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Spiritual Darkness
“Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face, and holdest me for Thine enemy?” (Job 13:24) |
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When “a generation,” called “a day” and “time,” is given over to deceptions and desolations, then God looks for a man to intercede, a prophet to prophesy, and a righteous man to do judgment. Oh, that all of America could wake up to her spiritual condition, how a spiritual darkness and famine is upon the land! When God says, “My face will I turn also from them,” He determines to destroy those whom He is turning from, and when physical destruction has come upon such persons then God will have His glory over the persecutors, putting them in derision, when before they sought to put Him in derision. God’s glory over them will climax in the hour of their need, and it is then that they will be buried under delusions and the silence of God – “Then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancient” (Ezek. 7:22, 26).
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“Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:18-20)
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In such a day of “The Deception of God”, the Lord turns away His face, the light that shines from it is gone, and thus deceptions like a pursuing lion do soon pounce upon and surprise those who are deceived. A generation without light is a generation without the word of God, for it is written, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Ps. 119:105), but without the revelatory grace of God, the Holy Spirit, the people will never bask in the lamp of God’s word. The prophets Amos and Isaiah further expounded the woeful time when God, in wrath, turned the lights out.
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“And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day: And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst” (Amos 8:9-13).
“Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but He will not hear them: He will even hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings. Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that make My people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him. Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God” (Micah 3:4-7). |
God turns His face away, and like the sunset steadily turns around the edge of the globe, going down, the darkness increasingly shrouds the land, and, lo, at this time, by interpretation, the demonic spirits of “the darkness of this world” take control of the people. The people are bound like as in a horse’s bit and bridle, and they are deranged and driven madly into a head-on collision with the wrath of God! These demons are “the rulers of the darkness of this world”, and “spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12), therefore where darkness is, they hold a lawful rule and reign. Do you know, my reader, that you must wrestle against demons, if haply, you might be saved (Eph. 6:12)!? When men are blinded by the delusive darkness of demons, they are rendered incapable to obey God. Men are left alone by God, and lo, the demons arrive – then men become spiritual animals – nasty, mindless, tasteless, stiffnecked swine. They wallow in a life of filth that is alienated from the life of God, because upon them is the plague of spiritual “blindness,” and they, “having the understanding darkened” (Eph. 4:18), are utterly lost. Such men become reprobate, unsavable men, God says - hence the command: “Let them alone” (Matt. 15:14), and, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you” (Matt. 7:6). Demons and devils cry out to God, requesting to enter into human beings, to possess them, and that God would take away, if there are any, spiritual walls (or hedges) of protection which keep demons at bay (Job 1:10). When God puts “an hedge about” a man to protect him from devils, they contend with God that He would take it away. They fight against holy angels to withstand them, hindering them from their holy services to elect saints (Dan. 10:13, Heb. 1:14). They seek to advance the gates of hell and extend the boundaries of the devil’s dominion, and if they find – YOU – and you are a swine, they will contend with God for their rightful ownership of your body, because you have sold yourself for sin. This was that ancient cry of devils that wander the earth – “suffer us to go away into the herd of swine!” And if YOU, my reader, are so vile a man that you are a spiritual swine in the sight of God, Christ will answer the devil’s request! “And He said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters” (Matt. 8:31-32) – and so, devils will possess you and violently drive you into your destruction.
Men are lost in the godless pitch-blackness of “the vanity of their mind” (Eph. 4:17), and therefore they do commit the deeds of devils, even the “unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph. 5:11), because they walk hand-in-hand with “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). Sadly, such men are no longer the workmanship of God (Eph. 2:10) but the workmanship of the devil, “taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). At such a time that God does choose their delusions (Isa. 66:4), He does raise up fallen angels to become powers and principalities in the place of His Kingship over men. These NT passages describe generations of men under “The Deception of God”, locked up under the power of evil spirits, therefore the principle is clearly established – whithersoever the absence of God is, there is the presence of the devil, and with the devil is the absence of righteousness, and the pandemic of rebellious, hard-hearted men! Woe to the persons, woe to the families, woe to the cities, woe to the nations, to whom belongeth the awful curse of God,
Men are lost in the godless pitch-blackness of “the vanity of their mind” (Eph. 4:17), and therefore they do commit the deeds of devils, even the “unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph. 5:11), because they walk hand-in-hand with “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). Sadly, such men are no longer the workmanship of God (Eph. 2:10) but the workmanship of the devil, “taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). At such a time that God does choose their delusions (Isa. 66:4), He does raise up fallen angels to become powers and principalities in the place of His Kingship over men. These NT passages describe generations of men under “The Deception of God”, locked up under the power of evil spirits, therefore the principle is clearly established – whithersoever the absence of God is, there is the presence of the devil, and with the devil is the absence of righteousness, and the pandemic of rebellious, hard-hearted men! Woe to the persons, woe to the families, woe to the cities, woe to the nations, to whom belongeth the awful curse of God,
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“The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit” (Isa. 19:14).
