Two forces in the divine spirit world affect our lives, which helps us understand both. The first is the role of the Light, the divine spirit Family that implements our Abba Father’s plan. The second is the role of the Dark, the rebellious divine spirit family that tries to defeat his plan. I like the Light and the Dark labels because they are all-inclusive in meaning and paint a much more complete picture of the real world, both material, and spirit.
Please remember that “divine” means “from our Abba Father,” not anything specifically holy. Divine spirits can turn sinful because they, too, have free will. Our failure to embrace the divine spirit world in ELB minimizes our awareness of the glory of the Light and the danger of the Dark present in our lives on earth.
Teachers tell us we are in a “spiritual war.” It is not a “spiritual war.” It is a “spirit war” with real live spirits. We fight wars between nations with armies. Our war began in the Old Testament, and we are still in it today. Two opposing soldiers in war are fighting for the cause of their nation, not themselves. And they are willing to fight to the death.
We are in a spirit war, fighting for the Kingdom of our Abba Father, not just ourselves. We are part of something much bigger than our earth life. That is all missed when we do not see ourselves in a relationship with our Abba Father and the body of Christ.
ELB tries to minimize the war and make life all about us. Our Abba Father and the Scripture are not telling us how to live this life; they are telling us how to be good soldiers. The only difference is that our first nation is our Family, the body of Christ, and the Kingdom of our Abba Father. Please pray on that.
As soldiers in the army of the Light, we fight the enemy of the Dark. The battlefield is in our hearts in our GCS. We must fight this war in our hearts, not ignore it in our minds. Human nature plays a role in the Dark and our reaction to it; the “enemy” is the divine spirit army of the Dark. The Devil is the ruler of it.
Look at Job 15:15, “If God places no trust in his holy ones, if even the heavens (šamayim) are not pure in his eyes, how much less mortals, who are vile and corrupt, who drink up evil like water!”
“His saints” in this verse are the divine spirits, holy ones, and it is first a message about humans without Christ. But it reveals a truth about the divine spirit world. Notice that “the heavens,” the home of the divine spirit family, are not pure. Whoops! The divine spirit family shares a quality with humans, free will, and the ability to disobey our Abba Father. ELB seeks to minimize that reality.
I mentioned that we are born on the way to the fiery pit where the Dark spends eternity. The Scripture explains our delivery from the Dark to the Light in Colossians 1:13, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” Ephesians 5:8, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.“
1 Peter 2:9,”But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” John 8:12, “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.“
The original Dark was the natural beginning of nothingness. The evil Dark was manifested after the creation by the rebellious acts of free will by members of the divine spirit family that our Abba Father created before he created the earth and humans. When we embrace the entire divine spirit world, our move from the Dark to the Light becomes the entrance ramp to our Abba Father’s glory, not just a defense mechanism.
We are caught up in that rebellion and must recognize its role in our behavior in concert with our sinful nature. The full armor of God in Ephesians 6 does not protect us from ourselves; only the Holy Spirit in us can do that. But as we build our helmets, breastplate, and shield, our self-awareness should also grow our hearts against sin.
Three elements of the Dark must be viewed separately. The first is our sinful nature as humans, driven by our feelings. We can and do act in sinful ways independent of the Dark spirit influences we live among. We may copy others just because it seems to feel good. Or worse, some people self-sabotage in that direction. That is disobeying our Abba Father in the context of not loving.
The second element of the Dark is evil, presented below. As a jail/prison minister, I have evil all around me. The number of people I walk with that have killed people scares my wife. I love it because I see our Abba Father at work changing hearts (GCS).
The third element of the Dark is our Abba Father’s use of the Dark world to teach Israel with conquest. Then the Dark evolved into our lives, serving our Abba Father’s purpose as he throttles it today for us in his plan. The Dark is the ultimate expression of our Abba Father’s commitment to work through his created families to accomplish his plan. That is another reason why ELB is so harmful in discounting the divine spirit world.
Pastors often hear the question, “why is God punishing me?” And my answer is that they have their Scripture wrong. Our Abba Father punished his Son for us; no one is punished in the New Testament until the very end after every possible chance has been given to everyone to receive Christ.
