How To Catch The Thief

Life Abundantly Vs The Thief

SPEAKER_00: For more ministry podcasts, visit our website and subscribe to doncarpenter.ca.

SPEAKER_01: Book of John, the tenth chapter and the tenth verse. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. The title of my message today is The Best Time to Catch the Thief. Jesus was telling us about the devil who comes to steal and to kill and to destroy. And when we read something like this, it's easy for us to think, what can I do about this? The Lord wants us to have victory. The Lord wants us to walk in victory. Nobody feels good, no believer especially feels good that if they've been tricked or deceived by the enemy, and then afterwards look back on it and say, that was a good thing.

SPEAKER_01: No, we always say that was not good. I'm going to be preaching out of the book of Acts today. And the book of Acts is the only historical book in the New Testament. This is when the church is being planted. It reveals the power of the church, God being with them.

Acts 16: Call To Macedonia

SPEAKER_01: And this particular chapter found in the Acts 16, they were in an earthquake. But on top of that, they were in jail. And they were in stocks, and they had extra guard. And not only that, they were beaten when they were thrown in. In amongst all these prisoners. And by the end of the story, the prison doors were open, everybody's chains fell off of them, and the big miracle was nobody left the prison because they had all become believers. And the thief was caught. Paul had been preparing to go to minister somewhere else altogether.

SPEAKER_01: He was going into what would be today the country of Turkey, and he was going in to minister in different parts of that region, and he had a vision. And we read about the vision in an earlier part of this chapter.

SPEAKER_01: And in the dream he saw a man, not the Lord. He saw a man. And the man in the dream said, Come and help us. God uses men. We have to understand that sometimes we think I'm just going to pray to God, and that supernaturally it's all going to come out of the heavens, out of the clouds. And we fail to realize that God has ministries, God has strong believers in our lives, and God works through them, and they will help us and will encourage us. So Paul immediately, now remember, he had his mind made up.

SPEAKER_01: He was going to be ministering it somewhere else. And when Paul was getting ready to go there, he was going to deliver the word of the Lord. Now, I thought it was quite interesting. They got into a place called Philippi. And in verse 12, they came into Philippi, which was a leading Roman city in Macedonia.

Lydia’s Conversion Opens Europe

SPEAKER_01: This is where God's calling them, because the man in the vision said, Come to Macedonia and help us. God is specific. We sometimes think, I really don't know what to do. Just listen for a moment. The Holy Spirit is very specific. And it says here, on the Sabbath day, we decided to leave where we were staying, and we walked down by the riverside, and there at the river, they sat down and they began to speak to the women that were assembled. This is considered Europe, modern-day Europe, where they are.

SPEAKER_01: And in verse 14, there was a woman named Lydia. She was a seller of fabrics, she was a worshiper of God, and she was listening. The Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. Whenever we hear the word of the Lord, or the word of the Lord starts to come to us, we have to listen. This was a businesswoman. The first meeting held in Europe was a women's meeting. And it says in verse 15, she went and she got baptized, her and her whole household. And Paul began to minister. This began to open doors in the area of ministry in this region.

SPEAKER_01: Now, we think many times that when God calls us that everything is going to work out just smooth, but it may not be so smooth for us in the transition and moving in God.

Opposition And The Torchbearers Rule

SPEAKER_01: When God moves in an area and people move toward the Lord, but there's always the people that don't cannot hear at all, but there is also another group of people who hear what's being said, but they don't respond to it. And the ones that don't respond to the word of the Lord are usually the ones that make it difficult for the believers and for the ministers that are trying to do the work of the Lord. They're usually people who are stirred, the enemy can use them to try to prevent it. There was a fellow who started a group called Torchbearers by the name of Major Ian Thomas.

SPEAKER_01: And he gave a plan and how to stay strong and successful and keep serving God when things aren't going the best. Remember, there's a thief. There's a thief lurking around. And that thief is the devil, and he tries to take whatever we've received from God. He tries to take it and he wants to bind it. This founder of torchbearers, this really brings solidity to our walk in God. They had this slogan, go where you're sent.

