By: General Deborah Green
PRAISE GOD! Today we are listening to our God. It is a good thing to wait upon God, to hearken to God, that we can go forward in victory, that we can go forward in power, that we can go forward in the glory that is found in His name. For God does not desire His people to be a defeated people, but He desires His people to be a victorious people. And when we pay heed unto God, when we really study God’s Word and find out the way that God wants things done, we find that we can have victory; in other words, we can have the necks of our enemies. That’s the name of this series: “The Necks of Our Enemies.” We’ll be studying and finding out how we may defeat the enemies and keep them defeated. Praise God!
Turn with me, if you will, to Psalm 18, beginning in verse 1. It says, “I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.” Stop and consider that. The Psalmist is saying that it’s the Lord who is all of these things. We need to know the Lord in all of the manifestations of who He is. That takes a lifetime. But thank God! What a wonderful pursuit that is to know the Lord: to know the Lord as our Rock, to know the Lord as our Fortress, to know the Lord as our Deliverer, and to know the Lord as our strength. He is the one that we can trust in, the one who is our buckler and the horn of our salvation, our high tower.
A lot of people say, “I know that Jesus is my Rock,” but at the first breathings of the enemy, they fall off the Rock. When we say that Jesus is our Rock, that means that we are meant to stand upon Him no matter what comes at us. Let the winds of adversity blow! Let the wiles of the Devil come! Let the lies of the deceiver be thrown at us! WE WILL NOT COME DOWN OFF THAT ROCK! Amen.
I’ve often thought about that in my mind’s eye-what that is to keep standing upon that Rock and keep believing that He is the Rock of our salvation, that He is the one that keeps us, that He is the one who is our strength, our God, our glory. Like I said, many people say, “He’s my Rock,” but they don’t depend on God. They trust on the arm of flesh. They look to the arm of flesh. They take a curse unto themselves because of that, and they don’t stand upon God.
It’s one thing to quote Scripture; it’s another thing to live Scripture. I said, IT’S ONE THING TO QUOTE THE WORD OF GOD; IT’S ANOTHER THING TO LIVE THE WORD OF GOD. Now, I could say, “The Lord is my Rock,” and then I could run to the arm of flesh. I could get sick and not even pray and ask God to heal me, or I may not even ask God if there is sin in my life that I need to repent of.
God wants us to be livers, doers of His Word, not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. The Word says, “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress.” A fortress is a protective fort or stronghold. It is something very strong, even invincible to the enemy.
I’ve told you before about the old Pentecostal theme song or whining testimony that goes like this: “The Devil has been talking to me all day.” Well, if you believe the Scriptures, why do you listen to the Devil? The Scriptures say that the Lord is our fortress. So why don’t we just go inside the fortress, shut the door, and not even care what the enemy says? “I just had to listen to him a little bit,” you whine. No. If you believe that the Lord is your fortress, you don’t have to listen to any bit that the enemy has to say, because you know the enemy is a tempter. He’ll come along and he’ll just grab a hold of your ear, and he’ll just start tickling that thing with a few little words. You know, he’ll just tell you a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and pretty soon, because you’ve listened to his words, your mind starts going to what the enemy says instead of keeping stayed upon the Lord. But you don’t even have to lend your ear.
The Scriptures say, “The LORD is…my deliverer.” Do you know that most Christians do not know the Lord as their deliverer? They do not know Him as the one who delivers them from the vexation, from the torment, from the oppression of the enemy. They don’t know Jesus in that way at all. If you even mention the Lord being your deliverer, they think that means He is a delivery boy who will bring them a box of donuts. That’s how dull Christians have become. Still the Lord is the one who is able to deliver us from all the wiles of the wicked one, from all the plots that are set against us, and from all the enemies that seek to beset us.
To know the Lord as your deliverer is to know Him in a magnificent way. It is to know Him as the King of kings, to know Him as the Lord of lords, to know Him as the Invincible One, to know Him as the Captain of our Salvation, and to know Him as the One who shall drive out the enemies and cut them asunder and render them useless at our feet. To know Jesus Christ as deliverer is a wonderful thing. To know Him as deliverer is to know Him as Liberator, because He literally liberates us from the oppression of the Devil. The Bible says that He is my deliverer.
