Spiritual Warfare Prep

Spiritual Warfare Prep
We Are In The Lord's Army

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

The Day The Devil Hijacked Planet Earth

   You might not think of sin as a big deal. Maybe you even consider yourself a fairly good person. If you compared yourself with Hitler, you probably would come out the winner! Sin might seem harmless to one, that is until he or she is affected by someone else's sin.
   Why do people sin anyway? Certainly, we can chose to not pick up a gun and kill someone, right? Are you surprised at some of the things you have done? Do you feel guilty because of the bad things you have done?
   We don't think of ourselves as sinners, simply because we don't see our own sin. In Matthew 7, Jesus is talking to the disciples about not judging another person in a harsh way. We have to be careful because we can see someone else's sin, but we don't see our own. The issue is one of pride. We think we don't sin, but the person we are observing is sinning and we could think we are better than they are. That would be similar to bullying someone around, but in the spiritual sense. We are to deal with our own sins first, then we can deal with the sins of other people to help them to be free.
   How did we get here though? Why are we all sinners, and why can't we see our own sin? It goes back to something that happened around 6,000 years ago. God created a beautiful earth with perfect plants and a perfect living environment for people to live in. God also created human beings. He created Adam first, then Eve. He said that His creation was 'very good'. He was pleased in the way He made Adam and Eve. God communicated with Adam and Eve and they had a good relationship with God.
   Not only did God create a beautiful earth and human beings, but He also created a heavenly realm with angels. Angels are beautiful and more powerful than human beings, but human beings are created in the image of God.
  We are not told much about the heavenly realm or about the angels, but the Bible gives clues throughout. We are told that one of the angels got angry and rebelled against God. According to Jesus, this angel was cast out of heaven onto the earth. He probably took 1/3 of the angels with him. They may be the demons we deal with today. There is a lot of vagueness when it comes to the angelic realm, but we try to put information together as best as we can.
   Every day, God would come to Adam and have fellowship with him in the Garden. God instructed Adam concerning many things. One instruction He gave was to not eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There was a lot of food choices for Adam and Eve, even compared to what we have today, yet, they were to not eat of this particular tree.
   One day, Eve was in the Garden, and a serpent came up to her and talked to her. Perhaps, animals talked to humans at this point. She didn't seem alarmed. The Serpent explained to her that if she took of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, she would become like God. It was the voice of the devil who was speaking and tricking Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. We are not told what the forbidden fruit was, but we do know that it wasn't an apple. Eve thought about it. After considering what the fruit could do for her, and against the knowledge that she was told not to eat it, she decided to eat the fruit anyway. What really caused the problem though, was Adam came along and she gave him some. This is the point in time where he should have stopped her, but he didn't. He also partook of the fruit. He knew better.
  The same wicked desire that was in the devil's heart in trying to be like God, was in the heart of Adam and Eve. They knew the fruit would make it possible for that to happen, or, at least that is what the devil told them.
  God was not surprised that they partook of the fruit. He knew they would do that. Later on that day, God came to find them, and they hid. Not only did they hide, but they tried to cover their sin by sewing fig leaves together and covering themselves. God found them and asked them some questions. When asked why they ate the fruit, basically, Eve blamed it on the devil. It was like she was saying, 'The devil made me do it.'. God pronounced a curse on the devil. He told the devil that there would be a battle between him and mankind, yet someone (a seed) would come and crush his head. God explained that Eve would suffer in childbearing and Adam would suffer by having to work very hard now, in a way that he didn't have to work before. Weeds and bad plants would come up instead of good fruit being produced.
   We have been experiencing difficulties ever since. Not only do men have to work hard to provide for their families, and women having excruciating pain in childbirth, but men and women have been at odds with each other ever since. Wars have come and gone. Natural disasters happen and cause much destruction. Sicknesses are everywhere and everyone dies. The world has become a very hard, sad place to live.
   We think we can go to an island and run away from the problems, but that doesn't work. The problem of sin is within each one of us. We were made to love God, and all the people around us, but instead, we love ourselves and hate those around us (unless they can benefit us in some way).
  All of us declared 'autonomy' from God. In other words, we all make a declaration of independence from God. And we live in a world filled with people who are all declaring independence from God. We are like the hamsters in the aquarium that we pick to buy and bring home. The hamster doesn't know that we want to love him, take care of him and play with him. As soon as the gloved hand comes into the aquarium to pick up the selected hamster, the hamster runs for his life. He sees the gloved hand as a threat to his life and tries hard, and will probably bite the gloved hand if he can. We are like that with God. We think that if we turn to God, He will take all our fun away and make us miserable (another lie of the devil). We are hostile toward God. We are really enemies of God.
  We are spiritually blind and cannot see God. We are spiritually dead and cannot know God. We are in spiritual darkness until we come to Christ in repentance and faith. When we do, God will take the veil off our faces and give us eyes to see Him with and ears to hear His voice with. We live in a spiritually dark world, where we can't see, hear, or know God.
  God gave a promise to the devil, that Someone would come to give him a death blow, and God kept His promise. 2,000 years ago, God sent His only Son, Jesus the Messiah, to be born as a baby, and live a life as a human being. Jesus lived for about 33 years, and He never did anything wrong. He never sinned. He came so that we could be reconciled to God, His Father. Because of our sins, which are so terrible before God, Jesus had to come to earth, to live a perfect life, and to die in our place. Either we have to pay for our sins by living eternally in hell, being tormented without an end, or, we have to turn to God, and trust in Jesus' death on the cross, to pay the penalty for our sins. There is no other alternative to being reconciled to God.
   Sin is what separates us from God, and keeps us from knowing God. One of the devil's tricks is to tempt us to sin, so we will be punished by God and kept separated from Him.
   Jesus dealt a death blow to the devil and the fallen angels. The blood that Jesus shed on the cross, defeated the power and works of the Enemy of our souls. He is now defeated and awaits judgment in the Lake of Fire. Jesus' death does not apply to angels. The fallen angels cannot repent and turn to God. They are doomed without a chance to repent. But human beings can repent and be restored to God.
  Jesus not only died for our sins, but arose from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion. He was on the earth for about 40 days, then He went back to heaven to be with His Father.
  When Jesus came back to life, He had a resurrected body. When He comes back to earth, to collect those who are His, they will receive a new body, one that will never have decay. All those who are resurrected will receive new bodies that will never die, nor will there be any sickness or pain in those bodies. God will bring about a new heaven and earth, like the one that was destroyed before the devil hijacked it. Everyone who has a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, will live on this new earth with their new body. The others will live in the Lake of Fire with the devil and his workers.
   So this is the story of how the devil hijacked planet Earth. Planet Earth was beautiful and perfect at one time. It was destroyed after the devil hijacked it. It will continue to be in this condition until Jesus comes back and brings the new heaven and earth to us. Then everything will be back to the way it was before the fall of man. And there will never be anyone who will hijack planet Earth anymore!
For more information on how you can be reconciled to God, go to http://thegospelconversation.blogspot.com

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