In What Area of My Life Is Satan at Work?

As I searched for spiritual principles and concepts to use in nourishing this evangelistic vision that we want to establish in our church, I saw here in Luke chapter 4 what I call an evangelistic lifestyle, and that would be the theme of this sermon: an evangelistic lifestyle.

Normally, I like to choose a short, small passage so I can concentrate on it and go deeply into it, but I am going to do something different: I am going to take this chapter, which is quite long—about forty-something verses, 44 verses—and what I want to do is give you a bird’s-eye view so that we can get a general idea. I am going to highlight certain moments in the life of Jesus Christ at the beginning of His ministry, and the Lord has said that He is our model, that we should remain close to Him, and then we will bear fruit.

I do not believe anyone can improve on the model Jesus has already established for living an evangelistic life; no one can invent a better model. The Lord defines the evangelistic model, and by looking at His life and seeing how His life progressed, we too can learn principles for an evangelistic life.

So throughout this chapter 4, we can find some of those principles that the Lord embodied, that the Lord incorporated into His own journey, and that help us understand the lifestyle we should live. I want you to put your own name and yourself into this chapter, because the truths we see reflected here in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ apply personally to each one of us and to our congregation as well.

So here in chapter 4, in verses 1 through 12, for example, we see—and if you have a Bible divided into sections, verses 1 through 12 form a sort of natural division around one subject—and that is the temptation of Jesus. It is a very specific passage that describes the famous moment when, after His baptism, the Lord was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and one thinks: How is it possible that the Holy Spirit would lead Jesus Christ to be tempted by the devil? One thinks: That makes no sense.

Sometimes we go through situations in our lives in which we confront the enemy, and we think it is the enemy who is in control, who is causing things to happen. But why does the Lord Himself sometimes want us to have confrontations with Satan? That sometimes sounds rather strange, doesn’t it? You are saying, “Pastor Miranda is already becoming a heretic; he is beginning to preach false doctrine.” But the truth is that there are cases in Scripture where God has a very strange relationship with Satan and puts Satan to work fulfilling His purposes.

For example, in the case of the apostle Paul, Paul says that so the greatness of the revelations he had received in his life would not make him too proud, God sent a messenger of Satan, a thorn in his life, to torment him. Three times he said to the Lord about it, “Deliver me from this,” and God told him three times, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” God was using the enemy’s attacks to perfect and refine the life and ministry of His servant Paul.

In this case, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus. It is not in this text, but there is another passage, a passage in Mark, where you can see that it says the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness. And here it tells us: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days and was tempted by the devil.” A direct confrontation with Satan was like a prerequisite for Him to enter fully into His evangelistic mission.

I see something here, and it is that there are areas of our lives that God wants to deal with before we can be useful to Him, before He can use us. In Jesus’ case, He had to defeat Satan; He had to establish the precedent that He was superior to the devil, and it was as though He had to establish His lordship clearly and understand clearly why God had called Him. Many times, struggles with the enemy help us define ourselves and clearly understand things about ourselves.

In Jesus’ case, it was as though, for Scripture to be fulfilled, He had to be confronted directly in a manner befitting His great importance and His status as the Son of God. The confrontation between Jesus and the devil was something that has never occurred before or since in the life of any human being; it was something specifically intended for the Lord Jesus Christ in His messianic role.

But do you know what? In our lives too, if we want to be effective in evangelism and live fruitful lives for the Lord, there are areas of our lives that will also have to be resolved. There are areas in which the enemy has a foothold in our lives and which keep us from living fruitful lives in the Lord. How many of you understand what I am saying? And sometimes we are going to have to resolve those things, because otherwise we will limp through our entire lives and will not be truly effective for the Lord.

There are areas of our lives that we have to overcome before we can be useful as soul winners and as people who bear fruit for the glory of the Lord. I can think of all of us: there are issues that afflict and harass us. For one person it may be a tendency toward depression; others lose heart and become discouraged too quickly when difficulties arise. Some people harbor resentment in their hearts; others have inferiority complexes; others have spiritual bondages in their lives that they need to resolve. Some have spiritual bondages; others have problems with the flesh, obsessive thoughts, practices that do not please the Lord, habits that do not honor the Lord and that must be confronted, dealt with, worked on in our lives, and submitted to the Lord’s dominion.

