Deliverance From Foes Too Strong For Us

We assuredly are heading into dark days in America. Our traditional values are being trampled underfoot. The most vile sexual practices take place in public streets while the police stand by doing nothing, even though such activities are against the law.

Most of us have not experienced such abominations before. All experienced Christians have had to battle against various forms of spiritual darkness; but nothing compared to what we are faced with today. We can be certain that there are powerful spirit of darkness that are influencing people who have authority, especially when we hear of kindergarten children being taught about alternative sexual life-styles.

I realize numerous Americans (and not only Christians!) agree that we are watching helplessly as our nation sinks slowly into a cesspool of moral depravity. We really are going to have to know Jesus if we are to be able to survive morally, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually during the coming days. We need to know how to pray until we gain personal victory. In the eighteenth Psalm, King David tells us of his own victory in prayer.

There will come occasions when the enemy is too strong for us. I think sexual lust is intense enough now that Christian people are succumbing to the temptation to perform immoral acts. They do not want to do such things. But the temptations are so strong and fiery that they yield to them while their minds are telling them this is wrong.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. (Psalms 18:17)

Now, what did David do in order to be rescued from an enemy who was too strong for him?

In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. (Psalms 18:6) David called to the Lord. He did not attempt to use some formula for success. He called to the Lord! I cannot emphasize this too strongly.

It is the practice of many of us American Christians to look for something that will "work." To this end we buy books, booklets, and tapes that will tell us what to do to get victory over this or that. How many Christian books and tapes do you know of that show us how to get what we want from God? If we forgive our enemies we will be healed of arthritis. If we speak the word of faith, the material world will respond in the manner we desire.

"If we will hold steady in faith, God will heal our child of appendicitis, or diabetes, or swine flu. If we take him or her to the doctor we are showing that we do not believe the promises of God. We can get God to do whatever we want if we just keep "believing."

One time our presumption will work, or seem to. On another occasion it does not work, and we assume we have not believed hard enough.

Brother, Sister, will you ask God right now to deliver you from this presumption, this false faith?

I went to the DMV a few days ago to renew my driver's license. The lady at the window said to me, after testing my vision, "Your eyes are stronger than mine!" I am eighty-four years old.

I had been wearing glasses for nearsightedness from the age of seven, I believe. About forty years ago I was praying for a healing line after I had preached. A young girl asked me to pray that she would not need glasses. It is my custom to pray for whatever people ask.

I never heard that she was healed. Three days later when I woke up I forgot I could not read my watch without my glasses, and checked the time. Not only could I see the face clearly, I could read the other fine print on the watch face.

I couldn’t believe my eyes! And I wasn’t prayed for. The Bible says God will heal those who walk uprightly before Him.

On another occasion, when I was principal of an elementary school, I developed severe arthritis pain in my right knee. When it hit, it was so sharp I could not stand on my right leg. It was like a knife stabbing my knee!

When I went home I prayed and asked the Lord what I should do. I felt He wanted me to go to the doctor. So I did. I always ask the Lord whether or not I should go to the doctor. If He indicates I should, I go. While I am on the way I ask the Lord to give the doctor wisdom.

The doctor injected cortisone, I think it was, into my knee. He said, "It will return and you will be on crutches. An elementary school principal on crutches! Okay. A week or so later my knee began to swell. I thought, I’d better get back to the doctor. We were living in Palo Alto, California at the time, which has nothing to do with this story.

While I was preparing to go to the doctor, I felt the Lord touch my knee. I had felt that touch before so I knew what it was.

I said to Audrey, "I have been healed!" I began to jump around the front room, landing heavily on that leg. To this day if I feel pain in that knee, I jump up on down on my right leg. You see, I am determined to keep that healing. After a couple of weeks the swelling was gone completely.

Why am I saying all this? It is so you will understand that my family and I have experienced Divine healing. My wife Audrey was healed totally of a congenital thyroid condition.

So when I speak about presumption, I want you to understand I know what I am talking about. I know what it is to be healed. I have experienced the sensation of having God touch me, of being actually healed, not just believing I was healed.

Divine healing is real.

But "stepping out in faith" apart from hearing from Jesus is not faith. It is presumption.

Ten thousand formulas for spiritual success, and they earn a considerable amount of money for those who advance these formulas.

Now I am going to tell you the one correct formula: "Call on the Lord, as David did. Be polite when you do. Remind the Lord you are doing His will to the best of your knowledge. Then ask courteously but forcefully. Blow the trumpet so God will know you have a problem.

Whatever you do, do not say you are healed when you have not been healed, or Christ has not told you, you have been healed. This is the power of positive thinking. It is not Divine healing. It is a metaphysical practice and may work on certain occasions. But it will not bring the Presence of Christ. It will not bring the response that David enjoyed when he called on the Lord.

The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry.

Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.

He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—the dark rain clouds of the sky.

Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning.

The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies , great bolts of lightning and routed them.

The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at your rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of breath from your nostrils. He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. (Psalms 18:7-19)

How would you like that kind of answer to your prayer for deliverance? Well, you won’t get it by practicing a formula for spiritual success or by thinking positively. Call on the Lord. Do so several times a day, courteously but forcefully. Keep it up until the Lord delivers you or He tells you what He wants you to do.