Holy War — Stephen Olford

Encounter Ministries presents Dr. Stephen Oldford, as heard on nationwide television. It is our prayer that this half-hour program will exalt the Savior and bless you, the listener.

And welcome to another presentation of Encounter. We've got a great program today, and to introduce it is my very dear friend, the Reverend Steve Bolt. He's thrilled us again and on this program with his trumpet, with his singing.

And you know, he's going to sing something which is the very essence of our Christian message. Our message is contemporary, yesterday, today, tomorrow. Jesus Christ is the same, and that's just what he's going to sing.

About. Our contemporary Christ. Over to you, Steve. Yesterday, he died for me. Yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, he died. Yesterday, yesterday, is he. And today, he lives for me. Yesterday, Jesus lives for me.

Today. Steve, beautiful. I'm going to talk about the holy war.

Victory Through the Blood of the Lamb

And you know, this matter of victory in the Christian experience is at the heart of our gospel. And I want you to have a look into heaven and see the secret of that victory. Because the Bible tells us that we as Christian people, men and women here upon earth, overcome, overcome the dragon, the serpent, the devil, even Satan, by the blood of the Lamb, by the blood of the Lamb.

That's why so much is made in the Bible about the blood of the Lamb. And you know, Steve is going to sing in a moment all about the Lamb. Listen to these words. And I beheld and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and glory and honor and blessing.

Worthy is the Lamb. Steve,.

Sing that to us and God bless you. Steve, and that's our secret because he was slain.

You and I can know victory every day of our lives. Listen to these words taken from the book of the Revelation, the last book in the Bible, the book of the Revelation, and we're looking at chapter 12, and I'm reading at verse 9.

For those of you who constantly ask me to give you the reference so that you can follow along, the book of the Revelation, chapter 12 and verse 9. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan which deceiveth the whole world, and he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation and strength from the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

And they overcame him, the devil, by the blood of the Lamb. No wonder we sing worthy is the Lamb. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. Why? Because they loved not their lives unto the death.

Satan’s Last Rampage and the Reality of Spiritual Warfare

Fantastic words, fantastic words. Now listen folks, we live in an hour in history where I believe Satan, our arch enemy, is on his last rampage before Jesus Christ, who came first time to die at Calvary, is coming the second time to reign in glory.

And I believe wherever you look, this can be substantiated. Never in the United States of America, or in Canada, or in Britain, or across the sea, have more people been given over to the occult and to superstition and Satanism as today.

Some of us have been reading in our papers just recently of churches going up all over our country to Satan, and blood sacrifices being offered. I repeat, Satan is on his last rampage before Christ comes back again.

And I'm going to tell you, you don't have one single hope against Satan. Why? Because he's supernatural. I don't care how determined you are, I don't care how brave you are, I don't care how intelligent you are, you don't have a chance against Satan.

We're in a holy war. The forces of evil and good are in battle. The question is, are you on the winning side, or are you on the side that's going to be beaten, absolutely beaten? Well, of course, the answer is, how do we overcome?

No wonder we sang, Worthy is the Lamb. And with that great trumpet sound, and that beautiful interpretation of that hymn in the book of Revelation, a blessing and honor to our God, we were celebrating the victory that is yours and mine in Jesus Christ, if only we'll accept it.

So, very simply, I want to deal with this matter of the holy war. First, how to detect our enemy. Secondly, how to defeat our enemy. First, how to detect our enemy. Did you notice in our reading that we're given both his titles and his tactics?

Satan’s Titles: Dragon, Serpent, Devil, and Satan

And this is how we can detect him. We have, first of all, his titles. Listen to these words again. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan which deceiveth the whole world.

Dragon, serpent, devil, Satan. His titles. He's called the dragon because he destroys. His one ambition is to destroy. Peter, one of the writers of the New Testament documents, says that Satan goes around as a prowling and roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

What I said a few moments ago is absolutely true. You have no chance against him. He'll pull you limb from limb. He'll destroy your personality, spirit, soul, and body. He's out to destroy. He's out to destroy.