Some of us have pride in our lives; others of us have relational problems with people and are always getting ourselves into trouble, difficulties, and conflicts; we alienate the people around us. Some people have domineering attitudes and always want to be first in life; others think more highly of themselves than they ought in the Lord and believe that because God has given them certain gifts, they are somehow entitled to certain privileges in the Kingdom of God.

Brothers and sisters, the list is very long, and notice the variety of examples I am giving you, because many of us think, “Well, if it is the devil, that means sexual matters, immorality, or drug addiction.” No, there are also many things in our character and attitudes that are of Satan because they are of the flesh; they are works of the flesh, and the devil takes his tithe from the works of the flesh. How many of you know that?

So everything in our lives that is of the flesh—our character, everything that is not of God—has a diabolical origin, and the devil takes advantage of those things. And when we then want to go out, bear fruit for the Lord, and serve the Lord, we discover that those things are there like a brake, pulling us down and keeping us from truly being fruitful for the Lord.

There are aspects of our lives that also grieve the Holy Spirit, and the enemy can use those things to destroy even our best intentions. Many times there are areas of our marriage that have not been dealt with by the Lord; there are things to which we have to die in order to put our family life in order. And if our family life is not in order—our relationship with our children, our behavior toward our spouse, whether the wife toward her husband or vice versa—the enemy will also use those areas of your life to create stumbling blocks and distract you from your ability to bear fruit.

Some of us have an excessive appetite for money, comfort, and possessions, and those things keep us from devoting ourselves to the Lord. Some people love to sleep—something as simple as that. That bed has a magnetic power that seizes us, and when we want to get up, hands come out like this, grab us, and tie us back down to the bed; and the sheets become even more delightful at the very moment we want to get up to pray to the Lord. We have to submit that to the Lord as well. How many of you know what I am saying?

And what about television? I could not be a Pentecostal preacher if I did not talk about television too. Television sometimes makes us waste so much time, brothers and sisters, that it is terrible. I am going to confess something to you: not long ago, I got hooked on a television series, and I watched one episode after another until I finished the series. I had to ask the Lord for forgiveness many times. Look, the pastor suffers from these things too. And I promised myself never again—and here I commit myself before my congregation. It is a waste of time, and I am not saying that I spent hours and hours on it, but it is still something that steals time from your life.

So first of all, I want to encourage you to ask yourself today: What area of my life serves as a stumbling block that keeps me from bearing fruit for the Lord? In what area of my life is Satan at work? Again, something does not have to be of the devil only if a demon smelling of sulfur appears in front of you. No, the enemy is very subtle, and there are structural areas of our lives in which he prevents us from living an evangelistic lifestyle. And do you know what you are going to have to do in that case? You are going to have to confront the devil in that area of your life as well.

You are going to have to identify that area that is keeping you from being fruitful for the Lord, and you are going to have to get on your knees and fast, setting aside time to fast. Do not think that a little half-day fast, eating cornflakes, is going to solve the problem for you, all right? Perhaps you will have to fast for several months, setting aside one day a week or half a day, whatever it may be, praying to the Lord, continually bringing that petition before God, and seeing it as though you were entering the wilderness.

The wilderness may be your bedroom; the wilderness may be a sofa where you sit down to cry out to the Lord a little longer; the wilderness may be coming to church half an hour before the service begins and finding a secluded place where some brother will not come over to chatter at you just because he sees you there, has nothing else to do, and then comes to bother you. Hide somewhere where no one can see you, over there in the other sanctuary. And if you see someone there, let him pray; do not bother him either. The point is that the wilderness may be any place where you seek to withdraw in order to consecrate your life to the Lord. So you have to set aside the time.

