Last week we began what was titled: How Far Can Satan Go With Your Body and today we can continue in the part of the same message. Let us go back to where we began with last week, in the book of Matthew chapter 5 verse 48. The Bible says:" Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." This was a statement made by Jesus, and we were told last week that the will of God for us is that we be just as He is. Like Father in heaven, Like Son on the earth. For indeed if we are children of God, then we must share in the nature, in the characteristics of our Father, God. If God is holy, then we must be. If God is perfect, then we must be. If God does all things well, and He is without blame and fault, then we must be as children of God.
Listen To Podcast: HOW FAR CAN SATAN GO WITH YOUR BODY PT.2?
So, wherever we are today, we must measure ourselves with God in view. You can set a man before you and begin to ask yourself whether you are growing, making the man before you your yardstick. No! God must be the basic or the basis of your measurement. Even in Ephesians 4, Bible talking about the ministry gifts: "…some He gave some Apostles, some he gave Prophets, some Evangelists, some Pastors and some Teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come into the unity, and then he concludes with in verse 14 "to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ." So, we come to measure up to the fullness of the stature of Christ. That tells you Christ becomes our standard of measurement. If you are growing, you measure yourself with Christ. So, you have grown thus far to a measure in Christ!
Now, the will of God is that you grow into the fullness of Christ. So, as Christ is, we must be. As our Father in heaven is, we must be. And so, our perfection is not American or European standard, no! As a matter of fact, it is not even Nigerian standard. Our perfection must be our Father in heaven. And so, we also saw in Genesis 17:1 last week, how God appeared to Abram, I am sure we know that God is Spirit. So God Spirit appeared to Abraham and said to him "Walk before me and be blameless." Up till this moment, you have been walking all around, and you have been making mistakes. But from this moment, start walking before me. And we also understood it to mean "start using me as your mirror." So, everything you do is as you see me do. Everything you say is as you see me say, since I cannot make mistakes, you won't make mistakes.
There was a time Jesus ask His disciples a question, the Bible says He asked it, not because He didn't know, "for He Himself know what He would do." But He still asked them still. And so, a man who is working with God is not a man who will be doing trial by error. God whom you are mirroring know what to do, and when you walk with Him, He gives you understanding of times and seasons. Two hundred of the children of Issachar, Bible says they were different from their brethren. Why? Bible says they understood times and seasons, they knew what Israel ought to do per time and Bible says "their brethren were at their command." Why? They had understanding. Do they have the understanding because they were reading books? Or because they were brilliant more than their mates? No! It was what God shared with them, the revelation that they got from the Lord God Almighty.
So, if a man walks before God, a man has the tendency to command God's kind of results, to live God kind of life. So, that was what God wills. However, we saw last week as well that many people are giving God excuse about the reason why they will never be perfect in their own lifetime, is because they have flesh and blood. And so, we began to examine different things. We also saw in 2 Corinthians 12, when Apostle Paul was talking about how he was caught up into the third heavens and yet, he won't even boast, lest he be exalted above measure. I am sure we still remember when we were talking about the word "measure", we were supposed to measure up with Christ Jesus, isn't it? But Paul now said "lest I should be exalted above my measure, lest people think of me higher than I am, or anyhow, he says "lest I become exalted or puffed up, lest pride be found in me", he said a messenger of Satan was given to me, in the form of a thorn in the flesh.
Another version says "an angel of Satan." And what was the responsibility of the thorn? He says "to buffet me" you can say to suffer him or make him suffer. He said further for this reason and on this matter, I be sought the Lord three times, that He may take it away from me. But God said "My grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in your weakness." Apostle Paul now said "now, where I am weak, there I am strong" in the grace of God. And we also saw where the Bible says "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." And so we know, that the grace of God in our lives, the assignment of God in our lives, the Spirit of God in our lives resides in our bodies. And so, even though the Spirit of God resides in our body, our bodies are weak, or they are of weak materials. Now, instead of God to change those materials, God decided to give us grace.
