Angelic Conflict part 264: The Unfair Cosmos – Tit 3:5-7; Rom 12:1-2; Luk 11:20-28; Mar 9:17-29; Mat 15:21-28; Joh 14:5-12; 16:5-7.Title: Angelic Conflict part 264: The Unfair Cosmos – Tit 3:5-7; Rom 12:1-2; Luk 11:20-28; Mar 9:17-29; Mat 15:21-28; Joh 14:5-12; 16:5-7.
A blogger named Art Kelly on catholic culture dot org states this after a thorough article titled, Salvation is a lifelong process...
No assurance of salvation here. No "once saved, always saved." No eternal security.
The words of Jesus and the apostles are very clear. Salvation is not a one-time action. It is a lifetime struggle. Until we complete our journey in this life, no one is irrevocably "saved."
He conveniently avoids dozens of passages that are clear as crystal that salvation is a onetime event based on faith alone in Christ alone and that it is eternal and can never be lost.
So, in light of our own house, plundered by Christ, transformed by Him through regeneration at salvation and through His word after salvation...
Tit 3:5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
The message of the gospel is from the Church, the conviction is from the Spirit as well as the regeneration and renewing.
Joh 16:8-9 "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me;
The Spirit makes the gospel, spoken through the Church, understood to the spiritually dead person in what is theologically called common grace. Once understood the person has the ability to believe it or not, and if he does he is completely regenerated by God the Holy Spirit, being made a brand new creature in Christ.
Tit 3:6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
Tit 3:7 that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Mr. Kelly does not mention this passage, nor Eph 2:8, nor dozens of other passages which I'm sure he has trouble with.
Rom 12:1 I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Rom 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
... on the heels of our Lord's teaching on the strong man, plundering His house, taking back what man had lost, and that he who is with Him gathers, we have a rude woman who wants to make an issue out of maternal worship, which has always been popular in almost every cult in history, and our Lord's reply is as clarifying as eye salve.
This would not have been odd since pagan cultures from before the egyptian empire worshipped mother deities. They were often associated with fertility, of both people and the earth. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Greeks, Incas, Romans, and many more all had mother earth or mother nature deities that were prominent.
In light of what we have recently studied as gracious gifts from God through Christ, one can see why satan would promote the worship of creatures.
satan's system promotes the worship of the creature and in so doing the person cannot plunder him.
Rom 1:25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Joseph Goebbels
Luk 11:20 "But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Luk 11:21 "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own homestead, his possessions are undisturbed;
Luk 11:22 but when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied, and distributes his plunder.
Luk 11:23 "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.
Luk 11:24 "When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.'
Luk 11:25 "And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order.
Luk 11:26 "Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first."
Luk 11:27 And it came about while He said these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice, and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed."
Luk 11:28 But He said, "On the contrary [menoun - nay rather], blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it."
"observe" - fula,ssw[phulasso] = to guard, watch, to keep watch. Attention to and occupation with the word of God.
When an individual, and entire generation, or a nation resists the kingdom of God, they open themselves up to significant demon activity.
The worst of this activity in the CA are all the false doctrines concerning Christ, the Bible, Israel, and the freedom of divine establishment.
Think of Nazi Germany when a great many in the nation opened themselves up to anti-Semitism. The same with communist China, Soviet Union, Ruanda, Somalia, Afghanistan, North Korea, ... the list is extensive.
So I think we can conclude that demons are restless, like one traveling in a desert looking for a place of rest, and they are constantly looking for that "rest" in, demonizing with lies that oppose the Most High, either a person, a nation, a generation.
Many assume that it is only the very evil people who invite demon possession that are or were under it. While this might certainly be the case with some, that only the very evil invite demon possession cannot be substantiated in the Scripture. I refuse to make doctrines out of conjecture.
Not in one instance of all the demons that were cast out by our Lord or the disciples in the Gospels involves the faith of the possessed. Not once did our Lord ask any one of them if they had faith, nor is it stated that they did believe in Him. I'm not saying that they didn't, but just stating what is in the Scripture. This would indicate that the people mentioned were not villains but victims.
Demon possession in the gospels seems to be not so much the result of a league with satan as an expression of bondage under satan's dominion.
There are two instances of small children being demon possessed.
Deliverance was a sign of Christ's power and authority over the demon or demons; the sign of the coming kingdom of heaven, and not the moral improvement of the victim.
