Some material in this post is taken from Wikipedia ("Archimedes").
Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) was "an ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer." He is "[g]enerally considered the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time." Archimedes "died c. 212 BC during the Second Punic War [Rome vs. Carthage], when Roman forces under General Marcus Claudius Marcellus captured the city of Syracuse [under Carthaginian rule] after a two-year-long siege. According to the popular account given by Plutarch, Archimedes was contemplating a mathematical diagram when the city was captured. A Roman soldier commanded him to come and meet General Marcellus but he declined, saying that he had to finish working on the problem. The soldier was enraged by this, and killed Archimedes with his sword. Plutarch also gives a lesser-known account of the death of Archimedes which suggests that he may have been killed while attempting to surrender to a Roman soldier. According to this story, Archimedes was carrying mathematical instruments, and was killed because the soldier thought that they were valuable items."
In both of these accounts, we see that Archimedes' work was more important to him than anything, even his personal safety. In one account, he was so engrossed in his work that he was oblivious to everything going on around him; in the other, he tried to salvage his tools to the last. As I pondered this the other day, I realized that this man who let nothing distract him from his life's work. To us it may seem foolish that he didn't abandon his study to preserve his life, but when you look at this incident closely, you see that mathematics was Archimedes' life. It eclipsed everything else therein, even his personal safety in the end.
What a great example for Christians! Archimedes let nothing distract him from his mission, just as Paul exhorts us in 2 Tim. 2:4, "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier." Furthermore, something was more important to him than life itself...another great example for us. Paul said in Acts 20:24, "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." To Paul, the word of God was more important than life, just as mathematics was for Archimedes. If a Greek scholar will put his thirst for mathematical truth before his life, shouldn't we also put the word of God, the absolute truth (John 17:17), before ours?
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Dealing with Your Parents, or A Story of Three Kings
(Transcription of a message preached at Faith-Grace Vietnamese Baptist Church, Stone Mountain, GA; 13 July 2014)
Text: 2 Chronicles 29:1-11
In preparing this message, I was amazed yet again about how much the Bible has to help young people. Did you know that an entire book of the Bible is aimed at a young person? Look at Proverbs 1:1, 4: “The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel…To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.” Many young people have the mistaken idea that the Bible is a book for grown ups. That’s a big mistake. Paul told his dear friend Timothy, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
One of the biggest issues in any young person’s life is how to deal with two sets of people: (1) his peers, or friends; and (2) even more importantly, his parents. The Bible is where you need to turn first to learn what God expects of you as a young person still at home and under your parents’ authority. The Bible, especially the old testament, has plenty to say about this, if we will take the time to study through it.
The portion of scripture I’d like us to consider is from one of the historical books of the old testament (Joshua-Esther): 2 Chronicles. This book is a record of kings’ reigns, mainly the kings of Judah after Israel splits in two after Solomon’s death, which we talked about in one of my previous visits, if you remember. Three kings show up in the last chapters of this book that, in my opinion, teach us some great lessons about how to deal with our parents.
Let’s begin with the passage we read earlier. Here we meet a man named Hezekiah, who, for the record, is one of the greatest kings of Israel; the greatest, according to scripture as to his faith in God. Look at 2 Kings 18:5, “He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.”
To me, that’s an amazing statement. The kings of Judah after him would include the devout king Josiah, and the kings of Judah before him would include David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14--sought; Acts 13:22--found). But according to God, neither of these men trusted God like Hezekiah did. One of the major events in Hezekiah’s reign was when the greatest army in the world at the time, the army of the Assyrians, invaded Israel and surrounded the capital city, Jerusalem. Hezekiah’s army was very weak compared to the invaders, yet he trusted God for deliverance, and do you remember what happened? One angel went out at night and killed 185,000 of the invaders’ leaders and best soldiers (2 Chron. 32:21). David and Josiah never faced such overwhelming odds: David had a great army once he became king, and Josiah was never invaded in 31 years. So Hezekiah stands out among all the kings of Israel for his faith…
But did you know that he had a wicked father? His father’s name was Ahaz, and you can read about his rule in 2 Chron. 28. It’s an awful story. Ahaz turned away from the God of his father, Jotham, and grandfather, Uzziah, both good kings overall. He desecrates God’s temple with a pagan altar and by marring some of the temple furniture used to worship God. In the end, he even shuts the temple down altogether. A very bad man! Destined to have a bad son, right? Highly likely, it would seem.
