Posts Tagged ‘evil’
The devil is probably one of the most mocked characters in the modern western world. From cartoons of a little red fellow with horns and a pitchfork, to Halloween costumes, to representations in films, he is treated as a joke. Many people – even people who believe in God – simply don’t believe that there is such a thing as a real, personal devil. He is, they say, just a mythical personification of the evil in the world.
In reality, that concept is one of the two most dangerous lies spread around by the devil himself (the other is the one that says he is all powerful – so big and powerful that you’d just better do what he says and not argue.) The Bible makes it clear that there is a real, personal being, known as the devil or satan (I refuse to give him a capital letter), who is the ultimate source of evil.
Isaiah 14:12-20Isaiah 14:12-20
English: World English Bible - WEB
12 How you have fallen from Heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low!
13 You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north!
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!”
15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.
16 Those who see you will stare at you. They will ponder you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms;
17 who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities; who didn’t release his prisoners to their home?”
18 All the kings of the nations, sleep in glory, everyone in his own house.
19 But you are cast away from your tomb like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, who are thrust through with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit; like a dead body trodden under foot.
20 You will not join them in burial, because you have destroyed your land. You have killed your people. The seed of evil-doers will not be named forever.
WP-Bible plugin and Ezekiel 28:11-19Ezekiel 28:11-19
English: World English Bible - WEB
11 Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
12 Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and tell him, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: You seal up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz, emerald, chrysolite, onx, jasper, sapphire or, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and beryl. Gold work of tambourines and of pipes was in you. In the day that you were created they were prepared.
14 You were the anointed cherub who covers: and I set you, so that you were on the holy mountain of God; you have walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, until unrighteousness was found in you.
16 By the abundance of your traffic they filled the midst of you with violence, and you have sinned: therefore I have cast you as profane out of the mountain of God; and I have destroyed you, covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you have corrupted your wisdom by reason of your brightness: I have cast you to the ground; I have laid you before kings, that they may see you.
18 By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your traffic, you have profaned your sanctuaries; therefore have I brought forth a fire from the midst of you; it has devoured you, and I have turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all those who see you.
19 All those who know you among the peoples shall be astonished at you: you are become a terror, and you shall nevermore have any being.
WP-Bible plugin are two passages that seem, on the surface, to be addressed to earthly kings. However, we don’t have to go far beneath the surface to realize that the things said in these passages could never be applied to a human being. The Ezekiel passage speaks about one who was created perfect, full of beauty ans wisdom, and was appointed as the “guardian cherub”. Satan, as he was originally created by God, was not an evil being, but the head angel.
However, both Isaiah and Ezekiel show that he became proud, and then tried to rise up and make himself even greater than God. Because of this he was thrown out of heaven and cast to earth, where he took the form of a serpent. In that form he tempted our first parents to do the same as he had done, promising them that if they disobeyed God they would themselves become “as gods”. Sadly, they fell for it. God had given them dominion over the world, but by obeying the devil rather than God they handed that rule over to satan.
Satan could not return to rule from heaven, the place of God’s throne, so instead he set up his throne in the physical heavens, becoming known as the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2Ephesians 2:2
English: World English Bible - WEB
2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience;
WP-Bible plugin). From there he was able to influence everything that happened on the earth.
When Jesus came, the devil tried to destroy Him almost as soon as he was born, by influencing Herod to have all the male children killed. When it came time for Jesus to enter into His ministry, the devil tried to stop Him with the wilderness temptations (Matthew 4). Notice that Jesus was not battling against some kind of evil force, or a principle, but against a real, personal being who spoke to Him and took Him to various places in the effort to tempt Him away from His goal.
Jesus’ death on the Cross was a defeat for satan. By His perfect obedience to the Father, Jesus reversed the disobedience of our first parents and claimed back the earth as part of God’s Kingdom. The devil’s fate was sealed. However, for the present time he continues to “hold his fort” in the physical heavens – much as, in the Second World War, some Japanese soldiers continued to hold their positions long after the war was over. He still influences, and even controls, those people on earth who make themselves available to his influence.
The day is coming, however, when his time will be up. The victory that Jesus won at Calvary will be fully enforced, and the devil’s influence will be removed from the world. Till that time, we have to choose whether we will follow the devil and share his eternal destiny in hell, or follow Christ and share His eternal reign in heaven.
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This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.
There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
WP-Bible plugin)in Whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form (Colossians 2:9Colossians 2:9
English: World English Bible - WEB
9 For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily,
WP-Bible plugin)and Whom God the Father has exalted to the highest place, giving Him the Name which is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11Philippians 2:9-11
English: World English Bible - WEB
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name;
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth,
11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
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