Designs of Darkness: The Arrows of Satan

Very rarely does Satan strike the Spirit-filled heart of the believer like a bolt of lightening; he rather conditions him over a period of time with miniscule doses of compromise and impulses of loose thinking to where the inner man starves and the flesh builds. The ultimate design of spiritual darkness is to infiltrate the mind of Christians through small measures, leading to a gradual decline to where at last they have been desensitized sufficiently to receive a flaming arrow.

When the arrow strikes the mind of the believer in this condition, it sticks and infects. The poison defiles the believer’s conscience and immediately establishes a root in the heart. The bow from which the arrow is propelled is commonly strung by the lure of entertainment, worldly concerns or philosophy and the strength by which the bow is drawn back is found in the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life. When these twin powers are awakened and given preeminence over the influence of the spirit, the arrow becomes poised at the heart and the bow bends.

When a Christian yields unto the design of darkness, it is but the outward evidence of a preexisting spiritual infection made manifest by one of Satan’s arrows. It is the same as a lesion on the skin indicating an underlying disease in the blood. The infection can always be traced to a specific contracting, and in the case of the Christian, the disease is always acquired by an initial slacking of fervent devotion to God. When we cease to occupy ourselves with Him, we cease to be healthy.

Satan has arrows poised at the hearts and minds of God’s unhealthy children. The Lord uses this diabolical archer to bring forth the lesions to show the child that he is sick. What begins in his mind, though the tolerance of unclean thought-patterns, at last manifests in the flesh. Satan never misses the target; God will not allow him to miss. When the arrow hits, it leaves the believer reeling, hurled into the actualization in the flesh of what had been privately within his thoughts all along. He finds himself stuck fast, like a hog in the mire. Like Peter sinking into a dark sea, he cries out to his Lord in horror and agonizing confession: “I am perishing! Lord, I am sinking down to my death in an ocean of sin!”

Upon this ejaculatory confession, the Lord saves and restores His dear child instantly through the blood of Jesus Christ. His conscience is sprinkled and cleansed; the believer is brought back safely into the boat. But here the designs of darkness will attempt a new strategy upon seeing he is once again secure in the arc: the maddening siren of false condemnation.

To be continued….

Designs of Darkness: Simple Distractions

Because our minds are naturally poised toward earth-bound objects and passions, an effective strategy employed by spiritual wickedness is to constantly provide diversions and distractions to keep the follower of Christ from heavenly pursuits. The world in which we live is replete with such a myriad of alluring vanities, of fruitless enticements and empty attractions as to make each inch of our sojourning here a potential bog to gratify our insatiable intellect and tantalize the flesh. To effectively circumnavigate these bogs, a certain measure of determination and diligence is required on behalf of the Christian: we must have the discipline to pray for the grace to withstand these potential pitfalls and to maintain an unmolested mind on our stalwart path to heaven.

These distractions present themselves at first in small increments. Initially they are but the polyps that warn of a future cancer if not excised upon detection. Though they at first appear benign; that is, a harmless indulgence off the beaten path of holiness or an aroused interest of some innocuous albeit carnal sort, they are, in fact, strategically-designed to infiltrate our minds and set down destructive roots. When these roots gain enough foothold in the soil they become invisible fortresses which seek to strangle the purity of one’s inner devotion to God.

As with physical agents upon earth, these distractions can manifest themselves in both large and small proportions. They may run the gamut, spiritually-speaking, from the microscopic to the leviathan. Generally, the more mature one is in God, the smaller the package is presented which houses the fatality. A massive distraction in the form of financial trouble, for example, can be easily dismissed by a mature saint who has since learnt to trust in God for all his provision. An immature saint in the same predicament would succumb at once and fall to the wayside. A self-sufficient adult might worry if he could not pay his mortgage; a trusting child, however, looks to another for his clothing, food and shelter. The same distraction that terrifies the adult leaves the babe non-phased.

What threatens the child is not the big distractions, but, in fact, the small. Let this same child acquire a microscopic virus in his weak frame and he may well succumb to the disease before the viral-resistant adult even realizes his immunity has been compromised. There is object lesson here to be learnt: a tiny distraction can infiltrate the child of God, and proliferate within his mind, whereas the more proud, and hence, immature believer is more apt to be defeated by the massive distractions – by the gargantuan enticements of sex, money and the pride of life.

The mature child of God tempered by years of spiritual warfare has been conditioned by the Holy Spirit to beware of the giant distractions. He hears them coming while they are yet in the distance. He prepares himself for the fight. He immediately humbles himself, prays for grace and God grants him the victory. The powers of darkness have since acquainted themselves with his on-going victory, and have thus changed battle tactics. They now seek to infect him in small, poisonous portions, inch by inch. The attacking ogres of money and sex are better used against the proud religionists, the legalists, the strong and sure.

Dear saint, if you have been serving Jesus Christ as a poor and helpless child, I have a word for you: beware of the little distractions. It is the design of darkness to capture your mind and heart by way of the little foxes. Keep your mind daily girded against spiritual evil masquerading as benign growths. You can know the distraction by its fruit, by the purpose of its importuning. Use godly wisdom to decipher the distraction’s destination, and then apply the grace of the Holy Spirit in removing it from your inner man.

