ENEMIES HOOK
Usually when I eat my lunch, I watch a show on tv. This day it was “Touched by an Angel” episode. Of course, the show is about angels who are brought to earth by God to help a person. This episode was about the devil working in a families’ life and those around them. The husband is deceived by a man who places bets on horses. He had received a large check right at the right time. He was overjoyed because his insurance was getting ready to expire and he had a new baby on the way. Where he worked, a man heard him talking about receiving it and how excited he was to have it. By the man and through the devils’ deceit thru him, he convinced the husband to bet his entire check on a certain horse and he could double his money. The angel assigned to him, tried to reason with him. But sadly, he was led down the wrong path, through gambling, because, of course, the horse lost the race. Then, the show focused on his pregnant wife. She was a hairdresser and while going through some boxes, she found some tallow cards. She thought why not, so she looked up how to use the cards. The angel assigned to her tried to convince her that nothing good would ever come from those cards, which were just decorated cardboard and held no power. Through a series of her “reading” the cards, they were shown “true.” One customers’ cards, said she was going to have a bad accident. She went out the door and sure enough a truck headed right towards her. But the angel pushed her out of the trucks’ way at the last minute. But the deceit was done, because she, the wife, and another customer, believed the cards were correct. The other customers’ cards told her she was going to be revisited by an ailment. She believed them, being also deceived, and went into the restroom and held a gun to her head, because she was a cancer survivor. She did not want to go through the pain and treatments again. The angel came into the bathroom and let her know he was an angel, and convinced her of the truth that she would not die of cancer and God still had work for her to do. Fast forward to, the wife went home from work to get something she had left there. When she got to the stairs to leave, a hard contraction hit her and she ended up falling down the stairs. She opened her eyes and saw a lion (the devil) standing at the top of the stairs roaring because he thought he was winning. Her angel ended up coming to her and told her she had to call out to God for help, and He would come to her rescue. Long story short, good overcame evil. Each one of the people, had made bad choices, but when they centered on God and made the choice to ask Him for help, they saw clearly the deceit the devil had fed them. And once again they were centered on God. In the show, when the wife called out to God for help, the lion growled and turned around. The end showed the devil being defeated and turned into a kitten, meowing and running away!
Ok, so you are saying, what does that have to do with anything that we are going through? It has everything to do with us today! The devil and hell are not talked about by the tv evangelists and some preachers in the church. They are all so wrapped up in trying to make us “feel” better about ourselves through emotion. If you have been reading my blogs, you realize that I am an encourager. That is the way God “wired” me. I feel there is so much media availability today that our young are pushed into feeling bad about themselves, worthless, so sinful that they feel they cannot change now and will continue in sin, others become depressed because of so much comparison with others. That is all deceit from the devil! I published a ladies’ study guide, “God’s Beauty Plan,” to encourage young and older women that God made us beautiful inside and created us for a purpose. I feel that is something that is necessary for our generation and generations to come. But I feel we also need to teach others about the darkness of sin and where that will lead. There is a lot of availability today because of media, and the deceit from the devil is only going to get worse.
The devil is a liar. Jesus tells us in John 8:43-44 “…you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the very beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources for he is a liar and the father of it.” He works on our weakness’. He makes us believe what is not true. Both angels with the people in the show saw and talked to, conveyed to them of God’s love; showed them there is a power of evil, an invisible power, which can pull us into its vises and cause us to go down a wrong path to destruction; told them that it only takes a moment of weakness for the devil to work his way into our lives; we put our faith in worldly things instead of our God and Father; the devil works through people that he already has under his power; he works through what fears us the most; the angel told the wife, who had been alone after her fall, the devil was trying to cause her to lose her baby, because he knew God was going to do great things through the child (couldn’t that be said about the children who are killed thru abortion); the devil had them right where he wanted them, looking at the things of the world and they were trusting in them.
Because of lack of your time and space, here are a list of verses in the bible I want you to turn to and find the truth of the vices of the devil. (1 Peter 5:8, Genesis 3:1, 14-15, 1 John 3:8, 2 Corinthians 11:3, Acts 5:4-5, John 10:10, James 4:7; Luke 22:1-6, Job 1:6-7, Revelations 2:8-17, Matthew 4:1-11, Ephesians 6:12, 2 Corinthians 11:14, Hebrews 2:14, 2 Timothy 2:26.) And if those verses do not convince you, I want to quote a few verses that tell us there is actually a hell. Matthew 10:28, Jesus says, “…do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Talking about the parable of the tares in previous verses, Jesus says in Matthew 13:38-42, “…the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 8:12 says the sinful will be “…cast out into outer darkness…” Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus tells us that those who have not been faithful will “…go away into everlasting punishment…” In Luke 16:19-31 talking about the rich man who was in hell saw Lazarus in heaven and wanted Lazarus to just give him a fingerful of water “…and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame…” There are so many other verses also, but you get the idea. I just know hell is not where I want to be. So, let’s look at how we can keep from letting the devil win and take us to live with him for eternity.
John 8:31-32 Jesus says, “…if you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Back to the verses above about hell in Matthew 25:46, those verses also tell us, at the end of that verse “…the righteous into eternal life.” Romans 2:7, Paul is talking about God’s righteous judgment. “…eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seed for glory, honor and immortality…” Revelations 21:3-4 “…God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Read the rest of that chapter which gives us an idea of heaven. Of course, we cannot understand how wonderful it will be there! We will know how beautiful and peaceful it will be when we get there. (I for one, am not going to say to God, ‘I thought the gates were made of pearl.’ He would say ‘how did she get in here?’) The verses simply are telling us that heaven will be beyond our understanding. I sure want to go there, don’t you? Hell does not seem so inviting now that we have “seen” the glory of heaven, does it?
Thank you for listening about the show I watched. It just implanted in my heart how deceiving the devil can be, telling us lies to cause us to fall into ‘his web.’ The negativity that runs through your mind and heart needs to be replaced by our God, through His word that give us His positivity, hope, confidence, promises, and realization that we are made in His image. We just need to have a servant heart, be obedient to His word, share our faith, keep our heart full of the promise of a heaven, which is beyond our human understanding. When the angels in the show revealed they were angels, a light formed around them, showing that light comes from God. Behind the devil was only darkness waiting for then. John 1:4-5 says “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” The Light is our God. The darkness is the devil himself.
Have you seen the devastation of the earthly fire that went ramped throughout Maui, Hawaii? The peoples’ earthly processions all gone. Their city in ruins-like a war zone. Hell is not going to even be like that. IT WILL BE WORSE!
My happy place is sitting by the ocean sitting in silence watching-listening-feeling those beautiful waves, especially with my grandkids. Heaven is not going to even be like that. IT WILL BE BETTER!
We have to reach out to God, like the ‘angels’ on the show above told the people. We have to seek Him. It is our choice. One of my favorite verses in the bible is, 2 Chronicles7:14 “…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” I want that don’t you? One bit of positivity here, is that if the devil keeps working on you, then he has not gotten you by his hook. Put on your armor and fight the devil. (Ephesians 6)
So, reach out to God, serve Him, help those in need, shine your light for others to see. The devil will flee from you because you are in the light and not in his darkness. Make it a mission for the rest of your life to not listen to the darkness of the devils lies, who is the enemy who can get you into his hook. But rather fall into the loving arms of the one who shines His light for all to come to him and can only show you love and peace-our Father God!
Till next time!
Keela