[s]atanic Obstacles to Human Ingenuity - Pt II

Those of you who are regular subscribers to Jacob’s Ladder have perhaps wondered why I have only published a few articles this year. Since October of 2008, I have been editing and rewriting a book that I plan to publish by year’s end, and I have attempted to devote all of my writing time to this end. At the outset of my writing project, God revealed something to me, unrelated to my book, that I had been studying for 20 years and never saw. This revelation has triggered an understanding in me, about God’s Word and who I am, that has been mind altering.

I will publish a five-part series on why God placed a divine mark of protection on Cain after he murdered his brother Abel. The first three articles will demonstrate satan’s success in influencing some Churches, and how he has parlayed this success to control certain aspects of our belief. The fourth article will address why God capitulated to Cain’s appeal that his punishment was too severe. And the fifth article will examine a few other Cain-like figures in the Bible and explain why we don’t see them in their true light. As an example, if all you have seen regarding Job is that he patiently endured his satanic affliction, then you have missed the greatest social crusader of all time.

I trust that this series will be as revolutionary to your thinking as it has been to mine.

It is easy to take for granted that an individual does not understand spiritual things unless they are Christians, but this notion flirts with deception. Although anyone who does not have a relationship with Jehovah God cannot understand the mysteries of His Mind, they still have the potential to understand that a spirit world exists. In fact, Paul warned those at Rome, who took pleasure in unrighteousness, that there would be no excuse for anyone who refused to live for Christ, because any rational mind could see the glory of God:

^18.For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; ^19.Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. ^20.For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: ^21.Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened (Romans 1:18-21)

Our world is ruled by physics laws: what goes up must come down (gravity); every action has an equal and opposite reaction (law of motion); and the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that over time things of a higher order, will become more disorderly, like when a hot cup of tea sits long enough to turn cold. These are just a few physics laws that rule our universe, but there are also spiritual laws that are relevant in our lives, whether we are Christians or not: one will reap what they sow; prayer and meditation places one at a higher level of consciousness; and faith in God will move any mountain¹.

Just like if one throws a ball in the air, gravity will pull it back to the earth, those who practice spiritual principles will generally see results. In fact, I would argue that aside from the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, three of the most significant events of the 20^th century were spearheaded by spiritual men, whose faith was in God, and only one was a devout Christian: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a charge that slew Jim Crow in the United States; Mahatmas Gandhi demonstrated the awesome power of passive resistance, which caused the collapse of the British Empire in India; and the Ayatollah Khoemeini led a social uprising that overthrew the U.S. backed Shah of Iran.

In each of the above cases, these men proved that a standing army is no match for one who has faith in God and is willing to lay down their life for their cause. This combination is the only threat to the purveyors of satan’s kingdom.

I grew up during a time of black, social awareness, and I would hear the black activists beating their chests proclaiming that the reason the ‘white man’ was holding them back was because he was afraid of ‘the black man.’ What lunacy! Those who hold the super secret launch codes to a nuclear arsenal fear no man, with the exception of someone who is deeply committed to serving God, and demonstrates faith that will literally move mountains, and has lost the fear of death. This man has the potential of altering the balance of power in our world, and those who sit at the helm of our civilization understand that better than anyone, and therein lies satan’s motivation for undermining the Scripture by attempting to control the interpretation.

[s]atan cannot afford an Enoch, or a Job, or an Apostle Paul to rise among the people and disrupt thousands of years of satanic planning, and the most effective tool for arresting our growth is to control what we are fed spiritually. If you understand this, then you will understand the key to this series. The devil is less interested in your health and wealth than he is in your ability to discern the times. The British author, Charles Dickens, could have been referring to the modern day United States during the opening lines of his famous book C “A Tale of Two Cities”:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."

“A Tale of Two Cities” depicts the plight of the French peasantry under the oppression of the French Aristocracy in the years leading up to the Revolution, but it proved to be prophetic as a description of the state of the modern Church. John picked up on this paradoxical condition in his letter to the Church at Laodicea: Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17). And this is the greatest deception of all C that a spiritually blind man will boast in his knowledge of God’s Word; neither realizing his condition nor taking any action to reverse it.

…to be continued

¹ An example of a heathen’s faith moving God was the Canaanite woman who came to Jesus asking for deliverance for her demon possessed daughter. She was not of the lost sheep of the House of Israel, and was therefore technically ineligible for Jesus’ blessings. However, once He saw her faith, He granted her plea:

^25.Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. ^26.But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. ^27.And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. ^28.Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour (Matthew 15:25-28).

