In this message we continue our meditations upon the great drama portrayed by the Sign of Scorpio, the conflict between the "Mighty Man" and the "Scorpion" and the struggle between the great and powerful Orphiuchus (the serpent-holder) and the Serpent. It shows this mighty man struggling with a giant Serpent, trying to keep him from accomplishing what he is attempting to do. The Serpent is putting forth a mighty effort to reach up and grasp the CROWN which is situated immediately over the Serpent's head. The strong man, Orphiuchus, is restraining the Serpent while crushing the Scorpion! It is interesting to stand in the still darkness of the early morning and watch the breaking of the dawn: first the gray streaks in the East, and then the brighter light, until the full-orbed sun ascends above the horizon. There is a sunrise with its dawn like that in the Bible. The foregleam begins with the promise in the curse upon the Serpent, that the seed of the woman should bruise the Serpent's head. It grows brighter as God calls Abraham and covenants to make of him a great and holy nation, who should bless all the nations of earth. We see it in the miracles and authority exhibited by Moses as he challenges the tyranny of Pharaoh and by a mighty hand leads the children of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt. We see it in the conquest of the promised land, in the victories of God's people over the pagan nations and kingdoms entrenched in that theatre. We see it in the prophetic reign of king David and the peace, glory and dominion of Solomon's expanded kingdom. We see it in the ministry of Jesus, whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good, healing all that were sick, casting out devils with a word, raising the dead and proclaiming the Kingdom of God in the midst of men.

The disciples were greatly perplexed when Jesus died. But then He arose the conquering Christ! The fact of the Christ's resurrection is historic. The man who disputes it disputes the best established fact in history. He was seen by those who had despaired of His existence. He ate with them. He drank with them. He walked with them in a bloodless body. He talked to the despondent and broken-hearted apostles, the eleven, for nearly forty days. It was impossible to be deceived. He spoke, and was seen and heard on one occasion by five hundred, the most of whom were living at the time that Paul made the declaration that they knew Christ and had seen Him after His resurrection. He proved His resurrection by telling them that if they would go to Jerusalem and enter into an upper room, and wait for the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit's power would come. The promised outpouring took place. Christ went up and the Holy Ghost came down. They saw Him go and they saw Him come. It shook the place where they were sitting. The divine earthquake shook Jerusalem. It shook Israel. It shook the Roman Empire until it fell, to rise no more. It shook the world. The Spirit's power came. The Christ returned in mighty Spirit-power. He who IS the Truth came again as the Spirit of Truth. He came as an indwelling Life. Men who were weak became strong. Men who were wicked murderers and devils were transformed into men of virtue and power with God. Men who were illogical became great and mighty reasoners. Men who were feeble stood up, and in their spiritual majesty tower today over all the men of their time. All history substantiates the claim. Every philosopher and potentate of their time had to recognize them so that Peter, Paul, James, John, and many of their successors, became the mightiest Powers even in a heathen Empire.

The day had dawned, the shadows were fleeing away, darkness dispelled. We would but deceive ourselves were we to conclude that the conflict of the ages between Orphiuchus and the Serpent, between Christ and Satan, between truth and error, between light and darkness, between righteousness and unrighteousness, between life and death has ended. The second thousand years is drawing to a close since Jesus came, died, conquered death, and poured out His life-giving Spirit and, blessed be His name! He pursues His mission still and reigns in majesty over His Kingdom by entering into these temples of clay, and filling our spirits and souls and bodies with His own eternal presence and power, making us one with Him, members of His very own body, of His flesh, of His bone, and of His blood. He is redeeming a vast company of sons into whom He is putting His mighty Spirit, inworking His glorious mind and nature, inscribing upon the heart His Law of Life. And the hour is wonderfully nigh at hand when there shall be a further transformation, the bodies of His elect sons shall be changed in likeness unto His body of glory as this mortal puts on immortality and this corruptible puts on incorruption, so that we, who were destined from the beginning to be the revelation of HIMSELF to creation may complete His mighty work for the redemption of humanity.

A new day has dawned! Thank God, a few of His chosen ones have arisen to behold the dawn and to drink in the intoxicating freshness of the morn. A new age has arrived. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things axe passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said. Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And He said unto me. It is done" (Rev. 21: 4-6). Blessed promises of a mighty deliverance, which we even now begin to see fulfilled. The time has come for the nations to hear the voice of the Son of God and live. There shall be a glorious victory as the head of that ancient Serpent is crushed and he goes not out any more to deceive the nations. The un-deceiving of the nations means a new mentality, new understanding, new thought processes, the unveiling of the truth about all things in the minds of the vast multitudes of earth. What anticipation this evokes in our hearts! "And it shall come to pass, that...all the nations...shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles" (Zech. 14: 16). "And the nations.. .shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it... and there shall be no more curse." (Rev. 21:24; 22:3).

