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Archive for the ‘Satan’ Category

When Pestilence Strikes!

Posted in Healing, Prayer, Satan, The Word on November 8, 2018|

If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, 2 Chronicles 7:13 NASB

Pestilence 1 Man

What a grievous site as we look upon our nation.  The mass shootings, the weather related storms, wild fires burning out of control, murders, death and bloodshed have visited our land.  As we look at the heart of our nation we feel the hatred and division.  We are surrounded by fear and destruction.  Pestilence has struck.  What do we do?

This morning I woke up to the news of another mass shooting in California.  Just a couple of weeks ago 11 people were killed when a gunman entered and started shooting in a synagogue in Pittsburgh.  People were living their lives, enjoying their day when tragedy struck.  People are in despair.  They don’t know what to do or what has become of our land.  They look to the government for some response and protection.  Many have different ideas of how to stymie this destruction of our nation.  What do we do?

As Christians we know that our Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ.  We are the children of God.  So of course we are to turn to God and cry out to Him.  God’s word tells us what to do.  He gives instructions to Solomon, who finished building the temple for God.  Prior to this God’s presence was in the Ark of the Covenant.  It traveled with the children of Israel, and King David desired to build a house for God.  God refused and allowed Solomon to build the House instead.  Here in 2 Chronicles God is accepting the   House and says He will stay there.  God gives a condition to the prayers offered in the House of God.  He tells Solomon that if there is pestilence in the land, this is what you do:

and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. 2 Chronicles 7:14-15

This is a very familiar passage to most Christians.  We quote this a lot but we don’t really look at it in its context.  We know that all the destruction is the work of the devil.  God does not destroy, He redeems.         In this passage, God is making a promise to heal the land but it is conditioned on the actions of His people.  Notice that God is not speaking to Kings or nations; He is speaking to His people.  These are the things God is asking of us: Humility, Prayer, Seek God, and Repentance.  It is under these conditions that God promises to heal our land, and that His eyes are open and His ears are attentive to our prayers.

In the next article we will explore these conditions in more detail.

Photo by Candice Picard on Unsplash

 

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A Cry for Justice

Posted in God's Glory, Peace, Prayer, Satan, Sin on December 21, 2012|

When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers. Proverbs 21:15

When tragedy strikes we spend time trying to understand the events and then at some point we try to accept what has happened and hopefully move on sometime in the future. Many question where God is and why do such horrible things happen to good people especially innocent ones like children.  Somehow we have to come to accept the tragic events that take place and live with the reality of what has happened and just hope it doesn’t happen again.  We pray for the comfort of those that have lost their loved ones and pray it doesn’t happen again.  But how can we cope?  How can we move on when a senseless tragic act has taken place?

Last Friday was such an event.  In Newtown, CT an armed gunman went in killing 26 people at the school including 20 children.  He killed his mother and at the end killed himself.  Those that are involved are gone.  So who do we hold accountable?  How can justice be served?  Do we just accept what has happened and try to move on?  This community, this town, the families, even our nation will never be the same.

What aches in the hearts of these families and each of us is a cry for justice.  We want justice for every life that was lost and every one that was terrorized by these events.  It gives us no comfort in knowing the gunman is dead.  He will never have to face the grief of the families or feel the shame of what he has done.  The families need justice, we cry for justice.

God is a lover of justice.  He is just.  He does not look the other way, or ignore our plights.  We must cry out to God for justice.  We must ask God to restore and repay to these families, community, and others everything that they lost.  We cannot be satisfied with simply accepting what has happened and move on.  Deep down we want justice; we will never be satisfied until justice is served.

That has been my cry to God this past week for justice.  I know God will comfort those families and I will hold them in prayer.  But I want to see justice given to them.  I want the enemy of this earth to pay back everything that was stolen from Newtown including the innocence that was lost last Friday.

I trust God knows what justice is and what justice looks like.  I really don’t know but God does so I ask for justice.  God please give us justice.

