I was reading Psalms 9 today, and the first two verses stopped me. I’m always amazed at the fact that I can re-read the Bible over and over and still be challenged by something I’ve read before. You too?
Today what stopped me was a little two-word phrase. I will. Psalm 9 is not the first time I’ve read that little phrase. In fact, if you know the story of creation, you know there was more to it than what is recorded in Genesis. We get a glimpse of life in the heavens in Isaiah 14 before the fall of human beings–when a different type of fall took place.
“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
O Day Star, son of Dawn, is considered to be a name for satan, the most beautiful and powerful of the angels God created. Exactly when they were created is not known, but when he rebelled with these “I will” statements or desires, God cast him and his rebellious crew of fallen angels to earth. In case you ever wondered where evil comes from? The blame stops with this enemy, the evil one who parades like an angel of light but is filled with darkness.
So we have God creating the world and involved in His creation, and then the enemy who has been cast to earth, deceives the man and woman made in His image and causes them to want the exact thing satan wanted – to be like God. Satan didn’t want to be like God in a good way–in the way we want to shine forth His character, His grace, His love. He wanted to usurp God’s authority and rule the nations, the world for himself.
Thing is? We don’t get to be God. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting to try. Ever since that second fall – the fall of human beings, not of angels, we’ve been in a battle with God’s way or my way?
It’s a case of opposing wills.
And when it became clear that Adam and Eve desired the same thing satan wanted, God stepped in with His own “I will” statement. The big difference is that His “I will” statement was true and something He could actually fulfill because He has the power to do as He says.
And He said, “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
Satan wanted to control God. He couldn’t so he tried to control God’s image-bearers. And God declared war on the enemy, satan, in order to save His image-bearers. And while Jesus was the final offspring of the woman who crushed satan’s head at the cross, the battle between the enemy and the rest of humanity still rages because the final defeat of the enemy is yet to come. And it will come.
Sometimes though, when evil rages, we think we are enemies of each other. We miss the fact that the only real enemy is the evil one. He’s the one Jesus taught us to pray against when He said, “Deliver us from the evil one.” We need delivering. We need rescuing. We need a Savior.
It’s why we celebrate this season each year. Christmas isn’t about gifts and cookies and decorated houses and mantles and trees. It’s about two ordinary people who said, “Your will be done,” and allowed God to use them to bring forth Jesus, the Savior of the World.
Mary would not have birthed Jesus if she had not submitted to God’s plan. If she had said, “I will” instead of, “Your will,“ God would have chosen someone else to fulfill His plan and Mary would have missed out on a huge blessing. If Joseph had said, “I will,”instead of “Your will be done,” Mary’s story could have been oh so different.
And down through the ages, men and women have recognized this battle of wills and made a choice to follow God or follow the evil one. David was one who saw this truth, and it was in Psalm 9 where he wrote:
“I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.”
David didn’t want to make himself like the Most High. He sang praise TO the Most High. Big difference in perspectives. And opposite of where the enemy and David placed their wills.
Jesus made the biggest display of willingness to submit to His Father, God Most High, when he prayed in the garden on the night he was going to be handed over to the evil one. He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
In saying those words, Jesus dealt the enemy a fatal blow. What began in eternity past with an arrogant desire from a created being to take God’s place and demand his will, his way, ended with Jesus’ surrender to His Father’s plan to crush the enemy by dying and rising again to take back what the evil one’s willful lies had stolen.
The opposing wills of God’s will against the evil one’s is not the same as thinking of a war of good against evil, because in good against evil we think the players are equal, and when it seems like evil is winning we wonder whatever happened to good? But good never conquered evil. God did. And God will complete what He began. The opposition of the evil one still rages today, but his days are numbered. And he knows it. There will come a day when God does away with him once and for all.
Perhaps we wonder why He waits? I don’t have God’s timetable, but I do know that He’s not willing for His image-bearers to follow the enemy. He’s waiting for each one of us to say, like David, “I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart.” God is seeking those who are willing to follow Him into a great adventure of coming joy. (It’s why Jesus came!)
May this season give each one of us reason to ask ourselves whose will we will follow. Ours? Or His?
