Influencers Weekly Devotional

Conquered

by

Rocky Fleming

“And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” Revelations 12:10-11 (ESV)

About 30 years ago I heard a popular preacher teaching on Ephesians 6:15 about the shield of faith, and the “flaming missiles” that the “shield” catches and extinguishes. He said, and I agree, that those missiles mentioned are thoughts that the enemy sends our way. Have you ever wondered how you can be going along with life and suddenly a thought of anger, or lust, or fear, or jealousy, or harsh or suspicious feelings toward someone can suddenly come upon you? Have you asked what those thoughts produce in you? Do they lead to despair or judging someone, and to sin? Better believe they are not from God if they do, and the thoughts may very well might not be originating in you, especially if there is accusation of someone involved. Those thoughts can often come from the Accuser, and he is very good with spinning an evil lie against someone, even if it is when the focus is on your own failures. There is a reason he has been given the name Accuser, which is mentioned in the Revelations passage I have quoted. With Satan, the Accuser, it started in the beginning of mankind when he accused God of being a liar, and tempted Adam and Eve to sin. He has been accusing God and His family ever since, and it requires that we take up our “shields” and extinguish the flaming missiles he throws our way. Are you getting under the protection or the shield, or do you keep getting hit because you don’t know how to use it, or you don't realize you are in a spiritual battle? If it is the latter, this devotional is written to you. I will be honest and tell you that I have been under attack from the Accuser for a while lately. Therefore, I am being educated through personal experience with how these accusations work, and it has made me more aware that a lot of the spiritual warfare we battle with starts within our thoughts, as the Accuser whispers his accusations. To reinforce this statement, can you think of any sins that we commit that do not start first with a temptation to sin, and did the temptation to sin not start with a thought before it became reality? Therefore, it is within our thoughts that a spiritual battle begins, and ends, if we are willing to draw a line there, and wage war against the Accuser who tempts us. This is where we need our greatest assets for this battle, which are the shield of faith and theword of God, or best said, the shield and the sword. But we must know how to use these assets, for obviously they are metaphors for something other than objects of ancient warfare. I think we can see in the passage above what the metaphors are referencing if we look carefully. But, let’s first consider the various ways the Accuser whispers his words. I have discovered that the most obvious form of accusation from the enemy toward someone else comes in the form of slanderous thoughts about the person. These thoughts can vary from suspecting wrong behavior to wrong motives. These thoughts can convince us that we know a person’s heart, even though only God can know for sure what goes on there. These slanderous thoughts, if we agree with them, then proceed to the next step in going public, as we follow up by speaking slanderous words about the person, and our sin is then activated. However, since we are so convinced that someone else’s behavior is wrong, (for like I said the Accuser is real good with what he does), we are convinced that our slander of the person is justified and we do not see what we have done as sin. Listen: Slander is sin no matter how you figure it. Can you see how we are duped by the Accuser to think that someone else is wrong when we listen to him accusing someone, but how it is really designed to draw us into sin, and the Accuser accomplishes his work? Furthermore, if we do not recognize what has happened in the process, we will wallow in our own un-confessed sin, and we then become the target of the Accuser for someone else, as he uses us to tempt that person. Oh how devious the Accuser is, and if we allow him to influence us, we will be led into a dark place with him. So how do we conquer his voice when he tempts us with accusations, as with any other temptation? In the passage above we read that he is conquered, “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” I believe we are told in this passage that there three actions on our part will cause us to resist him. They are: The blood of the Lamb- When Jesus conquered death with shedding His blood on that cross, He also conquered the effects of sin in our life. He also conquered death for us, in that through Him we have eternal life. Much more, He conquered the Accuser, and set captives free for those of us who believe in Jesus. It is the authority of Christ's shed blood for us, and being redeemed by it that we are set apart and included in His family. Satan no longer has supreme authority in this world. He is conquered, and he is reminded of it by the authority of Christ. He will still have his way with it, for the world is still under his influence, for a while. But for those of us set apart by the blood of the Lamb, we are under the authority of Christ, and His blood is a reminder of this fact to the Accuser. We need to remind him of it, and that is where the next point comes for helping us resist him. The word of their testimony: This is an interesting statement. In it we see that it is our word (spoken) confessing what we believe and whose authority we live under (testimony) that we remind the Accuser who we are, who he is, and put him in his place. It is to declare to him that he is under the authority of Jesus Christ because of the shed blood of the Lamb, and that we as God's child are under His protection. We tell him this, and remind ourself, and he is conquered, as the scripture declares. They loved not their lives even unto death: Many times you will hear the leadership of Influencers and myself speaking of personal abandonment and absolute trust in Christ. Another way of saying this is to die to self, and live obedient to Christ, by trusting Him in the deepest possible way. I have heard that the most dangerous warrior on the battlefield is one who is willing to die for what he believes in. It is this man who has already died to what he wants personally, in order to follow a greater cause, and this makes him a dangerous, courageous, frightening, combatant. This passage is speaking of just such a man who loves Christ more than himself, and would rather die living right before Him, than live a life that follows Satan. It is this man who stands in the face of the Accuser under the authority of Christ, and the Accuser of all the things I have mentioned, and then backs his words up by a life that is fully committed to Christ. This is the man the Revelations passage is speaking of. This is the man who will conquer the Accuser's voice when he come knocking. Men, this man can be you. Start now using the process I have just given you that is taught in scripture. When you do so, you are holding up the “shield of faith” mentioned in Galatians 6, and it is this shield that is able to protect you from the arrows of the enemy of your soul. This shield will extinguish them all. Download file