Allen Jackson - Seeing the Invisible - Part 2
Let’s start with some scripture. You’ve got a page full of it. Romans chapter 1 and verse 20, it says: «Since the creation of the world,» which is really in the biblical language since the beginning of the story of Adam and his descendants. This is our history. Since we haven’t imagined history, from our beginning point: «God’s invisible qualities (his eternal power and divine nature) have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse». That from the beginning of our story: «God’s invisible qualities have been clearly seen». So the Bible says: «From the beginning of the story until today, there’s something that we can’t see, but that’s very apparent».
If you look at the order of creation, the precision of the universe in which we live, and you think that happened as a result of statistical probability, you are a determined denier of God. The fundamental principles of physics says that «energy is moving from a state of order to disorder, that the earth is unwinding». It is not becoming more ordered. It’s a logical fallacy. Hebrews 11 and verse 3 says: «By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible».
The Bible asks us to imagine that the spiritual world gave rise to our physical material world. That it is actually more substantive than the things that we engage with our physical senses. It’s not a request to get you to deny your physical senses. I don’t want you to do that. Being weird does not make you spiritual. I grew up on the spiritual end of the church where we had those conversations and those behaviors and a lot of people, like, the more weird they were, the more spiritual they were. I don’t agree. I’ve told you many times, if you’re pulling onto the interstate, you don’t need to pray for direction, you need to look. You don’t need a word from the Lord, a word of wisdom, you don’t need divine revelation. You need to turn your head and check the oncoming traffic. And if you’re not gonna do that, I’m getting out of the vehicle. You’re not spiritual, you’re foolish.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve encountered that had a message that God gave them for me. And my answer’s pretty consistent. «Well, when he wants me to know, I’m sure he’ll tell me». Because often he gives them a message of how I should do something for them. To understand the scene, the visible world, I would submit to you that we first have to understand what we don’t see. A lack of an awareness of spiritual things will consistently leave you at a deficit in explaining the world that we’re in. Sometimes the best answer is, that’s evil. There’s not another way to understand that. Every understanding is gonna grow from that, that evil exists.
I watched the videotapes of Hamas terrorists pouring into Israel on October 7 some months ago. There is no description for what I witnessed that day other than evil. There is none. I brought you an example. Act 16, it’s kind of a lengthy passage. We’ll hit the highlights. Paul and his crew were in a city, and they’re traveling in the Mediterranean world, city after city. There’s really no explanation for the Book of Acts other than spiritual forces. Everywhere Paul goes, he’s a preacher. Everywhere he goes, there’s a riot. More times than not, they try to kill him. Do you understand that’s an unnatural reaction? We’re watching it right now. Someone is saving our nation hundreds of billions of dollars. And they can’t provide enough security. And we watched that like that’s normal.
Oh well, that does not make sense. There should be such an overwhelming sense of gratitude that our money that’s being siphoned off by the Lord knows whom is being secured for us. And there’s enough anger and hatred that the person that’s on point with that assignment lives in fear of his life. «Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. And the girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, 'These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.'»
How does she know that? She has a spirit. She has an unclean spirit, an unholy spirit. There are spirits that have awareness that we don’t have. That’s a very fundamental biblical principle. In Mark chapter 1, it’s not in your notes, but it is in the Bible, when Jesus went into the synagogue in Capernaum, first chapter of the Gospel, there was a man there, a demonized man, and the demon began to say: «I know who you are». Well, nobody else knew who he was. Everybody else thought he was Mary and Joe’s kid. «Isn’t that the man from Nazareth just down the valley»? But the demon said: «I know who you are». There’s an understanding in the spiritual world that we don’t get in our educational system. In the book of James, it said: «You believe there’s a God».
Well, good for you. The demons believe that James says, and they shudder. They not only believe in God, they understand the power and authority of God. We’ve been incredibly naive. In fact, we’ve been stubborn in our unbelief. So this young woman is just screaming at the top of her lungs: «These men are the servants of the Most High God». Imagine if you went with me to the store and people follow me through screaming: «The servant of the most…» you wouldn’t go to the store with me. It’d be awkward, right? Like: «No, no, I think I’ll just shop online. I’m good». She kept this up for many days, not just once. And finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and he said to the spirit, not to the woman: «'In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her! ' And the spirit left her. When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and they said, 'These men are Jews.'»
Hating the Jews is not new, folks: «They’re throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept our practice.'» That’s not true. They haven’t done that at all: «The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. And after they’ve been severely flogged, they were thrown into the prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. So they put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks».
