Satan's Strategy to Accuse and Paralyze You With Doubt - Ask Pastor Tim

He says, "I just finished
watching the video,

"Don't Justify Yourself While
Walking in Darkness.'"

And I trust that was probably a message

that I did from the 1 John series.

"It came to me after I felt urges

to preach on a bus in Toronto

but was too afraid of men
to get up and preach.

I wondered if it would be effective.

I know my mom tells me not to publicly

preach to the general public of strangers

since it's likely to be
counter-productive.

Yet, I felt the urge so strongly

and this video came up

when I was justifying myself

for not preaching.

So I'm wondering what I should do.

Should I disregard my mother's
words and bus preach?

Should I find a way to preach
that's not on a bus

even though that wasn't my urge?"

Now, if that was all there was,

maybe James wouldn't
have even sent it to me.

And if that's all there was,

(incomplete thought).

I only get a fraction

and I can't get to all of them.

But it's this next thing that he says,

"I feel like I've shipwrecked my faith

through this and other recent events.

I haven't been weeping and wailing

and crying out to God,

but just now after your video.

It was a quiet and small cry of me

not wanting to be distant and condemned,

and to not want to obey God in the future

when I have the chance to pursue Him

and be in service to Him."

I just got to thinking...

I think this kind of thing happens

on a regular basis.

Somebody's going along through life.

You may be a Christian.
You may not be a Christian.

You may think you're a Christian.

You may be somebody
that's just not certain.

But what happens is you get this

almost like a flash of lightning

across your conscience

that you need to do something.

And then you don't do it

and then like an equal flash

of lightning across your conscience:

you're condemned.

That, I believe, is typically the way

the devil operates.

And I fear that this
happens on a regular basis

and people take it for being the Lord.

And what it is is you're
walking along through life

and suddenly it's like
this really hard thing,

this really uncomfortable thing -

sometimes it's just a matter of something

that would be convenient in your life

or something that you're
just about ready to do

and it's almost like a flash: bang!

Maybe more like thunder than lightning

across the conscience.

Just bang! Don't do that!

And it's the kind of thing where

either you disregard it

and then the next boom of thunder

is, well, you've made shipwreck.

Now God doesn't want
anything to do with you.

Now you can't approach the Lord.

It's all over.

And I think that happens a lot.

I think it's one of the
strategies of the devil

and I want to talk about this

because I think it is very prevalent.

I think it's prevalent.

Look, that's not to say

that as Christians, obedience is not part

of what it is to be a Christian.

To be a Christian is to
submit to Christ as Lord.

But the thing is this,

when God wants us to do something,

do you know what I have found?

I have found He deals with us

far more like He dealt with Jonah,

where there's this call,
there's this pressure.

And we can even run pretty far,

but the thing is, he's
going to move us back.

He's going to move us back.

Yes, it may be through
things in the conscience,

but we become convinced

to where we can hear
the Lord's voice in it.

I'm afraid of things like this.

And when I hear that,

I think if I remember right,

Mason Vann may have
bought this book for me.

Or he told me about it.

But I want you to hear something.

This is one of the most helpful
books that I have found.

It's called "Towards Spiritual Maturity,"

by William Still.

I think maybe you even
pronounce it "steel."

Not positive there.

But one of the most helpful,

descriptive books on
just such occurrences.

Listen to what he says:

"We need to be forewarned
of Satan's attacks

when we enter the training school

for spiritual warfare.

For they usually come suddenly

and from the least expected quarter.

It may be an inward attack

or it may come from without

as a bolt from the blue

to demoralize us before
we know where we are.

It's a real enemy we're fighting

who will stop at nothing to knock us

out of the fight before we're in it."

So, now, this man is writing
from his own experience.

He went through situations

where he's encountered

just such similar events

to what this guy has experienced.

(incomplete thought)

He says, "the attack upon our personal

moral integrity is a serious one,

and the devil successfully repulsed,

may now retire to devise new

and more cunning tactics against us.

If he cannot shake our moral convictions

or undermine our moral character,

he has other weapons
in his diabolical armory

and will doubtless try more powerful means

to move us in the hope that he may shatter

our peace of mind."

And that's what happens.

That's what happens when you get

this kind of situation

is it entirely takes you out

of peace with the Lord and rest.

