Satan's Attack against God's Work Force
This put-down of our anointed women started at the beginning
of history, as we shall see. Genesis 3:15 is a prophecy
especially for the end time. In many churches, "the women of the
church" is a term that implies little old ladies socializing by
sipping tea together or having covered udish suppers. That's not
what God meant at all. God said there would be hostility between
Satan and women. More women are gifted and anointed as
intercessors and prayer warriors against Satan's schemes than
men. Women have discernment God did not put in men.
We know one truism: women hate snakes! No coincidence. This
more often true than not generalization is a physical shadow of
a spiritual truth. When it comes to that serpent Satan, women go
on the warpath! in this end time, Jess in women will be
instrumental in crushing the head of that snake Satan. While
Satan's "bruising" of the heel of Jesus and His followers
applies to both men and women, it is especially the women who
have had their feet tripped up, a picture of betrayal. Satan has
used men to reject the special "anointings" of women and thus
betray them.
Since the beginning, therefore, Satan has been especially
hostile to women - at enmity with them. That's because he knows
they are the ones that are principally going to crush his slimy
little head.
The Stupid Macho Mentality and Satan's Not-so-stupid
Counterfeit
Since Satan knows his time is alarmingly short (Rev. 12:12),
he is focusing many of his big guns of rejection and betrayal on
women. They scare him! And since Satan loves to use the spirit
of stupidity, he uses the "mucho stupido" macho nonsense to put
down women. The word "estupido' in Spanish is an extremely
strong word, and I was tempted to use it here since the macho
mentality is so stupid and harmful. I'll simply let you add the
"e" before "stupido" if you feel led. Men have definitely led
women down a path of destruction. The John Wayne mindset has
caused women's role to wane in this time of the end. Yet God
intended just the opposite. He wants the women to rise!
Please understand. The feminist movement is a perversion of
what God wanted. Satan loves to confuse the issue. Women were
not called to rise up in pride and crush the man. They were
called to rise up and crush the head of the serpent Satan.
God also called many women to preach the gospel. Guess who
Jesus (as well as an angel) first told to go preach the good
news? Women! (Matthew 28:7 and John 20:17). Women are called to
be preachers of the gospel. It's the gospel truth!
That gospel truth is not good news, however, to Satan or to
the men he uses to suppress women. Satan has perverted the truth
by creating an unholy women's liberation movement. By setting
women free from rejection, God wants to liberate women His way.
God has a plan for women. Satan also has a plan to stop God's
plan. God, however, is always ahead of Satan, and He has
foreseen Satan's attack on women and has a plan to redeem all
that Satan has done. Those women who heed this teaching on
rejection can be the first women to wise up and rise up to do
the important Kingdom work God has called them to do in this
exciting time at the close of man's (and Satan's) reign on
earth.
While Satan knows his time is short and is on the offensive,
the Christian "virgins" are asleep at the Satan switch. The
enemy has used spineless but proud religious men to silence the
best warriors. And most Christians don't believe we even have to
do battle with Satan. Just leave him on his side of the road and
you'll be okay. Don't bug him and he won't bug you.
Most believers have no inkling of Satan's plan. His goal is
to stop the establishment of the Kingdom of God and block Jesus'
return. He wants to stop the preaching of the gospel of the
Kingdom and the work force that God has called to do the Kingdom
work.
The sad truth is that would-be Christian warriors don't know
their enemy. Maybe they haven't watched enough war movies. Or
maybe they think only John Wayne in "The Longest Day" is the
only one capable of knowing the enemy. But knowing your enemy is
warfare 101! "Leave the devil alone, and he'll leave you alone"
is a phrase that is all too common. It reveals, however, a
person who couldn't spot Satan if he showed up fiery red holding
a pitchfork! If that is your maxim, the devil has you exactly
where he wants you - under his feet. And while it may be true
that he won't have to fight you much at all, you are easy prey
and he has you in his net.
The truth is, Satan is a toothless lion. But most Christians
let this lowly lion gum them to death!
Most believers are helping Satan do his job, rather than
doing the job God gave them to further His Kingdom and thus stop
Satan's plans.
In the meantime, and it is definitely a mean time Satan is
giving defenseless Christians, the devil has a carefully
orchestrated plan.
Satan's Five-Point Plan of Attack
His first of five lines of attack is his general attack
against God's Kingdom work force, called to publish the gospel
of the Kingdom of God and disciple new believers. Satan launches
this general attack because he figures he can succeed if he can
put down the majority of the church. While he may be stupid in
thinking he can win in a fight with God, he is definitely not a
dummy when it comes to his clever schemes. He is aware of a
statistic of which you may not be aware.