HIS MAJESTY THE DEVIL

Down through the centuries many books have been written, many songs have been sung, many sermons have been preached, and many things have been said about the Devil.  Satan has been blamed for everything from ingrown toenails to the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle.  It pains me to say it, but to most Christians Satan is their GOD ALMIGHTY, for they fear him more than they do the Lord of glory.  I do not believe, as the above title suggests, that Satan is worthy of one iota of respect or honor, but none can deny that the vast majority of Christians certainly do, by word and action, ascribe to him the attribute of omnipotence.  Most professed Christians do not believe in ONE GOD -- they honor at least two, one good God and one evil God.  And to hear them articulating their esteem of these Gods you would be led to believe that the Devil is certainly the more accomplished and the most powerful of the two, for they talk far more about the Devil, and spend more time lauding his praises, ascribing to his negative realm dread of mammoth proportions.  Some continually worry that he is lurking around every corner, and when they least expect it he is going to hit them from behind with everything he has.  The average testimony meeting is full of praises for the Devil.  If a score were kept, the Devil would come out the winner by about two to one over the Christ, relative to what has been done.  I heard the story once of this certain minister who dreamed one night that on his way down the road he met the Devil.  "Alright, you old Devil," he shouted, "I am going to kill you and put and end to you for all those nasty things you've been doing. I am going to let you have it, you old Devil!" As he drew near to the Devil with fists clenched, ready to smash the Devil's face, the Devil said, "Hold it! Don't do that! Remember — if you kill me, you will have nothing to preach about." What a word!

The good God, according to the common testimony of church goers, is ever trying to do this and that, while the Devil is continually interfering with His plans, frustrating His purposes, usurping His instruments and defeating the issue. On some good days the good God wins, on some bad days He loses. They go about continually talking to the Devil, praying to the Devil (though they call it commanding and rebuking), and give place to him over and over again. They "bind" him in this meeting or in that situation, but, like Samson breaking the cords of Delilah, he bounces right back in full regalia at the next meeting or occasion. These "devil-worshippers" ever beat the air against him and do occasionally, they claim, win a battle against him, but the war rages on. If they do not get an immediate answer to their prayer, they are sure the Devil is hindering. If everything does not go according to plan, the Devil is interfering. If obstacles appear along the way, the Devil is fighting them. The outcome of this battle exceeds the ludicrous —it is a terrible blasphemy. Not only are most Christians constantly defeated in their spiritual life, but they actually consign to the Devil the final victory in God's creation. The majority is thoroughly convinced that in the end the Devil wins at least 90% of humanity and carries them down with him into everlasting damnation and hell-fire. The picture drawn is of a frustrated God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to be its Saviour, but alas! only a handful of the teeming billions of earth can be persuaded to take advantage of His gracious provision, the rest led captive by the ruthless and unrelenting grasp of the Devil. The bad God is thus far more effective in his designs for mankind than the good God. I long with intense longing that the Lord's precious people will repent of ever having believed the insipid and useless traditions that make the almighty God seem to be a victim of the will of His own creation. It is my opinion that most of the theology of the Christian world is stupid prattle that seeks to render the almighty God impotent by robbing Him of His omnipotence. It teaches that God gave His Son that all the world through Him might be saved and then renders His sacrifice hopeless by leaving ninety-nine percent of all His creatures in the hands of the Devil for all eternity. In this view God finally gives up, throws up His hands in defeat, and says, "I've had enough!" He then turns the billions of souls over to the Devil, consigning them all to banishment from His presence into the unending torments of fiery damnation. The fact is, precious friend of mine, a scene such as this would be comparable to the President of a country handing the masses of his nation over to the enemy as punishment because his General lost the war— while he (God), his General (Jesus) and the army (the saints) are rewarded with peace, wealth and pleasure forevermore. Everyone becomes a prisoner, burning forever in torment, EXCEPT THE ONES WHO HAD THE RESPONSIBILITY OF WINNING THE WAR! I tell you solemnly and reverently that the God I serve is not the author of this kind of nonsense. Such a doctrine as that belittles the power and wisdom of God and does despite to the spirit of grace, the atoning work of Christ, and the precious blood that He shed so that the world through Him might be saved. Such a doctrine as that is, undoubtedly, one of the "doctrines of devils" of which Paul warned. I say that because I cannot think of anyone outside of the Devil himself who would be happy with the prospect that Calvary was such a colossal failure! But the preachers, including some who profess to be in the "Kingdom Message," would lay down their lives for such an abominable heresy!

I say to all who read these lines that OUR GOD IS SOVEREIGN AND OMNIPOTENT. If ever there will come victory over the negative realm, the adversary, it will be when we come to KNOW THAT GOD IS GOD, AND THERE I-S N-0 0-T-H-E-R GOD. He is sovereignly in control of all that touches our life, and of the march of history and the final outcome for all creation. The nations know not this God, nor do the professing Christians in the church systems know Him. So the Lord almighty within must bring forth those who can be His witnesses — people who have come to experientially KNOW THAT HE, and HE ALONE I-S GOD. Those whose very lives convey the message and bear the evidence that there is but ONE GOD. We have had enough of the world's stupid witness, those who believe in a God for good, and another God for evil, and oft limes it is not clear which "GOD" they are declaring, especially when they spend more time exalting the prowess of the Devil than they do proclaiming the praises of their Creator and Redeemer. Let all men know — God is even now producing His witnesses WHO KNOW that HE alone is God, that HE controls the interplay between good and evil, that all is by HIS design and at HIS word, and the evidence of this reality is demonstrated by their lives. Once Christ truly and experientially becomes LORD OF ALL IN YOU, then He will have abolished for you all Devil-consciousness and HE will be both the Center and the Circumference of your reality. In that day, my beloved, for you, THERE IS NO DEVIL ANYMORE!

