Creflo Dollar - The Accuser Of The Brethren - Part 1
If you have your Bibles, go with me to the book of Revelations chapter 12:10. We're gonna talk about and see if we can answer the question, "In what way is Satan the accuser"? We're gonna talk about the accuser of the brethren. Every Christian needs to understand what Satan attempts to do towards you every single day, and he will never, ever be successful in his quest to try to bring you down. I hope you realize that the entire world now is just covered with fear. It's a foundation that's allowing things to happen at an accelerated rate because people are not understanding that fear is the faith of the devil. It's what he needs in order to get things to go on in this world, but he wants to destroy you in the process. He wants you out of the way. He wants you down. He wants you hurt. And tonight I am just really stirred up. I just really want to hurt that joker. You understand? And he is defeated, and he's already defeated, but he needs to be defeated in our lives, amen?
So, tonight, we're going to talk about the accuser of the brethren. And before we even look at this Scripture, let's give a definition for accuser. It's a word we use. I'm sure you know what it is, but there's some highlights I want us to get out of the definition. An accuser is simply a person who claims someone has committed an offense, a person that claims that someone has committed an offense or claimed that someone has done something wrong. Okay? Now, they can claim it. It's a claim, okay? It doesn't mean it's true. It's a claim that someone has committed offense or done something wrong. So, what the enemy tries to do every day, where you and I are concerned, he's trying to get God to accept the claims, or he's trying to get God to accept the wrongdoing. And you've gotta understand that your salvation is intact, and that's not gonna happen. And so Satan is known as the accuser of the brethren.
Let's look at this Revelations 12:10. He says, "I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 'Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.'" Satan is the accuser of the brethren. His job is to go before God and to try to get you to feel bad about some of the things you've done. He accuses us of our sins before God. So, every day he's gong before God and accusing us of our sins before God. Satan doesn't want God to extend grace and forgiveness to us. And he accuses us before God. Think about that. Day and night, he is before God and in accusation of us. Satan is before God trying to stop God from extending grace and forgiveness. He does not want grace and forgiveness extended towards you and I. And so he doesn't want us to receive God's grace either. He doesn't want us to receive it. So, he doesn't want God to give it, and he don't want us to receive it.
I was just shocked in my study to find out that Satan is against grace. It gave me a lot of answers when I first started teaching this subject. And I'm like, it seemed like all hell broke loose when I started teaching grace. It was like every demon power was released against me because I had started teaching grace. Satan does not want God to extend grace to us, and Satan doesn't want you to receive grace. He doesn't want you to receive unmerited favor that you didn't earn. He doesn't want you to receive the mercy of God. He wants you to receive shame, and guilt, and condemnation. But I've gotta tell you something. Shame, guilt, condemnation, they are not ever gonna be stronger than the grace that God has extended toward you and the grace that you have received. Say out loud, "I receive the grace of God".
John chapter 8:44, you can turn there, too. Jesus says of Satan, that he was a murderer from the beginning. In the King James, he says, "You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning. He abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him". Now please get a hold of this Scripture. There is no truth in Satan. No matter what he says, it's a lie. Has he been speaking to you? It's a lie. If you get up in the morning and hear Satan say, "Good morning," it's gonna be the worst morning. Please understand something. He cannot, he will not, he can't say anything that ultimately is just, it ends up a lie. He says from the beginning he abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own". And I'll show you another translation here. "For he is a liar, and he fathered lies". He fathers lies.
Oh my goodness. Imagine being the father of lies. You know what it means to be the father of lies? You manufacture it. And what fear does is it opens people's hearts and spirits and ears to lies. You know what panic is? Panic is groundless fear. That means you're walking round fearful of something that doesn't even exist. There's even no ground for why you're walking around afraid. Satan is a liar. He thinks he's having a field day, but this stuff stops right now. I'm telling you, this stuff stops right now. If he's talking to you, if he's telling you you're no good, if he's telling you that God doesn't love you, if he's telling you, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, if he's telling you that it didn't work, if he's telling you you're not saved, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, if he's telling you anything, you only need to say this to yourself, "He a lie. You a lie, you a lie".
