To And Fro

To And Fro

4/19/20

How many times have you wondered about the characteristics of our enemy?  They are all listed inside the contents of the Bible, but how much detail do we know about them?  These characteristics are numerous and reflect Satan’s features so that we may know when his actions surface around us.  However, if we do not study God’s Word on a continual basis we may fail to recognize such events and settings as attacks against us thus creating a difficult battle process not in our favor because some of these items of identification may surprise you.  God has laid out the best of battle plans against our enemy and unless we understand Satan’s characteristics, things may not turn out for our well-being.  It is strictly our choice when it comes to this wisdom and knowledge God has provided and it would behoove us to ensure we know as much as possible because our enemy knows how to study our movements and God guarantees that our enemy has taken notes about us in-depth.

I cannot count how many times I have come home from running around town and wanting to collapse and take an extended nap.  While some of the plans for the day get accomplished it feels like the toll on my body is not worth all the rushing around here and there trying to get everything done in one day.  Sitting here writing about such activities and thinking about them even make me tired and something I am no longer wishing to do.  But I realize that there are things that need to be done outside of the house that require my presence in other locations.  What makes matters worse is that many times these running around scenes are done after a full day’s work at the hospital which in combination provides for one worn out boy.  Yet, as I look around me it seems like everyone is in the same boat and this pattern of activity is not just isolated to my life or to an occasional few families, the entire nation and world fit into this gigantic rat race that does not even end late at night.  We must ask ourselves if we really can be at peace when we live in such a manner too, even though it may seem like this is the only “modern” society that has demanded such activities from its inhabitants, it is not for this advanced setting has plagued every society in history.

What type of life is it when these patterns of high-end exchanges believe they need to be completed on a daily basis?  Can there be any good for our lives by living in such a manner, following the list of demands as if our life depended upon them?  Yeah, we may sleep at night but what how much true rest do we achieve when we are continually wiped out as a result of our to and fro commitment?  How many things with the family do we miss because our bodies are so tired that we have no energy to complete the fun things or even fulfill our desires to God?  All of these issues that our world orders us to complete are a wretched pattern but not one that God had planned for our lives.  In fact, this continual back and forth with a go, go, go mentality is actually a worldly procedure that is designed to tire us out enough that we have no time for God and the true living conditions He designed for us.  We have proof of this in one of the more popular passages in the Bible and a detail about Satan that many of us do not recognize as a characteristic of his, a design of his that the world reflects and that we fall into without us even understanding what it means.  This knowledge of a little known characteristic of Satan comes from Job 1:6-7 and when we understand about this of Satan we can depose this setting from our lives and live in the manner to which God designed.  Because we shall also see from this passage how God authorizes things and how totally opposite He is from what Satan operates within and we all know that it is our desire or that it should be our desire to live like God.

I have to let you know just where I was when God showed me this article topic and content, for it is not a commonplace that of reference but He has used it a time or two during the writing years of my life.  I was in the bathroom and I will leave it at that for the details but as most of us know it is springtime here in America and that means all types of critters are coming out to look around.  Here in the West, we have ants, not the huge fire ants that the South has but they are numerous and can be a nuisance if left uncontrolled.  Well, I was looking back and forth on the floor around me for evidence of ants and it was at this time that God dropped this topic about Satan’s characteristic into my heart.  It took me by surprise but at the same time, it was clear as could be and a detail about our enemy that I had never specifically thought about before.  So, here goes:

Job 1:6-7

“Now there was a day when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.  And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou?  Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”

Most of have read the story of Job and all of the chaotic events that transpired in his life, but what is interesting is that before everything began to occur in Job’s life God gives us a detail about Stan and his characteristics.  We know that even angels have characteristics that identify their presence and commissioned missions from God, Satan is an angel and has his own characteristics which one major one is described in this passage.  When we think about this setting we will be able to put two and two together and understand exactly how identification works and we will also understand how our characteristics appear outwardly toward others even when we do not believe they are.  Lastly, we will be able to see the eternal difference between God and Satan and how their characteristics clash so violently.  Remember good and evil cannot exist together for their presences differ on opposite poles and can never mix.  This means they struggle for control and even when Satan has control as he does the world he still cannot be settled and calm, he must be on a nervous plane with shaky results at best always looking for someone to devour.

