Luke 4:18-19: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Acts 10:38: “…how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”
I John 3:8: “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”
Eph. 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
The Lord created both the earth and man, good. Both have been seized by hostile, evil forces that are seeking to destroy both earth and man, and also God’s plan and design for time and eternity. The Cross of Christ has completely defeated Satan, all of his minions, and every work of the enemy. The church is now the means by which this defeat is to be enforced and all the powers of darkness subjugated to the will of God.
The “problem of evil” has two primary theological philosophies. The first is the classical view of God, the enemy and evil. An overview of this sees evil as a problem related to God’s providence and character. Augustine held this view, as well as many others throughout church history. The assumptions of this view are: 1. God is loving and good, and, 2. God sovereignly holds meticulous, micromanagement over the earth and all men. This view holds that although God is not the direct agent of evil and bad things, He is indirectly involved because He has some hidden purpose behind allowing this evil to happen.
The second view of evil is the warfare worldview. This base of this worldview assumes God is not in complete control of either man nor the earth, and evil forces are exercising themselves in direct opposition to His nature, desires, will and purposes. God is not exercising meticulous, exhaustive control over the world because when He gave dominion to man, He never took it back, nor could He. If He had stepped in after pronouncing the laws and rules governing the earth and its creatures, processes and purposes, apart from man who was given dominion, God would have been found to be a breaker of His own word and laws. Apart from cooperating humans, God has limited Himself from operating, and will not intervene apart from His people who love, obey and willingly cooperate with Him. This is the paradigm we see acted out in the life of the Lord Jesus and the early church.
The former classical view encourages an approach to evil that defines it as an intellectual problem to be solved, rather than an opponent to be defeated. We theologize about evil instead of waging war against it. What we see in the Lord Jesus and the New Testament church is not a people intellectually baffled by evil, but those who are spiritually empowered to engage, defeat and vanquish it. To wage an effectual warfare, all evil must be understood as something that is unequivocally against God and God is unequivocally against it.
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To find out more about Lionheart Restoration Ministries and The Prayer Furnace of East TN, visit us at:
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To find out more about Lionheart Restoration Ministries and The Prayer Furnace of East TN, visit us at:
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