+Communion
Sermon Summary:
What the enemy seeks to make you feel is that you are the only one who is speaking the truth or speaking Christ. The enemy wants you to begin to believe, to begin to feel, that you are alone. The God who speaks—this is arguably one of the things in my life that has been under attack the most since the very day that I got saved. There have been demonic and satanic attacks, sometimes through people, sometimes dreams, sometimes just harassing of the enemy in your thoughts or other ways, but always with 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 you would hear from the Lord without someone else bringing that word into your life. But God actually brings His word to you, and He reveals unto you that when you're reading the Bible, He speaks things to you, or when you are in prayer, He opens things up to you and speaks to your heart. That truth has always been under attack.
It could not be clearer that the Father had foretold through His prophets that the Son would come, and the word explains to us now that the Son has come. The Father has spoken to us through the Son, and the Son says, "I'm going to give my Spirit unto all. Whoever asks my Father for the Spirit, He's going to give the Spirit." That's what He says. He doesn't say He only gives the Spirit to some, or He only gives the Spirit to those that fast and pray to receive the Holy Spirit. What does Peter say in the very first sermon preached 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 that do not believe and those that do believe Him. The difference is this: those that believe Him, His sheep, they know His voice, they follow Him. Those that do not know His voice are not being treated by Christ as believers. If God does not speak, where does that leave a man that goes to prayer? Where does it leave you if God does not speak? What begins to happen in your heart and mind? How do you view the place of prayer if God no longer speaks? All I can think of is that prayer becomes a place of work, where we go to somehow accomplish something or persuade something or bring about something in the heart of God. But if He does not speak, what does it mean for a man or a woman to open the word? Only strong people can do that—only strong people that know how to keep all, that know how to change their life, can come to the word and just study it up and gather a lot of knowledge and become somehow, someway, maybe something 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 God does not speak?
Satan always seeks to kill the word of God—that's nothing new, Church, that's not new. Ever since we became the Church, he's always sought to do it by mockery. I want you to understand when you leave today what to look for, what to shut down in your life. Satan always seeks to kill the word of God by mockery—by mockery to cause you to doubt, by mockery 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, huh, sure, right, I don't know about that one.
Mocking 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—the moment I tell them the Lord has given me a word for you, they may not say anything; it may be happening in the heart. A lot of mocking happens behind closed doors, Church. They’re called hypocrites. They speak one way behind closed doors; they present themselves another way publicly. These are mockers, but mockery is anointed of hell. It is designed by hell to do something. You're going to see that in the word of God—I'm not making this stuff up. You're going to see it in a whole bunch of scriptures, but that mocking, that will always come to the word of God, it doesn't come into your life because of you. It never came into your life until you gave your heart to Christ and until you began to speak His words. That's when the mockery started, and people's words and feelings are all 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 that you tell, "God put something on my heart for you," and they chuckle, or you begin to tell them what God has shown you for their future or for their situation, and they mock it—they do not believe it. The Spirit of God has produced something inside of you and I, something so miraculous that now the word of God is in your heart, that now the word of God is residing in your mouth, communicated to you by the Holy Spirit of the Living God who came to live inside of you.
You have heard from God, Church, and you will hear from God. If you run into a person that mocks the word of God inside of you, when you run into a situation where people seem to mock the word of God inside of you, remember that's an assignment from hell. That person is not your enemy—you love that person, you bless that person—but you need to seize that message before it can get into your heart. What the enemy seeks to make you feel is that you are the only one who is speaking the truth or speaking Christ. The enemy wants you to begin to believe, to begin to feel, 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, my wife and I were talking about it last night, is the one you do not notice. He doesn't come to you obvious; he doesn't come to you trying to take big steps. He comes very subtly, very gradually, like that stream of water. He didn't cause me to struggle with a thing—no obvious struggle, no obvious attack. After 12 years of this very subtle, very in-the-background, very on-the-down-low, very quiet, very quiet attack, 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, and the God who speaks will bring to pass what you never could. That's what the word tells us. The word that God sent out will not return void to Him—that's what He will accomplish. When you open your mouth and you say, "I'm going to speak the word of faith that God entrusted to me," it's a simple message. It's not an impressive message, 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, but let Him lead you. He will bring you into deliverance, He'll bring you into freedom. You'll never again stand in a place where people have no righteousness, no salvation, and you can have peace and just 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