This will conclude the study of the portals to man’s soul. There are many more things that can be said about these openings into our minds, but we will leave that for another time.
You are born into a hostile world. Your mother was born into this same world, and her mother, and her mother, all the way back to Eve, your first mother. Eve was created and placed into a beautiful garden with plenty of food, and beauty, without any discomforts to her body, mind, or spirit whatsoever. Eve had no guilt, shame, nor condemnation, as she was as a child of innocence. Her spirit was designed to be able to communicate with her creator without going through the soul and the vocal cords. She just thought it, and she knew what God’s response was. Eve’s spirit communicated directly with God’s Spirit. This is the way that God made us, ‘in His likeness’ (He still can communicate this way with us today when we are Born Again). Then, Eve chose to disobey God, and obey Satan. Eve’s soul now knew the difference between good and evil, something she never knew before. She gave the fruit to Adam and he partakes also. As soon as they hear the purity of God’s voice, they hide themselves and their nakedness with fig leaves. There was no need to hide, nor any fear of their Creator, before their disobedience. They were very comfortable walking with God in the cool of the evening and being totally unaware of their lack of clothing. They were innocent children and God was Holy and Pure.
This is our first glimpse as to how the world should be. It should be Paradise, a garden of beauty and plenty, without strife or danger. Through one act of disobedience, the innocence was lost. It is just like watching your baby grow into a toddler, into a preschooler, into a school-age child, and all of a sudden there comes the day when you notice that they are not innocent anymore. They have heard and seen things at school that you have been trying to protect them from. From that point on, it is a battle, to help them to mature into an adult without the emotional trauma and stains of wrong choices. Adam and Eve now knew too much about evil and they could no longer stay in the environment that was created for children of innocence. They had to be taught how to take back their innocence while living in a world where everything was anything but innocent.
Outside the garden, they find that they are spiritually dead. God is not walking in the cool of the evening with them any longer. They do not enjoy the conversations with their Maker. They have to work and sweat for their food. They have to deal with tension in the family. Soon, hurt feelings, resentment, anger, wrath and murder, leaves Abel dead, Cain on the run, and Adam and Eve in sorrow. If they had just refused to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead, they are left with regret, guilt, shame, condemnation for their own disobedience, and now, aching hearts for the pain of their children.
Satan was cast out of heaven because of his pride, rebellion, and craftiness. He had a five point plan to be like God, which he shared with many of the angels. 1/3rd of the angels were deceived by Lucifer’s lies, and joined him in his plan to be God. God wasn’t impressed and cast them out of heaven.
Before Adam and Eve arrive, Satan is angry and creates chaos on planet Earth. God resets things in order, which makes Satan curious, so he hangs around to see what this is all about. Soon he sees God playing in the dirt, scooping hands-full of it, shaping it, and then breathing into it. The thing in God’s hands came to life, and Satan is taken aback, and knows that somehow he is in trouble. God puts this created being, Adam, to sleep, and brings forth another being, Eve. God then sets them in the garden, and Satan begins to understand what this is all about. God has just made his replacement! Satan is livid as he begins to understand that God is now going to be fellowshipping with this creature of dust.
Satan makes sure that he is in the garden as soon as God leaves. He has to do something about this new plan of God. He knows what he will do, as it worked in heaven with his angels, and these are creatures of dust. He pulls out his old deception and lies card and heads to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, as he sees Eve standing there. Why is Eve standing there? She is like the little child whom you just told they couldn’t play with their brother’s toy. The child just waits till the parent leaves the room and over to the toy they go. Eve’s conscience told her what God had said about the tree, so she just looked at it. Then she realizes that Satan is there beside her.
In Eve’s case, the portal to her soul was desire or lust for the forbidden fruit. Satan provided the encouragement. The more he encouraged, the more she desired. The imagination took the original idea or thought and attached lust or desire to it. The more she entertained this, the more she wanted the fruit. Finally she made the fatal decision to disobey God, and thus obey Satan, only she was convinced that she was just doing what she naturally felt good about doing. Satan’s mission accomplished.