Guess who composes the majority - two-thirds - of the church
worldwide? Women! If he can stop their anointing, he has stopped
most of the church. If all women stop being prayer warriors,
intercessors, evangelists, teachers, pastors, prophets or
apostles, what would we have? We would have a weak, limp, lazy,
distracted church too preoccupied with non-Kingdom affairs to do
the work.
What's more, at a time when the fields are ripe for the most
bountiful harvest ever, we would be without the best harvesters
- women! Physical things are often types of spiritual entities,
and we see in the Hebrew Scriptures an interesting phenomenon.
The first people sent into the harvest were not men. They were
women!
Wonder why. The women had a gift for discerning the useless
tares from the real thing. The harvest could not go forward
until the women were sent into the fields. They were the lead
harvesters! They pulled out the weeds and the tares.
You husbands know what I mean. Your wife has this "feeling"
about somebody that you think is AOK. Something is not right.
She senses it. My wife saw trouble in a lady in a few seconds on
the phone. This lady ended up causing me one of the greatest
setbacks in my ministry. If I had only listened to the discerner
God had given me at the time!
In general, God has given women special discernment, often
called a woman's intuition. That's one reason they make the best
"watchmen on the walls." They protect the church from danger.
Intercessors and prayer warriors par excellence, they can also
be some of the best teachers. Tamara Winslow of Colorado Springs
is a prime example. Joyce Meyer is a teaching evangelist with a
knack for saying things only a women who has been through the
fire can say. Paula White is another ball of fire whose words
and teachings hit hard and leave you wondering, "Why couldn't I
think of that?"
Lisa Bevere is a stalwart defender of the daughters of God
and encourages them to take their place. The word God gave her
recently, which I read in her book, Fight Like a Girl, inspired
me and should inspire the women of the church. I quote it here
from page 34: "Begin to call forth the daughters; cry out for
them now. Call the daughters to wage the wars only they can win,
and to fight the battles as only my daughters can, because truly
the enemy fears this revelation more than he fears any woman who
fights like a man."
How many potential Lisa Beveres have there been who have been
so discouraged by the enemy's attacks through people that they
have given up? They had the fight knocked out of them. They no
longer wanted to fight like a man or even like a girl - they
didn't want to fight at all. How many Paula Whites have been
blackened by gossip and criticism from self-righteous
hypocrites? On a positive note, what a miracle that Billy
Graham's daughter and preacher Anne could survive the pious
piranhas of male religiosity that have darkened her anointed
waters! It takes courage to wander out in such dangerous waters.
These courageous women are like spiritual Nemos who get lost in
shark-infested waters.
Whether Sadducee sharks or Pharisee piranhas, these predators
have almost invariably a Mister in front of their names, often
prefaced by pompous titles and followed by seminary degrees that
impress like flowers that brighten the dead atmosphere of
cemeteries. But God is not impressed, neither with their titles
nor with their attitudes. Even so-called Spirit-filled men have
been the instruments of Satan to despise the anointing and
potential of the gender that gave us all birth, and without whom
the church would be dead.
Mind you, these captains of churchianity and religiosity
don't do the work themselves, but they specialize in stopping
women from doing it. While misquoting and twisting verses that
seem to justify their murderous actions, they deliberately fail
to see the Scriptures that call on women to do the work.
Satan's plan is to get men to see women as temple prostitutes
rather than as able and gifted coworkers. The devil has so
saturated our society with sex worship that women are treated as
objects of sexual desire, their gifts, talents and capabilities
summarily dismissed.
While we have been discussing Satan's first line of attack in
this end time, the general attack against God's work force, we
have accented the women, since they are two-thirds of the entire
work force. We shall deal with the attack specifically against
them a little later, but now we focus on Satan's second line of
attack. This second attack targets men and their ministries.
Second Attack: Backlash against the "Mucho Stupido" Macho
Pride
When men allow Satan to train them not to accept women in
their ministries, it has the effect of stopping these same men
from working in their own ministries. Is it possible to fight
God and still love and obey Him and teach others how much God
loves them? The answer is no.
The "Me Tarzan, you Jane," me first, selfish male mentality
may fit in some jungles, but it doesn't fit in the church of
God. The men of the church should have thanked their female
counterparts with a hearty "muchisimas gracias" for the blessing
they are to the entire ministry of the church. Instead, the
"mucho macho" male church leadership (composed ironically of a
surprising number of effeminate and/or homosexual members) only
thanks the women for staying in their place. While exceptions do
exist, Satan's general plan has been to put down women through
men.
