AGGRESSIVE FAITH

Series: FaithLesson #7

Lk. 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: And nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

I. I Give Unto You Power.

1. In Luke 10:19 He said, “I give unto you power over all the power of the enemy.” He made the promise to them that He was going to give them power over all the power of the enemy in Luke 10:19.

2. In Acts 2:4 they actually received that power.

3. In the third chapter of the book of Acts Peter said, “I have” as the climax of all this. So you have the promise, then you see it actually happen, then here’s the man it happened to that said, “I have.” You have what? I have what He told me I would have.

4. I got something in that Upper Room and He said it was power. He took that power and raised a man that had been crippled for 40 years. Now the aggressiveness of this man is the thing that demonstrates his faith to you and I. He could have said, “I think I have, maybe I have.” But something happened to him. He knew it happened, and he said, “I have.”

5. Look at the possibilities that exist for us in God. Not just the fisherman, not just the apostles, but what exists for you and I.

II. “All Power,” Jesus Said, “In Heaven And In Earth Has Been Given To Me” (Mat. 28:18).

1. Then by the Spirit, He who has all power gives Himself to us.

2. Jesus is the source of power, not the power of human thought, but the power of Christ.

3. Millions of us have seen a repeat of Pentecost, and have received the Spirit of God in the exact same manner they received Him on the Day of Pentecost, speaking in tongues as the Spirit of God gave the utterance.

4. On many occasions, He has come with visible tongues of fire, visible to those that were present.

5. We have the promise. Millions of us have received. But we have not reached a place of total dependence upon Him where we can say to the blind, the halt, the lame and the lost, “We have.”

III. It Is All The Spirit Of God.

1. How many of us have come to the place of the Apostle Peter, where we can say, “Such as I have?” You see that is the key. It is all the Spirit of God.

2. Peter made no apologies. He had listened to Christ all through the Gospels. Jesus said, “I am going to give you something; ye shall receive power.”

3. This was His last message before He was received up.

4. In Luke 24:49 Jesus said, “And, behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” Then He said, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you” (Acts 1:8a). In Acts 2:4; it actually came upon them. It came upon them. It came, and they knew it came.

5. Every one of you that received the Holy Ghost knew when it came. What you’ve got to do now, like Peter, is believe that the power is there with you. That is the key to the whole thing.

6. I know I received. I spoke in tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance. My whole being was set afire. That’s what happened to Peter. But Peter said power comes with it, and he exercised the faith.

7. Peter and the one hundred and twenty waited in the Upper Room as Christ commanded. The Holy Spirit came, as He was promised, in the second chapter of the book of Acts.

8. When it came to the healing of the lame man in Acts 3:7 and 8, Peter said, “I have.” I know I got something yesterday, He said there would be power with it. He said to the crippled man, “I have.” It was through the Spirit which he had received that a lame man was healed.

9. Peter didn’t heal him, but Peter received something that he could give away. That was the key.

10. A lame man was healed. A miracle took place. But more is implied. This is a picture, I believe, of the spiritual cripples sitting at the gate of the church waiting on that moment when there will come something that will empower that church to make Christ real.

11. When the Spirit came upon the lame man, he was healed. He went leaping and shouting into the temple. A crowd gathered.

12. Five thousand men were converted in a single service as God came with His power.

13. The church must again realize the potential there is in absolute dependence upon the Holy Ghost. We must break loose from the centuries of tradition, of attempting to do the work of God in ourselves.

14. Through total dependence upon the power of the Spirit of God, we can make Christ known in this generation.

IV. Paul Said, “For Me To Live Is Christ…” (Phil. 1:21).

1. That was the sum and total of living for the Apostle Paul.

2. Paul was constantly feeling his way into the enemy’s territory. He was allowing his faith to probe where other men had never been.

3. He allowed his faith to disturb the enemy and touch the places where Christ had not been preached.

4. For Paul to go to a city meant that city would never be the same; there would either be a revival or revolt, or both. It could not be otherwise. The people either attempted to make him God or kill him.

5. They said, “He’s right, or He’s a liar, or He is just another preacher.” They either left him on the road for dead or they tried to hang a garland (wreath) on him and make him God.

6. The mighty power of God he had, by virtue of being baptized in the Holy Ghost, which was constantly in evidence, not so much in words that he spoke, but in what he was.

