In this sermon, Pastor Babij teaches how to resist Satan and his attacks by meditating on Scripture. Pastor Babij clarifies that the Christian must digest, not devour Scripture, for by doing so the Christian will enjoy the presence of God.
Full Transcript:
In 1 Peter 5, the obligation of a believer is to resist the enemy. Again, 1 Peter 5:6-9 says:
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 8Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.
I’m stuck there for a while just to kind of flesh that out and look at the ways in which we are to resist the enemy. Let’s pray:
Lord, as we continue in the word of God, I thank You, Lord, for this epistle. I thank You, Lord, for all the things that we have learned in it. I know, Lord, that it is a book that can really establish us as serious believers. Lord, it is in the context of suffering persecution that You’re Apostle Peter wrote this, and Lord it’s for us today too and for all believers of all times. Lord, I pray the principles that we’re learning we would be thinking about and practicing as we come to this exhortation and obligation we have as believers. Lord, make us those kinds of believers that are not duped by the enemy and his lies, but are keen to what he’s doing in order to resist him so that he flees from us. Enable us to do that by Your word and spirit. In Christ’s name, Amen.
Not too long ago, I read an article by a man who wrote a book called Buyology, a book about how we buy things. Then, he wrote a latest book called Brainwashed where he highlights in the book the tricks companies use to manipulate our minds to persuade us to buy. He uses Whole Foods as an example. I like Whole Foods. They’re too expensive, but I like them. As an example, he uses the Whole Foods store in New York City and says:
You go up an escalator and it brings you straight into the realm of fresh-cut flowers. Immediately, priming you to think of freshness in their products, and that hat suggestion is carried throughout your whole store experience. Then, the prices for the flowers, the fresh fruit, and the vegetables are scrawled in little chalkboards, which are a cut of black slate, prompting your thoughts of an outdoor farmers market. These signs are actually mass-produced. The slate is plastic, the prices are set at the chain’s Texas headquarters, and the chalk is indelible. Then, you come across stacked crates of melons and one large cardboard box that has been designed to reinforce the idea of the rustic old-time simplicity in a farmer’s market. Now, you are at Whole Foods and you are now in their realm in which they’re going to get you to buy things.
We don’t think that way really since we are just going in there. However, he was saying that is brainwashing. Now, try to imagine how much you’ve been shaped by a lifetime of brainwashing. If we really think about it, it’s kind of frightening. However, the affected and effectiveness of commercial brainwashing should highlight our vulnerability to something even more sinister and evil, which is that of spiritual brainwashing. If retailers and marketers have strategies that are successful for you to spend more cash in their stores, then how much more successful and far less obvious is the powerful priming and seducing of the master marketer, Satan himself?
He markets his products every single day to us day after day in both our conscience and sub-conscience. The evil one is brainwashing us with a multitude of covert and overt messages. Should you do question is power? Do you doubt your weakness standing up against such a master?
This particular author got an advertiser to actually create a scenario. He got two advertising creatives to visit his office and discuss marketing ideas. On their journey across town, this particular man arranged carefully placed clues to appear on posters, on balloons, in shop windows, and on t-shirts by passing pedestrians.
When they arrived, the two creatives were given twenty minutes to come up with a camp campaign for a fictional taxidermy store. This particular man gave them also a sealed envelope that was only to be opened once they presented their campaign twenty minutes later. They presented to them their campaign. Then, they open the envelope, and their plans for this taxidermy store were remarkably similar to the signs and the indicators that this man put around town before they got to his office. In fact, 95% overlap was discovered.
If this particular man can do that to advertisers, then think about what the devil can do with us. So, what is the solution? The solution is Bible-washing. God has provided His word to protect and purge us from the devil’s brainwashing. The Bible helps us to see the existence of diabolical brainwashing. It gives us a second sense and ability to discern, which is the faculty of seeing that enables us to distinguish the reality of something from perception.
The Bible also teaches the easiness of brainwashing. It explains and demonstrates how weak and seducible we are. The Bible also analyzes the elements of brainwashing. It uncovers the number of the devil’s strategies both by the numerous descriptions and by fearful examples. It helps us to detect the first advance before he gets a foothold in our minds.