These pastors and theologians are living and teaching a lie
straight from the father of lies, that serpent Satan whose head
the women were principally called to crush. That makes Satan the
father of those who teach the damnable lie that women are not
worthy to minister in the church in important ways. Deceived
into thinking they are upholding the Word of God by demeaning
women, they are parroting the words of their parent, the father
of lies. That's exactly what Jesus told the exclusively male
religious hierarchy of his day.
Pride and stupidity will always want to stop a man from
allowing women to do the work God called them to do. The macho
mentality prevents them from seeing or acknowledging the
God-given anointing of a woman.
Ignorance and the self-delusion of philosophers have sold the
idea that women are inferior, subhuman and only good for
satisfying man's sexual desire. Movies and television
commercials have followed through on that theme to a degree
similar to the hedonistic days of Noah. And its getting worse
and worse. Where will it end?
An abominable false teaching exists that says a woman can
lead until a man comes on the scene. They say a woman must be
"covered" by a man. Not so. While the Bible shows that a husband
is to be a covering for his wife, nowhere does God say that a
man must be a covering for a woman. The anointing of God is
sufficient to override Satan's attacks. Moreover, God has
blessed a woman with special discernment, in most cases more
than a man. Not only do men usually not see the problems a woman
may see in the church, but they also aren't bothered enough by
some problems to see the need to remedy the situation. Women are
detail-oriented and little problems can be irritants they
absolutely must face and resolve.
Bullet Number Three: A Woman-Only Weapon
Satan's third type of attack is directed solely to women. It
began after sin entered the Garden of Eden. God prophesied that
Satan would be hostile to women and that women would be at
enmity with Satan (Gen. 3:15). They would be his biggest
enemies. Satan knows this and has prepared his attack against
women with this in mind. While Satan's greatest hostility
against women has been and will be shown in this end time, the
opposite is also true: women are prophesied to rise up at the
end and be a major factor in Satan's defeat.
Satan has trained women to see themselves in a negative way,
and he has trained society and the men in society to see women
in a negative light. The stronger the Christian heritage of a
nation, the better its women are treated. We have seen some
flagrant examples of the rejection and mistreatment of women in
the non-Christian world. Even in the "Christian" world, although
less appalling, men treat women unfairly. They often profess
their "love" for women and after fathering a child with these
women, they reject them by abandoning them and leaving these
single mothers to bring up the children all alone.
We have seen women treated unfairly throughout history - even
Biblical history! And many blame it on God. They think God is
anti-woman. Nothing could be further from the truth. This
misconception is, however, a major stumbling block for some
women and a source of further feelings of rejection.
Consequently, before we examine attack number four, let's
discuss the "raw deal" women received in Biblical history.
Why Did Biblical Women Get Such a Raw Deal?
Many people, men and women alike, are turned off when they
read the "Old Testament." They see a stern Father God who seems
cruel and mean. Women especially seem to get a raw deal from
this harsh God, since He allows men to mistreat women and treat
them as chattel in a man's world
Is this picture true? First, as we proved in a previous book,
the supposedly harsh God of the Hebrew Scriptures was none other
than the same Jesus who came to die for men and women to make
possible the New Covenant. He was the Word who became flesh
(John 1:1-18), the Rock that followed Israel (I Cor. 10:4), the
Eternal One (Yahweh or Yehovah) for whom John the Baptist paved
the way (Isa. 40:3; John 1:23). Jesus plainly said no one had
ever seen the form of the Father (John 1:18; 5:37), yet men did
indeed see the God who called Himself Yehovah -- both in human
form and in His glorified form from the back (Ex. 3:1-6;
33:18-23; Gen. 18:1-3). So this God who dealt with men in olden
times could not have been the Father.
Jesus is the same forever (Heb. 13:8), and like the Father,
He is Love. He is such a loving God that He has chosen not to
force people to do His perfect will. He lets men choose and
learn from the consequences of their choices (Deut. 30:19). Men
and women make choices that have consequences for generations.
Adam and Eve both sinned and both men and women had to face the
results thereafter.
God spelled out the penalty Eve's descendants were going to
pay. Unlike the loving, Spirit-filled husband who was to picture
Jesus in loving, serving and even when appropriate submitting to
his wife by putting her first, husbands were to rule over their
wives in a domineering way (Gen. 3:16). Love would not flow.
In fact, a whole culture would later take shape that would
not be God's perfect model. You can read the story in I Kings 8.
