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Posted on 09/28/2014 2:49:18 PM PDT by NYer
THE DEVIL, OUR ancient enemy, really exists. Jesus talked about him a lot. The Catechism emphasizes the reality of this fallen angel, who is interested in interfering with the adventure of love we are called to live:
Evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God. The devil is the one who ‘throws himself across’ God’s plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ. (CCC, 2851)
And the devil knows the truth…that God is faithful, that divine grace will never fail us. The devil knows that he cannot obstruct the flow of God’s grace at its source. He can, however, clog up the channels by which we normally receive that grace. He can confuse and distract the minds and hearts to which God’s grace is directed, turning us into bad receivers, bad cooperators, irresponsible partners. This is his strategy.
Enemies of Our Spiritual Growth
And our ancient enemy has powerful allies: the fallen world (all the corrupting and wounding influences that come from the proliferation of sin in human society and culture) and our fallen human nature (our own internal divisions and insecurities that make us vulnerable to temptation). Because of these, we have built-in tendencies that continually nudge us away from God’s grace and disturb the spiritual docility needed for that grace to be fruitful in our lives. St. John refers to these negative influences when he warns the early Christians:
Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world.” (1 John 2:15–16)
The fallen world in which we live—though good in its essence because it was created by God—can be a snare for us fallen human beings. This is why the Church has never ceased to remind us that the spiritual life is, at least in part, also a spiritual combat:
Therefore man is split within himself. As a result, all of human life, whether individual or collective, shows itself to be a dramatic struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness… The whole of man’s history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battle- field man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, aided by God’s grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity.*
An Interior Battle
This spiritual combat doesn’t happen with guns and swords and tanks and missiles. It takes place much more subtly, often invisibly, in the intimate arena of human freedom. It has to do with our daily choices, whether large or small. It has to do with how we use the gift of free will that we have received.
God, as well as our better self, wants us to use that freedom to choose, step after step, the path of union and friendship with Christ, the path of abundant life, the path of obedience to his wise and loving plan for the human family: “I came sp that they might have life and have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd” (John 10:10–11).
Our enemy and our fallen nature, on the other hand, want us to use our free will in order to choose a different path, a path strewn with false promises (that we can somehow be fulfilled without God, for instance) and false ideas about God and ourselves (we are unloveable, God is untrustworthy, holiness is beyond our reach, it’s not worth trying anymore, etc.).
This path often appears to offer easier and quicker access to happiness, but in fact it leads to interior disintegration and emptiness, because the devil is “a murderer…a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44, RSV) and because sin always has evil consequences: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23, RSV).
Spiritual combat is the ongoing battle between these contrary forces: Which will we choose to follow? St. Peter sums it up vividly in his first letter.
Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith…
The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory through Christ [Jesus] will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you have suffered a little. (1 Peter 5:8–10)
Sometimes our choices are stark and obvious, as when the Israelites abandoned God in the wilderness by worshipping the golden calf, or when David laid his life on the line by going out to face Goliath.
Yet, although some individual choices may be stark, the process by which we make those choices is complex. We arrive at big-decision moments with a predisposition for self-giving or self-centeredness, for docility or resistance to God’s action in our lives. The gradual formation of that pre-disposition is the real, day-to-day spiritual battleground. The predisposition is built up from many little, seemingly insignificant choices that gradually fill in our spiritual profile: choices about how we spend our time; whom we befriend; what we say and how we say it; and how we react to unforeseen opportunities, difficulties, or temptations.
Through the exercise of our free will in the little choices we make, we are either furthering Christ’s kingdom and growing in spiritual maturity, or we are inhibiting that kingdom and stunting our spiritual growth. As Jesus put it:
The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trust- worthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. (Luke 16:10)
Small Battles Prepare Us for Bigger Battles
Jesus illustrated the relationship between the many small choices that pre- pare us for bigger decisions by using a construction image. He likened the spiritual life to the construction of a house. We build gradually, through choices in or out of harmony with his wisdom. Then comes a storm, a stark choice, a big decision, a decisive temptation. Our response to the storm is conditioned by all the small choices that went into building up our spiritual edifice:
Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who lis- tens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined. (Matthew 7:24–27)
Spiritual Responsibility
Before he became bishop and then pope, St. John Paul II was known for his wise advice in the confessional. But he was also known for the delicate respect he showed to those who came to confession. After helping them sort through their confusion and their trouble, and after identifying some possible next steps, he would always say, “But now it is up to you; you must choose.”
* Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, 13, 27. 23
The Devil is real. I saw him. He was on TV with a teleprompter. Okay, maybe it wasn’t, The Devil, but if it wasn’t, he played one on TV.
Satan has the biggest role in Daniel’s 70th week.
He indwells the “Man of Sin” and sets out to thin the herd of those alive at Yeshua’s second coming by tempting them with “the mark of the beast.”
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>> “You make the choice which team you are on. Even if you pick the losers, eventually you will realize your mistake and like the tax collectors and prostitutes you can be redeemed.” <<
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Pipe dream!
Yeshua said that “few” would find his narrow gate.
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That should be:
II Peter 1:19; Revelation 2:28 Morning Star
At least in the RSV
>> “Obviously he gave this position up with his defection.” <<
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Not so!
There is nothing in the scriptures that makes such a statement.
He still has full access to the throne of Yehova, and will until the midpoint in Daniel’s 70th week, at which point he will be cast out of the throne room, and will indwell the “Man of Sin,” beginning Satan’s 3.5 year Tribulation of the Saints.