That's what he wants.

And he says,

"he may now assail us with a sense

of restless foreboding

and with irrational fears

until we seriously doubt God ourselves

and in fact everything that is good.

All joy goes out of life.

Nothing seems to matter.

A vague, gnawing, cynical dread

underlies all we formerly thought secure.

The whole world begins to heave,

turn like an ocean,

giant plunging to its doom.

These are not ordinary
feelings of unhappiness.

Indeed, they can be so
enveloping and total

that it's hard to believe they're real,

but they're only too real.

Yet they seem so unlikely

that it's impossible to talk about them."

Because people would not understand.

And sometimes people don't understand

if they haven't actually experienced this.

"Not many understand,
although many suffer.

But God who permits them understands,

and He has a word -
several words for them.

Here is one who's bedrock dependability

has been proved for ages

by those in dire need.

'You will keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on Thee.'"

That's a good one.

Here's another word from Paul.

"Do not be anxious about anything,

but in everything by
prayer and supplication

with thanksgiving make your
requests be known to God

and the peace of God which
transcends all understanding

will guard your hearts and
your minds in Christ Jesus."

And again,

"And over all these virtues, put on love,

which binds them all
together in perfect unity.

Let the peace of Christ
rule in your hearts."

And anyways, he goes on to say this:

"God is not going to let us
(not His children)

be overwhelmed by the devil.

It's well to remember that when we are

tried and tempted to resign ourselves

to the darkness of defeat,

the enemy also may be almost played out."

Now I want you to follow that truth.

Hear what he's saying.

Sometimes when you feel like
you can't take it anymore,

whatever kind of battle
you're in with the devil,

you need to recognize

he may have expended himself to the point

where he almost is ready to flee

and give up.

Because God's holding you up.

And God's not holding him up.

He's only working in his raw power -

whatever he's got natively.

You're being supported by
the living God Himself.

He will make certain

that you are able to outlast the devil.

And just when you think you may
not be able to go any longer,

the devil may be right on the verge

of himself giving up.

That's a very encouraging thought.

I put brackets and "yes!"

"He must and will because

we're trusting in Him who has vanquished

the devil once and for all.

Jesus' own heart rending cry

was just before the end.

What devilish pressure was laid upon Him

we do not know,

but it was for the joy set before Him

that He endured what He endured.

You remember, the devil is not invincible.

He's more easily shaken by those in Christ

than we realize."

But he goes on to talk
about the fiery darts.

He says, "What does the imagery

of the fire-tipped dart
represent in experience?

A series of sudden,

totally unexpected attacks,

usually very different from one another,

aimed at shaking our faith in God.

Aimed at making us shake
at the revealed Word

and His will to His children

in our judgment,
obedience, and sincerity."

He goes on to describe
some of these things. Listen.

"Here's a story of a tried
and trusted servant of God."

He says, "A young man
intent on serving God

had begun to prepare
for Christian service.

He had a happy nature

with a normally healthy outlook on life.

He'd become increasingly obsessed

with the morbid suspicion

that to be too happy was sinful.

One day, he saw something he wanted

in a shop window

and he went in to buy it.

The shop keeper appeared

and instantly the inward tyrant hissed,

'You cannot have it! It's sin!'

Dumbfounded at the
violence of the warning,

at the shock to his conscience,

this young man fled from the shop

leaving the astonished
shop keeper gaping."

It's that kind of situation.

Suddenly, bang! You can't have it.

Another part of the story

concerns a university grant -
same young man.

He was faced with getting a grant

for going to college.

"Financial assistance was not
easy to come by then

and the young man's parents

were not able to finance his education,

but he was assured
he would receive a grant

and was about to sign the application form

when the sinister voice spat out,

'You cannot do it. It's sin.'

Several years of financial aid

were thereby unsigned away

leading to years of hardship.

This form of attack came with increasing

frequency and ferocity

until a sane and balanced young man

became almost demented

not only by the unpredictableness,

but by the horrid discovery

that the God he had
believed to be so loving

was really a monster.

It's all very well to
say that Satan's bluff

should have been called
earlier by this young man,

but he is a spirit and when
he comes in this way,

the young Christian - especially
those with no teaching

on the workings of evil spirits -

the very force of the attacks

is frighteningly impressive

and his victims are driven to comply

in sheer terror lest they be found

to be fighting against God Himself."

