My Dear friend,

An oft-seen biblical pattern is this: God always accomplishes His sovereign will and plans through His willing servants no matter how fiercely, even fanatically, they are opposed. In the end, His plans will prevail, and their opponents' hopes fail. Without exception. In any generation. In any location. Among any people.

Truly, the raging of Satan is but confirmation that God's plans and works are present and progressing. Why? Satan is fixated on opposing God. He opposes only what pleases God. And the more God desires something, the more hatefully, unreasonably, and unrelentingly the adversary fights it. Till God moves in to shut down the rebellion: "Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther" (Job 38:11).

Let's see this pattern from three perspectives: the Bible's testimony, history's testimony, and your testimony.

The Bible's Testimony

The Bible will now testify. God planned to use Joseph to save his family, Egypt, the world, the chosen nation, and the coming Savior. So, Satan filled his brothers with hateful envy and they did their worst to stop Joseph's divine destiny. But, in the end, they bowed to "the dreamer" and his dreams. And God's plan was carried out just as he originally revealed it to Joseph.

God planned to use Moses to deliver Joseph's people from cruel Egyptian bondage and lead them to their Promised Land of blessing, security, and fruitfulness. Then Satan, moved with malevolence, intervened. First, through one cruel Pharaoh he tried to abort Moses' birth. No deliverer, no deliverance! Second, when Moses challenged a subsequent Pharaoh, the adversary doggedly withstood Moses' divinely empowered ministry of deliverance through Pharoah's obstinacy and his court magicians. Until, in the end, Pharoah capitulated, God triumphed, and Moses led God's people out of bondage according to His plan.

Samuel expressly called young David to be Israel's next king, to deliver them from their Philistine enemies and establish them in God's ways and worship. But the adversary raged against Goliath's brave slayer and, again through envy, moved King Saul to lead his best soldiers on a long military campaign to assassinate David. Saul's persecution was relentless, pitiless, and, aided by Saul's public slander campaign, almost successful. But in the end, it was David who reigned and Saul who passed according to God's original plan.

God put it in Nehemiah's heart to return and rebuild Jerusalem's ruined walls after the captivity. But from the moment he returned, Nehemiah was resisted and mocked by the Samaritans outside Jerusalem and treacherously betrayed by disloyal Jews inside. All his opponents were unwittingly used by Satan to try to stop the reestablishment of God's beloved city, people, and worship. But Nehemiah's God-project was successfully completed. Jerusalem's walls were rebuilt, the remnant was inspired, and a great Ezra-led revival followed, and Nehemiah's mean-spirited critics were left utterly dispirited and defeated. Their worst did not stop God's best from being accomplished.

The heavenly Father sent His Son to reveal Himself to Israel and offer it the kingdom of God on earth. But the devil, through the apostate Pharisaic and Sadducean Jewish leaders, would have none of it. For three years they opposed, maligned, and plotted against Jesus nonstop. Finally, collaborating with the Romans, they did away with the "threat" to their tidy, tightly controlled, religious-but-dead form of Judaism. But God raised Jesus and established His spiritual kingdom that has now spread all over the earth: the church! Why? This was His plan all along, to redeem Gentiles and Jews alike by grace through faith and not by the works of the Law. And the Pharisees, where are they? Long gone and forgotten. Enough from the Bible.

History's Testimony

History wishes to add its testimony. God planned for the church to be spiritually alive, fruitful, evangelistic, missional, heavenly minded, and above all, to let Jesus shine through it to a lost, dark, dying world. But the adversary had his own plans. When Constantine came to power, Satan tempted church leaders to seek power and affluence instead of righteousness and God's will, and the church tumbled into a death spiral of sin and heresy for over a thousand years. During this period, idolatrous images of Mary, saints, and relics took center stage and covered Jesus' glory, and His image was seen only rarely through dissenters who bravely separated and criticized papal supremacy and Catholic errors. Then God raised up the great reformers, led by Luther and many others, who threw off the filthy rags of corrupt, heretical religion and began the long, slow process of restoring the church to God's New Testament design.

After the Reformation, God's plan was to continue restoring dynamic life, renewed knowledge, gifts, and power to the church. But again, the adversary resisted. First, he stirred Catholics to pursue deadly persecutions and bloody wars against the Protestants. Second, about a century and a half later, he prompted Protestant leaders to emphasize doctrine over devotion and intellectualism over inspiration. But before Christ's vineyard dried up, God sent a new army of inspired revivalists on every continent - the Pietists, Zinzendorf, Menno Simons, Wesley, Whitefield, Finney, Spurgeon, Moody, Catherine Booth, Phoebe Palmer, and many others - and Christ's body awakened, inhaled divine life, and rose with new life and purpose again. Though yet imperfect, the plan was still alive and progressing.

