In the last blog we saw how the violent use force to establish their ways on the earth. In most cases, this force is exerted through “judicial” channels. Their “authority” is established through re-educational games and rewriting history to deceive the unsuspecting masses. We can cry “foul” all we want, but the bottom line is that this is the mystery of lawlessness at work in this appointed time.
       No matter how hard we try, we can’t change God’s timetable, even if it seems unjust. Just ask David. Many of his Psalms (see Ps. 64 for example), bemoan the state of affairs in his country. Yet David is in the know. He knows that this injustice will not last; there is an appointed Day of Vengeance. As Paul explained in Acts 17:26, God “has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.” Only God changes the times and the seasons and the nations.
        The Chronos Lesson: So what do we do? Do we fight back, trying to use the same judicial, educational, and media channels? There is a time and place for that. But it is not our major assault. Here’s how Paul explained our battle strategy in Eph. 6:10-13.
        “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”
       The next few verses describe our unusual armor. The passage begins with the key command: Stand. When we take a closer look at the armor, it all has to do with our mind grasping the spiritual realities of who we are in Christ:

• the truth and reliability of God’s Word, our righteousness (right-standing with God because of justification and forgiveness)
• the peace that passes understanding because we are yoked with Christ
• the measure of God’s faith we’ve been given
• the power of salvation over every aspect of our lives
• the power of God’s Word transforming us
• and the power of the Spirit enlightening us and empowering us.

       In short, our battle isn’t with the world around us; our battle is in our mind. Our fight isn’t with the people blinded by Satan; our fight is with the ungodly thoughts and habits we’ve picked up along the way that don’t line up with God’s Word. You know, the negative strongholds.
       “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled” (2 Cor. 10:4-6).
        As for the positive strongholds? They begin with the truths of the Gospel. “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). But it’s not just the truths you have heard and accepted as from God. It’s not just the truths that you mentally agree with. They are the truths that you have come to know through study and through practical experience. That is how we stand in these times.
        Standing is not inactivity. It is living according to the grace and authority that is ours. When we are light in this way, hurting and confused people will be drawn to it. Nor is this escapism as some bewail. No, this is boot camp! We’re in training for reigning in the age to come and into eternity.

      Every new recruit goes through a training regimen, affectionately known as boot camp. No new recruit is immediately assigned to the big guns. They have to first learn how to shoot a pistol. If you’ve never shot one, you might be surprised by the kickback. You have to be aware of the pushback coming and be prepared for it.
      Inevitably, there are some in the camp—including the Church camp—who can’t wait to hit the battlefield. They quote Jesus’ statement recorded in Matt. 11:12. “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” They hype up the army to jump into the fight with everything they’ve got and battle it out with Satan.
       But notice the time element here: from the days of John the Baptizer to Jesus’ earthly ministry. The political and religious leaders of Jesus’ time were making it difficult for Him, to say the least. They were throwing everything they had at Him, including the threat of crucifixion. That is the way of the violent. They use force.
         What do those in the Kingdom of God use? What Jesus told His disciples to use. “And Jesus summoned to Him His twelve disciples and gave them power and authority over unclean spirits, to drive them out, and to cure all kinds of disease and all kinds of weakness and infirmity” (Matt. 10:1). “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19).
       This authority came directly from God the Creator. “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner” (John 5:19). So, by deduction, Jesus’ disciples knew that they would do the same things they had seen Jesus do in the same way—by God’s power. It wasn’t by their own works, but by God’s power working through them.
         And if that’s not enough for you, consider these consequences of the cross. “…the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (Eph. 1:19-21).
      The Chronos Lesson: The passage doesn’t stop there. The conjunction “and” tells us there is more to this truth. “And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:22-23). In short, the same power that Jesus used when He ministered on the earth is the same power at work in us when we continue His ministry on the earth! Mind-boggling, isn’t it?
       That is why it is a process of getting this revelation, seeing it with the eyes of our understanding, and then acting on it by faith. Too often, we look at ourselves in the natural and roll our eyes or cover our faces and shake our heads in doubt. That is why there is boot camp training.
      Doubt is natural, but it’s not godly. The remedy is to trust God’s Word by faith, which comes by hearing and hearing, and continually hearing the Word of God. It’s especially helpful when we speak the Word aloud because it forces our brains to process that “data” and internalize it, building up a godly stronghold in our mind.
       Oh, by the way, in case you’re not battle savvy, there are both good strongholds and bad strongholds. Stay tuned.  

