As God Pleases, Dispose the Day

In light of the holiday that is upon us, Halloween, I want to write about something really creepy and scary. Now, considering the paragraph above, you make think I’m referring to the end times, but I’m not. For believers in Christ the end time holds no terror. What I want to write about is the creepiest, vilest creature that has ever snaked his way through our lives and our world; “the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). This serpent of old “has sinned from the beginning.” (I John 3:8). In the garden he deceived Eve and planted seeds of doubt in Adam’s mind that led him to a choice that gave Satan power over the earth and mankind’s inner nature.

Since that day we have been at war with a formidable enemy. This former angel in his pride said, “I will ascend to Heaven”. “I will raise my throne above the stars (angels) of God.” “I will make myself like the most high God” (Isaiah 14). And, in his rebellion he convinced a third of the stars (angels) of heaven to join him (Rev 12:4). So, now we war with these supernatural evil forces. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12) Satan is the “prince of the power of the air and the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2), so we not only struggle against supernatural forces, but against those people who willingly follow the evilness of his spirit. “He is a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in truth; because there is no truth in him… he is a liar, and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) He is the accuser of the brethren and he accuses us before God day and night (Rev. 12:10).

His victory over Adam was only the beginning. Next, his spirit moved in the sinful nature of Adam’s first offspring. Cain tried to come to God without the shed blood of a sacrifice. The Lord warns him to do what is right. “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7). What a vivid picture; our sin nature waiting, crouching at the door, like a lion waiting to pounce. Will we walk into the lion’s reach or master it?

In another Old Testament story we see that Satan not only works from within, he also fights us in the supernatural realm. When Daniel prayed for understanding of a vision an angel is sent from God to explain what the vision meant. However the angel was delayed for 21 days. The prince (evil angel) over the kingdom of Persia stopped him, and it was not until Michael, the chief prince (angel) of the Jewish nation came to help him, was he able to get through to Daniel.

Satan connives and strives from within; he works his schemes in the unseen forces around us, and corrupts our world through the evil that permeates from the sons of disobedience who follow him. As the end time marches on, Satan knows his time is running out. So, we should expect to see acceleration and increased intensity in his attacks on all three fronts.

Do you remember a time, when Satan wanted us to not think about him seriously, as if he were not a threat to us? Our society accepted his deception and we made him a caricature of a devil in a red suit with a pitchfork and we laughed as we jested “the devil made me do it”. We made jokes about heaven and hell, humanizing the first and minimizing hell as a nasty playground controlled by pleasure seekers instead of a place of darkness and torment.

Have you stopped to wonder what picture he wants us to have of him today? What images of Satan and the supernatural flood the pages of our books and visual media? When I asked myself this question, I started mentally noting the movies and television shows that deal with the supernatural. Demons, witches, warlocks, vampires, mystical forces, super heroes whose supernatural abilities have evil tendencies as well as good, saturate our viewing screens. Books and movies depict there being both good and bad witches and warlocks and demons. Have we stopped to think of the inaccuracy of that thought? Witches and warlocks are slaves of Satan. Their power to do incantations and spells comes from his evil supernatural power working through them. So to accept that there are good witches and warlocks are to accept that good can come from Satan and that he really, as many stories show, uses his own power to defeat himself. But then, maybe that is his intent. Maybe he wants us to believe that we can dabble in evil and still come out okay in the end. Maybe he wants us to be fooled into believing there is good in him.

Have you considered the age group that is targeted in this media? The increase in supernatural and horror films and literature about witches, warlocks and wizards is aimed at children and teens. Why this age group? To answer that question, I will take you to a repeated fact in history. Often in the past when a ruler or nation conquered another nation, they knew they needed to control those they conquered. They would rule the adults with an iron hand, but they would take the children and assimilate them into their own culture. This even happens in scripture. When the Babylonians conquered Judah, they did so in three 10 year increments. In the first attack they took the youth of Judah back to Babylon. This is how the children, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came to live in Babylon. The reason is simple. If you assimilate the youth into your culture and your ways, then they will become “Babylonian” and when they have children they will be Babylonian. Politically this eliminates the chance of rebellion. The adults were set in their ways and so were often killed, enslaved or kept under tight reign. The children however were still trainable and the best way to make them accept your ways was to train them to it and then all future generations would be yours as well. Even Hitler knew this and that is why he started youth schools to train children in the Nazi ways, so there would be no dissention against his rule in the generations to come.

Now, if we are in the end times, and I believe we are, we need to ask why Satan has targeted our children and what effect will this saturation of the supernatural media have on them? What if the youth of this generation becomes so desensitized to the evil in the supernatural realm that they don’t fear it? And, what if this generation or the one that follows, are those who will be in the great tribulation when supernatural things start happening on the earth? Will they recognize them as judgment from God and war against Satan or just react as if one of their movies just became a reality show with them in it? Will they delude themselves into believing that somehow good will prevail from within the evil about them, and if they just take the mark of the beast and play along, that somehow it will all be okay in the end?

Scary thought isn’t it? We’ve become too complacent in our battle against Satan. We may ignore him, as if he isn’t a threat, but remember he never rests. He works, plots, schemes and accuses day and night. As Parents we need to be on guard for our children. We need to alert to the things Satan puts forth to desensitize our children to his ways. However protecting them is not enough. We need to train them to be warriors who can fight, not believers who run and hide, for as the end times progress so will the intensity of the battle against the forces of the darkness. The Sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:17) is the only offensive weapon of the soldiers of the light. So, train your children in the Word of God (the Sword). Do not rely on the church to do it. The Lord has given your children to you to train, so teach them the Word, so they can stand in the end times!

As God pleases, dispose the day © 2008 is an electronic devotional by D. A. Brewer. All Bible quotations are from the New American Standard Version, © 1993 Lockman Foundation and used by permission. The title “As God pleases, dispose the day” is a quote from Henry V by William Shakespeare.