The Bible underlines the evil of spiritual brainwashing. We don’t just risk losing a few dollars as a result of succumbing to the marketing techniques, but if we succumb to his techniques, then one can lose their very soul. The Bible also shows the way of escape from the devil’s brainwashing. When we hear the world’s cry, conform to our Bibles and read Romans 12:2:
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
In fact, if we read our Bibles with faith in prayer, our minds will be renewed in a way that we will eventually have to say with the Apostle Paul:
We have the mind of Christ.
Today, can you say that you have the mind of Christ? This article should really emphasize the importance of practicing these exhortations, from our passage, is that we will obtain the stability and the victory over Satan’s strategies and tactics with humility and vigilance. As we’ve been parking on resistance, we have been considering these ways and directives to resist the enemy.
First, we are to resist the adversary in the faith. In other words, God has given believers a detection system making it possible for them to be aware of Satan’s evil methods. The alarm system is the faith, which is the Christian’s personal confidence in God and the system of teaching given to us by God in the Scripture.
Truly, as Christians learn Scriptural truth, they become strong in faith and doctrine, and their convictions grow deeply rooted in the very word of God. As that happens, then God’s word becomes light to them, and that word exposes Satan’s dark mixture of lies and half-truths. Because Satan is the master Scripture twister, the Christian must fill his mind with God’s word, so that it bends his and her thinking away from the world’s thinking and towards God’s thinking.
Second, we are to resist the enemy by discerning your strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies towards sin; then, fighting against them with the word of God. The Christian must then learn to recognize their own pattern of sin because each category of sin has its own temptations. Also, knowing other people’s patterns of sin in the church helps us emphasize, empathize, and heed our fellow Christians in areas that they struggle, which we are to do in a gracious and non-judgmental way.
As believers grow in the knowledge and wisdom of Jesus Christ, they become more self-aware, and as they are exposed to more and more scripture, then one area they become aware of is their own patterns of sin. From that, they really do want to live a life pleasing to the Lord, and they realize they will struggle with their sin. In turn, they want that struggle to end by them laying that sin aside and putting on righteous behavior.
This leads me to the third way, which is to resist the antagonist by maintaining a sanctified imagination. Specifically, the imagination is important to control because it’s either the playground of good or evil. The ability to imagine is a God-given gift, but if the imagination is fed with filth, then the imagination will become tarnished and dirtied. All sin, not just sexual sin, begins with the imagination. Therefore, what feeds the imagination is of maximum importance in the pursuit of Kingdom Righteousness.
We need Bible-washing in our imaginations. If battle-ready Christians are going to maintain a peaceful and a sound mind, it will be because God is guarding it. Philippians 4:7 tells us:
And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Meaning, the peace of God will actually stand as a sentinel or be posted as an armed guard before your mind, your emotions, your passions, and your will, not allowing things to enter that will disrupt that particular peace that you have with the Lord. That’s what God says He will do.
Of course, we have our part to do as well. We have to think a certain way, and we have to be examining our imagination such as what we are thinking about a lot. Apostle Paul also says in Colossians 3:2:
Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
What a person delights in is what their mind will dwell upon. He who delights in money finds his mind taken up with it. Therefore, the covetous person is said to mind earthly things again. Again, Philippians 3:18-20 warns us against those who appear to walk with God, but really don’t:
For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, 19whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. 20For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
You can either have an earthly mindset and think that way all the time or most of the time, or you can have a heavenly mindset and think the way we ought to think according to what the Bible teaches us. There’s going to be a separation and a disconnection between the way you used to think and what you thought was important to what now God thinks is important. Then, what He thinks is important becomes what we think is important, which is the shift for all of us as we grow in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, I’m referring to developing a Christian mind. God calls us, in His word to a massive and positive discipline of the mind. You can never have a Christian mind without reading the Scriptures and without listening and hearing preaching. I’m talking about regularly just like you eat food on a regular basis to stay healthy.
The word of God is food. You have to be in the word of God and chew on the word of God, so it gets into your spiritual system to become spiritually strong where you develop a Christian mind. You can never have a Christian mind without reading the Scriptures regularly because you cannot be profoundly influenced by that which you do not know.
