Hezekiah- Resisting the Enemy — David Ravenhill

Father, once again, we turn our gaze upon You. Lord, You're the author, You're the finisher. You're the one that inspired this Word. Father, we pray tonight that You would come and breathe fresh life into it.

Lord, it would be more than the letter that kills, but the Spirit that gives life. So, Lord, touch our lives, we pray. Lord, bring us that place of maturity where, Father, we can get alongside You, work with You.

Lord, labor us together with You. That's Your burden, I believe, for each and every one of us. Bring us that place, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. I want to continue where we sort of left off last night, if you turn back with me to 2 Chronicles.

Hezekiah’s Reformation and Spiritual Prosperity

And we'll jump over a couple of chapters to the end of chapter 31 and then looking primarily into chapter 32. If you weren't here last night, we looked at the life of Hezekiah, this wonderful man of God who, even though his upbringing was anything but godly, his father was an idolater.

He turned the nation of Israel away from the things of God. He boarded up the house of God. And yet, his son comes to the throne. Hezekiah, the first thing he does, he goes into the house of God, he cleanses it.

And he brought about tremendous reformation in the nation of Israel. He was a real reformer, a revivalist, if you like, in the Old Testament. And his life is summarized for us in two verses, verse 20 and 21 of chapter 31.

And it says, Thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah. He did what was good and right and true before the Lord his God. Every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in law and in commandments, seeking his God, he did with all of his heart and he prospered.

That's a great summary of somebody's life. I have said many times, I'll continue to say it, that if I die before my wife and there's enough money left to have a tombstone, that I would love those two verses, have to be a big tombstone to fit them on, but I'd love those two verses modified, and it would read like this.

And thus David did throughout all America. He did what was good and right and true before the Lord his God. Every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in law and in commandments, he sought God with all of his heart and he prospered.

Pretty good way to summarize somebody's life. Everything this man did, he did it because he sought God with all of his heart and God prospered him and God blessed him as a result of it. One of my pet peeves as a teacher are chapter divisions.

Faithfulness That Attracts Opposition

Chapter divisions are not inspired. We have in newer translations of the scriptures, mine is the New American. Somebody said there were five foolish versions and five wise. But you'll notice in verse 20, it begins with bold type if you have a modern translation, meaning that a new paragraph begins there.

So if you can eliminate chapter 32, at least the heading, let me read it the way it was written. And thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah. He did what was good and right and true before the Lord his God.

Every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in law and in commandments, seeking God with all of his heart, he prospered. And after these acts of faithfulness, Sennacherib, who is the enemy, the king of Assyria, came.

And he besieged the fortified cities and he thought to break into them. Or he invaded Judah, besieged the fortified cities and thought to break into them for himself. Now notice, here is a man that is prospering spiritually.

Everything he does, he does it because God is blessing him. The reason God is blessing him, because he's seeking the face of God. And yet it says, after these acts of faithfulness, not sinfulness, not rebellion, not perversion, after these acts of faithfulness, the enemy comes.

Let me suggest to you that a good measure that you are moving and advancing spiritually is that the enemy has given you a rough time. That should be the norm in the Christian life. In other words, if you are living in peace right now, and nothing's sort of harassing you or upsetting you, and all hell is not breaking loose around you, you need to ask the question, what am I doing wrong?

I know you didn't come to hear all that tonight. You see, right from the very beginning in Genesis, God said, he said, I will put enmity, or an enemy, between your seed and that of the enemy. In other words, there is a warfare continuously going on.

My father went to an old Methodist college, the Bible college, in order to train for the ministry. He only had enough money to go for one year. The ladies were not allowed in in those days, so it was an all-male school.

But he sat under the ministry of a wonderful old saint, a Methodist that was on fire for God by the name of Samuel Chadwick. And Samuel Chadwick wrote a number of books on the things of the spirit and revival.

He was a tremendous man of God. And every weekend, the students were sent out on preaching assignments to gain a little bit of experience. They would go to churches all over the Yorkshire area of England.

And this man would gather them in the chapel and give them their assignments. And then my father said he would pray at the end of handing out the assignments. And at the end of his prayer, my father said invariably, he would say these words, go and may the devil go with you.

Because if the devil doesn't go with you, you're not worth sending. That's a good Methodist. In other words, the whole reason that you are called into the ministry is to undermine what the enemy is doing.

