What You May Not Know!

Many would say, “Don’t tell me Satan could be using me!” The devil can’t use me; I’m in God’s Church! But maybe we need to understand more how Satan works to deceive and a deceived person doesn’t know he is deceived, else he wouldn’t be, would he? Let’s make sure!

Truly, it’s time we begin to sing and even shout “Glory! Hallelujah! Praise our Great and wonderful God.” For each day we are just one day closer to glory in the Kingdom of God with peace, joy and happiness over all the earth!

The 6,000 year day of man is just about over! In our time – in this very living generation, the King of kings, Jesus Christ, will rule over all nations.

Think of it! No more nerve-wracking tensions, uneasy trials to endure. No more suffering, anguish and pain. No more crime, violence, war and fear of war. No more fears and worries!

But, even now, with all the troubles and evils on every side about us, remember God is on His Throne in heaven and Jesus Christ is sitting beside Him, interceding for us. God’s power is total, complete far greater than Satan’s.

And, in the meantime – possibly just a very few more years all of these troubles will be over– His ear is open to our cry, and Jesus Christ is interceding for us. But now, while in these days that remain, we are going to have to live in a time of trouble. Why? What is the cause?

We need to realize this truth! And maybe too many in God’s Church don’t! In Eph. 2:2 is a very crucial statement. It is one of the most important in the Bible! It says Satan is “the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.”

Many of God’s people will read right over the fact that Satan is the prince of the power of the air, not really understanding it, and since Satan is now working in the “children of disobedience,” we suppose that excludes us, so we need have no concern about it!

Satan broadcasts! He broadcasts worldwide as far as there is air. What he is broadcasting is in this same room where I am typing this article now! I don’t hear it, I don’t see what he is pushing over the air waves, as the prince of the power of the air, but my spirit with my mind is tuned to his wavelength.

But even though I am automatically tuned in on his wavelength (as ever human is) I am not listening! Because I am keeping my mind concentrated on what I am writing.

You can tune in on either radio or television and the sounds come in. They were already in the room, in the air but now you are tuned in on their wavelength with your radio or television set, the sounds and pictures become audible and visible. But I can concentrate my mind on something else, like the Bible and focus my mind on that, become oblivious to what’s coming in on the radio and the television. So also I can ignore Satan’s impulses.

Once you are converted and become a begotten child of God, once you become a member of God’s true Church that does not disconnect your mind and spirit from Satan’s wavelength. You are still tuned in, if you are willing to yield and listen to Satan.

Let me prove that. Let me quote some scriptures to prove it you will have to believe it! The prince of the power of the air is a powerful being! He is the most powerful type of being God has ever created, short of God Himself. God is even more powerful and He is our protection our refuge, our ever-present help.

The spirit that is in ever human is merely spirit essence not a spirit person or ghost, and it cannot see, hear or think. The brain sees through the physical eyes. The human spirit acts as a computer, retaining as memory all the facts and knowledge the eyes have seen and ears have heard during your lifetime, and it gives instant recall of that knowledge to the brain. With this instant recall the brain thinks. Thus this human spirit imparts to the physical brain the power of intellect. Animals have no such spirit, so animals do not think as does man nor does it have intellect.

God made man to need another Spirit to join with this human spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. That Spirit imparts the power of spiritual intellect of spiritual comprehension and understanding which the greatest men on earth, without the Holy Spirit can’t know.

When God wanted to cause King Cyrus of Persia to send certain Jews under Zerubbabel as governor, and Joshua as high priest, and the prophet Ezra and Nehemiah back to Jerusalem to build the second Temple, “the Eternal stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation” ( Ezra 1:1).

God got his message through to Cyrus’ mind via Cyrus’ human spirit. That is likewise how Satan broadcasts. Your human spirit is automatically in tune with Satan’s wavelength.