The enemy attacks us to turn us away from our Abba Father, and we must understand that it is the enemy. Our Abba Father is still in control of all outcomes and uses the attacks to bring us closer to him with his refuge. In all cases, we serve his will, which defines our job in the Family.
The Dark’s goal is to keep us from our Abba Father. The Dark attacks and temps us physically, emotionally, and intellectually to keep us from eternal paradise with our Abba Father. The Dark receives eternal punishment; they have no eternal promised land of pleasure. The Dark does not even rule over the pit of fire to torment non-believers.
Rejecting our Abba Father is like being a coward on the battlefield, resulting in a horrible outcome. But that cannot be our only motivation to receive him. ELB has used that whip to bring us to redemption for thousands of years, and one thing I have learned in jails and prisons is that the punisher is never loved, only obeyed.
Love is very complex in the Scripture. Our Abba Father’s grand design is making obedience “love” in agape. We must realize that “to obey him” is “to love him” in his eyes, and we must also make that true in our hearts. Our Abba Father insists on waiting for our help because that is his plan. Only when we, in our free will, go all in for him, fight for him and glorify him in this season of life can we experience his full glory. And ELB does all it can to keep us from doing that. That is why the first step in evangelism is being a believer others can see and want what we have. No one can testify with authority except their testimony of what the Holy Spirit has done in them.
Yes, the existing “scripts,” “handouts,” “where you going to go when you die,” and the “Roman Road’ story are the commonly used tools, and they work because the Holy Spirit is part of the process. But we miss out when it does not sink in that when made in God’s image; we don’t act like it.
One Kingdom
I suggest It is time to re-examine the Light Dark “two kingdom” presentation and replace it with the one kingdom, the kingdom of Light, ruled by our Abba Father. After all, that is the final design, and awareness of that will raise our faith to a new level. As time and life move on in the Old Testament, we see the Light of the divine spirit world, but the kingdom of Dark is not as separate as we are led to believe. Everything has its role and existence within our Abba Father’s Kingdom of Light.
The fact is that nothing happens without our Abba Father’s acceptance which is always in the context of eventually producing a “good” outcome. Understanding that condition and its timeline is essential to growing our relationship with our Abba Father. The one kingdom approach focuses on our relationship and job with our Abba Father in the Light as the central theme of this earth season of our eternal life.
It also helps to understand that the Dark is not the opposite of the Light; the Dark is the absence of Light and cannot resist the Light when it is shined on it. When we turn on a light in a dark room, there is nothing the Dark can do. But the enemy can cut the electricity. A flashlight or candle will still drive the Dark out. We win, have confidence, have faith. Please pray on that.
The Dark is no match for our Abba Father or us when we receive Christ as our Lord and Savior and put our complete trust in his Light. Believers have the power of Jesus within us, and it is time we realized it and put it to work in the context of a world where tribulation serves our Abba Father’s purpose.
S7M1 establishes that we were created to glorify our Abba Father, and we can only do that by focusing on him as the ruler of everything. When we realize that the Dark can’t do anything without the will of our Abba Father and often without our own will, our relationship with our Abba Father becomes much stronger.
We must understand and embrace our Abba Father’s world and our role in it and stop seeing this life as all about us. Job is a good example. Job is not just about human patience or faith as commonly taught; it is about our Abba Father’s world, the divine spirit world, place, and relationship with him. Making Job just about Job and his patience is ELB limiting our relationship with our Abba Father. The divine spirit world is integral to Job.
Also, realize as long as we are on the subject that Job did not receive his relief until he finally confessed that he was not so righteous as to have no sin. Our Abba Father’s description of Job said to hasatan has always puzzled me, “Then the LORD said to hasatan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”
Job is quite a man but still a sinner. And it took our Abba Father himself to convince Job he was still a sinner; the best scholars of the human world could not do it because they did not get it. That is why we must use the Scripture and not man’s ELB re-writes that do not trigger the Holy Spirit to reveal a more profound meaning.
