THE ARMOR OF GOD TO BATTLE SATAN #5
"And take the helmet of salvation" - Ephesians 6:17
The head and so the brain, and so the mind, is of vital
importance if we are going into battle against Satan and his
fiery darts of destruction. If the enemy can control your mind,
or put it another way, if you are not mentally on the mark,
mentally sound, mentally sharp as we say, then you are
immediately at a great disadvantage in opposing someone as wily
and cunning and deceptive as the Devil. Why it is written that he
and his helpers can come looking like an angel of light (2
Corinthians 11:13-15).
Jesus told us that before He came again to earth, deception
would be so great that IF it was possible even the very elect
would be deceived (Mat.24:24).
John in his day, said that many anti-christs were present
(1 John 2:18). Jude in the first century, had to exhort the
saints to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints
(Jude 3-4). The grace of God was already in his day being turned
into a licence to sin.
The apostle Paul had to tell his readers that the mystery of
iniquity was already at work (2 Thes.2:7).
If deception and iniquity coming in the name of "Christ" was
already at work and even abounding, coming as looking like angels
of light, in the days of the first apostles, then pray tell what
so-called "Christianity" must be like today, two thousand year
later.
Most of us grow up in a ready-made world. We are taught
things from being an infant that the popular Christianity says is
truth or Biblical. Most of us do not question the customs and
teachings of the "churches" we may grow up in. I went to a Church
of England school from grade one to grade twelve. Fortunately
with our school Bible reading, we were not taught "doctrine" as
such. We did read the Bible and we did have to recite some Psalms
and the Ten Commandments as found in Exodus 20, the full version.
I never heard it from one mouth of any Church of England priests
or any Sunday school teacher, from age 5 to 18 (when I left
England and came to Canada) that Sunday was the first day of the
week. I knew what the 4th commandment said in full form. I
presumed that Christianity was observing the 4th commandment as
written. Until I came to Canada and found out differently, I
believed Christianity was observing the 7th day of the week!
WHAT A SHOCK when I found out at age 18 that Christianity
was observing the 1st day of the week. I had taken things for
granted all those years. It was another SHOCK to go to the Public
Library and read a book by a Roman Catholic Bishop called
"Christian Feasts and Customs" in which he openly stated that
customs like observing Christmas and Easter and many other feasts
and days, were not observed by the first century Church of God.
This RC Bishop explained in clear language where all these so-
called "Christian" feasts came from, and it was NOT the Bible!
Well my mind at age 18 was being blown apart as we may say,
but really it was God who was opening up my mind as never before,
because I had grown up in a ready made world, and had accepted
things as they were present in my culture and society.
If the enemy can get to our mind, have influence over it in
whatever way, have control over it, then the battle, is really
lost before we begin, because then we will not have the correct
strong shield of faith, we will not have the correct strong
breastplate of true righteousness, and we shall not be wrapped in
the clothes of truth.
The mind is where the battle is won or lost. With the wrong
mind-set we will not even know we are in a battle with Satan. We
will think we are just fine, we will not even know we are in
DECEPTION and following a lie! And so it is as the New Testament
makes clear (see Romans chapter 9 to 11) - all are in deception,
blinded to the truths of God, until the blindness is removed,
until God calls us as part of the "election of grace" - and the
rest are blinded to spiritual truth.
I cannot over state that the MIND, has to be protected by
the helmet of salvation. If Satan can win your mind, he wins the
battle, and you have lost!
HERE IN THE WORDS OF OTHERS IS THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MIND!!
At the Wright Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio,
researchers hope they will develop the means for pilots to fly
airplanes with their minds. The project is called brain-actuated
control.
Writers Ron Kotulak and Jon Van say this is how it could work.
The pilot would wear scalp monitors that pick up electrical
signals from various points on his head. The scalp monitors would
be wired to a computer. Using biofeedback techniques, the pilot
would learn to manipulate the electrical activity created by his
or her thought processes. The computer would translate the
electrical signals into mechanical commands for the airplane.
Imagine being able to bank an airplane's wings, accelerate, and
climb another ten thousand feet, all by controlling what you
think.
Although controlling airplanes with the mind is yet to be
developed, our mind already has tremendous control of one thing:
our behavior. Our thoughts sooner or later lead to our actions.
......
According to an October 29, 1994, story from the Reuters news
agency, a Chinese woman named Zhang Meihua began to suffer
mysterious symptoms when she turned twenty She was losing the
ability to nimbly move her legs and arms. Doctors could not find
the cause, and the symptoms continued.
