Sunday, August 1, 2010

Life is a Battle

I just finished up on preaching the first Week of War of the Worlds. To hear the message go to http://pastornativity.blogspot.com. Here are some other thoughts in my head related to the message that didn’t make it in.

1. The war is fought because the devil thinks he can make himself like God, he thinks he can be God, that HE can make himself like the Most High God. God wants to make us like him. God wants us to be like him. The big lie of the devil is that WE can make ourselves like God. God wants to make us like him, but that is God's work not ours.

2. Good things in this life will only come by fighting for them. If you want an excellent marriage, you will have to fight for it. (Men, that means you will have to fight for your wife’s heart. - especially after you are married.) If you want a great relationship with your children you are going to have to battle for it. If you want to succeed in a craft or skill, you will have to fight for time to practice it and fight against your own laziness. The fact you have to fight hints that it is something important and worth fighting for.

3. The devil and his angels, the demons are on the earth. They aren’t everywhere because the devil is not omniscient, omnipotent or omnipresent. He isn’t all knowing, all powerful or everywhere. That’s God it isn’t the devil. The devil’s power, presence and knowledge is limited. It is limited, but his presence is real.

4. My illustrations this weekend and the note above were intended to discount dualism. For a great refutation of dualism (that good and evil are equal) read Mere Christianity by CS Lewis.

1 comment:

Kathleen Leslie said...

Thanks for this message and blogposts. It is a topic I will continue to wrestle with. Regarding the unequal nature of the devil, I also love the quote in CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters that the devil and his demons "can never quite overhear what He says to" people. It drives home that the war is won with God as always sovereign, even if we have our own individual battles to fight daily.