Jeremiah 23:16-20, “Thus saith Yahweh of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they teach you vanity; they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh . . . For who hath stood in the council of Yahweh, that he should perceive and hear his word? who hath marked my word, and heard it? Behold, the tempest of Yahweh, even his wrath, is gone forth, yea, a whirling tempest: it shall burst upon the head of the wicked. The anger of Yahweh shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days ye shall understand it perfectly.“
Listen to the Holy Spirit in our relationship with our Abba Father and grow our faith in our Abba Father. Job reveals an enormous insight into our Abba Father, and I wonder if Job was not purposely moved out of the way in the Holy Bible by the early church fathers in ELB. If I were in charge of the Scripture, Job would split Genesis into two parts, with Job between chapters four and five. I am simply expressing my joy from Job as the Holy Spirit has led me.
Your go-to book may differ in our Abba Father’s purpose for your life. Ruth is the favorite go-to book for women with Esther and Proverbs 31. I also love the Song of Songs, and when I recommend that to my inmates, I am always amazed at how it awakens the Holy Spirit in them to see our relationship with our Abba Father. I hear incredible stories from hardened criminals after they read the Song of Songs. Please pray on that.
Tribulation
This subject is another of my subtleties, similar to redemption. It is important. We should see evil as “tribulation” in our relationship with our Abba Father because tribulation means suffering from persecution or a trying experience and connects us to our Abba Father. Evil connects us to earth and ELB. Jesus spoke of tribulation in the “end time” (Mathew 24), including the Great Tribulation. Tribulation is a significant part of the end-time experience, but few believers understand that tribulation is just part of life on earth in our spirit war.
Our Abba Father rescues us from tribulation, and we should always live in “end time” mode because we are in ours, and we get rescued in this life. Please pray on that. ELB wants us to focus on evil as humans doing bad things and then close our eyes to it, not connect it to our Abba Father. Since Jesus work on the cross, tribulation is always an attack from the enemy, never punishment from our Abba Father. And he makes it work for his good purpose.
Tribulation is part of our job in the Family business, similar to our Armed Forces soldiers fighting the enemy for us with their life on the line. I wish that were different, but our entire perspective is supposed to change when we are born again. Remember, there is no greater love. Jesus set the example, and he is in us. Being like Jesus is more than walking. ELB wants to keep us from that understanding. Please pray on that.
The Scripture is loaded with tribulation. It reveals horrible behaviors that are as bad or worse than in modern history. What kind of God allows that? If we close our eyes to all that, it no longer exists. That eliminates a large percentage of the Scripture, a huge ELB win. Despite all that, millions of believers exist today, so our Abba Father plays a role in creating believers.
Evil is the Achilles heel of Christianity, but tribulation connects us to our Abba Father in it. Nothing eats away at people’s relationship with our Abba Father as much as does the existence of evil. Why do bad things happen to good people? No good God would allow such a thing, right? Wrong!
We must always turn to our Abba Father for answers about him, not ELB. So, what exactly is evil, and where does it come from? Genesis 2 tells us about the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” This title gives the impression of two lists, a list of good things and evil things. That gives some life to evil, but that is not the original meaning.
The original language describes a continuum better translated as the knowledge of everything, from good to bad. There is no ancient word for the English word “evil,” it is an abstract concept, and ancient Hebrew can only deal with the physical senses. Evil is more like Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography, “I know it when I see it.”
I offer that evil is nothing more than taking free will to the negative extreme. Evil has no creator, including our Abba Father, but it is the price he had to pay for a Family worth having. Free will has no meaning if not being genuinely free to do horrible things. Very bad actions performed on purpose are called evil, transgressions, and iniquities. Our Abba Father had no other choice but to let “evil” play out in people’s lives until everyone had a chance to make their choice about him.
As believers, we should look at evil the same as ancient Hebrew does; it is actions, not a type of person. The “great tribulation” at the end time would be a good understanding of great evil. Just as Jezebel’s heart was hardened and irredeemable, I am sure many other people’s hearts are as well. But we do not have that discernment; only our Abba Father does. Many of my flock in prison have been evil doers, and our Abba Father washed that all away, so I keep going with my job in the Family business.
When it comes to evil in life, I always think of Job. I consider what happened to Job as great tribulation. An enormous tribulation was inflicted on him by the hasatan, the accuser. And our Abba Father sanctioned it. Let’s remember how it started in a Divine Council meeting. ELB skips over that story.
Job 1:8-12, “And Yahweh said unto hasatan, Hast thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and turneth away from evil. Then hasatan answered Yahweh and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath, on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will renounce thee to thy face. And Yahweh said unto hasatan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand. So hasatan went forth from the presence of Yahweh.”
