Aspects of Fighting the Good Fight of Faith, Part 3

[saint701]

Hello Christianity Oasis, All...

Blessings

[b]
Part 3, The Fiery Trial of Faith [/b]

1Cor.6
[12] All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
1Cor.10
[23] All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

Rom.14
[23] And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

Eph.6
[16] Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

1Pet.4
[12] Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

Heb.10[31] It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Dan.3 [23] And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
[24] Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellers, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.
[25] He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

As a Christian matures his/her life should be consumed by continual acts of faith because our lives are governed by the Law of Faith. One's daily confession should be this. I have faith to do all I am doing because such is God's righteousness in me, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. All things are lawful for me but all things are not necessarily expedient and all things do not necessarily edify. Therefore I will not be brought under the power of any.

Such is why Paul said in Romans 14 [23] above, Rom.14
[23] And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

That, my beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord is what we must avoid, because acting on an issue that is not of faith opens the door for Satan to attack us in a most vicious and violent way. Such is why the Apostle Paul also said that faith is able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Eph.6.[16] And faith does just that. It quenches all of the fiery darts of the wicked one.

All that being said I will now tell the story about how I learned the hard way about all the spiritual truths above given us in the scriptures I've posted above. After our year of teaching in New Mexico we returned to Missouri to be close to my mother. We opened a daycare there and spent a year operating it. It was another good year, but in April came our 3rd child, a boy, and we did not have the money to pay the pediatrician or the hospital bill so it was back to the Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico...this time in the town of Tohatchi...but unfortunately my wife got hired but I didn't.

But that misfortune opened the door for me to begin honing my writing skills. Writing had always come easy for me and I had the dream of writing a novel. That door was open and I walked through it. The title of the Novel is Saga of Darkness; Vision of Light. You can read the finished work free of charge, here. [url][URL] https://www.christianityoasis.com/purit ... /forum.htm[/url][/url]

During the Summer following our year in Tohatchi I was offered a teaching job in the 4 Corners area of Arizona...Red Mesa #27 to be exact...My faith was still mighty and toward the end of that year I said to my wife. "We're going to get teaching jobs back in Missouri and we're not even going to have to fill out an application." And we did! That was all well and good of course but in the middle of that year the spiritual aura around me began to change and somehow I had misplaced the common spiritual sense to fight it. Witchcraft!!!

We were required to attend a "Squaw Dance" at the highschool auditorium. There was a witch doctor there performing rights for the people of the surrounding area. I attempted to bind his activities and he knew it. Unfortunately I did not discern his discerning me. And even more unfortunately I had no idea he had called up a demon to plague and kill me if possible.

And that was pretty much the end of my bold faith proclamations. All hell was about to break loose upon me and I was totally unprepared for what was to beset me only a short walk down the road. Upon arrival back in Missouri at an elementary school near Fulton I continued to sense something was wrong...and it was...with me. Over the course of the first few months of our stay there I gradually became a nervous wreck, so much so I had to resign from my job and seek medical help. I was prescribed Tranxene, a powerful sedative used to treat anxiety disorders. I took them for a while, then decided I was fine on my own. So much for them I thought while flushing the remaining pills down the toilet.

At that point I began seeking the Lord about delivering me from smoking cigarettes and I also attempted to see myself before the Lord"s Throne of Grace. I quit smoking cold turkey for one night, but when I woke up the next morning I found myself once again a nervous wreck...and the first thing I did was light up a cigarette, and when I did all hell broke loose on me...a gruff ugly voice spoke to me and said. "I'm going to give you all these things." I had been studying Matthew chapter 24 verses 33 and 34 where our Lord Jesus said. "When you see all these things..."

But that demon wasn't speaking of Matthew 24 but out of its own vile mouth he was speaking about the horror only seconds away from besetting me, the fiery trial of faith! All hellfire broke loose on the top of my head and roared on down into the very pit of my stomach causing me to fall into the hands of the Lord...a fearful thing indeed! But if that had been the end of the matter I wouldn't be here relating the events of this story to you. I would be burning in hellfire.

Within seconds I found myself being shoved toward the balcony on the 2nd floor. I reached out and grabbed hold of the chest of drawers nearest the balcony, stopping the affliction dead in its tracks. I was dazed and delirious from the horrible onslaught and could not think of a single thing to do after that...so I stood there clinging to the chest of drawers. Had I been able to think I would have realized I was in the hands of the Lord. He was right there in the ordeal with me...but the fight was all mine. It was my trial of faith not His!! And I had failed miserably, letting my faith guard down giving the devil an open door to attack and assault me with his violent weapon, hellfire!!!

But now let me interject some history of smoking in my family and how it affected me growing up. When I was little more than 2 years old, the rug rat extraordinaire that I was, my dad gave me a puff off of his Camel cigarette...and in a sense that had become the family habit...and by the time I was 12 years old, the neighborhood habit. All the male members of my family either smoked either unfiltered Camels or Lucky Strikes...walk a mile for a Camel and Lucky Strike meant fine tobacco...so even before I first lit up a cigarette smoking was an ingrained part of my physical nature. So out of the ordeal I added this to my confession...I will have faith to smoke and I will have faith not to smoke...and there have been times when I didn't smoke since then and more often many times when I have.

As I said, that demon hit me with raging fire that consumed the bulk of my torso and raged from the tip top of my head to the pit of my stomach. I was filled with fiery fear with no understanding of what was consuming me...but wait a minute...it didn't...but nevertheless the fire raged on day after day...for 17 days I didn't smoke...I couldn't sleep...I couldn't eat...I was so miserable I decided to have faith to smoke...and I did...heavily until finally early one wintry evening around Christmas I was so overwhelmed by the non-stop raging hellfire I didn't know what my befall my family so I asked my wife to drive me to a nearby medical center where I was admitted to the psych ward...an entire team of doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists could find nothing wrong and did not treat me at all...they did, however, in all fairness to their incompetence, ask me what should be done with me? I said they should keep me in there forever. Thankfully they didn't. They decided to discharge me the next morning. What a relief that was. I found the faith to continue on...

At the end of the 20th day of the attack in addition to having the faith to smoke I had the faith to continue on. Nevertheless the battle raged on for another 20 days. But by that time I had recovered some 75% of my soul, but recovering the other 25% would take years. But during that time I proved that there is a law of faith that absolutely does quench all of the fiery darts of the wicked one. Our confession of faith stops the devil dead in its tracks...it cannot override our faith!!!

Here is how I would resist the devil. I resist you devil in the Name, the Life, and the Blood of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I have faith to do each and everything I do continually!!! And remember this, as with the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, Dan.3.25, the King said this. " I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." The Lord will be with you in the fire and you will not be consumed by it.


Blessings!
Love, in Christ Jesus, Saint701.