We are listening to him like he's worth the attention. He is not worth the attention. You've got to step up out of this thing of listening to a lie, and then accepting a lie, and then explaining a lie, and coming up with your deepness of... it's a lie. You are born again. You are born again, full of mercy, full of grace. And whatever he says to you about what you did is a lie. Y'all don't understand what I'm saying. Paul said, "I have wronged no man," why? He refused to receive this lie that he was not righteous and that God, through his blood, has not cleansed him. And we keep letting ourselves get sucked into the words of a liar.
So, I have to say to you, what has he been speaking to you? What have you been hearing? How much lying have you allowed to stay up here when it's time for you to disperse that stuff from out of here? What kind of lie is ruining your mind, ruining it? What kind of lie, what type of lie are you renting in your mind. Get that lie out and excuse that lie. Evict that lie. Get away from that lie and stop listening to a liar. It's one thing listening to people on Earth, people you know lying. It's another thing for you to be in your own room listening to the father of lies. He can't do nothing but lie. I need to calm down. He's a lie. He's a deceiver and a liar, and he wants people to shut up. He don't want nobody to expose him no more.
And what he's done is he's convinced believers that he ain't real. "Satan ain't real. You ever seen him"? "Yeah, when he was in you. Don't you remember that time"? Satan needs some body, some body. He expresses himself through some bodies. Ah. And people can't, they can't see what's going on. They can't see what's happening. They just think it's just happening. Ah, the world going crazy. No, fear is sustaining darkness, and darkness is trying to rule in the mind. "And as a man thinketh, so is he". And the next thing you know, if you're not careful, see, the darkness is there, the fear is there, and then all of the pandemic is there, and more fear is there. And how much more can I take? And now you're locked down. And then you don't know who got what, where they got it from.
God will give you wisdom. God will give you caution. But there's a big difference between wisdom and caution and fear. It's a lie. The thing you fear the most comes. The thing you are afraid of the most comes upon you. It's like don't nobody trust God no more when he said, for thine, O Lord, are a shield about you. He's the glory and the lifter up of my head. It's time to get in the Word. Every day now, see, playing church won't work no more. It's gotta be real now. Playing church ain't gonna work no more. You've got to know him for real, though. Playing-church Christians are being exposed. But real folks have peace. Satan is after your peace. Satan wants to rob you of your peace. He wants to rob you of your joy.
And I just decided I'm not going to let that happen. I'm gonna hee-hee, ha-ha when ain't nothing funny. I ain't living like that. No, uh-huh. The joy of the Lord is my strength. And in the name of Jesus, I am Psalms 91 equipped. Glory be to God. A thousand shall fall at my side. I better be careful here. Ten thousand at my right hand, but it shall not come near me. What happened to just trusting God, too? I ain't against nothing you decide to do but... we don't do something and then push God out the way, 'cause we have more faith in what we do instead of having more faith in what he has already done. Don't let your doing erase what he has done. Glory to God, amen?
So, we need to be wise to Satan's tactics, so we won't succumb to his deceptions and so we won't accept the shame that he's trying to put on you. All of this is about the shame that he wants us to bear the weight of. The ultimate goal is he wants you to carry the weight of shame, and he'll do that by saying, "I am going to accuse you every day of something 'cause I want you to carry the weight of it". Isn't it amazing to you that something that happened 20 years ago, you still carrying some of that weight? Listen to me carefully here. Satan the accuser desires to remind believers of their sins and of their unworthiness of a place in God's family.
Now let me say that again. I want to break this down. This, to me, was so significant. Satan the accuser, the one who has claims against you before God, day and night, think of that. Day and night, he's still coming before God like, "I don't know why you still see them as righteous. Look at what they did. I don't know why you still love them. Look at what they didn't do. I don't", he's constantly, it's futile. God's never, ever gonna turn his back on you or change his mind about his grace, and his favor, and his Son, Jesus Christ. So, Satan desires to remind believers of their sins. He wants to remind you of your sins.