It's to go into the kingdom of darkness and rescue people. It's to go in and bring deliverance to captives. It's to open prison doors. It's to open the blind eyes. And when we begin to do that, guess what?

The enemy doesn't like it. And so he counteracts. And so here is a man that is prospering spiritually. Everything about his life he's doing because he's seeking God. And yet the enemy comes. Now notice something about the enemy.

It says he'd already, verse 1, invaded Judah. And he had besieged some of the fortified cities of Israel. So he's already defeated an awful lot of believers, God's people. I find, and I've passed it now, my wife and I, for something like 35 years, and at least been in the ministry that long.

We haven't passed it always that length of time. But we've been full-time ministry for 35 years. And I have discovered that there are so many Christians that live defeated lives. They don't live in victory.

They don't know how to overcome. And God is wanting us to overcome. And so what we're going to look at tonight is how Hezekiah resisted, how he overcame the enemy. What he did, what was the strategy that he used?

Israel’s Journey from Protection to Spiritual Warfare

Now keep your finger there for a moment, because I need to have you look at two scriptures. One in Exodus, Exodus chapter 13 and verse 17. Exodus 13 and verse 17. Now it came about when Pharaoh had let the people go.

That's the people of Israel, the children have gone. The God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, even though it was nearer. But for God said, lest the people change their minds when they see war and they return to Egypt.

Now we need to understand in typology that the children of Israel were just born again. They were new Christians. The blood of the lamb had been applied on the lentils of the doorpost. God had brought the nation of Israel out of bondage, out of captivity.

And He brought them through the Red Sea, drowned the horse and the rider and so on. And He wanted to take them into the promised land. And He looked ahead and He said, the quickest way to get where I want to go is to go right through the land of the Philistines.

But if I take them through the land of the Philistines, there's going to be warfare. And the children of Israel are not mature enough yet. They're not ready enough yet. They don't know me. They don't know my ways.

They don't know the Word of God and so on and so forth. So I will bypass the problem. Now all of us do that if we're good parents. Those of you who've got little toddlers, we've got a beautiful little girl here, three years of age.

You know, you don't let her cross the street by herself. You don't take her downtown Boston or, you know, Providence or whatever and just say, you know, run across the street. No, you take that child.

At least you hold her by the hand or you pick that child up and cradle her in your arms. And you walk across. You negotiate all that busy traffic and so on. Why? Because that little toddler is not mature enough yet to handle all those trucks and cars and buses and everything else.

And thank God there is a season in our life as Christians where God exempts us, so to speak, from a lot of conflict. Why? Because He's a Father. I'll never forget. I think it was Bob Mumford many years ago that took the 23rd Psalm and he went through it as far as his own experience was concerned.

He said, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He said, when I first got saved, I went through an I shall not want period. He said, all I had to do was sort of click my fingers and God just seemed to be there.

He said, I remember being in, I think it was college at the time and he didn't have an alarm clock. And he prayed and within about half an hour, somebody knocked on the door and said, listen, I've got two alarm clocks.

Could you use one? You know, and he said, then you need money. And he just sort of prayed and all of a sudden, you know, there was another knock and the money was there and so on. And he said, it was an I shall not want period.

And then he said, I went through a season where he makes me to lie down, you know, by streams of beautiful water and, you know, green pastures and so on. I thought, boy, this is the life. You know, this Christian life is incredible, you know.

But then he said, God took me to the place where I walked through the valley of the shadow of death. And then I had to prove that he was still there. And so, you know, God will exempt us for a period of time from problems.

Learning to Fight Through Trials

Now, turn with me over into the book of Judges for a moment. Judges chapter three. Now, this is the same God. This is the same nation of Israel, but a few years have gone by now. Verse one. Now, these are the nations that the Lord left.

Everybody say left. Okay, good. I'm just taking up on something Steve Hill would do. These are the nations which the Lord left to test Israel by them. That is, all who had not experienced any of the wars of Canaan.

In order that the generation of the sons of Israel might be taught war. Those who had not experienced it formally. These nations are, and notice number one, the Philistines. Interesting, isn't it? God says, listen, it's time now you learn how to fight.

And rather than me taking you around the problem and bypassing the problem. He says, I am now going to put the problem directly in front of you. Because some of you have never ever learned how to fight.

