Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 202

July 21;    Luke 4:6;    48/260(III);    ‘The god of This World’

Luke 4:6 And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.

Shortly after the Lord Jesus was water baptized and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.  Luke 4:2 tells us that Jesus was tempted by satan for forty days.  One of the temptations satan tempted Jesus with was offering Jesus the authority over all of kingdoms of the world, if Jesus would worship him.  Verse 2 already told us that Jesus was tempted by satan and if the devil did not have authority over the kingdoms on the world it was not a true temptation.  We are told in    2 Corinthians 4:4 that satan is the god of this world.  He is the legal god and became the legal god when Adam, who had authority of the earth, sinned and gave his authority to satan.  When Adam disobeyed the one command the Lord gave him, his sin cursed the earth and he gave his authority over the earth to satan.  This explains a great deal.  The pain, suffering, cruelty, sickness, hatred and poverty is not the Lord’s doing.  The devil causes all kinds of misery and death and he blames the Lord.  If people do not know what the Bible teaches, they believe the Lord is responsible for all of the horrible things we see daily.  Because of this many fear or are mad at God, when He had nothing to do with this.  Jesus came and took the authority back from the devil and gave it back to His Church.  As Christians, we live in a cursed world, but we are not cursed and can live, in line with the blessings of the Word. Plus, we can teach the truth that others need to hear.