Scripture Meditations: Song of Solomon 2:15; Matthew 6:24-34; 13:19; Luke 18:15-17; I Corinthians 7:35; Philippians 4:8; I Peter 1:13

Designs of Darkness: The Dagger of Entertainment

Spiritual darkness often comes by way of great lights and spectacular music. The explosion of the senses is often a weight to the spirit. When the mind and heart are most lax from the presence of the Lord, the more accessible the doorway becomes for the infiltration of worldly thrill. The object of entertainment is in the usurpation of our spiritual joy. It is a cheap decoy, a fake diamond, a nugget of fool’s gold. The powers of darkness wait for the joy of the Lord to abate until presenting the sham. The swindlers dare not offer a billionaire a plastic ruby, for the funds of his unfeigned joy will instantly trump, at the moment, anything they may offer in trade. But let his funds run low, his investments sink, the devaluation of the King’s joy increase, and the principalities are standing by with their plastic apples.

The powers of darkness are opportunistic. They bide their time in the shadows while God’s children bask in the joy of their Lord. They daily watch for signs of diminishment; they listen to their prayers and spy on their quiet time. When the occasion is ripe to offer the apple of entertainment, they do so, and, like Ehud, slip the dagger quietly into the fat. A mortal blow is inflicted, and a slow death begins. As the poison of entertainment begins its spread within the soul, the joy of the Lord is occluded with darkness. As the child of God flounders, the powers of darkness strike him a second time. Here they strike with a delusional acceptance that entertainment might be successfully married to God’s joy. Like Naaman, they find themselves floundering between temples: the shrine of a false god and the temple of the true God of Israel. Because this is taking place within their vessels, profane altars are erected atop God’s altar. The heart is commandeered; the incense of cheap enjoyment is burned at the expense of the Holy Spirit’s fire.

The power of soul entertainment and the influence it has over the flesh is electrifying, and it is a fatal agent to the “new man” created in us by God in the image of Jesus Christ. The two cannot co-exist for long, and entertainment will always win the fight over joy for dominion in the human heart. The powers of darkness know this truth very well, which is why the world has been designed to be a lair of entertainment, a colossal web to entrap men and women for the purpose of euthanizing their minds from the realities of God and the dangers of hell.

To effectively counter the dagger of entertainment, the mind must be girded-up in Christ.  The believer must pray for the grace of a new mindset adaptation, for a shift to take place where his gaze of faith is diverted from earth below to heaven above. We as children of God must learn to recognize when the shadows are drawing longer and our inner men are beginning to hunger. Upon this recognition, we must instantly learn to fly to the blood of Jesus Christ where God has provided light, food and shelter for our beleaguered spirits. Any hesitation to fly to Christ in these moments puts our spirit men in jeopardy of being out-matched by the fake glitter and false gold of worldly entertainment.

Scripture Meditations: Judges 3:21-22; II Kings 5:17-19; Matthew 14:6; Luke 12:19, 21:34; Galatians 5:17, 6-7; Ephesians 3:16; II Timothy 2:4

To be continued…

Designs of Darkness: The Spirit’s Eclipse

Those who have been chosen of God to radiate the life of His Son are given a daily death sentence. This death sentence consists of eclipsing the desires of the flesh so that the Life of Christ might have preeminence through their vessels. This measure of flesh-eclipsing is direcly proportionate to the diligence one maintains in walking in the spirit. And walking in the spirit requires a deliberate daily resolve. It involves a conscientious effort in guarding our minds from evil thought-patterns and ever realigning them Heavenward.

What many believers do not realize is that this world has been designed by Satan to prevent this realignment. The basic God-ordained needs of food and intimacy, for instance, have been diabolically perverted by the constant bombardment of advertisements to the flesh. In every corner of this world, we find the sole design to satiate the flesh and lower our upward gaze from glory to the dismal, empty plane of Adamic carnality and vanity. This is the scheme of the world, the grand design of spiritual darkness. If we take too light an approach to this awareness, we will soon be derailed and devoured by the roaring lion who pulls the strings and works the levers of this ruined world.

The gaze by which we train our spirits on Him who is Altogether Lovely is subject to gravity. It takes real effort to resist the pull and maintain a daily loftiness of faith, trust and spiritual integrity toward God. The fight the old saints wrote so prolifically of, and the fearsome war in which the Christian must for a lifetime engage, is not to be found against flesh and blood, but in the maintenance of this unfettered gaze from the weighted darkness. Devils and charlatan preachers, humanistic philosophies and the quest for money are some of the many different weights used by the enemy to sink our minds down into the dregs of carnal rapport. When the mind becomes preoccupied with fleshly pursuits, the vibrancy of communion between our spirits and His becomes eclipsed. Darkness prevails then upon light; an eclipse has occured. But there can be a eclipse-reversal through the blood of Christ!

Like with Joshua, God is able to temporarily halt the eclipse by making the sun and moon stand still, and with Hezekiah’s prayer, even make the sun retrack its course and reverse the occlusion. He affords His children this miraculous restoration through faith in the blood of His Son. Darkness always recedes upon contrition and blood-washed repentance.

Scripture Meditations: Joshua 10:3; Isaiah 38:7-8, I John 5:19, Luke 9:23, II Corinthians 10:3-5, Colossians 3:5, Galatians 5:16, Philippians 1:20; I Peter 1:13, I Peter 5:8, Ephesians 6:12, Hebrews 12:2

To be continued…