Had God's will been done for Israel, He would have ruled over
the nation directly, without a king between Him and the people.
The patriarchal culture Satan had put in place (followed even by
Abraham) that allowed for multiple wives would have been phased
out over time. But the people chose their way. They chose a king
with the all the trappings of kingship, including many wives for
the king.
To change the whole system, God (Jesus) would have been
obligated to go against the free will choice the people had
made. David had neither the desire nor the clout to change the
system. In his day, the French principle of noblesse oblige
obligated kings to offer their daughters (plural) in marriage to
foreign kings with whom they made treaties.
Jesus did not come to replace Satan as "god of this world"
(II Cor. 4:4). He was limited by the free choice of Adam and
subsequent human choices. While God has unlimited power, He has
put limits on His power.
Solomon, unopposed and revered for His wisdom, would have
been able to change the system of multiple marriages, but he was
more interested in experimenting with more and more women (and
men!) than seeking God's perfect will. So why do we blame God?
Let's blame Satan and the people who made wrong choices.
God did not place His stamp of approval on everything in the
history of Israel. We are to learn from the bad examples as well
as the good ones (I Cor. 10:1-11).
It's not that God doesn't have a plan to make positive
changes. He does have a plan. He sees the end from the
beginning, and He does things in His timing.
Jesus turned heads because of the way He treated women. It
wasn't because, as some claim, He was having sex with Mary
Magdalene and even marrying Mary. It was because He bucked the
male-dominated establishment of His day and began to lift women
up to the place of respect and power they deserved.
Women like Oprah opened up a new chapter of respect for women
in our modern era. And women like Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Anne
Graham Lotz, Lisa Bevere and many others have done likewise in
the spiritual realm. But this is only the beginning. Our Father
Love is raising up many more daughters to follow Jesus, the
Captain of the Hosts, into the end time battle. These lovely
ladies are going to make it very ugly for Satan. And he knows
it.
The abuser who caused women to be used like property in a
man's world is going to find himself under the feet of the
once-abused women. Ha! Ha! Ha! Go ahead and join me! It's okay,
even recommended, to laugh at Satan! These courageous women will
not stand for the abuse any more. They refuse to be treated as
second-class citizens, as notches in a man's boastful belt, as
"babes" that are only objects of men's sexual desires. Lisa
Bevere is right in exhorting women to live up to the title of
her book: Fight Like A Girl. They will use the feminine savvy
and discernment God miraculously gave them when He made the
prophecy of Genesis 3:15.
Jesus never gives someone a mission without equipping them
for that mission. He has made women to be the prime defeaters of
Satan in this end time. If they tried to fight like men, they
would fail. They will summon all the uniqueness God put into
woman to give Satan the toughest time he has ever had. And he'll
end up being sorry he ever gave women a raw deal and had them
blame God for it.
Jesus never approved of multiple wives and concubines. He
never approved of the abuse of women in ancient times. As with
divorce, He made it clear that what He inspired Moses to permit
under the Old Covenant was because of, pointing to the men of
that time, "your hardness of heart ... but from the beginning it
has not been this way" (Mat. 19:8).
Jesus did not create 1000 wives for Adam, so each could take
a number and sleep with him once every three years. From the
beginning, Eve did not feel like a number. Like the Holy Spirit
is to us, she was a helper to Adam, called together with him to
the grace of life.
Adam and Eve's rebellion had lasting consequences for all
mankind. Adam fell under the curse of rejection and subsequently
rejected Eve. Men rejected women and treated them cruelly and
without respect for their character or their womanhood. Women in
turn rejected men as proud buffoons who think only about sex and
hurting women.
God's women will be different. They will break off the curse
of rejection and forgive the men who have hurt and abused them.
They will not, however, allow men, even their husbands, to hold
them back from what God has called them to do in this exciting
time of the end. The end of Satan is coming soon, and women, you
are more important than men in his demise. God has especially
equipped you to crush the head of the serpent. Don't let any men
stand in your way!
Attack Number Four: Low Blow at a High Target
The fourth attack Satan mounts against God's work force is
actually an attack against the character of God. When
Christianity perpetuates the message of women's inferiority and
encourages their rejection and abuse, the church sends out a
false message worldwide: God is unjust and He is not a God of
Love. When male church leaders put down the women and do not
allow them to exercise their anointing, they grieve the women.
They also grieve the Holy Spirit. The message is clear: God did
not make women in His likeness (Gen. 1:27) and God's judgments
are faulty. So who can trust God's Word? Who can believe what He
says?