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Demons are the messengers of God’s deception, and all they that drink of the cup of damnation do commune with their spirits and messages. Paul said, “I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of the devils” (1 Cor. 10:20-21). Men do rebel because “the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the LORD” (Hos. 5:4), and at such a time, men do “seek the LORD; but they shall not find Him; He hath withdrawn Himself from them” (Hos. 5:5-6). “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He” (1 Cor. 10:22)?
This question was asked by Paul on the back side of 1 Corinthians 10:1-12. He had just referenced four instances in biblical history when tens of thousands fell down dead when they struck up courage to disobey God, and so, they put God’s strength to the test. Thus Paul asks, “Are we stronger than He” (1 Cor. 10:22)!? Did you know that you can provoke God to jealousy, and be so dull of hearing that you follow fallen men? We are a generation of “Christians” who think we can never fall, when instead, we should “take heed lest [we] fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Preacher! When will you ever preach a sermon making plain this question – “Are we stronger than He?” Or does your heady theology forbid such a sermon from ever entering your heart? It’s time to get on our knees, preacher! Then our learning can continue…but preacher! Is that where your knowledge of God first began, or do you have what the flesh can fabricate? Do you have a compelling personality, or do you have vital reality with God’s Person? Are you like Matt Chandler, who confessed, “I went into hundreds of meetings over my first seven years as pastor of The Village without asking for direction and wisdom, without asking for power and clarity,” and who rudely confessed again, “I suck at praying”? The man is a preacher of his personality. He preaches what a puffed up, proud, seminarian studies a lifetime to regurgitate – HEAD KNOWELDGE – and what a surprise – dead men love it! And they love Matt Chandler! Chandler reflects on his reputation with a woeful observation, confessing: “In some places being used powerfully by God can get you killed and here it makes you “famous”. Hear me confess this. I like it.” Chandler thinks that he is being used powerfully by God, when, staggeringly, the man doesn’t even pray to God and ask Him for His help! This is an amazing deception! In a world that killed Christ, that is killing Christians, and when biblical scripture fames the suffering saints as examples, as the true saints, and Chandler concludes, even still, he is a famous man of God?! Preachers! Get on your knees and read Proverbs 2:3-6. Pray the trembling prayer, “O forsake me not utterly” (Ps. 119:8)! Or does your theology forbid such a prayer? Now you can’t think like the Bible, speak like the Bible, feel like the Bible, pray like the Bible, and you certainly can’t preach like the Bible – at least to mean what you say (see 1 Cor. 9:27). It is one thing to be cast away from God, but it is a more horrid thing to be cast away from God into the hands of a legion of devils! These unhallowed angels of hell do stand ready and catch those cast away souls who are forcefully reprobated by God. God reprobates individual persons, and even communities, wide-reaching also unto generations and times, as it is written…
This question was asked by Paul on the back side of 1 Corinthians 10:1-12. He had just referenced four instances in biblical history when tens of thousands fell down dead when they struck up courage to disobey God, and so, they put God’s strength to the test. Thus Paul asks, “Are we stronger than He” (1 Cor. 10:22)!? Did you know that you can provoke God to jealousy, and be so dull of hearing that you follow fallen men? We are a generation of “Christians” who think we can never fall, when instead, we should “take heed lest [we] fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Preacher! When will you ever preach a sermon making plain this question – “Are we stronger than He?” Or does your heady theology forbid such a sermon from ever entering your heart? It’s time to get on our knees, preacher! Then our learning can continue…but preacher! Is that where your knowledge of God first began, or do you have what the flesh can fabricate? Do you have a compelling personality, or do you have vital reality with God’s Person? Are you like Matt Chandler, who confessed, “I went into hundreds of meetings over my first seven years as pastor of The Village without asking for direction and wisdom, without asking for power and clarity,” and who rudely confessed again, “I suck at praying”? The man is a preacher of his personality. He preaches what a puffed up, proud, seminarian studies a lifetime to regurgitate – HEAD KNOWELDGE – and what a surprise – dead men love it! And they love Matt Chandler! Chandler reflects on his reputation with a woeful observation, confessing: “In some places being used powerfully by God can get you killed and here it makes you “famous”. Hear me confess this. I like it.” Chandler thinks that he is being used powerfully by God, when, staggeringly, the man doesn’t even pray to God and ask Him for His help! This is an amazing deception! In a world that killed Christ, that is killing Christians, and when biblical scripture fames the suffering saints as examples, as the true saints, and Chandler concludes, even still, he is a famous man of God?! Preachers! Get on your knees and read Proverbs 2:3-6. Pray the trembling prayer, “O forsake me not utterly” (Ps. 119:8)! Or does your theology forbid such a prayer? Now you can’t think like the Bible, speak like the Bible, feel like the Bible, pray like the Bible, and you certainly can’t preach like the Bible – at least to mean what you say (see 1 Cor. 9:27). It is one thing to be cast away from God, but it is a more horrid thing to be cast away from God into the hands of a legion of devils! These unhallowed angels of hell do stand ready and catch those cast away souls who are forcefully reprobated by God. God reprobates individual persons, and even communities, wide-reaching also unto generations and times, as it is written…
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“What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway” (Rom 11:7-10).
