(432) – THINGS OF THE DEVIL 1

1.  OPPRESSION: According to the New Testament Satan (or the devil) is the one who oppresses. The apostle Paul said: “How God anointed him [Jesus of Nazareth] with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). However Moses says: “Jehovah will strike you with the boil of Egypt, and with the tumors, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. Jehovah will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart; and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and robbed always, and there shall be none to save you” (Deut. 28:27-29).  All my life I believed that Satan was the oppressor of men, but Moses reveals that the God Jehovah oppresses, too. The prophet Amos declares on the part of Jehovah: “‘For, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, house of Israel,’ says Yahweh, the God of Armies; ‘and they will afflict you from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of the Arabah’” (Amos 6:14). Job prays to Jehovah, saying: “I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me. Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked?’” (Job 10:2-3). When it is the devil (or the demon) that oppresses, whom the oppressed will call for help? What a relief that Jehovah is not Jesus, nor the Father.

2.  DARKNESS: I always thought that darkness was associated with the demons and with Satan, for Paul says: “Giving thanks to the Father, who made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love” (Col. 1:12-13). And Paul tells us that Jesus delivered his people and sent them to preach the gospel to the gentiles, saying: “To open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). However, reading the Old Testament, I was horrified. Jehovah gave the law from the middle of the darkness (Deut. 4:11-12). And Moses repeats these words: “These words Jehovah spoke to all your assembly on the mountain out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. He wrote them on two tables of stone, and gave them to me. It happened, when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness”… (Deut. 5:22-23). And when Jehovah had finished to deliver the law Moses approached the darkness where Jehovah was (Ex. 20:21). The poor Job calls out in anguish, saying: “Know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net. Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice. He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths” (Job 19:6-8). Jehovah does evil and afterwards hides in the darkness (Ps. 18:11). The people of Israel, a people that Jehovah chose for his glory (Is. 43:7), dwelt in darkness (Is. 59:9-10). Satan is only an administrator of the darkness of Jehovah.

3.  Paul says: “Neither let us test the Lord, as some of them tested, and perished by the serpents. Neither grumble, as some of them also grumbled, and perished by the destroyer” (1 Cor. 10:9-10). Those who tried perished by the serpents, and those who grumbled perished by the destroyer. We are then compelled to understand that the destroyer is the devil, for Jesus says: “The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly” (John 10:10). What a surprise to read in the Old Testament of the curses of Jehovah (Deut. 28:15), where it says: “Jehovah will strike you with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with the sword, and with blight, and with mildew” (Deut. 28:22). “Therefore you shall serve your enemies whom Jehovah shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron on your neck, until he has destroyed you” (Deut. 28:48). “He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cling to you. Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, Jehovah will bring them on you, until you are destroyed” (Deut. 28:60-61). “It shall happen that as Jehovah rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so Jehovah will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and you shall be plucked from off the land where you go in to possess it” (Deut. 28:63).

And I thought that the destroyer was the devil. Jehovah was the one who destroyed the entire humanity in the flood (Gen. 6:7). Jehovah was the one who hardened Pharaoh so that he did not change his mind concerning the ten plagues (Ex. 4:20-21; 7:3; 10:1, 20,27; 11:10; 14,4,8,17). Jehovah hardened the heart of Pharaoh so many times, to kill the firstborn in the end, that it seemed as if Pharaoh were guilty. That was the theatrical performance of the criminal hatred. Jehovah set the stage for the destruction of the firstborn of Egypt (Ex. 12:23). 

We have an amazing situation in the Scriptures. Ahaziah, son of Ahab, began to rule in Israel and fell through the lattice of his upper room. He immediately sent messengers to ask of Baal Zebub, god of Ekron, whether he would be healed. Jehovah was offended by it and sent the prophet Elijah to say to him that he would not get healed, but he was surely going to die for having inquired of another god. Ahaziah sent a captain of fifty soldiers to bring the prophet, saying: Man of God, the king says to you: Come down. And Elijah answered, “‘If I am a man of God, let fire come down from the sky, and consume you and your fifty!’ Fire came down from the sky, and consumed him and his fifty”. The king sent another company and another captain who said as the first one had said. Elijah reacted in the exact same way. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed the captain and his fifty men (2 Kings 1:1-12). Nine hundred years later Jesus was going up to Jerusalem and sent his disciples to a village of Samaritans in order to prepare a place for him to rest. However, the Samaritans did not receive him for his poor and insignificant appearance. Offended, James and John said: “‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from the sky, and destroy them, just as Elijah did? But he turned and rebuked them, ‘You don’t know of what kind of spirit you are. For the Son of Man didn’t come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them’” (Luke 9:51-56). 

This text proves that the spirit of Jehovah is not the spirit of Christ, and proves also that Jehovah is the destroyer of the souls of men. And it was Jesus who declared this truth.

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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