Mere Missions

J esus I s L ord : E ndearment • 43

only who has “torn the veil” (Matt. 27.51) that separated us sinners from the presence of the Holy God. This tearing asunder has now given us a new and living way (Heb. 10.20) into the presence of God Almighty. 2 Corinthians 2.11 says that we do not need to be outwitted by Satan and are not to be ignorant of his designs. Satan’s plan, his objective and chief aim is simple: nullify, cancel, blind, mute God’s Plan A, the saving power of the Gospel. “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4.4). He is the tempter who seeks through affliction to turn believers away from the gospel (1 Thess. 3.5), to hinder God’s servants in their ministry to proclaim the Gospel (1 Thess. 2.18), who raises up false apostles to pervert the truth of the gospel (2 Cor. 11.14), and at times silences the voice of God’s heralds of the Gospel (Acts 7.54–60). This is Satan’s main objective. He will do all he can to frustrate God’s Plan A of redemption in Jesus Christ and will continue this plan to the end of the age when he will incarnate himself in the man of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2.4-10). We are born into the “mother of all conflicts” and none can escape it. John Dawson in Taking Our Cities for God , said, “According to the Bible, our lives are lived in the midst of an invisible spiritual war. One of the most dangerous things we can do is simply ignore this reality.” Jesus saw past the temporal outer man and saw the unseen spiritual realty that all of humanity was harassed (Greek – to fillet alive; to skin) and helpless (Matt. 9.36). The soul of every person is a battleground of tragic conflict between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Darkness. Considering this reality, we can now answer the question, what kind of Lord is Jesus? “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name” (Exod. 15.3). This “man of war” leads the angelic armies of heaven. They