Two decades passed, and Zhang began to also suffer from chronic
headaches. Again she sought help from the doctors. This time a
CAT scan and an X ray found the source of the woman's mysterious
symptoms. A rusty pin was lodged in her head. The head of the pin
was outside the skull, and the shaft penetrated into her brain.
Doctors performed surgery and successfully extracted the pin.
The Xinhua news agency reported the doctors expressed amazement
that the woman "could live for so long a time with a rusty pin
stuck in her brain." After noting the position of the pin in her
skull, they speculated that the pin had entered her skull
sometime soon after birth and before her skull had hardened.
Zhang, now fully recovered, said she "had no memory of being
pierced by a pin in the head."
Like the rusty pin in that woman's brain, unwholesome thoughts,
bad attitudes, and painful memories can lodge in our minds and
cause chronic problems. God tells us to renew our minds.
......
From "750 Engaging Illustrations" by Craig Larson
......
Someone Once Said ...
* The most important things in life are the thoughts you choose
to think.
Marcus Aurelius
* I think, therefore I am.
Decartes
* It doubtless is true that people become what they think about.
Gary R. Collins
* All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to
be.
C. S. Lewis
* If I knew what you think, I would know what you are. Our
thoughts make us what we are.
Dale Carnegie
* A man is what he thinks about all day long.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
* Our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
* For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
Proverbs 23:7
......
THE BATTLE GROUND
* Every temptation comes to us via our thoughts.
Erwin Lutzer
* The mind of man is the battleground on which every moral and
spiritual battle is fought.
J. Oswald Sanders
* Our defeat or victory begins with what we think, and if we
guard our thoughts we shall not have much trouble anywhere else
along the line.
Vance Havner
* Self-control is primarily mind-control.
John Stott
* Every kidnapping was once a thought. Every extramarital affair
was first a fantasy.
Leslie Flynn
MORE QUOTES:
* It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use
it well.
Descartes
* For 2,400 years, ever since Hippocrates located the seat of the
intellect inside the skull, the mind has been forced to admit
that its greatest achievements, its loftiest thoughts, its
deepest emotions all arise from something with the consistency of
Jell-O and the color of day-old slush.
Newsweek
* A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that
people are still thinking.
Jerry Seinfeld
......
DEPRESSION AND THE MIND
In his book Learned Optimism, Professor Martin Seligman makes a
case for considering depression as arising, not from misplaced
chemicals or lingering childhood trauma, but from negative
thinking. Summarizing the research of Joseph Wolpe and Tim Beck,
Seligman explained how cognitive therapy began to be considered a
treatment for mental illness.
"Depression is nothing more than its symptoms," writes Seligman.
"It is caused by conscious negative thoughts. There is no deep
underlying disorder to be rooted out: not unresolved childhood
conflicts, not our unconscious anger, and not even our brain
chemistry. Emotion comes directly from what we think: Think `I am
in danger' and you feel anxiety. Think `I am being trespassed
against' and you feel anger. Think `loss' and you feel
sadness....
"Depression results from lifelong habits of conscious thought. If
we change these habits of thought, we will cure depression."
(Some would no doubt not fully agree with Seligman. He probably
has some truth in what he states, but I think depression can and
is often caused by misplaced chemicals - Keith Hunt)
......
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR'S SEAT
In the "Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.", Dr.King tells
of growing up in Atlanta, Georgia:
I remember another experience I used to have in Atlanta. I went
to high school on the other side of town - to the Booker T
Washington High School. I had to get the bus in what was known as
the Fourth Ward and ride over to the West Side. In those days,
rigid patterns of segregation existed on the buses, so that
Negroes had to sit in the backs of buses. Whites were seated in
the front, and often if whites didn't get on the buses, those
seats were still reserved for whites only, so Negroes had to
stand over empty seats. I would end up having to go to the back
of that bus with my body, but every time I got on that bus I left
my mind up on the front seat. And I said to myself, "One of these
days, I'm going to put my body up there where my mind is." And he
did.
Our bodies always end up where our minds are.
......
SPURGEON'S CONFESSION
Charles Spurgeon once made a remarkably honest confession to his
congregation. In a sermon entitled "The Power of the Holy Ghost,"
he said: I hope that my will is managed by Divine Grace. But I am
afraid my imagination is not at times. Those who have a fair
share of imagination know what a difficult thing it is to
control. You cannot restrain it.... My imagination has taken me
down to the vilest kennels and sewers of earth. It has given me
thoughts so dreadful that, while I could not avoid them, yet I
was thoroughly horrified by them. These thoughts will come; and
when I feel in the holiest frame, the most devoted to God, and
the most earnest in prayer, it often happens that that is the
very time when the plague breaks out the worst.
