I have been more and more mindful of the changes in our world around systematization and corporatization. I had a front seat to the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and I’ve been very mindful of the trends since then.
The collective response in my industry to the 2008 financial crisis was a greater degree of government involvement, consolidation of financial institutions, and stronger regulations. The banking system was more systematized through regulation. What we saw was this regulation implementation of greater technology and greater and greater levels of control.
That’s not just in the finance industry. We can see the same trends in retail monopolies, in healthcare insurance, in the use of facial recognition, even as one immigrates into the United States, Private Equity rolling up business practices and speed cameras. There are any number of instances we can look at of how regulation and technology and control are being built into modern daily life.
Where are we now? In my professional work environment life we are working so fast that much of the time we don’t really know what is happening. We don’t have the time to digest, evaluate, contemplate and understand the problems that are before us. We are just processing it, which I think is disturbing to the human psyche. We are creative, curious in our design as God created us. And there’s something in us that breaks a little bit when we don’t have the opportunity to comprehend what we are doing.
You don’t really get to creatively solve the problem. You have to map it to the technology that’s dictating the definition of the problem to you. That’s because human discernment allows for mistakes. Mistakes are a risk, and risk is a cost and diminishes profit margins. So, discernment is being replaced with technology in all different facets of our lives. Human beings thereby become processing agents. We become extensions of the machines that we’re using and we’re serving at the pleasure of those machines that we created.
Another trend that I’m seeing is the scale and corporatization. This has always been the case. Scale is more efficient and it’s more profitable. A small entrepreneur is very much struggling to keep up with the efficiency of these large scale enterprises. Big businesses are growing and small businesses are not. However, when a large scale enterprise faces a problem it can be quite catastrophic.
The systematization of our currency and monetary system accelerated trade, it proliferated debt, and it fueled a massive global capitalist conquest. There was a huge globalization of trade, largely fueled by our ability to use this advancing currency to facilitate trade. It also ultimately gave bureaucrats control of that currency. Now you really have no control over the value of the wealth that you put aside. That’s dictated by those who control the monetary system.
And more recently we can see the evolution of the personal computer, the introduction of the internet, email, smart phones and artificial intelligence. That’s where we start to see business moving at super-human speed. This scale, speed, complexity, and abstraction is dehumanizing. And these systems that we’ve created divorce us from morality. It does seem like the systems that we have built are bigger than us and we serve what we created. We no longer have agency or control over these systems.
But there is somebody in control. I will argue today that the world is not merely broken but that it is engineered and administered by spiritual powers. Many accept that the spiritual world is real. Certainly we can look at creation and know that God exists. And we are here because we believe and have faith in the existence of God.
However, many people think of Satan as the personification of evil and that evil is just an idea. However, he was not created a villain. He was a powerful archangel, full of wisdom and beauty and placed in authority within God’s government structure. He sat in that position until pride and rebellion took him out of it. It says in Isaiah 14:12, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer…” In that fall he was transformed into the Adversary and his heavenly authority was stripped.
But while he was removed from God’s government, he has power and he’s spoken of as “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2: 2). And he’s described as the ruler of “this present evil age” (Galatians 1:4). Satan is the ruler of the world. Christ gave him this title three times in the book of John (John 12:31,14:30,16:11). A caveat we must acknowledge: Christ declared that Satan is judged. Christ is supreme. Satan does not have untethered authority. He does not rule the heavens, he does not rule the universe, or even the earth. But he does rule something.
In this context “the world” means a social order. So, the world that Satan rules is a social order. Peter, talking about the flood said: “[God] did not spare the … world, but saved Noah…” by which the world … perished, being flooded with water” (2 Peter 2:5, 3:6).
This is the kosmos, this is “the world” that matches this definition of what Satan is the ruler of. We know that God did not destroy all of creation. He did not destroy all of humanity. He destroyed a social order; a system in that flood. Satan is a ruler of this social order, but he’s also not alone in that. Satan has been given a jurisdiction. He’s the ruler of this world. That world is a social order with descending levels of authority. And it includes not just Satan but also his demons (Ephesians 6:12). Daniel 10:4-6,12-13,20 reveals varying jurisdictions, structure, and power. This shows a pattern that each empire has a corresponding spiritual authority and humans can also be a part of it.
There are two kingdoms essentially. There’s Satan’s and there’s Christ’s. You can’t really exist apart from them. You’re in one or the other. Any rebellion against God immediately submits you to Satan’s kingdom. Satan’s fall was precipitated by pride and rebellion. And that is the characteristic of his kingdom. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 define more extensively the reason for Satan’ fall from God’s Kingdom.
