A certain occultic man was furious that some Christian ladies knocked on his door to preach Christ to him. He was particularly annoyed that their tract said all power belong to Jesus. So he set up his crystal ball to harm them, but he could not. Then he desired to see the devil to ask him why he could not harm them and who is truly powerful between Jesus and the devil. He was told by his occultic masters that if he wanted to see the devil, then he would have to fast for 11 months and eleven days. In those times, he would have to observe certain rules. He agreed and did the fast.
On the exact day the devil appeared to him. He was greatly terrified but he summoned courage to ask the devil. The moment he mentioned the name of Jesus, the devil disappeared. He was surprised, so he went back to his masters to complain and they told him that he should not have mentioned the name of Jesus, but should have called
Him ‘the righteous one’. He was told to repeat the fasting again for 11 months and 11 days and then go to search for the devil because he was now angry with him. Well, he did the fasting again and went searching for the devil.
He went to the herbalists, occultic centers, brothels, mystic temples and every where he could imagine and he could not find the devil. Eventually, he was passÃng the front of a church that was having a revival service, and something told him to go inside and he would see the devil. He relunctantly went in.
Every one was busy praying, praising and singing. He looked around for a long time before he could see the devil in a corner there. He was surprised and he asked the devil why he was in the church and the devil answered and said, “These people are busy binding and destroying my activities in the world and if I leave them alone, they will continue to do much more havoc to my kingdom. So, I learnt that the best way to incapacitate them is to always fellowship with them and weaken them from within so that they will no longer destroy my kingdom”. The truth of this story is that the devil knows the power of the church to harm his kingdom and he has vowed to weaken the church by all means.
Another lesson in this true story is that if we don’t war against the enemy; he will indeed war against us. Jesus set the tone of the battle that the church is involved in when he emphatically declared in Matthew 16:18 that, “..I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”
This implies that the gate of hell is a reality and will rise in determined opposition against the church and in each occasion it will never prevail. In these last days, the devil and his cohorts are pretty mad and they have increased their evil activities against the church.
“Therefore rejoice ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Rev.12:12).
That is why we cannot sit on the fence anymore. The church must rise up to counter the power of Satan with her God-given authority at this end time. The church that sleeps while Satan is active in these last days will be stagnant, depressed, defeated and destroyed.
shalom!
#pstnath.
Jesus is Lord.