I do not wonder sometimes that those who only read my writing think that I am a hard and vindictive man, especially as I warn men of the error and abominable apostasy of the nominal church systems. But if you only knew, I am one of the most peaceable and gentle men in the world. I am a very quiet man (except in the pulpit!), and believe that I am merciful and compassionate toward every sinner, I have only been a fighter because I had to fight. Was Jesus Christ not a great fighter? Is He not a great fighter still? And is He not the Prince of Peace? Is He not God's Lion, the Lion of the tribe of Judah? And is He not the Lamb of God? God's Lion is a Lamb! God's Lamb is a Lion! I call God to witness and you to witness that when I have been called upon to fight — for whom have I fought?' I fought for God. I fought for Truth. I fought for reality. I fought against the false shepherds who were taking away the key of knowledge, who entered not in themselves, and them that were entering in they hindered. I fought those who withstood the right ways of the Lord, deceiving the people and holding them in bondage to slavish forms of empty religion and superstitious conceptions of God. Stephen fought the devils in the Jewish system to their very faces although he knew he would die. He saw his Master in the heavens. Do you sec your Master in the heavens? Do you see that the only Reality is that which emanates from the Christ-Spirit Do you know Him within, in the depths of your being? Do you hear His voice? Do you know what He wants you to do? He wants you to follow in His steps, to BECOME HIS SALVATION unto the ends of the earth. He wants you to grasp hold of life, and deliver His creation from sin, sorrow, death, hell and the demonic power which curses this world. The peace of God means war with sin. He that is a friend of evil is the enemy of God. This is the kind of peace Jesus left He made warriors of men. They went forth to fight the world and the Devil, in Greece and Rome, with thirty thousand gods. They marched up the Acropolis; they marched upon the Parthenon; they threw down the altars of the boni dei, they threw down the altars of Venus; they destroyed the altars of Jove, They demolished the altars of Mercury. They smashed them, by the Spirit's power, with the sword of TRUTH they trampled upon them; they triumphed and brought in a dimension of the kingdom of God.

Oh, that is such a sublime verse where Jesus said, "ALL AUTHORITY is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations..." (Mat. 28: 18-19). Do you see that? There is a tremendous power in that "Therefore," I am with you. I will back you. Every angel in heaven if needful will come forth and surround you. Fight! What does it matter, the puny governments and armies and courts of THIS WORLD? All authority is given to the Christ of God, and we are the members of God's Christ! The hosts of God will troop over all the skies, ten thousand times ten thousand millions, if need be. Embrace TRUTH! Speak TRUTH! Live TRUTH! "I COMMAND...Go ye therefore, you poor fishermen, and tax-gatherers and discredited rabbis, go, I am with you." If only we realized what power there is behind us! 

God is raising up a SONSHIP COMPANY that will go for the Devil's fortresses, to batter him, shatter him and break up his kingdom. God is even now preparing an army of OVERCOMING ONES, transformed in the spirit of their mind, triumphing over sin, error, limitation and death, who shall go forth in the power of the SPIRIT to pull down the strongholds of creed and ritual and religious foolishness and ignorance and set the captives free; who will beat down the strongholds of miss-conceptions, miss-information, miss-understanding — sin and death — and let the prisoners go free! Satan is not a God like unto the Lord my God. He does not interfere with God's purposes nor frustrate God's plans. ALL AUTHORITY is given to the Christ of God — in heaven and in earth! How much authority is "ALL" authority? I shall fight that battle against the lies of religion and for the supremacy of the Christ while there is a drop of blood in my body. I shall claim that every foot of this earth and every man upon this earth and under the earth belongs to Christ, for He made the earth and He made every man. He tasted death for every man, and therefore, every foot of the earth; and every man on the earth and under the earth belongs to Christ my Lord. They are His by right of creation and they are His by right of redemption. No Devil anywhere can gainsay that fact. I claim for His this great and universal Kingdom. The church has forgotten that Christ came to establish a Kingdom and that it must break in pieces and CONSUME (take into itself) every other kingdom including the Devil's kingdom. The Gospel which Christ preached was the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. The hope and aim of all His work was the establishment of the Kingdom of God. When the end shall come, He shall deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, and in it will be everything God created, that God may be ALL-IN-ALL. We who preach this Gospel of the all-inclusive redemption of Christ preach not a Gospel of limited atonement, nor of a partial Kingdom, nor of a Christ who was a failure, nor of a Devil who wins the battle for souls and possesses the souls of untold billions throughout an endless eternity. Such a doctrine would be blasphemy! We preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and of the triumph of that Kingdom in every realm. We demand that every man upon this God's earth, and under the earth, and in heaven and hell and throughout the universe, shall bow the knee and glorify God by calling Jesus Lord and serving and obeying Him with a willing heart. God shall grant it. If it takes ages upon ages, God shall grant it!

 We must have it! We shall fight it out to the end, and we will win. The Christ in us shall win. Sin shall be abolished. Disease, death, pain, and hell shall pass away. This victory must be fully accomplished in the firstfruits first. The Day is at hand. Then, 0 Christ, and then alone, wilt Thou see the travail of Thy soul and be satisfied. Then, 0 Christ, and then alone, can we be satisfied; when the last rebel has bowed at Thy feel, and there is no more Fight; for there is no more Devil anywhere. Hallelujah! God shall reign forever, the reality of creation! It is a living hope; this hope that, at last, every poor sinner will have heard the glad sound, and that at last every poor spirit in earth and heaven and hell will bow before the Christ, and will own His sway, and there shall be harmony and peace and unity everywhere, for God shall be All in All. That is my hope.

