7 June, 2015 | Authority and the Power of God

Welcome to 'THE NATHAN REPORT'! Today is a bit sad day for me. The idea I have a rail track on my cover art is because on 5th of June, one of my school mate who happened to be a good friend laid his life by committing suicide on a railway track. So this image is is in remembrance of him. I understand, suicide is an unforgettable and unforgivable sin, it is just, this person happened to be my very good friend, so emotions are present. The book of Ecclesiastes in 7:17 says, "Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?" The reason I am sad is, I believe my friend was not saved. Looking at my life, I feel I have missed so many wonderful opportunities to bring lost souls to Christ. I pray that Lord will make me strong and use me to share the word to many who are still un-reached. 

Yet again, God has given us another opportunity to come to his house.

Today we will be talking about "Authority and the Power of God".

Luke 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."

When God gives us power, we can do great and mighty things and bring the Kingdom of God here. Bible talks about Christ where He takes authority of everything.

Luke 3:22, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Philippians 2:9-11, “9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

John 14:30, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me.”

We need to understand that satan has a very limited authority. Bible says God has given Christ all the authority that He can judge. Satan has something in us to perplex us with, for we have all sinned; but when he would disturb Christ, he found nothing sinful to help him. The best evidence of our love to the Father is, our doing as he has commanded us. Let us rejoice in the Saviour's victories over Satan the prince of this world. Let us copy the example of his love and obedience.

Matthew 9:35, “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.”

Mark 1:22, “And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.”

Mark 2:10, "But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" -- He said to the paralytic,

Luke 5:20, And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”

Matthew 17:18, “And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.”

Mark 7:24-30, “24 And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. 25 But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” 29 And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” 30 And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.”

Many time we fail the authority that God has given us. When God created Adam, he was given an authority. They misused the authority and fell into the trap of satan. True faith and strong faith may work in various ways; but it shall be accepted and approved by Jesus Christ. Sin is the cause of all our pains and sicknesses. The way to remove the effect, is to take away the cause. Pardon of sin strikes at the root of all diseases. Christ proved his power to forgive sin, by showing his power to cure the man sick of the palsy. And his curing diseases was a figure of his pardoning sin, for sin is the disease of the soul; when it is pardoned, it is healed. When we see what Christ does in healing souls, we must own that we never saw the like. Most men think themselves whole; they feel no need of a physician, therefore despise or neglect Christ and his gospel. But the convinced, humbled sinner, who despairs of all help, excepting from the Saviour, will show his faith by applying to him without delay.

We as a church need to understand, that we are in a middle of constant war because our enemy satan is not happy. We should know our enemy and we need to know how to tackle him.

How many are there in our assemblies, where the gospel is preached, who do not sit under the word, but sit by! It is to them as a tale that is told them, not as a message that is sent to them. Observe the duties taught and recommended to us by the history of the paralytic. In applying to Christ, we must be very pressing and urgent; that is an evidence of faith, and is very pleasing to Christ, and prevailing with him. Give us, Lord, the same kind of faith with respect to thy ability and willingness to heal our souls. Give us to desire the pardon of sin more than any earthly blessing, or life itself. Enable us to believe thy power to forgive sins; then will our souls cheerfully arise and go where thou pleasest.

We are growing now a days but physically or financially, not spiritually. We are not really connected to God that is why we find lots of people defeated and depressed.

Scriptures tells us that we need to equip ourselves.

1 Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

All that are by faith united to Christ, are by his resurrection assured of their own. As through the sin of the first Adam, all men became mortal, because all had from him the same sinful nature, so, through the resurrection of Christ, shall all who are made to partake of the Spirit, and the spiritual nature, revive, and live for ever. There will be an order in the resurrection. Christ himself has been the first-fruits; at his coming, his redeemed people will be raised before others; at the last the wicked will rise also. Then will be the end of this present state of things. Would we triumph in that solemn and important season, we must now submit to his rule, accept his salvation, and live to his glory. Then shall we rejoice in the completion of his undertaking, that God may receive the whole glory of our salvation, that we may for ever serve him, and enjoy his favour.

