A lot of this is in reaction to Sergio's posts Unpacking #9 and #10 dealing with the scriptural reality of Satan, Hell, Lucifer, the alleged Kingdom of Satan, and all that garbage. He states that these are all extra-Biblical, outside of anything that the Scriptures actually say. I agree with that position.
However, what is ignored is the truth of those stories—that fiction—and where it came from. They are confusing lies and tales from Satan and his minions to produce and cause confusion among the spiritually ignorant. They are productions of Satan's non-existent kingdom.
And who bought those lies, hook, line, and sinker? Teachers and students of Scripture using their intellect to try to explain the hidden things. It's what I call "those cursed seminarians" again. The problem is that this type of intellectual analysis is rampant among the people of Israel as well.
The problem is the need for the Holy Spirit.
This is one of the main things Yeshua came to provide for us. Remember, Yeshua Himself told us that a person cannot even see (or perceive) the Kingdom of God unless he or she is born again—or better put, born of God. The Greek is anōthen, meaning "from above"—born from above.
When we are born from above, we are then eligible to receive the Spirit of God—what the Goyim call the Holy Spirit (or the Holy Ghost). We receive Him by asking Yeshua, in our reborn state, to baptize us with the Holy Spirit.
At that point, we have direct access to the Holy Spirit. He comes to live within us. This is where we come to live out that immensely important verse of 1 John 2:27:
"But the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you; as His anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in Him."
I live in this truth daily, hour by hour.
The church at large, including many Messianic Jews, has been convinced that this rebirth and filling of the Holy Spirit is something weird, which cannot be trusted and should be avoided—at all cost. And indeed, the cost is severe.
The cost is that the church is governing itself with intellectual doctrines developed without the help of the Spirit of God. It's mankind's basic arrogance that he or she can understand the Scriptures by simply reading them—wrong.
What a person just reading the Scriptures, attempting to understand them intellectually, sees is radically different from what the born-again believer—being led through the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit—sees.
Worse yet, we always need to ask the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us to what He wants us to learn now. We need to ask for His wisdom and guidance—it is not just dumped upon us from without. It is something we experience within.
Even today, after over fifty years of experience, I find myself getting confused in my reading until I remember, "I forgot to ask for help again!"
How does that apply here?
When I ask the Lord to help me understand what I am reading, I can clearly see that verses 12–15 of Isaiah 14 are a parenthetical prophetic overlay to the intellectually visible prophecy about the king of Babylon:
"12 How you are fallen from heaven,O Day Star, son of Dawn!How you are cut down to the ground,you who laid the nations low!13 You said in your heart,'I will ascend to heaven;above the stars of GodI will set my throne on high;I will sit on the mount of assemblyin the far north;14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,I will make myself like the Most High.'15 But you are brought down to Sheol,to the depths of the Pit."
The Holy Spirit tells me that this is a description of Satan. The arrogant pride is clear, and Satan's rebellious plan is the same. I don't care that the Vulgate translated what the RSV calls "O Day Star, son of Dawn" into "O Lucifer, son of the morning." The Holy Spirit tells me it is speaking about Satan.
The Spirit also tells me that "you who laid the nations low" is talking about what Satan will do through the Antichrist just before my Messiah steps back into physical reality, eliminates the armies of the nations, and locks Satan in the Abyss (the depths of the Pit).
His name is irrelevant to my daily dealings with Satan and his minions. But the parenthetical prophetic element helps me understand Satan better. I won't know more until I am raptured out of here. [Calm yourself! You do not have to believe that. The rapture is optional for those who can accept it by faith.]
The tales about Satan's kingdom in Hell are demonic fiction designed to terrify the unbelieving masses—and their seminarians. I'll write about this in a different article, but it is a large part of the ways Satan is using to feed the fiction of his kingdom.
But remember, the heathen unbelievers (as well as the religious believers) are completely controlled by the lies of Satan's band of minions. None of them have any idea that a large portion of their thought life comes directly from evil spirits whispering or shouting lies in their ears. They won't even believe you if you tell them the truth.
Does not compute.
I'd like to make two true statements showing problems in our daily lives.
If a demon had the power to kill a human, we'd all be dead.
Just think about that for a minute. Why do you think the enemy is constantly trying to convince people to kill themselves—or at least cut themselves? The enemy knows that if he can panic you, you will do stupid things. He really has no power in the physical world—other than whispering (or screaming) lies into your listening ears. He can't even scare you to death unless the Lord allows it.
The second one is much longer. It's a reply to the simple question I made to gotquestions.chat, an AI chatbot which uses the GotQuestions library for its major (if not only) resource—solid evangelical doctrine.
Like I said, a simple question:
"It seems like Rev 20:4 definitely says that the lake of fire will not make it into the new creation. Right?"
GotQuestions.chat answer:
"So, you are right—the lake of fire does not exist within the new creation. It is the eternal place of judgment outside of it, symbolizing the complete and final separation between righteousness and sin. Those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life (Revelation 20:15) will dwell forever in the presence of God, while the lake of fire remains the eternal consequence for all who have rejected Him."
There is nothing outside of the New Creation, because all things have been made new. It's a double-think answer.
Evidently, the lake of fire and those within it will be dissolved with the rest of this current 3D reality to make room for the New Creation. That's the Lord's concern, not mine. I'm still looking through a glass darkly.
So, what do we do about these things?
It's been clear for quite a while now that spiritual warfare is just a subset of the argument I made last week about The Messianic Ignorance. Yet, John made his position clear in his teaching in 1 John 2 about little children, fathers, and young men.
In fact, he considers this so important that he immediately repeats what he just said:
"I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one."
Let me make that last point clear:
Because you have overcome the evil one.
Past tense. A done deal. An accomplished fact.
All of us are expected to have overcome the evil one, broken the power of the enemy in our life, and eliminated demonic struggles in our lives in our early spiritual adulthood.
An example (sometimes it takes a while):
When I was 76 years old, I was praying about the depression which I had recently discovered had been a debilitating part of my life since I was about 13. It was just part of my daily life on a subconscious level. I was normally not consciously aware of it.
Somehow, the Spirit enabled me to hear the soft murmurings in my ear that I had been buying as truth for 63 years or so. Since it was subjective, the exact memories have slipped into the past, but it was a constant murmur:
"It'll never work… there's no hope… you're no good… they'll never listen…"
Nearly constant. Almost inaudible. Never consciously heard.
A bummer bard of the worst kind.
In the name of Jesus, I told the demon where to go—and the depression was gone. Sadly, it turns out that it's one of those daily bread–type things. Some days, I have no victory until I directly ask Jesus to do it for me. But I still just habitually drop off into it.
I began my youthful rage about that time (13 years old), and it evidently let a spirit creep in. Rage and lust are two activities which can enable a demon to legally get access to you. The creep (Satan) is a superb lawyer, always looking for loopholes.
But that's just a simple example of daily spiritual warfare—no major trauma, just subtle destruction.
Just remember: many of your thoughts are lies from the evil side.
That's one of the major uses for the spiritual gift of discernment from the Holy Spirit.
