Verse 8-10
"Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glories. But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said 'The Lord rebuke you!' But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct."
This is interesting since I typically see people that treat the devil as a punching bag for all the stored up hatred they have towards the world (e.g. calling him names, wishing ill upon him, fantasizing tortures towards him, etc.). I do not consider this pious in any way, but actually immature and even foolish. First of all, if you destroy destruction you will only succeed in making destruction the dominant principle. By accusing the accuser you are submitting yourself to his ethics; you are tasting his product and agreeing to become a consumer and a supporter of his perspective. But this is not the subject of these verses.
The second reason why I think it is foolish to do this is that, though it seems that not many people seem to be ignorant of this, Lucifer did bring down one-third of heaven's angels with him. This is striking because, if he was able to bring down beings that knew God face-to-face, who had never been subject to sin, and whose powers and knowledge over spiritual things was way over ours, what makes one think that he is not capable of fooling miserable human beings who have never seen God, have never experienced life outside of sin, and whose power and knowledge of spiritual things tends to be twisted, childish, and misunderstood at best. Do we really know who we are talking about when we wish ill on the devil? We are born fooled by him, why pretend like we are not supporting his cause? This reminds me of how the citizens of the U.S. blame the president for all the curses that have come upon the country; do they even understand the power that the president has and does not have? Do they even about the greater political concerns that the president has to deal with and that he probably thinks nothing of their complaints and actions?
We cannot pretend to understand or to have more power than the devil; mocking him is like a child, hiding behind his father, making faces at a store clerk that accuses the child of stealing something from his store. The father pays the store-clerk ("with his blood"), and the child ignorantly mocks the store-clerk not knowing what just happened. All that the child knows is that the store-clerk is evil and that his father is good, but that is enough knowledge for the brat to sit on his father's throne and pretend he has knowledge and power over everything his father controls. Not knowing that in his nature he is more like the store-clerk than he is like his father; that if he witnessed just a bit more of Satan's transcendent ideology he would very probably even become a faithful follower of his ways (Lucifer DID bring down a third of the angels with him;l and we ARE born into sin and have not known anything outside of it from the very beginning).
It is even possible that the devil is a lot more honorable than any human being, because he sins not because of mere flesh desires, but his motives and principles are deeper and greater than any human being could ever imagine. If all he had was mere flesh desires, he probably would not have fallen from heaven. Don't you know that hidden within our human virtues is humanity's sinful nature? Our mind is twisted so that those things which we think are good and fair by human standards are actually very ungodly, and those things which are part of God's nature we see as terrible, ugly, and detestable. You have no idea how much you actually hate God; why do you think God has to test you?
Thus Satan can appear to us as an angel of light, because he actually has those characteristics that we value. He knows how to please people by being generous, presentable, and humble; he knows how to have authority over his own fate, how to have faith in himself, and how to survive and overcome a half-eternity of trouble. He knows not to be a show-off, he knows how to follow his dreams and not let anything get in his way, he knows to aim high and to accomplish his ambition at any cost. He knows a good sense-of-humor and knows to be a trustworthy fellow. There are so many philosophies that we value that we do not even know they are satanic, and we dare to growl at the hand we can't resist but kiss and caress.
Our sin is not that we don't chastise the devil, but that we don't look to God. Thinking about this, you may be afraid to not have negative feelings towards the devil, but think about how you are not afraid to admire people on earth who are a lot worse than him. We admire celebrities who have a good sense of humor without considering that they learned that from Satan himself; we admire people who have faith in themselves and follow their dreams without considering that those are Satan's teachings. We are already admiring the devil! We chastise him out of ignorance! We fool ourselves, and feel secure with our hate towards him without realizing that we are supporting his cause by being dissatisfied with God's creation!
He accuses and says, "see God? They hate me, just like I told you!"
So what is my final point? That we should love the devil instead? To admire and follow him for his virtues? If you think these, then you have missed the point and should read everything over again.
My point is that we should not "slander whatever [we] do not understand". This great controversy is way over our heads and we should not pretend like we know what is going on, or at least we should not act like we know more than we actually do. Even "when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said 'The Lord rebuke you!'" We should not pretend like we have a right to mock and slander and leave the job of accusation to the Accuser. Our time may come when we will "judge angels" (Corinthians 6:3) but we are not even remotely capacitated to that now. Our job now is to be humble like Jesus was, going through the pain and shame that Satan demanded he go through, and thus proving him wrong; putting his servant Job through the trials that Satan demanded and thus proving him wrong. Job cursed neither God or His angels, but in the end of the story understood that he is in no position to question or slander the determinations of heaven.
Yes, it is rightful for the child to seek help from his father; and yes it is better for the child to hide behind the father, but this is where the child's advantage ends (within his father). For the child to grow he needs to learn his place, which is not on his father's throne but behind him. When the child begins to respect his father's business, his power and knowledge, only then will he be better able to relate and then to become like his father. For the child to become more like his father, he must get more familiar with what his father did by paying the store-clerk. He should understand the position he was in, how he got himself into that situation, what situation he is in right now, and how much patience the father has toward him. The child must learn the father's wishes, and the father's principles of behavior, he must learn to be like him and begin to act like him; and not like the store-clerk. The child must adopt the father's spirit, before the store-clerk claims adoption and is given the right to do as he will with the child.
"Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glories. But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said 'The Lord rebuke you!' But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct."
This is interesting since I typically see people that treat the devil as a punching bag for all the stored up hatred they have towards the world (e.g. calling him names, wishing ill upon him, fantasizing tortures towards him, etc.). I do not consider this pious in any way, but actually immature and even foolish. First of all, if you destroy destruction you will only succeed in making destruction the dominant principle. By accusing the accuser you are submitting yourself to his ethics; you are tasting his product and agreeing to become a consumer and a supporter of his perspective. But this is not the subject of these verses.
The second reason why I think it is foolish to do this is that, though it seems that not many people seem to be ignorant of this, Lucifer did bring down one-third of heaven's angels with him. This is striking because, if he was able to bring down beings that knew God face-to-face, who had never been subject to sin, and whose powers and knowledge over spiritual things was way over ours, what makes one think that he is not capable of fooling miserable human beings who have never seen God, have never experienced life outside of sin, and whose power and knowledge of spiritual things tends to be twisted, childish, and misunderstood at best. Do we really know who we are talking about when we wish ill on the devil? We are born fooled by him, why pretend like we are not supporting his cause? This reminds me of how the citizens of the U.S. blame the president for all the curses that have come upon the country; do they even understand the power that the president has and does not have? Do they even about the greater political concerns that the president has to deal with and that he probably thinks nothing of their complaints and actions?
We cannot pretend to understand or to have more power than the devil; mocking him is like a child, hiding behind his father, making faces at a store clerk that accuses the child of stealing something from his store. The father pays the store-clerk ("with his blood"), and the child ignorantly mocks the store-clerk not knowing what just happened. All that the child knows is that the store-clerk is evil and that his father is good, but that is enough knowledge for the brat to sit on his father's throne and pretend he has knowledge and power over everything his father controls. Not knowing that in his nature he is more like the store-clerk than he is like his father; that if he witnessed just a bit more of Satan's transcendent ideology he would very probably even become a faithful follower of his ways (Lucifer DID bring down a third of the angels with him;l and we ARE born into sin and have not known anything outside of it from the very beginning).
It is even possible that the devil is a lot more honorable than any human being, because he sins not because of mere flesh desires, but his motives and principles are deeper and greater than any human being could ever imagine. If all he had was mere flesh desires, he probably would not have fallen from heaven. Don't you know that hidden within our human virtues is humanity's sinful nature? Our mind is twisted so that those things which we think are good and fair by human standards are actually very ungodly, and those things which are part of God's nature we see as terrible, ugly, and detestable. You have no idea how much you actually hate God; why do you think God has to test you?
Thus Satan can appear to us as an angel of light, because he actually has those characteristics that we value. He knows how to please people by being generous, presentable, and humble; he knows how to have authority over his own fate, how to have faith in himself, and how to survive and overcome a half-eternity of trouble. He knows not to be a show-off, he knows how to follow his dreams and not let anything get in his way, he knows to aim high and to accomplish his ambition at any cost. He knows a good sense-of-humor and knows to be a trustworthy fellow. There are so many philosophies that we value that we do not even know they are satanic, and we dare to growl at the hand we can't resist but kiss and caress.
Our sin is not that we don't chastise the devil, but that we don't look to God. Thinking about this, you may be afraid to not have negative feelings towards the devil, but think about how you are not afraid to admire people on earth who are a lot worse than him. We admire celebrities who have a good sense of humor without considering that they learned that from Satan himself; we admire people who have faith in themselves and follow their dreams without considering that those are Satan's teachings. We are already admiring the devil! We chastise him out of ignorance! We fool ourselves, and feel secure with our hate towards him without realizing that we are supporting his cause by being dissatisfied with God's creation!
He accuses and says, "see God? They hate me, just like I told you!"
So what is my final point? That we should love the devil instead? To admire and follow him for his virtues? If you think these, then you have missed the point and should read everything over again.
My point is that we should not "slander whatever [we] do not understand". This great controversy is way over our heads and we should not pretend like we know what is going on, or at least we should not act like we know more than we actually do. Even "when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said 'The Lord rebuke you!'" We should not pretend like we have a right to mock and slander and leave the job of accusation to the Accuser. Our time may come when we will "judge angels" (Corinthians 6:3) but we are not even remotely capacitated to that now. Our job now is to be humble like Jesus was, going through the pain and shame that Satan demanded he go through, and thus proving him wrong; putting his servant Job through the trials that Satan demanded and thus proving him wrong. Job cursed neither God or His angels, but in the end of the story understood that he is in no position to question or slander the determinations of heaven.
Yes, it is rightful for the child to seek help from his father; and yes it is better for the child to hide behind the father, but this is where the child's advantage ends (within his father). For the child to grow he needs to learn his place, which is not on his father's throne but behind him. When the child begins to respect his father's business, his power and knowledge, only then will he be better able to relate and then to become like his father. For the child to become more like his father, he must get more familiar with what his father did by paying the store-clerk. He should understand the position he was in, how he got himself into that situation, what situation he is in right now, and how much patience the father has toward him. The child must learn the father's wishes, and the father's principles of behavior, he must learn to be like him and begin to act like him; and not like the store-clerk. The child must adopt the father's spirit, before the store-clerk claims adoption and is given the right to do as he will with the child.
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