Part 8
Goal of the Believer

Video Recording of this Message

The Place of Total Victory

Revelation 12:9-11 “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.  Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ‘Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.’  And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

“They overcame him.”  Central to our understanding of the goal of the believer, of the purpose of salvation, that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, that we will be, and God is making us to be, just like Jesus.  Central to our becoming just like Jesus is this word, “overcome.” 

Jesus is a warrior.  He is engaged in a great battle.  We need to understand what that battle is, and what are the issues of this great war.  If we do not understand what the issues of this battle are, we will not be effective in the overcoming of Jesus.

“They overcame him,” this serpent of old.  It is referring directly to that original serpent in the Garden of Eden, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

In verse 10 it calls him “the accuser of the brethren.”

I want to look at three points concerning this one we are to overcome.  First, we look at the original serpent.  Second, this is the one who deceives the whole world.  And third, he is the accuser of the brethren.

Genesis 3 shows us the original assault against God.  In Chapter 1, the first words God spoke were, “Let there be light,” four words.  Then the first four words the serpent spoke is in 3:1, “Has God indeed said?”

“Yea hath God said?”  “Did God really say that?”

The history of God speaking His word into the universe is a history of an echo; it includes this echo that comes every time God speaks, “Did God really say that?”  “Has God indeed said?”

David said in Psalms 138:2 “You have magnified Your word above all Your name.”  The word God speaks is more important to God than any other part of His being.  The word God speaks, God places above Himself.  God makes Himself subject to the word He speaks.  The word God speaks is more important to God than any other part of His person.

We know from John 1 that the word God speaks is Jesus.  We know that in the beginning of the creation of God, God was speaking forth His Son as the pattern, the creating force of that creation.  In John 1:1 John says, “In the beginning was the word” – God said, “Let there be light.”  We are talking about Jesus. 

John 1:4-5 “In Him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

God speaks His word into darkness, into the void, into emptiness.  God speaks His word into darkness, and He expects that word to come back to Him fulfilling the purpose for which it was sent.  God said through Isaiah in Isaiah 55, “My word does not come back to me until it performs the purpose for which I sent it.”

God is a risk taker.  He speaks His word into darkness.  And He stands waiting for that word to come back to Him having accomplished the purpose for which it was sent.  God sent His Son into this world as a light; the world did not know him or receive him. 

John 1:12 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

As we receive that word from God, we have the right to be conformed to the image of His Son.  It is our right.

The point of this weakness is the point of the warfare.  Lucifer understands the nature of God.  Lucifer is not at war with God; he cannot challenge God, there is no contest there.  What Satan tries to do is to defeat the word God speaks.  He cannot defeat that word in a frontal attack.  Lucifer cannot attack Jesus. 

But God has placed this reality into the universe.  The word cannot return to God having fulfilled its purpose unless it is received by faith.  The word, before it can accomplish what it was sent to perform, must find residence inside of hearts living in darkness.  It must be received in the darkness and believed and embraced before it can accomplish the purpose for which God sent it.

God is waiting for His word to return to Him fulfilled.  It can’t do that unless it first finds faith.  It is only in faith that the word can find its fulfillment and therefore return to the Father having accomplished the purpose for which it was sent.

Jesus asked the question, “When the Son of man returns, will He find faith in the earth?”  We know that He will because we know the end of the matter.  1 Corinthians 15 says that when all things are made subject to the Son, all things, when He has sought and found and restored all that was lost, then He will turn and Himself be subject to the Father, that God might be all in all.  Jesus will win.

Here is the contest, here is the overcoming, here is the opportunity and the privilege that God is offering to you and me.  To those who believe now, to those who overcome now, God has offered a wonderful future of responsibility and joy with Jesus.

Let’s look at what the challenge is.  God said, “Let there be light.”  Satan said, “Ain’t so.”  God said, “He that believes in Jesus, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”  Satan says, “Ain’t so.  Did God really say that?”  He doesn’t come out directly all the time.  But often, especially in the church, he comes out with “Did God really say something like that?  Come on, being filled with all the fullness of God?  Don’t be ridiculous.  You’ll end up in a padded cell. That’s all for heaven.   Let’s put that all that over in heaven.  It will happen in heaven somewhere, but it won’t happen here.”

This is the contention.  This is the battle.  Here is a principle of the word God speaks.  It’s not enough for that word to be fulfilled.  If God fulfills His word later on in heaven, Satan has won and God is defeated.

The word God speaks must be fulfilled in the place into which He speaks it.  If God spoke a word into this earth and into this age of human folly, then that word must be fulfilled in this age and in this earth before it can return to the Father fulfilled.  And in order to be fulfilled, it must find faith.

