The Lordship of Christ in your life.

As we already said earlier, if Christ is Lord in your life, that should mean that he is King and that you live your life to please Him. But a lot of us struggle with giving Christ total control. And even though we want to live good Christian lives, we seem to commit the same sins over and over. It's as though there is a battle going on inside of us. Well, tonight we're going to talk about what might be hindering you from following Christ's voice and letting him be Lord.

Did you know that the moment you decide to live for Christ, you get Satan's attention? Satan's sole desire is to take as many of us as he can to hell. When you didn't care about God, you were already on your way to hell, so Satan didn't bother you. But as soon as you accepted Christ into your life, you became a target. The bible tells us in 1 Peter 5:8 "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." This verse is telling us that we have to be self-disciplined and on guard at all times. Satan is your worst enemy, and he is trying to figure out ways to keep you away from God. And you know how he does it? By getting you to compromise in your walk. Does anyone know what the word "compromise" means? It means to give in. Instead of standing firm on something 100 percent, you "make a deal." (Give examples)

Satan (and our own flesh) will talk us into believing that we should hold on to our old friends, you know, the ones who are always up to no good. And he'll tell us that getting high and drinking is a habit that we don't need to give up, that we can handle it. Ultimately Satan tricks us into not giving God our all. This is why we repeat the same sins over and over. And by our actions we tell God, "You can't have this area of my life. This is my territory." But the only way you are going to be successful in your Christian walk is if you leave behind all of those old sinful friends and habits. You have to stop playing both sides. Christ said, "He that is not with me is against me" (Matthew 12:30). You can't have two homes. Either heaven is your true home or this world is. God wants to lead you to a new place, but there is no room for all of your old junk. Deuteronomy 30:15-18 reads, "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it. But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish; and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go possess it."

We are given a choice: Choose life and good with God, or death and evil with Satan. God wants us to follow his words while we are on this earth until he leads us to our heavenly home, but are you obeying his voice or still allowing Satan to have a stronghold in your life?

Well, let's see what you have to do to break Satan's hold in your life. There is a story in the bible that we can learn from that tells us of a man who was very similar to Satan. This man tried to manipulate a group of God's chosen people because he wanted to keep them in bondage. This man owned these people and didn't want to let them go, similar to how Satan used to own some of you and is still trying to keep you in his grip. This man we are going to read about had the title of Pharaoh. We'll compare his strategy to that of the devil's. (Give background on the Israelites being in slavery and God sending Moses and the plagues to Pharaoh to get him to let the people go so that they could serve God.)

But Pharaoh was stubborn. The Israelites had been his slaves for 400 years, and he wasn't about to let them out of his sight. In Exodus 8:27-28 we read that Moses told Pharaoh: "We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he shall command us. And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: entreat for me."

* Moses wanted to take the people to a place to worship the Lord that would have taken them three days to reach. Pharaoh was saying, "I'll let you serve your God, only stay here and do it where I can see you," i.e., where I can still control you. This is similar to how Satan works. Satan will tell us "Okay, you can serve the Lord, but don't go too far. Don't become too radical. Be an undercover Christian. Blend in with society. Walk, talk, and act just like the heathens of the world do. And don't go to church. Only go to church on Easter and Christmas."

Satan knows that if we really prayed and read our bible and fellowshipped with other believers, that we wouldn't have time to be tempted. We would grow strong. So he wants us to remain weak baby Christians who are easily manipulated and who easily fall into sin. And Satan lies just like Pharaoh did. Pharaoh said that he would let the Israelites go, but then he said no, that he wouldn't let the Israelites leave for even three days. And because Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, God caused some more bad plagues to happen in Egypt, until even Pharaoh's top advisors were telling Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. But Pharaoh was still trying to control the situation.

Let's read what happened next. Exodus 10:8-10, "And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve the Lord your God: but who are they that shall go? And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the Lord. And he said unto them, Let the Lord be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones: look to it; for evil is before you."

At first it sounds like Pharaoh is going to let them go, but in the very next sentence he says this: "Not so: go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord; for that ye did desire. And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence." (Exodus 10:11).