But not the case, praise the Lord. No sooner is the man dead and his son, Hezekiah, steps forward as the new king, and in the first month that he’s king, he opens the doors of the temple! What a shock that must have been to everyone. They probably thought that Ahaz’s son would have been even worse than Ahaz, growing up like he did. But just the opposite happens. Why do you think that is? I’d like to give you my thoughts on it, and use this relationship (Ahaz-Hezekiah) and Hezekiah’s relationship with his son, Manasseh, to show you three things God expects of young people regarding their parents.
1. The first thing I see about Hezekiah is his submission to his father. His father was a very bad man, perhaps one of the worst men the southern kingdom ever produced, because he led the entire nation into worshipping false gods, even in the temple of God itself. At some point, Hezekiah comes to believe in the true God of Israel. He was nine years old when his father took the throne from his good father, Jotham, so maybe Jotham’s example inspired the young boy. We don’t know. But in the sixteen years that followed, Hezekiah chose, at some point, not to go after false gods, but cleave to the LORD, despite what his father was doing. Nevertheless, he didn’t rebel against his father, but continued to do what his father told him to do. But when his father was gone, and he was in charge, he bravely stepped forward and set the nation on an entirely different course than the one his father had them on.
In every age, including this one, God expects children to submit to their parents. Let’s look at a few verses aimed at the children of Christian parents. First, Ephesians 6:1-3, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” Next, Colossians 3:20, “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is wellpleasing unto the Lord.” Now, even though these verses are aimed at the children of Christian parents, they really apply to all children. Did you notice that the passage from Ephesians quotes the ten commandments? That is God’s holy law, and Paul tells us in Romans 2 that even if a person or a people don’t have God’s written word, it’s written on their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15). One of those laws is that children should honour their parents (Ex. 20:12)—the fifth commandment, as a matter of fact. If you’ve read the letters of the apostle Paul, you notice that in several passages he lists sins, and at least three of those, he mentions “disobedience to parents” as being very displeasing to God, for all families, not just Christian ones.
So Hezekiah had to submit to his wicked father for a time, but God took care of him, just like he’ll take care of you, if you trust him like Hezekiah did. I was not raised by Christian parents. They were churchgoers but they taught me very little about God and set a bad example for me in many ways. But when I came of age, I decided that I really wanted to know God and do whatever he wanted me to do, and it’s the best decision I ever made.
2. That brings me to the second thing that God expects of children. He expects you to learn from your parents lives: both the things they do right, and the things they do wrong. Hezekiah seems to be great example of a young person who learned from the bad things his father did and decided to go the opposite direction. A very wise child! He saw, I believe, that the way his father was living was not working. Something was deeply wrong, he thought, and he wanted to know why. I believe that led him into the arms of God, through his grandfather’s example or his own search, or both.
Now, God also expects young people to learn from the good example of their parents. This brings another character into this drama: Hezekiah’s oldest son, Manasseh. Manasseh was a miracle baby, in a way, since he was born after God miraculously healed Hezekiah from a deadly illness. But sadly, he turns out to the worst king of Judah, even worse than his grandfather Ahaz. But why, you may ask? He had such a good father. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Here’s a boy, Hezekiah, with a wicked daddy, who turns out great, and here’s a boy, Manasseh, with a righteous father, Hezekiah, who turns out awful. What is going on?! Well, the answer is simpler than you might think. Every child, no matter who his parents are, decides his own course in life. He decides whether he will learn from his parents’ successes and mistakes, like Hezekiah did, and benefit from that, or whether he’ll ignore them like Manasseh and suffer. Manasseh ends up losing his power and carried away in chains to imprisonment in a foreign country (Babylon). And there’s been many a man like him that ignored the good example of his parents, even Christian parents, and ends up in jail, maybe even overseas.
