Thought for Today

We will conclude this brief series by looking at one of the scariest Scriptures I know, when it comes to spiritual warfare, of where someone can end up as it relates to the Grammys.

When the chief priests, officers of the Temple, and the elders came to arrest Jesus, Jesus told them, “While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on Me; but this hour and the power of darkness are yours" (Luke 22:53 NAU).

Think about that, the power of darkness belonged to them. We mustn’t forget that darkness has real power behind it, a power that is seductively cloaked as a type of freedom from rule and authority, a way to flaunt God. Think back to the first temptation, recorded in Genesis 3. Satan offered both equality with, and knowledge apart from, God. The offer was a partial truth: wisdom was gained, but that wisdom—a wisdom regarding evil—brought nothing but misery. Along with it came eternal separation from God—a lost relationship restored only through the work of Christ—the inability to do good, as well as deception and death.

As Jesus mentioned in Matthew 25:41, eternal fire was prepared for the devil and his angels, not humans. Sadly, as the result of our joining with Satan and his rebellion, that is where we now end up as well, again apart from salvation through Jesus Christ, of accepting his death in our behalf.

Anyway, that is the “power” that Sam Smith and Kim Petras were operating under and in, the power that lies behind them. It is a real power, but it also is a power that is ultimately deceitful and a lie, a power that hates even those who come under it, a power that has an absolute hatred towards God and Jesus Christ. Arguably, it is a power that also hates anything good, Christians specifically, and others in general.

It is a power that exalts self: think Satan’s five “I wills” with his “I will make myself like the Most High,” Isaiah 14:14 (NAU), at the top of the list. As already stated, it is a power that is rooted in, and brings, death. That is what was being celebrated during the singing of “Unholy”; that is what they were aligning themselves with. What was being broadcast was a celebration of death.

God will not be thwarted; see Psalm 2. Think about the two battles that take place at the end of the book of Revelation. First, Jesus speaks a few words and the might army allied with Satan is destroyed; the beast and false prophet are thrown into the lake of fire, and Satan is bound for 1,000 years. At the end of the 1,000 years, Satan is released. He then deceives the whole world, and rallies everyone against God. God in essence then says, “You’re done,” and wipes them out. No contest.

Barring God’s miraculous intervention in someone’s life—an intervention that occurs through Jesus Christ, when a person consciously decides to side with Satan, that person is signing his or her death warrant. That is a deliberate choice many are now making, a choice for death and destruction.

May God open eyes and bring people to a place of true repentance.