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One of the most difficult aspects of the Christian life to grasp, and integrate into one's
daily routine (refering to the thoughts we use to deal with the details of life) is the
ground rules that pertain to Divine management of our circumstances. Most prominent in this train of thought is the fact that God never manages our lives as our adversary, the Devil, does. In fact, until we become aware of God's manipulations we are inclined to avoid many Divine provisions because they appear to be wholly unsavory, painful and non-productive. At the heart of this issue is the nature of man, a fallen creature that is immersed in Satan's kingdom. Every facet of our existence presents the Devil with a tremendous advantage, and conversely, makes the influence of God that much harder to realize in our conscious mind. Satan is a master of deceipt and intimidation. He uses the advantages that our human bodies, and the environment we live in, to great effect. Even ideas that seem noble and honorable are hooks that Satan has disguised with a comely bait, and in ignorance we bite without hesitation. The sad truth is that the vast majority of Christians are unwitting accomplices of our arch enemy. Sadly, it won't be until the Judgement Seat that they will learn the ugly truth that for their entire lifetimes they seved Satan. The first human beings to face this truth ate of the fruit of the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil. Allow me to point out that the conjucntive particle, "and", connect the words "good" and "evil", which makes it clear that these two concepts, in the Devil's world, are one and the same. Many of the crusades that Christians take to heart are Satanic to the core, not that they espouse a doctrine of hatred and violence, to the contrary! Many of his initiatives involve "peace" and "love", like dismantling the military, avoiding war, abortion, and thousands of other seeming;y noble causes. Remember, Satan is in the counterfeit business, attempting to duplicate Divine good and righteousness as a means of proving that he is qualified to do what he set out to do in the begining, to displace God as the Ruler of the Universe. To accomplish this quest he establishes syrupy good institutions and directs the efforts of men along the lines of "good" activities, like saving the environment, giving to charities, and demonstrating for peace. A litmus test that invariably works to reveal evil in any principle in our society is that Satan's initiatives ALWAYS destroy freedom. What makes it so difficult to discern between Divine policy and Stanic policy is that many times, almost always, Satan's ideas sound so kind and gentle, and God's involve harsh treatment for the likes of criminals, and the enemies of our country. A short list of Satanic policies; Mandatory insurance for automobiles, seat belt laws, anti-smoking laws, endangered species laws, prayer in public schools, campaigns to feed starving children.... The first four of these initiatives limit freedom, and any time freedom is lost to any cause, Satan wins. Why? Because freedom is the essential environment for the dissemination of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Men must be free to hear, consider, and accept or reject the message of salvation. What do seat belts and smoking have to do with salvation? Nothing, directly, but everything where freedom is an issue. Satan's ultimate goal is to bring all peoples under his rule, and he works toward this objective by nibbling away at our liberties, like these issues, a bite at a time. Take smoking, for example. At first the laws prohibited smoking in the work place, then they were expanded to outdoor sports arenas, restaurants, etc. Now, I hear, the plans are to make people who go outside to smoke at work remain a distance of 20 feet from the entrance to a building. There are already many who support a law that makes it illegal to smoke in public, period. That's how it works, a progressive destruction of our freedoms, especially those that many people don't like. Ofcourse, we don't see right away what these issues have to do with anything important. In fact, they appear to be logical, and from the standpoint of good health, a wise thing to do. They are, in fact, a good idea! BUT....if we use the law to impose them on every man, woman and child in this country, they become the instruments of Satan in detroying our freedom, and once freedom is completely gone, the gospel message will be severely hampered. The last two Satanic policies I mentioned, prayer in schools and starving children, are more subtle. We send our kids to school to learn, not worship God. If we insist that our kids should be free to pray openly, then we expose them, unwittingly, to every Satanic religion on the planet. Muslim, Hindu, Sikh....faiths that deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. Our kids, sitting next to a peer that worships Allah, is sent the message that it's alright to be a Muslim, we should have a choice, after all...they are mumbling their prayers just like we are, and the things they believe seem pretty cool. Without realizing it, we have implied to our own children that our Christian faith and these pagan faiths are roughly equal, laudable, and deserving of consideration. Starving children is perhaps the most difficult to grasp, as an adjunct to evil. Remember, Satan uses every advantage to great effect, and in this case he appeals to our compassion, and uses emotion to obscure the truth. What is the truth? Simple....those kids are unbelievers, with parents that are muslim or athiests, and if they survive (with our gift of food) to the age of accountablilty, they die and go to hell. On the other hand, they are not accountable until they possess the accumen and maturity to understand the issues of salvation, so if they die very young God's justice cannot judge them, and they go to heaven by default. The principle here...God is not a scowling Sovereign, wrathful, and poised to send us to hell on the slimmest pretext. He is Love, and as such, He seeks a way to save us in any way He can. There will be millions of souls in heaven that died before reaching accountablity! My point in speaking of these things has been to point out that things are far from what they appear to be in this place. So it is with suffering. If we, as Christians, are dependent upon our emotions, senses, and hunches, as directed by our feelings, compassion, sincerity, or any natural endowment, then we are vulnerable to our brilliant enemy. Only knowledge of God's word can inform us of these cunning distractions. We must remember that we are in an alien environment as believers in Jesus Christ. This world, and all in it, are set on a course which runs counter to God's will for us. Therefore, logically, if we pursue God's plan for our lives we can expect opposition, adversity, and circumstances that are designed to disorient us. Our success here is the seal which will send the Devil and his minions to the Lake of Fire. In effect, the human race is the jury in Satan's appeal trial. God has already sentenced him to hell, but Satan sued for, and received, an appeal hearing from The Righteous Judge. Thus, both God and Satan are putting forth their policies, and we are left to the task of deciding which is valid. But this role is far from simple to fullfil to our benefit. Many stories of the heros of the Bible are intended for our education in the subtleties of our objective in this life. Joseph is one of my favorite people, from the standpoint of our subject...suffering. God's will for this man was to place him in the highest position ever attained by an outsider in the government of Egypt. His motive? The Jews would suffer an intense drought, and need food, and Joseph would be on the throne when they travelled to Egypt for help. Consider what befell Joseph...He was thrown into a deep pit by his envious brothers. Some wanted to kill him, but cooler heads prevailed. Instead, they sold him as a slave to some passing Bedouins, who in turn, sold him to a high ranking Egyptian, Potifer. The Jews were highly values in the ancient world as slaves, because they were all educated and made excellent administrators of a king's affairs. Potifer's wife put the moves on Joseph, and he left without succuming to seduction. But she had torn off his robe as he struggled to escape, and she showed it to Potifer and claimed that the young Jew had treid to rape her. Potifer believed her and had Joseph thrown into prison. One of the men he was interred with was falsely accused of a plot to kill the Pharaoh, but a dream of Joseph's revealed that he was innocent, and when the man was exonerated, Joseph comitted a gave sin, he asked the man to state his case before Pharaoh. He immediately forgot. A year later the Pharoah had a disturbing dream, and all his socerers and astrologers could not interpret it. But the Cup Bearer remembered Joseph, who explained the dream, and Pharoah put him on the thrown of Egypt as a reward. All the uncertainty and hardship that Jospeh endured had a wonderful end, which is always God's will for us. But if we avoid adversity, and try to arrive at a solution of our own, we short circuit God's bleesing. The principle; If we remove the suffering we remove the solution, and if we do not have the solution, we do not have blessing. God has a reason for exposing us to adversity, and it boes well for us if we follow His lead in this matter. |