Now, why is there a noticeable decline in Christians who don’t think as Christians? Well, they have succumbed to a secular drift of 4.5 hours of media filled with violence, promiscuity, adultery, incest, homosexuality, and the twisting of gender identity. All those things are happening on a regular basis in all the media that is presented to people that are watching it on the internet or in some other way. Researchers have calculated that children between the age of 6 and 18 will consume 1600 hours of junk in their minds from media outlets.
The Christian mind is not formed and informed by Biblical truth. Christians leave their 12 billion cells unguarded, unthinking, and undisciplined. If there is little Biblical input, there can be only little or no Biblical output. Thus, the Biblical mental program cannot coexist with worldly programming, so can a believer have a Christian mind today? Can a Believer have the mind of Christ? Well, let’s just take our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 14:20:
Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.
This passage is saying to believers:
Listen, grow up. Don’t remain a child and an infant in your logical and biblical thinking. Grow up so you don’t remain an infant, but you start becoming mature in your thinking. However, if you’re going to become ignorant in something become ignorant of evil.
In our day, people are despising the instruction of the mind by the word of God. We kind of live in an anti-spiritual-meek age. Paul says in 1 Corinthians3:2-3:
I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, 3for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?
Believers remain spiritual infants and display a behavior like little children, who do not know the difference between right and wrong, or God’s way and every other way. Then, Hebrews 5:13 says:
For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.
Of course, the word of righteousness is the very word of God, and again, Romans 12:2 says:
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Then, 1 Corinthians, 2:16 says:
For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.
The goal of the Holy Spirit of God is to bring you and I to the place where you and I have the mind of Christ where we think Biblically, Scripturally, and are becoming Bible-washed with the word of God. There’s a very important way to develop a Christian mind, which I believe is kind of lost today in evangelicalism. It is the very discipline of Biblical meditation.
In the Old Testament, Biblical meditation, as King David pointed out, is a mind that delights in the things of God. It’s a mind that delights in God himself where David says in Psalm 119:97.
O how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
Now, that is a mindset we definitely need today where we are thinking about the word of God. Why are we thinking about it? Because we love it! You always do what you love. If you don’t love it, then you won’t spend time thinking about it. Rather, you’ll spend time thinking about what you love.
David had everything. He was a king, right? He understood battle and the things that were important in life. Yet, he’s presenting to us, in this passage, what is most important. He cannot wait to think about God’s word. In fact, he loves it so much that he thinks about it all day. In fact, in Psalm 119:148, he says it like this:
My eyes anticipate the night watches,
That I may meditate on Your word.
It’s like saying:
I can’t wait until the day is over to get to the place where I can really think about the word of God.
David couldn’t wait to have some quiet time in order to occupy his attention on the word of God. He couldn’t wait to do that, and that’s what he did. He wanted the word of God in it because he loved the word of God. Meaning, God’s people must slow their pace and have time for God’s truth to sink into their thinking.
From time to time, Christians should ask themselves questions in order to assess their thought life. Questions such as: where are my affections directed? What do I really love? What do I spend a lot of my time thinking about? Are my thoughts and imaginations more often evil or good? Am I setting my inner disposition on things above or mainly on things on the Earth?
Those are things that are worthy for us to consider in the backdrop of an enemy who’s against us, who wants to keep us from the truth, who wants to keep us ignorant, and who wants to keep us earthly-minded. If he can keep you there, he will make you ineffective and possibly lay aside your spiritual gifts to be used in the building up of the body of Christ. Puritan, Thomas Watson, said:
A Christian enters into meditation as a man enters the hospital. That he may be healed. Meditation heals the soul of its deadness and earthliness. The devil is the enemy of meditation. He knows that meditation is the means to compose the heart and to bring it into a gracious frame. Satan is content that you should be hearing and praying Christians, so that you will not be meditating Christians. He can stand your small shot provided that you do not put in the bullet.
Of course, the bullet is meditating upon the word of God. That’s something that we need to practice. Satan is opposed to this great spiritual exercise of Biblical meditation. Has the devil one on this point? Well, I believe it’s taking much ground. In fact, he’s managed to get the whole notion of Biblical meditation out of the Christian conversation.
