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Hath God Said
Hath God Said
Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
The trees of Eden...and all trees for that matter...are only trees. It is not the purpose of this writing to imagine that trees are cognizant, self-aware growths that wield some sort of influence upon humanity. That being said, the bible student can ill afford to ignore what God says about trees in his word. Therein; the trees of Eden on earth do, in fact, represent a greater truth in the spiritual, unseen world that surrounds us. To grasp that truth, we must first reconcile the visible and the invisible.
In the garden story; for all we know Eve was deceived by a talking snake. It's not until later in the scriptures that we learn this serpent was actually Satan...the invisible fused with, and operating through, the visible. Later we learn of a mule talking to a prophet, knowing full well that mules don't talk. Even more telling are the many times in my Lord's ministry when the invisible inhabited not animals, but men. These invisible residents even talked and pleaded with my Lord. The invisible is very real. Add these strange events to some of the odd details about Eden's trees, and a conclusion is strong upon us. The visible world of living things can lend themselves as doors of access and expression to an unseen world. We are not alone. This is not fanciful speculation, it is scriptural fact. Though our skin serves as a hermetic seal for all of our inward parts; still it cannot keep out the spiritual world. And yet that same skin confines our own soul and spirit within us.
Accepting these ignored facts of life gives rise to one of the most curious questions posed by the scriptures. What was Satan doing in the garden in the first place? God has just finished creating a brand new, magnificent heaven and earth. He has populated the earth with botanical and mammalian life. He then summarized this great work, declaring that everything he made was very good. But without ever mentioning a vast spiritual universe which we cannot see, suddenly, up pops Satan. At the very onset of the 7,000 year story of living souls, he just shows up, and proceeds to contaminate the entire place until the end of our time.
Satan's first deed in this new creation is to deceive Eve by lying to her. This affords us a couple a couple of insights. Primarily, it reveals his nature and agenda for the next 6,000 years. But it also illuminates that his own falling out with God pre-dates Eden and humanity. When he first shows up, he's already corrupt. Even more telling is that this first deed of Satan's reveals that we have inherited a great schism in that invisible world. Satan and his followers were already at odds with God and his holy angels, before the earth was ever created. Life is then set afoot amidst that war.
It becomes us then to clearly understand, that where we spend eternity lays at the end of the road upon how we interact with two distinct societies. Certainly there is our physical, tangible society. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves, visit the fatherless and the widow, forgive those who have trespassed against us, be merciful, be charitable, and be faithful stewards of the gifts our Lord has given to us. In these things we become ambassadors of Jesus the Christ, our Lord and Savior.
But our interactions with that other, invisible society, are even more important. Indeed our first commandment is to love our invisible Lord with all of our heart, mind, and strength. This first shield of faith is all encompassing; including salvation, prayer, passion for the study of his holy word, and outreach. Without these anchors, the winds of that invisible world will sift you like wheat. Sage is that man who remains aware of both of these societies, as he daily walks upon the earth. That man is wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove.
It appears that the tactics of spirits from that invisible world have changed since the days when my Lord walked the earth. As humanity has evolved and knowledge increased, spirits have adapted accordingly. In reading the gospels, one gets the feeling that spirit-possession was a rampant epidemic sweeping the Middle East back then. But such is no longer the case. The spiritual confrontations that my Lord faced happened in so much simpler a world, before electricity and industry. With that industrial revolution, and more recently with technology on steroids, it's easy to forget that the present state of humanity is still quantum entangled to that invisible, spiritual world. That unseen world has also progressed, and can be found firmly imbedded in today's modern marvels. Television, internet, music, sports, iphones, charities, education, careers, vacations, etcetera, etcetera. The spiritual enemies of our day all revolve upon one thing...distraction, with all of its glitter and finesse. Any and everything that can keep a human soul...who has precious little time...from having his mind stayed upon the Lord, and his majestic word.
In today's late generation, God has become little more than a sugar stick. Folks want their lives...folks live their lives...their way, but keep God on retainer for funerals and tragedy.
They feared the Lord, and served their own gods.
There is no present concept of fervent prayer. People hear bad news on social media...there's probably even an emoji for that...and they instantly post: "prayers", or "praying for you" in response. Sadly, however, that brief post is the full extent of their prayer. Is it any wonder that they are ready vessels? This is a world of empty vessels, vulnerable to the winds of utter complacency and shallow assent to the goodness of God. And it is this spirit that dominates today's landscape.
What the world will never grasp in this vacuum of truth, is that this very shallowness and complacency which permeates the 21st century, is the embodiment of today's Satan. He has given up his snake skin and throwing the possessed into campfires, having modernized as we have modernized. Is Satan complicit in ISIS and Al-Qaeda and Boko Harem? Yes, these and many more. Is he the force behind drugs and crime and pornography and liberals? Yes, these and many more. But these various influences...like branches to a tree...pale in comparison to bringing the world to its collective knees, at the smorgasbord of distractions before us. A Satan who started as a serpent in the Garden of Eden; has broadened and networked, maneuvered and upgraded to a suffocating blanket over this society. No longer just the stalker of prophets, or the armies trying to snuff out Israel, or the legion fleeing into herds of swine. Now he is a virtual smog of progress that chokes this present world. His spiritual dynasty inhabits all the peoples of the earth today. They are blinded by their own blindness, and swallowed whole. Thank God for his spirit and his word.
As stated in a previous book; the seven year long "Great Tribulation" is set to begin in five years at this writing. The Satan you see before you has been 6,000 years in the making...in the spreading...in the refining. No longer a slithering serpent, but a great tree; with branches and roots and fruit in every language and part of society. It is a tree fully grown, as the day is upon us. The entire fabric of civilized society is tainted by the out-stretched branches of this tree of distraction...of good intention...of shallow acknowledgement to our Mighty God's goodness. It reaches every shore, every language and culture. Its fruit is the increased speed of life in a globalized society. It broadens our range of roaming the earth, and changes God from a central sun, to a distant satellite...a remote plutonian moon.
For the student of scripture, the diversity on our landscape may warrant a closer look at the diversity of trees. Not to discover some mystical activities afoot, but simply to read the message our creator has written therein. To see them as the projector overlays of that unseen spiritual world, which were left for us that we might better know our enemy.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities,
against powers,
against the rulers of darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Those would be the highest branches and boughs, of the most imposing trees. Today, this unseen hierarchy has become a tightly woven tapestry of such diverse color and texture as to interlock their branches, and hide the sunlight from us. A canopy of utter deception by distraction.
To pull people out of such complete blindness is a daunting task. This spirit of distraction...of life at break-neck speed...is inbred into every fiber of this late generation. The waves of political evil, the increasing wickedness of our society, and the loss of truth, are the formidable foes facing soldiers of this final hour.
Thus saith the Lord God; I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it up; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon an high mountain and eminent: in the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell. And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I the Lord have spoken and have done it.
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