“THE RULE OF DARKNESS OR
THE REIGN OF LIGHT?”
By J. Farrell Fisher, June 22-23, 2017
You do realize that multitudes of people today, even like the ‘play-actors’ in Jesus’ day – the ‘religious’ Pharisees, rulers over Israel – ‘professed’ the reign of Light, yet crucified Him, as they devoted themselves to “the rule of darkness”! And in Matthew 24:31-36 we read, Christ Jesus speaking, “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?
Therefore, indeed, I (CHRIST JESUS) send you prophets, wise men, and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”
And, Jesus said, “I say to you – judgment is coming upon this generation.” Which it did! And in 70 AD the world witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple they so desecrated!
My only concern? As a result of God’s faithful judgment upon Israel because of, yes, their submission to the rule of darkness even though they ‘professed’ loyalty to the light they had, is the same judgment on the rule of darkness occurring even if one “pretends” allegiance to the reign of light? Has the rule of darkness so blinded some that they naturally devote their ‘religious hours’ to creating “fetishes” of their assumed faith that has nothing to do with being “born again”, supposedly becoming disciples of Christ when their heart-allegiance is, yes, to the “rule of darkness” under Satan’s manipulating strategies?
Here’s how Oswald Chambers saw it in his day: “My Utmost For His Highest”, (p.237), “It is easier to be a fanatic than a faithful soul, because there is something amazingly humbling, particularly to our religious conceit, in being loyal to God.” Have you ever witnessed “warped loyalty” as one professes Christ but his/her fruit is more of Satan’s manifestation through his trees in his vineyard?
“The Rule of Darkness Or The Reign of Light?” How clear and revealing do you find the words of Paul, when inspired by the Holy Spirit, he wrote in Galatians 5:24-25, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh (old sin nature!) with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” A ‘flesh-walk’ unveils an allegiance to the world, the flesh, and to Satan, But a “Spirit-walk” IS “Christ in you the hope of glory” led by the Indwelling and anointing of the Holy Spirit!
In Galatians 5:22 Paul unveiled the evidence of a Spirit-anointed, Christ-honoring life! “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” But in Galatians 5:16-21 he unveiled “the works of the flesh” which have Hell’s inspiration and Satan’s “rule of darkness”! Paul said: I say then: “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh (inspired by Satan!). For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. (Dare I say “under the law of sin and death?”).
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: (Dare I say “Satan’s portrait unveiled by the Holy Spirit?”), adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, AND THE LIKE; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in times past, THAT THOSE WHO PRACTICE SUCH THINGS WILL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.”
The “Rule of Darkness” IS the devil’s domain – and the citizens of his ‘kingdom’ feed eternally on the bad fruit of death in Satan’s rule! But, at the same time, I must ask: “Have YOU rested in the immutability of God’s Word, God’s promises, and God’s grace, mercy, and love?” Or, are you out to ‘prove’ your best, your strategy, and your self-dependence? Does ‘your best’ change? Has your ‘self-dependence’ ushered in “the kingdom of God on earth”, or is it “improved flesh” camouflaged by Satan? Christ’s presence in you is unchangeable, but Satan’s image is like an impish, mischievous, fleshly desires-rebel doing as he pleases!
The “Rule of Darkness” is every man’s ‘right’ to choose for himself what he/she determines to have their time and effort – and “If it satisfies my sin-nature, let it be!” And Satan certainly considered, and still does, “The hope of self-righteousness, as I determine what self-righteousness is, is my ‘religion’ even if it produces only a ‘death-state; because for me, Satan, that’s better than being under the Sovereign Rule of your Holy God’!”
Yes, there is a huge difference between Satan’s “Rule of Darkness” and God’s “Reign of Light”! Have you bathed yourself recently in Psalm 91? Follow with me!!
“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.” Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. [ Satan’s snares? Satan’s ‘perilous pestilence’?].
He (Holy God) shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings YOU shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look, and see the reward of the wicked. (Examine someday what “the high wages” really are that Satan uses to subsidize his deception on the “free-swingers away from God’s oversight”!).
Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling. For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. (Yes! Hallelujah! ANGELIC OVERSIGHT!!).
