What the Devil Doesn't Want You to Know! Part 1

Identifying the True World View

Everybody talks about a “world view.” Particularly when we enter the college experience, we are told, “You‘ve got to develop a world view, and that will help you.” Now, saying just that much is really true. But then they suggest, “Well, there‘s the atheist world view, and there‘s the Christian world view, and there‘s the Muslim world view, and there are many other legitimate views.” They want you to believe that you can pick any one of these world views, and make it the grid by which you can successfully live your life. The Devil would like you to believe that, too!

What the Devil doesn‘t want you to know, is that what they‘re telling you is not true. There is only one true world view, because there is only one world. That world has certain changeless things about it, which are not subject to negotiation. We‘ve got to learn that, because if we‘ve got a false world view, then we are going to end up in great trouble. In contrast, a true world view will go far to help us maintain our sanity in a world like this. The true world view, the facts by which we understand life, consists of a number of things, but they‘re not too hard.

God Is

First of all, know in your heart that God is. We are not atheists; we are Theists. We believe that there is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations. With that fact firmly in mind, we can stay sound and oriented, no matter what may happen in life. If God is, then there are no accidents in life, there are no things out of His control. He is omnipotent. He is omnipresent. He is omniscient. He can do anything, and He‘s got the whole world in His hands. When we believe that, we find a tremendous burst of assurance in the midst of every concern in life.

That‘s why a lot of people have mental problems. They can‘t keep it all together because there is no final foundation on which all the rest of their convictions are built. God is. Remember that. Remember that He is transcendent and eminent. He does not change. He is able to do anything that He decides to do.

Now, don‘t let that bring you to the place where you blame things on God, saying, “You could have done differently.” We‘ve got to understand some other things beyond the fact that God is. But the existence of God is the first principle by which all else is decided. “I believe in God.” Let that be the resolution of your life.

He Is A Trinity

There‘s a second necessary component to the true world view, and that is that God is a Trinity. Once we know that God is, we then discover that God is Father, and God is Son, and God is Holy Spirit. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, this Trinity of divinity, are three Persons and yet one Person.

You ask me to explain that: nobody can. But that‘s what God has told us about Himself. Therefore, we must remember that the Son is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. The Holy Spirit is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son. There never was a time when the Father was, and the Son was not. But rather, these are eternal Beings, who together represent the Godhead: Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. When you think about them, just remember the Father presiding over the universe. Remember the Son loving us and doing things for us. Remember the Holy Spirit, who makes it possible for God to come and live in us, which He has promised to do, when we believe in Him. As we come to know what God is like, we can better relate to Him as we move through the days of our lives.

He Made the Universe

Creation is magnificent and marvelous and wonderful. It should be respected. But creation is not God. Therefore, it is not right, or proper, to worship the trees and the plants and the flowers. In fact, we‘ve got to be careful of that even in modern philosophy today. We‘ve got a thing called “ecology,” which when taken to the extreme becomes the modern form of an old heresy that says God and nature are the same thing.

God created the universe: the trees, the plants, the flowers, the sea, and everything that is in it. He is the Creator God, who stands behind it all. But God and His creation are two different things. The creation is marvelous, and it should be respected. But only God should be worshiped. If your world view elevates the creation above the Creator, you‘ll only end up worshiping dirt!

The World is Warped

Let‘s remember fourthly about that, that the world is warped. It‘s not now just how God made it. Something has happened to the world. It has been infected by a dreadful moral disease called sin. So, if you want to know perfection, you cannot now look at nature, or especially humanity, because we have been warped by that awful thing called sin.

Why, in the last analysis, do we have war in the world? People say, “If there‘s a God, why is there war?” The answer is, because man is a sinner. Why is it that there are unpredictabilities? Why is it that there are accidents and disease and problems? Why is there death in a world made by God? The answer is, because man is a sinner. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).

The world became warped because sin infected it. You see, what God chose to do was to make man in His own image. He did so, in order that man could progress from innocence to maturity, and become responsible for the universe one day.

But along came this dreadful being called the Devil. He spoke to Eve, and he tempted her to eat of the forbidden fruit. She did, and then she brought the fruit to Adam, and he ate too. And so death entered the human race, as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve. There is no way to show that death even existed in the universe before man sinned against God. But man‘s sin against God warped the universe all the way down, from then until now, because sin is an inherited thing. It came through the bloodstream of man. It works in your life, and also in mine. It is the sinfulness of man which has produced a warped world.

That‘s why we have to have nations with laws. That‘s why we have to have courts and judges, in order to make decisions about the law. If man were not a sinner, we wouldn‘t need laws, because no one would have broken the moral law of God. But because man is a sinner, we have to have human government and human laws, in order to control him.

Another angle about man‘s free will ought to be learned as well. Because man has a free will, it is very wrong to enslave man, to control him, beyond a certain point. To totally control him is to destroy the image of God in his life, and therefore he ceases to operate on a moral plane from that point on. To remember that the world has been warped by the sinfulness of man, means that we no longer have to trust in the goodness of man, and no longer need to be disappointed by his failings. We will not finally believe a verbal assertion made by anybody; we will take that person‘s promise as a relative thing. We will put our trust in the provision of God as the only absolute thing.

All relationships in this world are relative things. They are not absolute things. They can be broken by death or many other things. Our relationship with God is not a relative thing. It is an absolute thing, as we discover once we come to know Jesus Christ as personal Savior. When we remember that, we will not be disillusioned or face despair because of somebody else‘s failure, or even our own. We will realize that man, being a sinner, is unable to live a perfect life—a fact which has tremendous impact upon the way we live our lives.

