The fight has just begun

A friend of mine is a talented artist and I have bought a few of his renderings in the last couple of years. I took him fishing several times and ended up witnessing to him on these occasions. He had been an alcoholic for many years and it and his non-Christian lifestyle, have pretty much devastated his life. He lost his family and much of his fortune to the bottle and he told me that he had reached a very low point in his life. He had heard about my life and knew I was a Christian and seemed very happy and he wanted to talk about it.

He listened intently as I told him what God had done in my life. He told me that he knew that he needed to do something similar or he was going to die. He was drinking constantly and it was taking its toll. He would not go to church with me for one reason or the other however; and then he left to go back to Maui where he lives part of the year and we kind of lost touch.

He spent about three months in Maui and got in with some Christian friends there and before you know it he turned his heart and his life over to the Lord. When he got back down to the Florida Keys he excitedly called me and was just beaming about how happy he was and what a difference God has made in his life. He had quit drinking entirely and had gotten his life back in order. I went down to see him one day and he did not even look like the same person. He looked healthy and fit and his face literally beamed with enthusiasm. He was all smiles and could not say enough about his love for God and what He had done for him. It was a dramatic turnaround and I welcomed him as my new brother in Christ.

About a week ago he called me back and it did not even sound like the same person. He was dejected and depressed and it was back to “woe is me”. Why the sudden turnaround? He told me that he guessed that maybe getting away from his Christian support group on Maui had a bigger impact on him than he thought. He felt like he was on a ship taking on water in a huge storm and he was sinking fast.

I told him the story of my brother who called me in desperation one day and was crying and sobbing and had reached the end of the line. His life was a wreck from drinking, drugging, multiple divorces, and so forth. His latest wife was getting ready to leave him and he had reached the end of the line.

I convinced him to come to Atlanta and he met with my pastor and me and turned his life over to Jesus. When he returned to New Orleans he was a new person. He reconciled with his wife, and they and their young son were all baptized together in his local church. His life was miraculously transformed and everything started going his way. He stopped all of the non-Christian nonsense that was going on in his life and started going to church, studying his Bible and his hobbies became hunting, fishing, and wood sculpture. I had never seen him happier.

I wish the story ended there. As time wore on over the next two years I would call him and he told me he had not been going to church or studying his Bible, but he knew that he needed to do so and would try. He continued to drift away from God in spite of my repeated attempts of getting him to get back in church et al.

Then one exceedingly stormy night at an airport in Chicago when I was trying to get the last plane out, my wife called me and told me that my beloved brother Jim had just committed suicide.

It is clear that satan did not ever give up on my brother even after he turned his life over to Christ. While Jim was safely in church with other God fearing Christians he was able to withstand his efforts to win him back, but when he started backsliding and quit going to church and studying his Bible he slipped right back into the trap.

The story never ends with accepting Christ as your Savior. Actually that is just the first step. According to the Bible we are engaged in spiritual warfare and if we try to fight satan alone, we will lose. It tells us the only way that we can survive this warfare is to put on the full armor of God; faith, constant prayer, Bible study, and fellowship with other Christians.

Satan is not to be toyed with. He is powerful and cunning and he does not want to lose one soul and will viciously fight for each of us.

I still feel satan working hard to ruin my life most every day of my life. He would win me back if it were not for my donning the full armor of God.

How about you? Are you backsliding lately? Then get your butt back in church as fast you can just like the devil himself is chasing you down like a lion closing in on a gazelle

Eph. 10:6
Finally brethren, be strong
in the Lord and in the power of His
might.
Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against
flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the
rulers of the darkness of this age,
against spiritual hosts of wickedness
in high places.