Yes, my friend, there is a Devil — but the Devil of orthodox Christianity is but an invention of the imagination of man. What people say about the Devil and the testimony of scripture about him are two altogether different things. Well did the apostle warn, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils" (I Tim. 4: 1). "Doctrines of devils" does not mean necessarily doctrines spawned by devils, rather, doctrines about devils. The theologians and saints of the middle ages spent aching hours working out the shapes, sizes and special responsibilities of the various demons that Satan commanded. There was even a demon called Ukobach, who was credited with the invention of fried food! Many of the contemporary teachings on demonology are straight out this Dark Ages superstition. The whole system of demonology which came to us from medieval times had its origin in the idea of animism which influenced the thinking of the pagans in early history. They believed that all nature was commanded and controlled by invisible spirits upon whose capricious whims all events relied. Life in those ancient times was a constant struggle with the elements over which men had no control. The unpredictable behavior of the sea, periods of drought or storm, the appearance of volcanoes and the titantic upheaval of earthquakes were all viewed with awe and fear. All these phenomena, benevolent or destructive in turn, were gradually seen to be under the control of spirnot "just happen"! The reason some have held the view that Satan was originally an angel is because it seems to relieve God of the responsibility for evil and sin in the world. When they are asked whether a good God created a bad Devil, they can reply: "No, He did not create the Devil; He created a beautiful and powerful angel who later became the Devil!" This sounds good on the surface, but when the searchlight of the spirit of wisdom and revelation from God shines in our hearts, this line of reasoning is seen to be but shallow inductions of the natural mind.

How COULD an all-wise and holy God create an evil Devil? Our reply to that is another question: If God, all-wise and all-knowing, created a being and designed within this being the inherent ability and potential to become evil — a will capable of rebelling against Him — and if in His omniscience He knew beforehand that this creature would become evil, is God then any LESS responsible for the Devil? If, on the other hand, we say that God created a holy being and did not know he would become evil, then God is not omniscient and the Devil got a step ahead of God! If the Devil could do something back there that was outside of God's plan,, which God did not know he would do, then HOW CAN WE BE SURE HE MIGHT NOT PULL A FAST ONE ON GOD AGAIN! Ah, beloved, such carnal reasoning is an affront to the majesty of the Most High God! Is it any less thinkable that God would create an evil one than to suppose that He would create a holy one with the God-given ability to become evil? In either case, there is absolutely no way to absolve GOD from the responsibility for the existence of the Devil!

That "all things are of God" is declared again and again in the Bible. Did not the Lord say to Pharaoh, that man of rebellion against all that was of God, "Even for this same purpose have I RAISED THEE UP, that I might show My power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth." (Rom. 9: 17). The infinite wisdom of God's mind cannot be searched out by these puny little heads of ours. We must discard our childish theology and bring our minds into harmony with the mind of Christ. We must begin to peer through the mighty telescope of God's wisdom as it looks through the vast universe of good and evil until heavenly light bursts with blazing brilliance upon our inquiring spirits and we see with crystal clear vision that God is in all things, and is responsible for all things, including the so-called evil things as well as the good things. Is it not a fearful thing to say that evil is of God? There is nothing fearful about this view unless the TRUTH be fearful! I would not be surprised if some of the compatriots of the prophet Amos may have thought he was speaking blasphemy when by the Holy Spirit he said, "Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and THE LORD HATH NOT DONE IT?" (Amos 3: 6). There are untold millions of Christians who do not like to believe that A-L-L- T-H-I-N-G-S A-R-E O-F G-O-D — including evil. They much prefer to believe, as the harlot system has taught them, that in the beginning God made everything "perfect," then one of the "perfect" angels made himself into the Devil, and proceeded to wreck the works of God's hands, so degrading God's beautiful and perfect creation until the Lord Almighty Himself was hard put to the test to discover some way to restore the creation from the clutches of the Devil. And after six long and tortuous milleniums of conflict and struggle, contest and effort, the battle still rages on year after year and generation after generation, the Devil out-foxing God at times, and God getting the upper hand eventually. Childish prattle! Vain imaginations! Carnal-minded stupidity!

Why, oh why can men not believe the simple, unvarnished Word of God." Ah — we have God's own Word for it — His positive statement that HE CREATES EVIL. "That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that THERE IS NONE BESIDE ME. I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil. I THE LORD DO ALL OF THESE THINGS" (Isa. 45: 7). God creates evil! It cannot be! But here it is in the Word. What will you do with it, beloved ? "We must explain it somehow," the fundamentalist says, "surely it doesn't mean that God creates evil, sin, sinners) devils, or wrongdoing — it must mean that He creates physical evil — famines, pestilences, hurricanes, tornadoes, forest fires, floods, calamities, judgments, etc. which God sends upon mankind as punishment for their wickedness." Not so! The word here for evil is the Hebrew word RA which is used throughout the Old Testament to denote wickedness, sin and wrongdoing. In some five hundred passages it is so used!