Hasatan means “accuser.” Almost all translations say “Satan,” but I believe it cannot be Satan. I cannot imagine our Abba Father having the Job conversation with the nahas after Eden. Nahas was sentenced to live on its belly and is so different from hasatan, And our Abba Father accepts the challenge. Job1:12, “And Yahweh said unto hasatan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thy hand. So hasatan went forth from the presence of Yahweh.”
What keeps us from emulating Job in our lives at the same close relationship level with our Abba Father is a weak view of our Abba Father in ELB. I see the hasatan in Job calling our Abba Father a liar. I also see all of God’s children riding on the outcome. Our Abba Father prevailed, as always. But please understand that our Abba father did not restore Job until Job realized that his claims of great righteousness were invalid; grace restored him. Please pray on that.
Genesis 15 is about Abraham, asked to sacrifice his son. He was asked directly by our Abba Father. Abraham obeyed, and we accept Abraham’s faith as the gold standard. Genesis 15:6, “And he believed in Yahweh, and he reckoned it to him for righteousness.”
But Job suffered significant loss and great pain. And really bad preaching (pastors like to skip over that part). All of which our Abba Father explained. Our Abba Father explained himself to Job in great detail. There is suffering in this world (tribulation), be it from natural diseases and disasters, wild animals, or other humans, because our Abba Father designed it that way. The only assumption left to make is that it serves our Abba Father’s purpose. And that is the only answer we will ever get from Scripture. Eternal life in paradise with our Abba Father is our future life, and it leaves all thoughts of evil behind. Our reborn life here is part way there, do not miss its benefits by ignoring it in weak faith.
Repelling the Dark
Our job in the Family business begins with pushing the Dark away and out of our lives. We can’t kill the Dark or any part of it, and we can’t defeat the Dark; it grows worse to the end. All we can do is push it out of our lives and help others do the same in our job. It is part of life in this world until the end.
And it keeps growing until the end when we can’t take it anymore in the time of great tribulation. That is why I believe there is a new awakening from our Abba Father to bring us closer to him. Our life is under attack, and we need to up our game.
We will see in Daniel the Dark coming at us from people in the New World Order closing in on us. We can see the Dark coming at us from people in our government. We can see the Dark coming at us from our neighbors. And we can see the Dark coming at us from the Dark itself, the spirit enemy and criminals. In other words, we see the Dark working against us in many people, including ourselves.
As members of the Family, we must “put our oxygen mask on first,” as the airlines say. As members of the Family, we must first push the enemy out of our lives. I have also used the metaphor that this life is like a “hard-hat deep sea diver” in a protective suit and submerged in a hostile world with an air hose (Holy Spirit) connected to the source of life, our Abba Father. In the real world, which is coming after us, our protective suit is the full armor given to us in Ephesians 6.
One day I was driving to a prison where they keep inmates deemed a waste of food and only allow experienced people to be in the yard with them. I was putting on the full armor of God in the car, piece by piece, and praying on each piece. When done, I felt so invincible I was tempted to pull into the oncoming lane to test it. Instead, I let the armor repel that temptation.
The armor in Ephesians 6 is a faith builder. With incarcerated people, putting on the armor is essential and central to my “do not fight” program. There is so much joy, peace, and glory with our Abba Father in his divine spirit world that too many believers miss in ELB. It breaks my heart to see it.
Despite the armor, evil impacts our life when we step into the world to fight the enemy. We cannot glorify our Abba Father in a bunker; we have a job to do in the Family. We can cleanse ourselves and love our neighbors, but the world will still hurt us in many ways. That is when we turn to our Abba Father and our Family for strength, healing, and recovery.
If we see ourselves in ELB just living this life, the best we can do is get relief from some of the pain. As a member of the Family of our Abba Father doing our job, we are restored to a place of joy, peace, and glory and can’t wait to get back out there. Please pray on that.
The devil
In the New Testament, the devil’s presence is quite clear. Mathew 4:1, “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit (Holy Spirit) into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil (diabolou).” The Greek “diabolou” means to thrust, falsely accuse, or slander. Jesus’ encounter with the devil seems like a replay of Genesis 3 with the “new Adam” and the new outcome. Please pray on that.