SPEAKER_01: Stay where you're put. Give what you've got. And that simple plan is what they did. So Paul and the brethren and those that were coming to the Lord in this area where they felt that the Holy Spirit had drawn them, that's exactly what they had to do because there was going to be opposition. There's always going to be opposition. No matter what God tells you to do, there's always opposition.

Beaten, Jailed, And Midnight Tested

SPEAKER_01: The thief he tries to steal from you. Verse 25 of Acts 16.

SPEAKER_01: Paul and Pilas were beaten and put into prison and thrown into this prison. They're bleeding, they're bruised, their skin is broken, they look a mess. So let's pick this up.

SPEAKER_01: This is the best time to catch the thief. Midnight.

SPEAKER_01: When you're under your greatest attack. When you know, you think or experience, you wonder where God is, and the enemy is thinking, this is the time to hit them. It's when they're at their lowest point. So if you want to get victory and the enemy's coming at you, you've got to get away from it, the best time is right there. Because the devil comes prancing in and he thinks you're about to stop following all the ways that you've learned in God, and that you're willing to go back to your old life, and the devil will reveal himself, and he'll say, Come back to me, come back to me.

SPEAKER_01: That is the best time to catch him. And what you do is you will say, The Lord rebuke you, Satan, be gone. I am a child of God. What have you just done?

Prayer, Praise, And An Earthquake

SPEAKER_01: You have captured the thief. You've caught him. And you've made the statement, and the moment you do that, the thief is going to run back into the shadows and into the darkness, and heaven is going to open, and you're going to see the glory of God coming upon you. And you feel refreshed and you feel renewed. And why you feel that way is because you caught the thief. The one that's been giving you all this trouble, all this time. It says about midnight. Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God.

SPEAKER_01: And the prisoners were listening to them. You might wonder sometimes and thinking, nobody says anything. They're listening. Prisoners are somebody who is caught in something and they can't help themselves. They can't escape it. And you come with the good news, and you tell them the good news that God's going to make a way for you. And then this is just something else. There came a great earthquake, so that the foundation of the prison house was shaken, and immediately all the doors were open, and everyone's chains were loosed.

SPEAKER_01: When the Spirit of God is moving and we are praying, and you have somebody believing with you for deliverance and a miracle, your chains are loosed. Walk away from it. Paul and Silas prayed, Paul and Silas were singing, and prisoners heard that, and they were set free. And when they were set free, the earthquake came, it was a miracle of God, they never left their cells. But let me just back up for a second. Problems, when they come to us as believers, we can feel very overwhelmed, can't we?

The Jailer Asks How To Be Saved

SPEAKER_01: This feeling of being overwhelmed. And if we're not careful, we get entrapped in the darkness. And God wants to bring us out of that. But there came midnight. Midnight represents a turning point. You might say, it can't get any darker. I cannot be facing anything greater than I am right now. Then expect a turning point. Expect now's the time to rise up, capture that thief, throw him back into the darkness, and you walk in the light. This is warfare hour. Darkest spiritual warfare hour is at the midnight, but it's the best time to catch the thief.

SPEAKER_01: When you feel like I can't press on another step, rise up and say, I will be victorious, because only you can do that. Rise up and say, I will arise and go forth in the name of the Lord. Many times I don't have any strength left. And I've got up and I've moved forward and a way has been made. You may be in a dark hour, and you're wondering, God always makes a way where there is no way. And when we read this story down through here, we find that the place was shaken. We find that all the prisoners they could have run, but they didn't.

SPEAKER_01: We find out the jailkeeper, he was about to take his own life because he knew for sure that every prisoner would have been gone. And when he was about to take his own life, they cried out and said, Don't kill yourself. We're all here. You don't have to go that road. And this jailer is wondering, how is that possible? We have men in there who are habitual thieves. We have people in there, such as Paul and Silas, who the city and the city fathers are very upset about. And you're telling me everybody is still in here?