And so with grace, even with your weakness, you are still able to please God. So, a man cannot please God, that is why the Bible also says "no man can please God in the flesh" because the flesh has inherent weaknesses. There are excuses in the flesh, there are fears in the flesh, there are pains in the flesh. No man who is domiciled in the flesh can please GOD. So, how can a man please God? A man can please God by the grace of God. And the grace of God has appeared to all men, teaching us. So, the grace of God beyond an abstract word. The grace of God is a personality. There was a time the Bible likens the Holy Spirit the Spirit of grace. In fact, the word of God was called also "the word of His grace." Bible says "the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. So, Jesus is the embodiment of grace and truth. He says "You will know the truth, the truth will set you free." He says "I am the way, the truth and the life." So, Jesus is what and whom we all need, He is the person every human require to live beyond the weaknesses of the flesh.
Now, when you produce, I have bought some items online. When you buy some items from China or wherever you buy them from, if it is a fragile item, the manufacturer is fully aware. And so, they don't just send it the way they send every other thing. They package it well, they make it to be surrounded with foam materials so that, should there be an incident where the item should fall to the ground, it does not still break. So, when they are carrying strong items, they can afford to do it anyhow. But when they are carrying fragile items, what do they do? They pad it. Because the item is fragile does not mean it would not be shaking, it would be packaged, it will be padded. There will be things that manufacturers will put in the carton that will prevent the product from being destroyed in transit.
Even though you body has been made of weak materials, does not mean you will not be sent to the earth. Even though you have limitations in your flesh, it does not mean God will not call you and that His purpose will not be made known to you. The only thing that must be done is that your life must be well padded by the grace of God. That is what grace does. It makes the weakness of the flesh of little or no impact in your life. Let me show us an example of that grace in Old Testament. Moses was called by God. A man who stammers, he complained to God that he could not talk and all of that. God said to him "Am I not the one who has made a man's mouth?" At a point God said "I will be with your mouth." Please, did God say I am going to change your mouth? No! God said simply "I will be with it."
Sometimes we think if God has called us then there should be no limitation in our lives, there should be no weakness in our flesh. So, what is the place of God? How come we will not end up becoming arrogant and proud? So, you could have weakness in your flesh, your frail could be weak and fragile, yet, when God makes Himself available to your body, then you will walk in a dimension that is beyond the limitation of your flesh. So, the man would say "How did I do it?" You did it simply because God was with you. Even when Jesus was sending the disciples out, He said "low I am with you even to the ends of the earth." That is grace sir. I am with you. So in spite of your fears, you will still walk in the authority that I have proposed for you.
When the Apostles were threatened in those days, in Acts of the Apostles chapter 4, Bible says "they came back to their company, Peter and the rest, and then they prayed. They prayed that God should give them boldness. There was already, because they were being threatened. But they prayed again that God should give them boldness and Bible says when they were done praying, the place where they were praying was shaking, there was earthquake, and the Holy Spirit filled them again. And so, what did the Holy Spirit do? They had carcass, they came with their earthen vessel, weak and fragile, the Holy Spirit padded them again. They could not break again, they were padded, surrounded. Sometimes we look at ourselves and think there is nothing good about us. Yet, we are already padded. The wishes of the enemy have never prospered in our lives. We have been going up and down being alive, not because we know how to walk, it is because God has padded us. You sit for an exam and you pass, and how you passed the exam you cannot even explain how. It is because God padded you.
The Spirit of God filling them shows that their difference will not be as a result of their muscle or by their biceps, but would be according to the proportion of the fullness of the Spirit in their mortal bodies. Bible says we have this treasure, this Spirit of the Father in earthen vessels. So when we go out and we are demonstrating boldness, it is not because we are eloquent or we are fearless, it is because the Spirit is working in us. No wonder the Bible now says "for it is God that works in us both to will and to do, for his good pleasure." Does it mean there was no flesh? There was flesh, but God was working in us, overcoming the limitation of the flesh in our lives. You see, there can be flesh, and God will demonstrate His power that can be overwhelming on the flesh. There are Bible passages that we will read to show us how a man could be fleshy but yet, have a responsibility to partner with God to weaken the weakness of our flesh and strengthen our inner man.
So, a partnership existing between your inner man, the spirit man and the Spirit of the Father, overcoming the limitation of your human nature, making you to rise above every trial and tribulation and every temptation, giving you a testimony in the midst of crookedness, in the midst of corruption and uncleanness in our societies. Let us go and examine the first example of demonstration of the flesh on the earth. In the book of Genesis chapter 4:1-8. Let us see what God said and let us see what happened afterwards.
"Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” 2 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell."
Now, if we pause a bit in verse 3, Bible says in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought.." So, it was Cain that took the initiative to bring first. Now, he didn't bring it to Satan, he brought it to the Lord. That shows some form of godliness. He had some love for God. We can put it this way, and I want us to be very attentive and see how a man who had a heart for God, a man who could be godly, a man whom we could refer to as a man of God, could begin trying to please God. How come such a man went into something else in the process of time? See what verse 6-7 says again:
6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”
Sin lies at your door; does anybody understand the English and the phrase "Sin lies at your door?" What does it mean to say "sin lies at your door?" The question is: What is sin that lie at the door? There was a time Jesus said to Peter: "Peter, Satan desire to sift you like a wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith does not faint. When you have returned, strengthen the brethren." Satan desire to sift you; that gives us an example of what we are trying to say here. Sin lies at your door, and its desire is for you. For Peter, Satan desires to sift you as wheat. Now, let us take what God said to Cain and complete it for Peter. Peter, Satan desires to sift you as wheat, but you should rule over it. Sin lies at your door, it says, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.
That tells you that there is a divine expectation on every human being, every man, every one that is born of Adam, there is an expectation of God on such person to rule over sin. God was there, God was talking to Cain, but sin was already at his door. So, you can't say because you are a man of God and God is around you, then sin cannot hang around your door. Do we see that? This was a man who had the primary intention of pleasing God. He of his own volition brought an offering to God and God did not respect his offering. And so because of that, he got angry. He didn't know why he was angry, and this is where we are looking at. What our family members see is a man, a boy, a girl that is angry, his eyes are red before you, he has thrown something away. What do you see, you see anger!
But God said, because God is Spirit and He sees beyond the demonstrations in the flesh. God sees sin lying at the door that wants to have him, that wants to possess him. That is another word for that. Another word for sin lies at your door and it wants to have you; it says its desire is to possess you. It is like a man that has a big house, the fist entrance is the gate, and you have a gateman. Thieves are coming, and they are knocking at the gate. What is their desire? Is it not to steal, to kill and to destroy. So, if the gateman gets foolish and he opens the door, what happens? Their desire would become actualize, they will have the house. Now, when they enter the house, they are already in the compound, but they have not enter the living room, the toilet or the kitchen. If they gain access, then their purpose again would be fulfilled, they will possess what they want to possess. So, from the gate, to the entrance door, to the inner room, you can see different doors leading to different places within the same house.
That is how we are. There is no one single door that leads to us. There are doors. There is the door of our body. There is the door of our soul; there is the door of our spirit. Even our souls have different doors. There is the door of our will, the door of our mind, the door of our emotion. Sin lies at your door – Why? It wants to either knock or possess you. All the things that you have used as a guard to preserve your life, your heart, the devil wants to remove it so that he can gain access. He is at your door, shaking it, vibrating it, and the intent is for him to gain access. And when the devil gain access into your innermost being, do we noticed that? He could have gain access to your body, maybe through listening to what you are not supposed to listen to or gather around the people you were not supposed to gather around, and so devil gained the first entrance. From there he begins to shake the next door, every available door must be shaken and broken. He want to shake and get to your innermost being because when he can do that, he would be able to take hold of your entire being.
And let me show us this. Satan access peoples bodies, people’s members in different degrees. He gains access in different degrees. Some people’s doors are just opening of their own accord unto Satan. When Peter was released by the angel, the Bible says the doors were opening of their own accord. There are some human beings on this earth today that the doors of their lives open to Satan of their own accord. As Satan comes, approaches the door, it opens until Satan takes over. When you see a man that is fully taken over, that man dances to the tune of Satan. Satan plays the beat, he dances; Satan wills, he executes. So, he becomes an agent of darkness. Why? Because Satan has taken complete control! For some, Satan has not yet taken complete control of their lives, yet they do bad things. I hope we understand what we are saying? Some people Satan have only taken control of their bodies, he is trying for years to gain control of their spirit through their soul, trying to break it down, yet these are the people that have struggles in the flesh.
