Harrell Davidson
Introduction
“God of this world” and “prince of the powers of the air” are statements from Second Corinthians 4:4 and Ephesians 2:2, respectively. One might think that “god of this world” would refer to Almighty God, but that is just not the case. In the second statement, one would think that Jesus Christ would be the “prince of the power of the air.” However, the context shows both terms belong to Satan.
2 Corinthians 4
Let us begin with the context of 2 Corinthians 4 and its background. Paul has shown in chapter three that he did not need a letter of commendation from the church in Corinth. He had shown that the Law of Moses was glorious, but the new covenant was much more glorious. When we stop and think about the law and having the New Testament, we can appreciate the difference between the New and the Old. However, when we think of the pagan world during the time of the Old Testament and what they had in comparison to the Old Testament, we can understand how the Old Testament was glorious. Notice Deuteronomy 4:6-7:
Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord God is in all things that we call upon him for? (Deut. 4:6-7.
They were not to add to the law of God in any way (cf. Deut. 4:2). In view of this, the nations around them would “hear all these statues” and would admit that Israel was a mighty nation. Compared to what the rest of the world had, Israel was the greatest nation ever.
As glorious as the Old Testament was, the New Testament is more so. Moses had to put a veil over his face so the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. As chapter 4 begins, he says, “Therefore seeing we have this ministry.” This is based upon what Paul had said in chapter 3. He is going to show that his ministry did not depend upon how many accepted it or how many rejected it. I had to come to grips with this fairly early in my personal ministry. I thought that I was utterly failing. I preached to the best of my ability, and when people did not respond, my Sunday afternoon and evening were miserable. Finally, I concluded based upon what Paul is saying here. The Gospel preacher is to preach the Word with love. He cannot force people to obey the Word. His success does not depend upon one person obeying the Gospel. Rather, one’s success is determined by whether he has declared the “oracles of God” (cf. 1 Pet. 4:11). If one has faithfully done so, he is successful in the kingdom.
Paul said that he had “received mercy” (2 Cor. 4:1b). He did not deserve it. He realized that he was the least of the apostles and thus did not deserve this great mercy. Because he had this mercy, he did not lose heart. In spite of all who had rejected the Gospel, he did not give up. He kept prodding along, preaching the Word. In spite of all the things that can happen to us, we ought not lose heart or be discouraged. Discouragement is the tool of Satan and has caused many preachers to walk out of the pulpit to preach no more.
Paul totally turned his back on “the hidden things of dishonesty” (2 Cor. 2:2) in order that he might be the kind of apostle Christ wanted him to be. Paul made some deliberate choices, “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” (2 Cor. 4:2b). “Hidden things of dishonesty” has to do with deceiving people. Some of our low-life brethren today are making deliberate efforts to be deceitful. They make no attempt to always tell the truth or act in truthful ways. Some will strive to pass themselves off as being attorneys at law or whatever other profession they want to mimic in order to make statements that are founded solely upon deceit. They lie and represent lies; therefore, there is no truth in them. Their mouths are an open sepulcher. All they know is hateful ways except among their “cronies.” They are altogether following after the devil while proclaiming to be Christians. What a shame! Innocent brethren are sometimes “sucked in” by these actions without knowing what is taking place.
There are likely more people deceived over the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Think about all the deceit that is on television and radio in the name of Christendom. Some have been deceived to the point that they would give entire social security checks to some televangelist or radio preacher. So much untruth is taught from the highest places to the lowest of places. Premillennialism is just one example of all the deceit that is going on in the religious world. Every mainstream denomination that we know of preaches this doctrine. Some of these folks used to tell us when the end of the world was coming but lately have stopped doing this. When the World Trade Center towers were struck, some thought that the Battle of Armageddon had begun. This demonstrates the degree to which so many are deceived. Those who hold that the Battle of Armageddon has begun have not stopped to think about their belief. That doctrine holds that 200,000 men from China will go to Armageddon during this war. I have been to the Valley of Megiddo where the kings are supposed to go to battle. If we put 200,000 Chinese in that place, they would stack 20 high standing shoulder to shoulder, back to back and front to front. Hogwash! This is more religious deceit. People who pretend to be religious open the door to deceit. One can come up with some doctrine, regardless of how far out and ridiculous it is, and someone will believe it.