And I want you to learn how to fight. I want you to learn how to overcome. Now, again, I know you didn't come to hear all this tonight. But, you know, I literally have, as a pastor. I've sat down with people in my office who have come in wanting their problem solved.

You know, wanting me to either impart something or depart something. And wanting to walk out 15, 20 minutes later with all their problems solved. And I've said to those individuals, because I've known them.

I haven't been hard. I've tried to be compassionate. But I said, listen, Susan or John or Mary, whatever the name is. You know, you have been saved now for a number of years. And you've come in wanting your problem solved.

And I said, I believe God has left this problem in your life to teach you. How to pray. How to fast. How to use a concordance. You know, how to do this. How to study the Word of God. We get very lazy, don't we?

This is the problem solver right here. The two problem solvers on the front row here. And we pay them a little bit to solve our problems. That's what they're here for. That isn't really true. I remember the first day that our daughter, my wife and I have three children, three daughters.

One in China, one in London, one in Colorado Springs. But the one in China is called Lisa. And her first year of school was in New Guinea at an Australian army school. And she came home with a sheet of problems.

Major problems. After all, she was five years of age now. And she was in school. And the big problem was one plus one equals. Two plus two equals. Three plus one equals. You know, four minus one equals.

And Lisa came to me and said, Daddy, you know, would you help me with my assignment, my homework? And I could have taken that sheet of problems. And in 30 seconds, maybe even less, done them all. One plus one is two.

Two plus two is four. You know, four minus one is three. And three and two is five. And so on and so forth. Here Lisa go out and play. But you see, she was now in a new phase of life. The childhood stage was now being replaced with the years of school.

And she had to learn that there was another muscle that needed exercising beside her legs and her arms and everything else. And it was between her ears. And I had to sit down with her and say, Lisa, what is one plus one?

Think about it, Lisa. Just try now. What is one plus one? I don't know, Daddy. I don't know. And about five minutes later, we solved this major problem. Then the problem doubled. Two plus two. I don't know, Daddy.

Can I go out and play? Once again, we got the problem. About an hour later, the problems were solved. Now, she has a degree now, which I don't. And if I'd have kept on doing her assignment for her, I'd have been getting letters in the mail.

Dear Dad, here's your next assignment. Please have it in by, you know, week Friday. It's got to be something on nutrition, 2 ,000 words, double spaced, and blah, blah, blah. And by the way, there's a project due at the end of the semester that counts for a third of my grade.

And I'll be giving you details in the next letter because I want you to have plenty of time to work on it. I don't want to fail. Now, I know we laugh at that, but we do that when it comes to spiritual things, don't we?

And God is wanting us to learn how to overcome. And so He gives us problems. Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into all sorts of trials. Oh, rip that out. You know, I don't like that, you know.

You see, we have this sort of prosperity message where everything's blessing, no problems. And if you had enough faith, you wouldn't have all these things and so on and so forth. You know, I wish I had the Bible they had, but unfortunately I don't.

Count it all joy. You know, embrace these things because the Bible says they come to make you mature men and women of God, maturity. God is after maturity. He wants us to overcome. You know why? Because one day we're going to be married to a military man.

He's the captain of the hosts and we better learn how to fight. He's not wanting a little wimp that's going to sort of, you know, grab him by the skirt string, so to speak, and hide behind him, you know.

No, He's wanting us to be co-regions. We're going to marry a king. We're going to know how to reign. We're going to marry a shepherd. We've got to have a love for the sheep. We're going to marry a physician.

We better know how to heal a few people. See, we're going to be married one day to an overcomer. And He says, I want you to overcome even as I overcame. God who spared not His own Son. He had to overcome.

And God doesn't spare us. Thank God there's a time when He understands our maturity because He's a Father. And He says, listen, David, you're not capable yet. You know, I'm going to bypass this Philistine.

But there comes a day when He says, David, I'm going to leave that Philistine there. I want you to deal with it. I want you to learn how to overcome it. Interesting, in the book of Revelation, we'll get to this chapter in a moment.

But in the book of Revelation, we have the city of God, which is the bride of Christ. It comes down out of heaven. And the Bible tells us that that city has 12 gates. And the only way you can get into that city, obviously, is to go through one of the gates.

