Welcome back to the second part. This follows on from last weeks blog, so if you haven’t read that, read it quickly now. Here is the link for it, “The view from the other side” which is a quick overview of God’s unfolding plan and purpose from the perspective of the enemy.
“….in order that Satan might not outwit us…we are not unaware of his schemes” 2 Corinthians 5 v 11
By the end of last weeks blog we saw that Satan had been powerless to stop God’s plan. In 1 Corinthians 2 v 8 it says that the Rulers of this age ( the people involved in Jesus’ execution and the demonic powers controlling them) didn’t understand what they were doing – otherwise they wouldn’t have gone ahead and in the process inflicted this permanent and catastrophic defeat on Satan. Now let’s see his strategy to try and salvage something from his defeat at the Cross.
The Cross could never be undone. The only thing our enemy could do was to try and limit the damage.
*** Now he was looking at a rapidly growing number of people whom he could no longer control. They were no longer in his kingdom. They had been transferred. They were now in Jesus’ kingdom. There were thousands of them. They were multiplying. They were spreading all over the place. They were a people obsessed with the wonder and beauty of Jesus. They loved Him. They followed Him. They sought after Him. They spent their time earnestly searching out His will and pursuing Him …… “seeking first His Kingdom and His righteousness”. The Church as it should be.
*** For the church, Jesus was the focus. Jesus was the reason for their existence. They talked about Him. They talked about what He did, and what He was doing now. They talked about His victory over death. They talked about how thankful they were that He had also defeated the Power of Sin, setting them free to choose to follow Him; free indeed. They talked about the amazing miracles they saw when they spoke in the authority of His mighty name. They never ceased to wonder that they too were seeing blind eyes opened, deaf ears hearing again, cripples walking and the dead being raised. And all because their wonderful Jesus was very much alive, and had given them His authority to do the same things He did. They had never ending stories of how ordinary untaught people like them found themselves doing extraordinary things. And always, always, always they were seeing people encounter Jesus and having their lives turned completely upside down/right way up. Great times for the Church. Not the best of times for Satan.
So, how to contain this explosion? How to curb this enthusiasm?
Our enemy tried many things over the years. Opposition from the authorities, which just seemed to strengthen the believers’ resolve. Heresies and false teaching and mixing worldly standards with the new life in Christ. That had some success, and still do; but eventually someone pops up to correct the wrong teaching or straighten out the errors.
One of his most successful ploys has been far more subtle. Rather than try to get people to believe or do something that is directly opposite to their new life with Jesus, he tempted them with just an ever so slight change of focus. Imperceptible. But devastating. The trick was to get their eyes off Jesus. But onto what? Something that looked to be very nearly the same. Get them to focus on Church rather than Jesus. Get them to put The Church first, and Jesus next. Build church. Grow church. Have bigger church. Be the best church. Go to church. Work for the church. Raise money for the church. It looked almost the same but it wasn’t. About 300 years after the resurrection, Church started to become an Institution – an Institution which housed Jesus. Eventually the Ecclesiastical leaders became Lord instead of Jesus.
The Reformation began to change all that. We have moved a long way in the last 500 years or so. But are we where we need to be? Is our focus fixed on Jesus? Is He first?
I was listening to someone preach last week, and he referred in passing to the fact that one day Jesus will return. The place erupted into applause and cheering. This was just a point made in passing. This wasn’t a flaky group absorbed totally in “end times” teaching. This was simply a church absorbed with Jesus, and the thought of Him coming was exciting to them. A bit like the early church as I described above. Absorbed with Jesus.
Look back at paragraphs 5 and 6 (I marked them with *** to make them easy to find). Does that describe church as we know it? Are we there yet? The Church is the Bride of Christ. The question is, are we a suitable bride yet? Perhaps we need to become absorbed with the One we are destined to marry. The Bride needs to prepare herself. And as we do that we hasten the day of Jesus’ return. No wonder the enemy wants to divert our attention.
Oh, and by the way, when Jesus does come back, it will not be to rescue some beaten up shrivelled old hag that no one wants anything to do with. When He returns it will be to claim His victorious beautiful Bride. Victorious because His Bride is absorbed totally with Him, focussed on Him, full of His power, oozing everywhere with His anointing and daily enjoying victory over the powers of darkness. That’s who we are meant to become. That’s the Bride that Jesus is after. The Church as it should be.
Church is out there 