By: General Deborah Green
PRAISE GOD! We are marching forward in the Lord! It is a privilege to serve the Living God, it is a privilege to obey Him! In the obedience we do find His life.
You know, so often, God’s people do not obey God because they think that they can do what they want and God is well pleased. But as we have been finding out in these lessons on “The Necks of Our Enemies”, when we do what we want, we become displeasurable unto God. God is not well pleased with those who do what they think is right. He is well pleased in those who do what is right, and what is right is the will of God. Amen! And we can all be deceived in that way and lose much time with the Lord. But thank God that He’s merciful, and when we cry out and we repent, He is able to forgive us.
Now we are in part 3 of a series on “The Necks of Our Enemies”. Here we are going to go to Psalm 18, beginning in verse 32. It says, “It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and setteth me upon my high places. He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms” (vv. 32-34). Now you notice that the psalmist is giving the glory to God. He is recognizing that it is not him who has these great talents. In other words, it’s not him that has such perfectly shaped feet that they can be like little hinds feet and climb up to these high places. He says, “It is God…It is God.” And he realizes also that he does not have the strength, but God girds him with that strength that makes his way perfect. And he realizes that God is the One that teaches his hands to war so that a bow of steel is broken by his arms.
It goes on and it says, “Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great. Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip. I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed. I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet. For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me” (vv. 35-39). Now this next text is our main one for this message and for this series. It says, “Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me” (v. 40).
Now when we talk about God giving us the necks of our enemies, how does God do that? Well, when we go back and we research the meaning of the word “neck” or “necks”, yes, we find out that it is referring to this portion of the body, but it is also referring to the back and to the head; and when he says, “God has given me the necks of my enemies”, the root goes back to a word that means “beheaded”. “Beheaded”! And “beheaded” means that the head is chopped off. So when we find out what it means to have the necks of our enemies, we see it means that the enemies no longer are head over us. By the power of God, by the strength of God, those things that have opposed us in the way, are brought down under the feet of those who will continue. And we are given, literally, the necks of our enemies, and their heads: in other words, their rulership, their authority over us, is smitten. It’s done away with. And this is a mighty work of God, and is a work that every one of us who believes in Him needs in our lives. We need to see our enemies beheaded. We need to see those demon forces defeated that seek to beset us with unbelief, with doubt, with fear; that seek to overwhelm us by the floods of un-Godly men. We need to see every one of those enemies beheaded.
Now, gaining the necks of our enemies does not happen all at once. I believe myself that Psalms 18 is a chronicle of someone developing in spiritual warfare. Because in the beginning they’re making the right confession, but they’ve not been put through the test and the trying of their faith, you see. And it takes that testing and trying to make us apt at spiritual warfare, and also to make us sure in our commitment to God. And God will take us, as Christians, if we will obey Him, through the experiences that we have need of, in order to make us aware of the enemies, and not only aware of the enemies, but able to pursue the enemies and to behead the enemies, to bring their necks under our feet, that we will have the dominion over them instead of them having the dominion over us. But you see, when you are only reading the Word and not living the Word, you’re not aware of all that. You can live in a bubble and imagine that just because you know Scripture that you know how to do everything, but when the trying of your faith comes, you fall apart.
“So often, God’s people do not obey God because they think that they can do what they want and God is well pleased. But…when we do what we want, we become displeasurable unto God. God is not well pleased with those who do what they think is right. He is well pleased in those who do what is right, and what is right is the will of God.”
You know, they say a lot of soldiers are trained for battle, but when they get into battle, they freak out! Some of them get so frightened, they lose their minds; others of them get so frightened, they lose control of their bodily functions and do some doo-doo, you know. And others just completely freeze up to where they become immobile: they can’t move. Why? Because they get engrossed in the battle that they studied about but they hadn’t been into and they don’t really know how to handle it. God is faithful, if we desire God, to take us through those places of battle and keep us in the way, but we need to be willing to follow the commands of our King so that we can grow beyond the fright or the oppression or the assaults that the enemy puts against us. Amen! Because we are meant to be a people who are living in dominion. We are not meant to be under the dominion of devils, no, not at all! But we are meant to have the necks of our enemies. And we are not meant to be under the dominion of fear and unbelief and doubt, antagonizing God all the day long, but we are meant to be a believing people, trusting in our God, knowing that He is able.