Satan’s kingdom is real. It has jurisdiction, it has structure. Human beings may be a part of that government, even unwittingly. That government influences, and indeed rules our physical environment in the sense of that world, that civilization, that system. It has influence over peoples over nations, governments, economies financial systems, business enterprises, healthcare, entertainment.
These systems of the world are engineered by spiritual beings who have tremendous power, have tremendous intelligence and they are designing these systems for very specific purposes. They’re not friendly. Their goal is to subjugate and destroy human beings and to usurp God the Father’s position and His honor. If these systems are administered by rebellious powers, then participation is not neutral.
Followers of Christ are instructed very specifically to exist apart from these systems (1 John 2:15-16). The world here is again a system, social orders. It is lust and it is pride. We have to make choices (Matthew 7:13-14, 10:28, 19:21. Galatians 4:9). The big question is are we removing ourselves from the world’s systems?
But we are not today primarily concerned with economics. The principal, however, carries quite profoundly into our spiritual and religious lives. The solution to problems created by systems is not more and different systems. It is love of God and fellow man. And our response as human beings to system problems that we see is frequently to design a better system. And try and make that the solution.
So, do you and I think in systems or do we think locally? I think the path to better Church situations is small, practical and local (Zechariah 4:8-10). The Creator of the universe, God the Father, is taking joy and pleasure in this man holding a shovel, building a wall and measuring whether it’s plumb. The simple and small things that we do to build the temple are pleasing to God. We need to get small, practical, and local in so doing.
There is nothing more local than yourself. Just scale it down and down and down and down till you get to the basics. If the battle is spiritual, the frontline for us is not spiritual warfare of taking over governments and trying to implement Christian systems to oversee and administer the current physical world. Our battle, our fight is in our local congregations, but more importantly it’s in our own, individual lives. It’s what we worship, what we desire, and what we choose to refuse. How do you and I really live? What are we doing in our lives? What are the actual choices that we make day to day.
The mundane choices that we make in our lives day to day can lead to very catastrophic outcomes. Are we rejecting the systems that are laid before us, that are entrapping us? All these things that are enslaving and destroying our world? Or are we just floating in this river of sewage, and, “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it.” We must make choices in our life.
And God has built in some very hard and clear system-breakers for us: The Sabbath, tithing, High Days, Tabernacles. What about the Year of Release, the Jubilee? Saying yes to these instructions is clearly saying no to Satan’s machine. These instructions humanize us. They connect us to place, to people, and to God’s Spirit. They are the antithesis, and the antidote.
Our day-to-day life choices matter, and we should choose in these choices to participate in God’s system rather than Satan’s. I’ll mention two specific areas where we can and should be making good personal choices that have profound personal consequences and consequences for the Church as a whole and for the community in which we reside.
What do you consume in your day to day life? Because it’s what you consume that forms you.
Media and entertainment: What are we putting in our minds? The entertainment and media that is put before us, that is force fed to us at every turn is designed to manipulate and control us through our brain chemistry. Spend a little time understanding how our media is designed to work on our basic, animalistic chemistry to addict us to what we’re being fed. It makes us into consumers of what Satan wants to feed us.
What about food? Literally what are we putting in our bodies? Our food system is created around a corporate profit model that values cheap calories and profit. Hyper15 processed chemicals are convenient and cheap. They are part of a large industrial food and drug complex. We should be thoughtful about that.
These are not just wellness issues. These are intersections with satanic systems that are designed to defeat us. And they’re worthy of attention. What are we going to do next in light of what we’ve learned about Satan and his jurisdiction?
The point is that simple choices in daily life are the choice to either submit to Satan’s systems, or to reject them:
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).
We are not revolutionaries, working to overthrow the principalities and powers of today. We’re not presuming to establish the Kingdom of God through political action but by the character, and choices, and lifestyle of being God’s people. We are responsible to be conformed into the image of Christ, and to witness to the coming Kingdom of God. Those responsibilities demand that we use discernment as we operate in a world that is engineered and managed against us by the Adversary; we must practice recognizing those systems. Analyze them and separate from those systems. Those systems are killing humanity.
Christ did not ask that God would take us out of the world, but that God would keep us from Satan’s influence and sanctify us by His truth. And then He sent us out into it as witnesses, and heralds of the victory Christ has already won.
Staff