In the last two centuries, God turned His attention toward the restoration of Israel to its ancient homeland and the Zionist Movement (1898-1948) arose and slowly but surely took hold. Infuriated, Satan incited Arabs in Palestine to oppose every sale of property to Jewish buyers, every building project, every kibbutz, every attempt to receive Jewish immigrants, and every League of Nations and United Nations plan designed to aid Jewish resettlement in Zion. But Israel's new State was born, it survived its War of Independence, and remains established and stronger by the day - despite numerous wars, unrelenting Islamic terrorism, and nearly constant United Nations condemnation. So, again, God's fiercely opposed plan has succeeded: the Jews are back in their land and ready to repent and receive Jesus in the Tribulation. Enough from history.

Your Testimony

Now it is time for our testimonies to speak. What will your testimony be, my friend? Are you seeking Christ daily, letting His Word become flesh in you, pursuing His call on your life, earnestly working to fulfill our commissions, and help prepare the bride of Christ in these last days?

Then the same Satan is raging against you with the same hatred for the same purpose: you are doing God's pleasure - and deeply displeasing Satan! His rage is being directed at you through his servants, all of whom are still subject to his thought-prompts because they are unredeemed sinners or persistently disobedient, carnal Christians. Will God automatically help you pass your test and gain testimony?

Your Cooperation is Essential

No! You will need to cooperate with His grace to overcome your trials and forge your Christ-honoring witness. How? Here are some biblically and experientially proven suggestions.

Stay clean. Stay close. Stay committed. Stay merciful. Stay immersed in Scripture. Stay committed to not only learning but also living it. Stay where God has put you - despite people opposing you on every side as Nehemiah's enemies did him. And keep doing what God has called, gifted, and led you to do. Never leave the place of your calling because it's highly pressurized or your work is rarely appreciated. Never let envy draw you to imitate what other seemingly more successful Christians are doing if God has not clearly called you to do so. Just stay put and stay faithful. And become better insulated against your opposition by receiving regular infusions of Christ's Word, Spirit, and supercharging Presence in the secret place daily (Psalms 16:11; 46:1; 91:1; Matthew 6:6).

Remind yourself often of God's plan - the vision He put in your heart for your life and believe it will fit in with His greater plan for His bride church locally, nationally, and worldwide. Choose to trust His unfailing faithfulness; even when your faith waivers, His faithfulness remains unwavering (2 Timothy 2:13). Rely on His undiminishing power, especially when you feel weary and powerless. Follow His Spirit's superior wisdom; He alone knows how He will complete the plan He has begun in your life.

Take time to worship Him, alone and with other committed believers. Diligently walk out, work out, and shine out Christ's Word as you go about your day, maintaining sweet, close fellowship with Him by "pray[ing] without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Remember to acknowledge God's hand in "all your ways" (Proverbs 3:6), or in every circumstance and person you meet and, whenever possible, freely minister His love, truth, and assistance.

Finally, watch out for Satan's favorite trap: unforgiveness! Relentlessly forgive Satan's human agents who relentlessly resist you, giving him no "place" (access) in your soul through bitterness (Mark 11:25-26; 2 Corinthians 2:9-11; Ephesians 4:26-27; Hebrews 3:12-13). This enables you to retain full spiritual authority in Christ's name for effective intercession and Spirit-empowered ministry, even when you look defeated and forlorn to many, and are mocked by your arrogant, spiritually ignorant enemies.

This simple, close walk will keep you online with God, in line for His fulfillment, and lined up for His intervention in your life. The result?

The Result

You, too, will discover, to your delight, that God has accomplished His glorious purpose in your life. Despite the devil's worst resistance, God's best plan has materialized. No longer dreaming the dream, you are now living the dream, daily, consciously, with overflowing, tingling joy. No matter how fiercely opposed you have been, no matter how long opposed, no matter how demonically opposed, no matter how unreasonably and stubbornly opposed, no matter how many sinners, friends, and even family members have opposed, no matter how impossible your God-given plans have seemed to you at times, God has done it! As He planned. As He promised. In His time and way. There it is. Behold it. It is a sight that will set you to singing.

You will sing the song of David: "He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God" (Psalm 40:3). Hearing of your victory song - your testimony - others will receive new strength to persevere, cooperate with God, and receive their own victory: "Many shall see it [your experience], and fear [deeply respect God], and shall [wholly] trust in the Lord [themselves]" (Psalm 40:3). And Satan?

As in every case above, he will be left defeated, sullen, silent. And heaven will be ablaze with uproarious shouts of praise, as all present there identify with you and your victory, which is God's. So rapt will they be that many of the most dignified elders and most holy angels may break out in spontaneous singing and dancing with pure, childlike, Davidic joy! Why?

By your willing obedience God has created yet another testimony of His unstoppable power and His adversary's impossible quest to stop His plans.

Believing, cooperating, triumphing, testifying, singing,

Dr. Greg Hinnant

GREG HINNANT MINISTRIES