In this series I’ve been giving the scenario of an experience that General Jim and I went through years ago, which we believe was part of the foundational work that God was doing to bring forth this work. And in retrospect, there’s many spiritual principles that God put into operation in our lives through that fiery trial. See, we can think as we sit in our nice little church in o ur comfortable little locality, with all of our little Christian friends about-we can think that we’re really making progress in God. But you know, God is the refiner, and He will put us in the fire to make sure that we make REAL progress in God. And sometimes when we go into that fire, we don’t have any idea what is ahead of us: we just go by blind faith. “Yes, Lord, I will obey.” We step out, and whhooo! does it ever get hot! Why? Because God is burning us. He’s burning up those things in us that are His enemy. He’s burning up those things in us that are full of doubtful disputation. He’s burning up those things in us that make us think we know more than God. And He’s bringing us to a place where we will, willingly, be in captivity to Christ-even into the realm of our thoughts, that we will realize that all thoughts that are opposed to captivity to Christ are a violation of His perfect, and we will willingly put ourselves at His feet to learn from the Master!
Now, here in part three, we’re going to go back to “the days of nostalgia”, which really were the days of the fire; and the days of the fire are still upon us, thank God! But here we will go back to when God was purifying us to see who it was that we would believe; to see if we would collapse to Babylonian pressure, to see if we would collapse to the wiles of the enemy, to see if we would collapse to natural hardship and difficult circumstance, or if we would continue.
Now you know, God does test us and try us for what He wants to use us for. And when we’re a child, we can only do what we can do as a child. But I believe that God even puts principles in children for what He desires to use those children for. Amen!
“God is faithful, if we desire God, to take us through those places of battle and keep us in the way, but we need to be willing to follow the commands of our King so that we can grow beyond the fright or the oppression or the assaults of the enemy.”
So, going back, in our last message we were out of California, headed on down, going to our destination. Now, God had spoken to my husband and I through the Spirit and through visions and through much prayer, and had told us to go to Venezuela. We were not sure of the purpose of God, and we had, as all children do, a lot of fairytales, imaginations, and conjectures in our minds as to what God wanted us to do and how God was going to do it and what it was going to be like to spend the rest of our lives in Venezuela, which, as you can see, didn’t happen, because I am here. But we had all this built up, which was not the mind of Christ. The command of God was simply, “Go!”
See, when God tells us to go, we’re the ones who make the difficulty because we build up all these imaginations and we give the Devil a hold on us because we get disillusioned, we get disappointed, we get discouraged, and all of it goes back to the root of our imagination! Now, I’m giving you truth. You might not like it, but it’s true. The truth of it is that we are the ones who oppose God and cause our own problems. God will give us a simple command. For example, if I cut my finger real deep, God could say, “Put a band-aid on it.” But I think, “Well, I don’t need a band-aid. I probably need some ointment, or some, you know, paint on there, or something.” So I go do all these things, I get it infected, and it goes back to / didn’t do what God told me to do. If I would have just put a band-aid on the finger because God told me to, I would have been fine. Now, I am not saying that band-aids are a cure-all as some people think they are, but if God told me to put on a band-aid, or even a piece of tape around my finger, He knew that would keep out the things that were going to infect it. But because I thought I knew more than God, I said, “Well, I don’t want to do that, I’ll do this.” Now this illustration about the band-aid is a real simple example, but how many times do we do that to God? We say, “I don’t want to do that, I’ll do this.”
Anyway, we were determined on this journey, even though we had a lot of influences that opposed that. We were determined, because we had already learned through the school of suffering that when you do what you think you ought to do rather than what God tells you you should do, you pay for it! So we were determined this time: we were going to do what God said to do, even though we did have our own imaginations as to how He was going to do it.
As we journeyed on out of California and went across the desert, and on and on it goes, we ended up in Texas. Well, we stopped in Texas to see a missionary organization that was in a big church at that time, to see the man that was the pastor (John Osteen, Now his son Joel Osteen is the Paster of Lakewood Church in Houston Texas) of that group. I thought the address we had was the address of the church, so we drove by there, but it was the pastor’s home address. So he came and spoke with us, and invited us to come to his church, and said, you know, we could stay as long as we wanted because God was doing great things, and he even asked us and insisted, really, for us to come under his church. He wanted us very much to stay under the auspices of his church and to come under the training that they were giving out at that time, and that was the Word of Faith message. Of course we didn’t realize what it was, and that was in the beginning stages of it, and God had used the man in faith realms. But I’m thankful that God prodded us not to stop any longer than He wanted us to stop. So we stopped and we got some encouraging words. They told us that we would be able to drive all the way to our destination, so we were all happy because we didn’t see our benefactor coming with a million dollar check and a plane ticket, and all these things we had imagined. Since we were told that we could drive all the way down, we set our goal that we would drive all the way to Venezuela.