Do you see how important this time in your life is, and why it’s so important for you to know what the Bible says about this stuff? Psalm 119:105 says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” It’s almost impossible not to stumble in the dark without a light, and that’s what this precious Book is. I didn’t start reading it until I was 18, and I wish I had started far earlier than that. My two oldest children started reading the Bible when they were 4 or 5, and God’s truth is already being laid up in their hearts, 13 years before it was in mine. One of the first things God taught me after my salvation was, not surprisingly, to obey and respect my parents. It’s wonderful how that desire, which was not very strong at all before, sprung up in my heart, and it was something I wanted to do rather than had to do. If you truly come to know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, he can and will produce the same desires in you, if you allow him to, and the results are wonderful. I know that my parents saw the change in my attitude toward them, and I believe that God worked on their hearts through it.
3. The last thing I’d like to mention, in closing, that God expects of young people, I’ve touched on already, but would like to emphasize: following your parents. It’s natural for you to do so, but you have to first submit to them, learn from their examples, then decide to follow them where they are right. Look at Ephesians 5 this time, verse 1: “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” So it’s natural for children to follow their parents, and the parent-child relationship is so critical because of that. God tells his children, those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their Saviour, to follow him, because its’ the natural thing to do. But God, unlike our earthly parents, is perfect and sets a perfect example. But since our parents are sinners just like us, we have to study the Bible and compare their lives to it, just like wise King Hezekiah did, and decide what and what not to follow. As a parent, it’s very rewarding to see my children follow the right things I do, but it’s a grief to see them pick up on my faults. My challenge to any parents present is to think about this and be very careful about your walk and example. You cannot set a perfect example for your kids, but you can try, and where you come short, God can use that to show them that you too are a sinner in need of God’s grace, like they are.
So, in closing, I’d like to thank God for the lessons that we can learn from men like Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Manasseh on how to deal with our parents. The Bible is the most holy and the most practical book that you will ever read, and I encourage you to get as deeply in it as you can. Your leaders here, if not your parents themselves, can help you with your understanding of it, either to come to know the Lord personally, or having done that, to grow in grace and knowledge and enjoy the happiest of lives, as young person and as an adult. Thank you so much for your attention, and God bless you all.
Text: 2 Chronicles 29:1-11
In preparing this message, I was amazed yet again about how much the Bible has to help young people. Did you know that an entire book of the Bible is aimed at a young person? Look at Proverbs 1:1, 4: “The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel…To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.” Many young people have the mistaken idea that the Bible is a book for grown ups. That’s a big mistake. Paul told his dear friend Timothy, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
One of the biggest issues in any young person’s life is how to deal with two sets of people: (1) his peers, or friends; and (2) even more importantly, his parents. The Bible is where you need to turn first to learn what God expects of you as a young person still at home and under your parents’ authority. The Bible, especially the old testament, has plenty to say about this, if we will take the time to study through it.
The portion of scripture I’d like us to consider is from one of the historical books of the old testament (Joshua-Esther): 2 Chronicles. This book is a record of kings’ reigns, mainly the kings of Judah after Israel splits in two after Solomon’s death, which we talked about in one of my previous visits, if you remember. Three kings show up in the last chapters of this book that, in my opinion, teach us some great lessons about how to deal with our parents.
Let’s begin with the passage we read earlier. Here we meet a man named Hezekiah, who, for the record, is one of the greatest kings of Israel; the greatest, according to scripture as to his faith in God. Look at 2 Kings 18:5, “He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.”