7. He was giving to a world that was lost what he had received. He carried what God had given him to those who were lost. And He said, “This Gospel is not preached in word only, but in power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit” (1Thes. 1:5). That shows his absolute dependence upon that which he had received. And dependence means that he had faith in it.

8. In Romans 15:19 the Apostle Paul said, “Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; …I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ.” Through the power of the Sprit, Paul proclaimed the Gospel. He believed the whole of what Jesus said.

9. We believe we can be filled with the Holy Ghost, but we have refused to believe that the power He said would be there with it, is there.

10. The receiving and coming to the place where what we received can flow through us, is why we were born, it is our reason for living.

V. Hell Has A “Field Day” When It Gets Christians Fighting On The Wrong Front.

1. Preachers spend millions of dollars fighting the wrong enemy, fighting on the wrong front.

2. If our problems stem from economics, then our economists will be able to take care of it.

3. If they are strictly military, then the Pentagon ought to take care of it.

4. But if it’s spiritual, we had better get on the right front if we are going to effectively fight the enemy.

5. Communism substituted the state for God. It promised a material paradise for the kingdom of God. Communism was spiritual; it was born in hell.

6. A preacher that was visiting the Soviet Union had his guide tell him, “If I could speak better English, I could convince you that the future belongs to us.”

7. We tried battling a political machine with words, but there was only one answer, the power of God.

VI. The Church Must Become What She Is Supposed To Be.

1. And the only way that can happen is for you and I not only to receive this Holy Ghost, but also to believe what God said the Holy Ghost would bring into our lives, and then act with a boldness as the Bible proclaims.

2. Our faith must rise above merely asking for things.

3. Faith comes from God and is against everything that is not of God. You understand that. Faith comes from God. Therefore, it is against everything that is not of God.

4. Our prayers take on the sound of begging. We spend our time pleading with God to do something. All the while God wants us to bring His power against the thing.

5. We are begging God to do what He has already done in the spiritual world, and all He wants us to do is to take the power given us by the Holy Spirit, and come against that.

6. We pray for a revival. This is right, because God wants a revival. But we must in faith move beyond just prayer.

7. There is a power against the move of God. There are demons spawned in hell that are against anything that resembles a true revival. Those things must be removed.

8. God didn’t say, “I am going to remove them.” But He did say, “I give you power over all the power of the enemy” (Lk. 10:19). If we refuse to exercise that power, we will become victims of the enemy that God said He gave us power over.

9. If we will become aggressive in this warfare and allow God to open our eyes so that we can recognize our enemy and the battlefield and use the altar of prayer, where we put our faith against the powers of darkness, the victory will be ours.

10. God never told Moses to go down and find a place somewhere behind the pyramids and pray for Him to deliver the people. He said, “I am sending you there in My name to deliver the people.”

VII. God Said To You And I, “…Whatsoever Thou Shalt Bind On Earth Shall Be Bound In Heaven: And Whatsoever Thou Shalt Loose On Earth Shall Be Loosed In Heaven” (Mat. 16:19).

1. The word is not, “God will loose it or God will bind it.” The word is, “I give you power to do it.” We know it is God, but it is God working through a human vessel. If we don’t give Him the vessel, He cannot work, or will not work.

2. Unless we aggressively take the battle to the enemy, we are never going to see the victory.

3. God’s people put up with things they do not have to put up with.

4. The church has allowed the enemy to make us indifferent to the real issues of life.

5. We have become involved in a lot of religious-do-nothings while the devil has sat down in our midst, stolen the show, and brought the church down to nothing more than a program.

6. A brother in Vietnam years ago told me, “Our church is so cold and so indifferent it has no real feeling, but I feel warmth in my heart when you talk about Jesus.”

7. When the devil can blind the church to the real issues, the people will get excited about a lot of things that are not relevant.

8. We are here as soldiers, and we are here with one primary purpose. The church’s aim is not to contain the devil, we are here to defeat him.

9. I am a soldier, and if I am to do business for God, I must be against the enemy.

10. We are not the usurper; the devil is. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 24:1; 1Cor. 10:26).

VIII.God said, “…The Meek (The Tame, The Controlled), Shall Inherit The Earth…” (Ps. 37:11; Mat. 5:5).

1. Buddha may sit in his temple while men give him their worship, but there is going to come a time when Buddha will be dispossessed.

2. If the church of God would exert its faith against that darkness, millions of Asian people would find their way to God.