The Scripture goes on, saying, “…my God, my strength.” Yes, He is my God, my strength! How many Christians really know God as their strength? Very few. Instead of knowing God like that, you wake up in the morning and grab a handful of “upper” pills and take them. Then you drink three quarts of coffee. After that, you eat your nice big breakfast of pancakes and sausage and gravy and potatoes. By the time you’re done, your belly is so full of grease and starch that you’re swimming in it. You say, “Well, I got a good day’s work ahead of me.” So you go lie down and snooze for a little bit until 10 or 11 o’clock, until it’s time for lunch. And then you eat some more, taking in more empty food, and you say, “Well, I got to keep my strength up.” The truth of it is that you are keeping your strength down because you are not looking unto the Lord.
Did you know that you can get more strength out of drinking a glass of water and eating a crust of bread and praying unto God than you can by eating all that goo and goop and grease and glump that you take into your gut, thinking you are being made strong? Besides, ultimately, it’s not what we take into our mouth that makes us strong; it’s what we take into our spirit from the Word of God that determines our strength. For He is our strength. I said, HE IS OUR STRENGTH. Praise God!
If we would begin our day with the reading of Scripture instead of the eating of 12 donuts, we would find that our day goes so much better. I know some of you are laughing because you probably eat donuts. You eat those gooey, creepy things: those globs of grease that go down with a dull thud and sit in your belly like heavy sludge. All the time you think, “Oh, why can’t I get my mind on God?” It’s because you’ve got thud-belly since you’ve consumed that which is death to your body. You’ve not eaten of that which is life to your soul. But you say, “Well, the Lord is my strength.” You’re not looking to the Lord! You’re looking to satisfy your lusts!
“If you believe that the Lord is your fortress, you don’t have to listen to any bit that the enemy has to say, because you know the enemy is a tempter. …When he comes along to tempt you, shut the door.”
We should begin our day with the Lord. Amen! We should begin our day in the presence of God. We should begin our day with the reading of His Word. Amen! Then we will know that the Lord is our strength.
The Psalmist said, “It is the LORD] in whom I will trust.” Now, just let a little calamity befall you, let a little adversity come upon you, let a little heavy breathing of the enemy with his bad breath come at you, and immediately you will turn to flight or you will turn to fright or you’ll call the cops and scream, “The Devil is bothering me!” That’s how absurd Christians are in this generation. Instead of trusting in the Lord, they trust in men.
Who is it that we are meant to trust in? Is it our local sheriff or our local policeman or our local physician? Is it our local counselor? Is it our local fat- bellied pastor? No. It’s God. I say IT’S GOD. We are meant to trust in our God. You know, it’s very exciting when God allows things to befall us in order to test and try our faith. It’s very exciting to see how we will react. Does your heart cry out to God? Does your mind turn to God? Does your voice exclaim, “Oh, Lord, help me!”? Or do you start getting on the phone, trying to call all these numbers to see who it is that can assist you? You’ve reached to the arm of flesh.
It’s a good thing to have your faith tested and tried, because you can live in a vain imagination as so many do in this generation. People can quote Scripture but they don’t live Scripture. They don’t live the words they quote. God wants us to be actually doing what we’re saying. And if I’m saying that the Lord is the one that I trust in, then let me show it by my deeds, by my actions, by whom I turn to. Let me be real in my confession. Amen! I remember a situation when my husband and I were on a mission field. We were trying to get out of there for certain reasons, and we ran into a terrible situation where it looked like it was impossible to leave. One individual who was with us said, “Call so and so.” Well, so and so was half way around the world, and I said to the Lord, “That’s not what You want.” The Lord replied, “Of course that’s not what I want. I want you to look to me.” So, I didn’t obey what the person had said. I just simply sought the Lord, and the Lord made a way. There wasn’t a way, but the Lord made a way I said THERE WASN’T A WAY, BUT THE LORD MADE A WAY!
When we are trusting in God, God will always make the way. When we are trusting in the arm of flesh, it will fail, and not only that, it will bring us under a curse. What if you call so-and-so and the line is busy? Or what if you call so-and-so and he’s gone fishing? Or what if you call so-and-so and so-and-so says, “I’m not going to help you”? Why bother to even call so-and- so? Call upon the Lord, because He is the one that we can trust in. He is the one that we can believe in. He is the one that we can look to, time and time and time again.
You see, where we are stupid, people, is where we think, “Well, I’ve got to call out to this one. I’ve got to cry out to that one. I’ve got to reach out to this one.” But all the time, God is the one who has allowed the situation to come our way. God is the one who has allowed the difficulty. God is the one who has allowed the disturbance of the circumstance. He has allowed it to not be the way we thought it ought to be, in order that we will trust in Him and cry out unto Him.
A lot of times we create our own problems because we have a preconceived notion about how things ought to be. Since we have that notion, we set up our own obstacles, but really, God wants us to trust in Him no matter how things are, because the way things should be is the way God has arranged them. God wants us to trust in Him, to believe in Him, to know that He is able, to know that He is able, TO KNOW THAT HE IS ABLE! Praise God.