SPEAKER_01: Yes. Why? Because everybody's chains are gone. He rushed in, he brought them out, and he asked them something quite important in verse 30. He brought them out and he said, Sirs, that's quite a statement right there.

Confess And Believe: Romans 10

SPEAKER_01: Because they would always look down on those prisoners. But this jailer knew what was going on there. It's just like you, you're serving God, and you're thinking you're all alone. I'm going to tell you, every unsaved person that knows you, they're watching you. All the family that doesn't know the Lord, they are watching you all the time. They know exactly what you're about, they know all about your life. And when they're getting ready to come to the Lord, you're going to be one of the very first people that they're going to come and ask.

SPEAKER_01: And he said, What must I do to be saved? What is it that I have to do to be saved? If someone were to ask you that question, and maybe you might not quite know what to do with them, you know what I would do? I would take them to Romans chapter 10. And I would begin reading at verse 8. And I'm going to read it to you very careful today, and I want you to listen. But what saith it?

SPEAKER_01: That is the word of faith which we preach. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. You speak it out loud. That's why we speak. The Bible talks so much about speaking. Now that the Bible is the authority. When it comes to knowing the things of God, walking in the kingdom, you need to look at the Word of God.

Signs You’re Truly Born Again

SPEAKER_01: Read the Word of God. That is the authority. Not some writings of a famous author or a group or a society. The Bible. It will give us the answers. For the scripture says in Romans 8 11, Whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed. And that's the wonderful thing when you become a Christian. See, the world will think if I was to do that, I would be making a fool of myself. I'd be so ashamed of that. And when you come to Christ, you're not ashamed of Christ. You're not ashamed of the gospel. What you are ashamed of is the wicked life that you lived.

SPEAKER_01: Things that you were doing you never wanted to be involved in. That is the shame. And the devil is exposed. And what happens is you have caught the thief. And he realizes he's lost you and he's bound, and he no longer can keep you enslaved.

SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_01: I've had people say to me, How do I know I'm really born again? Like, how did those prisoners not run out? To me, this is what we gotta consider this. Why did those prisoners not run and go back to their old life?

SPEAKER_01: There's four ways, at least there's probably a whole lot more, but there's four ways that I'm gonna share with you how you know if you're born again. Number one, you want God. You want God in your life. Scriptures like Philippians 3, 10.

SPEAKER_01: The second thing, you want to be just like him in Ephesians, talks about us being made in his image and in his likeness. We're gonna say, if I wanted to emulate anybody as a Christian, if I wanted to be like anybody, why not be like Christ? But of course, most people, if not all people, when they come to the Lord, they look for a Christian to see what their life is like, so they're probably looking at you. So they're gonna want that. The third thing when you're born again, you want to learn obedience to the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: You want to learn how to submit to his teachings in the Bible. We can go to church every Sunday, and some of us have a midweek. And when we get really on fire and get that word of God down inside of us, we don't want to miss it.

SPEAKER_01: And by a miracle of God, these prisoners had all of this dropped into their hearts. Instantly, because it was a heart change, not a mind change. It was their whole character and demeanor instantly changed. And the fourth thing you're going to want, how you'll know if you're born again is you have a desire for the things of God. You just have a desire for that. So if I'm just going to go over these again. How to know if you're born again. You want God. Two, you want to be like Him. Three, you want to learn, you want to know the Word.

SPEAKER_01: Four, you have a desire for the things of God.

Catching The Thief And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01: Whatever God is doing, you want to be involved in it. Just want to be there. And that's what happened to those prisoners. That happened in an instant. And it can happen to you in an instant.

SPEAKER_00: That is how to catch the thief. For more ministry podcasts, visit our website and subscribe to Doncarpenter.ca