Today, the kind of current meditation that is in fashion is identified more with non-Christian systems of thought than of Biblical Christianity. Meditation today is associated with that of yoga, transcendental meditation, relaxation therapies, Roman Catholic spirituality, mysticism, contemplative prayer, and the list goes on.
Because false religions have hijacked meditation, some Christians are even suspicious about it all together. Today, more than ever, we have access to many kinds of preachers, who can be turned on any time that we want. Some people come and tell me that they have listened to four messages this week including mine. Then, they go on to tell me how depressed they are, how their spiritual walk is rocky, and their marriage is not so good.
Now, I would think that such an abundant exposure to the Priests word in one week should produce joy and peace and wisdom to live a skillful, godly Christian life, but that is not what I’m hearing or observing. Why is that? John Ball, who wrote on Biblical meditation, put his finger on the problem. He said:
Without meditation, true foods are devoured, but not digested.
The truth of God’s word is like putting your mouth on a fire hose, right? Getting all this stuff in you never really gets down to the practical part of your life or starts transforming your mind and your thinking. See, there is a huge problem.
If something is not digested properly in the human body, it is expelled as waste having no nutritional value – it just passes through. Thus, Ball is saying the same thing happens in the spiritual realm. We go down the word of God, but we do not digest it. Rather, we golf down the word of God, but we do not digest it.
Listening to too many sermons is not the key to growing spiritually in a healthy manner. It is only part of the means of Grace for spiritual growth. Three hundred and fifty years ago, James Ussher counseled people and said:
Meditating one hour is worth more than a thousand sermons.
This is no debasing of the word of God or putting down to the word of God, but it is an honoring of it. He said:
Without meditation, our faith and understanding will remain simple and undeveloped like unripen fruit but meditating deeply on God and His word can inspire rich and loving fellowship with Him.
Bottom line, a Godly Christian is a meditating Christian. A holy Christian is a meditating Christian. A Christian who is developing a Christian mind is a meditating Christian. They are digesting the word of God. They’re allowing all the spiritual vitamins and nutrients of the word of God to get into their mind, into their actions, into their practice, and into their daily life where it does actually transform the mind and make you like God and like the Lord Jesus Christ.
God’s goal is to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ, and God will perform that goal. However, He doesn’t do it apart from the word of God, and we do have our part. If we’re going to resist the enemy, then we must be thinking about the word of God and chewing upon it in our mind. Donald Whitney said:
Hearing God’s word is like one dip of the tea bag into the cup. Some of the tees flavor is absorbed by the water, but not as much as it would occur with a more thorough soaking of the bag. Meditation is like immersing the bag completely and letting it steep until the rich tea flavor has been extracted allowing the word of God too steep in our minds until the Biblical truths that were learning gets into our life.
That’s not really happening today. Puritan, Thomas Watson, also said:
It is better to meditate on one sermon than five sermons.
You know why we can’t handle five sermons? It’s like sitting down and having five meals in one sitting. Number one, you won’t be able to finish it. Number two, if you could finish it all, it would not be healthy for you, and lot of that food is going to either get thrown up or passed out. It’s not going to have nutritious value for you.
In a very real way, one sermon that you really learn and really put into practice is more beneficial for all of us than listening to five sermons and getting nothing from them because we don’t remember everything. We have leaky brains that don’t remember things. He also says:
Many complain that they do not profit from sermons. This may be the chief reason because they do not chew the cud like a cow chews it, regurgitates it up again, and chews it again. They do not chew the cud a cut and they do not meditate on what they have heard.
Bottom line, the divine testimony of Scripture must always govern our Biblical spirituality and meditation. Meaning, Biblical meditation starts with listening. If I asked you if you are a good listener, can you give back to me what I just gave you? Listening to the word of God is probably the most important thing that you and I could do. In Acts 7:51, the apostles brought up a serious problem:
You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.
In other words, they heard the word of God preached and they resisted it with their ears. Actually, the word resist, in that passage, means to forward against or to rush against. Before it could ever get to their mind and thinking, they stopped it.