Even though this act was committed by one man, we know that the enemy prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour.  Jesus described the devil as one that kills, steals and destroys.  Satan is the father of evil and he has shown that nothing is sacred including our children.  Evil visited Newtown last Friday disguised in the form of a lone gunman, but evil none the less murdered those children and adults last Friday.  So we ask God for justice to put an end to the tactics and role of the enemy.  That evil not have the final say in these peoples’ lives but that in the end justice and love will prevail.  We will not bow down to fear and evil but we celebrate the love, unity and peace that are within us and from God.

So God please give us justice – vengeance belongs to you.

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No, Not Even One

Posted in Heaven, Jesus, Knowing God, Salvation, Satan, Sin, The Father on May 30, 2012|

“There is none righteous, not even one;

There is none who understands,

There is none who seeks for God;

All have turned aside, together they have become useless;

There is none who does good,

There is not even one.”  Romans 3:10-12

 

I grew up being told that “good” people go to heaven.  You have to hope that your good deeds outweigh the bad.  I was also told that certain sins would guarantee you hell.  There are many that believe this not knowing what their future holds; but hoping that they will see heaven when they die.

Salvation is not about escaping hell and going to heaven.  That was never God’s purpose to begin with.  When Adam sinned and man fell; and our relationship with God was lost.  God is our creator and sin separates us from a relationship with Him.

It wasn’t enough that our sins were restored but our relationship be restored with our Father.  The problem is we do not desire a relationship with God.  It is not in our sinful nature to seek after God or to do good.  The sinful nature is evil and this is the truth we have to come to realize before we can truly understand and embrace the message of the cross.  There is no one who is righteous, no not one.

Salvation is about saving one’s soul that is dead in sin.  A dead soul cannot respond to God.  A person must be “made alive” in Christ to begin to seek and want God.  Jesus didn’t come to just wash our sins away but to restore our relationship and fellowship with the Father our creator.

So salvation deals with more than the question of heaven or hell but it deals with the radical transformation of the human condition and heart.  God knows this.  God knows our hearts; if we are left to our own choices and understanding would never choose Him.  So God designed a plan not to just save us but to make us a “new” creation that would seek after Him for a real relationship and intimacy that God intended to have with man from the very beginning.

If the only reason you believe Jesus is to escape hell then you missed the message and the purpose of the gospel; for even the demons believe and they tremble (James 2:19).

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These Signs Shall Follow

Posted in Crucified, God's Glory, Healing, Jesus, Prayer, Salvation, Satan, Sin, Teaching, The Father, The Holy Spirit, The Righteous, The Word on April 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

19So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

 20And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, and confirmed the word by the signs that followed. Mark 16: 19-20

 3how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard,

 4God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.  Hebrews 2: 3-4

Today is Good Friday and Sunday is Easter.  As Christians we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ during this time.  Usually on Easter weekend, churches have the largest attendance of the year.  So many churches preach the gospel message hoping that many will give their life to Christ.

When Jesus commissioned the disciples after His resurrection, He told them that when they went out to preach the gospel, signs and wonders would follow them.  They would be able to cast out demons, lay hands on the sick and they would be healed.  We are also told in the above scriptures that God confirms the message of salvation by both signs and wonders and various miracles.  We cannot have the gospel preached without evidence of signs, wonders and miracles.  Otherwise we are simply preaching a message with no power behind it.

We should not only anticipate a great soul harvest this weekend, but we should expect to see it all including signs, wonders and miracles.  Their purpose is to confirm the gospel message and point people to Jesus.  So we should expect to see miracles, healings take place, deliverance from demons, etc.  Of course the greatest miracle of all is when a person is saved – that person was once dead in their sin and is made alive in Christ.

So let’s invite the lost, the sick and shut in, the hopeless, the downtrodden, those bound, etc.; and expect God to show up and deliver them all.  Let our prayer be that God will confirm His covenant, made through the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by the miracles, signs and wonders that will point all men to Jesus.