And they overcame the one who says “Did God really say that?”  “Did God really say, ‘You will be just like Jesus’?”  “Did God really say, ‘Be perfect as I am perfect, be holy as I am holy, love as I love, walk as I walk, overcome as I overcame’?”  “Did God really say that?  He didn’t mean it quite like that.  Because all of that stuff is for when you go to heaven.  He didn’t mean it for here, He didn’t mean it for now, He didn’t mean it for you.”

“Yea hath God said?”  This is the contention.  This is the battle.  Will Jesus find faith in the earth?  I am convinced that He will.

Now, the second point of overcoming is that this devil and Satan is the one who deceives the whole world.  In 1 John 5:19, the apostle John says, “We know we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.”

“Who deceives the whole world.”

Let me tell you something.  If you imagine that anything about this world system is true or solid, you need to think again.  When we truly understand what is really going on in this world we will discover that the stories we have been taught about this world are primarily fiction.  Scattered facts woven together into a lie.

The whole world is deceived.  The whole world is built, the thinking of the world, the systems of the world, are built on foundations of nonsense, on things that are not true.  The extent to which people believe things that are not true is quite overwhelming.  The extent to which Christians believe things about this world that are not true is frightening.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1: “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” 

Then, in verses 26-29: “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.  But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

You see the big names that parade across the news of this world.  God has chosen very few of these.

“To bring to nothing the things that are.”  Do you know that one of God’s purposes in calling you and me is that He intends to bring to shame and nothingness the big names of this world.  The presidents, the celebrities, the professors, the sports heroes, the generals, all of the great ones of this world.  God has chosen you and me to bring them to nothing, to bring them to shame.

Now why would we participate in exalting and following these people when in fact God has chosen us who are weak and have no place in this world system?  Why would God have chosen us to bring it to shame if He wants us to follow the foolishness and deceit of this world?  I cannot understand how anyone who believes in Jesus could imagine that the great ones of this world could be true Christians.  “Satan deceives the whole world.”

It is not my purpose to go into it fully here, but you need to understand that the Beast of Revelation 13 stands fully open upon the earth.  The image of the beast is in full operation.  The wound of the one head out of seven is there in full force.  It is the most powerful psychological weapon the world has ever known by which one small group of people keeps control over billions.  And the entire world worships that wound. 

Christians today join in that worship, and flock to the temples built in honor of the wound of the beast.  American Christians are the world’s biggest supporters of this one who was wounded unto death and now lives.  They get their information from the image of the beast and they believe what the image of the beast tells them.  They are even willing to set aside the testimony of their own eyes and the laws of physics to believe whatever the image of the beast tells them is true.

We are fully in the day of the final moments of the book of Revelation.  All of the beast of Revelation 13 stands fully open upon the earth right now and has been in formation very strongly for the last 150 years.  Let me give you just one point on which Satan deceives the whole world.

In America, there is this worship of America as if it were God.  “God bless America.”  It is not possible for God to bless America.  God has cursed America from the beginning; He cannot bless it.  God blesses one thing, His Son, and all those who come to Him.  And He has put a curse upon this earth and upon all the kingdoms of Satan, all the countries under the prince of the power of the air.  All of the kingdoms of this earth are under the power of Satan. All!

But in this worship of America, there is a patron saint: Abraham Lincoln.  Christians love to convince themselves how wonderful a Christian this man was.  Well, he did become Christianized, long after his death!  The man was an atheist who sought guidance from the dead in séances conducted in the White House!  The man was a wealthy lawyer who spent his days in politics removing money from the pockets of the people and using the government to get it into the pockets of his big business friends.  And when he wasn’t in politics, he worked as the highest paid corporate lawyer in America, defending those same big business friends.  When the people of Illinois tried to get their money back from the scams, they lost.  It was Abraham Lincoln who defeated the people and made sure the money stayed with his friends. 

The first bill passed when Lincoln became president turned an unending stream of tax money into the hands of his big business friends. And those very people would use that money to become the controlling families of the country.  He was an atheist who used Scriptures like a politician because he knew that Christians would just fall head over heels if he quoted Scriptures.  He had no interest in blacks; he despised them.  He did not want them to remain in America; he wanted to ship them out, as did most northerners of his day. 

He built the foundation of the rise of the beast in this world and was used as an example by Marxists, by Fascists, by the exaltation of centralized government, the State, answering all needs, fixing all problems.  Being the sole source of who we are as a people on this earth.  The modern state.

Mass warfare of the modern day, the slaughter of civilians, women and children, burning their homes, destroying everything in your path.  Ordered by “Honest Abe.”  This is not from God.  This is not from God.

