Plot Twist

It's a subject seldom explored, but imagine for a moment…what was really going on during that Easter weekend, 2000 years ago?

THE INVISIBLE WAR

Satan is a fallen archangel with minions—powerful subordinates of various order and rank who once served in the celestial order of heaven. These ruthless and cunning powers dominate and oversee the dominion of deception over the nations of the earth. Invisible to the human eye, they manipulate, murder, enslave and destroy all but the most stout-hearted believers who fight by being filled with the Holy Spirit of truth and the courage that faith alone inspires. 

They all came together like vultures to encircle the scene of man's ultimate crime— deicide the killing of the God-made-flesh, deliverer of Israel. Jesus spoke prophetically of them through David: referring to the cross and the lone Messiah, he said, “Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.” (Psalm 22:12)

In the perverse mind of Satan, this crime would seal the judgment of God over the doomed sons of Adam. The plan that was “hidden” from the principalities of that age was played out in front of them a hundred thousand times in the ritual shedding of blood that marked the path of justification for the Jewish people. The one limitation of Satanic genius being the inability to think in terms of unselfish love, it did not fully occur to Satan that Jesus would in His body take the cumulative weight of all man's sins for all ages in His body and carry them as a payment into the iron cage of death, called “the grave.”

The grave had legal right to all fallen flesh, for all had sinned and the wages of sin is death. But Jesus was the one man who lived a sinless life. He became the one person whom death could not keep and the grave could not hold. 

Satan had over-reached and taken the life of an innocent man. Having become the payment for the collective wages of man's sins, Jesus would rise from the grave and be granted authority to legally exonerate man from his guilt. 

He would also be given authority over death, hell and the grave. Satan and his minions had sealed their doom in the very blood that redeemed the fallen race of men. That is why demons hate the blood!

His brutal 18-hour execution, violent as it was, became the satisfaction required by eternal JUSTICE to settle the matter regarding God's HOLINESS, which cannot overlook sin, and God's LOVE, which desires that none should perish. 

Infinite justice and holiness require a judgment. Infinite WISDOM came up with a plan and infinite love paid the price. It was all summed up in Christ!

On the third day, a new species rose from the dead—hence the language of Psalm 2: “‘This day I have begotten you out of the grave…ask of Me and I will give you NATIONS for your inheritance.'” It was the same Jesus, but no longer the Galilean Messiah with a mortal body. 

Jesus became, as it were, a second Adam with the ability to forgive sins and “breathe” into fallen men the MIRACLE of a recreated human spirit—a brand-new inner man. This is what it means to be “born again.” 

This is the importance of an often-overlooked event that John recorded. Jesus breathed on the disciples after his resurrection… “And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.'” (John 20:22)

All power has been turned over to Jesus. Satan and his demons  have been acting without legal authority for 2000 years and the matter is about to be pressed in the unfolding chapter of history in front of us. “And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, ‘ALL POWER IS GIVEN UNTO ME in heaven AND IN EARTH.'” (Matthew 28:18)

The shaking of the Last Days is caused by the pushing down and displacement of principalities over nations as angelic forces encircle Earth for the final invasion and return of the King.

Does this make sense? Something is in the air. This is the best of times and the worst of times. This is your finest hour if you are awakened.

Expect a PLOT TWIST.