Satan does not broadcast in words or pictures, neither audibly or video, but in attitudes of self-centeredness, of vanity, lust and greed, of jealousy and envy, of competition, strife and violence, of hate, resentment, bitterness, of rebellion and resentment against authority. We call it human nature but it is actually Satan’s nature.

God’s way, His Spirit, His law is just the opposite, the way of love, of outgoing concern for the good of others.

Now the converted Christian with the Holy Spirit of God can pray often, keep his mind in a prayerful attitude, learn God’s way and therefore reject Satan’s impulses of self-centeredness. That’s why we need constant prayer and Bible study and church attendance to keep so close to God that Satan’s broadcasting does not sway us, we ignore or reject Satan’s influences. Satan can’t force us against our wills if we do not voluntarily submit.

Now notice some scriptures showing us how to prevent Satan from working in us by his broadcasting.

Speaking of those to whom the Gospel was hid from their minds, Paul wrote: “In whom the god of this world (Satan) hath blinded the mind of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (II Cor. 4:4).

Satan blinded them by injecting into their minds through their human spirit the very opposite attitude of self-centeredness.

We were not born with human nature. Such spiritual traits as self-centeredness are not transmitted by heredity. But we acquire this human nature just as the children of God, when converted, acquire the Divine Nature – “partakers of the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4).

To the Corinthians, Paul feared lest they would be deceived by the still-living Satan, just as was Mother Eve: “But I fear,” Paul wrote, “lest as the serpent beguiled (deceived) Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted” (II Corth. 11:3). Satan is still working in Church members just as in the Corinthians who were Church members!

Paul writes to those in God’s Church in Ephesus: “Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood (other people), but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness (wicked spirits) in high places” (Eph. 6:10-12). And in verse 11 Paul wrote, “Put on the whole armour of God that ye (Christians) may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

During the apex of the Worldwide Church of God, how many of the ministers thought they were beyond being deceived by him or that Satan could actually work in them as described above? (Just take a good look at those ministers today, how many have stayed with the truth?)

No matter what position one may have in God’s Church, Satan is far more powerful and stronger than any of us. We, members of God’s Church must rely on Jesus Christ, who is more powerful than Satan. Those ministers who left God’s truth, Satan did deceive them and work in them!

A deceived person does not know they are deceived. They think they are right. If they knew they were deceived, they would not be deceived. Satan is more powerful, and, in addition, more cunning, clever, more subtle than all the ministers put together.

God’s Church has got to get back on the paths of God’s truth. There is too much desire to be worldly, to be secular, and to be like the churches of Satan.

It takes a constant vigilance to keep our minds on Jesus Christ, on His work, on the things of God, to avoid listening to Satan’s broadcasting of attitudes of selfishness, of taking interest in material worldly things, of swaying us to reason humanly that we can get a little closer to interest in worldly and material things, a little more like the professing Christian churches of this world and still make it into God’s Kingdom!

If we allow ourselves to let down just a little, in our prayer, Bible study or Church attendance and tithing, we begin to let our minds become interested in the things or ways of this world, then we wonder why we find ourselves irritable, mentally on the defensive, suspecting others, getting conceptions of competitions or divisions or sides in the Church, suspicious of the motives of others, controversial, cynical, and we do not realize what is causing all that!

Satan was broadcasting it, and because you were not vigilant in prayer and keeping close to God and having God fill your mind and heart with the warmth of His love, these negative attitudes of Satan were taking hold of you!

That is why God warns us, through Peter, ”Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8).

Just think of that sentence, literally. If you were alone and a savage roaring lion came running at you, you’d be frightened to death, to use a common expression. God meant for us to realize that we should be just as frightened at the knowledge Satan is seeking to destroy this Church and all of us in it.

Through James, Christ teaches us: “Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you” (James 4:7-8). God means for us to take heed!

It is possible that Satan is using you and you don’t even know it! This Church needs to get closer to God, back to the original truths. We need to confess our sins and He will be faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9).

 
The Church of God, New World Ministries P.O. Box 5536 Sevierville, TN 37864