This will obviously be controversial to some.  But nevertheless this is what God says so I stand by it.  What I have been attempting to do is give you some keys to understanding the Bible.  If we can understand God’s intentions, motivations and purposes for the book, we will better understand what is written.  So in today’s blog I want to give you another perspective of why the Bible is so hard to understand, to many.  This principle is based upon the concept that God has enemies and that in order for God not reveal everything to His enemies, He has to write things in an encoded method.  , This encoded method allows God’s people to see the truth while at the same time keeping the information from His enemies.  It is a very tricky way of writing with many complex twists, mysteries, hidden meanings, symbolic representations and other tricky methods.  I call it God’s method of hiding the truth in plain site.

 James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?  Whosever therefore will be a friend to the world is the enemy of God.

 From this verse in James we see a fact revealed that God has enemies.  If you didn’t know that it would be good to study and find out who those enemies are.  I’ve heard some fools think and teach that Satan was just a pawn of God.  A spirit being that appears before God to get permission to make somebody sick or kill their children.  People read things like in the book of Job and make too many assumptions.  Satan is not working for God.  Satan doesn’t have to ask for permission to put some evil plan into work against you.  Most of the time it is our own fault when Satan attacks us.  We open the door to the enemy and let him do the things he does.  There are a lot of Bible verses that I could give you to back that statement, but I won’t spend a lot of time on that subject since that is not what we are talking about.

 This may also be news to some of you and maybe you’ve never heard anyone teach on this, but God has enemies.  The church has the same enemies.  Satan is still a spiritual force in the world in opposition to the church and our God.  Satan I think sometimes people look at him as this evil red suited, horned and pitch fork carrying spiritual entity that resides in hell and comes to earth to bug us when he wants to.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Satan does not live in hell, he has never been to hell, doesn’t want to go to hell and he’s doing everything in his power to stay out of there.  But there is good news Satan doesn’t know everything.  He can read the same Bible that we can but he doesn’t understand it any better than anyone else in the world.  As God gives new revelation to the church, that is the first time Satan hears about most of this stuff.  There are scriptures that back this up.  Look at this verse:

 1 Corinthians 2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew for had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

 You see from this verse that Satan and his fallen angels are ignorant of the plan of God.  This verse says clearly if they had known the consequences to killing God on the cross, they would not have done it.  So apparently we don’t yet fully comprehend the ramifications and consequences of God being nailed to the cross.  Not only did He provide salvation for us, he sealed the fate of Satan.  Interesting isn’t it?  So when Jesus said I didn’t come to do away with the law but to fulfill it he was saying that he was here to fulfill those things which were written about him.

 Luke 24:44 And he said unto them, These are they words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me.

 John 5:39 Search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

 So couldn’t Satan read the Bible and see and hear what was being said in the synagogues?  Sure he could, the problem is he didn’t understand anything that was written and neither did any man.  Jesus fulfilled countless prophesies in his birth, life, death, burial and resurrection and Satan didn’t know any of them.  I can only assume that Satan thought by killing God he could rid him from his planet and now he could go on and continue to rule for as long as he wanted.  These are all interesting thoughts but these concepts are also applicable to the unsaved human race.   Notice what is written on this subject and the words spoken by Jesus himself:

 Mark 4:11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.

 Jesus speaking to his disciples said the mystery is for only you to know, those that are on the outside they will never know or understand the things of God.  It has always occurred to me that people in hell don’t know why they are there.  They don’t have a clue that Jesus paid for their sins and they rejected the free gift of salvation.  I wonder if someday they will come to the knowledge and realize the things they missed out on.  So were we enemies of God before salvation?  Here is a scripture that says we were:

 Romans 5:10 For if, we when we were enemies , we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled we shall be saved by his life.

 So we discover a fact that God said that while we were still enemies, Jesus paid the price to reconcile us back to God.  This of course was one of the primary reasons for the death of Jesus on the cross.  Clearly it was not all that transpired, but I’m sure glad He did that for us.

 So what can we conclude from all of these scriptures?  If God had enemies, He was forced to conceal information in His Word in a manner that His enemies would not understand what He was doing that would effect them.  We will eventually discuss the methods in more depth that God used to accomplish this, but that is enough for now.