YOUR WORST ENEMY

satan-3-by-jack-chickThe judge slammed his gavel on the podium and immediately pronounced the verdict and the sentence.  Guilty was the verdict and the sentence was divine and engaged all of mankind who should ever live upon the earth. The defendant and alleged offender was one named Satan, alias Beelzebub, Lucifer, Devil and Prince of this world.  The sentence which was pronounced quickly was, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)  The judge, jury and executioner was, none other than the Great “I AM”, the creator of all and our LORD and savior.

Could this also be classified as prophecy?

This word, enmity means to create a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill will; animosity or antagonism which is mutual to all parties. This enmity thing is not something that occurs naturally.  When Adam committed the transgression against the law that God had laid out he imposed upon all mankind an evil nature.  His actions placed us all in harmony with Satan when God’s intent was for us to be in opposition or difference.  Man, along with Satan became evil through an act of apostasy.   If God had not taken some severe action we would have been continuously united with Satan against God.

Satan worked over Eve with deception and then Eve became an accomplice to help move Adam into sin in a grand scheme to get full cooperation in warfare against God and His Kingdom.  When Satan heard the sentence of a declaration of enmity between himself and the woman, and between his seed and her seed, he understood that he had been had and that man would somehow he able to resist his powers.  Drat! Sassa-frassa-rassa he probably was muttering.  How could this happen?

This does not stop the evil one and only serves to slow him down.  Actually, the evil one thinks he will some-day win and steps up his efforts to try and win the next battle.  His fury is kindled like a camper throwing birch twigs on the hot coals of the smoldering fire.

God’s grace that he lovingly placed in the soul of man has given us enmity against Satan. Without the grace of God and His love and redemption mankind would be totally captive to Satan and we would all be servants to do his evil. The result is that in our souls there rages this conflict where before the fall of man once was a soul at complete peace.  For all that choose to access it we have the power of Jesus Christ that enables us to resist the efforts of the evil tyrant that lurks at every corner and is seeking us out. Through the love of Christ we can conquer the evil passions that draw us and we can abhor sin and flee from it.

When we look at how the world treated Jesus Christ we can see it as an example or picture of the type of antagonism or enmity existing between the Spirit of Christ and Satan. The Jews totally rejected Jesus.  His purity and His holiness drew out the hatred of all the ungodly around Him.  For a community of sensual and proud people the sinless life of self-denial that Jesus exhibited was too much for them to take.  Once again we saw this enmity. This time it was the Jews eliciting enmity with the Christ.  They would deny that Jesus was the messiah.  Satan found some companions with these evil men and they all joined together in apostasy to conspire against Jesus the Christ the Champion of Truth.

Please understand this very important point otherwise you will leave yourself open to destruction.  The very same enmity that was manifested toward Jesus Christ is and always will be manifested toward His followers.  Whoever is able to recognize sin for what it is and call upon the LORD for strength to resist the temptations will surely attract the attention of the evil one.  This battle between truth and evil will exist as long as sinners and sin remain part of the earth.  There will never be any harmony between Christ and anyone or anything that serves Satan.  The attack and persecution leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the Cross has not stopped. “Yea and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2 Timothy 3:12)

Satan continues to fight and is constantly working to build up his kingdom in the battle against the Kingdom of God. There is and will be a constant attempt to deceive any of Christ’s followers and Satan would love nothing more than to lure you in and pull you away from your allegiance to Jesus Christ. He is always working to misconstrue and pervert the Scriptures to accomplish his objective. Satan is having a hay-day right now with all the false teachers and the preachers that are watering down and adding to scripture and not preaching the truth. These weak ones are falling into his hands.  There is a constant effort to malign God’s people just as there always has been since it was all foreshadowed in Genesis 3:15.  This enmity will continue until the rapture and the end of the battle in Revelation when Satan is cast into the lake of fire.

Satan continues to throw all the weight he can at us.  He puts his entire power into combat and the battle continues to rage.  The battle rages on because we do not connect with Christ the way He wants us to.  We cannot see sin as repulsive and as abhorrent as Christ did.  We cannot see it because we are not putting forth the effort to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  We are so removed from Christ we are destitute of the Holy Spirit. Most of us do not connect with the malignity and the expansion of sin and we are blind to the power and character of the prince of the world.  Mankind does not elicit enmity against Satan and his works because mankind is ignorant regarding his power and his malice.  We don’t grasp the vastness of his warfare against the Church of Christ and against Christ Himself.  The masses of our land are deluded and unaware.  Most are caught up in all the enjoyment of life and ignorant to the destruction around them.  Most don’t realize there is a mighty general of an evil army that has a massive attack plan with calculated maneuvers to war against Christ and to stop Him from saving souls.

How many times do you hear reference to Satan from professed Christians?  Not often.  Certainly not often enough!  What about the clergy in the pulpits these days? There is an occasional mention of the battle here and there but the evidence of his activity and success is not addressed in near comparison to the gravity of the situation. Most people are neglecting the warnings about the subtlety of Satan and most seem to ignore his very existence.  Most preachers of today wouldn’t touch the subject for fear of making some people feel uncomfortable.  Well guess what?  You should all be real uncomfortable!  The enemy is after your soul people.  He is out to kill you and your family.  Wake up!

Continued… in the next post.  Click here to go to part 2.

 

Have a Godly day,

‘The Tubthumper’