Materialism, Demons, and Baptism

The materialism of our world, which tries to explain everything in terms of energy and atoms, cringes away in horror when a Christian mentions his belief in spiritual beings like angels and demons. Why? Materialism was designed to exclude these creatures from mature and educated conversation. Materialism was engineered to slander all things immaterial and spiritual as myth, fable, and nothing more than fairy tales. The devil probably came up with materialism himself as a kind of camouflage to allow him to operate within the estates of the church and government with impunity. Materialism is an inherently meaningless philosophy. If everything is just matter moving from point a to point b, what’s morality but an arbitrary system of judgement that’s been foisted on us by the powerful? What’s right and wrong? What gives value to one thing and not another? If it’s all just matter, then the embryo in the womb could live or die. It doesn’t matter. If it’s all just matter, you can call yourself a boy or a girl. What’s to stop us from rearranging ourselves to fit what we want to be?

The devil and his demons have done a fair job of convincing the world they don’t exist, though I suspect that the loudest voices that deny objective meaning or morality knowingly commune with the dark powers. And yet this hypocrisy suits the demons. Showing one thing and giving another is what they’ve been doing for thousands of years. Eat this fruit and become wise like God. Sacrifice your babies to Molech for fertility and prosperity. Sacrifice to both Baal and YHWH and you be on both gods’ good side. Revelation must give way to reason so they can be joined in perfect unity. They promise blessing but lead to death.

Dear saints, you know better. In baptism the veil has been lifted from your eyes. In baptism you learned the god of this world isn’t the Premier of China. Nor is he a secret group of European elites driving the world into ruin to achieve their vain utopian delusions. (That’s not to say the demons don’t work directly through them to achieve their ends). No, the god of this world is Satan, the ancient serpent whose lies led Adam and Eve into sin. He “blinds the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel and glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4). Instead of being the discloser of secrets that even God doesn’t want you to know, as he suggested to Eve, he clouds the minds with half truths and outright lies that keep us from fearing God and knowing his mercy though Jesus Christ our Savior. Which is to say the devil wants nothing more than to drag God’s creation into the hell prepared for himself and his demons (Matt. 25:41). This is why Jesus calls him a liar and a murderer. He’s been slaying souls by robbing them of the truth of the Gospel and faith.

But all the demons’ works, ways, lies, and hate come to an end in Christ’s death. There, on the cross, the devil’s head is crushed. His lies are silenced. God’s mercy for you and all people is on full display.

By the sacrificed blood of the New Testament, Jesus entered the high and heavenly temple not made with hands, into the very presence of almighty God, to obtain our redemption from sin. By his blood the devil’s testimony against our sins are silenced. You remember how Satan accused both Job and Joshua the high priest in God’s holy presence. So is his desire for you to. When the day of judgment comes, he wants to stand before God pointing at you saying, “Be holy and just and destroy this sinner who deserves nothing but your wrath.” So great is the devil’s rage against you and his desire that you feel his torments in hell that he fought Michael and the angels bitterly to keep his accusation before God’s face.

“But he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for [the devil and his demons] in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that great and ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.””

"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!"

Your baptism has clothed you in Christ's own righteousness (Gal. 3:27). Your conscience has been cleansed of Satan's dreadful accusations by baptism (Heb. 10:22). The complete and total victory of Christ and his angels over the demonic forces in the heavenly places comes to you in this wonderful rebirth of water and Spirit. 

Dear saints, you are more than a collection of atoms and energy. You mean something. You matter, not because you invent meaning about yourself. God, in baptism, has promised you matter to him. You are his child and heir. When God himself unites with you in baptism, then nothing the devil can say or do can terrify or hurt you. 

The same principle holds true for the rest of the universe. God has spoken meaning into this world's existence in the very act of creation. Christians don't believe meaning is imposed artificially on a meaningless universe. God has invested everything with purpose. He has given everything, from galaxies to ants, its time and place to glorify his name. Though sin has diminished our capacity to discern the meanings of things in nature, knowledge of who we are and what our destiny will be has been restored by faith in the revelation of the Scriptures. Baptism opens the eyes of our heart to see that we are destined for redemption, resurrection, and eternal life.

Hold fast to baptism's promise by faith and you will extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one (Eph. 6:16). You will have victory on earth as surely as Christ is the victor in heaven.