To me, that’s an amazing statement. The kings of Judah after him would include the devout king Josiah, and the kings of Judah before him would include David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14--sought; Acts 13:22--found). But according to God, neither of these men trusted God like Hezekiah did. One of the major events in Hezekiah’s reign was when the greatest army in the world at the time, the army of the Assyrians, invaded Israel and surrounded the capital city, Jerusalem. Hezekiah’s army was very weak compared to the invaders, yet he trusted God for deliverance, and do you remember what happened? One angel went out at night and killed 185,000 of the invaders’ leaders and best soldiers (2 Chron. 32:21). David and Josiah never faced such overwhelming odds: David had a great army once he became king, and Josiah was never invaded in 31 years. So Hezekiah stands out among all the kings of Israel for his faith…
But did you know that he had a wicked father? His father’s name was Ahaz, and you can read about his rule in 2 Chron. 28. It’s an awful story. Ahaz turned away from the God of his father, Jotham, and grandfather, Uzziah, both good kings overall. He desecrates God’s temple with a pagan altar and by marring some of the temple furniture used to worship God. In the end, he even shuts the temple down altogether. A very bad man! Destined to have a bad son, right? Highly likely, it would seem.
But not the case, praise the Lord. No sooner is the man dead and his son, Hezekiah, steps forward as the new king, and in the first month that he’s king, he opens the doors of the temple! What a shock that must have been to everyone. They probably thought that Ahaz’s son would have been even worse than Ahaz, growing up like he did. But just the opposite happens. Why do you think that is? I’d like to give you my thoughts on it, and use this relationship (Ahaz-Hezekiah) and Hezekiah’s relationship with his son, Manasseh, to show you three things God expects of young people regarding their parents.
1. The first thing I see about Hezekiah is his submission to his father. His father was a very bad man, perhaps one of the worst men the southern kingdom ever produced, because he led the entire nation into worshipping false gods, even in the temple of God itself. At some point, Hezekiah comes to believe in the true God of Israel. He was nine years old when his father took the throne from his good father, Jotham, so maybe Jotham’s example inspired the young boy. We don’t know. But in the sixteen years that followed, Hezekiah chose, at some point, not to go after false gods, but cleave to the LORD, despite what his father was doing. Nevertheless, he didn’t rebel against his father, but continued to do what his father told him to do. But when his father was gone, and he was in charge, he bravely stepped forward and set the nation on an entirely different course than the one his father had them on.
In every age, including this one, God expects children to submit to their parents. Let’s look at a few verses aimed at the children of Christian parents. First, Ephesians 6:1-3, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” Next, Colossians 3:20, “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is wellpleasing unto the Lord.” Now, even though these verses are aimed at the children of Christian parents, they really apply to all children. Did you notice that the passage from Ephesians quotes the ten commandments? That is God’s holy law, and Paul tells us in Romans 2 that even if a person or a people don’t have God’s written word, it’s written on their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15). One of those laws is that children should honour their parents (Ex. 20:12)—the fifth commandment, as a matter of fact. If you’ve read the letters of the apostle Paul, you notice that in several passages he lists sins, and at least three of those, he mentions “disobedience to parents” as being very displeasing to God, for all families, not just Christian ones.
So Hezekiah had to submit to his wicked father for a time, but God took care of him, just like he’ll take care of you, if you trust him like Hezekiah did. I was not raised by Christian parents. They were churchgoers but they taught me very little about God and set a bad example for me in many ways. But when I came of age, I decided that I really wanted to know God and do whatever he wanted me to do, and it’s the best decision I ever made.
2. That brings me to the second thing that God expects of children. He expects you to learn from your parents lives: both the things they do right, and the things they do wrong. Hezekiah seems to be great example of a young person who learned from the bad things his father did and decided to go the opposite direction. A very wise child! He saw, I believe, that the way his father was living was not working. Something was deeply wrong, he thought, and he wanted to know why. I believe that led him into the arms of God, through his grandfather’s example or his own search, or both.