Satan's Favorite Number Five: Attack against the Image of God
The fifth attack of Satan against God's Kingdom force is the
attack against the image of God. It is one of Satan's favorite
ploys. He knows that male and female have been created together
in the image and likeness of God. Satan's goal is to deny women
equal rights in Jesus and reject their anointing. In so doing,
Satan is causing male Christians to attack God's family plan,
destroy marriages and allow conflict to reign instead of peace,
joy and love.
Male Christians for the most part have rejected the anointing
of Jesus in the women of the church. This rejection allows Satan
to drive a wedge between men and women. And while books are
written to try to reconcile the two, even some of those books
put them on different "planets" - men from Mars and women from
Venus. Satan's plan is divide men and women so they cannot
accomplish the work of the Kingdom.
This rejection of women allows Satan to promote
homosexuality, lesbianism and all the works of the flesh. He
cuts wounds that cannot heal without Jesus. And the tragedy is
that those wounds encourage these rejected ones to stay away
from Jesus.
When Jesus established male and female He wanted us to
cherish and protect the differences so that love could flow.
When the flow of true love is stopped because of rejection,
mankind and womankind are unable to accept their true identity
in Jesus. They thus deny that they are created in the image of
God. We men cannot reject a woman's anointing without destroying
who we are in Jesus. Bereft of identity, we then walk as
hypocrites.
This vicious attack of rejection against women has hurt the
church deeply and has set us back from doing the work. The
result is that both the men and the women in God's work force
have been "destroyed for lack of knowledge," and the
effectiveness of the gospel work has also been hindered.
Needed: Ruths and Esthers to Thwart Satan's Ruthless Attack
A number of excellent books are available that show
Biblically the importance of validating women in their
anointing. I will only touch on a few highlights in the Word of
God to show how special our sisters in Jesus are to Him and
should be to us.
To be sure, the lie that the "Old Testament" is virtually
useless does keep many from understanding the importance of
women in ministry. The Hebrew Scriptures are full of mighty
women of God, even some who led men. Deborah and Miriam (Micah
6:4) are only two examples. And no contradiction exists between
the two testaments. Psalm 68:11 says that Jesus "gives the
command; the women who proclaim the good tidings are a great
host." The One who is the same always (Heb. 13:8) is the One who
told women to be the first evangelists, commanding them to
proclaim the good tidings of His resurrection - and He
specifically instructed them to tell the men ("my brethren" --
John 20:17).
Jesus honored and respected women and their anointing. His
attitude was surprising and unknown in his culture and time.
Paul, on the other hand, makes relative statements based on the
culture of his time that male Bible teachers take as absolutes.
If Paul's instruction for women to keep silent and not teach men
(I Tim. 2:12) were an absolute command transcending the cultural
and historical context, why was it okay for Priscilla to teach
Apollos (Acts 18:26) and for a lady named Junias to be
"outstanding among the apostles" (Rom. 16:7). Apostles work in
all aspects of the five-fold ministry, and that includes
teaching.
If the "silent treatment" Paul gave as a solution for women
(I Cor. 14:34) were an absolute, why would the same Paul give
guidelines for women who pray and even prophesy publicly in
church (I Cor. 11:5)? Loud-mouthed, brazen prostitutes were the
only women who spoke out in public at the time in Corinth. It
was a cultural thing - not a "thus saith the Eternal" command
for all time! Anointed women of God, heirs with men of the grace
of eternal life and co-heirs with Jesus, don't let this
rejection get you down. Deal with it by the blood of Jesus in
communion. Forgive the men. Then start walking in your
anointing.
Rise up, women of God! The time is short and the fields are
ripe for harvest. It's time. Your time has come. We need you. We
cannot do the job without you. We love you and cherish you. And
even if some men, especially leaders, don't appreciate you,
please know that our Father of Love does value you highly. Jesus
showed on the earth during His ministry how high He holds you in
esteem.
As the "Sabbath Prayer" song says in Fiddler on the Roof,
"May you be like Ruth and like Esther. May you be deserving of
praise. May you come to be in Israel [among the believers] a
shining name...Strengthen them, [Jesus], and keep them from the
stranger's ways [of rejection]..." The men may want you to
fiddle in the church basement and be invisible, like the church
mice. God wants you to fiddle on the "roof" for all to see and
hear, shining as lights and doing what God called you to do.
Whatever God anointed you to do, whether it is highly visible or
not, it is vitally important to God and to many more of us men
in ministry. We cheer you on and rejoice in what God will do
through you!