March 2000

Part 5 of 6

by Carole Forde

an’s tongue is an enigma- full of lies invoking all of sin and death’s misery and mayhem by its inflammatory words! God says, "Death and Life are in the power of the TONGUE, and whichever a man loves and chooses, he shall eat of its fruit ." (Pr 18:21) Now behold a revelation! Paul said in Heb 2:13-15, "I will put my trust in God...I and the children whom God has given me; for since these children share in flesh and blood, He, Himself, partook of the same flesh and blood so that by His death He could destroy THE DEVIL WHO HAD THE POWER OF DEATH; and then deliver them who, through fear of that death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage!"
                First we read that the TONGUE has the POWER OF DEATH, then it says that the DEVIL has that same power! Which is it? In Ro 8:28 the Anointing sheds His light on this riddle: saying, "To be carnally-minded is DEATH; and to be spiritually-minded is peaceful LIFE"! Therefore Pr 18:21 can read, "To be carnally-minded or spiritually minded are in the power of the tongue; and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." Now what issues from the "mind" but "thoughts"; and what issue from the "tongue" but "words". So it stands to reason, the carnal-mind of death could only produce a word of death; and the spirit-mind of Life could only produce a Word of Life and if this be true, we have but to seek out the identities of these two. Turning to 1 Jn 1:1-2, John [who described himself as "The apostle whom Jesus loved." Jn 13:23] says, "I am writing about the WORD OF LIFE Who was from the beginning, Whom we have heard; Whom we have seen; Whom we have looked upon; Whom we have touched and handled with our own hands! His Life was manifested, and we have seen it; and do bear witness; and show to you that same Eternal Life Which was with the Father, was manifested to us!!"
                 There can be no doubt, John is testifying about Jesus Christ as the Word of Life; and that He was in the form of human flesh that could be heard, seen, and handled. Thus the Word of Death would be even more likely manifested in mortal flesh! This Word of Life is the same Word of God called Christ and the "Last Adam" (1 Cor 15:45) "Who was not sent to condemn the world; but that the whole world, through him, would be saved!" (Jn 3:17) So we can only conclude from this that the Word of Death is the Word of Satan, and the devil, called Antichrist, and therefore must be the "First Adam" (whose name is translated as "A man of low degree")!!
                 Men tremble at the name, "satan", yet it is only used 19 times in the O. T. and 35 times in the N. T.! It is actually a Hebrew word translated twelve times as "adversary"; once as "resist" and once as "withstand"! So it could be said that any adversary which "resists and withstands" God’s Word of Life is a "satan". And as for "devils"the Greek word [1228] is diabolos which yields our word, "diabolical" [Dict def.: "Being possessed by fiendish character or evil conduct; characteristic of a devil. "Diablo" is the Spanish word for devil.] Greek definition continues: "SLANDERER, FALSE ACCUSER, *TRADUCER." [*Traducer (Dict) means:"LEAD ACROSS OR TRANSFER; DEGRADE, LOWER, OR DISGRACE A REPUTATION; DEFAME, MALIGN, VIOLATE, AND BETRAY!"
                 Why should men tremble at the mention of "devils" when Jas 2:19 says, "Devils believe there is one God and TREMBLE!" We have said "satan" appears a total of 54 times in the Bible and "devil" appears 116 times; so together the two combine to 170 references. Now compare this to the " 4, 4 4 0 " TIMES the Name of "G O D" appears! This, alone, should be reason enough for the whole universe to tremble!!

[TO BE CONTINUED]