Well, we got in our vehicle and started on again. But you see, this temptation that was given to us in this church was very tempting, because it was hot and we were tired, and we were unsure of the surety of our God, even though we were trying our utmost to believe Him. And it was very much a temptation because basically what they were saying is, “We’re rolling out the carpet; now you can walk on it: you can stay here, you can get whatever you need, and we will provide for you.” But as I said, I’m very thankful that God did not allow us to do that, but continued to prod us on in the direction that He had ordained, because if we would have stayed there, we could now be “prosperity preachers”. If we had taken that invitation at that time, General and I would maybe be in competition with Kenneth Copeland, or, you know, you name it! (I would say Oral Roberts, but my husband is not quite that old.)
So anyway, what I’m saying is that God knows what He purposes us for. And we can get deceived along the way, get out of the will of God, and go into the chastisement of God. But after the suffering that we had gone through just previous to this trip, we were not to eager to do that, so we kept on our way. Well, as we journeyed on down, we found that things on the other side of the border were not the way that they are on this side of the border. We went into Mexico, and we made a vow that we weren’t going to drive straight through to Mexico City like we always did. Because before, when we had done missionary work in Mexico, we had done a lot of trips for the church where we’d go straight to Mexico City and we would just drive, you know, just straight on through. So we looked at our map and we found out that there was another road. and we told ourselves, “Oh, this looks like a real good road.” Well, what we ended up doing was we ended up getting into hairpin turns on mountains. So for days we just went round and round and round and round, and we looked at each other, and we thought, “How can we get out of here?” Well, there was no way to get out of there except stay on the road. So we tried to make the best of it and we witnessed along the way, and we prayed, and we sang songs to God; we encouraged ourselves that some time there would come an end to this road. And of course the children, you know, they kept up the bellyache, letting us know they were dizzy, and letting us know they were tired of this, and letting us know they were hungry, and letting us know they were tired, and on and on it went. It was almost like a tape recording because they said the same thing every day.
So we finally got out of there after we encountered some little Indian children along the way. They begged us for pennies and dimes and nickels, but it was really beautiful to see that, because we saw life in the primitive state, and we were able to witness to different people who otherwise would not have received a witness.
We kept on going in this journey, and you think, “God’s going to give me the necks of my enemies?” But you know what? God will even give us the necks of our enemies by degree. And when you’re out like that and you have no one behind you, so to speak, no one praying for you, no one except the Living God, you learn by degrees that He is sufficient! Because when you’ve come out of Babylon, you still think like a Babylonian. You still think, “I need thus-and-such one behind me, or I need thus-and-such with me, or I need so-and-so praying for me,” when in reality, our basic need is God, and our basic need is obedience unto God. Sometimes God brings down our enemies gradually, to let us see that we do not need to be subject to them and their intimidating tactics.
You think, “What are you drawing this out for-about fear and about intimidation?” Did you know that a lot of people never obey God because of fear? Because of fear-fear of the unknown, fear of lack of security, fear of lack of provision, fear of what will become of their families, fear of what will become of their own life-they don’t obey God. Now those people are miserable creatures and they end up in much misery because of disobedience. But this factor of fear is one that we have to face head on and realize that it is one that prevents many people from fulfilling the will of God. I can’t tell you the number of letters I have received over the years, in which people would say, “In such and such year, I had this vision… I had a visitation of God… God spoke to me… God told me what He wants me to do…” and it’s several years later. And you read on, and they say, “…BUT… 1 cannot do it because I lack . . . I lack… I lack.. What are they doing? They are confessing fear. And they’re being intimidated by fear. They’re being restricted by fear. They’re in captivity to fear. “I can’t do what God told me to do, because… because… because. The Lord made us face up our “becauses”, and that’s why we believe that God definitely arranged this journey in our lives-because He was making us face fear on every hand.