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Wrong Theology

Posted in Job, Knowing God, Satan on April 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 17“Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves,
    So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
 18“For He inflicts pain, and gives relief;
    He wounds, and His hands also heal.  Job 5: 17-19

 3″Does God pervert justice?
    Or does the Almighty pervert what is right?
  4“If your sons sinned against Him,
    Then He delivered them into the power of their transgression.
  5“If you would seek God
    And implore the compassion of the Almighty,
  6 If you are pure and upright,
    Surely now He would rouse Himself for you
    And restore your righteous estate. Job 8:3-6

Job had lost his children, his livelihood and his health.  Since, Job was suffering and sick his friends concluded that it must be a result of sin.  They encouraged Job to return to God and repent.  They thought that God would not punish the innocent, only the wicked get punished.  So Job must have done something wicked and God was correcting him.  This is wrong theology.  God does not punish us to correct us.  Even if Job had sinned God would not have destroyed Job’s life to teach him a lesson.  Too often, we attribute sickness and disease as punishment from God.  God loves us and would not use sickness and disease to  teach us a lesson.  Yes God disciplines us but not at the expense of our lives.

We know that God did see Job as a righteous man so there was no need for Job to get right with God.  Job did not lose his righteous state, he was attacked by Satan.  Satan is responsible for all that has happened to Job.  Satan did this to try and discredit Job and get Job to curse God.

The last thing Job needed from his friends was judgment.  Job was looking for comfort and they did not offer any.  Also, they thought they were defending God by explaining to Job why he was suffering and why his children died – all because of sin.

We should never judge another person’s situation when we do not understand all that is going on.  None of us know why all this happened to Job.  We are never given an explanation as to why God allowed Satan to inflict such pain on Job.  We do know it was not due to Job’s sins, because God said Job was righteous.  So let’s just mourn with those that mourn and stand in faith that God will see them through.  We are not to judge others, but to love and build them up.  This is what friends do.

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Job Holds On

Posted in Job, Satan on April 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 8And he took a potsherd to scrape himself while he was sitting among the ashes.

 9Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!”

 10But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks.  Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.  Job 2:8-10

Job was a great man of wealth and by the hand of Satan he lost his possessions, his children and now his good health.  It would be very easy to say that Job was cursed but Job is still favored by God.  Even Job’s wife told him to just curse God and die.  Job’s response was that we should accept whatever God gives us including adversity.  The bible makes a point that Job did not sin by this statement.  However, we know from the story that Job’s adversity comes from Satan.  Still Job makes a bold statement.

In Job’s mind even though he believes that God is responsible for all that has happened to him, Job refuses to curse God.  He accepts that no matter what happens to him, he will continue to acknowledge God.  Oh what faith Job had! 

Are we the same?  Do we only worship and praise God because of the things God has done for us?  Is our faith contingent on God’s continued protection of what we possess?  If God never gave us another thing, or if we lost everything by Satan’s hand, would we still call upon the name of the Lord?  What is your faith based on?  What is it that you seek after from God?

God proved to Satan that Job was an upright man.  Satan accused Job of only serving God because of what God gave Job.  But in all that Job said and did, he did not sin.  Now comes the most difficult part for Job;  the accusations by his closest friends and the fact that no one comes to Job’s aid.

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Satan Strikes Job

Posted in Job, Satan on April 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

4Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.

 5″However, put forth Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse You to Your face.”

 6So the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life.”

 7Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.  Job 2:4-7

Sickness and disease is not the will of God.  God does not use sickness and disease to teach us lessons to make us better people.  Satan had already taken everything Job had including his children, but was convinced that if Job himself suffered then Job would curse God.