Revelation 12:9, “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the Devil (diabolou) and Satan (satanas), who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” That verse ties the devil and the Eden serpent or snake, the “nahas,” together, revealing his army of angels and conflating Satan and the devil. It makes sense that Jesus would throw down with the leader of the Dark to start Jesus’ work, so the moniker “devil” makes sense, not because of what diabolou means but who it is.
My issue with the devil is not him. I wonder if the translated references to him in the Old Testament are the “devil” because that weakens our view of the divine spirit world by minimizing it. The conflation of the divine spirit’s work with our Abba Father into Satan in English translation weakens our awareness of our Abba Father’s use of his divine spirit world in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the battle is on!
But the New Testament only puts the devil in Eden and does it after the Apostles are dead. The Apostles knew the Old Testament but did not use it to explain the devil or Satan. They took him for granted in their lives, and we must also embrace him as fully at work on us. ELB does not make that clear, so we do not defend ourselves. Psychology does not embrace the devil at all. Driving him out of our lives works; I see it and do it often, exactly as Jesus did, “get away from me Satan.” I always add “in the power of Jesus in me” to be as strong as possible. In jails and prisons, that is a powerful tool (of faith).
Let’s look at how real the devil is in the New Testament. Mark 4:15, the parable of sowing the seeds, “And these are they (the seeds) by the way side, where the word is sown; and when they have heard, straightway cometh Satan, and taketh away the word which hath been sown in them.” Luke 22:3, “And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.” Acts 5:3, “But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the price of the land?”
2 Corinthians 11:13-15 references Satan and includes our ability to act deceitfully on our own, “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”
The devil is not established in the Old Testament, and my point is to expand our view when meanings are not crystal clear instead of shrinking our view in ELB. Too many scholars and preachers feel the need to interpret beyond what is possible to know, and that is ELB. My faith is boosted by the mysteries, not weakened.
The narrative starts in Genesis 3:1, “Now the serpent (nahas) was more subtle than any beast of the field which Yahweh God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye, shall not eat of any tree of the garden?”
The initial sin of Adam and the woman (she wasn’t Eve yet) is called “the Fall” and is considered the start of the world turning bad. But it isn’t; that is ELB. The talking, cunning nahas who provoked them in Eden was the real “Fall.” The nahas rebelled against our Abba Father of his free will before Adam, and he tempted the woman. But ELB wants all the focus on us and away from the divine spirit world.
The word nahas is the Hebrew word for the talking, cunning tempter in Eden. It is translated as a serpent or snake and also means shining one, none of which is an indicator of his future. Although the “shining one” is never used, it helps connect him to Ezekiel and Isaiah. He was “more cunning (arum) than any beast . . .” The other six uses of “arum” translate as “prudent.” Neither word is sinful on its own.
The actions of the nahas in Genesis 3 and the diabolou in Mathew 4:1 are quite similar, and they tell us they are the same divine spirit. We do not think of beasts as having much cognitive ability, so Genesis 3:1 is a strange comparison that remains strange to me to this day. It isolates the nahas, so I do not project him as other divine spirit beings referenced. And being more cunning than all the beasts does not make him a beast.
Look at Genesis after the Fall, 3:14-15, “And Yahweh God said unto the serpent (nahas) Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
Enmity is bad blood, a feud, perhaps hatred, that our Abba Father put between us and the nahas. ELB does not teach that attitude toward the enemy. Instead, we ignore him at our own peril. The war is on, ordained by our Abba Father. “He shall bruise your head” is also translated as “crush,” which means to destroy the nahas.
The reference to the nahas “seed” must be the humans who follow him, similar to our adopted nature into our Abba Father’s Family. The NKJV and several other translations capitalize her “Seed.” I don’t know how “her Seed” was known to be Jesus then. That appears to be New Testament information applied to the Old Testament in translation. That would be ELB. 1 John 3:8, “he that doeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” There is no question the devil is essential, do not ignore it.
