Creflo Dollar - The Accuser Of The Brethren - Part 2
If you have your Bibles, go with me again to the book of Revelations chapter 12 and verse 10. We're talking about how to defeat and overcome, you know, devils and demons, and we're in the area where we're talking about Satan as the accuser of the brethren and trying to understand why is he referred to as the accuser of the brethren, and it's important for us to know that because you're going to face this every day of your life. And so Revelations 12 and 10, and we're going to continue with that today that I think it'd be a bless that will really bless you today. In what way is Satan the accuser of the brethren? Revelations 12 and 10 says this, "And 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.'"
Now, Satan is the accuser of the brethren, and what Satan wants to do is he wants to get us to somehow accept the shame of life, the shame of sin, and to allow it to weigh us down. Satan the accuser. Think of that. He's the accuser. Satan the accuser desires to remind believers of their sins. That's what he wants to do. He wants to keep you in remembrance of your sins. So if you've ever experienced that in your life you are experiencing the accuser who desires to remind believers of their sins, but he also wants to remind you that you are unworthy and that you're not worth it, you know. You're not even worth the place that God wants to put you in as a part of his family, and in this way what he will do is sow doubt into your heart and he will sow doubt to your mind concerning your salvation, constantly just coming after you like, "It's not so, you're not right. You know, something's wrong with you," reminding you of what you should have, could have, would have done.
That's his job, that's the accuser of the brethren. Sometimes you think it's just you, but they're spiritual demonic influence that's just trying to just keep that in your thinking. And so Satan wants to make Christians fear for their salvation. He wants to get you to be afraid that your salvation is not sure, that you can't be secure in your salvation, that, "Am I really saved from this"? And he wants you to forget God's love, and he wants you to forget God's faithfulness. He doesn't want you going around believing God loves you. He doesn't want you going around believing that God is faithful to you. Constantly, constantly after you. And Satan says, "Look at your sinfulness". That's what he's always talking about. The accuser of the brethren is like, "Look at your sinfulness. Look at what you did last night. Look what you did last year. Look what you did 20 years ago. Look at your sinfulness".
When that happens, that's the accuser of the brethren. Versus God says, "Look to Jesus". Look to Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith, according to Hebrews chapter 12 and 2. So one side, Satan, "Look at your sinfulness. Look at your sinfulness". The other side, Jesus is saying, "I want you to look at me, look at me. I am the author and the finisher of your faith". And that's the challenge. The challenge is I'm saying this, you're understanding what I'm saying, but when you're faced with the actual fight, the actual conflict visits your mind, then you're going to have to learn how to actively resist that type of attack that's coming to you. And if you don't actively resist it, what I mean by saying actively resist, thank God that he's, you know, told us we can resist the devil and he'll flee, but you got to actively do it. That means you got to open your mouth, you got to get your focus in the right place. You got to actively withstand. That word resist means to withstand and to fight against.
So these thoughts are coming in your mind trying to get your attention. And again, like I said Sunday, the whole thing is about focus. God wants your focus, but Satan wants your focus. And wherever you give your focus, then the potential for that thing to be manifested in your life comes to pass, and Satan wants you to walk around in shame, and guilty, and condemned because you have been focusing on what the accuser of the brethren keeps bringing to your mindset. So, you know, 2022 is going to be a year of warfare. And it's not just warfare in the natural where countries will be fighting one another, but it's warfare right up here in the mind, and you got to get yourself ready for that. It's not enough for you to know these things. You got to get yourself ready to be able to actively engage in these things. I don't know how many of you have ever experienced a certain gush of fear that comes in. Something happens and this fear, it comes in, your heart speeds up, the cortisol level, you actually feel it. And when you look at it, you're like, "There's absolutely nothing for me to be afraid of. Why did I allow that to happen"?
Use those as opportunities like military training to train in, "I see what happened here. I got to get myself on guard because the first thing I thought about was all the potentials of what could happen and the first thing I should be thinking about is what Jesus had to say about what happened". And see, it's one thing for us to talk about it, it's another thing for you to understand it. But to actively engage in a battle where fear is, like it gushes into your mind and into your spirit and if you're not careful you will lay there and just be subject to it rather than actively saying something, praying something, thinking something, focusing on the Word of God to get out of it, and I just meet a lot of Christians that do that. "Oh, I know that, I know that, I know that". But when it hits, it's as if you have no knowledge. The darkness has come over you and you done forgot about everything. "What Creflo talk about last week? I don't even know, I'm the...all I know I'm scared, man. I got to pay this bill". Just one thought, and that's what Satan wants to do.
He is the accuser of the brethren. That's why he's keeping this stuff before you day and night. That's why he's actively trying to keep in your face, "You ain't right. You don't deserve it". Shame you. Blame you. "You don't deserve God's grace. You don't deserve God's mercy. Look at you, look at you, look at you". And don't do nothing crazy that day, he like, "I'm going to add this to my accusation list". To go after you so he can seduce you away from the things that you need to do. Now look at John 8 and 44, John 8 and 44. Praise God. Praise God. I mean, you know, you've got to get ready for this. I had a couple of things this past week happen and I said, "Man, he for real. It's going to be like that? So I attack you and you're going to try to come back and attack me? I attack you and you come back and attack me? See, you got to understand something. I got the light, you got the darkness. I'm going to always win," unless I subject myself to the darkness, unless I subject myself to the attack, watch this, unless I subject myself to the fear of it.