That's why he's called the dragon. Then he's called the serpent. And a serpent, he is the deceiver. He is the deceiver. Now that serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, we read.

And I want to tell you the mastery and subtlety of his deception is utterly unmatched by any other creature in the universe. I don't care how alert or intelligent you may be, he knows how to deceive. The very fact that he could enter that garden of Eden with all its beauty and innocence and deceive our forebears, and bring about the sin and suffering and death we know today, just shows what a serpent he is.

All right then, he's the dragon, he's the serpent, he's the devil. He's the devil. That means to say he is the accuser. That's what the word means. He's a slanderer and an accuser. And I want to tell you he's at it all the time.

He is the accuser of the brethren. Then he's called Satan. That means he's the opposer. He's utterly opposed to all the purposes of God, all the programs of God, and even the power of God. Think of the arrogance of it all.

But he's out to oppose you and to beat you. And I say I care not who you are sir, or madam, or young person. He can beat you. So this is a holy war. A war in which we can engage with God against evil.

Satan’s Tactics: Deception and Accusation

So much then for his titles. But look at his tactics. We're told that he deceiver for whole world, and he's the accuser of the brethren. In other words, his tactics are twofold. One, deception. The other, accusation.

First of all, he deceives you and seduces you. And then having sinned and failed, he accuses you until he destroys your personality. And you know I've been over 30 years in this business of preaching.

And whether in the pastorate, or in the great crusades, or on television, or radio, or across the seas, or at home, or wherever I've been. I have found that people go to pieces under the pressure of self-accusation.

And they think it's self-accusation, but actually it's satanic accusation. Yes, we can't blame the devil for sinning. We are accountable before God. But having bowed to the seduction and deception of the devil, you know what he does?

Having absolutely caused you to fail, and I mean absolutely caused you to fail, and you're beaten, he now begins to accuse until, like a canker worm, he just eats right into your whole personality and destroys it.

Those are his tactics. That's how he destroys human personality. So you say to me, how do you detect this awful enemy, this dragon, this serpent, this devil, this Satan? I'll tell you how. By the way he deceives, and then the way he accuses.

And if, as I'm talking to you now, you sense guilt, anxiety, worry about your life, and you know deep down in your heart that you're culpable, you're responsible, you are blameworthy, the devil is accusing you.

He's accusing you. You say, does he accuse me? He tries to, but he has no chance. Why? Because I've been cleansed, I've been washed by the blood of the Lamb, and he can't do anything to a man who's covered under the sheltering power of the blood of Jesus Christ.

Overcoming the Enemy by the Blood, Word, and Spirit of Christ

So in this holy war, we're taught, first of all, how to detect our enemy. But in the second place, we're taught how to defeat our enemy. And I'm telling you, here's the text. This is what Steve was singing about.

Listen to it. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb. And the word of their testimony, because they loved not their lives unto the death. I don't think there's any verse in all the Bible which spells out how to defeat, how to beat the devil, like those words.

Let me explain them to you. Of course, the answer to the devil is Jesus Christ. But he's presented to us here in three wonderful aspects. Here are the three ways in which we can overcome and defeat the devil.

One, the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. And my friend, whether you knew it or not, the reason why God entered human history, the reason why he became flesh, the reason why he contracted to the measure of a woman's womb when was born, was in order that he might go to the cross and die for you and for me.

Because in that mysterious and yet wonderful death at Calvary, he not only shed his blood to atone for human sin, but in that death at the cross, something mysterious and wonderful happened. Listen to this.

At the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ, once and forever, beat Satan. He made an open show of principalities and powers. He overcame him that had the power of death, even the devil. And when Jesus Christ died at Calvary, people might have said, tragedy, tragedy, tragedy.

But from heaven there was a song, victory, victory, victory. And now any man, any woman, any fellow, any girl who trusts in Jesus Christ can know the power of that blood, the blood of Christ. Secondly, the word of Christ.

They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, which means to say the word of God dwelling in us richly. And you know that's the way to overcome the devil. Not only the blood of the Lamb, not only the word of Christ, but also our own personal love unto death.

