Thursday, July 23, 2020

Speculate & Manipulate A Dangerous Combination

Speculate & Manipulate
A Dangerous Combination
by Deb Moken



Historically, we know that satan pays attention when God speaks and he speculates how that prophet declaration might play out. Then, based on that speculation, the enemy works to manipulate the outcome hoping to thwart God’s plan.

For Example:
In Eden God declared, “Her seed will crush your head.”  
His eschatological speculation:  One of her kids is going to destroy me. 
His attempt at manipulating the future: Kill her offspring. 
His tactic?  Provoke jealousy in Cain (who, as the oldest, quite possibly thought himself slated to be the Eternally-Lauded-Enemy-Head-Crusher as well.  
Satan succeeded in provoking Cain to murder his own brother, Abel, but he missed the truth of God’s prophetic declaration by a mile.

Fast forward a couple of centuries and God finds a man, with whom He could enter into a covenant, 
Abram.  From his family the world’s Redeemer would come. Satan’s eschatological speculation led to the attempted manipulation the bloodline hoping to derail the plan. His deceptive reasoning seemed to make sense to the humans involved. A little extramarital sex, some more jealousy, and things were looking mighty muddy. And to the enemy's ire, God continued to execute His plan in spite of the mud.

Then there were Joseph’s brothers (Abraham's great grandsons) who satan provoked to hatred. They originally thought it’d be good to murder the kid, but decided to make some money in the process by selling him into slavery.

And let's not forget the two rulers satan inspired to murder the babies of Abraham's posterity:  Pharaoh in Egypt and Herod in Bethlehem. 

4,000 years of recorded history of God interacting and making covenants with His creation.  We are shown how the enemy attempted to thwart God’s plan, and how humans, both wittingly and unwittingly fell into satan’s alternate/ulterior agenda.  FOUR. THOUSAND. YEARS.  

 And then came The Cross!

God won.  I like to remind myself that God, using only dirt (humans having been formed from it), air (He breathed into us life), and a promise (the woman’s seed is going to crush your head) crafted His magnificent plan to redeem humanity from the prison-state referred to as the law of sin and death. That plan was so beyond the enemy’s realm of comprehension. So certain, he was, that every possible loop-hole had been closed, making his ransom demands completely unattainable; the blood of a sinless man. God’s plan succeeded.  

It’s important to recognize that this was a legal issue, fought, argued, and won in the universe’s highest court.  The throne of God.  

Jesus won.  Not going to win.  Not, "I’ve read the end of the book and we win”. JESUS WON! Past tense. It may seem like simple semantics, but it’s not.  It’s one of the enemy’s tactical maneuvers to deceive the Free into believing there’s another appeal in process.  There is not.  That is what I believe the Book of Revelation is all about.  That is why the Cross didn't postpone everything.  The Cross Changed everything!  


Again, I hope you’ll join me as I explore and expose some of the tactics the enemy has used to keep the facts of his case hidden.  It’s some fascinating stuff.  ‘Till next time, just remember, The Cross Changed Everything!  

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

The Proof Is In The Pudding

The Proof Is In The Pudding
by Deb Moken



“Wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”That quote, from Jesus, has been crucial in my navigation through the past 20 years.  After a few decades under the proverbial belt of doctrinal teachings, I had to do some serious weeding.  To determine what could stay and what had to go in my heart’s collection of beliefs was to simply answer the questions, “What has this particular doctrine or belief brought into my life?”, “Does it produce any fruit that reproduced God’s wisdom?” If not I did my best to drop it like a hot rock.  

Warning!  What follows may be distressing to many of my readers.  I ask, if you choose to continue, that you do so with an open mind. If you’ve read my book, What If The Cross Changed Everything?, you already know my interpretation of John’s Revelation of Jesus Christ aka The Book of Revelation, is different than the very popular one currently en vogue. My intent was to offer an alternative interpretation based on a Biblical foundation and historical reference, void of speculation and the sensational.

Hijacked  

It’s a simple concept.  A vehicle, carrying passengers, is overtaken by a person or group with a different purpose or destination.  The unwitting passengers are forced into the hijacker’s plan. Travelers become trapped.

Hijackers have an agenda. They might simply want the vehicle. They might be looking for a large audience to hear their message and believe a high-profile hijacking will provide a world-wide platform. Or they might want valuable collateral to leverage a ransom. Regardless of the motive, the hijacked are at an enormous disadvantage.  They are powerless, unprepared and taken completely off-guard.

Eschatology

Eschatology is a less familiar term which means the study of end-times. Forgive me for pointing out the obvious here, but isn’t it impossible to study something that has yet to exist? Perhaps a more accurate definition would be the theoretical speculation based on Biblical references presumed to be referencing future events.

Putting It Together

There we were cruising along in the vehicle of life and WHAM, it feels like we were hijacked by 2020. The world, as we knew it, appears to have gone completely insane. And the Christian Church seems to have been, in spite of the well-known, widely-held, vehemently-espoused doctrines built on the foundation of dispensationalism*, like victims of a hijacking, appear powerless, unprepared and taken completely off-guard; in spite of the head-lines that seem to fall in near perfect alignment with the dispensational interpretation of The Book of Revelation. 

What's Up With That?

I asked the Lord for insight and He gave me a two word answer, “Hijacked eschatology.”

Stay tuned… this is some empowering, exciting, faith building, Christ honoring, God blessing stuff!

*The Left Behind series is based on the dispensation doctrine.