It is truly a similar narrative to that of the Star Wars Universe although that narrative involves Eastern thinking about the God within. Our narrative is about the battle to save mankind and creation and it is between the Creator and Satan. A battle between the Righteousness of Yahweh and the Wickedness of Satan.
The reason for this battle is because Satan used to called Lucifer and was Yahweh’s most powerful Archangel. He was the most powerful of the three Archangels who were named Lucifer, Michael and Gabriel. He began to be jealous of Yahweh and sought to exalt himself above Him. He fostered rebellion in his heart which germinated into sin and the insanity of disobeying God. From this insanity began a war between Yahweh the creator and the God of all that is righteous and good and Satan the destroyer and the proponent of all that is unrighteous, wicked and evil.
In Genesis chapter 3 we read of Satan’s possession of the serpent and the temptation of Eve the wife of Adam. Adam and Eve were the first parents of humanity. Satan engaged Eve in a conversation about the fruit of the trees in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3 verses 1-7 “He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths...”
This action of disobedience by man against Yahweh introduced sin - insanity into the Creation on Earth. It broke the relationship between man and God and allowed Satan to usurp the position of man as guardian of the Earth so that he became the defacto ruler of the Earth. The separation of man from God by sin made a situation where God then had to provide a means for man to make reparation for their sin on an ongoing basis. God did this by allowing man to perform animal sacrifice and the shedding of blood through clean animals such as the lamb or bull. The blood was a symbol of the blood that Christ Jesus would shed on the Cross to pay the sin debt for all mankind.
When God addressed man and the serpent he also indicated a path for the future redemption of mankind through His seed. Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 “And I will put enmity, Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” We believe this to be a reference to the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Genesis chapter six we see God becoming tired of the sinfulness - insanity of mankind. In Genesis chapter six verses 3 - 8 the bible says “And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”
So, God commissioned Noah to build and Ark and when that was built he put Noah and his family in the Ark with two of each kind of animal. He then flooded the World and preserved the creation through Noah’s family and the animals that he brought on the Ark with them. Obviously there were other species like fish that were able to survive the flood without assistance. The waters receded and God blessed Noah and his family and instructed them to go an fill the Earth.
It didn’t take long for man to fall back into sinful ways and they were soon seeking to build a central civilization and decided to build a tower to reach the sky in honour of other deities. “And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
It is plain to see that sin is actually insanity. In disobeying God the people sink into a malaise where they seek to amuse themselves and pass the time doing every wicked thing that they can think of. God then sought a righteous man to begin to gather a people who would be obedient to his commands and bring righteousness to the world. He approached Abraham and instructed him to move from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan. His journey was fraught to say the least and he didn’t always do the right things. He made it in the end and God made an eternal covenant with him and his descendants. You can read of this in Genesis chapters 12 through 17.
An interesting glimpse of the insanity of sin is found in the rescue of Abrahams nephew Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah by two angels of God (Genesis 18-19). Because of the evil of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, God decided to destroy the cities. Lot was living among them and farming on the plains around them. The angels arrived at the city late in the day and came to see Lot so that he and his family could be warned to leave before the judgement. Lot asked them into his house to extend them hospitality and allow them shelter for the night.
The men of the city surrounded Lot’s house and sought to take the angels that they might lay them. Lot endeavoured to dissuade the men to no avail but the angels intervened and struck them with blindness. The angels instructed Lot to gather his family and leave the city before they destroyed it because of its sin - insanity.
The descendants of Abraham moved to Egypt because of famine and became enslaved there for four hundred years. Yahweh (God), sent Moses to lead them out of Egypt. He did this with his brother Aaron and together in God’s service they enacted a series of plagues upon Egypt until the people of Israel were freed. The Red Sea parted and they crossed to the other side on dry ground and then they roamed the desert for forty years because of their sin - insanity - disobedience against God.
God gave Moses the Law which was written on stone tablets by the finger of God. The Law is as follows. Exodus chapter 20 verses 1 - 17:
1. “And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
4. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
5. “Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
6. “You shall not murder.
7. “You shall not commit adultery.
8. “You shall not steal.
9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
10. “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour’s.”
These Ten Commandments and rest of the Torah (Law of God), as found in the Five Books of Moses are the sum of the righteousness of God. They underpin the overarching laws and sanity that scaffolds any truly civilised society to function on a daily basis. To ignore them, or to replace them with another belief system. For instance, secular socialism is to flirt with the collapse of society and government.
This is the ultimate goal of Satan and his kingdom of fallen angels. To undermine the righteousness of God and to replace that with insanity that would lead in the end to total chaos and savagery. Naturalistic tribal cultures, such as, the Celts, the Picts, the Polynesians and the tribes in Papua New Guinea are examples of what happens in a culture the lacks a knowledge of Yahweh and His Law. The deeper you go into unrealised sin the more insane your culture will become.
Modern examples of the impact of Satan’s system in our time, are the spread of Paganism, New Age Religion and occult knowledge like Wiccan, Free Masonry and Spiritualism. In Kiwi Culture (NZ), we can see sin and insanity in the re-adoption of Maori spiritualism. We are bringing back the worship of their Gods and the cultural practices like Kapa Haka and their ancient Karakia (To Rangi and Papa), and incorporating them into every day life. The result could will be the return of spiritual entities like the Patupaearehe (Fairies), and the Taniwha as our culture surrenders the protection yielded from Christianity in the name above all names, Jesus Christ. Darkness is growing in our world as we head toward the coming Tribulation and then the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
A clear example of sin - insanity and the impact of righteousness is found in Mark chapter 5 verses 1 - 13 where it says this: “They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.
Could there be a clearer contrast between the righteous sanity of God in Christ Jesus and the absolute insanity of Satan and the demons with their complete surrender to sin. As this man delivered from madness sitting there clothed and in his right mind.? People who have experience with demon possession, the drug culture, spiritism and the esoteric religions may understand what I’m alluding to here. Satan is the Prince of this World. He seeks to unfold a system which is the exact opposite of the righteousness of God. A world where Satan is in control, is under the influence of complete madness, total chaos and absolute insanity. A world of evil and darkness. Along with this is Satan’s goal to totally destroy mankind. This is mostly because with us gone he has the Earth to himself to show the rest of the universe what a Satanic world would look like.
Yahweh will not allow this to happen and Satan’s time is limited to the present and then the seven years of the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. Which is the Tribulation spoken of by Jesus in Matthew chapter 24, the prophet Daniel’s in the Seventieth Week prophecy and the apostle John’s book of The Revelation. At the end of the seven years is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the eternal Kingdom of God.
In conclusion: Dear Reader what I hope to make plain to you is that with God we have righteousness and sanity, even though as fleshly beings we will continue to know sin and temptation in our lives here on the Earth. If we believe on the redemptive work of Christ Jesus on the Cross where he bore our sin and shed His blood in payment of our sin debt. If we repent and are baptised in the name of Jesus Christ, our sins will be forgiven and we will receive the Holy Spirit. Who will sanctify us and help us to overcome sin. Whereas, if we give in to temptation and let sin reign in our lives we will be ruled by it and the Prince of Darkness in whom it began. Our lot will be madness, chaos and insanity. All that we hold dear will be hated and destroyed. We will own nothing and be happy. Which will you choose, a God who loved you enough to die on the Cross for you while you were yet a sinner, or to serve Satan, and sin resulting in eternal death.
Galatians chapter 5 verses 16 - 25 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
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