The conscience of Eve was saying this is wrong, you shouldn’t be doing this. Eve silenced her conscience with her reasons for and against. The more she looked at the fruit, the more she felt affections toward it, the more affections she felt, the easier it became to make a decision to partake. She willed her hand to reach for the fruit, as she was blinded to the smile of Satan beside her. All she could think about, all she could see, all she could desire, was the taste of the forbidden fruit. Sound familiar? It should, for even the Apostle Paul wrote about his battle to resist his flesh and natural mind, in order to be able to walk by the Spirit of God.
I John 2:16 NIV “For everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the Father but from the world.”
It is the same battle for the souls of man today as it was in the Garden of Eden. Satan still uses the same trump card he used on Eve, deception and lies. It works on the three areas of man, the flesh and the mind, which are fed by the temptations of the eyes.
The flesh desires the natural man to pamper his appetites, or his indulgences of the mere animal propensities. This is the lowest form of our being. We are created as lower than the angels, but higher than the animals. When we live just for the flesh, as an animal, then we are settling for less than we were created for by God.
The eyes are made to behold the beauty of God’s creation and to give Him praise for His unlimited creative power. When we use the eyes to desire the created more than the Creator, then we miss what the eyes were created for. They eyes were not created to desire God’s creation for selfish purposes. The obsessive desire for any object, without an understanding of the temporary nature of the object, and our need to give thanks to the Creator for that object, misses the mark. Eve desired the fruit without regard for her Maker.
The pride of life refers to boasting, arrogance, or the ostentatious display of dress, or any possessions. Pride goes against piety and humbly acknowledging God as the source of all blessings, and even our very breath of life each morning.
So we have this body, soul, and spirit, called a human being. The spirit was designed to be able to speak directly with the Spirit of God, without means of the vocal cords. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Romans 8:14 The soul is comprised of the will, intellect, and emotions. The imaginations, reasons, affections, are also part of the soul. Thoughts are powerful, which when spoken become even more powerful. If you take a thought and attach an affection to it, then attach some reasoning to it, then attach the imagination to envision the various ways to fulfill this desire, it won’t be long before you find yourself saying it and doing it. James 1:14 NLT says that “Temptation comes from our desires, which entice us and drag us away.”
We need to guard the eyes. Job said he made a covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully at a woman. We need to guard the heart or the soul, for out of it are the issues of life, expressing itself through our tongues in blessing or cursing, life or death. We need to guard our bodies, for they are the temples of God and His Holy Spirit. Whatever we allow our bodies to do and partake of outside of God’s Word will always result in God’s displeasure.
Paul said the only way that he was able to bring his body into subjection to his spirit, filled with God’s Holy Spirit, was through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into his human spirit.
Any word or thought that you entertain can become a portal for Satan to encourage you toward sin. Paul said we need to bring every thought into captivity to make it obedient to the knowledge of Christ. If we entertain the thought long enough, we will attach affections to it, and then we will reason or argue why this can’t be wrong, as we proceed to imagine how good this is going to be when we make the decision to act. James says when we act on any thoughts in disagreement with God’s Word, by means of words or actions, it becomes sin. Satan is smiling like he was in the garden with Eve.
All around us are loved ones, friends, and total strangers, in all walks of life, who are living under bondage in some form or another. It wasn’t this way in the garden. It will not be this way during the Millennium or the New Earth. It is our present world, where we are living in a carnal body with a carnal mind desiring whatever our eyes desire to fulfill the desires of the flesh, while our spirits are asleep, and our consciences are seared as with a hot iron.
C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to raise a deaf world.”
Addictions to sex, food, possessions, sports, alcohol, nicotine, drugs, money, power, position, fame, and pleasure, are rampant in our world. We have more education, more technology, and more information at our fingertips than ever before, yet we are living like animals. Animals follow their instincts of what they feel at that moment. Sound familiar? Everything is relative today, if it feels good do it, and anyone who doesn’t like my choices doesn’t respect my personal freedom. No freedom is totally free. Are there laws you have to obey at school or at work or in your car? You are free only as long as you obey the laws and ethics of society. True freedom is surrendering our minds and souls to our Maker, and allow Him to give us freedom in our souls. A free soul is true freedom.
Emotional wounds that have never been dealt with through confession and healing, haunt our world, especially America. Divorce, and death of a loved one, are the two most traumatic events in a person’s life. Our country is filled with broken families, broken relationships, and broken lives. Where did it all start? It started with a hurt that was received from being done wrong. The wrong was never made right, and resentment grew into anger, into rebellion, and eventually into the death of the relationship. Just like Cain and Abel.
