The Healing Word

Two words: stand firm. Now take your Bible and we're going to hold it up and we're going to read verse one in unison. We're going to get the whole picture here together. Hold your Bible up. Let's read chapter four, verse one together: "Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends."

Now, the whole point of chapter four is to stand firm. Notice Paul commends them before he commands them. "Stand firm" is a command, but he commends them first. We're going to go to the command first and then we're going to come back to the commendation because the command is the part that Paul and the Holy Spirit want you and me to get a hold of, and for it to get a hold of us. This is the heart of the message: stand firm.

It's like a commander in the military. He goes in and he'll say to his troops, "Stand at attention!" What does he mean? Look up here. Be alert. Be prepared. Sometimes a commander will say, "Stand at ease," but here the Apostle Paul is saying, "Stand at attention." You're passing through. This is a short life. The devil wants to get you. If you are standing at ease like so many are today, the enemy will come in on your blind side when you're relaxed, attack you, and bring you down. So you have to stand firm. Your citizenship is in heaven. Stand firm. Jesus is coming. Eagerly look and be prepared.

Stand firm. Your body's going to be changed when He comes. Something big is going to happen to you. Stand firm and be ready for that to happen. Again, we're on foreign soil. Our citizenship is in heaven. Because we're on foreign soil, we're on the enemy's soil. Remember when Jesus was tempted? The devil told Him, "If You'll fall down and worship me, I'll give You all the kingdoms of this world." The devil has a lot of say, a lot of power, and he's in charge of a lot. He has a lot of authority here on this earth.

Now, we are in his territory. This earth has been cursed. It's going to have to be cleansed by fire someday, but right now, we're on enemy territory. So you better look out, or you'll be ambushed. Many of God's people have been ambushed. They once were serving God, going to church, and enjoying the blessing of God. Today, they won't darken a church. The devil ambushed them. They didn't stand firm. He slipped up on them when they weren't looking, and down they went. They haven't gotten up yet.

Now, the scripture is telling us that we need to stand firm. The enemy's coming. Sometimes it seems like we're hemmed in on every side. You get in a situation where you can't turn to the right or to the left. You look back and there's no place to retreat. It doesn't seem like you can go forward. You're just sort of stuck. That's why there's going to be a Rapture. He's going to come and evacuate us. He'll take us up. We're not going to the right or to the left or to the north or to the south. We're going up. It's Rapture. We're going to be evacuated. Can you hear the helicopters coming? The wings of angels? You're going to be taken out, and it's going to happen soon.

That's why Paul is telling the church over at Philippi to stand firm. You're not going to have to find a way out for yourself. He's coming to get you. You're going to be evacuated. It's going to happen at almost any time, and a great change is going to take place. Paul was writing, I believe it's Ephesians chapter five, where he said to the people at the church at Ephesus, "Take the helmet of salvation." Every day, all of us here this morning should have on the helmet of salvation. We should be thanking God that we're saved.

Have you thanked God yesterday or the day before, or even this morning? Thank You, Lord, for the blood of Jesus that has cleansed me. The helmet of salvation—never, never, never forget. Stand firm. Stand alert. Stand prepared. Give praise to the Lord. Take the helmet of salvation and take the sword of the Spirit. You need the word of God every day. The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Then he tells us to pray on all occasions. That's how we're going to make it. If we keep giving thanks for what He has done, for the word that He has given, and for the promise that is within our hearts that He's coming for us.

You and I are the target of Satan. I want you to hear that. I know that if you're not going through anything today—there's no pressure, no problems going on—you'll say, "Oh yeah, we're the target of Satan." But when Satan shoots an arrow into your heart, you feel it. It hurts. The pain is there. You've been crippled. Now when I tell you that you're the target of Satan, you say, "I know what you mean, Pastor. He's attacked me. He's tempted me. He's tested me. I'm going through it."

Now listen, why shouldn't you go through it? Why shouldn't I go through it? The devil tested Jesus. Jesus went through it. Jesus said, "The cup that I drink of, you're going to have to drink of the same cup." So we're going to be attacked. You're going to be attacked. That's why you need to stand alert. Stand firm. When you're attacked, remember this and keep it in mind: this world is not my home; I'm just passing through. When you're under attack and you feel the pressure and the pain is there, you will tell yourself, "This is not my home. My citizenship is in heaven."

