Revelation 12:10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.
A few years ago, I was in a debate with an atheist who had a legal background, and the Lord gave me a revelation about the tactics of the enemy. At Yeshua’s first coming, his tactic was to destroy the infant before He could grow up; [Revelation 12:4-5]. After the Lord’s death and resurrection, Satan continued his direct assault by attacking the church through persecution, which lasted through the first three centuries. The tactics of the enemy were to destroy any “eyewitnesses” of God’s goodness.
However, the faith continued to spread all the more in spite of the bloodshed of the saints, and when the devil realized he could not destroy the move of God physically, he switched his tactics to — “If you can’t beat them, join them!” His hatred achieved less success by direct murderous violence, so he adopted the tactics of a lawyer to win his objective.
Now, when a lawyer is confronted with damning evidence against his case, he seeks to get that evidence cast out in a pretrial procedure called “discovery.” The enemy applied this principle during the dark ages. Having placed his servants into the highest offices in the church, Satan substantially removed the best evidence for the truth by suppressing the Word of God, not allowing it to be read or translated into a common language which the people could understand for themselves.
Finally, in the late 14th century the Bible was translated into a common language, by John Wycliffe, and through a handful of Christian pioneers and the invention of the printing press over the next 100 years, the Scriptures became available in the vernacular of the common people during the Reformation. Then the enemy reverted to his original tactics, destroying the saints in the “Inquisition,” where anyone found with the Word of God was deemed a heretic and killed.
But in legal proceedings there is yet another tactic: when a lawyer realizes the evidence against his case cannot be suppressed in “discovery,” he seeks to introduce a mountain of new information in an attempt to overwhelm the juridical process and obscure the truth by hiding it in thousands of documents. Doesn’t this seem like exactly what has happened in our “Information Age”? We need to understand how Satan is working in our own time, and especially in our own culture.
There’s a saying I heard repeatedly growing up, with the acronym “KISS” — “Keep It Simple, Sweetheart!” As we enter into the climax of the ages, the world is being flooded with exponentially more information, let’s stay focused on the simple truth of the Gospel. Let’s not allow our lives to be overwhelmed with too much information, but rather, “KISS” the message of the gospel to the world in need of His love!
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
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When I studied Isaiah 53 earnestly in the ancient Hebrew, I was taken back by the Hebrew word for “afflicted” (me-u-neh). In modern Hebrew this word means “tortured”. When I was young, and first learned what torture actually involved, my soul was shocked that this could happen to people; in fact that it was happening to people. That a person could be kept alive for the purpose of intentionally causing him intense agonizing pain was an astounding enigma for my young soul. It really frightened me; and I think that fear of torture is probably the greatest fear that humans can experience. We read about people who have been tortured, with a kind of horrified awe. And quietly we wonder inside, “How can this be?” And, “Could this ever happen to me?”
I love this story! Peter was sitting between two guards and suddenly an angel of the Lord comes to him and frees him — and he thinks it’s a vision! He’s not sure if he truly believes it.
“Exhausted but still in pursuit…” Well, now we know why the angel of YHVH addressed Gideon the way he did. With his small three hundred man army he had just decimated the army of Midian — but the victory wasn’t complete, and so the Jewish general and his small, exhausted, hungry, band were determined to cross the Jordan and take care of 15,000 additional Midanite enemies and their leaders, Zebah and Zalmunna.
His nightmares began each day when he awoke. James Stegalls was nineteen. He was in Vietnam. Though he carried a small Gideon New Testament in his shirt pocket, he couldn’t bring himself to read it. His buddies were cut down around him, terror was building within him, and God seemed far away. His twentieth birthday passed, then his twenty-first. At last, he felt he couldn’t go on.
On January 1st 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation which proclaimed freedom for all slaves in the ten states which were in rebellion. At the time, when U.S. Secretary of State Seward took the document to the President to sign, Lincoln took a pen, and held it for a moment. He then removed his hand and dropped his pen. Lincoln turned to Seward and said, “I have been shaking hands since nine o’clock this morning and my right arm is almost paralyzed. If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.” He hesitated, then took the pen, and without wavering, took the document and boldly signed it!
For nearly 2000 years the Jewish people were scattered across the world without a homeland. In one day, according to the meticulous preparation of God, on May 14th 1948, the nation of Israel was restored. As millions of Jews were returning to their homeland they began rebuilding the ancient cities that were destroyed, restoring the desolations of many generations, and fulfilling Biblical prophecy…
As we celebrated Shavuot last night, we’re looking at the promise given 2000 years ago: that normal people will lead extraordinary lives; that disciples, who were terrified on the night of Yeshua’s (Jesus) death, were transformed into bold saints of God; and that fishermen, tax collectors, and housewives – normal everyday people – became empowered, and turned the Roman Empire inside out and upside down!