And the gates are made of only one substance. The substance, of course, is pearl. What is a pearl? A pearl is a problem that's been overcome. Isn't that right? They're not made of diamonds. God could have said, listen, all these gates are beautiful, huge diamonds, or sapphires, or rubies, or emeralds, or some other thing.

But He says, no, each gate is made of a pearl. And at the center of every genuine pearl, there is a problem that gets into the shell of that oyster. And it does whatever it does, bugs it to death, I guess, until somehow that oyster is able to overcome.

And out of that problem, it makes something of incredible beauty. Paul had a little bit of grit in his shell one day. And he says, you know, I asked the Lord thrice or three times that He take it out.

And God says, no, I'll give you a little bit of solution that you can apply to that thing, and my grace is sufficient for you. God is wanting us to be overcomers. He's wanting a city, a bride, a people that have overcome.

And the only way we learn to overcome is by problems. Problems in our lives that we learn to apply the grace of God to, the Word of God to, and so on, so on. Let's go back now. Here is Hezekiah. He's faced with some problems.

The enemy has already invaded certain cities. But Hezekiah says, it's not my city. He's gone into the cities of Judah, and he's besieged other fortified cities. And he wants to break into them for himself.

And notice, the enemy has one design on your life and my life. He wants us back. He wants us back. He wants to break in once again and capture you for himself. After all, we're all sons of the devil or daughters of the devil at one stage.

We came out of the kingdom of darkness. We came out of the family of darkness. We were rescued. We were redeemed. And the enemy is a bad loser. And he wants us back for his purposes. On the other hand, God wants us for his purpose.

Someone said, both the devil and God have the same design on your life. They both want to kill you. Isn't that right? God wants you dead for a good reason, so he can resurrect you in newness of life. The enemy wants you dead, so that you're, you know, just messed up and no use for anything.

Recognizing Spiritual Warfare

Verse 2. It says, and when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that he intended to make war on Jerusalem. Notice, he has word that the enemy is coming. He has word that there is going to be warfare in Jerusalem.

You and I need to recognize we are at war. There is a war going on. For your life and for my life. The enemy is there to undermine, to discourage, to defeat us, to sidetrack us. To do whatever he can to frustrate the work of God in your life.

To bring discouragement. To bring doubt. To bring unbelief. To bring sin into our life. Whatever it is. He does not want us to be victorious Christians. He doesn't want to be. He doesn't want us to be effective in the things of God.

And so he will keep us, again, absorbed in our own problems and our own circumstances. Always caught up battling with different things and so on. And God says, listen, I want you to overcome. I want you to live in victory.

So that you can begin to help others. That was one of Paul's longings there. If he wrote the book of Hebrews, he says, by this time you guys should be teachers yourself. But you still need somebody to teach you and instruct you and look after you.

And so God is wanting us to get free from those things. So that we can begin to minister and help the needs of others around about. We are at war. Hezekiah saw, again, that the enemy had come. That he intended on making war.

The warfare that we are involved in, again, is a warfare that we can't see. It's an invisible warfare. I just heard recently, I think it was on Peter Jennings, one of those nightly news programs. Where it says that there is, within the next five years, it is inevitable that we will have some sort of terrorist attack in the United States of a major proportion.

And what they are afraid of is chemical warfare more than anything else. Somebody releasing, you know, a bottle of anthrax going into New York City and just releasing that thing and wiping out half of the, half of Manhattan or whatever or all of Manhattan.

And the thing about chemical warfare is this. It is deadly, but it's invisible. And spiritual warfare is the same. It is deadly, but it's invisible. We don't see demons sort of running around, but they're there.

We've got to believe that. The Bible says your devil, or your adversary rather, the devil, goes around as a roaring lion, but I can't see him. No, but he's there. The Word of God declares that he's there.

There is a spiritual warfare. Now, there are two extremes that we can go to when it comes to dealing with the enemy. One is to give him absolutely no credit at all. The other is to give him too much credit.

There's, in the realm of theology, what we call the higher critics. Those are people that get into the, you know, sort of a very much an analytical way of looking at the Word of God. And their brains are bigger than their faith, obviously, and so they've got to make excuses for everything.

And they say that there's no such person as the devil. That 2 ,000 years ago, you know, when the Bible was written and they didn't have any words for mental illness and depression and other things. And so they sort of blamed it all on this sort of mythical figure called the devil.

