Enemy at the Gates — by Pastor Larry Hoskins

"Don't go there," the missionary warned.  I was a youth pastor with several colleagues on reconnaissance for a potential youth missions trip to a London suburb.  Our missionary host was giving us a guided tour, and we were ambling by an ornate Hindu temple within a short distance of his home.  Walking past the temple's gilded doors, he looked at me earnestly and asked, "Are you dabbling in the occult in any way?"  "No," I replied.  "If you are," he continued, "don't go in there."  The man was not given to sensationalism, but the seriousness in his eyes and in the tone of his voice gave me a sense of foreboding.  The evil one lurked there, and while I never learned the details of the missionary's experience that led to such caution, it was clear that Satan was alive and well.  Well over twenty years later, I see his face, and his words still ring in my ear.

The Apostle Peter described the devil as our "adversary."  The Greek word means someone who has taken us to court and who is against us in a lawsuit.  Sometimes it is a synonym for an enemy.  In the West, we are less aware of the spiritual battle in which we are engaged.  We deal in "immutable facts" and "scientific proofs" and "rational arguments," but our adversary does not so easily fit into such categories.  We are so used to "natural laws" and "hard figures" and "individual accomplishment" that we rarely venture into the more elusive arena of the unseen spirit being and his minions.  Yet the fact that we rarely venture into that mental landscape does not mean that he is any less there.

Before 9/11, terrorists had long before tried to take down the World Trade Center.  American technology prevailed against that sinister attack, and we could sit smugly with a certain air of superiority, enjoying their failure.  Caution gave way to complacency which yielded to the casual comfort of everyday normalcy.  Life went on.  It seemed the enemy was gone.

But the enemy did not roll over and die.  No, he had the same goal of bringing down those gigantic towers.  He chose a different tactic.  He blended in, patiently, for years.  He held a job, paid his bills and looked like your average American.  Eventually, he went to flight training classes, bough a ticket to a destination, and boarded a plane like any other passenger.  Only he was not any other passenger, and he had others, equally "normal," with him to accomplish the same sinister plot.  This time, his plan succeeded, most victims were caught unaware, and his menacing ideologues who survived him danced in the streets.  After careful study afterwards, clues of their larger deception evidenced years of planning.  He was our adversary, and he had many names and faces.

Our adversary has many names and faces — the evil one, the accuser of the brethren, the god of this world, the one who disguises himself as an angel of light, and the serpent of old — to name a few.  Years ago, he raised a question in the heavenlies as to who had the right to rule — God or him!  Lucifer was so magnificent that one third of the angels in heaven, having seen both, opted for Satan.  And so the stage was set on earth to answer the question.  Whom will the human race follow?  When Christ was crucified, demonically inspired hoards danced in the streets at the success of their plot.  Years earlier, a satanically inspired king was moved to kill babies in Bethlehem, and like the terrorists, that first attempt failed.  But this time, success!  Or so they thought.  But the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom.  The ground trembled, and the stone rolled away, and the resurrected Messiah appeared.  The dancers, drop jawwed, stood still.  The enemy's days were numbered.  The embers are glowing in the lake fire, and a certain judgment awaited.

Still, today, the enemy lurks in the darkness, and much like Germany near the end of World War II, though his final defeat awaits him, he is still very much alive, and even more dangerous.

When I was little, I used to sing a song: "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart!"  "Where?" "Down in my heart."  I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.  Down in my heart to stay."  But a light-hearted, cavalier verse followed: "And if the devil doesn't like, it, he can sit on a tack!"  "Where?"  "Sit on a tack!"  "Where?" "Sit on a tack." "And if the devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack!  Sit on a tack to stay."  As my mother learned more of God's Word, she cautioned me against singing that verse.  "Why?"  I asked.  My godly mentor pointed me to few verses in the oft-overlooked book of Jude.  It speaks of false teachers who "revile angelic majesties" (verse 8) and whose actions are sharply contrasted with those of another angel in the next verse, "But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you!'"  Michael had a tremendous respect for his enemy, but a recognition of his own limitations coupled with a trust and admiration for the greater power God.  He did not treat his nemesis lightly, nor did he engage him on his own, but asked God to fight his battle for him.  Dare we fight him on our own?

