on Satan’s Game

It’s impossible to miss now.

I hear it in conversations. It’s plastered all over my Facebook news feed. And I feel it deep down in the frantic beating of my heart.

The word of the day is busy. So busy. My friends are; my family is; I am. Any given work day, hanging over my head like a dark little thundercloud are a thousand cluttered items on an ever-expanding to-do list. Have to work. Have to study. Have to finish assignments. Have to write paper. Have to change oil. Have to have to have to have to have to.

And it’s burning me out. Not just me, but everyone I talk to. Almost like a switch was flipped, a dial was turned, and now everything is moving at a speed just beyond the outer limits of our ability to keep pace with.

And there’s a reason.

It’s Satan’s game. He’s had millennia to practice, and he’s fiendishly good at it. It’s like being on a treadmill, except some unseen culprit keeps increasing the speed and steepening the incline. Not all at once, because you’d notice too quick—but gradually, degree by degree, until all at once you realize you’re charging up a mountain at full speed and about to collapse.

The fall Holy Day season began when the sun went down tonight. These days tell the story—the promise—of Christ’s return to Earth, of the binding of evil, of the establishment of God’s perfect government. They are the days that promise the victory of the children of God.

But they are also the days where a loud voice will cry out of heaven, “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time” (Revelation 12:12). This season represents a time when Satan’s days are literally numbered—when his final, fated defeat is at hand. And he will be furious.

Could there be a connection? These fall Holy Days will be fulfilled after the god of this present evil age lashes out at the followers of God with every device available to him, after a time of “great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21).

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, take heart. The Holy Days of our Lord God are upon us. They are not conjecture, not wishful thinking, but a certain guarantee written in the very blood of Christ. At that seventh trumpet, Christ will return.

It doesn’t matter how much Satan throws at us right now. He’s furious because he has already lost. His fate is certain. This world and the cares of it are passing. But if we can just soldier on through his attacks—if we will look to God for the strength to make it through these storms and keep our focus on His Kingdom, we’ll share in Paul’s understanding that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

We’re busy. Satan’s making sure of that. He wants us to be so deluged with legitimate responsibilities that we lose sight of what really, truly matters: our calling. Our crown. But we have these promises, that “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19), and “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

What we face is hard, but with God, it is not impossible. We must keep Him first. However little time we feel we have, He belongs in the forefront. It’s when we allow the cares of this life to overtake His position in our lives that we ourselves will be overtaken. “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:7-9).

Do you want to make it to the future that these days represent? Then there will be trials. But the trials you face, you can overcome—not because of your own strength, but because of God’s. Keep Him first in your life, and there isn’t an obstacle in this world that can stand before you.

Because here’s the thing: “neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

The most incredible future has been laid before you. The last thing Satan wants is for you to have anything to do with it, but it’s not his decision to make. He can’t take that calling from you, only distract you from it.

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Shabbat shalom and a joyous high day to you all.

Until next time,
Jeremy