“Craftiness” has to do with trickery. There are all kinds of tricks that are used relative to the Word of God. Tricks are used in the manner in which something is presented. There are tricks that are employed relative to how the Scriptures are used. Taking Scripture out of context to prove one’s point is to endeavor to cause Scripture to mean what it never meant to begin with. Paul appealed to every man’s conscience. Not only this, but he said, “in the sight of God.” All preaching should be done this way. If the Gospel is as glorious as Paul said it was, why is it that everybody does not obey the Gospel? He goes on to explain this further. “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost” (2 Cor 4:3). Why and how is the Gospel hidden from some? This is explained in verse 4: “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4). Here is the problem.
The minds of people are blinded, and this has to do with unbelief. There are a number of ways that Satan blinds the minds of people. One is by materialistic thinking. People are so blinded by material things that they are not interested in the Gospel. The Gospel is not really hidden unless we want it to be.
By pleasure, Satan blinds the minds of people. We are living in a pleasure-mad age. Perhaps it has always been this way. Paul said in part in 2 Tim 3:4, “Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” When people’s minds are set on these things, the Gospel is hidden from them. Satan uses these things to his own advantage. Think of the number of people today who will not darken the door of a church building of any kind. They will not allow themselves to be placed where they could even hear a false gospel preached, much less the true Gospel. Satan uses methods like this to blind the minds of people. We can try to talk to these people about their souls’ salvation, but most of the time we are wasting our time. Why? Their minds are set on such things as we have mentioned.
Subjectivism is another tool of Satan. There are so many people who look at spiritual things only through the jaundiced eye. They look for ways to feel good. As long as they feel good, everything is all right with them. This had led to lavish entertainment facilities among us. What do we tell our children? How can we compete with the “god of this world” when this is what they see their friends doing? Parents need to be careful what they expose their children to lest their minds be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. The time is rapidly approaching when we will not be able to reach our young with anything regarding the truth. We have become too sophisticated. Where we used to have the little card class in Sunday school, we now have drinks and donuts. We are rearing a generation who will not think of the church in spiritual terms. Where did they learn such? They learned it from rebels. Who are the rebels? Their parents. What has happened to their parents? Their eyes are closed to the truth. “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Acts 26:18). The purpose of the Gospel is to “open eyes.” It is extremely hard to open the eyes that are controlled by a hardened heart. In fact, I do not know how to do it other than to keep on proclaiming the truth. That is the only remedy that we have to offer for the sickness that people are involved in.
We need to have open minds that we will let nothing crowd out the truth. The “glorious gospel” is the hope of the world. We must use every way known to man to get this message to every creature under heaven. The parable of the sower gives four kinds of soil. Three of them were not productive. Why? Other things were more important. Here is the bottom line: we must be careful that we not let Satan crowd our minds to the point that we will not study the Bible. When Bible study is eliminated, Satan has won the battle. He knows what a lack of Bible study will do. Remember that he is the “god of this world.” A liar, murderer, slanderer, evil, wicked one, a destroyer of souls: among other things, these are his works. For all the wrong in this world, he is responsible. Think about it. The Word of God is for the spiritual man. When man refuses to be fed the Word of God, he will be fed something else. The void or vacuum will be filled with things from the god of this world. The spiritual man will dry up, having starved to death.
