Security in Christ
Though God will discipline us when we
persistently sin, we are to take comfort
in the fact that it is for our own good
and we are secure in His eternal love.
Here's Gene:
1st Samuel 16:
Now the Spirit of the LORD had left Saul,
and an evil spirit from the LORD began
to torment him, so Saul's servants said to him,
"You see that an evil spirit from God
is tormenting you."
Now, the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul.
One of the things I just want to
underscore here--that in the Old Testament
the Spirit of the Lord would come on people.
He would come and He would go.
In some respects we see that in the New Testament
when He would fill the believers and
there were unusual manifestations.
But when it comes to the presence of
the Holy Spirit in our lives, in the New Testament
we learn that He will never leave us.
We are secure in Christ.
Ephesians, chapter 1: We have been
sealed by the Holy Spirit.
So here we have, I think,
some questions that we need to ask ourselves.
And that is:
Was this a satanic emissary that God
allowed to oppress him?
Or, was this a reference to the depression
or anxiety that overwhelms us when
we are burdened with guilt?
And I think we need to realize here,
a very important statement.
And that is that sometimes that
depression or anxiety--in this particular situation--
that evil in itself.
The word that is used here for evil
could be an oppressive inner spirit in
ourselves rather than an evil spirit
externally that represents Satan.
That's a possibility. But as I look at this passage,
I'm inclined to think that it probably
was indeed an actual evil spirit that
God allowed to torment Saul.
Now let's finish the passage,
verse 19 through verses 23:
Then Saul dispatched messengers
to Jesse and said, "Send me your son David,
who is the with the sheep."
So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread,
a skin of wine, and one young goat and
sent them by his son David to Saul.
...When David came to Saul and entered his service,
Saul admired him greatly,
and David became his armor-bearer.
[And] then Saul sent word to Jesse:
"Let David remain in my service,
for I am pleased with him." ...
Now notice what happened:
Whenever the spirit from God troubled Saul.,
[Well when it happened,] David would
pick up his lyre and play and Saul would
then be relieved, feel better,
and the evil spirit would leave him.
Now, is this just the spirit of depression?
Or is this actually an evil spirit from Satan's realm?
Well there's an interesting passage that
I think is a corollary, in some respects,
but only in some respects.
But it involves a corollary in terms of the evil spirit.
And this is a testimony from the
apostle Paul who was not Saul.
I mean not Saul in the Old Testament.
This is Saul in the New Testament
who is a believer in Jesus.
In fact, he was caught up to the third heaven.
He didn't know whether he was in the
body or out of the body.
And he saw things he said, I cannot utter.
I can't even mention it. It was so glorious.
Now obviously, he was ushered into the
presence of God in a way that is
awesome beyond words.
And notice what happened because of
this awesome experience:
Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself,
a thorn in the flesh was given to me,
a messenger of Satan to torment me
so I would not exalt myself.
Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord
three times to take it away from me.
But He said to me,
"My grace is sufficient for you,
for power is perfected in weakness."
Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more
about my weaknesses,
so that Christ's power may reside in me.
Now there's no question in my mind
as I look at that passage that this was a
messenger from Satan. This was evil.
Well how could that happen?
Well, because God is sovereign.
God is in control of the situation.
But the motive behind that was that
Paul had seen things that were
so glorious that he couldn't help but be
lifted up with pride.
Now that's a very rare situation.
That's a very unusual situation.
What God did here was for Paul's benefit--
not to hurt him, not to harm him.
In Saul's case, it was discipline.
This was not discipline of the apostle Paul.
In the Old Testament, it was discipline.
It was judgment because of his arrogance--his evil.
For Paul it was, as I said, for his benefit
so that he would not become arrogant.
Now I said this is a very unusual situation.
And as far as we know, Paul may have been
the only human being that we know
in history that had this experience.
The reason I say this is that I've heard people--
a couple of ministers particularly.
And I read their article.
Who claimed to have the same experience--
being caught up into the third heaven.
And they were talking about what God
had told them to tell people.
And I read the article and I said: I wonder
what their thorn in the flesh is? Because there
was no sense of humility in the statement.
They were walking in and out of the
presence of God as if He were the guy next door.
They had no sense of the awesomeness
that was involved in that passage of
what Paul had experienced. It was arrogant.
This is a very rare situation.
So we have to be very, very careful even
if it involved an evil spirit under God's control--
like it was with Job as well,
you remember in the Old Testament.
Or whether it was an evil spirit under God's
control in the New Testament with Paul.
