
at school, at work and at church. II.
God’s involvement. A.
Before we look at our defense, we must honestly recognize
God’s involvement in all of this. B.
God is in control of the world and Satan only attacks
because God allows it. The story of Job is the greatest
demonstration of this. In Job
1-2, Satan came into God’s presence and sought
permission. In Luke
22:31-32, Jesus said Satan had demanded permission to sift
Peter like wheat. We must honestly admit that when Satan tempts
us, God has allowed it. C.
However, God never allows Satan to tempt us beyond our
limits (I
Corinthians 10:13). D.
God always provides a way of escape (I
Corinthians 10:13). E.
God desires to be our refuge, our rock, our defender and
our deliverer (Psalm
18). Note vss.
1-3. Vs.
30 says, “He is a shield to all who take refuge in
Him.” Read vss.
31-36. God
desires to do more than just provide a way of escape. He has
offered to protect and deliver us from Satan, but we must take
refuge in Him. If we seek refuge in Him, He will gird us with
strength. He will provide us with maneuverability in battle,
making us sure-footed (hind’s feet). He puts us on the high
ground, trains us for battle, shields us, holds us up, makes us
great and provides a place for us to stand in which we will not
fall. But we must take refuge in Him. III.
Our defense—refuge in God. A.
It is one thing to take refuge in God. But how do we do
that? Do we just sit around saying, “I expect God to deal with
this?” I think not. We could travel all over scripture to find
the various aspects of what we must do to take refuge in God but I
think Acts
2:42 presents the four-pronged assault on Satan that is
seeking refuge in God. “They were continually devoting
themselves to the 1apostles’
teaching and to 2fellowship,
to 3the
breaking of bread and to 4prayer.” B.
The early disciples did not devote themselves to these
things because they are God’s assignments for Christians. They
devoted themselves because they had been set free from the grasp
of Satan and were taking refuge in God that they might remain free
and not be taken captive again (II
Peter 2:20-22). We will look in depth at each of these at
a later date. However a quick note about each of them and their
refuge in God. C.
Devoted
to the apostles’ teaching.
That is, they were devoted to God’s word. In Psalm
18:20-24, David said God’s deliverance was directly
proportional to his devotion to God’s word. He put God’s
ordinances before Him. He read them. He meditated on them. He
followed them. Psalm
119:11 says, “Your word I have treasured in my heart
that I might not sin against you.” Even Jesus himself conquered
the attack of Satan because of His devotion to the word of God (Matthew
4:4, 7, 10). Sadly, we often view Bible study as a
homework assignment to procrastinate. We question how much Bible
reading and study we actually have to do to get to heaven.
Beloved, Bible reading is not a daily checklist item to keep God
from zapping us. It is an absolute necessity to keep Satan from
taking us prisoner. If we wish God to shield and deliver us, we
must seek refuge in Him by seeking refuge in His word. Let me ask
you, if you started seeing a stranger following you around or
started receiving threatening phone calls would you not start
learning how stalkers act, what you could expect from them and how
to defend yourself? Why not do the same in the face of Satan the
ultimate stalker? D.
Devoted
to fellowship.
That is, they were devoted to joint spiritual participation in
God’s work with God’s people. Psalm
82:1 says God takes His stand in His own congregation. Why
would we want to be any place but in the midst of God’s
congregation? (I am not saying we will never spend time with those
in the world, but that must be in the proper context, after our
refuge in God through His people has been established. That
discussion is for another lesson.) In Psalm
141:5, David prayed that God allow the righteous to smite
him with kindness. That is, he understood God would deliver him
from the tempter by using the chastening and encouragement of his
brethren who also wanted to overcome Satan. Hebrews
10:24 says we are to stimulate one another to love and
good deeds. That is why God has developed local congregations, to
provide not only a haven of truth but a haven of help in the
battle against Satan. Too often we argue over the absolute
necessity of congregational membership or attendance, when we do
we lose sight of the real issue. We want to know if God will zap
us into hell if we are not a member of a local church or if we
don’t attend all the assemblies and classes. The reality is,
Satan will take us captive if we are not taking refuge in God by
taking refuge in God’s people. Let me ask you, if you started
seeing a stranger following you around or started receiving
threatening phone calls, would you not spend as much time with
other people as possible and with people you expected to be able
to help and protect you if attacked? Why not do the same in the
face of Satan the ultimate stalker? E.
Devoted
to the breaking of bread.
That is, they were devoted to remembering God’s Son, God’s
sacrifice and God’s grace. Why do we take the Lord’s Supper
every week? Is it because God’s rules say so? If that is the
only reason it does us little good. We devote ourselves to this
because the constant reminder of God’s Son, sacrifice and grace
is absolutely essential to our refuge in God. Every week we are
reminded that God has already won the victory for us through the
death of Jesus (Hebrews
2:14). We are reminded that Satan, whose name means
“accuser” can have nothing to say against us because if God
freely gave us His Son, He will give us all things (Romans
8:31-33) and will save us from His wrath through His Son (Romans
5:9). And yes, we are reminded that when we sin, we have
an advocate with the Father through whom we can approach God and
receive forgiveness (I
John 1:8-2:2), remembering that God knew we would commit
our sins when He sent Jesus to die, but He did it anyway. The
Lord’s Supper reminds us that our sins are not a surprise to
God, we can confess them and be forgiven. We take refuge in God by
taking refuge in His Son, His sacrifice and His grace. Let me ask
you, if you started seeing a stranger following you around or
started receiving threatening phone calls would you not want to be
repeatedly reminded of what has been done to protect you and help
you win the victory? Why not do the same in the face of Satan the
ultimate stalker? F.
Devoted
to prayer.
Considering our circumstance, how can we be anything but devoted
to prayer? Let’s face it. Our stalker is too much for us. But He
is not too much for God. If we want God to be our deliverer, we
need to ask Him. When Jesus modeled prayer in Matthew
6:12-13, part of the prayer was “Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.” In Psalm
18, David says God was his rock, his shield, his deliverer
because “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my
God for help; He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry for
help before Him came into His ears” (Psalm
18:6). Not only will we be devoted to prayer for
ourselves, but devoted to prayer for others knowing that Satan is
stalking them as well (cf. Ephesians
6:18). Further, we will be devoted to seeking others
prayers on our behalf (cf. Ephesians
6:19). As we see the victory God provides as we take
refuge in Him, we will not be able to help but be devoted to
praising, thanking and magnifying God. That, in fact, was the
basis for Psalm
18. Read vss.
1-3. We take refuge in God by taking refuge in worshipping
Him. Let me ask you, if you started seeing a stranger following
you around or started receiving threatening phone calls would you
not repeatedly and continually report the stalkers attacks to the
police, would you not inform your friends, would you not seek help
from any source you thought could provide it? Would you not be
profuse in your thanks for those who actively helped you overcome
the stalker? Why not do the same in the face of Satan the ultimate
stalker? Conclusion:
Read Psalm
18:46-49: The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock; And exalted be the God of my salvation, The God who executes vengeance for me, And subdues peoples under me. He delivers me from my enemies; Surely You lift me above those who rise up against
me; You rescue me from the violent man. Therefore I will give thanks to You among the
nations, O Lord And I will sing praises to your name. He gives great deliverance to His king, And shows lovingkindness to His anointed, To
David and his descendents forever. Satan is stalking. But God will deliver those who take refuge in Him. God delivered David and He will deliver us. Let us take refuge in Him, devoting ourselves to His word, His people, His Son, sacrifice and grace and His worship. Let us exalt the God of our salvation!
Glory
to God in the church by Christ Jesus
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