Did you catch that? Pharaoh said, "I will let the men go." Moses wanted everything and everyone to go serve the Lord, but Pharaoh said that only the men could go. Pharaoh knew that he could control the situation if he held the women and children and all of their possessions under his power. He was trying to make a compromise with Moses!

* What areas of your life does Satan still hold you hostage with because you have compromised and you have not yet entrusted that area to God? Maybe you feel as though you can't give up your ways to make quick illegal or ungodly money, and that is holding you back (selling weed, stealing, cheating on your taxes, credit card scams, illegal cable) . Or maybe you can't let go of your lustful thoughts and actions, and that is keeping you from 100% obeying God (R-rated movies, flesh magazines, fornication, masturbation, porno). Or maybe your pride is holding you back. You have a certain reputation to uphold, and that is keeping you from walking the way God would have you walk (gang activity, being accepted at work amongst your unchristian friends, wanting to seem "manly" with the ladies). Maybe you are as bad as this greedy monkey:

Greatest Prophet

It is here promised concerning Christ, that there should come a Prophet, great above all the prophets; by whom God would make known himself and his will to the children of men, more fully and clearly than he had ever done before. He is the Light of the world, Joh 8:12. He is the World by whom God speaks to us, Joh 1:1; Heb 1:2. In his birth he should be one of their nation.

In his resurrection he should be raised up at Jerusalem, and from thence his doctrine should go forth to all the world. Thus God, having raised up his Son Christ Jesus, sent him to bless us. He should be like unto Moses, only above him. This prophet is come, even JESUS; and is to �He that should come, to � and we are to look for no other. The view of God which he gives, will not terrify or overwhelm, but encourages us. He speaks with fatherly affection and Divine authority united.

Whoever refuses to listen to Jesus Christ, shall find it is at his peril; the same that is the Prophet is to be his Judge, Joh 12:48. Woe then to those who refuse to hearken to His voice, to accept His salvation, or yield obedience to His sway! But happy they who trust in Him, and obey Him. He will lead them in the paths of safety and peace, until He brings them to the land of perfect light, purity, and happiness. Here is a caution against false prophets.

It highly concerns us to have a right touchstone wherewith to try the word we hear, that we may know what that word is which the Lord has not spoken. Whatever is against the plain sense of the written word, or which gives countenance or encouragement to sin, we may be sure is not that which the Lord has spoken.

Picture of a Prophet

Picture of a Prophet
By Leonard Ravenhill


The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men.

Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, "No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected." The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are his "brand name."

The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him "Man of the year" when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!

The prophet comes to set up that which is upset. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, "has almost always been that of recovery."

The prophet is God's detective seeking for a lost treasure. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him.
He has no price tags.
He is totally "otherworldly."
He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile.
He marches to another drummer!
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration.
He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind.
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a "thus saith
the Lord."
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of
impending judgment.
He lives in "splendid isolation."
He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright.
His message is "repent, be reconciled to God or else...!"
His prophecies are parried.
His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void.
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead!
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with
epitaphs when dead.
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class.
He is friendless while living and famous when dead.
He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint
by posterity.
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of
Life to those who listen.
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years.
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation.
He announces, pronounces, and denounces!
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire.
He talks to men about God.
He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men.
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing.
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in
the marketplace.
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual.
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity.
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.

Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem. We need a God-sent prophet!

I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11).

Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival. Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?

GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.

There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.
Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and
stagnant "churchianity."
Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.
Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do."
Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous,
nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting.
Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move
men to God.
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has
received the order of the day.
Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the
clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism.
Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision
no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the
wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where
enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.


God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!





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COPYRIGHT/REPRODUCTION LIMITATIONS: This data file is the sole property of Leonard Ravenhill. It may not be altered or edited in any way. It may be reproduced only in its entirety for circulation as "freeware," without charge. All reproductions of this data file must contain the copyright notice (i.e., "Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill."). This data file may not be used without the permission of Leonard Ravenhill for resale or the enhancement of any other product sold. This includes all of its content with the exception of a few brief quotations. Please give the following source credit: Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/




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