TAKING GROUND: 3 - Opposition in the Flesh
SLIDE SERIES: Taking GROUND
TITLE: Opposition In The Flesh
SCRIPTURE:
Deuteronomy 1:8 (ESV) See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them.
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 (ESV) When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.
PRAYER
SLIDE OPPOSITION IN THE FLESH: YOU
Deuteronomy 5:33 (ESV) You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.
Knowledge - Isaiah 5:13 (ESV) "Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge; their honored men are famished, and their multitude is parched with thirst."
Wisdom - Proverbs 14:1 (ESV) The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.
Obedience - Isaiah 1:19–20 (ESV) "If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
The Solution: 2 Chronicles 7:14 (ESV) if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
God’s faithfulness is bigger than you failures.
SLIDE PHYSICAL ENEMIES: The Curse
Genesis 3:17–19 (ESV) And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The very nature of this world will oppose you as you attempt to take possession of all that is rightfully yours.
Expect it to be hard.
It’s not God.
It’s not the Devil.
It’s gravity.
Do not be surprised.
SLIDE PHYSICAL ENEMIES: People
Numbers 20:14–21 (ESV) Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom: “Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the hardship that we have met: how our fathers went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time. And the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our fathers. And when we cried to the LORD, he heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt. And here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory. Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or vineyard, or drink water from a well. We will go along the King’s Highway. We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.” But Edom said to him, “You shall not pass through, lest I come out with the sword against you.” And the people of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway, and if we drink of your water, I and my livestock, then I will pay for it. Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.” But he said, “You shall not pass through.” And Edom came out against them with a large army and with a strong force. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory, so Israel turned away from him.
One of the enemy's best distractions is for us to engage with the fleshly opponent before us.
If you do anything for God, you will have enemies. Beware the enemies that are the closest.
Exodus 14:14 (ESV) The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
SLIDE PHYSICAL ENEMIES: Distractions
Nehemiah 6:1–3 (ESV) Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it (although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to do me harm. And I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?”
Keep your eyes on your land, not those that would oppose you.
Let God deal with them
Deuteronomy 5:32–33 (ESV) You shall be careful therefore to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.
SLIDE PHYSICAL ENEMIES: YOUR HEALTH
Luke 5:17–19 (ESV) On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus.
Afflictions will come against your body!
Take care of it.
Bring it to Jesus
Steward it!
Isaiah 54:17 (ESV) no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.”