larshaukeland

Part 5: Called to conquer

GOD, GOVERNMENT AND THE SUPERNATURAL

To this point, you have received an initial grounding in supernatural realities as the Bible reveals them.There has been some first-grade understanding with some glances at college-level knowledge.

That might be all you need, but I will follow up this study with new studies later.

There is no escaping the fact that the two kingdoms are in conflict with each other on this earth on which we live. That fact has consequences reaching from the individual heart, to the family, to our culture, to the nation, and out to the world scene.

That conflict will continue and will intensify as both kingdoms bid for the allegiance of men and clash over the course of history. Both will reach their ultimate heights of realization on this earth in the form of governments with worldwide authority.

Satan’s great thrust against mankind, the Scriptures plainly say, will be by tyranny of a highly unified, virtually worldwide government under his sway. At its head will stand a counterfeit Christ the Bible calls “the Antichrist” and “the man of sin”. Energized by satanic power, he will affix himself upon the deceived mankind, and will speak and act in utter defiance of God.

Never think that Satan is uninterested in government. It interests him highly. It will be the means by which he finally imposes his will on much of humanity. He will seek totallt to impose himself between God and mankind by means of government, and to cut mankind off from God by it. Spiritually, on this earth, that will amount to a near total eclipse of God. Like any eclipse, it will be brief.

The Scripture describes the Antichrist as one who “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” His arrival on the world scene will create such a sensation and “whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish“. (2 Thessalonians 2:4, 9-10)

If you know the Bible, you undoubtedly are aware of this future prospect. The point here is not that it will happen, but rather what it tells us about our enemy. The fact is that he will ultimately accomplish this short-term takeover tells us what he pushes for.

He is not justy waiting for that day. He is straining toward it and seeking to bring it in. Understanding that can help us deal realistically, effectively, and spiritually with the world in which we live.

Satan is always at work to project and advance the interests of his evil kingdom to the maximum obtainable limits; one of the vehicles he seeks to ride is human government as a way of usurping and overthrowing lawful authority.

Never think that God is uninterested in government. Government is His idea. He ordained it for good (Romans 13:1-7). A governimg authority is “God’s servant to do you good“, we are told, and, “He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer“.

A ruler’s God-appointed role is to make room for what is good, protect law-adiding citizens and to punish and stop evildoers. Knowing its power to effect conditions across a whole society, Satan seeks to twist and pervert government so that it does the opposite – actually punishes and persecutes the godly while protecting and elevating evildoers.

We should pray for our governments…

PEACE BY CONQUEST

The fateful relationship between government and the supernatural is sometimes readily evident, and sometimes not. Moses was given supernatural power by God to overcome the resistant will of a headstrong Pharao and also to overcome his wonder-working magicians, whose powers were occultic and set agaist God’s purpose to liberate His people.

Daniel is a book of the Bible that portrays the life of a godly man who worked at the  very touch-points of the government and the supernatural. Daniel, a Hebrew exile in Babylon, was a prophet. Yet he spent all of his adult life as a high government official in two great Gentile kingdoms, Babylon and Persia. In each he stood successfully and fearfully for righteousness and truth.

Daniel received remarkable revelations from God concerning a series of future kingdoms and governments all the way forward to the governments ofthe Antichrist and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You can see the transition from the short-lived government of the Antichrist, based totally on presumption and evil, to the everlasting reign of the Messiah in Daniel 7:8-14.

Daniel shows the rise of the Antichrist, his blasphemous boasting on the earth, events going on in heaven, the sudden death of the Antichrist – then “one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14)

Satan is ambitious to rule. He seeks to do so on the earth through a series of evil men, antichrists, leading ultimately to the Antichrist, who will almost as completely embody satanic evil in human form as Jesus Christ embodied divinity and truth.

According to 1 John 2:18 “antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists“. The final Antichrist will be a religious and a political figure who will also control the world economy (see Revelation 13:16-17).

The powers of darkness gain a measure of control on the earth by locking into human sinfulness at the level of government. Satan knows, as God’s enemy and man’s enemy, that the single most powerful instrument for the suppression of truth, and of persecution against believers and the church is government when it is perverted, because it holds nearly total authority. So he goes for government, aware that government, twisted to evil, can multiply evil and darkness and death as nothing else can.

James 3:5-6 says: “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.”

Hitler, a satanic messenger to his people, boasted of great things. His tongue was set on fire by hell, and it, in turn,set the cycle or course of nature on fire. A sudden attack of blasting destruction and death swept across the continent. Europe went into flames.

Out of one man’s wicked designs, eventually tens of millions died, and graves were dug across the face of Europe. How awsome is the power of government for evil when it is seized and held by evil men!

Our spiritual enemy is not playing games with mankind or with history. He is in dead ernest, and he works as widely and as wickedly as he can against God and man.

Our enemy has a policy for this world, and he has a strategy to back it up. If we can see what that  strategy is, we will be able to take steps to overcome it. Satan, through his demonic agents, is “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). This speaks of his spiritual access to sinners and their susceptibility to him. He uses them to carry out his will, as far as they will allow him to.

He does all he can to inspire, energize, and propel sinners forward to be publicly influential for what pleases him, to make a mark on their time. Then he does all he can to lull the believers into inaction or less-than-adequate, to call them down from their highest privileges in Christ, to make them less then they actually can be for God in their generation.

His two-pronged attack is to maximize the one while minimizing the other. It is to lift up evil (whether raw or flagrant, or delicate and philosophical) and exalt it, and to keep righteousness in a corner. It is to activate unbelievers in his cause, while inducing passivity in believers. He invites us to enjoy the peace short of the battle line, so that we will not know the true peace of conquest.

Jesus said: “Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them.” (Luke 21:8)

We need wisdom and strength to do right.

“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”(Revelation 3:21)

It is beyond our strength, but not at all beyond our reach. In Christ we receive the power to conquer even while we are in our earthly bodies. If that were not true, He would never have told us to arise and do it!

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