For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son. Colossians 1:13. After reading this verse, we realize that legal jurisdiction exists in the spirit realm as well as in the natural realm.
Almost all the old cowboy movies have one standard line: “Head ’em off at the pass!” There is always a fight, followed by a chase with the sheriff trying to capture the bad men before they get over the border. They know that when they get over the border they are out of the jurisdiction of the Marshall who no longer can try to arrest them.
This illustrates the purpose of Passover. If the Lord were to speak in Western dialect He would say, “I want y’all to be ready. Mount up and get out of this country fast. When you get over the border, the bad guys will have no power over you at all.” This speaks of what took place in the book of Exodus.
When we keep the Passover, we feast upon the Lamb, and the precious blood averts judgment. However, we eat it with our loins girded, our staff in hand, and shoes on our feet, because the Passover is God’s deliverance by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Not only do we leave bondage behind, but we cross the border, getting completely out of Egypt as fast as we can.
God is delivering you out of the domain of darkness, and into the Kingdom of His dear Son. This is why Satan contests every step you take. You are battled because God is leading you out of Satan’s jurisdiction. He is leading you out of the place where the wicked one can touch you (1 John 5:18), and He is bringing you into the glorious immunity that belongs to the sons of God. It is just before you. Personal warfare will soon end, and you will enter into the Kingdom victory of the Lord.
Passover is a time of deliverance. It is a time to say, “Good-bye Egypt! Not only am I free of you, but I turn my back on you never to return again. Never again!” Passover is the time to possess that deliverance.
The issue was that the Israelites wanted to go into the wilderness where they could worship the Lord. Pharaoh was very reluctant to let the children of Israel go; it meant that the economy of Egypt would suffer. The Word says that the Lord kept hardening Pharaoh’s heart.
The Lord told Moses: “Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he is going out to the water, and station yourself to meet him on the bank of the Nile; and you shall take in your hand the staff that was turned into a serpent. And you will say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you saying, “ ‘Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness. But behold, you have not listened until now.” ’ ” Exodus 7:15–16.
They could not worship well while they were in Egypt; neither can Christians today worship well while they are in Babylon. One of the Psalmists spoke about that kind of situation when he wrote of the exiles in captivity. Their captors required of them a song of Zion. They answered, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? We have hung our harps on the willow tree” (Psalm 137:1–4). They were in mourning because they were under the wrong jurisdiction.
Fasting and the Passover always bring a period of worship greater than ever before; then a tremendous joy rests upon God’s people. Fasting and prayer have done more to move us out of the thinking of Babylon and of Egypt than we realize. We now think in terms of having left the domain of darkness, and of entering into the Kingdom of His dear Son. Therefore, when the enemy comes against us we can say, “We have crossed over the border—you have no jurisdiction over us here!”
The domain and the power of darkness requires much from its captives. In Egypt, where Pharaoh was in charge, the Israelites had to make bricks without straw (Exodus 5:7). They were harassed. Pharaoh made it very difficult for them. However, as soon as they left Egypt, everything was different. Pharaoh thought the Israelites would wander around in the wilderness, not knowing where to go; therefore, he decided to follow them and capture them (Exodus 14:3–4). However, God caused the children of Israel to position themselves just outside of Egypt. God did this to entice Pharaoh to follow the Israelites. Then they were outside of Pharaoh’s jurisdiction.
The Israelites had moved out by the delivering hand of the Lord. When the Egyptians began to come closer, the children of Israel cried to Moses, and he said, “Do not be afraid. The Egyptians whom you have seen today you will see no more forever.” That day the Egyptians were drowned in the sea!
We are facing the judgments that are coming upon principalities and powers, but the events must come in the proper sequence. We must first know the delivering hand of the Lord, and we must move out of the domain of darkness. Believe for a Passover deliverance. Make an exodus in your thinking, down to the last response of your mind and spirit. Leave Babylon behind. Leave its thinking behind. Experience a total revolution in your way of thinking. In the concepts you follow, come under the King, come under the Lord. Follow His principles and the precepts that He teaches; they are the guidelines for your life. Then when the enemy attacks, God will give you authority over the assault.
Because we are a kingdom of priests (1 Peter 2:5, 9), the authority is reversed. We were once in the domain of darkness, but we now rule as kings, judging everything that comes against this realm in which God has positioned us. What a contrast! The pursued become the pursuers. The oppressed become the oppressors. We become the army of the Lord instead of the defenseless victims of satanic assault. Now we give the devil a bad time. Satan has troubled the hearts of men long enough, and it is about time that the situations are being reversed.
The irony of it is that God does not look around for a strong man, a very intelligent or gifted man, and then use him to chase the devil. He ignores the people who think they are something special, and He looks until He finds His little flock. Then He says, “It is My good pleasure to give you the Kingdom” (Luke 12:32). “It is My good pleasure to bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20). When He finds Mr. Meek, He tells him, “You will inherit the earth.” He tells the poor in spirit, “I will give you the Kingdom of heaven.”
God would not receive any pleasure out of using the strong of this world to defeat Satan. Whom does He use? The weak, to overcome the strong; the foolish, to confound the wise, so that no flesh will glory in His presence (1 Corinthians 1:27). When the Kingdom is established, we will marvel at the way the Lord manifested His wisdom to the principalities and powers through the Church (Ephesians 3:10). It was through the humble flock that He came to the Church. It is God’s pleasure to see that every one of His people is vindicated.