The God of This World and Modernists
The modernists have tried time after time to deny and explain away the miracles of the Bible. For as many years as I can remember, I have been a subscriber to Popular Mechanics. This magazine is almost always filled with worthwhile things that one can do with his hands. Occasionally, they get some things in an issue that belong to the world of science instead of mechanics. Under the caption “Science Solves More Mysteries of the Bible,” Mike Fillon says,
“The International Medical Committee for the shrine at Lourdes, France, has not approved a miracle since 1989.” The reason is simple, says Roger Pilon, the head of the committee. “As science, medicine and philosophy uncover logical explanations for the unexplainable it becomes increasingly difficult to name something of a miracle.” Could the same holds true about the stories in the Bible? He proceeds to discuss Jonah and the whale. “While it’s true largest sea creatures do not roam the Mediterranean, not much is known about the migratory patterns of sea creatures thousands of years ago. Also, as we witnessed today, whales often stray in search of food.
For Jonah to have survived being swallowed by a whale, four things had happened. A large enough creature had to be involved. Jonah had passed over the animal’s teeth sufficiently unmolested to survive. He had to avoid the acidity of digestive juices. And, he had to have enough oxygen to survive for three days. “A large and sperm whale which can easily swallow up lumps of food 8 ft. in diameter, could swallow a man in a gush of water without chewing him. If the whale in the story of Jonah was sick or died, it just might be that Jonah could have survived inside until he was washed out of the whale’s mouth or regurgitated. There are no historical accounts that suggest this is possible. James Bartley was reportedly swallowed by a sperm whale off the Falkland Islands in 1891 and recovered alive for 36 hours later. Searches of records by scholars, however, have failed to substantiate this story. The verdict remains out on a similar account involving a shark. In 1758, it was reported that a sailor fell overboard from a boat in the Mediterranean and was swallowed by a 40 ft. long great white shark. The captain of the vessel ordered a cannon on the deck to be fired at the fish, which is vomited of the sailor, alive and unharmed, after it was struck. 1
Under the heading “Manna From Heaven,” he continued:
Many of botanists believe ‘manna’ was nothing more than a secretion exuded by tamarisk trees and bushes. Another explanation is that it could have been a seed—something like coriander seed—which tastes a little bit like honey and often falls from the trees.
According to the book of Exodus, when the Israelites saw the food they exclaimed, ‘Manna,’ from the Hebrew term for “What is it.” Since they were not from the region, it makes sense they would not have been familiar with it or how to harvest it. To them the sudden appearance of food would have seemed “Miraculous.”
He observes that there is evidence that the walls of Jericho have collapsed several times over the past 10,000 years. Professor Amos Nur of the Department of Geophysics at Stanford University believes this could have been due to earthquakes.
When Nur visited several Bronze Age cities in Greece and Israel a few years ago, he noticed that dozens of structures and walls appear to have collapsed simultaneously, entombing the people and gold artifacts. ‘We do not bury our dead under rubble,’ Nur says. Besides, he adds in the invaders would never have left precious metals behind.
Since the destruction looked more like the results of earthquakes, Nur examined of the region’s seismic history. He plotted the epicenters of all earthquakes greater than magnitude 6.5 that have struck the Eastern Mediterranean region since 1910. When he plotted the sites of the city ruins, he found that nearly all the cities lay in highly active earthquake zones of the 20th century, suggesting that violent quakes could have reduced the cities to rubble. 2
The student will observe that there is a natural explanation to all the miracles. Many others were depicted in the same issue, but these are expressive enough to show how far Satan will go to deceive the hearts and minds of the multitudes. The child of God lives by faith. Faith leads us to believe the unseen because the Scriptures enlightens us in these matters. There must be hundreds of explanations of the whale, manna, and the walls of Jericho. There is only one account that is correct, and that is the Bible account. Every modernist is a liberal, but all liberals are not modernists. The reason that some cannot believe is because Satan has deceived many.
Paul shows that Satan influences men to preach themselves. Some cannot wait to tell what all they have done for the Lord’s sake. By and by, they are not respected by the faithful. Without the light of the Gospel, all men will be lost.