As soon as this significant truth dawns upon your enlightened consciousness, the knowledge of WHENCE CAME THE SERPENT will speedily follow. The Word of God is certain and unmistakable. The record is clear and unequivocal. The Holy Spirit emphatically declares, "Now the Serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which THE LORD GOD HAD MADE" (Gen. 3: 1). Two things are here revealed: the nature of the Serpent is a beastly nature — and GOD MADE HIM! Suppose that instead of trying to explain this passage in harmony with some cut-and-dried creed, we let all creeds go and wait upon the Spirit of the Lord to give understanding of what the passage really means. Then, if the creed does not harmonize with the light the Spirit brings, throw the creed away. At any rate, here is the statement in the Word and we will be brave enough to receive it as truth and trust the same One who spoke it to explain it. "The Serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which THE LORD GOD HAD MADE." These words deserve volumes of explanation, but can you not see that they are filled with the spirit of revelation? God made the Serpent, God made him with a beastly nature, God made him subtle, God made him the Devil and Satan. God made him a murderer and a liar from the beginning! It is completely impossible for any man to truly know and love God until his spirit has been taught that before all things, through all things, in all things, and after all things is God, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, eternal, purposeful, and filled with righteousness, love, kindness, forgiveness and truth. He was before all things and BY HIM ALL THINGS CONSIST. There is no angel, principality, or power anywhere in all the endless vastnesses of infinity that does not hold his authority by direct appointment of God. In Him all men and angels and creatures live and move and have their being, for He fills all things. By Him and for Him and to Him are alt things. From Him everything comes, by Him everything exists, and in Him everything ends, bringing glory to God forever and forever, Amen.

The imagination that a thing can have its beginning in God, and then become something other than what God foresaw, purposed, intended, or planned for it is an absurd assertion that comes from the distorted mind and wild imagination of man and not a truth that comes from the omniscient mind of our heavenly Father, for OF HIM AND THROUGH HIM AND TO HIM, are all things; to HIM be glory forever and

Jesus declared of Satan, "The thief cometh not, but for the steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (Jn. 10: 10). Out of God's own mouth proceeds the assertion, "I have created the waster to destroy" (Isa. 54: 16). We gather from this passage that Satan is a created entity with a definite purpose. That purpose is revealed in the opening words of the above quoted verse: " I have created the smith (the Devil) that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that BRINGETH FORTH AN INSTRUMENT for his work." The "smith" that "bloweth upon the fire" is also the one who heats the furnace seven times hotter! "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery Mat which is to try you, as though some strange thing had happened unto you" (I Pet. 4: 12). Our trials and testings are associated in the Word of God with the ministry of Satan. You never thought of Satan having a ministry? "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted (tested) of the Devil. And when the Tempter came to Him, he said, If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread" (Mat. 4: 1-3). "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the Devil shall cast some of you into prison, No man can be declared strong until he has been tested for weakness. No man can be proven honest until he has been presented with the opportunity to steal or cheat. No man can be declared virtuous until faced with opportunities with women other than his wife. No man can be an overcomer until he has faced the dreadful foe. Those who are worthy to slay their Goliaths must First have slain their lion and their bear. No man can be an overcoming son of God until he has encountered THE SERPENT IN THE WILDERNESS and come forth victorious! Everything has its right and wrong, its truth and error, its good and bad, its proper use and its misuse, and the one must overcome the other. Sweet must overcome and swallow up bitter, smooth rough, soft hard. Life swallows up death, said Paul in II Cor. 5: 4; and it gets its strength from HAVING AN OPPOSITE WHICH IT HAS SWALLOWED UP. You cannot say a certain yes in a decision, until you have first canvassed the alternatives and said an equally certain no to each of them. The strength of the yes is swallowing up the nos! Not in having no nos, not in ignoring their existence, but in facing them and replacing them by the final yes. And here we have God's perfect wisdom in the formation of the human race and in bringing forth a convenient opposite, the wrong one, the evil one, THROUGH WHOM HE WOULD BRING HIS VAST FAMILY OF SONS TO MATURITY. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He OBEDIENCE by the things which He suffered"(Heb. 5: 8). "For it became Him. ..in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation PERFECT through sufferings" (Heb. 2: 10).

The Hebrew word for "satan" is used two ways, with the definite article, the satan, and without the article, The word "satan" simply means "adversary." There is no thought of monstrosity or evilness, but simply opposition. Thus the scriptures speak of "adversary," "an adversary," and "the adversary." It is that which is ADVERSE to ones well being, desires, plans, hopes, goals or causes, whether good or bad, real or imagined. Jesus told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Peter immediately rebuked Him and opposed His going to Jerusalem, saying, "Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto Thee." Jesus then turned and said to Peter, "Get thee behind Me, Satan.-thou art an offence unto Me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men" (Mat. 16: 21-23). Jesus knew from the law and the prophets what He must suffer. Peter unwittingly was trying to get Him to fail in fulfilling the prophecies and plan of God. Peter was opposing Him in His determination to carry out the mission the Father had given Him, and hence Peter was a satan (adversary, opposition) to the Lord. From the beginning there has been that which has stood in opposition to the life of the spirit in man, and has fully earned its reputation as the most adroit of adversaries. Paul describes it as the flesh warring against the spirit, the carnal mind that is enmity against God. It is the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience (offspring of old Adam). As a man once said, "We have met the enemy, and he IS US." Elwin Roach penned the following helpful explanation: "When the definite article 'the' is used with the word satan, this is not stating the devil's name but is saying this adversary is the chief adversary to whomever it is an adversary to. This is no doubt why the government of Iran calls the United States of America "THE GREAT SATAN";; for indeed, we are THE GREATEST ADVERSARY they have. We stand in the way of their desires, their goals and aspirations of tyranny. The United States of America is like the angel of the Lord, with a flaming sword in hand, who is adversely hindering their evil progress. Therefore, they can rightly say we are their Great Satan, but we are not the Satan that is fixed in the average Christian's mind" — end quote.