Christ Came to Save

The world is warped, but we have a marvelous announcement to make, and that is, that Jesus Christ came into the world “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). The Bible says about Him:“In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

This second Person of the Trinity one day became part of humanity. Christ came into the world, not as a full blown adult human being to pay us a visit, but He was born into the human race. He became a man forever, and He is forever identified with us. Jesus Christ is very God of very God.

Why did He come? Did He come just to present us with an example that we should follow in His steps? Well, the Bible says that is one of the reasons why He came. But basically, the core reason why He came was, “to seek and to save that which was lost.” He came to die,“the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). He came “not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

So the ransom for the sinfulness of the world that sold itself to the Devil was paid on Calvary‘s cross. It was paid by Christ‘s death. Christ truly died on that cross. He died and He was buried for three days, and then He rose again, the Bible says. This is a fact that the Devil would do anything to keep you from knowing. It will totally rearrange your world view!

Salvation Is by Faith Alone

So Christ, in His coming, in His death, burial and resurrection, furnishes the sole and only basis of salvation for mankind. Salvation cannot come to a person because of his good works. “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 15:8). Salvation cannot come to a person because he aspires not to be a sinner any more, to do better despite his failures of the past. In no way can salvation come because of that. There‘s a different and surprising way He saves you and me. The Bible teaches that salvation comes to us by faith alone. We are saved by faith, because of the grace of God, because we believe in Jesus Christ alone.

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Romans 3:23-25).

We may know all about God and about the Bible and about the Gospel, but we will never be saved unless we come to Jesus Christ , believing in Him. We are saved by faith alone. Salvation by faith alone is the issue that is being forgotten by many Christians today. But alas, without that core of salvation by faith alone, there is no salvation.

That‘s one of the things that the Devil especially doesn‘t want you to know. He‘s perfectly happy for you to believe many of the facts about the Bible, and about God, and those other things. But we do not understand Christianity if we preach salvation by works, or by keeping the law, or by baptism, or by a lifetime of commitment to the Lord. None of these avail for salvation. Salvation by faith alone brings freedom and security, which make you much more dangerous as an adversary to the Devil.

I admonish every one of us in that regard. If you‘re a preacher, and you are not preaching salvation by faith alone, go into your prayer closet and don‘t come out until you understand justification by faith. Do not ask people to hang on, let go, see the light, feel the heat, and the rest of it. Simply tell them, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31). “Now to him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that works not, but believes on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:4-5).

I implore you, salvation by faith alone must be the core of your understanding as to how a person relates to God. You do not have the proper world view if you believe that works are the basis of going to heaven someday. You believe correctly when you believe that as a sinner, you cannot save yourself, but depend on Christ: “Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). If you believe in salvation by grace alone plus nothing, you are correct. That is the only way that a person can be saved.

By the way, this may be a good time to review your salvation. Have you believed by faith alone? Or are you simply trusting in a church or a religious association, or some good things you‘ve done in the past? Forget those things. Come to Christ, on the basis of the shed blood of the cross alone, and you‘ll receive the joy of salvation, and the wonderful gift of eternal life. Your world view is not correct if you do not believe in salvation that comes solely by the blood of Christ.

He‘s Coming Again

Then, the true world view announces that Jesus Christ is coming again. That is our hope. The Bible calls it “that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). We may take a moment to think about that from a Christian point of view. Jesus Christ is coming again, first of all, for His saints. He‘s not even coming to this world, but we shall be caught up to meet Him in the air, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

Really, when you face the pressures and the problems in life, you can operate with great confidence. You know that whatever may be the situation here, whatever may be your condition in life, Christ is coming again to deliver you and me from all of this. We shall be caught up to meet Him in the air, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” He‘s coming again for His saints.

But then, after that, He‘s coming back to earth with His saints. In Revelation Chapter 19, we have the vision that John had of Jesus returning. He will come “with ten thousands of His saints” (Jude 14). He‘s coming at that time to set up His kingdom in the world, to depose the Antichrist, and to establish the righteous rule of God. That righteous rule of God will come, not because of human engineering, or changing the world, or making it a proper place by human activity, to which Jesus can return. But that Kingdom will come when imposed by the conquering King, the Lord Jesus, when He sets up His Kingdom. Christ is coming again. When you believe that, you can stand strong in the face of any adversity, because you know He is coming again.

We are Enabled by Him

One final question you may ask is, “That‘s a world view in which I can truly believe, but what about now?” Well, you should include in your world view the exciting truth that we are enabled by Him even now, to accomplish wonderful things for His glory. The Bible says: “For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

Christ works in you. He enables you to set aside the bad ingredients of your personality and to live a new life. He empowers you with capability from on high. He gives you heaven‘s outlook on the things of life. He is a present enabler, and will enable you to do anything that you want to do, that is good and godly and will be a credit to Christ. Please depend upon His enablement today. You can be more than you are, by knowing Christ as personal Savior, and trusting Him for His help. The great present enabler made the Apostle Paul say: “I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). That‘s the world view to believe. There is none other. It is a perspective that the Devil doesn‘t want you to have, but it is the truth of God that will set you free. Say “Yes” to the perfect revelation of God. I pray that you will.

Become a Terror to the Devil, and Find Salvation

Salvation by grace—what a wonderful thing God gives to us when we believe in Him! Do you know that you‘re saved? Would you like to, today? You can believe the Gospel and come to Christ, and have everlasting life. Believing that He is the Son of God, and that He died for your sins on the cross, brings eternal life. Would you like to know Him? Pray this prayer, and believe God to make this real to your heart today.

“Heavenly Father, I know that I am a sinner; that Jesus died for my sins on the cross and rose again, and I want now to trust Him as my very own. Please come and live within my heart, and bring the assurance of salvation, I pray in Jesus‘ dear Name, Amen.”

From the writings of Dave Breese

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