Intro: One of the resources we have as Army chaplains I have found to be so helpful for one, single strength–its focus on specifics. A tendency some have in ministry is to try and cram vast amounts of theology, doctrine, church history, apologetics, evangelism, and discipleship into each effort. I have certainly erred many times in trying to cram too much, too soon, into places where my efforts were premature. The soil, to use Jesus’s own metaphor, first must be prepared by God’s Spirit; otherwise, we’re just wasting effort. In a passage on battling spiritual defeat, this resource took me to a passage in Revelation 20. If you’ll follow along, it may resonate with you, too.

Connection to Everyday Life: Have you ever been in a season where it seems Satan is winning? Have you ever felt frustrated because you see ostensibly good men and women resigning themselves to a spirit of defeatism? Have you ever looked around for Godly spiritual allies and instead found that most have just resigned themselves to go along to get along, as if they’ve said, “Oh well; this is just the way it’s got to be, I guess”? I have. I don’t like living in that sort of headspace. Everything in my being longs for good to win, for the truth to prevail over lies, for the light to expose and banish the darkness. But at times, it’s all too obvious that we live in a postlapsarian, fallen world.

The Biblical Account: Then I read Revelation 20:1-15 again. This is the passage where Satan is bound by God. Satan is bound, then cast into the pit of judgment. And then the righteous heralds, those who’d been beheaded and those who had labored in telling the truth, those who had remained faithful, etc. were brought back and restored before God and the world. Satan was defeated; the righteous were rewarded; and God sets things to rights.

Encouragement: To return to my opening description, the Apostle John was specific in his teaching here: God and righteousness ultimately prevail, and darkness is exposed. If you’ve ever been in a place where you’re tempted to think all is lost, that darkness wins, return to the Word. In short, think along these lines: Lord, You are the Sovereign One. No one else is. Not Satan, not the powers of hell, and not the schemes of man. Quicken my spirit with Your Spirit. For the Lord God almighty reigns. And God sees. Amen.

Question: Do we underestimate the spiritual forces at work among us?

Text: And Deborah said to Barak, “Up! For this is the day in which the LORD has given Sisera into your hand. Does not the LORD go out before you?” (Judges 4:14, ESV).

Context: The Book of Judges covers a largely dark set of time in Israel’s history (1300s B.C.) in which the nation fell away spiritually from the true and living God. They instead became like other nations, given over to pagan idolatry. But God sent judges (hence, the title of the book) to call Israel out of apostasy and rebellion and into obedience and divine favor. But very often most people refused to trust the Lord; instead, they pursued the vilest of behaviors, abandoning the Lord, persecuted the truth-tellers in their midst, and God eventually sent various judges to call them to spiritual sobriety.

The question that the prophetess and judge Deborah asked was rhetorical and immensely provocative: “Does not the LORD go out before you?” In other words, do you not understand and believe that spiritual forces are at work amidst us? Do you doubt God and His providence? Do you doubt that there are active spiritual forces of darkness that hate God and are actively trying to sabotage truth and righteousness?

The New Testament also has countless reminders of the reality of spiritual warfare: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12, ESV).

Encouragement/takeaway: This is not a spiritually neutral universe. As sentient and thinking creatures, we’re cast into a drama of good vs. evil, light vs. darkness, and God vs. Satan. Homo sapiens means just this: “man of thinking/thinking man.” That is why God calls His people again and again: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18, ESV).

“As the Christian consensus fades into the shadows, the stage is set for a global sea change of unprecedented magnitude” (Patrick M. Wood, Technocracy Rising).

“Western civilization without Christianity is like a beef broth without beef” (Robert Wi. Keyserlingk, Unfinished History, p. 175).

Those two quotes are just a couple of references in Carl Teichrib’s spectacular tome, Game of Gods.

Teichrib’s thesis is that playing God is not a game at all, of course. It’s the heart of idolatry that was addressed in Genesis 3, again at the Tower of Babel, at Calvary, and by the Apostle Paul in Romans 1–just to name a few times.

The reason I thought it fitting to write on Teichrib’s book is because it catalogues man’s design to deny the Creator, man’s inveterate efforts to artificially design a Oneist cosmogony and anthropology.

It is truly a wonderful book that is terrifying in its truth about how far down the rabbit hole of Oneism we’ve burrowed.

Oneism, per its subject matter expert, Peter Jones, is “the worship of creation
where all is one when creation is worshipped and served as divine. In Oneism all distinctions
are eliminated and through enlightenment Oneism proclaims that man also is divine. Twoism is
defined as the worship of the divine Creator. All is two because we worship and serve the
eternal, personal Creator of all things. In Twoism God alone is divine and is distinct from His
creation; yet through His Son Jesus, God is in loving communion with His creation.”

So many folks are squirreling out over artificial intelligence. I think its downfall will be found in its root meaning–art and artifice. Its root meanings are “to craft” or “to put together.”

When we create, we work with existing material. And human pride makes it so easy to assume we’ve made the material. But we, too, are creatures, fashioned by the One who created all things but who Himself is uncreated.

We might look to Genesis 11 for a review and perspective. When we purport to put ourselves atop the Creator, ironies result–and they can be spectacular in their fallout. Why? Well, there is an Author who will not share His glory with another.