......
GARBAGE
Leslie Flynn tells of a mother who was peeling vegetables for a
salad when her daughter, home from college, casually mentioned
she was going to a questionable movie that evening. The mother
suddenly picked up a handful of garbage and threw it in the
salad. "Mother!" said the shocked girl. "You're putting garbage
in the salad." "I know," replied the mother, "but I thought that
if you didn't mind garbage in your mind, you certainly wouldn't
mind a little in your stomach."
......
The Power of Suggestion
Franz Anton Mesmer was the talk of Paris in the 1780s. In spite
of his training as a physician, he held the unorthodox view that
a mysterious magnetic power permeates the universe and resides in
human bodies. Treatment of disease, he proposed, could best be
done by using magnetic forces from the environment to restore the
patient's "magnetic equilibrium." Such view put Mesmer into
conflict with the medical profession in his native Vienna, but
laypeople were intrigued with the theory.
When the doctor moved to France, his reputation preceded him and
soon patients were flocking to experience magnetic treatments.
It wasn't easy to treat so many people on a one-to-one basis, so
Mesmer developed a group technique. As many as thirty people
would come at a time and sit around a large wooden tub known as a
"baquet." The baquet was filled with water, ground glass, iron
filings, and long metal rods that extended from the tub and were
grabbed at one end by the patients. According to Mesmer, the
magnetic fluid in the baquet somehow came to the people through
the rods and led to all kinds of physical cures.
Mesmer did what he could to make the healing sessions
impressive and emotionally powerful. Soft music played in the
background. The room was dimly lit and thickly draped.
Mesmer himself demanded silence when he entered the room. Often
he wore a long flowing lilac silk robe, and walked about,
touching the afflicted body parts with a long iron wand and
making magnetic "mesmeric passes" as he waved his free hand
through the air.
A few people had no response to this dramatic treatment, but many
thought they felt forces moving through their bodies, and some
went into prolonged convulsions. These involved jerking of the
body, apparent dreaminess or stupor, and some times piercing
cries. Mesmer's followers called this experience "the crisis" and
claimed that it brought great healing.
But King Louis XVI wasn't so easily convinced and undoubtedly His
Majesty's interest in Mesmer was sparked by secret reports that
some mesmerites had radical political ideas. To investigate, the
king appointed a Royal Commission and declared that it would be
chaired by the American ambassador to France, a man named
Benjamin Franklin.
The commissioners went to work with enthusiasm, conducting
experiments and interviewing Mesmer's patients. After careful
study, it was concluded that body magnetism did not exist, that
the baquet fluid had no power, and that convulsions and
proclaimed cures came as a result of the creative imagination of
Mesmer and his highly suggestible followers. Shortly after the
report was issued, Mesmer left France and the mesmerites went
underground, but a half-century later mesmerism reemerged in a
more sophisticated form and with a new name - hypnosis.
......
AS A MAN THINKS ...
One of history's sharpest minds belonged to Thomas Edison, the
great inventor. Despite only three months of formal schooling,
Edison and his inventions changed the world forever.
His secret? "One percent inspiration and 99 percent
perspiration," as he put it; and he proved his definition by
working days at a time, obsessed with his projects, neglecting
family and friends, and stopping only for short catnaps. Failure
never seemed to discourage him. When about ten thousand
experiments with a storage battery failed to produce results, a
friend tried to console him. "Why, I have not failed," Edison
quipped. "I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
Of all his inventions, perhaps the most famous is the electric
light. He devised the prototype, then spent two years looking for
the right filament, sending associates to the jungles of the
Amazon and to the forests of Japan. He even tried strands of red
hair from a friend's beard. Finally, he utilized carbonized
thread, and it worked! The world gained electric lights.
Our light bulbs today have three parts to them. There is the
glass itself - the bulb surrounding the filament. Inside the bulb
is a mixture of gases, commonly argon and nitrogen. Finally, in
the very center of the bulb, is the filament. Most filaments
today are made of a very tough metal, and when electricity flows
through them, they become very hot - about 4,500 degrees - making
them glow and give off light.
