THE MYSTERY OF THE AGES UNFOLDING HERE AT THE END
My goal is to whet your appetite and provoke you to dig much of this out on your own—I do believe I’m onto something which could revolutionize everything you’re about! How it thrilled Jesus when His seventy disciples discovered prematurely that demons were subject to them. At that very moment the enemy of our souls was engaged and Jesus revealed to us that we had the upper hand—everything He did we can do! Luke 10:17-19: “And He said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.’ ” NKJV
Ever since then Satan has done everything possible to obscure that fact. If he can’t keep the lid on, he’ll be exposed for the “paper tiger” he is. Make no mistake, he’s a formidable foe but he can only operate by “cunning craftiness,” deceit, trickery, lying, seduction, fear tactics, etc. It’s sort of like when I was a kid: I worked on a farm for a dollar a day (you heard me right—ha!) and saved up my money to buy this used bike that had “knee action”—sort of like modern shock absorbers. The only thing the owner withheld from me was that it didn’t work anymore. I was racing downhill on gravel at top speed; the front wheel hit a pot hole and didn’t come back up and I was hurled headlong downhill—without a helmet I might add.
However, while we shouldn’t be naïve and oblivious to Satan’s tactics we ought not to give him undue credit either. He was dethroned, and defanged, at the cross! Two observations I’ve made concerning him over the years: he hates exposure but loves attention. If you don’t give him a handle he’s powerless. Look at this declaration from Jesus in John 14:30: “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me…” Jesus is the “Lion from the tribe of Judah”; Satan appears “like a lion”—but is a toothless one at that! I don’t see anywhere in Scripture where he has been given any control over the elements, your material goods, etc. Some people give him far too much credit and attention--“Satan is in my sound equipment, he ruined my engine, etc.”; no, the fact you didn’t change oil for 30,000 miles ruined your engine. He can however motivate, or influence, someone else to mess with your goods; that’s why we must use our spiritual weapons such as deliverance (the children’s bread), binding and loosing, and pulling down strongholds to deal with him.
Okay here’s the biggie; it’s so simple I fear many of us might miss it. If you’ll wrap your head around this you’ll never be the same! I might add this did get my pastor friend who shared this revelation with me “disenfranchised” (nice way to say fired) from his church. For the most part, he went to his grave with this powerful revelation but Satan can’t silence it forever. 1 John 4:1-6 states: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh [the tense is “continually coming in flesh”] is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” NASU
We’re coming in for a landing, so hang on! Historical Jesus alone won’t even cut it. If it could, then every church which celebrates Christmas and Easter would be red hot for God. Yet, why are so many of them apostate and succumbing to so many abominable practices? It hasn’t yet sunk in that Christ, who promised that we would do even greater things, is now presently in our flesh desiring to carry on the works that He did--John 14:12. Col. 1:26-27 states, “…that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you [continually coming in flesh], the hope of glory”. Look at Romans 8:11, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
Let’s all “go for the gold”, we’ve got the oxygen bottle and we win; Christ desires for all of us to be two-time winners—to reign with Him while on planet earth and also throughout all eternity!
Gary Johnson
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