The purposes were different and it was very rare.
It was very unusual.
And we have to be very, very careful
because we can actually misinterpret experiences
and give Satan credit where Satan
has no credit at all.
We see Satan behind every illness,
every situation, every problem.
And once we get into that generalization,
we're in trouble, not realizing that these
are very rare situations.
But I think very real situations.
God is sovereign in these situations.
And He is ultimately over control--
has control over Satan.
Even to this day in all of life.
So we need to be aware of that.
But here is God's normal desire for every believer.
We find it in Philippians 4:6 and 7:
Don't worry about anything, but in everything,
through prayer and petition with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God...
That's what God wants.
...the peace of God which surpasses every thought,
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
And I think what Paul is saying is, even though
God said I will not remove this thorn.
And we don't know what the thorn was.
It might have been a physical problem,
an emotional issue.
It could have been a spiritual issue, a temptation.
We don't know what it was.
But we do know that Satan would
take advantage of it.
And there would be a temptation.
But God's grace was sufficient.
And brought peace to Paul's heart on
a continual basis. Because these are the words of
Paul himself right here to the Philippians.
This is what God wants in our life.
He doesn't want us to be in torment from Satan.
In this case, it was a very unusual situation
in the life of the apostle Paul to have
him trust in God. And really trust in the Lord
in all situations. And give glory to the Lord.
But let's reflect just for a moment:
Why is it important to differentiate
between emotional distress that results
from God's discipline and negative feelings
that result from causes beyond our control?
See, this is why it's so important
that we clarify this issue.
Because if we see all negative feelings
as being the result of God's discipline,
then we're going to be very, very confused.
Because there are a lot of times we have
negative feelings simply because of life.
Just because of all the situations we face in life.
The difficulties we face in life.
Things that are beyond our control.
And there are a lot of those things
beyond our control that bring negative feelings.
Not all depression is from Satan.
In fact, probably most depression is the result of
just life and situations that we face in life.
And God recognizes this even in the Old Testament.
There's a principle from 1st Kings, Principle 28,
which relates to the life of Elijah.
And the Principle is this:
When we experience discouragement
and even depression,
we should evaluate the degree to which
we are physically, psychologically,
and spiritually exhausted.
And in Elijah's case, if you go back and
look at the context.
Elijah was depressed and discouraged
because he was absolutely exhausted
physically, psychologically, and even spiritually.
And Satan took advantage of it,
obviously, in that situation.
But he wanted to die.
And so what did the Lord do?
Give him a sermon that he
shouldn't feel that way? No.
He fed him. Put him to sleep.
Fed him. Put him to sleep.
And he went in the strength
of that food for 40 days.
Now, it didn't solve all of Elijah's problems.
And God addressed those issues.
But we have to realize that depression
and these feelings that can go with that depression--
that makes us vulnerable to Satan, I think.
He wants to take advantage of it--
is because of normal causes.
And we need to look at those issues.
Another Principle from 1st Kings that relates to Elijah:
When we are discouraged and depressed,
we should make sure we have had proper
nourishment and sufficient physical rest.
Which is in this case, a very specific Principle
that is directed at the fact that he was
physically and emotionally exhausted.
And because he was, he was vulnerable spiritually.
And we always are.
We are always vulnerable spiritually when we're
exhausted physically and psychologically.
I remember a man came to me one time and said:
I'm afraid I don't love my wife.
And I knew he loved his wife.
He was a godly guy.
But when he'd hear sermons on loving
as Christ loved, he overly introspected
and began to feel guilty about
weaknesses he shouldn't have
felt guilty about in those weaknesses.
Another man came to me one time and
he was doubting his salvation.
And yet, this man was very well informed
and believed the Bible and believed
that he had forgiveness in Christ.
And as we talked, his feelings of
questioning his salvation were related
to the fact: When he would hear
real intense sermons on
"Are you sure you're really saved?".
And he was vulnerable and he
would begin to overly introspect.
And in both cases, just talking about it
and being reassured resolved the issue.
In other words, it was caused by being vulnerable
in these particular areas and simply
needed reassurance.
So we need to be very cautious about
these passages of Scripture where we
can overly generalize.
Such [as] in the life of Saul and the life of Paul.
And we must consider what is normative.
And that is that we can be victorious over Satan
when we put on the full armor of God.
God wants us to experience His peace.
Even in the midst of difficult situations.
And that's what Philippians, chapter 4,
verses 6 and 7 are all about.