Bible Study Chat 3

Fearnot wrote: 

Ever tho Satan can only be in one place at one time, can he use technology to keep track of millions?

What you said about the best way to hurt a parent is thru their children, made so much sense.

Thank you ahead of time for what I know will be another great Bible study!!

 

Can he use technology? I suppose if he possessed someone he could use their body to do so, but that would be kind of silly for him to do, since he's already much more aware of what his own plans are and how well his worldview is working etc. While he's a created being, he is ancient as far as the number of years he's been alive and the amount of experience he has. Therefore he's much smarter then we are in that way as far as evil is concerned. On the other hand, we have the mind of Christ, so we can understand things he can't. He knows scripture quite well, better then many Christians, but just like the pastors who are unsaved, he can't really understand them and of course doesn't believe them. He twists them to suit himself, since he believes he's got a chance to win the war. Although his mind has been corrupted by sin and evil, he does have a greater capacity he can use then we do, since he was an angel prior to his corruption. (but once we're in heaven, we'll have that larger capacity to use our brains to their full potential too, and ours won't be corrupted!) So all in all, he's a formidable foe, one we could never hope to outsmart or win against on our own. Thankfully, we don't have to, for our Lord has already won the war, Satan just doesn't realize it yet. Thankfully for us too, the Lord protects us from him and fights for us. Our job is to stay alert and not allow any thought that's not consistent with His Word to be in our minds.

That's where the war really is - our minds. That's what he wants to control and what he did control before we were saved. We'll see that constantly as we study Job. The last part of 2 Corinthians 10:5 is a scripture many Christians think of as odd or unimportant. Almost any Christian can quote the first part of it, but most totally ignore the last part of it, because they don't have a clue what it means or how vastly important it is to spiritual warfare or our lives. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that most Christians would say that it's something that can't be found anywhere else in the bible, which leaves them continuing to think it's just something they can't understand at best. The fact is, as you well know, that there's more about this in the bible then almost anything else, and it's foundational to our new life in Christ!

For those who are unaware of what scripture we're speaking of, it's 2 Corinthians 10:5 —We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. * In reality, that scripture isn't about two separate thoughts, it's all one. Any thought that doesn't agree with scripture and any false or unsupportable claim (pretension) automatically is something that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and must be demolished within our minds.

For instance, the thought, "God doesn't love me" sets itself up against Him and knowledge of Him, as it often serves to keep us from reading and studying our bibles and talking to Him. Why would we talk to someone that we think hates us or at least doesn't love us? Therefore God says that thought must be demolished. If you look up that word, it means "To do away with completely; put an end to; to tear down." So how do you do that to a thought? Well, a thought is really the same as an "argument". If you have the thought that God doesn't love you, you also have reasons (regardless of how silly or untrue they may be) that you think this. God says that we are to totally tear down that reasoning and we do so the same way we'd try to win an argument about something with another person. We tell ourselves all the reasons that statement and each of our arguments for it, aren't true. And we use scripture to tell ourselves the truth about how God feels about us and why those thoughts aren't true. By doing that, we're making our thoughts obedient to Christ. Remember, Christ is the Truth.

Once we have demolished that argument and made our thoughts obedient to Christ concerning that subject, from that point on, whenever that kind of thought comes up in our minds (and it will) we instantly take it captive. We stop the thought in it's tracks and we don't allow ourselves to think it anymore. At first, we won't be able to stop it until the thought has gotten all the way out, but as we continue to do this, we'll soon be capturing that thought even before it's completed in our minds. After capturing it that way (stopping it), we then immediately make our thoughts obedient by replacing it with the Truth. In this case the truth is that God loves us. We might replace it by reminding ourselves of 1 John 3:1 —How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! *or perhaps by reminding ourselves that He loved us enough to die for us when we were still his enemies (Romans 5:10).

Speaking of being His enemy before we were saved, do you remember what He says about how we were His enemy? Colossians 1:21 —Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. *

Pretty amazing huh? Are you beginning to see why this is foundational to our new life in Christ? We can go back all the way to Genesis when Adam & Eve sinned, and see that it was their sin that caused their minds to become corrupted, and that corruption was passed on to their children and eventually to us. That's why no one who doesn't have the Holy Spirit's guidance can understand God's Word. It's not because God cloaked just His Word in some kind of mystery to them, it's because of Adam's sin. It caused our minds to be so corrupted that we simply cannot understand God or anything about Him or His Word without divine intervention and help.

Adam and Eve had been able to understand before they sinned, but once they sinned, their ability to understand was gone. They tried to pass on to their children what they knew about God and His ways, but because of that corruption, not everything they taught their children was 100% true. Then as each generation was born, that truth got twisted even more as they got further away from the ones who had originally walked with God. And so mankind devolved away from our creator and His Truth, becoming more and more evil in His sight.

God in His mercy though, planned from the very start to save us from sin and from ourselves, and give us a life of victory here and now if we'll only obey His Word. We've been born again into a war, and that war is for our minds and hearts. The bible often speaks of our minds and our hearts but usually only uses one word to mean both as that's how the words in the original language actually translate. So often when you read "mind" in the bible, in our day it would actually mean "mind and heart" (or the other way around) because it meant the whole person - their thoughts and feelings.

Enough of that though. For any who aren't aware of how to take their thoughts captive and need more information about it, there's more on the thread Taking Thoughts Captive which is actually a very condensed short study that I wrote as the original and even the 2nd more condensed versions were quite long.

I did feel I should address this yet again though since it is relevant to Job, even though Barbara and Eva have a good understanding of it, because it's so very important for our lives today. I would hate for anyone new to read this thread and not understand about this.