RESCUE OPERATION AN OUTRAGEOUS SUCCESS

Lucifer grinned. Heaven was in turmoil and all eyes were on him. Well, not all eyes, but at least he had convinced a third of the angelic hosts to worship him. Was not he the most beautiful of all the created beings? Pride oozed and cloaked him with self-enchantment.

Angels were created to worship God; to worship in service and in song. As created beings the relationship they had with God depended on their decision to worship him. They needed to worship in order to maintain that relationship, although God, being God, didn’t need their worship.

But Lucifer did. He craved worship, he became obsessed with it. In his newly formed kingdom he was the dictator: Satan, the cruel dictator of the kingdom of darkness. Of course he had no intention of letting his subjects know that they were under his dictatorship. He would offer a choice of “good and evil”. But once they were in his kingdom, nothing they could do would free them from his power.

Satan sniggered at this epitome of deception and watched for an opportunity to put his malevolent plan into action: a mass hijacking operation.

And then came the creation of mankind.  

How God delighted in the creation of the first two human beings. He made them different to the angels; body, soul and spirit. Being spirit himself, God communicates with spirit. He gave them a soul with emotions, will and intellect. The soul can choose whether to worship God or not. God didn’t make robots. He let them choose. They could stay in his kingdom under his direction or they could choose to leave that kingdom.

Satan squirmed as he watched that perfect creation. He wanted those two human beings desperately. He craved their worship. They had to belong to him.

It was easier than he expected. His chance came in the garden. Disguised as a serpent he convinced Eve that she was missing out on something. He sowed doubt about God’s goodness, made her feel hard done by. And she fell for it.

The moment Eve and her husband ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were hijacked into the kingdom of darkness. In that precise moment they left behind God’s kingdom where had God directed them and where they, under his direction, had governed over the creation. Instantly, what had united them with God, snapped, and they experienced spiritual death. Spiritual death means separation.

Now that they were separated from God, there was nothing they could do to re-unite. Sin had entered to contaminate all creation. Just one decision that was not directed by God left man incapable of saving himself. His spirit, now separated from God was incapable of perceiving the spiritual world, and his relationship with God was broken. Man’s soul now took control of him and he became the centre of his world. His mind became clouded by Satan and he lost his God-given brilliant mental capacity.  

The dictator Satan rubbed his hands together with glee. He’d hijacked two human beings and along with them, the whole of creation.

*** *** ***

Years passed. Centuries rolled by. God’s plan already accomplished in the spiritual realm was soon to be put into action in the natural or physical realm.

Someone who belonged to God’s kingdom must come into the kingdom of darkness and offer up his life so that all those who had been born in that kingdom of darkness could be free. He must come and rescue them because they were totally incapable of rescuing themselves. God’s son Jesus was the only one qualified to carry out the huge rescue operation.

*** *** ***

Satan the dictator grimaced. Fear clutched at his heart.  He listened intently to the conversations and quickly drew his own conclusions. A king born to the Jews? He would not, no he could not, tolerate a rival. He had to act quickly. The human being he used to carry out his clever plan was King Herod.

Herod compelled by an inner voice ordered all baby boys under two years old to be killed. But baby Jesus was not among those babies. Satan frowned.

All through Jesus’ life on earth Satan made vicious attempts to hijack him into his kingdom. He tried by tempting Jesus to obey him. And if Jesus had obeyed and through obedience given allegiance to Satan, he would have immediately been disqualified to carry out the rescue operation.

Satan doubled his efforts to annihilate Jesus. He attempted to throw him over a cliff. He stirred everyone up against him. Driven by desperation he played his last card: witchcraft. Death by crucifixion. Just as people stick pins into a voodoo doll to cause death, wicked men drove nails into the living body of God’s son Jesus.

Would witchcraft kill Jesus? Would witchcraft be more powerful than the rescuer? His hands and feet were nailed to a cross. Humanly speaking the prospect of survival looked very bleak.

A shout rent the air, a triumphant shout, not the whimper of a dying, defeated person.  

Father into your hands I commit my spirit!

Medically speaking what happened at that moment is not what happens when a person dies. Usually, when one dies, the spirit leaves a dead body.

But Jesus’ spirit left a living body, not a dead one. Jesus gave up his life.

Witchcraft didn’t kill Jesus. He didn’t die exhausted under the weight of the sin of the world. Nor did he die from the multitudinous infirmities he carried. No! He gave up his life voluntarily to rescue the hijacked.  

At that moment all humanity hijacked by Satan centuries before was FREED!

At that moment Satan and all the powers of his kingdom of darkness were defeated.

*** *** ***

Satan snarled. There stood Jesus the Victor with his hand outstretched. Trembling with rage the defeated foe was obliged to hand over the keys of death and hell. The only resource he had now was his store of lies.

The angels in heaven quivered with emotion. One from that myriad of worshippers had just been dispatched to earth on a mission - to sit at the entrance to the empty grave of the Victor.

The earth shook with a violent earthquake. It was a moment of triumph and indicated the arrival of the angel from the spiritual realm into the physical realm.

Jesus’ spirit had returned to his Father; his soul had descended to hell where he had snatched the keys of death and hell from the defeated dictator. One thing remained. God was about to raise his body from the grave. It would be an incorruptible body.

Millions of celestial beings held their breath. Excitement rippled through their ranks. For them it was incomprehensible but none the less glorious, that historic moment when God with a power that transcended all earthly power raised his son Jesus from the dead.

*** *** ***

Cowering in the shadows, the captive fingered his chains. Born in the kingdom of darkness he was one of millions of hijacked humanity. Over the years he had tried various methods of escape: religion; good works; promises; penitence. Was he doomed to die in captivity? He sighed deeply and pulling his filthy rags around his shoulders, slumped into a dejected heap on the smelly floor.   

Suddenly something stirred in his spirit compelling him to open his eyes. Instinctively he knew that his rescuer had come. The risen Jesus stood in front of him with a paper in his hand. Seized with an overwhelming desire to pay attention to what he was being offered, the captive leaned forward and focused on the paper. His name was written in large print.  It was his certificate to freedom signed with the very blood of his rescuer.

This was a crucial life-or-death moment. He had to choose. He could believe and accept his certificate to freedom or continue to exist in captivity.

The captive looked up into the face of his rescuer. Their eyes met, and locked.  Without hesitation he believed and grabbed his certificate to freedom.

Clunk. The leg irons fell to the floor.

Clank. The chains on his wrists snapped open.

The freed captive leapt to his feet, his eyes fixed on his rescuer. Grasping his outstretched hand firmly, he stepped confidently into God’s kingdom of light.