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Thus God, in this way, does hide His gospel from every generation which He chooses delusions for. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world [the devil] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:3-4). Therefore salvation is rightly coined to be – “God, Who commanded the Light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). And again, in the OT, “Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound “ (Isa. 30:26). When God chooses delusions, then He gives “commandments that are not good,” but when He chooses salvation, He commands – “Hear, ye deaf, and look, ye blind, that ye may see”, praise God, and again, “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them” (Isa. 42:13-20).
Do you remember that God can give commandments that are not good? “And He said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed” (Isa 6:9-10). Thus they become “the blind that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears” (Isa. 43:8). Blindness and deafness is heartlessness and faithlessness, and this destroys the people of God from a good, saving relationship with the Lord. Though God speaks, though they hear Him with their ears, and though there are many signs and wonders which have performed salvation for them, even signs and wonders which they did behold with their own eyes, there is a breakdown in understanding the spiritual concepts which save. They are spiritually incapacitated from knowledge in God. “They have not known nor understood: for He hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding” (Isa. 44:18-19). God will strive with men from all angles, but woe to the people whom God says: “the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day” (Deut. 29:1-4). God says to such – “Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes…the great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles: Yet the LORD hath not given you… eyes to see” (Deut. 29:2-4). This is animal-like stupidity, and they do deserve to be numbered among the most shameful of them, because, “it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:22). A vomit-eating, mire-wallowing, menstrual cloth-collecting serpent is an understatement, when describing the spiritual disgust God feels toward a son of the devil.
Darkness makes men blind, and blind men (by eye impairment or by black darkness) do stagger like drunken men (Job. 12:25). They are incapable of a mature relationship with someone, or, to do something of responsibility by and by. “The blind gropeth in darkness,” and so, when God makes the sun go down and covers the land in darkness, all the prophets, priests, and people do grope helplessly in damnation (Deut. 28:29). This is the meaning of the prophet’s word when he said: “We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men” (Isa. 59:10). Likewise to the incapacitation of darkness and blindness, so also it is with spiritual famines, which cause widespread starvation and dehydration, until men faint and stagger, until they collapse, and again, this is also just like the mindlessness and incoherency of drunken men. This is why darkness is not the only metaphorical term for the experience of nationwide deception, but also “famine” (Amos 8:9-13), and drunkenness.
Do you remember that God can give commandments that are not good? “And He said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed” (Isa 6:9-10). Thus they become “the blind that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears” (Isa. 43:8). Blindness and deafness is heartlessness and faithlessness, and this destroys the people of God from a good, saving relationship with the Lord. Though God speaks, though they hear Him with their ears, and though there are many signs and wonders which have performed salvation for them, even signs and wonders which they did behold with their own eyes, there is a breakdown in understanding the spiritual concepts which save. They are spiritually incapacitated from knowledge in God. “They have not known nor understood: for He hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding” (Isa. 44:18-19). God will strive with men from all angles, but woe to the people whom God says: “the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day” (Deut. 29:1-4). God says to such – “Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes…the great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles: Yet the LORD hath not given you… eyes to see” (Deut. 29:2-4). This is animal-like stupidity, and they do deserve to be numbered among the most shameful of them, because, “it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:22). A vomit-eating, mire-wallowing, menstrual cloth-collecting serpent is an understatement, when describing the spiritual disgust God feels toward a son of the devil.
Darkness makes men blind, and blind men (by eye impairment or by black darkness) do stagger like drunken men (Job. 12:25). They are incapable of a mature relationship with someone, or, to do something of responsibility by and by. “The blind gropeth in darkness,” and so, when God makes the sun go down and covers the land in darkness, all the prophets, priests, and people do grope helplessly in damnation (Deut. 28:29). This is the meaning of the prophet’s word when he said: “We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men” (Isa. 59:10). Likewise to the incapacitation of darkness and blindness, so also it is with spiritual famines, which cause widespread starvation and dehydration, until men faint and stagger, until they collapse, and again, this is also just like the mindlessness and incoherency of drunken men. This is why darkness is not the only metaphorical term for the experience of nationwide deception, but also “famine” (Amos 8:9-13), and drunkenness.