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The RSV had Day Star
Isaiah 14
12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
Read more: http://www.ewtn.com/ewtn/bible/search_bible.asp#ixzz3EezULnNo
1. Yes.
2. God’s not done with the current creation yet. Or extending mercy to his creatures. (The ones capable of receiving it, anyway. I’m pretty sure Satan’s hosed.)
God, being omniscient, knows everything that will ever happen, but His knowledge of our future actions has no influence on those actions.
I believe God ‘allows’ Satan because he loves you. He wants you to love Him. In order for you to love Him you must have free will to chose. If He decreed that you love Him, there would be no love, only compunction. As Screwtape said, God can only woo, never complel. He allows you to chose if you will love Him. I would admonish that you Love the Lord with all of you heart, mind, soul, body, and spirit, because while you were in sin (rebellion against God), He still loved you.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer
http://biblehub.com/isaiah/14-12.htm
All versions on one page including cross references.
For something that will give this conversation an interesting spin, checkout Revelation 22:16.
I believe God ‘allows’ Satan because he loves you. He wants you to love Him. In order for you to love Him you must have free will to chose. If He decreed that you love Him, there would be no love, only compunction. As Screwtape said, God can only woo, never complel. He allows you to chose if you will love Him. I would admonish that you Love the Lord with all of you heart, mind, soul, body, and spirit, because while you were in sin (rebellion against God), He still loved you.
The question needs to be expanded on. The Catholic church has, over centuries, composed demonologies filled with information about the devil, but also those he considered his peers, and many of their subordinates.
So focusing on just the devil is like focusing on just Adolf Hitler. While they have evil power in their own right, their greater power comes from their legions.
However, it is unwise to think that their singular focus is mankind, because many of them are indifferent to man. Instead their primary conflict continues to be with God and his angels.
“Pipe dream!
Yeshua said that “few” would find his narrow gate.”
Matthew 7:
6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.
Ask, Search, Knock
7 “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10 Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
The Golden Rule
12 “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.
The Narrow Gate
13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy[d] that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. 14 For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
These are all very true statements. However, If you ask, it will be given. Yes, the gate is narrow but when you ask, the guidance is given to go through the gate. The problem is, I cannot give you the secrets as you must go within and find them yourself. Scripture must not be taken out of context. It is a good policy to always read the entire chapter when you look up a scripture.
The more you focus on following our Teacher, the easier it is to find your way through the gate.
I once met an old man who I recognized by his glow that he had been through the gate. We chatted a few moments and he stated that he never went through the Dark-Night of the -Soul that many refer to as the journey to find the narrow gate. I knew he was a truthful man and had no reason to lie to me.
When I read his soul it became obvious. He was a minister who totally lived his life serving God by serving others. He had created an individual identity based upon being a “servant to God” and as such did not have to go through the hell of diminishing self to find the entrance to the gate.
The gate was wide open for him and he just sailed right through. That however, is very rare.
In order to pass through the gate, you must be “whole.” and you can only be whole by finding and removing all obstacles to Love that exist within your soul. If you are not whole, you will be turned back to do more work. On this I speak from personal experience as I had a lot of work to do to clean my house.
“you Love the Lord with all of you heart, mind, soul, body, and spirit,”
Bingo.... that is the first and most important commandment as that is how you find your way through the narrow gate.... with God as your beacon.
Reminds me of the story about the sea catfish in the wet well of the wise old fisherman ... he eats one or two during the long voyages, but it keeps the others moving thus they arrive to shore in better shape.
I rather doubt it. We can't definitively confirm or deny this so the point is moot. However logically Satan has been unmasked with the crucifixion of Christ and any sympathy for his cause has been lost by the rest of creation. Any standing for an audience should have been revoked by this act but that is merely my opinion.
If it was to be our only choice to love and obey God, how could we choose it? Choices have consequences, and the warnings are there.
Choose well my FRiends.
>>> I think you are the one who is mistaken in their “thinking” that God didn’t know what would happen.
Having foreknowledge that Lucifer would rebel, and creating him anyway is NOT creating him to do evil.
God also had the foreknowledge that Adam and Eve would sin, and He still created them. By creating them anyway, He also went forward with His plans to create you.
The question then is why? and more specifically, where does sin actually come from?
Sin certainly does not come from God, because He is perfectly Holy and incapable of evil.
Sin itself is a natural byproduct of imperfection... and by imperfection, I mean “Not God”. While all things are possible with God, God is by definition incapable of self replication... because He always was with no beginning.
Obviously, God’s plan from the beginning was to go forward with creation KNOWING that imperfection would result in sin which would have to be dealt with and separated to end up with a final universe of beings where sin itself was defeated forever.
The only way that imperfect beings can be made perfect is to somehow be “grafted in” to the creator Himself. I’m not suggesting that this involves “being God” or even being “like God’, but rather attached to Him in such a way that we become incorruptible. Such a condition obviously limits one’s “free will” to some extent which itself must be a choice we make ourselves. Such a choice can only come from love... sort of like the commitment which a man and woman makes in marriage. When God instituted the practice of marriage, does it not make sense that He was trying to show us something?
Giving creation a choice to sin or submit invariably means that some will choose the former.
Without the choice in that matter, the love that is required to make the choice FOR God is not possible.
Without those who choose sin (fallen angels), there is no example or life experience to learn from for those who will choose God’s free gift of salvation.
In short, it is my position (right or wrong) that God ALLOWS evil for the benefit of those who will Choose Him.
And that is why God gave His One, True, Church the Sacrament of Confession. Do you take advantage of this Sacrament?
Satan is here to give us a choice. Without him and that choice, we are no different than the Angels.
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