The Unseen: Don't Tell Me what to Do!

October is here and now the Autumn season has finally begun to take over. The colors of autumn are popping out all around, hayrides, bonfires and apple cider make this one of my favorite season. Though autumn is beautiful and fun, it is full of signs that that winter is coming.

Speaking of autumn signs, beginning in mid-summer, our culture begins to advertise and sell decorations for an annual fall festival, Halloween, a sure sign of the Fall. Decorations and costumes range from cute child story characters to macabre symbols of death.

It’s a time where truly dark images and themes are given a light and jovial spin. Death, haunting, ghostly, witchcraft and morbid themes are celebrated as if they are fake and fictional. The truth is they are deeply rooted in the Fall of mankind that the Bible records in Genesis chapter 3 and the Fall of Satan in Isaiah 14.

The Unseen

Over the next couple of weeks, while our culture is celebrating these themes, we will be looking at what the Bible says about Satan, Demons and Angels in our new series called, The Unseen.

Paul instructs us in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Like much of the Halloween celebration, where people treat disturbing scenes lightly, many Christian walks around without seriously considering the Spiritual Warfare that we are in daily. There is a battle being waged in our hearts, minds and lives daily in the spiritual realm and we try to deal with it in the physical. But God has given us insights in His Word to equip us to stand strong and to see what He is doing behind the scenes, in the Unseen.

Don’t Tell Me What To Do

If we could rewind the clock and go back to the beginning where everything started to fall apart, where would we go? The Garden of Eden? We could then tell our parents, Adam and Eve, not to eat of that fruit.

But we would need to go back further in time to try and stop the first rebellion, that of Lucifer, known today as Satan. Although it isn’t recorded in Genesis, it is preserved for us in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, one of God’s created angels, filled with pride, rebelled against God and took 1/3 of the angels with him in his rebellion.

In Isaiah 14:12-14 we are introduced to Satan’s five “I wills”, five statements where he described his heart’s desire. At the root of his rebellion was his desire for autonomy, self-rule, and his desire to replace God. He didn’t want God to tell him what to do, he wanted to tell others what to do, he wanted to be worshiped, he wanted power.

Have you ever found yourself saying, “don’t tell me what to do”? Maybe your parents, siblings, teacher, boss, or someone in authority told you to do something and you didn’t like it. Why didn’t you like them telling you what to do? Was it because it was something bad/evil? Or was it the rebellious desire from deep within where you want to be the boss?

This desire to be self-ruled is in all of us. It is rooted in pride and flows out of us in the form of rebellion. We seek to do whatever we want. Unfortunately, we don’t realize that when we rebel against God, we are obeying Satan and his demonic forces.  

Satan wasn’t alone in his rebellion. He convinced one third of all the angels to join him in his campaign against the Father (Revelation 12:4). These “fallen angels” are what we now call demons. It is important to know this because Satan and all these fallen angels are created beings. They were created by God and ultimately will give an account for their rebellion. They might be powerful, but they cannot defeat God.

In this Halloween season, there are many depictions of these fallen angels, these demonic forces, that we will see. Each time you see them, remind yourself that they are a defeated foe.

Good Angels

Satan rebelled and took a third of the angels with him and for a season God allows him to roam this earth and have his (limited) way with things. We often miss key statements in Scripture and begin to give Satan and his demons too much power. We think this world is lost to him and that they are too powerful. But Satan only convinced 1/3 of angels. 2/3 stayed the course and are righteous angels.

Psalm 103:20-21 summarizes the work of the good angels. They do His Word, obey His voice and minister according to His will. Righteous angels abound and are always working according to the Lord’s plan.

When the enemy seems to be overwhelming and evil seems to be taking over, remember the story we read about in 2 Kings 6. In the midst of a siege, the city was surrounded and defeat seemed inevitable, yet Elisha was calm. His servant ran to him and said, “what are we going to do?” Elisha said, “don’t be afraid.” And then he asked God to open his servant’s eyes, and what he saw was a sight to behold. Surrounding them was chariots of fire filled with a heavenly army that could not be defeated.  

God is now weak or helpless in our fight. He can win with a word. He has a host of heavenly angels at his beck and call who will fight for us at his command. Don’t fear the enemy, fix your eyes on our God.

The Remedy

The Spiritual battle is real. There are evil forces all around. However, James 1:14 tells us that the evil desire to rebel comes from our own hearts, not the demonic forces around us. Isaiah 53:6 describes us as wayward sheep turn each other away from God. This is the result of the Fall. We are in desperate need of a remedy to our rebellion.

God loved us so much that He sent His Son to be that remedy. Jesus willingly took on flesh and lived a perfect, sinless life. He chose to go to the cross and shed His blood for our sins. He became sin for us, that we might become His righteousness. When He rose from the dead, He concurred sin and death, He defeated Satan’s rebellion, and render the demonic forces powerless.

Jesus is the remedy to our rebellion. Look to Him, follow Him, trust Him and you will find victory, hope and forgiveness.

I am so glad that Jesus didn’t rebel against His Father. When the Father told Jesus the plan, what if Jesus said, “don’t tell me what to do!” We would all be doomed. Jesus instead, humbly and joyfully said, “Not my will but yours be done!” “Behold the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world! Blessed be His name!”