Now, God also expects young people to learn from the good example of their parents. This brings another character into this drama: Hezekiah’s oldest son, Manasseh. Manasseh was a miracle baby, in a way, since he was born after God miraculously healed Hezekiah from a deadly illness. But sadly, he turns out to the worst king of Judah, even worse than his grandfather Ahaz. But why, you may ask? He had such a good father. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Here’s a boy, Hezekiah, with a wicked daddy, who turns out great, and here’s a boy, Manasseh, with a righteous father, Hezekiah, who turns out awful. What is going on?! Well, the answer is simpler than you might think. Every child, no matter who his parents are, decides his own course in life. He decides whether he will learn from his parents’ successes and mistakes, like Hezekiah did, and benefit from that, or whether he’ll ignore them like Manasseh and suffer. Manasseh ends up losing his power and carried away in chains to imprisonment in a foreign country (Babylon). And there’s been many a man like him that ignored the good example of his parents, even Christian parents, and ends up in jail, maybe even overseas.
Do you see how important this time in your life is, and why it’s so important for you to know what the Bible says about this stuff? Psalm 119:105 says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” It’s almost impossible not to stumble in the dark without a light, and that’s what this precious Book is. I didn’t start reading it until I was 18, and I wish I had started far earlier than that. My two oldest children started reading the Bible when they were 4 or 5, and God’s truth is already being laid up in their hearts, 13 years before it was in mine. One of the first things God taught me after my salvation was, not surprisingly, to obey and respect my parents. It’s wonderful how that desire, which was not very strong at all before, sprung up in my heart, and it was something I wanted to do rather than had to do. If you truly come to know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, he can and will produce the same desires in you, if you allow him to, and the results are wonderful. I know that my parents saw the change in my attitude toward them, and I believe that God worked on their hearts through it.
3. The last thing I’d like to mention, in closing, that God expects of young people, I’ve touched on already, but would like to emphasize: following your parents. It’s natural for you to do so, but you have to first submit to them, learn from their examples, then decide to follow them where they are right. Look at Ephesians 5 this time, verse 1: “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” So it’s natural for children to follow their parents, and the parent-child relationship is so critical because of that. God tells his children, those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their Saviour, to follow him, because its’ the natural thing to do. But God, unlike our earthly parents, is perfect and sets a perfect example. But since our parents are sinners just like us, we have to study the Bible and compare their lives to it, just like wise King Hezekiah did, and decide what and what not to follow. As a parent, it’s very rewarding to see my children follow the right things I do, but it’s a grief to see them pick up on my faults. My challenge to any parents present is to think about this and be very careful about your walk and example. You cannot set a perfect example for your kids, but you can try, and where you come short, God can use that to show them that you too are a sinner in need of God’s grace, like they are.
So, in closing, I’d like to thank God for the lessons that we can learn from men like Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Manasseh on how to deal with our parents. The Bible is the most holy and the most practical book that you will ever read, and I encourage you to get as deeply in it as you can. Your leaders here, if not your parents themselves, can help you with your understanding of it, either to come to know the Lord personally, or having done that, to grow in grace and knowledge and enjoy the happiest of lives, as young person and as an adult. Thank you so much for your attention, and God bless you all.
The Other Side of Hell
Like it or not, hell is a revelation of the love, mercy, and grace of God, indeed all of his beneficent attributes. God does not suspend one attribute when exercising another. He always acts in perfect unity (cf. A.W. Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy for further discussion of this truth). For example, when God saves a sinner, he does not suspend his righteousness to do so. Paul’s epistle to the Romans (3:24-26) reveals that God never forgave or saved anyone, in either testament, without a righteous basis, which we now know to be the cross of Christ. Old testament saints were saved “on credit,” if you will, until Christ came and actually paid for their sins in full (animal blood was only a temporary, typical expedient; cf. Heb. 10:4). So at Calvary, God not only shows love, mercy, and grace, but also righteousness and wrath. Sin angers God (Ps. 7:11) and requires punishment for this wrath to be pacified (cf. Esther 7:10).
As for hell, the element of love, mercy, and grace associated with it may not be obvious, but it’s there nonetheless. It must be, since, as stated above, God always acts in unity; so even where sinners suffer the pangs of hell, there is something of God’s beneficence present. “How?!” you may ask.