Light bulbs bear a fascinating resemblance to you and me. There
is the outside covering, the glass bulb, the body - the part
people see. Inside, like invisible gases within the bulb, are our
personalities. And at the very center of it all is that part of
us that glows and enlightens - the human mind.
The mind is the sum and substance, the axis and pivot, of our
existence. It is the base of operations, the core of our
humanity. Our minds are the most important things about us, and
our lives are simply the overflow of our thoughts.
Dale Carnegie was once asked on a radio program, "What is the
biggest lesson you have ever learned?" He quickly replied, "By
far the most vital lesson I have ever learned is the importance
of what we think. If I knew what you think, I would know what you
are. Our thoughts make us what we are. Our mental attitude is the
X-factor that determines our fate. Emerson said: "A man is what
he thinks about all day long. How could he possibly be anything
else?"
Why? An old maxim states: "Thoughts produce acts, acts produce
habits, and habits produce character." The Roman philosopher
Marcus Aurelius said, "Our life is what our thoughts make it." Or
as the Bible puts it, "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he."
(Proverbs 23:7)
......
THE CAULIFLOWER JEWEL
Each of us owns a jewel far more valuable than any displayed in
the window of Cartier's or Tiffany's. It's a three-pound blob of
grey pulp resembling a rotting cauliflower.
Unimpressed?
This jewel is the most incredible creation in God's universe, a
fabulous, living supercomputer with unfathomable circuitry and
unimaginable complexity. It is the human mind - a collection of
billions of neurons, each as complex as a small computer. Imagine
having 100 billion computers inside your skull!
Each of these neurons consists of a central nerve-cell core
attached to a long tail and several thousand wispy dendrites.
These dendrites reach out to make contact with other dendrites,
and the number of connection points between these dendrites
is perhaps one quadrillion in every human brain. According to one
writer, the number of connections within one human brain rivals
the number of stars and galaxies in all the universe.
That's not all, for each of these connection points is itself a
marvel of complexity. The dendrites don't actually touch each
other, but they efficiently and rapidly pass messages to each
other through the form of electrical and chemical impulses in a
series of processes that takes less than one-thousandth of a
second.
"All of this is so complex," said one scientist, "that the brain
cannot even begin to comprehend its own complexity."
What a jewel!
I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT YOU
When Harry Truman became president, he worried about losing touch
with common, everyday Americans, so he would often go out and be
among them. Those were in simpler days when the President could
take a walk like everyone else. One evening, Truman decided to
take a walk down to the Memorial Bridge on the Potomac River.
When there, he became curious about the mechanism that raised and
lowered the middle span of the bridge. He made his way across the
cat walks and through the inner workings of the bridge, and
suddenly he came upon the bridge tender, eating his evening
supper out of a tin bucket.
The man showed absolutely no surprise when he looked up and saw
the bestknown and most powerful man in the world. He just
swallowed his food, wiped his mouth, smiled, and said, "You know,
Mr.President, I was just thinking of you."
It was a greeting that Truman adored and never forgot.
Wouldn't it be wonderful, if Jesus Christ were to suddenly appear
before us physically or come suddenly in the cloud, if we could
say, "You know, Lord, I was just thinking of you."
......
THE HARBOR
The Bible describes our minds by using the figure of a ship
looking for a harbor. Though you may be unable to keep
disease-ridden ships from sailing back and forth on the ocean,
you can refuse them docking privileges in the harbor of your
mind.
* Jeremiah 4:14 says, "How long will you harbor your evil
thoughts?" (NLT)
* Deuteronomy 15:9 says, "Be careful not to harbor this wicked
thought." (NIV)
* Job talks about those who harbor resentment in their hearts.
* The Psalmist talks about those who harbor malice in the minds.
* James talks about those who allow bitter envy and selfish
ambition to harbor within them.
* Jesus conveyed the same basic idea when asking, "Why do you
entertain evil thoughts in your minds?" (Matthew 9:4-NIV)
* Paul had the same thought in mind when he said, "Clothe
yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how
to gratify the desires of the sinful nature." (Romans 13:14-NIV)
......
FROM JOHN SPURGEON'S "John Ploughman"
Some will say they cannot help having bad thoughts; that may be,
but the question is, do they hate them or not? Vain thoughts will
knock at the door, but we must not open to them. Though sinful
thoughts rise, they must not reign. He who turns a morsel over
and over in his mouth, does so because he likes the flavor, and
he who meditates upon evil, loves it, and is ripe to commit it.
Snails leave their slime behind them, and so do vain thoughts.