        God created mankind in His image with the intent that we would be His legal representatives on the earth. Our job description included having dominion over every living thing. We know that one of the results of the fall of mankind was to forfeit this authority to Satan and his evil hierarchy, setting up the cosmic conflict of the ages. Instead of protecting life, we brought death, disease, and every kind of corruption into the earth by yielding to Satan. The spiritual DNA of every human being would henceforth be “fallen,” contaminated by the prideful desire to please ourselves and yield to sin. That is, until the Seed would be manifested.
     There are several truths we need to establish in our hearts concerning this conflict, and they all have to do with understanding the times. We’ve already looked at the first truth from 2 Cor. 4:4—that Satan became the god of this world [age] and is working overtime to put spiritual blinders over the minds of everyone on the earth. This is why Paul prayed that the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened.
       The second truth has to do with our new position in Christ as a result of His crucifixion. When we accept our inability to overcome sin through our own will power and works, and receive Jesus as our Savior, our spirit is made new. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). We are literally a new kind of being—a blood-bought, forgiven, justified, and sanctified human being with new spiritual DNA. While our spirit is immediately changed, our soul and body await our full redemption at the rapture.
       In short, we are no longer under the authority of the god of this age. If you don’t believe me, believe God’s Word. “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:13-15).
     The Chronos Lesson: Have you ever wondered what was happening during the time between Christ’s death on the cross and the stone being rolled away from the tomb on the Sabbath? Well, here’s one item. Jesus went to Hades. His descent served two purposes. The first was to preach salvation to the Old Testament saints who were taken to Abraham’s Bosom when they died. It was a secure and separate place within Hades. They could not be saved until the Seed had been manifested on the earth and had died for the sins of mankind. When Jesus preached the New Covenant to these Old Covenant people, they believed and were taken to Heaven to await the end of the Days.
        The second purpose was to serve notice to Satan’s kingdom that a major shift had taken place in the cosmic conflict. Satan no longer has power over believers because Jesus crushed his head as Genesis 3 records in the first prophecy of the Bible. Satan didn’t realize that the cross would only bruise the Seed’s heal.
       Through His resurrection, Jesus now has the keys of Hades and Death (Rev. 1:18).  As the perfect Son of Man, Jesus had justly paid the price for sin and could thereby legally release His authority in the earth through His Body. In a sense, Satan was judged and sentenced, but not yet incarcerated. Why not? Because fallen mankind could still choose to follow Him. The mystery of lawlessness is still very much at work.
       Did you catch the all-important adjective there? Fallen. As born-again believers, our spirit is no longer fallen. We can be confident in this, even when we sin in our flesh (body and mind), because the Holy Spirit lives within our spirit. This is what Paul is talking about in the Colossians passage quoted above. That guilty verdict against us was wiped clean away. The result is that the evil forces working against us, including Satan, have no power over us. That is, unless we let them.
      Our situation is similar to the aftermath of World War II. Even though the peace treaty had been signed, the war continued in the isolated islands of the Pacific. The combatants hadn’t gotten the word yet. The allied forces were victorious. Those fighting on the islands just didn’t know it yet. But when they received the word, they overcame the enemy in the authority that they had received from the Commander.  

       We should point out that it took Jesus’ disciples some time before they had their aha-moment of fully seeing with the eyes of their understanding about the nature of His ministry. For example, they had just witnessed the miracle feeding of 5,000+ people with five loaves of bread and two fish. Afterward, Jesus tells them they shall cross over the Sea of Galilee. He spoke it; it shall be done.
       He is exhausted from teaching, so he snuggles up in the bow of the boat for some shut-eye. No doubt his disciples are chattering about what they just saw. That is until they see a storm brewing around them. The Sea of Galilee is notorious for these spontaneous boat-crushing storms. In the natural, their lives are in danger and yet Jesus is sound asleep. Doesn’t He care? How dare He rest! When they wake Him up and voice their complaints, He simply speaks to the storm. All is calm. Except for the disciples. Their minds are blown by what they have just witnessed! Who is this man who has control over nature?
       The good news is that they do come to recognize that Jesus is the Christ, God’s anointed One. But like the Jews, they will still struggle with the implications of that. They, too, still think that a military encounter and an earthly throne are in their future. They have no clue what all this entails and what must happen because of who Jesus is. They’re still learning to walk—and sail—by faith and not by sight.
       In the natural, they are Jews. That is their history. Now they are being asked to accept a different future. That is, “knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified” (Gal. 2:16). It is the first paradigm shift they will have to grasp—grace, not works.
      That shift will require the ultimate sacrifice, which they will not understand at first, either. “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the Law, to do them.’ But that no one is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident, for ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Yet the law is not of faith, but ‘the man who does them shall live by them.’ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith’ ” (Gal. 3:10-14)
       This is the second paradigm shift they will have to grasp—for Jew and Gentile alike. It must have been mind-blowing, to say the least. They were losing their ethnic identity. Yet in doing so, they would gain a new identity. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:26-29).
       The Chronos Lesson: This covenantal shift was always part of the plan. We must remember that Noah walked by grace in the favor of God. Abram was called by grace to walk in faith. “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘and to your Seed,’ who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16).
       Our relationship with God has always been a faith thing. In Christ, the natural labels by which we identify ourselves pale in significance. That is why it’s no big thing that males are part of the Bride of Christ. And likewise, it’s no big thing that females are called sons of God and sons of the Day. All that really matters is that we are “in Christ.”
      Our gender, our ethnicity, our nationality, and our status in this life, do not totally define us. What does set us apart is our unique calling. For we are the called out ones, the ekklesia, the general assembly and Church, His Body and Bride. We shall fully realize that calling when we are made perfect through resurrection at the rapture.
      “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in Heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel” (Heb. 12:22-24). Stay tuned for more about the True Israel.   3/4/24