I am setting aside time, and just as I tell you one thing, I will tell you another: at this time in my life, I need direction from the Lord, and I am setting aside extra time to be in the presence of God and ask Him to help me break anything that is preventing the glory of the Lord from being manifested more fully in my life and ministry. I want to invite you to do the same. I am speaking from personal experience, but if you want to be fruitful for the Lord, you are going to have to pay the price. You have to name that giant in your life, and you have to resolve it, fight the battle, and cry out to the Lord so that God will break whatever is keeping you from entering that next level of productivity and fruitfulness for the Lord. Amen?

That is how the Lord Jesus Christ had His own moment of confrontation, and afterward He had other moments as well, because the Bible says that when the temptation ended and He had defeated Satan, the devil left Him for a time. Look it up, and you will see that it is so. I do not know whether it is here, but it does say: “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him for a time.” And when you want to be fruitful for the Lord, the struggle against the enemy will last your entire life. When you identify that the devil is using something in your life to attack you and hinder you, rebuke him in the name of the Lord. And identify any area of your life that is keeping you from being everything God wants you to be; do not go through life limping.

The devil wants to bleed you dry continually, bringing all kinds of obstacles and distractions into your life. Sometimes they are bigger things; sometimes they are serious things. But we have to recognize that the enemy is at work in all those things, and then we have to go before the Lord, go into the wilderness, and say, “Father, I am going to fight this battle in Your name, and I am going to overcome in the name of Jesus. I am going to settle this matter and seek Your anointing and Your deliverance.” Amen?

So that is one of the things I see here: throughout His entire evangelistic life, the Lord was always battling demons or the devil’s temptation in His own life, in one way or another, as the devil tried to divert Him and draw Him away from the direction in which He had to go. And we have to identify that continually in our own lives and pay the price of being warriors who are always alert.

The Bible says: “Be sober and watchful, because your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, prowls around like a lion seeking someone to devour.” We have to seek out those weak areas and always give glory to the Lord.

So if you want to live an evangelistic lifestyle, what you have to do is confront the enemy at all times and identify those areas in your life. There is much more to discuss, and I am going to address just one more thing so that I do not finish too late. And I think what I will do is continue this subject later, when we have the opportunity—perhaps next Sunday.

The other thing I see after that part from verses 1 through 12 describing the temptation is that verse 14 says, “Jesus returned”—how?—“in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news about Him spread throughout the entire surrounding region; and He taught in their synagogues and was glorified by everyone.” What happens when you live a life of confronting the enemy and paying attention to the areas that need to be addressed, when you are always perfecting yourself, refining yourself, surrendering your life to the Lord, and declaring the lordship of Christ and of God over your life? The power of God increases in your life; the Lord’s anointing increases in your life.

There are areas of our lives that, even though they are not such horrendous sins, grieve the Holy Spirit. Do you understand that expression, “grieve the Holy Spirit”? To grieve means anything that saddens or diminishes the Holy Spirit’s ability or desire to move freely in your life, and in the long run that ends up diminishing your power, diminishing your anointing, diminishing your effectiveness, diminishing your sense of God’s presence in your life. And when you set those things right and surrender them to the Lord, you see God’s anointing increase immediately; you feel more joy in the Lord, the Lord’s presence is manifested more in your life, God uses you, you will find moments when you can testify about Christ, you will experience more joy when you speak about the Lord, you will experience intimate moments with God, and you will begin to see miracles in your life.

That problem you had with your son, who did not want to come to church and did not want to seek God—suddenly, almost magically, one day out of nowhere your son says to you, “Mom, I want to go to church.” Or that person who was harassing you at work is suddenly transferred to another department or leaves the job, and somehow God resolved it and you do not know how. When a person is at the center of God’s will, there are more opportunities for the power of God to be manifested in our lives.

Do you know that there are many battles we fight directly against the devil that are not even necessary? Because if the power of the Holy Spirit were in your life, that power would keep the enemy at bay, and many fights that you have to fight would not even happen because the Lord would neutralize them before you.

The Bible says that God’s anointing rots the yoke. Pentecostals know that verse very well, don’t they? God’s anointing rots the yoke. When something rots, you do not have to find scissors to cut it, do you? If the yoke rots, you simply go “whoosh,” and the yoke itself breaks because it has been rotted by the anointing. God’s anointing humidifies the devil’s rope. Wow, that came out well! Write that down before I forget it and give it back to me at the end of the service.

