Understanding God -10

Hello everyone,

Greetings to you in the Name of our Lord Jesus. We are pleased to send to you another instalment of our messages. We continue our focus on “Understanding Tribulation”, a fallout of our exploration on “The Place of Satan”, which, in turn, is a fallout of the sub-title “The Sovereignty of God” and our overall theme: “The Sovereignty of God”.

UNDERSTANDING GOD 10

In furtherance of our discuss on “The Sovereignty of God”, we have been considering the place of Satan in the scheme of things; how that he exists and operates only by God’s permission. This has led us to a focus on tribulation. In particular, we have sought to isolate the roles played by God, man and Satan in the tribulation ‘ring’. So far, we have explored different types of tribulation, namely tests of faith, temptations and persecutions. Presently, we are focusing on the fiery darts of the wicked.

(4) Fiery darts. This refers to flaming arrows of the enemy, implying that long after the weapon has been unleashed, the heart continues to simmer with the fire it has kindled. Ephesians 6:16 encourages us to use faith as a shield to “quench the fiery darts” or “flaming arrows” (N.I.V.) of the wicked. In what forms do these darts manifest?

*Anger. Jonah, for instance, was so angry, he wanted to die. Interestingly, his anger was directed at God. He said, “O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live”. The LORD replied, “Doest thou well to be angry?” (Jon.4:1-4). In Ephesians 4:26-27, we are warned: “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil”.
*Unforgiving spirit. In 2 Cor.2:10-11, Paul warns of the implications of an unforgiving spirit: “lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices”.
*Fear. We must learn how to quench the dart of fear “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim.1:7). Likewise, “perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love” (1 Jn.4:18).
*Discouragement, despair, depression, accusation, condemnation. From time to time, the devil takes advantage of our unpleasant experiences and floods our minds with wrong thoughts. We are filled with self pity and the wrong kind of regret (which has no constructive value). These are darts that must be quenched! Elijah was once at this point. On a given day, He was God’s man for the hour, calling down fire from Heaven, destroying 950 prophets of Baal and confirming God’s superiority over Baal and its worshippers. By the next day, the same man was on the run, only because Jezebel threatened. In addition, “he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life” (1 Ki.19:4).
Likewise, John the Baptist had his struggles. The same man that said of Jesus (while “the going was good”) “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” had cause to ask Jesus (when “the going was rough”) “Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?” (see Jn.1:29, Mat.11:2). Response to fiery darts? Quench them with the shield of faith.