Now you think about this. How often are you being reminded of your sins? Especially something happens to your physical body. The first time something happens with your physical body or your money, he reminds you, "See, this is why this happened. This is why this happened". He'll use anything he can. Or you have a car wreck or something, you know, that just something human happens. You do know you're human, right? Listen, one day I'm gonna teach this. It's like quit denying your humanity. Quit struggling trying to be deeper than what you're created to be. Y'all don't understand what I'm saying. Quit struggling trying to be deeper than what you are. God created you to enjoy life, to enjoy him, be happy, and have some fun. But some of y'all too deep for fun. Some of y'all too deep for fun.
See, something gonna happen. It's a snap gonna take place right there because you too deep for fun. You're gonna be, you know, you gonna look out the window and some of y'all gonna be running outside naked with the dogs and the deers and too deep for fun. You are human. He knows you are human. And you keep trying to act like you're not human. Your humanity is all right with God. God Almighty wants to be a part of your humanity and bring you to a place where you can really enjoy the joys of having a physical body in this world. "Well, when I get to heaven". But you're on earth right now. That's a serious blessing right now. You don't really understand. You're on earth, and you've got a body right now. You ain't never been to heaven before, and you ain't never been without a body. You need to figure out how to enjoy this. I'm in.
I know some of the people online right now. "Oh no. I don't feel that, Pastor". See, you losing friends right now 'cause you're weird. And that's what happens. Some Christians are weird. "Hey, brother, how you doing today"? Whoa. Thanksgiving comes up. "Hey, could you bless the food"? "Yes, I'll be more than happy to". Mama start crying. "Oh, stop it, stop it". None of those things are wrong when you understand that they're to be applied to you as a human with a born-again spirit, with a mind that's being renewed by God. But you beat yourself up so bad. You got saved and made a bad decision, and now the devil hops on that, and he says more ammo to condemn you. "I'm never gonna let you forget this. I'm gonna bring it up no matter how great you do from this point on".
And you could spend 20 years flawless (not gonna happen), but you can spend 20 years flawless, and the accuser will still be bringing up the same thing. And you'll be shocked. Some of y'all need to step back and say, "How long has that been"? Forty years and you still thinking about that? No, it's the enemy that wants to keep it at the forefront of your thinking because he wants you to carry the weight of shame, and you're not gonna do it. Your days of shame are over. Do you hear me? The accuser desires to remind believers of their sin and their unworthiness. He wants you to feel unworthy about a place in God's family. He don't want you to feel worthy to be a part of God's family. And in this way, he'll sow doubt in your heart, in your minds.
Satan wants to make Christians fear their salvation and forget God's love and faithfulness. He wants you to be afraid that your salvation is not strong enough, that it's not strong enough, that Jesus isn't enough, that the promise isn't enough. And, oh my God, that my mistake is stronger than my salvation, that when I fail, it's stronger than my salvation. "Oh my God, I got sick or corona hit my body; something must be wrong". No, it's just another opportunity for you to stand on what you believe. Ain't nothing wrong. It's still right, but it's the devil's job to try his best to get you to carry that weight, to carry that shame, to not have confidence in that salvation.
Let me tell you, if you've been saved, you saved, and nothing can take it away from you. If sin could take away your salvation, then salvation ain't strong as what the Word declares it to be. If one day a stupidness... we love to define our whole life by one day of stupidity. If it was strong enough, then it's not enough. It's not stronger. That means salvation is not stronger than sin. He won't be able to take it. That's what he's trying to do. He's trying to take it. He's not going to be able to take it. You are sealed in the Holy Ghost of promise, and God is faithful, and he will not stop loving you. Check this out. He was loving you before you got saved. Check this out. He was loving you before you were loving him.
God's attitude is: "If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right". 'Cause he right. Loving you is right. Satan says look at your sinfulness. God says look to Jesus, the author and the finisher of your faith. And those are your two choices. You can keep looking at your sinfulness, or you can look at Jesus, the author and the finisher of your faith. Now, I'm not denying that you've got issues. What I'm saying is don't let the accuser of the brethren keep you focused on an issue, especially when it's in past. Looking unto Jesus, that is constant, that is present day. Looking unto Jesus, that's right now, the author and the finisher of your faith. I am seeing this thing so clearly, that a lot of Christians are being betrayed by their fear.