Ezekiel 28:11-19 is an exciting passage. The “word of Yahweh” tells Ezekiel to address the king of Tyre, but it can only be the nahas in the king. “Moreover the word of Yahweh came unto me (Ezekiel), saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, (a possed king) and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord Yahweh: Thou sealest up the sum (Thou are the seal of perfection), full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou wast in Eden, the garden of God (the king of Tyre was not in Eden, the nahas was); every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: (these are shiny gemstones, a meaning of nahas) the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was in thee; in the day that thou wast created they were prepared. Thou wast the anointed cherub that covereth (a being very close to our Abba Father): and I set thee, so that thou wast upon the holy mountain of God (Mt. Sinai were Eden was); thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till unrighteousness was found in thee.”
“By the abundance of thy traffic they filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore have I cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God; and I have destroyed thee (remember, this is a vision of the future), O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I have cast thee to the ground; I have laid thee before kings, that they may behold thee. By the multitude of thine iniquities, in the unrighteousness of thy traffic, thou hast profaned thy sanctuaries; therefore have I brought forth a fire from the midst of thee; it hath devoured thee, and I have turned thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the peoples shall be astonished at thee: thou art become a terror, and thou shalt nevermore have any being.“
Ezekiel 28 explains why so many angels followed the nahas into rebellion. He has impressive credentials. The message from Ezekiel is a lamentation, a sorrowful cry from our Abba Father. He is not dispassionate about the problem. Ezekiel’s message is delivered to and through the king of Tyre, a pagan ruler. It starts speaking to the human king but transitions in verse 12 to speaking to the nahas. If we embrace the divine spirit world, it is easy to understand that Ezekiel is talking about and to the nahas after verse 12, who is the power behind the king.
Also, notice the covering of precious stones on the nahas. One of the meanings of nahas is “shining one” like precious stones, and it is not clear that “serpent” is a complete translation in Genesis 3. But what nahas means precisely is only one of the critical questions. What he does and how we respond is what matters.
Isaiah 14:12-14 has a similar reference in the context of the king of Babylon, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star (helel), son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations! And thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”
The nahas has grand ambitions. The Hebrew word “helel” means “shining one,” which also connects to Ezekiel and the nahas in Genesis. Some translate helel as “Lucifer,” a Latin word with no place in an English translation except to humanize him. It is likely left over from the Vulgate, the 4th-century Latin translation used in the Holy Roman Empire. I am not willing to give the enemy the respect of the Latin name Lucifer.
Adam and the woman wanted to feel good. They already had dominion over the good earth. The nahas wanted to challenge our Abba Father and rule the heavens and the earth. That is not an equal fight for us, and to what I attribute our “laissez faire” attitude toward both faith and the Dark.
It is very easy for believers to ignore in ELB what is happening between our Abba Father and the devil. Most are just as cavalier about ELB in our government, which is an excellent motivation for us to start engaging with it on our Abba Father’s side. Until a believer gets serious about our job in our Abba Father’s plan and Family, this life will be lukewarm at best. Remember what Jesus said to the lukewarm church in Laodicea. Revelation 3:16, “So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.” The lukewarm are far less likely to repent. Please pray on that and raise your faith.
Adam and the woman were the first victims, not just the first sinners. They did not have the tools they needed to resist. But why is nahas even there in our Abba Father’s paradise? That is a far bigger question than who or what he is. ELB does not answer that question, yet it is fundamental to our faith and relationship with our Abba Father.
Only when we embrace the supernatural divine spirit world can we begin to understand that the nahas is not the only divine spirit with free will and rebellion in mind; the Dark is much more than the nahas.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4, “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.“
Please notice, “the god of this age . . .” Also, please notice, “hath blinded, (those) who do not believe . . .” The spirit war is not just about cunning talkers and us. The nahas, “the god of this age . . .” has some power over non-believers, which overlaps with weak faith. This life is a battle to the death between our Abba Father and the nahas, and humans are the prize. ELB would have us close our eyes and focus on this life with our Abba Father as an accessory.
But that is not our Abba Father’s plan. As members of his Family, citizens of Heaven, and connected with the Holy Spirit, the enemy must back away from us when ordered. We can keep him out of our lives and away from us as citizens of Heaven.
That leaves the government, criminals, neighbors, and strangers to deal with. We can win our neighbors with love and our government with participation and godly votes. Strangers and criminals keep ELB growing over time, and the Revelation clearly states they make it to the one-inch line where they run into five words in the Scripture, “fire rained down from heaven,” and no one ever asks again; why does God allow evil to exist. He doesn’t. The issue is his timing and purpose.