This resistance here is not just against Stephen, but it was against God himself. What a great sin is committed when people resist the Holy Spirit by refusing to listen to the word of God, by refusing to put it into practice. This is not a new thing amongst people. Jeremiah, the prophet said, in Jeremiah 6:10:
To whom shall I speak and give warning
That they may hear?
Behold, their ears are closed
And they cannot listen.
Behold, the word of the LORD has become a reproach to them;
They have no delight in it.
Again, if you don’t delight in something, if you don’t love something, you won’t do it. If you don’t like the preaching of the word of God, if you don’t like reading the word of God, then you won’t do it. If you’re calling yourself a Christian and you won’t do it, then don’t expect that you’re going to grow spiritually. It takes work to be a Christian. Not work to gain salvation but work for spiritual maturity.
In reality, they stopped listening to the word of God, and the thing about it is that they were present at the place of worship. They just stopped listening. Because they stopped listening, they misunderstood God. In fact, they misunderstood everything else. As the book of Acts records it, they even misunderstood their own history. In Psalm 40:6, the writer points out what God desires more than religious activity:
Sacrifice and meal offering
You have not desired;
My ears You have opened;
Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.
The Hebrew word provides a metaphor so that we can better picture what is being said in this particular passage of Scripture. *My ears you have opened* is a Hebrew word that means to dig or excavate like someone would dig a well, cistern, or a pit. Literally, it is saying to us:
Ears you have dug for me.
In other words, there is business communicated in this passage such as preparing the offering and sacrificing to God. They were very busy in their religious performance while remaining deaf to the voice of God. So, what is God to do? He takes a pick and shovel and mines through the sides of the cranial granite known as our brains. Making openings through which His word can pass to the mind and to the heart.
The Christian mind is not merely to read the word of God, but the word of God is to be heard. It’s to be listen to, internalized, chewed upon, pondered, and then personalized. If not, it’s just going through the religious motions, and God is not pleased with just religious activity. As our passage says in another translation:
You take no delight in sacrifices or offerings.
Now that you have made me listen, I finally understand.
As Christians, we can be very busy and not be growing in the Lord. In this passage of Scripture, it is important that you listen to God and think about His word. If you do that, then that is what God uses then you to be active in Christian work by using your gifts to build up the body in a way that you’re going to have a good attitude. You will do it with joy, gladness, and thanksgiving. Psalm 40:7-10 says:
Then I said, “Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
8I delight to do Your will, O my God;
Your Law is within my heart.”
9I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation;
Behold, I will not restrain my lips,
O LORD, You know.
10I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great congregation.
When the word of God is listened to properly, then there’s an outcome. The word of God is meant to be heard, to go to the heart, and to loosen the tongue in order for us to speak joyfully of God’s righteousness, loving kindness, and truth amongst the great assembly and other people.
This is not a religious ritual. That is worship. That’s what real worship is, which leads to something else. We ought to be memorizing the Scripture, so that the Scripture is regularly on our minds until we flush out and think through what it says.
When it comes to listening, how much do you think you are the problem? How many times do you know your child is not listening to you? You have been very clear and firm with your commands, yet it’s like you weren’t even talking. Every parent experience that, and that’s why the rod comes out, right? The rod drives rebellion and disobedience far from their heart, which is something else we shouldn’t talk about today either. Proverbs 1:33 tells us:
“But he who listens to me shall live securely
And will be at ease from the dread of evil.”
Luke 11:28 says:
But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”
So, what are the benefits and effects of regular Biblical meditation? R. Kent Hughes brought out, in his book, the first one of revival. Psalm 19:7 says:
The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
The word of God is powerful enough to revive your spirit. A second thing would be increased wisdom. He goes on to say in Psalm 119:
The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple. It will dispel wisdom to us for daily living. It also will increase our faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Then, it will also maintain our joy and our peace.
In fact, it was David, who said in Psalm 63:6:
When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches.
In other words, he’s meditating on the word of God day and night. Then, when he goes to sleep, he’s not worrying about things. He’s thinking upon God, and he is delighting in it, which is why he gets sweet sleep at night.
The word of God has incredible benefits for us. Studying the Scripture causes a person to set their mind on things above just as the book of Philippians 4 teaches us. Paul says to believers that they are to set their minds on divine truth and thoughts that lead them down the narrow path toward holiness.