They want to do things that God wants them to do yet their bodies are doing something else. In their heart is God, but they found another law working within their member. That is why apostle Paul was talking about in Romans 7. Satan has not gain access into their souls, he has not gotten their spirit yet, but Satan has attempted their bodies. Pastor Adeboye once shared this testimony and I am sure I heard it directly from him, it was not as if someone told me. He was in the camp then suddenly, he was feeling choked as if life was getting out of him. And he thought God wanted to take him, and he didn't struggle about it. He had been in that state thinking God was about to take him home. And then suddenly, God called unto him by his name and said to him, "I am not the one at work here. In fact, your current experiences have nothing to do with me." Pastor Adeboye then expressed to God by saying "I thought it has been you all these while, and that is why I have been keeping quiet." God responded "I am not the one." He now rose to rebuke that thing that has been producing that choking experience.
If Satan is loitering around your body and you are thinking you are having sensation that could be producing something from God, you had better watch it. It may not have been from God entirely. When Satan comes, when sin comes to you, it comes with desires. That is why we are looking at How Far Can Satan go With Your Body. Some people have been thinking as long as they are born again, Satan cannot make any attempt on their bodies. And I want to ask a practical question: How many of us here, since we have gotten born again, said we wanted to fast, and we will it a night before, and we did not feel some troubles in our bodies? But the truth is, many of us, when we are not fasting, we may not even bother about breakfast until late afternoons many times. But the moment you desire to fast, that is when you wake up with hunger. That is that day that you will be hungry. Who is producing the hunger? Someone is accessing your body and producing a hunger in it. It looks as if there is a rush in your body like if you don't it, you will faint, it is not true. It is only happening in your body, it has no link in your spirit.
So, sometimes some people just say "That is just me o!", the question is, “Which me? Is it your spirit or the one that is accessed from outside?” So, it is possible for a man of God to be hungry. Jesus fasted and He was hungry. Do we understand that? There is a man that is susceptible and vulnerable, there is a man we can manipulate. So, Satan came to Jesus, tempting him at the point where He needed food the most. And Jesus said "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." That is why if you read all the epistles of apostle Paul and everything Jesus said, you will see that God does not want us to be led in the flesh. He does not want us to walk in the flesh, because our flesh can be manipulated, our flesh can be accessed. And it does not mean because the flesh is accessed, that devil is living permanently in it, No! He just came.
Like when the Bible says when the enemies come against me like a flood, it is not as if they have always been there, it says the Spirit of the Lord shall raise up a standard against them. And so, when you perceive that within your members, like Apostle Paul said, because there was a time apostle Paul said "who will deliver me from this body of death. But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ." So, when you perceive that there is something working against the will of God in your body, within your members, don't sit down in agreement, because the doors are opening in layers, and they can only be accessed when there is agreement. Don't weaken the door, reinforced the door, and from within the door, launch an attack to that one that wants to possess your body.
Let me give an example. In Job chapters 1 and 2, Satan came to God and God said to him "have you considered my servant Job, how there is no one like him, a man who is righteous." So it is possible for a man of God to be afflicted in his body. Apostle Paul showed us in his life and God showed us in the life of Job. How? Satan said "Does Job fear you for not, have you not made a hedge around him? Just touch him and all that he has, and see whether he will not curse you to your face." And God said "Behold, go ahead. But don't tamper with his life." Then in chapter two again, Satan came again to God and God wanted to get the feedback from him. Satan came up with another excuse as to why Job has not cursed God. Satan said to God "afflict his body and see whether he will not curse you to your face." And God said don't touch his life, but go ahead and try your luck again. And in all these things, Bible says Job did not disappoint God. His body was afflicted, Satan came, perhaps either directly or through a messenger to buffet his body, but in the midst of those attacks from hell, Job continued to say "My redeemer lives."
So, it is possible for your flesh to be buffeted or to be attacked, but don't assume because there is an affliction on your skin or on your body or family, then it now means you are no more a child of God or God is no more reigning. That is why God says "my grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in your weakness." And so, what do you do? Because some of us like Eve, we have assumptions. What God did not say we assume He said it. So, if you, as a man of God have said to yourself nothing can afflict your body or touch you and yet, the devil that is trying to attack your body is not doing for the sake of afflicting your body, but for the sake of taking possessing your soul. What happens if Job had cursed God? Job would have automatically become a servant of the devil and then he will be doomed where his master Satan will be doomed. But he refused to assume that his affliction is directly: Number one, the work of God and it is not because God hates him, and it is not because God does not have the power to preserve him. When it was clear to Satan that Job will never curse God, God came to bless him again and his latter end was greater than his beginning.