It is not our job to condemn people; it is our job to protect our families with faith and be people others see and say, “wow, I want what they have!” In this context, we also deal with sicknesses, accidents, natural disasters, and criminals. We have a relationship that transcends earth life with eternity in paradise and a job to do, a job that brings enormous joy, peace, and glory. Please pray on that.
The hasatan
Another divine spirit thread in the Old Testament, “hasatan,” is conflated with the devil, Satan. We must examine it and open our minds toward the divine spirit world because it differs from the nahas/diabolou/Satan. The Hebrew word “hasatan” means “the accuser” or “the adversary.” Its use is similar to referring to “the soldier” or “the cook,” a generic reference to someone doing something.
We see hasatan in the divine council presentation. Job 1:6-7, “Now it came to pass on the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan (hasatan) also came among them. And Yahweh said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.“
Almost all English translations say the proper name “Satan,” which I do not believe is supported and minimizes the divine spirit world. The Expanded Bible 2011 translation covers all the bases with “the Accuser” or “the Adversary”; either the Devil or a member of God’s heavenly court.” I believe “a member of God’s heavenly court” best serves the Scripture, not Satan.
The events where we see hasatan are too closely related to our Abba Father, and we need to be cautious about who he is. The hasatan inflicts incredible damage on Job, including taking life. That seems more like the plagues on the Pharoah with the angel of death. Look at two other appearances in the Old Testament.
Zechariah 3:1-2, “And he showed me Yahweh the high priest standing before the angel of Yahweh, and Satan (hasatan) standing at his right hand to be his adversary. And Yahweh said unto Satan, Yahweh rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, Yahweh that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”
1 Chronicles 21:1-2, “And Satan (hasatan) stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. And David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, Go, number Israel from Beer-sheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them.“
Here we see hasatan actually “move” David to sin. That is not the style of the nahas. Our Abba Father cursed the nahas and made it crawl on its belly. Even as a metaphor for being lowly, I do not see our Abba Father doing what he did in Genesis to the nahas and working with him as if nothing happened as hasatan. The hasatan seems more like a divine council member with some attitude, as seen in Job, than a cursed, belly-crawling serpent. Please pray on that.
Demons
The subject of demons is complicated because of their Old Testament association with the dead and ancient language issues in general. While not intellectually perfect, the word demon works for us because we know it to mean divine spirit beings helping the enemy, which is the world we are trying to become more aware of.
Demons seem different from other divine spirit beings because they seem to reside in humans. Mathew 12:22, “Then was brought unto him one possessed with a demon, blind and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the dumb man spake and saw.” The most common reference to demons is casting them out. Mathew 10:7-8, “And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons: freely ye received, freely give.”
In several of my cases, people experienced terrible dreams, voices, and headaches. Blaming the enemy and calling the demons out in the name of Jesus works. It can take repetition, but it works. It doesn’t matter if it is a demon, an evil spirit, an impure spirit, an unclean spirit, or a deceiving spirit; I say, “enemy get out of my head, out of my space, out of my house, in the name and power of Jesus in me, be gone!” James 4:7, ”Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
Acts 16:16-18, “And it came to pass, as we were going to the place of prayer, that a certain maid having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. The same following after Paul and us cried out, saying, These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim unto you the way of salvation. And this she did for many days. But Paul, being sore troubled, turned and said to the spirit, I charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour.” Every believer needs this arrow in their quiver.
My experience is that psychology does not teach us about demons, and biblical counseling is also weak about them. That is ELB. What matters is where they come from and what to do with them. I understand that we call on Jesus in us, and it works to rid them from the room, the house, the cell, and whatever the environment.
James 2:19, “Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well: the demons also believe, and shudder.” Matthew 10:1, “And he called unto him his twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of disease and all manner of sickness.”
Total Depravity
There is also the issue of total depravity in our Abba Father’s creation. There are people throughout history that are so depraved that even thinking about them causes us to turn away. When our Abba Father told Israel to kill every living being in the Promised Land, there is a reason that can only be explained by looking into the divine spirit world and the bene elohiym’s role in it, especially in Genesis 6:1-4 leading to the flood.