How many of us have had sleepless nights due to some type of tormenting or agony that we cannot control, or seem to control?  After working on every shift in the medical field I can attest that many people fill our Emergency Departments simply because of their worldly habits and the troubles that they bring with them, it is sad to see such people suffer needlessly because they do not know God and have extended themselves to the end of their rope.  Worse, this type of scenario does not end with one night but is continually repeated over and over as each day passes destroying each individual at a snail’s pace of torture not fit for anyone living.  But this activity is a characteristic of a society that is running to and fro trying to satisfy itself with flawed foundations and deadly assertions as a visible result.  People in this state of existence continually look for answers that will suit their addictions and not their lives, a condition that is physically deafening with pain and agony when it comes to peace because it is not there.  The world actually promotes this type of living and thrives on incorporating as many people into its presence as possible with startling success.  This is the perfect example of how the world and its motion of success have wrapped it around our lives and have captured us and enslaved us into a life of restlessness and discontent.  This example is another reason why God wants us to have nothing to do with the world or with the kingdom of Satan because He understands that if we tie ourselves into this kingdom that there will be an immeasurable amount of spiritual doors that Stan will jump through spiritually and destroy us from the inside out.

It may be easy to say that the world has such characteristics but where does it come from?  It comes from the one who directly admits his actions in this passage.  Satan himself admits, when God asks him what he was doing, he responds honestly with the words that he was going to and fro up and down in the earth.  Now, we know that Lucifer fell before the earth was established which means that the characteristic of Satan was present before it was this way on the earth and therefore, we can say that the characteristic of the earth (world) is justified as a characteristic of Satan for it is Satan who controls the world and is the ruler of the world.  It is a normal pattern and societal lifestyle and we adapt to its methods in order to keep some kind of peace within our environment; thus, we put on the world as a characteristic of ours and conform to its presence and ruler without even understanding what we are doing.  The longer we live in such a characteristic we become more dependent upon this portion of our existence and thus begins a history of combat that while we believe we are fighting against actually are fighting for.  It is for this reason we walk-up and down to and fro trying to find answers from the same source that we are fighting, a lost cause in truth.  There are so many defining characteristics of Satan that the Bible records, and when you take them and line them up with how the world operates, they are exactly parallel to each other.

The current pandemic that we are enduring right at the moment provides us with a perfect example of how dependent we are on our fast-paced and hectic lifestyles.  We have been in the isolation mode for approximately a month now, and after this amount of time, we now believe we deserve to have our lives back and to return to the normalcy that the world gives but what we have missed is the fact that God is trying to get us to see the other characteristics in this passage and it is His characteristic.  All throughout the Bible God represents Himself as peace and tranquility while the world goes on its way to and fro not knowing how to walk in consistence or with a direction in peace.  God allowed this event to occur so that we may stop for a while and to look at our lives and see just how awful we have become, both spiritually and physically.  But instead, we have ignored the inner portions of our lives once again (God) and now demand to see our world once again as we did before, but many people are saying that the world shall never be the same again and they are correct but not as they imagined.  For once again, we have had the opportunity to see how our lives are and have chosen to ignore the fact that God is not in our hearts nor do we wish to have Him there either.  In essence, we would rather have the characteristics of the world in our lives instead of having God as the centerpiece.  Kind of reminds me of what Israel said to Samuel when they wanted an earthly king over them instead of God; look at what transpired to their existence.

We are rejecting the very reason why God Created us in the manner that He did.  We are created to rule and reign with Him our entire eternal lives.  The characteristic that God displays in this passage is one of complete control and with total calm.  He is asking the authoritative questions to the defeated being, the one who cannot stand still for a moment and the one who is confused and lost without direction.  Yes, Satan answers the question that God posed to him correctly, for if he didn’t then God would have immediately corrected him.  God is calm and collected and relaxed on His throne, this scene takes place in Heaven, God’s dwelling place and place of defined eternal peace and refuge.  It is this type of existence that God wants us to be in and it is this type of authority we have over Satan and his kingdom.  Yet, we choose to thrive and waste our lives in a world that hates our presence and seeks none other but to destroy even the knowledge of our name.  It is time we return to the throne of God and to ask for repentance according to the definition of God and His Word.  Also, the remaining story of Job will begin to play out in our own time and when it does, will we have the knowledge and courage to stand up to Satan and his characteristics or will we fold our lives into a death spiral clothed in those characteristics.

Sadly, even the Church has not understood this chaotic presence as a characteristic of Satan which is the underlying reason as to why she cannot function properly as the embassy representative of God and His peace, love, and joy.  Even sadder, is the fact that as we return from our isolation time and reenter into the world’s societal platform our lives shall see no peace or tranquility.  When a dirty room opens its doors to a dirty world it can only become dirtier with added ailments and suffering to come.  Being dirty is the result of wearing the characteristic of living with the concept of to and fro first in our lives.  Church, I cannot say what is about to come but I know it shall not be too far off and its presence shall be worse than this current presence, but we have done it to ourselves.  God has repeatedly asked us the exact question that He asked Satan that day in Job 1:7 and we are answering Him with the exact same wordage as Satan used.  We should be ashamed of ourselves because whether or not we agree with the fact that we are the light of the world through Jesus Christ, our example is of the world and we stand right along with the world in shame, darkness, with a to and fro attitude.  I say we take on the characteristic of God in this passage and drop the characteristic of Satan, and that is exactly what God wants us to do as well.

DLB