If there are those who feel that in these messages on The Serpent the picture I have painted exhibits the prevalence of the darker hues, I am so glad now to literally splash the canvas with flaming colors. And then in the light that the Spirit brings we will discern the true meaning of the momentary process, and the glory that follows. As one has written, "God is constructing a temple, made of living stones, through which to manifest Himself throughout the ages to come, and Satan was created as a chisel and hammer to be used in the construction of this building. The living stones that are even now being placed in this temple have been chosen, says the Lord, in the 'furnace of affliction' (Isa. 48: 10). God, however, is mercy; God is love; God is compassion. He 'is a healer, not a destroyer. It was, nonetheless, necessary that an oven be heated in which to purify the gold — a furnace in which the wood, hay, and stubble were to be burned — but God, in His nature of love, could not perform the necessary affliction. It was for this reason that He created an instrument that was capable of performing this essential action in the lives of men, for in Satan God literally created a chastening rod. If we can realize that behind the acts of Satan is the mighty hand of God working to bring forth gold from these earthen vessels, we can rejoice, as David, in our afflictions and trials and exclaim with him, It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes' (Ps. 119: 7). Praise God! When we begin to see the good that comes from the assaults of Satan on our lives, we are able to appreciate all the more the greatness of our God and the depth of the wisdom of His great mind. He is truly a God of might and power, and all things are in His hand — even this adversary whom we call the Devil" — Connie Asbill.

Ah, my beloved, the FORCE is necessary for growth, and to produce strength, stamina, and endurance. Any living thing that grows up without any opposition is weak and powerless. God's NEW CREATION must be strong and powerful, and anything that desires to be strong, or anyone, must wrestle with a force that is contrary to them. Any man who wants to develop muscular power to be strong, must spend weeks and months and years in vigorous training doing heavy exercises, lifting heavy weights, using the opposing force of gravity to develop his strength. A man who wants to be a great wrestler, doesn't just wrestle when he is in the ring. At his training center he has his wrestling partners with whom he wrestles by the hour. If he didn't do this he would be weak and powerless in the ring. A boxer has his punching bags and sparring partners, with whom he spends hours every day. Those opposing Jones are indispensable to develop strength and technique. A plant that grows in a greenhouse sheltered from the winds and rains, pampered day after day, may grow large, but it is inherently weak, and if suddenly exposed to the elements will wither and die. But a plant that is constantly exposed to the fierce winds and pounding rains, burning heat and chilling cold, is strong and not s no baby saint, for no one less than God Himself had given testimony that Job was a perfect and upright man, one that feared God and eschewed evil. God had blessed this man with great wealth and a large family. He had seven sons and three daughters. He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses. His household was very great with many hired servants so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east. The thing we want to note is that although Job was wealthy in temporal things, rich in spiritual things, and proclaimed perfect by the Lord Himself, he had not been "tried by fire" as sons of God must be — he was as yet UNTRIED, UNTESTED, and UNPROVEN. In the midst of Job's ordeal of affliction and suffering the spirit of prophecy came upon him and he opened his mouth and spake concerning the purpose of God in it all, declaring, "But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23: 10). Never do I cease to be amazed at how the preachers and teachers, apparently without exception, join their voices in unison with those of Job's contemptible comforters, indicting and blaming poor old Job, charging that God brought all these calamities upon him because he had sin in his life, or because he was self-righteous, or because of some other appalling fault in Job. The only reliable testimony we have of Job's true state of being is that spoken by the Lord Himself, and HE declared that Job was A PERFECT MAN! Perfect, yes; but untried! His perfection remained to be tested, proven and demonstrated. Now, what does God do but deliberately hand over this perfect and upright man into the hands of Satan to do his worst upon him, only that he should not touch his life. It was because that God desired to test Job that He brought forth "the smith to blow upon the fire." Please note that it was not Satan's idea to persecute poor old Job! Oh, no! It was God Himself who brought, up the subject! There Satan was, presenting himself before the Lord, appearing for duty, and God asked, "Where have you been?" Satan replied, "Walking up and down in the earth" (no mention of Job at all). "Well, Satan," the Lord asked, "have you considered My servant Job? Have you noticed that he eschews evil and fears God? Have you noticed that, Satan?" You can be assured, dear ones, that Satan had noticed Job, but he wasn't doing anything to him.

One of the most glorious testimonies of the preservation of the saints of God is given here in this passage by Satan himself. "Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast Thou not made a hedge around him and about his house and about all that he hath on every side?" Praise the Lord! Yes, there truly is a hedge around the people of God, and that hedge is Jesus Christ Himself. The Psalmist recognized and rejoiced in this fact when he said, "He that dwelleth 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 will I trust" (Ps. 91: 1-2). "You've put a hedge around him," Satan said, "and I can't get to him!" Then he went on to say, "You must put forth THINE HAND and touch all that he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face." But the Lord, who searcheth the reins and the heart, who knoweth them that are His, knows who can be trusted with affliction, and will not allow any to be tested beyond what they are able to bear. He therefore said to Satan, "Behold, all that he hath is in thy power — in thy hand — only upon himself put not forth thine hand." One can only know God by vital relationship to Him. Job KNEW God! Job knew in his deepest heart that God is good, loving, true, righteous, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable and faithful in all His way. At one point in his trial he exclaimed, "I KNOW that my Redeemer liveth. ...and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God," and again, " I KNOW that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee" (Job 19: 25-26; 42: 2). Being a perfect man Job understood the nature of God, he knew what God is like — how He is. Armed with this knowledge he was unshakable and unmovable as the hand of Satan moved against him. With lightning swiftness the misfortunes fell as tribulation and affliction smote this man of God. All hell broke loose upon him. His possessions were gone. His servants were gone. His cattle, his family, and his dwelling place were as though they had never been. And now he was desperately ill, tormented with pain, and without even a bed to sleep on he lies down in the ashes of what was once his beautiful home to listen to the relentless arguments of his friends, monotonously attempting by lengthy speeches to make a fool of him and prove that his present despair was the result of his own sin and disfavor with God. I do not know how many days their debate continued, but such miserable comforters as these are always at hand, ready to attest that those who have entered the furnace of affliction have been bad examples as Christians, unbelieving, unfaithful, or that they harbor secret sins and so are deserving of punishment. Unless the Lord Himself has convicted them of sin, or lack of faith, or of lack of understanding and applying the Laws of Life, sufferers should pay no attention whatever to them. "If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence before God" (1 Jn. 3: 21).

