The Prophetic Telegraph - No.28
ENMITY
Genesis is the seed-plot of
the Bible. We should always be returning there to re-assess where we are going.
Without Genesis chapter 3 the world around us, and even we ourselves, remain a
mystery. Let us take a fresh look at one verse in Genesis 3. God said to Satan,
"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and
her seed; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel."
Note these words -
I WILL PUT ENMITY. Has it been fully understood? This enmity is God's DECREE!
God has Himself said it, and it is His own responsibility. I will PUT enmity -
-. He has planted enmity between two groups of beings. In this brief essay we
shall look at this fact in more detail.
One thing is very sure.
Satan has an avowed hatred for all mankind. He does all in his power to destroy
man whom God has created. He never deviated from this position. He never
relents or gives up. He is forever scheming the downfall and destruction of
man. From this point of view Satan wholly reflects God's decree. He maintains
an age-lasting enmity.
But what about man? Does he
maintain an enmity towards Satan? Sadly we admit to a negative answer , and say
that man has not fulfilled this part of God's decree. Furthermore we shall make
the bold statement that not until mankind as a whole learns to have enmity to
Satan will God's work be completed. But more of that in a moment. At this
present time, as throughout all history, man has not acted upon this decree. God
has put the enmity there, but man has tried to eliminate it, water it down, or
pretend that it does not matter very much. Whatever the reason, man has not
maintained this enmity.
We are told to resist the
Devil and he will flee from us. But instead we parlay with the Devil, we
accommodate the Devil, and we try to placate the Devil. But I hear you say, "Certainly
not! I do no such thing!" And in your heart you mean what you
say, and God knows, but you could well be blind to the facts. You see, the
Devil has the advantage of being invisible. If he were a man, and he came to
your door wearing a T shirt bearing the words "I am Satan", then you
would immediately be on your guard, and not let him in. But it is not like that
at all.
Very few people are paid a personal
visit by the Devil in such a manner. In the wilderness Jesus met the Devil and
resisted him using the Scriptures. After a while "the Devil
left Him." Adam and Eve met the Devil in the Garden of Eden.
But they succumbed to his temptation and he overcame them. Ever since then
Satan has been living inside mankind. But you say, "How dare
you! I do not have the Devil living inside ME. I am a child of God! ."
But the bald truth of the Scripture is nevertheless fact. The Devil lives
inside us ALL.
What are we saying? How is
it that the Devil lives inside us? Simply because of the way in which the Bible
speaks about our FLESH. Our flesh is contrary to God. In it
there is no good thing. Our flesh is the incarnation of Satan within us. He
sits enthroned within our flesh. See how the Lord recognised this in Peter when
He said, "Get behind me Satan!"
Sometimes we recognise the
ways of the Devil in the flesh of others, but seldom within ourselves. We have
a persistent and maddening habit of defending our own flesh, of building walls
round it, and justifying it. Not just to others, but in our own eyes as well.
Herein is man's great blindness. He may hate the Devil, but fails to recognise
where he lives. Casting about to see where the Devil is at work, he fails to
appreciate that he has carried him around all day!
Because of this blindness
Satan allures people to their own downfall. He schemes and deceives
perpetually. He pretends to be on our side when we defend our own flesh. He
speaks well of us to make pride grow. He feeds every human appetite in order to
keep the flesh alive. Jesus said to Satan, "You savour not the
things of God but the things of MAN." He is always elevating
some human characteristic, not because he thinks highly of it, but because he
is engineering man' s downfall.
Jesus said, "Except
a man hate even his own soul he cannot be my disciple." In
these words our Lord was in essence repeating the words of His Father in Eden,
His decree, "I will put enmity - -" We need
to recognise where the Devil lives and declare war on him, hating his ways, and
resisting him continually.
If we recognise our flesh
as the incarnation of Satan then we are in a prime position to resist him. But
if we fail to recognise the lodger in our own house, we shall make little or no
progress as believers. There has to be a continual warfare between the
(newly-created) spirit within us and our own flesh. Those who overcome will
reign with Christ. Those who fail to overcome will still be God's children but
will have forfeited the right to govern in His kingdom.
Satan is a cannibal. He
feeds off man's flesh. His strength is obtained from this. He does this to all
mankind. In the days to come, when man learns more and more to hate the flesh
and resist Satan, he will gradually lose his great energy and will not be able
to do such mighty exploits. And as enlightenment grows apace, so he will find
himself on iron rations until finally he becomes so weakened that his evil
nature will find hardly any power to act. Like an over-blown toy balloon that
gradually deflates, he will be left a shrivelled and withered relic. The great
fiery flying dragon ends up a pathetic little lizard with hardly any strength
to walk. Then and only then will Satan be in the position to reflect on his own
intrinsic evil and learn to hate himself.
George MacDonald put it
like this, (Lilith p.153) "Annihilation itself is no death to
evil. Only good where evil was is evil dead. An evil thing must live with its
evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil."
When God made His decree of
enmity He had in mind the ultimate end of his purposes as revealed in
Revelation. "And God said, 'Behold I have made all things
new." The decree of enmity is God's instrument to bring this
to pass. Only as man wakes up to the truth, and acts on it, can God's end be
achieved. And so we see that there is much yet to be accomplished in this world
in days ahead.
Most Christians interpret
Genesis 3 in terms of the 'seed' being Jesus. They say that when Jesus died and
rose again, He sealed the fate of Satan - his final destruction. But
destruction is not in the heart of God. He has higher purposes in mind. The
'seed' was not Jesus alone, it was 'the Christ' which includes you and me. We
all have a mandate to enter into the Master's sufferings so that we may become
His instruments of re-creation. Here then is the paradox. We must actively
pursue enmity towards Satan so that he may ultimately bow the knee to our Lord.
Only by obeying the Lord in this respect can we be included in the Master's
great plan for the future.
"My flesh is my devil: I
must overcome:
With the spirit victorious,
God's kingdom will come.