Again, you will tell yourself, "Jesus is coming for me very soon." Again, you will tell yourself, "When He comes, I will be changed and I will not be susceptible to the enemy's attack." You've got to do some thinking and some talking to yourself—some Bible talking to yourself when that happens. You're the target of the enemy. You can't be at ease. No, you've got to be alert. The enemy is here to attack.

I'm going to turn over to Luke chapter 22, verse 31. Jesus is talking. Jesus says to Simon Peter, "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail." Notice He calls him Simon. This is Simon Peter. He had already changed his name to Peter. But in this situation, Jesus calls him Simon because Jesus knew that he was going to not give in now to his rock nature—Peter, Petros, meaning rock—but he's going to give in to his old Simon nature.

Two times He called his name for emphasis, to give weight to it: "Simon, Simon, you're going to give in to your weaker side. I know what's coming, man. The devil is going to deal you a blow right between your eyes. Before the cock crows in the morning, you're going down." Have you seen that movie Black Hawk Down? For Simon Peter, it's going to be "Black Hawk Down." You're going to crash. There's no one going to be there to save you.

Now the Lord is telling us the same thing. He's trying to help us. Look at that verse: "Simon, Simon, Satan—there's a devil out there. He's the enemy. You have an enemy. You're on his territory. You're on foreign soil. Satan has asked." Meaning Satan has prayed. When you talk to God, that's called prayer. Satan has talked to God about you, Simon. He named you. This is Judy. This is Sam. This is John. This is Mary. The devil is naming you.

He's naming you, Simon. He has asked to sift you. Now, the "you" in the original is plural, meaning He used Simon as an example to talk to all the apostles. You see, the enemy had already gone on attack and he attacked the first apostle, Judas, and he won. The devil won. Judas crashed. This emboldened Satan. He thought, "Aha, I got one. They're not so hot, these apostles." Listen, friend, you who think you're so spiritual and so into the word of God, here are apostles going down.

This emboldened Satan. He had already won and got Judas. This emboldened him. He said, "Now I'll go after Peter. I got one; I'll go after two." And sure enough, he got two. You think you're going to escape his attack? You say, "I can stand anything." Are you kidding? You can't stand anything. You need God. You need to be surrounded by the Holy Spirit. It's time to pick up the Bible and go down on your knees and say, "God, I'm a sinner saved by grace." Simon Peter the rock went back to Simon the reed—shaken.

The devil's not going to attack you when you're on guard, when you're alert. He knows that you know that he's coming. But when you go at ease and you begin to sort of sashay, "I'm a child of God. I teach the word. I preach the word. I've got a degree in this thing," that's when he's going to slap you real hard. Some of you are going to go down for the count.

"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat," meaning he wants to separate you, the desirable, from the undesirable. He's separating you from what you're boasting in and glorying in. He's going to separate the good in you, the Christ in you. That's what he wants to separate you from and bring you back. But notice He said, "But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail."

Hallelujah. When I read that, I realized Jesus is praying for me. Jesus is praying for you, that your faith will not fail. Now Simon's faith failed, but because of his repentance, we know that he still loved the Lord. He did some of the most ridiculous, shameful things. He'll be embarrassed forever that he boasted, "All the others will be offended, but I will not be offended. I'm one of those Christians. I've got the spiritual goods. I don't yield to temptation." Then you find yourself going back to those habits and to those carnal things.

After it's over, you think, "Oh my Lord, what did I do?" It's usually when it's over after you've done it. Then you say, "Oh, I'll repent of it." But you've already done it. Paul is talking to us and Jesus is talking to us to help us to keep from doing it. What a shame that is. What an embarrassment. What a testimony to your daughters and to your sons that you've done it. You don't think they know? They know. They know. You're the one that said you have such smart children, right? Okay.