These all take place because we have removed God from our lives, and the lives of our children. We are an animal society, doing what is instinctively desirous at the moment, without shame or remorse. Just watch the nightly news, as some of our fellowmen stand before the judge and their victims. Many times there is no sign of a tear or a tone of apology. They repeat some emotionless phrase and accept their sentence, walking away convinced that they are the ones being done wrong.
This earth and its kingdoms were given to Satan, his fallen angels, and his demons, by the disobedience of Eve and Adam. God had given Adam authority over everything. It was his to rule. He had the legal title deed. If he and his wife had been obedient to God, they could have eaten of the tree of Life and lived forever in a Garden of Paradise, while spreading Paradise around the world. Instead, they gave their birthright away, just as Esau did, and now Satan has authority to rule this earth. Jesus had just fasted forty days without food, and he was hungry, when Satan showed up to offer Him the kingdoms of this world, in return for His worship. Satan craves for worship and obedience to be able to imitate God. He was the leader of worship in heaven. Any disobedience to God gives Satan his worship, and makes him feel like a god.
Satan constantly accuses us before God because of our sins. He hates mankind for replacing him and being able to live in heaven with God. Any thought or word or action that is contrary to God’s Will, he attacks. Those wrong thoughts, words, and actions, give the devil a legal right to accuse you before God. Because God is Holy and Just without sin, He has to allow Satan to have access to your body and soul. You just gave the devil a legal right, a choice of your free-will, and God will not override it. Do you see any broken bodies and minds around you?
Jesus came to shed His Blood to pay the ransom price for our sins. Satan hates Jesus Christ and His Blood. This is why he has attacked the Bible, God as the Creator of all things, Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and anyone who believes in Him. Where has our country gone since removing these teachings from our schools and from the government? Americans are the rudest people on the planet, and the most immoral. Even pagan nations have a respect for men and women being modestly clothed.
Our responsibility is to recognize the animal state that we are in, and the source of the evil is not God, but the devil and his kingdom of darkness. Let’s put the blame where it belongs, and then let’s stand up for what is true and right, ethical and moral, as we refuse to believe that every thought in our little finite brains is from our own superior intelligence. There is a devil and his demons who specialize in deception and lies. They can even be a angel of light for you. They can even stand behind a pulpit and teach a doctrine that sounds reasonable for you. Without the Word of God, to show you what is Truth, you are at their mercy. Everything that the devil touches is destroyed and broken into chaos.
God has not changed, He has all power, all knowledge, and is everywhere present at the same time. He sees all and knows all. No one can hide from His eyes. Contrary to Satan’s lies, He loves you enough to allow His only begotten Son to pay the price for all your sins. He is Pure, Holy and Just. He therefore cannot tolerate anything that is impure, unholy or unjust. He hates the sin, but not the sinner.
The devil will tell you that you have sinned such a terrible sin that God can never forgive you. He will bow you down with guilt, shame, and humiliation, till you are as low as you can go.
Satan does this to countless drug addicts, alcoholics, and abusers of mankind. The prisons, hospitals, and shelters, are full of people who are broken in body and soul. Your neighborhood has one or more of these in it; sex offenders, thieves, robbers, liers, murderers, prostitutes, johns, drug dealers, strip joints, bars, pornographic material, and immoral lifestyles.
When you are guilty of running the stop sign, you don’t run to the nearest policeman. You hope there wasn’t one around to see you break the law. You know there is a fine or penalty for breaking that law. It will cost you. The devil wants us to believe this about God. God can never forgive you, in fact He is going to throw the book at you for what you did! It is a lie. How could someone send their Son to die for you, if they couldn’t forgive you for what you have done?
The Blood of Jesus has to be confessed by your mouth and believed in your heart that He paid the penalty for your sins and will forgive you, washing it all away. When you believe and confess, he hears and will redeem you back to Himself. The devil will have no more hold over you and you will have your spirit reborn to be able to have dominion over your carnal mind and body. By studying His Word and praying to Him on a daily basis, you will begin to see your carnal mind transformed and your body come under your new spiritual authority as a child of God.
Close the portals by finding out what God’s Word says about your situation and choosing to obey Him.