Sometimes, we have conflicts with our family, our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers, and even with those in our church.  It can be incredibly painful, and often it feels deeply personal.  But remember the question of "who has the right to rule?"  We, or those closest to us, are just as susceptible to the terrorist's attacks as were the passengers of the airplanes and the mighty Twin Towers.  He may not have succeeded the first time, but he keeps trying.  If those conflicts wear my face or the face of a friend, we have to remember that ultimately, we are not each others' enemies.  Our real enemy is not those closest to us.  Our enemy is the gates, covertly vying for our allegiance, but he is unseen and consequently, often ill-considered.  That is why we so desperately need God's power and protection:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.  Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places [i.e., it's against demonic forces].  Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.  Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the [spoken] word of God.  With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.  (Ephesians 6:10-18 NASB)

May God grant us the grace to not succumb to the enemy in the gates, but to stand by His strength fully armed in His truth, in faithfulness, in right living by His power.

Feeling Inadequate? You Are Not Alone! — by Pastor Larry Hoskins

He did not feel up to the task, and he is not alone! Have you ever felt that way?

Some time ago, I was visiting a men’s group at another church.  Knowing that church needed teachers (and that is not what this article is about), one of the men commented that he did not feel ready to teach because he did not know that much.  As I heard him, I reflected on my own past. I had begun teaching when I was in the eighth grade with no formal training, and now, understanding as a pastor a church’s need for more men who would lead, I asked him how long he had been attending the church.  “Five years,” he responded.  Trying to spur him forward past his reluctance, I smiled and said, “Couldn’t you teach some of what you have learned in the past five years to some of those who are just starting to come?  You’re five years ahead of them!” The meeting ended, and I do not know what he chose to do.  I do know that he felt inadequate, under-prepared.

Others have felt that same way. One good and godly man said to me recently when asked why he did not consider becoming an Elder, “I’m not sure that I know the Word good enough to be an Elder.”  He has been around the church and under the instruction of God’s Word for some time, yet he still feels inadequate.  I think most of us have felt that way at one time or another. 

In Exodus 3, after God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and told him that He wanted him to go to Pharaoh to bring the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt.  It was a monumental task, as later the nation was numbered at over two million people.  Even though he had been raised in Pharaoh’s court and had been sovereignly groomed by the Lord for the position, after being a shepherd for the past forty years, Moses repeatedly argued with God:

Repeatedly, Moses brought up to God his apprehensions about himself and his concerns about how the people of Israel might respond to him.  He was not considering that it was the Lord God of Israel who was speaking to him and directing him into a very specific ministry.

After all of these responses to the Lord (and in between each question, the Lord gave an answer to Moses to disarm his concerns), how did God respond to Moses’ continuing sense of inadequacy and to his refusal to do what the Lord had clearly instructed him?

Moses taxed the patience of the Lord who became offended at his repeated refusals to bow to the command of the Lord.

Another great man, Jeremiah, likewise argued with God’s calling upon him to be a prophet:

Why is it that we are so prone to see our own shortcomings rather than the nature and wisdom of God who calls us to be ministers?  It was God who spoke to Jeremiah.  It was God who created him in his mother’s womb.  It was God who had an omniscient, timeless awareness of him before he was even created.  It was God who set him apart for this ministry.  It was God who sent him to the people of Judah.  It was God who directed Jeremiah to speak a very specific message to his nation.  Who was Jeremiah to argue with him?  Who are we?  Does not He know our limitations before He draws us or commands us to minister?  Why risk His anger for refusing to comply?

In a sense, we are right to consider ourselves inadequate.  Humanly speaking, we do not have near the resources to do the things that God asks us to do.  We can say with the Apostle Paul:

God’s work had to be done in God’s way with God’s resources and in God’s timing.  All of this requires a divine empowerment.  We are not adequate in ourselves to do what God asks of us, but we are made adequate by Him, as Paul discusses when he continues the above passage:

The central figure in our adequacy is the Spirit of God.  Where He is actively at work, and where we are responsive to Him there is life! That is why Jesus spoke of divine empowerment when He spoke of sending the Spirit just before He ascended to heaven:

Has God been tugging on your heart to start or to become involved in a specific ministry?  Have you been arguing with Him because you see your own inadequacies – however real they may be?  It is okay to be aware of your own inadequacies.  We need to recognize our own weaknesses, and we need to have humble hearts.  But it is not okay to be dismissive of the Power of God present in you through the Holy Spirit as if He has the same limitations that we do.  He shares none of them.  In fact, He makes us adequate when we ourselves are inadequate, and to quote the great poet, Robert Frost, in The Road Less Traveled, “that has made all the difference.”

The Certain in God's Uncertain Plans—by Pastor Larry Hoskins

Someone once said, “What you see is what you get.”  We talk about people seeing the world as a glass “half empty” or “half full.”  The Bible is full of stories that demonstrate over and over the difference one’s perspective makes.