in one tragic day all Job's earthly wealth and glory had vanished as a mist before the rising sun. But did Job curse God for all this calamity? Did he even curse the Devil? Was he a fair weather saint without spiritual understanding? No, indeed! He rent his mantle, shaved his head, and falling upon the ground, he WORSHIPPED GOD with the unmistakable words of reverence, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: THE LORD GAVE, AND THE LORD HATH TAKEN AWAY; BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD!" (Job 1: 22). You see, beloved, all external evidence shouted aloud that God did not love Job, that God had forsaken him, that God did not see him, that God wasn't concerned about what happened to him, and that God wasn't just. It seemed that God had now revealed Himself to be the opposite of all Job had experienced and known of Him. But, praise God! Job knew God! He therefore knew that in spite of all the external evidence, in spite of how terrible and hopeless things appeared, God had not forsaken him, God did love him, God did see him, God was concerned about what happened to him, God was in control of everything, and God was just. Ah, this is faith — trusting God's goodness, wisdom and faithfulness in the knowledge that HE has everything in control, that ALL is according to HIS purpose, IN SPITE OF ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY! Faith declares with Job, "Though God slay me, yet will I trust Him," — and then after being slain — TRUSTS HIM! Job, stripped of all, tried by fire, tested in the furnace of affliction, found that the key to life is not some creed or doctrinal statement of what we believe about God, but that which we KNOW OF HIM by virtue of intimacy of fellowship and vital union with Him. "The trial of your faith is much more precious than gold that perisheth" (I Pet. 1: 7).

It all fits into the Divine economy, not in the sense that God wills evil, but in the sense that He appoints it for a purpose and unto a greater end and overrules it in the great disciplinary and instructive processes of redemption. He "turns the tables" on the Devil — the wrath of men, as the Psalmist puts it, is made to praise God. The flesh, the world, and the Devil for the final vindication of God's government have to be permitted to run their course. Most diseases do. Meanwhile the suffering caused and the immeasurable tragedies are designed to serve God's purposes. We see this, too, in the trials of Joseph carried into Egypt, yea in the passion and death of our Lord Himself. They say, "Thank you, Mr. Devil! for helping to make me a son of God." Surely this is the lesson learned by Job, and this is the lesson being learned by us as we see our earthly dependencies withering as grass before our eyes and passing away. The emphasis of many today in the "Sonship Message" is on life— gaining immortality for the body. That is indeed a glorious aspect of our inheritance as sons of God. But I do not hesitate to tell you that it is not enough! In fact, that message by itself is truth out of balance. It is not mere length of life we seek, but a quality of life— the nature of God! Should I today bypass the grave and carry with me into immortality the inherent weaknesses, faults, idiosyncrasies, passions, lusts, and flaws of character which have dogged my steps throughout my earthly sojourn I would still not be fit to reign as an overcomer over the nations and all things. Not only must we have life, we must have the nature of that life fully developed in us producing the image of God. And we will never reign until we have been thoroughly tested, tried and proven!

The New Testament abounds with this same truth. Did you notice how strangely Matthew and Mark speak of Christ's temptation? "And immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. " What a strange statement! The Holy Spirit of God drives the sinless Son of God into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan, the arch enemy of all righteousness, a murderer from the beginning, and the father of lies! Ah, but it was necessary for the Son to be PROVEN, to be STRONG, to demonstrate His ability to OVERCOME in these realms before entering into His glorious ministry and the death of the cross. Truly God creates evil and uses it, too, for His glory! The apostle fully understood this great truth and practiced it himself. He instructed the Corinthian believers to "deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (i.e., the flesh life), that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus," and he declares in his letter to Timothy that he himself has delivered certain brethren unto Satan "that they may learn not to blaspheme." But the apostle had experienced something of this kind of discipline also, for he says, "Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, THE MESSENGER OF SATAN TO BUFFET ME, lest I should be exalted above measure." All this dearly shows that Satan is a force created by God for a specific work, and even that work shall result in blessing for God's children and redound to the glory of God!

