The place of salvation
Page 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SPIRIT THAT IS AT WORK IN THE WORLD
From the story of Daniel and the angel that was sent to him to make him understand after he had fasted for 21 days, it becomes clear to us that there are spiritual forces that govern territories. “But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.” Dan 10:13. The angel of course was referring to the spiritual forces over the kingdom of Persia.
Again Paul said: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Eph 6:12
Unfortunately, a lot of Christians are fighting after the flesh. This is why so many Christians are living defeated lives whether as individuals or as groups. They are losing balance today because the problems confronting them are of a spiritual origin but they are employing the strategies of the flesh to confront them.
You must learn to see beyond the man that is confronting you to the spirit that is influencing that man. That’s why it was so easy for Jesus to forgive those who crucified Him. He said “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”. He saw the spirit behind their actions.
At one time peter who had confirmed the master as the Christ and the son of the living God, began to rebuke the Lord again saying that none of the things he had spoken about His death was going to happen to Him and the Lord immediately knew that Peter was in the atmosphere of another spirit other than that of the Lord. The master replied “…Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” Matt 16:23
Peter was not possessed of the devil but he was under the atmosphere of a contrary spirit. Now Jesus accused the rebuked spirit saying “…for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men”. Meaning that he “consumes” those things that pertained to man.
The contrary spirit took advantage of the thoughts and the emotions of Peter to create that atmosphere. Peter and the rest of the apostles themselves could not make out the difference because they had not been introduced to the person of the Holy Ghost. They had not come under the influence of the Spirit of God though they had witnessed His power through the acts of Jesus.
If you understand what transpired within this period you will know that the contrary spirit capitalized on Peter’s fear when he took Jesus by the side and began to rebuke Him. But that was before Peter received the Holy Ghost. Peter became a different person after the Holy Ghost came upon him.
Paul makes us to understand in the book of 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” But the spirit of the world is contrary.
Our natural senses have conditioned us to always approach life by the flesh. It is always about what we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. This concept has limited us greatly and shielded us from the “sixth” sense of the spirit. Unfortunately, it is to the advantage of the kingdom of darkness.
When we develop the sixth sense of the spirit and become conscious of the Spirit of God, it will be difficult to be under the atmosphere of another spirit and it will be easy for us to discern all spirits. Jesus said “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:” John 10:27.
A lot of people have asked “how can I know the voice of the Spirit of God?” well, how do you know that it is your sister that is calling you behind the door? How were you able to differentiate between your sister’s voice and your mother’s voice? It is simple really. It is because you have developed a relationship with these people that’s why it is easy to know when they are the ones talking to you behind the door.
If we develop a relationship with the spirit of God, we will know when we hear from Him. We will be able to discern His atmosphere from others as a matter of fact we should always be in His atmosphere.
The system of the world
There are systems that govern the world, but these are systems that have been invented by man because of the fall. God created man to be guided divinely. The Bible tells us “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Gen 2:16-17
We can see that from the very beginning, God was instructing man on how to relate with his environment
The instructions or the commandment given to Adam by God tells us that God gave him a direction. Man was to be divinely governed. Scriptures tell us that God would come to fellowship with Adam in the garden. Part of this fellowship was to provide Adam with divine guidance. That is why God would bring all the animals to him to name them.
God observed Adam at the naming of the animals and noticed that Adam could not really find companionship in any of them so He decided to make woman out of him. It was the woman that Adam named in relation to himself. “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Gen 2:23
Adam didn’t request for a wife; God saw the need for a wife by the way Adam related with other creatures before He created one for Adam. If Adam was self governed, God would have had no need creating a wife for him. Man lost the divine government and guidance of God at the fall. He was left alone and had to invent his own ways of survival. Events kept unfolding themselves from Adam down the line into a more complex society as we have today. The more complex the world gets, the harder it is to fit in, so we are constantly looking for ways we can fit into our society, ways how we can survive.
The world on a daily basis presents challenges that man has to find ways of dealing with. More knowledge is always required, more energy, more time more resources… there is always more required of us so we are always learning. Unfortunately, the more we learn the more we see that there is yet more to what we face. That is why Paul said “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 2 Tim 3:7
Jesus came to restore us to a divine system that can never go wrong. In the kingdom of God, we are in a divine system, not prone to any failure. Being guided by the system of the world, the system beats man to conform to it but being guided by the system of the kingdom, we beat the world to conform to what we want.
That is why Jesus said “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” John 16:13. This therefore implies that there is a system of truth that we do not know of in the world. But someone might say “are we living a lie then?” yes! A lie is not necessarily the opposite of the truth but a pervasion of the truth.
It is by the guidance of the Holy Ghost, that we are able to escape the system of the world. This system produces a weakness in man and brings about frustration as we can witness all over the world today. It is a system that is constantly demanding the limited strength of man.
Unfortunately, the confidence of several people rests in the system of the world. This was what Jesus saw before He said “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matt 6:31-33. People work hard to make it in the system of the world because they believe in the system of the world.
Jesus said “… for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of these things” God has made it all available. Everything that we ever need is available in the kingdom. So Jesus tells us to go for the kingdom first, because all our needs are encapsulated in the kingdom. The Kingdom carries everything needed by man ju
st as the beginning of creation was; God created everything that man needed before creating man He didn’t create the sun and the moon or the rivers and trees for Himself, they were created for man.
It is not that God is going to make them available when we come into the kingdom, no! They are in existence now even as you study this book. Jesus has taken us from the level where these things were a promise to the level where they are a reality: “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us”. 2 Cor 1:20 so stop looking for the promises of God, there are no promises anymore, they have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
The master said, these are the things that the gentiles seek. They seek that because they don’t know any better. They are lost and without direction. Gentiles in this context refers to the people of the world, they believe and say to themselves “if I could just do this or do that” “if I could just accomplish this or that” “just a little more qualification, just a little more money…” and so on and so forth constantly always beating themselves up to meet up with the advancements and complexity of the world. But there is a place where all these things that the gentiles are running after are already provided for; it is a place in the Spirit.
God is a master planner. He has carefully planned everything before introducing the Kingdom.
When God began creation and called all things into existence, He was not calling them for Himself or for the angels, the aim of all the things that God created from the beginning was for the comfort of man.
Scripture tells us that after God made everything, He saw that it was all good. Do you think that it was good for God? No! God didn’t need anything to be good for Him, He is complete. It was all good for the man He was aiming at creating. God didn’t have a need for creation, creation is for man. But He did not create man until He made the place ready for man first before He created him.
Just as God did in creation to make the world ready before creating us, so has He done in the kingdom of His son. The kingdom has everything made ready for our comfort and dominion. Jesus came to call us to this life.