And I can't tell you, you go to the doctor... I'm trying to get you to really sense what I'm talking about, this sudden attack of fear and panic. You go to the doctor and the doctor says, "You have an aggressive form of cancer," and all of a sudden the fear comes in, "I'm going to die". And you're trying to slow your heart down and all this stuff that's going on, and we've got to train so that if we get news like that the first thought is not, "I'm going to die". The first thought is, "Well, greater is he that is in me than he that's in the world". You know, the Bible talks about renewing the mind, but then it takes it deeper. Renewing the spirit of your mind. The spirit of your mind is where you go from having to think about doing something to doing it automatically without having to think about it. It's kind of like when you drive that stick and a clutch. When you first started driving it, you had to think about it, all right? But after a while you became so proficient at it and practiced and practiced and practiced you don't even think about, I mean, it's automatic. I know hit the clutch, move the stick. It's an automatic thing.
Well, that's what he's talking about renewing the spirit of your mind so that when fear comes in you automatically go to, "Well, God loves me and I know it. Well, God loves me and I know it". You have to actively practice that. See, I can get up there and I can preach this, go by it real quick. I should be at point five by now, and that's why I think my teaching is kind of changing because I'm thinking like, "Well, wait a minute. That's real cool to know". Because in the church we teach people fables and fantasies, and that freaks me out sometimes. People come and they create fables and fantasies and tell you all this stuff, and I ask myself, "Is that really how that's going to happen? Let me look at the Word very closely to see". And I realize, "Wait a minute. We're in a human natural world where human natural laws operate".
And then people talking about, you know, "The devil is going to be strong, he's going to come against you". You know, like you're going to have this natural thing in the front yard and they got bombs blowing up your house, no. All of that's going to take place right here. Your greatest battles in life are always going to be between your two ears, and that same thing is true where fear is concerned. But one of the things that I thought about this week, I said the issue is if we lack practice in actively resisting, then when the time comes and it's your evil day and he decided he going to pick on you all day long, everything going to happen and you haven't been practicing, you will find yourself subject to the attack of fear and that thing, listen, when you're walking around in panic and fear, I don't care how many supplements you take, I don't care how many miles you run, I don't care the food you eat. All of that is spoiled and overwritten by the stress that has come in by fear that you holding on to that you don't know how to get rid of.
So start now, start now. Practice. Any thought of fear that comes your way, you start practicing, actively engaging into those attacks so that you will be proficient at it when the big one comes. You know, it's like, "Hey, you know, you're the same devil. You know, you're thinking that you throwing a higher degree of fear at me, but, dude, it's just like driving a stick shift. I have renewed the spirit of my mind and I'm going to believe God's love automatically". You know, you shouldn't have to think, "Should I love this person that just did this"? If you practice in it, you move automatic to those things, and I think that's what we lack as Christian people.
We think being a Christian is all about getting a head full of knowledge. No, being a Christian is being proficient at focusing on Jesus at the beginning of every attack. At the beginning of every attack, I'm not focusing on the scriptures. I might not be able to think of them. It might be so overwhelming, but I can focus on Jesus and that little nursery rhyme song, "Jesus Love Me," boy, I'd use that. That's a weapon in my bag. And then once I get all that stuff calm down and actively resist, then I get more scriptures that'll keep coming and now it's like I don't want to be focused on something else 'cause I see this is opening the door for more attacks. So I don't want to look at this news. I don't want to hear this. I don't want to do that. Because I see he's serious about attacking me, so I got to get serious about my counterattack. Glory be to God. Y'all felt that? My goodness.
So John 8:44 says, "You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do". He said, "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth," why did he not abode in the truth? He said, "'Cause there is no truth in him". See, the character and the nature of the devil is no truth. That's his character. That's his nature. There is no truth in him. He says, "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh out of his own," or out of his own character. His character is a liar. So he's speaking out of his own character. "For he is a liar, and he is a father of it". So that's really good to know, the character of Satan, so when he speaks you automatically know it's a lie 'cause that's his character. But it's also good to know the character of God, that God cannot lie. So every time he speaks, it's the truth. So what he has spoken and what he is saying to you is the truth. And so the times comes when you got to listen to what the liar says and you're hearing from the God who cannot lie. Stick with the God who cannot lie.
Focus on the words of the God who cannot lie. And that fight and struggle between the lie getting your focus or the truth getting your focus, man, that's where it's coming. I'm talking about real, listen, I'm talking about real battle. I ain't up here preaching no seminary type of little cute sermon for y'all. I'm talking about I know this 'cause I fight this battle every day, and I know you got to learn how to actively resist or you just a Christian walking around with some words floating on your forehead. You ain't going to do nothing. Listen, I don't care how much knowledge you have of scripture. If you fail to learn how to actively engage it, you just a walking head that the devil going to pop that balloon after a while because you're going to buy the lie. And it's amazing the things you forget when you scared. You can't think of no scripture. All you can think of, "Oh, Lord Jesus". And then you start saying stupid stuff. "Take me to the water". That ain't got nothing to do with it. You going to go way back to what grandmama did. All right. So he's a liar.
