Is God Holding Me Back?

Pastor Stan Mons

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Sermon Transcription:

Amen. Well, my wife can testify to this. I'm—I'm glad that she is back here with us. Our son is growing quick. He's growing strong, and I'm very grateful to report that so is my wife. She's very strong, and I'm—I'm glad to have her back. I need the help. God knows I need the help. But she can testify to this: the devil fought me on this message like he's done before. But it's not always the same, and that gets me always really excited. It is a battle or a maze, is what it feels like, as—as a preacher, I have to navigate when the enemy attacks in the most subtle, sneaky, and undetectable ways. The enemy always wants to attack in ways that you don't notice it's him, because God forbid you raise the name of Jesus. All of a sudden, his plan is thwarted and broken, and—and—and it doesn't work anymore. So he tries to work undercover virtually all of the time when he's approaching somebody that has already believed on Jesus. And this word, I believe with all my heart, the Lord has designed and—and—and put on my heart very particularly to—to expose some of the things that the enemy tries to do in every single one of our lives.

There's not a person in here, there's not a person that has ever believed on Jesus Christ that this word does not apply to, that it doesn't teach you something and helps you understand something of what the enemy seeks to do on the day-to-day—and how to turn away from that and turn to Jesus so that nothing the enemy plans comes to pass in your life. And now we know, and you may have heard this many times, that the Bible says that no weapon formed against you shall prosper. But who is that written to? Who is the "you"? How do you make sure that you are the "you" in that verse? Because we all may know stories, or even people personally, and it seems like one of the enemy's weapons does prosper in their life. So how does that work? How come it seems like sometimes those weapons are prospering in the life of somebody that may call themselves a Christian or go to a church? And we're not talking about a trial that the Lord allows to deepen the faith—we're talking about a destructive pattern. Something that is out to rob, kill, and destroy.

Here's the title of this message: Is God Holding Me Back? Is God Holding Me Back? And I want you to think about that for just a moment before we go into this world—into this word, excuse me. Do you feel at all, in any corner of your heart—do you feel like God is holding you back in any kind of area of your life? It can be different for every single one of us. Do you feel like God is holding you back from being successful in business? Do you feel God is holding you back from being able to properly—and often the word "success" is a part of that sentence—accomplish something, or do something, or step into something new or out of something old?

Is there anything in your life at all—you may have never said it this way, you may have never thought it this way—but you may have just developed a feeling in the heart that God is just not allowing you. He's holding you back. Think about that for a moment. If your heart at all recognizes that feeling. Now, the enemy—the devil, Satan—the Word tells us what he's occupied with. The Word tells us what he does. He comes to kill, rob, and destroy.

The reason we repeat that sentence—that scripture—so often in this church is because when you start to see the killing, the robbing, and destroying, you recognize who's at work. You pray—it's a done deal—but that's what he comes to do. He comes to kill, rob, and destroy. He wants to kill your faith. He wants to kill what God is doing in your life. He wants to rob your progress. He wants to destroy what God is leading you into. And ultimately, the enemy seeks to find a way to sweep you with him into his great fall—to a place called hell. Let me read to you Matthew 25:41:"Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.'" That fire is not prepared for people. People will go there—some people are going to go there—but that fire is prepared for the devil and his angels. The devil knows it. He knows his time is short, and he wants, if there is a way at all possible, to find a way to sweep with him as many people that Jesus loves as he can possibly sweep with him into that destiny—into that place that is prepared for him.

The devil knows a great judgment is coming. He knows what is prepared for him already. And he hates you so much that he wants you to suffer with him in the consequences of what he has done and what is coming upon him. Now, there will be two types of people at that judgment. Both types of people have sinned. Both types have committed sins. But on the right hand, there will be those who believed on Jesus and became followers of Him with all of their life. And they ended up, when Jesus returned or when they died and came home—they ended up dying or meeting Jesus full of faith as a believer. And on the left hand will be those who did not believe and follow Jesus.

If you read this whole story that we just read the verse from, really the Word is not even talking about faith there. The Word—Jesus—is talking about: "When I was thirsty, you gave me a drink. When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was in prison, you visited me." He's all talking about actions of faith that we are guided into as we go from being a baby believer into becoming a follower after Jesus—beginning to do the things that Jesus was doing on this earth and that He still seeks to do through His body on this earth. And then those that ended up on the left side, they say, "Jesus, when did we see You thirsty? When did we see You hungry or in prison?"And Jesus says to them, "Whenever you didn’t do this to the least, you did not do this to Me." And that's where that verse comes from—to the left and to the right, with the devil and the fire that is prepared for him and his angels.