In the two instances where faith is mentioned at the time of an exorcism, it is not the faith of the possessed, and both of these instances are of the possessed children.
Mar 9:17 And one of the crowd answered Him, "Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute;
Mar 9:18 and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him to the ground and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth, and stiffens out. And I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not do it."
Mar 9:19 And He answered them and said, "O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!"
Mar 9:20 And they brought the boy to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling about and foaming at the mouth.
Mar 9:21 And He asked his father, "How long has this been happening to him?" And he said, "From childhood.
Mar 9:22 "And it has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!"
Mar 9:23 And Jesus said to him, "'If You can!' All things are possible to him who believes."
Mar 9:24 Immediately the boy's father cried out and began saying, "I do believe; help my unbelief."
Mar 9:25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again."
Mar 9:26 And after crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, "He is dead!"
Mar 9:27 But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up.
Mar 9:28 And when He had come into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, "Why could we not cast it out?"
Mar 9:29 And He said to them, "This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer."
Mat 15:21 And Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon.
Mat 15:22 And behold, a Canaanite woman came out from that region, and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."
Mat 15:23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, "Send her away, for she is shouting out after us."
Mat 15:24 But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
Mat 15:25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"
Mat 15:26 And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
Mat 15:27 But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
Mat 15:28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once.
I doubt that we can say in these circumstances that God allowed a demon possession because they deserved it.
The conclusion is that the world is unfair and so is the spirit world.
The world is unfair as is the spirit world, and it will remain so until Christ returns to physically rule it.
It would be difficult to believe that those who were released from demon possession by Christ or by the disciples in the name of Christ would not come to believe in Him as their Lord and Savior. But, again, we cannot know for sure.
What we can say for sure is that as the kingdom of God advances there are some in the kingdom of satan that are freed.
True freedom is in the soul and not in the body and so freedom comes from faith in Christ and His word.
Therefore, then as now, true freedom from the tyranny of the kingdom of satan comes only through faith in Christ for salvation and is experienced in time through faith in His word. Only in these is there any separation or sanctification from the system of the cosmos ruled by satan and the KOD. Hence, we are not commanded to cast out demons or heal the sick because these are not the ultimate and true freedoms. These were revelations of power over the KOD when Christ brought the kingdom of God to earth and when the apostles established the foundation of the Church.
Once Christ was enthroned at the right hand of God and the Church was established, the power of the kingdom of God was given in a greater way through Christ's word and His Holy Spirit.
Joh 14:5 Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?"
Joh 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.
Joh 14:7 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him."
Joh 14:8 Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."
Joh 14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, 'Show us the Father'?
Joh 14:10 "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.
Joh 14:11 "Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me; otherwise believe on account of the works themselves.
He is asking them to believe Him at His word, but if not, He reminds them of the miracles that He performed that revealed His power over all aspects of God's opposition.
Joh 14:12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father.
"the works that I do shall he do also" - CA believers will display power over all divine opposition, but spiritually, not physically or visibly.
This is the age of invisible heroes. Through doctrine the CA believer displays his power, deliverance, and authority over spiritual death, satan and the KOD, the world system, and the flesh. This is a great part of his witness of Christ through the power that Christ keeps pouring into him through the Holy Spirit and the word of God.
The phrase "greater works" have always been troubling to many, but looked at through the phrase, "because I go to the Father," is revealing since He said to the disciples...
The results of the witness of the body of Christ are greater, but Christ is still the source while the Church is His instrument.
At first glance it seems to say that we do greater stuff than He did, but any believer would see the problem with that. He works through us greater works in the Church, yes greater in quantity but also greater in result. We do nothing. He uses us and flows through us. We are simply instruments in the hands of the Potter.
"greater works" - CA believers will set people free from all divine opposition spiritually, permanently, eternally.
Those set free by faith in Christ's word and works remained imprisoned in Hades in Paradise until after the resurrection. When He went to the Father the HS was given to believers and the Church was born. Now, the work of the church in Christ's gospel and the display of their own spiritual power of the fruit of the Spirit, in other words, the witness of the lips and of the life, are setting people free spiritually. At the moment anyone believes in Christ through the witness of Him by a member of the Church, he is immediately entered into union with Christ and will go directly to heaven, face to face with the Lord, when they die physically.
Again, just as humans are unfair, unjust, cruel, and tyrants to one another so it is in the spirit world. Fallen angels victimize fallen mankind, whether it was demon possession in Christ's time or demon influence in our time.
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