Now let's back up a little bit and just check him out. Let's look at his history just a little bit more, where he came from. Ezekiel 28:15. Let's start in verse 15 and then 17 through 18. Initially Satan was a powerful, beautiful archangel in heaven, but he was cast out of heaven due to his pride, and he wanted to be exalted above God. Here's what it says in verse 15, and then we'll go to 17, 18. He says, "Thou wast perfect", you know, that's powerful right there, think of that. He is saying this dude was perfect. "In thy ways from the day that thou wast created, until iniquity was found in him". So between that, the day he was created until they found iniquity in him... see, they found it in him. You know, we thank God we know how he got there. Look at verse 17 and 18. "Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee". Verse 18, "Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all of them that behold thee".
So anytime Satan wants to talk about your past, you should remind him of his future. This is the scripture to remind him of his future. "Oh, you want to talk about my past? Brah, I heard you're going to be ashes at the end". Yeah, and so he and the angels, you know, those angels the third of them that fell from heaven there in operating on demonic power, they rebelled with him. They're now in direct opposition to God, and they're seeking to hinder people from choosing salvation. You know, that's an assignment of the devil. He seeks to hinder people from choosing salvation. He's trying to hinder people from living for God, and he's trying to hinder people from walking in the freedom that God has provided. Look at 1 Peter 5 and 8 real quick. Satan attempts to stop people from engaging in what has been made ready for us. Chapter 5, verse 8 it says, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, he walketh about seeking whom he may devour".
Now, notice when he says be sober. So the opposite of this would be don't be intoxicated or drunk. Be sober. Be sober. Have sound thinking. Your thinking should be sound. Your thinking should be sound according to the Word. Be vigilant about it because you have an adversary. That every born-again Christian, every person here, every World Changer, you have an adversary, and it's not the person that works with you. You have an adversary who's having a strategy meeting on you to try to come up with the necessary strategy to bring you down, to kill you, to steal, and to destroy for your life. Please understand that. You have an accuser of the brethren and his job is, "I've got to use strategy to keep you ignorant of what Jesus has given you; to kill, steal, and to destroy and to bring you down". He refers to him as your adversary. Everybody has the adversary.
You know, I'm not surprised when things happen to me, but there are some Christians that are literally shocked sometimes. Like, "I can't believe this happened to me. I'm praying and I'm fasting". Dude, none of that, here's what the Bible says. "They that live godly shall suffer persecution". It's a part of godly living. It's a part of a godly life. I realized that every preacher that has a family, that his family is first on the list to be attacked. That's how that works, and we got to stop being surprised when the adversary shows up doing what he's supposed to be doing. We need to start doing what we're supposed to be doing, winning over the adversary, amen? So he shows up pretending, and when I read this phrase as a roaring lion, what I'm reading is he's showing up with fear, he's showing up with panic. He's not a roaring lion, he's the little dude in the "Wizard of Oz" that came out behind the curtain and they says, "Is this the one that deceived the nations? Him"? All right?
He says as a roaring lion, you know, roaring fear at you, roaring shame at you, and roaring condemnation at you. That's what he's doing. That's what the roar is all about. The roar is about what you hear more than the actual reality of the thing. So what are you hearing? What are you hearing? You know, focus is so important. The Bible says in Proverbs, he says, "Attend to my Word. Give attention to my Word. Don't look to the right or the left". He's trying to get you focused. Get focused on him. "Attend to my Word. I need you to get ready to actively resist the enemy".
You know, everybody's going to have an evil day. You know, your evil day may not be my evil day. And see, when you hear the word evil, you think vampires and all the stuff you don't understand. Anything evil is just something that contradicts the Word, you follow? To experience something that's evil is to experience something that's out of the Word or out of the will of God for your life. I don't need to have no vampires with big teeth and then I say it's evil. I tell you what's evil, not being able to get your wife money to get her hair fixed, that's evil. What's evil is when it's 20 below and you ain't paid your heating bill, that's a evil thing. What's evil is when you got five kids and you ain't got no food in the refrigerator, that's evil. I'm trying to help you to get rid of the fantasy, get rid of the fables and let's look at the humanity and who we are and how this thing works so we can be victorious in what's going on.
I mean, you had... I don't know. This is not a movie from Hollywood, this is real life and here is the battleground. Your mind is the arena of faith. This is the battleground, and Satan the most powerful weapon he has right now, 'cause Jesus stripped him of everything and took the keys from him and gave those keys to us and so whatever we bind on the earth is what's already bound in heaven, what we loose on the earth was loosed in heaven. And he says, "I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by in any means hurt because I got the keys and I just turned the keys over to you". And he going to try to deceive you with a roar, trying to make you think he's still got the keys. He ain't got nothing here. Jesus says, "Satan came around and he found nothing in me".