Since Jesus is the Pattern Son, all that happened to Him is the example for our lives. Jesus was being prepared to launch His ministry which was to declare that the Kingdom of God is at hand. But true Kingdom ministry requires that all His sons be proven before the authority and power of the Kingdom is trusted into their hands. We must know Who the Source of our life is, and Who is the King of the Kingdom of God. That with which Jesus was tempted in the first temptation in the wilderness was to turn the stones into bread. To turn stones into bread might have been a good idea. Jesus had fasted for forty days and was hungry. Bread was His immediate need. That in itself was not an evil desire — for He had no sooner come up out of the wilderness when He performed a miracle, his first miracle, of the very same nature. Instead of stones, it was water — and instead of bread it was wine — but, pray tell, what is the difference between turning stones into bread and turning water into wine? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING? The difference did not lie in the act: it lay in the motivation! The Father had not instructed Jesus to turn stones into bread. If Jesus had, therefore, yielded to the desire to do so, He would have set a dangerous precedent — He would have acted with a power entrusted Him by God to be used for God — but it would have been apart from the word of God because it would have come "by the will of man" rather than by the motivation of the Spirit of God. It was not a wrong desire — it was the wrong VOICE! The Father gave instruction for the miracle at Cana of Galilee, for Jesus said at another time that He never did anything unless His Father gave it to Him to do. Sons of God do nothing based on needs. If the directive comes from the wrong source, the whole act of meeting a need is wrong and will prove a futile effort at best. Man's religion is saturated with such good work!. Many ministries have been launched, attempting to turn stones into bread, but the vast majority of them have heard from the wrong voice. Good works coming from the wrong source bring forth a carnal thing without life. However, good works that originate from the mind of Christ will indeed be good, and will redound to the glory of God. Thus Jesus demonstrated a vital truth we all need to learn: THE SPIRIT MUST BE THE ONLY SOURCE OF OUR ACTIONS; HIS WILL MUST BECOME OUR WILL!

"For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil" (Heb. 2: 14). The word "destroy" does not mean to kill or annihilate, for we know God did not kill the Devil or annihilate him! Destroy, in the original, means "to bring to nought; render powerless; make of no effect" So — through death — the Lord Jesus BROUGHT SATAN TO NOUGHT, RENDERED HIM POWERLESS AND MADE HIM OF NO EFFECT. The Lord came and put upon Himself "the flesh," the body of sin," the "body of death," the "dust realm," the "man of earth," and BROUGHT IT TO THE CROSS that "through death (of the man of dust) He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil." When the flesh is crucified, when the dust of the carnal mind, the man of the earth is put to death on the cross SATAN'S GROUND IS DESTEROYED BENEATH HIM, his sphere of activity is removed, his base of operation is closed, he is rendered completely powerless and ineffective. Thus, it is by this death on the cross that Christ destroyed the Devil! When the Son of God came into the world, when He had been tested on every point and had overcome the adversary in all things, He uttered these significant words: "I will not talk with you much more, for the prince (evil genious, ruler) of the world is coining. And he has no claim on Me — he has nothing in common with Me, THERE IS NOTHING IN ME THAT BELONGS TO HIM, he has no power over Met" (Jn. 14: 30, Amplified). Ah, this is the glory of sonship — nothing in common with Satan! There was nothing in Jesus that corresponded to him and nothing that responded to him! None of the nature of Adam that pertains to Satan. So mighty was the indwelling life of the Father within Jesus that Satan had no power over Him, no place within Him. And, precious friend of mine, when you have died completely to that Adamic life, when there is none of the dust of Adam in you, SATAN WILL HAVE NO POWER OVER YOU, NO PLACE IN YOU. Satan's base of operation will have been destroyed, his sphere of activity removed. God destroys Satan by destroying (rendering inactive) YOUR FLESH.

Dear saints of God, don't believe for one moment that anything in all God's great universe is out of control! God IS GOD. There is NO OTHER GOD. Satan is NO GOD in his own right. Our God IS in full control of every sphere of activity, and the Serpent himself operates directly under the province of God. May the Holy Spirit illumine our minds to perceive the truth that Satan has no power at all except that which God delegates to him. Do you really believe that Satan could cause all the trouble in the world UNLESS GOD HAD ORDAINED IT? My friend, if you believe Satan is a problem to Almighty God, then your God is entirely too small! Satan is no thorn in God's side who made him in the first place, who binds his hands daily, who sets his boundaries and limits his power and marks his path. Oh, yes, those who would be sons of God must OVERCOME HIM. Beloved, when that purpose is accomplished, Satan will have completed his course as an instrument in the hand of God who has everything under control! Hallelujah!

There is only ONE GOD — not two. Yes, Satan is indeed "the god of this world," but those born from above are not of this world even as our Lord is not of this world. Satan enthroned in the temple of the carnal man is "a" god — not THE GOD. There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has ALL POWER, and our Lord Jesus Christ has ALL POWER in heaven and in earth, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God. Here me now and believe me now or later — G-0-D HAS N-0 ADVERSARY! Satan is not the adversary of God! That is a preposterous misconception of popular religion. God created the adversary for our perfection and testing — he is man's adversary, not GOD'S! The truth is so simple, so plain, a child of ten can understand a principle so apparent, while the learned doctors of theology step right over it and never see it. In relation to God there are no antagonistic powers nor laws, spiritual or material. Either there is no omnipotence, or omnipotence is the only power. Jesus Christ is OMNIPOTENT! He said so Himself. He that is in you IS GREATER than he that is in the world. He IS! Then if Jesus our Lord is Sovereign, and He is, He can do anything He pleases. He doesn't have a Devil that opposes His every move and binders everything He does. He doesn't have a Devil that is trying to take over His whole world that He has created as most people imagine. HE IS SOVEREIGN! UP IS OMNIPOTENT' "ALL POWER is given unto Me," He said All power is OMNIPOTENCE! He creates His own evil when evil is needed to form and fashion a subject or people or nation He is working on. God does have a NEGATIVE FORCE at work in His creation, a negative dimension of SPIRIT, the adversary of those being conformed into his image, the fiery furnace of refining, the rod of chastening, the sparring partner, the violent storm bending the tree to make it strong. Glory to God! The Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth! This is the glorious message of the Sign of Scorpio!