Ephesians 2:2
Satan uses false teachers to yoke us in bondage to sin. Satan cannot overpower a person. We must willfully let him overtake us and guide us in whatever way he chooses. Look at John 13:2: “And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him.” “Put into the heart of Judas” carries the idea of putting out bait. When we go fishing, we put out bait so we can catch a fish, unless he is smarter than the fisherman. This is exactly the way the “prince of the power of the air” tries to influence us. Satan baited Judas, and he fell for the bait. He uses things of this world to bait us. This is what he is doing to the Gentiles in Ephesians 2:2. He worked in them, and this is worth investigating. How did he work in them? What tools did he use? He used three tools: in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3), in the temptations of Christ (Matt. 4), and he uses those same three tools on us today.
Notice 1 John 2:16. “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” Satan has no other tools at his disposal. By these, he sways billions of minds, darkening their understanding so they cannot see the light. People become vain in their imaginations. They imagine things that never happen. They flee when none pursueth after them. He uses means to accomplish his work.
The Jews were just as guilty as the Gentiles in their service unto Satan. “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (Eph. 2:3). Notice the switch in the pronouns. “Ye” in verse 2 and “we” in verse 3 with even a more graphic description that follows. Their lives were lived in the lusts they imbibed. The Jews had a set standard for themselves that was not based upon revelation. They thought that no man could be justified without the law. As a result, when Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus he had to deal with Judaizing teachers. They taught that one had to be circumcised and keep the law in order to be saved. Their real problem is seen in Acts 13 when they saw all those Gentiles going into the synagogue on the sabbath day to hear the Gospel preached. They did not care for Gentiles being baptized, but they still did not want to socialize (eat) with them. That was the real problem or the crux of the matter. They thought they did not need Christ.
Notice the word “flesh” in verse 3. “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” They had fleshly lusts, and they fulfilled those fleshly desires of the flesh and of the mind. It is the mind of men that Satan is interested in. If he can keep our minds off of spiritual things, his battle will be won as far as we are concerned. The Jews were perhaps the most deceived people ever to live on this earth. In John 8:31-32, Jesus is telling of those who believed on Him and continued in His word that they would know the truth and be free. Now notice John 8:33-34: “They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” They had entirely missed the point and were deceived in their thinking. They thought that being Abraham’s seed justified them and that they had never been in bondage. The one that commits sin is a servant of sin. That presents the problem. They thought that since they had Abraham’s flesh, they had no sins. They were led by Satan to draw the conclusions they reached. What was the problem? The flesh. The lust of the flesh indicates that they were controlled by the flesh and the various lusts that go with it. Jesus said in John 8:44 that they were of their father the devil. We cannot make it any plainer that that. Everyone who follows the way of the world is a follower of the flesh. This cannot be denied. It is what man is minding. That is where his heart is. He is in love with the things of this world.
The apostle of love addressed his readers three times in 1 John 4 as “beloved” (cf. VV. 1, 7, 11). His affection for his audience was tremendous. Love did not cast aside warnings that inspiration set forth in verse 1. “Try the spirits.” Why try them? “Because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” How can we know when one is true? In verse 2 he writes, “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” There were false teachers, children of Satan, who taught that Jesus had not come. This was one of the tests as set forth. Contrary to the above, those who confessed not were called “ The spirit of the anti-Christ” (v. 3). He pointed out that these false teachers of Satan were already in the world. They were busy trying to destroy the Christian faith. They are working overtime to subvert the faith of many. But, he said, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is the world” (1 John 4:4). Greater is He that is in you. If we have obeyed the Gospel and are living faithfully as the Lord directs, Satan has no power over us unless we let him. Is Satan powerful? Absolutely and do not forget it. However, greater is the Lord Who is in us than Satan. Satan’s preachers and teachers are of the world. Faithful Christians are not of this world though we live in the world (cf. John 17). We are of God and He hears us. What else do we need?
Endnotes:
1. Popular Mechanics, Dec. 2001, published by The Hearst Corporation, p.78, 79
2. ibid. p. 80,81 [End]