In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. (In my early days as a child and a teen-ager, on a Saturday morning usually around our Courthouse, I would watch the ‘snake handlers’ as they professed their stupidity not having a clue about metaphorical language that “lions and cobras” were Satan’s soldiers who promoted demon’s “sharp teeth” and demons ‘poisonous venom’ – yes, even a child of faith knows Truth and Christ or Falsehood and demons!).
In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and cobra (the demons are under your feet of faith!), the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot.
Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation.”
Godless lives live not only with the absence of ‘divine life’ but they live under the curse of the sin nature, corralled by a ‘flesh-centered’ world, and corrupted by Satan with ‘solemn groans, and hollow moans, and shrieks of tortured ghosts’! And Satan wants to seal in you, in your state of unbelief or even ‘half-hearted allegiance to Christ’, his “curse” of death, not life, his “purpose” of poisoned pleasure, not eternal blessing, his “award” for a reputable performance, not a Spirit-transformed new creation! Without Christ as Lord and Savior every man lives under the domination of the devil’s darkness – and to him and them, “The Light of the world” makes no sense since he takes pleasure in the darkness of men’s souls!
In the ‘mortal nature’ of all men there is ingrained the kingdom of darkness, the dominion of evil, the sway of Satan, the lure of demonic activity, the marks of fleshly imperfections, the ‘floating phantoms’ of the defiled sin-nature that is not of God but from the heart, mind, soul, spirit of “born in sin”! The ‘old self’ is enough to open Hell’s doors for us, but Satan wants to insure he takes advantage of any crack in your life that will allow him in to reside and re-assign you from God’s purpose and plan to his perverseness and Hell’s ‘peasant’ status!
It’s so encouraging and powerful and, yes, redemptive to read John in 1 John 3:7-8, and then Verses 10-12: “Little children, (in the Faith, not age), let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness (Biblical righteousness, not one’s fleshly or demonic interpretation!) is righteous, just as He (Jesus) is righteous. He who sins (present tense, continuous action) is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.” Then…
Verses 10-12, In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? BECAUSE his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.”
Cain was “of the wicked one”? And you’re not sure that was Satan? Do you remember Jesus talking to His disciples in Matthew 13:36-43? The disciples had asked Jesus to “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”
Jesus answered and said to them, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.[Do you think there is someone else other than Satan who is the wicked one?]. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels (or messengers of God!), (the end of the age is the end of the Old Covenant, the Judaisation system). Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. (70AD & the end of the Judaistic system!). The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
In 2 Timothy 2:19-26 Paul, again, is instructing his spiritual son, Timothy, and us – and I believe here he’s nailing down understanding for all believers about Satan’s snares! He said: Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity,” (unless you’ve been ingrained by “false professors” that ‘YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING BUT SIN UNTIL YOU GET TO HEAVEN’!!).
But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work (not the works of Satan!). Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue (press into) righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape THE SNARE OF THE DEVIL, having been TAKEN CAPTIVE BY HIM TO DO HIS WILL!”
Are there in God’s awesome, created world men of honor and men of dishonor? Are there ‘clay vessels’ that are invaded by Satan, and through his demonic agents take up ‘residence’? It’s interesting to read in Amos 4:11 where the prophet illumined the danger Israel was in as a nation BECAUSE, hearing God, he wrote: “I overthrew some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and YOU WERE LIKE A FIREBRAND PLUCKED FROM BURNING; yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord.
Again, why did Jesus teach His disciple to pray, “Deliver us from evil” or “Deliver us from the evil one”? Do you receive the biblical truth of Hebrews 2:14-18? “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham (sons of redeeming faith!). Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”
Have you come to the understanding, by the grace of God, of the need of “The Reign of Light IN and Through Christ ALONE”, because you’ve been made aware through ‘life experiences’ of “The Rule of Darkness” in your life apart from Christ? Yes, are YOU assured, that Christ Jesus, in YOUR behalf, “that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (or Satan), and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”? Have YOU prayed to Jesus: “Lord Jesus, free me from the law of sin and death, AND destroy Satan, in my behalf, because I know he still wants me all of my lifetime subject to his bondage and seeking to blot out of my life Christ Jesus’ “rescue story” for me!”
I pray for you right now: “Lord Jesus, enlighten every reader to the blessings of the Master’s blood redemption, and open every believing eye to His ransom purchase of their freedom from the bondage of the old sin nature and the bondage and blasts from my Satanic enemy and demonic forces, in honor of Christ alone! Amen!!”