Ecclesiastes 11:5, KJV
As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
Ecclesiastes 11:5, NLT
God's ways are as hard to discern as the pathways of the wind, and as mysterious as a tiny baby being formed in a mother's womb.
Ecclesiastes 11:5, NAS
Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones {are formed} in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.
Today, we will look at the way of the world. As Christians, we should all be aware that the ruler of this word is not mankind as God would have had it and did make it. The leadership of this world was handed over, by Adam, to its current leader. We know him as Satan. Why is this verse in Ecclesiastes important to us in this FNS? I’ll show you. Let’s look together at Satan’s mission statement.
Isaiah 14:13-14, KJV
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Satan’s plans are of self-assertion and dominion over God. Satan would love nothing more than to say that he has a system of understanding that rivals the knowledge and wisdom of God. This is why, from kindergarten on up, he has his workers of iniquity in place to shape the hearts and minds of the youth. There’s more to the story than just the fact that Satan wants to see us all destroyed. Even more, he wants our destruction to be to his glory. He wants all that we are to be to his glory. He wants the praise that belongs to God. He wants to be the center of it all. He wants to be the one who controls our comings and goings and all that we do here and all that we believe about all that there is. He will always market his plans as being good for us, with good looking and happy people ushering it along. I could spend all night talking about physician assisted suicide, abortion, false religions, the insidious homosexual agenda, anti-Semitism, and a whole slew of other world wide hot topics. Still, none of these things is at the root of the world’s problems.
Jeremiah 17:9, KJV
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
At the core of man’s trouble is his pride. It blinds him to the fact that he’s being played by a bigger, badder, smarter gangster. Man thinks he rules. Man thinks he owns. Man thinks he’s in charge. All the while, man is marching to the beat of Satan’s drum. All of the great institutionalized evils of the world have one thing in common. They steel and pervert the glory of God into a glory that could only be grasped by Satan. You see, things like abortion are not Satan’s end goal. Being the one that controls life from it’s very creation, throughout it’s living, and at it’s death is what gives him the justification of being in control. This is why we started with the verse in Ecclesiastes.
All that God has created, man, in his own way, has attempted to explain and control apart from God. The more the world says it knows, the farther it’s people get from the truth of God. Is it wrong to learn, to investigate, to study? Of course it’s not! What is wrong is the pride of life that’s in the world. Satan was the first one to have this pride and he knows how to deal in it better that even the best spinners on Capitol Hill. All the while that he’s working to make the world feel that it’s in control, he’s quietly taking over. The sad part is that we Christians are caught up in it too. We are displaying the same symptoms of demonic influence as the world.
It’s a sad shame that there are those that say that they call on the name of Christ while at the same time: 1) they doubt the authorship and or authority and or inerrancy of the Bible 2) they declare, totally against scripture, that God approves of the sin of homosexuality 3) they booze it down with their worldly friends 4) they hang out in the same places and do the same worldly things and speak in the same worldly tongue as their worldly friends 5) they strive for the same materialistic goals as the world 6) they compromise on the things of God to have the flashy and fast accolades and status that the system of men has to offer 7) they turn their heads or even take part in the wholesale slaughter of innocent human babies in the womb.
If you follow the “Left Behind” series, you’ll know that it’s shown that millions of Christians will be taken when Christ returns. You know what I wonder? I wonder if, when He comes, He’ll even be able to find one hundred thousand that worship Him in spirit and in truth. I wonder if it’ll just be a hardly noticeable number of people missing. Why? Satan is on the job with people organizing to his end twenty-four seven. Does God get even half that much out of us?
We’re supposed to keep good accounts and be good stewards of all that God gives us. Well, God has given us fields of joy to work in. Some of us can plant the seed of truth. Some of us can tend to the crop. Some of us can harvest. Which can you do? Try being a planter and a tender. Eventually, you’ll be there in time for the harvest. What the harvest? It’s new babes in Christ. If we wish to combat the spirit of Satan in the world, we must give the world the same love that Christ gave the world. We’ve got to inconvenience ourselves for the sake of the world which is falling deeper into destruction day by day.
John 3:16, KJV
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Philippians 2:6-8, KJV
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Christ is the model of our Christian experience. Instead we follow the health and wellness teachers that tell us that, in Christ, we can have everything WE WANT and feel great about it too. Instead we follow the teachers that tell us that they can give us the Holy Spirit as never before and knock us down with some fake healing. We go to where the preaching is to our liking and not to God’s glory. Adam may have handed Satan the world on a silver platter but we, the lackadaisical Christians are the ones polishing up the platter for him. Our inaction is like feeding him bite-sized morsels of power and dominance.
Which kingdom are we working for? Is it the kingdom of the world or is it the kingdom of the KING who is coming to take back the world?