Now, the devil gets busy with you in a special way once you begin believing in Jesus. I'm not saying he ain't involved when you are not a believer—I believe he's involved in a very different way. But once you become a believer, he gets involved in a very different way because the devil wants you on the left. The devil wants you on the left, and he wants to sweep you with him into his fall, if at all possible. He wants to try that. Well, how's that possible if I already believe in Jesus? The way the devil wants you to end up on the left side is by persuading you—slowly but surely—to not follow Jesus's way in all areas of life, but to follow some of his ways, some of the devil’s ways, in some areas of your life. He doesn't come asking you for all areas. He just starts with the one or the two. And it doesn’t look like Satan’s worship. It doesn’t look like going to a Satan’s church. It doesn’t look like witchcraft. He just offers something in the world that God also said He could give you. Or he offers you a promise that is contrary to what Jesus promised you. And he seeks to persuade you to follow some of what he says so that you don’t become a wholehearted follower of Jesus Christ.

Because the devil knows if you believe in Jesus and you follow Him, you will grow. You will mature. You will begin to see what God is willing to do through you. You’ll encounter many miracles in your life. You’ll overcome many obstacles as God gives you miraculous strength. You’ll be taken by the Holy Spirit into the Scriptures and you begin to read them, and the Spirit begins to explain them to you. And all of these things help your faith grow. It matures your faith. It deepens it. And it builds, as it were, a protective wall around it so that nothing the enemy tries to do—none of his attacks—are really effective anymore in your life. So the devil will seek to keep you from following Jesus after you already have become a believer, because he wants your faith to stay weak. He wants it to stay vulnerable, so he has—if it is at all possible—a chance to steal you to the left and ruin you for eternity.

He is patient, Church. He’ll—he’ll plant a seed, and he’ll wait 20 years for that to grow into something. As long as he gets it done before you die, as long as he gets it done before the Lord returns—he is patient. He’s not looking to do a quick work. He is sneaky. He’s calm. He’s calculated. And he seeks to do it under the radar. Now, the Bible warns us time and again in the New Testament against falling away. You can’t fall away from something you didn’t have before. You can’t exit a relationship you weren’t in in the first place. But before backsliding—before going back to where you came from—you’re going, if you want to call it that, you’re going hard with Jesus. You’re falling more in love with Him. You’re more in the Word. You’re more excited about Him. You’re getting involved with the body of Christ. You’re encouraging brothers and sisters. And before you know it, a couple of years down the line, a lot of these things that you followed Jesus after and into—they seem to disappear. And now your time is spent on other things. They're not satanic worship. They're not necessarily sin. But is the following under attack?

Before backsliding—going back, slowly or fast, to where we used to be, where we came from—or falling away from the faith, diminishing in your faith, maybe even to a point where you begin to doubt that somebody like you, with the issues you have, is actually perfectly forgiven without you doing any good work for it. Falling away from the faith. Backsliding. The devil always wants to make you believe this first, before the backsliding or before the falling away happens:

"God is holding me back. God is holding me back from having the happiness that I deserve on this earth."

God is holding me back from being able to give to my kids what I so want to give to my kids. God is holding me back to make this relationship I have, or I seek to pursue, into what I want it to be. God is holding me back. He is kind of in the way of me doing really well. There’s nothing new under the sun, Church. When everything was perfect—I want you to think about that—Adam and Eve had no sin, no past, no bad past, no mistakes, no consciousness of having ever done anything wrong. They had a perfect walking with the Lord, a perfect knowing of His voice, a perfect knowing of His presence, a perfect knowing of their purpose and their call, and they were walking it out without a flaw. It was a perfect situation. When everything was perfect, the devil figured that this would be the most effective way to keep people from wholeheartedly following after the Lord. When everything was perfect, Satan figured, “This will be the most effective.”

Let me read to you Genesis 3:2–6: And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.” In other words: “God is holding you back.” There are things that you can enter into, and God is just holding you back. Bad things are not going to happen to you. You can engage in this sin and be fine and still be saved. You can engage in exiting the following of Jesus or uncommitting yourself to the ministry that He has called you to, or the work that He has called you to, or the engagement in the Kingdom and the Body of Christ that He has called you to—you can just exit some of that and still be fine. You won’t die. You won’t—God is just holding you back. That’s the message. “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took off its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Here are Adam and Eve—remember, a perfect situation. Perfect discernment to the voice of God. Perfect understanding of what God is like, what He is like when He walks with you, talks with you, when He shows up. Perfect. And yet, this still small seed—that says, “God is holding you back”—it finds a way. And all of a sudden, the woman says, “This tree looks good. It looks desirable. This looks like wisdom.” And the enemy will come, and what he presents to you—it’ll feel like that. It will look like wisdom. It’ll look desirable. It’ll look good, even though God didn’t tell you to do it. God didn’t tell you to engage with it. There was a time in your life where you knew God was turning you. You were sensitive to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, and you turned away from some things. They weren’t sin.