Genesis 5 informs us of the first genealogy, and the narrative leaps 1,600+ years from Cain to total depravity in Genesis 6. But we jump over the first four verses of Genesis 6:1-4, “nothing to see here” in ELB! So let’s see, “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose. And Yahweh said, My Spirit shall not strive with man for ever, for that he also is flesh: yet shall his days be a hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.”
The bene elohiym mating with the human woman is the most likely explanation of the total depravity that led to our Abba Father’s anguish and the Great Flood. Genesis 6:5-6, “And Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented Yahweh that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
Genesis 6:5-6 connect the wickedness of humans to the events of the bene elohiym of Genesis 6:1-4. Few believers have ever heard this message or the verses in the study. I see the devil realizing he cannot kill everyone himself and motivates his spirit friends to pollute the human world into depravity. It is hard to imagine humans alone could have achieved that condition.
The supernatural view of Genesis 6 was the norm for Israel. Two passages in the New Testament can only refer to Genesis 6:1-4. Look at 2 Peter 2:4-6, “For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; . . . “
Jude 5-6, “Now I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things once for all, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”
The angels in Jude seem to be the bene elohiym, the sons of God, who mated with the earthly women resulting in giants full of evil. But a well-known church father in the 2nd century decided that the church was not ready for the supernatural world and pushed the narrative of the sons of God to human beings. I do not reveal who because it doesn’t matter. The 16th-century Reformation did not emphasize the divine spirit world; it established independent churches outside the church-state system.
The Nephilim and Giants
This subject is an extension of Total Depravity and seems to take us deep in the weeds, but it is essential to our understanding of the divine spirit world. Genesis 6:4 NKJV, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.” The Nephilim were there after the flood, and there is no reference to Noah’s descendants having anything to do with them, so that leaves the bene elohiym, the sons of God, at work after the flood.
The giants played a role in the Exodus. Deuteronomy 2:9-12, “And Yahweh said unto me, Vex not Moab, neither contend with them in battle; for I will not give thee of his land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession. (The Emim dwelt therein aforetime, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim: these also are accounted Rephaim, as the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim. The Horites also dwelt in Seir aforetime, but the children of Esau succeeded them; and they destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which Yahweh gave unto them).”
Deuteronomy 9:1-3, “Hear, O Israel: thou art to pass over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the sons of Anak? Know therefore this day, that Yahweh thy God is he who goeth over before thee as a devouring fire; he will destroy them, and he will bring them down before thee: so shalt thou drive them out, and make them to perish quickly, as Yahweh hath spoken unto thee.”
That is why Israel marched forty years in the desert. The spies with Joshua and Caleb report in Numbers 13:33, “And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” Israel turned on our Abba Father because of the giants and refused to trust him to deliver the Promised Land.
Conclusion
We close this chapter with Revelation 12:12, “Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe for the earth and for the sea: because the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time.” The heavens rejoice because the nahas is gone. That means he caused problems in the heavens beforehand. The Scripture has little to say about the devil’s damage in heaven. The details are not essential, but every tidbit helps grow our faith.
Still, Daniel 8:13-14 has an interesting verse, “Then I (Daniel) heard a holy one speaking . . . “How long will the vision be concerning . . . the giving of both the sanctuary and the host to be trampled underfoot?” And he said to me, “For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.”
That verse refers to the heavenly Temple (sanctuary), which needed cleansing. That means something was going on in heaven that was not godly. We dig deep into that in S6M2, but it points to trouble existing in heaven and earth.
Here on earth, “Woe for the earth and for the sea” is our tribulation presented earlier in S3M6. The source of the pain is the devil, the nahas, and his associates in both worlds. The pain of tribulation is the price of free will, and our Abba Father is the relief. ELB strives to minimize our relief by minimizing the supernatural divine spirit world of the nahas and our Abba Father.
We have two solutions for the ELB world we live in. First, we push back on the nahas and his army. Second, we lift our lives into our Abba Father’s Family and our citizenship in heaven. We need to do both. Our job in the Family business is to help others come to our Abba Father for relief. We must know that we must push back and glorify our Abba Father. The nahas was in Eden because it served our Abba Father’s purpose. It is our job to help turn that into good. Please pray on that.