Yes, indeed, God’s anointing in your life humidifies, dampens, and rots Satan’s bonds in your life. When there is holiness, when there is closeness to the Lord, when we are continually surrendering different aspects of our lives to Him, the power of God is then manifested. Because, brothers and sisters, when we have Christ in our lives and in our hearts, the Holy Spirit dwells within us. He is there with all His power, dwelling there, resident within us. But the power of God residing in us is one thing, and the manifest power of God being manifested in our lives is another. Do you understand what I am saying?

An iron sitting on the ironing board has all the power it needs. It has the wires, the electronic programming, and the cord; it may be plugged into the electricity in the house, but until you press the button—right?—and turn it on, the power is there in the iron, but you touch the iron’s surface and it is cold. But when you turn it on, the iron heats up, and then you can iron, right?

And that is what happens with us. When you are a child of God, the power is already inside you; you are like an iron, but it is not turned on. There are many Christians who are irons that have been turned off. Listen, that was good too—write that down for me (laughter). Hey, if you are not going to give it to me, then I am going to have to applaud myself. I am going to title this sermon, “Do Not Be an Iron That Is Turned Off; Be an Iron That Is Turned On” (laughter). What I mean is that many times we are saying, “Lord, give me power. Lord, I want Your anointing,” and God says, “Dummy, the anointing is already inside you. Activate it now so that it may be manifested. Remove all that filth covering it and let it express itself in your life.” Isn’t that so? Many times, that is how it is.

There are things, practices, attitudes, and negligence in our spiritual lives that are preventing the power of God from being manifested in us. And so, when we have had our confrontation with Satan in the wilderness and are cleansing ourselves, the power of God naturally rises, as it were; God’s anointing is manifested, and then, miraculously, things begin to happen around us.

You become a bearer of God’s purposes; God can then use you in many things. Do not fight so much to obtain the anointing; instead, fight to remove the obstacles to God’s anointing in your life.

And so I see this: once the Lord is baptized in water and by the Holy Spirit when He has His encounter with John the Baptist, and once He enters the wilderness and has His direct confrontation, establishing a legal precedent regarding His superiority over Satan, He then returns from the wilderness, enters His public ministry, and God begins to do things around Him. And if you want to live a life that is truly useful to the Lord, you must have your own time of consecration.

I believe God wants to use many of you greatly. And I tell you, brothers and sisters, I am very clear about this: the power of God has very little to do with your having a doctorate in theology. It does not have much to do with being highly educated, with money, or with anything of the sort. The power of God operates irrespective of your educational condition or character. What the power of God is looking for is an empty, clean vessel in which to dwell and through which to manifest itself, and God wants to use many of you for His glory.

Begin seeking the power of God in your life. Right there, take a moment, take a second in your life, and be converted for a second time right now. Say, “Lord, in the name of Jesus, I want to be a blazing hearth; I want to be a stove set ablaze with Your power in my life. I renounce lukewarmness, I repent of my lukewarmness, and I renounce spiritual lukewarmness.” Do not do it to please me; do it because you truly have a commitment there. Say, “Lord, I am tired of being an iron that is turned off. I want You to turn my life on, and I am going to pay the price. I am going to identify those things that are hindering Your anointing in my life, and right now I surrender to You whatever is serving as a stumbling block.”

Brother, if you do not forget this when you leave here, God will change your life, and you will begin to see the power of God manifested in you. But you have to understand that the Christian life operates on the basis of power.

The great genius of the Pentecostal movement is that Christians rediscovered the importance of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And when they began seeking the power of God, the Holy Spirit, and His gifts, God activated a movement that has spread throughout the whole earth and has been the womb of the Pentecostal movement throughout the earth. But that power of God was already there in the world; it had been there since it was poured out on the day of Pentecost. Yet for a long time Christians forgot to seek that power and settled for simply being the Church, doing things the way they do them. But God wanted—God was looking for—people who understood that we must seek the power of God, and I want to awaken your spirit this morning in the name of Jesus.

