The Epic Battle
Ever since the Fall of humanity, the epic battle between good and evil has permeated the pages of the history of mankind. Some facet of this narrative can be seen in just about every tribe, race, and nation on our planet. In all of these traditions the hope is that somehow, some way, good will triumph over evil. In times past, the stories were carried on through oral traditions from one generation to another. With the advent of written records, widespread publications could be achieved so that other peoples and lands could know the story too. Today, through the wonders of the www, the entire globe can be connected to all the stories, of all the people, available all of the time! If you were to take an honest assessment of the nature and content of the stories, what would you say is winning: good or evil? Is it just a matter of perspective or are the scales being turned in one direction or another? What are the forces at play and who has the upper hand?
To be sure, there is plenty of evil in the world! But is there also plenty of good? Is the world going to “hell in a handbasket” or is there an impending army of goodness set to invade our world and transform darkness into light? From previous posts you may have read that from a biblical perspective (the one reflected in this post), good equates to everything that is in harmony with God and evil equates to everything that is out of harmony with God (“tav” and “ra” respectively in the biblical Hebrew). Listening to the sound rising up from the earth- from a strictly human vantage point- the sound is one of a disharmonious cacophony; seemingly totally out of sync with God. But, if you listen closely, with ears to hear, you will hear a different sound. A sound that is growing louder and a sound that has a power within it to re-sync the world. The sound already exists in Heaven but its existence on Earth is contingent on the method of reproduction and amplification.
To help expound on this, let's look at some of the physical laws of sound that are shaping our current environment on the planet. Sound and vibration are the key elements that God used to create. From Genesis we read “and God said,” the moment before matter existed. Sound vibrations in the form of spoken words going out of God's mouth in perfect harmony with His will and intention created the Universe. God’s voice (sound) collided with unformed darkness and caused this mass of nothingness to be transformed into a somethingness - the manifestation of whatever the word was (light, land, sea, etc).... And when these things were created, God called it good. Everything God created was/is good in its original form.
In recent years, physicists have discovered some amazingly powerful attributes of sound. One discipline in physics called String Theory has observed that all created matter is vibrating at certain frequencies (the speed at which atomic particles are moving back and forth). Nothing is truly “solid” in that everything is actually moving in inpreceptable ways. The force generated by this movement actually has the attractive power to hold the matter together and give it its shape and form. So in a sense, sound is the power that holds all things together. If this be true, then the source of the sound has something to do with the nature of the object. I have already mentioned that the Genesis account of creation started with sound vibrations going forth from God in the form of words.
When Jesus came to this planet, the gospel of John states that Jesus was the living Word of God or the embodiment of all of God’s words made into flesh. Jesus was in perfect harmony with those words because He was the incarnation of God (John 1). The book of Hebrews states that Jesus “upholds all things by the word of His power” (1:3). The book of Colossians states it even more plainly:
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see-- such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. [Col 1:15-17 NLT - emphasis added]
Jesus holds all things together! Jesus, the living Word of God, is at the center of ALL creation. So it is not wrong to say that good is still at the center of all things that God created. So if that is true, why is there so much evil in God’s created world? Evil at the core is just an expression of existence that is out of harmony with God. When God gave humanity partnership to rule over the creation we call Earth, humanity was endued with the power of speech, as we are made in the image of God. This speech was also endued with creative power that could be used to further extend the goodness of God’s will or release the destructively disharmonious will of man on the earth. If this were to happen (and it did) it would cause created matter to vibrate out of sync with God’s intention and vibrate in destructive ways. God has stated it plainly - life and death (good and evil) are in the power of the tongue (Prov. 18:21). The solution to the problem of evil begins with the war of words!