So, if Satan is manipulating your body, don't forget his desire is to have you. He wants to possess your inner man. He is manipulating you! Sometimes you have some strange desires, you even sleep. The devil is producing those desires around you, and you accept it as your inner desires, No!
Peter, in the book of Matthew chapter 16:16 and 17, and then 21-23; Jesus was asking: “Who do men say that I am?” Later He said, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter said. "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus said "Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my Father in heaven" and then He went on to speak. Later on in verse 21, Bible says Jesus began to talk to His disciples about His death, and Bible says and Peter too Jesus aside. You know, when a servant take His master aside, you know something must have really happened. He took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him and said to Jesus, "you will never die." Does it not show that he loves Jesus? Yes! But that is why we must not be judging by the hearing of our ears. He was showing love and concern, but there was a spirit producing that love and concern, because it was not a genuine concern, it was rooted in fear, because we should not be ignorant of how the devil operates. God said He has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. The kind of love he thought he had for Jesus was rooted in fear, and so he said, you will never die. And Jesus turned aside and said "get away from me Satan for you are an offence to me." He didn't say get away from me Peter. Jesus did not address Peter; He addressed the spirit in him.
Jesus was not talking to Peter because Peter had never been an offence to Him. So it was Satan that had been an offence to Christ, from the beginning. And so, the man of God who just spoke as the Holy Spirit gave him utterance; again spoke as Satan gave him utterance. And when Bible says when Jesus said to him "Get away from me", did we think Peter left Jesus? No! It was Satan that left Peter. Peter did not leave Jesus, it was Satan that had to leave! When Jesus was tempted again by Satan and at the last temptation Jesus said to him "get away." Do you see what Jesus said to Satan? When Jesus observes the operations of Satan around Him, He does not maintain the operation; He does not keep company with them. What He says all the time to them is "get away", "get out of here", you cannot rule here. Where light is, darkness cannot remain. So, if you notice Satan approaching your body, loitering around your body, you don't keep quiet thinking that you are a man of God, you can handle it. You cannot actually handle it.
Satan is loitering around your family, around your home, around the lives of your children, you cast Satan out by telling him "Get out!" If we read the book of Acts of the Apostles chapter 16, we will see an example again of casting out spirits. When you a spirit loitering around a body, you cast them out. Why? Because they are illegal! They are in the wrong place – they are the fallen angels who could not keep their abode. Acts 16:16-19. The Bible says:
"Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” 18 And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour. 19 But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities."
The Spirit of divination got access to the body of this said girl; took over the soul and gained control of the spirit. So, this girl was not completely, fully yielded to the will and devices of the spirit of divination. Even though she looks physically fragile, she looks physically harmless; there was a spirit in her that produces an action away from the will of God. Verse 18 tells us that spirit of divination is person, a personality. I don't know if we understand? There was a harmless girl who is possessed, there was a spirit producing evil in her, and she was saying "these are the men of God" for many days, she was not saying it in the flesh; but by the spirit that has taken over her flesh, producing evil through her flesh.
And so, when Paul was annoyed in his spirit, he turned and commanded the spirit to get out of her. Another word we can say is he rebuked the spirit. So, there was a spirit, there was her. That "her" was liberated when that spirit left her. When the spirit left her, she did not die, because that spirit is not originally meant for her. But even though the sprit was not meant for her, being in her, the spirit was producing activities through her. Do you understand? And so, when you tell yourself; "Satan can't come near my body, he can't come near around me", of course, you can begin to declare that. But should you; I am now saying this as a note of caution, should you find any urge unnecessary anger, anger that can't be explained in the spirit, there is a spirit producing it.
If that spirit can come out of him or her, then the man, the girl will be liberated and will become harmless, innocent, and a good and virtuous person again. So, what do you do when Satan is loitering around you? You cast Satan out. Bible says "strangers will hear your voice and they will run out of their hidden places." Strangers – every spirit that is not of God hanging around your body, is a stranger. Jesus said "Every tree my Father in heaven has not planted shall be uprooted."
Amen!