Now you read that, and if you don’t pause and reflect for a moment, you’ll think, well, there’s a logical sequence of events. Nothing about that’s logical. That young woman’s insight into who Paul and his team were is not logical. Her harassment of them was not logical. Demons harass. They diminish, they annoy, they agitate. That’s their role. That is an expression of who they are. But in this particular instance, I would submit to you that Satan’s kingdom was exposed and defeated. There was a greater authority. That girl had been able to tell fortunes, and the people who owned her, she’s a slave, have made a good deal of money off of this. It’s a lucrative investment for them. And now there’s a greater authority, she’s been set free. And they’re angry, but beneath that is this exposure of Satan’s kingdom and the defeat and authority greater than he was there and the city’s response is completely illogical in its magnitude.
Do you think they care that much about a slave girl? There were hundreds of them in the city. The underlying reality of that narrative is the satanic kingdom was enraged, and it manifested itself. We have to live with enough spiritual awareness to understand what’s happening in our world. It’s not the sum total of elections. It’s illogical to mutilate our teenagers. It’s not logical to say: «Men and women are the same biologically».
The same people that tell us to follow the science try to tell us that. That’s not logic. It’s incredibly destructive. And we watched this boiling around us, oblivious to the spiritual consequences. And then we introduce all these fancy sounding religious words that we think provide explanations, like, compassion. It’s an open border for year after year after year. It’s not compassion. It destroys the nations from which the people are coming. It destroys the community where the people arrive. Compassion would be a plan for an orderly migration of legal immigrants for their wellbeing. It’s impossible to understand apart from spiritual things. But because we don’t believe in spiritual things, we say: «Well, I just don’t talk about that».
Ephesians chapter 6: «Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power». We haven’t lived with the Christianity for a long, long time that had any imagination of the necessity of mighty power. We treat that like it’s fanciful, like, once upon a time long long ago and far, far away. We don’t need mighty power. We have schools and doctors and hospitals and Social Security, and we don’t need mighty power. We have lived with an intentional oblivious attitude towards spiritual things. We’ve ignored the council of Scripture.
We’ve talked about being born again, that perhaps in eternity, when my body wears out, perhaps I might have some slight need for God: «Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes». So, Pastors, that’s why we hired you: «For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, and authorities, and the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Put on the full armor of God, so when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you’ve done everything, to stand». We clearly have an assignment that’s directed towards spiritual engagement, not people engagement.
If the church or is aware and engaged spiritually, the world we live in would be dramatically different. It has a great deal to do with focus where we put our attention, which realm we choose to live in. I’ve been suggesting to you for some time now that you’re a dimensional being, that you have a presence in more than one dimension, that you are a spirit. You have a soul, and you live in a body Your body’s on a countdown clock. It gives you status in this present age, that physical earth suit that you have, but your spirit is eternal. When your body stops functioning, your spirit carries right into eternity. More than one dimension.
2 Corinthians 4: «Do not lose heart though, our outer man is decaying». That can be disheartening. If you haven’t had enough birthdays to realize that yet, just hang on. That rascal will betray you. I think it’s part of the fascination with professional sports. We watch all these people that are in better shape than we are and we imagine that we can do those things from the recliner. «Our outer man is decaying, but our inner man is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen».
Again, how do you look at what you can’t see? «But the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporary, and the things which are not seen are eternal. Our inner man is being renewed». I’ll take just a moment with that. I don’t have, but a moment. Ephesians 3: «According to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner man». We know a good deal more about physical maintenance than we do spiritual maintenance. We haven’t really given it that much thought. It hasn’t mattered that much if we were emaciated spiritually. We just joined the right church or belong to the right group, and we believe what they believe. «And I said that prayer, and I got dunked, and I’m okay. I mean, what more… I don’t wanna be fanatical. I don’t want my emotions to get involved. I don’t want it to encroach on my life».
And so we have this inert lifeless, largely impotent gathering of people. But God in his mercy is awakening us. He needs us. He needs us like he needed Moses to go back and confront Pharaoh or Gideon to stand up to the Midianites or Samson to challenge the Philistines, not because Samson was such a moral spectacle. He was a spectacle, but it wasn’t for his morality. God gave him a strength that was not aligned with his life choices, but the people needed help. And God brings help to us, and we would rather discredit them because we don’t like their life choices and say: «Hey, truth is being pushed into the public square». We’re the conveyors of truth. We’ve got to begin to align ourselves with God’s truth.
First Peter chapter 3 and verse 3, it says: «Your adornment must not be merely external, braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry or putting on dresses». That passage has been used, not so much perhaps today, but for a long time in the church, that passage was used in many places in Christian to tell women that they shouldn’t uh wear jewelry or have elaborate hairstyles. I wanna read it again because I want you to understand somehow how bizarre we could be. I was with a group of people; we went to India not long ago. And we came off the plane, and our guest met us, and it was a little bit of a frosty reception, our host met us. And the leader took us aside and said: «Listen, in India, the godly women don’t wear jewelry and makeup,» at least in the portion where we were.
