Several years ago I was counseling a young believer who had recently been confronted by several of the guys that he used to hang out with before he was saved. What they wanted to find out was how, after all of their years of friendship, he could just up and leave the gang without so much as a "good bye". Not understanding the things of God, they bombarded him with some pretty tough questions. These questions would, in just a few short hours, cause him to begin doubting his salvation. As a result of this very discouraging confrontation he called and asked if we could meet. When we met together we talked for about an hour or so with the majority of our time given to my listening to a number of the things that were troubling him deeply. Just as we were nearing the end of our time together, with a puzzled look on face, he asked, "Keith, why do people who are not Christians seem to never come under the same kind of intense trials, tribulations and attacks that committed believers do?" I thought to myself, "what a keen observation from someone who is so young in the Lord." After thinking about it for a moment I responded with a request: "If you will give me a few days to pray about this, I believe God will give us an answer." With that, we prayed, shook hands and off he went. Later that evening as I was praying for an answer to his question, I heard something in my spirit that immediately helped me better understand why those who are not committed Christians do not suffer in the same ways that those who diligently pursue God do. Surprisingly enough, what I learned has everything to do with "fire, pressure and them slithery ole sneaky snakes!"

In order to better understand this, we first need to know that once we have given our lives over to Jesus Christ, He immediately begins His wonderful process of conforming us into His image and likeness. This is, without a doubt, the greatest honor and privilege that can be bestowed on any human being. In order to accomplish this He subjects each of us to a process that is often quite painful and which includes what is known as the baptism of fire. It is so often due to the lack of proper instruction and knowledge of this most important process that so many young aspiring Christians find themselves confused and discouraged right from the start. They do not recognize the trials as part of the transforming work of God in their lives, and so, not knowing how to respond properly, they obey the natural impulse to flee from the circumstances. Members of the Church frequently add to the torture by admonishing them to have more faith or some other subtle or not so subtle means of heaping blame on the sufferer. Self condemnation then sets in and discouragement, if not dealt with right away, shows up to ultimately steal, kill and destroy what God is working to produce in their lives. Although as wonder-filled as God's conversion process is, believers of all ages in the Lord must continually remind themselves that it is going to be very painful at times. Believe me, it is a very well thought out and mobilized ploy of the enemy to keep this information away from Christians everywhere.

When someone asks Christ into their life what they have in fact done is given themselves over to God, lock, stock and barrel! At that point they are no longer their own and are now the sole property of God. "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) In return, the believers have become children of God, with all of the benefits of having God as their Father. "My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth." (Proverbs 3:11:12) Listen to what Paul said concerning this most important process of transformation. "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." (Hebrews 12:1-11)

Thus, from the moment a person is born again until the moment they stand perfected before the Lord, the Lord's dealings with them can and will include chastisement. Now, while God does this out of His infinite love for His children, chastisement is not His first choice in enabling the believer to conform to God's ways. His preference is that the believer would choose to cooperate with Him in the transformation of their inner being as indicated in the following passage in Romans. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (Romans 12:1-2) He wants us to willingly choose to present our bodies as living sacrifices and submit our minds to the renewing that will cause us to be transformed. But before perfection can be achieved in our minds, before the life of Christ can live there, the old flesh nature must die! However, a delicate balance must be at work for this to succeed. The old nature cannot simply be torn down unless something of the new man in Christ is erected in its place. For example, military drill sergeants, as brutal as they may be while breaking a new recruit down, are trained to look for and build up their strengths at the same time. On the other hand, God's reason for the destruction of our old sin nature is to replace it with the nature of Christ.

The art of the whole boot camp experience is not only to strip the recruits of their old ways and identity but to also draw out each of their gifts and abilities that, after much conditioning and training, will one day, best serve their commanders in the field of battle. The real beauty of this is not only the destruction of the old man but also the discovery of things in their lives that they never even knew were there. At any rate, whether in the United States Army or God's army, this process is indeed painful at times and new believers need to be informed. As a matter of fact, this is something that we should all continually remind ourselves of on a daily basis! It has been my experience that the sense of reality of what God is doing in our lives is usually the first thing to go when we find ourselves in a fiery trial. Our memory becomes shortened and we tend to forget all of the great things that He has done for us. I am of the opinion that we would not have nearly as many defections in the Church as we do if our new recruits were equipped with this information going in. We must never forget that without the often painful purifying work of the fire of God's Holy Spirit in our lives growth would simply not be possible! Where the work of the fire of the Holy Spirit is absent in the life of a person they become stagnant at best. John the Baptist in foretelling the coming of Jesus Christ said, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me (Jesus) is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire" (Matthew 3:11) In other words, where Jesus goes, the fire goes with Him.