“God wants us to trust in Him no matter how things are, because the way things should be is the way God has arranged them.”
When we’re trusting in the Lord we don’t have to be disturbed, we don’t have to be constantly anxious and fearful, we don’t have to be fretting and fuming ourselves all day long. Just trust in the Lord that He knows what we have need of, that He knows the way that is perfect-the way that He has prepared. Trust Him that He knows that we are desperate, that He will come to us and aid us and assist us. If we trust in God, it takes away all that pressure.
If you look at modern man, modern woman, you see they are not trusting in God at all. Oh, they trust in their working, they trust in their securing of securities, they trust in their income, they trust in their jobs, they trust in their house, they trust in their car, they trust in their payments they have to make every month-they trust in everything except God. And they’re continually in anxiety and fear and frustration and anger because they are trusting in things that are lies. They are trusting in things that are passing away, they are Trusting in things that the bottom could fall out of by tonight. But when we trust in God, He’s sure. He is our Rock. Amen!
It says, “The LORD is…my buckler.” A “buckler” is a shield. Thus it has to do with armor, with keeping our things strong, with keeping ourselves protected, with keeping ourselves under the covering of God. The Scripture also declares, “The LORD is…the horn of my salvation.” So He is the one that lifts us up, by His power, into His glorious salvation. Next it says, “…and my high tower.” God is our HIGH TOWER! You know, I had a personal experience years ago with knowing the Lord as my HIGH TOWER, and I’ve known Him a number of times as that again; but this initial experience always reminds me of how great my God is.
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The following is just a brief, abbreviated beginning to this exciting, faith-inspiring missionary account. “The Necks of Our Enemies #2” actually begins the more in-depth chronicle of this true story by taking the reader back to the very beginning of the journey.
“It’s a good thing to have your faith tested and tried, because you can live A in a vain imagination as so many do in this generation. People can quote art Scripture but they don’t live Scripture. They don’t live the words they quote. hot God wants us to be actually doing what we’re saying.”
MY HUSBAND AND I and our two children (who were very young at that time) took a mission trip under the command of God. When we reached a certain destination we found out that the road had ended… so we were faced with trying to get a ship across to the area that we needed to go to (we needed to reach the next continent-Venezuela, South America). Well, we were traveling by truck so we had to take the truck and that means we had to find a ship that would take both us and the truck. We went and investigated shipping companies and found out that in order to get from one point to the next point across these waters, if we went with a “reliable” American firm, it would cost us a minimum of $7,000. We certainly didn’t have $7,000. We didn’t have $2,000. So we knew that that was out for us. And so we prayed and we prayed and we prayed and we prayed… and then, finally, it came to us that we should just go by a local company. (You know, American firms are not the only way to travel!) Even though most Americans advised us that going through American firms was the only way to go, we thought, “Well, God is our protection. We’ll just try with a local company.”
We went down and sat at the dock. Finally, a ship came in that was going our way. It was a little antiquated, you know, by American standards, and looked a little rickety; but then again you have to remember that America has the big money. So we had to come down off of our American pride and take what was offered. We talked over our situation with the captain and he said, “Yes, I’ll take you to such and such destination. I’ll deliver you right there where you want to go. You just pay me $500. Just pay me that money, and you’ll be there.” My husband and I thought, “Praise God! Thank you, Jesus! You’ve made the way! You have made the way, Lord!” We were so happy because we were so tired of looking for a way across. I mean, our looking didn’t just take one day. We researched for about two weeks to find a way, and all the time we were living at the dock in our truck.
So, we finally got a way of escape, a way to get from “point A” to “point B,” and we were ready to go on the waters of the sea. This ship was going to deliver us. Well, I really should call it a boat, because that’s what it was, even though it called itself a ship. It was a smaller vessel. Anyway, we got into it… and we hit a storm.
When we hit a storm, everything went up and down and all around, and the boat swayed back and forth and everything was falling and sliding across the room-rolling here, and rolling there. The captain had stored us in his own quarters, and you might think, “Oh, what a sweet captain!” But pretty soon we heard all these things rolling across the floor, and we didn’t even know what they were. They were barrels of rum. These barrels would roll across the floor, and then they’d roll back the other way, and then they’d roll this way, and they’d roll that way. So there we were, and all this turbulence was going on, and we were being tossed this way, tossed that way… and pretty soon all of us got seasick. VOMIT WAS FLYING AND RUM WAS ROLLING ROLLING AND WATER WAS GOING EVERYWHERE!… and there we were on the boat.