Maybe it was just not for you, and you turned toward some things and committed to some things other people were not doing, but you knew the Lord was leading you into it. Then the enemy comes and says, “Well, this is more wisdom. Doesn’t this look good? God is holding you back a bit. Look at the other people—they’ve also eaten from it. They didn’t die right away. They seem to get away with it.” Still—no God, Church. The devil will offer you a lot of things, but he never, ever tells you what it is going to cost you. He never tells you how long the road he’s trying to take you down is going to be. He never tells you how much of your life is going to be wasted because of that decision. He never tells you what the consequences will be for your children. He never tells you. He just whispers into your life and says to your heart, “God is holding you back a bit.”

The devil even sought to tempt Jesus in the same way. Let me read to you Matthew 4:8–9:

“Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’” Church, in the exact same way, the devil offers it to you and me. He went after Adam and Eve. He even went after Jesus with the same concept. He will come after you and me in the exact same way. And what he offers will be tailor-made. He studies you. What he offers will be tailor made just for you. It can be different for every single one of us, but in the end, there is a still small whisper he tries to get into your heart: “There’s something I can give you. There’s something this world can give you that God won’t.”

The devil will offer you something, and he will present it to your heart with very bold claims. “Oh, what the world could give you. Oh, what I can give you.” He says it’ll satisfy something. It’ll change the way that you feel about yourself. It’ll make you happy. “God is holding you back. Let me take you to this tree.”

Now, God has sent the devil a very clear message in the Word, and I’m grateful that it’s there in the Scriptures for us to see. I believe there’s a great purpose for us to know the message that the Lord has sent to the enemy. I believe that it’s there so that you and I may not be deceived, but that we may fear God and turn to Him. Before I take you to the story, I want to just read Genesis 2:7 to you, as a reminder: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Now, the devil knows that. The devil knows that man was formed out of the dust of the ground. And the Lord had it written down so that you and I would also know that that is what He did.

Then I want to fast forward to when Moses was sent by God to the people enslaved in Egypt. The people of God were under slavery—under Pharaoh in Egypt—their children under attack, no livelihood, only slavery. Then Moses is sent to bring freedom to the people of God. But the Lord sends plagues to Egypt to show His strength and His power, and to force Egypt, in the end, to release the children of the Lord. The first plague: water is turned into blood. But then we read something—the magicians of Pharaoh do their spells, their enchantments, and they also are able to turn water to blood. And the Bible says, “And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.”

Second plague: the Lord brings frogs invading the land. The magicians cast their spells, do their thing—they also cause frogs to come up. And then the story changes.

At the third plague, God sends a message to Satan. The story changes. Exodus 8:16–19: “So the Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to Aaron, “Stretch out your rod and strike the dust of the land, so that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.”’ And they did so. For Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and struck the dust of the earth, and it became lice on man and beast. All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast.Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, ‘This is the finger of God.’ But Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had said.” Church, the devil can only imitate God with what God has already made. That’s what God was rubbing in the devil’s face. What He was really rubbing in the devil’s face was— You have no power over the dust of the earth. You do not create. You cannot create anything out of dust. You cannot. Church, God made you out of the dust of the earth for a reason. He had it written down for you for a reason.

He had this story written down for you for a reason—that you may know that the devil has nothing that he can fulfill you with. He cannot satisfy your heart. The dust is off limits for the devil. He cannot change you. But Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all, can—and He will. He says, "I'll change you from glory to glory. I'll set you free." Church, God is not holding you back. God is holding you by the hand. He doesn't hold you back. He has drawn near to you. He holds you. He's in your situation. He's leading you by the hand. He holds you by the hand. Isaiah 41:13: "For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.'" He holds my hand. He holds your hand. What else do we know about these hands? Isaiah 49:16: "See, I've inscribed you on the palm of My hands; your walls are continually before Me." He says, I hold you by the hand. I wrote your name in My hand.

And then John 20:25–27: The other disciples therefore said to him, to Thomas, "We have seen the Lord." So he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." And after eight days, His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, "Peace to you." Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing." Church, where the nails were driven in and where your name was written is where He holds you. He holds your hands. The hands of God that made you and formed you in the womb—the very hands of God that can actually change you and satisfy your heart and fill you—those are the hands that are holding you. As a child, He's not holding you back. He's holding you as His own child.

He is not holding you back. He is holding your hand. Satan wants your heart to feel different towards God in the smallest of ways. Church, I've been there—in the smallest, the sneakiest of ways. Sometimes it's maybe impossible for us to detect it in the moment. It has to be restored later on. But he’s so diligent to try and change the way you feel about God in your heart in the smallest of ways, so that you start to respond to God slightly different, so that you're less urgent about the work of God in your city, so that you're less urgent about what you believed God could do over your family. He seeks to change your heart's attitude towards God just one degree at a time. And he whispers it: "The world has some answers that will fill your heart. It's worth to follow some of the ways of the world." See, the devil desires to be as God to you. That’s where you trick him. He can't help himself. He wants to be God to you.