Never forget the Lordship of Christ,
ISDAMan
As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
Ecclesiastes 11:5, NLT
God's ways are as hard to discern as the pathways of the wind, and as mysterious as a tiny baby being formed in a mother's womb.
Ecclesiastes 11:5, NAS
Just as you do not know the path of the wind and how bones {are formed} in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes all things.
Today, we will look at the way of the world. As Christians, we should all be aware that the ruler of this word is not mankind as God would have had it and did make it. The leadership of this world was handed over, by Adam, to its current leader. We know him as Satan. Why is this verse in Ecclesiastes important to us in this FNS? I’ll show you. Let’s look together at Satan’s mission statement.
Isaiah 14:13-14, KJV
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Satan’s plans are of self-assertion and dominion over God. Satan would love nothing more than to say that he has a system of understanding that rivals the knowledge and wisdom of God. This is why, from kindergarten on up, he has his workers of iniquity in place to shape the hearts and minds of the youth. There’s more to the story than just the fact that Satan wants to see us all destroyed. Even more, he wants our destruction to be to his glory. He wants all that we are to be to his glory. He wants the praise that belongs to God. He wants to be the center of it all. He wants to be the one who controls our comings and goings and all that we do here and all that we believe about all that there is. He will always market his plans as being good for us, with good looking and happy people ushering it along. I could spend all night talking about physician assisted suicide, abortion, false religions, the insidious homosexual agenda, anti-Semitism, and a whole slew of other world wide hot topics. Still, none of these things is at the root of the world’s problems.
Jeremiah 17:9, KJV
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
At the core of man’s trouble is his pride. It blinds him to the fact that he’s being played by a bigger, badder, smarter gangster. Man thinks he rules. Man thinks he owns. Man thinks he’s in charge. All the while, man is marching to the beat of Satan’s drum. All of the great institutionalized evils of the world have one thing in common. They steel and pervert the glory of God into a glory that could only be grasped by Satan. You see, things like abortion are not Satan’s end goal. Being the one that controls life from it’s very creation, throughout it’s living, and at it’s death is what gives him the justification of being in control. This is why we started with the verse in Ecclesiastes.
All that God has created, man, in his own way, has attempted to explain and control apart from God. The more the world says it knows, the farther it’s people get from the truth of God. Is it wrong to learn, to investigate, to study? Of course it’s not! What is wrong is the pride of life that’s in the world. Satan was the first one to have this pride and he knows how to deal in it better that even the best spinners on Capitol Hill. All the while that he’s working to make the world feel that it’s in control, he’s quietly taking over. The sad part is that we Christians are caught up in it too. We are displaying the same symptoms of demonic influence as the world.
It’s a sad shame that there are those that say that they call on the name of Christ while at the same time: 1) they doubt the authorship and or authority and or inerrancy of the Bible 2) they declare, totally against scripture, that God approves of the sin of homosexuality 3) they booze it down with their worldly friends 4) they hang out in the same places and do the same worldly things and speak in the same worldly tongue as their worldly friends 5) they strive for the same materialistic goals as the world 6) they compromise on the things of God to have the flashy and fast accolades and status that the system of men has to offer 7) they turn their heads or even take part in the wholesale slaughter of innocent human babies in the womb.
If you follow the “Left Behind” series, you’ll know that it’s shown that millions of Christians will be taken when Christ returns. You know what I wonder? I wonder if, when He comes, He’ll even be able to find one hundred thousand that worship Him in spirit and in truth. I wonder if it’ll just be a hardly noticeable number of people missing. Why? Satan is on the job with people organizing to his end twenty-four seven. Does God get even half that much out of us?
We’re supposed to keep good accounts and be good stewards of all that God gives us. Well, God has given us fields of joy to work in. Some of us can plant the seed of truth. Some of us can tend to the crop. Some of us can harvest. Which can you do? Try being a planter and a tender. Eventually, you’ll be there in time for the harvest. What the harvest? It’s new babes in Christ. If we wish to combat the spirit of Satan in the world, we must give the world the same love that Christ gave the world. We’ve got to inconvenience ourselves for the sake of the world which is falling deeper into destruction day by day.
John 3:16, KJV
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Philippians 2:6-8, KJV
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Christ is the model of our Christian experience. Instead we follow the health and wellness teachers that tell us that, in Christ, we can have everything WE WANT and feel great about it too. Instead we follow the teachers that tell us that they can give us the Holy Spirit as never before and knock us down with some fake healing. We go to where the preaching is to our liking and not to God’s glory. Adam may have handed Satan the world on a silver platter but we, the lackadaisical Christians are the ones polishing up the platter for him. Our inaction is like feeding him bite-sized morsels of power and dominance.
Which kingdom are we working for? Is it the kingdom of the world or is it the kingdom of the KING who is coming to take back the world?
Never forget the Lordship of Christ,
ISDAMan