SPIRITUALITY AND FAITH
OUR COMMON ENEMY
AND COMMON CURE
Presented by Pastor Philip Nissley,
New Hope Assembly of God, Taylor, MI
God wants to set every person to live FREE. But to live FREE we must know that each of us have a Common Enemy (our great Oppressor, Accuser of the Brethren) who seeks to hold us from our life purpose. Rather than hiding in our sins and the pain of our pasts, God wants us to yield to God and renounce and expose Satan and sin.
TO GET FREE WE NEED TO EXPOSE
OUR COMMON ENEMY
The reason Satan fights us so is because he was once a guardian cherub, guarding God's throne. In this role, he had unrestricted access to God. His position went to his head and that pride led him to sin. In Ezek. 28:16-17, we read “I expelled you, O guardian cherub…Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So, I threw you to the earth”. Isaiah 14:12-15 adds to this with Satan’s repeated, “I wills” that show (our Common Enemy) is the father of a sinful will… set against God's will.
1. He is also called “the devil”, false witness or malicious accuser (35 times in the Bible). Satan regularly accuses believers before God, seeking to tear down their sense of well-being and wear down our strength thru guilt (as seen in Job 1, Eph. 4:27, 6:11 and Rev. 12:10 “accuser of the brethren”).
2. He specializes in deceit, masquerading as an “angel of light,” as though he were representing God (II Cor. 11:14). Jesus called him the father of lies (John 8). He has high intelligence and slyly sabotages the truth by mixing it with error.
3. He is a tempter, seeking to draw people into activities that are disobedient to God and destructive to us (Matt. 4:1-11, I Cor. 10:13, I Thess. 3:5).
4. He has a great deal of influence on this fleshly, carnal lifestyle. Three times Jesus described him as the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30, 16:11) and Paul called him “god of this age” (II Cor. 4:4) and “prince of the power of the air” (Eph.2:2).
Pastor Philip Nissley has been the Senior Pastor of New Hope Assembly for 24+ years. He has a passion for the Downriver community and Detroit to be changed by the power of God.