When Our Spirit Leaves God, Watch Out!

[HKHaugan]

As we continue looking at what happens when our spirit leaves God we need to consider the whole of the spiritual dimension and especially its dark side. It’s this side that has the senior exploiter of our aloneness and sin pulling the strings of our consequent self-centeredness. Adept at sending his spirits to pressure our weaknesses, the devil hides in the corners and alcoves of our aloneness working hard to trip us up. Just as God dwells in the praises of His people so the devil slithers about observing our behavior in the corridors of our pride and fears.

Wherever he sees our hesitation to stand up for God, tempted to follow our desire for control, revenge and personal biases, cornered and outnumbered by cultural pressures, tangled in the morass of always having more stuff, being one up, seeing one’s self better than others, fading in the background when conflict arises---there the devil sits ready to send his spirits to aggravate us to act in his favor. He has a cadre of serving angels- now evil spirits and demons- he swept with him in his expulsion from Heaven (Daniel 8:10, Rev.12:4-stars are angels-Rev.1:20). Paul identifies the behavior in which they stir about, "The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal.5:19-21).”

The devil’s main goal is his fantasy, the sequestering of those who believe in God in order to beat God. (Sequestration is the act of removing, separating or seizing anything from the possession of its owner-fr. Latin sequestrare-to seize-Wikipedia quote) He has a number of names and descriptions like satan, lucifer, the evil one, the tempter, the lawless one, the father of lies, deceiver of the faithful, the serpent, a roaring lion.

In Job 1 he is a kind of obstinate amoral accountant wandering about the earth.
Isaiah 14 describes him and his destiny in vs.4-20. Of those, vs.12-15 sum it up,
“How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.”

Observe the use of ‘I’ in satan’s five statements. By saying ‘I will’ he uses ‘will’ apart from the will of God. This is the ultimate destiny of aloneness, eternal separation from God. No wonder God’s assessment in Gen.2:18 that it is “not good for the man to be alone.” The devil was already fallen and waiting to make his move on God’s people to get them to be like him. He got Adam and Eve but God in His grace sent His Son to endure all the strategies of the devil. The substance of the devil’s ‘I wills’ made up the temptation sequence thrown at Jesus in the wilderness. The devil seeks the heart of every person to assume his stance and repeat his ‘I will’ in every next moment.

There is no question that he is powerful and powerful enough to be called the prince of this world. In the grand scheme he is the harbinger and promoter of death. He is the prince of darkness, secular society, the ultimate anti-Christ who sends the spirit of the anti-Christ to work his wiles in the moral fabric of every heart, every group, every community, every nation and in the leadership of all of them. His ingenuity is spectacular as he operates in the subtlety of persuading people he doesn’t exist, that he is a fairy tale springing from childhood fantasy and that there is no spiritual realm, no such thing as salvation, no Christ, simply follow whatever and wherever you desire in every next moment.

One only has to see the devil’s influence in TV shows, vampire and horror films, the division in the political arena, the decay of moral behavior, the media’s inability to handle any display of belief, the denial of the Bible’s foundational principles in American history, the hostility toward anything Christian on the campuses of most of our educational institutions, the promotion of abortion, homosexuality and redefinition of morality by the person who holds the highest office in the land. He seems to believe that there is such a thing as moral evolution. He has become not a theologian but a seculogian whose affirmation of homosexual marriage he says “evolved” because he has been impressed by the sincerity of couples with whom he has had dinner. Now morality and marriage are personally and politically redefined by emotional experience, not God's unchangeable morality. That from the President of the United States of America. Egads! From George Washington to this in three centuries! That’s faster than Rome's decline.

But hold on. Don’t be discouraged. We have the good news, the Gospel of Jesus, the hope of the world right here in our hearts. He went to the Cross to show the defeat of the devil. His doom is certain. We have God’s Word on that. When Jesus came on the scene He took the worst of the devil’s temptations, denied them, faced the ultimate authorities in the world and in the spiritual realm, let them isolate Him, alienate Him and kill Him but He beat them and their final weapon, death, by His Resurrection, His victory over death, the power of the Holy Spirit and the will of the Father. Not only is Jesus the victor over the world, the devil and our sin but He is our direct personal Savior, our personal Lord, our personal Master, our personal elder brother and friend. He is always with us and His Spirit is there to guide us in every next moment. The devil can make all the background cultural noise he wants but we have Jesus and we have Him forever.

In His Cross is our salvation. In His Resurrection is our eternity.

So Jesus’ death saved us and His Resurrection secured us for every next moment into eternity. Hallelujah and Amen.