Everything the wicked touch turns to ashes. The Kingdom becomes an arena of competition, intrigue, and treachery. The joy turns into a frantic pursuit of "fun" and thrills. The power is an insatiable craving for control. The authority is a wrestling match in which every participant is seeking to overcome and destroy his opponent. The beauty is weird, bizarre, seeking to amaze and shock. Love is perverted into an unquenchable burning, mutilation, cannibalism.

The fallen heavenly lords rage, they curse, they struggle against one another being bound in the chains of darkness. They push, jostle, scheme, plot, seek advantage in their vain attempts to seize the Kingdom of God by their violence.

They desire to be "like the most High." They are imitators of God but they have no intention of doing God's will or of being in union with God. They are usurpers!

Your will be done. The universal problem is that of "will." There is only one legitimate will in the universe—the will of the Father. The greatest lesson any individual, angelic or human, can learn is to do the will of the Father always, in every situation, totally, without one hair of disobedience. Even the Lord Jesus learned obedience to the Father, saying "Not My will but Yours be done."

Satan and his followers always are usurpers, imitators, seeking to obtain the joys available in the Kingdom of God. They have come down to earth in the hope of gaining the glory they seek. Because Adam and Eve admitted them into Paradise they have gained a foothold among people. Since that time, mankind has revealed the nature of Satan. Men and women always are usurpers, imitators, seeking to obtain joy by means of their trickery and violence, unless the Lord Jesus is able to bring them to obedience to God.

Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. (James 4:2)

For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. (James 4:15)

James is speaking to Christians!

Receiving Christ does not solve the problem of self-seeking. We are not converted from self-will until we have allowed the Lord to remove self from the throne and assume His rightful place as King of our personality.

The Lord's disciples argued among themselves about which of them was the greatest. Jesus bore patiently with them, speaking of the self-exalting ways of Gentile leadership and urging them to choose the lowly role, and then warned Peter that he was to be sifted. So must all of us be sifted until the desire to be exalted, to do what we desire, to have our own way, to receive the worship of others, is purged from us.

The democratic form of government is spreading in our day. The goal is to insure that every citizen has as many choices as possible. The concept of the "rights of people" is heralded. The ideal is for the individual to be "in control." All of this is Antichrist and is supported by the False Prophet, the spirit of religious delusion.

To be continued.