3. In America millions of people belong to a church. They feel in their hearts that they have done all that is necessary when they have gone to church on Sunday, and about all we have done is criticize them.

4. A great part of those millions are hungry for God, but are blind. If this Gospel be hid, it is hidden to those whom the god of this world has blinded.

5. If God has given us power over the devil, we should be able to pull the blindfold off and let the light in.

IX. Jesus Said, “I Give.” The Church Should Be Able To Say, “I Have.”

1. The battlefield is at the altar of prayer.

2. We don’t have any trouble getting someone to preach. I could get a hundred people to fill the pulpit of that church I pastored every Sunday.

3. You could run a full-page ad in the “Evangel” (The magazine of the Assemblies of God) asking for an intercessor, the response would be nothing.

4. Why? Because that’s where you do battle with the enemy. The real warfare takes place when a man puts his faith against the powers of darkness. That always takes place at the altar of God.

5. In the ninth chapter of Daniel we read the prayer of a man. “I understood by books; I got a revelation from God; I saw what is going to happen; I set myself to find an answer and I am going to be here until it happens.” Those were not mere words. That meant he had entered into a warfare.

6. And when the angel came down and gave him the answer, the angel said, “Your answer was hindered by the devil” (Dan. 10:13).

7. What defeated the devil? Daniel’s faith.

8. God will send no angel for an unbeliever. Never.

9. Daniel recognized that this was war. He didn’t say, “In the next fifteen minutes I am going to get an answer.” He said, “I am going to get an answer and I’ll be here when it comes.” He put his faith against all that would hinder.

10. He knew there would be a hindrance, or why would he have prayed?

11. The angel came to Daniel and said, “We have heard your prayer” (v. 12), and gave him the answer.

X. It Is Never Too Late To Pray.

1. In Acts 12, you have the story of when Simon Peter was in jail. They had already cut James’ head off, and they were going to kill the Apostle Peter on the morrow. He went to bed that night chained to the floor with a guard on either side. There were several gates between him and freedom, but a church went to prayer.

2. They brought their faith to bear against the power of Rome.

3. That kingdom of darkness had set itself to destroy the pastor and ultimately the church.

4. They continued in prayer.

a. It wasn’t one of those little fifteen minute sessions; they were there for an answer. They said, “God is going to release our pastor.”

b. When Peter arrived at the prayer meeting, they were surprised. They weren’t surprised that he was free. They just thought the job was going to take longer.

5. That church set their faith against the powers of darkness.

6. Refusing to accept the inevitable, they prayed an angel out of eternity.

7. The angel told Peter, “Get up, bind on your sandals and girdle,” the chains fell off. The gates opened and the pastor found himself on the street a free man.

8. Why was he free? Because there were people who had bound the forces of darkness and said to the devil, “You’re not going to kill our pastor!”

9. The devil has been able to gain a victory because the church has refused to act.

10. Those people in Acts 12, didn’t care what others thought about their praying, they were not interested in what orthodox religion taught, their pastor was sentenced to die and they were determined it would not happen.

11. While they yet prayed the pastor knocked on the door, set free by the power of a living aggressive faith.

XI. Nothing Is Impossible To The Truly Believing Church.

1. The first step is to recognize the truth of “I can do nothing of myself.” Talent, education or genius isn’t the answer. Being available is the answer.

2. If God can be in us and through us, then we can truly say for me to live is Christ. Nothing then is impossible.

3. There was never a situation that presented a problem to Christ.

a. He broke up a funeral by raising the dead.

b. He confronted a man possessed with a thousand devils, set him free and sent him home to preach what good things God had done for him.

c. He met a man who was born blind, He touched his eyes and said, “Go wash in the pool of Siloam” (Jn. 9:7). The man came back seeing.

d. To a man sick for 38 years Christ could say, “Take up your bed,” and the man was well.

e. To the palsied he said, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.”

f. When the religious accused Him of blasphemy He simply said, “Whether it is easier to say, thy sins be forgiven thee; or rise up and walk?” And the man with palsy rolled his mat up and took off down the street.

g. He could walk on the water and speak to the sea to be quiet and it would lie down like a baby.

4. It is this same Christ that is in us today by virtue of the Holy Spirit.

5. We were born for this Christ to live in and through us. When this is true, there is no situation that we cannot overcome.