Think about this: what is God to do with his creatures who, after repeated attempts at reconciliation, refuse him and insist upon remaining his enemies? Welcome them into heaven? Save them against their will? Then they’d be robots and not men! Similarly, what is he to do with creatures like Satan, devils, and wicked men who go from wickedness to greater wickedness? Didn’t the world rejoice when Hitler died? What if God had let that terrible little man live 969 years, like he did the patriarch Methuselah (yes, 969 literal years of 360 days apiece)? The whole world would’ve been destroyed, most likely. FYI, large reserves of deadly instruments were found after the Third Reich fell, indicating that the 11-12 million killed in Nazi genocides (Russians, Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah Witnesses, sodomites, et al.) was only the beginning.
In his beneficence, God created hell to contain Satan, his spiritual minions (Mt. 25:41), wicked men, and the impenitent (Rom. 2:4-5) from doing further damage to themselves and others. Dear reader, our hearts have the potential for desperate wickedness (Jer. 17:9), and without God’s beneficent restraints, we would all live like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Amin (never repented), and Genghis Khan (enjoyed hearing his enemies suffer) and self-destruct after killing everyone around us, a la Littleton, Virginia Tech, etc. The tongue is set on fire of hell (James 3:6) because the heart of man is! Only a beneficent God stands in its way of absolute destruction (Rom. 3:15-17).
Thank you, wonderful Lord, for creating hell! You desire all to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), but you’re far too righteous to justify the impenitent and go against their free will to reject you. You’re also kind to those who choose you by containing forever those who will not submit to you and would, if they could, harm you and those who love you forever. Beware the heart of man!
I’d like to close this essay with a poem from C.S. Lewis’ The Pilgrim’s Regress. I think that this poem captures both sides of hell as discussed above and was my partial inspiration for this essay (along Tozer, etc.):
‘God in His mercy made
The fixèd pains of Hell.
That misery might be stayed,
God in His mercy made
Eternal bounds and bade
Its waves no further swell.
God in His mercy made
The fixèd pains of Hell.’
Friday, August 1, 2014
The Ministries of Angels and Devils in the Church Age
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In the church age, following the close of Paul's ministry, angels are invisible (Acts 27:23; Col. 2:18), passive, and learning (Eph. 3:10). Devils in this age (post-Acts 19:16) are invisible, active, and teaching (1 Tim. 4:1). The more I study dispensational truth, however, the more skeptical I am of accounts of visible satanic activity in the church age. It's clear from 1 Timothy 4:1 and other passages that evil spirits are at work in this age. But I'm doubting more and more that they manifest themselves visibly in this age, as movies and even testimonies have alleged (remember 1 Thes. 5:21 and 2 Pt. 1:18-19). While there is no passage in Paul’s epistles that would rule out the possibility of diabolical manifestations, like there is angelic (Col. 2:18), I'm confident that most if not all of the accounts of such things are false. Satan’s primary weapon in this age is spiritual deception (2 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 6:11; 1 Tim. 4:1; etc.). Paul didn’t give the body of Christ any instructions on how to exorcise devils, like he did the kingdom apostles (cf. Mt. 17:18-21), but he did exhort us to "put on the whole armour of God" (Eph. 6:11, 13), which is spiritual, that we may stand against spiritual wickedness (Eph 6:12). His emphasis is on defensive warfare in this age, rather than offensive (i.e. exorcisms), which is more characteristic of the kingdom program (Mt. 4:24, 10:1-8; Luke 10:17-20; Acts 5:16, 8:7). One final thought is that occupation with alleged visible manifestations of angelic and diabolical activity can blind believers to the true activities of angels and devils in this age, as spelled out for us through Paul, and hinder our occupation with the Lord Jesus Christ and his body (Col. 2:18-19).
Special thanks to Bros. David O'Steen and Eli Caldwell for their contributions to this post.
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