When Job and his wife lost their ten children and all they possessed, Job’s wife questioned why he held fast to his spiritual integrity, and urged him to curse God and die.  Job, on the other hand, asked, “Shall we accept good from God and not adversity?”  He fell on his face and blessed the name of the Lord.

On another occasion, the Israelites had turned their backs on the Lord, and God had placed them under His loving, but firm, hand of discipline, yet He was about to restore them back into His good graces.  Deborah, a judge God had raised up for that moment, summoned a man named Barak and told him to take 10,000 men from two of the tribes of Israel to gain the victory.  Barak didn’t see the word of the Lord as reason enough; he wanted Deborah by his side.  As a result, God removed the honor of victory from him and gave it to a woman named Jael who drove a tent peg through the enemy’s temple.

Do you remember the story of David and Goliath?  The enemy Philistine army was on one side of a great valley, and the Israelite army was on the opposite side.  In those days, rather than fighting a whole war, sometimes a champion from each side would fight as representatives of both armies.  Goliath, that great champion of the Philistines had been taunting the Israelites for days.  He was literally a giant of a man, and his weapons were huge.  Not one seasoned Israelite soldier took up the gauntlet.  No, it was a youthful shepherd who rose to the challenge. Here are his words to the “tall tree”:

The rest of the story is history.  This rookie recruit without even a suit of armor took five small stones and slung one deep into the forehead of the giant oak.  How great was its fall! How great was God’s victory!  What would have happened if any of the other Israelite soldiers had seen what David saw?  What blessings and honor they missed.

Many of us are having difficulties right now.  Some are going through job searches.  Others have lost spouses through death or divorce.  Others are going through bankruptcy.  Some of our children have made choices that deeply disappointed us; some parents have done the same.  Some of you have your own Goliaths to face—giants that none of us even know about.

In all of these circumstances, what do we see?  Do we see the circumstances and conclude that God is evil and want to curse Him like Job’s wife?  Do we desire the securing of someone else besides the Lord alongside of us, like Barak did?  Do we see the power of the enemy and of our own inability, like the Israelite army?

Or...like Job, do we see that God deserves our worship and blessing whether He gives or takes away?  Do we see that God provides opportunities for victory, like Jael?  Do we see that God is bigger than hugely opposing circumstances, like David, such that our greatest concern is for Him to get the glory and recognition that He deserves?

Whatever the darkness, be certain of this: God’s plans for His children are good and not evil.  He sees the past, the present, and the future with equal clarity, so He is not surprised by whatever we encounter—the circumstances or the emotional, spiritual, and mental struggles that may come with them.  He is present everywhere.  He knows all things. His power is limitless for His righteous purposes.

There is nothing, no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me.  If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment, but as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to Him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circumstance will cause me to fret, for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is.  That rest is the rest of victory. ─Alan Redpath

You see, we have such limited knowledge and perspective, and God’s plans, to us, have the ring of uncertainty.  That uncertainty results from our not knowing, but imagining the outcome.  It comes from not understanding God’s purposes and from the dissonance of what we are experiencing that does not coincide with our preferences or plans.  So often we want out of the trouble and back into the world of comfort rather than the growth that is part of God’s design through trials and heartache.

Whatever you are experiencing in God’s “uncertain” plans for you, may we all come to see our experiences with the right perspective, to enjoy His peace which passes all understanding, and to life in Redpath’s “rest of victory”!

Would She Save Her Arm, Or Loose It?—by Pastor Larry Hoskins

Get a fix? Or go to the hospital?  A mother of two children, she stood on the patio in her dazed stupor, trying to decide whether to go home and get a fix or to go to the hospital to lance a life-threatening infection.  Her name was Mariesol, and she was a heroin addict.

I met her on the street outside the church in Ensenada.  Her hair was disheveled; her clothes, dirty.  The top of her left arm was twice its normal size due to a growing infection, discoloring her skin with splotches of black and blue.  Some in our group wondered if she was being beaten.  Her boyfriend was also a heroin addict. In the center of her arm was a large boil-like inflammation, swollen and oozing pus.  She needed to see a doctor, she told us, but she didn’t have the $10 to pay for her visit.  Our team had those funds, so she climbed into our van with me and with our translator, Teresa.  She hit her infected arm on the mirror as she tried to get to the van, and she was in obvious pain.  The church members nearby urged us to take another man, as they were aware of Mariesol’s drug connections.  They warned us that we could find ourselves in danger.