Good thoughts are blessed guests, and should be heartily
welcomed, well fed, and much sought after. Like rose leaves, they
give out a sweet smell if laid up in the jar of memory. They
cannot be too much cultivated; they are a crop which enriches the
soil.
......
PEPSI OR SEVEN-UP?
Suppose you have a sponge and a pitcher of Pepsi Cola. If you dip
your sponge into Pepsi and squeeze it, what's going to come out?
Seven-up? No, when you squeeze a sponge soaked in Pepsi, Pepsi is
going to gush out of it.
If you saturate your mind with questionable movies, videos,
magazines, novels, music, and entertainments, do you think that
holiness and happiness and godliness will flow out?
......
GLASS HIVES
When I was a child my parents took me to the Tennessee Valley
Fair to ride the rides and see the exhibits. One of the most
interesting displays was the honeybees in glass hives. There
appeared to be thousands of bees, all of them hustling and
bustling in frantic activity beneath the pane of glass that
covered their colony. The bee keeper showed us the queen and
explained about the workers, the guards, and the drones, every
one of them oblivious to the fact that their every move was being
observed by a higher intelligence.
In the same way, our heads, are like glass hives and God sees
every hustling, bustling thought buzzing through our brains. None
are hidden from Him.
* 1 Chronicles 28:9 - The Lord searches all hearts and
understands all the intents of the thoughts.
* Psalm 7:9 - The righteous God tests the hearts and minds.
* Psalm 94:11 - The Lord knows the thoughts of man.
* Psalm 139:1 - 0 Lord, You have searched me and known me. You
know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought
afar off.
* Jeremiah 11:20 - 0 Lord of hosts, You who judge righteously,
testing the mind and the heart....
* Jeremiah 12:3 - But You, O Lord, know me; You have seen me, and
You have tested my heart toward you.
* Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart (is) deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the
heart, I test the mind. . . .
* Jeremiah 20:12 - 0 Lord of hosts, You who test the righteous
and see the mind and heart ...
* Ezekiel 11:5 - Thus says the Lord: ... I know the things that
come into your mind. . . .
* Revelation 2:23 - I am He who searches the minds and hearts.
* Hebrews 4:12-13 - For the word of God is living and powerful,
and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the
division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is
no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and
open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
* Matthew 12:25 - But Jesus knew their thoughts....
......
From "Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes" by Robert Morgan
......
"LET THIS MIND BE IN YOU, WHICH WAS ALSO IN CHRIST JESUS"
(Philippians 2:5)
......
And the above verse is the key to it all. It is allowing
Jesus into your mind through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Actually through the Spirit BOTH the Father and Christ come to
dwell in us (John 14:23).
So if they are in us, then we will think as they think, not
as unconverted humans think, not as our self-guided emotions
think, but as the Father and Christ think!
Let me give you just ONE example. For people living in North
America, the celebration of "Thanksgiving Day" is an automatic
custom so ingrained in most people, that to NOT celebrate that
day on the calendar of the USA or Canada (those countries keep it
at different calendar dates) would be by most, considered
practically as "unrighteousness" or sin! I have given you a study
on this Website that shows the origin of that day, which is no
different than the Christian world observing December 25th as
Christ's birthday party. It may all be dressed in nice platitudes
and fancy clothes but the bottom line is that Satan has used
these adopted customs, invented by man, to HIDE the TRUE
Festivals of God. Why would you want to observe the "thanksgiving
festival" of the Feast of Tabernacles, when you have
"Thanksgiving Day"? Such man made, out of the minds of men, who
were not looking in the Bible to see when a Thanksgiving Festival
should be held to praise and honor God, is just not looking at it
the way God's mind looks at it. The Father has already
established a thanksgiving festival, thousands of years ago, that
His people should be observing.
When you look at the festival customs of a Christian world
that has adopted and "made up" a whole bunch of festivals
(depending how many according to if you are Roman Catholic or
Protestant) out of their own thoughts and minds, then you put
aside the mind of God (who has already given His mind on what
Festivals are His - Leviticus 23) to observe the traditions of
men, that lay aside the commandments of God (see what Jesus said
about that in Mark 7).
Having the MIND of Christ, the MIND of the Father, is
finding out what is THEIR mind, buy reading their mind as written
down in all the books and verses of the entire Bible. You can
then win the battle against Satan, and having the mind of God
naturally leads us into the next piece of armor - the Sword of
the Spirit, which is the WORD of God!
...........................
Keith Hunt April 2009
To be continued
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