My friend Steve continued with the following:
Seeing – The Intolerable Risk
Intolerable thoughts lead to intolerable decisions, which lead to intolerable actions, which lead to intolerable risk. From the vantage point of the kingdom of darkness:
• The intolerable thought is that God speaks to His Man who listens to Him.
• The intolerable decision is that God’s Man chooses to start “living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)
• The intolerable action is that God’s Man does what Jesus says to do WITH Him. (John 15: 4, 5)
• The intolerable risk is that we discover who we are and what we have been designed to do from the beginning. We are members of the ruling Elohim Class. We have been created to rule God’s creation WITH Him in the fullness of His Nature and Character.
The intolerable risk to Satan and his kingdom is that we start ruling WITH Jesus in every aspect of life and business.
“As in heaven so also in the earth.” (Matthew 6:10)
When the truth and reality of the Elohim Class are hidden, the role and purpose of the Elohim are hidden. When the role and purpose of the Elohim are hidden, the role and purpose of God’s Man are hidden.
So, there is a strategic imperative within Satan’s kingdom to keep hidden from Man the truth of the Elohim Class and his membership in it. This is why Satan’s realm has relegated Man to the Animal Class. It wants to keep us buried in the illusion of depravity and irrelevance.
This is also why it has worked so hard to distort Man’s idea of God and who we are IN and WITH Him. And though these distortions are patently false, they are still awarded standing and openly promoted by Christian orthodoxy and the various Bible translations that support it. This all works together to advance the delusion that Man’s innate depravity renders him useless to God. He is an irrelevant animal that by his nature is hostile to God and thus worthy of His wrath.
But once Jesus pulls back the veil to show us who we are IN Him – that we are members of the Elohim Class who have been created and designed to live and rule WITH Him – the game changes. And Satan knows it. The game changes because Satan and his realm know better than we do that:
• Theirs is an Angelic Class realm.
• They only possess ministering authority.
• They must minister to the needs and interests of the Elohim Class in the spiritual realm, including ours.
That’s why Satan had to receive permission to attack Job or to tempt Jesus in the wilderness or to sift Peter. Even Satan’s henchman, Pilot, had to first receive authority from Heaven before he could sentence Jesus to the Cross.
So, Satan is a Ministering Class Being. He cannot escape the reality that everything he and his realm does must minister to the end purposes and objectives of God’s Plan – even for those who are currently his slaves who have been relegated to sub-angelic status. (Hebrews 2:7)
Jesus’ genius is an amazing thing to watch. He has played a masterful game of multidimensional chess with Satan by using this depraved Man to put him in check. On the one hand, Satan needs Man’s Elohim authority to not only rule but to compete with Jesus’ all authority. On the other hand, to release Man’s Elohim authority in the measure needed to compete with Jesus, Satan must first disclose it to Man, who can then turn it against him without notice or warning. Either way, he puts himself in jeopardy and risks losing it all.
Your move, Satan.
The intolerable risk.
Seeing – The Two Kingdoms
“Are you not aware or do you not perceive, or do you not see with your physical eyes into the spiritual realm that the voice you submit to in obedience is the one to whom you present yourself as a slave? You are slaves to the voice you listen to and obey when acting under the authority of the one speaking. . .” (Romans 6:16a)
The Kingdom of God begins and ends with God speaking. Where and when Jesus speaks, His Kingdom is present along with every resource needed to engage successful warfare. Where He doesn’t speak, His Kingdom is absent, and so are His resources.
When Jesus took on the devil in the wilderness temptation, He set the framework for how the engagement between them was going to be played out right from the beginning:
“It has been committed to writing and inscribed that it is not fitting that the man shall live solely upon bread alone but upon each and every part of the totality of every spoken word that comes out from the mouth of God, and the effect and influence it has on the man.” (Matthew 4:4)
As it was with Jesus in the wilderness with the devil, so it is WITH Him now with Astarte and her forces. Jesus speaks, we listen and then do WITH Him. This is what unlocks the Kingdom of God in the earth along with its resources to successfully engage the conflict.
The same thing happens with Satan’s kingdom. When he speaks, his kingdom is present and functioning. The difference is that he cannot enter into the physical earth without the allegiance of a physical being. That’s why he needed the serpent in the Garden and why Astarte needs us today.
What activates Satan’s kingdom in the earth is when God’s Man speaks, decides, and acts independently from Jesus. The moment that happens, the kingdom of darkness is released into the earth through and under the ruling authority of Man.
The difference between God and Satan, however, is that God can initiate, accomplish and stop while Satan can only start and resist. This is a simple but profound distinction. So, Satan can devise and start a scheme, and he can resist what God has initiated, but he cannot finish what he has started or resist what Jesus has initiated without first securing control of Man’s authority to rule.
But Jesus isn’t bound by these limitations; He possesses all authority. So, when He asks us to do something WITH Him, it will happen.
“The heavens, and the physical earth that operates in time and space, will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” (Mark 13:31)
Since Jesus only speaks what His Father has first spoken to Him, His words never pass away. They are truth. There is nothing in them that will cause them to decay or disintegrate. He initiates, accomplishes, and stops but cannot be stopped. It is for this same reason that James tells us:
“Therefore, by extension, subdue and subject all things under the arrangement of God. Then, take your stand and establish your position against the slanderous one, the devil and false accuser who seeks to condemn and sever relationship, and he will flee taking flight seeking safety to escape from you.” (James 4:7)