“The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.”  The whole world is under the control of Satan, that includes the United States, all of it.  “Who deceives the whole world.”  And I am talking about just one tiny thing about the great ones of this world that God called you to bring to open shame.  How you have been lied to and deceived by the serpent.  It’s part of this whole world system.

I am saying these things not to bring confusion but to bring a sword to separate you from the kingdoms of this world because you are not a part of the kingdoms of this world, you are part of a kingdom that is greater, a kingdom that will bring down every other kingdom before this thing is over with.

What will you do, dear American Christian, when the United States of America declares war on Jesus?  We know that God says that it will.  On which side will you stand?  I am afraid that many foolish believers, who do not understand the truth, when push comes to shove, will go with America, thinking they are serving God and reject Jesus as He reveals Himself again.

But let me tell you something, the United States of America is not going to declare war on the kingdom of God, the United States of America is and has always been at war with Jesus.  The kingdoms of Satan in this world are at war with the kingdom of God.  This is part of the battle we are in.  Our allegiance is to our own country.  Our allegiance is not to the kingdoms of Satan.

This truth is going to become an issue over the next few years that will divide and separate right down through the middle of this world between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.  God said two things that let us know it is so.

In Hebrews 12 God says that everything that can be shaken will be shaken.  What happened in your heart when I said, “Abraham Lincoln was an atheist who used the verses of the Bible to manipulate people into supporting him and his agenda”?  Did that shake you?  Did you think, “Oh, that can’t be true”? 

But is it of this world?  Does it pertain to your salvation in Jesus?  Can it be shaken? 

It will be shaken!

Revelation 13:16-17 “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

It is not my intent at this time to go into this truth here, but this is what we need to know: God has drawn a line in the sand.  God will make it impossible for us to live in both worlds.  He will make it impossible for us to live in both kingdoms and to mix and merge the two as if they are one. 

This dividing line is coming, just as with Elijah.  If God be God then serve Him, but if Satan’s kingdoms be god, then serve them, but don’t call yourself by the name of Jesus and by the name of the kingdoms of this world and try to believe that the two can be agreed together.  God will make sure that every single one of us has the opportunity to decide fully which kingdom we want to be part of.   It is about faith.

In many countries in this world, if you become a Christian, you are cut off from your family.  If you are baptized, you are now dead to them.  It is a big deal.  If you become a Christian, you are separated from the kingdoms of this world.  You have to walk away from family and friends and country in order to be part of the kingdom of Jesus.  The only reason that is not that way in America is because we have developed a Christianity that is so mixed and merged and compromised with the kingdoms of this world that we don’t even know that they are two separate and opposing kingdoms.

And we mouth these words of blasphemy.  “God bless America.”  God cannot bless that which He has cursed.  He cannot bless what He is at war with.

“They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives unto the death.”

It will come to that.  Is your physical life in this world worth more to you than the Lord Jesus Christ?  It will come to that, sooner than we think. 

The accuser of the brethren is cast down.  “And they overcame him.”

Somehow, I think we have misunderstood this verse as being far away in a distant place called heaven.  Far away from us in the throne room up there, Satan is telling God everything we do wrong and Jesus is beside him telling God how He is sufficient for our need, and all of this is taking place far away from us.

That is a complete misunderstanding of truth. The accusation of Satan before God takes place in our hearts and in our minds every day.  The primary work of Satan and his demons in our lives is to accuse.  You wake up in the middle of the night and you just feel awful about yourself.  You think, “My God, I’ve really blown it.  God surely doesn’t care for me.  Why would God be interested in me?  Why would God use me for anything?”  The accusation.

It is an extraordinary thing; for most believers the accusation of Satan is all mixed up inside of Christian teaching and Bible verses, especially those Christians who live so fully in the Old Testament and who rely on a non-New Covenant reading of the Old.  All the railing against sin, that is what God spoke in the Old Covenant.  There are those who try to say that unless a pastor is railing against sin and exposing sin that they are not in true Christianity, they are in deception.

I beg to differ.  The purpose of the Old Covenant was to expose sin; the purpose of the New Covenant is to lift up Christ.  The purpose of the Old Covenant was to reveal the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the impossibility of man to ever do anything about it.  The purpose of the New Covenant is to exalt the work and the place of Jesus Christ inside of us. 

Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.”  We do not win over sin by fighting against sin.  We win against sin by exalting the Lord Jesus Christ and our life in Him and His life in us.  The Old Covenant is about death; the New Covenant is about life.  The Old Covenant came to an end in the cross; the New Covenant was birthed out of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The sad, sad thing is those dear believers who chose to live under the accusation of the Old Covenant are the ones missing out on the present move of the Spirit.