I want to present to you for your consideration a strategic plan for turning the tide of the flood of evil we see swirling around us. This plan is simple and every believer can engage in it. This plan involves implementing two powerful aspects of sound - volume and resonance frequency. You may be familiar with the demonstration where a wine glass all of a sudden explodes and shatters when subjected to the loud, booming sound coming from the voice of a singer. The force of the sound pressure exerted against a seemingly solid object has the power to make the atomic particles in the glass vibrate so fast that they can no longer hold together and they explode. Can we believe that the volume of the sounds of God’s goodness coming out of our mouth can actually shatter the seemingly solid forces of evil we see wreaking havoc on our planet? What is the loudest sound you hear being broadcast into our world? If it is not the goodness of God then it is time to turn up our volume!
If the volume of God’s goodness has the power to shatter evil is there a force in our words (sound vibrations) that can actually convert what was evil back into something good? Yes, there is! Another physical property of sound is called resonant frequency. Without getting too technical, every created object has within it a specific frequency (the rate at which the particles are vibrating or how fast the particles are moving back and forth). In 1665, Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch inventor of the pendulum clock, noticed something very strange about two of his clocks hanging on the wall. No matter where the pendulums of each clock started in their swinging, in about ½ hour the pendulums were synchronized to swing together. He was mystified as some unseen and unknown force was acting on the pendulums to bring them into harmony. Now years later, the mystery is solved. Physics calls this phenomenon resonance - where the vibrations of one object can affect the vibrations of another object in such a way where they will eventually come into harmony with each other or synchronize their movement.
So how does this apply to us? If the words that we are speaking are in harmony with the words that God is speaking there will be resonance and the two will begin to move in sync with each other. Jesus was in perfect harmony with His Father. The words of Heaven were released in perfect harmony on the earth and things happened! When Jesus spoke, demons fled, storms ceased, waves obeyed, eyes were opened, and even the dead were raised. Jesus said nothing that His Father would not say. They were in perfect resonance. Jesus’ words had the power to shatter evil and bring back all of its effects into harmony with God’s goodness. Jesus gave us this same power and authority before He left the planet.
Life and death are still in the power of the tongue. Can we dare believe that God’s Word in our mouth is just as powerful as God’s Word out of His mouth? If we are to release life we have to make a decision to speak life over every situation. We need to choose our words carefully. We can not afford to have words in our mouth that are not in the mouth of our Heavenly Father. What is God saying over the earth today? Is He cursing and judging evil people? Is He criticizing people who don’t agree with Him? Is He gossiping? Is He speaking gloom and doom and spewing out negativity over the hopeless state of the world? Or is He speaking light into darkness, healing into brokenness, deliverance into bondage, hope into hopelessness, life into death? YES, He is!
What can happen on our planet if every believer came into harmony with God’s will and words and began to speak out LOUDLY and BOLDLY declaring His goodness over the earth? Could our unified voice, in agreement with Heaven’s voice, create a sound on the earth that establishes God’s will to seek, save, and restore all that was lost? Does one voice, your voice, really make a difference in the balance of good and evil?
I believe Dr. Seuss captured the essence of this power in his beloved story, Horton Hears a Who. If you are not familiar with the story, a guileless elephant named Horton, happens upon a dust speck which turns out to be the world that a tiny civilization of “Whos” lives on. Horton is fascinated by this and also takes on the responsibility to to protect at all costs the preservation of these minute people. As it turns out, none of Horton’s circle of friends believes this world exists and determines to rid him of this fantasy by destroying the dust particle. In desperation, Horton (the only one who could hear the tiny voices of the Whos), tells them they must all shout LOUD and in UNISON, “We are here” in order to save their civilization. The Whos begin their chant, but it still is not loud enough for Horton’s world to hear. That is, until the very last voice cried out, “We are here!” - and in a moment of booming synchronicity, the sound exploded into the atmosphere and changed the course of Who history and saved their planet!
Can it be that one more voice crying out in harmony with all the other voices declaring God’s glory can be the tipping point? We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. We are here, so as the Apostle Paul declared: “so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” [Rom 15:6 NASB].
So, on the count of three…
by Pastor Jim Anan
Elevate Church