You see, that's what he's telling you.

"If you do this, you're
going against God."

"If you don't do this,
you're going against God."

You see, this is what's happening.

Here's a guy.

All of a sudden, here you are on a bus

and it can come with the same

thunderous clap to your conscience.

Stand up right now and preach to this bus

or you're not a Christian,
you're going to go to hell.

Stand up right now and do this

or Christ wants nothing to do with you.

And then you get off and you feel guilty.

And what you feel like

is you've gone against God.

You feel like you've
just fought against God.

He says, "As this form of attack

developed increasingly
in the young man's life,

his early ministry was
periodically overwhelmed

by a pall of spiritual darkness

completely enshrouding his soul.

He had to preach the Word

even while the black
conviction gripped him

that he himself was lost -

a Christless soul."

See, the same thing happened to him.

The voice was there.

This is what Satan does.

He comes in. He says, "do it!"

And then when you don't do it, he says,

"You don't belong to Christ."

He's an accuser that way.

"Eventually, although it took years,

the ground comparatively

innocently conceded to the enemy

was retaken, albeit with painful failures

and setbacks until at last
there was full deliverance."

Obviously, it's Mr. William Still himself.

"It is the suddenness and the
unexpectedness of the attacks

which are so alarming.

As also, the imperious demand

that the spirit is to be obeyed instantly

without question and without reason."

And that's the issue.

No time to consider Scripture

or what's right or what's wrong

or what probably is God's will.

No time to pray.

No time to seek the Lord.

None of that.

"It comes without reason."

He says, "how then are we to distinguish

between the voice of God
and the voice of Satan?

We know, of course, that God

can give His servants swift guidance,

but He never blitzes them.

He has no need.

For even when He comes suddenly,

He is sweetly reasonable

and identifies Himself
by His loving wisdom

and thus we recognize Him."

Of course, this goes on

and I want to come back to this.

I guess the thing is, he feels like

after this happened, he feels like

I've made shipwreck.

This guy went on preaching

just thinking I'm probably lost

because of the things that were happening.

Here's the thing,

we find in Scripture

that the strategy of the devil

is to move us away from the simplicity

that is in Christ.

He doesn't want us resting in Christ.

He doesn't want us trusting Christ.

He doesn't want us communing with Him,

fellowshipping with Him,

calling upon Him.

He doesn't want that.

And if he can come with
these kind of barrages

and convince us Christ
wants nothing to do -

it just so paralyzes you.

It so sucks the joy out,

if you don't know how properly to fight.

But one of the things that we need

to really ask ourselves

is what is God like?

I mean, what is God like when He comes?

Do we really have a God

who even if He wanted you
to preach on the bus,

do we have a God who's in the business

if I got up and I walked off the bus

and I didn't preach,

who would abandon us, leave us,

forsake us, damn us?

Have nothing to do with
us after getting up

and walking off the bus one time?

And as I mentioned before,

isn't Jonah the perfect example

of the kind of God that we have?

In fact, I want us to think for a moment.

When we hear God being described

in the Old Testament,

think - think.

Moses said, "Show me Your glory."

And do you remember what God did?

When His glory passes by,

He speaks.

And what does He do?

He proclaims His character.

And what is His character?

What is one of the oft repeated

characteristics of God then

and periodically throughout
the Old Testament?

That God is slow to anger.

He's slow to anger.

Do you think that if God really wants us

to become a preacher on buses

that He's going to be done with us

and angry with us?

Be rid of us and damn us to hell?

And cause us to shipwreck on the rocks

after one time?

Is that the way the Lord works

if He's calling us to
that kind of ministry?

I've watched men that are
called into the ministry.

I've never seen God blitz
them with thoughts

that in a moment they simply had to get up

and run to the pulpit.

I've never seen that happen. Ever.

In fact, I would be absolutely convinced

that that was no way of the Lord

that that should happen.

Somebody open up and read Jonah 4:2.

Because this isn't about Jonah,

this is what Jonah knew to be true of God

when he was considering Nineveh.

This is the kind of God we have.

And Jonah knew the kind of God we have,

not only from his own experience,

but because he knew the character

of the God of Israel.

And what does he say in Jonah 4:2?

