Last week, the Holy Spirit led us into examining certain principles that would guarantee our living in perpetual victory. We examined Six Principles which are: THE PRINCIPLE OF PRAISE (2Chronicles 20), THE PRINCIPLE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT (Philemon 1:6), THE PRINCIPLE OF SURRENDER (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), THE PRINCIPLE OF ABSOLUTE DEPENDENCE ON GOD (Psalm 44), THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH (1John 5:4) and THE PRINCIPLE OF OBEDIENCE (Deuteronomy 28:1-2).

 

Today we will be examining the other leg of that message which has been titled: How to Manage Opposition in Victory! In Jude 1:3, the Bible says: “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation…” You know the president took his time to explain this phrase to us in our Disciplers’ Convocation meeting on Monday when he was explaining our common victory to us. He said the fact that the word ‘common’ was used is not because our victory is valueless or something that is common place, no! He said what makes it common is because it is something that is peculiar to a certain people, you and I, and others for instance. For example, the same victory you enjoy is the same victory that I enjoy, and it is the same victory that other believers enjoy as well in the body of Christ. So, that makes it common.

 

So, Jude using the same phrase “common salvation” here in this context, does not make salvation cheap or something that is worthless. It is because salvation as used here is peculiar to us, you and I, children of God. It is the same salvation that we have, not different types of salvation. There is no grade ‘A’ or ‘B’ salvation. Each and everyone of us came into Christ the same way and style. Ephesians 2:8 says “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God…” Romans 10:9-10 also shows us: “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

 

So, Jude was right here when he used the phrase “common salvation.” He wrote further: I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. And in this part is where the focus of today’s message is. Jude said “we should contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” Our victory has been delivered to us once and for all. Our salvation has been given to us once and for all. Christ is not coming back to this world to die again the death of the cross for the second time. He has done that once and for all and He is at he right hand of the Father interceding for us.

 

But we are to contend for this victory because we have an opposition. Our number one opposition in victory is the devil. Whether we like it or not, our victory in Christ Jesus will be contended for. There is someone who is not happy that we are enjoying the current victory that Christ has won for us. He is doing all he can to make sure that we lose this victory. The Bible calls him the accuser of the brethren in in Revelation 12:9-10.

 

“So, the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.¹⁰ Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.”

 

So, the crux of this teaching is how to manage opposition in victory because whether we like it or not, Satan is not going to stop coming to antagonize our victory. Satan is our major opposition. 

 

HOW TO MANAGE OPPOSITION IN VICTORY

 

Number One: Through Vigilance! 1 Peter 5:8-9

 

“Be sober, be vigilant…” The Christian life is not a life of carelessness, the Christian life is not a lackadaisical life. The Christian life is not a lukewarm life. Jesus even said “if you are neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.” The Christian life is a life of vigilance. 1 Thessalonians 5:6-8 says: “Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation” In Matthew 26:41a, Jesus said to His disciples: “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.” To be vigilant is to watch and stay at alert.

 

Why did the Scripture admonish us to be vigilance this way? Let us read 1Peter 5:8-9 further: “because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. ⁹ Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.” The truth is: Christ has won the victory for us but He does not want us to be careless with it. Vigilance is one of the characteristics of a good soldier and we are soldiers of Christ. It won’t take the devil any stress to snatch away the victory of a careless child of God. Sometimes we wonder why the devil always run after Christians and we ask ourselves: what is he looking for? Well, it is that victory that he is coming after.

 

 

Things to be Vigilant On!

 

a) Wolves in Sheep’s clothing. Those evil men and women who on the outside they claim to be Christians but deep down in their heart, they are the tabernacle of Satan: Fake pastors, fake prophets, fake teachers of God’s word, those who have turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. I read the story of a particular popular clergy man in Nigeria who duped a woman to the tune of N17,000,000 over the space of three years. These are the people that the Scriptures admonished us to be vigilant on. Jude 1:4 says:

 

“For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

b) Excessive Enjoyment. The Bible didn’t say we should not enjoy ourselves. But we should never do this forgetting that there is an opposition lurking around looking for every opportunity to snatch away our victory. In 1 John 2:15-17(TPT), the Bible says: “Don’t set the affections of your heart on this world or in loving the things of the world. The love of the Father and the love of the world are incompatible. ¹⁶ For all that the world can offer us—the gratification of our flesh, the allurement of the things of the world, and the obsession with status and importance—none of these things come from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷ This world and its desires are in the process of passing away, but those who love to do the will of God live forever.”

 

c) Satan’s Tactics. Satan has many tactics through which he can use to steal our victory. One of them is through deception. In Ephesians 6:11, the Bible says: “put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” The wiles of the devil are his deceptive strategies. The devil is a cunning man and he sometimes employs this cunningness to deceive people. He used same against Eve and he tried it against Christ as well. So, we must be vigilant about this!

 

Number Two: Through Service! Joshua 24:1-5, 13, 14-18

 

“Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God. ² And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods. ³ Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the River, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac. ⁴ To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. To Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. ⁵ Also I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to what I did among them. Afterward I brought you out.”

 

Most of the time when you see the Lord talking this way, giving an historical account of what had happened and what He has done for a people, it is because He wanted the people to get the point He was about to make. And so, a wise people would pay attention to where God is going and would not be in a hurry.

 

Let us jump to verse 13. It says: “I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.” This verse 13 is talking about a victory that the children of Israel are enjoying and which they did not labour for. Just as we read in Romans 8:37 that says “yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

 

So, where exactly is God going by reiterating all these stories? Verse 14-18 shows us. It says:

 

“Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! ¹⁵ And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of  the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” ¹⁶ So the people answered and said: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; ¹⁷ for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed. ¹⁸ And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.”

 

In Nehemiah 4:1-6, the Bible says:

 

“But it so happened, when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, that he was furious and very indignant, and mocked the Jews. ² And he spoke before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in a day? Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish—stones that are burned?” ³ Now Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Whatever they build, if even a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall.” ⁴ Hear, O our God, for we are despised; turn their reproach on their own heads, and give them as plunder to a land of captivity! ⁵ Do not cover their iniquity, and do not let their sin be blotted out from before You; for they have provoked You to anger before the builders. ⁶ So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.”

 

One sure way to manage opposition in victory is to remain on the side of God perpetually by serving Him. The Christian’s victory is meant to serve God and nothing else. The people of Israel recognized that their victory has been from God and they pledge to serve Him in return. 1 Corinthians 15:57-58 says: “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁵⁸ Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”  When you serve the Lord in victory, He Himself hedges out your opposition.

 

Number Three: Through Prayer! Luke 18:1 (AMP)

 

“Now, Jesus was telling the disciples a parable to make the point that at all times they ought to pray and not give up and lose heart…” The kind of prayer we pray is not so that Christ should give us victory but rather, the strength to be able to sustain our victory, and that strength comes through prayer. You know, many believers pray that God should give them the things He had already given them. Some people pray thus: “Lord heal me, Lord deliver me from this and that…” But God has healed and deliver you already. That prayer of healing you are praying for is part of the victory package that Christ has won for you. 1 Peter 2:24 says: “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.”

 

Isaiah 53:3-5 says:

“He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

⁴ Surely, He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.”

 

 

I believe you have learnt something!

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Obayomi Abiola Benjamin!

Feel free to share your thoughts or testimony in the comment box below. I promise to respond to them as soon as possible!