Christians are not the set their minds on half-truths, speculations, or mirror fantasies. Moreover, Christians must think about what is honorable, respectful, dignified, and reverent, not cheap mindless stupidity that we often receive from the world.
All I have to do is turn on a station that’s talking about politics. Then, you want to puke about what they’re saying because it’s such foolish stupidity that has no thought in it or help for the nation in living righteously. That is everywhere, and it really does sicken people when that’s what happens.
Then, Paul says, in Philippians 4, to think about what is right. In other words, what is scripturally right to do and is incompliance to the duty of God and man. Believers are not to spend their time thinking sinful or dubious activities. Then, a Christian must think about what is morally pure and ethically correct. Men and women of God are not to have soiled, shabby, and smutty thoughts.
Next, Christians are to think on whatever is lovely. Believers are assumed a mindset of kindness, forgiveness, God-like love, not vengeance, bitterness, anger, division, or strife, which is pumped into us in every single movie.
Whatever is of good repute and of favorable report, not that which is a report of evil, unbelief, and slander. The redeemed mind is continually being transformed and bent toward desiring, dwelling on, and discovering God’s will. Christians are to take an active part in that process in order to stand against and resist the devil, so that he leaves you for a while.
As mentioned, the battle for spiritual growth and victory over the enemy is really a battle for the mind. This text directly points out to the Christian that their minds are the playgrounds of thoughts. If thoughts are going to be Godly, then they must be thoughts that think deeply about specific things and thoughts that produce results.
If we look again at this passage, you can look at the end of the passage where it says in Philippians 4:9:
The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
That’s a benefit that I get by meditating upon Biblical truths. Philippians 4:8 says:
…if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
That’s meditation, and you park there. Think about it until you get it. In fact, don’t learn anything else until you get it. Don’t learn anything else until you put away that sin that’s been besetting you. Here, we have a command for the believer to ponder, to give careful thought to a matter, and consider serious meditation upon spiritual truths.
In the case of this text, your thoughts carefully dwell on all the positive in the wholesome qualities contained in this passage of Scripture and the peace of God will reign in your heart and your mind. Puritan, James Ussher, said:
Set apart some time for meditation. That the word maybe engrafted in your heart. If the meat that you eat is not digested, it will do you no good. The necessity of labor to retain the word, digest it, make it your own, so that you may be transformed by it as a person is turned into nourishment.
The word of God being digested will nourish you make you spiritually healthy. It will Bible wash you, so the enemy can’t brainwash you. To start today, you can start reading your Bibles at least once a year. You can read two or three devotional and theological books a year. In fact, just one would be good.
See, the problem that we have is we buy five books. Then, we don’t know which one to read, so we read one chapter here and one chapter there and there. The idea is to take a book and read it from cover to cover, and resist reading anything else until you read that theological book and you thought through some of the things in that book.
Read through the Bible. If you fall off the wagon, pick it up again and read it the next day until every year you get better at it and you read more of it. Once you get a handle on that, it’ll be a great exercise that you’ll never want to let go. Refuse to allow our cultures media to write your life program.
Lastly, choose a thought program, which will produce a Christian mind. This third way to resist the enemy is to resist the antagonist by maintaining a sanctified imagination by Biblical meditation, which is very important for us to win this battle with this master deceiver. Believe me, if we do, we will stand. Let’s pray:
Lord, thank You again. Your word, Lord, is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Lord, as we try to flesh out this one particular thing of resistance of the enemy, help us in each one of these things to gain a clear understanding and to practice them in our daily walk. I pray Lord, as we do so, we will be Bible-washed believers that are growing and maturing in the truth of the word of God, able to detect the enemies lies and deceptions to the point where his temptations become less powerful, and his twisting of the truth becomes easily detectable. I pray, Lord, as we do that, you would make us strong, so we put the whole armor of God on, and that were able to stand up against anything that is thrown at us. Lord, we know we don’t do it in our own strength, ability, will, or knowledge, but we do it in the knowledge that we learn from the word of God by submitting to it, listening to it, and meditating upon it. Make us this kind of believers. In Christ name, Amen.