Here's what Isaiah 14:13–14 says, for this is the Lord speaking through the prophet, talking about when the devil fell. Here's—here's what the Word says: "For you have said in your heart, 'I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation, on the farthest side of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the cloud. I will be like the Most High.'" Church, what that means for your life is the devil wants you to make your decisions based on his input. He wants to be trusted by you. The devil wants to make you believe his words. He will make you promises—and he will keep them for a while.

Just like in the garden: "You won’t surely die." For a season, it looked like the devil hadn't fully, really lied about that. He'll kind of seemingly keep his word for a while.

I remember being young and feeling somewhat insignificant for various reasons. And I remember praying to Satan for the first time in my life. I remember going on my knees so clearly after being so fed up with God and finding God so boring—and the Word of God so boring—and church and church people so boring. It didn't work. It wasn't exciting. It was all dead. And so I turned to Satan. And I remember praying, asking him—you telling him, "You can have my soul. I just want to be rich. I just want to be successful. I just want to have some worth. I just want to be somebody." I remember making a Ouija board and trying to approach him that way. I remember challenging the devil from the depths of my heart, because I wanted him to respond to me. I wanted him to answer. And eventually, I sold him, I gave him my soul if he would just make me wealthy—if he would just make me successful and rich. And for a season there, it seemed like he had my back. For a season there, some of the things that I really wanted to see happen in my life—he opened doors. He fought my battles. He was trying to be God to me. But he does not set you free from sin.

Then James 1:15: "Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death." Church, the devil will give you things. The devil will fight on your behalf, but he will never deliver you from sin. He will never you deliver you from death. He cannot change you. He cannot touch the dust of the earth. He cannot deliver you. And nothing the devil offers you can ever fill your heart or satisfy your soul. He cannot do anything with dust. He doesn't have the power. He doesn't have the authority. Jesus has the power to change you. When you feel unsatisfied in life, Jesus has the power to change you. The devil can never fill up your heart. He—there's nothing in this world that will answer the desires of your heart, that will fulfill your self-esteem, that will strengthen how you look at yourself, or make you feel more like a man or more like a good woman in this generation.

There's nothing this world offers. There's nothing the devil, the god of this world, can do or offers. It's all empty promises. It's all lies. Jesus Christ has the power to change you. So if you are a believer, the devil has been seeking to plant the seed in your heart. He has been seeking to plant the seed in your mind: "God is holding you back." It can be the slightest of feelings.

Here's how we deal with it. This is how we, for the rest of our lives—because he don't give up easily, Church, I know him pretty well, and I know he don't give up easily—here is how believers deal with this constant roaring lion attack: We meditate on what God does. We continually set our mind and remind ourselves of what God does. And we declare what God does. We meditate on it—that's private. It happens in your heart and in your mind. And declaring is public. Declaring is a choice of faith, if you will.

We learn this from Psalm 145:5 and Psalm 71:17. The Word says: "I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works." And then, "O God, You have taught me from my youth; and to this day I declare Your wondrous works." See, this is what we do. We meditate in the heart and on the mind on what God actually does, and we declare it continually with our mouth. And today, we have done a bit of meditating right here in the service—putting on your mind what God is actually like and exposing the very way that the enemy seeks to make you feel and think about God. We've done some of the meditating.

But this is how we declare it: Satan, God is not holding me back. God is holding me by the hand. Jesus has drawn near to me. Jesus has taken my hand. He's leading me. He's keeping me. He pulls me up. He's lifting my head. And then Psalm 23—I love Psalm 23 when it is time to declare the great and wondrous works of the Lord in my life and in your life.

Psalm 23: "He makes me lie down in green pastures.He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me;Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Hallelujah! God is not holding me back. He's holding my hand. That’s what we declare. God does not hold me back. He holds me by the hand. He inscribed me on His hand. He took the punishment I deserved in His hand, and now He holds me there. He holds me in that place. He leads me. He’s near to me. He's not absent—never absent in what I'm going through.

He doesn't hold me back. He holds me by the hands. I want to invite you to declare it to the heavens—to let it be your worship to Jesus Christ, to let every demon in hell know and hear and tremble at the words that come from your mouth: God don't hold me back. God ain't holding back a tree in the garden for me. God is holding me by the hand. He's raising me like His own. He's protecting me. He's leading me. I will call to mind His wondrous works, and I will declare it, because my God is a good God. He's worthy of all of my praise. Let's declare it to Him: God, You don't hold me back. You hold my hand.

-Pastor Stan Mons