no matter what nation we live in. If you are alive somewhere in this world, you are living under somebody’s law/rule.

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And if we define Wisdom as the ability of those who have power to rule over us, to do it wisely and for the betterment of those over whom they govern, then, there are a lot of foolish people in power.

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It has been my experience for most of my adult life that those who have power to rule over my actions are always more interested in meeting their own needs instead of mine.

 

Since God is the Almighty, and all wisdom and power originate from Him, it behooves us to understand how the power of an Almighty God is always under the control of His wisdom.

 

How many times do we as humans have wished that God would do something to some fool out there that is out and about doing harm to others through the power that they posses over them?

 

Luke 9:54 “And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’”

 

If we ever wished that, I guess we were not the first. But we can learn a lot about God’s wisdom from the answer that Jesus gave His disciples.

 

Luke 9:55 “But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit (influence) you are of (or under). For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.’ And they went to another village.”

 

Here we learn that wisdom is a spirit or an influence, and that foolishness is a spiritual influence as well that can bring much harm.

 

We also learn that the wisdom of God saves men’s life from destruction, and that power in the wrong hands can bring about the destruction of men through the spirit of foolishness working through them.

 

James 3:13 “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works (actions) are done in the meekness of wisdom.”

 

So that the wisdom that comes from above, the wisdom that controls the power that has been given to those of us who believe, has a safety that overrides the trigger, this safety is called meekness, and it assures us that the power given to us will not be abused.

 

James 3:15 “This wisdom (foolishness, also known as earthly wisdom) does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.”

 

The so call wisdom of this world, has no safety on its trigger, for it is activated by the human senses, and it goes off when you least expect it.

 

1 Corinthians 1:20 “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

 

Now we understand why deliverance plays such a big role in the ability of Christians to exercise God’s power here on the earth.

 

Worldly Christians whose nature is governed by the sentiments of their flesh, can cause a lot of harm to those whom God is trying to save.

 

Were not the same Samaritans that rejected Jesus at first, that had some disciples wanting to destroy them, that later received the Gospel with joy when Phillip preached to them about the resurrected Christ?

 

Which brings us back to the mechanism that controls the trigger of the power of God that has been vested on those of us who believe:

 

1 Corinthians 1:18 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

 

So that the power of God that has been vested on those of us who believe, has to be activated through the cross, something that seems foolish to our carnal mind, for in the cross we see nothing but weakness and death.

 

Let us ask one very basic question first: What kind of power from God has been vested on those of us who believe?

 

Psalm 149:6-9 “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute on them the written judgment—this honor have all His saints. Praise the Lord!”

 

Now if we look at Psalm 149 from the earthly wisdom that God calls foolishness, the church would be an aggressive entity declaring war on the unbelieving nations and warring against them in order to overcome them and to enforce our rule over them. To achieve that we would have to kill the people who oppose our rule, and destroy the nations that do not comply with our Christian doctrine, if that was the church’s doctrine.

 

But if we look at Psalm 149 through the filter of the cross, we find what Jesus taught us, and which is the real doctrine of the church:

 

For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.

 

How do we rightly judge the power of God that has been vested on us through the filter of the cross?

 

Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts (armies) of wickedness in the heavenly places.” 

 

The cross opens our eyes to the spiritual reality that our power from God is not to be used against humankind, but rather, against the spiritual wickedness that oppresses humankind.

 

We are to be liberators, not oppressors like them.

 

How does the church implement the power of God that it has been endowed with, for the liberation of humankind?

 

First we identify the enemy; who are the nations, who are the peoples, and who are their kings and who are their nobles, that we are to subdue in accordance with Psalm 149?

 

The kingdom of darkness has a structure, just like the world has a structure wherein the nations fit together. The nations in the world have armies and police units to enforce the rules that empower their rulers over the peoples they govern, it is the same in the kingdom of darkness.

 

It is against the kingdom of darkness that all Christians are called to enforce mastery over, to defeat their nations, and to inflict punishment in their demonic populace, and to do so by capturing their leaders and their nobles and binding them with fetters of iron: that is, to execute on them the written judgment, God’s Word!

 

In summary, we have been empowered by God to fight against a spiritual army of wickedness that resides in the heavenly places, an invisible realm that requires of us to have spiritual discernment.

 

The rulers of this demonic army hide in the darkness of man’s ignorance of their existence, and continuously promote hatred and discord between the human race, so that we are always fighting and blaming one another for the wrong that is all around us, unawares that all the chaos and mayhem is always the result of demonic instigations.

 

John 8:32 “And you shall know the truth, and the and the truth shall make you free.”

 

Truth is enlightenment, if I know that my human adversaries are not my real enemies, then the power of God is activated within me in order for me to defeat the real enemy, which is the spiritual stronghold that rules over my human enemies and causes them to contend against me.

 

So that now I am not just waging war against spiritual forces for the sake of overcoming them, by I see a loftier goal, the liberation of my human comrades who unknowingly have become a weapon of our real enemy, the devil, who manipulates them from the kingdom of darkness.

 

How do I do that? By following and executing God’s written judgments.

 

Luke 6:27-28 “But I say to you who hear: Love your (human) enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.”

 

And here is where the cross comes in:

 

Luke 6:36 “Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.”

 

When the mercy that God revealed on the cross towards us humans is our motive, the safety is removed from the trigger of God’s power, for He knows that our aim now is to liberate humanity and not to conquer them.

 

1 Corinthians 1:23 “But we preach Christ crucified…”

 

The two-edge sword of God’s Word is to be applied both ways, first personally, and then within the Christian community of saints, the local church, that aims to bring deliverance into their areas of influence.

 

Nothing that we ever do as believers, spiritually or in everyday life, can ever be accepted by God except that it dies first on the cross, for its death on the cross of Christ will reveal the true motive behind it; and if the motive for our actions is God’s motive, then it will be resurrected by God and used as a lethal weapon that utterly annihilates the enemy.

 

Colossians 2:15 “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He (Jesus) made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it (the cross).”

 

So that true deliverance begins within the motives and intents of our hearts, and as we open our hearts to the introspection of God’s Word, Jesus faithfully takes to the cross all our selfishness and foolish desires, and He nails them there for all to see.

 

But it is there, as our earthly desires languish on the painful and slow death of the cross, that our spiritual eyes are opened to the reality of life, and our priorities begin to change.

 

All of the sudden this world begins to lose its luster and those things that seemed so real to us at one time in life, now look more like refuse and we wonder what in the world it was that ever attracted us to them.

 

It is when a community of saints reach that point of maturity in their personal lives that communal intercession begins to take shape. As our Lord begins to move in them and through them as a single body of believers that begins to shed light upon the darkness that engulfs their community there revival begins to take place and the scales fall from the eyes of those who were walking in darkness as they are exposed to the enlightenment of the power of God, fulfilling our last Scripture.

 

Colossians 1:27 “To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”