Praise God! You know, God will provide a way. Although His way is not always the way we imagined. Anyhow, there we were on our boat. Little did we know it was a contraband boat-a boat that deals with importing or exporting illegal goods. We actually ended up on a boat full of pirates! Yes, there we were on a pirate boat in the middle of the sea.
The cook came running in to our quarters. We were so sick, we couldn’t care less what he cooked. Most of the food was pretty “interesting” anyway. I’ll say that. I won’t say it was horrible, because we didn’t really eat much of it since we couldn’t hold it down. Well, the little kids were moaning that they were hungry: they’d moan that they were hungry, and then they’d throw up. They’d lie all over me and throw up on me, and then they’d moan some more, and then they’d cry and say they were hungry. It was quite an ordeal.
Anyway, like I said, the cook came running in there. He was a sweet man. He spoke to me in Spanish and told me, “They’re planning to kill you. You don’t come out of here. You stay in this room no matter what.” The room was pretty stifling because there was no fresh air coming in there. There was just rum rolling and kids vomiting and grown-ups vomiting. Everything was just flying all over the room. And the cook said, “You stay in here. You don’t come out of here, and I will come to you. When you are hungry, I will feed you, and I will take care of you.” He even snuck us a box of good ol’ Kellogg’s cereal because he knew we were Americans and that our stomachs might not be able to accept what he was feeding the rest of the crew. He brought that cereal in for the sake of the children.
We were in there and I said to the Lord, “Okay, God, they’re plotting to kill us. They’re plotting to throw us overboard into the sea and take our vehicle, take our money, take whatever we have. I don’t know what they’re going to do to the children!” This Scripture came to mind: “The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Proverb 18:10). I just kept quoting that Scripture again and again and again. Every time the waves of fear would come at me and I could see my little children dismembered and thrown into the sea, and I could see my husband with his head cut off, and I could see myself lying there, bleeding to death from having them cut my guts open-every time those visions would come to me, sent by Satan, I would quote that Scripture and run into that tower in my mind. Even though I was still lying there in the captain’s quarters on some kind of skinny, little bench with a vomiting kid on top of me and my own self so sick and dizzy I couldn’t move, I felt the strength of the Lord because I would go into that strong, high tower. Did you know we can go into the strong, high tower in our minds and in our hearts and we can be kept? We can be kept.
“Praise God! …God will provide a way. Although His way is not always the way we imagined.”
The crew would stand outside the door and they’d bang on the door and laugh real loudly because they were drinking the whole time. They would beat on the door and cry out in Spanish for us to come out of there. Every time I would hear all of that in the middle of the storm and all the tribulation, I would say, “The high tower-I’m in the high tower! My family is in the high tower! You can’t get us!” I didn’t say that to them. I said that to the Devil, because it was devils, it was demons, that were motiving those men. They were driven by demons of drink and they were insane because they were under the influence of those demon powers. I’m sure that some of those men had families, had wives, had children; and if they had killed us and thrown us into the sea, they would have regretted it, because they would have had the blood of the innocent upon their hands. But because I cried out to the Lord as my strong, high tower when that Scripture came to my mind-since I put that Scripture into effect-it worked!
“Did you know when you believe op the Word, the Word works? When you trust in the Lord, the Lord trusts in you and keeps you.”
Now, if you would want to give in to fear, that was the perfect circumstance to give in to fear. I could have gone insane. I could have started screaming. I could have been hysterical. I could have exclaimed to my husband, “QUICK! find a knife in here! We’ve got to defend ourselves! Move all the furniture in front of the door so they can’t get in!” But I didn’t do that. I was too weak to do that. I couldn’t even get up off that piece of board I was lying on. Besides, I had two vomiting kids lying on top of me. So what did I do? I cried out to my God, and my God heard my cry! And you know what? None of the pirates murdered us. None of the pirates took everything we had, and none of the pirates slit our throats and cast us into the sea. Our God kept us! The name of the Lord is a strong, high tower, and we can run into Him and He will keep us. Hallelujah! PRAISE GOD!
We were delivered to our destination, but it wasn’t the same destination they promised! They had said they would take us to Venezuela, but we ended up in a pirate port in Columbia where they dealt drugs to the whole Western Hemisphere. Anyway, we did get on land again.
After all this, when we got off of the boat and started to leave, we encountered another very serious situation. But the Lord kept us through all of that too. You know, when we live His Word and believe His Word, He is our keeper, He is our strong, high tower; and we can run into Him and be safe no matter what is outside of us, no matter what is threatening us. Praise God!!