[s]atanic Obstacles to Human Ingenuity

Those of you who are regular subscribers to Jacob’s Ladder have perhaps wondered why I have only published a few articles this year. Since October of 2008, I have been editing and rewriting a book that I plan to publish by year’s end, and I have attempted to devote all of my writing time to this end. At the outset of my writing project, God revealed something to me, unrelated to my book, that I had been studying for 20 years and never saw. This revelation has triggered an understanding in me, about God’s Word and who I am, that has been mind altering.

I will publish a four-part series on why God placed a divine mark of protection on Cain after he murdered his brother Abel. The first two articles will demonstrate satan’s success in influencing some Churches, and how he has parlayed this success to control certain aspects of our belief. The third article will address why God capitulated to Cain’s appeal that his punishment was too severe. And the fourth article will examine a few other Cain-like figures in the Bible and explain why we don’t see them in their true light. As an example, if all you have seen regarding Job is that he patiently endured his satanic affliction, then you have missed the greatest social crusader of all time.

I trust that this series will be as revolutionary to your thinking as it has been to mine.

How is it that the world is swiftly approaching the threshold of the end-time, anti-christic government, and the Church’s voice of warning has morphed into a gospel of consumption; aka the prosperity message? Our spiritual eyes and ears have been injected with massive doses of anesthesia so that we cannot see or hear the signs of the time. According to the Yearbook of International Organizations, there are nearly 60,000 international bodies that are operating in the world today. This data suggest two very chilling realities: First the global government that many Christian teachers have warned us is coming…is already here; and second, many of those same teachers are themselves blind to this fact.

Many of today’s Bible prophecy teachers can dissect the Scripture concerning the last days frontward and backward. However, many of them have no idea that the same forces, which will unleash the poisoned embrace of the anti-Christ to the world, operate at the highest levels of our federal government, in the British Parliament, the Russian Politburo, the Israeli Knesset, and a myriad of other public and private institutions. This begs the question…how is it that the infrastructure of the anti-Christ’s global government has descended upon us, and the Christian body has been relatively silent? Well, the short answer is that they don’t see it. However, the more appropriate answer is that the satanic forces have controlled and dominated certain interpretations of the Scripture and therefore, have conditioned us to see something other than the truth.

This satanic scheme to condition our thinking has not only blinded us to the world we live in, but it has also prevented us from understanding who we are; as humans first, and then Christians second. And what makes this so cunning is that we’ve embraced our own blindness. Many American Christians are under the misconception that more Bible truth has been revealed to us than any previous generation.

If God has endowed this nation with a spiritual understanding of His Word that is unrivaled in human history, then why is it that our society is among the leaders of the world in the production of pornography; abortions; traffic fatalities by drunk drivers; divorce; handgun murders; and greed that destroys? Jesus said…Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men (Matthew 5:13). Salt that has lost its [savour], no longer has the ability to preserve, and when this happens to the Christians in any country, the results are reflected in the level of ungodliness in that nation.

In addition to the breakdown of a civilized code of conduct, we are also witnessing a spiritual drought where we rarely see the move of God: The sick is not being healed; the demon possessed/obsessed is not being set free; the dead is not being raised and the Gospel is barely being preached. These are symptoms of a weak and disoriented Church. How did the nation, whose forefathers supposedly came to America to escape religious intolerance, sink so far away from the power that is in the Word of God?

It seems sacrileges to suggest that satan has the ability to control certain aspects of our understanding of God’s word; however, this is exactly what has happened, and it is not without precedent. [s]atan deceived angels in Heaven, and he worked to influence the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna and Thyatira, and he completely dominated the church at Pergamos in Revelation 2:

H In Ephesus there were those who claimed to be Apostles, but were found to be liars: I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars (Revelation 2:1);

H The Church at Smyrna had those who claimed to be Jews but were the synagogue of satan: ^8.And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; ^9.I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:8-9);

H The Church at Thyatira was under the control of the New Testament Jezebel who taught God’s servants to commit fornication: ^18.And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass...^20.Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols (Revelation 2:18, 20); and

H [s]atan’s seat, or the place where he controlled his kingdom, was located at the Church at Pergamos, where he had God’s faithful servant, Antipas, slain: ^12.And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; ^13.I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. ^14.But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication (Revelation 2:12-14).

God chose to reveal to us the satanic influence in the above Churches; however, it is safe to conclude that these were not the only Churches where satan has continued to disrupt and influence the leadership. In fact, Jude cautions us about ungodly men who have ‘crept’ undetected into the Church:

^3.Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. ^4.For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ (Jude 3-4).

A not so obvious fact emerges when we consider satan’s motivation for hiding in the Church. Sure his presence promotes ungodliness, but there is a deeper meaning to his presence: By assuming the identity of Church leadership, as we saw with the Churches in Revelation 2, he can control the interpretation of God’s word, and by extension, condition those who hear his furtive message to believe a lie.

…to be continued