Well, obviously, that is not biblical. On the other hand, and so they deny that the devil even exists. But on the other hand, is the other extreme where we blame the devil for everything. My father used to tell the story of the devil weeping, sitting by the side of the road, just sobbing his eyes out.

And a well-meaning believer going along, putting his arm around the devil, said, devil, what's wrong? And the devil between these sobs says, it's you Christians, you blame me for all the things I'd love to do, but I don't have time to do them.

And that's the other extreme. You know, every time you sneeze, you've got a devil and everything's the devil. You know, if I knock this glass of water over, it was the devil. You know, if I do this, it's the devil, you know.

But between those two extremes, there is a real devil. And we need to recognize that. So Hezekiah recognizes that he is at war. Now let's look then at how he overcame. Number one, verse three, he decided with his officers and his warriors to cut off the supply of water and so on and so forth.

Cutting Off the Enemy’s Supply

There was a decision made. We need to make a resolution. We need to decide. There's too much passivity when it comes to dealing with the enemy. In other words, we never really actively engage in warfare.

We just allow the enemy to come in, run roughshod all over us and so on and so forth. We've got to make a decision. I remember as a young man, 18 years of age, I'd just been saved, raised in a Christian home, but like every young man, possibly young woman, battling with all sorts of lust and everything else in my mind.

I was in Bible school at the time and just started. And I was out in the print shop and I was involved in the art department designing jackets and for books and that sort of thing. And I was sitting there at my drafting table and my mind was just, you know, constantly bombarded with all sorts of temptations.

And I would have a wonderful devotional life that morning and go to class and have all this wonderful teaching from Bible school. Then go out to work and sit there and just be totally defeated. And I remember one day making a decision.

And the decision was, Satan, I am not going to allow you to just torment me like this anymore. And I began resisting, actively working on resisting the devil. Now I am convinced the first day it was at least 1 ,000 times.

I am convinced the second day it was at least 999 .9 times. And the third day, 998 times. And the fourth day, you know, I mean, but after three months there was an automatic response. You see, our will, if we begin to use it and cooperate and agree with the Word of God, we can begin to resist the devil.

And those thoughts that would come into my mind didn't get into my mind. At least I didn't entertain them anymore. You know, Martin Luther said, you can't stop the birds from flying over your head. But you don't have to let them build a nest in your head.

Or if you want to modernize it a little bit, you can't stop the Mormons from knocking on your door. You don't have to invite them in and listen to what they have to say. You know, you don't have to open the door to temptation.

Temptation is not sin. Jesus was tempted in every single point, like you and I. Yet, what? Without sin. He never entertained it. He never opened the door and said, come in jealousy. Come in anger. Come in lust.

Come in pride. Let's sit down and mull this over and nurture this thing a little bit. No. He slammed the door on that thing. And I was determined, again, to do something about it. Hezekiah is not passive.

He is decisive here. And he says that he was going to cut off, notice, the supply of water. Verse 3. And the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him. And so many people assembled. They stopped up all the springs in the stream which flowed through the region, saying, why should the king of Assyria come and find an abundance of water?

Now, that may sound like a strange thing. But we need to understand, here is a city. And around that city, there is a river flowing. There are also springs at certain places. And Hezekiah gets to thinking.

Listen, if the enemy comes with all of his men, thousands and thousands of troops, the only thing that will keep him around the city is the fact that there is a water supply. And water is essential for life.

We get so used to taking water for granted. We just turn on the spigot, you know, go to the tap or the faucet or whatever. And there's always an abundance of water. We never really think too much where it comes from.

But if you go anywhere outside of America to, you know, even Mexico or other places, whole villages are built around one single water supply. Water is absolutely essential for life. And so an army, an advancing army, may be able to carry in their, you know, water skins, a certain amount of water.

But they certainly can't camp around the city and mount a siege against that city unless there is an abundance of water. And Hezekiah says, listen, if these guys come, there's all of this water around the city of Jerusalem.

We'll never get rid of them. And so we have got to take away that which will sustain the life of the enemy. We've got to remove that which the enemy can feed on. Now, notice this was not an easy task.