XII. “…This Kind Goeth Not Out But By Prayer And Fasting” (Mat. 17:21).

1. When you fast you put down the flesh. When you pray you lift up the Spirit.

2. It is easier to have a contest than it is to pray.

3. It is easier to major in the externals of a religious order than it is to come to grips with the spirit world.

4. The enemy knows that real faith is released in prayer.

5. Such faith is aggressive. It gets up in a man and says, “There is something keeping God from this place and I am going to push it out.”

6. We can spend all our time begging God to do something and all the while He is saying, “I have given.”

7. We must rise up and say, “I have,” and begin to take away the reproach to loose the captives.

XIII. It Pleased God To Reveal His Son In Me (Gal. 1:15-16).

1. God is not interested in whether you are prosperous or not. His interest is living His life through you.

2. “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1Tim. 6:6). “In whatsoever state I am in, I have learned to be content” (Phil. 4:11). That is prosperity.

3. We are here that God may reveal His Son in us. Nothing else matters. Jesus doesn’t look any better in a millionaire than He does in a man who doesn’t have a coat.

4. He wants to make Himself real through us. What we have, how educated we are means nothing.

5. Speaking of the apostles, the Holy Ghost said they were ignorant and unlearned. So when you read the message Peter preached, and the Epistle he wrote, you would know God gave it to him.

XIV. Faith Is Not A Beggar; It’s A Warrior.

1. Faith is bold; it takes command.

2. Faith will take hold of the devil, push the darkness back, loose the people who are bound, set the captive free, open blind eyes and unstop deaf ears.

3. We cripple faith when we make it a beggar.

4. Cold is the absence of heat; health is the absence of sickness.

5. The thing that makes us sick is sickness, so we don’t beg for a well body, we come against the sickness.

6. God’s will for me is to be well; I belong to Him.

7. If the church would be as hard against sickness as it is against sin, we would see much more accomplished.

8. Faith is like a bulldozer. It will push things out of the way.

9. Faith says that God is for me, and I am against the devil. Come to that point, and that wall you are facing will topple.

10. Israel didn’t march around the wall of Jericho saying, “Lord, give us a victory over these Jerichoites.” They were marching around waiting for the wall to fall. The wall was the hindrance. They could take care of everything else once the wall was down.

11. Israel was against that wall; it had to fall. Faith knocked the wall down and they overran the enemy.

XV. The Gates Of Hell Will Not, And Cannot Prevail Against Aggressive Faith.

1. There is not a wall ever built, not a moat ever dug, or a gate ever closed that can prevail against us.

2. Jesus said, “…the gates of hell will not prevail against us” (Mat. 16:18). They have prevailed because we have sat down behind the devil’s gates and begged God to do something. All the while God was saying, “I give you power to kick that gate open and walk out.”

3. Gates either fence you in or fence you out - one way or the other. They don’t jump up and battle with you, but you have to battle against them.

4. We can sit down in our little circle and say, “Pray that God will help me hold out to the end.” That prayer is never going to make it.

5. The only thing the devil knows and understands is the violence of faith.

6. The devil spoke to Jesus through the man who came out of the tomb. The devil said, “Let me alone!” He was begging.

7. Jesus didn’t say to that man, “Have a good clean mind.” The faith in Him said to the devil, “Get out,” and they got out.

8. Aggressive faith challenges the enemy, the victory always follows. The gates of hell will not prevail against us.

9. Satan has hemmed us in with his gates and we’ve begged God to let us out. God’s answer is, “I give you power” (Acts 1:8).

10. At the Red Sea Moses said, “What will I do?” God said, “Part the water.” At Ai with thirty-six men dead, Joshua fell down and began to cry out. God said, “Get up, move against the sin.”

11. Our great missionary Brother Ilnisky presented the message, “This Gospel Shall Be Preached,” and he talked about doors being closed. He asked, “Closed to whom?” Maybe closed to you or me, but they are not closed to the Holy Ghost. There’s no place closed to the Holy Ghost. If the thing we hear is right, some of the greatest revivals in the world are taking place in basements in China today. All they have is a page out of the Bible or a few scriptures written on the back of an old paper sack that they wear in their shoe.

12. God has given revival. Someone’s faith, somewhere, penetrated that wall.

XVI. We Must See The Possibilities Of Believing God.

1. We were not born losers; we are not orphans left on somebody’s doorstep.

2. God has left us here for a purpose, if we will walk in the will of God through the power of aggressive faith.