"And he prayed to the Lord and said,

'Oh Lord, is not this what I said

when I was yet in my country?

That is why I made haste
to flee to Tarshish,

for I knew that You are
a gracious God and merciful,

slow to anger and
abounding in steadfast love

and relenting from disaster.'"

Tim: After all the wickedness

that Nineveh did -

you can do research on ancient Nineveh

and find out their crimes,

their wickedness,

their sin.

They filleted people alive.

They did horrible things.

I mean, they had ways of
peeling the skin off people

as slowly as possible

without actually killing people.

They were brutal.

And here's Jonah.

And this is even before Jonah

gets thrown in the water,

taken by the fish,

spit out on the land.

You see, he's saying, I knew it

when I was all the way back there at home

before I tried to flee.

God, the reason I ran in the first place

was because I knew
the kind of God You were,

and You sending me over there to Nineveh,

I just knew it!

You were sending me to proclaim judgment,

but I knew that You would be soft

towards them in the end

because You're the kind of God

that is so slow to anger

and You are full of mercy.

I knew it!

And see, here it is!

You spared them!

Now, we laugh,

but that is glorious!

That's the kind of God we have.

You see, you look at a guy

that as we walks off the bus,

and his conscience is feeling condemned -

see, that's what he needs to hear.

The devil's right there to tell him
that God isn't like that at all;

that God is the kind of God that will

blast you into oblivion because you didn't

get up and preach when this blitz

came across your conscience,

but that's not the kind of God we have.

In fact, the kind of God that we have,

when you get to the end of Romans 10 -

somebody open up to Romans 10,

and I want you to read Romans 10:21.

Because this is what the New Testament

sees to be true.

The Apostle Paul.

Romans 10:21,

"But concerning Israel He says,

'All day long I have held out My hands

to a disobedient and obstinate people.'"

You know what I've been reading?

In high speed fashion,

I have read Isaiah, Jeremiah,

Lamentations,

and I'm now a fair ways through Exodus.

(incomplete thought)

See, what's interesting about those books

is those are the books

that are leading up to the captivity,

the Babylonian exile.

What's so unusual about that?

I'll tell you. Just this.

When the people were brought out of Egypt,

they were stiff-necked.

They rebelled.

A whole generation died in the wilderness.

They got brought into the country,

into the land of Canaan,

and as soon as Joshua

and those of his generation were gone

and the time of the judges came in,

everybody was doing what
was right in their own eyes.

They went and made Saul king,

and they rejected God.

They rejected the prophets

again and again and again.

They went after foreign gods.

They went after the Baals.

They went after the Ashtoreths,

they went after the gods of
all the different countries.

What is interesting is when you get

all the way down to right
up to the captivity,

when God has extended
His long-suffering to them,

do you know He was still saying -

Jeremiah was there

when Zedekiah's sons were
slaughtered before him.

His eyes were put out.

He was put in chains
and led off to Babylon.

And the whole city was burned.

He was there. He was there

when the last group went into captivity.

And somebody open
your Bible to Jeremiah 18.

Jeremiah 18:8

This is a text that stands out to me

on a regular basis.

Jeremiah 18:8.

Somebody read that when you find it.

Jeremiah 18:8,

"and if that nation, concerning
which I have spoken,

turns from its evil,

I will relent of the disaster
that I intended to do to it."

Tim: There it is. Right at the end.

They're being told

Jeremiah is speaking to the king

right up at the end.

(incomplete thought)

They're told if you will even now repent,

the city won't be burned.

All this evil that God has
prophesied will happen to you

won't happen.

And as I came home this afternoon,

I was thinking about this message,

and the two words came into my mind:

even now.

And I thought, yeah, where is that?

I need to run to my Bible Works
and find out where is that.

Look at these two texts.

Somebody look at Ezra 10:2

and somebody else Joel 2:12.

Those two words: even now.

What does that mean?

What does that communicate?

After everything that you have done,

even now if you will turn to the Lord,

He will have mercy on you.

That's the kind of God we have.

Even now.

Look at those two texts.

Now think about this.

After everything that Israel did,

after despising the prophets,

after going off into Babylonian captivity,

and then they came back,

and they started taking
advantage of the poor again.

They started taking people into slavery.

And you know what else they did?