I believe many of you need God to awaken your spirit. You need to have—I need to have—a confrontation with the devil in the wilderness, an encounter with God, but also an encounter in order to defeat Satan. We need a confrontation in which God calls you to become aware that He wants you, He needs you, and He is looking for recruits to do something great at this time in history. He needs workers for His harvest, and He does not care whether you have seminary training, whether you have money, whether you have an exceptional mind, or whether you are physically attractive. None of those things matter to the Lord. The only thing the Lord is looking for is a man or a woman who loves Him, longs for Him, and wants to see His glory manifested in his or her life.

There are so many people in the Christian Church, including our congregation, who have not had that moment of raw confrontation in which they say to the Lord, “Lord, I surrender my life to You, and I want to be a spear in Your hands, an arrow in Your hands, a cannonball in Your hands. I need my encounter with You, and I need to overcome negligence, indifference, fear, conformity, my excessive appetite for comfort, and inferiority complexes. On this day, I commit myself to becoming clean so that You may use me. I renounce whatever prevents me from being what You want me to be, and I commit myself to living the lifestyle You require, Lord. I am willing to pay the price You require, Lord. Activate me, activate me.” Ask the Lord to activate you this morning.

If you believe this is for you—and once again, think carefully before doing what I am about to ask—but if right now you are experiencing such a moment of encounter directly related to this call to confront the devil in the wilderness, then give whatever name you wish to that area of your life that must be taken into the wilderness and surrendered to the Lord, so that God may then bring you out in the power of the Holy Spirit and you may be a magnetic person, as the Lord Jesus Christ was, and be used greatly by God. Then I am going to ask you to stand as God moves you to do so.

If you have made that covenant with the Lord in your life, if you have truly told Him—and I would like to see this; I hope that someone who has never taken that step feels it this morning—some young people, some people who are truly sensing that call from the Lord, ask God to place that fire within you this morning. And then I want you, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and throughout the week, to begin seeking God in your life.

What is preventing you from consecrating your life to the Lord? What has prevented you right now from having that moment with the Lord? What is holding you back from taking that step? Do not do it because you are startled by what the pastor might say if you stand up, but if you have that conviction, then I believe you should stand. And if you do not have it, then my question is: What is happening in your life that you do not have it? What bond needs to be broken? What encounter in the wilderness must you have so that this miracle can take place in your life?

There is no better life than a life lived in total surrender to the Lord, burning like a perpetual flame so that God may illuminate this world and bring warmth to this world. I want you to have your encounter with the Lord right there, right now. God is speaking to your life. Ask the Lord; identify that giant right now: your career, a habit that does not glorify the Lord, love of money, love of comfort, or simply the inertia of saying, “Ah! Those are merely evangelical foolish notions.” God is calling you to consecration. God is calling you right now to surrender. What I am saying is that it is like a second conversion; what God is asking of you right now is like a second conversion.

This morning, right now, I myself say, “Father, let me be the first right now to declare before You my radical commitment to be a radical Christian and to spend the rest of my days seeking Your glory and being a resource for You. Whatever area of my life is trapping me and holding me back, I surrender it to You right now, Lord. I surrender it to You, and I commit myself to seeking Your will for my life. And I am going to enter the wilderness.” Say that to the Lord: “I am going to enter the wilderness. I want to enter the wilderness.”

I have been in the wilderness. I have been fighting in the wilderness lately, for some time now. I have fought many battles in the wilderness, but I am in a season in the wilderness in which I know the areas of my life that I must surrender to the Lord so that He can use me more greatly, and I want you to join me in the same way this morning.

No matter how consecrated you may be, you must have an encounter with your enemy and with the power of God. God will not leave you to fight Satan alone. If you are consecrated, He will be by your side and He will bring you through. Let us leave here consecrated to the Lord; let us leave here to be a people useful to God. Thank You, Lord. We worship You, Father, and we consecrate our lives this afternoon, Lord—this morning. We praise You. Thank You.