God is not directing the physical world

By Apostle Frederick K.C. Price

The following is an excerpt from Dr. Price's book Living in Hostile Territory.

The first thing we need to do if we want to be overcomers in Christ is to know our territory. We need to know where we live, who our enemy is, and how to keep the enemy from defeating us. Paul tells us in Colossians 1:10-13:

that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy;

giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

The word power in verse 13 refers to “dominion, rulership, domination, authority, or control." The word darkness is being used here symbolically. Of course, the opposite of darkness is light, and the Bible uses the word light when it refers to God and the things related to Him.

Notice, however, that Paul says God has delivered us from the power of darkness. Paul does not say God has delivered us from the presence of darkness. That presence is still around us. Unfortunately, the presence of darkness dominates the lives of too many Christians. They live in darkness, under the dominion of satanic forces.

People in the Church have allowed the presence of darkness to so dominate their lives that they blame God for all the calamities that take place. This is where people outside the Church got the idea that God kills people with plagues, diseases, earthquakes, and anything else imaginable. The heavenly Father does not have a thing to do with any of those calamities. We have blamed Him for causing those tragedies because of our not knowing the structure of the world, or who is in control of it.

Don’t misunderstand me. God is in control of His family. He is directing the Body of Christ. However, the Lord is not directing the physical world around us. If He is directing this world, something is definitely wrong.

Actually, the physical world is being directed by the power of darkness. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:1-4:

Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.

But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,

whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

Notice, Paul does not say "the God of all worlds," "the God of all the ages," or "God Almighty." He says, the god of this age. (The original King James Bible calls him "the god of this world.") The objective of this god is to blind the minds of those who have not yet believed on Jesus. That way, they cannot come into the knowledge of Jesus Christ by accepting Him as their personal Savior and Lord. That means the god of this age must not be God or Jesus.

The god of this age is actually the individual we read about in the first chapter of Colossians -- the power of darkness. He is the ruler of the darkness of this world.

In Ephesians 2:1-2, Paul adds the following:

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,

in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.

Notice, Paul does not say, "According to the course of God," but . . .  according to the course of this world. Notice also what he calls the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience. He calls that individual the prince of the power of the air.

The word prince is very interesting. In the Greek, it is the word archon, which means "ruler" or "dominator." The air has to do with the atmosphere around the earth. Satan and his demon hordes are in the whole atmosphere around us, and those demonic spirits are the ones causing all the confusion in the world.

How did this enemy become so powerful? Did God create him as the prince of the power of the air, or as the god of this world? No, not really. In Genesis 1:26, we have this statement:

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

The word dominion means "rulership, lordship, godship, controllership." God said, ". . .  and let them." Them is plural, so it refers to all the people God would ultimately create.

God made humankind to have dominion over all the earth, but people don’t have dominion over the world today. The world is actually dominating them. How did mankind lose its God-given authority?

What happened was that God made a man, Adam, and Adam became the leader of all humanity. I like to call him the federal head of the human race. God gave Adam one of the most important and priceless possessions a person can have -- the freedom of choice. He gave him the right to make up his own mind.

However, for Adam to have something on which to exercise his choice, God gave him a prohibition. He told Adam, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17). Adam now had a choice. He could obey God, or he could obey someone else.

Adam had the power of choice, and Satan had the ability to try to influence Adam. The Lord did not create Satan to be an evil spirit, nor did He create him for the specific task of tempting Adam. Satan is really an angel. God created him as Lucifer, the son of the morning. The Bible also refers to Lucifer as the bright star (not the “bright and morning star,” but the bright star), and the "anointed cherub who covers."

Lucifer was the most beautiful angel the Lord had ever made. However, Lucifer became lifted up in pride. He decided he was going to be equal with God and exalt his throne as high as the throne of God. He rebelled against the Lord, and as a result of that rebellion, Lucifer (whose name God changed to Satan) lost the estate that he originally had with God.

Satan decided he was going to get back at God. However, he realized he could not actually get back at the Lord directly, because the heavenly Father was more powerful than him. So he set up a program to try to usurp God's authority over the earth-realm.

Satan came into the garden of Eden disguised as a serpent and appealed to man's intellect. He came to cast doubt; that is always Satan's ploy. He will always try to get you to doubt God's Word. Satan tricked Adam and Eve into transgressing God's law and, as a result, they died spiritually, turning over the dominion of this world to the devil. At that point, Satan became the god of this world.

Why didn’t God take more dust of the earth and start over by making an individual who would do what He said? Because God no longer owned the dust of the earth. Satan had become the legal owner of the earth. The only way God could get back into the earth realm was by permission.

The way God got permission to re-enter the earth was by having someone invite Him here. That person turned out to be Abraham. God walked up to Abraham one day, and said (and I am paraphrasing), "I am Almighty God. Follow me, and I will make you the father of many nations" (Genesis 17:1, 4). Abraham fell on the ground and said, "What do you want me to do?" From that point, God was back in business, and it was through Abraham that Jesus came.
     
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