As we drove her to the Red Cross clinic, I told her that I was safe, but that I needed her to tell us the truth.  She told us that she was a heroin addict, using about four times per day.  A worker in a Christian rehab center at our base camp told me that her addiction would cost her about $20 per day.  It almost cost this dear woman her life; it may still.

Continuing to the clinic, she said that she had fallen off a bus and injured her shoulder, which had become infected.  She denied being beaten, though that is common for those in abusive situations to protect themselves from further pain being inflicted upon them by their perpetrators.  When we arrived at the clinic, she closed her eyes as her body drifted gently in different directions due to the influence of the drug.

All the Red Cross could to was give her a pain shot.  They didn’t have the equipment or personnel to do what she needed, and they told us she needed to go to the hospital.

So there we stood, on the patio outside the Red Cross, with Mariesol trying to make up her mind.  She finally allowed us to persuade her to go to the hospital.  Outside in the parking lot where I had to stay with the van, I prayed with her for her healing.  She was moved to tears.  Her infection was so severe that the doctors said she might loose her arm and possibly her life.  We had to leave her there and return to our base camp.

Teresa and I tried to visit her the next day.  The doctors had lanced her arm and cleaned out the infection.  They wanted to keep her in the hospital for observation for 48 more hours, but she checked herself out before we got to see her.

What makes a woman unable to see that her children need her to be their mother?  What makes her unable to see that an infection could end up costing her an arm or her life?  Whatever her reason for going down the path to addiction, she had let heroin become her master.  She had bought into the deceptive lie that it could salve her pain. Instead, it compounded it by her allowing it to enslave her.

The Apostle Paul wrote,

Apparently, the Corinthians were using the phrase, “all things are lawful for me,” to justify their immorality.  At issue was their liberty.  In a sense, their emphasis on personal liberty was true, but they were mixing truth with falsehood.  Personal liberty was not the freedom to do whatever they wanted, but it was to limit the exercise of their freedom to what served God’s ultimate purposes for their lives.  What serves God’s purposes is “profitable” or beneficial.  It is what God honors and rewards. It has ultimate eternal significance.  Paul warned the Corinthians that personal liberty apart from that singular direction leads to slavery, or as he called it, being “mastered by” the very things they thought would set them free.  This was where Mariesol found herself.  If we are not careful, this is where we will find ourselves.

Being “mastered by” something does not always come in the form of addictions.  To be sure, many in our church, over my years of service here, have found themselves in the clutches of drugs, alcohol, pornography, sex, and the pursuit of money to the point where they were mastered by them.  I’ve come to see some great stories of redemption—of brothers and sisters being brought out of such slavery to a newfound freedom in obedience to Christ.

But being mastered by something can happen with seemingly harmless things that can take God’s rightful place in our lives.  When that occurs, on the outside, it can look noble and pristine, while on the inside it is corrupt and decaying as a white-washed tomb.

Standing on that patio outside the Red Cross, Mariesol’s indecision has moved me to ask myself a question.  Perhaps it may move you to ask yourself the same:  Is there anything in my life that is so mastering me?  Are we being dominated by some passion that exceeds our own passion for God and for His purposes for our own life?

Get a fix?  Or go to the hospital?  Mariesol’s answer was obvious to those of us with her, but she couldn’t see it.  She needed someone who would help her make the right decision.

I said to Mariesol, “Let us take you to the hospital.”  Sometimes those of us who are blinded by what we have allowed to master us need someone to give us the honest feedback and move us in the right direction, even when we are reluctant to go there.

Just like we were able to be in Ensenada for Mariesol, God has placed us in Aurora for the community around us.  Grace Church Aurora is a hospital.  God is the Great Physician.  If you find yourself mastered by something, if you find yourself addicted, go to the hospital.  If you find a friend or family member or co-worker so enslaved, ask them to let you take them to the hospital.  Sometimes, they’ll go back their old habits.  But sometimes, someone will stay and find healing and true freedom in the Lord and through the work of His children.  I’ve seen it lots of times at Grace Church Aurora.  Hopefully , by God’s doing, you will see it too!

What is Your Primary Identity — Sinner or Saint? — by Pastor Larry Hoskins

Are you being mastered, or are you mastering?  At the beginning of human history, two brothers offered an offering to the Lord. Cain was a farmer, and he offered fruit from the ground.  Abel was a keeper of the flocks, and he offered from the firstlings of his flock.  The Scripture tells us that God had regard only for Abel’s offering, and the author of Hebrews tells us why:  “By faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain,” (Hebrews11:4 – emphasis mine).  No law had been given that required a sacrifice.  For some reason, however, Cain’s offering fell short.  The implication of the text is that Cain’s act of worship was merely an act that was never connected to faith in the living God.  He was just going through ritual observance without any connection from his heart and mind to that of God.  Such a fact warrants our consideration.  How connected are our hearts and minds to the heart and mind of God?