Now when we took off (before we had entered Mexico), we were warned that we should stay in motels or hotels once we crossed the border and started down into Central America, which begins with Mexico. We were warned by the people at the missionary church that we should never ever sleep in our car, and never ever even pull over to the side of the road and stay there very long for there are too many bandits, there are too many thieves, there are too many murderers. Well, the warning was good, but our budget didn’t allow us to follow it. You know, we were on the penny-pincher budget; our benefactor with the million-dollar check never came came through (for that was our imagination). And our God wanted to test and try our faith. We didn’t have the money for motels, and we didn’t have the money for hotels. So we would pull our vehicle over to the side of the road, pray, put the blood of Jesus over us, and go to sleep. And I don’t know what happened when the thieves or the robbers or the murderers came, but somehow, they didn’t break in and take us away; they didn’t break in and slit our throats; they didn’t do any of those things to us. They probably looked at our vehicle and thought, “They don’t have anything worth stealing!” But, what I’m saying is that God kept us because we faced that fear, and what made us face that fear was necessity.
Did you know that a lot of people never obey God because of fear? This factor of fear is one that we have to face head on and realize that it is one that prevents many people from fulfilling the will of God.
Did you know a lot of times when you step out in the true will of God, that hardship, hardship, hardship will drive you into reality? Literally, it will make you real for God, because it’s either DO or DIE. Now, when you’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere, and there’s nothing around except coyotes and cacti, and, you know, señoras and señoritas singing serenades, and there is absolutely no one there, and you left the last motel and hotel 400 kilometers ago, you don’t have any choices: YOU EITHER BELIEVE GOD THAT GOD WILL KEEP YOU OR YOU DIE OF FEAR RIGHT THERE. You say, “You’re teaching carelessness.” No, I’m teaching abandonment unto God.
You know, the Lord was reminding me of the life- story of Hudson Taylor. Now if you read about Hudson Taylor and his perils in obeying God in China, you find his perils were one, on top of another, on top of another, on top of another. And yet the same Babylonians that will say “Oh, Hudson Taylor’s life- story is a great inspirational story!” are the same Babylonians who will pump you with fear if God dares to take you into peril. If God dares to challenge you, to take you into peril, they’ll be the first ones to say, “You can’t do that! You can’t do that, that’s too dangerous! That’s too this… that’s too that.” How much of hypocrites are we? You see, if somebody is already dead and has gone on to be with the Lord, then it’s nice to read their big story and say, “Oh, isn’t this wonderful what God did!” But you know why God did that to Hudson Taylor? Because Hudson Taylor was willing to go. Hudson Taylor was willing to obey. Hudson Taylor was willing to endure. Amen! See, and if we will be willing to do what the Lord asks of us, there’s no end to what the Lord will do through us. Praise God!
Now since those early days of that missionary trip, my husband and I have been on countless journeys for the Lord and with the Lord, and we have found every single time that our God is able. But we had to see a lot of those enemies rendered useless and brought beneath our feet through the testing and the trying of our faith. You see, it doesn’t just happen because you get a Bible quiz and answer the questions correctly. It happens when you obey God, go through the school of experience, and see the enemies brought down.
Now, as I’m saying, fear is a monumental enemy that opposes the will of God in many Christians’ lives. Oh, I’ve heard everything in my life with God as to what the Devil says he will do to me. He told me on one trip I was going to go on, “If you take this trip, I’m going to kill your children.” I said, “Well, they’re God’s children. If God is going to allow you to take them, that is because He wants them.” In other words, if God was going to allow the Devil to kill them, it was because God wanted them in His bosom. You’ll also hear this one all the time: “You’re going to die of sickness: you’re going to die of malaria, you’re going to die of this fever, you’re going to die of that fever,” or, “You’re going to die because somebody is going to do this to you,” or, “You’re going to die because they are going to poison your food.” I mean I’ve heard everything, and been through some of it too. But the truth of it is, you need to remain steadfast with God steadfast, unmoveable, abounding in the works of the Lord.
So anyway, we continued in this journey, going through these Latin American countries. Now in those days (they probably still do the same thing) they had a way that they made money, especially off of foreigners, and what it was was that whenever you went through a border, you had to not only get your documents checked and buy your visa, but you also had to get your vehicle checked and get your vehicle disinfected from the last country. So every country you went in, they would try to spray off the mosquitoes that you took in through the last country. Now listen to me: all these countries are the same and the mosquitoes go across borders. But it’s a way that they make money.