Now, in order to better understand this process let's look at a couple of the tremendous benefits of heat and pressure. If you want to purify gold, it must be subjected to periods of intense heat. This process forces the impurities that are embedded deep within the molecular makeup of the gold to rise to the top where they can be skimmed off and thrown away leaving behind only the pure gold. Without this process the gold would not be nearly as valuable as it is once it has been purified. Gold that has not undergone the purification process is actually referred to as impure. It is only by exposing the impure gold to the intense heat of purification that enables it to be hailed as one of our planet's most sought after and valuable commodities. Just as natural heat purifies gold, the trials of fire purify our lives, if we will let them. Let's look at the amazing benefits of pressure. Have you ever given any thought to what it takes to produce a beautiful diamond? In case you do not already know, diamonds start out as mere chunks of coal. In order to change a chunk of coal into a beautiful and very expensive diamond, it must first be exposed for many years to intense pressure. Simply put, it is the combination of exposing coal to intense pressure for long periods of time that transforms it into beautiful and extremely valuable diamonds.

Now, what about them slithery ole sneaky snakes, how do they fit into all of this? Here's how it works. Once we have turned our lives over to Christ, we have become enemies of unclean spirits. Hence, the answer to the last part of our young friend's question, "Why do people who are not Christians seem to never come under the kind of intense attacks that committed believers do?" In order to better understand what I mean we really need to look at the remarkable way that God has designed and wired the vast majority of snakes. "But Keith, why do you have to use snakes as your example, I get the creeps just reading about them?" Please hang in there with me, I will try to make this as painless as possible for you. Satan is referred to in scripture in a number of different places as a serpent. For instance, who of us has not heard how satan, that sneaky ole snake, deceived Eve in the book of Genesis? "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:1-5) Here are a few more scriptures that refer to satan as a serpent. "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (Revelation 12:9) "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season." (Revelation 20:1-3)

For the sake of understanding how unclean spirits (spiritual snakes) operate, it is important that we familiarize ourselves with how natural snakes pursue their prey as compared to how they defend themselves against their enemies. We must first understand that snakes have very poor eyesight at best and cannot see things in the same way that we humans do. For example, let's take a look at the way God fashioned a snake known as the Pit viper. This snake like so many others, detects prey using a two-chambered "pit" organ located between their eye and their nostril on each side of its head. Warm-blooded animals, as long as they are alive, continually give off what is known as thermal radiation, even when motionless. The snake's brain identifies this heat by comparing the temperatures in the outer and inner chambers in his head. Since the brain distinguishes between input from the right and left pit organs, the snake can tell where the heat source is in relation to itself. This highly sophisticated organ enables them to strike accurately, even in the dark, at prey a fraction of a degree warmer than itself.

A snake, once it has found its desired prey, will very skillfully measure out the exact amount of venom that is necessary to render it immobile as well as assist in the digestive process. This is completely different from the way they deal with their enemies. When a snake determines that it has encountered an enemy, instead of measuring out its venom in accordance to the size of its enemy, it will rapidly inject its foe with its entire supply all at once. For example, when a snake sets out to look for dinner it would stand to reason that he would not waste his valuable venom and effort striking at something larger than he can swallow. When he senses a heat image that is larger than he can possibly handle he either hides from that animal or quietly moves in the opposite direction in search of an animal with the desired heat signature. For a pit viper or rattlesnake, mice, rats, rabbits or squirrels are the perfect size for them to ingest. Anything larger and the snake will evade and continue searching for a smaller victim. Demon spirits operate in much the same way.

Just as snakes can detect warm blooded animals using thermal imaging, unclean spirits also use a type of "thermal imaging" to detect the location of those who have God's hand on their lives by detecting the presence of the Holy Spirit on a person. Once they have detected God's presence on someone, that person automatically becomes an enemy, hence the reason that demons will attack a Christian more violently than they do an unsaved person or a lukewarm believer. If the presence of God is not on the life of a person, unclean spirits simply regard the person as prey. Also, just as a snake can determine the size of its potential victim by the size of the heat image or signature that it gives off, unclean spirits determine the maturity level of a believer by the presence the Holy Spirit. This is why it is of the utmost importance that young believers especially stay in the close continual proximity of mature Christians. If an unclean spirit detects a small Holy Spirit "heat" image, he is more likely to attack that person than he would a more mature believer, someone who is wearing the whole armor of God and is able to skillfully wield the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. There is safety in a multitude of mature believers! "Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety." (Proverbs 11:14)

Mature believers understand that satan is no match for God, that the demons must submit to the Creator, and that God uses the activities of these wicked beings to bring about His Will on the Earth, including the transformation of His children into the image of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, even the pain He allows the wicked spirits to inflict is part of His Plan. "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:6-7)

Whenever we are confronted with pain, suffering, or unpleasant circumstances, the first thing we should do is to turn to God. As James said, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." (James 4:10) When we submit ourselves humbly to God, we can then resist the devil and he will flee from us. But, first things first. We must submit to God, including accepting His correction in order that we may be changed more and more into His likeness. The fire, the pressure, and them "slithery ole sneaky snakes" are all part of administering these changes in the believer's heart.