Let's go back over to Philippians chapter four. The word of transition: "Therefore." The word of command: "Stand firm." The word of love: "Brothers." Say the word "brother." Here he says, "Therefore, my brothers." He puts that importance there. He wants us to know who he's writing to. Someone says, "Well, I don't know. Maybe these people aren't really even Christians. Maybe they aren't saved. That's why they're so quick to yield to Satan. That's why they're so susceptible." No, these are brothers. They're in the faith. He lets you know right away that it's the brothers—which means sisters also—that he's going to attack and it's the brothers that need to stand firm. He's already got the non-brothers. He's going after those that are in the family of God. You call God Father, I call God Father. Jesus taught the disciples to pray, "Our Father." That makes us brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Isn't that a wonderful place to be in Christ and to have that blessed relationship with the Lord? Paul was a man of real feeling. Sometimes we read his letters and we think, "Man, he's the sternest man I've ever heard or ever read." He is so stern, but he is a man of real, honest feelings. His heart goes out. He starts off by calling them brothers. He yearned. Sometimes I hear people call people "brother." Sometimes I'm called a brother. That's fine. I enjoy that. That's a sacred term. But when anybody ever calls you a brother or calls you a sister, I want you to remember that's a sacred word. We use that phrase far, far too lightly. It becomes meaningless phraseology, but not when Paul used it.

Listen to what happened. When Paul called these people back at Philippi brothers, Paul was remembering the first time he was called "brother." He was on the Damascus Road going out to arrest Christians and to punish Christians and to bring them back. Jesus appeared to him. Paul was slain by the power of the Holy Spirit. For three days and three nights, Paul didn't eat and Paul was blind. At the end of the third day, a man named Ananias came to the house, led by the Holy Spirit, where Paul was. Ananias walked in the house and he saw Paul across the room from him. Ananias didn't walk over there and say, "Now listen, Paul, I want to take you to the word of God. I told you all along that you were fighting the church. No wonder you see what happened to you."

Did he do that? The first thing that man did, filled with the Holy Spirit, was walk over to Paul. He didn't censure him. He didn't condemn him. He didn't preach to him. He put his hand on his shoulder and said, "Brother Saul." Paul says, "Me? Of all people in this world? I was after him. I would have arrested him. I would have imprisoned him. I was doing that to the people of Christ. Those people of Christ were this man's friends. And that man called me brother?" Be careful the words we use. That never got away from Paul all Paul's life. He remembered. When Paul used this word to write to those people back there, he was rejoicing again. The helmet of salvation was on him and he was praising the Lord that he had such a relationship with God and he had such a wonderful relationship with one another. They were his brothers and sisters in the faith.

That's the word of love. Notice how he goes on: "My brothers, you whom I love and long for." He wasn't afraid to tell other men and other women of the church, "I love you and I'm homesick to see you. I love you." Then he goes on to say, "My joy and my crown." You talk about a man that wasn't afraid to express his feelings and his emotions. They ran deep, this stern apostle. "My joy." He says, "You're my joy now. And when Jesus comes and takes us to the place of our citizenship, you'll be my crown. My diadem. I love you."

I don't know that I feel exactly like he felt toward Philippi, but I feel that way toward the people I pastor. When I go overseas—usually I've been going over two times a year to either the South Pacific or to some place in Asia—this last time I was in Fiji and I was teaching the class there for two weeks, but my mind is back here. It really is. I can stand before my class and I can talk to them about you. When I'm in prayer before I go to my class, I can see the musicians. I see them. I can turn and I can see the choir and I can see Colonel Patterson directing. I can see Pastor Wilson preaching. I can see Bob Hill directing. I look out over the congregation and I can just see it just as plainly. I know who's in attendance and who's absent.

I can see you and I pray for you. Then I go to that class saturated with LCC. That's not a disease; that's Lakeridge Community Church. I was teaching the class and one of the young men who had completed his bachelor's degree—he's going to go in the ministry and he's working on his master's—he is the grandson-in-law to the president of the college and his wife. One day after class, the president's wife came by and talked to me. She said, "Dr. Morris, he came by and he said to me"—that's his grandmother-in-law—"You know, Dr. Morris sounds more like a pastor than an academician." She said, "Well, he is a pastor. That's what he does." Then she looked at me and she said, "Now, that's a compliment."

See, what it is is when I go into the class, I'm just filled with the church. I have all of you people; I'm dragging you in with me. Most of them are pastors, and that's why I'm there: to help them to be a better pastor and to share with them. That's what Paul was saying. He said, "I love you and long for you, my joy and my crown." Stand firm in the Lord.