And so I went back to the crew and said: «Hey, listen, they’re gonna have to ask us to take off our jewelry and our makeup». You would have thought I’d ask them to attend worship naked. I mean, we had a problem. We had a problem: «I’m not taking off my wedding ring». I’m, like: «Look, for 12 hours in a remote region on the other side of the world with your spouse present. We’ll be safe». Then we got to the meeting the next day, and some of the women there came in their native costumes, and they had a little bit of their midriff exposed. Game on. I want my jewelry back. There’ll be some lip gloss coming out of the bag now. I’m not giving into this. Well, look at that verse because it’s really, it’s kind of the proof text for the whole no-jewelry-thing: «The braiding of your hair, the wearing of gold jewelry, and the putting on the dresses».
So if you’re gonna lose the jewelry, church is gonna be awkward. Look at verse 4: «but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God». Parents, this one particular passage was talking to women, but what do you want to coach your daughters to? Nothing wrong with your appearance and giving attention to that. But if you spend more attention to your appearance and you ignore the imperishable qualities, the qualities that will not be diminished with time and birthdays, the qualities that will not require Botox, a gentle and quiet spirit which is a great value in God’s sight.
Again, we’ve ignored spiritual things for so long to such a stunning degree that we find ourselves almost immobilized spiritually. There’s a reward from an unseen place. Look at Matthew 6. It’s says: «When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you». I wanna invite you back to an awareness of spiritual things. If you’re not in the habit of reading your Bible, build a new habit. You can go to the website, we’re just about to the end of the Gospels. If you signed up for the Gospel run, come on, let’s finish the New Testament. Yes, it was a trick. I mean, I’m grateful you read the Gospels. I’m thank you you joined us, but don’t stop there.
A few more weeks and we’ll be all the way through the New Testament. Spoiler alert, I’m gonna ask you after that to read the books of Moses with me. But I’m not asking you to do something I won’t. Let’s just finish the New Testament. It’ll bring light to your life. If you don’t ever pray, begin to just take a sentence and invite God into your life. Lord, help me today. When you walk into work, God help us in this place today. When you walk into your home at the end of the day, God, we could sure use your help here. Doesn’t have to be fancy. The words don’t have to be elaborate. They don’t have to be multiple syllables. Just begin to invite God into your life. Lord, give me eyes to see.
See what you’re really beginning to open the door on is an acknowledgement that we need God in our lives. Folks, there is something you can’t manage that’s a part of your story. And if you wait until it arrives, it’s highly improbable that you’ll be able to address it. We call that education for our children. We call it training for athletes. You begin to prepare for those moments in time where you need the knowledge or the awareness of your physical ability or a plan in order to accomplish an objective. We need to begin to prepare spiritually. It begins with believing. It begins with getting to know the character of God. It begins becoming more familiar with spiritual things, acknowledging that you believe there is a God, that he’s engaged in our lives, that that doesn’t make you weird or strange.
It’s about saying yes to godliness and no to ungodliness. Stop doing things that you know displease God. Well, it’s my private life. It’s not private from God. He’s not trying to rob you of fun? All the places where God said: «Don’t». It’s because what’s on the other side of «don’t» will diminish you. When your parents said: Don’t cross the street without looking both ways, they weren’t trying to slow down your progress. They were trying to extend your life. And if you are ignoring the don’t, just understand you are diminishing your potential. «But I like it». I understand. «But it feels good». I get that. But you are forfeiting something. If you’ll pick up the simple things you know, God will not just meet you, he will reward you.
I brought you a prayer. Actually, I brought you a proclamation, which is a fancy way of saying: «We’re gonna say what the Scripture says about us». The best prayers I know to pray are when I can align myself with what God has already said about me. So I think I put the passages in your note. It’s Isaiah 54 and Psalm 91. Did I give you those? Good. We’re just gonna make this proclamation together. Why don’t you stand with me? And for those taking notes, this was the end of the notes. I might have missed a segment, but, hey. Let’s read this together. And this is worthwhile making a proclamation over your life every day this week. I don’t imagine that something said one time usually completes the loop, at least, not in my experience. Let’s read it together:
I rejoice in the protection of Almighty God over my life. I am the Lord’s servant. I rest in the completeness of his strength and care. No weapon formed against me will prevail. I will refute every tongue which rises against me. This is my heritage as a servant of the Lord. A thousand may fall at my side but destruction will not overwhelm me. I have made the Most High in my dwelling place. God is my refuge and my security. No harm will befall me, no disaster will overtake me. God has commanded his angels to watch over my life. My life and my future are secure through the strength of my Lord and my redeemer, amen.