The story continues by noting that when God did not value Cain’s offering, Can became very angry and his countenance fell.  I can just imagine him hanging his head, furrowed brows, and drooping his shoulders.  Sin was spreading its ugly tentacles, and God gives Cain the opportunity to turn in the direction of faith.  God asks him why he was angry and why his countenance had fallen.  God was giving Cain the opportunity to do some reflective self-introspection.  An opportunity for insight and for re-direction was at hand.

How do we know this? God continued by saying, “If you do well (i.e., to turn from anger and to the Lord in faith), will not your countenance be lifted up (due to a totally different perspective and relationship with God)?  And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

The picture of sin crouching is like that of a cat dropping its belly as it stealthily draws near to pounce upon its prey.  Sin wanted to dominate Cain’s thinking and actions.  The next thing we see is Cain murdering his brother – a new kind of sin that had never been done before.  Sin has mastered him, when God had told can that he must master sin. What a tragedy!

Why did Cain find himself under the dominion of sin?  The fact of the matter is that he really did not want to“do well,” as God had described it. Cain’s actions lead us to the inevitable conclusion that he liked sin and that he was more interested in pleasing himself than he was in pleasing God.  He was a sinner who liked to sin, so he presented himself to sin as his master.  I sometimes wonder what it was like for Cain to have to spend the rest of his life with the knowledge of the fact that he had killed his brother. Did he really enjoy the “benefits” of being mastered by sin?

When we trusted Christ to save us from our sin, God gave us a new identity.  I call it a “primary” identity.  Throughout the Scriptures, believers are called saints.  The moment we placed our faith in Christ, our former primary identity of sinner was changed.

Now do not misunderstand me.  In the generic sense of the term in which a “sinner” is “one who sins,” yes, we are all sinners.  The Apostle John tells us that to think otherwise is to deceive oneself.  I am not talking, though, about the “generic” sense of the word.  I am talking about the specific, life-directing sense of the word sinner – our being “in Adam,” under God’s wrath, spiritually dead, without hope, without God, even being his enemies.  If being a “sinner” is our identity, then is it any small wonder that we would find ourselves constantly giving in to sin and allowing it to master us?

A new and better identity has been provided for us.  Rather than being “in Adam,” we are now “in Christ.”  We have been given His righteousness, and thus we can truly be called “saints.”  A saint is one who has God-imputed holiness.  The righteousness we have is not of our own making.  The Scriptures clearly say that if we keep the whole law but break it in merely one point, that we are guilty of all.  They also teach that all of our righteous deeds are as filthy rags.  Whether we have done one sin or a million, we fall equally short of God’s standard of holy perfection.  The only way a “sinner” becomes a “saint” is for God to give the righteousness of Christ to the sinner, and that is only done when a sinner turns to Christ in faith – trusting Christ’s death and resurrection to save him or her from his or her sin.

So how does a “saint” master sin? Romans 6 tells us that we master sin by “considering ourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 5 tells us that we do that, not by trying harder, but by walking or living by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We do not master sin by mere human effort, by simply trying harder.  As Christians, we must make a clear distinction between our former manner of life — being “in Adam” — and our new manner of life — being “in Christ.”  When sin tries to master us by tempting us to sin, even those we have battled with for a long time, in the power of the Spirit, we must claim:

“I’m not ‘in Adam’ any more.  I’m dead to that life. My primary identity is not that I am a ‘sinner’ any longer.  My primary identity is that I am a ‘saint’ who is now ‘in Christ.’  So by the Spirit’s power, I choose to live in my new identity, and I cannot do that and sin.  By God’s strength, I will live in righteousness.”

When we think those thoughts and when we live them out in our thoughts, words, and actions, sin does not master us anymore; by God’s grace and power, we master it.

Which seems to be truer of you these days? Does sin master you, or do you master it?  Yes, we all fall from time to time, failing to live in our new identity and in the power of the Spirit.  We fall prey to those three enemies of the believer — the devil, to the world system, and to our own fleshly desires.  In that sense, we are all sinners.  But is that our primary identity?  As was the case with Cain, sin is crouching at our door, too.  It wants to master us, but we must master it.

Romans 12:2 says, “And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  Has your mind been renewed?  If so, which is your primary identity?  Sinner?  Or Saint?  Our actions may speak louder than our words.