That is to say our loyalty to Jesus Christ. So you have the blood of Christ, then the word of Christ. Now, pause there a moment and remember that Jesus Christ beat Satan just that very way. In the soul, along the line of the spirit, and each time out of his experience, he drew that sword of his own word of testimony, rooted in God's holy word.

And he said, it is written, it is written, it is written. And the devil leaveth it. That's why I believe in memorizing the Bible and studying the Bible, because through the experience of the Bible, we could overcome the devil.

The blood of Christ, the word of Christ, and thirdly, the spirit of Christ. For they loved not their life unto death. You know, that's the spirit of Christ. It was that spirit that led him to Calvary.

He, through the eternal spirit, offered himself without spot unto God. And by that same holy spirit, we can overcome. That's how Jesus overcame the devil. He not only attacked him with a word, but we read that he was driven by the spirit into the wilderness to be tested and tempted by the devil, and he beat him.

And so we have the blood of Christ, we have the word of Christ, we have the spirit of Christ. These three are our answer to the devil. Just a few weeks ago, I was in Norfolk, Virginia, and I saw the biggest and newest aircraft carrier that the United States of America has.

The Aircraft Carrier and the Christian’s Spiritual Armor

It's named after Admiral Chester Nimitz. You know, it's over a thousand feet long. Its flight deck is four and a half acres. Its displacement is over 92 ,000 tons. It can take a crew of over 6 ,000. It's nuclear-powered and can go out to sea and not come back to refuel for 13 years.

It is the depository of the most sensitive electronic equipment the world has ever known. But you know what absolutely surprised me? That ship is totally vulnerable. It hasn't a single pistol, not a gun mounted, no no gray cannons, nothing whatsoever.

On itself, it's absolutely vulnerable. And though it can go at 45 miles an hour, 30 knots, while planes take off front and aft and fly into the air and come back again, you know it's completely defenseless?

Completely defenseless. And I asked the question, well, how can a ship like that ever manage in wartime? You know what I was told? Circles around that ship when it's in action are subs under the water, warships on the water, planes in the air.

Follow me, subs under the water, warships on the water, planes in the air. And with that three-fold weapon, it's invulnerable. It cannot be attacked. I was told it cannot be attacked, because underneath are the subs, warships on the water, planes in the air.

Do you know God's called you and me to be a carrier of the gospel, and to send off the message of the gospel in all directions? And yet we're defenseless, absolutely defenseless, unless we have subs, warships, and planes.

And do you know what I see under the water? Subs, foundational to everything, the blood of Christ. Warships, that's the word of Christ. Planes in the air, the spirit of Christ, hovering and flying over us and giving us an answer.

Isn't that tremendous? We can be carriers of the gospel, because we have a three-fold answer to the devil. And all those three converge in a person, and it's Jesus Christ who's the ultimate answer to the devil.

The Call to Know Victory in Jesus Christ

And to know him in your life is to know victory in this holy war. Are you prepared to ask him into your life, and know a life of victory instead of defeat? Will you join me in a prayer of response? Let's bow together in prayer.

Lord Jesus, I confess to you that I've been beaten over and over again. I've been beaten in my mind. I've been beaten in my sex life. I've been beaten by drugs, by alcohol. I've been beaten by jealousy, and pride, and all manner of sin.

And I long to know victory. You've shown me how to know victory through your blessed son Jesus Christ, his blood, his word, his spirit. Come into my heart right now. Take over my life, and lead me in the train of triumph day by day.

I ask it for your dear name's sake. Amen. You know, I'm thrilled, because I believe that you prayed that prayer. And you know, I would like to follow up what I've said with a little booklet I've written myself called The Secret of Strength.

The Secret of Strength and the Promise of Renewed Strength

The Secret of Strength. You want to know victory in your life, my friend? Here it is. The Secret of Strength. They that wait upon the Lord shall exchange their strength, exchange weakness for his strength.

Write for this little booklet. I'll send it to you without any cost whatsoever. And if there are problems you would like to discuss, put them in your letter, and we'll answer them, and counsel you. The Secret of Strength.