Every border you’d go to, you could look for a long wait in a line, with all your documents ready, and them going through your documents, and them demanding you to get in a line to get your vehicle sprayed (and you had to pay for that). Every border your poor old vehicle would get sprayed with God only knows what: some places I think they used water, other places I think they used DDT, and other places I think they probably used salt and water-you know, whatever they wanted to use. So they would go out there and act like it’s very important. They would kick the tires like they were knocking out mosquito larvae, you know, doing all these strange things, and on and on it went. Now this is the truth. It was one big explosion after another big explosion. It was one border crossing after another border crossing. But we saw our God do great and marvelous things, and many times when some people could not get through, God got us through.
Now I know in one particular country, when we got to that country, that country was in the middle of civil war. When we got to the border crossing, it was the most horrible sight you have ever seen, and I’m not exaggerating. This country is hot, humid, full of mosquitoes, full of men with guns, full of drunkards, and we pull up to this border crossing. Well lo and behold, I tell my husband, “I’m going to go inside.” I’m inside for several hours. The only people inside there are a bunch of drunken men with guns. And every so often, someone else will come in, and they’ll take care of them, and they’re not taking care of me. So finally I got tired of it after waiting patiently for hours and I went over there and I said, “You need to take care of my documents.” Then they laughed at me, and then I said it again, and they laughed at me again, and they waved me away.
They were drunk, and they had big guns. And you know whenever there’s a war, that’s really a time for anybody that wants to shoot, to shoot, and it’s like a release. Here they were, supposed to be on guard, and they were all drunk, packing these guns. And you went outside, and it was horrifying what they had already done. There were people’s belongings strewn everywhere. There were vehicles turned over.
There were vehicles put over and nobody could take their vehicles. There were mattresses and all kinds of clothing and even animals that were slain just everywhere. Everywhere! I mean it was the most disorderly thing I have ever seen. And they were searching everybody because they believed everybody coming through there was carrying weapons, taking weapons to the enemy force. So the whole thing was just a total confusion, a total wreck, a total mess, and they were searching every vehicle right down to taking handles off doors and everything.
By the time I got them to look at the papers and I went outside, they gave me somebody to go through our belongings. And I said to my husband, “You better pray because this is desperate.” So we went over to the vehicle. Now this is a true story of what our God did. All around us they were tearing vehicles apart. I mean they were throwing people’s stuff everywhere! And this man went over to our vehicle. He told me, “Come pull it over here.” We pulled it over there. He looked at me, and he said, “What do you have up there?” Now up on top of our vehicle we had a storage container that was full of Bibles and these little Bible phonograph tapes that you run by hand. It was full of other Christian literature too, and then, of course, we had a few personal belongings up there. So he said, “What do you have up there?” And I replied to him, thinking to myself, “Don’t lie to him because he’s going to go up there and look anyway.” So I said, “It’s Bibles!” He said, “Bibles?” And I explained to him, “Bibles, you know, the Word of God.” Of course I was speaking to him in Spanish, and my poor husband, unable to speak Spanish, doesn’t know any of what’s going on, and he’s always questioning me, “What’s happening? What’s going on?” I told my husband, “Just be quiet, dear. It’s Bibles. I’m telling the man it’s Bibles.” So I kept explaining to the man it was Bibles because we were taking these Bibles and giving them to people, and I said that we are teaching about Jesus. The man turned around and looked at me and he said, “Fine. Go through.” He didn’t even go up there and look in the container. He didn’t tear anything apart in the car. He didn’t do any of those things to us that everybody else in that crossing was having done to them. And while they were taking people’s belongings out of their vehicles and throwing them everywhere, the guards were taking what they wanted, and the people couldn’t do anything. But God kept us in His perfect peace, and that was a very fearful situation
“Now, as I’m saying, fear is a monumental enemy that opposes the will of God in many Christians’ lives. …But the truth of it is, you need to remain steadfast with God-steadfast, unmoveable, abounding in the works of the Lord.”
Everyone was being traumatized by fear, and they had a good reason. But our God kept us, and He kept His staying hand upon us, and He protected us. He literally sent an angel to search our belongings rather than a devil. Amen!