Let us not be joined with ungodly men; but warn all around us, especially children and young persons, to shun them as a pestilence. Let us awake to righteousness, and not sin.

It is one thing to fight with an enemy who you can see, but it is different to fight an unseen enemy. Paul says in Ephesians 612, that our fight is not against flesh and blood but the leaders of dark forces. You and I need to be on guard. We cannot fight our enemy if we do not know our enemy. Many times we talk about people that she/he is bad, the truth is that there are dark forces behind her/him.

Here we are talking about spiritual warfare. Satan wants to put us to sleep. Let us not sleep. He convinces us. We should never say that "satan is working on me", it will be a lie. Infact we are allowing satan to work on us. So instead of surrendering to satan, we must surrender to God, our father.

Ephesians 6:10-17

"10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

I would like to show how spiritual attacks are converted into physical attacks.  God built up Job's faith. God knew Job's heart and knew that he will not give up. Today we need to trust God like Job. Everything was taken away from Job, but he never gave up on his faith. Job says, "Though he will slay me, I will not give up. I will trust God." He knew deep in his heart that God will take care of everything.

How many times do we give up? How many times do we stop praying? How many times do we give up going to church? If you want to win, do not keep your eyes on the circumstances. Fix your eyes unto the Lord. Satan tries to create circumstances, but we need to fix our eyes on God.

There is another example. Judas' focus was not on God. Peter's focus was on circumstances that's why he denied Christ. Judas' Focus was on his greed. Let us wear the armour of God unlike Judas. Judas was very close to God, but deep down in his heart he was focused on his personal things.

We are selective listeners. When pastor talks about giving, we are dumb. When pastor talks about blessings? We are more than happy.

Judas thought, what do I get? If we follow his story we notice that his eyes were fixed on things and not God. At the end, he takes his own life and dies.

Illustration: One day someone gifted us a food processor. We didn't used it for three years. Then we planned one day to open it, but it didn't worked because the machinery probably may have jammed. We still kept it for another year.

Jesus knew that Judas will betray as he lacked faith in God but in worldly things. Sometimes we do not know about our future, but God knows. Job did not stepped back, and fought satan back and refused to give up on the Lord.

We can be victorious if we ignore things of this world and fix our eyes on God. Not all circumstance are from satan, but he can always put us into some kind of trap.

The world of God says, "Satan is a deceiver". We as a servant and child of God, need to follow God with our whole hearts. And we need to rebuke the satanic plans in Jesus name.

Today we have Holy Communion, we are not going to say this man is doing this, that lady is doing that, but, we all will be coming together and share the blood and body of Christ today and cancel the plans of satan.

We need to pray continuously. All authority is given by God to us. We need to take this authority in the name of Jesus. If satan troubles us, we must say, "In Jesus name I take authority and rebuke all evil plans." If we think about the circumstance, satan may try to put us in trap, but blood of Jesus is mightier than any plans of satan.

Illustration: If two teams are playing soccer, they have the power that they can kick ball and even push an opponent. More powerful team wins. Whereas, a referee has a small whistle, but has authority to move one player from the field to the locker room and can direct both teams.  

Let us all bind all power of satan and fix our eyes on Jesus. God has given us authority. Satan is trying to fool people by bringing circumstances which discourages us. Let us ask God to help us in our constant focus on the Lord.

Let us all say, "My eyes are fixed on Jesus. Help me to take this authority in ‘Your name, Jesus’. I will not give up because of circumstances, instead I will keep my focus on you. I pray that all satanic lie be cancelled in Jesus' name. Father, I know that you have completed your good work in the lives of many sinners, refresh me again. Let your will be done in my life and may my eyes be always fixed on you. To close today's service, I have this beautiful song by Keith Green, "Oh Lord, You're Beautiful", so sit back and enjoy...

We hope you enjoyed today's service, see you next week. God Bless!

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