Even in the New Covenant, Satan has convinced so many that their problem is themselves.  “You are flesh, you are bad, you’re heart is deceitful.”  And so many of God’s people, when they look within, they see their enemy.  As long as Satan has you fighting against yourself as if you yourself are your enemy, he doesn’t have to join in the battle.  He just stands outside the walls and laughs.

God says, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”  God says, “Christ lives in our hearts by faith.”  God says, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” 

The battle that is raging is a battle in the heart and in the mind.  Satan wants to convince you that you are your own problem.  That is the accusation.  “You are a problem.” 

He is the accuser of the brethren.  He accuses you before God.  God is in your heart, and there stands Satan on the outside of you accusing you before your own heart.  This incredible belief that says that I am here and Jesus is there and I have to choose between Jesus and me.  Not only is it illogical, how can I choose between Jesus and me?  It doesn’t agree with the New Covenant; the New Covenant says that Christ is in me. 

I do not choose between Jesus and me.  If I chose Christ, I chose me; if I chose me, I choose Christ.  He is in me.  I don’t have to choose Him because He and I are one spirit.  What I have to do is believe Him.  He chose me.  The New Covenant does not say anywhere that I choose between Jesus and me.  He is in me, in the human me, Daniel Yordy.  Jesus lives in me.  What I must do is believe Him.  Believe Him and then turn and release His river to those around me.

Now if I believe that I am the problem, how can I ever release that river to others?  Here is the battle.  We have looked at the challenge of Satan against the word God speaks; we have looked at the dividing line between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God.  But here is the real battle; it is the voice of the accuser. It will come to you without fail, and it is your privilege to cast it down.

God likes me.  God not only loves me, He likes me, and the way I am is the way He made me. Jesus lives in me, and it is God’s intention that Jesus be revealed through every part of my weak humanity.

I deny myself.  I deny that there is this self separate from Jesus, and I turn with Him, secure that I am standing by His side as I turn to face my enemy who is on the outside of me.  Jesus is in me.  Satan is outside of me.  And Jesus in me, with me, through me; I am his glove, I am his suit, I am the outward form of His work, as He defeats Satan, the accuser, through me.

Romans 16:20 “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.”

God will not defeat Satan apart from His people.  The superhero does not go out and do superhero deeds without putting his superhero suit on, does he?   God will defeat Satan in all three of his assaults through us.  It is not we defeating him; it is God defeating him.  We don’t have to have strength; we have to have weakness.  We provide the humanity, the human weakness.  We provide the feet, and God crushes Satan under our feet.

But first we have to root all of Satan’s accusations out of our heart and our mind.

Paul said in Romans that we are justified.  Some Christians have mis-defined that word as “just as if I never sinned.”  But that is not what it means.  The word “justified” does not mean “just as if I never sinned”; the word justified means that when the death of Christ is applied to me, from that moment on, I didn’t do it.  I did not sin.  There is no evidence whatsoever that I did any of it.  I am pure as the snow.  I am clean.  I am clean.

And if, as I walk, should the working of sin that still resides in my human body cause me to err, then I pick myself up, I ask God to forgive me, the blood of Jesus cleanses me, and on I go.  That is all there is to it. 

But at no point do I see myself as separated from God.  And I am quick and ready to turn from mistakes, to remember God, to believe in the blood of Jesus at all times.

That does not change anything about my justification.  I didn’t do it.  That’s what it means to be justified.

Here is the point of jeopardy in which we stand.  “We are partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm until the end.”  Those who turn and begin to see the enemy on the inside, who imagine that they are “in the flesh” separated from God, have lost the beginning of their confidence, they are indeed in jeopardy, because the walls are breached, there is a civil war inside, and there is only ruin ahead.

Turn around, Christ is within, the enemy is without, hold your confidence high and firm all the way through.  When you wake in the middle of the night, and that voice of accusation is there, “You’re no good.  God doesn’t like you.”  Cast it down.  Hold your confidence high.  Hold it high!  I am in Christ; Christ is my life, I have no other life.  Christ is all there is in me. 

And God likes me; He likes the human me.

That’s not so hard is it?  And yet on that point, on that point, the dividing moment of the ages stands, because when a people refuse the accusation of Satan in their hearts, when they refuse it, when they do not give it place, we just read, “Now is come, now, at that moment, is salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ.”  At that point, we win.  Jesus wins in us.

Jesus said, in Revelation 3, “To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, just as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”

Conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  This is the gospel, this is the word of salvation, this is the calling of God upon our lives, this is our goal, this is our future. 

Believe it!  Believe it.

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