+Communion
Sermon Summary:
What the enemy seeks to make you feel is that you are the only one speaking the truth or speaking Christ. The enemy wants you to believe that you are alone; the God who speaks has arguably been under attack in my life the most since the very day I got saved. There have been demonic and satanic attacks, sometimes through people, sometimes through dreams, sometimes just the harassment of the enemy in your thoughts or other ways. But always for the same purpose: to attack the idea that God would speak to someone like you, that you would hear from God without the help of someone else, that God actually brings His word to you and reveals it to you.
This truth has always been under attack. It's clear that the Father had foretold through His prophets that the Son would come. The Word explains to us that now the Son has come, and the Father has spoken to us through the Son. The Son says, 'I'm going to give my Spirit to all who ask my Father for the Spirit.' He doesn't say He only gives the Spirit to some or to those who fast and pray to receive the Holy Spirit.
What is Peter saying in the very first sermon preached ever since Pentecost? He says, 'Repent of your unbelief, be baptized, and you will receive the Spirit of the Living God.' Jesus Himself tells us there's a difference between those who do not believe and those who do believe. The difference is this: those who believe, my sheep, they know my voice, they follow me, and those who do not know my voice are not being treated by Christ as believers.
If God does not speak, where does that leave a man who goes to prayer? What begins to happen in your heart and mind if God no longer speaks? How do you view the place of prayer if God does not speak? All I can think of is that prayer becomes a place of work, where we go to somehow accomplish something, persuade something, or bring about something in the heart of God. But if He does not speak, what does that mean for a man or a woman? If God does not speak to open the Word, what does it mean? Only strong people can do that, only those who know how to keep a life, who know how to change their life, can come to the Word, study it, gather knowledge, and become impressive in the eyes of God. But if God does not speak, what does it mean when the Bible explains to us that He desires to know us? What does it really mean to have a personal relationship with God if He does not speak?
Satan always seeks to kill the Word of God; that's nothing new in the church. Since we became the church, he's always sought to do it through mockery. I want you to understand what to look for, what to shut down in your life. Satan always seeks to kill the Word of God by mockery, to cause you to doubt, to cause you to give up on the God who speaks. Mocking means to make something seem laughably unreal or impossible. It is a degrading word, to mock. Mockery is what the enemy seeks to bring about in a person's life, to make them doubt and give up on the God who speaks.
People that mock when I tell them the Lord has given me a word for them, may not say anything; it may happen in their hearts. A lot of mocking happens behind closed doors in the church. They're called hypocrites; they speak one way behind closed doors and present themselves differently publicly. These are mockers. But mockery is anointed by hell; it is designed by hell to make something seem unreal or impossible. You'll see that in the Word of God; I'm not making this up. Mocking will always come to the Word of God; it didn't come into your life until you gave your heart to Christ and began to speak His words. That's when the mockery started, and people's words and feelings are launched into your life to make you believe that God is not going to speak through you, that God is not going to bring His purposes to pass through you. People mock the moment you tell them God put something on your heart for them. They chuckle, or you tell them what God has shown you for their future or situation, and they mock it; they do not believe it.
The Spirit of God has produced something inside of you and me, something so miraculous that now the Word of God is in our hearts, communicated by the Holy Spirit of the Living God who came to live inside of us. You have heard from God, and you will hear from God. If you run into a person that mocks the Word of God inside of you, or if you run into a situation where people seem to mock the Word of God inside of you, remember that it's an assignment from hell. The person is not your enemy; you love that person, you bless that person, but you need to seize that message before it gets into your heart.
What the enemy seeks to make you feel is that you are the only one speaking the truth or speaking Christ. The enemy wants you to begin to believe that you are alone. He tried to grind me out with that message for 12 years before I began to see the effects of it. The best enemy attack is the one you do not notice; it comes very subtly, very gradually, like that stream of water. It didn't cause me to struggle with an obvious attack after 12 years of this, very subtle, in the background, on the down low, very quiet. After 12 years, I began to develop just some slight feelings; that's all the enemy was seeking to do, to make me feel something.
You have received the Word, you have received the Spirit and the promises. You are called to be a mouthpiece of God in this nation and in this world. The God who speaks will bring to pass what you never could. The Word that God sent out will not return void; He will accomplish what He intended. When you open your mouth and say, 'I'm going to speak the Word of faith that God entrusted to me,' it's a simple message, not an impressive one, but my God is going to do miracles when I speak it today. If you can hear the words of the Lord, if you can hear the Spirit of God, don't harden your heart; let Him lead you. He will bring you deliverance, bring you freedom. You'll never again stand in a place where people have no righteousness, no salvation, and you can have peace and move on. The Lord will restore that into your life and give you the heart of Christ one more time, where you say, 'I can't leave these people; I can't be quiet around these people until they receive righteousness, until they receive salvation. God placed His Word in my heart, God placed His Word in my mouth. I cannot stay quiet.'
-Pastor Stan Mons