Another way of viewing the administration of change in the life of a believer is taken from the agricultural growth promoting process known as "pruning." Much like a vine dresser prunes the vines or fruit trees in his orchards so they will bear more fruit in the upcoming season God also prunes out of the lives of those who diligently seek Him anything that hinders them from becoming transformed into Christ's likeness. For example, as a child I can vividly remember watching my Dad carefully prune the plants in our yard. Interestingly enough, even though my Dad is a skilled wood worker I actually knew what pruning shears were before I ever knew what a table saw was. I remember standing next to him as he would carefully look a plant over and decide what limbs he was going to prune and just how short each of them needed to be. Little did I know at the time that pruning is indeed an art that determines the size of the plant's yield in the upcoming season. I can also remember how confused I was the first few times that I saw Dad pruning the vines under his grape arbor. I could not figure out why in this world he would want to take a nice big, full vine and trim it back to nothing but a nub. After watching him do this to several big plants I asked him why he would wait all year for them to grow up and then turn right around and cut them down so short. Can you see where this might be rather confusing to someone who does not understand the art of pruning? Dad taught me that it is only by the process of pruning that a plant can yield an abundant harvest in the next season of its life. If you want more fruit, you have to prune! Here is how it works. If a plant is not pruned, the unpruned branches, in order to survive, will draw away the much needed nutrients from the fruit itself resulting in a sparse upcoming harvest at best. Eventually the plant becomes overgrown with unfruitful branches that become dead wood that are then good for nothing but to be thrown on the fire and burned. "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." (John 15:1-2) God's will and desire for our lives is that we not just bear a harvest but that we bring forth an abundant harvest. "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples." (John 15:8) In order to bear much fruit we must be pruned! This is especially true in this age when the vast majority of people are diligently seeking comfort and pleasures much more than they are diligently seeking God. To them, this pruning thing does not go over very well. Anyway you cut it, (pun intended) pruning is a painful procedure. I'm sure if a plant had feelings as well as the ability to speak it would tell us that the pruning process is nothing short of excruciating.

The truth is that, without this skillfully administered pain, healthy growth is just not possible. Sure, we can grow to a certain degree without pruning, but real transformation or change always requires the surgical administration of pain at the hand of God alone. I regret to say that this type of surgery, if it is going to be successful, must be performed without the luxury of pain suppressants. It is noteworthy to point out that while we are going through a painful transition we must, at all cost, resist the temptation to selfmedicate or as I like to put it, jump down off of God's operating table and run off. For instance, when we are going through a time when the Holy Spirit is applying the fire or pressure that brings much needed change in our lives we must do whatever is necessary to resist the temptation to escape or run from the pain. It is imperative that we condition ourselves to linger around it long enough for it to fulfill its divine purpose in our lives. Where real spiritual growth is concerned the old adage is so true: "No pain, no gain!" "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." (Matthew 24:13) Where so many cut short the process of God's changing their lives for His glory is when they succumb to the temptation to, as I mentioned, selfmedicate or run from the pain of the procedure. Running in this instance can be anything from picking up the phone and calling a friend when we are suffering instead of going to God first, distracting ourselves or attempting to subdue our pain with TV programming, food, alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription meds, shopping sprees or any other of a long list of escapisms. You must remember that as a Christian, the pain that brings transformation into your life is not only your ally but your friend, without which it would be impossible to become what God predestined and desires you to be. I remember a particular line in a great song that Steve Camp wrote and recorded in the eighties. "And though the trials never end, I've learned to take them as my friends." Steve had apparently learned the liberating value of being subjected to the transforming pain of the heat and pressure that God so often uses to refine our lives. Can you see why trials and tribulations play such a key role in our becoming Christlike in nature. Just as pruning promotes growth, fire purifies and pressure transforms, so does the pruning, fire and pressures that are administered to those who diligently seek God to transform them into Christ's likeness. Beautiful and priceless in His sight!

We are indeed in the last days and God is accelerating the growth of those who are diligently seeking him. This is in large part the reason for the increased trials and tribulations that you are currently experiencing. On the other hand, satan and his slithery band of thugs know that their time is growing ever so short, hence the reason for the increase in the frequency of attacks on your life. "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." (2 Timothy 3:1)

Now do you see why those who are diligently pursuing God suffer through things that the unsaved do not? I pray that this message has in some way informed or reminded you that we are going to suffer, if we are going to grow up in God! Without fire and pressure we simply cannot be transformed into Christ's likeness and without them slithery ole sneaky snakes, we just wouldn't know that we're growing at all now would we? "Behold, I (Jesus) give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." (Luke 10:19) Jesus also said, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10)