I'm a teacher, not an evangelist. Evangelists get upset when I say this. But evangelists, you know, have a special dispensation, I think, from God to be able to lie. And they tell you, you know, if you come forward tonight, all your problems will be solved.

If you're unsaved and you don't know Christ, you know, just make your way forward and God will clean you up and then you'll be, you know, love, joy, peace, happiness, everything you ever dreamed of, you know.

And of course, if they weren't told that, they'd never come forward. But us teachers then have to clean the fish, you know, after you catch them. And the fact is that, you know, when you accept Christ, He slams you down on the potter's wheel, spins you out of control, applies all sorts of pressure because He's going to mold you into a vessel that He can use.

And He takes out His chisel and He begins to chisel off all the rough places because He's going to conform you to the image of Christ. And it's painful and there's a process there and those that He loves, He wants.

He chastens, He disciplines, He's a disciplinarian. And, you know, now if we told you all that before you got saved, you'd never make it forward. So the evangelist sort of has a special agreement with God, I think, to sort of, you know, have this wonderful sort of warm fuzzy sort of thing about, you know, why don't you come forward and let God just clean you up.

But this is not an easy task. But He is determined. And notice again, He has got to fill in springs. In other words, there is a force behind that. There is a river that flows through the region that has got to be diverted totally.

Now that's a difficult task. But such is the willpower of Hezekiah and his men, we are not going to allow the enemy access. And you and I need to do the same thing. We need to ask ourselves, and this is where honesty comes in.

We spoke last night about the fact that the seed that grew and brought forth 30, 60 and a hundredfold fell into an honest heart. Not a pure heart, nothing wrong with a pure heart, not a righteous heart, but an honest heart.

They were willing to be honest. Hezekiah has been honest about the condition of his city. And he says, listen, we've got trouble. And I've got to cut off the supply of water. Now the counterpart of that in the spiritual sense is this.

What issues out of my life that sustains the life of the enemy? The New Testament says, don't give place to the devil. Another way of putting that is basically, don't feed the devil. And if there's something that I'm feeding the devil with, if I'm feeding the devil with bitterness, with lust, with resentment, with anger, with pride, with jealousies, you know, with all of those things, the enemy is never going to leave me alone.

Some of you have made the mistake, I'm sure, of going outside on a cold, blustery winter's morning, you know, where there's four or five inches of snow and it's sub-zero temperature. And you go outside to take the garbage out or something.

And there at the door, there's a little stray ball of fluff called a kitten. And you may not be into cats especially, but, you know, your compassion takes over and you go to the refrigerator and you pour a bowl of milk and you put it down to that poor little thing that is freezing and shaking.

And it sits up, I mean, looks up at you with those woeful eyes and, you know, big smile on his face, so to speak. And you think, oh, I've done my good deed for the day. The problem is you've just started a good deed that will last not for one day or two days or three days or four days, but forever and ever and ever.

Why? You fed it. Try and get rid of it. You see, and we feed the enemy, don't we? We feed the enemy by mulling over things, by allowing the enemy to come in and fill us with self-pity and doubt and fear and whatever it is.

And so we have got to cut off that which supplies life to the enemy. Jesus said, Satan cometh and he has nothing in me. Jesus said, listen, the enemy comes but there's no grounds. He can't get into my life.

He doesn't have access into my life because there's nothing there to give him access to. There's no sort of landing strip. Sin provides a landing strip, so to speak. And so we've got to cut off that which supplies life to the enemy.

If it's pornography, then, you know, unplug the internet or get rid of the girly magazines or muscle man magazines or whatever it is, you know, if it's some other thing, you know, novels that are full of all sorts of lust and so on, burn the things and turn off the soaps in the afternoon, whatever it is you have to do.

But be ruthless about it. Make a decision and follow through. The next thing that Hezekiah does, it says that he took courage, verse 5, and he rebuilt all the wall that had been broken down. The wall is broken down.

Rebuilding Spiritual Defenses

And when the wall is broken down, we are vulnerable. If it was raining outside right now and we had holes in the roof or holes in the wall, obviously the rain would come in, the wind would come in and so on.

A city without walls or broken down walls is vulnerable to the attack of the enemy. The book of Proverbs says that we are like cities. You're like a city, I'm like a city. Like a city that is broken into and without walls, the Bible says, is a man or a woman who has no control over their own spirit.