What do you anticipate in the coming judgments? Believers sometimes have an abject attitude: “Gentle Jesus, grant that I will be able to hold out to the end.” That attitude is wrong! Not one thing can come against you that God will not judge. It is His good pleasure to judge every person who harasses you and every demon power that comes against you. He has to vindicate His righteousness. God tells us in Matthew 25:40 what the basis of judgment will be: Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. He says in His Word that He loves those who love Him (John 14:21). When you love Him, He makes everything work together for your good (Romans 8:28). He always leads us in triumph in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 2:14). There is nothing—absolutely nothing—that God will not do for those who love Him.
God will allow persecutions to come against us for only one purpose. He has promised that He will stir up satanic activity against us in order that we can judge it. Everything that comes against us now is designed for God to destroy it. Principalities that come to harass will be judged. There will soon be a great power shortage in the spirit realm. As the Kingdom comes, the balance will be upset because everything that makes an offense will be removed.
Can you imagine living in a world where nothing comes against the people of the Lord—no witchcraft, no evil spirits, no demons? Where will they be? They will all be put under judgment—every one of them. Nothing of Satan will he left unjudged.
That is not so now, for the demons are like swarms of bees. Where are they concentrated? The Fundamentalist Christian knows nothing about spiritual warfare. The same is true of Charismatic brothers who have accepted the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. They claim to have a different style of teaching, and they boast about the eminent people and the famous athletes and actors who have been converted to their cause. That is an old Hollywood style of evangelism, but it is not found in God’s end-time walk. No one is to glory in the flesh (1 Corinthians 1:29). True evangelism emphasizes the Lordship of Christ. We must speak about how wonderful He is and exalt Him. “But isn’t it more appealing to talk about the bad things that certain ones did in the past before they found the Lord?” Forget those things! They are all under the blood of Jesus Christ. God forbid that any man should pull his sins out from under the blood, saying, “See what a bad sinner I was!” Leave those sins under the blood. Thank God that they are under the blood, and hate the day that you were caught in them.
The average Fundamentalist knows nothing about spiritual warfare because the concentration of Satan’s forces is against the living Word—the one vanguard of the Kingdom that is opening the way into a new day. That is why we are being battled. That is why Satan assaults us. We are fully aware of the spirit world. We know what it is to feel satanic assault from demons, principalities, and powers. We are familiar with that; we live in it day and night. There has never been as great a concentration of satanic power as we see now. At times it comes with heaviness and with deep depression. However, we are no longer battled about believing the living Word; demons of unbelief rarely come against us to make us question the validity of God’s Word. We believe it and we accept it. But Satan hits at our acceptance of ourselves and our acceptance of the authority that has been committed to us.
Satan hits in the area of authority because that is the only thing that is going to upset his plan. God has given you authority over all the powers of darkness, including Satan, and he is trying to do everything he can against that authority. If he can trouble you and make you heavy, causing you no longer to accept yourself as God’s servant or to accept yourself in the light of what God has said about you, then the doubts come. If you waver when he hits you with that lie, then he will be chasing you. You must stand firm and say, “No! To this was I appointed—to be an instrument in your being bound, in your ultimate, complete defeat.”
You are translated out of the jurisdiction of darkness and you have come into God’s Kingdom. You are under Him. Submit to Him. Everything in our walk with God speaks of the Lordship of Christ, of submission and authority. The issue is our coming into His Kingdom. “Thy Kingdom come” is the cry of our hearts—and it is coming! His will is being done in the earth of our flesh as well as in the whole earth, just as it is in heaven.
Cry unto the Lord. Submit with everything within you. Then look back across the sea at the Egyptians that are chasing you and say, “Good-bye, boys. Good-bye forever—I am on my way to Canaan land! I do not know what I will face. I do not know what will be expected of me, but anything is better than making bricks without straw. I am heading for the promises and I will walk in them!”
It is good to embrace the promises when you see them afar off, but you must also keep your feet moving, one step after another, and move yourself to the territory where you possess them, saying, “This is mine, by the promise of the Lord!”
If you were God, what would you do for your people? Would you give food to everyone? Would you give everyone an opportunity to make money, to get clothing, to have a better house and a nice car? Perhaps you would do all of those things if you were God; however, He has another idea in mind. He is saying, “I do not want to just give you things—I want you to be God with Me. First I will make you My son—would you like that? Then I will work My nature in you so that you will feel as I do, and think as I do, and be holy like I am. Would you like that? I want you to be a part of Me. I will make you My heir. I will give you all the precious promises by which you can become a partaker of the divine nature and escape all the corruption that is in the world through lust. Be one with Me—and I will be one with you. I will make you My heir, a joint-heir with Christ. You will rule and reign with Me. I will include you in My very self.” And because He is God, He can love you enough to do that.
We are leaving the domain of darkness and actually becoming the Kingdom of His dear Son, in a oneness with Him. In our hearts we cry, “Good-bye, Egypt! Good-bye, Pharaoh! Good-bye, brick kilns. Good-bye, fleshpots. Good-bye, taskmaster’s whip. Good-bye to all of it! Bring on those Canaanites! We are possessing our inheritance in the Lord!”