John 20:29 (KVJ) Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Isaiah 53:1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

There are forces and powers we deal with every day that are unseen such as gravity, electricity, and the wind. There are other forces that are constructs of man that can be described mathematically or described by theory, such as economic theory or political theory. You can’t actually see them, but you can see the results of them in operation. There are invisible forces such as love or hate, kindness or jealousy, loyalty or betrayal. Again, these are unseen, but they can be felt and/or their consequences viewed.

What is in operation in the United States now? It is a force called demonic. Satan, called in the Bible by various names…the dragon, the devil, the serpent…is behind the extreme evil.

Why is it there? It is because the United States overall is apostate. It was founded by Christians who came for religious freedom and to freely serve their God. It was founded by those who believed that there was a God and that freedom was the freedom to obey God, to obey the will of God for their lives. The Founding Fathers belived in the importance of God in the political arena.

And this is, of course, why satan attacks the church.  Why are Christian churches attacked?  It is because Jesus, the head of the Church, paid the price on the cross to redeem mankind and take them out of satan’s hand, individually as each individual turns to God in repentance, desiring to be born again and become a child of God rather than of the devil.  It is only within true Bible-believing Chrisitian churches where the power of God exists through the name of Jesus, the Blood of Jesus,  and the operation of the Holy Spirit where there is the power to deal with satan.  This is why you see attacks on Christianity and not other other temples of religion.

Jesus is the only one who laid out the real stakes, the bottomline truth of what is occuring when there is evil.

John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Sometimes the Bible is called a storyline.  However, it is actually a history of the world.  It is history that explains that this world was created by God.  God created man and woman and put them in a garden.  God’s enemy, who had been previously thrown out of heaven for attempting a coup for God’s throne, shows up in the garden and tempts the one appointed by God to take of the world, Adam and Eve his wife, to disobey God.  They did, they lost their job, they were cast out of the garden, and satan, the dragon, the devil. became the god of this world.

Easter, which is coming up, is the story, and history, of how God, the creator, legally solved that problem.  As God, God can do anything…except break his own laws.  It was a jurisdictional problem.  God gave man earthly authority.  Man lost it on earth.  Sin, sickness and death entered the world on the earth.  Out of love God came to the earth in the form of Jesus to redeem mankind back.  There are many ways to view Jesus, many aspects of Jesus’s life and ministry.  He was a healer, a teacher, a prophet, a friend of sinners.

But he also died on a cross, his life and death fulfilled many prophecies, and he became the Saviour of the world, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8), the sacrifice for sin (I John 2:2).  But what does that mean?  Jesus legally, in the justice court of heaven, solved the legal problem of how to reconcile a holy God with sinful man.  When you get through the theological understanding, that is the bottom line.  That is the message of Easter. Understand the message of Easter, and be born again.

2 Corinthians 5:20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.

Isaiah 53:1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

The underlying forces of this world are either inspired by God or inspired by satan, the devil, the thief of all that is good.

John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Man chooses, as Adam and Eve chose, to serve God or the devil.  On this earth, the devil continues the coup that was unsuccessful in heaven.  The devil tempted Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.

Luke 4:1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

3 And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.

4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.

7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

9 And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:

10 For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:

11 And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

13 And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.

14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

The devil still tempts mankind to turn from God and worship satan instead.

When obvious evil is occurring in the earth, behind it, the devil is manipulating people who can be manipulated to succumb to evil suggestions.  Jesus came to return to mankind the ability, through the power of the Blood of Jesus, the name of Jesus, the Word of God, and the redemptive work of Christ the ability, the strength, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to overcome the world, the flesh and the devil.  When there is outright evil, that is the opposite of overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil. (I John 2:12-17)

Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

The Bible gives us the knowledge and understanding of what is behind evil, and how to overcome it personally if we turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and become a child of God.