You will learn why God calls us to Sanctification and that a life of sanctification will give you victory over sin.  Through this chapter you will learn to see yourself the way that God sees you and gain the correct understanding of the Strong Man and about binding and loosing. 

 

Let’s start this chapter with a couple of questions.

 

1.      Do you believe that a life of Sanctification will strengthen your walk with the LORD?

 

2.      How can someone who has not made Jesus their LORD; put on the Armor of God?  i.e. how can you put on the helmet of salvation if you are not saved?

 

The word ‘hagiasmos’ 38 is the word in which sanctification comes from.  The Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance defines it as: purification, separate to God and the conduct befitting those who are separated to God.  Another definition reads “sanctification is thus the state predetermined by God for believers, into which in Grace He calls them, and in which they begin their Christian course and so pursue it”.

 

Hebrews 12:14 - Follow peace with all men, and sanctification 38 without which no man shall see the Lord.

 

You’re about to see that the teachings on the Strong man found in Matthew, Mark and Luke are actually lessons in Sanctification and a warning about Double Mindedness.  They teach the believer that by living a life of sanctification, they will be able to enjoy the benefits of God, but those who return to a life of sin will abandon their sanctification and be subject to defeat.  The devil will attack whether you walk in the spirit or in the flesh but, through a life of sanctification you will keep the armor of the LORD on you and it will keep Satan from having victory over you.  We are told that weapons will be formed against us (Isaiah 54:17) and when they are, you will have a fight on your hands.  If you have ever been in a street fight; you know that even when you win you still have bumps, scrapes and bruises. 

 

Sanctification will ensure that No weapon formed against you shall prosper (flourish or thrive)!  I am Hopeful that this new understanding that you are about to receive will help to equip you with the armor of God, so that you can have victory over the attacks of the devil.  A life of sanctification can only be accomplished by receiving and walking in the Grace that has been given to us by God.

 

Here is how this revelation came about.  I was reading the Gospel of Mark and as I came to the 27th verse of the 3rd chapter, I was tempted to skip over it because I thought I already knew what it meant (this is a bad habit for believers to get into).  It is the famous verse about binding the Strong Man, and it goes like this.

 

Mark 3:27.  “No man can enter into the house of the Strong Man and plunder his goods unless he first binds the Strong Man and then he will plunder his house.”

 

While I was reading this verse, I heard the LORD speak to my heart.  He said ...