They started taking foreign wives.

You remember that?

But look at this.

Somebody have Ezra 10:2?

What does it say?

(from the room) I have NIV version.

"Then Shecaniah the son of Jehiel,

one of the descendants
of Elam, said to Ezra:

'We have been unfaithful to our God

by marrying foreign women

from the peoples around us,

but in spite of this, there is
still hope for Israel.'"

Tim: Right, anybody have the ESV?

"...But even now, there is hope for Israel

in spite of this."

See, that was it - "even now."

What does it say in the KJV?

Even now?

Yet now.

See, that, to me - we're talking
centuries of rebellion.

Centuries of rebellion

that have been so aggravated

that God actually sent Gentiles

to tear the temple down to the ground,

to drop the walls of Jerusalem,

burn the houses.

They took the bones of the kings

and they scattered them.

They killed he said how many of them?

Only just a few, only a remnant

actually lived.

The vast majority were
killed with the sword.

They were killed with pestilence

and they were killed with famine.

And after all of that, then they come back

and they run back to disobeying God.

And it's like you would think

that's it.

It's all over.

And it's like God is so long-suffering...

what we don't want to do

is take that for granted.

That, well, He's so long-suffering

that in the end, He won't actually

pour out His wrath,

because we see that He does.

There is a point at which
He runs out of patience.

But amazing! Joel - read Joel.

"Yet even now declares the Lord,

return to Me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping,

and with mourning,

and rend your hearts

and not your garments.

Return to the Lord your God,

for He is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger

and abounding in steadfast love,

and He relents over disaster."

Tim: Even now.

I would have a young man like
this remember those two words.

Even now.

I mean, the God he's got
conjured up in his mind -

remember what he said as a young man?

He said what was happening to him

was the god he thought was God

suddenly he began to see was a monster.

But He's not a monster.

He's the God who says, "but even now..."

If you start thinking God's a monster,

be sure of this, you're
not seeing God right.

And the devil is right there.

Yes?

(from the room)
I think of Romans 2:4

that says God's kindness is meant

to lead you to repentance.

You can kind of see that in v. 12 here.

"Return to Me with all your heart..."

Tim: Our God is sweetly persistent.

And what I mean by that

is generally, He doesn't
come like a blitz.

There's a suggestion and
sometimes it's subtle.

And then it tends to increase

and it tends to increase.

And we begin to ponder Scripture

and it's like we're in Scripture

and He speaks again in the Scripture.

And then maybe one of the brethren

is used to say something.

And it's like a case is being built,

but He's using God's people,

He's using God's Word,

you're in prayer and He comes

and He's convincing you

to the point where you get to the place

where you recognize: I know this voice.

This is the Lord's voice.

That's the way He deals with people.

So we need to beware

when this kind of thing happens

that being on a bus

and thinking you were told by God

that you needed to stand up and preach

right in the midst of the
Greyhound or the city bus

and you don't do that and you get off

that you've made shipwreck of the faith.

That has devilish overtones to it.

Yeah, we do need to recongize,

remember what Jonah knew.

Our expectation should be this.

We knew somebody was going to get saved.

We knew somebody was going to be forgiven.

We knew people were
going to be shown mercy.

Because that's the kind of God we have.

Listen, we have the kind of God

that didn't even spare His own Son,

but gave Him up to rescue sinners.

That's the kind of God we have.

If we have that kind of
God and He gave His Son,

do you think He's going to exercise
a little bit of patience towards us?

Be certain of it.

And I'll guarantee you this,

if God wants you preaching on the bus,

don't think, oh, well,
I resisted that urge one time

and now He's going to dash you against

the rocks of damnation.

I guarantee you this,

if God wants you preaching on a bus,

He's going to get you to
preach on that bus.

You will come to the place

where you will need to.

Remember Jeremiah.

There were times when he got to the place

where it's like I'm not
going to speak anymore.

Then he said I've got to.

Why? Because it was
a burning inside of him.

It was a pressure inside of him.

It was like a pressure cooker

and he couldn't help himself.

It wasn't this wild flash of conviction

on his conscience.

It was a burning in his bones.

It was a necessity.

Like a woe is me if I don't proclaim

the Gospel or these judgments.

Okay, anything else on that one?

Let's go to the next one.