We can see that Satan had only ill intensions toward Job.  Satan could not stand Job’s relationship with God.  God did limit Satan by stating that Satan could not kill Job.  Even though Job was in Satan’s power, Job’s life was still in God’s hands.  We can be assured that no matter what Satan tries to do to us, no weapon forged against us will prosper.  All that Satan did to Job did not result in Job cursing God.  Instead God was able to demonstrate that Job was a good man.  Job feared God and shunned evil.

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Again God Praises Job

Posted in Job, Satan, The Father on March 31, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 1Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.

 2The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.”

 3The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.”  Job 2:1-3

God allowed Satan to test Job’s faith.  Satan had killed Job’s children, livestock and servants.  Once again God boasts that Job is a blameless and upright man who continues to hold onto his integrity despite all has happened.  God says no one on earth is like Job.  God also notes that Satan had no cause to ruin Job’s life.

Even though God blames Satan for inciting God against Job, Satan and those responsible for attacking Job’s family are still accountable for their actions.  We also have to keep in mind that Satan’s desire is to kill, steal, and destroy.  God only wants the best for us.  God does not want to harm us. 

Job is not aware of Satan and believes that all that has happened to him is because of God.  But even with that believe, Job still holds onto his integrity and faith.  He still believes that God is in control.  We can now see the kind of man Job was and that God’s words were true about him.

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Job the Worshiper

Posted in Job, Knowing God, Satan on March 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped.

He said,
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
  And naked I shall return there
  The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away.
  Blessed be the name of the LORD.”

Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.  Job 1:18-22

After God allowed Satan to test Job, Job got word that all of his livestock and servants had died.  Then he got word that his children were killed.  What was Job’s response?  He worshiped God.  He didn’t grab a weapon and go after the men who had attacked.  He didn’t take his own life.  He did what he knew to do and that was to worship God.

From Job’s response we can see that Job was a worshipper.  It was instinctive.  When we are stressed out or in shock our only response is doing something that is familiar or what we have been trained to do.  Worship was second nature to Job because in all that happened he responds by worshiping God.

Job also proved Satan to be a liar, because Satan accused Job of only following God because of what God had given him.  But now that Job had lost his possessions and family he still responded out of reverence to God.  Job still acknowledged God.  Even the scripture makes the point in all that Job did he did not sin nor did he blame God.  Job blessed the Lord.

So in a crisis what is our response?  Do we blame God or curse Him?  Can we simply recognize that despite our situation God is still God and is worthy of our praise.  Not because of what He has given us but because of who He is.  Even though Job did not recognize that Satan was at work and believed that God had taken away what He had given to Job, Job still blessed the Lord.  God is looking for true worshipers.

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Our Enemy

Posted in Job, Satan, The Father on March 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

 8The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.”

 9Then Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God for nothing?

 10“Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

 11“But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face.”

 12Then the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him.” So Satan departed from the presence of the LORD.  Job 1: 8-12

Satan is our enemy and our accuser.  After God had said that Job was an upright man, Satan accused Job of only fearing God because God had blessed him.  Satan argued that there was no substance in Job’s relationship with God.  Job was only interested in what he could get out of God.  So Satan claimed that if Job lost everything he would curse God to His face.

So God allowed Satan to test Job.  However, God put limits on Satan and Satan was not allowed to touch Job.  However, what should be noted is that God just gave Satan power over the things that belonged to Job.  God did not tell Satan to take everything from Job.  Satan’s argument was that Job only feared God because God had power over Job’s life and had blessed him.  So now that Satan was given the power – the question is would Job now bow to Satan and curse God?  Was Job the man God said he was.  God knew that Job was an upright man, and is now setting the stage to prove that Job was a man of God.

God knows us and Satan stands as our accuser.  Satan is also the father of lies and God knows that whatever Satan says about us is a lie.  God does not need Satan to tell Him about our faults.  God knows our faults and weaknesses but He sees beyond that.  God sees the good in us and the reflection of Himself in us.  We are God’s creation created in His likeness.  We are His children set apart for His good purpose and pleasure.  He has no plans to harm us.  Remember it is Satan who is our enemy and is out to destroy us.

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